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Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
1. How many (a) health visitors and (b) nurses there were in the NHS in May 2010 and the latest month for which figures are available.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
The number of full-time equivalent qualified nurses and midwives employed in the national health service in England in May 2010 was 310,793, and in August 2012 it was 304,566. The number of full-time equivalent health visitors in May 2010 was 8,092 and in August 2012 it was 8,067, with an additional 226 health visitors employed by organisations not using the electronic staff record.
Barbara Keeley
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. The recent Care Quality Commission report found that 10% of NHS hospitals did not meet the standard of treating people with respect and dignity, and underpinning that poor care were high vacancy rates and hospitals that have struggled to make sure they have enough qualified staff on duty at all times. That shows us the real impact of losing those thousands of nurses. So does he agree that it is urgent that this Government take action when understaffing in the NHS results in poor care?
Mr Hunt
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady that nowhere in the NHS should allow low staff numbers to lead to poor care. What was interesting about the CQC report, which was a wake-up call for the whole NHS, was that institutions under financial pressure, as the whole NHS is, are delivering excellent care in some places and delivering care that is unsatisfactory and not good enough in other places. On her specific question about nurses and nurse numbers, it is important to recognise that across the NHS as a whole the nurse-to-bed ratio has increased. Every NHS bed is getting an extra two hours of care per week compared with the situation two years ago.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State give an instruction, irrespective of the numbers, that we go back to traditional nursing methods, as now that we have an almost all-graduate nursing profession we seem to have lost touch with true, caring nursing?
Mr Hunt
I have some sympathy with what my hon. Friend is saying, although it is important to recognise, as we have this debate about nursing, that the vast majority of nurses in the NHS do an outstanding job and we are very lucky to have them giving their lives to the NHS. Next week, at the chief nursing officer’s conference, we are launching a new vision for nursing, which will put compassion and the patient at the heart of what nurses do. I hope that will address some of her concerns.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
Last week, official statistics revealed that 7,134 nursing jobs had been lost under the coalition—almost 1,000 of them in the last month on the Secretary of State’s watch. The very next day, the Care Quality Commission warned that 16% of hospitals in England are not meeting the CQC standard for adequate staffing levels. Is this not prima facie evidence that the NHS and patients are not safe in his hands? Will he urgently intervene to stop the job losses?
Mr Hunt
The reason why the CQC undertook its shocking investigation into the state of care in our country was that this Government introduced dignity and nutrition inspections, which never happened when the right hon. Gentleman was Secretary of State. He talked about numbers employed in the NHS, so let us look at them. Yes, there has been a 2% decline in the number of nurses, but there has been an increase in the nurse-to-bed ratio. There has been a 4% increase in the number of midwives, a 5% increase in the number of doctors and an increase of more than 50% in the number of health visitors—their number went down when he was in office. How much worse would those numbers have been if we had had the cut in NHS funding that he wanted?
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
2. What steps the Government are taking to raise awareness of and help those who have brain tumours.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)
Forgive me, Mr Speaker, but as you can hear—you may indeed be pleased to hear this—I am losing my voice. This is a serious matter, as you know, and I pay tribute to all the work you did on behalf of people suffering from brain cancer. The Government are proud to have been behind some important initiatives, such as promoting among general practitioners direct access to MRI scans. From January next year we are introducing a pilot scheme to alert people to the particular symptoms of common cancers, and we are confident that that will improve awareness about brain tumours.
Mary Macleod
I thank the Minister for her answer, but in the UK about 4,800 adults and 100 children lose their lives to brain tumours each year. Brain tumours kill more children than any other cancer, kill 65% more women than cervical cancer and kill more males under 40 than any other cancer, yet only 0.7% of Government funding goes to brain tumour cancer research. Will the Minister meet my constituent, Romi Patel, and others who have had brain tumours to discuss with them what more the Government can do to save lives?
Anna Soubry
The short answer is yes, I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend’s constituent to discuss this matter. The figures she relies on for the amount of money going into brain tumour research are based on 2006 data, but the simple answer is that of course we can do far more. I pay tribute to the great advances made by a number of charities, including Headcase Cancer Trust, in my constituency, and others such as the Joseph Foote Trust. They are all raising considerable amounts of money specifically for research projects such as the one at Portsmouth university. I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend’s constituent. This is an important topic on which we can do more.
Mr Speaker
I thank the Minister for her answers, including her very generous and gracious remarks. I wish her a full and speedy recovery.
David Tredinnick (Bosworth) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend the Minister agree that Penny Brohn Cancer Care, based near Bristol, which offers a unique combination of physical, emotional and spiritual support designed to help patients live well with the impact of cancer, is an organisation that should be supported? Can she confirm that such organisations are eligible for funds from the cancer drugs fund?
Anna Soubry
It is important that we consider all aspects of how we can treat cancers. We also need to bear in mind the people who care for those with cancer, as we sometimes forget them. Any organisation—especially in the charitable sector—that offers treatments that help people and their families and carers is to be welcomed.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
3. What plans he has to improve the quality and quantity of mental health crisis care services.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
Mental health is a priority for this Government. That is reflected throughout the first mandate to the NHS Commissioning Board. The quality of all services, including crisis mental health, must improve. It is for the Commissioning Board, working with local commissioners and partners, to commission services in response to need.
Paul Burstow
I welcome that answer, particularly as regards the strengthening of the NHS constitution. My hon. Friend will accept that a mental health crisis is a very frightening thing to happen to a person and can be life threatening. The charity Mind has shown that there is unacceptable variation across the country in the quality and accessibility of crisis services. Does the Minister agree that just as the Government have rightly shone a light on the variability of physical health services, we need to do the same for mental health services? We need an atlas of variation for mental health services that hon. Members and others can use to challenge local commissioners to improve.
Norman Lamb
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question. Atlases of variation are an important way of raising standards and we will be discussing their future use with the new commissioning organisations. He is also right to highlight the absolute importance of having parity of esteem between physical and mental health. The Government’s mandate makes it absolutely clear that there must be parity between mental and physical health services.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
There are 800,000 people in this country who are living with the effects of Alzheimer’s and dementia. For some of those people, challenging behaviour is a serious issue. Will the Minister ensure that every clinical commissioning group has a lead for dementia in the mental health field so that that can be taken seriously in every community in the country?
Norman Lamb
That is absolutely a priority for the Government and the right hon. Lady is right to highlight its importance. The NHS Commissioning Board will work with local clinical commissioning groups to ensure that we raise the standards of health and care services, but she is absolutely right to highlight the importance of substantially improving access to dementia services.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Can the Minister clarify how often mental health centres and hospitals are inspected and how often patients are spoken to to help improve the service?
Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission inspects all services. Of course, there is now a registration system for such services. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight the importance of ensuring that mental health services are regarded as just as important as physical health services, which has not always been the case.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that when people are experiencing a mental health crisis, the initial response that they receive when seeking help is vital? What steps are he and his Department taking to make sure that staff in accident and emergency departments are able to respond appropriately?
Norman Lamb
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising that important point. A fortnight ago I visited Heartlands hospital in Birmingham, where the RAID—rapid assessment, interface and discharge—team provides brilliant access for people arriving in accident and emergency who have a mental health problem, and ensures that they get immediate access to mental health services. That sort of best practice not only improves health and well-being for those individuals, but saves the system money. We need to spread that best practice across the country. I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for raising it.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
4. How much the NHS spent on consultancy in (a) 2010-11 and (b) 2011-12.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
The amount spent by strategic health authorities, primary care trusts and NHS trusts on consultancy services in the financial years 2010-11 and 2011-12 was £291 million and £278 million respectively—a 39% fall in expenditure, compared to the last year of the previous Administration.
Graeme Morrice
In 2010 the former Secretary of State said he was
“staggered by the scale of the expenditure on management consultants”.
However, in the past year alone foundation trusts have increased their spend on consultancy by 25% and NHS trusts have increased their spend by 13%. Is the new Secretary of State just as staggered?
Mr Hunt
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, a 39% fall in consultancy expenditure compared to the last year of the previous Administration is something that we are rather proud of. If he wants to know what the Health Secretary is directly responsible for, direct Department of Health expenditure on consultancy in the past year was £3 million. In the last year of the previous Government it was £108 million.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend made any recent assessment of the total efficiency savings achieved in the NHS over the past two years under the Nicholson challenge?
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The Secretary of State cannot have it both ways. Is he aware that in the past year alone Monitor spent more than £9 million on NHS transition costs, with a staggering £5.6 million of that being squandered on management consultants? Is this not a further sign of a Government with their priorities all wrong, wasting precious public money on management consultants to push through a reorganisation that nobody wanted, while they are handing out P45s to our nurses?
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
5. What estimate he has made of the number of foundation trusts considering plans to opt out of NHS national pay agreements.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
The previous Labour Government gave foundation hospitals additional freedoms to set their own pay terms and conditions for staff and, as a result, the information is held locally, not centrally.
Mr Bain
I thank the Minister for that non-answer. Will he recognise that with average wages 6.8% lower for full-time workers than they were when this Government took office, people are right to be sceptical about the Government’s record in pay? Why is he sitting back and doing nothing while the national character of our health service is being destroyed through regional pay arrangements?
Dr Poulter
It is worth reminding the hon. Gentleman that, as I outlined in my first answer, it was the previous Government who gave foundation trusts additional freedoms to set their own pay terms and conditions outside national frameworks. This Government are working closely with NHS employers and the trade unions to make sure that we maintain “Agenda for Change” and national pay frameworks as fit for purpose, and we are very pleased with that. If the hon. Gentleman wants to ask why there is regional pay and freedoms for employers to set regional pay, he should ask those on his own Front Bench, some of whom were Ministers when these freedoms were set.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Does the Minister recognise that the recent progress in national negotiations over greater flexibility is very encouraging and makes the efforts of the south west consortium and others both disruptive and pointless, in context?
Dr Poulter
We have had encouraging results from national pay negotiations at the recent NHS Staff Council, and unions are to consult their members on those results. There is general agreement that we need to maintain national pay frameworks, provided they are fit for purpose. I hope my hon. Friend will find that the south west pay consortium, which has been somewhat heavy-handed in the way that it has conducted its affairs, also sees the benefit of maintaining national pay frameworks. That is why we would like to see a quick resolution of the matter at a national level.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
6. What recent assessment he has made of the cancer drugs fund.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Since October 2010, more than 23,000 patients in England and more than 1,600 patients in NHS East Midlands have benefited from the additional £650 million funding for cancer drugs that this Government have committed to providing.
Pauline Latham
I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer, but I have previously raised in the House a constituency case where the NHS East Midlands cancer drugs fund would not pay for drugs that other CDFs would pay for, such as Avastin for second-line treatment of bowel cancer. Sadly, my constituent has since died because she could not get funding for the drugs she needed, having spent all her own money funding the treatment herself. Will my right hon. Friend meet me and my late constituent’s consultant, Dr Bessell, to discuss how we can end this postcode lottery?
Mr Hunt
Proud as we are of the cancer drugs fund, to hear such stories is extremely distressing, and our first thoughts are with the family of my hon. Friend’s constituent. We will of course look into the issue she raises, which is a cause of great concern. I know that the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), is a neighbouring MP and would be happy to meet her to discuss the matter.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
The reality is that the Government are ripping away the foundations of better cancer care. The former Health Secretary made a clear promise from the Dispatch Box to protect cancer network funding, but the NHS South East London and greater midlands cancer networks both say that their budgets and staff have been slashed. The NHS medical director, Sir Bruce Keogh, says that cancer networks are an NHS success story, and Macmillan Cancer Support says it is nonsensical to cut their specialist expertise. Why do the Government not agree?
Mr Hunt
Cancer networks are here to stay and their budget has been protected. They are extremely important. The hon. Lady uses hyperbolic phrases such as “ripping away the foundations of better cancer care”, so perhaps she would like to talk to the 23,000 people who have benefited from the cancer drugs fund that her Government failed to introduce.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the cancer drugs fund and the ring-fencing of the budget for cancer, which delivers important benefits in research, not least by funding new treatments by new companies that would not otherwise be able to sell their product and by generating important evidence on health economics. As a Mo-bro, I am very aware that medicines are better than surgery. Will he give the House some reassurance that the Government plan to renew the cancer drugs fund?
Mr Hunt
We are committed to finding a way of ensuring that people who have benefited from the cancer drugs fund—23,000 to date—can continue to receive that kind of support. That is something we can do because we protected the NHS budget, unlike the Labour party, which wanted to cut it.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
7. What steps he is taking to ensure that primary care trusts do not ration access to NHS treatments and operations.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
12. What steps he is taking to ensure that primary care trusts do not ration access to NHS treatments and operations.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
Rationing on the basis of cost alone is completely unacceptable. That is why the Government are increasing the NHS budget by £12.5 billion over the life of this Parliament and giving front-line health care professionals the power to decide what is in the best interests of patients.
Luciana Berger
I listened closely to the Minister’s answer. My constituent, Raymond Hickson, has been told that he has a leaking valve in his upper leg, causing varicose veins. His leg will eventually fill with blood, rendering him unable to walk and, therefore, to work, as he is currently employed in a manual job. He has been refused a simple operation on the basis that he now does not fit the PCT criteria, although he has had two similar operations in the past 15 years. What advice would the Minister give Mr Hickson and others like him, who are clearly the victims of treatment being rationed?
Dr Poulter
It is worth pointing out to the hon. Lady, who raises a legitimate point about that gentleman’s case—[Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) says “Do something”, but this type of rationing of varicose vein surgery occurred when the previous Labour Government were in power—[Interruption.] It did, and rationing of many other types of services was much worse. It is this Government who have introduced the cancer drugs fund to stop the rationing of cancer treatments to patients, which has benefited 23,000 extra patients, and many more elective procedures are taking place across the NHS every single day. On the specific case the hon. Lady raises, obviously if her constituent has a specific concern, there are safeguards in place locally for him to raise it if he thinks the decision is not based on clinical criteria.
Kate Green
Trafford primary care trust offers one cycle of in vitro fertilisation treatment to women up to age 29. The Minister will be aware that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidance is for up to three cycles and up to age 39. Last year the all-party group on infertility pointed out that a very large majority of PCTs were not meeting the NICE guidance. Why does he think that is, and what is he going to do about it?
Dr Poulter
Of all Ministers in the House, the hon. Lady has probably asked the right one about this issue. This is a long-standing problem that goes back many years. There has been great variability in the availability of IVF in different parts of the country, and, at a national level, NICE finds that unacceptable. I will be taking the matter forward, and I assure her that we will make sure that we do all we can to iron out that variability and follow NICE guidelines so that everyone can receive the best IVF treatment.
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the best way to ensure that high-quality care continues to be available to all patients, as and when they need it, is to ensure that the health and care systems are brought together into a single joined-up system so that, in the words of Mike Farrar of the NHS Confederation, we operate a care system with a health adjunct rather than a health system with care support?
Dr Poulter
My right hon. Friend has, over many years, been a very strong advocate—probably the strongest advocate in this House—for integrated care, which this Government are determined to make a reality. He is absolutely right that we need properly joined-up care that we properly deliver when we face up to the big health care challenges of how we better look after people with long-term conditions and older people. The only way to do that is to deliver more care in the community, and that has to be achieved through more joined-up and integrated care.
Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
My constituent, Jennifer Payten of Bognor Regis, needs dental implants because her temperomandibular disorder means that dentures cause pain and severe headaches. For the past 10 years, Ms Payten has been passed from NHS trust to NHS trust in a Kafkaesque nightmare that no one in modern Britain should have to tolerate. I have written to the Secretary of State about this matter. However, will the Minister personally look into Ms Payten’s case to help to unblock the logjam and ensure that my constituent receives the health care that she needs to enable her to return to a normal life?
Dr Poulter
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is right to raise this, because it has been a very long-standing problem. I am sure that he would welcome, with me, the fact that under the current Government over 1.1 million more people are receiving access to NHS dentistry. However, this is a difficult case, and I am happy to meet him to discuss it further and see what I can do to help to unblock the problem.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
Ministers have repeatedly promised to ban rationing of treatment by cost in the NHS. If the Minister is presented with evidence that this is still continuing, will he today give the House a categorical assurance that he will act immediately to stop it?
Dr Poulter
It has been very clear in all the criteria for NHS commissioners set by the previous Government and by this Government that decisions about local health care treatment have to be based on clinical need, and that those decisions are for local commissioners. The difference is that this Government will make sure that doctors, nurses and health care professionals are in charge of budgets and setting health care priorities rather than the managers the previous Government chose to favour, who did not always have experience of front-line care and did not always understand some of the challenges that patients were facing.
Andy Burnham
I will take that as a yes. The Minister is going to have a busy day, because this afternoon he will have on his desk new evidence that I will send him showing that an estimated 52,000 patients in England are being denied treatment and kept off NHS waiting lists because of new restrictions imposed under his Government on cataracts, varicose veins, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other serious treatments. Ministers boast of lower waiting lists, but that is because they have stopped people getting on to the waiting lists in the first place. Patients in pain and discomfort, unable to work, are being forced to pay for treatment. How many more people will have to suffer before he finally acts?
Dr Poulter
We have already highlighted in earlier answers the fact that under the previous Government health care rationing was far worse on varicose veins, which one of the right hon. Gentleman’s own Back Benchers mentioned, and elsewhere. This Government are very proud of our record whereby 60,000 fewer patients are waiting more than 18 weeks than under the previous Government and 16,000 fewer patients than in May 2010 are waiting longer than a year. Waiting times are coming down, infection rates in hospitals are coming down, and people are getting better care. This Government ended the worst health care rationing scandal of all—the fact that people with cancer were not getting access to the drugs they needed. Now, 23,000 people are getting access to that care. If he could not do anything about rationing, he should at least recognise that this Government have done something and have made a real difference to people’s lives, particularly patients with cancer, by reducing rationing.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Those of us who live in rural areas such as south Cumbria have faced the rationing of acute services for years—not rationing by price, but rationing by distance. Will the Minister encourage Morecambe Bay, which will undertake its review of the allocation of services in the coming months, to allocate accident and emergency services back to Westmorland general hospital, where they would be closer to the people whose lives they could save?
Dr Poulter
As my hon. Friend is aware, from next year the NHS Commissioning Board will have responsibility for commissioning local services and for setting the funding formula. I would be happy to raise his issue with the board, because it is true that, historically, the capitation formula has not recognised the fact that there are a lot of older people in rural areas and further distances to travel. The previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), took steps towards reviewing the formula and I assure my hon. Friend that the Government will be looking into it further.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
8. Whether he has put in place measures to ensure that clinical commissioning groups do not become for-profit organisations.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)
Clinical commissioning groups were established in statute. They are, accordingly, public bodies and cannot become private, for-profit organisations.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Minister for that answer. As we know, most GPs go into medicine to make people well, but now that her Government have made the NHS subject to competition law there is real fear in Newcastle and across the country that they will find themselves obliged to turn a profit from their patients. Is this not, as Professor Ham of the King’s Fund has said, a further step towards privatisation?
Anna Soubry
No. I would urge the hon. Lady, if I may, to exercise care when claiming that this is a privatisation of the NHS. It certainly is not. GPs’ surgeries, such as those in her own constituency, have always been private businesses. A GP surgery in the hon. Lady’s own constituency, where, in my view, she has been engaged in considerable scaremongering, was put out to tender under rules introduced by the previous Labour Government. Indeed, it was the previous Government who brought in privatisation to the NHS on a scale that we had never seen before in this country. I am proud that it is this coalition that is making sure that the tariffs are fair and no longer favour the private sector.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
One way that the clinical commissioning groups can support the values of the NHS is to back the new social enterprises—forms of business enterprise—that are now delivering NHS services central to our health-care reforms. Is the Minister aware that my local clinical commissioning group wants to shut down a 60-bed rehabilitation unit provided by nurses and owned by a social enterprise called Spiral, without any adequate provision for a replacement? Will she meet me to discuss this worrying development?
Anna Soubry
Yes, of course I will meet my hon. Friend. I hold a ministerial surgery on Monday evenings and would be grateful if he came along to one, but I would be happy to meet him in any event. These are local decisions that will be made by local commissioners, but they should always commission in the interests and to the benefit of the people whom they serve.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
9. Whether he has recently reviewed how access to health care treatment can be made easier for vulnerable groups; and if he will make a statement. [Interruption.]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)
I am so sorry, Mr Speaker, I was getting carried away. It is my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) who has asked a question, is it not? [Interruption.] It does not help when the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) shouts at me. I am at a profound disadvantage, because I cannot shout back—not that I would ever want to raise my voice, of course. I do not seek sympathy, just parity. Opposition Members should listen with great care. This Government introduced in statute an absolute duty on the NHS to ensure that health inequalities, which, of course, rose under the previous Administration, are at last reduced.
Charlie Elphicke
My constituents in Deal are concerned that consultant out-patient services may be withdrawn from their much-loved hospital. Is it not right that GP commissioners should be particularly mindful of services to vulnerable people in rural areas who find it hard to travel?
Anna Soubry
Indeed it is. That is one of the great joys of the CCGs. As other Ministers have alluded to, we are putting commissioning decisions into the hands of the people who know best—the health professionals. When they exercise their commissioning responsibilities, we urge them to ensure, as I am sure they will, that they deliver the very best services for the people they serve.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
On the question of vulnerable groups, does the Minister support the proposal of the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) to ration NHS drugs, either by adopting the Danish system in which people have a personal budget for drugs and have to pay to top up, or by removing the right to free prescriptions for long-term conditions such as diabetes? Does she appreciate how much harder that would make life for millions of people in vulnerable groups, or is this the real face of the coalition on the NHS—drug rationing?
Anna Soubry
At my ministerial surgery last night, which has been somewhat scorned by Opposition Members, I met my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) and discussed his proposals at length. I do not agree with his proposals, but I welcome the debate. There is nothing wrong with a healthy debate. However, on this one, he and I disagree.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
10. How much the Government have spent on (a) treatment, (b) diagnosis and (c) raising awareness of pancreatic cancer since May 2010.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)
We cannot provide the absolute figures on how much we have spent on pancreatic cancer in particular, but some £200 million has been spent on cancers of that type. This month is pancreatic cancer awareness month and I welcome all the hon. Lady’s work towards that.
Naomi Long
I recently met some families in my constituency who have been directly affected by pancreatic cancer. One of their main concerns is late diagnosis, which contributes to this cancer having the worst survival rate of the 21 most common cancers in the UK. What assessment has the Department made of the recommendations in the early diagnosis report by Pancreatic Cancer UK, such as improved referral pathways and assessment tools, direct access for GPs to diagnostic tools, and the development of a National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence quality standard for pancreatic cancer as a means of improving the speed of diagnosis and survival?
Anna Soubry
I am very grateful for the work of Pancreatic Cancer UK. We have put the proposals from its seminar last June into the guidance that we are issuing. I am meeting Pancreatic Cancer UK, other cancer charities and other people who are involved in cancer work this afternoon. I will be happy to raise the matter with them directly and to meet the hon. Lady and representatives of this very good cancer charity. She is right to expose the fact that this cancer is difficult to diagnose. We will be launching pilots in January and I hope that more people will take advantage of that campaign and come forward if they have any symptoms.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
11. What contact there has been between his Department and the director of the NHS south-west pay, terms and conditions consortium.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
Since the south-west consortium’s plans were made public in May this year, Department of Health officials have been in contact with NHS employers, NHS trade unions and the south-west consortium better to understand the views of all parties. The Department of Health wants to find a resolution and supports national pay awards.
Kerry McCarthy
I thank the Minister for that response and for his acknowledgement earlier that the way in which the south-west consortium has handled the negotiations has been heavy-handed. It is appalling that staff found out about the plans only through the leaks as, it appears, did the Department. Will he go back to the director of the consortium and urge him to put everything on hold in the south-west while national pay discussions are continuing? As the Minister says, this ought to be about national pay, not regional pay.
Dr Poulter
I fully agree with the hon. Lady and I take her concerns on board. However, because of the additional freedoms introduced by the previous Government, local employers in foundation trusts throughout the NHS have additional freedoms to set their own pay, terms and conditions. Under the rules introduced by the previous Government, it is impossible for us to intervene directly in the matter, except by continuing to encourage trade unions and NHS employers to meet the national agreements. If national terms and conditions are agreed to, I am sure that they will be endorsed at a regional level by the south-west consortium.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I am very pleased that the Minister will be meeting a cross-party delegation of MPs from the south-west next week to discuss this issue. In view of his answer to the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), is he confirming that Health Ministers have no powers at all to intervene in the negotiations between employers and their staff?
Dr Poulter
It is worth putting it on the record that it was the previous Labour Government who introduced foundation trusts in 2003 and set them free from direct accountability to Ministers. That includes the ability to set their own pay, terms and conditions. It was Labour that removed the power of the Secretary of State to direct foundation trusts, and it is Labour, not the Government, that needs to decide whether it supports the legislation that it put in place in government. We endorse national pay frameworks and will do all that we can to preserve them.
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
13. What recent representations he has received on strategies to support patients with osteoporosis.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
The Department of Health has received no recent representations on strategies to support patients with osteoporosis. From April this year, osteoporosis was included in the quality and outcomes framework, giving GP practices financial incentives for diagnosing and treating osteoporosis in their patients.
Norman Lamb
I very much welcome the establishment of the alliance, and I applaud the work of the National Osteoporosis Society, Age UK, and the all-party group of which I think the hon. Gentleman is a member. We know that if we follow the evidence, we can substantially reduce the number of falls and fractures, thereby increasing health and well-being and reducing the cost to the system.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
14. What the process is for deciding the future of health care provision in south-east London; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
The trust special administrator at South London Healthcare NHS Trust will be making recommendations to me on the future of the trust’s services. Those recommendations will inevitably impact on the services provided by other trusts in the south-east London health economy.
Simon Hughes
When the Secretary of State considers outer south-east London health arrangements, and problems that are not at all of his making, will he bear in mind that all five Members of Parliament for Southwark and Lambeth are clear that plans by King’s Health Partners for a super-trust across Lambeth, Southwark and beyond should be put on hold until we know the implications for inner south-east London of any changes that happen further out?
Mr Hunt
I will certainly bear in mind the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. The decision time scale for the South London Healthcare NHS Trust is very quick as prescribed in the National Health Service Act 2006. I must make a decision on that by 1 February, so the situation will soon become clear.
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
24. The trust special administrator’s report proposes the closure of the full A and E service at Lewisham hospital —which currently sees 115,000 people a year—and asserts that 30% of that department’s work can be transferred to the community. Will the Secretary of State provide evidence of how that can be done, especially considering a cash-strapped NHS and a local authority that is suffering from deep cuts by his Government?
Mr Hunt
I remind the right hon. Lady that the Government have not cut the NHS budget; we have protected the NHS budget. There is an ongoing consultation on the proposal that she mentions. It will finish on 13 December and I hope she will contribute to it. I will receive the recommendations of the trust special administrator at the beginning of January, and I will then make my decision.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The 2010 Conservative manifesto stated:
“We will stop the forced closure of A and E and maternity wards, so that people have better access to local services,”.
They then closed the accident and emergency department at Sidcup, having promised to save it, and they now plan to close the A and E at Lewisham hospital. Is that not a betrayal of people in south-east London and the NHS?
Mr Hunt
The hon. Gentleman should talk to the shadow Minister on the Opposition Front Bench, the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), who said yesterday that she would not automatically oppose all reconfigurations. The coalition Government have introduced four tests, which were not used by the previous Government. Those tests state that we will not impose closures of A and E and maternity units unless there is local clinical support, and evidence that it will benefit local people and improve patient choice. The tests exist to provide precisely the safeguards about which the hon. Gentleman is concerned.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
15. What recent assessment he has made of the treatment of repeat episode depression by (a) drugs and (b) mindfulness-based intervention.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has evaluated and recommended the use of mindfulness-based therapies as a psychological intervention for the prevention of relapse, within its guideline, “Depression: the treatment and management of depression in adults”. Drug treatment is also useful in the management of enduring depression.
Chris Ruane
The number of prescriptions issued for anti-depressants has gone from 9 million to 46 million in the past 10 years. NICE has recommended mindfulness as a better treatment than drug therapy for repeat episode depression, but it has not been taken up by the NHS. Will the Minister meet a delegation of MPs and mindfulness experts from across the UK to discuss how mindfulness can play its full role in helping the NHS and people with mental health problems?
Norman Lamb
I acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s work on promoting the case for psychological therapies, including mindfulness, and would be happy to meet him and a delegation of experts. The Government have massively increased psychological therapies—nearly 1 million people in the past two years accessed psychological therapies through the improving access to psychological therapies programme. We are totally committed to improving access to psychological therapies to cure the imbalance in access to services for people with mental health problems that has existed for a very long time.
Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)
16. What assessment he has made of the possible effect on patient safety of reductions to ambulance trust budgets.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
The budgets for individual ambulance trusts are set by local health care commissioners. In 2012-13, the budgets are increasing nationally by £2.5 billion. To ensure patient safety, ambulance trusts are required to meet national performance standards in respect of their response times.
Lisa Nandy
Does the Minister share my concern that 100,000 more patients than two years ago wait more than half an hour to be transferred from ambulance to A and E? If so, how on earth can he justify making his top-down reorganisation of the NHS a priority rather than sorting out that appalling situation?
Dr Poulter
The priorities for local ambulance trusts and the funding allocations are set locally. The hon. Lady will be pleased that between 2010-11 and 2011-12, an additional £9 million was put into the front line of the ambulance service in her area to help address some of the problems she outlines. Under this Government, more money is going to the NHS than before and more money is going into local ambulance services—£2.5 billion nationally. We should contrast that with the approach taken by the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) on the Opposition Front Bench, who said that to increase spending to address those problems would be irresponsible.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
The Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), is my constituency neighbour. He will know that, although the East of England Ambulance trust is hitting its targets for the entire region, it is not helping in Suffolk. Will he advise on what more we can do locally to ensure that it serves all rural patients?
Dr Poulter
The problem has affected both Suffolk and Norfolk—the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), also takes an active interest in it. One problem was that the managers of the local ambulance trust were not listening to front-line staff on how to design and deliver services. In a staff survey, only 4% of front-line staff in the East of England Ambulance Service said they were being properly listened to, which is completely unacceptable. This Government, in contrast to the previous one, want to put front-line professionals in charge of running services, meaning that, in future, more patients will be properly prioritised and ambulance response times will be better met.
Mr Speaker
Order. These matters could be considered further in an Adjournment debate, which might be a suitable length for the subject.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
T1. If he will make a statement on his Departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
I am pleased to report an NHS performing at record levels. There are half a million more out-patient appointments every year since the last election, nearly 1 million more people go through A and E every year, and there are 1.5 million more diagnostic tests every year. To clarify a previous answer, the number of health visitors will go up by more than 50% during the course of this Parliament.
Jack Dromey
The Erdington walk-in centre is at the heart of our high street. It is much loved, much used and cost-effective, yet it is at risk of closure because of the combination of a £76 million reduction in expenditure by Birmingham primary care trusts and health service reorganisation. Thousands of local people have expressed their concern and elected a users committee. Will the Secretary of State meet the users of the centre and me?
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
T2. The new mandate for the NHS includes a very welcome objective for it to be a world leader in end-of-life care. Can we have an indicator in the commissioning outcomes framework on deaths in preferred places of care to ensure that new commissioning groups prioritise better end-of-life care, and to ensure that those who want to die peacefully at home have the best opportunity to do so?
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The NHS outcomes framework includes an indicator on the quality of end-of-life care as it is experienced by patients and carers, which is based on the VOICES survey of bereaved relatives. The proposals for reform to the NHS constitution include a right for patients and families to be involved fully in discussions, including at the end of life.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
T3. What action does the Minister intend to take to reduce the number of unplanned emergency admissions to hospital by sufferers of muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular conditions?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question and for his concern about this matter. One of the key challenges for the NHS is to ensure that we deliver better care in the community, deliver more preventive care and provide better support to people with long-term conditions, such as muscular dystrophy and diabetes, in their own homes. A key part of the reforms is to make sure that a lot of services are commissioned from the community by the local commissioning groups. We have already seen that that has reduced inappropriate admissions. For example, in my part of the world in Suffolk, they have been reduced by 15% for older people.
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
T4. Yesterday, I received a letter from the chief executive of Monitor, which asked me and the Asset Transfer Unit to undertake feasibility work to develop a professional business case for the local community to take ownership of Cannock Chase hospital. This would be done through its transfer to a community interest company, which would then take over running the hospital estate, securing the building for the people of Cannock Chase. Will the Secretary of State welcome these proposals, which would be the first of their kind in the UK, and work with us as we develop a plan for the local community to own its hospital?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his campaigning and hard work on this issue, which represents an interesting way forward for community hospitals. I wish him every success and I know that hon. Members in all parts of the House will watch carefully what happens in Cannock.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
T5. I would like to press the Health Secretary further on the unsustainable providers regime, which has been enacted in the South London Healthcare NHS Trust. Given that the statutory guidance for that regime explicitly states that it is not to be used as a back-door route to service reconfiguration, why are Lewisham A and E and maternity services earmarked for closure? If that is not a service reconfiguration, can he tell me what is?
Mr Hunt
What this issue is addressing—it was legislation introduced by the hon. Lady’s Government in 2006—is a clearly unsustainable situation with South London Healthcare. The proposals have to look at making sure that there is sustainability throughout an entire local health economy. I have not made any decisions at all. I will wait for the proposals to come to me at the end of the year, and I will then make my decision in January.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
T6. There is mounting evidence that clinical care failure is as much to do with inadequate staff levels as anything else. In view of that, do Ministers agree that it is worth looking at the merits of establishing mandatory registered nurse to patient ratios across secondary and tertiary care wards?
Dr Poulter
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. This point has been raised before and although it sounds like a good idea in principle, the problem is that different aspects of care in different wards—for example, an older people’s ward compared with a ward that looks after younger people—will have differences in the intensity of nursing. Therefore, a mandated ratio would be difficult to implement. A ratio may be counter-productive to making sure that we can give more intensive nursing cover where it is needed, and could even encourage a race to the bottom.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
T8. A recent Schizophrenia Commission report highlighted catastrophic failings in the care of people with severe mental illness. We know that suicide rates rise during times of economic hardship and that record numbers of people are being detained under the Mental Health Act. The Government have said that mental health should have parity with physical health, so why has funding for mental health services been cut for the first time in a decade?
Norman Lamb
Whenever the NHS is under financial pressure, there is the risk that mental health services will get squeezed. As the Health Select Committee identified, that is exactly what happened under the last Labour Government in 2006. I share the hon. Lady’s concern, however, about the report on schizophrenia highlighting how money is used: too many people in in-patient facilities and not enough prevention work. I am committed to working with others to ensure that we use the money more wisely to get better care for those patients.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
T7. Since the Prime Minister made his radiotherapy promise to current and future cancer patients last month, cancer centres all over the country have been telling me that it cannot be delivered, because there is not enough investment in new radiotherapy machines and in the recruitment and training of staff to operate them. Will the Secretary of State give the same financial commitment to the annual radiotherapy fund as he is giving to the cancer drug fund, and will he meet me to discuss the matter?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)
I thank my hon. Friend for her question, because it touches on a matter of concern to me, notwithstanding the £15 million radiotherapy innovation fund, which, as she said, was announced by the Prime Minister. Indeed, last night, at my ministerial surgery, the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) came along to discuss this very matter, and he raised several important issues, all of which I have this morning taken up with my officials. I am more than happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the matter further, however, as I think there is work to be done.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
My 20-year-old constituent, Martin Solomon, has blood cancer and is currently receiving expert treatment at the Christie in Manchester. He needs a stem cell transplant, but finding a match is difficult, especially as he has mixed heritage, and his best chance is from an umbilical cord donation. Will the Secretary of State do two things to help Martin? First, will he reinvigorate the campaign within the black and ethnic minority communities to increase stem cell donations, and, secondly, will he establish a cord collection centre in Manchester, so that mothers can donate cord after the birth of a baby and give young people such as Martin an extra chance to find a match?
Anna Soubry
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising an important topic. I send my heartfelt sympathies to his constituent. As he identified, this is a real problem. Yes, is the short answer to his first question. I met officials several weeks ago to discuss exactly this problem, as we need to do more in that area. Of course, this is a national scheme. Whether there is a need for a local scheme in Manchester is a moot point, but his constituent will be able to access the national scheme. I am more than happy to discuss the matter further with him.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
Neuroblastoma is a nasty cancer that affects fewer than 100 children a year. Thanks to the previous Labour Minister, Ann Keen, we persuaded the previous Prime Minister that it should be treated on the NHS without the need for a referral. Unfortunately, there seems to be some slippage, with some primary care trusts refusing to pay for the treatment. Will the Secretary of State look into the matter and see if they can be given the correct information, which is that they should be providing this treatment?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
I will absolutely look into that issue. We are keen to ensure that people with rare diseases, including rare cancers, are not discriminated against because it is more expensive to do the research and get the drugs necessary to treat them.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will be aware that the process of making Kalydeco available to people with cystic fibrosis in England is much further advanced than in Scotland, where the G551D gene is two to three times more prevalent—a point highlighted by the Daily Record yesterday in respect of seven-year-old Maisie Black from Burnside in my constituency. Will the Minister clarify that the roll-out in England will not be restricted, so that young children, who have the least accumulated lung damage and therefore most to benefit, do not lose out on the chance of benefiting from this transformational drug?
Norman Lamb
The specialised commissioning groups will receive advice at their December board meetings and are expected to finalise their advice on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of Kalydeco early in the new year. The aim is to provide consistent national advice on the use of the drug for a sub-group of patients with cystic fibrosis.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
Aylesbury constituent Mrs Evans-Woodward is a young woman who has had five heart attacks. One evening her husband drove her to Wycombe’s heart attack unit with a racing pulse, but she was turned away to the minor injuries unit, which again turned her away to the accident and emergency unit in Stoke Mandeville, before suggesting that she sit outside and call an ambulance, which she duly did—all of this with a racing pulse of 180. This is not good enough. It is an appalling prioritisation of bureaucracy over simple human care and compassion. Does it not show that the NHS needs to become much more accountable to patients?
Dr Poulter
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am very sorry to hear of the case he outlined. Clearly the care that his constituent received was more than substandard. If a patient needs immediate treatment, they should always receive it. This Government are quite rightly ensuring that we embed good care in everything we do. We have beefed up the role of the Care Quality Commission to improve the inspection of care quality throughout the NHS and the care sector. We are also introducing a friends and family test to pick up on examples of bad care, so that the NHS can properly learn from them locally and so that these things do not happen.
Mr Speaker
We are extremely grateful. Extreme brevity is now required from Back and Front Benchers alike.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
On 12 November the Secretary of State gave a categorical assurance to my constituents that there was absolutely no threat to accident and emergency and maternity services at Kettering general hospital. Does he stand by it, will he repeat it today and will he specifically confirm that obstetrics and major injury and trauma services in accident and emergency are no longer at risk at Kettering general hospital?
Dr Poulter
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, and I welcome him to the House and congratulate him on his victory in the recent Corby by-election. I think he has already admitted on the record that there was a lot of scaremongering during the by-election campaign about the NHS locally. One of the main reasons for concerns about the NHS is the indebtedness of many hospitals in the east of England region, because of the record of the previous Government, who signed many of them up to private finance initiative deals. I will restate for the record once again today that, as I understand it, A and E and maternity services at Kettering at the moment are safe, and there is no consultation directly on the table at the moment. He should make sure he gets his facts right before he raises questions in the House.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Last week it was a great pleasure to visit Age UK Peterborough, whose No. 1 priority is dementia care, which coincides with the NHS priorities that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State outlined earlier this week. Will he put in place procedures to make available capital moneys for the construction of dementia care facilities locally?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
I can announce that we have already put in place such funds, because dementia is one of the biggest challenges we face across the entire health and social care system. We need more capital funds, but we also need massively to increase the shockingly low diagnosis rates. At the moment, only 42% of the 800,000 people with dementia are being diagnosed properly and therefore getting the treatment they need.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Secretary of State worried about the high level of qualified managers leaving the NHS—fleeing the NHS—to go to other places or retire early when there are few people in clinical commissioning groups with any management experience at all?
Mr Hunt
There is always a role for excellent managers in the NHS, but this Government’s priority is front-line clinicians, which is why the number of doctors has increased by 5,000 since we have been in power and why administration costs have been cut, which will save the NHS £1.5 billion every year.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Valued health workers in Wiltshire will appreciate the Minister’s commitment today to national pay negotiations, but they will be frustrated that he does not have the power to force them on foundation trusts. Will he at least make a direct appeal from the Dispatch Box today to the management of those trusts in the south-west consortium to participate fully in national pay negotiations?
Dr Poulter
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. He is absolutely right. I made it clear earlier that I felt there had been some heavy handedness in the way some of those trusts had behaved—although they are quite understandably exercising freedoms that the previous Government gave them. We want national pay frameworks to remain fit for purpose, which is why we endorse the national pay negotiations that are under way. I would recommend that trusts in the south-west listen to what happens in those negotiations, so that we can ensure that national pay frameworks are fit for purpose in the south-west.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Secretary of State disappointed by the low number of GPs who have come forward to take on accounting officer roles in clinical commissioning groups, and can he say why he thinks that is?
Mr Jeremy Hunt
I am actually very encouraged by the enthusiasm of the GPs who are running clinical commissioning groups up and down the country. They are going to transform services and, most of all, they are going to integrate services at a local level. That is something that has long been talked about but not delivered before in the NHS.
Mr Speaker
I am sorry to disappoint colleagues. As they know, I could happily listen all day to them asking questions and to Ministers answering them—[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) does not seem entirely convinced of the merits of my explanation, but, in any case, time is against us and we must now move on.
Credit Card Debt Limit
(11 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require credit card companies to discharge a debt when three times the equivalent of the principal sum owed has been paid in interest; and for connected purposes.
Payday lenders have rightly been the focus of a large amount of media attention, but I would now like to focus attention on to another form of borrowing, and on to the credit card companies that cause detriment to an even larger number of people. The aim of the Bill is to limit the total amount of interest paid on credit card borrowing and so prevent debts from spiralling upwards and out of control.
Credit cards, though undeniably useful and convenient, are a major cause of agony for many of my constituents, particularly those struggling with everyday finances. Research commissioned by StepChange—the new name for the Consumer Credit Counselling Service—suggests that at least 3 million households are in financial difficulty, with a further 3 million at risk. It further suggests—I do not disagree—that credit cards play a significant part in those people’s predicament.
The number of people seeking help with credit card debt has risen sharply in the past five years. It was already high back then, but the recession has seen it rise even further. Whereas people previously used credit cards for luxury or exceptional purchases, many are now using them simply to make ends meet, as well as committing to further credit card borrowing when one card is maxed out, in order to plug the gap in their household finances. Multiple credit card debt is now a feature of life in the 21st century and it figures disproportionately in many debt problems. Using one credit card to pay off another results in a vicious cycle of increasing debt, as interest and other charges are added to the initial capital sum. This can lead to a real sense of hopelessness and despair, as the balance hardly reduces over time.
The situation has not gone completely unnoticed, however, and there has been some effort to address the issue. The Office of Fair Trading, for example, has published guidance on irresponsible lending, calling on lenders to take action when a borrower fails to make minimum repayments or when he or she is paying off credit card debt by using another credit card. The lending code that was agreed in 2010 included a commitment not to increase credit limits when there was evidence of the borrower being in financial difficulties, and a requirement to ensure that the minimum repayment included at least 1% of the balance owed. However, I recently looked at the example of a Lloyds card that had £1,000 on it. It would take 17 years and nine months to pay down that amount using minimum repayment levels. So the measures in the lending code are not enough, certainly for today’s borrowers who are already in debt and whose debts are growing. That is why I am proposing a cap on credit card debt. Such a cap could help borrowers now.
My Bill would place the cap at three times the original sum borrowed, after which there would be no liability to pay. That would effectively limit the amount by which creditors could increase the size of a debt by the addition of interest and charges when people were struggling. This is not about letting people off lightly or allowing them to default on their debts. Credit card companies would still get their profits. It is about giving people a guarantee that their debt would be paid off at some definite future date and that it would not spiral upwards. The measure would also send a message to lenders that they had to take their responsibilities towards struggling customers more seriously.
Yes, some technical matters would need to be ironed out, and the maths is not simple—the interest rate would clearly affect the time it would take to build up three times the initial capital, for example—but it is important that something should be done to prevent people from falling into a high-cost credit trap. The distinctive feature of credit cards is that minimum monthly payments reduce the outstanding balance by only a very small amount. That is why they are such a poor way to borrow. The 1% rule encapsulated in the lending code agreement of 2010 was well meant, but it will do nothing to limit interest charges, and it could extend the loan period if the capital paid off reduced the monthly minimum payments.
The answer could ultimately lie in converting the credit card debt agreement into a fixed-term loan, in which the proportion of the payment going to reducing capital increased each month, or at least in finding a way in which the capital element of the minimum payment could be fixed in regard to the original amount borrowed. The important thing is to reduce the speed of the pay-down. We cannot have people in this debt for 20 or more years, as some of my constituents have been, and my Bill will achieve that. It might still take many years for the magic “three times” threshold to be reached, but at least borrowers will be able to see for the first time light at the end of the tunnel.
I cannot conclude my speech on the Bill without encouraging the borrowers who are having problems paying their debts—whether it be to credit card companies, payday lenders or banks—to seek help from a free agency such as a citizens advice bureau or StepChange as early as possible. That is possibly the most important way of easing the burden, but I believe that there are other measures that we could operate proactively to support borrowers in financial difficulty, which is why I have added my voice to this debate. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Yvonne Fovargue, Nic Dakin, Jonathan Edwards, Stephen Lloyd, Nick Smith, Heidi Alexander, Tracey Crouch and Andrew Percy present the Bill.
Yvonne Fovargue accordingly presented theBill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 25 January 2013, and to be printed (Bill 96).
European Union (Croatian Accession and Irish Protocol) Bill
(11 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 6, in page 1, line 7, after ‘approved’, insert
‘, except for those provisions requiring the full application by the United Kingdom in respect of the Republic of Croatia, seven years after Croatian accession, of EU law on the free movement of workers’.
On Second Reading, referring to the report of the European Scrutiny Committee on the Croatian accession procedure—“Croatia: monitoring the accession process”—the Minister said:
“We will have other opportunities during later stages of the Bill to explore the points that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) and his Committee raised”.—[Official Report, 6 November 2012; Vol. 552, c. 762.]
It appears that it is thanks only to the fairly modest, minor and small amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), who is not in his place, and me that the Committee has the opportunity this afternoon to discuss anything at all at this stage of the Bill’s progress. I hope that, if for no other reason, the Minister will welcome this debate and the amendments that have been tabled.
Although the Government have made it clear that they intend to take whatever measures they can to stop an influx of Croatian workers during the seven-year transitional period, the risk of such an influx after the transitional period has elapsed nevertheless remains. The amendment would provide a solution to that problem.
Under European Union law, as soon as accession takes place, Croatian nationals will have the right to move to and live in the United Kingdom if they are self-employed, or have sickness insurance cover and “sufficient resources” for themselves and their family members
“not to become a burden on the social assistance system of the host Member State”.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
I lived in central Europe for some time. When this matter was last discussed, I asked whether the Government shared my impression that the country most associated with the departure of citizens of the former Yugoslavia to work elsewhere, perhaps as Gastarbeiter, was either Germany or Austria. Given that that is also the background to Croatian accession, does the hon. Gentleman not agree that Croatian citizens wishing to live and work elsewhere in the European Union are most likely to choose the countries with which they have long-standing historical and economic ties—Germany and Austria? If so, how can he possibly believe that there is likely to be, in any circumstances, an “influx” of Croatian citizens into the United Kingdom?
Mr Nuttall
I will deal with that point more fully later in my speech, but let me respond to it briefly now. The hon. Gentleman may be right in saying that there are other countries that are closer geographically or with which Croatians have historical links, to which they will wish to move. Nevertheless, this country’s economic position, and the fact that the most widely spoken second language of Croatians is not German but English, provides evidence that there is—I shall use the word that I used earlier—a risk that some Croatians will want to move to the United Kingdom. We do not know how many there will be, and I shall say more about that later as well.
Mr Nuttall
Yes, I will certainly give way to the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee.
Keith Vaz
Under the Government’s proposals, Croatian citizens will be in exactly the same position as citizens of Romania and Bulgaria. They will be part of the transition process, and they will be able to work here only if there is a job for them to do. They will apply for registration cards, and if they are students they will be given certificates of eligibility. It will not be a case of their simply turning up and working; there are very severe restrictions, as I know from representations that I have received. In view of that, why is the hon. Gentleman fearful that a whole lot of people will suddenly arrive and start trying to work?
Mr Nuttall
Again, I will come to that point later in my speech, but, again, I will respond to it briefly. We know that following earlier accessions the number of people coming to work in this country, or to seek work, has significantly exceeded the original estimate.
As I said earlier, during the transitional arrangements EU nationals will have the right to come here if they are self-employed, or have sickness insurance cover and sufficient resources to ensure that they do not become a burden on
“the social assistance system of the host Member State”.
Certain family members—spouses, dependent children, children under 21, and dependent parents and grandparents of a Croatian meeting either of those criteria—will also have the right to live in the United Kingdom.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is talking about the risks, but of course there are opportunities as well. Is not the experience of many countries with warm Mediterranean coastlines that rather a lot of British people end up moving to them, taking advantage of the business and cultural opportunities that European Union membership brings for both countries?
Mr Nuttall
I am sure you would not wish me to be drawn off the subject of Croatia, Madam Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend may well be right about that, although none of my constituents have expressed to me a desire to go to look for work in Croatia. They may all have a secret desire to do that, but I am not aware of a great number of my constituents seeking that opportunity at the moment.
We know what happened when Romania and Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007. According to the Home Office’s impact assessment, the number of national insurance numbers issued to Bulgarians and Romanians increased by 560% and 710% respectively two years after accession. We do not have the precise figures, but it is likely that a number of those will have been Romanians and Bulgarians working in the UK under the seasonal agricultural worker scheme and the sector-based scheme, which the current Government have stated will not be open to Croatians.
Moving for work is likely to be the reason why most Croatians will want to emigrate to the UK, and this amendment focuses on worker immigration. Let us be clear that after the seven-year period has elapsed the UK will have to apply full EU law on the free movement of workers. So a Croatian could move to the UK and compete with a British national for any job, and a Croatian so employed would have the right to reside in the UK. Of course, it is not purely the number of Croatians seeking work that would boost the number of people living within our shores, because the worker could bring their spouse, their children under the age of 21, together with any other dependent children, and their dependent parents and grandparents. While all those parents have the right to reside in the UK under EU law, they would all be entitled to equal treatment with British citizens, unless EU law stated otherwise. Of course that would include access to state welfare.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree—perhaps he does not—that Croatia has the potential to be a tourist destination similar to Spain 20 or 30 years ago? If so, there is every possibility that more people will want to go from the United Kingdom to Croatia because of job opportunities and because the countries around it have stable economies.
Mr Nuttall
The hon. Gentleman may well be right that lots of UK nationals will want to visit Croatia. All the evidence suggests that its desirability as a destination is increasing for UK holidaymakers, but that strays from my concern about the need to protect workers in this country. Once full EU law applies, a Croatian national, together with their family members, could move to and stay in the UK if they were looking for work. The Government already grant EU immigrants in the UK looking for work access to income-related jobseeker’s allowance. If a Croatian had been employed in the UK for 12 months continuously but had then lost their job, they would retain their right to reside in the UK indefinitely, provided they registered as a jobseeker. A Croatian would acquire the same right to reside if, having been in work, they then decided to take up vocational training. It would be fair to ask how many Croatians are likely to arrive on this basis. Unfortunately, even the Home Office’s impact assessment states that it has no “robust estimates” of the likely number of Croatian immigrants after accession, so no realistic estimate can be made—in other words, we simply do not know.
It has been suggested, including by the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), that the evidence points to the fact that most Croatian migrant workers will be attracted to Germany. However, as the Home Office impact assessment points out, the most widely spoken second language in Croatia is not German, but English.
Angus Robertson
Will the hon. Gentleman concede that the most widely spoken second language among Croatians who have been prepared to move thus far and live, work and have businesses elsewhere, and who are likely to attract people from Croatia to work elsewhere, is German, and that they are in the German-speaking countries of Austria and Germany?
Mr Nuttall
I do not know whether that is true or not, because I do not know the respective numbers. Even if one assumes, for the purposes of this debate, that it is true, it does not detract from what the position may be in the future if, as is more than likely, Croatia accedes to the European Union and its nationals have a new framework within which to examine their options. They may well, for a variety of reasons, choose to come to this country. It is reasonable to assume that once the UK is forced—we have no choice in this matter at the moment—to drop the transitional arrangements, our country could become a very attractive destination for those Croatians who have gone to the trouble of learning English as their second language.
We can also make a useful comparison with what happened after Lithuania, a country with a population some 20% smaller than Croatia, joined the EU in 2004. The Home Office estimates that about 134,000 Lithuanians are now living in the UK. Of course the major factor in determining whether a significant number of Croatians decide to move to the UK is probably the state of the Croatian economy relative to our own. The EU’s own figures from EUROSTAT show that unemployment in Croatia is running at about 15%, which is almost double the UK’s level. World Bank figures show that Croatia’s gross national income per capita in 2011 was equivalent to $13,850, compared with a UK figure of $37,780.
Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)
If I understand the hon. Gentleman properly, he is talking about what will happen after the seven-year transition period, and those statistics will be tremendously inaccurate by then. It is unlikely that he will be able to produce statistics that predict the levels of unemployment in our country and Croatia seven years after accession.
Mr Nuttall
The hon. Lady makes a valid point. The position at the end of the seven-year transitional period will indeed be relevant, although of course we can only consider the statistics we have now. There might well be—who knows—some miracle growth in the Croatian economy as a result of it joining the European Union that leads to the complete transformation of its economy. If we consider the situation with other economies in the European Union, we can see that that idea stretches the bounds of credulity a little.
Angus Robertson
The hon. Gentleman has looked at the subject very closely so I am sure he will have considered the experience of Croatia’s neighbour, which is, of course, Slovenia, a former constituent part of Yugoslavia. Does he concede that in recent years the economic upswing in Slovenia has been remarkable?
Mr Nuttall
The hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. There might be a sudden upswing in Croatia’s economy. However, rather than running the risk that there might not be such an upturn, the amendment would leave it open for this country to put in place a different set of criteria to ensure that the transitional arrangements could be kept in place until we were sure that the upturn had happened, rather than when we merely thought that it might happen.
Keith Vaz
I am not clear about the hon. Gentleman’s arguments. Is he suggesting a further transitional period? He is obviously not suggesting no transitional period, even though his amendment makes it clear that he wants the clause approved without the transitional arrangements. Is he arguing for a longer period?
Mr Nuttall
My view is that the Government could negotiate a different set of criteria, which might involve a longer period, if they were linked to an equalisation of the economic imbalances between respective member states. That is the key.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
To be clear on the implications of the amendment, if it were passed, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it would put a stop to Croatia’s membership of the European Union because we would effectively have to go back and renegotiate the whole package for Croatia to enter the EU? It would effectively put an end to that membership.
Mr Nuttall
One can only surmise that that might be the case; I have no doubt that our European neighbours might be more than happy to agree to my suggestions. That prompts a question: if the Government were unable to deliver what is, in the scale of European affairs, a minor adjustment to the arrangements governing member states, how on earth would they ever be able to repatriate the powers Members on both sides of the House talk about so often? I do not want to go down that road, but I was asked the question, Madam Deputy Speaker—
Mr Nuttall
No.
A fact that is as worrying as the difference between the comparative present wealth—I accept that I am using the current statistics—of Croatia and the UK is EUROSTAT’s prediction that the Croatian economy will contract by 1.9% this year and will not grow at all next year whereas UK growth will be just under 1% next year. All the evidence points to the fact that the UK could well prove to be an attractive destination for Croatians looking for work, for better paid work or for any job so that they have the opportunity to improve their command of the English language.
When one considers the various measures the Government have taken to control the numbers of immigrants coming to the UK from outside the EU, is it not logical that we should now start at least to question whether placing a simple arbitrary time limit on the restrictions that apply to migrant workers from accession countries to the EU is enough? Would it not make sense when there are significant imbalances between the relative economic positions of would-be new entrants and the UK for more rigorous restrictions to be applied as long as those disparities exist?
Our first duty must be to protect the interests of British workers. It does not make logical sense for the Government to argue for stricter controls on immigration on the one hand while agreeing to new EU treaties that will almost certainly lead to thousands and perhaps tens of thousands more workers arriving in the UK on the other.
Martin Horwood
Once again, the hon. Gentleman seems to assume that the traffic will be entirely one way and to be obsessed with the idea that Croatians would have to come to this country to learn English. He does not look like someone who goes clubbing regularly in Malaga, Ibiza or Ayia Napa—perhaps it would broaden his horizons—but all those places were probably in disadvantageous economic situations relative to the United Kingdom to start with. Accession offered an opportunity for kids to go clubbing and on holiday, for British businesses to invest, for British jobs to be created and for wealth to be created for British companies. These things can work reciprocally, and that is the opportunity that Croatia might offer to this country, too.
Mr Nuttall
My hon. Friend makes a fair point and I have no wish to do anything to prevent UK nationals from travelling to Croatia if they want to. It is for the Croatians to determine who they want to allow into their country and the conditions they want to impose on people who want to visit or remain within their borders. I am saying that I think that the vast majority of British nationals would want our Government to do exactly the same thing. Indeed, that is what the Government are doing for the rest of the world, but somehow, when it comes to the EU, an entirely different set of rules and regulations apply.
On that basis, I commend my amendment to the House.
Keith Vaz
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall). All his speeches on EU matters have reflected his close interest on this subject, and it is right that he should bring his concerns to the House before Croatia’s accession. I do not agree with what he said, but he has every right to express his views and to have the House debate their merits.
I congratulate the Minister for Europe and the Government on how they have conducted the negotiations that mean that Croatia will become the 28th member of the European Union. As a former Minister for Europe whose responsibility was the EU enlargement that brought in the first major set of accession countries since the reunification of Europe after the fall of the Berlin wall, I know how difficult these negotiations are. We had to visit quite a number of countries, and I am sure the Minister has had to do the same, but at least we are dealing now with just Croatia. It must have been a very difficult task and I congratulate him on what he has done. It is right that we should focus on the amount of money that the EU has given Croatia; I think that about €1 billion have been given in support. So Croatia is ready for accession and we look forward to welcoming it.
The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bury North deals with immigration, which is always a contentious subject in the House, but in recent years EU migration to the UK has also become contentious. I should place on record my belief that the arrival of eastern European migrants in this country has made Britain a better place. They have contributed enormously to our country, helped our economy, provided new skills and brought in an enviable work ethic. Not all of them, incidentally, have arrived in huge numbers and then decided to stay. Some, of course, have stayed; some have returned to their countries of origin.
Enormous numbers of Poles, we were told, were coming to flood our towns and cities, take our jobs, take over our pubs and take our women—or whatever the saying is when foreigners arrive in a different country. That did not happen. The myths put about by some tabloid newspapers did not materialise. In fact, those immigrants have been model citizens contributing to our country in cities such as Bristol, Leicester and London. We welcome them and we welcome what they have done.
We need to have the argument on EU migration in the context of what has happened before. If we focus almost exclusively on all the negative aspects of EU migration, we miss the real importance of enlargement and the way in which these countries have made the European Union stronger and wider, and have created more jobs in our country. I think that as a result of Croatia coming in, exports from our country to Croatia will increase, as they have done to other EU countries.
I want to examine two aspects of what the hon. Member for Bury North said. The House needs to know that his arguments were directed against the whole notion of Britain being in the European Union, rather than just against letting little Croatia in. He makes arguments much deeper than the ones about enlargement, and those are for another day. As the House knows, I favour an in/out referendum because it gives the British people the opportunity to have their say on this and other issues, so on that matter I am on the same side as the hon. Gentleman, and I supported his Bill when he put it before the House.
If we look at the immigration issue and are sensible about it, however, we will find that we are limited anyway in extending transitional arrangements beyond what has been agreed by the Government. When the Minister replies, he will be able to tell us whether we are right or wrong, but the seven-year transition is the same arrangement as we had for Romanians and Bulgarians. That has not been a huge success, if I may say so. I have had representations from the Romanian and Bulgarian ambassadors about the length of time it takes for their citizens to exercise their treaty rights in order, for example, to get their permits to work in this country—their worker registration cards.
Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)
As I have pointed out on a number of occasions, in around 2008-09 the largest group of people who entered the UK, numbering around 85,000, were UK citizens returning home when things got difficult on the European mainland.
Keith Vaz
I agree entirely.
To say that there are no skills shortages in this country in the sectors where some of those from the accession countries have come to work is completely wrong. Speeches that I have heard from the Scottish National party and its leader, for example, acknowledge a shortage of people for a number of skilled jobs. I have heard them say in their speeches that they want to encourage people to come to Scotland in order to work there. Such shortages exist in various parts of the country, where people will be most welcome to come and work in those sectors.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is a little odd that the about-to-be Governor of the Bank of England, who is a Canadian subject of Her Majesty, will have to jump through lots of hoops in order to work here, whereas someone from an EU member state can simply come here as they wish? Surely my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) is right that we should keep more restrictions.
Keith Vaz
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raises that point, because I understand that the new Governor of the Bank of England will apply for British citizenship, but if he has to wait as long as most people have to wait, his term will have expired before he gets it. Unfortunately, he is already married with two children and so cannot marry an EU citizen in order to get here more quickly. Otherwise, he could become an EU citizen and would not need to apply for British citizenship. Anyway, the hon. Gentleman is trying to distract me into a debate on the merits of citizenship applications, but I will not be tempted, even though I have huge respect for him and his great knowledge of the subject.
This is about exercising treaty rights. The Government have decided to have a seven-year transition period, as the previous Government did with regard to Romania and Bulgaria, uncomfortable though that was, and I think that is the right and sensible course of action. When a country joins the European Union, if it is to be the kind of European Union I want us to belong to, every country and every citizen should ultimately be treated equally. Sadly, some EU citizens are treated differently because they happen to come from certain countries, which I think is wrong.
I appreciate the sincerity, honesty and principles of the hon. Member for Bury North, who was against the treaty in the first place, but once a country signs up to a treaty and successive Governments have endorsed it—the British people have not done so since we entered the EU, which is why I favour a referendum—they sign up to all of it. That is the least the Government can do to protect the labour market, but at the end of the seven years the transitional arrangements will lapse, as they will for Romania and Bulgaria on 31 December 2013, and rightly so in my view.
The Home Secretary announced that she was looking carefully at those arrangements for Romania and Bulgaria and could extend the transition period, but I knew that of course that would never happen. Her view on this aspect of policy, which is that emergency measures could be introduced to prevent people from Greece or Italy coming here if there is a crisis in those countries, has come to nothing. She wrote to me and mentioned work going on, but not much work can be done on laws that we have signed unless we break our work on the treaties. I am absolutely certain that the Foreign Office’s view on such emergency arrangements is different from that of the Home Office because, funnily enough, I have seen no such proposals come before the House to try to stop Greek citizens, for example, coming here. That would be very difficult, if not impossible, to do. All we can do with accession countries is give them a seven-year transition.
Wayne David
I very much agree with the point my right hon. Friend is making, as he knows, but I think that we must be frank with ourselves and recognise that one of the problems in this debate is what happened in 2003, when the Home Office grossly underestimated the number of migrants who would come here from the 10 accession countries. I think that explains in part why many people in this House and beyond are concerned about the enlargement agenda. We must recognise that we got the figures wrong and learn the lessons from that.
Keith Vaz
My hon. Friend, who had a distinguished career as a Member of the European Parliament, is absolutely right. We must have that debate. The Home Office got it wrong on that occasion, but I do not think that any of us clever people sitting in the House of Commons got it right either. Nobody predicted that there would be a flood of people, to use the tabloid expression, rushing into this country. They were boom times, when people were willing to open the United Kingdom’s doors and allow people into the country.
Immigration will always be an emotive and difficult subject. As we speak, the Mayor of London is in Mumbai telling the Government that all their facts and figures on student immigration are wrong. However, we have limited control over EU migration, which is why it has been raised today. The only possible control that the Government could introduce was the seven-year transition, and they are right to introduce it.
Ultimately, however, we have to be fair to EU colleagues and say that if their citizens wish to come here to work, we will process their applications for work permits and accession documents quickly. That is the deal that ought to be done by a nation that, as the Prime Minister said yesterday, is the beneficiary of what my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) did when he was an MEP, what shadow Ministers did when they were on the Government Front Bench and what others did in the 13 years of the Labour Government: they built up alliances with countries such as Poland, Hungary and the other accession countries. They will not forget the stand taken by our country in allowing their citizens to come here to work.
I think that it is absolutely right that we have these transitional arrangements, but let us also understand the fundamental principle: if we sign up to a treaty, we have to abide by its words and ensure that, in doing so, we are fair to the other citizens of Europe and treat them as equally as possible.
Emma Reynolds
It is a great pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz). He is right to point out that the issue of economic migrants coming here from other European Union countries is a sensitive one. It is something that always comes up in the context of new accessions, and in the case of Croatia, as we have seen with the amendment, it has come up again.
The Opposition are in favour of applying a maximum transition period of seven years to the free movement of people coming from Croatia, which is what we applied, when in government, in the case of Romania and Bulgaria. However, the amendment refers to the period beyond the seven-year transition, and I think that we need to bear in mind the context. As the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) has already pointed out, the Croatian people have strong links with Germany and Austria and it is not yet clear whether the Governments of those two countries will impose transitional periods—it is open to them not to. Given that Germany’s economy is doing incredibly well, especially compared with our own, and given that unemployment there is very low indeed, it might decide not to impose a transition period or to impose a period shorter than the full seven years.
It is also worth bearing it in mind that there are 4.4 million people in Croatia, so it will not be a large member state. I ask the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) not to underestimate the Croatian people or be complacent about our own economic growth. He talked about the relative difference between our unemployment and theirs. Our unemployment, to my mind, is still too high, and their unemployment rate is currently higher than ours. However, if we consider previous accession countries, such as Poland, which has avoided recession, let alone a double-dip recession, or Slovenia, whose economy has been transformed and whose prosperity is to be admired, as the hon. Member for Moray pointed out, we see that it is somewhat complacent and perhaps misleading to suggest that after the seven-year period the Croatian economy will not have improved and that the unemployment rate will not have fallen. I think that we should view the matter in that context.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester East pointed out that as a member of the European Union and a signatory to the European treaties, the UK has rights and responsibilities, and one of the responsibilities is to abide by the rules of those treaties. One of the principles of the founding treaties is the so-called four freedoms—the free movement of people, capital, goods and services. The accession treaty before us is a negotiation among all the member states of the European Union and the new member state of Croatia, and the seven-year transition period that is negotiated within that framework is a derogation from the principles in the European treaties. If the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bury North were to be passed—which is highly unlikely, but let us say it is for the sake of argument—then it would either scupper the accession treaty altogether or put us in a situation in which our Government could be taken to court by the European Commission or another member state.
Angus Robertson
Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be helpful if the Minister clarified, perhaps on the basis of legal advice, that that would indeed be the consequence of the amendment? This is not just a debating point about something that we think is a good idea or that we disagree with; it could have a fundamental impact on Croatia’s potential accession to the European Union, which would be very serious.
Emma Reynolds
I could not agree more. It would be useful if the Minister gave us the exact legal advice on the implications of the amendment and whether it would indeed scupper Croatia’s accession, which would be regrettable.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Lady, but I remind her that the Bill includes the protocol for Ireland, which was to allow the Irish not to ratify the Lisbon treaty and then to do so at a later date with certain guarantees. As it is possible to do that for Ireland, a protocol to a future treaty could allow amendments passed by this House to be incorporated, allowing Croatia to accede in the normal manner.
Emma Reynolds
I respectfully disagree with the hon. Gentleman. The accession treaty with Croatia has been negotiated in good faith, and its conditions and provisions state that an existing member state has the option to put in place a transition period of up to seven years. Labour Members are in favour of the treaty; indeed, there is cross-party support for the accession of Croatia. If we were to pass the amendment—again, that is highly unlikely since I do not see a great mass of supporters on the Government Benches—I believe, although I would welcome clarification, that that would derail the accession process because we are considering an accession treaty with a temporary derogation with regard to the free movement of people.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way again, because this is an important point that is worth following through. The treaties are not treaties until they have been ratified by the normal constitutional process of all the member states. If, in the normal constitutional process, a reservation with the treaty is found, that can lead to amendments being brought forward later, as with Ireland. There is clear precedent for that within the European Union.
Emma Reynolds
There is no clear precedent with regard to the accession of new member states. I believe that such a provision goes against the accession treaty with Croatia that has been negotiated with the 26 other member states and our Government. An amendment of this kind would send us back to the start of negotiations. All 16 member states that have already approved the treaty, and we and the remaining member states, would have to go back to the drawing board, along with Croatia, yet again to reopen what has been a very long and arduous process—a thorough process, and rightly so—for Croatia in its negotiations to join the European Union. This is not like the Irish protocol. It is not a post-factual situation—it has to apply from now on—and it is part of the accession treaty that we are discussing. We cannot just alter it and expect something to happen in future that would help us. I totally disagree with the hon. Gentleman.
I would welcome clarification of this matter, given that Opposition Front Benchers do not have a whole army of Foreign Office civil servants to help us—
Emma Reynolds
I have my hon. Friends, obviously, whose help and advice are always most welcome.
I look forward to the Minister’s response, but I am pretty confident that my interpretation is correct, and we therefore do not support the amendment.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) for tabling the amendment. He was prompted to so by the seriousness of these issues, and the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) rightly complimented him on that.
The issues that my hon. Friend spoke about are very important, and I can give him one immediate reassurance. He feared that this might be the last time that Parliament could discuss potential migration from Croatia and, indeed, other aspects of Croatia’s accession process, but there will be at least two further opportunities. First, next year, probably in the spring, the Home Office will bring forward the statutory instrument to provide the detail on and to implement the transitional arrangements on migration. That legislative instrument will have to be dealt with by the affirmative procedure, so I would expect a debate in a statutory instrument Committee, attendance at which is open to any Member of the House, and subsequent approval to be given by the House as a whole in the normal way, as for any other statutory instrument.
Secondly, next March we are expecting the European Commission to publish its third and final interim report on monitoring how Croatia has made progress with the various accession chapters of the negotiating process. That report will be subject to the normal parliamentary scrutiny process. It will go to the European Scrutiny Committee, and it will be open to the Committee, if it so chooses, to refer it for debate on the Floor of the House or in a European Committee.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
Is that not the real issue? The reports from the European Commission that we have before us are full of hope, but they say, in effect, that Croatia is not compliant and that in some areas it is going backwards. The big issue on immigration is not what the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) talked about; it is that the new EU boundary with Bosnia is insecure. Beyond the Report stage, this House will not have a full chance to debate the Commission’s third report.
Mr Lidington
It will be for the European Scrutiny Committee to choose whether to refer the Commission’s third report for debate in the House. As I said on Second Reading, the Croatian Government have made enormous progress towards implementing their integrated border management plan and establishing on the EU external border a system of fully operational border control posts, which are part of its accession process. The key outstanding issue is the Neum corridor, where a small part of Bosnia and Herzegovina divides two pieces of Croatian territory. However, matters are now well under way to put the border control posts in place and to make available the relevant technology and trained staff. It is not just the Commission’s view, but that of the British Government, too, that Croatia is fully on course to meet the obligations into which she has entered.
Graham Stringer
Could the right hon. Gentleman clear up a matter of fact? The House of Commons research paper states:
“A further issue is weaknesses in border management: Croatia’s border with Bosnia and Herzegovina will be one of the longest in Europe, posing challenges to EU security, and Croatia has so far made only moderate progression.”
Footnote 42 notes that that information came from the European Commission on 10 October 2012, which was not long ago. The Commission is clearly saying that progress is not being made, which is in direct conflict with what the right hon. Gentleman is saying.
Mr Lidington
We debated this at some length on Second Reading, but I will take advice and might give a detailed answer later in today’s proceedings.
In response to the point raised by the right hon. Member for Leicester East, we acknowledge that there have been unacceptable delays to the processing of applications from Romanian and Bulgarian citizens. The UK Border Agency has taken action to provide additional staff resources to deal with that and is confident that the Government’s published target standards for turning around such applications will be met by the new year.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I hope the Committee will forgive me if this has been covered in earlier debates when I was not present, but is it true that if Croatia acceded to the European Union, it would be easier for the International Criminal Court to serve an indictment on an alleged war criminal who happened to be Croatian than is currently the case because Croatia is not a member of the European Union?
Mr Lidington
I am not certain about the position of the International Criminal Court, but I will either respond to that question later in the debate or write to my hon. Friend. What I will say is that, in the context of this amendment, which relates to migration, once Croatia has become a full member of the European Union, the normal EU arrangements to combat illegal migration and to secure the return of illegal migrants, overstayers and others will become fully operational. As I hope to say if I reach the later stages of my planned remarks, there is already evidence that Croatia has been very energetic in preparing for those new duties and in implementing a system for dealing with illegal third-country migrants, and that will be to the benefit of every European Union member state.
Angus Robertson
Perhaps it would be helpful if I followed up on the intervention by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) on the potential arrest of a European Union citizen. That, of course, would be subject to the existing procedures for a European arrest warrant, which, indeed, would be beneficial in trying to deal with serious crime, including international war crimes. Would that not underline the total folly of a member of the European Union walking away from a commitment to use European arrest warrants, which the current Tory Government are considering doing?
Mr Lidington
I am not going to get drawn into a further debate about the 2014 opt-in, opt-out decision on justice and home affairs. As the Government have pledged, there will be ample opportunities to debate that at length in the House.
I think that everybody in the House shares the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North about the need to ensure the appropriate management of potential labour market risks, particularly at a time when there are serious tensions in the UK labour market. At the same time, we have to acknowledge that the principle of freedom of movement has given enormous opportunities to British citizens. Roughly 1 million British people live and/or work in other member states of the European Union at present.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Applying the amendment to line 7 on page 1 of the Bill would make it say that the accession treaty would be approved,
“except for those provisions requiring the full application”.
It would, therefore, be a conditional approval of the treaty and I do not believe that the European Court of Justice could rule us in breach of treaty obligations, because Croatia would not have them until the treaty was ratified under our normal constitutional procedures, which, thanks to the European Act 2011—which the Minister presided over—require an Act of Parliament that is unqualified.
Mr Lidington
I simply do not think that we can have 27 countries agreeing unanimously on a treaty text and committing themselves to ratifying it, only for 26 countries to ratify it while one country chooses to do so up to a point and not ratify one particular element. My hon. Friend was right in his earlier intervention that it is legally and constitutionally possible for a separate protocol or derogation to be negotiated at the time of an accession treaty to exempt one or more member states from particular obligations. However, that has not happened with any other accession treaty hitherto.
The United Kingdom, under successive Governments, has been committed to the enlargement of the European Union since Margaret Thatcher championed the idea when the iron curtain began to crumble. I remain, in that respect, an enthusiastic Thatcherite. The entrenchment of not just free and open markets, but, even more importantly, the rule of law and democratic institutions in eastern and central Europe that has been brought by enlargement has been of benefit to the long-term strategic interests of the UK, as well as being in the interests of Europe as a whole.
Wayne David
The Minister has made an important point. He should not hide his light under a bushel. I urge him to make that point more forcefully and regularly to his Back Benchers.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friends know where I stand on these issues. We always have a good-tempered but serious debate. The points that my hon. Friends have raised this afternoon reflect concerns that are expressed by many thousands of people—
Mr Lidington
Possibly by millions of people, in every constituency in this country. It is right that Parliament should be seen to be paying close attention to those concerns, which are being ably expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North in supporting the amendment.
Croatia has a small population of only 4.5 million people. The levels of emigration from Croatia to EU member states are currently very low. The official Croatian statistics suggest that in 2011, about 2,000 Croatians migrated to EU member states. The hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) is right that half those people went to Germany and that a fair number of the others went to Austria.
The UK Border Agency’s statistics state that in 2011, 115 Croatian nationals were admitted to the UK for the purposes of employment. Of course, those 115 people will have had to meet the same tests as anybody else who comes here from a third country anywhere else in the world. They will have had to apply successfully under the points system or perhaps as a person of independent means. If we look at the patterns of migration from Croatia and the history of Croatian migration to this country, and set that in the context of a small country with a small population, the Government judge that there is little risk of a mass migration of Croatian nationals to these shores when the seven-year transitional period is up.
I do not think that the travel is likely to be one-way. For example, several thousand British people are now resident in Bulgaria, largely because the Black sea coast is an attractive place in which to settle and is less expensive than the parts of Spain and the western Mediterranean that had previously been fashionable. I can envisage the Adriatic coastline of Croatia becoming a magnet for people from elsewhere in Europe who are seeking a warmer climate in which to settle. I therefore do not think that freedom of movement will be exercised in one direction only.
In conclusion, the accession treaty, which has been signed by all member states already, provides for only a temporary imposition of transitional controls up to a maximum of seven years. It is not possible to extend transitional controls on Croatian nationals beyond the seven-year period. The Government’s careful judgment is that the existing flexibility provided by the accession treaty will protect the stability of the United Kingdom labour market as we would wish. I hope that, having heard the assurances that I have given, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North will choose not to press his amendment.
Mr Nuttall
We have had a useful and interesting debate on the amendment. I thank the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who is not in his place, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), the Minister and all the Members who have intervened.
I suspect that the Government’s view on this matter and the stance that is widely taken by Members will only add to the concerns of many of my constituents and, as the Minister has said, of people across the United Kingdom.
Emma Reynolds
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm whether any of his constituents have written or spoken to him to raise specific fears about Croatian nationals coming here to work after the maximum seven-year transitional period?
Mr Nuttall
No, they have not. However, I often receive representations about immigration in general and difficulties with finding work. I will be honest and say that nobody has said that they are worried about Croatia specifically, but people have said that they are concerned about what will happen if large numbers of people from other countries come to this country and about how that will affect them. That particularly affects people who feel that they are competing for jobs with people who have come to this country from abroad.
This has been a useful debate. However, the stance of the Government and of many Members will add to the concerns of my many constituents and the many millions of people throughout the country who think that our membership of the EU is damaging the interests of the UK and that we would be better off if we left it. I share that view. The further this country becomes entangled in the tentacles of the EU, the more it hastens the day when a majority of people in the UK vote to leave it. The accession of Croatia and the extra migrants that it brings will be another drop in the British people’s growing puddle, reservoir or ocean of discontent with the EU.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 2
Approval of Irish Protocol
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
This is a crucial clause because of what it shows about the potential of our relationship with the European Union, and our ability to negotiate and change that relationship. As stated in the Bill’s explanatory notes, the Irish protocol
“agreed that the concerns of the Irish people in respect of the Lisbon Treaty relating to taxation policy, the right to life, education and the family, and Ireland’s traditional policy of military neutrality would be addressed to the mutual satisfaction of Ireland and the other Member States”.
That does not change a word of the Lisbon treaty, but it clarifies the law so that Ireland knows it has a slightly different relationship with the EU, and clarifies any rulings that might be made in future by the European Court of Justice. It allowed Ireland, which said no to the Lisbon treaty in a referendum, to put the question back to the Irish people, who then said yes in a referendum. Coming as it does at this stage, that is important as a reminder that every accession treaty is a full-blown treaty of the European Union, and has the ability to amend any of the previous treaties that led to the creation of the European Union, including what is now the treaty on the European Union and the treaty on the functioning of the European Union. Both those treaties can be amended by accession treaties, or by any future treaties of the European Union.
We must consider the position of the United Kingdom, and the growing dissatisfaction with our membership of the EU and how things are currently carried out—I have a great deal of sympathy with what my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) said about the growing reservoir of discontent with the European Union. With the accession treaty—and, indeed, with any future accession treaties—we had the ability to renegotiate our position and get to something with which the British people feel comfortable, rather than the current situation.
When considering the Irish protocol we must understand how thorough it is and what it includes for Ireland. It goes to some fundamental parts of what Europe is about, including the “right to life” that Ireland wishes to preserve but was concerned the EU was taking within its ambit. It was something Irish electors thought was under attack. On taxation policy, we know that negotiations on the multi-annual financial framework have looked to change the EU’s revenue-raising powers, and during the discussion about own resources they looked at whether there should be a financial transaction tax or a change in how the European Union is funded through value added tax. Proposals for a single corporation tax across the European Union would be allowable under current treaties if agreed on unanimously. Ireland has sensibly achieved a clear, legally binding opt-out of movements in that direction, and clarified its position.
The protocol covers education and the family. Education is not really a matter that should be the responsibility of the European Union. The EU is extending its talons into areas with which it was never intended to be involved. It extends its powers—its competences—into areas that those who voted in the 1975 referendum never conceivably thought would have anything to do with the European Union. Instead, the powers were the rights and responsibilities of the House and those sent to Parliament to represent the people of the United Kingdom, rather than powers to be given to a multinational body. It is interesting that the Irish felt it necessary to have a clear protocol to state that such matters are not to be decided at European level, as they did on military neutrality. Military neutrality is important for the UK, which still has a substantial Army, Navy and Air Force—one of the most important in the world—which we do not want to be subsumed within a European Union defence force. We want to maintain our independence, and Irish clarity on the matter is helpful.
My central point is that the Government could have negotiated opt-outs on a swathe of European policy in the form of treaty amendments that would have been fully binding, fully recognised within European law, and would have begun to resettle our relationship with the European Union. For various reasons, the Irish Government decided to do that and the British Government did not. It may be that, considering the crisis through which the European Union is going, they believed it was not the right time for such renegotiation.
Martin Horwood
The original intention was to have a Czech protocol at the same time as the Irish protocol, but the fact that it was slightly more contentious than the Irish protocol completely stalled the process. Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that if we had tried some kind of wholesale renegotiation of our relationship with Europe, there is no way we would be discussing that issue now and the whole process would be mired in controversy for many years?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I wish my hon. Friend would have more confidence in his own great country. We are a little bigger than the Czech Republic and a little more important, even though it is a most highly esteemed country. We make a massive contribution to the European Union budget, and we should be using our power, authority and position to get for the British people what the Irish Government have got for the Irish.
Bob Stewart
Would we make an increased contribution to the European Union budget as a result of Croatian accession?
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I was hoping to come to that when we discuss the point at which the Bill comes into force, and it may be best if I hold my fire until then, lest the Chair rule me out of order. I want to focus on the essence of European treaties: every European treaty, whether an accession treaty or the treaty of Lisbon, has exactly the same legal standing. Anything that is added to it has the proper force of an agreement across the European Union and validity in European law. We should never again lose the opportunity to renegotiate the repatriation of powers to this country when a treaty is going through the European Union. There are any number of powers that we wish to recapture—working time directives are a mere start—and we should do that because if Ireland can, so could we.
Graham Stringer
I often agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I do not today. These protocols are Euro-fudge and what the Irish Government received through the protocol was not really threatened. His argument seems to be that the European Union in its present shape can be reformed by treaty negotiation, which could be done with any treaty. I simply do not believe that is possible and I would be interested to hear his reflections on that.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am extremely sympathetic to what the hon. Gentleman says and I may be too optimistic about what can be done. There is, however, a disjuncture between what the protocols say and what it is said that they say. The Bill’s explanatory notes state:
“The Irish Protocol clarifies, but does not change”,
but if it does not change anything at all, why on earth was there need for a protocol? Was it a question of bullying Ireland to vote a second time? If it was, that is deeply disgraceful and shows something very rotten at the heart of a European Union that holds democracy in such contempt that when it gets a result it does not like it says, “Well, you must do this again and we will bully you until you give the answer that we, the panjandrums of the European Union, want.”
For once, I am being charitable to the European Union and assuming that when a protocol is agreed, it means something genuine and is a real protection in areas of competence-creep within the European Union. It might be strictly accurate to say that the things for which Ireland has been given its protocol are not currently covered by detailed regulations of the EU or by detailed parts of the Lisbon treaty. The protocol, however, gives Ireland further security. If judgments of the ECJ begin to expand the competences of the treaties, which they have done in the past—as we would understand it, the ECJ is an essentially political rather than legalistic court—Ireland can revert to the protocol.
The symbolic importance of the protocol is great. It shows that a country can push a little bit of a wedge underneath the collapsing portcullis of the EU—once a country is under it, it cannot get back out. The protocol has given Ireland a measure of release from, and clarification on, the Lisbon treaty. The UK could do more because we are a stronger player within Europe and contribute a substantial part of the budget, as I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). We ought to use our negotiating heft to try to get back powers that, as most hon. Members recognise, the British people want. We should begin a serious renegotiation and say to the EU, “Look, when the next treaty comes through, we want more than Ireland had. We want something that is powerful and strong, and that allows us—the British people—to make our laws for ourselves via Parliament rather than constantly doing so via Europe.” This is a great opportunity for the Government to build on that precedent to the advantage of our country.
Emma Reynolds
I want to reiterate what I said on Second Reading about the Opposition’s support for the Irish protocol, which the Labour Government helped to negotiate. As the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said, the protocol clarifies but does not amend the Lisbon treaty. It contains assurances that Ireland retains decision-making rights on the right to life, on family and education, on taxation, and on Irish neutrality. It was the Labour Government’s judgment at the time and it is the Opposition’s judgment now that the Irish people have rightly been offered those assurances on the application of the Lisbon treaty.
Finally, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer). The protocol does not reform the EU and is not a renegotiation of the EU-Ireland relationship. It also does not repatriate power from the EU to Ireland.
Mr Lidington
Clause 2 provides parliamentary approval for the purposes of section 2 of the European Union Act 2011 for a proposed protocol to be annexed to the treaty on the EU and the treaty on the functioning of the EU following the concerns of the Irish people in relation to the treaty of Lisbon; that has become known in shorthand as the Irish protocol. The clause also confirms, as required by section 2(3) of the 2011 Act, that no referendum is required under that Act for the Irish protocol to be ratified by the UK.
In June 2009, the Heads of State and Government of the 27 EU member states adopted a formal decision on the concerns of the Irish people about the treaty of Lisbon. The decision gave a legal guarantee, binding in international law, that certain matters of concern to the Irish people would be unaffected by the entry into force of the treaty of Lisbon. As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) said, those matters included taxation policy, policy on the right to life, policies on education and the family, and Ireland’s traditional policy of military neutrality. It was noted in the June 2009 European Council conclusions that the content of the decision is fully compatible with the treaty of Lisbon and does not necessitate any re-ratification of the treaty.
The Heads of State and Government also agreed in June 2009 that, at the time of the conclusion of the next accession treaty, the provisions of the decision would be set out in a protocol to be attached to the EU treaties. The effect is to ensure that the guarantees given to the Irish during the Lisbon ratification process will have full treaty status and be binding in EU law.
Although it is true that the Irish protocol clarifies and does not change either the content or application of the Lisbon treaty, and in no way alters the relationship between the EU and its member states, it has a positive effect, as my hon. Friend has pointed out. The consequence of all member states ratifying the protocol is that it will have full treaty status. In effect, it is added, as a protocol, to the list of EU treaties and is binding in EU law. Although it is declaratory and clarificatory in purpose, the declaration and clarification take the form of something that can be justiciable in future litigation at the European Court of Justice, as my hon. Friend said.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Will the Minister therefore help me? If two cases appear before the ECJ—one for the UK; one for Ireland—is it open to the ECJ to rule differently because the protocol applies to Ireland but not to the UK? Does the clarification limit the ECJ’s jurisdiction over Ireland but not over the UK?
Mr Lidington
No, the treaties apply equally to every member state unless an explicit derogation or opt-out is laid down in a protocol or in the body of a treaty—that is the case with the UK’s and Denmark’s right not to join the euro. In this case, the Irish protocol does not provide an opt-out or derogation. Instead, it serves as a formal justiciable clarification of certain provisions of the treaty that apply equally to all member states of the EU. In the hypothetical case that my hon. Friend describes, it would be for the UK or any other member state to cite the protocol in support of its arguments.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The Minister is a mind reader—that was exactly the point I was about to ask him about. Does the protocol therefore effectively apply to all member states and not just to Ireland?
Mr Lidington
Yes, that clarification is of benefit to every member state, should such litigation be necessary in future.
The protocol was adopted at an intergovernmental conference in Brussels on 16 May 2012 and signed by all 27 member states. It must now be ratified by them before it can formally enter into force. As I have said, I believe that the clarifications that are provided square with the UK’s interpretation of the treaties; I support what my hon. Friend has said on this. The protocol is therefore helpful to us, and I commend it and clause 2 to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 2 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 3 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4
Freedom of movement for Croatian nationals as workers
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I am sorry to trouble the scorers again, Mr Crausby. I hope I will not be the only one trying to be the Mr Pietersen of the Committee for this afternoon’s proceedings. My batting pace would never be quite as fast as his—I am probably more of a Mr Boycott, particularly when it comes to anything to do with the European Union.
The transition arrangements for the free movement of people are an important part of the treaty. What is important here is that the time has come for us to recognise that we need to look at whether the free movement of people is something the United Kingdom can any longer support. The commitments we have made to our immigration policy throughout the European Union have made a nonsense of the rest of our immigration policy. We discovered that yesterday, when we asked a very distinguished person to come and be the head of one of the most important institutions of our country. He will have to queue up in Croydon, even though he is married to a British lady, his children are British subjects and he is a subject of the Queen. If he were coming from Croatia, he would be subject to transition arrangements that would make it a good deal easier for him to come here. That does not seem to be a sensible way of establishing our immigration policy.
There are two problems: first, the number of people who have the right to reside and work here from the European Union, which is legion; and the very tight controls that we have to have on everybody else in the world to make the system vaguely work at all. It is out of balance that countries with which we have much closer and longer standing associations than Croatia—I think, of course, of India, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Zimbabwe—and with which we have had intimate relationships, do not have the transition arrangements to allow their people to come and work here. They have to go through an extremely arduous and onerous process. Even if their grandparents were British citizens, they find it very difficult to get here. On the other hand, if they come from member states of the EU they can just waltz in, or if they cannot waltz in, they can come in under transition arrangements. After a mere seven years at the most, they will be able to come in freely. This has become disproportionate.
In that sense, enlargement has created a problem for Europe. In other ways, enlargement is much to be welcomed, and I agreed with the Minister when he quoted the noble Baroness—something that should be done in this Chamber more often to reinforce any argument that is being made. We have found that there are simply too many people who are eligible to reside here. Transition arrangements are not really enough. They ameliorate to some extent the problem of Croatia, but Croatia is not the problem. As we have already discussed, there are only a little more than 4 million people in Croatia, and unless they were all going to come here and leave Croatia empty for us to go and have our holiday homes there as the Minister suggested, there would not be any real immigration problem from Croatia. It is what has happened in the past, and the effect that that has had on other nations with which we are friendly and with which we have long-term relationships and historic ties, that I am referring to.
I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department has decided to look into this to see whether the free movement of people is something we can continue to cope with. I think that we cannot, and as we reform our relationship with Europe, it is one of the aspects of the European Union—I accept that it is a fundamental aspect—to which we can no longer subscribe.
Emma Reynolds
Clause 4 provides a regulation-making power to make provision on the entitlement of Croatian workers to work and reside in the UK. We believe that the Government should implement the maximum transition period for Croatian nationals, as we did with the accession of Romania and Bulgaria. I welcome the Minister’s commitment on Second Reading to bring detailed regulations on the transitional controls.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
The clause is all about workers. When the hon. Lady’s party was in Government, it also allowed transitional arrangements for benefits. Would she like to say something about whether that was a good idea, particularly in relation to Croatian nationals in that transitional period who come here to work and are then made unemployed? What does she believe the policy should be when it comes to their welfare claiming rights?
Emma Reynolds
The previous Government looked at this issue, and the current Government have also tried to raise it. It is a concern for people across the country—it was raised with me during the 2010 election campaign—and I am sure the Minister will have something to say about it. In terms of treaty obligations on the freedom of movement, nationals from other EU member states who come here to work have certain rights and responsibilities. It is certainly true that some of those rights, benefits and payments, from which nationals benefit, although only after a qualifying period, are a concern. We tried to change them when in government, but European treaties and European law prevented us from doing so, and I think the current Government are having the same problems.
The clause deals with the free movement of people, but the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) took the opportunity to make a wider point. Regardless of one’s point of view, it is certainly true that if a change were made it would require a substantial and wholesale amendment of the founding treaties. The 26 other member states—soon to be 27—would have their own opinions on that. Such a renegotiation would be long and difficult if the Government were to attempt to embark on it.
Mr Lidington
Clause 4 outlines, in its various subsections, how the transitional regulations will be structured. I do not propose, unless the Committee presses me, to go through each subsection in detail this afternoon. Suffice it to say that the Home Office will come forward in 2013 with a statutory instrument to implement the transitional regulations. I am sure that there will be ample opportunity at that point for the House to examine in detail exactly what those arrangements propose and how effective they will be in practice. They will no doubt go to a statutory instrument Committee and then to the House of Commons as a whole.
My hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) used the debate on clause 4 to open up broader concerns about freedom of movement. There is no doubt that this issue troubles a lot of people, as he and my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) pointed out. I do not want to go overboard on this point. However, the fact that transitional controls were not imposed on the previous groups of countries joining the EU, along with the fact that the number of people who were thought likely to come from those countries to the UK was underestimated—the estimates were wrong by a considerable margin—has sapped public confidence in the principle of freedom of movement. It is therefore right that we should say clearly not just that rigorous transitional controls will be employed in the case of Croatia, but that it would be our intention to apply transitional controls to the full extent permitted to any future new accession country to the European Union. That is both right and a way of providing reassurance to our citizens.
People are understandably worried when they see suggestions that the principle of freedom of movement is being interpreted in a way that stretches beyond the rights set out in the treaty—primarily, the right to work and to seek work—and is at risk of being abused by people moving to gain from a more generous welfare system in an EU member state.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
The example that springs to mind is of people working here while their children remain in their own country, and getting child benefit for those children. That completely undermines confidence in the system.
Mr Lidington
My hon. Friend is right that those things undermine confidence in the system, despite the fact that freedom of movement has brought significant benefits not only to British citizens working and living elsewhere in Europe, but to British employers and consumers, who have made free use of the advantages of freedom of movement in terms of the skilled people coming to this country. I can assure him that this Government, along with other Governments, take these risks seriously and are concerned about potential abuses of freedom of movement. My hon. Friends in the Department for Work and Pensions have been talking to their counterparts in other member states about that point. The Government intend to pursue the matter and take it very seriously. I hope that that did not lead me too far from the content of the debate and that it provides my hon. Friends with a measure of reassurance.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I am sorry to interject, but as Labour seems to recognise this concern—such recognition has been lacking in the past—perhaps it is time to have a full and frank debate about it, especially in terms of welfare claimants and the cost to the NHS of people who possibly would not have been here had there been similar transitional arrangements in the past. Is there a chance, through informal channels, of starting a sensible debate?
Mr Lidington
The Government are always willing to listen to constructive ideas, from whichever side of the House they come. We have announced the review of the balance of competences. When my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary launched it, he said that we would welcome contributions and proposals from interest groups throughout British society and political parties on both sides of the House. If anybody wants to propose a way of limiting potential abuses of freedom of movement, they would be welcome to do so.
Emma Reynolds
Just for the record, as I set out earlier, what the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) says is simply not true. When the Labour party was in government, we were very concerned about welfare payments being made when they perhaps should not have been, especially when it came to child benefit. Our Ministers made representations about that to European institutions and tried to do something about it, but to be perfectly frank, we hit a brick wall—and that is exactly what this Government are finding too. There is no difference between our parties on this issue.
The Temporary Chair (Mr David Crausby)
Order. It would be nice if we could get back to clause 4 stand part.
Mr Lidington
Indeed, Mr Crausby. I welcome the outbreak of bipartisanship.
Finally, one of the lessons is the importance of building alliances with other member states on these issues, because we are far from being the only country that has these concerns.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
I thank the Minister for giving way, as I know he wants to conclude. He said he did not want to go through the clause subsection by subsection, but will he take the opportunity to clarify the different applicable maximums between England and Wales, on one hand, and Scotland and Northern Ireland on the other? Some of his hon. Friends may feel that those of more dodgy intent could be motivated to stay in England and Wales, rather than Scotland or Northern Ireland.
Mr Lidington
This boils down to differences in the legal systems operating in different parts of the United Kingdom. I presume that the hon. Gentleman is referring to subsections (4) to (6).
Subsection (4) provides that an offence by virtue of these regulations will be a summary offence and that any fines or prison sentences imposed will not exceed the applicable maximum levels or terms on the relevant scale. Subsections (5) and (6) provide clarity on the maximum prison terms applicable for these offences and the differences between maximum terms of imprisonment in England and Wales, and Scotland and Northern Ireland. For England and Wales, the maximum possible prison term is 51 weeks. For Scotland and Northern Ireland, the maximum possible prison term for an employee or a deception offence is three months, whereas for an employer this stands at six months.
Subsection (6) further clarifies that if the offences were committed in England and Wales before the commencement of section 154(1) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, they will be liable for the same penalties previously outlined for Scotland and Northern Ireland—three and six months respectively—but, as the Committee will know, section 154(1) has not yet commenced, so the applicable maximums for the whole United Kingdom will remain at three and six months respectively for the time being. I hope that that provides the hon. Gentleman with the assurance he seeks.
We have had an interesting debate on some of the concerns in the Committee and the country about the freedom of movement, but I think there has also been a consensus in support of transitional regulations. I therefore commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
Orders under section 4: Parliamentary control.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I beg to move amendment 1, page 4, line 4, at end insert ‘or subsequent’.
The Temporary Chair (Mr David Crausby)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: amendment 5, page 4, line 7, at end insert—
‘( ) The House of Commons may amend a draft of an instrument laid before it under subsection (1), insofar as that draft contains regulations pursuant to section 4. A draft so amended may be taken as the draft laid before each House of Parliament under subsection (1).
Amendment 2, page 4, line 8, leave out subsections (2) and (3).
Clause stand part.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
Amendments 1 and 2 are straightforward. I am sure that Her Majesty’s Government, in their amazing wisdom, will consider these issues from their fine position of understanding, benevolence and kindliness. The Minister for Europe—that great Minister of parliamentary scrutiny of matters European Union, who is to the scrutiny of European matters what Simon de Montfort was to the House of Commons appearing in the first place—knows, in his bold way, that the better the scrutiny, the better the legislation.
My amendments, which are modest and humble, would make a small improvement to the House’s scrutiny of the regulations introduced under clause 4. That clause has just passed without a voice being raised against it; none the less, it raises important questions about the penalties in different parts of the UK, as we have just discovered, and under it Ministers will be able to make regulations. Amendment 2 would simply take something out of the Bill. It would simplify the legislation. I thought we were all in favour of making our laws clear and easy for the average elector—those outside the inner workings of the House—to understand.
The amendments would allow Her Majesty’s Opposition, who I hope will join me on this occasion, better to hold the Government to account and ensure that Members were able to address our constituents’ grievances more effectively and swiftly by making further amendments, after the initial statutory instruments were introduced, subject to the affirmative, rather than the negative, procedure. That would enable us to turn up, as I am sure we all would, at the statutory instrument Committees debating the regulations.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I hoped that the hon. Gentleman was going to find some link between the de Montforts and Somerset, which would have been more helpful. I am not opposed to people coming over from Europe, although I do not have any Norman blood, as far as I am aware. However, we are wandering slightly from the point.
Amendments 1 and 2 would simply ensure that the affirmative procedure was followed and would marginally improve parliamentary scrutiny—they would not change the world, but they would add a little to parliamentary scrutiny. I meant the compliments I paid to the Minister and his commitment to parliamentary scrutiny, which has been exemplary. The European Union Act 2011, which we passed to ensure the rights of Parliament, was an important advance in protecting this country from European activities passing through without anybody really knowing about them. When the rules are changed, they should be changed in the same way as they are first introduced, because sometimes a change can be more important than the initial introduction. For example, a new Government might want to adjust things or not continue with them for as long, and could do so via a statutory instrument, with a limited form of negative control.
I hope that the Government will support my amendment 5. I hope that the Opposition will, too, because we may not lose the next election, in which case things might be changed by a similar Government, and my amendments would give them a way to hold Her Majesty’s Government to better account. I am proposing modest, easy, humble, simplifying, gentle, but marginally improving amendments, which I hope in their wisdom the Minister and Her Majesty’s Government will accept.
Mr Nuttall
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby.
My amendment 5 is also a minor and modest amendment. For the avoidance of doubt, it is perfectly compatible with amendments 1 and 2, standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). There is absolutely no reason why the Government should not accept his amendments and my minor amendment. My amendment would open the way for the draft regulations laid by the Government—pursuant to what will in due course become section 4 of the Act—to be amended by this House. As anyone who has looked at the Bill will be aware, clause 4 is by some way the longest clause—indeed, it is longer than the rest of the Bill put together. The regulations that are brought forward might all be perfectly in order, and it might be that they cannot be improved on in any way, shape or form. Knowing the Minister’s skill and intelligence in such matters, I have absolutely no doubt that that will be the case. However, we are all human, and it is just possible that a tiny little matter somewhere in those regulations—which will undoubtedly be fairly lengthy and detailed—might need amending. My amendment 5 would give this House the flexibility to amend the draft regulations, rather than simply having the option of accepting or rejecting them in their entirety. It is a minor, modest and humble amendment, and I hope that the Government and the Opposition will support it.
Emma Reynolds
I appreciate that the hon. Members for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) are seeking to improve parliamentary scrutiny of these matters by providing for the use of the affirmative procedure for any statutory instrument arising from clause 4. I very much look forward to the Minister’s response. Given that the Government do not seem to have much business for us to scrutinise at the moment, surely there might be time for such provision. I did not go through the Lobby once last week—to my disappointment—so we would welcome any move towards increased parliamentary scrutiny and we await the Minister’s response with bated breath.
Mr Lidington
The purpose of amendments 1 and 2 is to require that any regulations to implement the transitional restrictions pursuant to clause 4 be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. Amendment 5, standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), would give Parliament the opportunity to amend the initial set of regulations on transitional controls. By contrast, the Bill as drafted would require that the initial regulations made pursuant to clause 4 be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, but that subsequent regulations, if any, be subject to the negative resolution procedure. That would provide Parliament with the opportunity to give or deny approval, but not to amend the regulations.
Mr Lidington
I would not impute that to my hon. Friend, but I was conscious of the fact that Simon de Montfort, despite his contribution to our constitutional developments, ended up being slain at the battle of Evesham, after which his body was hacked apart and the various portions sent to please those members of the nobility who had taken the lead in supporting Prince Edward against him. Although I have absolute confidence in the generosity of spirit with which my hon. Friend spoke, I hope I can count on him to speak for all members of the European Scrutiny Committee and on others to adopt a different role towards de Montfort than he has taken today.
I have thought carefully about the amendments that my hon. Friends have proposed. The initial regulations that we intend to make pursuant to clause 4 would set out in detail the scheme of restrictions to be applied to Croatian nationals. They would set out the circumstances under which a Croatian national may be authorised to take employment and the penalties that may be applied for any breach of the restrictions. It is clearly appropriate that there should be a presumption that such regulations, setting out a broad scheme of controls and penalties, should require the positive approval of the House. We are therefore providing for the affirmative resolution procedure. However, any subsequent regulations pursuant to clause 4 are likely to be different in character and to have only a limited and technical purpose. For example, it may become necessary to make technical adjustments to the regulations to reflect European Court of Justice case law on the exercise of free movement rights or to adjust the circumstances in which work authorisation may be given, to reflect particular labour market circumstances.
Let us look at the precedent of the regulations applied to Bulgarian and Romanian nationals, recalling that our intention is to apply the same transitional regime to Croatian migrants as already applies to migrants from those two countries. There have been subsequent amendments to the original regulations, but to address minor and technical issues. For example, further amendments to the regulations have referred to arrangements for students undertaking employment during their holidays or vocational employment linked to their studies. Those amendments have brought the treatment of such students into line with the treatment extended to third-country nationals. There have also been technical changes to the arrangements for family members of Bulgarian and Romanian workers, which the treaty required be lifted once the restrictions had been in force for two years.
Those were matters concerned with responding to legal issues about the proper administration of restrictions, as they arose, rather than matters pertaining to their general shape and force. Equally, it might prove necessary to make amendments to the initial regulations simply in order to ensure that they take account of changes made to the controls applied to third-country nationals. I do not think it is proportionate that amendment of the regulations to deal with this kind of technical issue should require the affirmative resolution procedure.
Of course, if a future hypothetical Government were, through sleight of hand, to use the negative resolution procedure to make a more substantive change to the character of the transitional regulations—which I am sure that this Government would not do—I am confident that the political reaction in the House of Commons would be such as to require, through a prayer tabled under the normal procedures of the House, a debate and vote in Committee and then in the House as a whole. It is unlikely that such a major amendment would be brought forward, however, and there are sufficient safeguards in our proposals. It is probable, however, that there will be a need for minor and technical amendments to be made. The negative resolution procedure accords with the precedent adopted in respect of previous accessions and it is proportionate to the case.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North tabled amendment 5, which would allow Parliament to amend the secondary legislation. He will know that the procedure that he is proposing does not fall within the normal forms of House approval. I do not blame him for raising the subject; it has cropped up in more than one debate since I have been a Member of Parliament. However, it would be wrong to use the Bill as an occasion for adopting what would amount to a significant precedent in how Parliament holds the Government to account. There might be a case for what he is proposing, but it would best be addressed, if it is going to be, as a matter of general principle rather than in this way.
Under our current procedure, secondary legislation is not subjected to the type of line-by-line scrutiny and the possibility of amendment that we afford to primary legislation. The affirmative process, which we are suggesting for the first set of regulations, requires a motion in favour in both Houses before the regulations can be made. The House will be able to reject the draft statutory instrument if it is not content with it. The Government believe that that is an appropriate level of scrutiny, and that the use of the negative resolution procedure for what are likely to be minor and technical amendments is also proportionate to the probable course of events. I hope that, having heard those assurances, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset will be willing to withdraw his amendment.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I have listened to the Minister with great care. The problem with comparing anybody to the great figures of history is that so many of them came to a sticky end. That does not, however, undermine the valour of their actions before they met their sticky end. It is the way of politics nowadays that people are reshuffled, whereas in olden times they were rather more finally dealt with. This is perhaps one respect in which I am a moderniser, in that I am glad and reassured that political careers now end more gently than they did in times gone by. I was comparing my right hon. Friend the Minister to Simon de Montfort at the height of his powers when he was successfully commanding the country and advancing democracy.
The mood of the Committee today suggests that it would probably not vote in support of my amendment, and I shall therefore seek leave to withdraw it. However, I would just add that, to use an old cliché, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. It would be an advantage to place in the legislation a requirement for the affirmative resolution procedure, because we cannot guarantee what future Governments will do or, more particularly, what the European Court of Justice will do. The Minister referred to that possibility. There is a risk that the Court could make a highly political judgment that would change the regulations or cause them to be changed by the Government. That could allow the Government to use the negative resolution procedure, because the decision had come from the ECJ, without giving the House the opportunity to debate a genuinely important political matter. I regret that Her Majesty’s Government are not going to accept my proposal, but I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
Extent, commencement and short title
Mr Nuttall
I beg to move amendment 4, page 4, line 15, leave out subsection (2) and insert—
‘(2) This Act comes into force in accordance with the following provisions—
(a) Section 1 comes into force on the day after the following conditions are fulfilled—
(i) in each House of Parliament a Minister of the Crown moves a motion that the House approves the coming into force of section 1, and
(ii) each House agrees to the motion without amendment,
(b) the other provisions of this Act come into force on the day on which this Act is passed.’.
The Temporary Chair (Mr David Crausby)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the Question that clause 6 stand part of the Bill.
Mr Nuttall
This will be the last amendment to be discussed in Committee. It would enable the House to revisit the question of whether Croatia was ready to join the EU before this Bill ratifying the accession treaty came into effect. The Minister made it clear on Second Reading that the accession process that Croatia had followed had involved more rigorous demands than those placed on Romania or Bulgaria, or any of the earlier accession states. However, I think it is accepted on all sides that, unless things have changed dramatically since the Second Reading debate, Croatia has not yet fulfilled all that is expected of it. Much progress has clearly been made, and that is to be welcomed, but more undoubtedly remains to be done.
The European Commission is continuing its monitoring process, and the Minister mentioned that a further report was expected next spring. He provided the more accurate date of next March for its delivery, and we expect it to be the final report. On Croatia’s progress in dealing with domestic war crimes, the Minister said on Second Reading that the Government’s assessment was “almost complete”, but that more work was still required. The amendment would allow the House the opportunity to assess whether Croatia had made further progress and whether the process had been completed.
On the Croatian civil justice system, the Minister said on Second Reading that despite a significant number of additional judges being appointed to focus on the backlog of outstanding civil cases, the number of such cases had increased. About 844,000 new cases had been brought before the civil courts during the first half of 2012, and only 836,00 cases had been resolved during that period. In fact, not only was the backlog not being reduced, it was getting worse.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
I think the amendment is excellent, worthy of the whole Committee’s support. Although enlargement is a very good thing—I agreed with the Minister when he set out the advantages and confirmed that bringing new member states in has been beneficial to the United Kingdom—countries need to be ready for it. We know, however, that some countries that have acceded have not been ready: their criminal justice systems have not been ready; their procedures against corruption have not been fully thought through; and the independence of their judiciary could not be guaranteed. With Croatia, there are even questions relating to the independence of the police, and some difficulties in passing legislation to ensure that the police are politically independent.
I therefore view it as a good thing that Parliament should have a further opportunity to approve the Bill before it is enacted. I know that there are other ways of doing that. It is, I suppose, a gratifying thought that the Bill could be vetoed and that the Queen could exercise her ancient power not to approve it. I say that as we approach the 300th anniversary of when that last happened. It would restore an historic precedent if the Government were to decide that Croatia was not ready to join and that the Bill should be vetoed. I think that the Norman French would be “la Reine s’avisera”, or the Queen will take advice—words that have not been used since the reign of Queen Anne—and this would allow further deliberation on the Bill.
It would probably be better in this more democratic age, compared with the reign of Her late Majesty Queen Anne, to have a parliamentary process that would be the final authorisation of the ratification of the treaty under our normal constitutional processes, as set out in the European treaty. That would be preferable to using a rather antiquated, if perhaps romantic, way of delaying the Bill’s coming into law. No doubt the Government will say that they could delay handing in the instruments of ratification of the treaty to the European community, but again that does not seem to me to be an ideal way of proceeding. If doubts remain about Croatia’s readiness to join, the decision should be a parliamentary one rather than a prerogative one. Failing to hand in the instruments of ratification is in many ways much the same as vetoing the Bill outright. It is using the royal prerogative rather than a parliamentary procedure.
I therefore think that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) has come up with an excellent amendment—much better than the one I tabled, which was tabled out of a concern that Croatia will change the way the budget of the European Union operates. I wonder whether it is sensible to allow a new member state to join when we are using roll-over budgets. It strikes me as a risk that by the middle of next year, we might have an unstable procedure of financing the European Union—one that relies on the fall-back position set out in the treaty rather than on an new multi-annual financial framework—which would put a strain on the EU’s ability to meet the commitments it has made to Croatia by allowing it to become a member, and would leave confusion and dissatisfaction on all sides. It would be better to have the multi-annual financial framework in place before the formal ratification of the treaties went through.
I hope that the Government will think carefully about the amendment and about the process they are going to adopt. The amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North would allow this House and, indeed, the other place to reconsider the eligibility of Croatia to join the EU and whether it was suitable under the circumstances prevailing at the time—if, for example, the multi-annual financial framework had not been agreed or, indeed, if there were some other problem. Between now and next May, who knows whether Greece and possibly even Germany along with Finland and all sorts of countries might have left the euro, deciding that it was kaput—a German word, I believe, which I occasionally use in this Chamber, as allowed by “Erskine May”, which grants the odd quotation of foreign words? We could find that we have agreed this magnificent Act of Parliament, written on the finest vellum, signed in the finest ink, but that it proves ineffective because circumstances will have changed and there is no fall-back position other than a rather heavy-handed use of the prerogative power to prevent the instrument of ratification that we have approved going further along the line, leaving us having approved Croatia’s membership when there are all these other factors that might make it unsuitable.
The European Scrutiny Committee was looking at whether Croatia is, in fact, ready to join. I am not the greatest admirer of the European Union, and allowing countries that are a little bit corrupt and a little bit fishy to join gives me an opportunity to criticise the EU a bit more and to say, “Look, we are letting in dodgy types and corrupt Governments”. We could be letting in people with judicial systems that are not right, yet still benefit from the European arrest warrant. I am thus speaking against my own interest as a critic of the European Union, but it shows how broad-minded and sympathetic I am to the Government in supporting the amendment. It secures and provides ballast for the Government, allowing them to proceed with confidence and panache in getting Croatia to become a member, making it certain that when the documents are finally lodged, everyone is happy that Croatia will fit in with the EU—like the final piece of the jigsaw that people fear they lost behind the sofa but has finally been found, rather than one that is a bit dog-eared and bent that needs to be pushed or squeezed in. I hope that the Government will, in their wisdom and thoughtfulness, accept the amendment because it will protect and help them.
Chris Heaton-Harris
My hon. Friend is making a strong case for changing the way in which we deal with a country’s accession. I assume that he is keen for the amendments to be adopted and to govern the way in which we deal with future accessions that could be far more controversial even than Croatia’s.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is entirely right. It is important to set a precedent in this instance. I do not usually like new precedents; I think that they are rather dangerous. One always wants to find an historic precedent to which one can refer. On this occasion, however, it may be right to set the new precedent of securing the certainty that a country constitutes that smooth piece, with its corners just so, which can be inserted into the jigsaw that is the European Union.
It seems to me that a Government who are as good and as great as this Government—a coalition Government who see these matters in a broad and rounded way—will want to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, because surely it is very important that when Croatia joins, Croatia is ready to join. We have found before when we have let countries join early that it is much, much harder to solve the problems when they are in than it was before they were in. Once they are in, they benefit from all that comes from the European treaties. Before they are in, they are of course supplicants, and the power rests with the European Union to decide whether to admit them. It is unquestionably sound and prudent to follow the recommendation of my hon. Friend and to put this final brake on the process, so that it goes ahead only when we are comfortable that the Croatians have really got their act together.
It might be sensible to delegate consideration of this matter to the European Scrutiny Committee, so ably chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), who would be able to bring all his knowledge and wisdom to the decision on whether Croatia had met the tests set by the European Union. Otherwise, we shall sow the wind and reap the whirlwind. We shall once again see a European Union that is fiddling its own rules to get what it wants. We shall say “Look what this European Union does: it sets down these rules, it sets down these conditions, it sets down these terms, but once they become inconvenient, it casts them aside and forgets them in order to be able to do what it wanted to do in the first place.”
It is the British Government and the British people who have the backbone and the strength of mind to ensure sure that the European Union is held properly to account, and to ensure that we have a chance to make it do what it says it is going to do, rather than wandering off on the path of allowing countries that are not fit to join to join early.
Wayne David
This is an important amendment, and it is right for it to be discussed properly. As has already been said today, we need to learn from the experience of the enlargement process in a number of respects, but I think it particularly important for us to learn from the experience of the negotiations and preparations relating to the membership of Bulgaria and, to some extent, Slovakia. It has been acknowledged widely, if not as publicly as we would have liked, that not enough care and attention was involved in the preparations in Bulgaria, particularly with regard to justice and home affairs. I think that the Commission and, indeed, the Council have learnt the lessons of that.
I was slightly concerned to read, before I came into the Chamber, a statement from Štefan Füle, the European Commissioner responsible for enlargement and European neighbourhood policy. After visiting Croatia, he said that he thought that there was more work to be done before Croatia entered the EU on 1 July 2013. As we have heard, the final monitoring report of the European Commission is due to be published in the spring, but Commissioner Füle clearly stated that it would be wrong to think that all the work in Croatia had been done and that it is simply a question of our going through the mechanics of approving the accession treaty.
In Commissioner Füle’s view—and no one knows better than he does—major work still needs to be done in Croatia, particularly in regard to competition policy, judicial reform and fundamental rights, justice, freedom and security, and the translation of the acquis into domestic law. He also said that additional efforts needed to be made to improve a number of the chapters that have been negotiated, such as those applying to agriculture, the environment, and the preparations that are necessary for the effective utilisation of the structural funds. In other words, he believes that a fair amount of work remains to be done during the next few months to ensure that Croatia is in an effective state to comply with the stipulations for membership of the European Union. It worried me slightly that he listed such a large number of areas in which further work was needed. He also said that he hoped that further regional issues would be addressed, and that he looked forward to a final resolution of problems relating to relationships between Croatia and its neighbours.
Emma Reynolds
The accession process for Croatia has certainly been more rigorous and demanding than those for previous accessions, as the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) pointed out. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) on the importance of learning lessons from previous enlargements. We want to avoid the situation in which we found ourselves in respect of Romania and Bulgaria, where a co-operation and verification procedure had to be introduced post-enlargement to monitor progress in a specific area.
I know that the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), the brand-new moderniser, is trying to be helpful, as ever, in his support for the amendment, but I am not sure how helpful the amendment will be. I know that 16 member states have already ratified Croatia’s accession, but let us say for the sake of argument that all member states passed a similar amendment. In that situation, Croatia’s accession would be delayed greatly. That would be regrettable, as Croatia has built up a certain momentum towards accession. There are still areas where we want to see more progress but, as has been stated, the European Commission’s final report in March will set out the progress that has been made in those areas about which hon. Members across the House have concerns. If the amendment were to be passed, it would delay the process unnecessarily and it could have a negative impact on that momentum. We encourage the Government and the Commission to monitor closely the progress in those areas, especially as they relate to the judiciary and fundamental rights, but we do not think the amendment is necessary, as we want to sustain the momentum.
Mr Lidington
Clause 6(1) makes provision for the territorial extent of the Bill. It extends to the whole of the United Kingdom. Subsection (2) indicates the intention that the Bill, should it be granted Royal Assent, will come into force immediately, and subsection (3) provides for the short title.
The purpose of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) is to delay the entry into force of a specific clause. The amendment would require a motion in both Houses before clause 1, the element of the Bill providing approval for the Croatian accession treaty, could enter into force. I must say plainly to the Committee that in the Government’s view delaying Croatia’s accession to the EU, as proposed in the amendment, would not be helpful to the UK in securing its objectives in EU enlargement policy and it might cause some damage to our interests overall. I intend to respond in detail to the points raised about some of the outstanding questions in respect of Croatia’s progress towards meeting the Commission’s benchmarks in the various accession chapters.
I start by saying that the Government have, as my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) pointed out earlier, enhanced the role that Parliament has played in the approval of EU decision making through the European Union Act 2011. The Scrutiny Committees in this place and in the other place have also followed the Commission’s monitoring reports on Croatia’s progress towards accession. The Government’s judgment, on the basis both of the Commission’s successive monitoring reports and of our own bilateral engagement, is that Croatia is on track to be ready in full to accede to the EU on 1 July 2013. The Croatian Government have already responded positively to the October call for action on the remaining areas by preparing an action plan to address outstanding concerns, as they did in response to the Commission’s monitoring report in April. The treaty also includes a range of safeguard measures that could be imposed, both before and after accession, in specific areas where reforms were not complete. For example, the Commission is empowered under the accession treaty to recover all state aids paid by the Croatian Government to state-owned shipyards if Croatia does not meet EU requirements under chapter 8, on competition, by the time of accession.
As my hon. Friend said, the Government always have the option, as a final resort, in the wholly unexpected event of Croatia not being ready, of holding back from depositing the instrument of ratification. In reality, if there were such a crisis—if some new Administration in Croatia did not commit themselves to the accession process with the enthusiasm that we see from the current Croatian Government—that would not just be a matter for the United Kingdom; it would be a matter for a very large number of member states and for the EU institutions.
We do not expect to need to use those safeguards. In answer to the point made by the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David), let me say that I have talked to Commissioner Füle about Croatian accession as well as to members of his team in the Commission. We need to emphasise that while the Commission is doing its job in going through the fine print of what Croatia has done and checking to what extent it has met the benchmarks laid down for it, Commissioner Füle personally and the accession team he leads remain very confident that although more needs to be done between now and July, Croatia is on track to be ready for accession at the date set down for it to join the European Union.
The hon. Gentleman also mentioned Štefan Füle’s comments about regional issues. As he knows—this came up on Second Reading—there are some outstanding issues with Slovenia, in particular, but the solution does not lie wholly in Croatia’s hands. A long-standing banking dispute going back to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia is still unresolved and the UK continues to urge both Slovenia and Croatia to find a way forward to settle that bilateral dispute in a way that respects the relevant international agreements. We have also said—this applies not only to Croatia but to other accessions—that bilateral disputes should not be used as an excuse to block progress when a candidate country is meeting its accession benchmarks.
We agree with Commissioner Füle that there is more work to be done. We have supported him in urging the Croatian leadership at the most senior levels to keep up its work to complete the outstanding tasks. The Croatian Government assured Commissioner Füle when he visited Croatia on 25 and 26 November that of the 10 key issues that the Commission had highlighted, work on seven would be completed by the end of 2012 and on the remaining three by the end of January 2013. Those assurances and the knowledge of how far Croatia has come and how committed its Government are to delivering in full on their obligations cause both Commissioner Füle and the UK Government to be confident that Croatia is in the right place to have crossed those hurdles by July 2013.
As a number of hon. Members have said, the accession process has been much more rigorous for Croatia than it was for Bulgaria and Romania, and because of that Croatia is better prepared for membership than those two countries were before their accession. The level of transparency and accountability in the Croatian judiciary has increased significantly over the reform period, institutions have been established and continue to develop to verify assets and conflicts of interest, and noteworthy progress has been made on investigations of and convictions for high-level corruption, most recently with the conviction of the former Prime Minister, Ivo Sanader, who was convicted of corruption and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. There could be little more by way of a clear demonstration of the independence of the Croatian courts and of Croatia’s determination to show clearly to her future partners that no one is exempt from an independent judicial process and rigorous laws against corruption.
My hon. Friends raised a number of more detailed questions about Croatia’s readiness for membership. I want to try to respond to them, as they all involved serious matters. Let me first take the question of the police, to which my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset referred. In the run-up to the December 2011 general election in Croatia, one of the last acts of the outgoing Government was to approve a package of amendments to the police Act, which was seen as allowing for political influence in the promotion of officers. Following the election of the current Government, the new Interior Minister attempted to introduce changes to the amendments, drawing on his own experience as a previous police director general, to create a system that was demonstrably based on merit and transparency. However, the European Commission expressed concern with certain details of the new law, and the United Kingdom raised the need for consultation with the Commission to ensure that Croatia embedded reforms and conformed with the EU acquis. The Croatian Government therefore delayed their domestic legislation process to take account of the Commission’s recommendations and to bring their own reforms into line with EU best practice.
The Commission has now approved proposed amendments to Croatia’s police law and we understand that these will be finalised and adopted by the end of the year, but already on the basis of the police Act in Croatia, further byelaws have been adopted, including a code of ethics for officers, the appointment of a director general of the police, and various ordinances on the conduct of officers and procedures.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North spoke about the pressures on the Croatian system of civil justice, and he is right to say that between December 2011 and June 2012 the number of unresolved cases in the civil justice system rose by 0.6% from 827,102 to 832,919, but it would be a mistake for the Committee to look at those totals and make the assumption that nothing had changed. Those are aggregate figures that conceal very significant changes and significant improvements.
What happened overall was that more new cases came into the Croatian civil justice system than were resolved by the Croatian civil justice system, but if we look at the old cases, we see that during that six-month period the number of cases that were more than 10 years old fell by nearly 5%, and the number of cases that were more than three years old fell by more than 4%, so we can honestly say that Croatia made good progress. The Croatian Government have introduced measures such as a new enforcement Act, new powers for their financial agency to recover fines, a new courts Act, new civil procedure and penal procedure codes to improve case management within the Croatian court system, and modern IT systems to help the courts transact their business more efficiently.
Finally, on budgets, it is true that the Commission has said that it wants €15 billion more in the multi-annual financial framework compared with its original proposals, and that that €15 billion includes €10 billion supposedly earmarked for Croatia. Our position all along has been that although Croatia should be entitled to funding on the same basis as other member states once it joins the EU, the EU budget must look for priorities and savings have to be found to accommodate additional expenditure. The position set out by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister remains as he expressed it yesterday: we are going into these negotiations determined that the outcome we will accept will be a cut or at most a real-terms freeze in the EU budget.
I believe that further enlargement of the EU will help to promote the security, stability and prosperity of Europe and of the United Kingdom; that the expansion of the single market will benefit this country by bringing increased trade opportunities to a wider market; and that bringing Croatia into that single market will benefit the opportunities for UK business.
Graham Stringer
Before the Minister concludes, will he answer my question about the security of the border with Bosnia, which he promised to do earlier?
The Temporary Chair (Mr David Crausby)
I think that relates much more to Third Reading, when the Minister will have an opportunity to deal with the question.
Mr Lidington
I am grateful for that guidance, Mr Crausby. I have some details on that matter and will be happy to speak about it on Third Reading.
Member states signed the Croatian accession treaty with the firm intention that it should be ratified by 1 July 2013. We believe that new member states should be able to join the EU when they have fulfilled their commitments as part of the tough and demanding accession process and are ready to take on the obligations of membership. Given the progress Croatia has made and the transparent commitment of its Government to completing the reforms that are still outstanding, we think there is no reason to delay this legislation coming into force and that we can be confident, on the basis of evidence, that Croatia will be ready. We should be eager to grasp the opportunities for the United Kingdom, both political and commercial, that stem from EU enlargement. Therefore, I think it is right to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North to withdraw his amendment and for the House to support clause 6 as it stands.
Mr Nuttall
I have listened carefully to the Minister and to the debate. I must say that if Croatia is as ready for accession as the Minister would have us believe, my proposed amendment would not hold that up. Croatia would complete all the requirements put on it and would be able to satisfy Members of this House, and when a Minister of the Crown laid an order before us we would happily pass it. However, I heard what the Minister said and feel that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) and I, despite the views we have put forward, are perhaps in a minority in the Committee, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
The Deputy Speaker resumed the Chair.
Bill reported, without amendment.
Third Reading
Mr Lidington
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have participated in our debates on the Bill. It is hard to single out individual Members, but I would like, as always, to express my thanks to the members of the European Scrutiny Committee for their work, particularly the Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), and my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). In this afternoon’s debate and throughout our proceedings my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) has been active, concerned and sincere in the questions and challenges he has posed to those on the Front Bench. I would like to thank the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds) for her support for the Bill and that of the official Opposition. I also wish to put on the record my gratitude for the outstanding work of Government officials not only in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but in the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice, in putting together this legislation.
The enlargement of the European Union and the establishment of the single market are two of the EU’s greatest achievements. Both are initiatives for which the United Kingdom can claim considerable responsibility and in which it can take great pride. The EU, alongside NATO, has been an instrument of peace and reconciliation that has helped to spread and entrench democracy and the rule of law across Europe, including swathes of our continent where those traditions and values were crushed for most of the 20th century. The single market has opened up prosperity and opportunity to hundreds of millions of people, to the mutual benefit of us all.
That is why the United Kingdom supports further, conditions-based enlargement. Croatia’s accession will further demonstrate the transformative power of enlargement, marking the historic moment at which the first of the western Balkan countries that were involved in the wars of the 1990s as Yugoslavia broke up joins. Croatia’s accession negotiations were closed in June 2011 following six years of significant reform. As I have explained, Croatia has faced the most demanding and challenging negotiations of any candidate country. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary made clear when he visited the Balkans this October, the Government fully support the ambitions not only of Croatia but of all countries of the western Balkans one day to join the European Union. That is a further reason why we believe that it is so important that Croatia’s accession is a success; it is blazing a trail that we hope that other countries of the western Balkans will, in due course, follow.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that Croatia should have had to face a very high test to join the European Union. Does he regret that when Romania and Bulgaria joined the EU, they were not subject to the same rigour?
Mr Lidington
When I talk to Bulgarian and Romanian Ministers, they are the first to say that the current situation is deeply unsatisfactory. They feel at times that they are treated as second-class members of the EU, while other member states feel that the standards required at the time of accession were not fully met; hence we have the co-operation and verification mechanism. It is to the credit of Štefan Füle and the European Commission that they have learned from that experience. Chapter 23, in particular, was created explicitly to avoid any repetition of what happened with Romania and Bulgaria.
We have strengthened things even further in the light of our experience with Croatia. The policy now adopted by all member states and the Commission is that for future candidates, beginning with Montenegro, chapters 23 and 24 will be addressed first in any accession process, opened early but then kept open until practically the end. That means that justice and home affairs reforms, including impartial administration of policing, will be taken through national Parliaments and put into law. It also means that as the years of accession negotiations continue, we will see a track record built up so that at the end nobody can be in any doubt that the criteria have been met and that the country concerned is truly committed and ready for the obligations of membership.
That brings me on to the questions from Members on both sides of the House as to whether Croatia is ready. I will not repeat what I said during our debate on the last group of amendments, but I do want to respond to the comments of the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) about Croatia’s record in dealing with immigration and the management of its immigration and asylum systems and border controls.
Croatia has made substantial progress to deliver the necessary reforms required in border management and migration policy. The implementation of Croatia’s new immigration Act began in January, bringing migration legislation in line with that in other European countries. Croatia is already co-operating both with its immediate neighbours and with the EU on the return of illegal migrants and has apprehended 2,370 illegal migrants during this monitoring period. Croatia drafted a new migration strategy in July. We expect it to be finalised by the end of the year and adopted in early 2103.
In 2006, Croatia adopted an integrated border management action plan. This provided a comprehensive framework for the preparation of the external border once it joined the European Union, and it has kept its priorities under review and has been ready to amend them as it has moved towards accession. Croatia already has 81 fully functioning border crossing points. We have made it clear, as has the European Commission, that completion of the remaining BCPs is a priority and the Croatian Minister of the Interior has given us an assurance that they will be completed.
Although there is still work to be done over the next few months, Croatia has put in place strong foundations to manage migratory pressures. The most crucial outstanding requirement is the reconstruction of the two land border crossings at Klek and Zaton Doli in the new corridor between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Intensive work is now under way to ensure that those border crossings and the other outstanding BCPs are complete prior to accession, and our understanding is that the work on the outstanding BCPs will be completed and delivered next spring, ahead of Croatia’s planned accession date.
Our judgment is that there is no cause to fear that Croatian accession will lead to an impact on the United Kingdom through illegal migration, asylum or human trafficking. Let me explain our reasons for that judgment. First, there will continue to be border controls between Croatia and neighbouring EU countries after accession. This will continue until Croatia fully implements the Schengen acquis, which is subject to its own evaluation process. As a result, third-country nationals will continue to be subject to the same levels of controls after accession if they seek to leave Croatian territory to go to another EU member state. There is not expected to be any significant increase in illegal immigration to the UK as a consequence of Croatia’s accession.
Secondly, Croatia does not present a high risk to the UK as either a source or transit country for illegal migration. Thirdly, we have not identified any victims of trafficking from Croatia in the UK. As I noted on Second Reading, in 2011, the US State Department’s “Trafficking in Persons Report”, which ranks countries in terms of their capacity to tackle trafficking and protect victims, designated Croatia as a tier 1 country, alongside the United Kingdom. That means that Croatia is viewed as fully compliant with the minimum standards of the US’s Trafficking Victims Protection Act, so again I think we have good reason to be confident about Croatia’s record.
The Commission’s monitoring helpfully identifies those issues that remain outstanding, but it is also clear that the Commission expects Croatia to be ready on time and we share that assessment. Following the publication of the Commission’s October report, the Croatian Government prepared an action plan, a copy of which has been shared with the two parliamentary scrutiny Committees. That action plan was a clear indication that the Croatian Government have grasped what they need to do, and it is now up to them to deliver.
The Government support EU enlargement and the benefits it will bring to the UK. We are in favour of Croatia joining the EU, we believe that it is well on its way to demonstrating its readiness to join the European Union and we are fully confident that it will be ready by next July. The impact that Croatian accession will have in promoting stability and sending a message of hope across the western Balkans should be welcomed by every party in this House. I commend the Bill, and its Third Reading, to the House.
Emma Reynolds
As I said on Second Reading, the Opposition welcome the Bill and support the accession of Croatia to the European Union and the ratification of the Irish protocol.
As we did in government, we support enlargement, provided that candidate countries fulfil the conditions of membership. I echo the Minister in saying that across Europe’s frontiers, the process of European Union accession has provided and continues to provide an incentive for democratisation, economic and political reform, trade liberalisation, and the promotion of human rights.
As has been noted in today’s debate and on Second Reading, Croatia’s accession process has been rigorous and demanding. Indeed, it has been more rigorous and demanding than for previous accessions. Croatia has made remarkable progress, especially given the backdrop of the violent and bloody conflict in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
In terms of the UK’s national interests, the economic case for enlargement is clear. If candidate countries fulfil the conditions of membership, it is very much in our national interests to enlarge the European Union’s single market—the largest single market in the world—for British businesses, and to expand the size and power of the European Union. The larger the single market of the European Union, the heavier its collective weight and the more powerful it will be in prising open markets such as India, Mercosur, Canada, Singapore and Japan and in negotiating beneficial free trade agreements with them.
Croatia has successfully transposed 35 chapters of European Union law into its national legislation and it continues to make progress in the reform of its economy and judiciary. As I outlined on Second Reading, we continue to have concerns about some aspects of the implementation of the reforms, particularly in the areas of competition, the judiciary and fundamental rights, and security and justice. However, we are confident, as has been stated by the European Commission, that by the time of its accession in July, Croatia will have met the necessary requirements of the acquis and will therefore be ready to join the European Union. To ensure that that happens, the momentum must continue into next year until accession on 1 July 2013.
From our experience of previous accessions to the European Union, we know how important it is that the Commission and member states continue to support and monitor a candidate country’s progress right up to its accession. We welcome the Commission’s commitment to publish its final report next March. We want to avoid a situation in which the EU has to put in place co-operation and verification mechanisms to monitor progress post-enlargement. To that end, I encourage the Government and the Commission to continue to support Croatia over the next few months.
The Irish protocol provides a clarification of the application of the treaty of Lisbon. It does not amend the treaty or repatriate powers from the European Union to Ireland. As the Minister set out in Committee, the provisions of the clarification apply equally to every member state. The protocol is valuable because it provides assurances to the Irish people in specific areas of concern regarding the application of the Lisbon treaty. It contains safeguards on the right to life, family and education, and on taxation and Irish neutrality, meaning that Ireland retains decision making in those areas.
In conclusion, the Labour party supports the Bill and its progress through the House. We look forward to welcoming Croatia, when it is ready, on its accession on 1 July next year.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
May I begin by reciprocating the kind thanks from my right hon. Friend the Minister? When debating with him and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East (Emma Reynolds), every day is like a jubilee year in which we have the chance to discuss these great and important European matters. It brings joy not only to all of us in the Chamber, but no doubt to the many millions who are watching our deliberations on the Parliament channel.
I remind the House of the process that has brought us to the European Union (Croatian Accession and Irish Protocol) Bill. Thanks to the European Union Act 2011, we have a clear, proper and detailed process through which to work that allows detailed parliamentary scrutiny of any European decision. That is important and extraordinarily welcome because it ensures that things cannot be gently pushed through or run through on the nod on a quiet Thursday afternoon when no one is around, and it ensures that on a full-blown Tuesday, people are in the Chamber listening, paying attention and tabling amendments. Sometimes those amendments are not agreed with, which is a pity and at times shows a disappointing view of the world, but none the less, the House is allowed to do its proper job, as will be the case in another place. I am grateful to the Minister for piloting through Parliament the 2011 Act that allows us to do this part of our work today.
The second point I wish to reiterate is that the Irish protocol we are approving shows what can be done with treaty amendments. As the hon. Member for Wolverhampton North East said, it may be merely a clarification or tidying-up exercise, but it required every member state to agree to the protocol, in order to get the Irish ratification of the Lisbon treaty that was so desperately needed after it was rejected the first time. What Ireland can do, surely the United Kingdom can also do—and with greater strength and success. We must use the mechanism of renegotiation to create a European Union that we want and with which we can live. If we do that, the European Union will be better not only for us but for the continentals as well.
Finally, after all that has been said in this debate about Croatia, its qualities and whether it is fit for membership of the European Union, I want to welcome it into the club—the Carlton club of international organisations. Broadening and widening the EU has been welcome and good for this country and for the type of Europe that has developed. There was the risk of a narrowly focused French-style Europe—if I may use such language in the Chamber, Mr Deputy Speaker—that was essentially protectionist and inward looking. Although broadening out has had its problems, and there were failures to ensure the strict application of proper procedures as countries joined the EU, we have none the less been able to push for a more open-looking Europe. It is not a Europe without faults, but it certainly has advantages.
Although the number of people who came to the UK under previous accession treaties may have got out of control, the individuals who arrived brought much good with them. I particularly rejoice that so many Polish people who arrived are my co-religionists, and Catholic churches throughout the country are bursting at the seams. In that sense, broadening the EU brings much to be welcomed—Croatia is another Catholic country, so it is another one for the papists, I am glad to say.
But—and there is a but—we should take seriously the warning of Croatia joining. Federal unions that stretch beyond what the people within them will accept have a tendency to collapse, and to collapse violently. When we consider how the EU is constructed, we must remember what happened with Yugoslavia. If we try to force together peoples who do not form a natural unit of democracy, and if rules and regulations are enforced upon them by unelected and dishonest judges, and by a corrupt bureaucracy that cannot sign off its accounts, we risk creating such dissatisfaction that we undermine the peace we were trying to bring in the first place by the widening and deepening of that union.
Although we welcome Croatia into the club, we, as the UK, should be very conscious that the EU, which is not a democratic body, risks overreaching itself and losing the faith and confidence of the British people. It could find that its end, if it is not reformed, is a disagreeable one, and one that has deep-seated problems within it. We should be challenging it and dealing with it as we get a better settlement for the UK. That will help to create a Europe that might be more stable and long-lasting than the bureaucratic, centralised version we currently have.
Wayne David
In these times when the EU is strongly criticised in this Chamber and more often outside—sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly—it is important for us to focus, every so often, on its two great pivotal achievements, to which the Minister referred. First, the single market has been an undeniable success. Britain was an early advocate of the single market and remains an advocate of the process of completing it. The second great achievement is the process of enlargement. With the single market, enlargement has been part of the lifeblood of the EU—it has given it direction and momentum. Let us not forget that the process has led from the original six member states of the iron and steel community coming together to the step-by-step enlargement of the EU to 27 member states. Before too long, there will be 28. Taken together, those two pivotal developments have helped to shape the EU as it is today, which, in my vision, is an association of independent sovereign states that from time to time pool their sovereignty in their mutual best interests. If those two principles continue to loom large at the centre of the EU, it will be a force for good and prosperity in this world, despite its difficulties and need of reform.
Hon. Members have had a good debate on Croatia’s membership of the EU. Croatia expressed an interest in joining the EU some 10 years ago and has gradually built up momentum. It is now very close to joining the EU, and it is important to reflect on why Croatia is so keen to do so. Let us not forget that in the 1990s, the former Yugoslavia was ripped apart by the most horrendous conflict in modern Europe. Slovenia led the way out of that, preparing to join the EU, and has been followed by Croatia. It is important that people there know that we understand the experience that they have had which has led to their being so firmly committed to the principle of European co-operation.
I am also glad that the EU has learned lessons from that process of preparation and enlargement. There have been numerous references, with regard to Slovakia, and, later, Bulgaria and Romania, to insufficient preparation before accession and how those countries would implement their verbal commitments, particularly on justice and home affairs. I think that those lessons have been learnt in the way the process has been conducted with Croatia.
We had a good Second Reading debate, in which I was pleased to participate, and a very good Committee stage today. The ghost of Simon de Montfort has hovered over the Chamber at numerous points. My historical hero, however, is not Simon de Montfort but Gilbert de Clare, another Frenchman. As I am sure hon. Members know—certainly, the Minister knows it well—he built Caerphilly castle. Gilbert de Clare, an Englishman by adoption, a Welshman by conquest and a Norman by lineage, well personifies the need for us to learn the lessons of the past and to work together in European co-operation.
We had a good debate, particularly on Second Reading, on free movement. I am glad that hon. Members tabled their amendments on the Floor of the House so we could debate them properly. The issue of free movement of peoples is a concern to our constituents—let us be absolutely clear about that. These issues cannot be swept under the carpet. We have to debate them honestly, fairly and rationally, and I believe that we have done so. I am pleased that the Government have opted for the maximum transitional period on the free movement of labour from Croatia.
We also had a good debate on whether there should be a delay in agreeing to the accession of Croatia, and whether it would be appropriate to abide by the recommendation of the European Scrutiny Committee that we should ensure that all the i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed before we move towards the accession of Croatia. I was glad to hear the categorical assurance the Minister for Europe gave a moment ago. I am pleased to hear that that in part echoes the views of the European Commissioner responsible, Mr Füle. The Croatian Government have to be complimented on the strength of the commitments they have given. There is no doubt in my mind that they are not hollow words. They mean what they say and will introduce all the necessary measures asked of them in the coming months.
We are moving towards the end of this process, but I believe that enlargement remains a central driving force of the EU. I hope that when Croatia becomes a member of the European Union on 1 July 2013, it will be not simply a country marking the end of a process, but a staging post. I hope that the agenda will move forward with regard to Iceland, and to Turkey, although there are significant difficulties with those negotiations. I hope, too, that for the western Balkans, the negotiations and discussions leading to membership will gather momentum. I am concerned that things are not so positive with regard to Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nevertheless, I hope that there will be progress, as I hope there will be with other countries, particularly Serbia and Montenegro.
Finally, as the Minister for Europe correctly said, in some ways it is significant that the other week, the former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for taking bribes from two foreign countries. That would be a difficult and traumatic experience for any country. It shows, on the one hand, that work remains to be done in Croatia on reforms and tackling corruption, but on the other hand, it shows the determination there to ensure that these abuses and crimes are tackled effectively, strongly and quickly. It is a clear indication that Croatia is well on its way to becoming a successful Member of the EU, and I hope that this country will continue to do whatever it can to ensure that that process comes to fruition.
Martin Horwood
I congratulate the Minister and his team on shepherding this small but potentially tricky Bill through the House so far—assuming nothing goes wrong in the closing minutes. The debate has been well conducted: it has been mature and thoughtful, including from the ultramontane Benches of the Conservative party behind me. Having said that, I think the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) slightly lost the plot by appearing to compare the EU with the Yugoslavia of Slobodan Milosevic. I think that most people’s reading of Yugoslav history would be that during that violent period the Balkans suffered not from too much liberal internationalism, but from too much conservative nationalism.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
My hon. Friend is being too modern. I was comparing it with the Yugoslavia of Tito.
Martin Horwood
Okay, but the violence broke out some time after Tito’s death. It was the explosion of nationalism at that point which contributed to the violence. The point is that Tito did not implement the proper freedoms and democracy in the way that western Europe recognised, and that allowed for the explosion of nationalism. I am not claiming that Tito was a liberal.
Jacob Rees-Mogg
That is the whole point. The fact that Tito enforced a false union that people did not want led to exactly what the EU is now trying to stop. That is the argument: if we squeeze people into a situation they do not like, it will end unpleasantly. Regardless of the comparisons, though, we agree on the broad principle.
Martin Horwood
At the risk of deviating into a discussion about Croatian history, I would say that some of the nationalist tendencies, particularly in Croatia, dated from well back into the second world war. It was the overhang of nationalisms that had been around for 100 years and more that exploded, whereas the spirit of liberal internationalism, which could be characterised by EU membership, is more likely to provide a peaceful avenue out of such conflict in the future.
I shall return to the subject at hand, as I am sure you would want me to do, Mr Deputy Speaker. By and large, this has been a thoughtful and considered debate without some of the unhelpful grandstanding we occasionally see on EU business. I hope that that sets a precedent for future discussion of EU business.
On the Irish protocol, the Bill sets an important precedent. It is a model of how a pro-European country can nevertheless adopt a flexible and pragmatic approach to European competences and powers, and—to put it the other way around—shows that we do not have to be anti-European or xenophobic and nationalistic to win what might be regarded as concessions and special considerations from fellow European Governments. That is a model that the UK, in particular, should bear in mind over the coming months and years.
On the main substance of the Bill, which is Croatian accession, the accession process has provided an enormously important opportunity for Croatia to develop its own democracy and its approach to justice and home affairs issues. For Britain and other European countries, it offers the opportunity to form an ever-stronger partnership with Croatia, including an opportunity for British investment, jobs, business and, in due course, perhaps for British migration to Croatia, as we discussed in Committee. However, it is clear that there is still work to be done in Croatia. I am sure that the day it was confirmed that Croatia was in full compliance with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was an important and historic one, but it did not go down entirely well with the Croatian public. There are still political and legislative hurdles to be overcome in Croatia.
Bob Stewart
I support the hon. Gentleman absolutely on that point. There are still people living in Croatia who need to be brought before a court of law, and I hope very much that that will happen.
Martin Horwood
The hon. and gallant Gentleman makes an important point of which he obviously has expert knowledge.
It is a testament to the hard work of European and Croatian officials and Ministers that so much progress has been made—indeed, it is really a testament to the capability of the European Union accession process to improve people’s lives. I would express some regret that Croatia’s border disputes with Slovenia, a European Union nation, and other, non-European Union Balkan nations have not been fully resolved in advance of accession. In that respect, we do not seem to have entirely learnt the lesson of Cyprus. I hope that in future European Governments will start to try to insist that, as part of the accession process, any outstanding border disputes should be fully resolved before accession takes place. That will be important for the other Balkan nations, let alone for more distant and even more challenging situations in countries such as Georgia, if their aspirations to European Union membership ever became a serious process. It is important to use the opportunities that accession offers us to resolve disputes—border and territorial disputes in particular—and make progress on all those fronts.
Bringing yet another nation into the family of the European Union also helps to fulfil the positive vision of a continent united not really by rules, bureaucracy and treaties, but by values—by freedom and democracy. Croatia’s 20th century was as troubled as any country’s in Europe, with three major periods of conflict and bloodshed. It is something to celebrate that its 21st century is going to see it taking its rightful place in a stable federation of free democracies. We will all strive together as Europeans to make Europe a place of peace, freedom and sustainable prosperity. It is a matter of pride that Croatia is taking its place in that process.
Graham Stringer
Like the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg), I rise with unexpected and particular joy, because I think this is the first time the Whips have asked me to make a speech about Europe. This is not a usual occurrence, and I doubt they will be pleased with what I have to say.
Like the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) and others, one cannot but wish Croatia well. It has had a terrible and bloody history within living memory, and I certainly wish it well in its progress towards democracy.
I want to make two main points. The first is about the relationship of this country and this Government with Europe and what Croatia’s accession means in the light of that policy, and the second is about the details of its accession. In relationship to the European Union as a whole, the Government have shown themselves in this debate to be quite schizophrenic. My hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) and the Minister for Europe—I thank him for his courtesy on Second Reading and in Committee, and for answering the questions I asked—offered an analysis of the European Union that might have been appropriate in 1972 and 1975, and even in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the iron curtain. That European Union was described as a free market of sovereign democratic countries coming together under the full freedoms of a European Union in which democracy had been pooled. I have to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly, however, that the concept of pooled democracy is, in philosophy, a category mistake. If we pool sovereignty, we lose sovereignty. The concept of pooling is not consistent with the concept of sovereignty.
The view exists that the European Union is progressing and supporting democracy in areas that were at war or previously had no democracy, and that free trade will take care of everything else, but we can see what is actually happening in Europe. We hear the Prime Minister telling us that he is going to fight until his last breath, almost, over the European budget. We hear that the European bureaucrats and some of the European countries are living in a parallel universe. We can see that the creation of the euro has led to deflation, unemployment and a lack of democracy in the eurozone, and we can see the Brussels bureaucracy wanting to take more control for itself.
In fact, we can see a European Union in crisis, and it is difficult for this country to know exactly how to respond to that issue. I believe that, rather than accepting the Panglossian view that all is well within the EU, it is time to be seriously awkward. Perhaps the Bill presents one of many opportunities for us to be that. The European Union is going in a very different direction from the one in which the Prime Minister, the Minister for Europe and those on my Front Bench want. We want to bring more powers back to the House of Commons and to the Government. We want to see more of a free trade association and less power going to the European bureaucracy. We certainly do not want a fiscal union, a banking union, or the much closer integration that seems likely within the eurozone. That would present a serious threat to the City of London, which, depending on the state of the economy, can account for about 15% of our economy. If we do not want those things to happen, we need to state clearly where we want to go. I do not believe that we want to go—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. I have given the hon. Gentleman some latitude, but it would be useful if he mentioned Croatia and Ireland now and again. We are debating Third Reading of the Bill.
Graham Stringer
I am grateful for your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker.
In looking at what was happening generally in the European Union, I was simply asking, in relation to Croatia’s accession, whether we should continue to adopt an attitude that might have been appropriate 30 years ago but probably is not now. If we want to get some sovereignty back, and if we want to pay less into the European Union, we should negotiate hard at every opportunity, as the hon. Member for North East Somerset said. I do not see the point of being communautaire and good Europeans at one table, then going into the next room and saying that we are not good Europeans and that our objective is completely different. Every treaty and negotiation presents an opportunity to put forward our view.
I also have to say that the Conservative Members who moved amendments were in a minority, as there is a consensus in the House on Europe. It is worrying for our democracy, however, that that consensus is so at odds with public opinion outside, which is profoundly sceptical about deepening and enlarging the European Union, and cries out for its own say in a referendum—not on a specific issue such as Croatian accession, but on basic principles such as the public voting us in to pass laws and to represent them in this place. Should we really have passed so much power and sovereignty to the European Union?
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) made an excellent speech about the potential impact of the accession of Croatia? Unusually, however, there was a flaw in my hon. Friend’s argument when he compared the accession of Croatia to joining the Carlton club. The Carlton club is a fine institution for people of a certain political leaning to enjoy good company, but all the members pay into the club to join the club. It appears to me, however, that the only people willing to join the European Union are those who are paid to join it. What sort of a club is it when one has to be paid to join?
Graham Stringer
I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s greater knowledge of the Carlton club than I have or am ever likely to have in future. My guess is, though, that his analogy is accurate.
Let me finish on the detail of the Croatian accession. I think there is a fundamental problem in the Government’s arguments. I have good will and everybody should have good will towards Croatia, but it is absolutely clear that the country does not meet the criteria for entry at present. What we are being asked, then, is to believe that if we agree to the treaty now, changes will take place.
There is some history to draw upon, and not just the mistakes that have been mentioned throughout the debate in respect of Romania and Bulgaria. Countries sometimes reform and improve, yet go backwards. Hungary is a clear example, because it is moving away from the rule of law. If it had been carrying on as it is at present it is doubtful that it would have been allowed into the European Union, so to ask the House to agree to something that does not comply with the criteria now on the basis that it will be compliant in the future is, I believe, an act of faith and optimism that is not justified.
I leave Members with this thought. We have had debates in Westminster Hall and in this Chamber about the benefits and disbenefits of the European arrest warrant. In agreeing to Croatia becoming part of the European Union, allowing a country that currently has very poor judicial standards and a very poor judiciary, albeit one that it is trying to improve, we are giving that country the power to arrest British citizens very quickly. I worry about that. It can be problematic enough in France, Germany and other EU countries when people are arrested in this country for things that are not against this country’s law, but those countries at least have well established, albeit different, judicial systems to our own. Croatia, however, does not have that, so it might well leave some of our citizens vulnerable to the European arrest warrant.
I wish Croatia well. There is clearly a huge consensus here for its joining coming the European Union, but I worry about our relationship with the EU and I also worry that Croatia, when it becomes a full member, will not have met all the criteria.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
I do not need to declare my membership of the Carlton club, but I feel I should.
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.
Growth and Infrastructure Bill (Ways and Means (No.2)
(11 years, 11 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
I beg to move,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Growth and Infrastructure Bill, it is expedient to authorise provision for, or in connection with, altering the dates on which non-domestic rating lists are to be compiled.
Following the debate on the Bill’s Second Reading on 5 November, the House agreed to a ways and means resolution that authorised “the charging of fees”
and
“the recovery of costs by virtue of the Act”,
and made
“provision for the inclusion in licences under the Gas Act 1986 of conditions requiring payments to be made to holders of licences under that Act.”
Subsequently, an oversight was identified: the resolution does not cover the Bill in its entirety. Additional provision is therefore needed to cover clause 22, which is entitled
“Postponement of compilation of rating lists to 2017”.
As the House is aware, the Public Bill Committee is currently undertaking line-by-line consideration of the Bill. I have therefore moved a supplementary motion to ensure that clause 22 is covered by a ways and means resolution before the Committee reaches the clause.
The parliamentary draftsman has apologised for the fact that the oversight occurred. It was not noticed by the House, or by those who advise us. Let me add the Government’s apologies for not having identified the omission before the House agreed the resolution on 5 November. I hope that it will now agree to the supplementary resolution.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
We are having this debate because the Minister has had to move a second ways and means motion. The first was clearly a rushed and shambolic effort. It was rushed and shambolic because it accompanies a Bill that is rushed and shambolic. Tabling the motion when the Public Bill Committee is currently sitting does not strike me as an entirely sensible or logical way of conducting the business of the House.
The Growth and Infrastructure Bill is simply an eclectic assembly of clauses that constitute a knee-jerk response by the Government to their failure to support the economic recovery. The fact that this disappointing and potentially damaging Bill and associated secondary measures were thrown together in a hurry is borne out by the huge number of consultations on the Bill that have been churned out by the Department for Communities and Local Government in its apparent haste to legislate for growth.
In recent weeks, the Minister and his colleagues have published a number of consultations on major changes to legislation and planning processes, many of which were published just hours, or in some cases minutes, before they were due to be scrutinised. The consultation on the extension of permitted development rights was published just minutes before the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government was due to take questions in the House. The consultation on planning performance and the planning guarantee was published the morning on which the measures in it were due to be scrutinised by Parliament. Yesterday, the Department chose to publish the consultations entitled
“Nationally significant infrastructure planning: expanding and improving the ‘one stop shop’ approach for consents”
and
“Nationally significant infrastructure planning: extending the regime to business and commercial projects”.
Both those hugely important and potentially controversial changes have already been included in the Bill.
One issue on which the Government have yet to consult—although perhaps they will do so immediately before Members are due to debate it—is clause 22, which will postpone the business rates revaluation. It is that aspect of the Bill to which the redrafted Ways and Means resolution relates, and which—as the Minister explained—the previous attempt did not consider. I am therefore concerned about what else Ministers may have neglected to consider. The Department has bandied about a figure suggesting how many it thinks will win and lose as a result of this postponement, but the British Property Federation, the British Council of Shopping Centres and the Association of Convenience Stores are just a few of the organisations that have questioned the logic. I would like the Minister to reassure us that he is sure of the impact that this measure will have. The impact assessment, another seemingly hurried document from the Minister’s Department, does little to allay my fears in that regard. It does not properly set out the impact, let alone assess it, on that or a number of other key issues in the Bill. Does the Minister accept that the rush for legislation will do nothing to promote growth but may do much other damage? The Opposition do not intend to reject this Ways and Means resolution, but we question the manner in which it has had to be introduced today.
Michael Fallon
With the leave of the House, may I thank the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) for what she said? However, I suggest to her that she is trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. The Ways and Means resolution was agreed at the time of Second Reading and no issues about it were raised then. The parliamentary draftsmen and women, and the Officers of this House, who prepare numerous and varied resolutions that enable us to adhere to the procedures of this House, have noticed an error in this instance and have moved speedily to correct it. This relatively minor oversight will cost us only a few minutes to rectify. She is opposed to the Bill, but Government Members make no apology for getting on with the Bill. We are anxious to see the economy grow and to see more investment in infrastructure—she is not, which is why she voted against the Bill in the first place.
Question put and agreed to.
Warrington (Atlantic Gateway)
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
Before I got to my feet, I was informed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall), who is very strong on these topics, that I have until 7.30 pm for this debate. May I reassure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the Minister that I should be able to complete it in advance of that?
I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the strategic road network around Warrington, but before I do so may I give some context to Warrington’s position over the past 100 years? According to the Centre for Cities, Warrington has been the fastest growing UK city, bar none. We have the sixth-highest earnings in the UK, and a large part of the town’s prosperity is driven by our transport infrastructure. The town sits between the M6, the M62 and the M56. More relevant to this debate is the fact that the town is bisected by two significant waterways: the River Mersey and the Manchester ship canal, which moves between Manchester and Liverpool.
I wish to talk a little about the ship canal, because it has some particular impacts on Warrington. There are four crossings in my constituency, three of which are A roads. Every crossing is a swing bridge, which means that each time a boat goes down the ship canal the bridge has to swing and the traffic is stopped for a period of up to 20 minutes. There have been a number of phases to the interaction between the ship canal and the road network. When the canal was first built, many boats used it and there were few cars around. At that time, the Manchester Ship Canal Act 1885 was passed, giving the owners of the canal the right, in perpetuity, to swing the bridge whenever they needed to do so. That was a sensible move as there were few cars around at the time. In the intervening period to the present day there has been a great growth in the number of cars but a much reduced number of boats. Although the bridge still swings, causing quite a bit of disruption, it does so only once or twice a day. That is broadly manageable, even though there can be a 20-minute delay each time. In future, however, we will have more cars and more boats and the consequences are potentially quite severe for the residents of the south part of Warrington. I want to discuss the causes and ask the Minister to give some undertakings on how we can mitigate the problems.
Over the next decade, two strategic projects will affect the area. One is the Atlantic gateway project and the other is the Mersey gateway bridge. Both are very important for the north-west and I support them, as what brings prosperity to the north-west brings prosperity to Warrington, but I am very concerned that the combined effect of the projects will lead to the unintended consequence of a significant increase of traffic—as I said, to more boats and cars.
First, let me talk about the Mersey gateway bridge. This is a significant civil engineering project and will replace the Runcorn bridge, which was built in 1961 and badly needs to be replaced. As I said, the project is important for the north-west but the new bridge will be a toll bridge and although the toll has not been set, the consequence will be that the traffic will be diverted through my constituency and Warrington as people take a detour. A public inquiry into the bridge three years ago found that the level of traffic diverted through Warrington would be sensitive to the amount of the toll. The range of extra traffic movements per day cited in the public inquiry was between 14,000 and 6,000 if the toll was lower. I shall return to the subject of tolls and what I would like the Minister to help us with.
Let me note in passing that another very significant civil engineering project is going on in the UK at the moment: the Forth road bridge in Edinburgh. One issue that I have a great deal of difficulty explaining to my constituents is why the Forth road bridge has no toll and is funded entirely from taxpayers’ money whereas the Mersey gateway bridge in the north-west of England will have a toll, causing some of the problems I am talking about in Warrington. Perhaps the Minister can address that in his response.
The consequence of the Mersey gateway project will be more cars, but the consequence of the second strategic project over the next decade will be more boats on the canal: it is the Atlantic gateway project, a huge and very welcome private sector investment in the corridor between Manchester and Liverpool. Something in the order of £14 billion will be spent and estimates suggest that in excess of 100,000 jobs will be created over the next two or three decades. In broad terms, the container traffic that goes into Felixstowe and Southampton will, we hope, go to Liverpool and a great deal of it will come down the ship canal, partly to Port Warrington, and much of it to Salford and out on to the rail network. I am describing one part of the overall programme and it is hard not to welcome a shift in freight from road to rail and barge.
The problem for Warrington, however, is that the project will increase by an undetermined amount the traffic on the canal. As I said, the swing bridges currently move once or twice a day but they could move up to five times a day, or possibly more. Each movement causes 20 to 30 minutes of delay to traffic, with a significant impact on the south part of the town. I said that our prosperity was to a large extent built on traffic flows. The village of Stockton Heath is very affluent and has a large number of independent shops, but when the traffic stacks up they have to close their doors because of the fumes and everything that goes with that traffic. I worked in Bangkok for part of my life, and one never knew how long a road journey would be—it could be 5 minutes or 55 minutes—and the south of Warrington now has some of those traffic characteristics.
Prosperity and economic viability are not the only considerations. There are problems for the emergency services—fire engines and ambulances get stuck. Ambulances face a particular problem as the hospital in Warrington is north of the ship canal. There are large population centres south of the canal, and if ambulances cannot get through, public safety issues arise. The two large and important projects have unintended consequences, and I am very keen that they are mitigated.
So far Warrington borough council has developed memorandums of understanding with Peel Holdings on the canal movements, with some sensible measures in that regard, and with Halton borough council in respect of the bridge. However, we are tinkering at the boundaries and trying to mitigate what is unmitigable. I have a number of suggestions, to which I hope the Minister will respond. The problem will be with us over the next decade, it will need managing at various points, and I am keen to get it on to his radar screen this afternoon.
First, with reference to the bridge, I mentioned that my constituents do not understand why it is to be tolled, when the only other bridge in the UK to be part of a significant project—the Forth road bridge—will be free. Can the Minister give assurances on the level of toll that will be implemented by Halton borough council? There should be no ambiguity about the fact that the toll is intended only to pay for the bridge as quickly as possible, given the shortfall of funding provided, and that no moneys will flow to Halton or Warrington borough council for other schemes. As I said, the amount of traffic that will be diverted through Warrington is very sensitive to that toll, and £1 is much better than £2. I hope the Minister can give us that assurance.
Secondly, with reference to boat movements on the canal, we are looking to upgrade the bridge mechanisms and to have better sharing of information about those movements. Will the Minister give his backing to the request that has been made to Peel Holdings to group movements of boats and to move them at night, when there is obviously less traffic? That is a reasonable compromise. There is little justification for boats coming through in an ad hoc way during the day. Thus far there has been no agreement on that. One of the reasons is that, as I mentioned earlier, there is a statutory right in the Manchester Ship Canal Act 1885 for the owner of the ship canal to swing those bridges whenever they wish. If we are not able to get the matter resolved in a way that works for the people of Warrington as well as the wider community in the north-west, will the Minister consider amending the Act, for example to give Warrington borough council, through the planning system or some other mechanism, some input into ship movements and some statutory control of the devastation that could potentially be caused in the south part of the town?
The third aspect that I would like the Minister to consider is the medium-term solution of a road upgrade bypassing the very constricted part of Warrington called the Bridge Foot area and joining the M56 to the western parts of Warrington without going through the Bridge Foot area. To do that, work would first be required to a piece of rail infrastructure called the Arpley Chord. There has been a dialogue between the Department for Transport and Warrington borough council on this. It was proposed as a potential project for the Chancellor’s statement last year but it failed to make the cut. I would like to put it on the record that we are lobbying hard for that. Any input or guidance the Minister can offer on that would be most welcome.
Finally, both schemes that are causing problems in my constituency, the Atlantic gateway and the Mersey gateway bridge, are good schemes that are necessary and should go forward. What I am asking is that collectively we do what we can to ensure that we do not undermine the prosperity and safety of the residents of Warrington as we pursue the schemes.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to have the opportunity to speak for over two hours on this exciting subject. I shall of course resist that temptation, just as my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) did. I congratulate him on securing the debate. He spoke this afternoon about two or three really important opportunities for growth in his constituency, and in doing so he spoke for Warrington, its people and its industry.
The two big opportunities my hon. Friend spoke about are the Mersey gateway and the Atlantic gateway. I will respond first to some of his points on the Mersey gateway crossing. It is this Government who have been able to agree and secure delivery of that vital piece of infrastructure after years of planning. Our agreed funding package includes tolling, which is in line with other large pieces of infrastructure across major estuaries and rivers. In his letter setting out his decision on the scheme in December 2010, the Secretary of State for Transport agreed with the inspector that it would be necessary for the promoter to charge tolls for the use of the new Mersey gateway bridge and the existing Silver Jubilee bridge, both to provide revenue for construction of the project and to avoid unacceptable levels of congestion on the existing bridge.
My hon. Friend challenged me to explain why there will be tolling. The issue was of course covered in the public inquiry and is consistent with the inspector’s recommendations. He also challenged me about the fact that estuary crossings in Scotland are free of tolls. As he knows, and as I am sure he has explained to his constituents, that is a matter for the Scottish Government, not this Government.
My hon. Friend also asked about the tolling regime. Let me put it on the record—he might or might not be aware of this—that the Secretary of State has approved the following orders that provide for tolling for new and existing bridges: an order under the Transport and Works Act 1992 in respect of the new bridge; and a confirmation of the road user charging scheme under the Transport Act 2000 in respect of the existing bridge. Those two Acts specify the range of the tolls that can be charged. Although tolls can be revised so that they are lower than the specified range, they cannot be increased above it. For cars and light vans, the range is set at £1 to £2.50, at 2008 prices. The tolls can of course be varied over time, according to the retail prices index. I hope that clarifies his queries about tolling. I think it sets out clearly why the toll is there and the range that can be used.
I absolutely understand my hon. Friend’s point that a toll set at the wrong level would have the potential to divert traffic via Warrington, but I am assured that both local authorities—Halton and Warrington borough councils—are alive to the issue and have committed to holding regular discussions on how that can be most effectively managed once the new bridge is opened. I urge him to speak to them as passionately as he has spoken today to ensure that they bring the tolling levels in at the lower end of the range, or even seek to use the discount.
Turning to the Atlantic gateway proposals led by Peel Ports, I agree that they constitute an imaginative strategic package and have great potential to contribute to regional regeneration across the north-west. However, it is fair to say that elements of the package are at various stages of design and elaboration. Some have planning clearance and some do not. I should therefore preface my remarks by making it clear that in responding to the debate, nothing I say should be construed as prejudicing any future decisions of a planning or licensing authority that may follow as part of the package that will undoubtedly come forth in due course.
That does not mean that we cannot take a wider view. As my hon. Friend said, it is a decidedly good thing that the developer, which already operates on a large scale, is able to see synergies between transport, office development, science, media and other parts of the regional industry mix, and to formulate a joined-up view. I am very pleased to see the developer and the local enterprise partnership doing that in the north-west.
The Atlantic gateway covers the area from Liverpool city region in the west to Manchester city region in the east. The Atlantic gateway and some of the schemes that follow from it have huge potential to put this part of the north-west back into the premier league of world economic powerhouses, as is surely fitting for an area that was at the heart of this country’s prosperity in years gone by. At the heart of the proposition is the connectivity that is being driven forward by the Atlantic gateway board in seeking to maximise road, rail and shipping assets in the region. I am delighted to say that this Government, yet again, have been able to provide significant investment in priority projects. My hon. Friend mentioned the Ordsall chord, and I am sure that he would also want to recognise the benefits of rail electrification.
One of the key transport assets for the Atlantic gateway is the unique port corridor provided by the River Mersey and the Manchester ship canal, which links the thriving port of Liverpool with port facilities in Salford and Manchester, some 35 miles inland. More than 40 million tonnes of freight passes through the docks. Mersey ports is one of the most significant and important ports in the UK and a key asset both nationally and locally. The plan proposes significant investment by Peel Ports in facilities and infrastructure to revitalise and utilise the whole of the port and the ship canal. That should provide a world-class port and logistics corridor. However, with this growth come the ramifications and impacts that my hon. Friend mentioned. Port growth is hugely beneficial, but the benefit needs to be enjoyed by all, and several potential impacts need to be managed. While the scheme can take a number of lorries off the road, it can also, as he said, lead to a number of impacts on local traffic.
I understand the importance of this issue to Warrington. My hon. Friend referred extensively to the movements of the swing bridges. In previous discussions with me, he has indicated that his constituency office is on one side of one of the swing bridges and he has sometimes been trapped on the other side, delaying him for some considerable time. I am sure that he meant that only as an illustration of the frustrations felt by local people, because he is right that the swing bridges are vital to Warrington. They provide strategic road access to the town centre and are therefore vital to the economic prosperity of the borough. It is therefore right, in planning and looking forward, that the increased traffic on the canal could be brought together and moved at night. That is not a matter for the Government; it is for the local authorities to work on it with Peel Ports to ensure that the increased benefits, in economic and transport terms, are secured for all the local population.
I am delighted to hear that Mersey ports and Warrington borough council are working together to develop proposals for a memorandum of understanding. I urge the local authority to consider my hon. Friend’s remarks about timing, frequency and the ability to group some of the traffic coming down the canal to ensure that the disruption that is being faced by him and his constituents can be minimised. I understand that significant progress is being made. There is more to be done, but none the less the issue has been recognised and a solution is being found. Ultimately, as I said a moment ago, it is undoubtedly an issue for local transport.
My hon. Friend tried to catch me off guard and tempt me, as Members often do in the week before an autumn statement, to make commitments that are way above my pay grade and that can be made only by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. My hon. Friend made a plea for the Arpley chord, which is, of course, quite distinct from the Ordsall chord, and I am sure that his remarks will be read in the Treasury tomorrow. He said that he made a similar plea last year and I wish him well in continuing to speak up for his constituents on that matter.
Like my hon. Friend, we recognise the importance of joined-up thinking for transport matters locally. That is why the Department for Transport has been at the forefront of the Government’s drive for more localised decision-making in transport. We have announced the intention to give local communities and local business more control over decisions and, more importantly, more control over the budgets for some of their major local transport schemes. That is already having an impact up and down the country, and it will continue to do so.
My hon. Friend has raised some significant issues on behalf of his constituents and I am grateful to him for doing so. I hope that my remarks about tolling were helpful to him. Warrington stands to benefit conspicuously from the two major developments. It is important, as he has said, that any adverse aspects are mitigated, but I am pleased that work has started and I am sure that he will continue to raise issues if they do not come to a satisfactory conclusion.
Question put and agreed to.
Petition
Ridge Fire Station (Hastings)
Westminster Hall
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Humber Economy (Fiscal Support)
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr David Amess (in the Chair)
Hon. Members will have noticed new clock displays in the Chamber. The top display is the current time, as before. When a speech is not being timed, the bottom display will show the time it started, also as before. If it becomes necessary to introduce a limit on speeches, the bottom display will change to show the time remaining to the Member who currently has the floor. As in the House, the display can award an extra minute for each of the first two interventions in a speech, but there will be no time limit today.
Alan Johnson (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
It is a pleasure, Mr Amess, to serve under your wise and sagacious stewardship. On this miserable, damp morning, I thought we might begin with some poetry. One of my predecessors as MP for Hull was Andrew Marvell, who wrote the following line in his most famous poem, “To His Coy Mistress”:
“I by the tide of Humber would complain”.
I realise that I am addressing not a coy mistress, but the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), and I am not here today to complain. This debate is not about disagreements with the Government—not that disagreements do not exist, but that is for another time and place. This debate is about the contribution that Hull city region, which is centred on the Humber estuary and embraces the four unitary local authorities of Hull, East Riding, North East Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire, makes to the UK, and our determination to forge a new economic future for our sub-region. It is a debate about working with the Government’s stated policies, not against them.
MPs have worked across the political divide and the geographic divide of the River Humber to establish the Humber local enterprise partnership. We are extremely grateful to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark), who is still the Minister for cities, for his assistance in securing a pan-Humber local enterprise partnership last year. Historical mutual suspicion had always divided the north and south banks, thus ensuring that the huge economic advantages of working together across the estuary were never realised. We failed in the past collectively to market the area, its capabilities and its opportunities, engaging instead in internal competition that meant that effort and resources were not used to best effect.
It was recognised a long time ago that the best way to build a bridge across the Humber was to build a bridge across the Humber, but the ever-increasing cost of using it undermined its benefits. We are grateful for the help we received from Her Majesty’s Treasury and the Department for Transport in our campaign to halve the Humber bridge tolls. The subsequent radical changes required to the composition of the Humber bridge board and the way in which future tolls will be set will be established in the Humber Bridge Bill, due to be published this week.
The Government have recognised the potential of our sub-region by establishing not one, but two enterprise zones on the Humber, one of which, at 534 hectares, is the biggest in the country. While I am in the unusual position of praising the Government, let me add that the Treasury is to be commended for abandoning its plans to impose a 20% VAT rate on static caravans. Given that 95% of the caravan manufacturing sector is based in East Yorkshire, that was a welcome decision, which almost makes amends for the trauma caused by proposing it in the first place.
We are determined to build on those advances, and to move away from a culture of dependency and to take on more responsibility for our own destiny in accordance with the Government’s localism agenda. We are fortunate to have secured the services of Lord Haskins of Skidby as chairman of our local enterprise partnership. He and his colleagues are in the process of producing a five-year plan for the Humber. However, Chris Haskins realises more than anyone that our success will depend on delivery rather than documents, and on tangible achievements rather than worthy aspirations.
Let me talk a little about our sub-region. The Humber is the largest trading estuary in the UK and the fourth largest in Europe, with a chemicals and processing sector worth £6 billion a year and international expertise in ports and logistics. It has a world-class university; it has an international airport, and, contrary to myths about its geographical isolation, it is within a four-hour drive of 40 million consumers and more than 60% of the country’s manufacturing capacity. Colleagues will no doubt focus on the many attributes of this beautiful part of the world and the opportunities that exist there, but I want to focus on four specific issues where the Government need to concentrate their attention.
First and foremost is the new economic opportunity presented by the emerging renewables sector. The Humber is at the forefront in developing biomass power generation. It has significant potential for tide and wave power, but offshore wind power provides the most significant and immediate advantages. Siemens chose the Humber as its preferred location to site a multi-million pound investment in a manufacturing and final assembly plant, primarily because of our strategic location within 12 steaming hours of the large round 2 offshore wind farms and the three huge round 3 zones at Hornsea, Dogger and Anglia.
Green Port in Hull has existing and planned port infrastructure with deep-water access next to large available development sites. If Siemens comes to the Humber, it will bring tier 1 suppliers and begin to populate the renewables manufacturing cluster that can transform our economy and that of the UK. With the added advantages of the Able marine energy park on the south bank, Grimsby’s well established operations and maintenance hub and the marine research expertise at Hull university make the Humber uniquely well suited to offshore wind and able to attract other manufacturing companies to the area.
The Minister will know that, although local institutions and politicians have done all they can to finalise the Siemens investment, we have yet to move from memorandum of understanding to signed contract, the main stumbling block being a perceived lack of commitment by the coalition Government to the long-term support that will be necessary if substantial sums are to be invested by companies that operate globally and have plenty of alternatives to manufacturing in this country. If Siemens does not come to Hull, it will not come to the UK, and Germany or Denmark will be the likely beneficiaries.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change takes the lead on energy policy, but the Treasury has been extolling the virtues of shale gas to a degree that has concerned potential investors in renewables and led them to believe that a dash for gas will downgrade the commitment to renewables. We understand from press reports that the Energy Bill will be published this week. We hope that its contents will give the necessary reassurance to Siemens and other potential investors. We suggest that its publication be accompanied by a high level of engagement by the Chancellor and his ministerial team personally to reassure the sector in general and Siemens in particular of the Treasury’s commitment to the goals set out in the climate change legislation and to providing the means to ensure that they are realised.
The second specific issue relates to the fact that the problems facing us in the Humber area are more economic than social. It is true that since the collapse of the fishing industry, Hull and Grimsby have struggled to cope with the social consequences, but it is equally true that few companies came to the Humber to take advantage of the large pool of surplus labour that was created. It is also the case that, as far as I am aware, not a single Department has ever been relocated to the Humber sub-region.
As the recent, splendid report by Michael Heseltine proposed, more Government work needs to be relocated to the north, and our city region should be a prime destination. However, as well as relocating Government work, the coalition needs to devolve public funds. If the commitment to localism is genuine, there must be a recognition that with the LEP in place we are better able than Whitehall to allocate financial support for skills, welfare to work, regeneration and other important issues, such as transport.
I understand the importance of city deals, and the Humber LEP will put forward a bid in the next few weeks, but the Government need to be more radical in their approach to localism. This is an over-centralised country and if regional development agencies are not to be the solution, LEPs are the only show in town. I believe that the best way forward is for the Government to conduct some pilot schemes for devolving money to those who know how to spend it more effectively to deliver the outcomes required for meaningful growth, and the Humber LEP is keen to be one of the pilot locations.
The third specific area is something that is of great interest to the right hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells in his capacity as cities Minister. For the city region to work effectively, Hull, as the 10th largest city in England, needs to be given the same opportunities as the other nine. The Core Cities Group is understandably reluctant to admit new members and thus dilute its effectiveness in lobbying the Government, but Hull and the Humber can benefit from the advantages afforded to core cities. Indeed, it would be perverse not to provide assistance on the basis of need, rather than on whether a city is part of a club, membership of which is outside the Government’s control. The tightly drawn boundaries around the city of Kingston upon Hull are one reason why it suffers in some comparisons with cities where the leafy suburbs are included in the city boundary—that is practically all of them—but that must never be allowed to become an excuse for poor performance, particularly in education.
As the Heseltine report rightly points out, a factor holding our economy back is the absence of a meaningful economic focus on the sub-region. That does not require our city boundaries to be changed; it requires a genuine commitment to the cities at the heart of all city regions, rather than just those in the Core Cities Group. We are keen to find innovative economic models, perhaps built around tax increment financing, that could create revenue streams to increase Hull’s economic asset allocation.
The final issue that we want the Government to focus on is the investment in our transport links that is so essential to economic growth. In 2010, the Government accepted that the case for addressing the problems on the A63 on the north bank and the A160 on the south bank had been made. Although those schemes were not affordable in the reduced highways investment programme announced at the last comprehensive spending review, we received assurances that they would be among the first to be addressed in the next spending round. Hull MPs were due to meet the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), regarding the A63 today, but the Department has cancelled the meeting for the second time. Given the importance of transport infrastructure, we trust that that meeting will be given sufficient priority and that it will be rearranged quickly.
As far as the rail network is concerned, the pressing need to electrify the line to Hull beyond Selby has been raised with Ministers and requires urgent attention. There may well be an opportunity for some private sector funding if we can get the prospect of electrification on the agenda either by devolving some of those matters to sub-regional level, as I have mentioned, or by moving more quickly to address those issues from Whitehall.
I have only touched on the Humber LEP’s potential to drive the kind of economic growth that our country needs. I have not mentioned, for instance, the huge potential for developing our strengths in digital gaming, content creation and the creative sectors. With the first 4G wireless network in the country, strong existing skills provision and expertise on both banks of the Humber, we aim to release that potential, and the Minister will be relieved to hear that there is nothing that he needs to do to help us.
I have set out some areas where we require the Government’s help. Lord Heseltine’s report could have been written for sub-regions such as the Humber. His visit to the area obviously influenced some of his thinking and his basic analysis must be right. With devolved Administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and with a mayoral system in London, the north of England needs significant devolution to local enterprise partnerships so that economic development is tailored directly to the individual challenges and opportunities of our communities. The Chancellor commissioned the Heseltine report, and we would like to bring a deputation from the Humber LEP to talk to the cities Minister.
Time is of the essence. The Prime Minister told the CBI last week that he wants
“every Department in Whitehall to be a growth department.”
He compared our current industrial situation to being on a war footing. I have never known a time when the business community on the Humber has been more willing to engage with the challenges that we face, or when local authorities have been more innovative in seeking solutions to our problems. Local MPs are working together, cross-party and cross-Humber, like never before, but that will all be in danger of dissipating if we do not move swiftly to turn five-year plans into actual projects.
I started with Andrew Marvell, and I will end with his plea in “To His Coy Mistress”, by Humber’s tide. It is famous for the couplet:
“But at my back I always hear
Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;”
The debate is a plea to ride the chariot rather than be knocked down by it.
Mr David Amess (in the Chair)
The wind-ups will start at twenty to 11, and five colleagues wish to speak, so if my maths are correct, about 10 minutes each should do it.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess. I agree entirely with the compliments that the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) paid to you.
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing a debate on the Humber economy, particularly as my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) and I have put in three applications for such a debate. The right hon. Gentleman was the lucky one, so well done to him on that score.
The debate is on fiscal support for the Humber region, and there is no doubt that the sub-region needs support if it is to benefit from the great opportunities that present themselves. Such support can come from the Government or from Europe but, most significantly, it can come from private enterprise. I do not mind where it comes from; I am eager to provide jobs and growth for my constituents and the area more generally. The infrastructure that would be key to the area’s development is vital and, to a great extent, support for that would come from the taxpayer.
The right hon. Gentleman rightly points to opportunities from green energy, especially the renewable sector. However, I add one caveat: if we are to succeed with that, there must be Government support, but there are limits to the size of bills with which households and existing business can cope. My constituency contains a number of very intensive energy users who are—I shall not say “crippled”—finding things extremely difficult as a result of energy costs.
We must consider how we channel public sector money, and the right hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out the importance of the LEP. The two councils on the south bank showed good judgment by joining two LEPs. They recognised that although the Humber estuary may be key to the area’s economic development, considerable support is available by looking south into greater Lincolnshire, particularly in relation to food processing and tourism, which are important for the Cleethorpes area.
Lord Heseltine’s “No Stone Unturned” report, which has been referred to, highlights the role of LEPs. They will be absolutely key to future investment, but I have one or two concerns about them, in that they are, to a great extent, unaccountable. I strongly feel that public money should always be spent by accountable bodies, rather than anonymous quangos. Nevertheless, given that they harness the private and public sectors together, they have a key role.
I can speak only for the councils on the south bank, but I would make one criticism, particularly of North East Lincolnshire council, about consistency. There have been far too many changes of direction on what is important for the area’s economic regeneration. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) will know that we had the “Greater Grimsby” initiative, during which everything was promoted under that label, but that has been replaced by yet another initiative. We need a much more consistent approach. I commend the councils for working together much more closely. There were a few stumbling blocks when we were setting up the LEP, and I have to say that I have found it easier to work on a cross-party basis here than back in Humberside. Local rivalries need to be tamed if we are to work together.
I am concerned that Government initiatives place too much emphasis on cities. The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle pointed out the importance of city deals and city regions. They are important, and the idea of the city region and its trickle-down effect for the wider local economy is fine in principle, but I urge the Minister to consider the fact that provincial towns, such as Grimsby, Cleethorpes, Scunthorpe, Brigg and Goole, need support from the Government, because such support might be too concentrated on the core cities.
I have spoken on a number of occasions about the importance of local leadership, and I noticed that Lord Heseltine’s report spoke of its neutering. The LEP plan for the Humber says the region has experienced “under-investment” and “weak…leadership and governance”. I am in favour of broadening the talent available to local government through elected mayors, although I know that that notion will be cast aside by many. It was a mistake that cities did not take up the opportunity of encouraging their local communities to go for elected mayors because that has left a void, and the provincial towns and smaller cities might steal a march on the cities that rejected the concept—perhaps a brave local leadership might go for it, but I have my doubts. I note that Lord Heseltine is still a great advocate of that approach.
There is a danger that we could talk ourselves down. I recognise that there have been major blows to the area: significant job losses on the north bank in recent times, and the announcement three or four weeks ago of the closure of the Kimberly-Clark factory in my constituency—in Barton-upon-Humber—with up to 500 job losses. Although there have been major setbacks, we must also acknowledge the excellent opportunities that exist, and not only those in the renewables sector.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the potential Able UK investment in the south Humber energy park. That alone could produce upwards of 5,000 jobs, but 5,000 jobs in two or three years’ time is a very distant prospect for someone who has just lost their job at Kimberly-Clark or Comet. Two years’ time is 24 mortgage payments away for someone who has just been put on the redundancy heap, so support is urgently needed. I welcome the Government’s energetic support for the various taskforces set up following announcements such as those from Kimberly-Clark and Tata Steel in Scunthorpe.
We must not lose sight of our potential, however. When measured by tonnage, the Associated British Ports Grimsby and Immingham dock complex is the largest in the UK. It is a major engine of the local economy and ABP has plans for future investment. I have mentioned intensive energy users, such as the oil refineries and chemical processers that also play a major part in the local economy.
The Minister might like to comment on the fact that biomass seems to be stalling. We had projects in the pipeline, and two in particular on the south bank: one in my constituency and one at Brigg, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole. Those projects promised a considerable number of jobs, but they seem to have stalled on the basis, the investors tell us, of Government uncertainty. That “uncertainty” probably means certainty, but just not certainty that those particular investors approve of. I hope that the situation will change in the not-too-distant future.
We have other major plus points, such as, in effect, £150 million of Government money through the reduction of the Humber bridge toll. We also have enterprise zones and, significantly, the Government announced last week that the A160 upgrade, which will improve access to Immingham docks, will definitely start in 2015. An important investment that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and I have been pushing for is a rail link between the Grimsby-Cleethorpes area and King’s Cross, serving Brigg and Scunthorpe.
I appreciate that time is moving on, so I shall conclude by saying that although we all recognise the difficulties the Government are in, Humberside has taken severe knocks. We need a lift to kick-start private investment. I look to the Minister not only to list all the good things that have been happening, but to give us a positive direction on what he can do now and in the coming couple of years.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) on securing the debate and setting out, in his usual erudite way, an excellent analysis of the situation in the Humber, the possible solutions the Government should actively consider adopting and how they could secure the future of the Humber economy. I pay tribute to the contribution of the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). I am pleased that we will, I hope, have contributions from both banks of the Humber—north and south—because, to coin a phrase, we are all in it together.
I was particularly interested in what the hon. Gentleman said about tourism. People on the north and the south banks of the Humber see great potential in developing a tourism strategy. I particularly note the proposals in my home city of Hull for a Hockney gallery. The da Vinci drawings at the Ferens art gallery are attracting huge crowds, which is welcome. East Riding has the Yorkshire wolds, and the south bank obviously includes the traditional seaside resort of Cleethorpes, so there is much to recommend the area for tourism.
I shall focus my remarks on the proposals in Lord Heseltine’s report, “No Stone Unturned”. It has many sound recommendations for the Government, especially if they are serious about their commitment to rebalance the economy, and that means between the north and south, as well as the public and private sectors. The report points to what can be achieved in regeneration locally and regionally, if there is the will, the determination and a sustained effort for the long haul to make it happen. Lord Heseltine draws on his experience of the regeneration of areas such as Liverpool and London docklands. I want consider the regeneration of London docklands and compare it with Hull and the Humber area over the past 30 years. I know both areas well, having been a councillor in the docklands in the 1990s and a Hull Member of Parliament for the past seven years.
If Members will bear with me, I want to set out the context. In the 1980s, traditional employment in the docklands ended, which was paralleled with the decline of Humber-based industry in the Hull area. The divergence in fortunes of the two areas is particularly marked. Docklands has now had more than 30 years of determined regeneration, largely due to its proximity to the City of London, but clear lessons can be learned and applied to Hull and the Humber. Hull has had far less attention, tucked away in a corner of east Yorkshire. It has an excellent university and is home to such world-renowned companies as Smith and Nephew. We have the Deep—an outstanding museum quarter and one of the busiest port complexes and estuaries in the country.
There has been some regeneration and economic growth, but not nearly enough. I certainly do not want to be accused of talking down the area, but we must recognise that in recent years, as the hon. Member for Cleethorpes said, the Humber area has taken severe knocks. Under the current Government’s policies, Hull is now suffering a huge loss of local spending power. Public sector cuts have been deeper in Hull than in wealthy areas of the south. Hull city council has had a cut of £163.50 per head, compared with £2.70 per head for West Dorset district council, and only yesterday it announced more than 170 job losses. That has to be linked to announcements in the past month that 1,200 private sector jobs are going or are at risk, and the fact that 50 people are chasing every job vacancy in my constituency—the highest figure in the country. Social housing investment has been cut, and the £160 million Orchard Park housing scheme has been axed.
Against that background, what would be a successful regeneration strategy for Hull and the Humber? First, we need to attract private investment by having a clear plan of what we want to achieve and by signing up all key stakeholders. It is interesting that the Government and the London Docklands development corporation courted Canary Wharf investors Olympia and York and others in the 1980s. There was a clear plan for developing a centre for banks, finance, the media and legal and support services, and measures were put in place, while the plan was also encouraged by big tax incentives.
What is the plan for Hull and the Humber? As we have already heard, the Humber LEP has recognised renewables as a key area for economic growth. Hull’s geographical position is its great strength, with its proximity to the North sea and the largest offshore wind farms in the world. The North sea has been described as the Saudi Arabia of renewables, and the Humber area has the potential to be a world centre of excellence for renewables. As hon. Members have already said, potential green energy investors have identified Hull and the Humber as their preferred location, but such investors need long-term reassurance that the coalition is committed to renewables and has a coherent energy policy across the whole Government.
There is serious international competition for the new green energy jobs. If companies such as Siemens do not come to Hull, they will be lost to the UK altogether. This is about potential growth not only for the Humber but for the whole UK economy. The coalition needs to be as interested in attracting Siemens and green jobs to Hull as it is in attracting jobs that benefit Surrey or London. Although various big tax incentives were offered to investors in London docklands, MPs in our region have had to fight off plans to introduce the caravan tax on an existing industry and to fight for enterprise zones to attract future industries to the area. We are still waiting to see the effectiveness of such enterprise zones.
My second point is about the importance of local decision making. Lord Heseltine has stated that LEPs need to be more powerful and better funded—more like Labour’s regional development agencies, possibly. The role of city region status has already been raised, and I hope that we all support an approach that ensures money is best allocated and spent at the sub-regional level. I support the suggestion of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle about the use of pilot schemes to deliver at that local level, and the Humber area would be ideal for such a pilot.
Questions still have to be answered about the impact and value for money of some of the Government’s policies—for instance, of the regional growth fund and its ability quickly and effectively to provide support on the ground in places such as Hull and the Humber. As we know, the green investment bank is to be located in the two already prosperous financial centres of London and Edinburgh. Might it not be possible to establish a branch on the bank of the Humber, either in Hull or somewhere in the Humber area? That would establish a formal link between the bank and opportunities involving renewables and the Green Port Hull development.
Thirdly, transport infrastructure is a vital part of any successful regeneration policy. London had the docklands light railway, the Jubilee line extension, London City airport and so on. In Hull, we have Hull Trains’ daily train service to the capital, a new transport interchange, a local airport and, of course, the important reduction in Humber bridge tolls. Although we have had good news about the A160, major investment is still needed for the A63 upgrade. If Hull is to reach its fullest potential, we need rail electrification all the way to Hull and not for that to stop, rather bizarrely, at Selby.
My fourth point is about the important role of education and training. Docklands showed that, with initiatives such as SkillsNET, we need actively to equip local youngsters and others for them to get the jobs of the future; that cannot just be left to chance. In Hull, we have three excellent colleges, with fantastic records of providing lifelong education, particularly for people returning to education in their 20s, but 2012 has seen the withdrawal of funding for the Humber Education Business Partnership, the removal of comprehensive careers advice in schools, the axing of the education maintenance allowance and cuts in university and science funding. University of Hull applications have fallen by 18% this year. There now needs to be not only a stronger national strategy, but a local one for vocational skills relevant to the green jobs of the future that we hope to attract locally. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) for the work that he has done on that with the LEP.
In conclusion, London docklands had a long-term effort to attract big employers in the skilled industries of the future, which boosted spending power and created further employment and a broad-based local economy resilient enough to weather the credit crunch of 2008-09. Meanwhile, Hull has continued to lose skilled and other jobs. Unfortunately, that has accelerated since 2010. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle has stated that we will work constructively with the Government to use LEPs and city region applications to help regenerate the sub-region. However, what is also utterly true is that we cannot create a vibrant, resilient and prosperous local economy for Hull and the Humber around Starbucks, McDonald’s and Cash Converters, with people in low-paid jobs often now being forced to go to charities or food banks to feed their families. We need a strong, focused regeneration plan that links transport, education and local decision making for our region of Hull and the Humber to have the future that it deserves.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) for securing the debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) stated, he and I tried to get such a debate, so this is another example of cross-party working.
I apologise for missing the first three minutes of the speech of the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle. He started and ended with Andrew Marvell, which reminded me of walking past Marrell’s statue every day during my schooldays. We did not pay much tribute to him then, because his left hand was broken; it was restored only in 1999. Marvell was important to us, but not enough to have that fixed for a couple of decades.
This is an important debate in which I have a couple of asks of the Minister as well as some words of thanks. I take on board the point of the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) about not wanting to talk down the Humber; we all have a responsibility not to talk it down, because this region is not just struggling today. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes, I was born and bred in the Humber. My family has lived on both sides of the river for the past couple of centuries; we do not like to move far. [Interruption.] Nowhere too far anyway. I feel very invested in the region and also very proud of it; it is a fantastic region. None the less, it is a region that has struggled not just in the last two or three years but over the past few decades, due partly to the fall-off of the fishing industry and other industries. People forget that there used to be an awful lot of foundries in Hull. My dad worked in one, but he lost his job when it closed its doors in the early ’90s. There has been a lot of change over the past few decades in the profile of our local economy to which we have not responded particularly well. Even today, we are still faced with many of the challenges that go back a number of decades.
It is important to remember that there are a lot of positives in our region, and some of them are happening as we speak today. I want to be positive about the things that have happened already before making my requests of the Government. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North mentioned the caravan tax. Sadly, it is a measure of all Governments that they sometimes do things that are not good for our local area; we are not alone in doing that. However, the first thing that our Government did when they came to power was to scrap the ports tax, which would have had a similar effect on our local economy as the caravan tax, and I thank them for that. As a result, 62 businesses in Hull, 59 businesses in Goole and 44 businesses in Immingham have been protected to the tune of about £30 million.
Back in the 1980s, the biggest land grant in the history of this country was given to Hull for the Victoria dock by the Thatcher Government, and of course we had the housing action trust money in the early 1990s. Anyone who was around at the time will remember how that funding was used for the mass regeneration of places such as the North Hull estate. We have done well in the past, and also done well locally. For example, we secured £150 million for the Humber bridge. Again, that was something that had never been delivered before and was due, in part, to the strong cross-party campaign from all of us in the region. The number of vehicles crossing the Humber has now increased significantly. On Saturday, I was in the Brigg tourist information centre, asking the staff about how things were going since the tolls came down. They showed me the postcode list; there were not just the DN postcodes from the south bank but many HU postcodes. The investment is having a real impact on tourism, which the hon. Lady mentioned.
We are also grateful for the infrastructure funding that we have received. The A164 is important for connectivity from the Humber bridge to Beverley. Similarly, the announcement of the funding for the A160 is welcome. I am keen to support work on the A63, which is some miles from my constituency. When an MP who does not have a constituency interest in a project comes and demands the money for it, perhaps their view should carry a little more weight. Infrastructure on to the A63 is key to unlocking the docks, which would have a huge impact on our whole economy. It is odd to argue for a road scheme that is outside one’s constituency, but we do so because we can all see the bigger picture in the Humber. I urge the Government to do everything they can on that road, because it a problem that has plagued the city, the docks and the local economy for a very long time.
We have had terrible news recently with regard to job losses. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes, I pay tribute to Jobcentre Plus and the local councils, which have responded positively to the situation. I met Jobcentre Plus last week to talk about Scunthorpe and Lloyds TSB, and was informed that the majority of people who had lost their jobs there have now found alternative employment, thanks to the hard work not only of those people but of Jobcentre Plus staff.
We are also grateful for the regional growth funding in both east Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire. To date, the funding in northern Lincolnshire has created 344 jobs and is well on target to create 500 jobs, and only about half of that money has been allocated. I pay tribute to the councils that have worked so hard on that matter and the businesses that have come forward.
Northern Lincolnshire has had a 68% increase in apprenticeships, and I pay tribute to the council for investing significant resources into creating apprenticeships within its authority and for trying to identify other local businesses to take on apprentices.
I briefly want to echo the concerns that have been raised about renewable energy. I make no bones about my position on onshore wind, which is a huge concern to my constituents, but on offshore wind, there is complete and utter unanimity in our region about its potential and about our support for it. My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes and I recently wrote to the Prime Minister urging some consistency on the matter. I was heartened by the response that we received:
“I will continue to voice my strong commitment to the growth of the low-carbon sector…and agree that Government has to continue to act coherently and consistently to put green growth at the top of its priorities.”
Those are excellent words; we now want action. Offshore wind is hugely important to our region. We can develop the skills base to support that sector, which will help not only our region but UK plc.
I have a couple of asks of the Minister in relation to biofuels and bioethanol production. We have two plants in the Humber; one planned on the south bank and one on the north bank. There is uncertainty over whether the Government are committed to bioethanol. The fact is we must have it in our fuel, and at the moment it is coming from Germany or elsewhere. We should be growing that industry here, so I make a call for as much support as possible.
On biomass, places such as Drax and Eggborough, on the edge of my constituency, have coal-fired power stations that wish to co-fire with biomass. Again, uncertainty exists. I met representatives in Eggborough who were concerned about the subsidy system. They have asked us to raise contracts for difference, which the Minister, I am sure, will be fully apprised of, so I will not give him a great deal more detail—obviously, I am not saying that because I do not fully understand it. None the less, it is something the sector is keen to unlock for co-firing biomass. I will end now because I have had my time.
Andrew Percy
Oh, I am not at the end yet. My hon. Friend is meant to pass me a note when I am.
We are trying to unlock significant European regional development fund money for the Capitol Park project in Goole, which will bring thousands of jobs to the logistics sector in the region. I am heavily involved in that project at the moment, and I seek an assurance from the Minister that, if we do not progress that matter in the next couple of days, he will add his considerable weight to solving some of the issues. The development is really important for our local area.
I end by saying that more needs to be done, especially on broadband delivery UK funding, which is particularly important to many of our small and medium-sized enterprises, and on the A63. Furthermore, we must have certainty on offshore wind and renewable energy for our region.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
Let me first express my almost inexpressible pleasure at serving under your chairmanship for, I think, the first time ever, Mr Amess, and also my pleasure at participating in this debate secured by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson), who is a doughty fighter for his constituency. The attendance today symbolises the close co-operation that exists between all MPs of all parties in the Humber area. It is a new and welcome thing, and I hope that it speaks well for our development in future.
I just want to say that I shall be referring to “Humber” —which is a river, not a group of people—or to “Humberside”, as I and other members of the old-fashioned generation call it, rather than to “the Hull city region”, a term that tends to create antibodies on the south bank of the river. Before I came into Parliament I always used to crack jokes about the two banks of the Humber being united in mutual antipathy. However, that was about the rivalry over fishing, which is now gone. Now the future lies in co-operation and working together, in the Humber and through the local enterprise partnership. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) said that North East Lincolnshire is hedging its bets by also participating in the Lincolnshire LEP, but our eggs are really in the Humber LEP basket, because that is our future. The two banks of the Humber will develop together and flourish together or not at all, because falling apart would weaken the magnetic power of both of them as part of the country’s last undeveloped estuary, which has enormous potential for development.
Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle, I welcome the Heseltine report, which is a prime indication of what our future should be, involving more localism, more power for the LEPs and more power for the regions, and enough money to compensate for the loss of the regional development agencies under this Government. In an interview with The Guardian yesterday, Lord Heseltine was rather modest when he said that he was not proffering his report as a plan B. I think that he is saying that to make his report more popular with the Government, but effectively it is a plan B for the Government. I hope that we shall see signs that the Government are taking up the very wise advice that Lord Heseltine gave them, because from our point of view it is “the Heseltine, the full Heseltine and nothing but the Heseltine” for regional development. That involves more power and more backing for our LEP. At present, it is under-resourced; it needs a bigger staff and better organisation to carry through its policy. I am delighted that we have a development agency for the Humber, but it needs to be strengthened and resourced in the way that Lord Heseltine says in his report.
A major part of our development prospects must be wind generation at sea. The aim must be for the Humber to become Britain’s cluster of wind energy facilities, industries and development. We started on that path with the Siemens contract in Hull, which has been hovering, and I hope that the new clarity of the Government’s energy policy and the support that the Government will give to wind energy at sea, if not to wind energy on land, will cause Siemens to finalise the contract in Hull, because we need it. We also need the development that is going on in Grimsby to provide service and maintenance for the wind turbines out at sea.
That is not all that is involved in the development of wind energy. We have the prospect of developing a cluster on the south bank of the Humber as well, in the Able UK development, which will also be an industrial facility—a factory area for the creation and assembly of these huge wind turbines. They will be absolutely enormous. It is difficult to visualise them. They certainly would not pass under the Humber bridge erect. We need that factory facility, but we also need the dock facility that could be provided by Able UK, which holds out great prospects for the south bank area. However, it has been held up by all sorts of things. It has been held up by the birds, which seem to hold up most developments in our area; by Natural England, and by planning problems. Now it is being held back by a kind of rearguard action that is being fought by Associated British Ports. I must say that I deplore that action. ABP has a monopoly on the port facilities in the Humber—in Goole, Hull and Grimsby. It is not reasonable for ABP to try to frustrate the development of a competitive facility by Able UK. I hope that ABP’s action can be stopped; we are making representations to the Government to stop that delaying activity.
We need to have those development prospects in the Able UK development on the south bank if the wind energy sector is to flourish as a cluster. Michael Porter’s work suggests that the best form of development available is to cluster an industry, with the research, the ability and the management in one area. I hate to see firms such as Areva going to Scotland. Areva is a French firm, and probably does not understand this country, which is why it is going to Scotland rather than to the much more attractive and alluring situation that is available in Humberside.
I emphasise that we do not need to put all our eggs into the basket of wind energy; we need other renewables too. We need the Government to support and encourage biomass development, which right hon. and hon. Members have referred to. There is the prospect of a biomass development at Barton. What has happened to that? Why has it been held up? Indeed, why has it disappeared from the horizon? The development at Immingham to produce ethanol from grain has been held up, partly by European decisions and partly by Government inertia. We want to develop alternative energies as a cluster development, rather than just having wind energy production, although wind is clearly the major part of alternative energy development, so I put in a footnote for those other alternative energies.
I am reaching the end of my speech, Mr Amess; I know that the look in your eyes is not boredom but enthusiasm that I should continue. All good things come to an end and my speech will come to an end eventually.
In Hull as in Grimsby—the towns are very similar, in their problems and in their make-up—we need a policy of urban regeneration, which could come mainly through housing. The pathfinder project in Hull was aborted by the Government. The housing authority in Grimsby, which is now a housing association, has received no financing for new building this year. It is one of the few housing authorities to miss out on such financing.
We need housing development, because it is a stimulus to the economy. The obvious thing to do when a homelessness problem is building up and a housing crisis is developing is to invest in housing to stimulate the economy in the way that it did in the 1930s. We need that stimulus, in Hull, Grimsby and the whole area. We need more support for the local authorities, which at present are cutting back because of the draconian insistence that there should be a 26% cut in local authority spending before 2015. That is a folly at a time when local authorities could be a big stimulus to development.
As the hon. Member for Cleethorpes said, we need a direct rail link to Cleethorpes and Grimsby. Hull Trains has done wonders for Hull, and we need the same development and stimulus on the south bank of the Humber, which could be created by a direct rail connection to London. That would help industry by making the area more attractive for investment, and it would help communications. We are a bit too isolated for our own good on both banks of the Humber, and a direct rail link would help to alleviate that problem.
Unfortunately, I cannot stay for the Minister’s brilliant summing-up of our case and his total acceptance of the need for development in Hull, because I have to attend a meeting of the Public Accounts Commission that starts in two minutes. However, in a spirit of unctuousness towards the Minister, I must say that we have had a good deal so far from this Government. I welcome those concessions that have been made: for instance, on the Humber bridge tolls; on the cancellation of the historical dock charges, which was carried through; and on the development of the A160. I hope that that progress can continue, because the Government now need to develop and implement the Heseltine report in full.
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
I can say with some certainty that it is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess, because, although I am a relatively new Member of the House, I have served under your chairmanship on numerous occasions already.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) on securing this important and timely debate. I am delighted that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury is here to respond, and I urge him to listen carefully to hon. Members’ remarks and, perhaps more importantly, to act on them. It is often said that, in government, the power is in the purse, and policies across every Department must have sign-off and approval from the Treasury.
Before I make my plea for bespoke, targeted financial support for the Humber region, I would like to give a flavour of where the economy in Hull is now. I hope to offer a snapshot of the reality on the ground for people living in east Hull—and, indeed, struggling to live there as a result, let us be clear, of Government policy, which is hitting them particularly hard.
In the good-natured spirit of the debate, however, let me first thank the Minister for the Government’s support on issues such as the Humber bridge tolls. The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy)—or Goole and Brigg, as he likes his constituency to be called—was very involved in the tolls campaign before, during and after the general election campaign; indeed, Members of Parliament from across the parties were involved in it. Similarly, I thank the Government for the £25 million in regional growth funding to help the Green Port project, although the money is slow in coming.
I acknowledge the promise of help with infrastructure projects such as that at Castle street involving the A63, which runs through Hull West and into east Hull. I want to press the Minister on the Government’s continued support for the project. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle mentioned that the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), has today cancelled, for the second time, his meeting with Hull MPs, which is particularly important given the concerns raised in this week’s British Chambers of Commerce report. Areas in east Hull have been awarded enterprise zone status, which offers businesses potential benefits, but all policies should be reviewed in terms of their outcomes, and I am sorry to say that the outcomes for the unemployed have failed Hull.
Much more targeted support is needed from the Government. The jobs crisis in Hull and the region more generally needs to be addressed as a matter of absolute urgency. It would be difficult to overstate just how desperate times are with regard to jobs in Hull. Forty people are chasing every job vacancy in my constituency, and those figures are replicated across the city. I suspect that the Minister will cite falling unemployment nationally as an indication that things are improving, and while I of course welcome any reduction, I reiterate the fact that that dip is not happening in east Hull or across the city. I fear that we may be seeing a generation of underemployed people—the working poor—who fall off the unemployment figures, but still live in real financial poverty.
Unemployment continues to rise every month in my constituency, but youth unemployment is of particular concern. Between 2001 and 2010, the number of people not in education, employment or training in Hull was reduced by 6%, from 17% to 11%. That was still far too high—we must be honest about that—but the figures were definitely heading in the right direction.
Previous reassurances from the Government that the private sector will pick up the slack resulting from cuts to public sector jobs are simply not borne out in the Humber region. The Chancellor’s promised rebalancing of the economy has failed in Hull, and long-established private companies are going bust or making significant redundancies every week. In recent weeks, job losses have been announced at BAE Systems, Seven Seas, Kimberley-Clark, McCain, Comet, Willerby Holiday Homes, Smith and Nephew, and Crown Paints, to name a few household names. Yesterday, Hull city council also announced a consultation on a further 171 potential job losses.
We are currently in a 90-day consultation process with Seven Seas, after which we may see 259 skilled jobs leave Hull. Seven Seas was established in Hull 73 years ago off the back of the fishing industry and the trade in cod liver oil. We are working with the business’s representatives in an attempt to persuade them not to leave the city just because, as they put it, the economy is failing them. Without a shadow of a doubt, they blame the Government’s economic policies for the firm’s failure and for the need to consider outsourcing production. Comet is another company that started in Hull a considerable time ago, and hundreds of people are praying that a buyer will come in to take over now that the company has gone into administration.
Let me mention some of the positives about the region, and particularly my city. My right hon. Friend said that the renewables sector and the Siemens investment could deliver for Hull what oil did for Aberdeen. The Siemens factory is expected to be built in 2014, with the berth built the following year. About 700 jobs will be created almost immediately, with thousands more following in the supply chain. It is crucial, therefore, that we get some certainty from the Government, because it is fair to say that we have had mixed messages from them in recent months. The Liberal Democrats swear that this is the greenest Government ever while the Treasury scraps subsidies to solar energy and gives tax cuts to offshore gas exploration. The Energy Secretary says that wind is wonderful, while having to slap down a junior Minister—the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes)—for stating that the Government have had enough of wind. We need absolute clarity from the Government if we are to secure this terribly important investment in the city.
My right hon. Friend touched on education, and Hull has some excellent educational establishments, of which Wilberforce college in my constituency is just one. However, organisations such as the Humber Education Business Partnership, which historically brought educational bodies and industrialists together, have lost Department for Education funding.
The LEP is an important factor, although I do not think that it provides as much support as the regional development agency. The Government should take recommendation 61 of the Heseltine report seriously, because it reinforces the fact that LEPs need more power and money to deliver for the areas they plan to provide for.
I want briefly to touch on the city deal. I welcome Hull’s opportunity to bid for city deal funding, and I hope the Humber bid is successful. The leader of Hull city council, Councillor Stephen Brady, is looking forward to working with public and private sector partners from across the Humber to develop a Humber city deal proposal. Hull needs targeted, bespoke support, and the city deal may go some way towards helping us to sort out the current economic downward spiral.
I also want briefly to address the issue of the A63 at Castle street. This week’s British Chambers of Commerce report said that just three out of 13 transport projects identified by the Government as crucial to economic growth have been given the go-ahead. I hope there is nothing sinister about the Under-Secretary of State for Transport cancelling appointments—and doing so, I have to say, at rather late notice. I really want to hammer home the point that the A63 at Castle street is crucial to the economy of Hull and the region.
Chris Leslie (Nottingham East) (Lab/Co-op)
In the short time that I have—because I want to leave enough time for the Minister to respond, and there might need to be dialogue with local Members—I want to commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) for the skilful way in which he talked about the perhaps unrecognised and untapped advantages of the Hull economy and what they might offer. Those advantages include the fourth largest trading estuary in Europe and the fact that it is within four hours of 40% of the UK economy, as well as the excellent cultural and creative offer that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) talked about. There are some fantastic assets waiting to be tapped. However, as we have heard, this is a tale of two cities, and I want to spend a couple of minutes giving the perspective of the Opposition Front Bench.
We are undoubtedly at a critical moment for the economy in the Humber area, and the recession has not been an easy time for that part of the world. We have heard about Comet going into administration and about Kimberly-Clark in Barton. My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) talked about difficulties at the Seven Seas plant. Employment opportunities will be crucial for future prosperity. We want a diverse economy, rather than one where a part is doing well but the rest is not. We must make sure that there is the ecosystem—the right mix—to sustain the region, and my hon. Friends are very focused on that.
Enterprising businesses in the area have been battling against headwinds in the form of the Government’s tax rises and spending reductions, which have sapped confidence in recent years. We have heard this morning about an aspect of the Government’s approach: the Work programme might be worse than if they had done nothing. Given the performance of some schemes, things are going backwards. We are in a critical period and must focus every effort on getting things right.
We have heard from hon. Members of all parties about specific matters to do with critical Whitehall decisions. I am struck by the need to get clarity about renewables policy and the green energy sector. The point was well made about Siemens being poised for investment. The Humber is a part of the world where there are massive advantages for offshore wind, in particular, but others have talked about the biomass sector in Barton and elsewhere, about which we need clarity from the Treasury in particular. The Chancellor of the Exchequer obviously has strong views about renewable energy policy and we need more clarity about where it is intended that the country should go in the context of decarbonisation. We hope that the energy Bill will bring that, but a mist has descended over where the Government are going—and that is putting it kindly. My hon. Friends have been forceful in saying that they want clarity about that.
Transport infrastructure is also critical. The Minister needs to arrange a meeting with his colleagues in the Department for Transport as a matter of urgency because, as someone who had occasion many years ago to spend quite a lot of time in east Hull, I know well that the question of Castle street and the A63 upgrade is crucial to unlocking much of the area’s potential. The Minister could do worse than give us an update on how the Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Act 2012 might help in the present case, perhaps in connection with guarantees, or the underpinning or underwriting that it facilitates.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle had some great ideas about the relocation of public projects, and Whitehall Departments might have the opportunity to move to the area. There is a strong case for that, especially on the question of cost-effectiveness, when the cost of buildings and infrastructure in the capital is compared with that in other parts of the country. That is the sort of thing that we should be considering. There have been signs that the Government are willing to listen with regard to some of these questions, because the Humber bridge toll decision was a good one, and the U-turn on VAT on static caravans was also very welcome.
Finally, some critical governance decisions need to be confronted. My hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), who has had to leave early, was right to say that the future rests with the co-operation of all players and bodies in the Humber region. The Humber local enterprise partnership is an important body, and we need it to make progress with development. It is a pity that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is not responding to the debate, because he has a particular brief for cities policy. We want the Humber region to be in the vanguard of new cross-authority working, because that is how it has to be. We must have clarity about leadership and decision making in that part of the world so that it is possible to ask loudly and clearly for delegated decisions and the devolution of resources, which are evidently needed at the coal face—on the front line.
I commend hon. Members in all parts of the Chamber for the vocal and tenacious way in which they have made their case. They bang on the table effectively, and leave no stone unturned—if I may mix my metaphors—in making the case for the area. It is a strong case, and the Treasury must respond to it.
The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess. I thank the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) for securing the debate and for taking a thoughtful and constructive approach to an important issue. I also thank the other hon. Members who spoke: the hon. Members for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) and for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner), and my hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy).
First, I will quickly give an overview of the Government’s priorities, using their fiscal capabilities, which have been set out in Budgets. We repeated them in the Budget of 2012, and they are the creation of a stable economy and a fairer, more efficient and simpler tax system, and the bringing in of reforms to support growth. The Budget and the national infrastructure plan that we published at the time of the autumn statement in 2011 set out the relevant steps and the priorities for the country as a whole, and included specific measures for the Humber economy.
Three areas in which the Government have acted to help the whole UK quickly are cuts in corporation tax from 28% in 2010 to 22% by 2014, which will benefit companies throughout the country, including the Humber region; changes in the personal allowance, which have already meant that 74,000 people in the Yorkshire and Humber region are being taken out of tax altogether, and 1.8 million will benefit; and increased spending in the Growing Places fund, which has been established to provide funding for infrastructure needs. We have heard much this morning about local enterprise partnerships and two in the region have already received almost £70 million.
Several hon. Members mentioned Lord Heseltine’s report “No stone unturned in pursuit of growth”, and I am pleased that it has caused excitement. Most people talked about it positively and that is welcome. I hope that they would agree that the Government deserve credit for looking at new ways to stimulate the economy and for commissioning the report. We are considering it, and I am pleased that hon. Members have taken note of it.
A number of Members mentioned unemployment in the region. They are right to be concerned about it; we all are, and the Government most certainly are. In the Yorkshire and Humber region, unemployment rose by 1.8% between 1997 and 2010; but so far under this Government, it is down by 0.6%, which I am sure all Members welcome.
I want to move on to some of the specific issues raised by the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle. He made three or four key points, and I want to address them all in the time that I have. First, he mentioned energy policy, and Siemens in particular. He referred to the fact that, last week, the Government announced an agreement for going forward on energy policy, which has, I think, delivered a clear and durable signal to investors, including Siemens. He is right that the Energy Bill will be published this week and, naturally, the Bill will bring a lot more information forward. The agreement and the Bill will show that the Government have taken a serious approach to the issue. We believe that they will bring forward up to £110 billion of much-needed investment in the economy, which will support up to 250,000 jobs, of which at least 700 will, we hope, be secured by Siemens in the Humber region.
When the energy Bill is announced, colleagues will see that we have taken a constructive approach. With that and the national policy framework that has already been announced, coupled with the strong support for renewables in the Humber region through the regional growth fund, companies such as Siemens and others in the region that might want to establish themselves in renewables will find some Government support.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull North mentioned the possibility of having a branch of the green investment bank in her region. I will most certainly make that representation on her behalf to my colleague the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills.
A number of colleagues rightly mentioned transport, and the importance of that type of infrastructure investment in the region, both now, in creating jobs during the investment period, and in the longer term, in making the region more attractive for investment. The Government have made substantial commitments to improving major road connections in the Humber region. Two road schemes in the area are being developed by the Highways Agency, and construction will potentially start in the next spending review period: the A63 Castle street improvement and the A160/A180 Immingham scheme. I noted the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole regarding the A63; it is good of him to support a road that does not run through his constituency but that, no doubt, supports the wider region. Those are two of only six schemes in England that the Department for Transport announced development funding for in May 2012. In addition, on 20 November the Secretary of State for Transport announced that the A160/A180 scheme will be part of a programme of accelerated development for four major road schemes, which will aim to cut 18 months off the original construction timetable.
Work is under way on the East Riding of Yorkshire council’s A164 Humber bridge to Beverley route improvement scheme. The £10 million scheme, to which the council is contributing £2.3 million, was confirmed in the Chancellor’s statement last November.
Briefly, on a couple of other Government initiatives that have helped the region, I have already mentioned the local enterprise partnerships, of which there are two for the region, in a wider sense. There are also more than 24 enterprise zones throughout the country, two of which are in the Humber, and which will be allowed to keep the growth in business rates that are created in the zone over the next 25 years.
There is also the regional growth fund, worth £2.4 billion, which will help to grow private sector-led jobs throughout Britain. Winners from the first two rounds are expected to create more than 10,000 direct and 16,000 indirect jobs in the Yorkshire and Humber region, including a £25 million joint bid by East Riding of Yorkshire council and Hull city council to stimulate private sector investment in the constituency of the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle.
The right hon. Gentleman mentioned city deals, and he will know that the Government have agreed a set of ambitious city deals with eight core cities outside London, to help them to maximise their growth potential. Following that, the Government have taken forward what we call the second wave, and he will know that Hull and Humber is possibly one of the 20 other cities that have been invited to submit an expression of interest in taking the deal forward. A decision will be made in the early part of next year.
I noted the right hon. Gentleman’s request for a meeting with my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I have already asked my right hon. Friend about that, and he would be absolutely delighted to meet the right hon. Gentleman. He wanted me to specifically point out that he takes a very keen interest in the Humber region.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes was absolutely right to say that when we focus on cities we must not forget the provinces. The Government must ensure that our policies help all areas, including smaller towns and villages, and not just our great cities.
I want to talk a little about public spending. A number of Members referred to the changes in public spending and their potential economic impact, perhaps suggesting that local authorities in the Humber region have taken disproportionate cuts. It is fair to say that the previous Government left the public finances in—let us put it generously—a very difficult situation, and we have had to take necessary action to deal with that.
Alan Johnson
I am grateful to the Minister for his commitment to my meeting the Financial Secretary. We are all mystified as to why the A63 was not mentioned in the same announcement on 20 November. I do not expect the Minister to have an answer to that, but does he agree that since a junior Minister at the Department for Transport has twice cancelled a meeting with Hull MPs, the Secretary of State for Transport should now meet us as soon as possible?
Sajid Javid
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that comment. I do not know why that meeting has been cancelled. I am sure that there is a constructive reason, but I will take his point to the Minister and ensure that he is aware of the strength of feeling on that issue.
Karl Turner
I can probably assist the Minister. I think that that Minister cancelled on one of those occasions because he was on holiday. Perhaps the Minister might want to visit Hull, to see the A63 and Castle street for himself. He would understand the need, if he did.
Sajid Javid
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is inviting me, but I would be happy to come to Hull. I love Hull. I have lots of friends there, and am happy to go and make some more.
It is only right that the Government protect the most challenging regions from public spending cuts, to the extent that they can. The formula grant in Humber was £609 per person in 2011-12, compared with an average of £372 across England and £190 in Richmond upon Thames. I am sure that Members will agree that that reflects, to a large extent, local needs.
The hon. Member for Great Grimsby rightly mentioned housing. I want to point to the Infrastructure (Financial Assistance) Bill, which has now received Royal Assent. Up to £10 billion of the £50 billion of guarantees are earmarked for housing spending, and if Members know sponsors of such projects in the region, I encourage them to make an application to the relevant Department to find out whether it is possible to take advantage of the guarantees.
In conclusion, I again thank the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle for securing this constructive debate, and I also thank all the Members who have taken part. I noted the right hon. Gentleman’s comments about the great Andrew Marvell, and if I understood him correctly, I think that he is basically telling the Government to get on with it. I think that it is fair to say that the Government have taken a lot of action, but I hear him loudly and clearly, and the Government will continue to take action and pay a great deal of attention to the region.
Winter Fuel Allowances
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
I am pleased to introduce this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Amess.
When I introduced a private Member’s Bill on this topic, it received the support of hon. Members of all parties, which demonstrates the depth of concern about the off-gas-grid energy market. The issue has also been constantly raised by Members during energy debates. Unfortunately, Government Whips objected to my Bill, and it is now suffering a lingering death in the twilight zone of the Order Paper.
I do not intend to use this debate to address the general problem of fuel poverty, the details of which should be well known to Members of all parties. I note, however, that 15% of all households in the UK are not on the gas grid, and that some 32% of such households are in fuel poverty, as opposed to 15% of those on the grid. Unfortunately, it seems that little has been done to address the immense problems that have been raised over the years. The present Government, to their credit, got the Office of Fair Trading to undertake a review of the market, but to almost universal disbelief, frankly, that decided that the market was working fairly. Despite that, much of the OFT’s work on the market is of great interest.
I have raised the issue of winter fuel payments for off-gas-grid pensioners on numerous occasions, as I am sure the Minister knows. Ministers in this Government and the previous Government have indicated that the idea has merit but, of course, nothing has happened. Back in March 2010, the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change, of which I was a member, raised the issue in its report on fuel poverty.
My Bill would not extend winter fuel payments to additional groups, nor would it tread on the contentious issue of means-testing winter fuel payments, which concerns some Members. My Bill does not attempt to address the many issues that surround off-grid energy. It is tightly drafted to give some relief to a particularly vulnerable sector: those pensioners who are off the gas grid. There are many such pensioners in my constituency, and they face a number of particular problems.
First and foremost, there is the cost of home fuel oil. As with all forms of energy, the price of home fuel oil has rocketed in recent years, but there is clear evidence that the price rises in the early autumn and stays high over the winter. Even valueoils.com, which sells the oil, states:
“Winter months are typically more expensive than the summer given the rise in demand across Europe, the summer months of June and July will usually provide the lowest rates.”
The graph on its website shows a dramatic price increase in all areas of the United Kingdom over the winter months, and it is important to note that that is as much an issue in rural areas of Wales, England and Northern Ireland as it is in the highlands and islands of Scotland.
When I secured this debate, Mike Foster, the former Member for Worcester, contacted me to point out that the Oil Firing Technical Association
“suggest a typical rural household could have saved £170 if heating oil was bought in June 2010 compared to January 2011 nearly doubling the value of the Winter Fuel Allowance.”
Even the House of Commons Library note that was produced for my Bill’s Second Reading states:
“The average costs of heating and providing hot water for a typical three bedroom house with LPG have been estimated at around £2,300 per year (based on April 2012 prices with a conventional boiler), heating oil is thought to cost around £1,700 and gas around £1,200.”
It is also worth noting that over the past four years the cost of heating an average home with propane or home fuel oil has increased by £850 and £750 respectively, while the cost for gas has increased by £400. Not only are off-grid homes more expensive, therefore, but the costs are rising much more sharply. In short, heating a home with liquefied petroleum gas costs almost twice as much as heating a home with access to the mains gas grid. Importantly, the main use of LPG and home fuel oil is for heating, so although those homes generally—as most homes do—have electricity and benefit from the discounts offered by energy companies, they still face greater costs, particularly for heating and cooking.
The traditional Government response has been to call for an extension of the mains gas grid as one way to address the problem. Indeed, the Scottish Government recently announced a new scheme to do that but, realistically, such schemes are going to help only those households with a mains gas supply relatively nearby. Even then, the cost of connecting to the gas grid can be substantial and well out of the range of many people who would like to be connected. I have dealt with cases in my constituency just outside towns when although there is a gas main relatively close by, residents have been quoted many hundreds of pounds for connection to it. Furthermore, many rural and island areas will never be able to connect to the gas grid. The grid simply does not exist in many remote areas, let alone in island areas, so in such areas the cost of connection would be enormous.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I have an example from my constituency. The marshland villages to the south of Goole are not on the grid. I have raised that with the network, and it has no intention of putting them on the grid. Such communities face the double problem of being more reliant on their cars and often living in the worst insulated houses.
Mr Weir
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and I was going to address some of those problems. In many rural areas, the situation is exacerbated by the fact that much of the housing is old and of a construction that makes it difficult to install energy-saving measures such as cavity wall insulation. Many houses in rural Scotland are of a solid wall construction, and there is a limit to what can be done to save energy. Once the roof insulation has been put in, the only real option is to install some sort of solid wall insulation, which is difficult in many of those houses.
Such households will receive the same winter fuel allowance as pensioners on the gas grid, but there is a crucial difference in how the energy is delivered. Those who are on the gas grid will receive their winter fuel bill around the time that the winter fuel allowance is generally paid, so the system works well for those people. Indeed, in the explanatory notes to the regulations that last amended the benefit, the previous Government specifically stated:
“They are paid in a lump sum each winter to ensure that money is available when fuel bills arrive.”
No one could dispute that that is a good thing, but that is not how it works for those who are off the gas grid. Such people face the difficulty of having to pay for their LPG or home fuel oil up front at the beginning of the winter, well before they have the benefit of the winter fuel allowance. Many find it difficult to do so and may not completely fill up the tank, leaving them having to do so in the depths of winter, which brings its own problems, and not only due to the cost.
The OFT’s report found that there are many competing suppliers in the market, but by definition many of those suppliers are small. Although some of the larger players offer greater payment flexibility, smaller ones are unable to do so. The Minister may be interested to know that some of the bigger players have expressed an interest in doing something, but they sometimes have difficulty finding vulnerable customers because of the regulations. Although electricity companies, for the purpose of the discount, can access such information, I understand that other energy companies cannot because of the way the regulation was drafted under the Energy Act 2010.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for bringing such an important issue to the House.
The same thing happens in Northern Ireland. Gas is available in Newtownards but not on the peninsula, while gas is available in Comber but not a few miles away in Ballygowan. For those reasons, accessibility is being held back for a great many people. Is it not time for the Government to consider issuing licences generally so that gas can be accessible for everyone?
Mr Weir
That is an excellent idea. I note that the leader of the hon. Gentleman’s party, among others, supported my private Member’s Bill, because this is a huge problem in Northern Ireland, although Northern Ireland has different regulations because social security is a devolved matter.
The price of fuel is rising—often quite substantially—as winter approaches. Even those suppliers that offer a fixed winter price will be doing so at a price higher than in the summer. As the Minister will appreciate, there can also be a problem getting a delivery. Hon. Members will recall the dreadful weather of two winters ago, when many of my constituents faced huge difficulties getting their tanks filled. Some were left with no fuel in the run-up to Christmas. The situation is exacerbated by how the oil companies work, because some modern tanks have a gauge, and the companies will deliver only when it falls to a certain level. If somebody cannot get their tank filled when they want to because the oil company has decided that it is not an urgent case, and bad weather then comes quickly, it can cause huge problems.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman’s constituency and mine share problems involving off-grid gas. Does he believe that if there were a more focused approach on paying winter fuel allowances to those in greater need, some of our constituents might be better served?
Mr Weir
I said at the outset that I would not get into that argument, because I do not think that that is the way to proceed. Personally, I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman, because I think that the bureaucratic problems created might be great. I am trying to focus purely on those who would, under any system, receive their payment earlier because they are off the gas grid, and I shall go on to explain why.
The situation of two winters ago was perhaps exceptional, but it shows the additional problems faced by off-gas-grid consumers. My Bill proposed a suggestion for tackling those problems. Currently, winter fuel allowances are paid through a system involving regulations that specify a date by which pensioners must apply. It is worth noting, however, that once they are in the system, they do not have to reapply every year. Clause 1 of my Bill would have varied the regulations to bring forward the qualifying date from late September to late July for those off the gas grid. Clause 2 would have brought forward the payment date for those off the gas grid to no later than 30 September to allow them to buy a complete tank of gas before the winter.
When my Bill was presented, the House of Commons Library produced a note that considered how the problem might be tackled, including my suggestions. The Library identified two possible objections. I am not sure whether they are the same objections that the Minister will offer today, but I will comment on them briefly.
The first objection was that ordinary claimants might feel aggrieved at being denied early access. The whole point of the Bill, however, was to tackle the problem of having to pay for energy up front. Ordinary claimants, as the note describes them, would have access to the allowances, as stated in regulations, when their quarterly bills become due. I reiterate that the explanatory note to the relevant regulations state that the payment is meant to be made available when the bill arrives. For those who pay up front, the most appropriate way to achieve parity would be to make the payment as close as possible to the time of the outlay, which was precisely what my Bill attempted to do.
The second objection was that moving the application date forward could cause some people to lose out on the payment. I recognise that that could be a problem, but it is hardly insurmountable. It would be a problem only for the first year of each claim because, as I said, once applicants are on the system, they need not reapply each year, as they receive the allowance automatically. It would be possible, for example, to allow off-grid consumers who miss the earlier date to apply at the later date, but then to be transferred to the earlier date in year 2 to prevent difficulties. If the Government have other problems with an earlier date, will the Minister explain them? If it is just that they do not want to move the date at all, we could keep the September date, and simply allow payment to off-gas grid consumers at an earlier date from year 2.
There is nothing revolutionary about my proposals, which would simply make a minor change to begin to address off-gas-grid consumers’ problems by targeting a particularly vulnerable group. It seems to me that none of the difficulties are insurmountable with political will, but the whole issue of off-grid consumers seems to have been kicked into the long grass as being too difficult. The Bill would not solve all the problems, but it would make a start.
As I said, I have raised the issue on numerous occasions with Ministers in this and the previous Government. My Bill was born out of frustration that nothing had happened, but Ministers did not seem willing even to debate the issue. Although the Bill in front of mine was talked out, my Bill was not allowed to go to Committee so that the issue could at least be debated—it was objected to by the Whips and now presumably will make no progress. I secured this debate in the hope that the Minister will give us some answers about what the Government object to in trying to tackle the serious difficulties faced by this particularly vulnerable group.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
Good morning, Mr Amess. I congratulate the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir) on securing this debate and on the efforts to which he has gone to raise the issue. I recall the Friday in question, when I had forsaken the joys of Thornbury and Yate to be with him in Westminster. I stood fully ready to respond to his debate, but unfortunately did not have the opportunity to do so. It is good to have the opportunity now to respond to the important and serious issues that he has raised.
The hon. Gentleman made the point that for a section of the population—as he rightly said, not just in rural Scotland but in rural parts of England, Wales and Northern Ireland—when they pay their big winter fuel bills is an issue. Whereas many people might pay around Christmas or early in the new year, the folk that we are talking about might pay in the autumn, for instance. He asked whether we could pay those folk their winter fuel payments early, and suggested that we would not do so during the first year after they reached women’s state pension age, because then they would lose out by a couple of months, but we could perhaps do it from year two.
One challenge of ours in responding to the hon. Gentleman’s suggestion is that at the moment the Government have a fairly slick and efficient way of getting those important payments to people. We have about 12 million pensioners in the land, and we make the payments as automatically as possible. To give him a feel for the problems involving claims, there is a set of men who are below the men’s state pension age but above the women’s state pension age who must claim for winter fuel payments, because we do not know that they exist. A 63-year-old man is entitled to a winter fuel payment, but does not receive a pension, so he must make a claim. It creates a big problem of complexity and take-up if a claim must be made; it is far better in terms of getting money to the people who need it if the process is as automatic as possible.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
Will the Minister give way?
Steve Webb
I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, as I want to respond to the points made by the hon. Member for Angus.
The hon. Member for Angus wants to ensure that the Government get payments to people. We want to ensure that we do so when we need to. Even with our systems, we do not manage to get the money to everybody before Christmas, although we get it to the vast majority—more than 95%, I think. One way to address his concern would be to bring forward the eligibility date for everybody; for instance, we could bring it forward from September to July. That would achieve his goal of getting the money to the folk who are off the grid when they need it.
The problem is that the vast bulk of people would then get their lump sum in autumn, rather than when the winter fuel bill arrives, which would be to their detriment. Surprising research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that because the money is labelled, branded and seen as a winter fuel payment, even though it is just cash and people can spend it on what they like, they are far more likely to use it for fuel bills than other cash coming in. We would be reluctant to move the bulk of payments away from the time when people’s principal bills arrive.
In that case, the hon. Gentleman’s proposition is that we identify a separate category of people who are off the mains gas grid. He said in his remarks that people would have to claim only once. I will return in a moment to the point about the claims process, but we would have to ensure that the data were accurate every year. To give a simple example, when I bought the house that I live in, which is not in the middle of nowhere by any means, it had no mains gas, so for one year we were off-grid. Had I been a pensioner when I bought it, I would have been entitled to early payment. The next year, we were connected to the gas grid. Somebody would have had to know that I was no longer entitled to the early payment. Either I would have had to report it to the Department for Work and Pensions, or the Department would have had to send people into back gardens; I do not know.
We would need a mechanism. Although the bulk of properties would be the same from one year to the next, there would be in-flow. New properties are built off the grid, and properties off the grid would come on to the grid. It is not as straightforward as the hon. Gentleman suggests. It would not be a one-off process in which once someone was in, they would qualify for ever.
Mr Weir
I understand what the Minister is saying, but I have two points. First, surely the churn would be relatively low. Secondly, with other payments, it is not unusual for claimants to have to notify the Department of changes in circumstance. Why would it be such a problem in this case?
Steve Webb
When the Department’s books are audited, we cannot say, “We think it’s broadly all right in most cases.” We have to make efforts to ensure that we are paying money only to people who are entitled. Although the stock would, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, be largely the same from year to year, with some in-flow and out-flow at the margins, we have to ensure that the records are accurate every year. We need a mechanism in place to ensure that that is so.
To get this scheme up and running, we would have to identify which of the 12 million households were eligible for it and we would have to invent a claims process—I assume that the hon. Gentleman would suggest that people should be able to make a claim to us—and advertise that. We would then have manually to separate the potentially hundreds of thousands of cases, if not more, and process them differently. We estimate that the running costs to the Department would be several million pounds. It is not a trivial task. Is this the best way to help vulnerable households of the sort that both the hon. Gentleman and I want to help and support?
The hon. Gentleman raised an interesting issue about data on vulnerable households, which we deal with at the moment through the warm home discount. We have a deal with the big energy suppliers, through electricity bills, which helps people who are off the gas grid. We tie up their data, as customers, with ours on pension credit, age, and so on, and send a flag to the electricity companies to say, “This is a vulnerable household. Will you make a deduction at source from the electricity bill?” The figure at the moment is £130 this winter.
Mr Weir
I did not particularly mention that issue. Those who get the warm home discount will get it whether they are getting winter fuel allowance on-grid or off-grid. At least one large energy supplier told me that it would be interested in something similar, but because the Energy Act 2010 only allows data sharing with electricity companies, they cannot get hold of that information. Will the Minister at least consider whether it is possible to extend that regulation to gas and off-grid suppliers, some of which are fairly major now?
Steve Webb
Yes, I will. Our data sharing with pension credit customers is covered by the Pensions Act 2008, so in principle we can share our data, although we would need separate regulations for a different scheme. I am happy to explore that. If the hon. Gentleman provides me with details of the suppliers who expressed an interest, we could perhaps have a conversation with them. We might be able to do something constructive.
I take the hon. Gentleman’s point that some of the properties that we are talking about are hard to insulate, but I have always thought that far and away the best way to help people who are in fuel poverty is to tackle energy efficiency and wastage. I would far rather pay somebody £200—the winter fuel payment figure—to get their home better insulated, than pay them £200 simply to help them pay a sky-high bill for a house that is poorly insulated. Although some properties in the 1 million, or however many we are talking about, are of the sort that the hon. Gentleman described, many are not. These are important issues. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) mentioned his English constituency experience. Many properties are off-grid because of where they are, but they are not necessarily solid-wall insulated, or whatever.
We need to do a lot more. We have set up the energy company obligation, which is specifically designed to ensure that help goes to low-income and vulnerable households to enable them to heat their homes more affordably in the long term and to improve the energy efficiency of their homes. We are now setting up the green deal. The capital costs of home insulation are often quite large, but because of the cost of off-grid fuels, such as liquefied petroleum gas, oil, and so on, people could get substantial saving on bills. Under the green deal, essentially, people take a loan up front for large capital expenditure, but they then have a flow of savings. The golden rule of the green deal is that people are not lent more at the start than will be covered in repayments by savings on the energy bills. That is similar to the hon. Gentleman’s argument about there being a capital cost up front, as people would get their insulation done up front. That scheme might be particularly relevant to the sorts of households that we are talking about, because if their unit cost of energy is high, the savings they get from insulation will be high and the loan will be paid back within a reasonable time.
As the hon. Gentleman says, many people will use budgeting schemes with the larger oil suppliers. A colleague told me recently that they were off the gas grid and bought oil, but paid a flat amount every month. If people are in a position to budget through the year, there is no need for the Government to start moving winter fuel payments of £200 or £300 around a couple of months early. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point that some smaller suppliers might not offer such a scheme.
Mr Weir
I understand what the Minister is saying, but although somebody like myself, for example, would pay for my gas or electricity by direct debit and get a lower rate, not everybody is able to do that. Many off-grid pensioners simply cannot afford to do that. That is the basis of this problem and if we are going to tackle it—the same thing applies with green deal—we need to consider whether a pensioner can afford to take out a long-term loan to insulate their house. Probably, they cannot. There are difficulties in that regard.
Steve Webb
Perhaps I failed to explain the green deal properly. People can afford to do that, because the green deal only goes ahead if the savings on their energy bills due to insulation more than cover the repayment and debt-servicing costs of the loan. It is not a question of whether they can afford it, because it does not cost them anything. They get the capital up front and they have lower assessed energy bills, because the green deal does not apply unless they pass that test. So even including the repayment on the loan, they would be no worse off overall and they are living in a warmer home.
Steve Webb
The requirement to repay is attached to the home, not the individual.
Steve Webb
No. Because the home is better insulated than the one next door, the fuel bills are lower. The net effect is the same, except that when the loan is finally repaid people are living in a home with cheaper fuel bills. If I could choose between two properties in a street, one which had been green dealed and one that had not, I would go for the former, because the loan will come to an end and then I will have lower fuel bills than the house next door.
Steve Webb
No, because the debate was called by the hon. Member for Angus.
The hon. Member for Angus was right to say that some pensioners may be wary of this scheme. I accept that. We need to look, for example, at budgeting support. I am a great fan of the credit union movement. We could find out whether we could do more to help low-income customers of the sort that the hon. Gentleman mentions with budgeting through the year. I am worried about our changing significantly a system, which runs pretty smoothly and efficiently for the vast majority of low-income pensioners who really need it, for a sub-group, within which many could manage with the right support.
A better approach would be to ensure, first, that the homes of the people we are talking about are as effectively insulated as possible and, secondly, that where it is a budgeting issue, which it essentially is, we help those with budgeting problems through other routes. Just being off the grid does not make the million or so households that are off-grid poor. I was not poor when I bought my house, but I was off the grid. So I would not need my winter fuel payment, if I were entitled to it, two months early. If we changed the system, we would be doing a lot of administrative messing around and keeping track of properties, with people making claims and signing off the system, and all of that, when this could be much more targeted.
The hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue. People who heat their homes through off-grid routes are paying more and are more at risk of fuel poverty—that is correct—but we need a more targeted approach, rather than a broad-brush approach. We have to ensure that we do not mess up a system that works relatively efficiently. Although winter fuel payments are made to 12 million people every year, most Members of Parliament only get the odd complaint or a handful of letters each year, saying, “I didn’t get mine” or “I got it late”. Broadly, the system works. We do not want to mess up a system that works and spend millions on administration that could be better spent supporting vulnerable households.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the issue. His suggestion that, if the oil companies want to do more for vulnerable customers, the Government should try to help them, is good. I am happy to explore that. If he lets me know which suppliers are interested in doing this, the sort of data they would require and what schemes they would come up with, I am happy to explore whether there is more we can do to help in that regard.
Knife Crime
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Philip Davies (in the Chair)
Hon. Members will have noticed the new clock displays in the Chamber, which I am sure we are all extremely impressed with. The top display shows the current time, as before. When a speech is not being timed, the bottom display will show the time it started, also as before. If it becomes necessary to introduce a speech limit, the bottom display will change to show the time remaining to the Member who has the floor. As in the House itself, that display can award an extra minute for each of the first two interventions in a speech, but as things stand, I do not intend to impose a time limit.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
I am grateful for the opportunity to talk about knife crime. I intend to speak for only about 10 or 12 minutes to give others the opportunity to contribute.
In September, only a few weeks ago, 17-year-old Jay Whiston died after being stabbed. I cannot say more or elaborate on the detail as the matter is to go before the courts. I can, however, say that Jay, a student at Tendring technology college, is desperately missed by his family and his loved ones. Jay’s death has raised concerns locally about knife crime in Clacton and I want to address some of them today.
Jay’s mother, Caroline Shearer, is a formidable woman, with enormous reserves of energy, determination and grit. However enormous and unimaginable her grief must be, she has not withdrawn into despair. She has set up a campaign organisation aimed at changing attitudes towards knives and knife crime—Only Cowards Carry. Caroline’s efforts have struck a chord in our part of Essex. Thousands of people have rallied to support her efforts. Young people, including some who never knew Jay, have volunteered to help. I was struck by this last Saturday, when a shop that was given voluntarily to the campaign group was staffed by dozens of young people. Many hundreds of people have come forward to show their support.
Why have Caroline’s campaign and the efforts of the local Gazette resonated so widely? Why have thousands of people signed up in support? Why have hundreds of people, including teachers, offered their time voluntarily to support Caroline’s efforts? Such support is a good thing. It shows a strong sense of civic-mindedness and community spirit in Clacton, and a sense that together we really can change things. However, part of the reason is a little less positive, because it is also a reflection of how widely shared concerns about knife crime are.
Too many young people have come forward in Clacton with a story to tell involving someone carrying a knife or offensive weapon. I have been struck since Jay’s death by how many young people have said things to me about knife crime. That shows how ubiquitous carrying a knife has become for some people in our community.
There have been far too many incidents in my part of Essex. Liam Mearns died of stab wounds last December. In January, a security guard was stabbed in Walton. A 24-year-old was stabbed in St John’s road. In March, a 23-year-old was stabbed in Dudley road. The strong prevailing thought among local people is: enough is enough; something must be done. However, as is so often the case when we hear people say that, we must ask what can be done. I shall offer my thoughts and will be keen to hear what colleagues think.
First, we need an acknowledgement that knife crime is a problem. It is a problem locally. Too often in the past, incidents involving knives have been treated as one-off, ad hoc incidents. I remember being told—I am not playing the blame game—that part of the problem was caused by sensationalism. We need to recognise that the problem of knife crime is not a problem of perception; it is a real, genuine problem. We must recognise that there are legitimate concerns that must call forth a public policy response. The criminal justice system and those in charge of it need to recognise that there are legitimate concerns, but the response of the criminal justice system has simply not been up to matching those concerns.
Secondly, we need local solutions. The Minister might be pleased to hear that I will not ask him to do anything. I am not looking for central Government action or hoping for ministerial fiat to solve the problem. I mean no disrespect to the current Minister, who is honourable, decent and highly competent, but decades of central direction and hoping that the man or woman in the Home Office will do something has been part of the problem. Generic, one-size-fits-all answers are almost by definition too bland to have specific meaning. We need the very opposite of a one-size-fits-all solution from Whitehall.
We now have locally elected police and crime commissioners. This debate is, as much as anything, an appeal to the Essex police and crime commissioner to act. Essex has an excellent police and crime commissioner, Nick Alston, who is absolutely not a party politician. He was born in a local police station. He has given years of service to his country and served in the Navy. He owes his loyalty not to the party machine—not to the dreadful party hierarchy in London—but to local people. Local people gave him the job by a narrow margin and local people will hold him to account. I hope that Commissioner Alston will take a lead and devise local policing priorities for Clacton that reflect local concerns about knife crime.
Whenever we have a debate about public service provision or public policy, we often hear about so-called postcode lotteries and the concern that provision differs among areas. A postcode lottery is what happens after years of policing being run from the Home Office. Paradoxically and counter-intuitively, when the setting of standards and priorities is left to the Home Office, we end up with postcode lottery policing. The police commissioner will give us the opposite of postcode lottery policing: postcode-specific policing.
Let me set out what I should like policing in the CO15 postcode to be. I should like there to be much more aggressive stopping and searching. The police need to stop and search on a targeted basis, and they need to be prepared to do it unapologetically. At certain times and in certain places in Clacton, young men—I am sorry to say that it is mainly young men involved; I do not mean any disrespect to the male half of the human species, but that tends to be the case—should be targeted, and stopped and searched. We should not be apologetic about that. Carrying a knife in Clacton ought to carry a risk of being stopped and searched, and if people are found to have a knife, they should be prosecuted and convicted.
Stop-and-search can be controversial. I am pleased to say that English people naturally resent any form of arbitrary intrusion, but people in Clacton would not regard such a measure as arbitrary. It would command local support and be regarded as legitimate. This is a brilliant example of how directly elected local police commissioners can do things because they have a certain degree of legitimacy and local support. If the police in Clacton stopped and searched certain people at certain times, it would command widespread support within the broader community.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on obtaining this debate. Northern Ireland’s figures for knife crime are not as high as those for the mainland; we are into tens of thousands here and the figure in Northern Ireland is around 1,000 in the year up to September.
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point about the local community. There needs to be support from the local community, whether on stop-and-search or whatever, but there also needs to be proper protection for the local community—for those willing to give evidence, to report knife crime or to report that someone that they know is involved in it.
Mr Carswell
That is absolutely spot on. I want us to do much more to encourage people, especially young people, to report knife crime. If one knows that someone is drink-driving, telling someone about that is no longer seen as snitching, but as the sensible, legitimate thing to do, because the price we all pay for allowing drunks to drive a car is the risk that innocent people will be killed. We must have the same mentality about carrying a knife. If people are to be prepared to tell someone in authority—that could be children telling a grown-up or a teacher, or young adults telling the police—they have to be able to do so not only confident in the fact that they will be treated confidentially and that there will be action, but with the recognition that doing so is legitimate, that they are not a snitch and that they are doing the right thing. That is vital.
One of the reasons why the campaign against drink-driving—I will talk more about this in a moment—has been so successful is precisely because people who know that someone is drink-driving are not prepared to stand or sit idly by and let that person carry on getting into a car under the influence of alcohol. We should have exactly the same social constraints on people who are prepared to walk around with an offensive weapon. That action must be seen as illegitimate, and reporting it to someone in a position of authority must be seen as legitimate. Incidentally, one of the great achievements of the Only Cowards Carry campaign is the attempt to get that message across to young people aged six or seven so that they realise from an early age that if they know of someone carrying a knife, they have a responsibility to tell a teacher, an adult or someone in a position of authority.
Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that ideally we need to personalise and localise the campaigns. The issues surrounding stop-and-search might be a little more toxic in the parts of London represented by the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and me. Hitherto, knife crime might have been regarded as a problem specifically in inner cities, or even only in London, but we now recognise that it goes far further afield.
Does my hon. Friend agree that, in particular among young men, there is an almost toxic mix of the possession of a knife with alcohol use and misuse? A frenzy of disorder sometimes leads to such incidents. Personalising the campaign in the way in which he is setting out is entirely the right way to try and re-educate a lot of young men to ensure that they do not go on to the streets with a knife.
Mr Carswell
I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s point about the vital need for a tailor-made solution that commands support and legitimacy among the local population. I am deliberately not asking for a one-size-fits-all, blanket solution. I fully understand that the approach for which I am calling could well cause resentment in some parts of the country, but we are discussing democratically legitimising the actions of authority. Robert Peel said, when he founded the police:
“The police are the public and the public are the police.”
We can use the new instrument of democratic legitimacy that is given to us through police and crime commissioners. A creative commissioner will be able to do things that would previously have caused resentment.
David Simpson
The hon. Gentleman talked about drink-driving. At this time of year, we see graphic advertisements, warnings and detail in the media about that. Would he be in favour of something similar for knife crime?
Mr Carswell
Absolutely. There are strong parallels with the campaign against drink-driving, but it is important to remember that the success of the campaign against drink-driving was not simply due to high-profile publicity. Such publicity had a role to play, however, as raising awareness is vital, and raising awareness of knife crime in that graphic way could be important, especially in schools.
I do not want to sound cynical about human nature, but we must remember that the fear of getting caught also changed attitudes. Some of us will remember that 30 or 40 years ago people complained about the police campaigns to stop and breathalyse drivers. Many of the arguments that we would hear if we encouraged the police to carry out more stop-and-search would be about whether that would be legitimate. People used to say, “It is not an offence to have a few beers; the offence is to have an accident.” We now recognise that being drunk is the crime, just as it is the carrying the knife that is the crime. We change such attitudes through a combination of high-profile publicity campaigns and a criminal justice system that is prepared to be aggressive. I mean to use the word “aggressive”, because the system needs to be more aggressive.
A generation ago, incidences of drink-driving seemed to be rising inevitably. If we were having the debate in the 1970s, we might have seen ever-higher drink-driving as inevitable, saying, “Alcohol is getting cheaper,” “More people are driving,” “It is family breakdown,” or, “It is social disorder.” We now know such arguments to be nonsense, however. The police started carrying out the equivalent of stop-and-search—breathalysing. They did not, however, use blanket breathalysing. On the contrary, they targeted certain times, places and, probably, types of people—again young men, most likely. It therefore became clear that drink-driving carried the risk for someone not only having an accident, but of being caught, and there were serious consequences if they were caught, so attitudes started to change. We need a similar approach to carrying a knife—not blanket solutions, but targeted stop-and-search.
The criminal justice system also needs to change its response when someone is found to be carrying a knife. Imagine if, in this day and age, someone was found to be over the drink-drive limit and the police only cautioned them. Of course that would not happen, because someone who is over the limit can expect the police to bring forward charges and the criminal justice system to prosecute. We need to make it absolutely clear that knife crime is unacceptable. Blanket rules are never a good idea, because they always have unintended consequences, but the default rule in normal circumstances should be that if people are found to be carrying a knife or a concealed offensive weapon, they can expect to be prosecuted. If that started to happen, attitudes would change.
A higher incidence of drink-driving once seemed inevitable—it was thought that nothing could be done—and we could expect to hear many of the arguments against breathalysing to be used against stop-and-search. However, with a much more robust attitude from the criminal justice system, and with a willingness to target certain people at certain times in certain places, attitudes can shift. Absolutely nothing is inevitable about more knife crime. Just as we reduced the incidence of drink-driving, we can change attitudes towards knives and those who carry knives.
Clacton needs a criminal justice system that is prepared to reconfigure its priorities and to shape a specific public policy solution to meet concerns about a Clacton-specific problem. It can be done, as the criminal justice system now has a measure of local accountability that allows it to be more experimental and to do things that it might not have considered over the past generation. The criminal justice system and those who run it would find that, if they were to do that, they would command widespread popular support. Most people in Clacton, including the overwhelming number of young people, are good, decent, law-abiding people who would not dream of carrying a knife. All too often, however, there is a minority—not as small as we once thought—who are prepared to carry knives. Unless we are prepared to tackle that minority, the many tragic, awful, hideous incidents to which I referred will become part of a long roll-call of tragedy and mishap.
I hope that the criminal justice system acts. As I said, I do not expect the Minister to have the answers; in fact, I think that the solution lies with the police and crime commissioner. I very much hope that we will now begin to see a change in attitude in the criminal justice system in Essex and among those who run it. If that happens, I am confident that we can reduce the number of incidents involving knives in Clacton.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I am grateful to have the opportunity to contribute to this important debate, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) on securing the debate and on the manner in which he made his remarks. I fully agree with aspects of what he said, in particular on the importance of the criminal justice system, but in some areas I would choose to differ.
I have now been in the House for 12 and a half years. Tottenham is my home and the community I grew up in, and when I first became its Member of Parliament, it had been in the news for many but not great reasons—I am not now talking about the football club—so I expected the tough, gritty inner-city issues to be my fare. One would expect London’s housing crisis and its immigration challenges, and issues such as welfare benefits and crime and disorder to be mainstream stuff for the Member of Parliament for Tottenham to bring to the House for debate, discussion and even disagreement, both with one’s own Government and that of other parties. What I did not expect 12 and a half years ago was that serious crime, such as murder, would escalate from being an issue affecting individuals and small communities to a serious national problem.
My period in the House has coincided with Operation Trident, which was set up to look at gun crime in parts of—I emphasise “parts of”—the black community. People use the phrase “black-on-black violence”, but it is not one that I have ever been comfortable with, and I have voiced that on several occasions. A small group of criminals, who were trading in drugs that originated in the Caribbean and America, made their way here through drug-trafficking routes and created a gun crime problem in certain neighbourhoods and communities in London. Legislation covering guns, together with serious enforcement by the police, bore down on that problem, and to some extent it has been contained, but in our capital city and our major cities we still see guns go off and we see crime related to guns. At the same time, the problem of knife crime has increased.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm for the record that three times as many people are killed by knives as by guns?
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I am happy to confirm that that is exactly the case, and that goes to the point that gun crime morphs into knife crime. We saw knife crime morph from something we associated with particular tough, inner-city environments into a real problem across London, Manchester and Birmingham. It is significant that the hon. Member for Clacton is raising this as an issue in his community. This is a moment to pause and ask ourselves what has really happened, and why teenagers and young people so callously take life in this way. It is a criminal justice and enforcement issue, but only in part. There are underlying causes in our society which we must uncover.
There was a time in the 1980s when many of us would have looked across the Atlantic to north America and wondered whether drive-by shootings in cities such as Los Angeles and New York were just part and parcel of life in that country and had to be accepted, or whether the authorities would bear down on the problem and deal with it. Knife crime in this country is at that junction.
When we debate this issue, I think of so many families whom I have comforted in my surgery because they have lost children to knife crime in north London. The names do not now take up whole pages and sections of newspapers, but are small columns because knife crime has become such a regular occurrence in our country. Teon Palmer was 23 when he was stabbed to death in Edmonton last month. Pavel Zekaj was stabbed to death outside Burger King in Wood Green last month. Kevin Duhaney from Bruce Grove in my constituency was stabbed to death in Hackney over a girl, and his mum had to fundraise £7,000 for a funeral. Steven Grisales was 21 when he was stabbed to death on his way to Silver Street station in Edmonton where he was pelted by conkers by a gang of youths.
The case of Godwin Lawson touched me greatly, as did his parents. He was a wonderful and incredibly talented young man who went to a great secondary school. He was just 17 and doing so fantastically well at football that he had been picked by Oxford United. He was training in Oxford to become a great footballer of the next generation, and perhaps to play for Spurs one day. He came back to north London for a weekend to see his family and friends, and when walking innocently down the road in the Stamford Hill area of my constituency he was stabbed to death for no reason other than being on the wrong side of the road and looking in the wrong way at someone in a gang of youths. He lost his life. I pay great tribute to his parents, who set up the Godwin Lawson foundation.
What lies behind such actions? Why are young men—on the whole it is young men, but sometimes it is young women—choosing to pick up knives? Why do they need that weapon? Is something going on in our society in how young men are forming a mature understanding of masculinity? Should we look at that in a more meaningful way? Does it matter that the young men who commit those crimes have so often not had responsible male role models in their lives? Is fatherhood a feature, and are we willing to discuss that, or is it irrelevant that there is an absence of responsible role models, be it a father figure or a school teacher? Does it matter that some of our primary schools have an absence of male teachers? Does it matter that we are living in a society that has made decisions similar to those in the United States of America, which have led us down the road of rampant materialism and consumerism, creating deep feelings of violence and misogyny, and leading to a culture in which whole groups of young men think it is okay to stab someone for no reason? Is that relevant to the debate and, if so, what are we going to do about it? I think it is relevant.
I was deeply disturbed to be contacted by a games console company a few months ago, which was putting together a game for which it was using the Tottenham riots as the backdrop. Is that acceptable? The company rang my office to ask me whether I wanted to feature in the game. What kind of society are we living in if it is okay to profit from something that caused so many Londoners and others across the country so much despair, and indeed, in which five people in Britain lost their lives? Does this matter?
I have come to the view that only five things are the ingredients of a successful society and country: education, employment, community, aspiration and parenting. We have a lot of discussion about education in the House and, although there is still much to do in our schools, my sense is that teachers are doing a hell of a lot, and there has been a great deal of attention on that area of policy.
We see problems when we look at the environments that so many of the young men who are committing this crime come from. They are from some of the toughest housing estates in the country, and particularly, from some of those tower blocks—such as the one that I grew up in; Broadwater Farm in Tottenham—that have gone from being working-class environments to workless-class environments. That workless class is not just about our GDP; it is about the character and dignity that comes from work, and particularly, about what surrounds the masculine culture in the environments that these young men come from and thrive in. If there is a culture of sitting around and doing nothing, then we get decay, and then we get petty criminality. There is a lack of value, particularly as regards women, I might say, so we get domestic violence and so on. We see repercussions from income not coming in. There are neighbourhoods and estates where those things happen. I know—because I have visited them—that those environments are to be found in places such as Essex and Kent, and particularly in some of the seaside towns.
There is the business of aspiration and what one aspires to. Is someone aspiring to have the latest pair of trainers? If they do not have them, are they prepared to stab someone who does, or to break into Foot Locker or JD Sports, as we saw during the riots? What we are aspiring to is hugely important. How do we create a culture in which the idea of aspiration is deeper and more meaningful than some of the frankly lightweight and superficial ideas of it that we see? I do not want to knock shows like “The X Factor”, which I enjoy, but I worry that there is a dominant idea that aspiration relates to being in the public eye, like a pop star, when it can just mean doing meaningful work, and contributing to and raising a family. Those are much simpler notions of what genuine achievement is.
There is also community. One thing that we saw during the riots in Tottenham was that the idea of community is problematic, because there can be communities within communities. There, we saw a community on Blackberry Messenger, which was exclusively made up of young people and was closed—the police could not see it—who communicated with each other and caused mayhem and violence across our country. Communities within communities exist on Facebook, on Twitter and in some unhealthy counter-cultures and sub-cultures that we are tolerating in a world that says, “Choice is everything. You can choose to be in that community or not.” The problem is that if someone’s child is knifed as a consequence of the violence and the obscene ideas of human life that exist in those communities, my God, they wish that someone had intervened in a meaningful way, to give a different vision of what was possible.
Of course, we come back to parenting, recognising that, in the end, two thirds of a young person’s life is spent out of school, so it is not sufficient for us to berate schools and tell them to do all the work. Parents matter, but it is also about recognising that where there is only one parent struggling in one of these housing developments where people are not able to make a living wage, so they cannot be with their kids because they are doing two jobs and do not have the time, that can militate against parenting and against being family. It is also about recognising that far too many of the young people caught up in this problem have been through our care system in this country, where the state was meant to be in loco parentis, but basically failed. That has been captured very well by Plan B in his film “Ill Manors”, which hon. Members should get on DVD, if they have not seen it. It is a good illustration of what goes wrong. I want to emphasise to the hon. Member for Clacton that yes, there is a criminal justice context to this issue, but we have to get to the bottom of some of the reasons for it.
The police, through the gangs initiative that was launched by the Government last year, are doing a lot around enforcement, certainly in communities such as mine. We are seeing many young people who are caught up in gang activity and knife crime being arrested and put through the criminal justice system. The problem is that I am not at all convinced that prison, with its recidivism rates, or Feltham and institutions like it are yet at the point at which I can say with full confidence that young people will come out reformed, and they will not get caught up in crime again. We seldom want to discuss that in the House.
The Mayor of London launched the important Heron initiative in Feltham prison, which was designed to work with young people before they left. There were bespoke services to help young people into employment, to work on drug addiction, and to work on the things that they needed outside, but unfortunately, the results of that were poor. It looks as though the scheme has been scrapped by the Mayor because it was costly, and the payment-by-results method that he hoped would underline it did not work.
There is a lack of ideas in this area. The Mayor said that he wanted to create a generation of mentors, which is hugely important in this area, and I am sure that young people in Clacton will need that. However, if people do not have the time to be a mentor, that is a problem. It is hugely disappointing that although he announced that he wanted 1,000 mentors when he was first elected in 2008, the Mayor has managed to get only 28. That, too, is an area that will need a lot of attention if we are to halt the decline.
I heard what the hon. Gentleman said about stop-and-search. Blanket section 60 notices, as we saw in the run-up to the riots last year, are not the way forward for Britain’s young people. Those notices designate a whole constituency as somewhere that the police can stop and search. In Tottenham, we saw the figure rise from 50 such searches in January 2011 to 237 searches in July of the same year, and we can recognise what is significant about that July, coming, as it did, the month before we saw serious unrest in London.
Doing intelligence-led, informed stop-and-searches is not the problem; the problem is when the police get lazy, frankly, about who they stop and search. We have found in London that the issue is about the police officer distinguishing between a young man on the way to the gym or university wearing a hoodie, and a young man carrying a knife. In the end, in our model of policing—policing by consent—we must carry communities with us. Our policing relies on good young people working with the police and, ultimately, not being in fear of them.
I caution the hon. Gentleman to ask himself whether stop-and-search will help, and to reflect on the underlying causes of the problem. In this era, when there is enforcement activity, the diversion and engagement of young people will be really important. That will require resources, and it will require us to understand fully what works, but it will also require us to be honest about the phenomena in our wider culture that are bringing us closer to the United States than to some of our continental European cousins, and that are driving warped senses of masculinity so that teenagers think that masculinity can be found in a knife or a gang, rather than in watching football or doing something constructive in their local community.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) on securing the debate and on his speech. I also congratulate the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), on his even longer speech. I join the hon. Gentleman in praising Jay’s mother and friends for what they are doing to highlight the general issue of knife crime on the basis of a specific case. He rightly drew attention to the support given by Colchester’s Daily Gazette, and I should also mention the players of Colchester United football club, who have backed the campaign so well.
The hon. Gentleman is right that we must not dwell on the crime that prompted this debate, because it is still being investigated. I am sad to say that that crime happened in my constituency, and the resulting campaign has resonated in the town of Colchester. I have had the good fortune, as a result of those sad circumstances, to meet Jay’s parents and all those involved in the campaign, because, as in Clacton, they had a campaign shop for a time.
The right hon. Gentleman is right to say that knife crime is not simply an inner-city or, indeed, a racial issue. I first became involved in the issue following a murder in my constituency. That led me, at Prime Minister’s Question Time in 2007, to draw Prime Minister Blair’s attention to the fact that
“three times as many people are killed by knives as by guns.”
I challenged the Government of the day to do more to deal with the consequences of knife crime and with the punishment and sentencing of those involved. In fairness, Tony Blair responded:
“we are introducing tougher sentences for the possession of knives as illegal weapons.”—[Official Report, 27 February 2007; Vol. 457, c. 924-5.]
The current Government have continued down that path, as the record will show.
The tragedy in my constituency involved a man in his 20s called Westley Odger. As a result, his mother, Mrs Ann Oakes-Odger, set up a campaign called KnifeCrimes.Org in memory of her son. She has also been in contact with Jay’s mother, and the two ladies are in conversation, because they come to this issue from a shared tragic background.
As a result of the incident in my constituency, I persuaded my colleagues on the Home Affairs Committee that we should hold an inquiry into knife crime, and we duly did so in spring 2009. Our seventh report—reference number HC 112-1—was published on 2 June 2009, and I hope the Minister will refer to it when he responds, because Parliament, through the Home Affairs Committee, clearly took the issue very seriously.
In preparing for today’s debate, I have looked back at my contributions on this issue and have found that, in addition to my work on the Home Affairs Committee, I have mentioned knife crime on 11 occasions, both in questions and in debate on the Floor of the House. When the Minister responds, however, will he give us an update on my parliamentary question from 2 June 2010, when I asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department
“for what reason the It Doesn’t Have to Happen.Co.UK programme on knife crime was removed from her Department’s website”—[Official Report, 2 June 2010; Vol. 510, c. 11W.]
The programme had been included during the previous Administration to try to draw attention to what was going on with knife crime. As both the previous speakers have highlighted, knife crime is a growing problem, and I repeat that it is not just an inner-city or racial one.
On 21 March 2007, shortly after I put my question to Prime Minister Blair, I also presented a public petition to the House in the name of my constituent Mrs Ann Oakes-Odger. It was signed by 5,000 people and drew attention to the fact that, on 12 September 2005, her son, Westley Odger, was brutally murdered in Colchester.
All of us are aware of the problem, and I certainly share the right hon. Gentleman’s concerns about random stop and search, because the unintended consequences could take us into other areas of social unrest, which could create issues that go way beyond the tragedies that involve constituents of mine and of the hon. Gentleman.
This comes back to education and awareness. I have been with Mrs Ann Oakes-Odger on at least three occasions when she has addressed gatherings. She once spoke at city hall, when 40 mothers and fathers were present, each of whom was holding a framed photograph of their child—it was mainly a son, but occasionally a daughter—who had been killed by knives.
The Home Affairs Committee inquiry showed that those who carry knives quite often bring crime on themselves; it showed that knives are not a protection for people, but actually cause others with knives to attack them. I hope that I am not paraphrasing the inquiry too much. Many deaths involve innocent people, such as those whom the hon. Gentleman and I have mentioned, but some people lose their lives through being mixed up in gang culture. That brings us to education, leadership and role models—all the things that have been mentioned.
Knife crime is a curse of the 21st century and a growing problem. We should have mandatory sentencing of those who carry knives, unless there are exceptional circumstances, as there sometimes can be. I was told of a horticultural student who had a pruning knife in his pocket. Of course, he should not have taken it out of college, but I mention that because there may be occasions when people innocently have a knife, although they are the exceptions. As a general rule, the courts must have more powers, but in finding a solution, we must be careful—I am repeating what the right hon. Gentleman said, because it is important—that it does not have an unintended consequence. Stop-and-search has been shown, particularly in inner cities, to have unintended consequences sometimes.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
While we are talking about the influences on young people who carry knives—sad to say, many lives have been lost as a result—we should remember that most of the killers have been under the influence of alcohol or drugs. What should society demand that the House of Commons do about that? Relaxing the hours in which people can consume alcohol surely has unintended consequences, because people fuelled by alcohol can take a knife and quickly turn themselves into a killer.
Sir Bob Russell
I do not think that I am competent to comment on the specific details. Our inquiry showed there was drug activity around some knife crimes. I endorse the general thrust of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention about licensing hours being too long, but I do not think there is a proven link between alcohol and knife crime. I stand to be corrected, but my recollection is that there may be drug-related activity around knife crime, whereas I am not aware of its alcohol side. The hon. Gentleman makes a good point.
All of us—politicians, the education system and communities, both individually and collectively—have a role in instilling the understanding in young people that if they carry a knife they could get a lengthy jail sentence or, worse, become a victim themselves. I conclude by congratulating the hon. Member for Clacton again on focusing attention on this issue.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) for bringing the debate to Westminster Hall. He spoke with passion and concern and reflected heartfelt constituency pressure to raise the issue and consider solutions to the problem of knife crime. I also thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) and the hon. Members for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) and for South Antrim (Dr McCrea). They have shown by their remarks that not only in Essex, where the tragic incident that we have heard about happened, but in inner London, Northern Ireland—which I know well from previous ministerial involvement—and throughout the United Kingdom, the concerns that the hon. Member for Clacton has raised need to be addressed by the Government. There is a need to look for possible solutions, to reduce knife crime and the resulting deaths.
I was struck by the comments of the hon. Member for Clacton about the death of Jay Whiston and by the fact that because of that tragedy, irrespective of any pending court case, Jay’s family and friends, and people in Clacton, have said that it is not just for the Government and the police to deal with the issue; it is for us to make a stand and make comments and contributions, and act to save lives in future. Families have responded in that way before. I hope that there will not be further families in that position; but Jay’s family are taking the issue seriously, and it is a tribute to them as much as to the hon. Gentleman that they have brought it to his attention and that he has responded.
I cannot claim to be an expert in the subject, but I spent my last three years in government, before the 2010 general election, in the Home Office and, before that, the Ministry of Justice. Knife crime was on our agenda; it was something that we had to consider and deal with. I hope that we responded in a way that helps to militate against the likelihood of future deaths, despite Jay’s tragic death a few weeks ago. I say that because the solutions that we considered then are still worthy of consideration. I want to hear how the Government can develop those ideas, to help to put a stop to incidents and reduce the likelihood of injury and death.
One of the most tragic things that I had to face in government was the fact that with every knife death I received a report on my desk, containing the details and circumstances. Even when we had invested time and energy in taking steps to reduce, as I hoped, the number of further knife deaths, some of the most painful things that I, departmental officials and the police who were seconded to the Department had to do were meeting victims’ families, listening to their concerns and trying to set out some policy development to help them. I am not talking about what we did out of any sense of pride, but I hope that it will be understood that, as part of the development of a response to a growing trend, the previous Government considered several initiatives to bring the issue to the public’s attention and take effective action.
As a Minister, together with Jacqui Smith, I considered the supply of mobile search wands to police forces. In inner city areas, for example, or elsewhere on Saturday nights—in towns such as Clacton—police could bring forward mobile search arches, so that people who turned up for social events had to walk through an arch for the detection of knives or, indeed, guns. On average, I authorised 150,000 stop-and-searches in a year, which resulted in 3,500 knives being confiscated. That did not stop the problem, so I brought legislation through the House to double the maximum sentence for possession of a knife from two to four years. We increased the age at which knives may be purchased in shops for legitimate uses from 16 to 18 and ran a strong campaign with retailers, so that their staff knew that people who went into B and Q, Tesco, Sainsbury’s or other stores could not sell any knife over the counter to someone under the age of 18. Trading standards strongly enforced that as part of our work.
Among other solutions for the longer term, we considered how to give new powers of stop-and-search to head teachers in schools, because people often took knives into schools. That was a powerful deterrent. Equally important was helping to support and advise parents, so that they could understand what activities their young people were taking part in. That is why an important initiative for the future was the 5,300 safer school partnerships, with dedicated police officers allocated to schools to advise parents and carry out enforcements.
The hon. Member for Colchester mentioned advertising campaigns, and the previous Government allocated £3 million to an advertising campaign on television and in bus shelters and on boards, in areas with the highest rate of knife crime, to show people that knives are not about an individual carrying a sexy object around, but are about death, destruction and a potential 30-year prison sentence for someone who commits murder.
We need to revisit those ideas. I hope that the Minister will consider what the previous Government did. The present Government have taken forward some relevant issues. Education, enforcement and changes to sentences are important. They can send deterrent messages and give people the power to tackle knife crime effectively. I give credit to the Government for recent moves to ensure that such activity continues. Their gun and knife crime initiative last year was extremely valid, and they have undertaken a range of activities, similar in some ways to what we did in the last years of the previous Government, which raised the issue effectively.
Despite my best efforts and those of the Government, the evaluation of our work on all the relevant issues, such as enforcement and sentencing, showed that knife crime had not really changed. That is why I welcome the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham. Not only are there things that we and the Government can do about enforcement, education, sentencing, catching and deterring people and providing wider understanding, but there is the issue that he mentioned of the underlying causes and culture. I think that there is a culture—partly to do with the modern technology of games and other activity—in which human life is cheap and can be thrown away, and we need to look at that.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham makes good points about adult role models, employment and social conditions. He also makes a good point about technology moving on, so that the Xbox can be used to communicate in a way that police and others cannot track. That takes us to other debates that we will have elsewhere about the potential to monitor that type of social media, and the balance between a legitimate interest of the state and the rights and freedoms of individuals to live without state interference.
There is one area where I disagree slightly with the hon. Member for Clacton. He said that this is a localism issue. I think that it is—I would be interested to hear from the Minister how the new police and crime commissioners will deal with it locally and what the relationship between the Home Office and PCCs will be—but central Government can set down some key messages and policy directions, as has been done in the past, through the tackling knives action programme that the previous Government introduced and the current Government’s youth and gangs programme, which provide additional resources targeted at specific areas.
Mr Carswell
I am genuinely interested in the various initiatives that the right hon. Gentleman implemented as a Home Office Minister. I have learned something new. Is not the real significance, by his own admission—I do not wish to be confrontational or partisan—that, despite all that, the problem was not solved? Perhaps that centralist mentality and the idea that it can be solved centrally is the problem. Perhaps it is precisely because we are searching for public policy innovation in the Home Office that we are not getting anywhere. The place to find the innovation is out there locally.
Mr Hanson
There is a balance between the two. Some of the ideas introduced under my jurisdiction as a Minister and some of those that the current Government are taking forward were locally approved solutions. A money pot was available centrally for people to bid against under the auspices of our knife action programme. That is why we had imaginative solutions: in some areas the focus was on head teachers; in others, it was on knife wands; in others, on stop and search; and in others, education.
In a key area, the focus was on those people who had been sentenced for knife offences. One of the most innovative projects that I visited was at Liverpool prison and in Leeds, where people who had been involved in knife crime and been sentenced were going through an intensive programme of knife-related activities to show some of the consequences and how they could be deterred from committing such offences again. Most prisoners who have not committed murder will go out again in a relatively short time. I am interested in looking not just at prevention but, as mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham, at the work with those who have been sentenced for offences that are knife-related but not murder.
Dr McCrea
In acknowledging some of the answers, we must not forget parental responsibility. Parents are responsible for their children in their homes. From speaking to the families of victims of knife crime, does the right hon. Gentleman know that there is a belief that quite often Parliament or Governments and their initiatives have been a reaction to events rather than being proactive? Is that a misconception, or do we need to change how we tackle the issue?
Mr Hanson
I think we do have to react to events. Governments often respond because things happen and that is perfectly legitimate. I want to press the Minister on one issue in particular. Given the evaluation of the work of the previous Government, taken with police and local authority advice and with budgets provided centrally, such as the TKAP activity, and given that it has been said that there was not necessarily a discernible change in behaviour, I would like the Minister to talk not just about the good initiatives that he is taking now to tackle knife, gun and gang crime, but about the equally important, longer-term behavioural issues and societal changes mentioned by hon. Members.
The Government are funding additional support to police forces in three areas—London, Manchester and the west midlands—where more than half the country’s knife crime occurs. There are prevention grants, further funds and a whole range of ongoing activities. That funding runs out in March 2013. Given the range of activities pursued by the previous Government and this Government’s initiative on guns, knife and gang crime, will there still be in 2013, as there will have been for nearly six years, a pot of money centrally allocated by the Home Office for distribution to local authorities and police forces such as in Essex or Clacton? Will that still be there post-2013? At the moment, the five years’ work that I have outlined and that the Minister will outline ends in March 2013. What is the post-2013 financial responsibility?
What relationship does the Minister see between PCCs and central Government? Where does the responsibility now lie? Will the solution be entirely local, or will guidance and suggestions still come from a central Government Minister? Will he particularly look at the worrying statistics that came out earlier this year? I took through the Commons legislation that increased from two years to four years the penalty for carrying a knife. This year, 51 of 1,100 juveniles caught with an offensive weapon were locked up in jail. We spent a lot of time taking that legislation through the Commons to increase the penalty. We spent a lot of time publicising it and enforcing it. Yet we have a situation where 51 out of 1,100 juveniles caught are given a custodial sentence. Is that where we should be? I am not saying that it is or it is not; I am simply asking the Minister to focus on those issues.
Although incidents that involve the possession of a bladed article or offensive weapon have dropped in this period, from 5,194 to 4,270, a smaller proportion of offenders is now going to jail. I simply ask whether or not we should take this route. I ask the Home Office what research is being done on the qualitative impact on prison population issues.
Will the Minister look again at the initiatives taken over the past five or so years to see which have worked in the longer term? The previous Government picked 16 or 17 geographical areas to look at serious knife crime. As I have mentioned, three areas—London, the west midlands and Greater Manchester—are where most knife crime occurs. If we want to reduce knife crime, we need to focus on areas such as Clacton where this terrible incident has occurred. However, to make a qualitative impact we need to look at the driving forces in Manchester, the west midlands and London that are leading to half the incidents of knife crime being in those three areas.
I suggest to the Minister that the Mayor of London; Bob Jones, the new police and crime commissioner for the west midlands; and Tony Lloyd, our former colleague, the new police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester, are three people he should have in his office speedily to look at what can be done in those areas, over and above what has been done to date.
I throw those ideas in, not because I am an expert or have sage advice on such matters. However, experience has shown me that this is a difficult issue with many aspects that need to be addressed to resolve it. The hon. Member for Clacton has done a service to the House and his constituents by bringing this debate about those, such as Jay Whiston, who have lost their lives through knife crime. I hope that those who watch, listen and read about the debate recognise that there is a drive from all parties in the House to ensure that no other family and community need to face that ever again.
The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr Jeremy Browne)
I am grateful for the opportunity to make the final contribution to this extremely important debate, which will be of genuine interest to people around the country who have day-to-day experience of the terrible circumstances that we are discussing. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton (Mr Carswell) for bringing the issue before us, as well as to the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) and the Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson), who have all spoken. Because I have a little more time to respond than is sometimes the case in such debates, I want to engage more directly in some of the points that hon. Members have raised.
It was interesting that my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton said that although the Government and the state—in the form of the police—have a role to play, this is not just about central Government finding solutions and telling local communities what those solutions are, but about local communities seeking their own solutions. Police and crime commissioners can play a leadership role on that. They are not the only people with responsibility, but they do have a responsibility in this area. The right hon. Member for Tottenham compellingly developed that theme when he talked about the cultural context. However many laws we pass in this House and however much advertising we use taxpayers’ money to fund, cultural issues are probably the biggest determining factor for success in this area.
Why do most people choose not to carry a knife? Some people might carry knives for a rational reason—because they may feel that it makes them more secure. They may, as my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester reminded us, be miscalculating, but they nevertheless made that miscalculation for rational reasons. Most people do not carry knives. Most people think that it is wrong to carry a knife, and that it is certainly wrong to brandish and use one. Why do they come to that conclusion and, interestingly, why does the opinion of the minority who do not come to that conclusion differ from the consensus? To a large degree, it is about factors beyond the direct control of central Government.
The right hon. Member for Tottenham talked about aspiration: what is smart and respected by peers, and what wins their admiration? Is the answer, in some communities—particularly, but not exclusively, among groups of young men—carrying a knife? Does that make someone seem smarter, tougher and more sophisticated than some of the boys and young men who do not carry a knife? Is that considered more worthy of admiration than being good at sport, for example? In a way, sport is a slightly lazy default object of admiration, so why is it not about being good at playing a musical instrument or speaking a foreign language, or helping disabled children’s groups in the community? Why are those characteristics, which are much harder to attain and require sustained application, not regarded as being as worthy of peer admiration as something as simple yet mindless as carrying a knife? That interesting fundamental question goes beyond what we can legislate on.
The right hon. Member for Tottenham also talked about parenting, and I pay tribute to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions; we are in the same Government, but not the same party. Members might have different views about the ideas he puts forward on behalf of the Government, but he is grasping the nettle tightly and showing an obvious personal interest in trying to get to the root causes of social failure in our country, rather than paying people to be out of sight and out of mind. Intergenerational social failure can have the devastating consequences of not only violent crime, but the waste of time, effort, talent and ambition by those squandering their lives doing nothing much in particular.
What is the role for parents and role models? The right hon. Gentleman made an interesting observation about the shortage of male primary school teachers. Socially, my constituency is in many ways different from his, but it is striking that we can go to a small to medium-sized primary school there and see no male teachers at all. Boys with a lot of energy—good boys with nothing wrong with them, but with a lot of energy to work out of their system—are placed in settings that may sometimes be excessively feminine for their requirements. They cannot grow up in the way that they might have done if they had male role models to look up to. I am not talking about superstars on TV, although they can be role models, but about ordinary older boys and men in communities whose influence such boys could be exposed to in a positive way.
Having talked about things for which the Government are not directly responsible, it is important for me, as the Minister, also to discuss things for which the Government are directly responsible. It is important that we have this opportunity to discuss knife crime. It is worth saying that knife crime is wholly unacceptable and has devastating consequences for our communities, as we have heard this afternoon. Tackling it is a key priority for the Government, but we know that there are no quick fixes or magic bullets to tackle knife crime and violence. If we could pass a law to solve the problem, we would do so, but it is not as straightforward as that. We need long-term, evidence-based solutions to get a proper grip on the problems, and that needs concerted effort across a wide range of areas.
We believe that cautions are being used excessively for possession of a knife, which was a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton. The Prime Minister announced a review of knife sentencing on 22 October. We want to ensure that such offences are dealt with appropriately, which is why we are working with colleagues from across the criminal justice system to review the punishments available for carrying a knife. The Association of Chief Police Officers has also revised its guidance on the investigation, cautioning and charging of knife crime offences. The guidance states clearly that there is an expectation to charge all those who illegally carry and use knives. The right hon. Member for Delyn touched on whether there is a gap between what the House expects to happen and what happens in practice. I acknowledge that there is a gap, and we are looking at ways in which it can be filled.
Knife crime, like any form of violence, cannot be tackled in isolation. We need every partnership agency to engage to solve the problem. It is about not only the police and the courts ensuring that they take knife crime seriously, but many other organisations, such as the health service and schools. The right hon. Member for Tottenham mentioned care homes and institutions, which look after children in the most severe disadvantage when the state has taken responsibility for their upbringing. There are also voluntary services, and I have already touched upon communities.
Tackling knife crime is also about parents taking responsibility. It is worth making the point that most parents do take responsibility, but if a parent has a teenage child—probably a son—out at night after dark, which may be a particular problem at this time of year, do they know where that child is? It is always difficult with teenagers, but there is a rightful expectation that parents treat 13, 14, 15 and 16-year-olds as 13, 14, 15 and 16-year-olds. They are not fully-fledged adults. They need guidance and supervision, and parents have a responsibility to help to provide that supervision.
Of course, the overwhelming majority of citizens are law-abiding and live responsible lives. Although this may go against the overall tone of the debate, I want to say that there is some cause for encouragement. Individual victims and their families are of course devastated by such crimes, and serious problems exist, but there are also reasons to believe that the overall picture is not as overwhelmingly bleak as people listening to the debate might imagine.
According to official statistics, the number of offences involving knives and sharp instruments has fallen by 9% in the past year. In 2011-12, the police recorded 30,999 serious violent crimes involving a knife, which represented a reduction. Before hon. Members try to intervene, I acknowledge that that is 31,000 very serious incidents with potentially devastating consequences, but it is worth pointing out that that is slightly fewer such incidents than in the preceding year. I hope that groups—whether officials in the Home Office who are trying to devise more effective policy, or people working for youth or community organisations in hon. Members’ constituencies—feel that what they do makes a difference and that they do not have to bow to a counsel of despair.
Sir Bob Russell
I hope that the Minister is right that knife crime has reached a high water point and is in decline. I do not expect him to have this information with him, but it would be interesting to draw some comparisons with the figure from 10 years ago.
Mr Browne
My hon. Friend is right that, regrettably, I do not have the figure for 10 years ago. The inference behind his question is that if we have seen a substantial rise and perhaps some encouraging signs that this is beginning to subside, we must also recognise that, until it has subsided to its earlier level—and ideally lower still—there will be a lot more work to do. I would not for one moment wish to suggest otherwise.
Mr Carswell
I was pleased to hear the Minister say that the Government are in favour not of cautioning, but of a default rule towards prosecution. What fiat does the Home Office have to change that approach, or is it for police and crime commissioners to decide?
Mr Hanson
The figure that the Minister cites is welcome but, perhaps after the debate, I would welcome a breakdown of juvenile, domestic violence and adult crimes. The debate has focused on juvenile crime, but not on domestic violence and adult crime, which are equally important. Will the Minister reflect on that outside the Chamber?
Mr Browne
The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the disaggregation of statistics. We are talking about a crime that causes people huge concern. Even those who have never been or known victims fear the seemingly random and devastating nature of the crime. I take that very seriously, and we will certainly look at the disaggregated statistics to see where we can make further improvements.
In the time remaining, I want to talk about police and crime commissioners, legal changes and wider Government policy, but I will start by addressing gangs and youth violence, because much knife crime happens in that context. Young people who are involved in gangs are more likely to engage in criminal behaviour generally and to carry a weapon. We cannot look at knife crime, gangs and gun crime in isolation, which was a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester.
As part of our programme on ending gang and youth violence, we have provided funding and support to the 29 areas that have been identified as having the most significant gang and youth violence problems. I acknowledge that other areas have problems, but we are targeting Government attention on those where the problem is greatest. The Home Office has reprioritised £10 million of funding for this financial year to support those areas.
The new programme builds on work that is already under way, including the communities against guns, gangs and knives programme. As the right hon. Member for Delyn mentioned, that programme has directed an additional £3.75 million over two years to three police forces—in London, Greater Manchester and the west midlands—in which there is disproportionately more gang crime and associated violent crime, including with knives.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to meeting the police and crime commissioners. I am pleased to inform him that all of them from England and Wales will meet throughout Monday at the Home Office with the Home Secretary and other Ministers, including me. We will certainly take the opportunity to talk to them about some of the good ideas and best practice that we have tried to develop as a Government or that has been developed in other parts of the country. That will equip them to implement good ideas from elsewhere, while also formulating their own.
As well as preventing young people from getting involved in violence and gang activity, action must be taken against those who break the law. As the law stands, carrying a knife in a public place is already an offence with a maximum penalty of four years. As the right hon. Gentleman said, that change was introduced a few years ago. As part of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012, the Government have strengthened the law on the possession of knives by creating the new offence of carrying a knife or offensive weapon in a public place or school when the weapon is used to threaten or endanger others. There is clearly a distinction between someone carrying a weapon who claims that it is for legitimate purposes, and someone brandishing one in a way that is intended to threaten or intimidate.
Mr Browne
I shall, once I have finished this short section of my speech.
That offence attracts a minimum mandatory sentence of six months for over-18s and a minimum four-month detention and training order for 16 and 17-year-olds. Those sentences are attracted not by stabbing someone with a knife, but by displaying one in a prominent way. By building on the existing tough knife crime laws in the United Kingdom, that provides a clear message to those who possess a knife to threaten and endanger others that they can expect to face imprisonment. The offences will come into force on 3 December—next week.
Sir Bob Russell
Are those tariffs the same as those for someone carrying a gun?
Mr Browne
I do not have that information available. I think that the policy has been developed to deal with the specific problem of knife crime.
Hon. Members talked about stop-and-search. There have been calls for the police to carry out more stop-and-search. The police do an important job—obviously, they are an important part of the equation—including by having a focus on preventing, deterring and combating violent crime or the use of knives. Stop-and-search is a vital part of a police officer’s role in deterring and combating crime, but the Government’s opinion is that it is important that stop-and-search is used in a targeted and intelligence-led way, with the support of communities, because that is how it is most likely to have the desired effect of protecting the public. The children of people from all backgrounds can be the victims of violent crime, and it is in the interests of people across society that we help the police to combat that.
I have talked about the importance of tackling gangs in relation to knife crime, and I now turn to the wider society. Police and crime commissioners have an important role to play. My hon. Friend the Member for Clacton talked about not having a postcode lottery. I think that he mentioned a precise, postcode-targeted—
Mr Browne
A postcode-specific approach. We do not want police and crime commissioners to be only civil servants who implement Government policy in their force area; we want them to think of themselves as leaders in their force area. I want police and crime commissioners to learn from others who seem to be doing well and are tackling crime effectively in their force areas. I want them to work with groups that might not be seen as particularly fashionable, including the Churches and youth organisations such as cadets and scouts.
Many young people feel as though they are big and tough when they are brandishing a knife, but only five years before, in some cases, they were little boys. For some of them, being given an opportunity to have a structure or support network in their early and more formative years can be very beneficial. I hope that, by giving children from different backgrounds the opportunity to come together and learn from one another, the Government’s national citizenship programme will also make a contribution.
In conclusion, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Clacton on securing the debate and express the sympathy of the whole Government for the terrible circumstances that have led to our having this discussion.
Car Hire (Consumer Protection)
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I must admit that this issue was first brought to my attention not by a constituent or by a debate, but by my own experience while returning unexpectedly from holiday this year. The issues I encountered led me to do more research, and I found that consumer protection for my constituents and other customers of hire car companies is severely lacking.
My experience involved picking up a car from a well known company, having it for no more than three hours as I drove from one UK airport to another, and then returning it. There were no incidents and I caused no damage to the vehicle. A fortnight later, I was looking over my credit card bill and noticed a charge for £666.68 from the hire car company, levied the day after the hire. That was obviously charged without any warning or notice to me. To my surprise, when I looked at the small print on my hire contract, there was £800 insurance excess on hiring the car, which was never mentioned at the time. Such excesses should be made crystal clear at the time of hire, and an option should be given to reduce it through an extra premium. Some cursory research that I have conducted shows that some of the biggest car hire companies have excesses ranging from £600 to £1,000, often with reduction options that are offered only when specifically asked for.
Such excesses should be capped and the options openly advertised, which would make price comparison and consumer choice much easier. Surprise charges of hundreds of pounds are not welcome to anyone and could cause real financial problems for some. Will the Minister tell me what safeguards are currently in place to stop those excesses being charged without warning? What rules, if any, are there on how much excess a company can charge? What are the rules surrounding how much evidence the company needs to produce to prove that damage was caused and the related costs?
In my case, I found it particularly difficult to dispute the damage report as no photographic evidence was provided. Time-stamped digital photographs would be a real technical possibility nowadays. Lack of evidence combined with picking up and dropping off the car in the dark meant that I was entirely at the mercy of the company; it was its word against mine.
I requested a copy of the invoice for repairs but did not receive one. Surely, total transparency should be required when charging people for damage. Even if I had damaged the car, and accepted that there would be repair costs, I would still have liked to see an invoice; otherwise, as a consumer, I would be at the mercy of the hire car company which could charge whatever it wanted.
There is also the question of best price in these cases. It seems reasonable for car hire companies to have agreements and relationships with garages and mechanics they trust, but what checks and safeguards are in place to ensure that they are getting a competitive price for repairs? Do they receive commission from garages when they allocate repairs? There is currently no onus on them to shop around for the best deal for minor repairs, as all costs get passed on to the customer.
In my case, I objected to the charges. My first objection brought a reduction of £291.68, accompanied by some amazing gobbledygook:
“At the location the estimated cost of repair was £658.34 including the damage administration fee of £41.67. As per our pricing schedule the cost of the repair is £366.67 therefore I have now amended your damage charge to reflect the actual cost of repair and the damage administration fee. Our pricing schedule is based on previous damage repair costs to ensure that the locally made estimate reflects the actual cost of repair irrespective of whether the damage is immediately repaired or not.”
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
Did the company outline what damage was done to the car? The hon. Gentleman did not see an invoice, but did the company tell him what damage he had actually done?
Ian Swales
When I first complained, I was told over the phone that there was a dent and some scratches to the front of the car. There was no other evidence of what happened.
The starting figure in the explanation was different from what the company actually charged me. Even the refund did not quite balance with the explanation. Although I was refunded an exact amount, it left a suspiciously round figure of exactly £375 as my remaining charge. Again, that process could be a lot more transparent.
I am sure that colleagues will be pleased to hear that when I objected further I received a full refund. In a letter, a senior manager said:
“Having reviewed the vehicle condition report and the damage documents I am unable to uphold the charge.”
That obviously prompts the question: why did the company immediately charge more than £600 for damage in the first place if records were so poor? What is to stop companies charging consumers in the hope that it will not be noticed, not followed up, or that an initial refund of some of the money will suffice? Does that not imply that there may be a widespread scam going on whereby some hire car companies are simply seeing what they can get away with?
I have used my particular example to highlight the broader issues, but I know that my experiences will not be dissimilar to those of many other people. The British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association saw a 54% increase in complaints against rental companies between 2010 and 2011. In looking at lessons learned, it says:
“Rental companies should take steps to help customers better understand their obligations under the rental agreement.”
It continues:
“Rental companies must ensure their staff follow the correct procedures and maintain accurate records so they can contest any disputes that may arise.”
In February 2010, the Office of Fair Trading published the results of an investigation into consumer contracts. It included research into five areas, one of which was car rentals. It highlighted various issues, including whether customers had adequate opportunity to read contracts and understand the implications of the contract; the visibility of additional charges; and whether customers understood the implications of waivers in the contract and pre-authorisations on their credit cards.
One key point was that people were put off by small font sizes and poor quality paper. People also had an understandable belief—a touching faith, in fact—that staff would highlight important points. No one could recall the detail of any extra charges for which they might be liable, and the OFT was critical of the way in which information was made available to help customers with their buying decision.
When Which?Money examined car rental terms and prices for a week’s hire, it found that costs for operational extras, high excesses and hidden shortfalls in cover were “commonplace”. It also said:
“While most car rental firms offer excess waiver policies, to reduce or eliminate the cost if you have an accident in your hire car, we found numerous underlying restrictions in the small print that could make you assume you’re insured when you’re not.”
That really compounds the felony. If I had been unhappy about my high excess and paid a premium to lower or take away the excess, Which? found that even that premium may not have actually bought me the cover that I expected. It also found that third-party excess reimbursement insurance policies suffered from the same shortcomings—that is, buying policies not from the hire car company.
There are many consumer protection issues here that the Minister should address. Key features of a rental agreement should be clearly summarised and not left buried in the small print. Car hire companies should clearly display the insurance excess included in their contracts in their advertising and at the point of hire. Customers should be given options to bring the excess down to levels they can afford, with policies that actually work. These extra premium options should also be clearly advertised in advance. Car hire companies should not be allowed to make charges for damages without notifying the hirer.
With digital photography and video now being ubiquitous, consideration should be given to having time-stamped photographic evidence to support damage claims. The hirer who is expected to pay for damage should receive a copy of the repair invoice, and consideration should be given to how hirers can benefit from the most competitive repair costs.
I thank the Minister for listening to my speech today, and I look forward to hearing her feedback and information about what plans the Department may have in place to ensure that there is more protection for consumers in the future.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)
It is, as ever, a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) on securing this debate. He perhaps did himself a disservice when he said that this issue was not brought to his attention by a constituent, because I am sure that he is able to be an excellent representative for himself. We are all constituents even if we are our own MPs.
My hon. Friend explains, through the account of his experience, problems that are perhaps widespread within the car hire industry. Of course, not everybody who faces the problems that he has experienced would necessarily be able to get redress in the same way that he has. First, his ability to get redress relied on his noticing the extra charge on his credit card bill. Although most people would notice an extra £600 on their bill when they were already expecting a charge to come through from a car hire company, they might not always check the exact amount. Indeed, if the charge for any damage was lower than that and perhaps not so different from the overall hire amount that is the kind of charge that could be missed, which obviously opens up the potential for abuse by unscrupulous companies.
My hon. Friend detailed in his speech how he got the charge waived, by various efforts and by going back to the company on more than one occasion. Of course, we know that not every constituent will necessarily have the ability or the time to make that kind of challenge. So, although options for redress are available, and I will certainly outline the provisions that are in place, it is worth bearing it in mind that I am quite sure there are some people out there who have been the victim of this kind of practice by car hire companies who perhaps have not had the redress to which they are entitled. Consequently, I welcome the fact that my hon. Friend has brought this issue to the attention of the House and indeed that he has given it wider publicity. I hope that car hire companies will be following this debate closely, and that they see that the Government are aware of this issue and determined to ensure that consumer detriment in this area is not allowed to happen unchecked.
There are ways in which this issue can be addressed. My hon. Friend might be aware that Radio 4’s “You and Yours” programme took up this issue a little while ago and that it reported action being taken by trading standards officers in Leicestershire against a national rental company. That suggests not only that there is action that can be taken but that there is a problem, at least in some instances. I will not go into the details of that specific case, but it shows that the legislation that exists can have teeth when it comes to tackling offences in this area. Indeed, it also shows that the enforcement authorities have the power to act when cases are brought to their attention and when there are potential breaches of the law or unfair trading practices. The current regulations can provide protection, but it is fair to say that there are significant concerns about the experiences that have been highlighted by my hon. Friend.
Indeed, it is not only my hon. Friend who has highlighted such experiences. It is worth bringing it to the attention of the House that this is a subject on which, as the Minister with responsibility for consumer affairs, I have received a variety of correspondence from hon. Members. In the last few months alone, I have had correspondence about it from six hon. Members, both Government and Opposition. That shows that my hon. Friend’s case is not an isolated occurrence. Of course, not everybody who has such an experience will necessarily go to their MP, which may suggest that this is widespread; if so, it is certainly a cause for concern. There is certainly room for improvement in this area, so I will also set out how we intend to ensure that we can develop and enhance the existing consumer protection regime.
The Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 requires traders to carry out services with reasonable care and skill, and where charges are not agreed it requires that the consumer will pay a reasonable charge. If the trader fails to comply with the requirements of the Act, the law treats the matter as a breach of contract. So, if consumers believe that there might have been a breach of the Act, in the first instance they can get help by contacting Citizens Advice.
Another key piece of legislation affecting car hire companies is the snappily titled Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, which require the material information that a consumer needs to make an informed decision to be expressed clearly. That helps to deal with my hon. Friend’s point about the importance of ensuring that, when they hire a car, customers can have that clear information, which includes information about their liability to pay for damage in the event of an accident or for other reasons. As I say, we think that that could well be material information, so it should be disclosed at the outset, although obviously that would ultimately be for the courts to decide.
Ian Swales
I thank the Minister for giving way, and for her very fluent and helpful speech so far. She mentioned the need to display information clearly and to make it clear to customers. Does she have any view about whether such words apply to contracts that have, for example, extremely small print on the reverse, which most reasonable consumers would have no time to read, particularly if they were standing in a queue of other potential car-hirers?
Jo Swinson
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As I say, it is ultimately for the courts, in ascertaining whether the law has been broken in a specific instance, to decide whether information is material. I think that we would all recognise that it is not necessarily practical for a business to provide an explanation of all its conditions of trade to each individual consumer, in a very large font and with the conditions highlighted. That would almost be too much information. It is about striking the right balance and ensuring that the information that is material—as the regulations point out—is expressed clearly. Being overly prescriptive about that would not be helpful because in different industries different types of information would be the key information that the consumer needed to make a decision.
Nevertheless, my hon. Friend makes a really important point. Like other people, I have hired a car in the past and I cannot necessarily put hand on heart and say that I read every single bit of the six-point text on the back of the rental agreement. In fact, if we did a straw poll of people in Westminster Hall at the moment, I suspect that I would not be alone in that. We need to ensure that we have companies acting in a way that is reasonable and that the contracts that people are signing up to would not be deemed to be unreasonable.
Pressure of time is a factor. My hon. Friend mentioned the scenario in which someone is in a queue, with other people behind them who are also trying to hire a car, and very often—as in my hon. Friend’s case—a car is being hired to go from one airport to another to catch a flight, so there is time pressure. There are a whole host of reasons why every last letter of a contract may not be read in detail, which is why it is important that the key information is displayed clearly.
The contract should also set out clearly whether the person hiring the car has to pay an amount to replace petrol. If the contract does not spell that out, the consumer is entitled to challenge any demand for payment, and if the contract does clearly spell it out, the consumer of course has the choice either to pay the charge for petrol that would be imposed by the car hire company or to shop elsewhere. I suspect that it is often in a consumer’s best interests to shop elsewhere and return with a full tank of petrol, but obviously that is a decision that they can make for themselves.
This issue is partly about the terms of a contract being explained clearly and, where they are material, printed in a sufficiently large font, in advertising, publicity material and leaflets as well as the contract. It is also about the conversation that the customer has with a member of staff, who can explain exactly what the customer can expect. It is reasonable for subjects such as a customer’s liability for potential damage to be clearly spelled out. For many people, the charge that my hon. Friend faced—one of £600—would be a huge amount more than the actual cost of hiring a car, and a really significant charge to be hit with. It is important to ensure that people are aware of any charges and, if necessary, that there are alternatives in terms of lowering any excess.
That said, this is not the type of transaction that people do every day. If someone needed to use a car that often, they would consider buying one. Because people will typically undertake such a transaction only once or twice a year, there is a bigger challenge here for consumer information. We cannot rely on the same pressures that repeat purchasing gives, where if someone gets bad service they take their next bit of custom elsewhere. The information gap is an important issue, and there is a role for consumer websites on which providers’ performance is rated and information is given about their reputation, so that people know which of them to trust. Such signals can help consumers to make good decisions.
The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations are enforced by local authority trading standards and the Office of Fair Trading when there are practices that have wider effects on consumers. As my hon. Friend mentioned, this area was looked into a little while ago. There is also the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. Consumer law protections are available, but my hon. Friend has raised issues of genuine concern. If a consumer pays a headline price to book a rental car, they should not then find out when they collect the car that to reduce their insurance excess it costs them twice as much as they thought it would, or that there are other surprise high charges, such as for returning the car with an empty fuel tank or for repairs. Sometimes, a driver under the age of 25 finds out that there are extra charges because of their age, or a parent who needs a car seat for their small child has to pay more for a week’s rental of the facility than it would cost to buy such a seat. The Law Commission is considering whether the current unfair terms legislation adequately protects consumers from such hidden charges, and will make recommendations about whether tougher legislation is needed.
My hon. Friend raised the issue of the rules on damage, and whether robust evidence must be provided. He talked about time-stamped photographs, and with technology these days that would be an innovative solution for a company that wanted to make it clear that it was not ripping off its customers. That is generally a contractual issue but, importantly, the British Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association, the members of which are responsible for 80% to 85% of car rentals, is signed up to a code that is clear about ensuring that damage is recorded and that consumers agree it at the time. It also has a conciliation service to which consumers can take complaints, and by which the traders have to abide. There is, therefore, some protection in place, but it is not an entire solution because it does not cover 15% to 20% of the market.
Ian Swales
The Minister rightly draws attention to the code of practice. Is she aware of what the industry does about companies that do not follow it? In the case I highlighted, there was clearly no communication at all—no attempt to make contact—about even the fact of damage, let alone the content, before the charge was levied. Does the Minister agree that that company was operating outside the industry’s code of practice?
Jo Swinson
My hon. Friend tempts me to make a decision on that specific case and I hope he will understand that I am not able to. What I will say is that if members do not comply with the code of practice, they could certainly be considered to be carrying out a misleading action under the consumer protection regulations and that could properly be taken further with trading standards, which might be able to look into it. Although my hon. Friend’s case has been resolved, I am sure he has a wider concern, in that he would not wish the same experience to happen to others, and so an investigation by the local trading standards department could perhaps ascertain the facts of the case.
My hon. Friend mentioned insurance, which I have already touched on. It is important that contract terms are clear, so that consumers understand whether they are buying an insurance product and therefore getting the advantage of any regulatory protection. When car hire firms offer consumers the opportunity to purchase an excess waiver, that is often not the same as buying an insurance policy, and is therefore not covered by financial services regulation. When consumers are sold an insurance policy, the policy has to be provided by an insurance company, and in the UK the regulation of such companies is designed to ensure that they treat customers fairly. One option open to consumers, therefore, is to buy their own insurance policy, separately from the car hire contract, to cover the excess, but they would need to negotiate that with the car hire firm, to ensure that it was okay with it. For a one-off purchase, that would be a convoluted way of getting protection but, ultimately, buying from an insurance company means that consumers have the protection of the Financial Service Authority’s rules, and free dispute resolution from the Financial Ombudsman Service.
In heading towards a conclusion, I want to ensure that I have covered all the issues that my hon. Friend raised. He asked for the rental agreement to be clear, and although there are regulations that say that material information needs to be there, he makes a good point about whether in practice that happens as clearly as it should, particularly regarding displaying the excess that can be charged, because that is a key figure. An excess of £850, as he mentioned, would make many consumers think twice and at least ask the question, or be careful when they returned the car to ensure that they had a discussion, saying “And I hope you will see that there is no damage there.” I have just described the options for reducing the excess, either through insurance or an excess waiver fee, and the issue of damage notification is partially dealt with by the code of conduct, which is something that my hon. Friend can take further with his local trading standards.
My hon. Friend raised an important point about ensuring that if it is stated that a repair has been undertaken there is evidence that it has happened. Often, the repair service is being purchased by someone other than the person who is paying for it, so it is important to ensure that good value is achieved, and perhaps consumers could benefit from cheaper repair costs than those at whatever local garage the company seems to have a deal with. The company might not always be encouraged to get the best possible price because the customer who is paying is not standing there when they take the car in for repair. As there is not generally a repeat purchase, there is not necessarily always the time for the consumer to read every single bit of the small print, partly due to time pressures and partly because we know that that does not always happen in any event. Often when a car is dropped off late at night and the office is not open, the customer leaves the key somewhere and there is no opportunity to have a discussion, look at the car and agree that there is no damage. When it is not practical to have such a conversation, there is a particular challenge, and time-stamped photographs could certainly be part of the solution.
In conclusion, from the correspondence I have received I am concerned that in some cases there is a degree of sharp practice in the industry. I hope that car hire companies will carefully consider practices throughout their chains, and that if they uncover any evidence of this kind of practice they ensure it is stopped. We need, however, stronger consumer regulation, not just in car hire but across the board, and that is why we are introducing a consumer bill of rights, which will make regulation simpler and much more effective, ensuring a clear framework of rights that is easier for consumers and businesses alike to understand and use. We will carefully consider what the Law Commission comes back with from its review of what might need to change to give further protection to consumers in this area and, as there is legislation coming forward, I encourage any Members who have suggestions about how the regulation in this particular area could be improved to bring such proposals to my attention. We would, of course, be happy to consider what could be done to strengthen the hand of consumers in this and all other markets.
With that, I conclude by thanking my hon. Friend for raising this important issue. He is doing an excellent job on behalf of his constituents, and also for the wonderful charity Movember.
Boundary Commission (Great Grimsby)
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this issue, particularly as this is the first time I have served under your benign chairmanship, Mr Davies.
I warn against the crime that the Boundary Commission proposes to commit, namely the murder of the Great Grimsby constituency, which I represent. The commission proposes to kill the constituency by splitting it in two, with four of its eight wards going into a new constituency of Grimsby South and Cleethorpes, and the rest going north in a shotgun marriage with Barton in a new Grimsby North and Barton constituency. Barton is 10 miles from Grimsby. I do not know of any other historic constituencies that are being treated in such a way, and it is certainly the only historic constituency in Humberside to be so treated. I have been proud to represent Grimsby for 37 years. In fact, it was only under me that the constituency rose to greatness by becoming Great Grimsby, so the Boundary Commission’s proposal to abolish it is a particular blow. The great majority of my constituents, and many organisations in the constituency, feel the same way.
Representing Grimsby has been a delight, not only because it is a community within a constituency, which is fairly rare, but because it is an historic constituency. Grimsby was first represented in Parliament in 1295 by two MPs: William de Dovedale and Gilbert de Reyner. I deny the rumours that I have been here that long that one of them was actually me. I was not here in 1295—Augustinus de Mitchellius was not here—but I am sure that those two are turning in their graves. While we had two MPs at the start, after the Reform Act 1832 was passed, we had one MP, who was always the borough Member, because the constituency coincided with the borough’s boundaries until the borough was abolished in 1992. I suppose that I am therefore the last of the borough Members.
Great Grimsby, therefore, is unique and historic, and it is one of the few parliamentary constituencies that is also a community. It is not a slice of a big city such as Hull or Bradford—or wherever it might be—and nor is it rural acres lumped together to build the necessary population. Destroying something as unique as Grimsby would be an act of simple political vandalism.
Grimsby’s one fault, if it has any faults—I do not think it has many faults—is that it is small. The electorate is only 61,000, which was big enough to survive all the previous redistributions, but not to reach the new norm of 76,000 electors per constituency, with only a 5% margin either way, that was necessitated by the Government’s decision to reduce the size of the Commons from 650 Members to 600. That proposal is wrong. The Government cannot economise on democracy by reducing the number of MPs to reduce expense. Reducing the number of MPs takes no account of their work load, which is increasing due to Select Committees and growing demand from constituencies.
Reducing the House in such a fashion will increase the power of the Executive by diminishing the number of Members outside the Executive. An Executive of more than 100 in a House of 600 would make them much more powerful than under the present situation. I deplore the change, and that unnecessary reduction has led to the redrawing of the constituency boundaries according to the new quota of 76,000 that has been imposed. Constituencies are now to be no more than 5% above or below that norm, which means that Great Grimsby and the neighbouring constituency of Cleethorpes have to be enlarged.
The Boundary Commission’s provisional proposals would have sensibly enlarged Great Grimsby by adding two wards from Cleethorpes, and would then have compensated Cleethorpes, which encircles Grimsby like Indians round a wagon train, although I should not say that in the presence of my neighbour, the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers)
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I speak as one of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents. He and I know that visitors to Grimsby and Cleethorpes will not know where the boundaries are because it is just one urban mass. We, of course, remember where the passport control points used to be prior to the creation of North East Lincolnshire council.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s good point that cutting Grimsby in half is totally illogical, but there was an equal strength of feeling in Cleethorpes when, as he suggests, the first proposal was to take the north end of Cleethorpes. Does he agree that the sensible thing would be to ignore the supposed boundary between Yorkshire, Humberside and the east midlands, which would then allow villages such as Holton-le-Clay, Keelby and Tetney to be brought into one of the seats?
Austin Mitchell
I absolutely agree that that would solve all the problems. The problem is that the borders with Lincolnshire and Yorkshire have been so oppressive for the Boundary Commission, which says it will not ignore them. Humberside has to lose one Member, and the reshuffle results from that.
Cleethorpes was to be compensated by adding the south bank of the Humber up to Burton upon Stather and Winterton. The Boundary Commission’s provisional proposals were sensible. They brought my constituency up to 78,000 electors and Cleethorpes up to 77,000, although stupidly that constituency was to be renamed Brigg and Humberston, which must have annoyed people in Cleethorpes, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman could confirm. Both constituencies would have been big, and people told the Boundary Commission that they were happy with the provisional proposals, but that was to no avail, because the next stage for the commission was to review its decisions on the basis of representations made by the parties and local people.
In Humberside, the bulk of the review dealt with Hull and its surrounding area, and with Scunthorpe, which is to our west. As we were not concerned in Grimsby, we issued a statement saying only that we were happy with the provisional proposals. We left it at that, and so did the Labour party and the Liberal Democrats in their national evidence—both parties recommended that Grimsby should not be split. The Conservatives, however, made more wide-reaching proposals, which included splitting up the Grimsby constituency. To our amazement, those proposals were accepted by the Boundary Commission, which I deplore. I consider that decision to be both disastrous and unacceptable; it does not make sense.
Why did the Boundary Commission change its mind so unpredictably? It gave a number of reasons that were more like excuses and had nothing to do with Grimsby. We were told that the commission wanted to accommodate some of the representations from Hull by changing its constituency boundaries, and there were therefore knock-on effects right down to Scunthorpe. The commission said that it did not want to split up the three wards of the Isle of Axholme, which is more of a geographical description than a community, so it took Burton upon Stather from the proposed Brigg and Humberston seat and gave it to Scunthorpe, thereby reducing the population of Brigg and Humberston.
The commission also used the excuse that it had received representations from Cleethorpes against splitting up that constituency. Well, Cleethorpes was not really split; it lost two wards but gained other areas along the south bank of the Humber. The constituency was supplemented rather than split, and it is silly to respond to a complaint about splitting Cleethorpes, which was losing two wards, by splitting Grimsby right down the middle. The commission’s proclaimed reluctance to split the Isle of Axholme was really an excuse for something that it wanted to do to the north and west, and we suffered the knock-on effect of those changes. Grimsby was sacrificed on the altar of change in Scunthorpe and Hull.
The commission therefore reversed its sensible provisional proposals and proposed the two new constituencies of Grimsby North and Grimsby South. Grimsby South is to go with four wards to Cleethorpes—the seat will be called Grimsby South and Cleethorpes—while Grimsby North will merge with the rural areas to the north. That proposal is unacceptable. The basic principle should be to keep existing communities together as far as possible. This is an historic constituency and a community within one constituency, which is the strongest claim for remaining a constituency. The commission has split up the one constituency in Humberside that is a genuine community.
The commission is also supposed to maintain common interests as far as possible. In Grimsby’s case, it is merging part of an industrial community with Cleethorpes, which has different interests and organisations, seaside and tourism concerns, and even a different school system in terms of the sixth-form distribution in the area. It is merging another part of Grimsby, to the north, with rural areas with which the town has little in common, given that our problems are urban—deprivation, poverty and low educational achievement.
The commission says that it has had a lot of representations on the lack of affinity that electors in rural areas feel with urban areas and vice versa, yet it proposes to ignore all that in the case of Grimsby. The commission is supposed to pay attention, too, to organisational and party links within a constituency. Our constituency boundaries are the same as the old borough boundaries, so the organisational links across borough organisations are strong and long-standing, and the political organisations in the wards are accustomed to working together. All that is now to be split up in Grimsby.
The whole procedure leaves a lot to be desired, given that the commission comes up with provisional proposals that we accept and therefore do nothing more, and then it changes them totally. No one in Grimsby has been given a chance to react to the new proposals until now. We face an uphill struggle, because the commission has published its views and we must now change a more settled view. Given that the commission is bound to be a little reluctant to change its mind again, this decision-making process means that we face an uphill struggle to upset the convenience of the commission. That is neither fair nor democratic, and I do not see how it can be viewed as reasonable by the commission.
I am therefore asking the commission not to divide Grimsby and not to abolish what I rightly see as the best constituency in the country. Some might say that Shipley has many claims, Mr Davies, but I think that Grimsby is certainly the best. The commission should go back to its original proposals.
As the commission has behaved in this unreasonable fashion and sacrificed Grimsby to suit other areas and constituencies with regard to issues that have nothing to do with us, I will be submitting evidence to show that it is perfectly possible to keep the two constituencies of Grimsby and Cleethorpes—I hope that that constituency will be called Cleethorpes, because it certainly should be—without splitting Grimsby. I will not go into the details now, but while it cannot be done by abolishing and adjusting wards, it can be done by splitting wards. I know that the commission will be loth to do that, but it can be done, and I shall be submitting evidence on a numerical basis to show that.
I know that the Minister cannot respond by saying, “Yes, the commission is wrong. You’re right, Mitchell, and the Government will intervene and help you.” I perfectly understand that she cannot speak for the commission. Several people have told me that it is a waste of time to protest about the abolition of Grimsby, however, because the commission’s proposals will not be accepted by the House of Commons. However, whether the proposals end up in force or in the dustbin, where I am happy to see that the Liberal Democrats intend to put them, they are still wrong, and yet the Government appear determined to get them through.
The position must be decided soon or we will face a farcical situation in which the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties select candidates for the next election on the basis of existing seats—they are comparatively new, after all, as the last redistribution was not too long ago—while the Conservatives select candidates for the new seats. All the fights that go on within the party about the redistribution game of musical chairs will then emerge publicly as people fight for a diminished number of seats. That is plainly ludicrous. Whether or not the Government see sense on this issue, they must make an early decision.
I want the commission to show that it has seen sense on its proposals for Grimsby by not abolishing the historic constituency of Great Grimsby. My main reason for securing the debate was to put the case for that, but I also put it to the Government that it is incumbent on them to make their decision on the redistribution clear before we have a farce in which different parties are selecting candidates for different constituencies.
My final plea must be to the commission. I do not want to be the last MP for Great Grimsby as a united constituency with one community and all the organisational links that join it together. Please rethink this in light of the evidence from Grimsby that we will be submitting and keep Grimsby one political unit and one constituency.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
I thank the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) for allowing us to give these issues a good airing. It is absolutely clear that he is passionate about his constituency and its greatness, and I hear his desire not to be the last MP for Grimsby. That, however, is in the hands of others, as are so many things. I am sure that he will welcome the will of the people of Grimsby.
I will outline a few of the more factual aspects of the matter. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that I, as a Minister of the Crown, am in no position to suggest what the Boundary Commission for England ought to do or to comment on its proposals in detail. I shall have to stay carefully away from that. However, I can offer him my own experience of representing half of an extremely fine city, the city of Norwich. My constituents in the north of Norwich often confuse the boundary line. We do not have passport control; we reserve that for the boundary between Norfolk and Suffolk. Within Norwich and its neighbouring local authority area of Broadland, such issues are also raised occasionally.
The hon. Gentleman has focused on the proposals made by the Boundary Commission for England in the current boundary review concerning his constituency of Great Grimsby. As I said, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the conduct or content of the review. The Boundary Commission for England is independent, and rightly so. I am sure we all appreciate that about the democracy in which we live, so I will not go into the individual decisions made by the commission to date. I have no doubt that he and other hon. Members here have made known their views, and those of constituents and residents, to the commission. It is for the Boundary Commission to consider the substance of his comments and balance them with others that they receive.
The legislative position that applies is that the four boundary commissions across the UK will conduct boundary reviews and make recommendations in accordance with the statutory framework set by Parliament. We should leave it to the experience and judgment of the boundary commissions to make those proposals, in accordance with that framework.
The hon. Gentleman knows that the Boundary Commission for England is consulting on its revised proposals, which it published on 16 October, and on which he has commented extensively today. The deadline for responses is 10 December, so there is still time to make further representations on the proposed boundary, and I am confident that the hon. Gentleman is doing that. I urge not only hon. Members in this Chamber but anyone else who takes a serious interest in this matter to engage with that process. That is not just a matter for political parties; it should, as the hon. Gentleman said, be a matter for communities to voice their opinion on. I am sure that he is encouraging Grimsbians—he will have to let me know the word—
Miss Smith
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is encouraging the fine people of Grimsby to do this.
Parliament will have the opportunity in due course to consider the final recommendations arising from the current boundary review, when the four boundary commissions have completed their reviews and submitted their final reports to the Government. We expect those reports in October 2013. The hon. Gentleman will know that all too well. We are in the period after the publication of revised proposals, and a written-only consultation of eight weeks follows.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
All the boundary commissions are working within the proposals for a smaller House of Commons. However, in the light of the decision of the Liberal Democrats and the possibility that the legislation might not go anywhere, is it not a waste of time and money at a time of austerity? Surely the decision about whether the boundaries are going anywhere should be taken in this House, and it should be taken at the beginning of 2013 rather than in October 2013.
Miss Smith
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raised that matter, because it allows me to put on record a point that will no doubt be of interest to hon. Members. This is an example of Government underspending, which is always to be applauded. I think the hon. Gentleman will agree.
We estimated that the review would cost £11.9 million or thereabouts. Some £6.6 million has been spent by the four boundary commissions on the review and related purposes till the end of October, and £3 million remains in the budget for the rest of the review. I think the hon. Gentleman will agree that coming in under budget on this exercise is to be applauded. I see that he is writing down those figures, but they have already been brought out in parliamentary questions. He may wish to consider that before he writes his own press release about them. It is important to have regard to the figures and the costs of what we do, in every case. The £9.6 million current estimated cost that I cited is less than the previously estimated cost of the review and less than the previous boundary review, which cost £13.6 million.
The legislative position is clear. The House of Commons passed the Bill that I will mention in a second so the legislation is on the statute book. There is an obligation on the boundary commissions to return with their proposals by October 2013, The expenditure that we are talking about was necessary for the conduct of the review, as required by that legislation. I think that the boundary commissions have been successful in securing value for money when carrying out their duties.
An early point always made in support of the legislation was that, contrary to the suggestion from the hon. Member for Great Grimsby, reducing the number of MPs would bring us closer into line with other democracies and would deliver an estimated saving of £13.6 million a year, which is worth having.
Let me mention some other reasons why the Government thought it necessary to amend the existing rules for setting boundaries. Parliament debated these at considerable length, as all hon. Members know, during the passage of the Bill that became the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011.
There is a significant difference between the sizes of many parliamentary constituencies, and I can provide some particularly illuminating examples. Based on the figures as at December 2011, the East Ham constituency has 92,000 voters and Wirral West has around 55,000. The differences are even greater when compared across different nations. At the same date, Arfon in Wales had an electorate of around 40,000. I do not imagine that there is a great desire to see such inconsistency continue, because it has the effect of making some people’s votes count more than others’, depending on where they live. I am sure that the residents of Great Grimsby have their view on that, as others do. Our reforms are designed to restore equality and fairness in setting constituency boundaries. The 2011 Act seeks to achieve votes that are more equal in weight throughout the UK.
The concern has clearly been expressed today that setting boundaries should not simply be a numbers process, but should instead respect local ties and seek to unite communities. I recognise that there is a balance to be struck in boundary setting. A sense of place must be respected so that different localities and places that take account of local ties can be represented by single Members of Parliament, where that can be made to be true. However, the other side of the balance must be that we seek equality in the number of electors in each constituency, so that throughout the country votes have an equal weight—in other words, we uphold the fundamental principle of one elector and one vote. The boundary commissions are still able to take account of factors such as physical geographical features and local ties, but these are subject to the overriding principle of equality in constituency size to ensure we maintain that key principle.
The commission’s guide to the review states that the regional boundaries we are discussing are not inviolable, and it is open to the hon. Gentleman to make a representation accordingly. The guide to the review states that the regional approach
“does not prevent anyone from putting forward counter-proposals that include one or more constituencies being split between regions, but it is likely that compelling reasons would need to be given to persuade”
the Boundary Commission for England
“to depart from the regional-based approach we adopted in formulating our initial proposals.”
Again, we return to the fact that it is for the commission to take a view on the merits of the case, according to the legislation and other competing proposals for the area.
The consultation is open until 10 December. If the hon. Gentleman feels he has compelling reasons to put forward, he ought to do that. I would not dream of trespassing on the issue of whether Humberside or north-east Lincolnshire, or any other important aspect of the local geography, is more wanted by local people than others. That is not for me to say, as a mere Member for the fine county of Norfolk.
I think that all hon. Members agree with the principle that the boundary commissions should be independent. However, equality and fairness must be overriding principles in respect of something as important as people’s right to choose the Government of the day. The boundary reforms under the 2011 Act ensure that there is fairness in our political system and that votes carry a more equal weight throughout the country. I recognise the important points that have been made. I hope I have provided reassurance that the Government have taken and are taking these matters very seriously and that, crucially, there remains an avenue for the hon. Member for Great Grimsby and others to discuss them further with the Boundary Commission for England.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Ministerial Statements
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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Jury Checks and Crown's Right of Stand By
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)
I have today published revised guidelines on jury checks and the exercise by the Crown of its right of stand by. In 1988 the defence right to challenge jurors without cause was abolished; the prosecution right to do so was, however, retained. In effect, this means that the prosecution can object to a potential juror without giving any reason. It is, however, a right which should be used only sparingly and in exceptional circumstances. It is because of the exceptional nature of this right that my predecessors have previously issued guidelines to prosecutors on its exercise and that I do so today.
The guidelines identify those classes of case in which it may be necessary to conduct checks of a juror which go beyond the investigation of criminal records. Broadly speaking the cases in which this would be appropriate are those in which national security is involved, and part of the evidence is likely to be heard in camera; and security and terrorist cases in which a juror’s extreme beliefs could prevent a fair trial.
The checks, which are termed “authorised checks”, are checks which go beyond criminal records and for purposes wider than the mere discovery of previous convictions. I consider that it is in the public interest that the prosecution should continue to make use of its right to make inquiries about a jury panel with a view to exercising its right to stand by a potential juror.
The guidelines were last revised in 1989, shortly after the implementation of section 118 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988 which abolished the right of peremptory challenge. Since 1989 there have seen significant developments in the law relating to disclosure; and also changes to the structure and organisation of the police and Security Services. Over recent months consultations on the content of the guidelines have taken place with interested parties, these have included the Court Service, the senior judiciary, the Ministry of Justice, the police and Crown Prosecution Service. The new guidelines are intended to reflect the changes to the law since 1989 and the observations of the various organisations consulted.
The previous guidelines also included an annex, completed by the Association of Chief Police Officers, which provided guidance to police officers on the conduct of antecedent checks on potential jurors. The modern-day practice of Her Majesty’s Court Service when selecting jurors has now rendered the ACPO guidance otiose. Having consulted with ACPO it has been agreed that their guidance is no longer required and, accordingly, it is not included in the revised guidelines.
A copy of the revised guidelines has been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
National Physical Laboratory
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
I wish to inform the House of my decision on the future operation of the National Physical Laboratory.
The National Physical Laboratory is the UK’s principal National Measurement Institute and is an international leader. It plays an important role in the provision and dissemination of measurement standards to UK trade and industry, and supplies vital innovation infrastructure to both business and academia. Its interaction with industry leads to a substantial contribution to GDP. In addition to its role underpinning the UK’s measurement infrastructure, it has a large research portfolio and has between 40 and 70 collaborations with academia at any given time.
The National Physical Laboratory has been operated since 1995 as a Government-owned, contractor-operated facility by Serco Group plc through the vehicle of NPL Management Ltd. The current contract comes to an end in March 2014. I have considered the options for how the laboratory should be operated in the future and have concluded that the laboratory and the Teddington site provide opportunities which would be difficult to realise under an extension of the current contract. I have therefore decided not to exercise that option.
The natural break of the contract in 2014 provides the opportunity to enhance the NPL and the Teddington site as a science and technology resource in the future.
I want to strengthen both fundamental research and engagement with business by applying measurement science to support innovation and growth. The Government’s aim is to:
Bring greater expertise and intellectual flexibility to strengthen the laboratory’s science;
Make better use of the existing facilities by strengthening the laboratory’s links with its academic partners, through new and existing collaborations with academia and industry;
Encourage greater interaction with business, driven by closer integration of existing innovation infrastructure and commercial activity; and
Make better use of the site at Teddington by granting partners access to our spare capacity.
The key to delivering this is to form a strategic alliance with one or more academic partners in place of the existing contract. For instance, this could be achieved through some form of joint venture between Government and a university or applied science organisation with an interest in investment in science and technology. Such a structure would provide both the long-term commitment that partners will be looking for and the impartiality and stability that industry and international bodies value. I consider that the partners should have a clear, long-term stake in the ownership and operation of the National Physical Laboratory which would not be possible under the current arrangements which, of necessity, must be time-limited. A partnership with an academic institution would also allow for the formation of a dedicated applied science postgraduate institute.
In seeking partners, we intend to cast the net wide, including internationally, in order to attract the partners who are best suited to help us develop the Teddington site into a vibrant science, technology and innovation campus with a focus on measurement science for industry.
This will strengthen the laboratory’s relationships with industry and its manifold existing collaborations with universities. The National Physical Laboratory is a crucial UK asset and we can be proud of its continued record as one of the top three national measurement institutes in the world. I value the commitment and dedication of the National Physical Laboratory staff. Uncertainty can be unsettling but the approach we are proposing will offer some immediate certainty for staff. NPL Management Ltd will continue and will remain the employer of staff at the laboratory, although its ownership will change. But this change will not of itself affect jobs at the laboratory. Working with an academic partner I would expect, in the longer term, an increase in employment opportunities.
Early Education Funding
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)
Today I am announcing indicative revenue funding allocations to local authorities to secure early education places for two-year-olds from lower-income households. This will form part of the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) in 2013-14. I am also announcing capital funding allocations for the current financial year.
Revenue funding
The Government announced in the “Government Response to Supporting Families in the Foundation Years: Consultation on Proposed Changes to Free Early Education and Childcare Sufficiency” (May 2012), that funding for early education for two-year-olds will form part of the DSG in 2013-141. This reflects the fact that early education will become a statutory entitlement for around 20% (130,000) of eligible two- year-olds2 from September 2013, in the same way as it is for all three and four-year-olds.
Formula details—In 2013-14 the Department is allocating £525 million to local authorities and using £9 million itself to fund the new programme for early education for two-year-olds. Local authority allocations have been calculated using an estimated number of eligible two-year-old children likely to receive provision in each area, using free school meals (FSM) data for four to six-year-olds as a proxy, and including an area cost adjustment. Each local authority’s allocation includes a notional amount for statutory places (which must be funded once the entitlement for 20% of two-year-olds comes into force from September 2013) and a notional amount for trajectory building which will be used, in the main, to create non-statutory places in preparation for the entitlement for 40% of two-year-olds (September 2014).
Funding rate—The result of the formula is that the Department is allocating funding to local authorities at an average hourly rate of £5.09 for statutory two-year-old places. This compares favourably to the Daycare Trust cost survey 2012 which shows average hourly child care fees in England are £4.13 per hour for under-twos and £3.95 per hour for children aged two and over.
Local funding arrangements—Research evidence is clear that high quality early education is critical to the success of the early years programme for two-year-olds from lower-income families. The Government expect local authorities to fund places in any settings that are rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. Our aspiration is that all eligible two-year-olds are able to receive early education in good and outstanding provision.
We expect local authorities to pass all available funding to providers and not retain any centrally, and to do so using a flat rate with no supplements so that all providers receive the same rate. Stable and sustainable funding rates are vital to give providers the confidence to offer new two-year-old places. We will increase transparency so that providers and parents will be able to hold local authorities to account on the rate they are offering. For the first time, from 2013-14, local authorities will be required to submit details of the funding rates they pay providers for two, three and four-year-old places to the Department. This information will be published on the Department’s website and will enable providers and parents to compare rates across the country, particularly between similar local authorities.
Participation funding—We see the key role of the local authority as raising awareness of the programme with parents and it is the Government’s strong intention to reward local authorities who achieve high levels of take-up by moving to participation funding. This is not possible in 2013, but we intend to do so as quickly as possible from 2015. In the interim, the Department will provide funding to local authorities according to a formula, based on estimated numbers of eligible children. Local authorities will be made aware, in their allocation letters, of the intention to move towards participation-based funding for the new programme at the earliest opportunity.
Capital funding
Some £100 million of capital funding will be allocated in 2012-13 as a contribution to local authorities’ capital budgets. This additional funding may be used for any capital purpose, but it is intended to support implementation of early years education for two-year-olds from lower income families.
Formula details—Local authority allocations have been calculated using the estimated number of eligible two-year-old children in each area (using FSM data for four to six-year-olds as a proxy) and including a capital specific area cost adjustment.
More details about today’s revenue and capital allocations are being sent to local authorities and will be published on the Department’s website at: www.education.gov.uk. Details of today’s announcement can be found at annex A and copies of the dedicated school grant and capital investment documents will be placed in the House Libraries.
1 https://media.education.gov.uk/assets/files/pdf/g/government% 20response%20proposed%20changes%20to%20free%20early%20 education%20and%20 childcare%20sufficiency.pdf.
2 Eligibility criteria for first phase of the entitlement: 1) Looked after children; 2) Children who meet the FSM criteria e.g. from families whose income is below £16,190 and their parents are in receipt of any of the following benefits: income support; income-based job seekers’ allowance; income-related employment and support allowance; support under part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999; the guarantee element of the state pension credit; or child tax credit, provided they have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190, as assessed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, and are not in receipt of working tax credits (except during the four-week period immediately after their employment ceases, or after they start to work fewer than 16 hours per week).
Annex A
Accompanying documents
A table of local authority revenue and capital investment allocations.
A technical note explaining the methodology used to calculate these allocations.
These can be found online at: www.education.gsi.gov.uk and have been placed in the House Libraries.
Parliamentary Question (Correction)
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Mr John Hayes)
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Edinburgh West on 8 November 2012, Official Report, column 709-710W. The information included within the table contained some incorrect figures and these have been amended.
The full answer given was:
Michael Crockhart (Edinburgh West): To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what the total output of electricity in Scotland was from (a) coal, (b) gas and (c) nuclear generation from 1 January to 30 June 2012. (127730)
John Hayes: The table shows the generation of electricity (GWh) by fuel type in Scotland in 2010:
Fuel Type | Scotland | UK total | Scotland as a percentage of the UK total |
|---|---|---|---|
Coal | 14,715 | 107,694 | 14% |
Oil | 1,213 | 4,860 | 25% |
Gas | 8,381 | 175,003 | 5% |
Nuclear | 16,381 | 70,323 | 23% |
Thermal renewables | 299 | 5,358 | 6% |
Hydro natural flow | 3,266 | 3,603 | 91% |
Hydro pumped storage | 1,830 | 5,416 | 34% |
Non-thermal renewables | 3,825 | 8,872 | 43% |
Total | 49,908 | 381,129 | 13% |
Source: Table 2, special feature article titled “Electricity generation and supply figures for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England”, Energy Trends December 2011 (http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/stats/publications/energy-trends/3917-trends-dec-2011.pdf). |
Generation statistics have been provided to answer this question because statistics on the supply of electricity are not available at this level of detail i.e. only available as a UK total.
Statistics on the generation of electricity at this level of detail are not yet available for 2011 or 2012. These will become available in an annual article “Electricity generation and supply figures for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England”, which is published in the quarterly edition of Energy Trends. The 2011 statistics will be published in the December 2012 edition at 9.30 am on Thursday 20 December 2012. The 2012 statistics will not be available until December 2013. These statistics can be accessed via the DECC website when published:
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/publications/trends/trends.aspx.
The correct answer should have been:
The table shows the generation of electricity (GWh) by fuel type in Scotland in 2010:
Fuel Type | Scotland | UK total | Scotland as a percentage of the UK total |
|---|---|---|---|
Coal | 14,715 | 107,694 | 14% |
Gas | 8,381 | 175,003 | 5% |
Nuclear | 15,293 | 62,140 | 25% |
Oil | 1,213 | 4,860 | 25% |
Thermal renewables | 1,387 | 11,916 | 12% |
Other thermal sources | 0 | 1,625 | 0% |
Hydro natural flow | 3,266 | 3,603 | 91% |
Hydro pumped storage | 779 | 3,150 | 25% |
Non-thermal renewables | 4,862 | 10,216 | 48% |
Waste | 14 | 922 | 2% |
Total | 49,910 | 381,129 | 13% |
Source: Table 2, special feature article titled “Electricity generation and supply figures for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England”, Energy Trends December 2011 (http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/11/stats/publications/energy-trends/3917-trends-dec-2011.pdf). |
Generation statistics have been provided to answer this question because statistics on the supply of electricity are not available at this level of detail i.e. only available as a UK total.
Statistics on the generation of electricity at this level of detail are not yet available for 2011 or 2012. These will become available in an annual article “Electricity generation and supply figures for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England”, which is published in the quarterly edition of Energy Trends. The 2011 statistics will be published in the December 2012 edition at 9.30 am on Thursday 20 December 2012. The 2012 statistics will not be available until December 2013. These statistics can be accessed via the DECC website when published:
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/publications/trends/trends.aspx.
Balance of Competences Review
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
I wish to inform the House that, further to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs’ oral statement launching the review of the balance of competences in July this year and the written statement on the progress of the review on 23 October 2012, Official Report, column 46WS, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Food Standards Agency have published their call for evidence relating to the animal health, welfare and food safety report. This report will cover animal health, animal welfare and food safety—including feed safety, food labelling, quality and compositional standards.
The call for evidence will be open for 12 weeks. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Food Standards Agency will draw together the evidence and policy analysis into a first draft which will subsequently go through a process of scrutiny before publication in summer 2013.
The report will focus on the issues associated with protecting animal health, welfare and food safety, where maintaining a strong internal market while allowing sufficient national and local choice on issues such as how to deal with risk creates some challenges and tensions. A key question for this review will be whether the benefits to the UK of protecting the functioning of the internal market justify the high level of EU competence in this area.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Food Standards Agency will take a rigorous approach to the collection and analysis of evidence. The call for evidence sets out the scope of the report and includes a series of broad questions on which contributors are requested to focus. Interested parties are invited to provide evidence with regard to political, economic, social and technological factors. The evidence received (subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act) will be published alongside the final report in summer 2013 and will be available on the new Government website: www.gov.uk.
The Departments will pursue an active engagement process, consulting widely across Parliament and its Committees, the devolved Administrations, businesses and civil society in order to obtain evidence to contribute to our analysis of the issues. Our EU partners and the EU institutions will also be invited to contribute evidence to the review. As the review is to be objective and evidence-based, encouraging a wide range of interested parties to contribute will ensure a high yield of valuable information.
The resulting report will be a comprehensive, thorough and detailed analysis of what EU competence in the field of animal health and welfare and food and feed safety means for the UK. It will aid our understanding of the nature of our EU membership and will provide a constructive and serious contribution to the wider European debate about modernising, reforming and improving the EU. The report will not produce specific policy recommendations.
I am placing this document and the call for evidence in the Libraries of both Houses. They will also be published on the DEFRA and FSA websites and accessible through the balance of competences review pages on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website.
Balance of Competences Review
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)
My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health, Earl Howe, has made the following written ministerial statement:
Further to the oral statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs launching the review of the Balance of Competences on 12 July 2012, Official Report, column 468, and his written ministerial statement on the progress of the review on 23 October 2012, Official Report, column 46WS, we are today publishing a call for evidence for the health report.
The health report will be completed by summer 2013 and will cover the overall application of EU competence in health. While responsibility for health policy is a matter for individual member states, the EU has an important role in various issues related to public health and health care. The health report is an opportunity to look at this role and to examine the evidence concerning the impact of EU competence in health on the UK’s national interest.
The call for evidence period will last for 12 weeks. The Department will draw together the evidence into a first draft, which will subsequently go through a process of scrutiny before publication in summer 2013.
We will take a rigorous approach to the collection and analysis of evidence. The call for evidence sets out the scope of the report and includes a series of broad questions on which contributors are invited to focus. The evidence received (subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act) will be published alongside the final report in summer 2013.
The Department will pursue an active engagement process, consulting widely across Parliament and its Committees, the health sector and the devolved Administrations in order to obtain evidence to contribute to our analysis of the issues. Our EU partners and the EU institutions will also be invited to contribute evidence to the review.
The result of the report will be a comprehensive analysis of EU competence in health and what this means for the United Kingdom. It will aid our understanding of the nature of our EU membership; and it will provide a constructive and serious contribution to the wider European debate about modernising, reforming and improving the EU. The report will not produce specific policy recommendations.
“Review of the Balance of Competences: Health—Call for Evidence” has been placed on the Library. It is also available at: www.dh.gov.uk/health/2012/11 //eu-balance-competence-review/.
“Ending Gang and Youth Violence Report: One Year On”
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
I wish to inform the House that the “Ending Gang and Youth Violence Report: One Year On” has been laid before Parliament today. Copies will be available in the Vote Office.
The original “Ending Gang and Youth Violence” report was published in November 2011. It contained a number of cross-Government actions in key areas ranging from early intervention and prevention, through to actions to enable our partners to take tough enforcement action against those who refuse to leave their violent lifestyle.
The ending gang and youth violence programme which emanated from the report was designed to provide peer support to the 29 areas across the country facing the biggest challenges in relation to youth violence and gangs. The Home Office re-prioritised £10 million of its funding for 2012-13 to help these areas develop their capacity to respond effectively to their particular local issues.
The one year on report sets out our collective achievements since November last year, both in terms of national, cross-Government policy, and particular actions in local areas, facilitated or otherwise supported by our front-line ending gang and youth violence team. It also includes further Government actions which will build on this success over the next year and beyond.
National DNA Database (Ethics Group Report)
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
My hon. Friend the Minister of State for criminal information, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, has today made the following written ministerial statement:
I am pleased to announce the publication of the fifth annual report of the national DNA database ethics group on 27 November 2012. The group was established on 25 July 2007 to provide Ministers with independent ethical advice on the operation and practice of the national DNA database (NDNAD).
I welcome the points raised in the report about information on the effectiveness of the retention regime for DNA profiles, and the consideration given in the report to a number of important issues around the ethical operation of the NDNAD.
The ethics group’s annual report can be viewed on the website of the independent forensic science regulator and I am arranging for a copy to be placed in the House Library.
Hardship Fund (Low-Paid Victims of Crime)
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mrs Helen Grant)
I am today announcing the implementation of a hardship fund of £500,000 per year which will provide relief from hardship for very low-paid workers in England and Wales who are temporarily unable to work as a result of being a victim of a crime of violence.
Victims of violent crime endure both physical and emotional suffering and, in some cases, financial hardship due to being unable to work as a result of their injuries. The Government believe it is right to focus criminal injuries compensation on victims of more serious crime and that for victims with less serious injuries, prompt practical and emotional support is a more suitable response than relatively small amounts of compensation.
That is why the revised criminal injuries compensation scheme 2012, which also comes into force today along with the victims of overseas terrorism compensation scheme 2012, focuses on those most seriously affected by crime. For those with minor injuries, we believe that prompt good-quality services are a better response than small compensation payments.
However in some cases, even the less serious injuries result in the victim being unable to work for a temporary period and therefore require financial support. Some victims receive financial support from employers through statutory sick pay (SSP) or an equivalent employer-provided scheme. In other cases, particularly where the victim is in low-paid employment, no financial support may be available for this temporary period.
The Government believe that this latter group of victims should be given some financial support, at the same rate as SSP, over a short period to relieve them of the immediate hardship that arises from their being temporarily unable to work and that is why we have set up a hardship fund for these victims.
The eligibility criteria for the hardship fund are as follows:
That the applicant is a victim of a crime of violence, but the applicant’s injury is not one which is eligible for compensation under the criminal injuries compensation scheme 2012;
That the applicant is in very low-paid employment and is temporarily unable to work;
That the applicant is not eligible for SSP or an equivalent employer-provided scheme;
That the crime has been reported to the police as soon as is reasonably practicable and the application has been received within four weeks of the date of the incident;
That the applicant does not have an unspent criminal conviction which under the criminal injuries compensation scheme 2012 would bar them from an award.
The fund will be administered by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority following referral based on an initial assessment of eligibility by Victim Support. The Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority will request confirmation from the police to ensure that the applicant does not have any criminal convictions that would bar them from an award. Once the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority has received all the relevant documentation they will aim to process applications within six working days.
Copies of the hardship fund policy paper, impact assessment and equality impact assessment have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Further guidance on the operation of the hardship fund is available on the Ministry of Justice website.
The revised “Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme 2012” is also available online at: http://www.justice.gov.uk/victims-and-witnesses/cica.
“The Victims of Overseas Terrorism Compensation Scheme 2012” is available online at: http://www. justice.gov.uk/victims-and-witnesses/cica/victims-of-overseas-terrorism.
Speed Limit Exemptions
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)
The Department has today published a consultation paper on speed limit exemptions for vehicles used for emergency purposes.
The consultation paper proposes that section 19 of the Road Safety Act (2006) is brought into effect. Section 19 allows the Secretary of State for Transport to designate other vehicle purposes as being exempt from speed limits in certain circumstances and if drivers of said vehicles complete successfully a “high-speed training course”. Section 19 replaces section 87 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act (1984) in relation to exemptions from speed limits for certain vehicle purposes.
The Department recognises that there are certain vehicle purposes that the wider public may well consider as having a speed limit exemptions but which do not currently. These include, for example, vehicles used to carry human tissue for transplant, mountain rescue teams, bomb disposal squads and others listed in the consultation document.
Branches of the emergency services (police, fire service and ambulance service) are currently exempt from speed limits and provide appropriate training to their staff. No additional requirements will be placed on them.
The Department has worked with representatives of the police, fire and rescue, NHS ambulance services, the Serious Organised Crime Agency and road safety stakeholders on the development of standards for driver training. This led to the creation of a code of practice based on the principles applied in each organisation.
The Department seeks to identify the core competences specified in the code of practice and include them in regulations. It also proposes that the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) will take responsibility for the accrediting and quality assuring training providers seeking to provide high-speed driver training courses, against the competences identified in the code of practice.
A further consideration within the consultation document is to exempt paramedics and other medical personnel from the requirements to wear seat belts in the back of ambulances, particularly when providing emergency treatment.
Work Programme Official Statistics 2012
(11 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)
The Department for Work and Pensions has today released official statistics covering the performance of the Work programme in its first year.
The Work programme was launched in June 2011 and is part of this Government’s welfare reform. Long-term unemployed people, or those most at risk of becoming long-term unemployed, are referred to a range of external employment support providers. These providers get the bulk of their payments based on the results they achieve. They are paid a job outcome payment only when they get a participant into long-term employment, and are then paid sustainment payments for every four weeks the participant stays in work, up to a maximum of two years. This payment-by-results format offers the taxpayer better value for money than previous schemes.
The Work programme encourages innovative employment support as it offers providers the freedom to tailor services to each individual. Moreover, it takes into account that Work programme participants are often a long way from entering the labour market by giving providers up to two years to help each participant find work.
The Government have today published ad hoc statistics covering the movement of Work programme participants off benefits. These show 56% of participants who started on the Work programme in June 2011 have had a break in their benefit claim, and 30% are off benefit in just over a year. In addition, ERSA—the trade body for the welfare-to-work industry—has also released figures showing over 200,000 Work programme participants had started a job by the end of September 2012.
In addition, the Government have released official statistics which cover job outcome payments and the sustainment payments up to July 2012, and are available on the Department’s website today. They show that by the end of July 2012, providers across the country had successfully claimed over 31,000 job outcomes. A tabulation tool is also available to break the figures down further by constituency.
While these figures show progress is being made the Government are clear that there is more to be done. Each provider has a performance development plan and the Department is managing them vigorously to constantly improve performance. Formal contract letters requiring improvement have been issued to those providers with the lowest performance to date. We are going to look at what can be done to get national employers better engaged with the programme; improve access to skills support for participants; enable better sharing of best practice between providers and across their supply chains; build understanding and expertise in supporting harder-to-help claimants; and improve data transparency.