Westminster Hall

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Westminster Hall

Wednesday 19 December 2012

[Mr Clive Betts in the Chair]

Food Banks (Scotland)

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Westminster Hall

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Karen Bradley.)

09:30

[Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, as we debate what is fast becoming a national disgrace—I refer to the widespread growth of poverty in our society, and in Scotland in particular, and the consequent mushrooming of food banks throughout the country, both formally and informally, via charities, churches and voluntary organisations. As constituency MPs, we know what is happening on the ground. It is distressing to find that neither the UK Government nor the Scottish Government have been able to get any reliable statistics on the extent of food poverty in our country. I regard that as a gross dereliction of duty. They are what I call the “don’t know and don’t care” Governments. My plea is for them to establish the facts about food banks and food poverty, and to do so quickly.

This morning I want to focus on four related themes. First, I want to praise the many individuals and organisations stepping up to the mark to address this unprecedented food crisis. Throughout the country, groups are often overwhelmed by the extent of food poverty in their communities. Secondly, I shall highlight real-life constituency cases that hon. Members will find appalling. There are already food banks not on the official list that are operating informally. Thirdly, I shall present a picture of the food crisis in Scotland overall and identify some of the causes. Lastly, I want to emphasise the apparent complacency of two Governments who have abdicated their welfare responsibilities to those in desperate poverty and exhort them to think again about their priorities. In particular, I want to focus on the legitimate needs of the increasing number of constituents who are marginalised in society, many of whom keep a low profile due to the perceived stigma and the shame of seeking handouts. [Interruption.] While I locate this mobile phone—it is lovely to see somebody on call—I will give way.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate him on securing the debate.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

Order. Only one Member should stand at a time please.

[Mr Donohoe]

Thank you, Mr Betts. I am sorry. Will my hon. Friend confirm that he is saying that in this age—in 2012—there is a necessity for food banks? Is that not an abrogation of all Governments’ responsibilities?

[Lindsay Roy]

Absolutely. I could not agree more. The only organisation or government I know of that is beginning to take a significant interest in this is Labour-controlled Fife council, for whose area I am MP.

In particular, I want to focus on the legitimate needs of the increasing number of constituents who are marginalised in society, many of whom keep a low profile due to the perceived stigma and the shame of seeking handouts, when they once had a pride in catering for their own and their family’s needs.

I commend the many charities, trusts, churches and voluntary organisations, such as the Trussell Trust, FareShare and the plethora of local groups, that have set up food banks in our communities—and they are not only for Christmas.

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

I am going to a Select Committee meeting shortly, so I apologise that I will not be able to stay for the full session. My hon. Friend refers to the many local groups undertaking such work. Does he agree that there are probably dozens of organisations in each constituency? We will not know about some of them, which is why it is important to get some idea of the extent of such activity. In my constituency, besides FareShare, we have Edinburgh City Mission, Bethany Christian Trust, the Missionaries of Charity and the Salvation Army, as well as local community groups and many other organisations. We need Government recognition of the extent of the problem.

[Lindsay Roy]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. I will cite examples from my constituency.

I commend highly the initiative, moral purpose, compassion and tenacity of those doing voluntary work in the face of adversity. I warmly welcome, too, the work of Citizens Advice Scotland, supermarkets such as Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Tesco and the local authorities who are intervening to help. Collectively, they are trying valiantly to meet the desperate needs of many people who face genuine poverty—working families, those on benefit, pensioners and young people.

Charity and voluntary work is highly demanding, and usually rewarding when needs are met, but sometimes recently it has become a soul-destroying venture, because needs cannot be met even with all the resources in the local community and the good will it provides. Such volunteers are, in every respect, local heroes who contribute above and beyond the call of duty to address hunger and poverty that is sadly increasingly rife in our society. I pay tribute to those outstanding individuals and groups, who put service before self and make real differences to the lives of those in despair through poverty.

What a sad indictment of the Governments at Westminster and Holyrood that so many Scots are dependent on handouts and nobody has bothered even to gather statistics. I shall illustrate that later with a response from the Department for Work and Pensions.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. On Friday, I and the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland visited a food bank in my constituency. We were told sad stories of people, even working people, who have to go to food banks for food parcels. At the weekend, that same organisation—Elim Pentecostal Church, working in partnership with the Trussell Trust—was working with the messy church in Toryglen on Saturday on a toy bank, because many families cannot afford to buy their children toys at Christmas. Local people give toys—another demonstration of how Scotland is coming together to help people in vulnerable communities. We now need our Governments to come together to help such communities too.

[Lindsay Roy]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s intervention, which stressed the situation I have been highlighting.

The Governments are strong on rhetoric, but short on action in dealing with the human tragedy that is seeping through our communities, where payday loan sharks capitalise on fuel, clothing and food poverty. We are told again and again that we have caring and compassionate Governments and we are all in this together, and yet there is an explosion of food and fuel poverty. It is an outrage. Our good track record in responding to human tragedy and emergencies abroad must be matched here. Welfare begins at home.

The hallmark of a civilised society is how we treat the poor and vulnerable, and we are falling well short for those who are disadvantaged and disabled. The Tory-led and SNP Governments have shown a callous disregard for the increasing number of citizens on the breadline. They should hang their heads in shame.

I want to give hon. Members a flavour of the nature and extent of the food crisis that faces people in my constituency. We affectionately refer to the YMCA and the YWCA as the Y. To their eternal credit they have run food banks and homeless shelters for 20 years. They inaugurated a food bank long before the term was commonly used and recognised. Numbers were small and their success was impressive. Mary Hill and her team do a fantastic job, way beyond realistic expectations. I visited the Y on Monday and, as I was leaving, I met a former pupil, now in his mid 20s. He had been a model student, worked hard and got an apprenticeship, but had lost his job. He was unsure how to react when he saw me—hon. Members might say that too—but seriously, tears welled up in his eyes as he told the staff that he had no food until his next benefit payment on Friday. He had 7p in his pocket. He clearly felt ashamed and uncomfortable, and I reassured him that the Y would do all that they could to help him in his crisis. That visit was his first, and it symbolises the recent upsurge in demand of more than 50%. The Y cannot cope on their own, so they are outsourcing food bank pick-ups from local churches and other voluntary organisations.

Rationing is occurring in the Y. The senior caseworker recently told me that they have been opening bags of rice and rationing the rice, giving people just enough to see them through one day. She says that some have been so undernourished that they can provide them only with soup, because their stomachs are not used to food and cannot handle a full meal; and they are not drug addicts. What a sad indictment. Understandably, victims do not want their names publicised, because of the stigma, low self-esteem and lack of hope associated with their plight. In a very real sense, they are the hidden hungry and, as I will illustrate later, they do not come into the statistics at all.

Two examples of the callous and inhumane treatment by Government agencies, particularly the Department for Work and Pensions, are worthy of note. The first concerns a young man who was badly beaten up; the perpetrator was jailed for two years. The young man’s employment and support allowance was stopped after he failed an Atos assessment. Despite the best efforts of my constituency staff and his doctor, who had sound medical evidence, his appeal was rejected. He now has no income for two months—his appeal will be held at the end of January—and is totally dependent on the good will of his friends in the Y and associated organisations.

The other example concerns a father whose wife was giving birth to their third child. He was instructed to visit a company 9 miles away, but it was snowing and he had two children at home, so he did not attend to pick up a leaflet. As a result, despite the explanation given both by me and other folk in the constituency, his appeal was turned down and he is now on hardship benefits. There was no flexibility, no human understanding. I do not blame the DWP personnel, because that is what they are told to do. It is disgraceful; what an outrageous indictment of life in Fife, Scotland and the UK in the 21st century. The only Government agency that is planning to help is Labour-controlled Fife council, and we will take that forward at a meeting on Monday.

The Y plans to join the Trussell Trust link of officially recognised food banks, but the franchise fee is £1,500, which is an additional sum of money for it to find. The caseworker’s assessment is stark:

“The working poor and benefit recipients are being manoeuvred into a long-term famine”.

She also warns that

“the eye of the storm has yet to hit as April looms, when the bedroom tax for many will further reduce income”.

According to the Trussell Trust, there are 21 official food banks in Scotland and, since April, almost 6,200 people throughout Scotland have received emergency food parcels, including almost 2,000 children. About 6,000 people in Scotland benefit daily from FareShare services, but I submit that that is only the tip of a much larger Scottish poverty iceberg, as local food banks are emerging throughout Scotland. With minimal research, I have discovered that there are 10 in my constituency, which has about 65,000 to 70,000 people. According to Save the Children, one in seven of Scotland’s poorest children do not get enough to eat. I am sure that others speakers will elaborate and give more information from their experience, as hon. Friends have already done.

Scots are trapped between two Governments who have their priorities wrong. The Scottish National party could intervene now, and it has the power to do so. According to my information, the Scottish Government have found thousands of pounds for political saltires, and have spent £500,000 on the First Minister’s visit to the Ryder cup, £400,000 on the rental of Scotland house during the Olympics and £30 million on communications and ministerial support—much of it no doubt fixated on the referendum—at the expense of the real needs of the poor in Scotland. I understand that the last time food banks and food poverty was mentioned in the Holyrood Chamber by the First Minister was in September—so much for the commitment to protect Scots from the worst excesses of the coalition Government. We hear regular promises of a land of milk and honey on separation, but the SNP commitment to the poor hungry seems shallow to say the least. Indeed, it suits the SNP to sit back and blame the coalition Government, rather than, in its quest for separation, take the initiative.

The number in poverty is dramatically increasing, with gas and electricity prices rising between 8% and 14%. In part, the food crisis is exacerbated by the increase in fuel poverty, which the SNP said that it would eliminate by 2016.

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

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is letting his prejudices against the SNP cloud his judgment about the real drivers of the increase in food banks in Scotland, which is to do with income poverty. Does he accept that support aimed at tackling fuel poverty in Scotland is now 15% higher, in cash terms, than it was when Labour left office?

[Lindsay Roy]

It is certainly higher, but the SNP Government promised to eliminate fuel poverty by 2016, and we are not aware of what they have done.

Most recipients of food from food banks are working strivers, as well as people on benefits. They have had their pay cut or their hours reduced, while others have had their benefits slashed or delayed, which has placed tremendous pressure on families. Others face the same kind of personal challenge that many face when buying a new fridge or something else that compounds the difficulty of managing their expenses. Some have resorted to payday loans and are literally destitute.

Finally, I want to focus on the autumn statement. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had a golden opportunity to address the humanitarian issues that are bringing such hardship and despair to so many citizens throughout the UK. His statement marks a watershed in our welfare system, fracturing the long-standing link between benefits and earnings or prices, which is a hammer blow to the thousands of low-income families struggling to make ends meet.

In the face of overwhelming austerity, the Chancellor would have done well to heed the commitment made in the last century by the Liberal Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, who said:

“This…is a War Budget. It is for raising money to wage implacable warfare against poverty...I cannot help hoping and believing that before this generation has passed away we shall have advanced a great step towards that good time when poverty and wretchedness and human degradation which always follow in its camp will be as remote to the people of this country as the wolves which once infested its forests.”—[Official Report, 29 April 1909; Vol. 4, c. 548.]

Regrettably, the wolves are back, with that characteristic ruthlessness and insensitivity towards the vulnerable in our society. I am not surprised in the slightest that few coalition Members are here. How on earth could they come along to try to defend the indefensible?

Further evidence of a “Don’t know, don’t care” Government is the response to my written question to the DWP about the number of food banks in operation and the extent of food poverty. It stated:

“DWP/Jobcentre Plus do not collate or hold numbers of people signposted to food banks or the reasons why individuals are referred. Jobcentre Plus is not the only route way for individuals to be signposted to a food bank.”—[Official Report, 27 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 321W.]

What a clinical, insensitive and uncaring response.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has stated:

“There is no official estimate of the level of food poverty in the UK.”—[Official Report, 17 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 298W.]

Surely, with the scale of the crisis and the growth of the hidden hungry, responsible Governments should desperately want to know. Or are they happy to abdicate responsibility to the many voluntary organisations—they do such tremendous work and depend on donations—that act as substitutes for the welfare state? In the light of the evidence, would a responsible and caring Government not want to abandon the tax cut for millionaires, robustly pursue tax avoidance and evasion and consider windfall taxes on the vast profits of energy companies to enhance benefits and tax credits by more than 1%?

John Dickie of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland summed up the Opposition’s position. He said:

“We would be deeply concerned if it was ever seen that charities and food banks would in any way be a kind of replacement for a tax and benefit policy that ensures all our families have adequate income for the task of bringing up their children.”

I urge the Government to assess robustly the nature and scale of the food crisis faced by the poor and vulnerable in our society and, more importantly, to do something about it.

A letter published in The Observer newspaper, signed by 59 leading charities and civic society groups, sums up my position well:

“As we mark the 70th anniversary of the Beveridge Report, which laid the foundations of the welfare state, we risk losing that very safety net he intended, it is a punitive, unfair policy and must not happen.”

The “Don’t know, don’t care” Government will forever be castigated for their inhumane and callous approach to the hidden hungry. They have completely abdicated their responsibility. It is not too late to change tack, Minister. I hope that he will as a decent man, through his office, pursue this matter and oppose what is happening in Cabinet. I implore him to break ranks with the out-of-touch Cabinet, which is, whether consciously or unwittingly, wrecking the lives of Scots through its complacency and inaction. Scotland’s poor deserve his unequivocal support.

09:51

[Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on securing this debate.

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important topic, as last week’s autumn statement revealed the true scale of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor’s economic failure. While millionaires get a £3 billion tax cut, it is people who are already struggling to make ends meet—lower and middle-income families, and pensioners—who are paying the price for this failure. Every day, people in this country go hungry for reasons ranging from losing their jobs, to receiving an unexpected bill on a low income. Some 13 million people are living in poverty in this country.

I find it abhorrent that in 2012, people have to rely on food banks or go hungry. What kind of society are we living where so many of our citizens cannot afford to eat properly or keep warm, yet the rich get richer under the coalition Government’s tax breaks for the very wealthy, and the banks continue to make astronomical profits and pay out obscene bonuses? Back home, the SNP Scottish Government stand idly by.

Britain’s biggest food bank operator, the Trussell Trust, has more than 250 food banks throughout the United Kingdom, of which some 10% are located in Scotland. This year alone, it launched three food banks per week in response to demand, which has been exacerbated by the current economic climate. Incredibly, up to 1,000 food banks are needed to satisfy demand that has leapt by 30% a year since the recession began.

The Trussell Trust fed 110,000 people in the first half of this year, and 250,000 hungry Britons—a quarter of a million—will have used emergency food banks by the end of the year. What a dramatic change in a relatively short space of time.

The latest figures, which are four times higher than two years ago—that represents a 400% rise in people using food banks—include parents too poor to feed their children and desperate householders forced to choose between eating and heating. Even people in work are on the breadline, and the number of people struggling to feed themselves is rising. Let me say for the benefit of the Minister that the sole purpose of food banks is to provide an emergency supply of up to three day’s worth of non-perishable and nutritionally balanced food, such as tinned soups, meats and pasta, to individuals and families in crisis who would be at risk of going hungry.

[Mr Donohoe]

Is it not absolutely ironic that in two days’ time Halls of Broxburn, in my hon. Friend’s constituency, is closing and as a consequence, the workers are setting up a food bank? Is that not an indictment against the nationalists and the Government in Westminster?

[Graeme Morrice]

Indeed. It is a sad indictment of both Governments. The example my hon. Friend gave is based in my constituency, and some 1,700 people are in the process of losing their jobs.

The food produce is donated by churches, voluntary groups, individuals and the public via collection days outside supermarkets. To help sustain anonymity, food parcels are handed out from the food bank warehouse distribution centre by volunteers and no deliveries are made. Access to emergency food boxes is secured via the exchange of a voucher, which may be issued by social workers, health visitors, GPs and the police.

Christmas is a particularly difficult time for people with little or no disposable income. I wonder whether Dickens ever imagined such a bleak picture more than a century and a half on from “A Christmas Carol”. Could he have guessed that many of these neglected people would come not from the poorer, deprived sections of society but from middle and lower-income families, and include pensioners? Fewer than 5% of food bank clients are homeless; many are in working families; one third of recipients are children. What a sad indictment of modern society under the Prime Minister and Alex Salmond. The Tories’ instinctive dislike of the poor and the spread of food banks seem to go hand in hand under this Government. How long ago would collecting food parcels for the hungry have been virtually unthinkable in the UK?

I am really disgusted that the Government place so much effort on reforming the benefits system and, in turn, punishing the most vulnerable in our society. Yet if the Government concentrated at least some effort on collecting taxes from the international corporations that operate in this country and on closing some of the loopholes in the tax system, there would be more money to go around. It also makes me sick that the outgoing Governor of the Bank of England is to receive a £7.64 million pension pot, while British kids go hungry.

Increasing costs of food and fuel combined with static income, high unemployment and changes to benefits are causing more and more people to turn to food banks for help. Coalition Government austerity cuts and squeezed incomes are forcing people with jobs, as well as benefit claimants, regularly to queue up for food parcels. Many people everywhere are struggling to make ends meet and household finances are being stretched like never before. A small financial crisis, such as a repair bill for a car or a big bill, can quickly turn into a massive disaster. For many people, buying food slips down their list of priorities simply because other things, such as rent, gas and electricity, have to take precedence. For all those people, turning to a food bank is a last resort.

The effects on poorer people can be devastating. An elderly constituent said in an impassioned plea to me when she visited my surgery that she shivers every time she hears the words “food bank”. It reminds her of the depression and conjures up images of breadlines. Many had hard existences in her day, but looking after people was considered a prime moral virtue, regardless of status.

In my own area, the West Lothian food bank is in the process of being developed in association with the Trussell Trust. I believe that the trust’s experience, coupled with the enthusiasm of those concerned, will ensure that the endeavour will succeed. It serves as a good example of effective community building and is testament to how communities in my constituency and throughout West Lothian—and, indeed, across the country—are harnessing and investing their own resources to assist those in greatest need. I pay tribute to them.

What can be done? The first step is for the Government to stop pretending that poverty is not happening. It would be good to see the Government recognise what is very much evident: that it is the most vulnerable who are in greatest need. We need to break down the barriers and change attitudes between the new “us” and “them”—rich and poor.

We also need to appreciate that if the curtains are closed early in the morning, perhaps there is an elderly pensioner trying to keep the heat in, or an impoverished single mum hiding her shame at her inability to feed her children properly, or an unemployed youngster depressed at being unable to find a job.

Some practical interventions could help: a package of support put in place by the Government for those experiencing an acute crisis in their personal circumstances; and a longer-term Government strategy for dealing with the issues identified in this debate. Ultimately, however, we need a lasting change of direction by this Government or, ideally, a change of Government itself: to one who demonstrate compassion, put ordinary people first and recognise the right priorities.

I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to offer by way of a solution to this completely avoidable crisis.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

I will call the Front-Bench spokesmen from 10.40 am. That gives no more than eight minutes each for all the other Members who want to speak. That is a voluntary arrangement, but I hope we can keep to it.

10:01

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

Thank you, Mr Betts, for calling me to speak and I will endeavour to keep to the time stipulations.

I begin by commending the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on bringing such an important issue to the House today in one of the last debates that we will be having in Westminster Hall before the Christmas recess, when I am sure that many of us will eat and drink a lot more than is necessarily good for us. It is, therefore, timely for us to remember that some people’s festivities will be extremely frugal this year, particularly if they are in food poverty.

I must confess that I do not think food banks are a good means of addressing the low-income inequality that gives rise to the need for them, but they are playing an increasingly important role in emergency provision for people who are in crisis. We can only commend the people in our local churches and communities who are stepping up to fill that gap in what should be an important part of our social protection provision, to ensure that people do not go hungry at what is a very difficult time for many people economically.

The Trussell Trust and Citizens Advice Scotland have both presented a picture—one that is remarkably similar across the islands—of a doubling in demand for food bank provision during the last year alone. This morning, it is particularly important to pay tribute to the work of CAS, which has done so much to highlight the exponential growth in food banks and, critically, has also attempted to understand the reasons for that growth. Its analysis, especially in its “Voices from the Front Line” report, which was published this autumn, identifies the key drivers very well.

Margaret Lynch, chief executive of CAS, has described the historical backdrop of food parcels and the situation that we are in now. She points out that charities such as the Salvation Army and the Society of St Vincent de Paul have always provided practical assistance for families in crisis who temporarily could not feed themselves. In this recession, the number of working families and people on benefits who need help to feed their children and themselves has increased exponentially. Margaret Lynch says:

“The National Minimum Wage has failed to keep pace with the massive increases in food prices over the last 5 years, leaving many low income families facing food insecurity. The fact that 50% of those getting food parcels are working is shocking.”

[Anas Sarwar]

It is interesting to note that the Scottish National party failed to turn up to vote in favour of the national minimum wage when it was put in front of this Parliament.

Let us not argue about what the cause of this crisis is. What are the Scottish Government specifically doing to help ease the pain of families across Scotland?

[Dr Whiteford]

I have to disagree with the hon. Gentleman, because if we do not understand the causes of this crisis and articulate them clearly and properly, we cannot take effective action. We have seen his own Government in previous generations throw money at problems but with no, or negligible, impact. Until we understand what is driving this crisis, there is absolutely no point flinging words around Westminster Hall.

The fact that 50% of people claiming food parcels are working is—

[Gregg McClymont (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Dr Whiteford]

No, I will not give way again, because the quality of the last intervention by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar) left quite a lot to be desired.

[Gregg McClymont]

It will be of higher quality, I promise. [Laughter.]

[Dr Whiteford]

I do not doubt that the hon. Gentleman will have a higher quality of intervention, but I will not give way at this point, simply because I am conscious of time. Clearly, I have some things to say in this debate and I want to get through them in the time allotted.

The other 50% of the increase in demand for food parcels is from people whose benefits have been delayed or who are having problems with the administration of the benefit system. There is no doubt that the dramatic increase in the demand for emergency support is a consequence of the recession, and the increased numbers of people who face sudden unemployment, or cuts in their working hours or real-terms cuts in their wages. However, demand has also been increased by the austerity measures—the response to the recession by the Government—and the disproportionate hit that people on low incomes, particularly those who wholly or partially depend on benefits to keep them above the breadline, have had to bear in the raft of financial cuts that we have seen during the last two years.

The changes to the benefit system have placed greater restrictions on people, and the stringent time limits on some benefits—such as employment and support allowance, and housing benefit—will only make that problem worse. Experts are warning that the real bite of these measures is still to come.

Aberdeenshire was part of the pilot scheme for the work capability assessment. I am already seeing people at my surgeries who have been assessed as fit to work who are simply not fit for work, and whose precarious health has been further jeopardised and damaged by very difficult engagement with the benefit system. Those left without entitlement are increasingly falling back on financial support from their unpaid family carers, who themselves are often in very tight financial circumstances. These are families who are finding themselves having to rely on emergency support.

The other emergency support in our social protection system, which I debated with the Minister a week ago, is the social fund. As I am sure Members are aware, the social fund currently provides crisis loans and community care grants; it is very much the last safety net of the social protection system. It will be abolished next year, with responsibility for its functions being devolved to Scotland. However, it is important to acknowledge that the Department for Work and Pensions has been managing back the social fund to its 2005-06 level, despite the increasing demands on it, and the money being devolved next year will represent a cut of about 50% on the 2009-10 level.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

rose—

[Dr Whiteford]

I would be delighted to take an intervention from the hon. Gentleman, but I will not take any more interventions after this one.

[Mr Brown]

I will do my best to be brief, Mr Betts.

I say to the hon. Lady that the social fund that is now finding its way into the hands of local authorities has not been ring-fenced. Does she share my view that what we may find is some local authorities to a certain extent misusing that money, rather than targeting it at the areas where it is most needed? She should keep in mind that local government is under pressure under her party’s Government.

[Dr Whiteford]

I am aware that the social fund has not been ring-fenced across the UK. There is a strong argument for ring-fencing it. I am not aware of the details of the welfare fund that the Scottish Government are putting in place, but I know that it will be a national fund. I expect that that fund probably will be ring-fenced, but that is a question that needs to be addressed to Scottish Ministers.

I am pleased that the Scottish Government have committed extra money to make up the shortfall in the social fund once it is devolved, after the cuts that have been made to it, and that there will be an opportunity for that to happen. That is one concrete way in which protection can be put in place.

I will be very quick, as I do not want to test your patience, Mr Betts. One of the assertions that has been made in the debate is that there is a lack of research in this area. When I was doing my research in preparation for the debate, I was very much informed by the low-income diet and nutrition survey, which was commissioned by the Food Standards Agency. It gave a very clear picture, and a wealth of useful information, about diet and nutrition in Scotland, and it makes it very clear that they are associated with income poverty. The most deprived 15% of the population are likely to be eating about half the recommended level of fruit and vegetables, and well above the maximum recommended level of sugar.

Health inequalities and their consequences are not the subject of this debate, but it is important that we look at the issue of food banks holistically and on the basis of the evidence, and that we understand that changes to the benefit system are having an impact across these islands. We need to put in place emergency provision, but at the same time we need to tackle the long-term drivers of income poverty and poor nutrition in our society.

10:01

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on securing this important debate.

Put bluntly, food poverty across the UK is a national disgrace. The statistics are shocking and heart-rending. In Britain today, 13 million people live below the poverty line. In 2011-12, food banks fed more than 128,000 people nationwide—100% more than in the previous year. That has been driven by the rising cost of food and fuel, combined with static income, high unemployment and changes to benefits made by the Tory-led coalition Government. Those things are causing more and more people to go to food banks for help.

In Scotland, the number of families needing food banks has also risen by 100%, with nearly 3,000 people receiving food parcels since April this year. One charity alone has fed 6,000 people across Scotland. We now have a Dickensian situation, with many people in low-paid jobs, and people who rely on benefits, being forced to use food banks to feed their children and themselves regularly. The fact that 50% of those going to food banks are working is quite shocking, and it underlines the employment position across Scotland.

I want to focus on my constituency, where a new food bank opened less than three months ago for families falling below the poverty line. It is coming to the aid of local people who are struggling to find enough money to pay for food. It is working in partnership with the Elim church in the east end of Greenock. Those who know that area will know that it is not one of the most wealthy areas in my constituency, but it is certainly one of the most giving. I commend the church’s caring response to the hardship that is unfolding in and around its congregation.

I was delighted to assist members of the church with their fundraising the other week. I was also delighted to assist them outside supermarkets, asking for donations for those who are finding it difficult to feed themselves and their families. I have visited the church’s i58 food bank in Inverclyde, and for those not familiar with the Book of Isaiah and Isaiah 58, I should add that it deals with fasting and hunger. Staff at the food bank told me that more than 300 families had visited it in its first three months. They were worried because referrals to it had increased day by day, with more than 50 families visiting on just one day last week. Clearly, the situation is getting worse, as evidenced by the fact that demand is increasing so dramatically as we approach Christmas.

We have a Government in London who seemingly just do not care. Unfortunately, we have a Government in Edinburgh who are blind to everything except their obsession with the constitution. The ever-growing demand for food banks is a shocking sight in 21st-century Britain, and it shows what it truly means to live in Cameron’s Britain and Salmond’s Scotland at present. Neither Government has a credible plan to tackle the dreadful poverty that afflicts our nation.

The UK of the 21st century has people choosing between eating and heating, and for some there is no choice at all, because they can afford to do neither. There should be a national outcry, and tackling this issue should be at the heart of any Government’s programme. No child should go hungry in the UK, and no child, adult or pensioner should go hungry on Christmas day or any other day. Our Governments need to do more to eliminate the scandal of food banks.

[Dr Whiteford]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr McKenzie]

I have just finished.

10:14

[Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)]

I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on securing the debate. It is timely, given that we are looking ahead to enjoying ourselves over Christmas and new year. It is important that we spend some time reflecting on the circumstances of those who are perhaps not quite so fortunate. Perhaps more importantly, we also need to look at what we can do to renew our efforts to deal with this issue when we return to Parliament next year.

This morning on the BBC, I heard a report about the number of children—particularly primary-age children—being fed by schoolteachers, and I am sure my hon. Friend will be familiar with that, given his background in education. From my contact with many primary teachers in my local area and further afield in Scotland, I know that that is not uncommon. For many years, teachers simply would not see children going without a packed lunch or a meal, so it was quite shocking to discover the number of parents in my area who are in arrears with their school meals charges; indeed, that caused a particular problem in the primary school in the village I live in. That is a real concern, because people who are not entitled to free meals, but who are none the less on relatively low incomes, are finding they cannot pay for a school meal for their child. That is a big worry.

In some ways, food banks have made the problem much more visible. For many years, families and the wider community helped out where they could, but the problem now is that many people simply do not have those local networks. Similarly, families do not have the resources to help out, and the grannies, the aunties or whoever would traditionally have helped out may now find that the cuts to benefits and pensions, and the other things that are impacting on them, mean they are unable to help out in the same way.

No one would have wanted to see food banks being set up. For many years, I worked in social work, and I had to go to homes to deliver food parcels on many occasions. It was not a part of the job that I enjoyed, because it was sometimes difficult for the people on the receiving end to ask for help and to feel that they were obliged to others for the help they had been given. However, I recognise that those who have set up food banks are those who have decided they will not simply pass by on the other side of the street, let others take on the responsibility or watch as others suffer.

The sixth food bank to open in Scotland under the auspices of the Trussell Trust was set up in my area of East Ayrshire by Cheryl Forbes and her now husband Gordon Cree. They are well known in my community, and Cheryl is a renowned opera singer. Her background was not particularly well off, but she has done extremely well for herself. Like many people from such a background, she was determined to put something back. When she talked about setting up the food bank in an interview in the local Kilmarnock Standard, she said she remembered vividly how her granny went without so that she could have a meal, following a change in the family’s circumstances, and that has stayed with her.

Many of us would recognise that personally or from the experiences of others we know. Indeed, I was recalling with someone just the other day how we as kids did not actually believe that women ate or sat down at family meals. Quite often, the children would be fed, but the mother or the granny would disappear into the kitchen, saying, “I’ll get something later.” It was only years afterwards that we understood that they never really got something later, because the children were fed, but the mother or the granny went without.

Cheryl set up the food bank, and she has recruited a number of volunteers. The organisation is now very successful, although, ironically, that does not give her and the volunteers a great deal of pleasure. It is doing well—it has recruited the volunteers, got the donations and regularly been out collecting—but it is seeing increasing numbers of people coming for help.

From a very small start in the village of Darvel, with support from the local church, the service has expanded to cover the whole of East Ayrshire, which includes rural communities. It now needs a delivery service to take food out to people in emergency situations in some rural areas. As we have heard, many of those people are not necessarily the ones who have been on low incomes or on benefits for years—ironically, some of those people can manage their money, despite their limited income, because they know exactly how much they have coming in. The people who come to the food bank are those on low wages who have experienced some problem—either, as has been suggested, because of delay in the payment of in-work benefits, child maintenance or something of that kind, or because of unexpected outlay from family income. That could be something as simple as a child needing new shoes or a coat for the winter, so that the family budget for that period is suddenly blown. The people who come to the food bank are of course in a crisis, and need help there and then.

I spent some time with local volunteers and particularly wanted to mention the help that we had. Those helping in the past few months have included Sainsbury’s, the Co-op, Asda and Tesco. The volunteers I was out with a couple of weeks ago, making collections at Tesco, were Rob Hamilton, Linda Nagle and Elaine Haining, who is a Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers representative at Tesco—and, indeed, Tesco staff. There were people who came quietly up to me—some of them on very low incomes themselves—to hand over a couple of tins or a couple of packets of pasta, because they know what it is like not to know where the next meal is coming from and whether they can feed their children.

Surely, despite all the effort that has been put into setting up food banks, that is an indictment: in the 21st century we have a situation that I believed—years ago, when I was involved in social work—we could eradicate, by ensuring that there was a safety net. The problem now is that the safety net is being unravelled bit by bit, and the real terms cuts in in-work benefits in the autumn statement mean that more people will have to rely on food banks in future. I praise the volunteers and everyone who does not walk by, so that people are fed, but I cannot see that that is a good thing in 21st-century Scotland.

10:21

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

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on securing the debate. I have known him for some time, having worked with him for three months in the lead-up to his glorious by-election victory, and no one in this place is more committed to serving the people he represents.

We now have a food bank in East Lothian. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) and the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford), I have mixed feelings about having to come together to fill the gaps the Government should attend to, and propping up their failure. However, I have increasingly encountered food poverty in my surgeries, and heard about it from local churches and community organisations. I felt that the stage had been reached where to do nothing was not acceptable.

As the data collected by the Trussell Trust show, many of the situations affecting people are caused by interruptions or delays in benefits. That is something on which the Government can act. They can do something about it, and I hope the Minister will comment on it. I draw his attention particularly to the issue of tax credits. A family recently got in touch to tell me about a change in circumstances. Their tax credits were stopped by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs while a review took place. The delay seemed unreasonable—I am sure that many hon. Members have experienced similar cases—and in the meantime, after that family of six had paid for child care and rent, they were left with £80 a month to pay all their bills and feed their children. That is unacceptable in a civilised society.

The other major cause of food poverty in my constituency is the imposition of sanctions on people by the Department for Work and Pensions. I understand that there must be consequences and people must comply; but surely there is a duty of care on the DWP and the Government, and people should at least have access to shelter and food, two of the most basic human needs, whatever their situation. A man who turned up at our citizens advice bureau had not eaten for three days. The Government are not going to starve people into work. That approach will simply not deliver.

I want to draw attention to the impact of food poverty on the health and well-being of children particularly. The development of the brain in the early years is very much affected by the emotional environment and by nutrition, so it is a major concern that young children in Scotland do not get the food they need. A witness who gave evidence to the Select Committee on International Development recently said that the litmus test of a Government is how they are affected by poverty and how they affect poverty. The present Government fail that test. They are not engaging with the issue, and not taking action. I recently tabled a question to the Prime Minister and asked

“whether he has visited a food bank in the last six months; and whether he plans to visit a food bank in the next six months”.

His answer was:

“I have meetings and discussions with a wide range of organisations and individuals at a variety of locations around the country. My engagements are announced as and when appropriate.”—[Official Report, 29 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 455W.]

That is a shocking response to the most desperate situation that families, pensioners and vulnerable people in my constituency face. The Government are out of touch and need to get to grips with the problem.

Two things have surprised me recently as East Lothian food bank begins to offer help and support. The first really should not have surprised me: that was the generosity of the people of East Lothian. At a recent supermarket collection day at Asda, two weekends ago, people with plenty were willing to share and people who had little were determined to do something. It is amazing how similar that experience is to that described by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun. People often said, “I know what it’s like not to be able to put food on the table.” It is an experience I have had as a mother, as well. I am sad to say that that was when Mrs Thatcher was Prime Minister. Food poverty is not always where we expect it to be. We had a lovely detached four-bedroom house. Suddenly the mortgage doubled and we were unable to make ends meet. At that time we had a bank that charged us £50 whenever we were overdrawn, and set us even further back into debt; so I absolutely understand the situation that many families face. The other thing that surprised me is the need. We started to offer support last Tuesday. In seven days the number of referrals has been increasing, and yesterday we had 10. The Government must find out the scale of the problem.

The Government also need to stop demonising the poor. The Chancellor spoke about drawn curtains, but he needs to think why someone would have no sense of purpose in life, and no hope of having a reason even to open their curtains, rather than characterising such people as lazy and unwilling to contribute to society. He will no doubt have his annual skiing holiday, perhaps at Klosters. I do not blame him, as, let’s face it, he has not had a good year; but poor people are human too. They have needs, and need an escape and coping strategies. The Government should stop demonising them and do something about the causes of poverty.

I spoke last night to one of the mothers who received a parcel from the food bank. She talked about how her daughter was enjoying a tin of sardines, and she had not known that she liked them. I realised that I had prepared that food parcel, and it was one of the best feelings in the world to put that parcel together and imagine the pleasure it would bring to a family.

I will leave the Minister with some words from my summer holiday reading, “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck. If the Minister has not read it, I recommend it, because no one understands poverty quite like John Steinbeck:

“The causes lie deep and simple—the causes are a hunger in a stomach, multiplied a million times; a hunger in a single soul, hunger for joy and some security, multiplied a million times.”

I ask the Minister please to do something.

10:29

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on securing the debate.

It is only a week since we last had a debate in Westminster Hall on food poverty. I want quickly to mention one or two things that were raised then, and to discuss a local organisation in my area. We all know of the good work of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and we heard in the debate last week that its latest report shows that 13.2 million people in this country live in poverty. There is also the recent shocking report by Save the Children. There is no doubt that Save the Children, along with the Children’s Society and Barnardo’s, does tremendous work the length and breadth of the country. That Save the Children report, which was released in September, states that well over half of parents in poverty—some 61%—say they have cut back on food, and more than a quarter—26%—say they have skipped meals. That comes back to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) made about mothers all too often saying, “I’ll get something later.” Those words resonate with me because I come from a large family, and on numerous occasions my mother said that, without my realising what she was really saying. We would be having a meal as a family of five children, and mother was going to get something later—that probably never happened.

I want to raise again today a point I raised in last week’s debate, because it is important that we understand just how desperate things get for people. In the Save the Children report, a parent is quoted as saying:

“A year or so ago, we literally relied on any money we raised at car boot sales to pay for food for the week. Some weeks weren’t too bad, others were dire. The British weather decided how we lived that week (when it rained, the turnout at car boot sales fell).”

It is terrible to think that people have to go to such lengths to have money for food.

I want quickly to mention the First Base Agency in Dumfriesshire, organised by a guy called Mark Frankland. Mark is real local worthy. He initially set up the agency to help and support individuals with drug and alcohol problems, and from the success of that he went on to work with veterans, providing them with support through a gardening scheme. They managed to produce some fresh vegetables, and I suspect he must have also had some kind of livestock, because he ended up producing eggs as well.

Mark is a well-known guy who does a lot of work, and the scheme for veterans was therapeutic work, to get some guys back on the road. He has developed a local charity into a business, and that business provides a factoring service for a local registered social landlord, thereby creating a number of jobs that are given over to veterans. Mark has also, very much under the radar, provided food parcels. He is not a recognised food bank of the kind that colleagues have described this morning and in other debates, but he has provided food parcels for a number of years to some of the most vulnerable individuals and families in the local area. Support through churches and local charities has enabled it all to happen. I spoke to Mark yesterday, and he told me that between November last year and November this year the demand for food parcels trebled. One of the parcels that he manages to provide lasts a family for about three days.

From a wider perspective, all too often we hear comparisons in the House between the UK’s deficit and debt and those of Greece and Spain, with people saying that we are in the same ball park. The fact is that about 2.5% of the population in Greece and Spain is supported by voluntary sector handouts, and that equates to 10 times the support we are experiencing in the UK through food banks and other charities. I absolutely balk, therefore, at the idea that we should be compared with those countries, and I am pleased that we are not there along with them because I wonder what some families, households and communities would be experiencing if the situation was as bad as that.

Colleagues have mentioned the Department for Work and Pensions, and I want to give an example similar to the one that my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes gave. A single father with three children fell foul of the DWP—the Department, not the staff; the staff are only delivering the systems and policies that are dictated to them. The unfortunate gentleman fell foul of the DWP when he missed an appointment, an appointment of which he said he definitely never received notification. Sanctions were imposed, including a two-month suspension. A father and three children had to simply get by—on what? Fresh air? People must have some kind of support. Frustratingly, the guy was unemployed. He had spare time on his hands, so he went along to the First Base Agency and helped Mark Frankland. He saw it as a duty to do a bit of voluntary work for someone who had helped him in the past.

[Fiona O'Donnell]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the Government are not just dividing rich against poor, but the deserving poor against the undeserving poor?

[Mr Brown]

Absolutely. I could not put it better myself.

So with a two-month suspension and no money, how could the family cope? What kind of lesson or way of existing is that? What kind of environment is that in which to bring up children? Let us not forget the point that my hon. Friend the Member for East Lothian made about the need for children to be fed properly, to enable them to develop at a young age. It is life experiences in the early years that have the most impact on children.

We have talked about the SNP Government, and I appreciate that that is not an issue for the Minister to respond to, unless he finds that he has the same train of thought as I do on it. Local government is, however, under real pressure, and what Mark Frankland at the First Base Agency has been experiencing for a long time is social services referring families to him for food parcels. I have spoken to Mark in the past 24 hours and he has told me that social workers will arrive at his office today to pick up food parcels to deliver to some of their clients. A little extra money into social services from the Scottish Government would go a long way.

[Dr Whiteford]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the cuts to local government in Scotland have been at a lower level than in other parts of the UK, and that the Scottish Government have worked closely with Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to mitigate the impact on low-income families, through, for example, work to secure council tax benefit where it has been abolished?

[Mr Brown]

I identify where the hon. Lady’s loyalty lies, but a question that she and her colleagues in the Scottish Government need to answer is: why were we seeing cuts to local government in Scotland three years before the block grant was cut? There was no need for that whatever. I know that the money was not as great as she might have expected, but we saw cuts three years before the block grant was reduced.

In conclusion, the dilemma that families face—some of which I hope we share—will only be compounded as we move through the next 12 months. There will be universal credit for those in receipt of benefits, and it will be delivered directly to them, so housing benefit and council tax credit will be delivered to the person applying, rather than going directly to where it should be going. Families will get the money, and then the dilemma for them will be: will they pay their rent, or their council tax?

[Cathy Jamieson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the bedroom tax is already having an impact, and that it will also be a major feature?

[Mr Brown]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We will compound the problem when people have to make choices. Is it a meal on the table, a pair of shoes for the son or daughter, or paying the rent? I, thankfully, do not have to make those choices, but I am there with people who have to make such difficult decisions.

10:40

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Betts.

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on securing this timely debate and on speaking with such eloquence and passion about the real picture affecting his constituents in Fife. I also praise the contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Livingston (Graeme Morrice), for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie), for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell) and for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown), and I commend the contribution of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford).

As people across the country prepare to celebrate the festive season, it is right that we all consider the effects of policy on those who are struggling to make ends meet. Sadly, this year the number of people struggling in food poverty has risen dramatically. I hope the Minister, unlike the Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath) in a debate in this Chamber last week, will acknowledge that food poverty is a growing and distinct social problem and will work to produce a strategy across Government to overcome it.

We should also remember the work of the Trussell Trust and other organisations that are filling the gap in society that this Government are so shamefully leaving behind. The Library of the House informed me on Monday that 6,196 people, including nearly 2,000 children, have been fed by Trussell Trust food banks in Scotland since April 2012. The difficulty in putting together the whole picture is caused by the Government failing to keep proper data on the prevalence of food banks, and I hope the Minister will at least remedy that following this debate.

The Scottish Government are not helping with the cuts they are making to the fuel poverty budgets, which threaten to abandon 800,000 people in Scotland to the scourge of fuel poverty. In addition, progress on child and family poverty has stalled under the present Scottish Government. I do not regard the investment made by the previous Labour Government in the tax credit system, which the Resolution Foundation has established was the principal driver of living standards being sustained to any extent beyond 2003, as throwing money at a problem; it was important as a means of keeping families in good living standards through a difficult period. However, I will focus my remarks on the current Government’s policies, which are causing the surge in the use of food banks.

Yesterday’s inflation figures were striking in pointing to the 3.9% rise in the cost of food compared with a year ago, whereas the consumer prices index measure of inflation is 2.7%.

[Cathy Jamieson]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that important point. Does he agree that it is significant that, within food pricing, bread and vegetables are the items that are most affected?

[Mr Bain]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. The price of fruit and vegetables is rising particularly strongly. Fruit is up 3.9% in the past year, and vegetables are up 8.1%, all of which is contributing to what has been described as a nutritional recession, with people cutting back on the purchase of fresh food and relying more on cheaper processed food instead.

Last week the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs published a study, which included evidence from Scottish households, showing that households in the lowest two income deciles are spending more of their income on food than they were five years ago—such spending is now 16.6% of their income—but their purchases of fresh fruit and vegetables have slumped because of soaring prices and the squeeze on household finances.

There is no doubt that some of the principal underlying causes are the squeeze on real wages in Scotland—down 7.4% in the first two years of this Government—the excessive pace of fiscal tightening, annual energy bills rising by an average of £300 since 2010 and the tax rises being imposed on ordinary people by this Government, not least the hike in VAT, which on average is costing ordinary families £480 a year in extra tax. As we predicted, the effect of those policies has been to strip demand from the economy, particularly from the poorest communities.

Three themes have emerged from this debate. First, the Government have no policy to counter the downward spiral of real wages. Under this Government, people are worse off than they were a decade ago. The effects of continuing with their policies were put starkly by the Resolution Foundation in its recent report, “Gaining from Growth”. Under this Government’s policies, real wages are likely to be no higher in 2017 than in 1999. People will be on average £1,700 a year worse off at the end of that period. With living standards in the UK declining at a faster rate than for some of our major European partners, perhaps seeing us drop to sixth in the European living standards league will focus minds in the Treasury a little more than has so far been the case.

Secondly, underemployment is affecting the disposable income that people in Scotland are taking home and are able to spend on food and other social necessities. More than 270,000 people in Scotland are trapped in involuntary part-time work or self-employment. There is a huge amount of evidence demonstrating the link between underemployment and low pay.

Thirdly, the Government’s policies on tax and benefits will increase reliance on food banks still further. We know that one major driver of the use of food banks among the jobless and those on low incomes is short-term cash-flow difficulties and problems accessing the social fund. Should this Government persist in introducing a real-terms benefit and tax credit cut over the next three years, they will accelerate the process by which people fall into debt problems and extreme poverty.

We need only consider the warning from history about where such policies take society. The cuts in the 1930s contributed to a situation described by Beveridge as one in which social evils such as want were on the rise. Surely we have moved beyond a situation where Conservative and Liberal Democrat Ministers—sadly, no Liberal or Conservative Back Benchers were willing to come to this debate to support their Minister or to defend these outrageous policies—would inflict that on the country once again, in the face of all the evidence on how destructive it would be to fragile economic demand and how it would endanger our social fabric.

The Chancellor said in relation to his emergency Budget of June 2010 that he would not seek to balance the books on the “backs of the poor.” He has at least kept part of that pledge, because with borrowing £212 billion higher at the end of this Parliament, according to the Office for Budget Responsibility, and debt higher, not lower, as a share of GDP, the Chancellor is not balancing the books; but he is making the poorest hurt the most through that policy. The Institute for Fiscal Studies shows that the policies announced in the autumn statement will hit the bottom 40% of the income scale harder as a share of income than the top 10% next April while removing work incentives for millions of people. Sixty per cent. of the Chancellor’s welfare cuts will affect people in work, and 76% of the cuts in tax credits in Scotland will hammer families in which someone works.

In the Minister’s constituency, which I have researched, 83% of the tax credit cuts will affect people in work. In the constituency of the Secretary of State for Scotland, the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore), 82% of the tax credit cuts will hammer people in work. How on earth is that defensible?

The politics behind what the Government are doing are equally contemptible. The Scottish National party Government are attempting to divide us geographically from the rest of the UK, but this Government are attempting to divide people socially and economically form their neighbours.

This has been a good debate, but now it requires a proper response from the Government, who must answer why, in a rich country, they are prepared to tolerate the return of involuntary reliance on charity rather than adopt a proper policy to tackle food poverty and boost wages and living standards. They must answer why they are prepared to demonise the poor rather than join the rest of Scottish society in ending poverty. They must answer why, in losing their battle to recapture lost economic growth, they risk losing something even bigger: their sense of morality and what makes Scotland a good society.

10:50

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) on securing this debate, and I thank all Members who have taken part. I have listened to some positive things being said not just about food banks but about other voluntary and community organisations operating across Scotland and in individual constituencies.

I put on record my thanks to the many organisations that provide food banks and other services, and especially to their volunteers. Many such organisations, if not most, are set up by charities and churches, which have a valuable role to play in supporting the most vulnerable in their local communities. We should feel thankful for the work that they do to provide support in sometimes desperate situations. As some Members have acknowledged—including the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), who gave a thoughtful speech, as ever—such organisations have been doing that work for a considerable time.

Although I will address the issue of the increase in the use of food banks, we should not suggest that the work of such organisations, or the need to help and support the most vulnerable in our society, began recently. The issue is ongoing and serious, and it must be constantly challenged and worked on. Many Members gave many indications of that in their contributions, including examples such as unexpected bills, whatever their source, for those on low incomes.

Much of what we have heard recently about food banks has been through the findings of the Trussell Trust, a network of food banks providing services throughout Scotland and the UK. The Department for Work and Pensions, through Jobcentre Plus, has worked with the Trussell Trust to establish a food bank referral service, a simple signposting process to help claimants who say that they are in financial difficulty find alternative sources of assistance. People will not be referred where assistance and support is available directly from Jobcentre Plus.

What Opposition Members did not tell us is that when they were in Government, Labour refused to allow food banks to advertise by putting leaflets in jobcentres. This Government have allowed them to, and jobcentre advisers now also tell people about food banks. Some of the expansion, although not all, is due to the fact that people now know about the existence of food banks who did not know before we told them. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions told Parliament in September:

“When we came to office, I was told by the Department that despite the constant requests from a variety of people who provide food banks, in particular the Trussell Trust, to put their leaflets in jobcentres to advertise what they were doing, the last Government said no, because they did not want the embarrassment of their involvement. We immediately allowed them to do so, which is one reason for the increase in the number of people seeking food banks.”—[Official Report, 10 September 2012; Vol. 550, c. 13.]

[Fiona O'Donnell]

It is unbelievable: the Minister almost seems to be congratulating himself on the scale of growth of food banks. That and payday lending are the only areas in which this Government are delivering any growth.

[David Mundell]

I am afraid that I am not going to take any lessons from the hon. Lady, who had the temerity to quote “The Grapes of Wrath” in this Chamber but takes absolutely no responsibility for bringing this country to the brink of bankruptcy and creating the backdrop for the situation in which people now find themselves in so much difficulty. The Labour spokesman for Scotland, the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain), was as lucid as the shadow Chancellor in setting out exactly how Labour would deal with the issues. It comes back to the same things: more borrowing, more spending and more debt. That is exactly what got us into this difficulty and why we are in such difficult times.

[Lindsay Roy]

Can the Minister tell us what lessons he has learned from this debate?

[David Mundell]

The principal lesson that I have learned is that Labour has learned nothing from its time in office and has nothing to suggest other than soundbites. Of course it is a serious problem that people in Scotland have insufficient income for food. I take it as a very serious problem, but I do not believe that there is some miracle solution. Opposition Members suggest the return of a Labour Government, but they would simply pursue the same policies that brought us to the situation that we are in.

In the limited time available, I will deal with one or two of the specific points raised. All Members with individual constituents facing difficulties with the DWP or other parts of Government, such as the constituent mentioned by the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown), should refer them to Ministers in this Government, or to me and the Secretary of State. We are happy to take forward those proposals. I am sure that the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway and others were not suggesting that there should be no system of sanctions for those who do not operate within DWP rules and guidelines.

The hon. Member for East Lothian (Fiona O’Donnell) mentioned benefit delays. That is an issue of concern, but from April 2013, DWP will replace the current interim payments—crisis loan alignment payments, for those who cannot wait until their benefit is due—with an improved system of short-term benefit and universal credit advances. Those advances of benefit, unlike the current social fund, will not be budget-capped. We heard, as we did in last week’s debate, about the transfer of the social fund to the Scottish Government. We highlighted in that debate that the funds being transferred to the Scottish Government are not ring-fenced. I take it from what the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) said about the Scottish Government’s approach that those funds might be ring-fenced when the Scottish Government receive them, and I certainly hope that they will work with local authorities to bring decision making on the social fund closer to the people who need it most.

Contrary to what we sometimes hear in debates like this, there is good news. Some 300,000 people in Scotland will be better off under the transfer to universal credit, and 3,100 fewer people are claiming jobseeker’s allowance than a year ago. That does not hide the fact that there are serious difficulties and that these are hard times. Particularly at this time of year, all our thoughts should be with the people who are suffering in these hard times. As I did at the outset of my remarks, I commend all the charitable and voluntary organisations that work closely with people in the most vulnerable situations to support them not just at this time of year but throughout the year. This is an important debate, and I again congratulate the hon. Member for Glenrothes on securing it. On that basis, I conclude my remarks.

Henry Moore Sculpture Sale

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Westminster Hall

11:00

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

I secured this debate because the proposed sale of the Henry Moore sculpture, “Draped Seated Woman”, and the true value of public art, are of great concern, both in my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh). “Draped Seated Woman” is a piece of public art that is being put up for auction by the mayor of Tower Hamlets, despite urgent calls by many of my constituents and leading arts figures for the sculpture to be kept in the borough.

I want to talk about the importance of public art in the UK and the positive impact that “Draped Seated Woman” has had in my constituency. Sold at a substantially reduced price of £7,000, the sculpture, affectionately nicknamed Old Flo by local residents, was essentially a gift to the people of Tower Hamlets and is part of the east end’s and London’s cultural heritage. It was created by Henry Moore in 1957 and acquired in 1960 by London county council for the new Stifford housing estate in Stepney in my constituency. It was then loaned to Yorkshire sculpture park in 1997, when the Stifford estate was demolished, and during its time there was seen and enjoyed by millions of people.

Moore was a socialist and a miner’s son from a working-class background. He sold “Draped Seated Woman” below market price on the understanding that the sculpture would be sited directly in the community. He intended “Draped Seated Woman” to be accessible and available to all, to enable working-class people in the east end to derive meaning and enjoyment from this work. She was a symbol of new life and new hope for Londoners, who had suffered so much during the blitz. In a socially deprived area in the east end of London, “Draped Seated Woman” helped enrich the lives of local residents.

The sculpture’s location in the east end highlighted the importance of the post-war belief that everyone, regardless of background, should have free access to art and culture. Moore based “Draped Seated Woman” on his wartime drawings of people sheltering from the blitz in the east end underground, on the Central line at Liverpool Street and elsewhere. This gives the sculpture even greater connection to the people of the east end, where thousands of people lost their lives during the war, including the 172 people who were killed in the Bethnal Green tube disaster, the worst British civilian disaster during the second world war.

“Draped Seated Woman” was born in the east end, she lived in the east end for a long time and she belongs in the east end. The proposal to sell this important sculpture is deeply disappointing and sets a dangerous precedent, risking the loss of other important public art around the country in these tough economic times.

Many are dismayed by the decision to sell off this special east end treasure, which is a poignant tribute to the working class heritage of the east end of London. The decision was made despite two council motions, supported by a cross-party committee of councillors, opposing the sale. The sale of the sculpture goes against the wishes of Henry Moore, who entrusted the sculpture to the people of Tower Hamlets in recognition of their struggles and sacrifices.

Nearly 3,000 people, including many of my constituents, have signed a petition calling for the mayor of Tower Hamlets to reconsider and keep the sculpture in the borough in honour of Moore’s idealistic vision. Mary Moore, the artist’s daughter, has also voiced opposition. Leading arts figures have backed the 3,000 local residents in their opposition to this sale. Among those figures are: the Olympic opening ceremony director and local resident, Danny Boyle; Tate Gallery director, Sir Nicholas Serota; artist Jeremy Deller; and many others. This is an alliance of local residents—people who have strong memories of spending their childhood around this important sculpture, having grown up in the local housing estate—and those in the arts world. This is not just about a group of people in the arts world wanting to preserve this important work of art; it is about a sculpture that people feel connected with, having strong associations with it, and memories of its presence in the borough.

Claims that the sculpture cannot be safely returned to Tower Hamlets have proved untrue. Several publicly accessible sites across Tower Hamlets, including the Museum of London Docklands, Queen Mary university and Morpeth school, a local school in my constituency, want to bring the sculpture back to the east end and have generously offered to house and insure “Draped Seated Woman” at no cost to the council. That highlights the strength of feeling locally and, as I say, the attachment to this important work of art. The Art Fund and Whitechapel gallery have offered their expertise in transporting and maintaining the sculpture.

Unfortunately, the mayor of Tower Hamlets is going against the wishes of many residents and artists who have raised concerns, and is refusing to consider the recommendation made by the cross-party committee of councillors on two occasions. Will the Minister join me in urging Tower Hamlets council and the mayor of Tower Hamlets to think again and secure the sculpture’s return to public display in the borough, either on council land or in one of the institutions that have generously offered to house it?

Although times are tough, there are clearly major issues with the council’s arguments for the sale of the sculpture. The mayor of Tower Hamlets has argued that the sale would address a financial gap in the council’s budget, but it is clear that there are restrictions on how the sum raised from the sale could be used, and some commentators have said that this is effectively a fire sale caused by the appalling financial deficit brought on by profligacy and extraordinary waste in the council. Many examples of where that waste is happening have been given, ranging from a £1 million-a-year budget for the local council newspaper, East End Life, chauffeur-driven cars, and advisers’ and consultants’ costs. Cuts and savings could be made in those areas without impacting on local services.

The debate about whether this sale would address a wider issue to do with funding has to sit with an examination of how public money is being used at present by the local authority. This bonfire of public art is not the answer. One has to ask, where does this end? What precedents will be set for other areas that may wish to make such sales to deal with financial challenges?

There is a bigger question about who actually owns “Draped Seated Woman”. There are serious questions about whether Tower Hamlets council even owns the sculpture. She was acquired in 1962 by London county council for the new Stifford housing estate at Stepney Green. When the Greater London council was abolished in 1985, ownership was thought to have passed to Tower Hamlets. However, new research suggests that this may be wrong. It would be extraordinary to auction this masterpiece without clarity over title. Will the Minister ensure that his Department seeks clarification from Tower Hamlets council about claims of ownership and whether the auctioneers, Christie’s, are prepared to delay plans to auction off “Draped Seated Woman” until the issue is resolved?

Does the Minister think it is acceptable for public art to be privatised in such a way—possibly sold off to billionaires’ private collections, never to be seen again? Would he be happy to see “Draped Seated Woman” leave the country? If he is not, as I believe he would not be, what steps will he consider taking to prevent the sculpture being sold off and ending up overseas in a private collection, never to be seen by the British public again? I thank the Minister for taking the time to join us in the debate, and I look forward to hearing his response.

11:10

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) for raising this important issue and bringing it to the attention of the House. She has campaigned assiduously on it with, as she mentioned, the support of the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), who is present, and of fellow Members of Parliament in other constituencies in the east end of London. Anyone who takes an interest in cultural policy is aware of the wide public and stakeholder interest in the matter we are debating, and I have exchanged correspondence with the Art Fund and met with the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow on the subject.

We live in a country that celebrates art and creativity, that has a strong and proud tradition of making art works available to the public, and that protects art works for the enjoyment of communities. In London, thousands of statues, monuments and sculptures are testament to that. Who among us does not enjoy walking past another great work on our way into Parliament, “The Burghers of Calais” in Victoria Tower gardens, especially on such a beautiful morning?

People are also rightly passionate about the sculpture that we are debating. It was created by Henry Moore in 1957, while he was working on a commission for the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. Its presence in Stepney came about because it was bought in 1962 and housed in the Stifford estate, until that estate was demolished in 1997. The sculpture is large, at 1.6 tonnes in weight, and it was bought for almost £7,500 by London county council.

Let us pause and reflect on that time. After the war, people recognised the importance of the arts in restoring Britain’s morale. They put the arts front and centre of Britain’s regeneration and rebirth. The Henry Moore sculpture we are discussing fits very much into that narrative. As the hon. Lady pointed out, it is based on the sculptor’s wartime drawings in the air raid shelters —the tube stations—of London, which are world- famous. Moore saw the sculpture as an homage, an acknowledgement, of the bravery of Londoners shown in the blitz. He created similar sculptures to Old Flo, which are still on public display around the world, in particular, appositely, in Germany, in a city that was itself bombed, and in Belgium, Israel, the United States and Australia.

It is also worth reflecting on the man behind the purchase of Old Flo, Sir Isaac Hayward. As leader of London county council, he was passionate about a programme to purchase public art for the people, and putting that art in the new housing estates of London, to symbolise London’s rebirth after the war. He was the Labour leader of London county council from 1947 to 1965. He was the son of a miner, as was Henry Moore, but a Welsh miner, and Hayward himself went down into the mines at the age of 12. He was the leader with vision who built the Royal Festival hall; the Hayward gallery is rightly named in his honour. That story makes two valid points: we can still have ambition and creativity at a time of austerity; and the idea that the high arts are somehow not for the likes of us and not for working people is absolutely disabused by people such as Sir Isaac Hayward, the son of a miner and a miner himself, and the great sculpture Henry Moore, the son of a miner.

The recent history of Old Flo has been somewhat chequered. It was moved from the Stifford estate because it was too expensive to insure and might be vandalised. I am pleased that Old Flo has resided in the interim at the Yorkshire sculpture park in Wakefield. The hon. Member for Wakefield knows that sculpture park well, but I, too, have had the privilege of visiting it. If you ever have the time, Mr Betts, I thoroughly recommend a visit. It is another astonishing creation. I think it was effectively one field, the vision of one man, and it has now been turned into the most remarkable park, one of the most beautiful places I have visited, full of the most fantastic sculptures.

The period of the loan to Yorkshire is due to expire shortly, however, and Tower Hamlets council has decided to put that wonderful and unique sculpture up for sale, through an auction in Christie’s next year. The planned sale has rightly come under significant scrutiny and is subject to continuing strong debate. Given the historical and social importance of the sculpture to the UK and, in particular, to London, with everything that its purchase signifies, the potential outcome of its sale—the loss from public display, the permanent absence from east London and the giving up of aspiration, as it were—is lamentable. Henry Moore’s intentions were, clearly, that the sculpture should be enjoyed by the people of London, but regardless of that, for almost 40 years its presence in an estate in the borough has signified the great importance that we place on our culture, our artistic history, and our ambitions as a country, and the value we place on our public spaces and the need to protect them for the enjoyment of all.

Many people have asked me to look into the situation. I must stress that the Government have no specific powers to intervene in what is strictly a matter for the owner of the sculpture, but I have continued to take an interest in the sale over the past few weeks. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow pointed out that the ownership is under dispute, in connection with how ownership of the sculpture and other assets of London county council were in general transferred, first under a 1964 London authorities order, when assets were transferred from the London county council to the Greater London council, and then under the various measures taken when the Greater London council was abolished—the 1981 Greater London council orders and the Local Government Act 1985—and when the London Residuary Body, which had taken ownership of the GLC assets, was wound up in 1996.

[Rushanara Ali]

Has the Minister had the opportunity to speak to the London borough of Tower Hamlets and to Christie’s about the matter?

[Mr Vaizey]

As the hon. Lady knows, I have spoken briefly to Christie’s to suggest that its people take the ownership issue seriously and, more importantly, to recommend that they speak to her. I have not engaged with the London borough of Tower Hamlets directly on the matter.

Clearly, should ownership lie with a London borough other than Tower Hamlets, the possibility of different outcomes emerges. I therefore agree with the hon. Lady that it is absolutely essential for the proper ownership of the sculpture to be established. There is a reasoned argument to be made that says that the ownership is uncertain. While the question of which council owns the sculpture is being explored, however, we cannot be in any doubt that its ownership lies with one or other of the London boroughs mentioned.

I am afraid that I may now disappoint campaigners, to a certain extent, because the Government have to pay heed to an important and enduring principle: it is for a council to manage its art work, acting in accordance with its own rules and with any conditions attached to that art work. Clear rules govern the acquisition and disposal of assets in our national museums, most of which were established by Acts of Parliament that usually set out clear rules on the disposal of assets. Asset disposal is also dealt with in a code for museums. Sometimes a local authority takes an asset that belongs to a local authority museum and disposes of it, only for the Museums Association to take issue with that, on the grounds of whether the code was complied with appropriately.

Our policy is to empower local communities to make decisions that are right for their area. We cannot dictate to them, but we share and discuss priorities with local authorities. The hon. Lady forcefully set out her view, and perhaps the view of others, of how Tower Hamlets has managed its financial affairs, but it would not be appropriate for me to delve into that.

The sculpture has undoubted significance for east London. For 15 years, it has resided in Yorkshire, which was Henry Moore’s birthplace, so for a long time it has not been readily available for the enjoyment of Londoners. I want the sculpture to be freely available and accessible to the residents of east London.

[Rushanara Ali]

There are concerns that, if the sale went ahead, the sculpture might leave the country, and the public will not have access to it if it goes into a private collector’s hands. Would the Minister consider taking steps towards an export ban if that were the case?

[Mr Vaizey]

There is the Reviewing Committee on the expert—sorry, Export—of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest; I made that Freudian slip because it is made up of experts in the arts. The committee reviews appropriate cases where significant works of art have been sold and could leave the country, and recommends to Ministers whether they should put an export bar on a particular piece of art. It is important to state that that export bar is time-limited. The export of a work of art cannot be banned in perpetuity; it is banned only for a period, to allow a British public collection to raise money to buy it at the price for which it was sold. The committee is independent, and gives me independent advice if the situation arises. It would be wholly wrong for a Minister to interfere in its decision-making process.

The issue of the cost and care of the sculpture is difficult, and must be faced. I am aware of the notable and welcome offers from the Museum of London and Queen Mary, university of London, to maintain and care for it if current plans for the sale are halted. I am heartened by those offers, and support the spirit in which they are made; they have at heart the interests of the public, and the uniqueness and value of the sculpture.

I have discussed de-accessioning by museum collections, and have pointed out that that is guarded through legislation, but local authorities have ownership rights over their assets, so are entitled to sell those assets, however unwelcome that might be. I covered the point about the Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of Cultural Interest, but might add that recent deferral of licences have applied to a Manet, a Benjamin Britten manuscript, and a sculpture by John Nost the elder. Those works were subsequently acquired by museums and public institutions. The Government cannot ensure that the sculpture is again put on public display in London, but we can assure those who are interested that any attempt to remove the work from the UK would attract the scrutiny of experts, and would be given serious consideration with great weight given to its historic, social and educational importance.

The picture is still emerging. I share the concern and disappointment of many people at the potential loss of this sculpture from public view, but the Government cannot dictate the outcome. I am not in a position to wave a magic wand. However, I hope that parties who are interested in Old Flo’s future—Tower Hamlets council, Christie’s, the nominal auctioneers, the Art Fund, which is taking a great interest, the Museum of London, and Queen Mary, university of London, all of which care deeply about the future of this marvellous sculpture—continue to work together and to engage with one another in the interests of the sculpture. First and foremost, the question of ownership must be resolved.

Henry Moore once said:

“I think in terms of the day’s resolutions, not the year’s.”

I propose a resolution for all of us who have a deep love of great art: we should continue to question, to deliberate, and to debate these matters, acting in the public interest and, whenever possible, honouring the UK’s strong and excellent traditions of public art.

I thank the hon. Lady again for this important debate, and I look forward to engaging with her and her colleagues in future.

11:25

Sitting suspended.

HIV (Developing Countries)

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Hugh Bayley in the Chair]

14:30

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a particular pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Bayley, because this debate is probably of more interest to you than many debates you have to chair, given your membership of the Select Committee on International Development.

I thank Mr Speaker for selecting this important debate on the rights, risks to and health of HIV patients in developing countries. I also thank the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), for attending, and I hope she has fully recovered from her recent illness. Before I start—as this would not be appropriate at the end—I wish everyone a happy Christmas and a peaceful new year.

The Global Commission on HIV and the Law, chaired by the former President of Brazil, recently published a report the findings of which are the reason why I wanted to secure this debate. If there is just one point that I want everyone to take away with them today, it is this quote from the commission’s chairman:

“The end of the global AIDS epidemic is within our reach.”

We have the unprecedented opportunity of a generation to have a world where no one dies of AIDS-related illnesses or newly acquires HIV. It is now a realistic ambition to imagine an HIV-free generation.

Some three decades ago, the HIV epidemic was first discovered. Since then, 30 million have died of AIDS, and 34 million more have been infected with HIV. The epidemic became one of the greatest public health challenges of our time. However, as the report makes clear, the crisis is also one of law, human rights and social justice. We are now fortunate enough to live in an age where we have all the research and tools to slow radically the rate of new HIV infections and stop HIV-related deaths, but the AIDS epidemic is not over. This time, it is not nature that is getting in our way of achieving success; this time, we are the problem. Bad laws, political obstacles and straightforward discrimination are preventing us from combating one of the greatest challenges ever to face humankind. We, as members of the human race, are standing in the way of ourselves.

Before I go on, it is important to praise United Kingdom Governments over the past 30 years—Conservative, Labour and now the coalition—for their work and for being global leaders in the response to HIV for much of the past 30 years. Tribute should be paid to Lord Fowler, who, as Health Secretary, opened up the discussion about HIV/AIDS at a time when many hesitated to speak its name, and initiated the striking “tombstone” adverts to alert the public to the nature of the new and dangerous disease. That is something the British people should feel proud of and that should continue, as I am sure we all agree. Perhaps we are ready again for a public health awareness campaign.

As many Members present will be aware, I undertake a lot of work on international development, and an issue that almost always arises in developing countries is gender inequality. Women and girls account for half the people living with HIV in the world. In Africa, the rate is even higher. Poverty repeatedly features, as almost all women with HIV—98%—live in developing countries. Why are women so vulnerable to HIV there? Their vulnerability can partly be put down to biological reasons, but the real reason is the gender inequality and discrimination enshrined in the customs and law and sexual and domestic violence that rob women of power. The United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women found that the majority of sexually active girls in developing countries aged 15 to 19 are married, often to much older men, and such married adolescents tend to have higher rates of HIV infection than their peers.

Sexual violence is the accomplice of HIV, depriving women of their ability to control their lives and thereby protect their health. In 2005, a World Health Organisation study found that in a broad range of settings, men who were violent towards their female partners were also more likely to have multiple partners, with both violence and infidelity being expressions of male privilege. I have previously spoken in this Chamber about rape being used as a tool of war. Increasingly, it is a weapon to break the spirits of women and girls, because, as the global commission’s report rightly points out, it destroys what holds people together—a community.

Disclosure of positive HIV status puts women at risk and in fear of more violence. I recently visited Pakistan, and when I returned home, I read about a Pakistani woman who had been gang-raped. She later discovered that she was both pregnant and HIV-positive. Her husband then abandoned her and her children. The commission’s report cites an example that demonstrates that education and class do not necessarily insulate women from such outcomes. It describes how a Tanzanian woman who led a middle-class life and was happily married to a professional man was affected. When she told him of her positive status, he was furious and started blaming her for their sons’ illnesses. He exposed her to stigma and torture, expelling her from the matrimonial home that she had paid for with her own money. The divorce courts did nothing to uphold her rights or to help her children.

We know that many women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo suffer rape, often in front of their husbands and children, who are then murdered in front of them. As a result, the women are frequently victims of HIV/AIDS, and they have few places to go for help. Antiretroviral drugs are much more difficult to obtain, administer and take consistently in such a chaotic place.

I welcome the commitment of the Department for International Development to putting women and girls at the centre of its work in the developing world. However, the Government have to urge other Governments, particularly at the G8 next year, to adopt the same strategic priority in their international development policies.

Another issue is Governments such as Uganda’s wishing to introduce laws making gay sex illegal and punishable by the death penalty. Many Governments in Africa are intolerant of gay sex. If challenged by UK Members of Parliament such as the late David Cairns, their Ministers try to tell us that they are just continuing with the laws we left with them following independence. That is some 50 years ago, so it is absolutely no excuse. We have moved on in the past 50 years and so should they.

There was a debate in Westminster Hall about the brutal murder of Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato. Since then, I have met a number of young gay men from African countries who are frightened for their lives. Such repressive laws must be outlawed, and it is up to our Ministers in the Foreign Office and DFID to stand up to Governments in countries where such laws are a problem.

Not only are the laws frightening gay men; they are a recipe for disaster in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Men will go underground; they will not see their doctor if they suspect they have HIV, because they are terrified they will be labelled as gay. They will not even want to collect drugs from a pharmacy for exactly the same reason.

A Bill has been tabled in Uganda—it is supposed to go through by the end of the year, so it is not long—proposing to expand the scope of criminalised activities and provide harsher punishments on conviction, including life imprisonment and, unless the clause in question is definitively removed, the death penalty for some offences. The Bill will force anyone who is aware of an offence under the Bill or an offender to report the offender within 24 hours, or be liable to a fine or three years’ imprisonment. There are indications that the clause might be dropped or amended, but if it remains the draconian provisions will punish any parent who does not denounce their lesbian daughter or gay son to the authorities. They will face fines of 2,650 dollars or three years in prison. Any teacher who does not report a lesbian or gay pupil to the authorities within 24 hours will face the same penalties. That must not happen, and I call upon the Minister to try to do something to stop it.

As the global commission’s report states, children and young people have the most to lose from HIV. It also states that such children are far more likely to become poor or homeless, drop out of school, face discrimination and violence, see their opportunities dwindle, or grow ill and die long before their time. The research quoted in the report states that globally, there are 3.4 million children living with HIV, roughly 16.6 million of whom have lost one or both parents to AIDS, and millions more have been affected. Fewer babies are now born with HIV, thanks to an increase in programmes to prevent vertical transmission. However, less than one quarter of children who qualified for the standard antiretroviral therapy actually received it in 2010. Despite that treatment, 2,500 young people still acquire HIV every day.

Young people in developing countries are also affected if their parents become ill or die. That point is in many ways linked to the gender rights issues I raised earlier, as older children, especially girls, are often forced to leave school to care for the family if a parent dies. That becomes a vicious circle for girls, trapping them for life, meaning they cannot have a long enough education to become economically independent, and elevating their risk of being infected by HIV. We must ensure that when parents die, developing states are well enough equipped to provide children with human rights and to make sure that their legal interests are protected, and that they are being cared for by suitable people.

Then, there is the issue of discrimination against families living with HIV. Adults living with HIV may be denied rights to see their children. Agencies prohibit HIV-positive children from living with their parents in state-sponsored housing, and school and child care administrators shut the door to HIV-positive pupils, believing that they will infect others. For example, in Paraguay,

“People who suffer from chronic contagious disease”

are forbidden to marry or adopt. Challenging those legal obstacles is a particularly important role for non-governmental organisations. Gidnist, the Ukrainian legal aid NGO, challenged the Ukrainian court to protect the rights of an HIV-positive child who was denied access to the paternal home. Thanks to that legal action, the child’s access to his paternal home was restored.

Studies cited in the global commission’s report state that age-appropriate, comprehensive sex education, including information on HIV prevention, serves the health of young people. Those studies show that such programmes reduced sexual risk-taking. If we are serious about working towards an HIV-free generation, it is therefore vital that age-appropriate sex education be available in schools worldwide.

As I briefly mentioned, among the things that stand in our way are the laws and political thought in some developing countries. The global commission’s report makes it clear that HIV is not just a health issue. The report makes for sober reading, informed as it is by those at the sharp end of the making and breaking of HIV-related laws in more than 140 countries. The global commission heard from people living with HIV who are deprived of the medicines they need because of intellectual property laws that put the prices out of reach. Men who have sex with men, and female sex workers, told the commission of their harrowing experiences of arbitrary arrest and abuse by police. People who inject drugs spoke of their time in detention, when they were denied clean needles or substitution therapy to help them reduce the harms associated with their habit. The commission heard about the experiences of migrant workers expelled from countries with laws that ban the entry of, or deport, foreigners with HIV, and the experiences of HIV-positive citizens denied health care, schooling, employment or housing because of stigma and discrimination.

Many companies help their own work forces by providing antiretroviral drugs, antimalarial drugs and other drugs that families need, in order to keep a healthy work force. In Uganda, we saw people from Nile Breweries give such drugs not just to their own workers but to the farmers who provide the agriculture for them—I forget which plant they make beer from. However, they also provide condoms for sex workers. There are people out there trying to help, and they are not just from NGOs and Governments, but from companies. That is encouraging to hear.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making a very strong case, particularly with regard to the attitudes that must be overcome in order to address this issue. Does she agree that one answer clearly must be further integration of HIV systems—not a separation of HIV systems—within an integrated health systems approach, particularly in circumstances in which TB is the major killer of people with HIV? In view of those circumstances, does she agree that what we can do in this country is to ensure that the UK continues to take a leading role in addressing the replenishment issue with regard to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria?

[Pauline Latham]

I thank my hon. Friend for those comments. I will come on to those points in a moment, but they are very important because we do need an integrated approach. It cannot be a stand-alone approach; it has to work together with other things.

The global commission’s findings clearly demonstrate that the myriad laws, across multiple legal systems, have one thing in common: by punishing those who have HIV or the practices that may leave them vulnerable to infection, they serve simply to drive people further away from disclosure, testing and treatment—fostering, not fighting, the global epidemic.

To quote Dr Shereen El Feki, the representative from Egypt on the global commission,

“It is time to say, ‘No more.’ Just as we need new science to help fight the viral epidemic, we need new thinking to combat an epidemic of bad laws that is undermining the precious gains made in HIV awareness, prevention and treatment over the past thirty years.”

I absolutely support her position. She argues, and I agree, that deliberate and malicious transmission of HIV is best prosecuted through existing laws on assault, homicide or bodily harm, rather than the special HIV criminal statutes that have sprung up in recent years and that sweep up those—pregnant women among them—to whom they should never apply.

In relation to pharmaceuticals, existing intellectual property laws require a complete overhaul to ensure that the interests of public health are balanced against incentives for innovation, and that the best new HIV medicines are available to all. Laws that criminalise sex work, drug use, same-sex relations or transgender identity do little to change behaviour aside from discouraging the people most at risk of infection from taking measures to protect themselves and their communities from HIV. Laws against gender-based violence and towards the economic empowerment of women are badly needed, and need to be enforced, to reduce women’s vulnerability to HIV. To work towards making an HIV-free generation a human reality, the world needs to take a joined-up, 21st-century approach to, as I said, one of the greatest public health challenges of our time.

Let me now discuss what my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) mentioned in his intervention. Since the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was created in 2002, it has saved an estimated 7 million lives, disbursed antiretroviral drugs to more than 3 million people, treated 8.6 million cases of TB and distributed 230 million insecticide-treated bed nets.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the hon. Lady for securing this important debate. I must apologise to her and to you, Mr Bayley, because I must leave the debate early to attend the Energy Bill debate in the main Chamber, but I wanted to be here today to listen to the comments being made. The hon. Lady has made important points about children, access to medicines and the pharmaceutical industry. She will be aware that 72% of children living with HIV still lack access to the ARVs that they need. Does she agree that we need to see a greater commitment to treatment, care and support for those children and simpler drug formulations that are more suitable for younger people suffering from HIV? Does she recognise, like me, that without treatment 30% of children living with HIV will die before their first birthday and 50% before they reach the age of two?

[Pauline Latham]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. We need drugs to be regularly available at an affordable price, but many countries where the problem is rife are chaotic and often in conflict, so the drugs would not necessarily get to where they are needed.

We have a role to play with DFID, because we provide a lot of health strengthening in different countries, but we must ensure that the health strengthening in the Governments is true. Often a Government will take money out of the health system, because we have put it in. We must ensure that the systems we put money into to fight this huge epidemic are absolutely transparent. It is also important that drugs are age-related; a drug for a young child will not be the same as a drug for somebody in their 50s. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point.

The global fund is the largest international financier of the fight against the three diseases. It channels two-thirds of the international financing provided to fight TB and malaria and half of all antiretroviral drugs to people living with HIV and AIDS. It also funds the strengthening of health systems. Inadequate health systems are one of the main obstacles to scaling up interventions to secure better health outcomes for HIV, TB and malaria. In contrast to other multilateral institutions, the global fund has been ranked by DFID as performing very highly on transparency and accountability. However, 2011 was a difficult year for the global fund, as the cancellation of the round 11 funding caused great concern among non-governmental organisations delivering services through the fund in developing countries.

In 2012, the Select Committee on International Development, of which I have been a member since the 2010 general election, held a short inquiry into the global fund. It concluded that the UK Government should release the additional funding promised to the fund without delay. In the Government’s response to the inquiry, DFID unfortunately states that they will wait until after the second multilateral aid review, which is due to be published in spring 2013.

The global fund has gone through a huge transformational process, developing a new strategy and recently appointing a new executive director, Mark Dybul. It now has a new funding model. Due to financial constraints, however, the fund has withdrawn its programme from some middle-income countries, such as Ukraine, where the figures on the HIV epidemic are rising. Will the Minister look urgently at that?

On drugs, it is worth noting that approximately 80% of the 8 million people currently taking ARVs are prescribed generic versions. Competition in generic drugs has enabled the cost to be reduced at least tenfold to around $100 a year for first-line treatment. That was only possible due to India’s pre-2005 patent laws and protracted discussions with the pharmaceutical industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since India’s patent laws have become compliant with the agreement on trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights—TRIPS—it is not possible for Indian companies to make generic versions of newer medicines within the 20-year patent period. We are, therefore, reliant on the good will of pharmaceutical companies to reduce prices for poorer countries.

During 2012, it is estimated that about half a million people will need second and third-line treatment, which is patented and at least three times the price of first-line treatment. Third-line treatment is as much as 20 times the price. One initiative to deal with the cost of drugs is the medicines patent pool, which would enable free generic competition on newer patented medicines. Unfortunately, only one company—Gilead Sciences Inc—has signed up and more companies need to join for the system to be viable. Will the Minister comment on what she plans to do to help that happen?

As we move towards 2015, a lot of work is being undertaken to put together a post-millennium development goals framework. One risk we face as the MDGs come to an end is that the global community will turn its back on the gains made in the past decade. It is important to consider the linkages between HIV/AIDS and other diseases. A post-MDG framework must continue to work towards the unmet MDGs. There is an urgent need for continued action on HIV: each day more than 7,000 people are newly infected with HIV; and 7 million people are still in need of HIV treatment—a number set to increase dramatically as all 34 million people living with HIV will ultimately require it.

TB is the leading cause of death among people infected with HIV/AIDS in developing countries, and 1.1 million people were living with HIV-acquired TB in 2010. Because HIV infections attack and weaken the immune system, an HIV-positive person with latent TB is 20 to 40 times more likely to develop active TB than someone who is not infected with HIV. Promoting and implementing the linkages between HIV and other relevant areas—including gender, sexual and reproductive health, maternal and child health, TB, education, and hunger and nutrition—brings wider benefits for development. A post-2015 framework must therefore ensure that goals and targets support synergies between areas. In particular, it must ensure that addressing HIV is part and parcel of a coherent and holistic approach to strengthening overall health, social protection and legal systems. Will the Minister tell us what progress she hopes will be made at the G8 next year?

[Andrew George]

My hon. Friend has made an extremely important point, which echoes my intervention on the integration of services. Does she agree that it is a serious false economy if developing countries do not ensure that the drugs are delivered on the ground? The cost of treating drug-resistant strains of TB—such strains are an increasing problem—is much greater than the cost of investment on the front line to treat such cases in the first place.

[Pauline Latham]

My hon. Friend is right; if we cannot get the drugs out to the people, they will not do well, so systems need to be put in place. It is ironic that many African countries have appalling transport systems and yet organisations such as Nile Breweries, which makes beer, can get drugs to people, no matter how difficult it may be, because beer gets everywhere, whereas Governments do not always think it important to ensure that pharmacies and health clinics do not have stockouts. All African countries need to ensure that there is blanket coverage of such drugs and that there is never a shortage, because, as my hon. Friend mentioned, to do otherwise is a false economy. They need to work hard to move forward on prevention, because so many people are living with, and still dying from, HIV/AIDS.

I started by saying that the key point I wanted everyone to take away today is that the end of the global AIDS epidemic is within our reach. Working towards an HIV-free generation is now a possibility, but it will become a reality only if we have the will to make it a reality. I shall repeat what I said earlier: nature is not standing in our way; we, as members of the human race, are standing in our way. We must urge the Governments of the world to take a joined-up approach to combating HIV/AIDS.

I also started by praising the work of UK Governments over the past three decades. The UK has provided excellent political and financial support. It is clearly an example of best practice and has set the standard for others to follow. The UK Government will review their HIV programmes in 2013. I agree with the Stop AIDS Campaign, which urges that the 2013 review becomes a blueprint or strategy for the future of the UK’s global HIV work. It is a chance to demonstrate the UK’s continued leadership in the field.

The strategy would map the UK’s contribution to delivering the combination of game-changing interventions necessary to ensure that we reach the tipping point and have a generation in which no one dies of an AIDS-related illness or newly acquires HIV and in which the rights of all those living with or affected by HIV are upheld. I also agree with the Stop AIDS Campaign that the blueprint should include three key themes: first, commit to maintaining the UK’s investment in HIV/AIDS; secondly, commit to putting all people living with and affected by HIV at the centre of the response, regardless of where they live; and thirdly, commit to leading the way in the UK and globally.

It was a privilege to secure this debate and speak on this important issue. I thank you for your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. I thank everyone who has attended and the various organisations that provided me with briefings ahead of the debate. I look forward to hearing other Members’ contributions and particularly the Minister’s response.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

Order. Three colleagues are trying to catch my eye. I will call the first Front-Bench speaker at 3.40 pm, so we have plenty of time for speeches of about 10 minutes each.

14:59

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) on bringing this important issue before the House. Some people know about it and others have acquired knowledge of it, as I have through my office and the organisations that I deal with.

The topic is worthy. Many of us cannot fail to be touched by the scenes on television from Africa and other parts of the world, and we often think, “If only the children had more food.” However, looking more deeply at the issues, they need not only more food, but more medication and, in many cases, HIV medication. The hon. Lady referred to the statistics. Some 1.7 million people died of AIDS in the past year, and there have been 2.5 million new infections this year, so there has been an increase to about 38 million people with HIV infections across the whole world. Those figures put the issue into perspective, and bring into focus where we are on this.

Every year, one of the girls in my office takes a two-week summer holiday in a small country called Swaziland. I will speak specifically about that country, because I have some knowledge of the area. She does it through the Elim Church’s international missions; the headquarters are in Newtownards in my constituency. The missions do marvellous work in Swaziland, in schools, education, and health, and in trying to build lives and give people more quality of life and opportunity. Two years ago, we had the youth choir over from Swaziland. What put the issue into perspective for me, perhaps for the first time, was meeting some of those young people, who were in their teens or early 20s. I did not know this until they had returned home, but the girl in my office said, “Jim, many of those people you met have AIDS—not by choice, but from birth.” That puts the issue into perspective; it certainly did for me.

In Swaziland, the people are very similar to those in Northern Ireland—they have the same friendliness that we have, and that the Scots also have, and which we are renowned for—and it is also about the same size as Northern Ireland, but there is one big difference: 40% of Swaziland’s population has HIV/AIDS. The perspective is that nearly half the population has it, and the difficulty is that no one talks about it. I agree with what the hon. Lady said about educating people better to address the key issues that affect them.

When someone goes into an overcrowded hospital in Swaziland, they find two people on each bed and another lying beneath each bed. That is the nature of their hospitalisation. They are probably there for tuberculosis, cancer or some other problem, but they will never admit that the underlying issue is HIV/AIDS, and we must address that. Those lovely young people from Swaziland whom I met had what I would call heavenly voices, but that belied the undercurrent of their health issues.

In Swaziland, to use that country as an example, people do not protect themselves against HIV. They do not use the condoms that are given out for free, because that would be an acknowledgment that they were already ill or could become ill. We have to get past the barrier that seems to exist. In Swaziland, as in many other African countries, male circumcision is also available as a method of trying to reduce the number of people with HIV/AIDS. Will the Minister give us details, if she has them—if not, I am happy for her to reply in writing—on how much the use of condoms and male circumcision has reduced HIV/AIDS in Swaziland, in which I am particularly interested, and across the world? For every one starting treatment, two become infected, which gives us an idea of the massive mountain that we have to climb.

My office sponsors a child in Africa. It is not big money; every week £1 goes into a box to sponsor a young orphan in Swaziland. Through the Elim missions, that money gives orphans clothing, school fees, school books, food and, most importantly, the HIV medication that they need to allow them to live a full, normal life—small moneys, but big dividends and big returns. The kids live on a farm and are sponsored by people from all over the world who understand their illness and how to treat it. The orphanage has a hospice, with a nurse who picks up the first signs of infection. They have hope and a future, but unfortunately the same cannot be said of most people with AIDS in Swaziland, not because of ignorance, but because they just do not want to face the key issues.

An entire generation is missing due to this disease. Grandmothers look after toddlers because the parents have died of AIDS. The grandparents who concentrate on the children perhaps do not want to talk about it. They do not talk about it to their grandchildren, because they do not want them to know that their mums and dads died from it. Again, we can see the dangers for that third generation. A middle generation is missing because of the epidemic, and the older generation is keeping that from their grandchildren, so another generation is being raised not to talk about this unspoken illness.

The scenario is replicated across Africa and the whole world; we have statistics and information relating to places such as Indonesia. Will the Minister respond about the educational drive that we need? It has to be an educational drive that people will respond to, not one that sounds good on a piece of paper that can be sent off without our knowing how the drive works or whether it will be successful. We need to know that it will ensure that we can put an end to losing entire generations. I have looked through the statistics on India. It has had an AIDS campaign since 2001, and it has reduced new infections by 50% in 10 years. The statistics illustrate that; there were 270,000 infections in 2001, and 120,000 in 2012. However, there are still 2.1 million people in India with AIDS, which gives us an idea of the magnitude of the problem.

There have been many pharmaceutical developments, and some of the costs are fantastically different. In America, one dose of medication would cost $12,000, but the same medication can be produced in India, where there are pharmaceutical companies, for $300. Again, we must focus on that. With the wonders of modern medicine, HIV/AIDS no longer has to be a death sentence; medication and care can allow people to have a long life. That life will not be as long as ours in this Chamber, because the disease reduces people’s length of life and their time on this earth, but it will be longer than if they were under the threat of the disease without any medication.

Medication is not always readily available, and given the cost implications, it is clear to many that change must come from stopping the spread by educating people and changing their mindset. If that needs the help and support of those of us in the western world, I believe that we should give it.

[Sir Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, in many African countries, for education to be successful, it needs political leadership behind it? Without that, we will struggle.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I absolutely agree that we need leadership at the very top in all countries, and that we need to make the necessary commitment.

The pupils who came over here as part of the choir from Swaziland were young, and although they were AIDS carriers, they were clearly focused on what they had to do for the future. If we can keep young girls at school, or give them an improved livelihood, so that their focus is on the good things of life, we can reduce the number who can be infected by AIDS. I support the efforts of the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire to highlight this issue in the hope of securing attention and help for people who are so much in need, in Swaziland and many other countries across the world.

15:09

[Nick Herbert (Arundel and South Downs) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) on securing the debate and on drawing attention to the continuing importance of these issues. [Interruption.]

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

Order. I must interrupt the right hon. Gentleman early in his speech, because there is a Division in the House. I suspend the sitting, and I ask Members to get back as quickly as possible. We will resume as soon as those who are here have returned to their places.

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

15:20

On resuming—

[Nick Herbert]

As I was saying before I was interrupted, I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire for securing the debate and for raising the issue of tuberculosis. It is often the orphan disease, in terms of public attention and understanding in this country. Nowadays it is possible to hear people say that they believe TB is resurgent, and that betrays a certain attitude—that somehow the disease is relevant only when it occurs in this country, where we believed we had it beaten, whereas there continue to be 1.5 million unnecessary deaths a year globally, because of a disease that is, essentially, easily and cheaply treatable. That is relevant to this debate in the context of TB and HIV co-infection, which is a particular problem.

At least one third of the 34 million people living with HIV worldwide are infected with latent TB, and TB is the leading cause of death among people living with HIV. It accounts for one in four HIV-related deaths. In fact, last year, some 430,000 people died of HIV-associated TB. In 2005, when I was first elected, I joined a party that included my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who is now the chair of the all-party group on global tuberculosis, on a visit to Kenya, indirectly sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to go and see the problem. The success of the visit was that it drew the importance of TB to the attention of a few of us. Afterwards, we founded the all-party group, and since then we have continued to try to raise the profile of the need to deal with that disease. I had to step down as co-chair of the group when I became a Minister, but I am pleased to have resumed my interest since stepping down from the Government.

There are things that we still need to draw attention to, in connection with the problem, and I want to raise a couple of them. First, anyone who doubts the importance of focusing on HIV and TB together, and ensuring diagnosis of both diseases, need look no further than sub-Saharan Africa. There were more than 1 million HIV-positive new TB cases globally in 2011, but around 79% of those patients live in sub-Saharan Africa. That is the only World Health Organisation region that is not on track to meet the millennium development goal for TB, which is to halve the 1990 prevalence and mortality rates by 2015. We need attention on that region and on that incidence of co-infection. It is highly unlikely that the target will be met, because of the negative impact of the HIV epidemic. For the world as a whole, reaching the 2015 prevalence and mortality rate targets will be possible only if TB control efforts, and funding for those efforts, are sustained.

The Government have a clear understanding of the importance of an approach based on the possibility of co-infection, and the need for integrated programmes of diagnosis and treatment. Their position paper on HIV, published in May last year, recognised that, which is welcome. The Government’s major contribution, in particular through multinational channels such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, is also welcome. A considerable portion of it is invested in TB interventions.

There are two things that I want to draw to the attention of my hon. Friend the Minister. The first relates to diagnosis. It is striking that the diagnostic ability and treatment for HIV are much further ahead than they are for TB, yet TB is a more easily and cheaply treatable disease. Why is that? It is straightforwardly because HIV is a disease that affected the west, and TB was a disease that the west believed had gone. Its attention was therefore not on it. The resources and money that were invested in necessarily trying to deal with the terrible and growing problem of HIV were not directed in the same way at TB. Therefore, the diagnosis of TB is not as quick as it should be, and the treatments go on for an extended period, with old-fashioned drugs that must be taken on a continuous basis; if they are not taken in that way, the problem of drug-resistant TB arises—and that is a killer and particularly difficult to deal with.

When people living in poverty are far from the facilities that they need to travel to repeatedly for diagnosis and to get drugs, there are no incentives to get the diagnosis and continue to take the drugs for an extended time. Something that should be cheaply and easily dealt with is not, and that accounts for the numbers of deaths. That is why programmes that improve diagnosis are welcome.

I want to draw the Minister’s attention to the TB REACH programme, which is a WHO initiative that gives small grants of up to $1 million to find and treat those who have no access to TB diagnosis or treatment. It is an incubator for innovation. It pushes the frontiers of mobile phone technology in health, and the deployment worldwide of rapid diagnostics. Even if my hon. Friend cannot answer today—I know she has a lot to get into her response—perhaps she would just consider the power of the TB REACH programme, and the support that the Government might be willing to give it in future.

The second issue that I wanted to raise was diagnosis and vaccination. The first thing that people in the west tend to say about TB is “Surely there is a vaccination available for it.” People know about vaccinating children in this country. However, the vaccination is not available for adults; if a vaccination were available, in developing countries, there would not be such a problem, and there would not be deaths on such a scale. Research and development of a vaccination is therefore as important as R and D of improved diagnostics. It is particularly important for the growing threat of drug-resistant TB, which is not so easily and cheaply dealt with, and can indeed be a killer, evading all medical treatment, including what might be available in the west. My second question to the Minister is therefore this: what support are the Government giving to TB vaccine development, which would be so important in heading off the incidence of the disease and save a large number of lives every year?

On the wider debate about why it is necessary to maintain public spending on international development and aid, there are few better examples than the successful spending of money, through the global fund and directly, on programmes doing very simple things—providing the diagnostics for TB and securing treatment. The intelligent organisation of those programmes to address TB and HIV co-infection is particularly important. We should hold TB up as an example of a disease that we in the west believed we had conquered, but that we are now concerned about, because it is coming back. We can treat it relatively easily, but we have ignored the fact that every year it killed 1.5 million in the rest of the world. We should be concerned about that, too.

15:30

[Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. I congratulate the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) on securing this debate and on making a thoughtful opening speech that covered a number of topics that I, too, want to explore. I should also like to congratulate UK organisations, and the agencies that they support overseas, on their fight to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic. They include the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Save the Children, Oxfam, Christian Aid, and Voluntary Service Overseas; I could go on with the list for the rest of the afternoon. I shall concentrate first on VSO, as I was lucky enough to do volunteer work with it in Kenya during the last recess. It became clear to me that civil society plays a key role in Kenya when it comes to the response to HIV/AIDS.

I want to focus on three main points. The first is the issue of the rights of men who have sex with men. I very much appreciate the fact that the Minister, in her short time in office, has made it clear that she is committed to tackling this issue, and that appreciation goes right across the board. I am sure that she shares the grave concern felt by the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire and me about the Anti-Homosexuality Bill that has appeared on the Order Paper in Uganda. The Bill had been promised as a Christmas present to the people of Uganda. Although its Parliament is now closed for the holidays, I am pretty sure that the Bill will be firmly back on the agenda in 2013.

One of the most shocking sections of the Bill states that any member of the Ugandan public can be obliged to tell the authorities about homosexual people that they know. Failure to do so could lead to prosecution. The Parliament, therefore, is not only outlawing practising homosexuality, but criminalising those who do not inform on homosexual friends, family members and colleagues. Criminalising a section of the population that is most at risk from HIV and denying them access to basic services not only undermines their human rights but poses a devastating threat to public health in a country where over 7% of the population lives with HIV.

Even those who are inherently against the practice of homosexuality must see that the legislation would pose a health risk, not just to the community, but to the entire population. This is a matter of human rights, and must be of interest to people across the world and to leaders in Africa. Will the Minister confirm whether she or other Government Ministers have raised this matter with African leaders, in the hope that they might raise it with both the Speaker of Uganda and President Museveni?

Following the recent announcement by the UK Government that they are withdrawing direct budget support from the Ugandan Government, I was concerned that the Department for International Development did not appear to offer a route back for the funding to be reinstated. None the less, I do support the reasons for the funding being withdrawn at this time. I worry, though, that there is little incentive for the Ugandan Government to address the corruption issues that led to that withdrawal of funds, and to engage with us and other countries on human rights abuses, such as those we are about to see if the Anti-Homosexuality Bill is passed.

Part of the reason why the Bill is back in the headlines is to distract people from the problems caused by corruption, and to keep out of the headlines the fact that the UK Government have withdrawn direct budget support from the Ugandan Government. Will the Minister confirm whether there is a possibility of Uganda again receiving direct budget support, and what obligations it will have to fulfil to achieve that?

Moreover, what support is our Government providing to organisations that are fighting for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people in Uganda, such as Sexual Minorities Uganda, for which many of my colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group on HIV and AIDS have shown support? Finally, what provisions have been put in place to support the health needs of all people in Uganda following the suspension of direct budget support to the country?

My second point relates to access to HIV medicines. In my role as chair of the all-party parliamentary group, I have been honoured to meet many inspirational people who are living with and affected by the virus. One of them is Angelina Namiba, who I believe the Minister met in her constituency last week. Angelina has been brave enough to share her story in the national press this week, and I congratulate her on her courage in doing so. She has also participated in many events here in Parliament and has shared her story, allowing us further to understand what it is like to be a young woman living with HIV in the UK today.

Women such as Angelina live healthy, happy and productive lives because they are lucky enough to receive the treatment that they need. Sadly, 7 million people around the world are not receiving that treatment. The Minister may be aware that the majority of antiretroviral drugs are produced in India, which has been able to take advantage of the flexibilities in laws on the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights set by the World Trade Organisation. Some 80% of the drugs used in Africa and purchased by multilateral organisations, such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, come from India.

The United Nations Development Programme’s Global Commission on HIV and the Law recently highlighted the fact that many of those flexibilities are currently under threat from a series of trade agreements. Clauses relating to data exclusivity, which would require generic companies to redo clinical trials and would therefore significantly delay generic versions of medicines, have hopefully been dropped from the EU-India free trade agreement, but there are other treaties, including the EU-Thailand free trade agreement, that may contain equally harmful provisions. Has the Minister had any conversations with colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills about the impact of such trade agreements on the availability and affordability of HIV medicines? Although price is not the only barrier to accessing HIV medicines, it is an important one.

When I was in Kenya with VSO in September, I witnessed the difficulty that people have in rural areas—they were very rural areas, as I know from my 10-hour trip there in the back of a car. People have to travel for many hours every week on poor roads to access clinics and the medication that they so desperately need. Poor health systems and infrastructure hinder people’s ability to access HIV treatment. Next year, the all-party parliamentary group will be looking in more detail at the barriers to accessing medication, and I look forward to working with colleagues and, hopefully, the Minister on that matter.

My final point is about the importance of the UK as a global leader in fighting HIV and AIDS. I am delighted that other Members have already raised that point today. The Department for International Development is the second largest bilateral donor on HIV, and has given tremendous political and financial support to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. I was delighted to hear, from the Secretary of State at the all-party parliamentary group’s world AIDS day event, that DFID is “absolutely committed” to getting to zero: zero infections, zero discrimination and zero deaths. A new strategy for HIV that maps out how to achieve that goal would illustrate DFID’s clear commitment to tackling HIV.

Last year, the Government focused on family planning, and I was pleased that a side event at this summit highlighted the links between HIV and sexual and reproductive health rights. We cannot tackle any major development issue, be it food security, hunger or violence against women, without also addressing HIV. Moreover, as we go into discussions about the post-2015 development agenda, we must not lose sight of the incredible challenges that lie ahead. As campaigners from the Stop AIDS Campaign asked parliamentarians just three weeks ago, why stop now? We cannot afford to ignore this disease, which still takes almost 2 million lives each year. An AIDS-free generation is within our grasp, but AIDS is certainly not over. We have the tools, the science and the knowledge to turn the tide on this epidemic. We just need to sustain the political will.

15:40

[Sir Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Bayley, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to take part in a debate under your chairmanship. I begin by thanking the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) for securing this vital debate, and I pay tribute to the work that she does on the issue.

As I was reminded when I met campaigners from Why Stop Now? on world AIDS day recently, impressive progress has been made in the fight against HIV/AIDS, but as other speakers have already said, there is still much more work to be done. Millennium development goal 6, which is to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, galvanised international attention to the fight against HIV, and created political momentum that has played a substantial role in the success of the HIV response.

Since 2005, 25 countries have seen a 50% drop in new HIV infections. In 2011, a record 8 million people living with HIV had access to antiretroviral therapy, which is more than half of those in need of such treatment. Globally, there were more than 500,000 fewer AIDS-related deaths in 2011 than there were in 2005. As a result of the mobilisation effects of the MDGs, people living with HIV are living longer, healthier and more productive lives. A tipping point—where more people living with HIV are initiated into treatment than there are people newly acquiring HIV—is now within reach.

However, global action and shared responsibility is necessary to sustain investment in AIDS programmes. Consequently, although we have all welcomed the progress made to date, we must also acknowledge the challenges that lie ahead and make a concerted effort to maintain political momentum. I was particularly disappointed—I put it no more strongly than that—that the UK failed to send a Government Minister to the international AIDS conference in Washington in July.

[Pamela Nash]

I just want to highlight that an ex-Government Minister attended that conference on behalf of Parliament: Lord Fowler. There was also representation at the conference from the all-party group on HIV and AIDS, and from the all-party group on global tuberculosis. We were able to meet parliamentarians from across the world and discuss a lot of the important issues that we have discussed today.

[Sir Tony Cunningham]

And vital work it is. That gives me the opportunity to pay tribute to my hon. Friend for her personal commitment in this area, and to the all-party group on HIV and AIDS, which does incredibly valuable work. We must ensure that the UK and the EU maintain their commitment to financing efforts to combat this epidemic, and make strategic plans to capitalise on the opportunity that we have all said is within reach.

Let me move on to some of the challenges that we face. First, progress on HIV has been uneven across countries and certain populations. Although many countries have seen impressive declines in the rates of new HIV infections, since 2001 the number of people newly infected in the middle east and north Africa has increased by more than 35%. HIV prevalence is also consistently higher among sex workers, intravenous drug users and men who have sex with men. In sub-Saharan Africa, as has already been said, women have a 60% higher risk of HIV infection than men. These groups often face legal and social barriers, including discrimination and criminalisation, which impede their access to services.

Secondly, as the majority of HIV infections are sexually transmitted or associated with pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding, there is a need for greater integration of sexual and reproductive health responses, and HIV responses. I think that the Liberal Democrat Member, the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), mentioned how important that is.

In 2011, one in five maternal deaths was directly related to HIV, but when women living with HIV receive antiretroviral treatment during pregnancy, the risk of transmission is reduced to less than 5%. This progress on mother-to-child transmission has been hailed as a hugely significant factor, and it provides a real opportunity to take control of the problem.

Finally, we need to acknowledge the importance of middle-income countries, which are often forgotten. Three of the top five countries with the highest HIV burden but the lowest coverage of antiretroviral treatment are middle-income countries. We need to focus on tackling this inequality within and between countries, and ensure that human rights are integral to the global response to the HIV epidemic. Will the Minister tell us what steps her Department is taking to tackle discrimination and to ensure that there is access to HIV treatment for the poorest, most vulnerable communities? There is also a need for urgent action to ensure that we can continue to reduce transmission and expand access to treatment to those who need it.

As a number of speakers, particularly the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire, mentioned, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which was created in 2001 to increase funding to tackle three of the world’s most devastating diseases, has approved $22.9 billion for more than 1,000 programmes in 151 countries and provided AIDS treatment for 4.2 million people. That is incredible. The fund channels half of all antiretroviral drugs to those living with HIV/AIDS. The UK has been the fund’s third biggest donor since its creation, and the second largest bilateral HIV donor, which reflects our impressive leadership on this issue. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire talked about a period of 30 years; this work is not party political, but will go on across decades and across political parties.

However, in May 2012, the International Development Committee’s inquiry into DFID’s contribution to the global health fund urged the Government to honour their promise to increase their contribution to the fund significantly, over and above the current pledge of £384 million for 2012 to 2015. The Government have cited a desire to see reforms to the fund as the reason for the delay, so will the Minister tell us more about the fund’s new funding model and strategy? The IDC specifically stated that

“DFID is a key partner whose increased contribution to the Global Fund could unlock funds from other donors. It should do all possible to commit additional funds earlier than 2013 by prioritising its assessment of the Global Fund ahead of, and separately from, the broader update of the Multilateral Aid Review.”

Given that next year will be a replenishment year for the fund, will the Minister use her G8 discussions to leverage additional funding from other countries and announce further UK funding for the fund? Does she agree that announcing funding for the fund would help to increase certainty and encourage other donors to make a commitment of additional resources?

The UK Government should be doing everything they can to ensure that the global health fund is able to operate at the height of its ability, tackling these horrific diseases and saving lives, so I ask the Minister: can she say when we can expect to see the “increased contribution” to the fund from the UK that was announced by the previous Secretary of State for International Development, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), earlier this year? Also, what steps are the UK Government taking to galvanise support from other donors for the global health fund? Although the fund is not the only institution involved in the fight against AIDS, TB and malaria, it is by far the single biggest actor in the fight against these diseases. It was a British Government who spearheaded the drive to establish the global health fund, and it is the current British Government who should pick up the mantle at this important moment, showing the leadership to get the fund back into full operation.

In conclusion, it is clear that progress is being made on HIV. The number of new infections is declining, and the number of treatments is increasing, but we must not lose sight of those who are still in desperate need. Rather than focusing on single programmes or issues such as family planning or drug availability, the overall approach must be one of cohesion. Health systems and the integration of HIV/AIDS responses with wider programmes of reproductive health must be considered. Commitments to address the global AIDS pandemic must not take a back seat as other issues take the political stage in the UK. As significant advances are made and global leaders in the United States and elsewhere begin to state openly that an AIDS-free generation is within reach, the UK must continue its leadership on this issue.

The significance of what we face must not be forgotten, and as 50% of people eligible for HIV treatment do not receive it, it is essential to support those most at risk, to help them to access the help that they desperately need without fear of discriminatory laws or prejudices. The UK’s impressive record on this issue must be maintained and, as such, we need continued and renewed leadership. Will the Minister tell us what steps the Government are taking to increase access to medicines for the 7 million people who are still waiting for HIV treatment? Will the Government commit to a blueprint that will lay out the UK’s contribution to the attempt to gain control of the HIV pandemic internationally? Much has been done; much is still to be done. However, as the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire said so eloquently, success is within our reach.

14:57

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Lynne Featherstone)]

Thank you, Mr Bayley, for calling me to speak. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon.

First, I thank the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) for calling a debate on such an important topic so soon after world AIDS day. I also thank hon. Members from all parties for their thoughtful and important contributions to this debate on what I still regard as one of the priorities for all of us in this day and age. I sometimes feel that, with the advent of drugs that mean people can live with AIDS rather than it being a death sentence, a complacency has begun that somehow the situation is not as bad as it was. With the tantalising prospect of zero infections and zero transmissions just out of reach, we know that success can be achieved, but if any of us let up on our commitment to tackling the disease it will not happen. We must translate our commitment in Westminster Hall today to those around the world who have the power to take the fight forward, and we must keep going in that regard.

As many Members have said, there is much to celebrate. The latest UNAIDS report shows an unprecedented pace of progress in the global AIDS response, with 700,000 fewer new HIV infections each year across the world than a decade ago, especially among newborn children. The work to eliminate HIV transmission from mother to child is clearly delivering results. More than 8 million people now have access to treatment and, for the first time, countries are investing more money in HIV than is received from global giving, which shows that we are moving forward to a sustainable response. That is really good news.

Many people, including me just now, have raised the possibility of seeing an end to transmission—zero infections—but so much is still to be done, and there are risks that could seriously jeopardise the incredible progress we have made. Too many people are still getting infected, with 2.5 million new infections last year. Women remain disproportionately affected, accounting for 58% of people living with HIV in Africa, and I will come on to specific points raised about that in a moment. Some 7 million people still do not receive the treatment they need, and in low and middle-income countries work to address HIV in key populations—sex workers, men who have sex with men, injecting drug users and prisoners—is still almost entirely funded by international sources, which is an inadequate human rights response and is not sustainable. I will come on to some of the issues relating to human rights and homosexuality.

The context in which we work is changing; the dynamics of the HIV epidemic are changing and the patterns of resources are shifting. We must continue to adapt our ways of working to overcome those challenges, and we need a global HIV response that is fit for purpose. DFID supports, therefore, the strategic investment approach, which allows countries to make decisions about how to allocate resources most effectively and efficiently on the basis of national evidence. I am pleased that through the approach DFID and other members of the HIV community are embedding the principles of effectiveness, efficiency and equity. The focus will help to drive more and better results and improve value for money.

The decisions taken at the recent board meeting of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria demonstrate that efforts are being made to find new and more efficient approaches. The new funding model should better align with country processes, reduce transaction costs, and make a greater impact with investments. DFID is closely following its implementation to ensure that it achieves those aims.

Many Members have mentioned the issue of the global fund. We have committed £1 billion between 2008 and 2015, and that time scale has not been delayed but rather brought forward by one year. Regarding increasing our funding, we have stated that future funding increases are contingent on the global fund’s progress with reforms. I hear the exasperated, “But hasn’t it done enough?” We have committed to reviewing our position paper, and we will have the multilateral aid review update, which is due in the first half of next year. That will provide us with the evidence, but the intention is to make the increase. The global fund has moved a long way from the days when there were issues in round 11 and we had to suspend payments to the fund. With the fund’s replenishment planned for September 2013, the UK is committed to working with others to ensure that reforms succeed and, as has been mentioned, to using our influence with other donors to draw in more overall financing to raise the final total.

One of the deepest ironies of the HIV epidemic is that the people most in need of prevention and services are from communities that are most neglected and discriminated against. A human rights approach is, therefore, essential, and through our bilateral aid review process DFID’s country offices have been updating their HIV programmes, based on the latest evidence and on national responses. In Zimbabwe and other parts of southern Africa, where there is evidence of growing epidemics in key populations, we are exploring how we can pilot innovative approaches to prevention with sex workers, adolescents and prisoners. We have also given new funding for the Robert Carr Civil Society Networks Fund to support global and regional networks to improve HIV responses for key populations.

We also recognise that addressing gender inequality and ensuring women’s rights is also essential to achieve universal access. The Prime Minister appointed me as international champion for tackling violence against women and girls across the world, and that issue is a key part of my agenda. Violence against women and girls is one of the most systematic and widespread human rights violations in the world, and it materially and significantly increases the risks of maternal death and vulnerability to HIV and AIDS.

The issue of sex education has been raised. I recently returned from Zambia, and I was shocked to find that no one talks about sex there. Not only is sex education not taught in school, sex is simply not spoken about. One of DFID’s programmes there is about girls’ empowerment, and I went to visit the girls and asked them which of their life lessons—that is almost what they are—they liked the most. They had had only three lessons so they did not have many to choose from, but it was heartbreaking that they said that what they most liked was finding out about their own bodies. They had absolutely no idea about the changes that were happening to them.

[Pamela Nash]

I want to reassure the Minister that I witnessed a similar DFID-funded programme in Rwanda that was much further forward than the three lessons. I witnessed young girls being fantastically confident in talking about their own health issues. They had much stronger and brighter futures as a result of the programme.

[Lynne Featherstone]

That is the key point: education is vital. The girls were saying that the boys were already very jealous because they were not allowed to go to the girls’ meetings. The initiative was empowering them to feel confidence in their bodies and about their rights over their bodies, and the boys were beginning to be a bit more wary of them. It is a long process, and negotiating such relationships, even in this country, is not always easy.

Having said that about boys, there is also a lot of work to do with boys and men. I went to a gender-based violence clinic—a one-stop shop—where remarkable work was being done with bringing the men along. Where there had been violence, the men had to come in for counselling. They were invited in, and if they did not come they were invited again, by the police. If they still did not come the police went and got them—quite extraordinary. Of the 10 survivor women I talked to, five said that they were still with their husbands, who had changed. One of the men had joined a men’s network. Men who have multiple partners are a real threat, where the spread of HIV is concerned.

Many Members raised issues about Uganda and the homosexuality Bill. I went to Uganda before I moved to DFID, in my violence against women role. Where women are oppressed, there are often hideous homosexuality laws. I raised the issue with the Speaker of the House in Uganda. I would not say that what I said was taken in the best way, but I raised the issue politely, but firmly. It is important to be able to discuss matters, even when people disagree. The discussion was private and appropriate. The issue is a really serious one, and it is not uncommon in many countries across Africa and Asia. I am looking closely at what is possible and at how we move forward on the agenda. One thing we do is to support civil society and Ugandan groups. I met with groups when I was in the country, and there is a lot of fear of a backlash, so how we move forward is a delicate matter.

[Mr Russell Brown (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)]

The Minister mentioned Uganda. Has she had any discussions with any of her Foreign and Commonwealth Office colleagues about making the case in other Commonwealth countries about more legal reform, so that people are not persecuted? I firmly believe we should be doing that.

[Lynne Featherstone]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. He may be aware that the Prime Minister raised the issue at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. I have spoken to Foreign and Commonwealth Office Ministers about the issue, and in my international champion role I have developed key messages. Three of those messages are on women, and they address: leadership; rights and laws; and impunity, access, justice and enforcement. There are two messages on homosexuality, and it has been agreed that all travelling Ministers will raise the issue when appropriate. That must be done appropriately as it is easy to raise feelings that the issue is a western construct. The issue, therefore, has to be worked out with the countries not in a preaching way, but in a way in which we can discuss our differences and move the agenda forwards. Human rights are a priority, and we have all made that clear on many occasions. Nevertheless, we work across many countries that come from a different place from us.

In parallel, the UK Government complement grass-roots demand for change through our diplomacy on human rights overseas. We are committed to ending religious intolerance and persecution and discrimination against individuals on the basis of their sexuality. We regularly review the commitment to and respect for all human rights in other countries, including the likely direction of travel over the coming years. Where we have specific concerns about a Government’s failure to protect their citizens’ rights, we raise those concerns directly at the highest levels of the Government concerned.

I will now answer some of the other points that were raised by Members and try to finish ahead of time—we are running over because of the Division.

The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) asked about direct budget support payments to Uganda and the condition of renewed payments. Aid to the Government of Uganda is predicated on fundamental commitments and agreed principles, so any renewal of general budget support depends on those conditions being met. The route is always open, and there is nothing we would wish more than for countries to want to come back to the same table as us. I am hopeful that that will be the case one day, but it is very early days as we try to address the diplomacy and geopolitics on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.

We support Ugandan civil society groups, including the Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Constitutional Law, which trains in advocacy and covers the costs of legal cases to protect LGBT communities. That is just one example. Where we cannot give directly to Governments, we find other ways to help people in countries where possible.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire specifically raised a number of points. Under the global fund’s new funding model, there will be a targeted band for countries, such as Ukraine, with higher incomes and a lower disease burden that remain at risk from rising epidemics. That allocation band includes countries that should focus resources on most-at-risk populations, which are the groups that we have discussed. The UK has consistently argued that such groups should be prioritised in that context. That was the argument I used in Ethiopia when then Prime Minister Meles and I discussed public health, transmission and other such issues.

My hon. Friend is right that Gilead has shown leadership in joining the medicines patent pool, which we strongly support. We are encouraging other companies with patents for new first-line treatments for HIV/AIDS to consider beginning formal negotiations to enter that pool.

On the G8 and the post-millennium development goals, we will use our influence with the international system to deliver our global commitments. As part of our G8 presidency, we will be reporting on progress against existing commitments and holding members to account. There is definitely a view that we need to finish the job. As exciting as it is to think about post-2015 MDGs, there is still much work to be done on the goals we are in the middle of right now.

Several Members raised the issue of the Why Stop Now? UK blueprint, which is where we slightly part company. Our review of progress on the UK’s position paper will happen in the early part of next year, and it is there that we will make our next decisions based on evidence. We think that just spending a lot of our resources to create another blueprint will be just that—using a lot of our resources—when we basically know what we need to do. We want to get on with working with international partners on implementation, rather than having to stop and bring all our resources back to create another plan. We want to work with stakeholders to ensure a robust and accountable analysis of DFID’s HIV results. We are still discussing the time frame because our review of our position paper needs to align with a number of other international processes. I am aware of the call for a blueprint, but I do not think it is necessarily the way we want to go. I apologise if that disappoints anyone. Indeed, I see the AIDS Consortium sitting in the Public Gallery, and I think I have shown my commitment. My first speech as a Minister was an address to the annual general meeting of the AIDS Consortium, which I have since met to discuss all the issues.

I must be quick, but a number of Members raised the issue of the relationship between HIV and tuberculosis. My right hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), whom I used to work with at the Home Office, specifically raised that issue. TB is the leading cause of death for people living with HIV. DFID supports leadership among countries on integrated responses rooted in knowledge of local epidemics, with donor support harmonised in line with national plans to deliver quality integrated HIV, TB and reproductive health services, which was a call across the Chamber.

I acknowledge the two issues raised by my right hon. Friend on the TB REACH programme and on vaccination, both of which I will consider further. At the moment, DFID’s support for TB research includes £205 million to the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development and £14 million to the tropical disease research programme.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned how condom use and circumcision have helped HIV prevention work in Swaziland and the rest of the world. I thank him for highlighting the challenges in Swaziland, and DFID agrees that a combination prevention approach, including condoms, male circumcision and education, is essential to an effective response.

[Jim Shannon]

I also mentioned how pharmaceutical companies in India are able to produce the same anti-HIV drugs more cheaply than companies in America. Without promoting any company over any other, does the Minister agree that, if cheap medication is available in India that is every bit as effective as other medication, we should be sourcing medication from India, given our DFID contribution to countries across the world?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. We have heard the point that he has made so well.

I thank all hon. Members who have spoken, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire, who secured this important debate. It is heartening to see so many Members who genuinely hold HIV as a priority and will pursue the wonderful goal of zero infections.

Shale Gas Profits

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Westminster Hall

16:09

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Bayley. Before I go into the argument for community compensation, I will set the background for the impact of fracking in terms of the present energy demands on the county of Lancashire. At the moment, we face energy projects across the country. My own constituency has a third planning application for onshore wind farms in the Lune valley. We have offshore wind farms, the Walney field off Barrow and proposals for new offshore wind farms run by Centrica off the Isle of Man. Now, the need to transport power from those wind farms will mean extra pylons on land through the middle of my constituency and the middle of Lancashire.

At the south end of my constituency, there is a fourth planning application by a company called Halite for the excavation of salt mines and the storage of liquefied gas, a proposal that I oppose, as do my constituency neighbours and hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and for Wyre and Preston North (Mr Wallace). There are also a number of proposals for smaller hydroelectric schemes in the hills. It is already a massive issue for Lancashire, and there is even the possibility of an extra nuclear power station at Heysham, in the north of the county. All those proposals are the background. Into that mix comes the issue of fracking.

I want to put on the record my position on the wider shale gas issue. I have never been against using shale gas in our energy mix in principle. However, I want my constituents’ genuinely held concerns to be addressed before I support an expansion of fracking. I have raised those concerns with Ministers before, including three times in previous debates in Westminster Hall, but they are worth recapping.

First, my rural constituents have understandable concerns because many of them draw their water directly from boreholes rather than the mains. They are worried about contamination of their water supply, and equally worried about the impact on their water supply of the vast amounts of water that will be drawn from the water table to carry on full industrial fracking. Secondly, the small earth tremors that happened last year were proved subsequently to have been caused by the fracking process. Thirdly, my constituents have serious concerns that the regulatory regime, even if more stringent than in the US, will not be extensive enough to keep track of all the activity that could take place if the fracking moved to an industrial scale. I underline the point that, in a sense, we are in a hypothetical position. All that the Minister has reallowed is one testing at Preesall in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Fylde (Mark Menzies), and we may be some way along in the process.

I welcomed the pause in fracking operations to allow an investigation into the earth tremors. I was pleased that the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society produced reports into the processes and equipment involved, and that they were studied further by an independent panel. Such investigation and review was much needed.

As a result of those investigations, the Energy Secretary announced last week that fracking and the tests at Preesall by Quadrilla could resume, but, as his recent statement made clear, with new safeguards in place. I welcome some of the measures in the Energy Secretary’s statement, including monitoring of seismic activity and enhanced wellhead integrity, which are fundamental to ensuring safety of the water table and water supply. I also welcome his commitment to continuing to record and analyse data on the effect on the environment of exploratory fracking. It is an important step, along with the appointment of an independent inspector who will be on site at all times. However, I still want greater efforts to boost the safety of the water supply and put in place a proper and effective regulatory system.

Although exploratory fracking has been resumed, we are still some way from industrial-scale operations, although anyone who reads the national press would think that the bonanza was going to happen next week. We in Lancashire are realistic in seeing that it will be a long-term process, but this debate is meant to get in at the beginning and ask what the impact might be if it happens.

[Mark Menzies (Fylde) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this debate on a subject that is hugely important and of great concern to my constituents. I urge the Minister to take on board the point that my constituents, like those of my hon. Friend, are incredibly worried that fracking could be done on an industrial scale. It is important that the company be clear from the outset that until safety measures and regulations are in place, it will be done on an incredibly limited scale, with detailed on-the-ground monitoring at every stage.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbouring MP. To underline the point to the Minister, there has been speculation in the papers that if industrial fracking happens, there could be some 800 wellheads across Lancashire, against the background of onshore and offshore wind farms and the possibility of new nuclear. One can see why it is generating concern.

I stress that we are talking about a hypothetical situation involving industrial fracking some time in the future. The point that I am here to make is that if shale gas operations commence on that scale and scores of wells are drilled, Lancashire should share in the rewards. At the moment, that is not likely to happen, at least not beyond any small-scale voluntary schemes that energy companies might decide to pursue themselves. To be fair to Quadrilla, I understand that it has given a number of grants to various local parishes. The only other way is through section 106 agreements, which do not derive a vast amount of money for the local infrastructure.

The clear point is that the United Kingdom, and Lancashire in particular, is not Texas, where local landowners can strike it rich if oil or minerals are discovered on their land. The mineral rights in our area belong to the Crown, but mainly to the Duchy of Lancaster. Any farmer for whom fracking is proposed on their land will gain precious little, except perhaps a small amount of rent, and the local authorities will get a small amount of business rate. The company will get its profits, the Duchy will get its share from the mineral rights, and of course and as ever—unless Starbucks starts drilling operations—the Treasury will get its share of the proceeds from taxation. Local residents, who will have to deal with increased industrial activity, traffic movements, the movement of chemicals and so on, will not see a direct reward.

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

I declare my interest, as on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Does my hon. Friend agree that on fracking, Lancashire is once again leading the way? Should operations expand, it should be laid down in regulations that local residents, not absentee landlords, receive the compensation.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

As ever, my hon. Friend spots where I am going, and I am glad she is here to support that.

There is lots of talk about job creation, but as far as I can see, the thousands of jobs promised will not be created. As I understand the engineering process, once fracking wells are set up and the gas is being used, the jobs involved are support jobs. It is likely that the specialist engineers will be brought in from elsewhere, unless deals can be done with local universities such as the university of central Lancashire or Lancaster university.

I want a fair and substantial share of the profits from shale gas for the people of Lancashire if this is to be a runner. In a way, the Government set a precedent with the introduction of the new homes bonus, whose principle is that communities that allow development in their area should share in the rewards. We could see a similar approach with shale gas or minerals more generally. Although I have a problem with the new homes bonus—it does not reward parish councils directly—any scheme for shale gas should send at least some of the rewards directly to the local areas or residents most affected, as well as to principal or top-tier authorities.

It is perhaps worth mentioning how such things are dealt with abroad. Alaska operates a scheme called the Alaska permanent fund, which is created largely from income from oil operations in the state and designed to ensure that future generations can share in the profits even when the oil is exhausted. Interestingly enough, the fund also pays out an annual cash dividend to all state residents. Apparently, people must reside there for only one year to be classified as a state resident. The payout varies; I think that last year it was $1,000, but in previous years it has reached $2,000. That is an interesting precedent.

In south America, the Brazilian constitution ensures that a share of oil revenue is provided to the states where oil is extracted. They can then use the money to fund infrastructure projects, community schemes or tax cuts as they see fit. That other foreign country, Yorkshire, has the newly established potash community fund, brought to my attention by my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Wyre and Preston North. The extraction company York Potash has set up a fund of 0.5% of profits to be used for the local community. It is expected to provide between £3 million and £9 million a year to fund local projects.

Three different models are in use in different places—from the voluntary to the compulsory—varying according to how the payments are made and to whom. I should like a system to be put in place that provides direct compensation to the local residents and parishes most affected, and an income to the principal or top-tier authorities in the area for infrastructure projects, service provision or even council tax cuts. I should like the Government to give an “in principle” commitment to providing something along those lines before any decision is made on whether to expand shale gas operations. This should apply elsewhere in the country, too.

What I am proposing will be seen by some as trying to bribe residents into supporting shale gas, but that is not so. I know for a fact that many of my local residents would never be convinced of the merits of shale gas, whether it is extracted locally or not, even if they were offered a cheque for £1 million. Their objections are based on genuinely held fears about safety and concerns about the environment, particularly their own water supply. I am suggesting merely that there should be a fair reward for the communities that might have to host all that infrastructure, worry about safety and deal with increased traffic, and, as I have stressed before, that will not secure thousands or even hundreds of extra jobs.

I stress again that I am not proposing that we agree to a move to immediate shale gas operations. I still share my residents’ concerns about water safety and the adequacy of regulatory regimes, and want to see those dealt with in more detail. I support the Energy Secretary’s introducing increased regulation for the test site. It will be interesting to see over the next few months and years what those measurements say and what the safety record is, particularly regarding seismic activity and so on.

We are generous folk in Lancashire. We are loyal to our Duke and are patriotic members of the United Kingdom. But if others are to make millions, then it is only fair that Lancashire should have a share of those millions.

16:22

[Mark Hendrick (Preston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) on securing this debate.

I am concerned that there are no plans for new extraction regulations. We met with the Secretary of State before the statement last week and he made it plain that he believes that existing European directives and environmental agency regulations are sufficient at this stage for the experimental and exploratory phase to take place. For me, that is a shock and a surprise. The industry is new to this country—except for the small amounts of fracking in Lancashire—but given the extensive fracking that has taken place in the United States, there should be plenty of lessons for the industry regarding new regulations. Adequate new regulations should be put in place.

Some US states have no regulation, but that is because the locations in question are often remote and unpopulated. The UK, and Lancashire in particular, is not like that. There are many villages and towns in the areas that are going to be releasing shale gas.

The Secretary of State has made it clear that the exploratory and experimental phase that has been given the go-ahead for the next two years may yield results that highlight the need for new regulation. However, that amounts to using Lancashire as a guinea pig for the rest of the country. That is a cavalier approach to serious industrial activity, and above all to the people of my constituency and Lancashire as a whole, who could be subjected to the earth tremors that Blackpool experienced. We do not want earth tremors or serious earth movements; we want a safe industry. Lancashire should not be an experiment for the rest of the country. It should have all the necessary safeguards to ensure public safety before further work is undertaken. Yes, we should have the rewards—if it is safe for residents, safe for the water supply and safe for the environment.

16:25

[The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), who yet again demonstrated why he is known as such a formidable, and probably unequalled, champion of the interests of his constituents. He also demonstrated his strong commitment not just to his own constituency, but to the wider area of Lancashire. Indeed, he successfully secured a wider debate a few months ago on energy and infrastructure in Lancashire, in which shale gas was also covered. That builds on his tireless work on this issue, which he continues to go at, terrier like, on behalf of his constituents.

I apologise for my croaky voice, Mr Bayley, I hope that it lasts. The focus of this debate—the community share of shale gas profit—comes from a slightly different perspective than the previous debate secured by my hon. Friend. I note that he is joined by those equally formidable constituency Members of Parliament, my hon. Friends the Members for Fylde (Mark Menzies) and for Redditch (Karen Lumley), who have been here throughout the debate.

The question in this debate is how development of new energy sources, such as shale gas, can provide benefits not just to the country as a whole, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood rightly says, to the communities where they are developed. As the Secretary of State said only last week, shale gas may have an important part to play in our national energy mix and our economy, but we must ensure that communities benefit and that there is proper environmental regulation.

I understand the issues that were rightly raised by Government colleagues and by the hon. Member for Preston (Mark Hendrick), not just about sharing the benefits, but about the need to ensure that the highest levels of environmental integrity are achieved, and about what that means.

I make it clear at the outset that we recognise that there is an important issue of fairness here. We do not yet know whether shale gas in this country is a commercial proposition at all. We hope that it is, but we are even more unsure what scale of development may be proposed and if it can be established that there is a geological potential for an economic development. It is still early days. But it is clear, from looking at what has happened in the US, that if shale gas production proves economic, the scale of development that might be proposed could be substantial, or “industrial”, as my hon. Friends have said.

I stress that the important word is “might”. It is already clear that the Bowland shale in Lancashire is not an exact analogue for any US shale, and it is not to be assumed that the pattern, or patterns, of development which have been followed in the US will necessarily work here. But there is at least the possibility that proposals for one or more large-scale gas production projects in the UK would involve large numbers of wells drilled over a substantial period of time. I have no doubt that if such proposals are made, the planning authority will do what they can to make the impacts of such a development, in terms of noise and general disturbance, traffic movements and night-time working—all the many ways in which an industrial development can impact on the lives of those who live nearby, particularly in a quiet, tranquil rural area—as small and acceptable as possible. I have no doubt that the planning authority will do what it can to minimise and mitigate such impacts. Even so, there is no question but that a large project of such a kind would have impacts on the lives of the people living in the areas around.

In such circumstances, it is only right and reasonable that the communities that suffer the inconvenience of the development should have a share in the economic benefits. However, while I and my colleagues at the Department of Energy and Climate Change wholeheartedly agree with the principle articulated at length by my hon. Friend—perhaps we can call it the Lancaster and Fleetwood principle—at such an early stage I am afraid that we simply cannot propose exactly how that would be done or what mechanisms might be appropriate.

[Mark Hendrick]

Will the Minister give way?

[Gregory Barker]

I shall make some progress, if I may, because I want to reply to the many important questions raised.

I hope that my hon. Friends the Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood and for Fylde, who have engaged in the debate sensibly and robustly, take comfort from my reassurances but appreciate our position given our state of knowledge and understanding of the sector. As such understanding grows, there can be genuine dialogue and discussion between the company proposing the project and the communities that might be affected. The Government will take a clear interest in such developments.

Shale gas has been of increasing importance in the US for some years, but exploration has only just begun in the UK. The potential to produce shale gas from a suitable formation can only be established by fracturing the rock. The fracturing of the first shale gas well in the UK, however, at Preese Hall near Blackpool last year, resulted in noticeable seismic tremors. Seismic activity at such a level could not cause any damage, but was not an expected consequence of the fracking activity, so DECC rightly suspended all fracking operations for shale gas pending a thorough investigation of the causes of the tremors and of the scope for mitigation of seismic risks in any future operations of that type.

The coalition Government carefully reviewed the evidence, with the aid of independent experts and of an authoritative review of the scientific and engineering evidence on shale gas extraction conducted by the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society, and concluded that appropriate controls are available to mitigate the risks of undesirable seismic activity. The new controls will be required by DECC for all future shale gas wells. In principle, on that basis, we are prepared to consent to new fracking proposals for shale gas if all other necessary permissions and consents are in place. In practice, it will be well into next year before any new exploration work has all the necessary consents to proceed. Whether any production operations are proposed will depend on the success of exploration work but, in any event, that is likely to be some years away yet. The new controls on seismic risks do not remove any of the existing regulatory controls and requirements. Consistent with previous practice, my Department will not give consent to specific fracking operations until all other consents are in place, including planning permission, the obtaining of environmental permits from the relevant environment agency and scrutiny by the Health and Safety Executive.

We are conscious that many people, including residents of Lancashire and other areas where shale gas exploration might be contemplated, have other concerns besides the seismic risks. Indeed, for most people, they are not of most concern, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood eloquently pointed out. In the US, the development of shale gas has been accompanied by increasing debate on its environmental impacts. Many of the incidents reported have, on investigation, not been shown to be connected with oil and gas activity, although they have given rise to concerns that in themselves are entirely reasonable. Residents in such areas want, therefore, to be assured that their water will not be contaminated with gas or toxic chemicals, that the air will not be contaminated with noxious gases, that there will be no damage from earthquakes and that other kinds of disturbance such as traffic, lights and noise will be kept under control. We understand that. In considering the concerns, we have had the benefit of the earlier report on shale gas by the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change and of many authoritative reports from the US, including two from the Secretary of Energy’s advisory board.

In the UK, the industry has a good record, and robust regulatory controls on all oil and gas activities are already in place. On water contamination, which my hon. Friend discussed, all such operations are subject to scrutiny by the appropriate environment agency, the Environment Agency in England and for the time being Wales and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency north of the border. It is an offence to cause or knowingly permit poisonous, noxious or polluting matter to enter controlled waters, which include groundwater. The environment agencies are statutory consultees in the planning process and must be consulted on all proposed borehole operations. A permit from the agency is required if fluids containing pollutants are to be injected into rock formations that contain groundwater. A permit may also be needed if the activity poses an unacceptable risk of mobilising natural substances that in themselves could cause pollution. The permit will specify any necessary limits on the activity, any requirements for monitoring the chemicals that may be used and any appropriate limits on permissible concentrations. Regulators will take a risk-based approach; if the activity poses an unacceptable risk to the environment, it will not be allowed.

The reports I mentioned also emphasise the importance in such a context of the integrity of the well. That issue is central to the regulation of the safety of well operations by the HSE, which must be notified of all drilling operations for oil or gas and will scrutinise the well design and the operational plan. Additionally, the regulations require a full review of the proposed and actual well operations by an independent competent person, the well examiner.

The use of chemicals in frack fluids is another matter that occasions much concern. Again, the environment agencies take a risk-based approach to the regulation of the use of chemicals in shale gas fracking activities. The hazard potential of all substances proposed—

[Mark Hendrick]

Will the Minister give way?

[Gregory Barker]

I will not, I am afraid. I am close to coming to the end of my—

[Mark Hendrick]

I thought the Minister wanted to make some progress.

[Gregory Barker]

I do, to get to the end of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood.

The hazard potential of all substances proposed to be injected into the ground will be assessed, and the use of substances hazardous to groundwater will not be permitted.

[Mark Hendrick]

On a point of order, Mr Bayley, the subject of the debate involves the benefit to the people of Lancashire. The Minister is going into a great deal of technical detail about the safety issues, when he should be discussing the benefit to the people of Lancashire.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

It is for the Minister to present his arguments as he sees fit. He has made it clear that he does not want to take an intervention at this stage.

[Gregory Barker]

I am also mindful that the debate was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood and that it is unusual for other Members to speak as well. The hon. Member for Preston has done well already, so in the remaining time I should answer my hon. Friend.

The national planning policy framework requires planning authorities to assess applications for all minerals developments so as to ensure that permitted operations do not have unacceptable adverse effects on the natural or historical environment or on human health, including from noise, dust, visual intrusion or migration of contamination from the site. In doing so, they should take into account the cumulative effects of multiple impacts from individual sites or a number of sites in a locality. Conditions can be placed on working hours at a site or on numbers of traffic movements to ensure that any effect on local residents remains within acceptable bounds.

I hope that I have assured my hon. Friend that we will continue to maintain our responsible, thorough and rigorous approach. Within that framework, Government consider shale gas to be an interesting new prospective source of UK energy supplies. I again welcome the debate and the further opportunity to explain the Government’s positive approach to a potentially valuable addition to our energy resources, but my hon. Friend is right that we must ensure that local communities suffering the inconvenience that comes with development should have a share in the economic benefits. I assure him and my other hon. Friends from Lancashire that that will be one of the many considerations examined should shale gas in the UK prove to be a successful proposition and we move to the development phase.

West Midlands Economy

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Westminster Hall

16:40

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

This is probably only the second time, Mr Bayley, that you have chaired a debate of mine, and I welcome you. This is a short debate, and all the issues relating to Coventry and the west midlands cannot be covered, so I will be brief. The present economic situation developed in America, but the Government’s policies have not helped the general situation nationally or locally. [Interruption.]

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman wait a moment while colleagues leave the Chamber? Their conversation should take place outside the Chamber so as not to disturb this debate.

[Mr Cunningham]

The present economic situation started with Lehman Brothers in America, and the bankers. Some bankers in America faced Senate inquiries, and some were charged, but I do not want to go into that today. I want to talk about Coventry in particular, the west midlands in general, and some of the issues that affect Coventry and the west midlands.

We have issues concerning the police, and the problem of police numbers and cuts are well known. There are also issues with fire brigade cuts, and a running issue during the next few months will be changes to employment law. I will not develop the arguments too much today. Some have been well rehearsed, and some will be. There is a west midlands campaign for a fair deal for Birmingham, but there must also be a fair deal for the other districts that make up the west midlands, including Coventry. I am looking for a fair deal for Coventry.

Coventry was mentioned once in the autumn statement. It is one of the 12 smaller cities that will be included in the super-connected cities programme, and will receive funding for ultra-fast broadband. I am obviously pleased at the news, and I recognise the impact that superfast broadband can have on growth. I particularly understand the importance of encouraging small and medium-sized enterprises to realise the opportunities that superfast broadband can bring. A Lloyds Banking Group survey found that 45% of digitally mature small businesses had registered growth, compared with 35% of digitally immature SMEs.

Some research suggests an £18.8 billion opportunity for SME revenue growth through more high-tech approaches to marketing, data optimisation and more, so I am pleased with the Government’s commitment to broadband expansion. We can say something positive about the Government for a change, but we will be looking to ensure that they proceed intelligently to ensure that small businesses make the most of the available opportunities.

I am also optimistic about the city deal in Coventry and Warwickshire. Over the past month, Coventry MPs and councillors in particular have lobbied hard, as have Warwickshire MPs and councillors. The city deal could bring great benefits to the region, including giving cities the powers and tools they need to drive local economic growth, unlocking projects or initiatives to boost their economies, and strengthening the governance arrangements of each city. Each city deal includes at least one major commitment specific to the city, which generally involves leveraging private sector funding. Many have included tax increment financing and community infrastructure levies, and there is a focus on investment and trade.

I very much hope that Coventry and Warwickshire local authorities will make the case for Coventry’s candidacy for the deal. Coventry is a strong contender, and has been working for months to develop infrastructure plans that are ready to go ahead given sufficient funding and support. The plans reflect local understanding of the asset base, transport issues, the financial situation, and what can be achieved. An example of the work that Coventry is already undertaking to stimulate growth is the gateway project. It is controversial because environmental issues are involved, but I understand that it is on the way to obtaining planning permission, or has already received it. I am not clear about that. The project will be interesting, but controversial.

Another excellent example in Coventry is the Friargate project next to Coventry railway station. It is a 300,000 square metre development, which will extensively renovate the area to include 14 grade A office buildings, two hotels, new pedestrian routes, high quality public spaces, new residential buildings, and space for retail outlets and bars. Outline planning consent was granted in July 2011, and the first phase of the development has started. I hope that the development will transform the city centre, making it welcoming and lively. More importantly, I hope very much that the renovated city centre will raise optimism and encourage investment in the city.

[Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Coventry’s economy has been greatly assisted over the years by the car industry, particularly Jaguar. What does he think about Tata’s proposal to open a factory in China?

[Mr Cunningham]

There are a couple of schools of thought about that, but my understanding is that the trade unions are worried and will be having discussions with Tata. Some years ago, there was concern about Jaguar’s trade with China. Some people thought that cars would be built in China, but they were only assembled there, and there had been a misunderstanding. We need to find out more about the current deal, and discussions are ongoing.

Coventry city council is suffering from Government funding cuts. From 2010-11 to 2012-13, the council has suffered cuts of £101.89 per capita. That is among the hardest hit 20% of local authorities. More unjust and distressing is the fact that of those local authorities with cuts of more than £100 per head, including Coventry, 85.71 % are Labour-run, and only 5.36 % are Tory-run. Meanwhile, of those local authorities with cuts of less than £100 per head, 60.82% are Tory-run and 19.4% are Labour-run. It is hard not to be concerned about the Government’s fairness when the cuts seem to be distributed across local authorities on party lines. Coventry council had expected to lose 1,000 jobs over four years to 2014-15, but it is now predicting 1,600 job losses over the four-year period, with a cut of more than 10% in the work force.

Those cuts are impacting on the council’s services for the vulnerable. For example, its funding for early intervention will be cut yet again. Two years ago it was £22 million per annum, but from next year it will be £11 million. That is particularly damaging given the current increased pressure on social care. Every penny spent on early intervention in families with young children to help them help themselves is of paramount importance in taking people out of poverty and improving children’s life chances. Those pressures are increased by a social care budget for children of £64 million which has not significantly changed for two years. Similarly, the pressures are increasing daily on the adult social care budget because elderly people and disabled people are living longer, but that is not reflected in the budget, and the extra cost of care is not recognised in financial terms.

Those are only a few of the extreme budgetary pressures on the council; to put the huge cuts in funding into context, there are others. In my constituency alone, 920 households have already received letters from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs informing them that their child benefit is likely to be reduced or withdrawn. Across Coventry, that figure is 1,740 households. The jobseeker’s allowance claimant rate in Coventry and across the west midlands is 6.2%, well above the UK’s rate of 5.2%. Even worse, the rate of jobseeker’s allowance claims by 18 to 24-year-olds across the west midlands is 8.7%, far higher than the UK’s 7.1%.

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Cunningham]

I want to get on. If I have time, I will let the hon. Lady in.

Looking at the proportion of people referred to the Work programme who have had a job outcome, there has been poor progress. In Coventry South, 1,670 referrals were made to the Work programme last year. In the same period, only 50 job outcomes resulted from the programme—a success rate of only 3%. Although employment levels have increased, we do not have enough information about the type of work being gained. There are clearly many people in part-time work who are not earning the income they need to survive. We need to look closer at the numbers, as it is not a question of simply being in or out of work; we need to know more about the type of work.

[Karen Lumley]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Does he not agree that under this Government, unemployment is falling month on month, and that new business start-ups in Redditch have increased by 14%? Does he not think that that is good news for the west midlands economy?

[Mr Cunningham]

We do not have a breakdown of those figures. We do not know how many people are part-time workers or are in temporary jobs. I want to know more about those figures.

Budgetary pressures on the council are made all the more damaging in light of the financial pressures individual households face. For example, I am extremely concerned about the coming introduction of the under-occupancy penalty, or bedroom tax—in other words a new poll tax, but no one has grasped that. It will cut the housing benefit of working-age tenants in the social rented sector who have spare rooms.

The Government say that if people do not want to face the benefit cut, they can simply move into a smaller property. However, there are simply not enough smaller homes available in the current housing market. There is a national shortage of one-bedroom houses, particularly in the social housing sector. Furthermore, there are concerns that tenants are not being sufficiently prepared for the changes and do not know anything about the penalty.

The Department for Work and Pensions estimates that the introduction of the social sector size criteria measure is likely to affect 60,000 working-age housing benefit claimants living in the social rented sector in the west midlands at the time of its introduction in 2013-14. The change will mean that anyone in social housing with a spare bedroom will lose 14% of their housing benefit, or 25% if they have two spare rooms. Most people with a spare bedroom are pensioners who live in two or three-bedroom houses. There is a national shortage of one-bedroom houses, particularly in the social housing sector. In many areas, moving is not an option, because there are not enough smaller places to move into. I have long been concerned about that issue and want to prepare those who will be affected in Coventry as much as possible.

Another factor that is putting pressure on households is fuel prices. Petrol prices have fallen by less than 4p a litre, despite a 10p drop in wholesale prices—almost mirroring what happened six months ago.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Cunningham]

No. I want to finish my speech, and my colleagues want to come in.

The average pump price of diesel has fallen, but only by 40% of the fall in the wholesale value. The Government should be doing all they can to try to mitigate the impact of high prices, and doing all in their power to make the prices at the pump fairly reflect any drops in the wholesale price.

I have a number of serious reservations about High Speed 2. I wish to be given all possible assurances that Coventry will not lose out from the development of HS2. We have had a meeting with the Secretary of State for Transport, who will look at the situation and at how to ensure that Coventry does not lose out. I am concerned that HS2 might drive up prices in existing services to Coventry and reduce services on the west coast main line, which could blight inward investment in Coventry.

European attempts at high-speed networks are concerning. There have been criticisms that the high-speed route in France has meant that towns near but not on the route have suffered, as investment was sucked into the cities on the route. Coventry’s proximity to Birmingham is making me anxious that a similar loss of investment to Birmingham may occur.

Furthermore, I am extremely concerned about the compensation package being offered by the Government. I understand that the existing package does not cover all who will be negatively affected by HS2, particularly those at the fringes. Households may experience negative equity on their properties but will receive no compensation, therefore making it difficult to sell the properties on the periphery. I have been having meetings, but will seek more to gain every reassurance that Coventry households, as well as the local economy, will not be negatively affected by HS2.

In conclusion, I want to know what the Government intend to do to support Coventry. The city is working extremely hard to encourage investment and regeneration and to free up land to provide space for manufacturing facilities and many other projects. The council is doing all it can to continue providing essential services, particularly for Coventry’s vulnerable people, despite difficult budgetary pressures. The people of Coventry want reassurance that such hardships are not going to continue without the Government also taking action to stimulate growth in the region.

16:55

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

May I say what a pleasure it is to serve—for the first time, I think—under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley? I thank Mr Speaker for granting this debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) for inviting me to take part in it. The debate is timely, given the dreadful news that came in the autumn statement, the downgrading of the Government’s forecast, and the implications that has for continuing poor economic performance throughout the country and in the west midlands in particular. Sadly, we have yet to see a pick-up there.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Robinson]

No, I will not. If I had the remotest hope of the intervention being intelligent or relevant to what we are talking about, which is the west midlands and Coventry, in the way that the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe) was, I would. However, we know that it would be a recital of what the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) believes are the great Government accomplishments. That is not what we are here to do. Nor are we here to criticise the Government point blank—there are one or two things that I am pleased to say that they have done well on. If he will forgive me—I will not expect to be invited to intervene in any of his speeches; I can give him that reassurance—I will not, on this occasion, give way.

My hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South gave us a tour d’horizon. In 15 minutes, he drew us through every aspect of Coventry’s activities, particularly the interface with the Government and the impact of Government cuts on the city. I want to pick up on one point, initially: the cuts to early intervention, to which he referred. Over two years, Coventry’s receipt from Government for early intervention has been halved from £22 million to £11 million. That is a massive cut by any standard. Those figures are from the council; I am sure that they must be pretty accurate.

I am not trying to say that that is the direct consequence of my next point, which is a sad fact: in Ofsted’s latest rankings, Coventry’s primary education has been ranked the worst in the country for giving opportunity to its youngsters. It is always argued by people who are much more knowledgeable about education than I am that early intervention in the primary stage is key to the child’s whole chances in life. In my opinion, education is the vital provider of life chances to all children. If, at that early stage, we are offering the worst possible opportunities in the country for youngsters, that is clearly a matter of great concern to Coventry and its Members of Parliament.

I have made some criticisms in that regard. Using the rather grand BBC euphemism, I suggested that the director of education should follow the director-general’s example and step aside. It was not well accepted, but I still say it. If someone asks me what that means, I will say, “Resign.” If someone has been in a position of public trust for so many years, as the director has been, but local children are judged to have the worst life chances at a key stage in their education, they have to ask themselves, “What am I here for?” I make no excuses for saying that, but nor do I say that we are in this situation just because the Government have cut the funding in half. I am not sure how far the correlation can be pushed; I do not think it can be pushed all that far. I think that what we are up against—I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South agrees—is an acceptance of poor standards, a belief that we cannot do better.

For that reason, the first thing that I want to say today, pursuing the initiative that I have already taken through the local press and media in the city, is that much stronger, much more powerful pressure is needed on the education establishment in Coventry. Fortunately, we now have as a councillor—this was well timed, in that respect—a former head of a secondary school in my constituency who, after 21 years, can proudly say that his school was top in Coventry every single year, and was within the top 10% for performance in the whole country. He is now a Labour councillor; I am pleased to say that he is the council member for education. Again, I make no excuses for saying this: I pushed for him to be encouraged to take on the responsibility of replacing the director, and for much-improved status, quality and priority to be given to the education department in the council. I think that I am within my time limit, if there is one. Perhaps it will be indicated to me if I am not.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

I should remind the hon. Gentleman that the debate ends at 5.10 pm. It is for him to decide how much time the Minister has to reply. There are eight and a half minutes to go.

[Mr Robinson]

I am grateful to you, Mr Bayley, but I know the Minister personally very well. He is extraordinarily succinct in everything that he has to say, and I am not sure that he is going to tell us very much when it comes to it, but I do have a question or two to ask him, if I may.

We are so pleased to be in the broadband scheme. Unfortunately, I do not think that broadband will play a big part in getting the primary education sector right, but I am sure that it will play a huge part in improving the secondary and tertiary sectors of our education system, and also in business. Can the Minister tell us how much money will come to us, given that we have been named, thankfully, as one of the cities involved? Can he tell us what the timing is, what speed is envisaged and, above all, when we in Coventry can expect to feel the benefit? Those are my few questions for the Minister. I am mindful of your advice, Mr Bayley, and would hate to build a reputation with you, Sir, for being other than adherent to your orders. On that note, I will sit down, but I do hope that the Minister can reply.

17:02

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)]

I, too, commend the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) on securing the debate and on his contribution. I also note the contribution from the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) and the refreshingly frank things that he said about the need for educational improvement. That probably applies not just in Coventry, but in many of our cities.

No one is under any illusions about the scale of the wider challenges that we face as a country, but we are not just dealing with the deficit; we are rebalancing the economy and helping to protect the most vulnerable. In the west midlands, we have taken 22,000 people out of income tax altogether, and 2 million people in the region will pay less income tax as a result of the personal allowance reforms that we have announced.

The economy of Coventry and the west midlands is a vital part of our national economy. It accounts for more than 7% of the UK’s gross value added, and it is important for us all that it is successful and prosperous. Of course, Coventry has long been at the heart of Britain’s manufacturing sector. In recent years, there has been much welcome news of private sector investment, including investment by BMW at Hams Hall, by Jaguar Land Rover near Wolverhampton and at its other plants and, most recently, by JCB, which is investing £31 million to develop new engine technology. All that is welcome news and a tribute to the efforts of businesses and employees in Coventry and the west midlands.

The Coventry and Warwickshire local enterprise partnership has brought together public and private sector partners to work to deliver economic success. We have provided Coventry and Warwickshire with some £13 million from the Growing Places fund. We have also invested directly in encouraging business growth through the regional growth fund. The west midlands was awarded the largest regional allocation of all in round 3 of the regional growth fund: £184 million was provisionally allocated in October to programmes and projects with a strong focus on high-value manufacturing growth. In addition to that, the Coventry and Warwickshire LEP has been allocated more than £24 million to unlock key sites and drive local business expansion. Companies from Coventry and Warwickshire that were successful include Jaguar Cars, Pailton Engineering, Aston Martin and Bladon Jets. The Government have also announced a range of other investments.

The hon. Member for Coventry North West specifically mentioned superfast broadband. I hope to get him some figures on that. I may not be able to do that today; if I do not, I will certainly write to him.

[Mr Marcus Jones]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for giving way; that is very generous of him. The positive news that he mentions is extremely important. Does he agree that it includes a fall in unemployment since May 2010 in my constituency of Nuneaton, and the fact that in Nuneaton we have had the largest business growth, at 22% nearly, in the country over the past three months? Does he agree that that is a good success story and we should build on it?

[Michael Fallon]

It is a good success story, and I note that unemployment continues to fall. Coventry and Warwickshire was one of the areas invited to submit an expression of interest in developing a wave 2 city deal. I cannot guarantee its success. Twenty cities have been invited, and they will not all make it; it is a competitive process. However, it sounds from what my hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) has said as though good work is in hand there.

The hon. Member for Coventry South mentioned some specific issues. I look forward to the Friargate development beginning to roll out in 2013; that is important. He asked me about the Coventry gateway. That has not yet, as I understand it, fully secured planning permission; I think it is before Warwick district council today, as a matter of fact, so I had probably better not comment on it. He made some criticisms of the cuts in grant to Coventry council. There was some suggestion that those were somehow politically motivated. The cuts seem to have fallen more heavily, he said, on Labour councils than Conservative councils. The fact is that they have fallen on all councils. We must get our public spending under control. However, I will certainly refer what he said about the impact on social services to my ministerial colleagues.

The hon. Gentleman then raised two or three very specific issues, including the bedroom tax. If people continue to live in a property that is larger than they need, it is not unreasonable to expect them to make a contribution to its cost through a reduction in housing benefit. However, the Government have listened to concerns about that, and an additional £30 million has been allocated to the discretionary housing payment budget from April 2013.

The hon. Gentleman asked me about fuel prices. Cancelling the fuel duty rise in January, which I think the last Government programmed in for us, will reduce the running costs for the 3.5 million vehicles in the west midlands, saving the typical motorist in the west midlands £40 a year.

The hon. Gentleman asked me about HS2. HS2 is a fundamental part of the Government’s plans to promote national economic growth, benefitting the whole country, but of course HS2 also puts the west midlands at the heart of a new high-speed rail network. That is a great opportunity for the region as a whole, with the benefits spreading beyond the station sites and into the wider city region. There is a challenge for councils in the west midlands and their partners to work together on how to achieve that.

I was asked about broadband funding and I can reassure the hon. Member for Coventry North West that it will be a share of some £50 million of funding. There will be an invitation to tender to Coventry, issued in January. He asked me about the timetable. If we stick to that timetable, the contract for the broadband should be agreed in May. I hope that that is helpful to him.

The Government share the desire expressed by the hon. Member for Coventry South to see Coventry and the west midlands flourish, and people in Coventry and the west midlands are responding to the real challenges of that economy. Whether that response is in the established industries, such as the automotive industry, or in developing sectors, such as low-carbon technologies and digital games, the resurgence is being led by the private sector. It is leading the growth of the west midlands economy. There are no guarantees of success. It will obviously require hard work, the ability to harness innovation and the winning of new businesses opportunities, but the Government are there to support the regeneration of the west midlands. That is why we are going all out to create the best possible business environment that will give companies the confidence to invest and grow in the west midlands.

17:10

Sitting adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 10(13)).