House of Commons
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Leeds City Council Bill (By Order)
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Nottingham City Council Bill (By Order)
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Reading Borough Council Bill (By Order)
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City of London (Various Powers) Bill [Lords] (By Order)
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Oral Answers to Questions
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
1. What recent assessment he has made of the provision of treatment for vascular disease in England.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Despite the huge improvements that have been made over the last decade in the outcomes for people with cardiovascular disease, it is still one of the biggest killers in England and the largest cause of disability. That is why we are developing a CVD outcomes strategy, which will set out where there is scope to make further improvements in patient outcomes in this area.
Neil Carmichael
I am chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on vascular disease, which recently produced a report highlighting the need for early diagnosis and intervention, and the additional risks associated with obesity and diabetes. Is the Secretary of State willing to meet me and some of my colleagues to consider how we can improve outcomes for sufferers of vascular disease?
Mr Hunt
I thank my hon. Friend for his excellent work with the all-party group and for the group’s constructive response to our consultation on the outcomes strategy. I am more than happy to meet him and other representatives of the all-party group. With an ageing population and rising levels of obesity, we cannot be complacent about cardiovascular disease and have much to do.
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
The Prime Minister promised before the election that there would be no reconfigurations or closures unless there was clinical and local support. Why then has the Secretary of State decided to break up the existing vascular network centred on Warrington hospital, meaning that emergency patients face a trip to Chester by ambulance, when this has neither clinical support nor support in the local community? When did that policy change, or was it just an election promise that the Conservatives never intended to keep?
Mr Hunt
We believe in the clinical networks, including the network for cardiovascular disease. We have increased the funding for those networks by 27%. However, we want them to include mental health and maternity services. We think that it would be wrong to do what the Labour party wants, which is to concentrate that funding on cardiovascular disease and cancer, and deprive of the clear benefits of such networks the 700,000 women who give birth on the NHS every year and the nearly 1 million people who will be diagnosed with dementia.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
Given that the majority of vascular interventions are acute in nature, following trauma or cardiac episodes, is it not reckless for NHS Lancashire and NHS Cumbria to be talking about moving vascular services away from the Morecambe bay area, meaning that people from the south lakes and north Cumbria will have to travel as far as Preston, Blackburn or Carlisle to receive treatment? Will the Secretary of State meet me, other local MPs and local consultants to discuss how we can put the matter right for local people?
Mr Hunt
We are very keen to ensure that all reconfigurations of services have strong local, clinical support. We are making good progress in this area. There is always a trade-off between access, which I recognise is extremely important in a rural constituency such as the hon. Gentleman’s, and the centralisation of services, which sometimes leads to better clinical outcomes. I am happy to arrange for him to meet me or one of my colleagues to discuss his concerns in more detail.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
Those with diabetes, such as myself, are five times more likely to get cardiovascular diseases. Last year’s National Audit Office report indicated that 1 million diabetics did not get their nine checks. What steps will the Secretary of State take to ensure that those checks are made available to all diabetic patients?
Mr Hunt
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his campaigning work for people with diabetes, and I am aware that there are 24,000 premature deaths every year because we are not as good as we need to be at tackling the disease. It is shocking that only half those with diabetes are getting the full set of nine checks that everyone with diabetes should be getting every year, and when we publish the cardiovascular disease outcomes strategy—which I hope will be in spring—I hope we will address some of his concerns about how we can do a better job for diabetes sufferers.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Deep vein thrombosis is the leading direct cause of maternal deaths across the United Kingdom. Will the Minister consider interaction with the regional assemblies, including the Northern Ireland Assembly, to agree a UK strategy to address that issue?
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
2. What recent steps he has taken to reduce hospital waiting times in England.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
Latest figures for October 2012 show that 70,000 fewer patients are waiting longer than 18 weeks than at the last election. The Government’s mandate to the NHS Commissioning Board makes timely access to services a priority.
David T. C. Davies
Those figures compare extremely well with those in Wales, where most patients are waiting for 26 weeks, and many for 36 weeks. Would the Minister be willing to share some advice on how to get waiting lists down with his counterparts in Wales, and perhaps discuss with them why patients wait so much less time in the Conservative NHS in England than in the socialist NHS in Wales?
Dr Poulter
My hon. Friend is right to highlight key differences between the NHS in England and in Wales. The Labour-run Assembly in Wales is cutting funding by around 8%, which will—of course—impact on the quality of care available to patients and other front-line services. At the same time, in England we are ensuring that we continue to invest, with £12.5 billion in the NHS during the lifetime of this Parliament. I would be happy to point that out to colleagues in Wales and the Welsh Assembly, and to make the point that it is the Conservatives and the coalition Government who deliver better patient care through investing in the NHS.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Will the Minister tell the House how many NHS trusts failed to meet the accident and emergency target of 95% of people being seen within four hours last week? When was the last time that target was met nationally?
Dr Poulter
I am happy to inform the hon. Lady that we are meeting the 95% target nationally for the A and E wait. On the most recent figures available, 96% of patients were seen within that period—96 out of every 100 patients are seen within four hours in A and E. The key difference between this Government and the last Labour Government is that we trust clinicians to ensure that they prioritise those patients in greatest need ahead of purely meeting targets and ticking boxes.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
As winter bites, the NHS faces its toughest time of year, but there is mounting evidence that the Secretary of State has left it unprepared. For 105 of his 133 days in office, the Government have missed their own A and E target for major A and Es. Last week, for the first time, the figure fell below 90%. Right now in A and Es up and down England, ambulances are stuck in queues outside, patients are on trolleys in corridors, and people are waiting to be seen for hours on end. Does the Minister accept that there is a growing crisis in our A and Es, and if he does, what is he doing about it?
Dr Poulter
The right hon. Gentleman is good at putting across figures based on brief snapshots in the year. We know that on an annual basis we are meeting the target, and that 96% of patients are being seen on time in A and Es. We have made allowances for winter pressures, which we know are always difficult during the flu season every year, and we have put aside £330 million to ensure that we support the NHS during those winter pressures. Let me make it clear to the right hon. Gentleman that it is wrong to try and distort figures based on outcomes from a snapshot of just a few days or a week. It is important to put across the clear picture, which is that the Government are meeting targets in the NHS and patients are being treated in a much more timely manner than under the previous Government.
Andy Burnham
I suggest to the Minister that he needs to get out on the ground in the NHS a bit more. The figures I gave him were for major A and Es. If he got out more, he would realise that his complacency, which we have just seen at the Dispatch Box, is not justified. Let us look at Milton Keynes, which was identified by the Care Quality Commission as one of the 17 understaffed hospitals, and where last week just 72% of patients were seen within four hours. Milton Keynes is one of 15 trusts in England where A and E performance plummeted below 80%. These are the kind of figures that we have not seen in the NHS since the bad old days of the mid-1990s. Ministers like to blame nurses, but it is time they started accepting some responsibility. Will the Minister today ensure that all A and Es in England have enough staff to get safely through the winter?
Dr Poulter
I reassure hon. Members that, unlike any Member on the Opposition Front Bench, I still work in the NHS every week and I ensure that I see what happens on the ground. That cannot be said of any Front-Bench Opposition Member. The coalition has Ministers who are in touch with what is happening in the NHS on the ground. On A and E waits, we are trusting clinicians to exercise their judgment, which is why we now have a 95% target. We are ensuring—and the statistics show—that we are meeting that target on an annual basis. Patients are being treated in a timely manner. Furthermore, we have put in £330 million to deal with winter pressures. It is wrong of the right hon. Gentleman to try and mislead the House in this way—[Hon. Members: “Oh!”]—and use figures from a snapshot in time, rather than in a generality, which would indicate—
Mr Speaker
Order. Sorry, the Minister needs to withdraw the suggestion that anybody tried to mislead the House. That simply needs to be withdrawn; that is all.
Dr Poulter
Indeed. I do withdraw that comment, Mr Speaker, and I apologise for saying that there was any deliberate attempt to mislead the House at all. I was simply pointing out the fact that the right hon. Gentleman is highlighting a snapshot in time—
Mr Speaker
No, no. Order. I must say to the Minister that when a retraction is required, that is what is required and that is all that is required. We move on.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
3. What representations he has received from clinicians in Yorkshire and the Humber on the decision to close the children’s heart surgery unit at Leeds children’s hospital.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
I know that some are disappointed at the decision by the Joint Committee of Primary Care Trusts and want to see children’s congenital heart surgery continue at their local hospitals. However, the Safe and Sustainable review was an NHS review, independent of Government. Under the circumstances, and given that legal proceedings and a review by the independent reconfiguration panel are under way, my hon. Friend will understand that it is not appropriate for me to comment further.
Andrew Percy
One hundred and seventy clinicians from across Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire have written to express their dismay at the decision, stating that for time-critical transfers it
“exposes a number of children to the risk of death,”
largely because it will require transfers to Newcastle, where services are not co-located. Does that not prove that the decision does not enjoy clinical support in Yorkshire and north Lincolnshire and that it is simply not true that this has been a clinically led review?
Mr Hunt
I have seen the letter to which my hon. Friend refers and I understand that these are extremely complex issues. Let me reassure him that when I take my final decision, it will be on a clinically led basis. I will do that when I have received the IRP’s report, which I am due to receive by 28 March.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
The independent reconfiguration panel has already visited Leeds and I understand that it will visit again before that date. If it decided that both Leeds and Newcastle ought to stay open, would that be agreed?
Mr Hunt
I will make my decision when I have the IRP’s final recommendation. Obviously I cannot speculate on what the final decision will be, but let me reassure the right hon. Gentleman, as I did with my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), that my decision will be taken on the basis of clinical need—in other words, what will save the most lives.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
I note my right hon. Friend’s comments about his final decision being based on clinical advice, but will he also give consideration to patients and families in areas that are more remote from the centre, such as my constituency? This decision causes extra strain and cost to families and will also mean that they will not go to Newcastle, and therefore Newcastle will not achieve its target number of operations.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
I understand the Secretary of State’s reluctance—quite rightly—to comment on the processes he is going through, but will he confirm that he expects full transparency in the review process? That means all the minutes of the JCPCT being given to the review process and none of them being redacted.
Mr Speaker
I must say to the House that if we are to get through the questions we need shorter questions and shorter answers from now on.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
4. What steps he is taking to support the recruitment and training of midwives.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
The Government are committed to ensuring that the number of midwives in training matches the needs of the birth rate. There are now over 800 more midwives working in the NHS than there were in May 2010, and a record 5,000 currently in training.
Rehman Chishti
The Oliver Fisher neonatal intensive care unit at Medway Maritime hospital in my constituency is an excellent charity that looks after approximately 900 premature and sick new-borns each year. What further midwife support will the Government give to such care units?
Dr Poulter
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out the excellent work done at his local unit, which receives funding from the NHS and from charitable sources. We are investing more money into training midwives, and there are now more midwives working in the NHS. It is for local commissioners to capitalise on that, and to invest in support for neonatal units.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
With births per midwife rising, maternity services being cut and newly qualified midwives unable to find a job, what on earth happened to the famous boast of the Prime Minister that he would recruit 3,000 more midwives and make their lives a lot easier?
Dr Poulter
With respect, perhaps the hon. Gentleman should listen to my answers before he pre-prepares a statement. I just outlined clearly that in the past two years there have already been 800 more midwives working in the NHS, and there are record numbers in training thanks to the investment being made by the Government. We are delivering on making sure that we are investing in maternity and investing in high-quality care for women. We are proud to be doing that—something the previous Government failed to do.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
5. What assessment he has made of the effect of the current NHS funding formula on rural areas with a large elderly population.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
Age is the main driver of an individual’s need for health care, as reflected in recent funding formulae. This is for the NHS Commissioning Board, but the independent advisory committee recommends continuing to review the case for additional resources in rural areas, particularly as more information on community provision becomes available.
Nigel Adams
It is disappointing to hear that the NHS Commissioning Board has decided not to implement a fairer funding formula. What does the Minister suggest I say to my constituents who potentially face having services withdrawn, when, in the same region, areas such as Barnsley receive almost 30% per head more in funding?
Norman Lamb
As a Member of Parliament for a rural area with an elderly community I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concerns, but allocations have to be based on solid evidence. The area where we do not have the evidence is on community services. The data will start to be collected on that and we will therefore be able to demonstrate whether community services cost more in rural areas, as I suspect they do. If that is the case, the allocation formula will be able to reflect that.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The north-east suffers some of the worst health outcomes in the country, despite having excellent care services. On many occasions, the Government have said that they are committed to reducing health inequality, specifically in the north-east. Why then did Ian Dalton say that using the new advisory committee on resource allocation formula
“on its own would have…moved resources from areas where people…have worse health outcomes to those where people have much better outcomes”.
Does that not show that the Government have no commitment to reducing health inequalities?
Norman Lamb
I think the news on the allocations for public health budgets is actually a remarkably positive story. Every part of the country will see real-terms increases in funding for public health. This is an historic moment where we shift the emphasis away from repair to prevention of ill health. The hon. Lady’s own area will see real-terms increases. Across the country as a whole, there will be an average of 10.8% over two years real-terms increases in public health funding. I am very proud that the Government are doing that.
Priti Patel (Witham) (Con)
6. What steps he is taking to ensure that patient experience is a priority for the NHS.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Improving the quality of care throughout the NHS is a key priority for the Government, and one of the things we are doing to make that happen is, for the first time, asking all NHS in-patients whether they would recommend the care they received to a friend or member of their family.
Priti Patel
My constituents have consistently been let down by the failure of the last Government and a debt-ridden PCT to invest in local community health services. Will my right hon. Friend join me in encouraging the new clinical commissioning groups to respond to Witham’s growing population and health needs by investing in localised community health care?
Mr Hunt
I am happy to do so, and I commend my hon. Friend for her campaigning, because if we invest properly in community health services, we can allow the frail elderly, who are among the biggest users of the NHS, to stay at home happily, healthily and for much longer. That must be a key priority for us all.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
At the last Health questions, the Secretary of State told me:
“Every NHS bed is getting an extra two hours of care per week compared with the situation two years ago.”—[Official Report, 27 November 2012; Vol. 554, c. 122.]
Quoting national average nurse-patient ratios does not help to improve the patient experience, but cutting 7,000 nurses sure does affect it. We have unsafe levels of care in 17 hospitals. Will he treat this issue a bit more seriously and do something about those unsafe levels?
Mr Hunt
With respect to the hon. Lady, she cannot talk about alleged cuts in the NHS while her Front-Bench team support a policy of real cuts in the NHS budget. In the last Opposition day debate, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) said that he thought it was irresponsible of the Government to increase the NHS budget in real terms. That means he wants a real cut in the NHS budget, which would make the staffing issues to which she referred much, much worse.
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most effective things we can do to improve the patient experience of health and care is to improve the co-ordination, not just between the hospital service and community-based health services, but between the NHS and social care, and to put in place the infrastructure, including the IT infrastructure, to make that real?
Mr Hunt
My right hon. Friend makes an extremely important point—in fact, I will be giving a speech on this tomorrow—because, in the end, if it is not possible to see a full medical record of some of these frail elderly or heaviest users of the NHS going in and out of the system throughout the year, it is not possible to give them the integrated, joined-up care that they desperately need. This will be a very big priority for us.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
One of the biggest drivers of patient experience on hospital wards is the dedication and care of the nursing staff, but, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) said, the Care Quality Commission has identified 17 NHS hospitals that are operating with unsafe staffing levels, putting vulnerable patients and especially older people at risk. Frankly, it is the Secretary of State’s job to ensure that every NHS hospital operates with safe staffing levels, so does he now think it was a mistake to strip out almost 7,000 nursing posts from our NHS?
Mr Hunt
It is my job, and that is why the Government have protected the NHS budget. The hon. Gentleman’s Front-Bench team, on the other hand, want to cut it in real terms. He has to think carefully before he starts talking about all these so-called cuts, given that his shadow Health spokesman wants to cut the NHS budget in real terms. [Interruption.] That is what he said last December. I agree with the Care Quality Commission that it is totally unacceptable for hospitals to have unsafe staffing levels. The commission also said, however, that budgets and financial issues were not an excuse, because those budget pressures existed throughout the NHS and many hospitals were able to deliver excellent care despite them.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
7. What steps he is taking to improve the survival rates of cancer, stroke and heart disease patients.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
Our cancer strategy set out the ambition to save 5,000 lives by 2014-15 through earlier diagnosis, cancer screening and improved access to treatment. We are working on an outcomes strategy for cardiovascular disease.
David Morris
Will my right hon. Friend tell the House how many patients have benefited from the cancer drugs fund to date?
Mr Hunt
I am happy to inform my hon. Friend that 25,000 people have benefited to date from the cancer drugs fund, which the previous Government failed to introduce. On top of that, 53,000 more people every year are being admitted for chemotherapy and 219,000 more cancer treatments are happening every year than happened in any year under the last Labour Government.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
21. I have previously raised with the Secretary of State the opportunity cost—in terms of cost and effectiveness —of the proton beam therapy system. Given that expert opinion—in the form of the national radiotherapy advisory group—is divided, and given that the cost of the proton beam therapy system is 100 times more than other advanced radiotherapy systems that my region and others lack, why is he proposing to spend £125 million on it?
Mr Hunt
I recognise that the hon. Gentleman has a long-standing view on this matter. I am guided by clinical advice. Over the next two years, we will publish the cancer survival rates by multidisciplinary team across the country in all the major cancers for the very first time. That will give us a much better objective base from which we can work out what the most effective treatments are.
Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
20. Despite the fact that the incidence of breast cancer peaks in the 85-plus age group, the peak age for breast surgery is for women in their mid-50s and 60s. Does that not confirm the findings of the Royal College of Surgeons-Age UK report that, despite trends towards older people leading healthier lives, many older women are missing out on curative surgery, from which they are perfectly fit enough to benefit?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend will know that last October we outlawed age discrimination, and if that is the reason for this happening, it is totally unacceptable. We have to recognise that cancer is one of our biggest killers and that the over-85s are a key group if we are going to tackle it. He will welcome today’s news about making available drugs to tackle breast cancer, which may mean that surgery will no longer be necessary.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
19. Will the Minister tell us what the reduction in size of the Department’s cancer policy team will be after April 2013, and whether any of the team’s functions will be removed to other bodies or scrapped?
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
8. When his Department plans to publish its proposed new sexual health policy document.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
We plan to publish our policy document on sexual health and HIV shortly. Improving sexual health is very important for individuals and communities.
Nick Smith
Can the Minister explain why the sexual health policy has been delayed for almost two years? Does he accept that this delay is affecting the ability of PCTs to deliver effective sexual health services?
Norman Lamb
From April, local authorities will be responsible for commissioning services. Because we have seen this really impressive increase in funding for public health, local authorities will have the ability to maintain and indeed improve sexual health services for their local communities. That is something of which we should be proud.
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)
On the sexual health strategy, the Minister will be aware that nearly half of the national incidence of HIV is in London, so what steps will be taken from April to co-ordinate the prevention of HIV London-wide?
Norman Lamb
I am very much aware of the situation in London, and I acknowledge that some good work has already been undertaken there. Local authorities are very much aware of their responsibility that will apply from April and are already working with clinical commissioning groups in London to ensure that comprehensive services are in place for the London community.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
Pan-London preventive health care is important, but with the devolution of funding to local authorities, there is a great risk of them refusing to pool funds and of preventive health programmes in London collapsing. Can the Minister reassure Londoners that pan-London programmes will continue?
Norman Lamb
Yes, I can absolutely reassure the hon. Gentleman that there will be comprehensive services, which will cut across local authorities. We have to remember that local authorities will be under a legal responsibility to provide confidential open access to sexual health services and contraception services. Local authorities in London are aware of the need to ensure that comprehensive services are available from April this year.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
9. What recent assessment he has made of the number of health care appointments and operations which are postponed.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
My Department collects data on the number of cancelled elective and urgent operations, which show that these remain very low compared to total activity. We do not collect information on postponed appointments or operations. The NHS must make arrangements locally to minimise postponements and cancellations to avoid the inconvenience to patients.
Ian Swales
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. This is an issue in my area, with the chief executive of South Tees hospital saying that one factor is excessive use of A and E for non-urgent cases, resulting in pressure on hospital resources. What can the Secretary of State do to make sure that A and E units are used only for genuine accidents and emergencies?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. I am concerned that 114 non-urgent operations were cancelled in the South Tees area between November and January, which is significantly higher than this time last year. He is right that we need to think about the model for an A and E service. Nearly 1 million more people go through A and E every year than they did two years ago. We have to recognise that for A and E services to be sustainable, we need to think about people who would better off seeing their GP or going to an urgent care centre.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Is the Minister aware that health care appointments are still bedevilled by the number of people who do not show up, even for appointments with consultants and senior hospital staff? Is it not about time that we looked at a simple system, in which people could pay up front a small amount of money that they get back when they turn up? I am sure that my constituents, as good Yorkshire people, would take their appointments much more seriously if they got their money back when they turned up?
Mr Hunt
I am interested to hear that suggestion from the Labour Benches, which is not necessarily where I would have expected it to come from. The hon. Gentleman might be surprised at my response, which is that I would be very concerned about such a system. I understand the issue and I think we need to modernise the process of GP and hospital appointments. Technology can play a good role in that, for example by giving people text reminders of appointments that they have booked. My concern is that the system suggested by the hon. Gentleman would put people off going to see their doctor if they needed to. I would not want to do anything that deterred people from using the NHS who most need to do so.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
10. What estimate he has made of the number of patients who waited longer than four hours for treatment in accident and emergency departments in 2012; and if he will make a statement.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
In 2012, the NHS saw nearly 22 million people in A and E across the country, with 96% seen within four hours, which I am sure the hon. Lady will agree is a great achievement. That means that the A and E clinical quality indicators for high-quality patient care are being met in the NHS.
Kate Green
Last week, the Manchester Evening News reported that more than 1,000 patients had waited more than four hours at A and Es across Greater Manchester in December. I am sure the Minister is well aware of the planned downgrading of services at Trafford general hospital, and I understand that last night the joint health scrutiny committees of Trafford and Manchester agreed that the proposals should be referred to the Secretary of State for decision. Given last month’s alarming figures, will Ministers assure me that in reaching a decision about the future of Trafford general hospital, full account will be taken of capacity across Greater Manchester?
Dr Poulter
I thank the hon. Lady for her question. I recognise her concerns for her constituents. As has been outlined, there are seasonal variations, and I am sure that local commissioners will want to take such issues into account when they make decisions, and they must meet the reconfiguration tests set out by the previous Secretary of State for Health, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley).
Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)
The Better Services Better Value review of NHS services in south-west London identified that Croydon university hospital does not have sufficient senior doctors in its A and E, and nor did it under the previous Government. The review has been put on hold because Surrey has asked to be included. Will the Minister reassure my constituents that there will be a rapid solution to ensure that we have the A and E care that we deserve?
Dr Poulter
My hon. Friend is right to highlight a long-standing problem—it has not happened just recently —of a lack of particularly middle-grade doctors in A and Es. Although the number of consultants has increased by about 50%, as A and Es move rightly towards becoming a 24/7 consultant-led service, attracting middle grades to the specialty has been a problem. We set up a task force to consider that, as well as making better use of a multidisciplinary work force and emergency nurse practitioners to meet some of the staff shortages.
Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)
The performance of A and E services has an obvious and acute effect on the performance of ambulance services. In London, freedom of information requests show that the number of ambulances waiting more than 30 minutes from arriving at hospital to handing over their patients has gone up by two thirds over the last year, that ambulances are missing their targets in responding to the most serious life-threatening callouts, and that the average length of time that patients wait in ambulances before accessing A and E is going up, and in some cases patients are waiting almost three hours. The Care Quality Commission says that London Ambulance Service NHS Trust does
“not have sufficient staff to keep people safe”.
The question for the Secretary of State is simple: what is he going to do about it?
Dr Poulter
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the unacceptable variations in the quality of triage and handover between ambulance services and hospitals, not just in London but in other parts of the country. Many hospitals, however, do that well, and it is important that local MPs highlight the issue, champion good practice on handovers and ensure that that good practice is carried out at other A and Es. It is unacceptable that patients should wait for handover.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Can the Minister update the House on the roll-out of the 111 service and its effect on A and E admissions and 999 calls?
Dr Poulter
As my hon. Friend knows, we are developing the 111 service further to improve triage and take pressure off accident and emergency services when that is appropriate. I am sure all Members agree that when patients do not need to go to A and E, it is best for them to be treated in the community or properly triaged.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
11. What steps he is taking to improve the recruitment and retention of specialist accident and emergency doctors.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
That is a long-standing problem. Recognising that emergency medicine is moving towards becoming a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week service, the Government have set up an emergency medicine task force to tackle the problem and encourage more recruitment of middle-grade doctors to A and E specialties.
Eric Ollerenshaw
Might it be time for us to take a leaf out of the Department for Education’s book, and consider offering scholarships or bursaries tied to doing the job for a certain number of years in order to improve recruitment and retention in this difficult area?
Dr Poulter
Bursaries are already available to medical students to encourage recruitment to the medical profession. As for the specific question of A and E recruitment, at the end of last year I published—alongside the report from the Doctors and Dentists Review Body on the consultant contracts and clinical excellence awards—a report on junior doctors in training. That has given us an excellent opportunity to consider what rewards and inducements may be available to encourage junior doctors to move into A and E and other specialties in which the work is particularly intensive and the meeting of staffing requirements has posed a long-standing challenge.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
The Government say that the number of doctors in the NHS has increased by 5,000 since they came to power. When did those doctors start their training?
Dr Poulter
We know that it takes five or sometimes six years for doctors to complete their medical training. The key difference is that under the plans left by the last Government not all doctors were guaranteed places of work in the NHS after completing their training, whereas the present Government are ensuring that they find NHS jobs. That is why we have 5,000 more doctors in the NHS. The same applies to midwives: under the last Government they were not finding places after completing their training, but under this Government they are, and there are 800 more of them.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
12. What steps he plans to take to address damage to health caused by alcohol consumption.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
We published the Government’s alcohol strategy on 23 March 2012, and we are taking a comprehensive approach to reducing the incidence of alcohol-related disease and crime. Our strategy includes the introduction of a minimum unit price for alcohol, actions at local level, and pledges from industry under the responsibility deal.
Kelvin Hopkins
The number of UK deaths from liver cirrhosis has increased by five times since 1970, while in France, Italy and Spain it has halved, and is now lower than the number in Britain. Even more disturbing is the fact that thousands of babies are still being born every year in Britain permanently damaged by alcohol. When will the Government take urgent, effective action to deal with this crisis?
Norman Lamb
I entirely share the hon. Gentleman’s concern. The Government have already taken action: we set out a strategy in March last year, and we are now consulting on the introduction of a minimum alcohol price. That could save up to 700 lives a year in 10 years’ time, which would make a dramatic difference. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman supports what the Government are doing.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Damage to health as a result of alcohol consumption often leads to wider social damage. I have seen that at first hand when visiting shelters for the homeless in Rotherham. Many homeless people cannot gain access to rehabilitation services because they do not have GPs to refer them. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that those services are available to everyone, especially those who need them most?
Norman Lamb
The hon. Lady has raised a really important point. One of the consequences of the responsibility deal is that by 2015, 1 billion units of alcohol—about 2%—will be taken out of the market, and that will help some problem drinkers significantly. Moreover, the money that the Government are investing in public health gives local authorities an opportunity to invest in prevention services in order to deal specifically with the core group of people to whom the hon. Lady has referred.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
13. What plans he has to review urgent care services.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
The configuration of urgent care services is a matter for the local NHS, and commissioners should ensure that there is provision of appropriate urgent care services locally to provide safe and effective care for patients.
Lorely Burt
A review of urgent care services by the new GP-led clinical commissioning group for Solihull is causing consternation as it is throwing the future of our highly regarded walk-in centre into doubt. Does the Minister agree that users must be properly consulted, as services must be designed around patients, and that allocation to cost centres must come second to delivering services?
Dr Poulter
I agree with my hon. Friend. Where there are well-functioning local services that have local support, commissioners should recognise that in their decisions, but it is also important to highlight that any reconfiguration of local services has to meet the four tests laid down by the previous Secretary of State: support from GP commissioners; strengthened public and patient engagement; clarity on the clinical evidence base; and support for patient choice. I hope that reassures my hon. Friend.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
One of the ways in which the Government are trying to prevent urgent care and A and E admissions is by holding down the funding for unplanned admissions to 30% above 2009 levels. That is proving very hard in places where many people who arrive for A and E or urgent care are not registered with a GP. What can the Minister do to help with the funding of services in communities where it has proved impossible to reduce A and E admissions?
Dr Poulter
The hon. Lady rightly highlights that there are challenges ensuring registration with GPs, particularly in areas with large migrant population groups. In some parts of London, each year as many as one third of patients move and change GP surgeries. This is a big challenge and we are encouraging local hospitals to make sure that people who turn up at A and Es inappropriately subsequently register with a GP.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
14. What his policy is on community hospitals.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
The Government are committed to supporting the NHS to work better by extending best practice on improving discharge from acute hospitals and increasing access to care and treatment in the community. Community hospitals play a valuable role in this process.
Miss McIntosh
I welcome my hon. Friend’s reply. Will he give an assurance that going forward there will always be a place for community hospitals in respect of palliative and rehab care, which can be more easily delivered in one place?
Dr Poulter
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Community hospitals can provide a good focus for palliative care, respite care, intermediate care and step-up and step-down care close to home, particularly for people in rural communities who may otherwise have to travel very long distances to attend hospitals. I hope the community hospitals in my hon. Friend’s constituency will have a long and vibrant future.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
We want to make 2013 the year we break down the stigma associated with dementia and transform the care and treatment received by the one in three over-65s who will get the condition at some stage. Today, the Alzheimer’s Society published a map showing the totally unacceptable variations in dementia diagnosis across the country, with some areas diagnosing fewer than a third of people who have the condition, thereby denying them the medicine and support that would help them live happily at home for much longer. We are determined to put this right.
Annette Brooke
Given that next week is designated as cervical cancer prevention week and we know that many women ignore, or do not recognise, the early symptoms of cervical cancer, what action will the Secretary of State take to raise awareness of cervical cancer symptoms?
Mr Hunt
That is a very important point. Every year we screen about 3.5 million women for cervical cancer and we think we save about 4,500 lives, but we could save many more. Our “Be Clear on Cancer” campaign is highlighting the four clear symptoms people need to watch out for: unexplained bleeding, weight loss, pain, and lumps.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
T3. The Minister of State earlier failed to answer the key question on midwife numbers, so I wonder whether the Secretary of State could take it on. Before the last election, the Prime Minister made a firm pledge to increase the number of midwives by 3,000. Will the Secretary of State tell the House whether that pledge will be honoured or discarded along with all the other promises on the NHS?
Mr Hunt
The number is up by 800 already, but as the Labour Front-Bench team knows, it takes some time to train midwives. I say to the hon. Gentleman that none of the investment in additional midwives would be possible if we had a real-terms cut in the NHS budget, which is what his Front-Bench team wants.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
T2. Many of my constituents in Jaywick have complained about local GP services, saying that there are too many locums and inadequate provision. In order to attract and retain good GPs in an area with a challenging work load, the local commissioning body needs to be able to offer them more favourable terms. Will the Minister ensure that there is sufficient local flexibility so that the commissioning body can do that?
Mr Hunt
My hon. Friend makes a very important point, putting his finger on a key issue: the 24-hour availability of GP services. That is going to be crucial as the NHS goes forward. The NHS medical director, Bruce Keogh, is looking at the whole issue of seven-day working in the NHS and will certainly be examining what flexibility needs to be given to local areas to make that possible.
Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)
T4. On 30 December, ambulances in north-east London were diverted from the Whipps Cross, Queen’s and Homerton hospitals, with only the accident and emergency units at the Royal London hospital and the King George hospital in Ilford being open. Last week, on 8 January, Queen’s hospital in Romford was again diverting ambulances. Will the new Secretary of State look at the decision of his predecessor, whom I see on the Bench near him, and cancel the insane decision to close the accident and emergency unit at King George hospital?
Mr Hunt
The decision has been taken, but we have made it absolutely clear that we will not proceed with implementing it until there is sufficient capacity in the area, particularly at Queen’s hospital in Romford, to cope with any additional pressures caused by it, and that undertaking remains.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
T5. The NHS has confirmed that North Yorkshire is the only part of the country that will inherit a £19 million debt, which has to be carried by the new clinical commissioning groups. That was the situation we were promised we would never be in. What is the Secretary of State going to do to urgently address the chronic underfunding of rural areas for the NHS in North Yorkshire?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)
My hon. Friend and I have previously discussed this matter, and she is right to highlight that there are particular challenges to address in rural areas, in terms of both distances to travel and an ageing population requiring considerable health care resources. That will of course be a matter for the NHS Commissioning Board to examine when it considers future funding allocations.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
T6. As one in three women who get cancer are over the age of 70, can the Minister say when the newly launched Be Clear on Cancer campaign will be rolled out nationally?
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
T9. Many of my constituents are concerned by the Care Quality Commission’s recent findings at Milton Keynes hospital, which came despite an increase in nursing staff since 2010. What reassurances can my right hon. Friend give my constituents that the problems are being rectified and that they will be able to enjoy high-quality care?
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
First, let me say that substandard care simply will not be tolerated and it has to be taken extremely seriously. I understand that the trust involved is reviewing its staffing levels so that the necessary improvements can be made. It has also started two-hourly checks, during which nursing staff check that patients have everything they need to be both safe and comfortable. There is clearly a big challenge and the trust has to meet it.
Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)
T7. The implications of HIV go well beyond health issues alone, yet the Government have so far refused to implement a new, cross-departmental HIV strategy. The Scottish and Welsh Governments have implemented their own such strategies, but 95% of people in the UK living with HIV reside in England. Will the Secretary of State commit to discussing this issue with his Cabinet colleagues, particularly those in the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education?
Norman Lamb
I take extremely seriously the point that the hon. Lady makes. It seems to make more sense to be part of a comprehensive, integrated sexual health strategy, which the Government are planning and which will be published very soon. Services tend to be delivered together in the same units, so it makes sense to have a single strategy to deal with all those issues.
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
T10. In the light of widespread representations from constituents about the proposals for the centralisation of pathology services, will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State consider the clinical concerns very carefully before any such changes are sanctioned?
Dr Poulter
I thank my hon. Friend for that question and he is right to highlight the fact that any decisions about service reconfigurations must be clinically led, as was outlined in the Government’s tests for any service reconfiguration.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
T8. Last week, the Secretary of State refused my request to meet a small group of local GPs, hospital doctors and residents who are opposed to the closure of accident and emergency and maternity at Lewisham hospital, yet in his former role he seemed very happy to trade hundreds of texts with Rupert Murdoch’s lobbyists about the purchase of BSkyB by News Corp. Why is it one rule for Rupert Murdoch’s lobbyists and another for doctors in Lewisham?
Mr Hunt
I think that the hon. Lady might perhaps read Lord Leveson’s conclusions before she starts hurling about allegations, many of which came from her side of the House, that were later shown to be totally false. With respect to the decision on Lewisham hospital, I thought that we had a very useful meeting last night with the south London MPs who are directly affected. She understands that the process put into law by her party and her Government means that I cannot reopen the entire consultation and start seeing some groups without seeing all groups that are affected. That is why I am limiting the discussions I have with colleagues, but I think that that is the right thing to do.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
The evidence is compelling that improved access to talking therapies for children and adults makes a huge difference to their mental health. Will the Minister therefore assure me and the House that the NHS Commissioning Board will have the necessary dedicated teams to ensure that the adult improving access to psychological therapies—IAPT—programme is delivered and that the new children’s programme is, too?
Norman Lamb
I thank my hon. Friend for that question. The Government take the development of talking therapies extremely seriously and I can confirm that I met Lord Layard yesterday, together with representatives of the NHS Commissioning Board. There will be a central team and we are absolutely determined to keep driving this approach forward, as there is real evidence of results.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Today’s edition of The Daily Telegraph carries an article on dementia, including a quote from a GP who says that it is not useful to give an early diagnosis when there are no drug or care needs. Does the Minister agree that that GP, like many others, fails to realise that for pre-senile dementias in particular, early diagnosis allows planning and allows families to understand the confusion created by altered personalities, behaviour, emotional responses and language skills?
Mr Hunt
I know that the hon. Lady spoke very movingly in the debate on dementia last week and I wholeheartedly agree with her. The medicines available for people with dementia do not help everyone, but we do not know that until we try them. By diagnosing only 42% of people with dementia, as is currently the case, we are denying nearly two thirds of dementia sufferers the chance to see whether they could benefit from those medicines and, as she rightly says, the chance to plan their care, which could mean that they could live at home for much longer.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
The all-party group on cancer is delighted that the one and five-year cancer survival indicators have been included in the CCG outcome indicator set. We have campaigned for that in the belief that it will drive forward earlier diagnosis, as the Secretary of State knows. Can he clarify how CCGs will be held to account through that indicator set? For example, what action will be taken on underperforming CCGs?
Mr Hunt
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his campaigning on cancer issues through the all-party group. The NHS Commissioning Board is held to account through the mandate, which clearly states that we must make tangible progress towards having the lowest mortality rates in Europe for cancer and a number of other major diseases. I will expect the board to clamp down hard on CCGs who fail to deliver on what needs to happen for them to deliver on that promise.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
Cancer Research UK has expressed deep concern about the fragmentation of cancer services and the climate of uncertainty that makes it harder to improve them due to the Government’s NHS reorganisation. I appreciate that that is not the fault of the Secretary of State, but he has the power to do something about it. Will he listen to Cancer Research UK and stop the fragmentation of cancer services?
Mr Hunt
Of course, I understand the concerns of Cancer Research, and I know that the hon. Gentleman understands the personal tragedy that cancer can cause. The change in the clinical networks is happening because we want them to cover dementia, which we were talking about earlier, mental health services and maternity and paediatric services. It is right that they should do so, but I want to make absolutely sure that as we go through the restructuring the benefits of the cancer clinical networks remain as strong as ever.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend look at the east midlands cancer drugs fund? While I welcome the cancer drugs fund enormously, the east midlands will yet again underspend, leaving some of my constituents paying for their own treatment because they have been refused funding. Will my right hon. Friend please get his Department to investigate why?
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
How will the Secretary of State assess the effect of the cancer drugs fund on cancer survival rates?
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Kettering has the sixth fastest household growth rate in England, and accident and emergency admissions to Kettering general hospital are now at 12% year on year. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the NHS funding formula reflects the very latest population estimates?
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Penalties on readmission rates were introduced to improve clinical practice, but patients suffering from sickle cell and thalassaemia in my constituency and elsewhere cause hospitals to be fined for readmission, even though it is often in the patient’s best clinical interest. Will the Minister once again reconsider exempting sickle cell and thalassaemia from the penalty?
Dr Poulter
The hon. Lady is right to raise concerns about specific groups. The direction of travel in reducing readmission rates has to be the right thing; far too many patients were bouncing back to hospital when they would have been better looked after in the community. The longer term answer for some conditions, such as heart disease and possibly sickle cell and thalassaemia, may be year-of-care tariffs, which we are looking at very closely, as is the NHS Commissioning Board.
Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)
The Secretary of State just referred to the new strategic clinical networks. As the cancer networks are merged with them, what safeguards are there to stem the loss of expertise in cancer and what specialist support will be available to CCGs trying to achieve the targets we have heard about?
Mr Hunt
The biggest safeguard is the fact that the Government have made it one of our key priorities to improve mortality rates for cancer to the best in Europe. That means we are putting in a huge amount; for example, we are investing £450 million in early diagnosis. There are many other measures, which shows how seriously we take it.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
My 92-year-old constituent, Ron Lewin, was referred for minor oral surgery. He was eventually written to by the specialist, who said that waiting lists were very long and that assessment appointments were available in 18 weeks, but that they did offer an independent service if he wished to be seen earlier. Independent obviously means paying to jump the queue. Is that how the Government propose to cut waiting lists?
Dr Poulter
It is a decision for front-line medical professionals to outline when treatment should or should not be given. Treatment must always be given on the basis of clinical need, so I am sure the hon. Lady will be feeding that message back to local commissioners. There is an opportunity for people to appeal against decisions when they are not made on the basis of clinical need, as that is clearly not the right thing and not in the interests of patients.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend’s Department make an assessment of the effects on local air quality and public health of a potential third runway at Heathrow, and will he submit those findings to the Davies commission on airport capacity?
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
My constituent, Elaine Catterick, has had a serious operation at the James Cook hospital on Teesside cancelled twice in three months—once with just a few hours’ notice. She has also learned that there are twice-daily meetings at the hospital to decide whose operation should be cancelled next, as staff struggle to cope with spending cuts. I hope that is not what the Secretary of State wanted from his reforms, so what is he going to do about it?
Mr Speaker
Order. My apologies to colleagues whom I could not accommodate but, as usual with Health questions, demand massively outstrips supply.
Supermarket Pricing Information
(11 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Mr John Denham (Southampton, Itchen) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to require supermarkets to publish pricing data on all the goods they sell in a standardised, accessible, online format suitable to enable comprehensive comparison of the price of supermarket goods by retailer, store and product, and to enable independent analysis of pricing; and for connected purposes.
My aim is simple: to enable supermarket shoppers, which is most people in the country, to compare the prices of goods, product by product, store by store, company by company through an app on their smartphone, laptop or personal computer. None of the information that I want shoppers to have is secret. It is all publicly available. The problem is that, to get our hands on it, we would need an army of volunteers to go into every store, every day, to check the prices of every product. That is possible in theory, but it is quite impossible in practice.
The spread of smart devices, public familiarity with apps, and the development of a community of innovative app designers capable of handling data analysis in sophisticated ways has made things possible that could not be done a few years ago. I think that this is the time to harness that technology in the interests of consumers. If we do, we can even things up just a bit between the supermarket giants and the consumer.
Barely a day goes by without someone in the House saying that times are tough for hard-working families. Real wages have fallen for many. Family budgets have been squeezed. For many, the weekly supermarket bill—about 16% of family spending on average, but much bigger for many low-income families—is one of the largest single parts of family spending. No one has money to waste. Shoppers want to know that they are getting the best value for money for their hard-won pounds.
We want to know which supermarket genuinely has the best prices. We want to know how much extra we will pay if we go to the small branch—the local, the express—rather than a superstore of the same company. We do not want to be lured in by attractive headline promotions, only to be ripped off once we are inside the store. We want an easy way to work out the difference in cost between vegetables, some of which are bagged, some of which are loose and some of which are sold confusingly in different quantities. The truth is that no one can be sure that they are getting the best deal or the best information on any of those things today.
The major supermarkets are quick to say how competitive the grocery market is. It is true that there are 10 major companies competing on the high street, but that does not mean that the market always works for consumers. The supermarkets have a huge advantage over the rest of us. They amass data about our shopping habits—I am not talking about the data they have on each of us individually, but about the information they have on our collective shopping habits. They know what shoppers buy, how much and how often. They know what sort of price promotions attract us. They know when and what sort of pricing does not put us off because it looks good, because it is an essential, or because we just cannot work it out while pushing a trolley with kids in tow.
While the supermarkets have a huge amount of information on us, most shoppers are still left shopping around in a way that we would recognise from 20 years ago. Use of price comparison websites is growing fast, but those sites do not cover all supermarkets, all products or all stores. It is not an equal battle. As a GCSE economics student would tell us, markets only work well when everyone has the same level of information about what they are buying. It is not surprising that numerous studies have highlighted what is going on, and I have tried to summarise some of them on my website. Briefly, last year, The Grocer magazine found that in Tesco’s Big Price Drop campaign, for every two items that dropped in price, three went up. On 7 January, mySupermarket.co.uk highlighted current problems, and I shall give the House two examples. Sainsbury’s Goodfellas pizza—two for £4.50. Not only was that product cheaper in two other retailers where the customer would have had to buy only one, but the offer price was 16% higher than the price in Sainsbury’s most of last year. Innocent Smoothie—two for £5 in Asda and Waitrose, but cheaper in two other retailers and an offer price 20p higher than the average in those shops over the past 12 months, a price which had fluctuated between £2.79 and £2.30.
On Friday my office looked at a basket of 12 items in a Sainsbury Local in Bethnal Green and the Sainsbury superstore in Whitechapel. Across the basket of groceries the local store was 10% more expensive, with bananas 42%, carrots 59% and broccoli 49% more expensive. I accept that most people must know that local stores are more expensive, but do they know how much, and is it not worrying that the mark-up is so great on fresh fruit and vegetables?
The picture is clear. It is almost impossible to get comparable and reliable information about prices across all supermarkets and all products. It is hard to be sure when a price promotion is a bargain and when it is a rip-off. It is difficult to get the facts we need to question why prices vary so much from store to store or week by week. All these data are held on central supermarket IT systems. If the data were made available, online and in real time, innovative entrepreneurs would quickly produce apps that would not only compare prices but would, automatically and online, police such misleading deals and shed a light on store-by-store pricing policies.
I think those same entrepreneurs would focus on areas that currently see little competition but which are expensive, such as gluten-free foods. They may link pricing data to other data on organic food, farming practices, sustainability and local sourcing, for shoppers who want to combine value for money and their other values. I stress to the House again that I am talking only about data that are, in principle, a matter of public record. I am not asking supermarkets to reveal any commercially confidential data. But making public and really available real information about real prices would be enough to throw the spotlight on value for money and misleading discounts.
In November the Office of Fair Trading published a report on discount pricing policies and promoted a voluntary code of practice. In my view, the previous Government, of whom I was part, often found themselves between the rock of statutory regulation, burdensome and heavy handed, and the hard place of voluntary guidance, usually shot full of holes. The current Government are often in the same place. The simple beauty of my proposal is that a minor regulation could make the whole panoply of statutory regulation and investigation by the OFT largely redundant. Price transparency, backed by efficient data analysis, would simply drive sharp practice and misleading pricing out of the marketplace.
So far the supermarkets have been reluctant to say this is a bad idea. How could they? In principle, the data are public already. The issues they raise are mainly financial and technical. So I challenge the supermarkets today: you put up your technical experts and your systems managers, and I will assemble an independent team of experts, put them together, and let us see how hard it would be.
I have limited my proposal to the 10 supermarkets that would be covered by the current Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill, but many independent convenience stores may wish to join. Most use propriety software for their pricing and tills, and once an industry standard is established, it would be simple for that software to be upgraded and to give those stores the chance to join.
My proposal has gained the support of the consumer organisation Which?, comparison websites, and the chief executive of the Open Data Institute. Open data is an unstoppable movement. As a Cabinet member I made Ordnance Survey mapping data freely available, to the benefit of the public and innovative businesses alike. This Government have supported the Open Data Institute for public data. Over time, what is good enough for the public sector will become a demand on the private sector. As smartphones and consumer apps grow in availability and popularity, the supermarkets will not be able to ask, “Why should we do this?” They will have to explain why they have not done it.
Unless I am very lucky, this Bill may not become law, but I predict that this is only the start of a movement for transparent pricing and online information that will grow and grow. I commend the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Mr John Denham, Dr Alan Whitehead, Mr Nick Raynsford, Paul Blomfield, Lorely Burt, Jonathan Edwards, Justin Tomlinson and Caroline Lucas present the Bill.
Mr John Denham accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 February, and to be printed (Bill 119).
Constitutional Law
(11 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Scotland (Michael Moore)
I beg to move,
That the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2013, which was laid before this House on 22 October 2012, be approved.
I am grateful that we have longer to debate the order than would usually be the case. This reflects the interest that hon. and right hon. Members have shown in the issue and the time they have spent scrutinising it, not least in the Scottish Affairs Committee, whose report is a very important contribution to the parliamentary process.
On 15 October 2012, the Prime Minister, the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and I signed an agreement on behalf of our respective Governments that will, if the order is approved by this House and the other place, allow a legal, fair and decisive referendum to take place on Scottish independence. We will face the most important political choice that people have taken in Scotland in more than 300 years.
Mr Brian H. Donohoe (Central Ayrshire) (Lab)
What is the role of the Electoral Commission? Can the Scottish Government override it or is it mandatory for them to accept what it says?
Michael Moore
I applaud the hon. Gentleman’s early intervention. He will not be surprised to know that he has anticipated slightly an issue that I will turn to at reasonable length, with the House’s permission, later in my speech. Put simply, we expect the same standards to apply to the Scottish Parliament as apply here—no greater, no less.
This process began with the Scottish National party’s victory in the May 2011 Scottish parliamentary elections and its manifesto pledge to hold an independence referendum. From the very beginning, we recognised the political mandate that the SNP had secured for a referendum. However, as I set out in the House just over a year ago, the Scotland Act 1998 is very clear that the Scottish Parliament cannot legislate on matters reserved to this Parliament. That includes the constitution and, specifically, the Union of the kingdoms of Scotland and England.
That is why we published a consultation paper on 10 January 2012, which set out the different ways to deliver a legal referendum. Shortly afterwards, the Scottish Government set out their own consultation.
Our paper sought views on how to facilitate a legal, fair and decisive referendum. We set out the available legislative options and stated that our preferred option was to provide the Scottish Parliament with the legal competence to legislate itself. This received the overwhelming support of those responding to our consultation. More than 70% of respondents agreed that the Scottish Parliament should be given that power. Throughout the discussions with the Scottish Government, we stressed that there should also be a single question to deal decisively with the issue of independence. Three quarters of respondents to our consultation agreed. In our consultation paper, we set out our view that the Electoral Commission, the independent body responsible for overseeing referendums in the UK, should be responsible for this referendum. That is the same position as for any other referendum.
The UK Government’s position was supported by 86% of respondents. Indeed, that was a point that the Scottish Government accepted fairly quickly. They moved from their initial proposal to establish a separate Scottish body to oversee the poll to a position of accepting that the Electoral Commission was the right body to oversee the referendum.
We also sought views on timing and on the franchise. On timing, we sought views on when the referendum should be held. Many people supported our view that it should be held sooner rather than later. Indeed, the order before us today provides an end date for the referendum, but it does not prevent it from being held sooner. It will be for the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament to set the referendum date.
On the franchise, we asked for views on who should be entitled to vote in the referendum.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether there are any provisions in the Bill to take account of the views of the many Scottish people who live in other countries—especially the Scottish population in Corby, who are absolutely convinced that we are stronger and better together? Will he take account of their views?
Michael Moore
It is important that people in all parts of the United Kingdom make it clear to all of us living in Scotland that they value the Union and the United Kingdom. I respect the fact that there is a strong and rich diaspora of Scots all over the United Kingdom and, indeed, all over the world. Having looked carefully at the options for the franchise, we took a straightforward decision—we agreed wholeheartedly with the Scottish Government’s view on this—that the same franchise should apply to the referendum as applied to the Scottish Parliament elections that gave the Scottish National party its mandate in that Parliament. That keeps it simple, straightforward and fair, and that is the basis on which we will proceed.
Mike Freer (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend not agree that it is an anomaly that a Frenchman living in Edinburgh can vote on Scottish independence when a Scot living in London cannot do so?
Michael Moore
I think that that is a reasonably easily understood anomaly. The French person, the EU national, who has made a commitment to living in Scotland is entitled to vote in a referendum there, just as they would be in the Scottish parliamentary elections. It is important that we show consistency on that front. I accept, however, that there is a range of opinion on this matter, and my hon. Friend has made his own point clearly.
On the issue of 16 and 17-year-olds participating in the referendum, respondents to our consultation were divided. I will return to that issue later.
Mr Frank Roy (Motherwell and Wishaw) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State confirm that, if this order goes to the Scottish Parliament and if that Parliament agrees to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in the referendum, the matter will no longer need to come back to this House or to the other place?
Michael Moore
The hon. Gentleman highlights an important point. He is right to suggest that, if this House and the other place agree this order and it is passed, that will transfer responsibility for the referendum totally to the Scottish Parliament.
Following the respective consultations, a period of discussions between Scotland’s two Governments led to the signing of the Edinburgh agreement on 15 October. I will return to the other important elements of that agreement shortly, but first I want to deal with the order itself.
The order is made under section 30(2) and (4) of the Scotland Act 1998. It inserts a new paragraph 5A into part 1 of schedule 5 to the Act. Part 1 provides, among other things, that the Union of the kingdoms of Scotland and England is reserved to the UK Parliament. New paragraph 5A will ensure that the reservation does not apply to a referendum on independence, provided that the referendum meets the requirements set out. Those requirements are for a single-question referendum, on the subject of independence, to be held before the end of 2014, and without any other referendum provided for by an Act of the Scottish Parliament being held on the same day.
The order also makes provision in respect of public referendum broadcasts and free mailshots, which would otherwise be outside the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament. Under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000—PPERA, as we know it —referendum campaign broadcasts can be made only by or on behalf of a designated campaign organisation. The order applies that provision of PPERA to an independence referendum. That means that the restriction in PPERA on who can make referendum campaign broadcasts can apply to the independence referendum.
The agreement in 2006 between the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and the BBC requires the BBC to broadcast referendum campaign broadcasts, as defined by PPERA. The provisions of the order mean that the BBC will have the same obligations and responsibilities in respect of independence referendum campaign broadcasts as it would have in respect of any PPERA referendum broadcasts. Under PPERA, each designated campaign organisation can send a mailshot to every elector or household without being required to pay the postage costs. That service is provided by Royal Mail and the costs are recovered from the Consolidated Fund. The order applies those provisions in PPERA to an independence referendum. It specifically provides that the cost to the Royal Mail of providing the service will be recovered from Scottish Ministers.
The section 30 order that we are debating today will enable the Scottish Parliament to legislate for a legal referendum. The Scottish Parliament has already considered the order and approved it unanimously. If the order is approved by both Houses of this Parliament, it will enable the Scottish Government to introduce a referendum Bill setting out the wording of the question, the date of the referendum and the rules of the campaign for the Scottish Parliament to consider. This devolution of power will ensure that the details of the referendum process itself are made in Scotland, in the Scottish Parliament. That is a principle of great importance to the devolution settlement. Furthermore, the approach here respects another key feature of devolution—namely, that once a matter is passed to the Scottish Parliament, it is for that Parliament to determine the details of the legislation that follows.
However, our agreement does not just make the referendum legal and respect the devolution settlement. It also sets out the conditions that are necessary and that have been agreed between the UK and Scottish Governments for the referendum to be fair and decisive. In this context, it is important to consider the memorandum of agreement alongside the order. The agreement is a statement of political intent by Scotland’s two Governments. It commits us jointly to an approach to, and the delivery of, the independence referendum which will ensure that the proceedings are fair and that the outcome is decisive. With permission, Mr Speaker, I will therefore briefly describe that broader agreement.
At the heart of any fair referendum must lie a set of rules and processes that have the support of both sets of protagonists. For the outcome to be legitimate, both sides of the argument must have faith in all aspects of the referendum. That is particularly true when we are considering the future of our nation. The agreement therefore sets out the commitment of both Governments to the normal rules and procedures that govern referendums in the UK, as contained in PPERA. A core part of the PPERA process is the central role of the Electoral Commission. The two Governments have agreed that the Electoral Commission must review the proposed referendum question, and that its report will be laid before the Scottish Parliament. That process is under way. Since PPERA came into force, there have been three referendums held under that legislation.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State agree that, if the Scottish Government were to disagree with the Electoral Commission on what form the question should take, that position would be open to a legal challenge?
Michael Moore
I think that there would be a price to pay for that. If the hon. Gentleman will be patient, I shall return to that issue shortly.
The three referendums held under the auspices of the Electoral Commission have been: the north-east regional assembly referendum in 2004; the referendum in Wales in 2011 on further devolution; and the referendum on the voting system for the UK Parliament, also held in 2011. In all three cases, the Electoral Commission reviewed the Government’s proposed question and provided its advice. The Government responded by revising the questions in line with that advice. Of course, in the past, some Members on the SNP Benches have referred to the wording of the proposed question for referendums on local council tax.
The Government made it clear when they brought forward the regulations to provide for those referendums that discussions were ongoing with the Electoral Commission on the wording of the question. Revised regulations were tabled on 8 January and the Electoral Commission has confirmed that it is content with the revised wording.
Under the terms of the Edinburgh agreement, it will be for the Scottish Government to respond to the advice of the Electoral Commission. The Scottish Government have committed to putting before the Scottish Parliament their response to the Electoral Commission’s recommendations. That means that the Scottish Government will be held to account by the public and Parliament alike for how they respond to that advice. All Opposition leaders in the Scottish Parliament have stated their intention to abide by the Electoral Commission’s judgment in this case. To do otherwise would be a significant step, for which there would be a political price.
As I have set out, both Governments recognise that the referendum process must be seen to be fair by both sides of the campaign. That applies across the process, but particularly to the financing of the campaign. As part of the Edinburgh agreement, the Scottish Government committed to consulting the two campaign organisations for their views before proposing spending limits for the referendum campaign to the Scottish Parliament.
The agreement ensures that the independent Electoral Commission will provide the Scottish Government with advice on the appropriate spending limits for the two campaigns and the parties. That is what has happened in previous referendums, such as the 2011 referendum in Wales on further powers for the Welsh Assembly. In that referendum, the Electoral Commission recommended that the spending limit for designated campaign organisations should be set by reference to the expenditure limits that apply to elections to the relevant legislature. In its response to both Governments’ consultation documents, the Electoral Commission provided its view that the model remains appropriate for the Scottish independence referendum. The Electoral Commission has met the parties represented in the Scottish Parliament to seek their views on the finance arrangements.
When the Scottish Government set out their final proposals for financing the referendum campaign in the referendum Bill, they must set themselves aside from their own campaigning interests and recognise that their approach is being watched by all of Scotland, and indeed by the international community. That is a point that the Deputy First Minister recognised when she rightly said that the poll must satisfy the highest international standards. All people must believe that there is a fair process and, therefore, a fair result.
Both Governments agree that the basis for the franchise will be that for the Scottish Parliament elections—that is, those UK or EU citizens who are resident in Scotland. That is set out in the Edinburgh agreement. In addition, the Scottish Government propose to give 16 and 17-year-olds the right to vote. I recognise and respect that there are differing views on that issue in the House. My party, the Liberal Democrat party, supports the principle of 16 and 17-year-olds participating in all elections. Our coalition partners do not, however. Views on both sides of the argument can be found on both sides of the Chamber.
In devolving the power to hold the referendum, however, we respect that this is a matter that should be debated and determined by the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, where the Scottish Government and Parliament have the power to hold referendums and elections already, they have chosen to allow some 16 and 17-year-olds to vote. However, the Scottish Parliament’s decision with respect to health board and crofting commission elections in Scotland has set no precedent for any elections for which the UK Government are responsible. I fully expect that the Scottish Government’s proposals will be debated robustly in the Scottish Parliament. However, let me be clear that it will be for the Scottish Government to make the case for this proposal in the Scottish Parliament and to deal with the issues that arise. Let me be equally clear that any decision taken by the Scottish Parliament for the referendum will not affect the voting age for parliamentary and local government elections in the United Kingdom. That remains the responsibility of this Parliament alone to determine.
Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)
Have there been any practical discussions between the UK Government and the Scottish Government about the ability to implement this measure ahead of the referendum, given that there has been much talk of the inability to do so because of the state of the electoral register?
Michael Moore
That issue was discussed during the negotiations leading up to the Edinburgh agreement. However, as we made plain in the agreement and as I have repeated this afternoon, as we are devolving that power, it is for the Scottish Government to bring forward their proposals. That will require legislation and that legislation will be properly scrutinised by all of us and, in particular, by MSPs. That process is yet to get under way.
Jim McGovern
When I have visited schools in Dundee recently, it has been pointed out to me that it would be ridiculous if 16 and 17-year-olds were allowed to vote on the future of the country, but could not buy a packet of sparklers on Guy Fawkes night.
Michael Moore
That is a classic example of the debate that rages over whether 16 and 17-year-olds should vote in elections. I take it from that intervention that the hon. Gentleman is not a supporter. However, this is a matter for the Scottish Parliament.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way; he is being very generous. We, as campaigners, will be contacting minors to seek their views and discuss the issues. Has he had any discussions with the Scottish Government about the rules and regulations that will apply to parties engaging with people who are not yet adults?
Michael Moore
The hon. Lady hits on an important, sensitive and practical point that must be considered carefully in any legislation on this issue that is introduced in the Scottish Parliament. Until the legislation is published and people can consider its detail, her point cannot be properly examined. I am confident that the Scottish Government are alert to that issue and it is incumbent on them to bring forward appropriate proposals with the necessary safeguards.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that although the whole House agrees that the Scottish Parliament should make the decisions about the conduct of the referendum, matters such as the franchise ought also to be discussed fully in this House, as we are doing now and will do for some considerable time today, because the outcome of the referendum affects not only Scotland, but the whole United Kingdom?
Michael Moore
My hon. Friend has made two important and linked points. On the first issue, nobody is suggesting for a minute that people in this House cannot offer an opinion about whether it is right or wrong for 16 and 17-year-olds to vote. She is right that this afternoon is a good opportunity for people to make the case one way or the other. On the second point, she is also right that what happens in Scotland affects the whole United Kingdom. A huge amount is at stake in this big debate. Although people south of the border will not vote in the referendum, it is important that their views are included in the public debate. I am sure that they will be.
Before I took the interventions, I made the point that when 16 and 17-year-olds have been allowed to vote in admittedly smaller elections in Scotland, it has had no ramifications for the decisions that are made in this place, and neither will this decision. However, the debate on the rights and wrongs of 16 and 17-year-olds voting will remain live in politics and I see no worry about that.
Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way yet again. Before we move on from the franchise, will he advise the House whether there has been any progress in the talks on allowing members of the Scottish armed forces who are, through no fault of their own, serving elsewhere in the UK or around the world to vote in the referendum?
Michael Moore
I pay tribute to the hon. Lady, who has made that point strongly not only on the Scottish Affairs Committee, but in other debates. I recognise that it is a sensitive issue. We must ensure that, as would be the case in any other referendum or election, those in the armed forces who have a connection to Scotland are aware of what it will take for them to vote in the referendum. There is a range of complexities in that, but the Scottish Government are aware of the issue and understand it. When they publish the legislation, there will be plenty of time for people in the Scottish Parliament, and those of us here who take an interest in the matter, to offer their views on the details.
Mr Frank Roy
May I point out to the Secretary of State that it is not only members of the armed forces who will be affected, but their wives and husbands? For example, people who are based in Catterick may have been moved there from Motherwell.
Michael Moore
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point that reinforces the views of his colleagues, and I recognise that this matter is important to Members on all sides of the House. It will now be an issue for the Scottish Parliament to consider, and I am confident that in the political debate across Scotland the role of the armed forces and voting will be properly considered.
Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)
The exchanges of the last moment or two have raised a broader question. Once responsibilities are handed to the Scottish Parliament, what will be the role of this place in monitoring the issue and ensuring—so far as we can—that the objectives of fairness and decisiveness are properly maintained?
Michael Moore
My right hon. and learned Friend highlights an important issue and principle. In the order and the political agreement that sits alongside it, we set out what we believe should happen when the referendum process is resolved in the Scottish Parliament. As I said earlier, we are observing and honouring the principles of devolution so that when a matter is devolved from this place to the Scottish Parliament, it becomes that Parliament’s responsibility, including all the details and everything that goes with it. We are not, however, disfranchised from the political debate. Plenty of MSPs offered views on this process long before it went anywhere near the Scottish Parliament, and I am confident that lots of MPs will contribute to the debate long after it has left this place, and, if it is passed, the other place as well.
Fiona O'Donnell
Will the Secretary of State confirm whether, as well as actively encouraging members of the armed forces from Scotland to register to vote, people will be encouraged to register their sons and daughters who are 16 and 17 years old? This issue will affect their lives as well.
Michael Moore
The hon. Lady adds to the points made by her hon. Friends. I am confident that all these issues will be debated in the Scottish Parliament, and I encourage her, and others, to make such representations directly. We are not stymied in this debate simply because we have passed the legal process—assuming that we do; I do not wish to take the House for granted in that respect.
Michael Moore
The hon. Gentleman asks me to give views on the role of the SNP, but I am confident that, if they catch your eye, Mr Speaker, SNP Members will have an opportunity to contribute to the debate and set out their own views a little later.
Jim Sheridan
May I probe the Secretary of State on the timing of the referendum? He may recall the separatist slogan, “Scotland free by 2003”, yet when it gets the chance in 2012, the SNP says that it is not ready until 2014. Has he picked up any rationale for why that is the case, or is it just the general public view that they are just big fearties?
Michael Moore
I am sure we can offer Hansard the appropriate assistance should it be sought. This is a point on which I agree with the hon. Gentleman. It is slightly curious that after 80 years of existence—give or take—the Scottish National party is not rushing to get this over and done with straightaway. One would have thought it would want to do it as quickly as possible, and it would certainly be in Scotland’s best interest to resolve the issue as quickly as possible. However, it will be a matter for the Scottish Government and then the Scottish Parliament to consider.
Michael Moore
I did say finally, but I must give way to the former shadow Secretary of State.
Ann McKechin
I understand there is some suggestion that the Committees in the Scottish Parliament that will deal with the Bills on both the franchise and the referendum will be subject to a truncated timetable programme. Has the Secretary of State had any discussions with the Scottish Government about that? Given the importance of the referendum for our whole country, does he agree it is important that the Scottish Parliament’s Committees have appropriate time to consider the issues in great detail and ensure they are satisfactorily answered?
Michael Moore
The hon. Lady makes an important point. I do not believe it is appropriate for us to discuss that directly with the Scottish Government; it is for the Scottish Parliament to decide how it determines its own business. Former Members of that Parliament who are in this House today may wish to pick up on the hon. Lady’s point. I absolutely agree, however, with her central point that we should consider the issue properly and seriously. Symbolically, we are taking longer than we would normally to consider a statutory instrument because of the significance of the order. People would look askance if parliamentary processes elsewhere were cut short in the course of the debate, but the issue is for the Scottish Parliament to determine. We all have colleagues in that Parliament who, I am sure, will make the hon. Lady’s point very vigorously.
Let me turn to one issue that has attracted some comment, particularly from the Scottish Government. The concluding paragraph of the Edinburgh agreement contains a commitment by both Governments to hold a referendum that is legal, fair and decisive. There have been some creative interpretations of this paragraph in recent times, and I want to take the opportunity to restate its clear and obvious meaning.
Paragraph 30 reads:
“The United Kingdom and Scottish Governments are committed, through the Memorandum of Understanding between them and others, to working together on matters of mutual interest and to the principles of good communication and mutual respect. The two Governments have reached this agreement in that spirit. They look forward to a referendum that is legal and fair producing a decisive and respected outcome. The two Governments are committed to continue to work together constructively in the light of the outcome, whatever it is, in the best interests of the people of Scotland and of the rest of the United Kingdom.”
That means that the two Governments will conduct the referendum on the same constructive terms as they work today, and that if the referendum follows the path set out in the order and agreement, its outcome will be decisive. Regardless of the result, that constructive relationship should continue as we move forward. That is good practice and common sense. It does not mean, however, that in the event of a yes vote, the remaining UK would facilitate Scotland’s every wish—no more than an independent Scotland would unquestioningly facilitate the wishes of the remaining UK. Inevitably, when there are two separate countries, there are two sets of interests—sometimes mutual, sometimes at odds. That is the case in the UK’s relationships with its closest allies today, and we honour that principle, and so it always will be between separate, sovereign states.
The Edinburgh agreement, particularly paragraph 30, is a statement of our determination to hold a referendum that is legal, fair and decisive. It does not—and cannot—pre-empt the implications of that vote, and it is important that everyone is clear about that.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
The Secretary of State talks about what might happen if the result of the referendum is yes. Whose interests will he be representing post the yes vote?
Michael Moore
I am absolutely confident that Scotland will vote to stay in the United Kingdom. I am committed to doing what is in the best interests of Scotland, regardless of the outcome, as I said on the radio yesterday morning.
Scotland’s future within the UK will be the most important decision that we as Scots take in our lifetime. Facilitating a legal, fair and decisive referendum is critical. That is why we consulted on this issue, why both Governments have spent many hours discussing and negotiating the process, and why we seek the support of the House today to approve this order.
Debating this order in the House today marks an important step as we move from discussions on process to the substance of the great debate. It is now essential that the referendum decision is focused on determining whether Scotland chooses to remain an integral part of the most successful partnership of nations the world has ever seen; to remain part of a family of nations that works in the interests of all; or whether it wishes to leave and go it alone. That decision should not be taken lightly; it should be taken after examining all the facts.
Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)
Does the Secretary of State think it fair that the Scottish Government can be both the referee and a player in a referendum?
Michael Moore
The hon. Gentleman and his fellow Committee members have written important reports on this subject and highlighted the dangers in the process. As I made clear in my earlier remarks—and this, I think, is the tenor of the contributions we may anticipate this afternoon—the Scottish Government will act in setting the rules and pushing them through Parliament on behalf of all Scots and both sides of the argument. It is important that they do so in a way that is not fair to one side and unfair to the other.
I strongly believe that, with the support of colleagues across the House, across Scotland and across the whole of the United Kingdom, fellow Scots will join me in the autumn of 2014 in choosing to remain part of the United Kingdom. We are indeed better together. In the meantime, I commend the order to the House.
Margaret Curran (Glasgow East) (Lab)
This is indeed an important day in the life of our nation and this Parliament. Rarely do we have an opportunity to debate an issue as fundamental as the future of our country.
Let me be clear at the outset that we welcome the order that is before the House today. This House has witnessed significant discussions on the future of nations, most recently the future of Scotland and Wales in the Union and the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. Today’s discussion is no less significant, for two reasons. First, it contemplates the possibility of an end to the 300-year-old Union with Scotland. That is important to emphasise, not just for those of us in the Chamber who are from Scotland, but for people who live in the rest of the United Kingdom but believe in a United Kingdom with Scotland as a crucial part of it—I give due recognition to the good people of Corby for their enthusiasm for that commitment. Secondly, today’s discussion is significant because it is a novel way of settling the issue. Parliament is being invited not to legislate or to make a decision, but to delegate the power, under certain strict conditions, to the Scottish Parliament, ultimately—we should never forget this—to allow the Scottish people to make that decision.
The agreement puts it beyond doubt that, in the words of the First Minister and the Secretary of State, the referendum will be “made in Scotland”. It can be argued that this is not just an example of the success of the United Kingdom’s democracy, but evidence of the strength of the Scottish Parliament—a devolved institution argued for and established by, of course, a Labour Government. The principle that the referendum should be controlled by the Scottish Parliament is important in commanding respect from all sides. However, it is particularly significant in ensuring that after the referendum the Scottish Government cannot suggest that there is any ambiguity about the process or the result. The choice before the people of Scotland is straightforward: whether to leave the United Kingdom or to continue in a partnership of equals in a Union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
As I said at the outset, Labour Members support the order. We support it because, if followed, the principles contained in it, as well as in the memorandum of agreement, would provide for a referendum that met the test that we set at the start—namely that, as the Secretary of State said, it should be fair, legal and decisive. Together, the agreement and the order provide that all three conditions can be met if all parties in the referendum hold to their spirit and their letter. It is clear that we now have the opportunity to put before the people of Scotland the question of separation, and that decision will bind us all. As the agreement says, the referendum will deliver a decisive expression of the views of the people of Scotland, along with a result that everyone will respect and must respect.
This debate is important, because endless constitutional uncertainty is bad for all interests in Scotland, not least those of us who would rather spend our time, energy and efforts dealing with the reality of life for hundreds of thousands of Scots, if not millions, who need us to focus on defending and pursuing their interests. Labour spent a generation arguing for devolution, against the protests of the parties opposite—or one of them, I should say; I am in a generous mood towards the Secretary of State today.
Mr Jim Murphy (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)
And against the party on the Benches behind us.
Margaret Curran
Indeed. Other parties opposed devolution, as my right hon. Friend points out. We argued for devolution because it was the best way to deliver social justice and economic progress and because it commanded the support of the vast majority of the Scottish people.
Mr MacNeil
I wonder if the hon. Lady can tell us whether the ends of social justice were advanced last week in the Commons when the majority of Scottish MPs voted against welfare reforms that are being foisted on Scotland by MPs from the rest of the UK. How does that further the ends of social justice and why does she support the right of a Tory Government to govern Scotland and do exactly that? Why is she not an independence supporter?
Margaret Curran
For many years I have argued with the SNP, which wants to say that the problem facing Scotland is the English. I say that the problem facing Scotland at the moment is the Tories and the SNP. The SNP is imposing college cuts, and making Scotland one of the nations of the United Kingdom with the highest increases in unemployment. The hon. Gentleman would be well fit to look to his own party to see the damage it is inflicting in Scotland, instead of always trying to hide behind the blanket of independence—[Interruption]—although I thank him for that encouragement to energise this debate.
The order we are debating today demonstrates that devolution has been a success. It has empowered Scots and given our nation a new sense of confidence. With it, we have modernised and changed Britain and the way we govern ourselves. Labour Members will take the opportunity that the referendum presents us with to make the argument for a prosperous Scotland within a United Kingdom, backed up by a strong devolution settlement. We will be arguing against the nationalists, who would stop devolution in its tracks just 15 years after we set out on this journey and after it has been so successful. At the end of this process, that means that perhaps we can finally heed the advice of Scotland’s first First Minister.
Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)
Does the hon. Lady think that the SNP might be better prepared for the situation we are in today if it had taken any part in the reform process that has delivered devolution and home rule to date?
Margaret Curran
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, which affords me the opportunity to draw attention to the fact that those who opposed devolution—perhaps most strongly at some points—were those in the Scottish National party, which never participated on any multi-party basis to give Scotland the constitutional agreement that we now have. In fact, many of us who were prepared to work with others—and who demonstrated that we could do so—did, in fact, work in the best interests of Scotland.
The right hon. Gentleman also allows me to make the point—which I was just about to make—that we should heed the advice of Scotland’s first First Minister, Donald Dewar, who said in 1998:
“The…decade must not be one long embittering fight over further constitutional change. For me, the question now is what we do with our Parliament, not what we do to it.”
In these challenging economic times, perhaps we should focus our minds on the powers of the Scottish Parliament and question how they are being exercised at the moment. That, too, should occupy our energies.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has just mentioned the late, great Donald Dewar, who said that the decade from 1998 should not be a decade of stifling the Scottish Parliament, but since the SNP got a majority in that Parliament, has not its whole ethos indeed been stifled?
Margaret Curran
I thank my hon. Friend for that point. As a number of hon. Members present know, I served in the Scottish Parliament for 12 years. I was part of many of the exciting developments and changes it inaugurated, but it is with deep disappointment that I now see a Parliament that does not seem to have the proper opportunity to scrutinise the Executive who are part of that arrangement and who also seem to be significantly failing the Scottish people. Although I see constitutional change as a means to an end, I have never seen it as an end in itself. It would serve the Scottish people well if the Scottish Government focused on the work of serving the Scottish people and their interests, rather than just for ever furthering the goal of constitutional change.
John Robertson (Glasgow North West) (Lab)
This is something I raised in a previous speech on Scotland, but today we have once again heard the chuntering from the SNP, whose Members are sat on the Benches beside me—the bullying tactics that have been used in the Scottish Parliament to stop proper legislation going through. Can we trust these people?
Margaret Curran
I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. It encourages me to look forward to the substance of the debate on the referendum, when the Scottish people will give not only their verdict on whether they think their interests lie best in the United Kingdom, but ultimately their view of the SNP Government, who, rather than addressing their interests, are for ever saying that everything can be solved through the prism of independence, without ever presenting a substantial argument for why that would be the case.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
The hon. Lady touches on an important point about the Scottish Parliament legislating in the interests of Scotland. Does she agree that the Scotland Act 2012 will devolve considerable additional powers over many fiscal matters to the Scottish Parliament, and that it is surely better to concentrate on using those powers rather than constantly trying to change the goal posts constitutionally?
Margaret Curran
The hon. Gentleman makes a significant point. I have always believed in a strong Scotland within the United Kingdom, and I have for many years believed that devolution was significant in helping to govern Scotland effectively. The passing of the 2012 Act was another stage in that process, which offers the Scottish people the opportunity to effectively govern themselves, but still have the advantage of the partnership that is the United Kingdom. I firmly believe that the prospects for separation offered by the Scottish National party do not work in the best interests of the Scottish people, and in fact signify that the SNP has failed to listen to them. Since its inception, they have believed that the Union damages Scotland. Its view has never changed and never evolved. We are all calling for a positive debate, and it is disappointing to see so little of that coming from those Benches this afternoon.
Sir Menzies Campbell
I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way; she is being very generous. Her felicitous reference to Donald Dewar, a friend and colleague of several of us still in the House today, has struck a chord certainly with me and I am sure with others. Arising from what she has just said, and referring back to something she said earlier, what does she make of the suggestion that were the question to be answered in the negative, that would not be the end of the matter so far as the Scottish National party was concerned, and that if it had the opportunity it might seek, as early as was convenient, to institute yet another referendum, thereby raising the possibility of what I think in Quebec is called the “neverendum”, of which the issue is the only one which dominates political discourse in Scotland?
Margaret Curran
I thank the right hon. and learned Gentleman—I am so pleased to have got parliamentary protocol right for once. This is one of the most disappointing elements of the debate so far. We have gone to great lengths to create a process that will allow for a fair and established result that should be observed by all participating parties. We have all said that we will respect the decision of the Scottish people, wherever we stand in this debate, and it is incumbent on the SNP to participate in that and to not always say, irrespective of the result, that it will just come back again and again with a “neverendum”, allegedly. Perhaps in today’s debate the SNP will put on record that they will absolutely respect the result of the referendum, now that we are past the starting blocks, and absolutely guarantee that they will respect the wishes of the Scottish people and not for ever seek to usurp that decision, as certain comments have seemed to imply.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Based on what the hon. Lady has just said, if there is a no vote and Labour form the Government down here in 2016 after the general election, is she saying that there will not be any further constitutional change and a further Scotland Act, and that anyone who wants to see progress on greater powers for Scotland will have to vote yes in 2014?
Margaret Curran
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution and I look forward to Labour forming a Government here in 2016. We will introduce many pro policies to the benefit of the people of Scotland and the United Kingdom. Of course, we should look at the prospect of Scots voting to stay within the United Kingdom, because I believe that there is a strong likelihood of that—although I would never be complacent and would always respect the views of the Scottish people. As I said in answer to the hon. Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), I absolutely believe that devolution is vital to the interests of Scotland and vital to the interests of the United Kingdom. We have always said that devolution is a process, and that time and circumstance will dictate future interests. As the hon. Gentleman may or may not know, Johann Lamont, our leader of the Labour party in Scotland, has set up a devolution commission. Our test in that devolution commission will not be pre-set, as some nationalists would have us do because they have already decided what should happen. Our views will be determined by the interests of the people of Scotland, and what serves their interests best.
Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the fundamental fault line in Scottish politics at the moment is between those who support separation from the rest of the United Kingdom and those who want to stay part of the United Kingdom, and that any talk about the process of devolution and so on in the current context of discussing a referendum on independence is actually a diversionary tactic by the SNP to try to divert us from the fact that after 80 years of preparation, it has zilch to say about the future of Scotland?
Margaret Curran
I thank my hon. Friend for that effective intervention. I will make reference to why some are urging that there should be a second question as I progress.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
If I can take my hon. Friend back to the intervention by the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) from Plaid Cymru, is the situation not entirely the reverse of what he suggests? If people vote no in the referendum—against separation—there will be opportunities to develop devolution and the Scottish Parliament, but if people vote yes to independence, then that is it. There will be no second thoughts—that will be once and for all and final. There should be no doubt whatsoever of the consequence of such a vote.
Margaret Curran
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. May I be absolutely crystal clear? The way to stop devolution in Scotland, in its current form and in any further developments, is to vote for separation. That is the way to end devolution. If people want to continue devolution and have a strong element of devolution in the partnership that is the United Kingdom, they should vote against nationalist wishes in the referendum.
The referendum offers us the opportunity to settle the question decisively, once and for all. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) said, this is a fault line in Scottish politics—people either support partnership with the United Kingdom or they support separation. We need to settle this once and for all, and then move away from the issue that keeps Alex Salmond awake at night to the concerns that keep our constituents awake at night.
Let me turn to the order. As the Secretary of State has outlined, article 3 removes the reservation of the power to hold a referendum on the independence of Scotland from the rest of the UK, and stipulates conditions relating to the date of the poll and the nature of the question. On this side of the House, we have argued consistently for a poll that would come earlier than 2014, as has been indicated. As business leaders, civil society and others have said, a vote conducted more than 18 months from now while the country continues to face some of the most testing economic circumstances in a generation, adds, at the very minimum, to the uncertainty faced by the Scottish people.
We would have sought an earlier poll. However, we understand the challenges faced by Government, the issues around the legislative timeline and the need to provide a full debate. As such, we hope that the period between now and the referendum itself will be used to full advantage. If I can make reference to a comment made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin, I hope that that timeline—the amount of time involved—will ensure that the Scottish Parliament has the maximum time to debate and process this issue. It should also be used to ensure that Scots are provided with a robust and informed debate. So far, Scots are not getting the information to which they are reasonably entitled, even at this stage, by the party proposing separation. There is still much more information to be given by those who are proposing separation. As the protagonists, it is reasonable to expect them to do that.
Article 3 provides the clarity that the referendum will consist of a single question, as I made reference to in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling. For a decision of this magnitude, we have always believed that this is the only way to provide absolute clarity for the Scottish people. A multi-question referendum, as some on the nationalist Benches have argued for, would not only have led to confusion but, as the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs has previously pointed out, would have been out of step with international precedents. It would also have been detrimental had we included a question for which there was no clear offering, in terms of powers to the Scottish Parliament, and no group able to make the case where there was no distinct proposal and no clarity about the details of what was being proposed.
Although the issue concerning the number of questions has been resolved, the order gives the Scottish Parliament the power to set the wording of the question. In this area, we still have several concerns. First, we are not confident that the question proposed by the Scottish Government provides those voting in the referendum with sufficient clarity. Secondly, in the light of that, we are concerned that the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister have not committed themselves to following the recommendations of the independent, objective Electoral Commission.
Fiona O’Donnell
My hon. Friend is making a reasoned and reasonable contribution. Hansard has sought clarification about whether SNP Members have today been described as “big fearties” or “big fairies”. Would she like to express her opinion?
Margaret Curran
Oh dear, dear, dear! Both. Can I say that? Would that be okay? I do understand it, however, and perhaps I can offer clarification for people. On that basis, I would certainly say both.
The agreement between the UK and Scottish Governments sets out:
“Both Governments agree on the importance of the referendum being overseen in an impartial way by bodies that can command the confidence of both sides of the campaign.”
That is an essential element of the agreement. It is not simply the oversight of the campaign, however, but how the recommendations and views of the Electoral Commission are treated by the Scottish Government that will determine whether the process is seen as impartial by the people of Scotland. If the SNP and the Scottish Government wish to reassure all participants in the referendum that they will conduct it properly, fairly and equitably, with respect to all interests, they could easily offer that reassurance by accepting the wording of the Electoral Commission. That would take us further down the road, so I hope that we can get an offer on that today. Ministers in the SNP Government have to set aside partisan advantage and approach the process with Scotland’s best interests, not their party’s, in mind, and it would be reassuring if they could clarify the matter so as not to be open to that charge. They could easily prove that they are not open to it.
The Electoral Commission’s role has to extend beyond the wording, however. We accept that the Electoral Management Board will deal with the practical arrangements for the referendum, but, to ensure the probity of the process, the Scottish Government must accept the rulings of the Electoral Commission, not just on the wording but on the key issue of campaign funding. The commission has made known its views on funding, but the Scottish Government are at odds with it. Clearly, we cannot end up in the ridiculous situation where the future of our country is determined by campaigns that have a sum total of 1p to spend per voter over the entire regulated period. We are also concerned that the Scottish Government’s proposed limits would lead to restrictions on the ability of third-party organisations, such as trade unions and businesses, to participate fully in the campaign. As I have said, the length of the campaign offers the opportunity for a full and robust debate on Scotland’s future, and surely an informed and knowledgeable voter is worth more than a penny.
Although the order will formally pass the relevant powers to the Scottish Parliament, much of the detail about how the referendum will proceed is contained in the memorandum of agreement. The status of this agreement has been the subject of some debate, however, so will the Secretary of State or the Minister confirm the status of the agreement? Does it legally bind the parties concerned? If not, what legal advice have they received regarding its status? We would have preferred the order to contain the level of detail in the memorandum, but we understand the practical considerations involved, and, as I said at the outset, the agreement and order, if taken together and if followed in the spirit and the letter, provide the basis for a fair, legal and decisive referendum. People in Scotland will not look kindly on any attempt to ignore or wilfully reinterpret the agreement or on any party playing party politics with that. Understandably, that would be seen as cynical and disingenuous.
With this order, we come one step closer to the 2014 referendum and an historic decision for the people of Scotland. The tone and tenor of our debate have to match the aspirations we have for it, so we have to move away from the confusion and muddle that have characterised too much of the discussion so far, grasp the nettle and deal with the difficult and challenging issues facing Scotland. That is what the Labour party is doing and will continue to do. The debate cannot simply be an accountancy exercise; it must be a debate where we lay out our alternative visions for the future of Scotland and its people; and a debate that meets the aspirations of generations of Labour advocates of devolution.
If I may make further reference to Donald Dewar, let me say that introspection will not solve our problems, and nor will a preoccupation with constitutional points scoring. Responding to the needs of the Scottish people is what matters. In passing the order, we will pass another milestone towards a referendum in which the Scottish people will have their say on whether to break with a partnership of 300 years or continue in the family of nations that is the United Kingdom. “Section 30” is a technical term and will not grab the imagination of too many Scots, but it will usher in a debate of enormous magnitude in which the future of families, industries, services and much else will be at stake. Today is the clarion call to get on with the substance of the issues and to determine the arguments that look to the future of that great country of Scotland.
Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)
I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute what I anticipate to be briefly to this debate and in support of the opening Front-Bench speeches, which I think we have all appreciated, to a greater or lesser extent.
I begin with a personal, if perhaps philosophical, point: I have never had any difficulty, during my career or personal and private life, with the fundamental distinction —a decent, honourable and everyday distinction—between those of us who consider ourselves lifelong nationalistic Scots and those who fundamentally consider themselves political nationalists. One thing that surprises me, not altogether but somewhat, is the coyness at home from within the nationalist camp about the debate—which will, one hopes, be given further impetus by the passing of the order—and how it will develop and what will happen, depending on the outcome of a referendum. That seems rather to miss the point. To a nationalistic Scot, putting the issue of independence fairly and squarely in front of the electorate in a referendum and, in those time-honoured words, hoping for a legal, fair and decisive outcome, is a perfectly legitimate, democratic and honourable thing to do.
Equally, however, just as those of us who are still deeply committed to electoral reform—despite last year’s massive setback in losing the referendum so decisively—are not going to give up our belief in electoral reform, so political nationalists are not going to give up their beliefs, and why should they? I have lifelong friends—not active in politics—who have voted SNP come hell and high water. It might be high water now, but there have been days of hell, as all political parties have experienced over the decades. Who knows? Those days might come round again.
The First Minister’s statement that the referendum would settle the issue for a generation was an interesting, if perhaps unnecessary, one—something of a hostage to fortune. I hope that it will settle the issue for a generation—in the minds of most Scots I think that it will, if the referendum is seen to be legal, fair and decisive—but, in the mind and the heart of a political nationalist, it cannot be the final word on the matter. It will be a never-ending referendum, given that the nationalist cat is out of the bag, and we have to be honest about that with the people of Scotland. The Scottish national party has to be a bit more upfront with the people of Scotland to that effect as well. Either that, or the party signs up to the words of the First Minister, when as party leader several years ago he said that the referendum would, at the very least, settle the matter for a political generation. That would be in the best interests of Scotland, the body politic and the long-term economic prospects of the country. This afternoon provides a very good opportunity for SNP Members to subscribe to the words of their own leader, now First Minister of Scotland, and to create a degree of calm and assuredness on the other side of the referendum, whatever the result.
Fiona O'Donnell
We will be sparring again on Saturday night in a Burns supper at Lochaber high school. Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why he thinks the SNP turned down the offer from Wendy Alexander to “bring it on” in the last term of the Scottish Parliament?
Mr Kennedy
Over many years, the more I have heard from successive honourable and very good friends, such as those sitting on the SNP Benches right now, the less I have sought to try to explain anything on behalf of political nationalists. That, I think, is altogether a bridge too far. I have had a hard enough time over 30 years trying to explain the Social Democrat party, the alliance, the Liberal Democrats, the meaning of federalism and all the rest of it, without taking on additional baggage that is, I am glad to say, somebody else’s responsibility.
My second point relates to the issue of the nature of the Scotland that we have now, and what that should tell us, as we pass this order, about the conduct of the debate—the factual and political debate that will ensue. Like others who were in this Chamber at the time, I am reminded of the dog days of the Thatcher and then the Major Administrations, who set their faces like flint against any prospect of Scottish devolution, despite it being
“the settled will of the Scottish people”,
as the late great John Smith said, as evinced through vote after vote in ballot box after ballot box over election after election the length and breadth of the country. The best we got was the charade of a travelling circus, courtesy of Michael Forsyth, called the Scottish Grand Committee, which would jet into Stornoway and jet out after a few hours, having shed little in the way of light on matters. In fact, as time went on and parts of Scotland got more wise to what was happening, it generated a well-organised local or regional demo at the expense of the Conservative Government on the issues of the day that were pertinent to the borders, the Western Isles, the highlands or wherever.
As that went on, and as all three political parties experienced that frustration, I think we were against what we saw as the undemocratic control of Scotland and certainly the deeply unhealthy centralisation of power here in London. An awful lot of us voted yes with enthusiasm for devolution and welcomed the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, although—I will be honest—we never anticipated, particularly under the voting system used, that one day a majority SNP Government would be returned. I congratulate SNP Members on that historic breakthrough. We also never anticipated that a majority SNP Government in Holyrood would display the self-same centralist tendencies that were the hallmark of the Thatcher and Major Administrations. In particular, those who represented parts of Scotland outside the central belt in the outlying parts of Scotland—I know that this feeling is shared by some right hon. and hon. Members representing central belt constituencies, too, not least as far as local authorities are concerned—did not anticipate or vote for a devolutionary process that was transferring over-centralised power in the south-east of England to over-centralised power in Holyrood and across the central belt of Scotland.
Sir Malcolm Bruce
Does my right hon. Friend share the concern of my—and, I expect, his—constituents about how effectively we will be policed in future with the absence of a highland or Grampian constabulary and a police force centralised in the central belt?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The right hon. Gentleman anticipates my comments. While his resumé of historical progress towards this point has been fascinating, I need him to come back to the contents of the order rather than to venture into wider political discussion.
Mr Kennedy
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. My central point, which is directly relevant to what I have been saying, is that, as has been pointed out, this order is historic, following on as it does from the 1988 Act. Why? It is historic because it transfers and devolves a fundamental, absolute and substantial power to Holyrood and to the Government of the day who have the majority in Holyrood. In so doing, we must look at the lessons of the past five years, because Holyrood—and, in particular, the SNP Government at Holyrood—having been handed this power, must handle it with a far greater sense of decentralisation and recognition of a Scotland that is much more diverse and not just centred on the interests of one political party and one political source of power. That is why, I believe, the decision we seem to be reaching unanimously this evening is so pertinent. It provides an important caveat that needs to go on the record.
Let us look to how Holyrood is going to handle this matter. Others, not least the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) with her 12 years of experience in the Scottish Parliament, are much better versed in these matters than me. As an interested Scot looking at recent developments in Holyrood, however, I would have to say that any fair-minded person cannot be that encouraged by what we have seen so far. Two senior Ministers, the First Minister and his deputy who is now taking over control of constitutional affairs, have at the very least—I put this as mildly as I can in the spirit of unanimity that seems to be abroad across the Chamber this afternoon—given every impression, until caught out, of being willing to play somewhat fast and loose with authenticity and the correct version of events. That applies not just to their political competitors and opponents, but to the Scottish people. That sense will not serve them well and it will not serve well the process being taken on or the responsibility that goes with it when the House passes this order.
We have all had our years of political girn—first as far as Westminster itself is concerned and now from the Government in Holyrood where Westminster is still concerned. We are moving from that into the politics of fundamental choice. This is obviously a necessary, welcome and historic order. Let me pay great tribute not only to the calm, constructive and measured way in which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has handled this matter on behalf of the coalition Government here, but to the modicum of maturity and reasonableness that he has brought to the debate both this afternoon and over recent months. That characteristic contribution will well serve all of Scotland and the electoral democratic process, as the next year to 18 months of debate unfolds.
We are moving towards the politics of choice. As we are trying to make life hard, at least for the Hansard reporters this afternoon, let me say that the responsibility will transfer to Holyrood in due course—and a great responsibility it is—and most of all, in being entrusted with that responsibility, Holyrood must not turn a stooshie into a stramash.
Mr Alistair Darling (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy); I agree with just about everything he has said this afternoon. I shall not talk so much about the merits of the debate on independence, but deal with some procedural matters. Before I do so, let me say two things. First, depending on when the winding-up speeches occur, I may be absent from the Chamber. I shall try not to be, but I apologise if I am. Secondly, I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, not least to the fact that I am a director of Better Together—a company formed for the purposes of fighting in the referendum campaign. In the light of what I have to say, that may be of some relevance.
As I said, I do not want to talk about the merits of the independence debate, as there will be plenty of opportunities for others to do so. I would like to talk, however, about the central role of the Electoral Commission. As has been observed by both the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber and the right hon. and learned Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell), by virtue of passing the motion we are passing all responsibility and authority from this House to the Scottish Parliament. There is absolutely nothing wrong in that; I support that. In practice, the transfer is not just to the Scottish Parliament but to the SNP, which runs the thing as a pretty tight ship—opposition is not usually tolerated—and not just to the SNP, because, as we know, the SNP is very much run by one individual. We need to be aware that that is what we are doing.
I want to concentrate on the role of the Electoral Commission. I agree with those Members who have said that it is important not only that the referendum is conducted fairly but that it is seen and accepted to have been fairly conducted. Whatever the result, we want to be in a position where we accept that Scotland had its say and reached its verdict, and then let us abide by that. I know that the First Minister said that the referendum would settle the matter for a generation, but I think he meant that that would be the case if he won; if our side won, he might take a different view. The observations of the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber on that point are absolutely right.
On the franchise, I do not object in principle to 16 and 17-year-olds having the vote, although if they are going to vote on this matter, they should be allowed to vote on everything else; otherwise it is inconsistent. I cannot help but think that they would never have been allowed anywhere near a ballot paper if the SNP had not at some stage thought that they were more likely to vote for it, although the emerging evidence is that that is not necessarily so. Most of us know that whether someone who has just turned 18 is on the register rather depends on how diligent their mother and father were in getting them on it. If those who are now 15 and 16 are to get on the register by the time the vote takes place, electoral registration officers in Scotland will have to do an awful lot more than they do currently. It would be a real pity if a lot of people who have newly turned 16 and 17 went to the polling station only to be told, “Sorry, you are not on the register.”
Other Members raised the issue of troops who are fighting elsewhere, and that position should be accommodated. I understand why the franchise must be on the basis of that which we currently use to elect the Scottish Parliament, although it is unfortunate that someone who happens to live in Edinburgh and goes to work in Brussels can get an overseas vote, but if they happen to be sent to London, they cannot. That will cause some ill feeling. The hon. Member for Corby (Andy Sawford) raised the point, but I think there are limits to what we can do.
I want to touch on two issues in relation to the Electoral Commission: the question itself; and the campaign spending limits. My view is that the Electoral Commission should act as the referee, and I hope that it will go for a question that is clear and simply understood, without cant or tilt one way or another. There are those who say, “Everyone will know what they are voting on when they go to the polling station,” and perhaps they will, but in that case there is no reason to have a slanted question. Any impartial observer would say that the question proposed by the Scottish Government is slanted. People on both sides have mentioned the problem that the SNP is the player and the referee at one and the same time, which does not strike me as fair. I hope that it will accept what the Electoral Commission has to say on the wording of the question.
It is noteworthy that the agreement signed by both sides last October explicitly says that the UK Government
“regards the guidance of the Electoral Commission as a key consideration”
and goes on to say that the UK Government have so far followed that advice. It then says that in the event of a departure from the Electoral Commission’s advice, there would have to be stated reasons. That suggests that both parties were clear that the Electoral Commission’s role was impartial, and that there was an assumption that they would accept whatever it proposes. It is, therefore, disappointing that before the ink was dry on the signatures, we heard from senior members of the SNP that the Electoral Commission could say what it wanted, but it would ultimately be the SNP’s call. That would be unfortunate, in relation to both the wording of the question and the spending limits.
We have not had many referendums in this country, but the turnout in them has been pretty poor: the average is just over 50%. It would be a great pity if the biggest decision Scotland will ever make—whether to stay in the United Kingdom or to leave—was taken on a low turnout. On both sides of the argument, one challenge will be to engage and hold the attention of the Scottish public and enthuse people to come and vote in October 2014, which is one reason I hope we can concentrate on the merits of the respective arguments rather than anything else. Even in the Scottish elections, the average turnout is just over 50%. The turnout in the alternative vote referendum was only 42% —no surprise there, some might say. It is not exactly a harbinger of good things to come. By contrast, international referendums have a much higher turnout: 95% in Quebec in 2005.
If we are to engage people in Scotland, make the referendum a success, and ensure a respectable turnout so that there is a clear mandate, that involves spending some money. We cannot fight such campaigns on fresh air. Everybody in the Chamber knows that parties must spend money in elections, but the Scottish Government’s proposals will mean that the ability of both campaigns to spend money to engage people’s attention will be severely curtailed. Even the Electoral Commission’s proposals are quite a restriction, in comparison to what was allowed to be spent in the 1997 referendum. I hope that the Electoral Commission will continue reconsidering these matters and recognise that while nobody likes the idea of spending lots of money on a referendum campaign —I am not arguing for so much money that we have television adverts and American-style campaigning—the basics such as sending out leaflets to people and raising awareness of the issues are very important.
I understand well why the SNP has made proposals that would severely curtail such spending—it looked at its position, and everybody else’s, and thought, “We are in charge, why not move it to benefit us?” That really is not satisfactory, however, especially when we bear in mind that the Scottish Government enter into the purdah period, it would appear, only a month before the contest. We have only to look at what has been going on in the last couple of years. The Scottish Government and the SNP seem to be one and the same thing when it comes to the referendum—the entire effort of the Scottish Government is now being directed towards the referendum. I am afraid that I do not have confidence that the permanent secretary at the Scotland Office will have any control over the SNP. I suspect that, even if he gets round to raising the odd word of concern, he will be told in no uncertain terms where to go. Public money is being used on one side, and those of us on the other side who have to raise the money ourselves will find it very difficult to compete, especially in the last four months of the campaign.
Mr Kennedy
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman —who, in Better Together terms, is my right hon. Friend—for giving way. What he says about the current governance of Scotland, against the very long referendum backdrop, is undoubtedly true. As he will probably know from the inside, and as I experienced from the outside during the period of Prime Minister Blair’s leadership, in private discussion in which I tried in those days to encourage him to go down the route of a referendum on a single currency and on what proved to be the dead duck of the proposed European constitution, in both cases he said that he had taken advice from previous Labour Government figures who were still around and who remembered the experience of the European referendum of years ago, and from the top of the civil service. Both sources of advice were unanimous on one point: in Westminster or Whitehall terms, a referendum would suspend the normal business of government for about six months. Look at what the referendum under discussion has done already and how much worse it is liable to get if the timely warnings of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) are not heeded.
Mr Darling
I do not think that I was always party to the advice taken by my friend and former colleague Tony Blair, but I do remember something of the discussions, and the right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we are the best of friends as far as Better Together is concerned. We may have parted company on the single currency 10 years ago, but we probably would not do so now. We are all friends when it comes to the single currency, and who knows? That may even include the nationalists.
Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
In respect of the single currency, I expect that my right hon. Friend, like me, welcomes the fact that the House is full of sinners who have repented.
Mr Darling
I fear that we are about to exhaust your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker, but my hon. Friend is probably right.
I think that in a contest such as this, the Scottish public will expect to see fair play. It would be unfortunate if, during those four months, the Scottish Government were allowed to spend money here, there and everywhere, with Ministers making announcements—and it is, after all, our money—while those on the other side were completely hamstrung. There are very strict restrictions on campaigns, on other political parties, and, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), on trade unions, voluntary organisations, businesses and so on. I consider that to be unfortunate not because I want vast sums to be spent—in some ways, it is best to keep expenditure as low as possible—but because I think that we need to spend some money if we want a good turnout, and if we want to assuage people’s thirst for information.
Mr Darling
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that thirst for information has been evident, not least in his constituency last week. If he would care to turn up to one or two meetings, he would be asked quite a few questions which I think that he and his colleagues need to answer.
Pete Wishart
Unlike the right hon. Gentleman, who was busy spreading his anti-independence message, I was here in the House last week to vote against the Conservative Government’s Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill.
The right hon. Gentleman may have heard the Secretary of State speak on “The Politics Show” last Sunday about the preparations being made by the UK Government and the amount of paper that would be generated in the form of what he confirmed would be pieces of Unionist propaganda effectively talking down any case for Scottish independence. It is not the Scottish Government who are spending money on this; it is the UK Government.
Mr Darling
What irritated members of the SNP so much last week was that wherever I went in Scotland more and more questions were asked about them, and as that fact became more and more widely reported, it really did rile them.
As for what the UK Government are doing, they will be producing a series of papers on key matters such as European Union membership. The hon. Gentleman cannot blame them for doing that, given that last autumn his own party got into a terrible muddle when it turned out that the legal advice to the effect that nothing would change did not even exist. If the hon. Gentleman will not answer the question, who is to stop someone else from answering it?
Right at the end of the year—and it will not be until the end of the year—the SNP will produce its own White Paper. There will be a degree of balance between the two sides, and people will be able to pick and choose what they believe. Let me get my retaliation in first, and say that if the SNP’s White Paper is anything like the other material that it has produced on this subject, it could well be nominated for the Booker prize for fiction next year. Anyway, my basic point is that both campaigns must be funded adequately to ensure that there can be a proper and thorough debate.
I support the order. This is the right thing to do: no one can have any quarrel with that. I just hope that as these matters are discussed in the Scottish Parliament, people will go out of their way to ensure that the process is impartial, and that, in particular, the Electoral Commission will be allowed to act as a genuine referee. It should make the calls. It will probably disappoint both sides from time to time, but it is better for someone independent to hold the ring than for one of the participants to do so.
Rory Stewart (Penrith and The Border) (Con)
I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and my colleagues for allowing me to contribute to the debate. I feel that it is very difficult for someone who represents an English constituency to speak about this subject.
I want briefly to discuss three questions. First, should there be a referendum at all? Secondly, what are the criteria on which we should determine whether there should be a referendum? Thirdly—this takes up a point raised in the powerful speech of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling)—why do we need more investment in information, and, in particular, the spending of more money on media debates?
The question of whether there should be a referendum is a very big issue. Traditionally, we have not had proper procedures for constitutional change in Britain. The reason this question is so important is that it matters not just in relation to Scotland, but in relation to every constitutional change introduced in this country. Britain is the only advanced democracy left in the world—in fact, almost the only country left in the world—that does not formally distinguish between constitutional law and normal law, and tries to introduce constitutional change by means of simple majorities in Parliament. That cannot be right. Every other country recognises that the constitution exists to protect the people from the Parliament: to protect them from us. We cannot, with shifting single majorities, set about changing the thing that protects the people, which is why every country from America to Italy to Greece to Spain demands super-majorities, constitutional assemblies or referendums.
The answer to the second question—why should we have a referendum about this issue?—is also extremely important, and it too relates to what was said by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West. It involves the very difficult issue of how political institutions such as this Parliament—this building—can define an entire identity. A serious problem with some of the arguments advanced by supporters of the Scottish National party is the way in which they have tried to trivialise the issue. They have tried to suggest that it does not really matter, and that it is possible to get rid of a single Parliament without anything really changing. My constituents are often told that nothing will change, although 12,000 of them registered as Scots in the census and more than 50% of telephone calls made from Carlisle are made to people in Scotland.
In fact, everything we know from every country in the world suggests that the fundamental, defining feature of identity is a political institution. Much more than ethnicity, much more than culture, political institutions keep people together, which is why we must have a referendum.
How do we know that? Well, I know it from my own constituency, because Cumbria was itself a nation. It was a kingdom. For 700 years, Cumbria and Northumbria ruled the kingdom that stretched from Edinburgh in the north to Sheffield in the south. Why does Cumbria not have an identity that crosses the border today? Because it is no longer a political entity. It no longer has a Parliament, and it no longer has a king. Why are French people in France different from French people in Switzerland? For one reason only: their Parliaments split. Why has Britain grown apart from the Commonwealth countries to which it was so close 50 or 60 years ago? Because the political institutions split.
Scotland itself is another example. Why is it a nation? That is a difficult question to answer. Scotland has had Norwegians in the north, Welsh Celts around Strathclyde, Irish sea raiders, and Anglians coming into Lothian. The one thing that holds it together is the community of the realm. It is the political institution that creates the nation. We in Cumbria know why that matters in Britain. Cumbria was a centre point of horror because two Parliaments and two kingdoms split apart. That border created the monstrosity.
That leads me to the question of why more money needs to be invested in the campaign, and why we need more media investigation. The answer is that the issue of political institutions and Parliaments is difficult, and perhaps even boring. It is not stuff that gets people excited. People voting in a referendum will find it hard to follow all the issues without an enormous amount of information. The Scottish National party is, of course, right to say that some of the prophets of doom who suggest that independence will lead to the end of the world are wrong. Independence will not lead to the end of the world, and that is why information matters.
Independence will not cause the war between England and Scotland to start again. Those days of savagery, murder, pillage and rape—what we saw in Cumbria for 400 years—will not return, because the world has changed. Nor will Scotland or England become a failed state. Scotland and England are extremely advanced, educated countries, each with its world-class businesses, and although both may undergo a process of difficulty and insecurity, they will subsequently be able to adjust and thrive. That is not the problem; the problem is something much more difficult and much more elusive, which anyone voting in a Scottish referendum needs to understand but will not be able to understand unless we invest money in enabling the subject to be discussed as openly as possible. That is the importance of political institutions. It is a question of understanding, as we understand in this House, why this place matters. Why does it matter that Scottish and English MPs sit together in a single Parliament? It matters because it provides the formal process for mutual consideration.
The SNP is again absolutely correct that, theoretically, there is nothing to stop Scotland being friendly to England or England being friendly to Scotland in the absence of a joint Parliament. There is no reason, theoretically, why an English MP could not take into account Scotland’s interests when thinking about their constituency in relation to common agricultural reform or agricultural subsidies, for instance. There is no reason, theoretically, why a Scottish MP in an independent Scotland could not think about England’s nuclear interests when considering the positioning of submarine bases. In practice, however, it is the formal elements of this Chamber and our Committees and Government that force us to think about each other.
I sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee. It matters that the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Mr Roy) attends that Committee day in and day out, forcing the Foreign Office to answer questions that relate to Scotland. Instead of having to rely on good will, we have created institutions. Those institutions bring together much better people, too.
Fiona O'Donnell
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that good will is under threat, as well as the institutions? What would be the effect on his constituents of an independent Scotland having a substantially lower corporation tax rate than England?
Rory Stewart
That is a good question, and there are many other similar questions we might ask. It is easy to come up with hypothetical examples—such as that corporation tax point—of ways in which people could grow apart, but the key point is that, without a United Kingdom, there will be no formal processes and incentives to think through such matters. At present, however, we create the forums.
I am only three months married, so I hesitate to say this as I do not know what on earth I am talking about, but it strikes me that formal institutions such as marriage force people to discuss things, to compromise and to think in ways that we might not if that formal institution were not in place. [Interruption.] Perhaps I am wrong about that, however. It was foolish of me to hold forth on the importance of that institution on the basis of just three months of married life.
The institution of the United Kingdom and its Parliament has four key benefits. The first of them is that it brings people together. Over more than 400 years it has brought together incredibly talented people, including people we barely recognise as being Scots or English, who would not have come together if we had not had a United Kingdom. It has brought together leaders of all our parties. We often forget that Scotland produced not just the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), but also William Gladstone and, indeed, the crofter’s grandson, Harold Macmillan. Scotland produced the ideas, the culture and the nation that challenges England and makes the United Kingdom better. Scotland played an important part in creating not just our modern economic theory, but the ideas behind the national health service, and also all the richness of the culture of Britain. Because we have this United Kingdom and this shared institution of Parliament, as our different strengths alter over time, we contain that within a single unity. There was a time when Scottish novels were better than English novels. There was a time when—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I absolutely understand that the hon. Gentleman is setting his major argument in context, and I was following what he was saying, but he is going on a little too long about the context. Please will he return to the subject of the order itself?
Rory Stewart
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I will accelerate towards my conclusion, which involves returning to a very good point made by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West.
All the issues I have raised are extremely complicated. They are issues of history, of culture and of identity. They are issues of the ways in which borders work and parliamentary institutions function. In order for people to be able to vote properly in a referendum and make that simple yes or no choice for which the SNP is pushing, the debate needs to be widened much further. More money needs to be spent, and the media need to get involved. At present the media are far too worried about not being political on one side or the other and are therefore not setting out the arguments and creating the debate powerfully enough. We need to have a proper debate because if an Englishman, a Scotsman and a Welshman together is a joke, an Englishman or a Scotsman on their own is a tragedy.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before we proceed, it might be helpful if I explain my approach to this debate. I expect Members to refer to the order, as that is what we are discussing. I understand that they may want to touch briefly on context or history, but I do not want us to drift away from the issues before us in this very important debate. I have tried to have a very light touch so far, because I loathe interrupting Members. If Members are helpful, I will be eternally grateful; if not, I will, with regret, have to interrupt them.
Angus Robertson (Moray) (SNP)
Today’s proceedings are historic, and it is important to stress that, notwithstanding the din and smoke of political battle and some of the differences and questions aired today, they represent a triumph for democracy, for the democratic process and for a democratic mandate. So far as I am aware, every political party in this House is in agreement about the section 30 order, so I will focus on what we, as democrats, all share: respect for the electorate’s right to determine their governance. There can be no greater democratic choice than whether a people wish their nation to determine for itself how it is to be governed.
If we take half a step back from our party politics, we can see that it is truly remarkable that, notwithstanding our differences, we will today agree that it is for the Scottish Parliament to take forward the arrangements for an independence referendum in 2014. That is remarkable for two stand-out reasons. First, Scotland’s constitutional progress has been a model of democratic, peaceful and civic politics. Secondly, the UK Government and Opposition are endorsing a legal, ordered and democratic path that can lead to Scotland becoming a sovereign state. Today’s agreement to transfer legal powers to the Scottish Parliament to make the arrangements for the biggest decision in 300 years is a huge milestone. It says much about the potential for further respect and equality between the Governments, Parliaments and peoples of these islands.
How have we reached the point of having this section 30 order? The Secretary of State rightly said the key is undoubtedly the result of the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections. The majority of Members returned, including those of the Scottish National party and the Scottish Green Party and the independent MSP Margo MacDonald, support Scottish independence. The scale of the victory was unprecedented. The SNP won every single mainland constituency seat in the highlands, every single constituency in Grampian and Tayside, and the majority of constituency seats in Fife, Lothian, Central, Glasgow and the west of Scotland. In the list vote, the SNP received more votes than the three UK parties combined and was first in all but three constituencies in the whole of Scotland. The result was so overwhelming that the leaders of all three UK parties in the Scottish Parliament resigned.
Given the scale of the victory, the parliamentary majority and the commitment to holding a referendum, it would be unimaginable in a 21st-century democracy not to be able to proceed with a referendum. The UK Government clearly understood that the Scottish Government would go ahead with a referendum, and the Scottish Government understood the advantages of an unambiguous process beyond any potential legal challenge. This shared understanding led to the historic Edinburgh agreement between the Governments, which was signed by the First Minister and the Prime Minister on 15 October 2012, and which has led to the section 30 order we expect will pass without Division today.
The key is to understand that, as far as I am aware, everybody has signed up to the Edinburgh agreement. First, they have agreed that the referendum will be made in Scotland, with the arrangements to be finalised in the Scottish Parliament. The fact that the agreement could be reached showed that the Governments can work together, truly in everybody’s interest, notwithstanding that we have different views on the potential outcome. The Scottish Parliament is the cockpit of the nation, and it is right that the issues of the franchise, the question, the referendum rules and the campaign spending limits should be scrutinised and taken forward there. Nobody has yet criticised the fact that the Government who introduced the legislation for the devolution referendum were in exactly the same situation as the Scottish Parliament will be after the section 30 order is passed.
Jim McGovern
The issue of the referendum question has been raised a couple of times. What will the SNP’s view, or that of the Scottish Government, be on the Electoral Commission’s advice? Will that advice be accepted or ignored?
Angus Robertson
The Scottish Government will be in exactly the same position as the UK Government are and have been in, including when the hon. Gentleman’s party was in government: the Scottish Government will listen to the advice of the Electoral Commission and the Scottish Parliament will then decide. The arrangement is exactly how it was in the past when his party was in government.
Mr Darling
What the hon. Gentleman has said so far is absolutely right, but there is one further thing to say: the UK Government have always followed the Electoral Commission’s advice. We would be interested to know whether the SNP is likely to take the same position.
Angus Robertson
I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman will make his voice heard and that when the section 30 order is passed for Scotland, he will make those views clear. If he had a problem with what is being proposed, he would be opposing this evening’s section 30 order.
Angus Robertson
Of course the Scottish Government will listen to the Electoral Commission’s advice.
Angus Robertson
Now I will make progress.
The referendum will be carried out with Scottish electoral professionals running the vote and announcing the result. That will be co-ordinated through the Electoral Management Board for Scotland and regulated by the Electoral Commission. The poll will, therefore, be beyond reproach. As the Edinburgh agreement says, it will
“meet the highest standards of fairness, transparency and propriety, informed by consultation and independent expert advice.”
The Electoral Commission is included in that. It is in everybody’s interests that this referendum is carried out to the highest standards possible.
I am particularly pleased that the agreement opens the way to the franchise for 16 and 17-year-olds. That is not a new proposal; I was pleased to make my maiden speech in the House in 2001 on this very subject. Many of us, from across the parties, have a long-standing commitment to 16 and 17-year-olds being able to vote, and I am pleased that they will be able to do so. It is absolutely correct that every endeavour should be made to ensure that everybody who should be enfranchised is able to cast their vote.
Perhaps surprisingly, I would like to pay tribute to the UK Government. I pay tribute to the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Minister of State in the Scotland Office and their colleagues across government. Again perhaps surprisingly, I also pay tribute to the Labour Front-Bench team and the Opposition, both here and in the Scottish Parliament. I do so for the part they have all played in getting us this far. No doubt, the questions that have been raised will be pursued after the section 30 order is passed, and that is a good thing. We should all be proud to have reached this stage, and the House will not be surprised that SNP Members express our thanks to the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and Bruce Crawford MSP for the leading parts they have played in securing the Edinburgh agreement.
Soon, all the procedural issues flowing from the section 30 order will be resolved in the Scottish Parliament and we can have the full debate on the proposition that Scotland should again become a sovereign nation.
Margaret Curran
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his warm tribute; I did not anticipate saying that, but I appreciate the tribute. May I ask him to clarify something? As I understand it, the logic of what he is explaining is that it is now for the Scottish Parliament to answer the issues of substance that have been raised today. However, it is reasonable for me, as a Scottish person and as an elected Member representing Scots, to ask him whether he thinks it is reasonable to ask the Scottish Government now to clarify that they will respect and adhere to the recommendation of the Electoral Commission. May I have a direct answer on that?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. May I just remind all Members participating in this debate, including the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), that, tempting as it is to talk to each other, they are supposed to be addressing the entire Chamber by addressing the Chair? That means not having one’s back to the Chair when speaking.
Angus Robertson
I am grateful for your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I have said twice, I look forward to the Scottish Government having the process taken forward with the advice of the Electoral Commission. I am sure that it will be listened to very closely, because we want to ensure that the process continues.
Rory Stewart
I just wish to clarify the hon. Gentleman’s statement. He is saying that his party intends to listen to the advice of the Electoral Commission but will not necessarily commit, at this moment, to taking and following its advice. Is that correct—yes or no?
Angus Robertson
The position will be exactly the same as that of the UK Government: the Scottish Government will listen to the Electoral Commission’s advice and the Scottish Parliament will then decide.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Angus Robertson
I will not give way again, as I have already made the point three times on the same question.
Before having to reiterate the same answer for the third time, I was making the point that the procedural issues flowing from the section 30 order will be resolved in the Scottish Parliament, and that is a good thing. That proposition that Scotland should be a sovereign nation has a long and honourable tradition. In this House, it goes back to long before the permanent parliamentary representation of the Scottish National party, which began in 1967, or indeed before the arrival of the first SNP MP in 1945. It is worth remembering the role of Robert Cunninghame Graham, who was elected as a Liberal MP for North West Lanarkshire in 1886 and was commonly described as the first socialist MP in this House. As the founder and first president of the Scottish Labour party, and the first president of the Scottish National party, he consistently supported independence.
The call for a direct Scottish voice in the world has a long tradition, too. It includes the attempts by the Scottish Trades Union Congress to secure Scottish representation at the Versailles peace talks. For more than 75 years, the SNP has sought to restore Scottish independence through the democratic process. I am extremely proud to follow a great many outstanding democrats who furthered the cause of Scottish self-determination—a vision for all in Scotland, regardless of where we come from. Sadly, some true giants of that movement have recently passed away and will not be here for the referendum, including Jimmy Halliday, the SNP chairman during the 1950s, who passed away just before Christmas. I also reflect on the recent passing of Stephen Maxwell and that a few years ago of Professor Sir Neil MacCormick. I would have wished them all to have been here to be a part of this great debate and decision that we will make in Scotland. We genuinely stand on the shoulders of giants: those who have made the case for self-government and given their time and effort to make progress through the democratic process. This section 30 order is a testament to all who believe in the democratic process, democratic debate and the sovereignty of the people. Our challenge—this is for those on both sides of the referendum debate—is to ensure we do this in a way worthy of the proposition, the opposing case and, most importantly, the electorate.
In conclusion, I believe that the best future for the people of Scotland—a fairer, more economically successful, more outward-looking and internationally engaged Scotland—will be secured by a yes vote in the referendum. I believe we can secure an improved relationship on these islands, based on mutual respect and the social union, which is not dependent on where Governments and Parliaments sit. Let us pass this section 30 order today so that we move on to debate that vision and so that the people make their decision.
Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)
I welcome the debate and the order. I appreciated the tone of much of what the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) had to say, as well as the fact that he acknowledged that the order has all-party support. I would not have guaranteed 12 or 18 months ago that we would have reached this point, and so I want to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I believe that he—to some extent, he in particular—has led the process in a way that has taken us from a situation that might have been confrontational to one that has been consensual. The fact that we have achieved that and that both Governments have come together is something that history will record as absolutely right.
We are, of course, passing the power and the legal right to hold the referendum to the Scottish Parliament, which means, as the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) has pointed out, that we are effectively passing them to the First Minister and the Scottish National party. When my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) asked earlier what influence this Parliament would have over the process once the order had been passed and the Scottish Parliament had control, I must record that from a sedentary position the hon. Member for Moray said, “Zero.” We must recognise that there is an indication that the SNP will seek to run the agenda to get the best outcome for its purposes. Of course, I completely accept that the SNP, as a political party for which independence is the driving force, wishes to do that, but I warn SNP Members about how they conduct themselves in that process.
We all noted the responses to a number of interventions on the hon. Member for Moray, which used what I shall not call weasel words but what were certainly evasive words and suggested that the SNP would listen to, but not necessarily act on, the advice of the Electoral Commission. Once we have passed the order, the SNP has the right to listen to and not act on that advice, but if it does that the people of Scotland will rightly have a deep suspicion that they are not being given a fair and clear choice. I believe that that will go against the SNP’s interests, so my advice is that the more we all work to ensure that the referendum is fair and objective, the more we will all be able to live with the result.
I echo what my right hon. Friend the Member for Skye, Lochaber and Ross—
Sir Malcolm Bruce
I had all the right places, but not in the right order—a bit like Morecombe and Wise’s piano notes. My right hon. Friend’s point is valid: of course nationalists will continue to fight for Scottish independence, whatever the outcome of the referendum, but I do not think that Scotland or the United Kingdom wants years of wrangling that prevents us from getting on with the business of working together to deliver results. It is in everybody’s interests, once we have taken the decision in 2014, that we should live with the consequences for at least a political generation. Indeed, the SNP would need to reflect on changing its relationship with the United Kingdom. Now, it tries to discredit anything and everything done in the name of the United Kingdom in order to further the case for breaking the link, but I believe there will come a point at which the SNP might have to acknowledge that the people of Scotland, if they decide to remain in the United Kingdom, will want their politicians to take a constructive rather than destructive role within the United Kingdom.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
As an Ulster Scot who has seen the strong relationship between Scotland and Northern Ireland—the English and Welsh have such a relationship, too—may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he feels it is important that the campaign and referendum should focus on nuclear power, which affects the whole United Kingdom, the MOD bases, the Army and sterling and monetary matters as well as fishing rights, which affect people in Northern Ireland, and North sea oil? All those issues are important not just to Scotland but to the whole of the United Kingdom. For that reason, they should think very clearly in Scotland before the decision is made.
Sir Malcolm Bruce
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I shall take note of your encouragement, Madam Deputy Speaker, not to go into too much detail, but of course this is a decision that will be taken in Scotland and in which the whole United Kingdom has an interest. I think we have moved on. When the Prime Minister intervened on this issue 12 months ago, he was initially criticised for interfering in Scottish domestic affairs, but people quickly recognised that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has a legitimate interest in the future of the United Kingdom and the right to take part in the debate. It is equally true that the decision on the future of Scotland must be taken in Scotland through a process made in Scotland, which is why we are discussing the order today.
I and my political party have been almost obsessed with the progress of home rule towards federalism for my whole lifetime. Indeed, if we look back across the history of the Liberal party we can see that has been the case for at least 100 years or even, in the case of Irish home rule, 150 years. We not only can but probably have bored people with a considerable amount of detail. That detail proved extremely useful in the process of developing the Scotland Bill through the constitutional convention, and the work that we, the Labour party, the Greens, the trade unions, the Churches and the business organisations did together was influenced by the fact that many of us had thought about it in considerable detail before we had the opportunity to implement it.
It remains a matter of some astonishment to me that the Scottish National party, which lives for nothing other than Scottish independence, appears to have so little command of the detail of what that would involve and is presenting it on the basis of unilateral, unfounded and unsupportable assertions. That is relevant in the context of the time scale on the back of the briefing notes, alluded to by the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West, which point out that the Scottish Government propose to produce a White Paper next November. That is more than two years after they were elected and only a year before we are supposed to make a decision. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out when he intervened to make the case for Northern Ireland, many fundamental questions must be answered. As the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart)—speaking, I would guess, as much for the border as for Penrith—has rightly asserted, these are not questions that can only be answered in Scotland.
Those questions must be answered in Scotland and outside it, which is why the debate must be conducted with recognition that this is not some parochial, internal matter for the future of Scotland. It affects how Scotland might relate to the Bank of England, the European Commission, NATO, the UN and any other multilateral or international organisation. That is of course crucial, but the implications of the change for the rest of the UK are also important. Many people in Scotland will seek to balance those two questions when considering how to vote.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
I am a bit worried that we might be saying that we will never debate the matter of Scottish independence in this Chamber again once the section 30 order has been passed. Will we be allowed to debate and to elaborate on the arguments after the order has been passed? If we pass it today, will that mean that Mr Speaker will never allow us to debate this matter, which is very important for our constitution, again?
Sir Malcolm Bruce
I am sure that the House will have the opportunity to debate it and that the hon. Gentleman will ensure that we do. Of course, we will not have the opportunity to amend or determine the Bill on the referendum, which will be decided by the Scottish Parliament. The hon. Gentleman’s intervention is relevant, as it is important that we recognise that the deal struck in the Edinburgh agreement involved compromise from the UK Government and the Scottish Government. The UK Government have agreed to pass substantial power to the Scottish Parliament to legislate for the referendum, but they have an agreement that it will be on a single, stand-alone question and that the Electoral Commission will at least be involved in the process. Those are all crucial issues and I reiterate my view that the Scottish Government discount the Electoral Commission at their peril. They would be wise to take that point on board. We recognise that it is a compromise, but one made in the spirit of ensuring that we have a democratic vote that we can all accept and support.
This morning, my office took a call from a number of Canadian parliamentarians who are anxious to meet me to discuss the implications from their experience. I have to point out that they are not in favour of breaking up Canada, but are warning of the dangers of a sustained threat to the continued existence of the United Kingdom rather than one that can be resolved by 2014.
Mr MacNeil
Does the right hon. Gentleman think Canadian independence has been a success?
Sir Malcolm Bruce
I think the hon. Gentleman is disingenuous, and knows perfectly well that the issue—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. The right hon. Gentleman cannot say “disingenuous”, although he may not agree with the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar. May I also say that Canada is a bit wide of the order we are discussing?
Sir Malcolm Bruce
Within the order, Madam Deputy Speaker, and the reason why it is time limited, the point is that we need a referendum to take place within no more than two years—sooner would be better. We need to agree that the outcome will not lead to a succession of subsequent referendums, which is what has bedevilled Canada; I think that is the point the parliamentarians are anxious to make.
For those of us who believe in devolution, home rule and ultimately federalism, this process can be a constructive step along the road. My instincts are that the people of Scotland already recognise that independence looks like a step too far; there are too many questions incapable of being answered this side of 2014, least of all by the SNP alone. In fact, the process has focused people’s minds on the benefits of a strong sense of Scottish identity but real influence in the United Kingdom, which gives us a footprint in the world that an independent Scotland would not have.
Many people in Scotland have articulated to me recently the fact that they do not see that independence adds anything to Scotland’s well developed sense of identity, but it would hugely diminish the reach and value that the United Kingdom gives the people of Scotland. That is the reason why we are better together, and my instincts tell me that a majority in Scotland have already decided that independence is not the way forward. We cannot underestimate the campaign or what the SNP will try to do to persuade people otherwise. We have to ensure that the end of the process brings a result that we can all accept, and that if the people of Scotland vote for the United Kingdom the SNP will also accept that they have to recognise that the people of Scotland voted for constructive engagement with the United Kingdom, not continual disruption.
Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)
I speak to the report of the Scottish Affairs Committee on the subject. I welcome the fact that we have reached this stage and that we are having a referendum. The Committee makes clear our view that the Edinburgh agreement was reached by compromise and consensus between Scots at Westminster and Scots at Holyrood. We congratulate both teams.
It is noticeable that the agreement has been made by Scots, not just between the two Parliaments. Much congratulation has been given to the Secretary of State, but kind words are due to the Under-Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), who also played a role in the exercise, and to their teams who constructively engaged throughout. In the same spirit, the Deputy First Minister, the Business Manager of the Scottish Parliament and their teams should be congratulated too.
The deal was reached by a process of collaboration, discussion and debate. It demonstrates that even though the two sides are far apart on the principle of separation, they were none the less able to come together to debate and agree the best way forward procedurally. That is important.
The Committee takes the view that it is right in principle that the practical details of the referendum be handled in the Scottish Parliament. Once our report was published, I read comments from a member of the SNP, who said that it was grudging. Our report is not grudging about the process; we believe it is right in principle that the procedural details be agreed in the Scottish Parliament, but with that power comes responsibility. The referendum will be Scotland’s shop window on the world, so it has to be handled with pride and probity. We have heard from SNP Members that it will meet the gold standard for election conduct. I hope that is true. As we said, we fear the worst but hope for the best.
We need to look at how agreement about the process will be handled in the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Affairs Committee may diverge from some of my colleagues on the role of the Electoral Commission. In line with how the deal in Edinburgh was reached, we take the view that the best possible option is for the two campaigns themselves to come to agreement. It is better that the participants in the referendum reach agreement on all the procedures. If that fails—if it is not possible—it will be appropriate for the Electoral Commission to play a role.
The title of our report asks, “Can a player also be the referee?” We have some doubts about whether a player active on behalf of only one side can be trusted to set fair rules for something as crucial as the referendum. If consensus cannot be achieved, we want the impartial Electoral Commission to guide us as to what should be decided.
The third and worst option—below consensus and below the Electoral Commission: at the very bottom—would be the pursuit of factional advantage, which could be described as the “aggregation of marginal gains” by the majority with control in the Scottish Parliament and who dread defeat. The point has already been made that the Scottish Government control the Scottish Parliament and they are both the creatures of the SNP. There is genuine fear that at every stage of the process, they will seek to shave advantage, steal inches and make marginal gains on the principle that mony a mickle maks a muckle—that is a test for Hansard.
It is important that scrutiny of the section 30 order and its implementation does not end with its passage through the House. Those of us who are elected by Scots in Scotland, such as my parliamentary colleagues and me, must remember that we represent a larger number of Scots than Members elected to the Scottish Parliament, as turnout in our election was at least 10% higher. If anybody can claim the right to speak on behalf of Scots in Scotland it is us.
We began our investigation by seeking to clarify where power lay for the determination of the rules of the referendum. It is clear and, I think, universally accepted that as of now the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to hold a referendum. Until recently, the Scottish Parliament was unwilling to accept that and prevaricated for a long time over calls for a second question, which it has now abandoned. That prevarication and procrastination delayed both the introduction of the order and the legislation that will come under it, and thus the referendum itself.
It is now clear that the Scottish Government accept that the Scottish Parliament does not have the power to run a referendum or to determine the rules, and that they can only conduct a referendum to dissolve the United Kingdom if the necessary powers are granted to them. When granting such powers, especially as we will no longer have an influence on how they are conducted, we have a particular responsibility to satisfy ourselves not only that the correct powers are being transferred but that they will be used in accordance with the agreement between the Governments, which is related to the order.
I welcome the fact that much is made in the order of the role of the Electoral Commission. Guidelines are set and there will be no second question. There is a deadline for the length of time that the process can run. The Scottish Parliament can and will be held to account, not only by MSPs but by the people of Scotland on the extent to which it abides by those rules. The Committee and I particularly welcome the fact that the statement accompanying the section 30 notice expressed the view that arrangements should meet
“the highest standards of fairness, transparency and propriety, informed by consultation and independent expert advice.”
That is an exceedingly high standard, and I hope that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament will live up to it.
Mr Donohoe
My hon. Friend is making a powerful argument on the need for the Scottish Government to give some form of assurance to the Scottish people as to whether they will accept the position of the commission.
Mr Davidson
I will come on to that, because we want to place on record our unanimous view as a Committee. That is important, because the membership includes many people who disagree about many things, but there is unanimity on the fact that a referendum will take place, and we very much welcome the steps taken to bring that about. We are of the view, and we wish to make this explicit, that the question of Scottish separation or independence is something that only the Scottish people can decide. Whatever their views, people in the rest of the United Kingdom must be bound by that decision. If, on the other hand, the Scottish people confirm that they wish to remain part of the United Kingdom, we echo the words of the First Minister, who said that the question of separation should be regarded as firmly settled for a generation or more.
Translating the question of “Made in Scotland” into the detail, we think that it is right that the legislation should be introduced in the Scottish Parliament, which will determine the timing and the franchise, subject to the involvement of the Electoral Commission. The wording of the question and the administration of the referendum will be decided by the Scottish Parliament. We do not accept, as I said earlier, the self-serving argument made by the Scottish National party that the Scottish Parliament already has those powers, and that in some way it and it alone has the right to express a view. In the interests of transparency and fairness, and in the interests of devolution, for which many of us here have spent a long time fighting and arguing, we believe in principle that the Scottish Parliament is the appropriate place for those to occur.
We strongly believe that transferring those powers to the Scottish Parliament makes it essential to deal with the issue of losers’ consent. Those who lose the referendum cannot turn round and say that they were cheated if they were responsible for drawing up the rules. There is a heavy burden on the SNP to accept the fact that it cannot subsequently complain that the rules were drawn up unfairly. It cannot cry, “We wuz robbed” if it was responsible for drawing up those rules. With the transfer of that power comes the responsibility to accept the result, as we have said, for a generation or more.
The question of how those powers are exercised brings me back to the aggregation of marginal gains, and the SNP’s intention to seek to gain partisan advantage from every aspect of the referendum process. It has been given the opportunity to twist the rules, and unfortunately it is our expectation that that is what it will try to do. It is difficult for any party in those circumstances to be both a player in the game and to try to exercise the role of a neutral referee, which is why we are of the view that, ideally, consensus should be reached on the rules and regulations. Failing that, the role of a neutral referee is essential.
We are concerned about the timing of the referendum. The Secretary of State said that the process was initiated by the UK Government, who produced a timetable that demonstrated that it would be possible to hold a referendum in 2013. Even though Scottish Ministers in the Scottish Parliament have promoted a referendum on independence since 2007, they failed to introduce a referendum Bill in the Scottish Parliament between 2007 and 2011. The Scottish Government were elected with an overall majority in May 2011, but showed no interest in promoting their core policy until the UK Government issued a consultation document in January 2012. Since then, the Scottish Government have taken every possible opportunity to delay, and they intend to delay the referendum as long as possible in 2014. We very much welcome the fact that the UK Government insisted that the referendum could not be delayed beyond the end of 2014, although we believe that that is unduly long, and that the referendum could and should be held much sooner.
We see no reason for delaying the referendum until the end of 2014, except for perceived partisan advantage. The referendum will be timed to take place after the anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn, which is celebrated mainly because Scots slew large numbers of English people, and after the Commonwealth games in Glasgow. The fact that those events will take place before the referendum gives people the opportunity to celebrate the politics of identity and ethnicity. We thought that Scotland in the 21st and 22nd century would be looking forward, and would be progressive and positive. Celebrating the murder of hundreds or thousands of English people does not necessarily provide the best base on which to move forward. The timing of the referendum to celebrate that ancient battle gives entirely the wrong message to the world about the spirit motivating modern Scotland.
Not only does the delay cause general inconvenience to business and uncertainty but, in relation to the shipbuilding industry in my constituency, it puts a substantial number of jobs at risk by conflating the timing of a referendum with the timing of major orders. We are about to produce a report that will show the difficulties for the future of the shipyards caused by the timing of the referendum. We hope that the Scottish Parliament will take that into account and decide to bring the referendum forward so that it is held much earlier than the end of 2014. We think that the delay has been imposed purely for partisan advantage, and we can see no other logical reason for it, and we condemn undue delay.
John Robertson
My hon. Friend represents part of the Clyde—I represent the other part—so he will know how important it is to achieve stability when documents on the future prospects of our Navy are being drawn up as we speak. We need to make sure that the Clyde produces the kind of ships in future that it has in the past. The prevarication that we have seen will cause exactly the opposite result, and means that people are looking at other areas in which to build ships.
Mr Davidson
I agree. My colleague is in a similar position to me, and that is why as a local constituency Member I am enthusiastic about promoting the notion that, as referendum results will be counted constituency by constituency, if my constituency votes to remain part of the United Kingdom it should be allowed to do so, in order that it can continue to gain shipbuilding orders from the United Kingdom. We are prepared to enter into an alliance with Orkney and Shetland so that we can have oil and ships and those other matters. Whether or not other people wish to join that alliance I will leave to them. [Interruption.] Well, we have received approaches from other constituencies, saying that home rule for Govan and surrounding areas linked with the rest of the United Kingdom should be encouraged. I am confident that, certainly in my constituency, we will have a no vote in the referendum.
Mr Kennedy
The Chair of the Select Committee makes an intriguing argument, which I have heard him make before. How does that sit alongside his argument that as good democrats the SNP must accept the result?
Mr Davidson
I will accept the result, and if the result is that my constituency votes to remain with the United Kingdom, it should be allowed to do so. What better way is there of accepting the result? If we vote to remain with the United Kingdom and are allowed to do so, we would not contest the result in any way. I hope that has the merit of clarity.
I return to my role as Chair of the Select Committee and the question of the franchise. Properly, as I indicated earlier, this is a matter for the Scottish Parliament to determine, although we are uncomfortable with the fact that using the electoral register for local government means that EU citizens who are resident in Scotland but are not British citizens will not be able to vote in a British general election, but will be able to vote to break up the United Kingdom.
That is an anomaly with which we are not happy. It means, among other things, that somebody who arrived, say, from eastern Europe a couple of weeks, virtually, before the last registration date will be able to vote, whereas somebody who has lived in Scotland all their lives and has temporarily gone down to England or abroad might not be able to do so. We think in principle that those who have strong ties, commitments and loyalties to Scotland should be able to vote in the Scottish referendum. We have expressed that view. In line with the spirit of devolution, however, we want to leave it to the Scottish Parliament to determine exactly how that is handled.
Jim McGovern
As my hon. Friend knows, I am also a member of the Scottish Affairs Committee. Does he find it somewhat odd that the former England football captain, Terry Butcher, will be entitled to vote in the referendum, but Sir Alex Ferguson will not?
Mr Davidson
Indeed. These are anomalies and the Scottish Parliament has to show its maturity by being prepared to tackle them. There are no ideal answers in these circumstances. We must recognise that many of these issues are difficult and I will return to some of them, if I can.
The first issue that we want to tackle is that of 16 and 17-year-olds. This is properly an issue for the Scottish Parliament to handle. However, it is essential that the Scottish Parliament makes sure that if 16 and 17-year-olds are able to vote, they all are on the register. I recognise that there will be organisational difficulties. Administratively, the problems will be extreme. I am not entirely clear how we are going to avoid a situation where, potentially, 14-year-olds are registered.
Margaret Curran
I note that the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee is reporting to the Chamber the findings of the Committee, which has gained much respect for the work that it has undertaken. Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that we are listening to him without the presence of any SNP Members to hear him? That is disrespectful to the Committee.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. With respect to the hon. Lady, it is entirely up to hon. Members to decide which speeches they listen to, if they are not waiting to speak. Members in the Chamber may draw their own conclusions, but it is not a matter of order.
Mr Davidson
Indeed, it is not a matter of order. It is a matter of common decency, politeness and politics. Because the SNP does not control the Scottish Affairs Committee, SNP Members have decided to truant. They absented themselves from the Committee earlier on and have said that they will not come back until the Committee Chair is replaced by someone whom they favour more. The Northern Ireland Assembly does not decide who should chair the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the Welsh Assembly does not select the Chair of the Welsh Affairs Committee, and we should not have a situation where the Scottish Parliament selects the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee.
We cannot have a situation where a party, which originally did not seek a place on the Scottish Affairs Committee and got one only because the Conservative party was prepared to give up a seat for it, then demands that everything changes. That is regrettable but not surprising. It calls into question the genuineness with which the SNP is approaching the whole exercise in relation to the referendum. We have got responsibility and agreement on the section 30 notice. Now will come the issue of implementation. Will it be done on a sectarian and partisan basis or will it be done in accordance with the interests of Scotland as a whole? We wait with interest.
John Robertson
I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour across the water. Does he agree that perhaps the word that is missing here and in many other places is “trust”? For example, trust in what will be done in Edinburgh where, as I have mentioned on several occasions, bullying takes place. We see it in other areas. I am sorry to say that this is another example of the SNP’s bullying—in this case, of my hon. Friend. I am pleased to see him stand up against that. It is important that we trust the Scottish people and the Scottish Government. Does he agree?
Mr Davidson
We certainly have to trust the Scottish people. They are sensible enough to recognise that the SNP is unwilling to engage in debate. It is worth pointing out that at the establishment of the Scottish Affairs Committee, two SNP Members who had previously been on the Committee refused to participate because they found themselves being ridiculed and their arguments destroyed at every turn. They had had enough so they decided that they did not want to come back any more. That is understandable. Nobody likes being defeated in arguments, but it is rather petty and juvenile for them to take their ball and go home.
Mark Lazarowicz
It is surely also fair to suggest that the total absence of SNP Members from this debate, which has been attended by Members from all other parties in the House, indicates that we are entitled to question how far the SNP will indeed listen to our view in the debate about the order when it goes to the Scottish Parliament. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be good if the SNP Members returned to the Chamber?
Mr Davidson
That is correct. How can they claim that they are willing to take all points of view into account if they are not willing to hear them? They withdraw from the Select Committee and from the Chamber when views are expressed that they do not like. I hope my colleagues will in future see it as a badge of honour if their remarks result in the SNP departing from the Chamber. They are obviously raising points that SNP Members feel cannot be refuted.
Let me make progress. We do not want to spend our time obsessing about the SNP truanting when there are important topics to be discussed. The Committee raised the issue of 16 and 17-year-olds and the difficulties of making sure that they are on the register. The Scottish Government and the SNP have had a long time to work through the procedures for that but have not done so adequately. In our view it will not be sufficient for only attainers to be given the vote in the Scottish referendum—those who will attain majority during the period of the register. It will be necessary to make sure, as promised, that everyone who is 16 or 17 years old is on the register.
I return to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Jim McGovern), who serves with distinction on the Scottish Affairs Committee. It is true that not only will Terry Butcher be able to vote and Alex Ferguson will not, but according to the Team GB information that we have, of the 11 Scottish Olympic medallists, only one is reported to be resident in Scotland. If people are good enough to represent Scotland at the Olympics and win medals on Scotland’s behalf, one would have thought that the rules would be sufficiently flexible to allow them to participate in the referendum, and similarly with respect to members of the Scottish rugby team and members of the Scottish football team. We can understand why those people might not want to be publicly known, given the recent results, but none the less, if they are selected to represent the country, one would have thought that they would at least be given the opportunity to vote on whether or not it should be independent.
All that has to be tackled by the Scottish Parliament. In particular, we want the Scottish Parliament to look at the position of Scottish servicemen. Someone who signs up for the services has no control over where they are sent. There are three groups of service personnel—the valuable point was made earlier that this also applies to their families—who have no control over where they are sent.
The first group consists of those who are posted in Scotland. There will be no difficulty in them having a vote, because they will be registered in Scotland. Secondly, there are those who are sent to Germany or furth of—outside—the UK. Under the normal rules, they will be expected to have a postal vote or an absentee vote to allow them to participate in the referendum. Thirdly, those who are posted to England, Wales or Northern Ireland would usually be expected to register where they are based, so they would not be on the local government register in Scotland and, therefore, would not be entitled to vote.
I understand that all those who are in the UK armed services at present will, in future, be given the opportunity to transfer and join the Scottish defence forces, whether they be the army, the air force or the navy. If they transfer, they might be asked to lay down their lives for Scotland. In such circumstances, it seems appropriate that they be given the opportunity to vote on whether or not a separate Scotland should be established. That is perhaps the most clear example of the anomalies resulting from using the local government electoral register. We believe that the Scottish Government have a responsibility to address those issues.
Mark Lazarowicz
My hon. Friend was asked earlier about the position of Sir Alex Ferguson, who, as far as I know, has made his home on a permanent basis, at least for some years, in the Manchester area. Most Scottish troops who are posted abroad or elsewhere in the UK, however, are posted for only a few years. Most of them intend to come back to and reside in Scotland. Is not the key point that, for the most part, people are not leaving Scotland permanently but intend to return to the UK in due course? Someone who works for the European Union in Brussels can still register as a Scottish citizen and as an overseas voter for up to 15 years, but a Scottish soldier living in England cannot do so.
Mr Davidson
I think that there are excellent reasons why anybody who works for the EU in Brussels should be disqualified from voting on any subject, but that is a different issue. My understanding is that those working for the EU in Brussels would be entitled to vote in Scotland in UK elections for up to 15 years. That also applies to those who have retired to Spain and so on, but are not on the local government register.
Alex Ferguson plays a valuable role in my constituency as an old boy of Govan high school. I was going to say that he attends on a regular basis, but perhaps “visits” is a better term: I understand that his attendance was not that great when he was meant to be there, but I believe that it is a bit better now. He visits, give talks, participates and plays a constructive and positive part in the life of the school. It is clearly inappropriate that someone such as that, who has a lifetime commitment to Scotland, is not able to participate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) makes a valuable point about the extent to which service personnel are not given a say on where they will be posted. The same applies to many multinational companies, which post people abroad as part of their employment and career progression. It will be a test of the maturity of the Scottish Parliament to see whether it can find ways of squaring this circle and making sure that the electoral register is inclusive rather than exclusive.
Turning to the wording of the question, we have already produced, as Members present will be aware, a report asking, “Do you agree this is a biased question?” It was undoubtedly the case that every professional and expert with whom we discussed the issue and from whom we took evidence said that the question posed by the SNP was biased. The formulation, “Do you agree?”, is deliberately designed to elicit a positive answer. In such circumstances, I am distressed to hear the essentially weasel words of SNP spokesmen, who refuse to commit themselves to a fair question. There is some justification for what they have said, because I think that, in principle, the Scottish Parliament has to be supreme in these circumstances. However, there is absolutely no reason why the SNP as a political party should not have committed itself to accepting the advice of the Electoral Commission.
Given the hierarchy that has been mentioned, I would have thought that the best alternative is for the two campaigns to agree on the wording, and that the second best alternative is for everybody to accept the views of the impartial Electoral Commission, which has agreed to consider the matter in depth and to submit to the Scottish Affairs Committee not just its conclusions, but its working—as we used to be told in school exams, “Show working.” The commission will demonstrate how it has come to its conclusion. It will not simply spin a top, toss a coin or decide in an arbitrary fashion; it will produce a solution and demonstrate why it believes it to be the fairest one.
There is no reason whatsoever why the SNP as a political party should not commit itself to accepting that solution. I have some understanding of why the SNP would not wish to commit the Scottish Parliament irrevocably to that, because, theoretically, a distinction can be drawn between the Parliament and the Government on the one hand and the party on the other, but the parties involved in the Better Together campaign have given an assurance that they will accept what the Electoral Commission suggests, so I think we are entitled to regret the fact that the SNP has not done so, too.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
The evidence that the Committee took from opinion poll experts was that the question is not just biased, but ridiculously biased, and that no self-respecting polling organisation would ever ask such a question. The Chairman of the Committee is perfectly correct and I hope that the Scottish Government will accept the advice of not just the Electoral Commission, but independent polling organisations.
Mr Davidson
The experts were absolutely clear that no self-respecting polling organisation would use such a biased formulation. To be fair—we have to be fair—they also argued, with some justification, that by the time of the referendum, people will generally know what it is that they are voting for. They will generally know what the question stands for and will be able to make a choice. However, if there is a marginal gain to be made, it should be removed. To come back to the mantra of British Cycling, which is about the aggregation of marginal gains, this is yet another example of the SNP seeking to make even the slightest advantage balance towards itself rather than the other side. This will not sway 50%, but it might sway 0.1% or a fraction of that. However, mony a mickle makes a muckle, as we are well aware, so in these circumstances each example that seeks partisan advantage is to be deplored.
The Committee says that
“the only deduction which can be made is that it”—
that is, the SNP and the Scottish Government—
“wishes to retain the capacity to amend the question so as to affect the result.”
That is the only conclusion that we can reasonably draw.
I have already covered the role of the Electoral Commission in most areas, but I want to touch on spending limits in particular. The Committee drew in a great deal of evidence on this, and we were convinced by that evidence that the ideal pattern would be for the two parties to agree and, failing that, for the Electoral Commission to decide. The Electoral Commission has come out with a view that is at variance with that of the Scottish Government. Notwithstanding that, the Committee and I still take the view that the spending that the commission would allow is too small.
Lindsay Roy
Can my hon. Friend confirm that the amount of spending to be allowed for the referendum is not hugely dissimilar from the amount permitted for the devolution referendum in the 1990s?
Mr Davidson
Yes. The amount that the Electoral Commission is proposing is similar to the cash amount that was allowed in the 1997 referendum, but as a result of inflation, its real value has halved. Our belief is that, for a regulated period of 16 weeks, the spending limits should be bigger. As I understand it, £750,000 works out at 1p per voter per week of the campaign period, and I genuinely believe that that is insufficient. The Scottish Government are suggesting that the figure should be even lower.
This is a good example of how those of us who are active in Scottish politics are free to disagree with the Electoral Commission’s initial proposals. We can campaign for it to change its mind, but, at the end of the day, everyone involved should say that they would commit themselves to accepting the commission’s decision if it does not change its mind. The Scottish Government are unwilling to do that, however. They have reserved unto themselves the right to impose their view—which is presumably what suits them best—on top of, or instead of, the Electoral Commission’s view.
Fiona O’Donnell
The order also transfers to the Scottish Government the power to decide who can make donations to the campaign. What is the view of my hon. Friend’s Committee on foreign donations being made to the campaign?
Mr Davidson
I will come to that in a second.
The Better Together campaign was unequivocal in saying that it would accept the ruling of the Electoral Commission. The yes campaign would not do so, however. It said that it would commit itself on whether to support the Electoral Commission only when it had heard what the commission’s judgment was. That also implies that it might not accept the judgment. Presumably, that position is based on self-interest.
My hon. Friend mentioned donations a moment ago. The clear issue is whether foreign donations should be accepted. Again, there is a difference between the campaigns and again I think that is based on perceived self-interest. The Better Together campaign has said that this is about the United Kingdom and that only people and organisations in the United Kingdom should be able to play a meaningful role by providing financial support. The yes campaign has said that it is prepared, in principle, to accept unlimited amounts of money in bundles of £500 or less from foreign sources. It has set up a front organisation in the United States that is designed to generate organisational support for the yes campaign and for separation. Some of those involved in that have made it perfectly clear, on websites and the like, that part of their function is to raise money for the SNP and its separation campaign.
Some people might have doubts about how much impact small amounts of up to £500 could have. When we took evidence from the True Wales campaign, which took the “no” side in the recent Welsh referendum, it said that virtually all its money had come from small donations. It was able to run an entire campaign almost entirely on small donations. Many of us will remember the publicity that was given to the Obama campaign and others in the United States—most notably, that of Howard Dean—which received a substantial amount of their money from a multiplicity of small donations. So even though the £500 limit might not appear to be a great deal, those donations could be significant when aggregated.
The major question of principle that needs to be addressed is whether the referendum in Scotland can be bought and sold with foreign gold—[Interruption.] I know that some people have heard that term before, but it is true none the less. Should the referendum be bought and sold with foreign gold? The SNP seems to have no scruples about that. However, those of us who are committed to the United Kingdom and to fair elections say that we should abide by the principle of PPERA and the guidance from the Electoral Commission. It is clear from the guidance and the spirit of PPERA, although perhaps not from the letter of it, that foreign money should not be involved in such referendums. Even at this late date, I hope that the Scottish Parliament and the SNP show confidence in their ability to raise money from Scots in Scotland and desist from taking foreign money.
Jim Sheridan
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the nauseating things about some of the people who donate money to the SNP from abroad is that they live abroad to avoid paying tax, and yet they want to tell us in Scotland, who pay our taxes over here, how to live? That includes Sean Connery.
Mr Davidson
I do not wish to name individuals, but a yes campaign is being established in America and I understand the suggestion that Tax Dodgers for Separation is about to be established in Monaco. Whether people will sign up to that group publicly is not clear, but we will monitor carefully where the money is coming from. We want to be clear about whether the SNP intends to name people abroad—whether tax dodgers or not—who contribute to its referendum funds. It has not given an unequivocal statement on that, to the best of my knowledge.
The proposed regulated period is 16 weeks only. It is interesting to note that the Scottish Government and the SNP have accepted the advice of the Electoral Commission on that matter. They are therefore not opposed in principle to accepting the advice of the Electoral Commission. We can only assume that it suits them in the circumstances. The Select Committee has said that the rules that govern the regulated period with regard to openness on donations and finance should also govern the unregulated period. So far, the two campaigns have indicated that they are minded to accept that, but we do not have that down in blood.
In conclusion—[Interruption.] It is true, as is being said by Members from a sedentary position, that the SNP Members have not yet returned to the Chamber.
Jim McGovern
I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that it is deplorable that the SNP Members are not here. Does he agree that the party that claims to stand up for Scotland cannot even turn up for Scotland?
Mr Davidson
Exactly. Equally, the party that claims to stand up for Scotland cannot even sit down and listen for Scotland.
Let me be clear: the Scottish Affairs Committee is positive about what is being proposed. We welcome the fact that there will be a referendum. We welcome the clarification that the Scottish Parliament will be given the legal powers to conduct it, whereas it did not have those powers before. We congratulate the Secretary of State and his team, including the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, and those in the Scottish Parliament who brought the deal about.
We support the deal not only as a matter of principle; we support it because we recognise the essential need to obtain losers’ consent. If they have had a hand in setting the rules, those who lose the referendum will not be able to claim that they were robbed. However, with that responsibility comes the need to ensure that the rules meet the gold standard. We are exceptionally concerned that the right of the Scottish people to have a fair referendum will not be met by the SNP. Those of us who have been elected by people in Scotland must not now wash our hands of this matter, but should continue to campaign to ensure that the referendum is fair and that the Scottish people make sure that anybody who tries to rig the referendum pays a heavy political price.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson). He and the Scottish Affairs Committee, which he chairs, have carried out the important task of putting before the House a wide-ranging report on this matter, and it was good to hear his presentation of points from that report this afternoon.
I wish to put it on the record that it is an absolute disgrace that nobody from the Scottish National party was in the Chamber when the Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee delivered his important and wide-ranging speech. Joking apart—I am joking, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I am disappointed that I am not about to have —[Interruption.] Oh—I am not disappointed. Right on cue the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) comes back into the Chamber. I am delighted that he is here because I was disappointed that there was nobody to argue with me. Nevertheless, it is a disgrace that no Scottish National party Member was in the Chamber to engage in debate with the Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee. Not every word spoken by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West goes without challenge in this House, and it was the duty of Scottish National party Members to be present to challenge anything with which they disagreed in what the hon. Gentleman said on the Floor of the House, and not merely in the media and other places. This Chamber is the forum for discussion about the affairs of our country—our whole country.
I well remember our debates in 1998 on the Scotland Bill that became the historic Scotland Act 1998. I remember Donald Dewar, to whom I pay great tribute for the work he did on behalf of Scotland and the United Kingdom, standing at the Dispatch Box when we debated what is now section 29 of the Act, and saying that it was not his intention for there ever to be a situation in which a Government of Scotland, or Scottish Parliament, would wish to conduct a referendum on the independence of Scotland. I firmly recall those of us then on the Opposition Benches saying, “But there might be and we must guard against it.” He said we did not have to guard against it, but in the end we did. However, history moves on.
I certainly respect the sovereignty of the people, and we now have a Government elected by the Scottish people—sadly—and that is up to the Scottish people and is democracy speaking. We now have a Government who do wish to conduct a referendum on the future constitutional position of the United Kingdom, and therefore it is right for this Parliament to enact this order today to give the Scottish Parliament power to conduct a referendum.
I welcome the Edinburgh agreement. It has been well considered, well balanced, well argued and well presented. The most important part about it is that it requires a referendum to be legal, fair and decisive, and on those counts, like most people who have spoken this afternoon, I have deep concerns about four particular points: the role of the Electoral Commission; the timing of the referendum; the question in the referendum; and the franchise. If those four matters are not correctly dealt with as the legislation to put a referendum in place goes through the Scottish Parliament, that referendum will not command the respect of the people whose future it will decide. We all want the referendum to be decisive. We all want this issue to be over, once and for all, so that those of us in the political world can in future speak about the matters that affect the Scottish people and those throughout the UK on a day-to-day basis, instead of having this prolonged argument about the processes of government.
Let me deal first with the Electoral Commission. I wonder what the First Minister is afraid of. If someone was truly willing to allow the proceedings of their Parliament and the decisions it takes to be properly examined by a properly constituted public body such as the Electoral Commission, they should have nothing to be afraid of. Not wanting the Electoral Commission to scrutinise what is to be done suggests that the First Minister does have something to be afraid of. It suggests that he wants to use political advantage to skew the way in which the referendum is conducted. I am surprised at that, because I have an enormous amount of respect for the Scottish First Minister. He is a brilliant politician and he usually manages to find his way through any argument with incredible rhetorical ability, often winning the point—[Interruption.] I am sure that his representative on earth, the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, is not leaving the Chamber again.
I genuinely pay tribute to the Scottish First Minister for his debating ability, his rhetorical ability and his political ability, so I do not see what he can possibly be afraid of, unless he has something to hide. He should not have anything to hide, because if we are to trust the Scottish people to make this important decision—and I do—we must trust them to make the decision in an open, honest, fair and balanced way. Indeed, it is worrying that when the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) spoke earlier, he took interventions and questions from various Members, but simply would not undertake on behalf of his party—and therefore on behalf of the Government in Scotland—to adhere to what the Electoral Commission says.
Bob Stewart
It seems clear that the reason why the Scottish nationalist party does not want to adhere to the directions of the Electoral Commission, but wants to seek electoral advantage by every means possible, is that it probably realises that the majority of Scotsmen and Scotswomen—and 16-year-old Scots too—want to remain united with the United Kingdom. That is probably why the Scottish nationalists will seek every advantage they can.
Mrs Laing
I am quite certain that my hon. Friend is right. If the First Minister was confident that a vast majority of people in Scotland would vote for Scotland to separate from the United Kingdom, as he wishes they would, he would not be worried about the Electoral Commission, or about spending, the question or anything else. It is because he knows that, actually, the reason he has his majority in the Scottish Parliament at present is because of the circumstances that pertained when people went to the polls at the last Scottish election. They were not voting for Scotland to separate from the United Kingdom; they were voting against the Labour party—but I shall not go down that route now, as you would not allow me to, Mr Deputy Speaker. We all know, however, that that is what—[Interruption.] They were voting against the Conservative party as well, I freely admit it, but that is not the point. The point is that the First Minister of Scotland knows that—he is a clever politician and he can analyse it. He knows the true intentions of the people of Scotland, and that is why he is afraid. That is why he is delaying, and that is why he is messing about with the franchise.
Mr McCann
The hon. Lady is wise not to stray too far from the subject, but party politics is important. Does she agree that members of the Scottish National party are trying to fuse the two issues of party politics and the constitution together, and are making the mistake of underestimating the Scottish people? The Scottish people know that a decision in a general election lasts for five years, while constitutional change will last for 300 years.
Mrs Laing
Yes, the hon. Gentleman sums it up absolutely perfectly. When people vote in any kind of election, the effect is for the short to medium term; when they vote in a referendum, it is for ever—people know that. Actually, I think it is because the First Minister does not underestimate the Scottish people that he is afraid, but he knows what they really are likely to do. We in this House certainly do not underestimate the Scottish people, but I still ask the question: why is the First Minister afraid of the Electoral Commission? If he is not afraid, he should come out now—so should the hon. Member for Moray, who did not do so this afternoon, and the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire who is now, happily, in his place—and tell us that the Scottish Parliament will adhere unequivocally to whatever the Electoral Commission has to say. Well, he is not going to, and the silence speaks for itself.
My next concern is timing. Every business person in Scotland and everyone who is concerned with business and economic prosperity in Scotland will say that the uncertainty of the present situation is damaging for the Scottish economy, and therefore for the Scottish people. It simply does not make sense, having spent decades and decades building up the Scottish National party as a machine with just one goal—to take Scotland out of the United Kingdom—that when at last that party is in a position to do so, it does not but hesitates and will not take action. Again I ask: what are SNP members afraid of? Are they really waiting for the anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn? Are they really expecting some sort of upsurge in nationalist feeling because we are going to have the Commonwealth games in Glasgow? Exactly the opposite happened in the Olympics. Was it not wonderful to see Team GB? Was it not fantastic to see people from Scotland, England and Wales all working together as a brilliant team in the Olympics? The games are not going to fuel nationalism; they will do exactly the opposite.
Sir Malcolm Bruce
Does my hon. Friend not acknowledge that those participating in the Olympic games on behalf of the nations of the United Kingdom will still be part of Team GB and training for the Rio Olympics?
Mrs Laing
Absolutely. The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Let us hope that they train just as well as they did last time and bring in as many medals, as it was wonderful to see and to support. He is absolutely right, so why wait?
Looking at it from the other point of view, however, I was annoyed at first that we were not just getting on with this and having the referendum, but now I discover that the more that one goes into the consequences of Scotland separating from the United Kingdom and the more time we have to examine the consequences in every area of life—every area of government, every area of the economy and every area geographically—the more obvious it becomes that we are “Better Together”. I am now glad that we have many months ahead of us to make the argument, because I am confident that the people of Scotland will see the truth as it emerges and as we examine what the real consequences of separation would be.
I turn next to the question. There is no point asking a question along the lines of: “Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?” That is what the First Minister and the Scottish Government have so far proposed. It is such a biased question that even I would answer yes—of course, Scotland should be, is and always has been an independent country. It is a non-question. There is no point going through the rigmarole of a referendum, spending hundreds of millions of pounds, to ask a meaningless question. If even I would answer yes, the facts speak for themselves: the question is enormously biased.
It is only worth asking a question, if it illuminates the real issue at stake, and the real issue is not about whether someone is proud to be Scottish and proud of their country; it is not about the word “independence” or Scotland being its own country; it is not even about nationhood, rising to be a nation again and all of that; the question is about separation. The difference between Scotland—indeed, the whole of the United Kingdom—before and after a referendum will turn only on the issue of separation. Nationhood will go on; the country will go on; and pride in one’s country will go on, as it always has done and always will do—those things will not change.
The change will be that, if the Scottish people vote for what the First Minister asks them to vote for, Scotland will separate. The key word, then, is “separate”. We must put aside all those other words and ensure that the word “separate” is in the question, because that is what the referendum is really about. Research from MORI and other well-thought-of opinion pollsters shows that, by the time we get to voting day in a campaign as long as this, people pretty well know whether they are on this side or that, but the House should make it clear that we believe that the issue is separation and that therefore the word “separation” must be in the question.
I come next to concerns about the franchise. It appears that the First Minister wants to make the franchise as wide as possible, as long as those who are enfranchised are those he thinks are likely to vote on his side of the argument. Basically, that is what it is all about. Let us consider the fairness, or otherwise, of the franchise. First, various Members have expressed their concerns about 16 and 17-year-olds voting. The hon. Member for Glasgow South West put to us the findings of his Select Committee report in that respect, and I hope that the House will take note of that.
One of my main concerns about 16 and 17-year-olds being able to vote is that, in order to make that happen, 14-year-olds have to appear on the register. It means including the names, addresses and ages of those aged 14 and 15, who are children, not adults. The names, ages and addresses of those children aged 14 and 15 will be available on a public document. That is simply not right, but it is one of the consequences of the crazy, scattergun effect of saying, “Let’s pull everyone into this; let’s let everybody vote; make the franchise as wide as possible”—as long, of course, as it means people who agree with the First Minister.
Mark Lazarowicz
Although there are certain issues about giving 16 and 17-year-olds the vote, there is a quite simple solution to the point raised by the hon. Lady. The names of under-16s should not be made available on a published register or on any register until a few weeks before the referendum period. There are ways of getting round the difficulty.
Mrs Laing
I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but I am not confident about that point. It greatly concerns me that the names, addresses and ages of 14-year-olds would be made public in order to allow them to vote by the time they are 16. At the moment, the name of someone who is yet to be 18 will be on the register more than a year before they are 18. I can cope with that for 17-year-olds, but not for 14-year-olds who are children. I repeat that that is simply not right.
Moving on to other aspects of the franchise, it would appear that some members of the armed forces will be allowed to vote in the referendum, but what about their families or their dependants? What if someone serving in Germany lives with his wife, teenage children and perhaps mother-in-law? The person in the armed forces might be given a vote, but those others would not. That is not fair.
Bob Stewart
I find it extraordinary that because the most Scottish of infantry battalions, the 5th Battalion the Royal Regiment of Scotland, the old Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, is garrisoned in Canterbury—that most English of towns—those serving in it will not be given the vote. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is extraordinary?
Mrs Laing
I certainly agree with my hon. Friend that that is extraordinary, and it is also simply unfair. If the Scottish Parliament wants this referendum to command respect in the United Kingdom and indeed across the world, the franchise on which it is based must be fair and must be seen to be fair. What is being said this afternoon must be taken into account in the Scottish Parliament when it comes to debate how the legislation for the referendum should be framed. It is also unfair that those who are not in the armed forces but who are temporarily out of Scotland, serving their country in some other respect, should not be allowed to vote. It is wrong that they and whoever is with them on their mission, whatever it might be, should not be allowed to vote. Those temporarily out of Scotland who would in other circumstances still be in Scotland will not be allowed to vote.
Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab)
Does the hon. Lady agree that many people in Scotland will find it crazy that Scots in the armed forces posted abroad may well get a vote as their home address in Scotland is on the electoral register, yet Scots in the armed forces who are posted in the rest of the United Kingdom will not be able to vote in the referendum?
Mrs Laing
Yes, that is the worst anomaly of all. People who are out of the United Kingdom are treated differently from people who are in the United Kingdom. I was just coming on to that point, and I am glad that the hon. Lady will agree with what I am about to say. The question is this: why is the franchise for this referendum being based on the franchise for local government elections? This is not a question of local government; it is completely different. Local government elections are about electing people, for four years or so, who look after truly local matters such as roads, pavements, lighting and village halls. I accept that people who are not living in the area and paying council tax should not take part in a local government election, because it concerns local matters. I also accept that people from EU countries, Commonwealth countries, Ireland and so on, who are living in a particular area and paying local taxes, should have a vote in a local government election at that time. Their vote will last for four years—I have no problem with that. But why has the franchise for this historic referendum been based on the franchise for local government elections? [Interruption.] I was hoping that the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire might answer the question. He indicates that he will come to it in due course. That is excellent. We really need an answer to the question. This is not about local government, or local matters, but a huge, historic referendum that affects all Scots and the whole United Kingdom.
Mark Lazarowicz
The answer is simple: the franchise is the same for local and Scottish parliamentary elections. Any choice of franchise will have anomalies, but is it not sensible to make the franchise for the referendum the same as for Scottish parliamentary elections?
Mrs Laing
No, it is not. The hon. Gentleman has answered the question in a factual way—the franchise for a Scottish Parliament election was based on the franchise for a local government election. I know that, but my argument is that basing a franchise on local government elections is not suitable for a historic referendum that will affect Scotland and the whole United Kingdom for a long time to come.
If the franchise had been based on the UK parliamentary elections, British nationals who have been living outside Britain for less than 15 years would have a vote. That would be much fairer, and would cover the point made by the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash), because someone serving in the armed forces in, say, Germany, who has their entire family living with them—who would presumably have been out of Scotland for less than 15 years—would have a vote in the constituency in which they were last based in Scotland. It would make far more sense to base the franchise for the referendum on UK parliamentary elections, because that would allow far more people who are Scottish and who want to have a say in the future of their country to do so.
There is a far more difficult point. Hundreds of thousands of Scots living in parts of the United Kingdom other than Scotland do not feel in travelling the few miles to Carlisle or the few hundred miles to London that they have left their country. Their attitude—I know because I am one of them—is that they are living in a different part of their country from that in which they happen to have been born. That does not mean that they have in any way given up their nationality or their pride in their part of our United Kingdom. It is utterly scandalous that the Scottish Government’s current plans will disfranchise hundreds of thousands of people who were born in Scotland but live in other parts of the United Kingdom. The First Minister of Scotland has said that people from Commonwealth countries can vote on Scotland’s future, citizens of the Irish Republic who live in Scotland can vote on Scotland’s future, and anyone who is a citizen of any part of the enormous European Union who happens to be living in Scotland for a matter of months can have a say in the future of Scotland, but hundreds of thousands of Scots living in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will not have that say.
Pete Wishart
I have been listening carefully to the hon. Lady’s remarks for half an hour or so. All the arrangements to which she has referred during the past 10 minutes were agreed between her party’s Front Bench and the Labour Front Bench, and between the UK Government and the Scottish Government. If she is not happy about the arrangements for the Scottish people to have control over their own referendum through their elected representatives, she can express her unhappiness by voting against the order. Will she do that?
Mrs Laing
No. I am very happy. The hon. Gentleman is trying to put words into my mouth, suggesting that I do not understand or care what happens in Scotland. That is not the case. I am very much in favour of the order, and very much in favour of allowing the Scottish Parliament to conduct the referendum. However, I firmly believe that because the referendum will affect the future of the whole United Kingdom, this House—this Parliament—should also serve as a forum for discussion about its conduct.
Although I do not happen to live in Scotland at present, and although some Members who are speaking this afternoon do not represent Scottish constituencies, I hope that if matters will proceed with good will, the Scottish Parliament will take into consideration what we discuss in this Parliament during the process of giving it the power to hold the referendum.
Iain Stewart
As I understand it, the order in no way prohibits the Scottish Parliament from taking on board the suggestion that my hon. Friend is—very powerfully—making.
Mrs Laing
As ever, my hon. Friend has expressed his view very clearly. That is exactly the point, and that is why it is so important that we are having a full debate today. This Parliament has a voice that deserves to be heard, and people throughout the United Kingdom have voices that deserve to be heard, when it comes to a matter that will affect the future of the whole United Kingdom. I have every confidence that the Scottish Parliament will hear our voices, and will take into consideration what is said in the House this afternoon and throughout the United Kingdom as the matter is debated over the coming weeks and months.
It would not be difficult for a vote to be given to people who live in the United Kingdom, outside Scotland, but who were born in Scotland. Indeed, it would be very easy. I appreciate that my right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will not be able to answer the points that I am making, and nor do I expect him to do so. This is a matter for the Scottish Parliament, but I am using the forum of the House of Commons to make points which I hope will be taken up in the Scottish Parliament. They may be dismissed, but I hope that they will be taken seriously.
It would not be difficult for a vote to be given to people who were born in Scotland, because everyone’s passport identifies the town in which they were born. It would not be difficult to allow a person who can show they were born in Scotland but who is registered to vote in some other part of the UK to apply for a postal vote to take part in the referendum. That is a serious point. I am not points-scoring against the SNP; I am trying to help the First Minister in his quest to broaden the franchise and show that the referendum takes into consideration the opinions of as many people as possible.
There is an irony in all this. If I were a wealthy landowner who owned a property in Scotland as well as a house in my constituency in Essex, I could vote in the referendum, because I would be entitled to vote in local government elections on the basis that I own a property in Scotland. I would not even have to be a wealthy landowner, in fact: if I just owned a little house in Millport—which is, of course, my ambition—I could have a vote in the referendum. However, because I am not wealthy and cannot afford to own a property in Scotland as well as a house in my constituency, I cannot have a vote. As we all know, there are hundreds and hundreds of people who own properties in Scotland but live most of their lives in other parts of the UK who will have a vote in this referendum. It is ironic indeed that the First Minister is taking us back to before the 1832 Reform Act, when the right to vote depended on ownership of land. What a disgrace!
Mrs McGuire
The hon. Lady might not welcome my intervention, because I think she may be in danger of slightly overegging her pudding. My understanding is that people have to prove to the electoral registration officers that they spend the majority of their time in the house at which they wish to be registered. While I understand the hon. Lady’s train of thought, I am not entirely sure that the image she is conjuring up of hordes of people living in other parts of the United Kingdom is accurate.
Mrs Laing
I thank the right hon. Lady for her comments, but my understanding is that people who have two properties in different places can vote in different elections, especially those based on a local government franchise. That is what is wrong here. If this franchise were constructed for the purposes of our historic referendum, rather than as a local government franchise, the problem would be overcome. I am making a serious request: when the Scottish Parliament debates this matter, I urge it to consider giving a postal vote in the referendum to people who were born in Scotland but who are now registered to vote in other parts of the UK.
I welcome the Edinburgh agreement. We all believe in democracy. We in this House believe in the sovereignty of the people. It is right that our Parliament should give the Scottish Parliament the power to hold this referendum, and I look forward to the fight.
Mr Davidson
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I wish to leave the Chamber, but I do not wish my departure to be interpreted as some sort of juvenile stunt. How can I achieve that?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
We are going to miss you, Mr Davidson, but each of us will have to come to terms in our own way with your absence from the Chamber.
Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)
I never thought I would say that I will miss my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson), but I am missing him as he leaves the Chamber now.
I am pleased to have an opportunity to take part in this debate. As I have said in the House before, the matter we are discussing today and the decision on Scotland’s future will be the biggest decision made in 300 years. It will certainly be the biggest decision in our lifetimes.
First, let me reiterate a point the Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West, made in jest, but which is, in fact, serious. Today we have heard the leader of the SNP in Westminster congratulating all parties for working together to get an agreement on this section 30 order. We have heard the SNP’s own campaign and the Yes Scotland chief executive saying, “We want a fair, honest, positive and transparent debate”, but instead what we have seen in this House is a co-ordinated stunt. It was not one Member choosing to go elsewhere because they had another priority—that is a different argument altogether; SNP Members chose to walk out from this Chamber in a co-ordinated way, and that is disrespectful not only to this Parliament, but to Scotland. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) should apologise for that behaviour. The Scottish people will judge the SNP on that very issue. Although the issue we are discussing is the reason why the SNP even exists, only one SNP Member can be bothered to come to the Chamber—and even they can walk out and walk about the Lobby instead of listening to the debate. That says everything about where the SNP’s priorities lie. The SNP’s priority is not Scotland; it is the SNP.
When I joined the Labour party almost 15 years ago—I know that I do not look that old, Mr Deputy Speaker—I did so to fight against poverty and inequality across the world. I wanted to tackle inequality and discrimination wherever they may be found, and to promote opportunities for people, no matter what their background. I had no idea at that time that the first big battle of my political life would be to try to keep my own country together. I recognise that today’s debate is important to us, but it is more important to the people of Scotland and to the people of these isles. That is why we in this place and our colleagues in the Scottish Parliament, from all political parties, must approach this debate and the debate on the future of the United Kingdom in a manner befitting the importance of the poll. This is no ordinary vote. All of us can be removed by the electorate—whether we like it or not, we are transient Members of this place—but the decision in 2014 will last for ever. That is why the terms and tone of the debate are so important.
I welcome the agreement between the UK and Scottish Governments, and I congratulate Ministers on both sides on the hard work that was put in to reach it. However, I wish to sound a note of caution. The Secretary of State talked about making sure that we follow the advice of the Electoral Commission, but I do not think that anybody in this place should be naive about the current make-up of the Scottish Government and the SNP. We have a majority SNP Government in the Scottish Parliament, but that is not a democratic place in the conventional sense; it is a dictatorship of one man sitting in Bute house, who will do not what is in Scotland’s interests, but what is in his own or his party’s interests. We need to be very clear about that as we go forward.
This Parliament has an important role to play. I fully agree that we need to transfer the powers from here to the Scottish Parliament—I fully accept that that is the right thing to do—but every Scottish Member of Parliament in this place was elected on a mandate of the Scottish electorate. My ballot paper did not say “UK Labour party” or “London Labour party”; it clearly said “Scottish Labour party”. My interest here, first and foremost, is to deliver for my constituents in Glasgow. The first and foremost thing for every Scottish Member in this place is to deliver for Scotland. That has to be the case in this debate and in every future such debate, not just in the referendum.
So the UK Government do have a role to play in future. They have a role in terms of the franchise, the question and the framework resulting from the advice taken from the Electoral Commission on the spending limits. We must ensure that there is proper scrutiny in this place of the decisions taken at the Scottish Parliament, particularly in respect of ensuring that the Electoral Commission’s advice is followed.
Let me make it clear that the SNP has won the mandate to hold a referendum—of course it has. The SNP won the right, through its election manifesto, to ask the question of the Scottish people. The SNP has campaigned for independence throughout its existence and this is its big moment. The eyes of the world are on the SNP as it seizes the chance to put its case to the people of Scotland. Equally, however, the people of Scotland have a right to respond decisively and they have the right to have the question asked and answered in a way that is open, transparent, fair and, perhaps above all else, not open to doubt or challenge.
Sir Malcolm Bruce
The hon. Gentleman is making a very good point. Does he agree that the evidence is clear that a substantial proportion of the people who voted SNP do not support independence and if they saw the SNP manipulating the question, that could prove counter-productive in two ways? Of course, it would discredit the SNP but it would also lead to a result that people would find unsatisfactory. Does he agree that it is in the interests of the SNP and Scotland for the question to be agreed by, and to have the confidence of, all parties?
Anas Sarwar
I agree wholeheartedly and, in fact, I would go further. Polling has shown that 45% of the people who voted SNP in 2011, when the party won that overall majority in the Scottish Parliament, oppose independence and support being members of the United Kingdom. We have seen the launch of the Labour for Independence campaign, which has one or a maximum of two Labour members fronting a campaign led mainly by the SNP. In fact, the SNP should be looking to keep its own support rather than trying to look for voters elsewhere.
The Scottish Government, Yes Scotland and the Deputy First Minister have all said that the debate must be open, transparent, fair and honest. The transfer of powers from this place to the Scottish Parliament and the decisions that the Electoral Commission will make on how to make the referendum fair and open are the first big tests of the rhetoric. This is the first opportunity those bodies will have to show that they will put the people of Scotland first, that they will put the future of Scotland before the future of the SNP and the country’s interests before their own, and that the will of the people of Scotland will come before all else. The people of Scotland deserve nothing less.
I have some concerns. To date, the SNP rhetoric on transparency and fairness has not matched up to the reality of its behaviour. On the very subject of today’s debate, let us not forget that just one year ago the SNP said that it did not need a section 30 order for the referendum to be competent. Alex Salmond said to the Scottish Parliament:
“We have set out in the past how the Scottish Parliament could hold a referendum that we are satisfied would be within its present competence.”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 25 January 2012; c. 5605.]
Bruce Crawford, as Minister for Parliamentary Business, said that the SNP Administration had set out their position on the
“right and ability of the Scottish Parliament to hold an independence referendum”.
Both comments were presumably the most factual comments ever made in the history of the Scottish Parliament.
Let us be clear. The leader of the Westminster SNP has welcomed the historic agreement that will transfer these powers—an agreement the SNP said was not needed in the first place. We have also seen the section 30 order being used as an excuse for assertions on other issues. The Deputy First Minister stood up in the Scottish Parliament and claimed that the SNP was now in a position to seek legal advice on the EU because of the content of the Edinburgh agreement, an agreement that her party did not think was needed in the first place. Nothing in the agreement stopped the SNP or the Scottish Government from seeking legal advice on that issue or many others before this point, so none of the debate from the SNP should be skewed in the context of the section 30 agreement.
We have heard from colleagues today, and have already seen from the SNP, a willingness to change the franchise for the referendum by reducing the voting age to 16. Although I agree with that, the SNP’s proposal is based not on any principled view that 16 and 17-year-olds should have the vote for all elections but rather on a belief that they might gain electoral advantage from the inclusion of that group, who were believed to be more likely to support independence. However, that plan appears to have backfired somewhat as a recent poll showed that young people are as against independence as the rest of Scotland.
Let me make some important points about the expansion of the franchise to include 16-year-olds. We need to ensure that not only some 16-year-olds but every 16-year-old gets a vote in the referendum. We must be clear about the work that must be done locally and nationally by the electoral registration officers, where the funds will come from to meet the costs and whether local government will be given the additional finance it needs to deliver on that pledge. We must also be clear about the impact of the UK Government’s insistence on single voter registration on encouraging 16 and 17-year-olds to register for the referendum. Those are all serious issues that must be addressed before we move on to the substance of the question.
There are other areas of concern, too. Perhaps the most obvious is the reluctance of the Scottish Government publicly to commit to accepting the decisions of the electoral Commission. The role of the Electoral Commission is clear and well rehearsed; it is an independent, experienced and trusted body, whose motive is only that of ensuring a fair contest and a fair outcome.
Two areas of consideration are vital. The first is the fairness of the question. Can anything be of greater importance than ensuring that voters have a clear unbiased question? The second is to ensure that the spending limits of the respective campaigns are appropriate to allow a properly robust and informed debate.
There is not universal approval of the wording of the question. Some say it is leading and some say it is likely to skew the result. I say, let the Electoral Commission decide. On our side of the argument, we know the result we want, and the nationalists know the result they want. It should not be for politicians to decide what the question should be; let us take it out of their hands. I am not saying that our question is better than an SNP question; I am saying that we should respect the right of an independent respected body to set the question. All political parties should accept its advice and move on, to give Scotland the debate it deserves.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
One of the things the Electoral Commission can deliver is its experience in getting under the language used—for example, testing it with focus groups—to see whether people understand what the writer thinks they understand. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is not about the politics, but about ensuring that the language is clear?
Anas Sarwar
I was coming to that very point. The Electoral Commission will test the question. Any advice it offers will be evidence-based. It will not be based on supposition by any Member of the House or of any other place, nor on opinion or myth; it will be based on evidence and rigorous testing.
The job of the Electoral Commission is to ensure that the question is clear, understandable and decisive. If given that right, it will ensure that the question is unbiased and fair. Crucially, by accepting the decision of the Electoral Commission, the question will be seen, across Scotland and across the world, as unbiased and fair. It was somewhat surprising, therefore, to hear the chief executive of the Yes Scotland campaign be very clear in his evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee about the Electoral Commission advice:
“There is always room left to disagree.”
Yes, we can disagree, but trusting an independent body to deliver a fair question is another thing altogether.
While those words are deeply concerning they also, I fear, reveal a worrying capacity for those in the yes camp to play fast and loose with vital checks and balances in the process. It is not just on the question that they appear prepared to ignore advice; given the SNP proposals, the issue of campaign funding also appears to be in its sights. The SNP Government want spending limits. That is absolutely reasonable and to be expected, but unfortunately, they want the spending limits to be set by them, not by the independent Electoral Commission. The spending limits will be set by legislation, but the SNP will control the legislation. There is a majority Government—in effect, a dictatorship in the Scottish Parliament—who will seek to do what is to their advantage.
The SNP has already proposed spending limits at half the level, or even less, than those suggested by the Electoral Commission. It is worth considering the impact of the Scottish Government’s proposals. One of their proposals is that each campaign can spend a maximum of £750,000. That is half the £1.5 million allowed through the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. It is less than the £1.2 million that all the council candidates from each party could have spent collectively during last May’s council elections.
I recognise that winning control of the great city of Glasgow and many other places was important for us as a political party, and more importantly, it was an opportunity for political parties to deliver their principles and values in local authorities, but are we seriously suggesting that the referendum on the future of Scotland—the most important decision we have made in 300 years—deserves to have less spent on it and is of less importance than a council election? I do not think so. That point needs to be reflected in the proposals for the spending framework.
The SNP proposals will have an impact on other interested parties; for example, the trade union movement. Unite has approximately 150,000 members in Scotland, yet the SNP proposes that organisations such as Unite are limited to a maximum spend of £50,000. It does not take a mathematical genius to work out that Unite will not even be able to pay for the postage of a letter to each of its members, never mind pay for a leaflet or an envelope.
It does not take a political genius to work out the SNP’s motives. There can be no convincing reason why the SNP would choose to set those limits. The court of public opinion will come to the conclusion that yet again, the SNP is seeking to manipulate the process for its own ends. I hope that it will rise to the occasion. I shall give SNP Members the opportunity to say whether they prefer to abide by the decision of the Electoral Commission or whether they wish to reconsider it. I hope that they will address that when they speak in the debate.
By passing the motion we are setting out a clear legal position on the referendum, and by doing so we are passing responsibility from this place to the Scottish Government, and to all Members of the Scottish Parliament. That is a heavy responsibility that lies with the SNP Government and SNP Members because, perhaps uniquely in the Scottish Parliament, the party has an overall majority and a resulting built-in majority in committee, which places a greater responsibility on the party of government to live up to the highest ideals, judged not as members of the SNP but as parliamentarians and first and foremost as democrats. If done right, the legacy, whatever the outcome of the referendum, can be a Parliament of which we can all be proud, and a result in which we can all have faith. I commit myself and, I am sure, every single member of my party, to working for what is in the best interests of Scotland, whatever the outcome of the referendum. I hope that members of other political parties will do exactly the same. Scotland deserves nothing less.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
I very much welcome the chance to participate in this important debate. It is a great pleasure once again to follow my fellow Hutchesonian, who made a powerful speech. If it does not damage his reputation even further, I shall point out that I agree with many of the points that he made, and I hope to build on them.
In many respects, I wish that we were not having this debate. I am a staunch Unionist, and I believe in the United Kingdom. I wish that we did not have to contemplate at all the prospect of the United Kingdom splitting up into its constituent parts. I believe that that very process will cause uncertainty at a time when we need absolute certainty for our economy. There is evidence from Canada that the ongoing constitutional debate and the uncertainty of Quebec’s constitutional status damaged the economy in Quebec, and I wish that we were not in that position. The hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) made an important point from the perspective of his constituency about the uncertainty for the shipyards in Govan and elsewhere, and the fact that there will be no certainty on future orders while the constitutional question remains unresolved.
We are where we are. I am a democrat, and I fully accept that the SNP won the majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament. However much opinion polls show that the constitutional question was, or was not, part of the debate in that election, it was part of the SNP manifesto, and it is perfectly legitimate for it to hold the referendum. I accept that the Scottish Parliament is the right forum in which to set the terms of the referendum, but it must be absolutely fair, clean and decisive.
I wish to mention a few of my concerns. There must not be any question of gerrymandering with regard to the question, the electorate and the rules by which the campaign is fought. Many Members have expressed legitimate concerns about the prospects for the campaign. I commend members of the Scottish Affairs Committee for their insightful report, which highlighted a number of concerns.
I want to concentrate on one or two misgivings about the franchise. The question of 16 and 17-year-olds voting has been raised. I completely accept that there is a legitimate debate to be had about whether the voting age should be lowered. Eighteen is not set in stone in this country: the age at which someone can vote has changed over the years and has been reduced in recent times. I get young people in my constituency calling on me to consider a reduction in the voting age. I have an open mind on the subject. My view is that we should agree on a common age of majority for a series of things. It is slightly daft that we have different ages of adulthood for learning to drive, voting, getting married, buying alcohol or tobacco, and serving in the armed forced. It is not beyond our wit to agree an age at which most young people achieve a degree of maturity and at which they can exercise adult decisions. I do not have a particular view about whether that should be 16, 17, 18 or some other age, but that is not the point.
That debate should be had in general terms, not in the specific circumstances of one poll. It is utterly wrong that unilaterally for one election or one referendum we make a change, and for that not to apply elsewhere. Whether 16 and 17-year-olds are more likely to support the Union or independence is not the point. The debate should be had in general terms.
Pete Wishart
Following the Edinburgh agreement, this is the only election or referendum the Scottish Parliament will have control of. We have no say on UK elections. We do not even have a say on Scottish parliamentary elections. Of course, if we had responsibility for them, we would make sure that 16 and 17-year-olds could vote. We have crofter commissions and local government elections in which we can have 16 and 17-year-olds voting, but we do not have legislative responsibility for UK or Scottish parliamentary elections.
Iain Stewart
The hon. Gentleman is making a point about a continuing process of devolution and, in the future, it might fall within the competence of the Scottish Parliament to decide these things. That is a separate debate. But to make the decision unilaterally for one poll in what I believe is the self-interest of the party—whether that is misplaced or not is another question—is fundamentally wrong in my view.
Mr McCann
It might interest the hon. Gentleman to know that the Scottish Parliament does have control of other elections. It has control of local government elections and, in 2012, it decided not to extend the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. I fear he may be getting incorrect information from the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart).
Iain Stewart
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that helpful point of information. I return to the fundamental point. If the age of franchise is changed, it should apply to every election or none, and not to one poll. I do not have sufficient knowledge of the referendum on crofting, but I suspect that is not quite as significant an issue as the future of the United Kingdom. There should be consistency and the debate should be in general terms, not unilaterally for one poll.
My next concern is about the electorate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) eloquently and powerfully explained, it is utterly wrong that an EU citizen temporarily living in Scotland should have a say on the future of the United Kingdom, but a Scot living in England does not. If I, for example, chose to live and work in Barcelona, I would not feel any right to take part in Catalonia’s future constitutional relationship with the rest of Spain. It would not cross my mind to exercise an opinion on that, so why should a Spaniard living in Edinburgh or wherever decide on the future of the United Kingdom?
Mr MacNeil
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s view but if I was so fortunate as to live in Barcelona and a Catalonian vote was called, I think I might express my opinion on the issue, given that it would affect me day to day. Perhaps that is a personal difference between the two of us, but I would care about the country and the environment in which I was living and therefore I would take part.
Iain Stewart
It is perfectly reasonable for someone living in a city or an area of a country to take part in very local polls concerning the local infrastructure and services. That is quite a different matter from someone being able to take part in a fundamental decision about the constitutional status of their home country.
Mr MacNeil
I hope that the hon. Gentleman understands that the upstream issue is that all the matters that he is talking about are affected by the framework in which they operate. One of the reasons for wanting an independent Scotland was highlighted last week in the debate on the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill. The majority of Scottish MPs were against it, yet it is being foisted on Scotland against the wishes of Scottish society. If we want to produce a welfare situation that is perfect and better for Scotland, we have to first sort out the constitutional framework around it before we can get to that point.
Iain Stewart
The hon. Gentleman is confusing a number of issues. He wants independence and separation so that Scotland can decide these things for itself. The point that I am making is that a EU citizen who is neither Scottish nor English would be able to influence that vote in Scotland, but a Scot living in England would not.
Iain Stewart
Forgive me, but I want to make progress.
We all have opinions on the constitutional status of all sorts of countries. I have views on what should happen in the United States, Australia and Germany, but I do not seek to vote on them. It is fundamentally wrong that such a situation could exist. I echo the call made by my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest for a very simple change so that the franchise for Westminster elections also applied to Scotland. That would go a long way to removing many of the anomalies that have been mentioned with regard to members of the armed forces and their families not being able to take part in this poll. We call on these people to fight and to, potentially, give up their lives for their country, yet they will not be given the right to take part in its future direction.
Mrs Laing
Does my hon. Friend agree that if the franchise were based on that used for UK Parliament elections, as he has just suggested, instead of on the local government franchise, that would also mean not only that Scots living outside Scotland would have a right to vote, but that people who are eligible to vote in UK parliamentary elections in other parts of the United Kingdom, but who were born in Scotland and can prove it, would, too?
Iain Stewart
My hon. Friend makes another excellent point and I echo it. The other key point is—I mentioned this in my intervention on her speech—that it is up to the Scottish Parliament to decide this. There is nothing in the order that prohibits that. I urge it to look reasonably and rationally at the issue. The referendum must be fair if it is to have legitimacy. If it does not have legitimacy, I fear that we will just perpetuate uncertainty.
That leads me to my next point, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State also made in his opening speech. The referendum must be the end of the matter. Whatever the result, it must be clear and binding. As my right hon. Friend also said, if the decision is a yes vote—I fervently hope that it will be a massive no vote—negotiations will have to begin. I want clarity from those on the Government Front Bench on what will happen if there is a very narrow yes vote and negotiations begin on the terms of the divorce. What if the reality does not match the separatists’ rhetoric on issues such as Scotland’s membership of the EU, adoption of the single currency or any one of the number of issues that are coming to light? What if the deal for Scotland is not nearly as favourable as first envisaged? Is there scope for a second referendum within the time scale, the end date of which is 31 December 2014? Either way, I do not want a second referendum to be called in the event of a narrow yes or no vote. The decision has to be clear and final, to avoid the kind of ongoing uncertainty that existed in Quebec following a narrow no vote. That vote did not end the matter, and the separatists have come back again and again to try to get their way. Thankfully, they have not achieved it. There could be a similar danger here, and I would like clarification on what such a situation would mean for Scotland and the United Kingdom.
On the timing of the referendum, I wish that we could just get on with it. I slightly disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest on this matter, although she was right to say that the longer the debate goes on, the more the unsavoury consequences of separation and the confusion of the SNP’s position come to light.
Mr MacNeil
This talk of uncertainty seems to be unfounded, as many investors have come to Scotland in the past year. Certainly, the only time I have heard the subject raised has been in the context of the US Government recently getting worried about the noises coming from the Conservative party about leaving the European Union. Does the hon. Gentleman think that such talk in the Conservative party should end?
Iain Stewart
The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me. Constitutional uncertainty is potentially dangerous for the economy, although I am sure that you would rule me out of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, if I started to talk about the EU argument. The danger for Scotland is real, however. This ongoing uncertainty could be very damaging, not only for Scotland’s economy but for the economy of the whole United Kingdom. I am a fervent Unionist, and I believe that we are better together. The terms of the referendum must be clear and fair, and the result must be one that can be accepted. I wish that we could just get on and have the referendum as soon as possible.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)
Order. This debate is time limited, and the wind-ups will start at 6.30 pm, so I must ask Members for self-discipline and time restraint to ensure that everyone may be heard.
Mrs Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)
I will certainly try to be brief. I want first to hark back to my intervention on the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing). I noticed the look of surprise on many faces around the Chamber at the time, and I wonder whether we could get some clarification on the franchise question. I have certainly heard of an electoral registration officer saying that a person had to spend 50% of their time in their place of residence before the officer would be willing to register them to vote there. Given that the question of the franchise for this referendum is so complicated, a bit of clarity would be helpful. If the hon. Lady’s interpretation of it is correct, I would suggest that she was not over-egging her pudding but that she has instead brought forth a political confection worthy of Mary Berry.
It was a pleasure to listen to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy) this afternoon. He encapsulated many of the arguments that have been around Scottish politics for many years. I also want to support the section 30 order, and in doing so I congratulate the Secretary of State on the way in which he has conducted himself, not only during the negotiations but over the past few days. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) is in his place. He toured the media and the radio stations trying to provoke a negotiation before a decision had been made, and the Secretary of State was quite right to say that we would have the referendum and look at the decision before moving to the next stage, whatever it might be. The hon. Member for Moray should look at what he said in response to my hon. Friend the Member for West Dunbartonshire (Gemma Doyle). When she asked him about nuclear submarines and the defence question, he told her that no negotiation could take place until the country had made a decision.I hope that he will reflect on that over the next few days.
It is right that the Scottish Government should have the right to make the referendum in Scotland. This is about the spirit of devolution and about this Parliament handing over authority. That we are doing so calls into question the charge that is often made about Westminster: that we want to keep control. This is about giving control away. I think that this Parliament should get credit for being willing to hand over this responsibility, with no ifs, buts or maybes. That is the true spirit of devolution.
This debate has divided Scotland for most of my political life. The pursuit and achievement of a separate Scotland, to which the hon. Gentlemen from the Scottish National party are only too willing to commit themselves, would take Scotland out of the United Kingdom. What motivates them above all else is their desire to see the break-up of the UK—the most successful political and social union. And yet, as we have heard from the contributions today, there is integration across the United Kingdom. There are Scots living in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and there are Welsh, English and Northern Irish people living in Scotland. It is that integration that is causing some of the complications—some would say anomalies—in who is entitled to vote.
This Parliament must have respect for the Scottish Parliament, but respect is a two-way process. I beseech the hon. Gentlemen who represent the Scottish National party in this House to stop setting up Aunt Sallies by making out that Westminster is trying to do them down. The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) is a serial offender. This morning, he tried to suggest that the Labour Opposition might abstain in today’s vote. We have made it very clear from the beginning that we support the section 30 order. Frankly, it is not worthy of somebody who wants to be a parliamentarian and statesman in Scotland to pretend that other political parties are not being honourable in this matter. Mr Speaker may be interested to know that he also called into question the impartiality of the Chair. I hope that he does get to speak, because he accused this House of being almost exclusively Unionist in the people it calls and said that the SNP would get only 10 minutes. Well, the hon. Member for Moray spoke for 15 minutes earlier, so we have superseded the aspirations of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire.
I raise those points because if we are to spend the next 18 months talking about the future of Scotland, we must do so from a point of mutual respect and stop throwing brickbats at each other and denigrating those who do not agree with us. This is the most important issue that most of us will ever face, not just for ourselves but for our children and grandchildren, regardless of which side of the argument we are on. A little mutual respect would not go amiss.
Mrs McGuire
I will not even go there. The hon. Gentleman knows whether I want to say anything nice about him. He is a pleasant enough person outside the Chamber. Sadly, in the Chamber he tends to heckle rather than make positive contributions.
I will move on to the issues that have been raised today. The first is the role of the Electoral Commission. We need to have an independent arbiter on the wording of the question and the financing of the campaigns. All sides need to have confidence in the process. That means that it should not be subject to political interference and that one element must not be able to overrule the others. I hope that when we hear the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire later in the debate, he will give us some comfort and say that the SNP will not second-guess the Electoral Commission, but will work with it in producing a question and a set of criteria that we can all work to and have confidence in.
The Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee said earlier that the question preferred by the Scottish Government was put to a series of independent experts who suggested that it was politically loaded. We cannot go into a referendum debate where the question is politically loaded.
Pete Wishart
Will the right hon. Lady remind me of the question that the commission that her party put together with the Conservative and the Liberals came up with?
Mrs McGuire
I am not quite sure what the point of the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is.
Pete Wishart
A Unionist commission was put together to try to determine a question for the referendum that it thought was fair. Will the right hon. Lady remind me what question it decided on?
Mrs McGuire
That is a typical red herring being drawn across. We say that we want—[Interruption.] No. The Electoral Commission should be, and is to all intents and purposes, the independent arbiter. The Labour party when it was in government, and even the Conservatives, have accepted that if an independent arbiter is appointed, it is incumbent on the Government to honour that public authority and take into account the views of that independent arbiter.
I said that I would not speak for too long so I will not. However, we cannot go into the next 18 months in a spirit that is about beating each other over the head with arguments and counter-arguments that are sometimes not even relevant. I ask all sides to come together and have a robust, frank and mature debate with the Scottish people. That is what the referendum campaign demands.
I represent the constituency of Stirling which includes the Church of the Holy Rude where the first crowned king of the United Kingdom—King James VI and I—was crowned and became the monarch of the United Kingdom. My area also includes Bannockburn and Stirling bridge, and saw Rob Roy MacGregor and all the rest of the iconic figures in Scottish history. This debate, however, is not about the 13th, 14th or 17th century; it is about the 21st century. I am happy to give over, under a section 30 order, powers to the Scottish Parliament.
I voted for the Scottish Parliament and I want it to succeed. I want us to remain part of the United Kingdom, and if we hand over that power, the Scottish Parliament has the responsibility to exercise it with maturity and discretion, and to recognise that the current Scottish Government do not represent all the views of the entire Scottish people. Yes, we hand over that power—perhaps not with eagerness but with some understanding of the constitutional arrangements within the United Kingdom—but the responsibility is with the Scottish Government to exercise that power with discretion and an understanding of the multiplicity of views.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
It is a great privilege to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire). She has just given 10 minutes of a wonderful speech that welcomed the section 30 order and highlighted the dangers ahead of us. It is also a great pleasure to take part in the same debate as my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling). He gave a powerful and influential speech, which is why he is chair of the Better Together campaign. I can think of no one better to keep the United Kingdom together.
I want to reflect a little on the speech of the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), who is no longer in his seat. He gave the House an historical canter through Scotland and its relationship with England, and spoke of how parliamentary Chambers and institutions hold people together and become the focal point of where people do things. It is worth reflecting that everyone in this Chamber who has an accent similar to mine or calls themselves Scots can go abroad anywhere in the world, to the four corners of the globe, and chat to people from different countries who think that Scotland is already a separate country because it has its own separate identity, dialect and history. Indeed, constitutionally, being part of the UK means that we can benefit as a country from being part of that Union, while also sharing the wonderful opportunities that having a separate identity as a nation and being Scots brings. We should reflect on that; indeed, the hon. Gentleman allowed us to do so.
Our consideration of this section 30 order is quite an historic moment, because when we pass it this evening—and when it is passed in the other place—it will go north to the Scottish Parliament, which will then have all the powers it requires to run the referendum on separation. I am pleased that that is happening today for a number of reasons, but mainly because it is this party—the Scottish Labour party—that is the party of devolution. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), the shadow Secretary of State for Scotland said, one of the first Acts of the new Labour Government in 1997 was to bring forward the referendum to allow the people of Scotland to decide whether they wanted the Scottish Parliament.
Sheila Gilmore
One of the things I particularly remember is that we had a general election in May of that year and the referendum at the beginning of September—a piece of speedy action that the current Scottish Government could do with emulating.
Ian Murray
I am delighted that my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour has made that point. We should reflect on the fact—the hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), the leader of the SNP in this House, mentioned this in his contribution—that the SNP has been in existence for 75 years pushing this constitutional point, but does not quite know the answers to the big questions now that they are being asked. With consensus from most Members in the House, the Labour Government were able to proceed with the referendum speedily and give the Scottish people their opportunity to decide whether they wanted a Scottish Parliament.
The process did not stop there, because it was those of us on these Benches—the Scottish Labour party—who delivered the Calman commission and the Scotland Act 1998. Devolution was always supposed to be a process. The 1999 commencement of the Scottish Parliament was never supposed to be the full stop in this constitutional journey, which has continued. Crucially, however, it has continued only under the Scottish Labour party. The Scottish National party has now taken control of the Scottish Parliament. What we have seen since 2007—although more so since 2011—is a party that has taken the wonderful institution that is the Scottish Parliament and turned it into little more than a talking shop for the ruling party, with commanding majorities on its scrutiny Committees. We have only to think about some of the Committees in this House to see how powerful that scrutiny process can be in holding the Executive to account. I can think of numerous occasions on which that has happened, including a Backbench Business debate in the House last week—prompted by a report from the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills—that changed the Government’s policy on dealing with pub companies. That happened because of the power of the Committees in this House.
Gemma Doyle
Is my hon. Friend as concerned as I am that the Deputy First Minister has today written a blog piece, which is posted on a Scottish Government website—she has indicated that she will now do this regularly—in which she says that all Departments and parts of the Scottish Government are now working on a transition process? Is he as concerned as I am about the amount of public money—taxpayers’ money—that is now being spent on a political campaign when it could be used to tackle Scotland’s shocking levels of long-term unemployment?
Ian Murray
I am delighted by that intervention, because it shows the entire raison d’être of the current majority in the Scottish Parliament—a Parliament that was not designed for any one party to get a majority, as the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) said. Now that the SNP has the trust of the Scottish people—who have given it a mandate through its majority in the Scottish Parliament—it is using all the power that has been bestowed on it to deliver constitutional change, rather than dealing not just with long-term unemployment, but with the absolutely shameful scenes of queues outside food banks such as in my constituency. I would rather that the entire effort of the civil service and the Scottish Parliament were focused on those issues, not just on dealing with the constitution. Many Members on the Labour Benches who talk to their constituents on the doorsteps realise that the issues out there are far wider than the constitution, which ranks very low down on the list of priorities of the people of Scotland.
The latest piece of devolution that we have in our hands today is the biggest question of all to be given to the Scottish people. Some have used the phrase, “a referendum made in Scotland”. This has to be a referendum not only made in Scotland, but by the Scottish people: not a referendum concocted by the First Minister and the SNP, not a referendum that is to deceive, and not a referendum that is unclear, ambiguous or a sham. That is why consensus in the Scottish Parliament is so important. In every major constitutional debate about Scotland in this House and in the other place under the previous Government, we sought consensus. Consensus is the way to take devolution work forward and to provide trust to the Scottish people.
The Select Committee on Scottish Affairs commented on that point in the report it produced last week, as the Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson), mentioned earlier. I will not give a précis of that speech for the SNP Members who staged a walk-out when he was speaking. The Committee’s report concluded that while the Scottish Parliament will have full powers to run the referendum following the passing of the section 30 order, it should not just force through decisions using the SNP’s parliamentary majority, and consensus should be sought to make the referendum fair, concise and conclusive.
I worry about that aspect. Can we trust—here is another Scottish word for the Hansard reporters—the sleekit First Minister and the SNP to do what is in the best interests of Scotland, rather than what is in the best interests of the First Minister and the SNP? I think the jury is well and truly out on that point. The track record of the SNP and the First Minister on a variety of issues in the past few months has cast doubt on their ability to be fair, transparent and honest about the referendum and the consequences for the future of my country. We have had the First Minister’s confusion about whether he received advice on Scotland’s membership of the European Union. We have had a flip-flop on what Scotland’s currency would be. Would it be the euro, the pound, or the groat? We have even had suggestions from SNP Members that we might even use the Chinese renminbi in Scotland. We have had the First Minister taking credit when unemployment in Scotland has been falling, but blaming everyone else when it has been going up.
Mr McCann
Does my hon. Friend share my concerns about the head of the Scottish civil service? It has been accused in the past by many people of being native and refusing to speak truth to power. Is it not a concern that, when it comes to the referendum, it will not have the courage to speak up against the First Minister who controls all?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We are in danger. We are debating the section 30 order, rather than the referendum. A lot of Members want to speak, so I do not want to tempt Members on to another subject.
Ian Murray
I will take your guidance, Mr Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend has his remarks on the record. That issue will be a concern to many Members of this House and to the people of Scotland.
I was going through issues on which I have concerns about the section 30 order, and what the SNP Government might do with it. I was talking about the First Minister taking credit for falling unemployment, but blaming everyone else when it goes up. We have had the arc of prosperity with Ireland and Iceland, until they went bust; then it was Norway, and now it is back to Iceland again. We have been told that Scots should not have taken part in Team GB, but the First Minister has taken credit for the gold medals—indeed, some SNP Members in this House play in the UK parliamentary football team. The issues are there for people to see.
We have seen the SNP Government espouse a nuclear-free Clyde, while changing their 60-year opposition to NATO. They want a nuclear-free Scotland, but it is okay for a US submarine to sail into Faslane and launch a nuclear weapon from Scottish shores. That is a ludicrous position which is yet another fudge on the Scottish people. They are changing their own rules to suit themselves, and that is why they might change the rules of the section 30 order to suit the referendum. Mr Deputy Speaker, I sense that I may be ruled out of order shortly, so I will say merely that the list is endless, and move on.
To emphasise what the Scottish Affairs Committee has said, the Scottish Government cannot be both player and referee with regard to section 30. The Electoral Commission has a vital role as an independent overseer of the process that includes critical aspects of funding and, most importantly, the wording of the question. The commission sent an updated briefing to hon. Members, and the first thing it says about the section 30 order is that the commission will have responsibility at the referendum for assessing the intelligibility of the proposed question. That is a critical part of its involvement, and this is where my discomfort lies.
The Minister deserves credit, along with the Secretary of State, but he was questioned in the House more than a dozen times during the debate on the Edinburgh agreement about what mechanics would be used if the Scottish Government ignored the commission’s recommendations, and all he could say was that he was confident that the Scottish Government would do the right thing and that the Scottish people would judge their actions. The SNP’s track record on straight answers about Scotland’s future shows that it has form in this area, and it would be wrong not to put on record that that is a real concern. The commission has been involved in every election in recent history. Its involvement in the AV referendum resulted in the question being changed on several occasions until it and the Government were satisfied that it was fair. No Government have ever overruled the commission, and the First Minister should not be the first to do so. This decision is the most important that Scotland has faced for 300 years, and that makes the role of the commission integral to the entire referendum process.
The commission’s role is also integral to campaign funding. The order does not give any details about funding, so it will be dictated by the memorandum of agreement between both Governments signed as part of the Edinburgh agreement. The commission will make recommendations after a consultation, but the SNP has already indicated that it would overrule the commission on several points, including in respect of much lower limits for businesses and unions to campaign, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar), the deputy leader of the Scottish Labour party, indicated. Those limits are much lower than those recommended for the AV and Welsh referendums in respect of the umbrella campaigning groups and, as he also said—this point stuck in my head—even lower than for local government elections. Those of us who have helped run those elections know how low those limits are for getting information out to electors and voters, who deserve to have the information in front of them so that they can make an informed decision. The people of Scotland deserve as much information as possible in order for them to decide whether Scotland is better together or separate from the rest of the UK.
Then, there is the question itself. The SNP has been challenged time and time again to say whether it would abide by the commission’s recommendations on the question, but it has refused to commit to answering. The hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson), the leader of the SNP in the House, was questioned four times during his contribution, and all he could say was that the Scottish Parliament would have regard to the recommendations. Any SNP Member could intervene now and say, “Yes, it’s a matter for the Scottish Parliament, but the SNP and the Yes Scotland campaign will abide by the recommendations, whatever they are, of the commission.” The fact that they have not done that sends out a very strong message that our concerns about the question, with regards to the section 30 order, are not just valid but very real.
It is critical that the commission’s recommendations be respected, otherwise the Scottish people will not get the fair and transparent referendum that they ought to have. The section 30 order passes the power to the Scottish Parliament, and I am proud that the party with a track record of devolution will be wholeheartedly supporting it. We will continue to scrutinise the process both in this place and in Holyrood to ensure that the decision is decisive, legal and fair.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I remind Members that we are going to finish the Back-Bench speeches at 6.30 pm, which allows each Member about 10 or 11 minutes. If some Members creep over that, however, someone will drop off the edge, and that would not be fair.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray). It makes me the third Edinburgh Member to take part in the debate—the other two have been around the Chamber, so we might make it a full house by the end of the evening, depending on the time available.
I welcome the fact that the agreement between the UK and Scottish Governments on the section 30 order was reached relatively speedily, because it would have soured the debate in Scotland, if there had been continuing disagreement—or, worse still, dispute, leading to legal challenge—over the terms of the referendum. It is right and necessary that the referendum proceeds on the basis of agreement between the two Governments and Parliaments.
It is certainly true, of course, that the Scottish Government were elected with a clear mandate to hold a referendum on independence. If we add together the minority parties, almost a majority of the electorate voted that way. I recognise that, but equally, as one of my hon. Friends said earlier, we in this House have a mandate from the people of Scotland—a mandate achieved just one year before the Scottish Parliament elections. All the parties put to the Scottish people their own constitutional programmes as part of their general election manifestos. At that point, the results were somewhat different. It is right that there should be agreement—not just between Governments, but across parties—and I welcome how that was achieved quite speedily through negotiations. I pay tribute to all those involved in that achievement.
It is good that an agreement should be reached on an all-party basis. I accept that all parties here—at the end of the day, all Members from Scotland—want to do what is best for Scotland. We obviously have different interpretations and opinions of what that means, but I accept that this is the overriding intention from all sides. Whatever our different views in the constitutional debate, it is essential, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire) said, to conduct these debates in as mature and inclusive fashion as we can, while recognising the strongly held emotions and views on both sides of the debate.
That is because we need to recognise one important fact—whatever happens in the referendum, the next morning we will all get up in the same country, with the same people facing the same issues and the same problems, with the same strengths and weaknesses and probably the same weather, perhaps regrettably, as we had before the referendum. Depending on the result of referendum, of course, hundreds of thousands or millions of people in Scotland will either be delighted or shocked by the result. If the vote for separation wins—the indication is that it will not, but nothing is certain—those who are strongly committed to the UK will be bitterly disappointed. If the people of Scotland vote to stay in the UK, many who have campaigned for independence, in some cases for all their lives, will be equally bitterly disappointed.
The worst outcome for Scotland and rest of UK would be if the referendum were to be followed by a period of rancour and division rather than one where all in Scotland tried to make the outcome, whatever it was, work as well as it could for both Scotland and the UK. If the result is a win for independence, it would, as the Secretary of State pointed out earlier, be the duty of Scottish politicians who were against separation to make sure that the new arrangements between Scotland, the rest of UK and the EU work as well as possible. Equally, if independence is rejected, as I think it will be, those politicians who have campaigned for independence should accept the result, urge all their supporters to do so as well, and make it clear that the result is, if not for all time—I understand that people will not want to say for ever—at least valid for a generation, as has been said in the past. I hope that they will accept the result and not seek to overturn it at the first opportunity.
The tone of that post-referendum debate—and, indeed, the tone before it—will be significantly affected by how the participants and voters on both sides feel about the way the pre-referendum debate was conducted. If there is a feeling that the rules of the campaign have been bent or twisted to benefit one side or the other, there will be a much higher chance of the debate, both before and after the referendum, being diverted into issues of process and becoming bitter and negative, rather than being one on the fundamental issues. That is why I share the hope that the Scottish Government will approach the use of the powers devolved to them in as consensual a manner as possible, given the obvious differences between all concerned on the fundamental issues. I believe that the SNP needs to make greater progress and to show a greater commitment to consensus on that issue.
The ground rules need to be clearer in a number of respects, so let me spend a couple of minutes explaining them. First, I strongly agree with colleagues about the importance of the Electoral Commission’s supervision of the electoral rules, and I believe agreement on the question is essential. I can understand why the SNP leader here will not give a blanket commitment to accept the Electoral Commission’s recommendations whatever it says and in whatever circumstances, but a much stronger indication of a willingness to accept those recommendations would certainly have been welcome today. I hope that the SNP will reflect on that and recognise that, as the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) said, flouting those recommendations might jeopardise their own case in the referendum as well as the nature of the debate.
Certainly, fair rules are needed on spending limits; I will not go over the points that have been made on that. Fair rules are also needed on how the civil service is used, and I endorse the comments that have been made on that.
On votes for 16 and 17-year-olds, I believe that some of the practical difficulties can be overcome, but I do not have time to go into those in detail. If there are to be such votes, however, every effort should be made to give all 16 and 17-year-olds the ability to vote. At one stage in the process, there was a suggestion that they could opt in—apply to have a vote—but that would be a recipe for an undemocratic outcome and a lower participation rate. They should be added to the register either through the normal process in October, or through a special canvass directed specifically at 16 and 17-year-olds to ensure that all of them, not just a select handful, can vote.
The franchise issue has been raised by colleagues on both sides of the House. Although I understand some of the questions raised about the agreement between the parties and the two Parliaments, ultimately the most consistent and logical way forward is to base the voting qualification for the referendum on that for Scottish Parliament elections. Any choice of franchise has anomalies, but that is the simplest solution. I understand the point expressed by those who asked why Scots living outside Scotland should not be allowed to vote in the referendum, but it does not stand up to much examination once we consider some of the practical difficulties. It sounds a good idea in theory for Scottish Olympic champions and medal winners living outside Scotland to be able to vote, but why stick to those who won medals in 2012? Why not include those who won medals in 2008 or 2004? Why not include Commonwealth games champions from 2014 or 2010? The list goes on.
The issue of well known, leading Scottish football managers outside Scotland was raised. I suspect that there might be Scottish football managers quite a long way down the English football divisions and beyond. Where do we draw the line on who is allowed to vote? The suggestion was made—in all seriousness, I think—that people who were born but were no longer living in Scotland should be allowed to vote. Again, that would involve anomalies that could not be overcome: someone who had been born in Germany to Scottish service personnel and their families, who came back to Scotland for 40 years and then left Scotland, would not be allowed to vote, while somebody who had been born in Scotland and whose parents left three days later would be allowed to do so.
There is also an issue of wider principle. If we move away from the idea that voters in the referendum are those who have chosen to or, by birth, live and work in Scotland and have made or are making a continuing commitment in Scotland, we inevitably move to a different basis for the franchise and a definition based on ethnicity, racial origins or something of that nature. Once we do that, we can unleash, although I am sure that no Member intends that, all sorts of emotions and dark forces. In Quebec, for example, when the last referendum vote was very close, some of those who supported Quebec independence objected to the fact that English Canadians took part in the vote. The SNP has, as a party—all credit to it—accepted that its nationalism is based on a civic nationalism of those who live and work in Scotland. That has contributed to the fact that, for the most part, we have escaped some of the excesses that have existed in other countries when there have been nationalism debates. We want to keep it that way.
I accept that there are issues about people who have temporarily left Scotland for work—above all, the question of the forces—which I hope the Scottish Parliament will address in its decisions.
Finally, I want to say something about whether we can trust the SNP in relation to its commitment to the Edinburgh agreement. While I am as ready as any of my colleagues to wonder about the extent of its commitment to the spirit as well as the letter of the agreement, I strongly agree with the right hon. Member for Gordon and others who have pointed out that in the event of any blatant misuse of the powers devolved by the order, the SNP—which supports independence for Scotland—would lose out in the referendum process and the referendum debate. We should bear it in mind that we are devolving secondary-legislation powers to the Scottish Parliament, and that if those powers were blatantly misused, the issue would arise of whether they were being used consistently with the powers devolved to it under the Scotland Act. In that context, there could, in the last resort, be a legal challenge.
I would rather the referendum had taken place by now, and I would certainly rather it took place before October 2014, but that date is not so far away now. I am confident that, just as in 1997 the people of Scotland made a mature decision to back the establishment of a devolved Scottish Parliament, they will decide on this occasion to stand by the Union that has served Scotland well for more than 300 years. I look forward to their having the opportunity to express their views in the referendum, and then to build firmly on the success that devolution has proved to be since it was established in 1999.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to participate in this important debate on the constitutional future of Scotland. It is a pleasure to follow a Lothians colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz). I also welcomed the Secretary of State’s introductory remarks, and also those of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), who spoke with passion and determination.
Although the order is technical in nature and part of a complicated statutory process, it is important for us not to lose sight of the bigger picture: the kind of Scotland in which we all wish to live in the future. Scotland’s constitutional future is about the people of Scotland, and not about the machinations of the political classes. It is therefore vital—especially given the divergence of views on the question of separation —for this process, and the eventual referendum, to be free of partisan interference. Of course the campaign itself will be intensely political, as is only right and proper in a democratic system, but the statutory mechanism that affords that opportunity must be free of undue influence on the part of politicians from either Parliament. By supporting the order, the House can ensure that the UK Parliament plays its constitutional role by legislating and thus providing the Scottish Parliament with the legal footing required to hold a referendum in 2014, although many of us believe that it should be held earlier in order to end the ongoing uncertainty of Scotland’s future. As I have said, it is also of the utmost importance for these powers to be used with a great deal of responsibility, and with the best interests of the people of Scotland in mind.
The order guarantees that the referendum will be made in Scotland, and that supporters of separation will not be able to assign any blame to Westminster with any legitimacy or credibility if they disagree with its outcome. However, I and many other people are worried that the SNP Scottish Government may attempt to steal an unfair advantage through the way they set the rules. Therefore, as we have heard time and again in our debate, the role of the Electoral Commission is crucial. It can act as an unbiased and impartial referee, as opposed to Alex Salmond being both player and referee. The involvement of the Electoral Commission would be a significant step in ensuring that the referendum is fair, legal and decisive. Without its involvement and, crucially, the acceptance by all of its advice and guidance, I will remain unconvinced that the SNP majority in the Scottish Parliament will not manipulate the situation for its own narrow nationalistic ends.
There are some specific areas of concern, the first of which is the proposed question. An impartial body should play the prime role in setting the exact wording of the question, the answer to which could change the future direction of Scotland for ever. It will be the most important decision taken by the Scottish people in over 300 years. The SNP has already attempted to use its majority in the Scottish Parliament to propose questions it believes will deliver its desired outcome. Those questions have been deemed biased by the cross-party Scottish Affairs Committee, as we heard earlier from its esteemed Chair. Reassuringly, this order highlights that there should be one question, to ensure the outcome is decisive, not blurred as a result of there being an additional question on an as yet undefined proposition.
Without the input of the Electoral Commission, the question of the referendum date could also be a concern. The SNP Scottish Government have already delayed holding the referendum until autumn 2014, believing, I suspect, that the anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn will somehow stir the “Braveheart” feelings that the SNP believes are latent in us all, but inciting the politics of identity and ethnicity is neither a progressive nor modern thing to do in what is a diverse and multicultural world.
A further concern is the suggested extreme limitation on spending during the referendum campaign. The SNP Scottish Government have proposed an even lower sum than the Electoral Commission. That could endanger the ability of campaigners to communicate their message effectively to the electorate. Meanwhile, the First Minister will retain his £1 million army of spin doctors throughout the duration of the campaign. Foreign donations should be unacceptable, too. All these concerns could be kept firmly in check through the Electoral Commission playing its authoritative and impartial role.
I believe voter franchise is important and take the view that 16 and 17-year-olds should be allowed to vote in the referendum—although I accept the questions raised about the practicalities, and also believe that if we do extend the franchise to that age group, we must ensure that all 16 and 17-year-olds have the opportunity to vote. However, I also believe Scottish armed services personnel residing or serving outwith Scotland should be able to participate in the referendum. We have discussed that point at length today.
In conclusion, it is essential that the referendum mechanism is determined by those who are outwith the argument, namely the Electoral Commission. Such an important and irrevocable decision must be clear of opportunistic politics from both sides of the argument, in order to guarantee that the outcome is decisive, not subject to drawn-out legal challenge and, most importantly, fair. I hope that, with these parameters agreed by both sides in the debate, the decision will be accepted by all, for the sake of our nation.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Livingston (Graeme Morrice); we all, in this House, enjoy hearing him reading out his speech to such great effect. I turned up to this Chamber—[Interruption.] I managed to get through two sentences before, as you have noticed, Mr Deputy Speaker, the hecklers started to kick in. Many people in Scotland have been watching today’s debate, and I wish the cameras could pan across on to the hon. Gentlemen on the Labour Benches to show the ugly face of Westminster Unionism. I was on my feet for two sentences before the heckling started and the attempts to shout me down began. Unfortunately, we commonly see that in this House.
Pete Wishart
No, I am not giving way to the hon. Lady. When I came here today, I thought that we were going to have a good, positive debate. I thought that we all agreed that devolving this power to the Scottish Parliament under section 30 was a good idea, but what have we seen? We have had such a sour debate today. We have heard personal attacks, once again, on the First Minister—we do expect those. We have heard a surly acceptance of the fact that the Scottish Parliament has a right to deliver this referendum—a thing both Governments have agreed. I thought that today would be almost a joyous affair, which is why it has been so depressing to listen to one dreary speech after the next, and all the incessant and consistent negativity. [Interruption.] Here we go again, Mr Deputy Speaker. I really hope that the people of Scotland are watching this, because they have to see how Labour Members respond to these debates. They are not interested in listening to the other part of the debate, and it is very unfortunate that, again and again, we have to listen to these voices attempting to shut things down. I believe it is a pleasure and privilege to speak in today’s debate.
Jim McGovern
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can tell us why his whole party disappeared and, presumably, watched the debate on television, rather than be here.
Pete Wishart
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was here at the time. I believe he is referring to the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson), and I was there for 20 minutes of his speech—
Jim McGovern
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. I did not refer to any Member.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
That is not a point of order. Obviously, I am sure that hon. Members are desperate to get on to the debate on the section 30 order instead of picking each other off; I am sure that that is what we all want to hear.
Pete Wishart
Indeed, Mr Deputy Speaker. I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is referring to. If he wants to have another go, I am prepared to give way to him, but I had no idea what he was suggesting then.
Jim McGovern
It appeared to me that the whole SNP group disappeared earlier for quite some time, and presumably they watched the debate on TV. I did not refer to any other Member of this House being a factor in that.
Pete Wishart
Yes, I was out of the House—we have been here for five hours, and Members come and go outside the House. I do not understand what the hon. Gentleman’s point is.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. It does not really matter whether somebody is in, out or indifferent. I am not really concerned about that. I am concerned about this debate, and we all want to hear what Pete Wishart wants to contribute.
Pete Wishart
Perhaps at last we can get on to the substance of this debate. I was so looking forward to debating this measure. Who would have thought that we would be here today confirming Scotland’s opportunity to determine its own future? We have the possibility and prospect of Scotland becoming a self-governing nation once again, joining the community of nations and making its own peaceful contribution to world affairs. We have the chance to become a country of our own, to make decisions for ourselves and to stand tall, with dignity, self-respect and pride, in the world. This is a fantastic moment, and I am pleased that we are here today debating the possibility, through this order, of Scotland achieving that very fine ambition.
Pete Wishart
Of course I will give way to the hon. Lady—we cannot hear enough from her.
Pete Wishart
Absolutely, and is it not fantastic and fascinating that we have been able to achieve that? But let us imagine what more we can achieve. Let us imagine Scotland not getting involved in things such as illegal wars, not hosting weapons of mass destruction such as Trident but making a peaceful contribution to world affairs, and not doing what we have seen in the past 10 years. That is a Scotland I aspire to. That is what I think the Scottish people will choose once they have the opportunity to make this decision, and that is what is so exciting and so transformative about this whole debate—we have the possibility and prospect that our nation can once again become independent and make its own role in the world. There is nothing finer than that as an ambition, and I look forward to taking that debate forward.
Many people fought for that right. My hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) talked about some of the giants of the Scottish National party, who stood in this Chamber, exposed as we are continually and consistently to the barrage of overwhelming Unionist hostility—shouted down before we even get the first syllable out—but they still stood here and put the case for Scotland’s right to choose. I joined this party 20 years ago, in 1993, and Labour used to joke about the slogan, “Free by ’93”—it was quite a good joke. Now it is 63% and 2013—that is the difference. My hon. Friend was spot on: that has been achieved by the hard work of the Scottish National party Members of Parliament who inhabit these Benches and who have taken forward the case in the face of overwhelming hostility to and contempt for the idea of Scottish independence. They plugged away, they fought, they put the case and now they will be rewarded with a real opportunity for the Scottish people to make the decision on their own.
I want to pay tribute not just to the giants of our movement who have fought so hard to achieve this result but to the ordinary activists—the people who turn up on cold, frozen Saturday mornings to hand out leaflets and encourage people to put the best interests of their country first. They do that week in, week out. They include people like my constituent John Cullens, who died just last year, still trying to serve his nation. He fought alongside me to try to secure electoral victory in Perth and North Perthshire and was so excited about the prospect of a referendum for Scotland that he was always the first there and always the last to leave. As well as the giants of the party to whom my hon. Friend referred, let us remember the hard-working activists who have worked day in, day out to try to secure this result for our nation.
I want to congratulate both Governments and to pay tribute to the Minister, too, who worked exceptionally hard to deliver the Edinburgh agreement. I thought that the Secretary of State’s speech was the best today by far—it went way above any of the dreary speeches we heard from those on the Labour Benches, with their incessant negativity. It was good to hear from the Secretary of State. I also want to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy). He made a thoughtful and non-partisan speech and was prepared to recognise some of the things in the Edinburgh agreement, including how we were prepared to make progress. That is what the Edinburgh agreement was all about: two Governments working together. Even though there is a division between our strongly felt beliefs, we can still sit down together and come together for the common purpose of ensuring that the people of Scotland get the referendum to which they are entitled and that they deserve. Why can we not continue in the spirit engendered by the Edinburgh agreement? Why can we not start to debate the possibility of both options?
I paid tribute to the Secretary of State, but it was disappointing to hear his remarks over the weekend, when he said that he was not prepared even to consider some of the technical details of a yes vote in the referendum. Surely we owe it to the Scottish people to try to do some sort of preparatory work in case there is a yes vote—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. Perhaps I can help the hon. Gentleman a little. I am sure that he wants to concentrate on the section 30 order rather than trying to drag the Ministers into a debate on the outcome of the referendum. We are not going to do that.
Pete Wishart
That is the point, Mr Deputy Speaker. I think we should consolidate the good will that led to the Edinburgh agreement. It is important that we start to build on that. Let us see what we can do to try to ensure that that spirit of co-operation between the two Governments continues throughout the referendum process so that we continue to serve the best interests of both Governments. Let us try to make the debate as respectful as possible.
Some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar) were unfortunate. He talked about bringing respect into the debate, so let us do that. Let us stop referring to people as foreigners. Let us stop talking about border patrols. That brings no credit to our debate, so, please, if we can, let us leave that to the past. Instead, let us refer to people as friends and neighbours. That is what we should do throughout the debate. No longer foreigners, the people who live in the rest of the United Kingdom will always be friends and neighbours to me. Let us make sure that we continue to refer to them in that way. That is what the English people want, too. An Ipsos MORI poll showed that 64% of English people believe that there will still be a common bond with Scotland following a decisive vote in the Scottish referendum. That is great: it demonstrates that the ties across these islands will endure and strengthen following Scotland’s independence.
There are deeply held views and opinions, but let us make sure that the debate we are about to have is as respectful as possible. People are friends and neighbours in the House, and we are friends and neighbours across the country; let us continue to refer to each other as that. Let us not have people described as foreigners, and let us please not go anywhere near border patrols or border posts. It does no credit to the debate.
Anas Sarwar
No one on the Labour Benches used the words “foreigners” or “border controls”. The hon. Gentleman rightly says that we should respect each other as neighbours and friends in Scotland and in England. I hope the same principle applies Scot to Scot.
Pete Wishart
That is probably the most important point the hon. Gentleman has made. It is the key; we have to ensure that we refer to everybody in as friendly a way as possible. He was right in his new year statement: respect is the key element as we go forward, and I hope that Labour Members in this House who still have a contribution to make will respect that.
It is fantastic. The Scottish Parliament will deliver a referendum to the highest standard—a referendum that not just the people of Scotland but people throughout the United Kingdom will be proud of. It will be a model of transparency, fairness and propriety, informed by consultation and independent expert advice. The rules will be fair for everything from finance to broadcasts and mailshots. The playing field has to be, and will be, completely level.
Jim McGovern
Will the Scottish Government adhere to the independent expert advice of the Electoral Commission?
Pete Wishart
We do not know yet what the commission has to say. We will find out. The standards of the Scottish Parliament on these issues will be exactly the same as those of this House. During the Scotland Bill, the Electoral Commission was given the task of testing the question and making sure the rules were fair. If I can find the quote, its advice to the House might help the hon. Gentleman. The commission conceded that it is for elected parliamentarians to decide. I have often heard Labour and Conservative Members say that the Electoral Commission advises, elected Members decide. It happens in this House and it will happen in the Scottish Parliament.
Pete Wishart
I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
We will have a gold standard referendum. It will be to the highest possible standards—a referendum we can all be proud of. Yes, of course the Electoral Commission has to play a role; it is probably the most important role in firming up the referendum, but it is right that directly elected Members of Parliament and Members of the Scottish Parliament decide on the way forward. It happens in this House and it is exactly what will happen in the Scottish Parliament. There will be no difference in that respect.
One of the most exciting things for me is the prospect that the Edinburgh agreement and the section 30 order will allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote in the referendum. Members have probably heard me speak about that before. It is absolutely fantastic that those with the biggest stake in Scotland’s future will have the opportunity to participate in probably the biggest electoral event in their life. It is immensely exciting and we are all looking forward to it. I know that some Conservatives do not like the idea, but I think there is rough consensus among the Scottish political community—perhaps grudging among my Labour friends—that it is right for 16 and 17-year-olds to have the vote.
Next week, there is a Backbench Business debate on that issue, and I am sure that a number of my colleagues will be rushing to back the Scottish Government and the whole process of ensuring that 16 and 17-year-olds get the vote.
Mrs Laing
If the hon. Gentleman really believes that it is right to widen the franchise to all those who have a stake in Scotland’s future, such as 16 and 17-year-olds, why will he not accept that people who temporarily do not happen to live in Scotland have a stake in its future too and should have a vote in the referendum?
Pete Wishart
I listened carefully to what the hon. Lady said about the issue in her contribution. Yes, there is a huge debate about who does, and does not, have the opportunity to vote in Scotland’s referendum, which is right and proper. However, the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Government Ministers, Labour spokespeople, members of the Scottish Government and MSPs have agreed that the fairest way to proceed is to have a franchise that is all about the people who live and work in Scotland. To try any other technical assessment or way of doing these things would lead to incredible difficulties and problems. I am happy and relaxed about the position. There will always be losers in these things, which I accept, but I think that both Governments and both big parties in the House agree that this is the way forward. There is no other way to do it.
It is unfortunate that some Scots feel disfranchised, but there will always be winners and losers when it comes to drawing up lists of people who can participate in such a referendum. I am sure that, like me, the hon. Lady is excited about the prospect of the youngest Scots—perhaps her nieces and nephews—having the opportunity to participate in a decision on their future. I can see that she is smiling, and agrees that it is a fantastic, transformative event, and an opportunity for the youngest participants in our democracy. I visit schools, like most Members in the Chamber, and in my 12 years as a Member of the House I have detected an increasing interest in Scottish politics among our young people. It is fantastic that they will be offered the most important choice in the referendum that they will ever have in their young lives.
Today marks the end of the involvement and role of the House in the formal process of Scotland’s referendum. It is all over; it is finished. We are grateful for the contributions from hon. Members, and we always enjoy hearing their views. Everybody in Scotland has given serious attention to their considered opinions, particularly from Conservative friends—people in Scotland are hanging on their every word. I hope that hon. Members across the House remain engaged with the debate.
Pete Wishart
No, I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
I do not think that MSPs can ever get enough of the hon. Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing). Her speeches should be circulated, to make sure that her considered views are seen by other Members. Today, however, is the last day on which there is a formal role in the independence referendum for Members of the House of Commons, which is right and proper. Of course it is a matter for the Scottish people through their directly elected representatives in the Scottish Parliament. This is what the Scottish national party was elected to deliver, and it would be disingenuous if we did not do so.
It is great that that is now a matter for the Scottish Parliament. Select Committees are still looking at the issue, but they are handicapped by the fact that they all approach it from a Unionist persuasion, so I do not know how useful they are. They all take a strident, antagonistic attitude towards Scottish independence, but some of them are more valuable than others. May I say ever so gently to the Members who serve on them that Select Committees that cannot bring themselves to say the word “independence” will probably be treated with less respect than others? Yes, we are interested in their views, which are noted, but for goodness’ sake let us try to make sure that we talk about independence. There are no separate countries in the world. If Scotland secures its independence, are these people trying to tell me that we will be the first separate country in the world? What a ridiculous proposition. The proposition to my Labour friends is independence: that is what ordinary countries try to secure and achieve, and that is what we will achieve in the autumn of 2014.
Today marks the end of the formal role of this place in the whole debate about Scotland’s referendum. We will continue to be interested in hon. Members’ views, and I hope that they remain engaged with the issue and offer their opinion to Scottish parliamentarians, but they should note that today is the last day that this place will have a formal role in the matter. We now move on to the substance of the debate. The process ends with the passing of the order. The people of Scotland will therefore face two propositions: they can have an independent Scotland that is prosperous and successful, which reflects Scottish values of fairness and opportunity, and promotes equality and social cohesion; a Scotland with a new place in the world; an independent nation participating fully in the community of nations. Or there could be a no vote: more Tory austerity; government that we no longer vote for; a UK—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Gentleman is straying again, although I know that he did not want to do so. I also know that he did not want to abuse the amount of time that he has been given, and he will recognise that he has taken far more time than he ought. There are three more Members who wish to speak, and as he has friends in all parts of the House, he will not want to deny them the opportunity to speak.
Pete Wishart
We have had a six-hour debate and one side in the debate has had maybe half an hour of that, so with due respect, Mr Deputy Speaker, we have—
Mr Deputy Speaker
Order. I know the hon. Gentleman is not questioning my ruling. I have come into the Chair. I said to everybody that I wanted to try to share out the time evenly and I did not want anybody to take advantage of that. I know the hon. Gentleman would never dream of doing that. All I am saying is that I am sure he is coming towards the end. He is not going to get us into a debate on the referendum. I am sure he is about to wind up.
Pete Wishart
It is good that we get more than 10 minutes today to put the case for the independence side of the debate, but yes, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am winding up. Thank you very much for that.
We pass the order today, a section 30 order, based on the Edinburgh agreement. Based on two Governments working together, we now go into the debate side of things. This is what I and my hon. Friends have been waiting for all our political lives. We relish a fight. We know what Scotland will decide in 2014. It will vote yes to independence and yes to full nationhood.
Mr Deputy Speaker
Three more speakers. Ten minutes each. I call Mr Michael McCann.
Mr Michael McCann (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (Lab)
That must be the first time in the history of Parliament that there have been 21 minutes of non sequiturs in a single speech. The questions that were asked during the debate were not answered by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) at any point. For the first 10 or 11 minutes, I did not know what was going on.
I support the order to devolve to the Scottish Parliament the ability to hold a referendum on whether Scotland remains part of the United Kingdom or becomes a separate nation. The most important words used by the Secretary of State at the start of the debate were that the referendum must be legal, fair and decisive. On the referendum’s legality and fairness, the House must recognise that once we pass the order today, that responsibility passes to the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government. Most importantly, responsibility for the decisiveness element passes to the Scottish people. It is important that we recognise that.
Nobody can take away the SNP’s victory in 2011. In political terms it was truly stunning, but that victory was not about Scotland’s constitutional future. It was about party politics. Perhaps in this month of January, when we will celebrate our national bard, I should remind Members from the Scottish National party of some words from “Tam o’Shanter”:
“But pleasures are like poppies spread—
You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river—
A moment white—then melts for ever.”
That is what happens when fighting political campaigns. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose; but you do not stay in power for ever.
All that changed because the SNP changed its political colours. Previously it was a political chameleon, taking on the colour of the territory it was fighting in. In 2007, it changed to a centre-left agenda, and continued that in 2011. In a perfect storm the SNP won a truly outstanding result in the 2011 elections, winning an outright majority in the Scottish Parliament. The party that places a separate Scottish state in big letters and big bright lights—that is the reason for its existence—then received the holy grail, a route map to a referendum on Scottish separation. The SNP has won the right to a referendum and we should not begrudge it that right because of its victory in 2011.
This is an opportunity to put the issue to bed not just for a generation, as the First Minister of Scotland wants, but for many, many generations. We should bear it in mind that the last time the issue was decided was 306 years ago come this May. It is my overwhelming desire that the fruits of democracy are plucked from the tree that was given to us in the result in 2011. If it were up to me, we would do it much sooner than the proposed date of autumn 2014.
However, many speakers in the debate have made the important point that we all share some trepidation about the motivation of the people who will receive the power if the order is passed. Some people once mused that devolution would see off Scottish nationalism for ever. Others thought that the voting system in Scotland was so cleverly devised that no single party would ever seize control, and certainly not the Scottish National party. How wrong can you get? Those are possibly two of the worst conclusions reached since Michael Fish said in October 1987:
“Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she had heard that there was a hurricane on the way. Well, if you’re watching, don't worry, there isn’t.”
We have to remember that, until a few months ago, the SNP was still arguing that it had the power, without the amendment to schedule 5 going through this House, to hold a referendum. We also have to look at how it has used its power in the Scottish Parliament—this is a perfectly valid point—since it gained an overall majority in 2011. It has ruthlessly shut down debate in the Scottish Parliament and, unlike this place, where hon. and right hon. Members of whatever political hue are free and able to scrutinise the work of Government Departments on Select Committees, no such scrutiny is allowed in Scotland. For those reasons I am not filled with any great hope that the SNP will not manipulate or attempt to manipulate the referendum to favour its preferred result.
I want to raise a new issue, which is perhaps unusual at this point in the debate. I hope that you will bear with me, Mr Deputy Speaker, because it is an important issue about the civil service. I intervened earlier on my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) and made the point that the mechanics will be handled by the civil service. Civil service powers have not been devolved to the Scottish Parliament, but they will play a crucial role.
I hope that the Under-Secretary will address two elements. First, questions have been asked about the permanent secretary and how he behaves towards the SNP Government. We have to be assured that the people at the top of the civil service in Scotland can give truth to power, and we must know that, if questions are raised about the legality or fairness of certain decisions, the civil service will stand up to its political masters. Secondly, there are 30,000 UK public servants in Scotland working for a range of different Government Departments. They have to have the ability to express their views in this debate and be free to speak. I would therefore welcome an assurance from the Under-Secretary that those individuals will have that freedom and that it will not impinge on their contracts of employment, under which they have to be impartial in their duties as civil servants. I hope that the Under-Secretary will touch on those two points when he responds to the debate.
In conclusion—I hope you recognise, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I have cut back my speech substantially—it is important for the public, particularly the Scottish public, to recognise that all that this order does is devolve the power for the next stage of this debate to the Scottish Parliament. The date, the actual question and the rules of the referendum, including the financial rules, which have been discussed by a number of hon. and right hon. Members, will all be decided by the Scottish Parliament, which is dominated by an SNP majority. The eyes of Scotland, the United Kingdom and, indeed, the world will be on them—do not let us down.
Cathy Jamieson (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (Lab/Co-op)
I have sat through the debate and listened intently. I have resisted the temptation—I have not risen to the bait—to jump up and intervene, although my patience was tested by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). To start off with an attack on Labour Members and then complain about people heckling is not the kind of behaviour that those looking from outside want to see. I think that the majority of people in Scotland—who would have been watching this debate had they not been following the Twitter feeds about, and taking more of an interest in, our new Scotland football manager—would have wanted to hear the much more positive tone that they would have expected when we in this House actually agree on a way forward.
As someone who campaigned for a Scottish Parliament, I was and am proud to be part of the party that delivered the devolution settlement and the Scottish Parliament, and, indeed, to have served in it for some 12 years. During that time, I always believed that I had a responsibility not only to my own political party and, of course, to my constituents first and foremost, but to stand up for the interests of Scotland.
In the context of some of the things that are going on in the Scottish Parliament under an SNP majority Government—something most of us thought we would never see—I must point out that it is rather ironic to see the legal and educational establishments in Scotland beginning to feel that the fundamental principle of the uniqueness of the Scottish legal and educational systems is being undermined by that Government. I do not want to dwell on that point, but I want to place the debate in context.
This is an important debate, and it is right and proper that we should give the Scottish Parliament this responsibility to deal with the referendum. That is why I regret the tone adopted by the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire. The people on the Labour side in the Scottish Parliament will take that responsibility seriously, but they have some concerns, as do the wider public. That is why it is important that the role of the Electoral Commission should be respected.
I can understand that individual SNP Members might not agree with everything that the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson), says. Irrespective of their personal feelings, however, he has an important role in chairing that Committee on behalf of everyone in the House, and it would have been courteous of them to listen to his speech and take up their points with him, rather than simply absenting themselves from that part of the debate.
Just in case SNP Members missed it, I want to refer to one thing that the Chair of the Select Committee raised. He quoted from the Select Committee report, which said of the Scottish Government:
“Despite agreeing to the impartial oversight of the Electoral Commission, it has itself refused to commit to be bound by the decisions of this neutral referee. It is hard to escape the suspicion that it is following the mantra of British cycling of the ‘aggregation of marginal gains’.”
When the Chair of a Select Committee makes such a point about the importance of having a level playing field and having an independent referee from outside the political process to advise on the wording and the funding and to ensure fair play, it is incumbent on the Scottish Government not only to listen and “probably” consider the matter—as we have heard—but to give a clear commitment that they will abide by the Electoral Commission’s advice.
In the past, I have been supportive of the idea of extending the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds, notwithstanding the difficulties involved. I understand the concerns that have been expressed by people in my own party and others, but we now have the opportunity to allow young people in Scotland to vote on a matter of fundamental importance to their present situation as well as to their future. In order to do that, however, we must deal with all the technical aspects involved in drawing up the register and ensuring that everyone aged 16 and 17 is able to participate without any arbitrary cut-off points or problems. That needs to be done properly. When the section 30 order was first announced, I asked what work had been done on this aspect of the process. This will be a matter for the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament to take forward. It would have been helpful if we had been able to hear a bit more today about that positive work, rather than simply listening to attacks on Labour Members, especially those of us who have been supportive of that proposal.
A number of Members have mentioned the need to build consensus. One reason why we were able to move so quickly between the general election in 1997 and the referendum on the Scottish Parliament in September of that year was that political consensus was built. I hope that, as we take this debate forward following the passing of the section 30 order, we will see another attempt to build such political consensus, rather than having to listen to more of the rather unfortunate language that has been used by some SNP Members this afternoon.
This is not simply about a majority SNP Government pushing through what they want; it is about representing the people of Scotland. The SNP Government have to recognise that, although they won a majority of seats in the Scottish Parliament, that does not mean that they can state categorically that there is a majority in Scotland in favour of independence.
Many people in my local area tell me that they voted SNP, which they of course had the right to do, but that they are concerned about the process of the referendum and want to be sure that it is fair and above board. They also tell me that they may not vote for independence because they are worried about the economic circumstances in Scotland and what might happen if Scotland were to separate from the rest of the UK. [Interruption.]
I hear chuntering, to use a word that was used earlier, from many of the SNP Members. I am happy to debate the positive arguments for Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom with the SNP in a proper context at any stage. However—and I hope that SNP Members and the Scottish Government take this on board—I find it difficult to take that anyone who is seen to disagree with independence finds themselves subjected to cyber-warfare through the Twitter feeds; or, if they work in the voluntary or charitable sector, finds that they receive a phone call; or, if they are a business, finds that they do not get invited to the same circle of events. This point is fundamental to the way in which the debate has to be taken forward. I respect the fact that many people believe in an independent Scotland. I disagree with that view and have come to that conclusion after a great deal of consideration throughout my political life, but I do not accept that people who have a different opinion should not be able to voice it for fear of being on the wrong side of the Scottish Government and having to suffer the consequences. I plead with those on the SNP Benches to do what they can to ensure that this debate is taken forward positively.
As I said earlier, it is important to meet what has been described as the “gold standard” in the wording of the question that is put to the Scottish people. I think that the Scottish people who are watching this debate want to know that every one of us is trying to do our best for the future of the country and our communities, and that we are not simply out to seek party political advantage. It is unfortunate that much of the debate has again focused on the misconceptions, misunderstandings, mis-speakings and lack of information—or sometimes the completely contradictory information—around the Scottish Government’s position, for example on the currency and on the EU. People are worried when the Scottish Government are unable to give a straight answer to a straight question. That is why I believe that we must have the Electoral Commission as the independent referee. We need it to ensure that the question is not only fair, but is seen to be fair.
As many Members have said, it is vital that the outcome is accepted. Many people who did not agree with the setting up of the Scottish Parliament expressed their view in the run-up to the referendum, but none the less accepted the outcome and tried to make it work, including many people who sat on the Benches opposite me in Holyrood. That spirit of the different political parties trying to make an institution work has perhaps been lost over the past few years. It would be regrettable if that continued throughout the debate over the referendum.
I am grateful for the opportunity to make a few points this afternoon on behalf of my constituents, who have concerns about the process and want to see that it is fair, and about the future of the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament is a precious institution, for which many of us fought long and hard. We must not see it undermined in this process. We are giving it an important responsibility and I trust that my colleagues there will do their best to live up to the expectations. However, I want to hear from the SNP in particular that it is prepared to play fair and to ensure that there is a level playing field throughout the process.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
I am very pleased, and do not in the least begrudge sitting for many hours, to have the opportunity to contribute to this debate. This is a truly momentous moment and I pay credit, as others have done, to those who have been involved in negotiations to get us to the point at which the House—I hope this evening—can sign off a section 30 order and we can move on to the next phase.
It is a pleasure, as always, to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) whose contribution had just the tone we want in this debate as we go forward. These issues are important to the Scottish people, and although there can be robust disagreement, they should always be considered in a tone of respect. I do not think there is anything worth while in life that justifies treating one’s fellow human beings badly.
That takes me neatly to the contribution from the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). Until then, the tone of the debate had been reasoned, restrained and respectful. His contribution, however, had a sour tone, and I do not even know whether he is aware of that. No other Member of his party consistently adopts such a tone in his contributions in the House and other places on the estate. I do not know whether his unpleasantness informs his politics, or his politics his unpleasantness, but he is rapidly becoming the Reverend I. M. Jolly of the SNP. It may surprise some people that we have managed to debate the section 30 order for so many hours, but so many elements of this issue are important. Significantly, we have spoken a lot today about the franchise. The hon. Gentleman thought that we were being downbeat and rubbishing it, and criticising or not trusting the Scottish Government, but it is not about that.
I know that this challenge will be difficult and that it will not be possible to meet the aspirations of everyone who wants, through this order, to vote in the referendum. It is, however, important that people who are Scottish, and feel they are Scottish, know that the Parliament in Holyrood has done everything it can to make this a showcase for the world and the fair, exemplary example of a referendum that we all want to see.
This referendum divides even my own family. My daughter lives in Scotland so that will be fine and she will have a vote, but I have three sons who were all born in England but consider themselves Scottish. One lives and works in Brussels and he will have a vote, but the ones in Gateshead and London will not. I do not know whether there is a solution, but we must at least acknowledge the issue. My sons still come home and often work in Scotland and this referendum will change their lives and that of my family for ever. Their not being able to vote would be a frustration and a disappointment and all we are doing today is urging the Scottish Parliament to do everything in its power to reach the aspirations of such people.
I welcome the inclusion of 16 and 17-year-olds and would like them to be able to vote in every election in the United Kingdom. I am concerned, however, to ensure that all 16 and 17-year-olds have the right to vote and that no section is disfranchised. I remember the lessons of the poll tax. Some families were nervous about putting their young ones on to the electoral register because of that tax, and I wonder whether some parents—especially in poorer communities—might be nervous and concerned about the bedroom tax. This is not about talking down the SNP or the Scottish Parliament but about saying, “We are passing this over to you. Please make every effort to ensure that every 16 and 17-year-old has the chance to vote, and that we have the chance to engage with them throughout the debate.”
The hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire spoke about the warm relationship that Scotland would continue to have with the rest of the United Kingdom, post the referendum and whatever the outcome, yet he mocked Conservative Members for daring to contribute to the debate. I just wanted to say that he does not speak for the people of Scotland. The majority of us realise that there are four nations that stand tall and proud to make up this family of nations, each with its own individual identity, like a tree in a forest, while under the surface our roots are entwined.
Fiona O'Donnell
Poetry in motion. That is a strength and a relationship that I believe binds these nations together.
I also want to talk about the timing of the referendum. The order says that it can be any time before the end of next year, but no one seems to have mentioned the fact that we might not have a referendum. I do not think we should rule anything out when it comes to the Government in Holyrood. It may be that they find it inconvenient to have a referendum at this time and try to find a way out, but I hope we will see the process through, because it is time. I agree with the right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) that it will not end there for the nationalists. They will not say, “Well, that’s it. It’s over—it never happened for Scotland”; it will carry on. However, it is different for those of us who believe in the family of nations. I do not think we will be calling for a referendum to take us back in five years’ time. That is perhaps the difference.
I do not exaggerate, but whatever happens, the next morning a sizeable section of the Scottish nation will be devastated by the result. We will have to pull ourselves together. That is why the conduct of the election and the process leading up to it, including the powers that this order transfers to the Scottish Parliament, are so important: so that people can see that the process is fair and transparent. We should have the involvement of the Electoral Commission as an independent body—of course we do not know what it will say: that is because it is independent. It is important that we should seek the advice of a body with such experience—and whose advice no Government here have ever rejected—so that we have a question that is fair and does not lead to or prompt a response from the Scottish people.
It is also important that, within the spending limits, the Scottish people should be allowed access to all the information they need to make a decision. I do not think it should surprise people that the SNP has called for the amount to be lower than what those of us in the Better Together campaign are calling for. Indeed, the boundaries between the Scottish Government and the yes campaign are being blurred day by day. Last night we heard Blair Jenkins, the leader of the yes campaign—the chief executive—announcing that the Scottish Government would be making various announcements in the lead-up to the White Paper. Why did that come from someone in the yes campaign? That was an announcement for the Scottish Government. There is blurring and, at times, misuse, and we need to be vigilant about that.
Mr MacNeil
Whether or not Blair Jenkins said that last night, it has been known about for ages. It was hardly an announcement coming uniquely from Blair Jenkins. If I tell the hon. Lady that the Scottish Government will have 15 papers before the end of the year, is that an announcement from the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar? I am just saying it.
Fiona O'Donnell
I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman. This is a man—not him, but Blair Jenkins—who kept saying, “Oh, I’m not a politician,” but then he turns up on politics programmes and makes highly political comments. Let us not kid ourselves for one moment that this is someone who is independent or separate from the SNP.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) should not feel bad that he seems to have a problem in his relationship with the SNP. Let us remember that in the yes campaign there has already been a trial separation between the SNP and the Scottish Greens. As I recall, there are only two of them in the Scottish Parliament, so the problem is less his and more that of the Scottish nationalists. It is about the way they do their politics.
Let me draw my comments to a conclusion. We have had a good debate today. It has set the agenda; or rather, it did not “set the agenda”—that would be arrogant —but made some helpful suggestions to the Scottish Parliament about how the debate should be conducted. Although I very much hope that the outcome will be the right one, I also hope that we have a debate and a campaign that do not divide Scotland and Britain, because that would be in no one’s interests.
Gordon Banks (Ochil and South Perthshire) (Lab)
The spirit of consensus has been a key characteristic of today’s debate on the passing of this order. We support the order, as my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) has already said, and we support the fact that the Scottish people should be in the driving seat and making the decision. However, a huge of amount of debate needs to take place before the people of Scotland make the biggest decision on the constitutional future of our country since 1707. I pay thanks to the many groups and organisations that provide us with a number of briefings, such as the Law Society of Scotland.
We have heard interesting and stunning contributions from Labour Members: my right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) and for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar), my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Mrs McGuire), my hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray), for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz), for Livingston (Graeme Morrice), for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Mr McCann), for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) and for East Lothian (Fiona O'Donnell). I will take some of the issues they have raised today and explore them a little further.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West spoke in support of his own Scottish Affairs Committee report and argued for the need for losers’ consent in this process—an important point to make. He also argued that it is the responsibility of the losers to accept the result for a generation or more, as has been stated by the First Minister in the past. My hon. Friend brought to the debate the question of whether the SNP can be both player and referee, and spoke of the need for the Electoral Commission to be the only referee.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central spoke about keeping his country together and about a fight. I tell him this: it will be a fight, but I will be standing shoulder to shoulder with him. Rightly, he stated that a yes vote in 2014 will last forever. He also highlighted that 45% of SNP voters do not support independence and that often the SNP’s actions do not match its rhetoric.
My neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stirling, exposed the antics of the SNP and spoke of the need to carry the referendum debate forward positively on all sides—such comments have been made by many hon. Members, but have not always been delivered by the words that followed. My right hon. Friend made the important point that, by our actions today, a great responsibility has now been placed on the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South spoke about how it was Scottish Labour that delivered devolution and improved it. He expressed concern over the SNP’s control of the Scottish Parliament, and its singular function in and out of Holyrood to deliver independence rather than to address issues, such as food bank queues in his constituency. He also asked whether we can trust the First Minister and said that the jury was out on the SNP Government’s ability to be fair—a view that I think is possibly shared by many Labour Members.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith highlighted the concern that it will be damaging for Scotland if the days following the referendum are filled with rancour. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West said—I think my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith alluded to the same fact—the losers need to accept the outcome of the referendum. He also called for the Electoral Commission to take the role of the referee in this process.
My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston reminded us that the Scottish constitutional future is really all about the future of the Scottish people. He was unconvinced that the nationalist majority in Holyrood would not be used to act in a partisan way. My hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow sought assurances on the role of the top civil servant in this process in Scotland and how the civil service must not be silenced for doing its job. I will come back to that point. My hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun called for a reasonable and respectful debate, and respect for the Electoral Commission’s role—a strand running through many contributions from Labour Members. She also referred to the lack of support for the commission coming from the SNP. The burden being passed to Holyrood is great. Our devolved Parliament must prepare a Bill that presents the people of Scotland with a clear choice: whether or not to separate from the rest of the UK. There can be no fudged question with undue bias. In the light of that, it is paramount that the Scottish Government pay heed to the commission’s recommendation. That argument has been well made by my hon. Friends.
I want to pick up some more points made during the debate. My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West expanded on the need for a fair question and the fact that the Scottish Government must accept the commission’s view. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West again talked about the weasel words from the SNP over its biased question and how it had no reason not to accept the commission’s view. He also confirmed that no self-respecting polling organisation would ask such a question—no surprise there. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central said that voters must have a clear question, that the commission should decide on the question and that it should not be for politicians to decide. We should respect the role and independence of the commission. That way, the question will be seen as fair.
Gordon Banks
If the hon. Gentleman can control his E numbers and sit down, he will have plenty of opportunity to get in later.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South expressed concern about attempts to sideline the commission on the issue of the question and challenged the SNP to accept the commission’s advice, but there were no takers at that point in the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Livingston also called for a question that was approved by the commission.
Gordon Banks
The hon. Gentleman will have a contribution to make later, I am quite sure.
The commission is extremely well respected, and no Government or Assembly within the UK have ever failed to reach agreement with it on such issues. [Interruption.] I am sorry, but the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) is wrong. The Deputy First Minister claims to hold the commission in high esteem. Why, then, can she not give an unequivocal assurance that the Scottish Government will implement its recommendations? Particularly given that the Scottish Government are, for the first time in the history of the Scottish Parliament, governing with a working majority, it is appropriate that extra care be taken to ensure that the process is open and transparent.
The order states that the referendum must be held before the end of 2014. The Opposition, as well as our colleagues in Holyrood, had hoped that the Scottish Government would bring forward that date in order to end the uncertainty over Scotland’s constitutional future. Frankly, we could be forgiven for thinking that after 80 years the SNP would be ready to put this to the ultimate test—the test of the Scottish people. It is surprising that it is so reticent. Without doubt, it would be in Scotland’s best interests to have this decision made as soon as possible, but the Scottish Government appear prepared to take it to the wire. It is therefore essential that in that time we show the benefits of remaining in the most successful political and economic union the world has ever seen.
Funding is another issue that has been addressed in the debate. My hon. Friends have made valid contributions on this issue, and I want to pick up on them now. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East raised the issue of a 1p spend for each voter in Scotland—and you know what you get when you spend a penny! My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West, however, said that to secure a respectable turnout and a clear decision we need to spend money. That was further amplified when he advised us of the turnouts in Quebec in 1980 of 85%, and in 1995 of 93.5%. He also spoke about the importance of the commission playing a continuing role, but he expressed his doubts about how the permanent secretary in Holyrood might be restricted in ensuring that the Scottish Government, in the regulated period, play a neutral role. We all share his concern.
It is crucial that both sides of the argument are able to fund their campaigns effectively, but it should be clear that funding should not be rigged to benefit one side to the detriment of the other. To have a referendum on the future of Scotland within the UK, but with businesses and unions limited in their ability to campaign by imposing lower spending limits than the Electoral Commission recommended, and to have a referendum on the future of Scotland within the UK but with far lower spending limits for the umbrella campaign groups than was recommended by the Electoral Commission and that were in place for the Welsh referendum and the AV referendum: these will both be seen for what they are. In short, to have the Scottish Government as a referee and player will in itself be seen for what it is.
Labour Members feel that the Electoral Commission is the most appropriate body to deal with these arrangements, and we are happy to be bound by its proposals. It is the body best placed to offer independent advice on such matters. We heard a contribution from my parliamentary neighbour the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) in answer to a question about whether the Scottish Government would accept the Electoral Commission’s advice. His answer was, “Yes, yes, probably.” I am prepared to sit down to allow him to intervene to take away the “probably” and leave the “yes, yes”. No takers? There’s a surprise.
The Scottish Parliament is now ingrained within Scottish culture, and it has matured as a legislature. I believe that it is the feeling of this House that it is not for the Scottish Government in isolation to decide how to present the referendum to the people of Scotland. The Government must recognise that the people of Scotland deserve nothing less from their Government than an open, balanced and transparent referendum process. From this day forward, it will be unacceptable to the people of Scotland if the SNP uses its majority status in Holyrood to railroad through unfair outcomes on the question, funding and overseas donations. Indeed, on this matter, the First Minister could do worse than take the sound advice in last week’s report of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee.
There is so much more to discuss, including the day, the extended length of the regulated period and the extension of the tariff to 16 to 18-year-olds. Let me say a word or two on this final matter before I finish my remarks. If 16 to 18-year-olds are to be included in the franchise, it must be all 16 to 18-year-olds, as my hon. Friends have argued in the debate—not just the attainers, which would be an unacceptable cop-out. The impact of the shift from household to individual voter registration, which will be going on at the same time, should also be recognised. My point to the Scottish Government, then, is: “So do it, yes; but do it right.”
I visit schools in my constituency as often as I can. On Friday last week, I met a small group of sixth-form pupils in Alva academy. When I raised the issue of 16 to 18-year-olds voting, the merits of the idea were discussed. I was heartened to be told by one pupil that she was desperate to get the chance to vote: she wanted to vote, she was committed to vote, and she could not wait to go into the ballot box to show her support for Scotland within a strong United Kingdom.
It is essential that Scotland’s future is decided by the Scottish people through a referendum made in Scotland. The future of Scotland is too important for any party to play games with, and I hope the Scottish Government will listen to this debate and understand that they must put any thoughts of their own individual ambitions aside and do what is best for the Scottish people.
This must be a fair, legal and decisive referendum, and for this to take place the Scottish Government must accept the findings of the Electoral Commission. The burden of responsibility that has been placed on the Scottish Government is, as I have already said, great. They must show respect to the Scottish people, do right by the Scottish people and put any desire to create the rules for their own advantage to one side. To do anything less will damage Scotland and the Scottish Parliament’s international standing, which would be intolerable.
The eyes of the world are watching Scotland and we have a right to expect the Scottish Government to act in the best interests of Scotland in providing a fair and transparent referendum process. The First Minister can do this, or his Westminster colleagues can do it here today. It is simple: agree to accept the proposals of the independent electoral expert in the UK—the Electoral Commission. This is the standard that I believe the people of Scotland have set for the Scottish Government, and they cannot be allowed to fall short of it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (David Mundell)
We have had a full and wide-ranging debate. I never doubted that we could fill six and a half hours with contributions from across the Chamber, representing parties across the political spectrum and, importantly, constituencies across the United Kingdom.
At Scotland Office questions, I said that I am never surprised by the actions of the Scottish National party, but I must admit that I was surprised that SNP Members left their Benches empty for a significant part of today’s debate, and did not listen to the contributions and views of others, even if they did not agree with them. The hon. Member for Moray (Angus Robertson) started the debate well for the SNP with what could almost be described as a statesmanlike contribution. However, the SNP must recognise that the tone and behaviour of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) and the somewhat erratic behaviour of the Member representing the Western Isles lead people to have concerns about how the SNP majority in the Scottish Parliament will take the matter forward.
The order that we are debating today is of the utmost constitutional significance. The right hon. Member for Ross, Skye and Lochaber (Mr Kennedy) set exactly the right tone in his contribution on the context of the debate and the political history of Scotland that has led us to this point. The order paves the way for a legal, fair and decisive referendum that will determine Scotland’s future: whether we will be a Scotland that affirms its commitment to this, our United Kingdom, or whether we will be a Scotland that chooses to leave the greatest political, economic and social union that has ever existed. I make no apology for putting my point of view strongly and passionately in this debate, and it is clear that others will also do so. Although we are discussing process today—the legal mechanism to provide the Scottish Parliament with the power to bring forward a referendum Bill—that process will result in the most important decision that people in Scotland will ever be asked to take. Separation will not be for Christmas 2014, but for ever. That is why the process has been debated so comprehensively, not just in this House but between the Governments in the run-up to the Edinburgh agreement, and will continue to be debated by parties in the Scottish Parliament.
To answer an intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), and to refute directly some of the comments of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire, Members of this Parliament will still have a role in that debate and will be entitled to contribute to it. The issues can still be debated in this House of Commons and the other place. Our electorate in Scotland would expect nothing else.
The order ensures that the referendum will be legal, and that is why we are delivering the section 30 order. I am pleased that the Scottish Government now recognise the importance of doing that. The referendum must be fair—and it must be seen to be fair, as many Members have said. At the end of the process, no side can be allowed to cry foul—a point that the Chairman of the Scottish Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) made in his usual colourful way. The debate must be conducted on a basis of well established principles, which have applied to referendums held across the United Kingdom, by successive UK Governments, and which both the Scottish Government and the UK Government put their names to when they signed the Edinburgh agreement last October. The process must produce a decisive result.
Businesses up and down Scotland tell me that they want to get the issue resolved once and for all. They want to get on with concentrating on rebuilding Scotland's economy, to focus on jobs, housing, and people’s real concerns. The Government want that too, but we accept that following the May 2011 election for the Scottish Parliament, the question of independence cannot be ignored. We must address the issue, and we must answer the question: do we want to stay in the United Kingdom or do we want to leave it for ever?
The order will ensure that the referendum can take place. As the Secretary of State said in his opening remarks, it will ensure that the referendum contains a single question about independence, and that there will be no second question or second referendum to cloud the issue or prevent a clear result. It will ensure that the referendum can be held no later than the end of 2014, and it will ensure that important aspects of normal referendum law that would otherwise be outside the Scottish Parliament’s competence can be included in the referendum Bill, such as the rules governing campaign broadcasts and mail shots. It will also make the Scottish Government and Parliament responsible for setting the detailed rules and regulations governing the referendum. That is an important responsibility, and, as more than one Member has observed, one to which the world will pay close attention. The Deputy First Minister said that the highest international standards would apply to the referendum, and we shall all be holding her to account.
The right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling), who has already played and, I believe, will continue to play an important and increasingly decisive role in the forthcoming campaign, pointed out that the Scottish Government would have to respond to the advice of the Electoral Commission on the wording of the question and the setting of the various spending limits for the referendum campaign. I look forward to hearing the Scottish Government’s rationale for the spending limits that they have devised. Apart from the argument that people do not like money to be spent during elections, I have heard no rationale that challenges the established limits set by the Electoral Commission. It is important that we, and all who will participate in the referendum, understand the reasons for the proposed financial limits.
If the Scottish Government choose not to accept the Electoral Commission’s advice, they will have to justify their decision. As a number of Members have pointed out, the UK Government’s position is clear: they have never failed to accept Electoral Commission advice on a referendum question. The Scottish Government will also have to specify the franchise for the referendum, and if they choose to extend it to 16 and 17-year-olds, they will have to answer the important questions about data protection and access to the register for information relating to minors to which my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) referred. In turn, it will be for the Scottish Parliament to scrutinise the Scottish Government’s legislation. It will have to examine all the proposals carefully.
Members have expressed concern about the current operation of the Scottish Parliament. Like the hon. Members for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) and for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), I was once a Member of the Scottish Parliament. At that time, when Labour was in a coalition with the Liberal Democrats and had a majority in the Parliament, it was always members of the Scottish National party who feared that their views might not be given due weight because there was a majority Government. I expect them to behave now as they behaved then in speaking up for minority views and ensuring that they are heard in the Scottish Parliament. I want them to make us confident that the Bill will be debated in a way that takes account of the views of all the people of Scotland. However, I myself am confident that my colleagues, Opposition Members and our Liberal Democrat coalition partners will be able to hold the SNP Government to account as the Bill is debated, in order to ensure that the referendum is legal, fair and decisive.
The memorandum of agreement signed by the Prime Minister, the First Minister, the Secretary of State and the Deputy First Minister on 15 October was an important first step. That was an important moment not just because of the agreement that had been reached, but because of the very public commitment given by Scotland’s two Governments to ensure that the referendum would meet the very highest standards, and that party politics and passions on both sides of the debate would not intervene in the establishment of a legitimate and fair process. It will be for both sides to stand by and live up to the agreement, and the UK Government give that commitment unreservedly.
There are clearly strong feelings in the House about 16 and 17-year-olds having a vote. As has been said, there will be a debate in Backbench Business Committee time next week, when Members will be able to discuss the topic in more depth. I believe any decision by the Scottish Government to allow 16 and 17-year-olds to vote will not achieve a partisan objective, as I am confident that when the votes are counted we will see that support for remaining an integral part of our United Kingdom comes from young and old alike.
Fiona O'Donnell
Does the Minister share my pleasure in the latest poll result, which included 16 and 17-year-olds and showed that the Better Together campaign currently has a 20-point lead?
David Mundell
I was very pleased to see that, but I am not complacent and all of us who support Scotland’s remaining part of the United Kingdom must get out and about in Scotland, under the leadership of the right hon. Member for Edinburgh South West, and make sure we get our message to all parts of Scotland.
The hon. Lady made a point about 16 and 17-year-old sons and daughters of servicemen. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) and others stressed the need to allow our servicemen and women and their partners to vote, and there are procedures in place for that, but there are no procedures for their 16 and 17-year-old children. The Scottish Government must address that matter.
There has been much consideration of the Electoral Commission, and all Members who spoke about it—apart, perhaps, from those on the Scottish National party Benches—made it clear that they would accept the views of the Electoral Commission, even if it did not adopt their party’s position on the referendum question and funding. We should all welcome the fact that under this agreement the Electoral Commission will play a role, because only a few months ago the Scottish Government did not wish the Electoral Commission to play any part in the referendum, and wished instead to set up their own electoral commission.
To those who asked what would happen if the Scottish Government did not follow the advice of the Electoral Commission, I say this: the people of Scotland will not take kindly to being played for a fool. Public trust is a precious commodity and, as the First Minister discovered following his recent comments on the EU, it can be quickly lost. I say to Alex Salmond, “Ignore the advice of the Electoral Commission at your peril.”
We have not heard about process alone in this debate. We have also heard about why this order matters. It matters because people want to get on with the real debate. Not only politicians, but ordinary people in Scotland, and each and every one of us who will be asked to cast a vote, want to hear about the real issues.
It is perfectly legitimate for the UK Government to set out Scotland’s current position within our United Kingdom in a series of papers, which we will do this year. The hon. Member representing the Western Isles tells us we will have 15 papers from the Scottish Government. We look forward to that, but I hope they shed more light than anything we have heard from them so far.
The agreement reached between the UK and Scottish Governments will ensure that a referendum on Scottish independence can take place. The section 30 order we have debated today ensures that there will be a single-question referendum on independence before the end of 2014. The memorandum of understanding ensures that the referendum will be based on the principles set out for referendums held across the UK. Together, the order and the memorandum mean that we can have a referendum that is legal, fair and decisive. I believe we are better together in the United Kingdom than we would ever be apart, and I commend the order to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the draft Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2013, which was laid before this House on 22 October 2012, be approved.
Business without Debate
(11 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Remploy Marine Fife
(11 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Gordon Brown (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (Lab)
I rise on behalf of myself, my hon. Friends the Members for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy), and, I believe, the whole communities of the county of Fife to urge the Government to save the jobs, the work programme and the marine business of the Remploy factories in Leven and Cowdenbeath in Fife. The two factories, set up in 1948, have been part of the industrial fabric of Fife for six decades. These factories, like those in Dundee, which is represented here today, Stirling and other parts of Scotland and the United Kingdom, have trained and employed thousands of workers with disabilities over the past 60 years, who have found confidence from working in these units. As I will show in a minute, these factories in Fife have an order book and an established product that people want to buy. Indeed, the order book could be rapidly extended in the right circumstances and, as I will also show, two prospective buyers have indicated to me and to my hon. Friends the Members for Glenrothes and for Dunfermline and West Fife that they would be interested in purchasing the factories.
I am pleased that the Secretary of State, as well as the Minister, is here this evening. These factories cannot be expected, in current circumstances, to be able to move from making a loss of £1.6 million two years ago and a prospective loss of £800,000 this year, to overnight financial viability under the Government’s proposals, even with the subsidy that is on offer for a short time. I want to show the Government why they have to be more flexible in ensuring that jobs that can be saved and should be saved are actually saved, and that these privatisations do not become either the liquidations of factories in Leven and Cowdenbeath, as has happened in so many other parts of the country, or the decimations of the work force. They also need to ensure that that does not happen at one of the most difficult economic times and in circumstances where the most vulnerable workers need our support.
We could talk about the general history and the policies being applied to Remploy, but I want to talk specifically about Fife, and about Leven and Cowdenbeath in particular. I wish to suggest that the Secretary of State and his Minister join a meeting with the Scottish Government and the council of Fife; this should be a tripartite group that works together to devise a plan that gives financial viability over a period of months to these factories, which we accept the Government are determined to sell on but which, in my view, could be saved.
Why do I say that? I do so because the assets of the two factories, which I have known for 30 years, are not just a loyal, dedicated and committed work force, who have made enormous sacrifices over the past year—the wage bill has been cut by 30% from £1.6 million to £1.1 million—but a product that is well established across the world as one of the most successful and sophisticated products available for marine safety. The factories are producing 30,000 of these garments each year, and I am told that they could easily move to 40,000, an increase of more than 25% or 30%. That is easily achievable in the existing factories. The design is selling not just in this continent, but worldwide and there is a market that I know can be extended over time.
Of course, the assets are not only physical assets—the ability to produce a large number of goods—but that of our having managed to approach two prospective buyers who are interested, in certain circumstances, in purchasing the factories and who would be prepared, if the conditions were right, to take over the factories and ensure that, after a short period, they are viable.
What is the problem that has to be solved? It is clearly this: the financial viability of these factories is incredibly difficult in the current circumstances, given that they have had losses of £1.6 million and, we expect, will lose about £800,000 this year—they have halved their losses, but they are still substantial losses for two small factories—and given that they have fixed costs as well as overheads and raw materials that mean that the input costs are very high indeed. Rents and rates are £57,000 or so and they pay £200,000 in central administration costs, which could be reduced but not entirely eliminated, as that figure covers insurance, payroll and a number of unavoidable administrative items. They need to buy in materials, obviously, at a major cost of £800,000 for the factory. That cost can be reduced significantly over the next few years, but it will not be reduced overnight unless we can take extraordinary action.
We have a product that people want to buy, a market that could be expanded, a sophisticated good that is world leading and an order book that is full—of course, the buyers would be prepared even now to extend the orders beyond the date they have been given—but the costs have historically been high and so, before even a penny is paid in wages, the factories are having to fork out more money than the sales revenues they receive from their goods. That is the problem we have to address.
Of course, the terms on which the Government will sell the two factories allows a buyer to come in and offer less than £1.2 million, which will be the cost of redundancy. It is possible that someone could take the factory off the Government’s hands and be paid about £1 million to do that. The problem, however, is that that redundancy cost might at some time have to be paid out and no responsible person would tell the buyer that they should not safeguard against the possibility that the redundancy costs will have to be paid. We must come up with something better.
I say to the Minister and the Secretary of State that the £6,400 subsidy that is on offer for three years—an average of about £2,000 a year, although it is about £4,000 in the first year—cannot overnight eliminate losses that were more than £20,000 per employee two years ago and are probably about £12,000, £13,000 or £14,000 per employee at the moment. The idea that a subsidy that averages £2,000 can eliminate the shortfall overnight is impossible. Today, I talked to the Minister in the Scottish Parliament, Mr Fergus Ewing, about what he can do to help. My view, and that of my colleagues and Fife council, which has also been involved, is that there is a way forward for a viable product, that the Government should try to make these two factories work and that they need to give them the time that is necessary to achieve viability. The employment support that should be on offer must be greater in this case than the average of £2,000 a year. That is simply inadequate to bridge the gap between the current losses and the financial viability that is obtainable.
The Scottish Parliament is prepared to pay £5,000 per disabled employee over a period of 18 months. That would make a difference and I welcome it. I know that Fife council is prepared to do more, because it has an employment fund to help people secure jobs. If we are to save these two factories, which I have known for 30 years and which do spectacularly good work, we need the Government, the Scottish Administration and Fife council to come together. I urge the Minister to consider this proposition.
Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)
I have a Remploy factory in my constituency and we have set up an action group composed of MPs, MSPs, elected local councillors and so on. May I urge my right hon. Friend to use his good offices to ask Fife council to contact Dundee council to see whether we can work together to form some sort of co-ordinated rescue package?
Mr Brown
Of course. The cutting equipment that is necessary for the raw materials that produce the manufactured goods in Fife is in Dundee. If a rescue is going to work, there must be some relationship between what happens in Leven and Cowdenbeath and in Dundee. We will follow up my hon. Friend’s suggestion about a meeting between Fife and Dundee.
I urge the Government to agree to hold a meeting, preferably in Fife, with representatives of the Government, the Scottish Administration, who have agreed that they will attend such a meeting, and Fife council, who will be there, to see whether the combination of what is on offer in employment support can achieve the financial viability over a short period of time that is essential if this product is to be produced in Britain. It will be sold and made somewhere, so the only question is whether it will be produced in Britain and not, as is likely, in Asia or elsewhere in the world.
The price of failure is that 50 or more Remploy factories will move from privatisation to liquidation. If they do not move to liquidation, it will mean the decimation of the work force. I know that large numbers of people employed in Fife will never work again, despite the employment support that is available. We will be throwing away the opportunity to make a viable product, which with help to make it financially viable is one that people will be prepared to buy not just in this country but around the world.
Dr Eilidh Whiteford (Banff and Buchan) (SNP)
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on bringing the issue to the House. I highlight not just the £5,000 the Scottish Government have committed over and above the support from the Department for Work and Pensions, but also the support through Scottish Enterprise for potential bidders. There could be a whole package of measures if people work together.
Mr Brown
I hope there is financial support from Scottish Enterprise. I have not yet seen it. An 18-month subsidy will not be adequate to bridge the gap between the losses incurred at the moment and financial viability.
The price of failure is that large numbers of people will lose their jobs, but success could be achieved by all the parties working together—the UK Government, the Scottish Administration and the Labour-led council. That could mean that at least two of the units that at the moment most people would say are more likely to fail than succeed could be brought into viability to extend their output and create more jobs in a community that desperately needs them. I hope that the Minister will also listen to my hon. Friends the Members for Glenrothes and for Dunfermline and West Fife.
Lindsay Roy (Glenrothes) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) on securing this vital debate. I fully endorse the thrust of his argument and commend his analysis of the key issues that face us in securing Remploy’s survival and possible viability.
I plan to underpin the case for a more flexible, generous and co-ordinated approach in the transition to financial viability by providing some additional detail. The Fife work force provide outstanding service, well above and beyond the call of duty. They are not shirkers. Remploy Marine’s order book is full. As my colleague said, their lifejackets meet international standards; they go to places such as Norway, Denmark and the USA. They are at the forefront of the manufacturing we want to retain in this country.
The employees take pride in their work, and are making a significant contribution to wealth creation. Through their initiative and enterprise, they have cut their deficit in half, as we would expect from a work force so dedicated to continued employment. They have an entrepreneurial spirit. There is a full order book. The workers want to boost our diminishing manufacturing base and extend our overseas market. They remain determined to succeed. It is a golden opportunity.
In an authoritative report, Scottish Enterprise states that
“high growth rates are forecast, despite the underdeveloped sales channel.”
Nearly all the Fife production goes to one distributor, who makes a healthy profit from the Remploy brand. As I said, the export market is extensive, and much more could be achieved through diversification.
As my right hon. Friend said, a one size approach does not fit all. The Government’s support package is entirely inappropriate. Remploy Marine has real strengths and potential viability, given the right support package. That is why we want joint working and a co-ordinated approach, with effective leadership, between the Scottish Government, the UK Government, Fife council and any other important partners.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way and I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) for securing the debate.
Does my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes recall that when he was elected in 2008 the unemployment rate for disabled people stood at 9%, whereas now it is 12.3%? Is there not a duty to more than half a million disabled people who are out of work for every tier of government to do everything possible to help save those jobs?
Lindsay Roy
Absolutely. I am very grateful for that contribution. That is entirely the case that we are making. We want to make sure that all parties concerned do everything they can to support the disabled and disadvantaged in our community, as that is a hallmark of a civilised society.
A viable rescue package is possible, whether it is an employee buy-out, a social enterprise or a private sector purchase. In my view, the proposals are rushed and, ironically, represent a dramatic withdrawal of life support to a group of people who have been life savers for years. An option must remain on the table for an enhanced package for this internationally renowned product. A company such as Remploy Marine, with a substantial number of disabled people, remains a viable, highly competitive option but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath said, that cannot be achieved overnight. There are at least two potential buyers, who need all the support that they can get.
At Leven, we have been told that the subsidy is £13,000 a head, but in terms of best value, the Government have been unable to quantify the increased benefits costs if people are made unemployed, nor do we have details of the redundancy payments. Furthermore, we do not know the care and health costs that often result when people become unemployed.
This year, the Leven factory engaged 76 youngsters on work experience placements at no cost to the Government, so there is an added value component. It is my contention that we do not have an accurate balance sheet. With such a small percentage of workers in employment after the July closures, we must do everything that we can together, and there is genuine optimism that we can save the factories in Cowdenbeath and Leven. Like my right hon. Friend, I can vouch for the community spirit and the wholesale backing of the Fife community for these ventures. The support is overwhelming and it is cross-party.
I urge the Government to take a fresh look at the issue, to consider a co-ordinated approach with various partners, and to take this seriously, as I am sure they will. We have a collective duty to reduce the subsidy per individual, and a collective obligation to maximise employment for disabled people. That need not be done by disbanding a potentially viable business. Where there is a collective will, there is a way, and I am confident that with flexibility, good will, effective leadership and co-ordination a successful outcome can be achieved. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) and I have requested an urgent meeting with the Minister, and I trust that she will accede to our request, because by working together we can make a real difference and secure a viable outcome.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) not just on securing this important debate but on the leadership that he has shown in Fife. We are heartened to see so many Members across the House—and people in the Press Gallery—taking a keen interest in the affairs of Fife, and it will be heartening to all our constituents to know that the county of Fife has such a warm place in the hearts of Members from all over the United Kingdom who are here today.
I am conscious of the need to allow the Minister adequate time to address the issue, so I shall be brief. As my hon. Friend the Member for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) said, we will shortly meet the Minister to hold a more detailed discussion, but I should like to pose three specific questions on which she might provide information tonight. She will know the quality of the product and the fact that it is sold across the world. On the seven seas, one can find a product that is made in Fife. Will she tell the House what discussions she intends to have, or has already had, with the Ministry of Defence about what more can be done to encourage the Royal Navy to purchase the product? Will she say what productive discussions she has been able to have with the Scottish Government about how we can all work together and how they can be encouraged to improve further, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath said, their offer to support the factories? Does she hope to have an opportunity to visit either factory, or both factories, in the near future so that she can meet the work force face to face and see the excellent product that they produce? I am conscious of the need to allow her adequate time to reply, so I shall conclude.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)
I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) on securing the debate. It is a pleasure to see him in his place for such an important debate. I am pleased, too, that the hon. Members for Glenrothes (Lindsay Roy) and for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) made their points. We must ensure that we have, as we have had this evening, a constructive and positive discussion so that we engage potential bidders for the site. We need people to come forward and to have that constructive dialogue to make sure that we do as much as we can for the employees of Remploy.
I listened carefully to the issues raised during the debate. It is important that we put in context what is happening with the Remploy sites.
Esther McVey
We know that Remploy has faced an uncertain future for many years. The right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath will be well aware of what happened under the previous Government and under his leadership in 2008, when 29 factories were closed. A modernisation plan that was put in place failed. Unrealistic targets were set that were never achieved, and it cost £555 million.
We must look at what this Government were left with, what had not worked before, what money—half a billion pounds—had been spent, and the situation now. A sixth of the entire budget for people with disability and their employment support was spent on 2,200 workers in loss-making Remploy sites, when we have 6.9 million disabled people of working age, all of whom we must help.
Esther McVey
Let me put that into local context, then I will give way. There are 36 disabled employees at Cowdenbeath Remploy, yet there are 13,800 disabled people of working age in that constituency. In Leven there are 28 disabled staff at Remploy, yet there are 13,600 disabled people in the constituency. As a Government we must help all those disabled people, so we have protected the £320 million budget. What we are doing is helping all those people.
Stewart Hosie
I thank the Minister for giving way. This is not just about money. It is also about information. The right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) referred to the Dundee plant which cuts the fabric for the Fife plants. It may well be able to be saved and rise as a phoenix as a social enterprise, but Remploy has been unable or unwilling to provide the cost breakdown for the factory, making the development of a business plan impossible. That at least the hon. Lady can surely sort out.
Esther McVey
I am happy to engage with the hon. Gentleman. All the information is coming out in a staged process, as announced in December. All the bids are now coming forward, but I will help the hon. Gentleman with any information that he does not have.
Esther McVey
I am running out of time and there is lots to say, so on this occasion I will not give way.
What is the vision for people with disabilities in the workplace? It is not our vision—we went out to disability experts and organisations and asked them to review the disability employment support and what we should be doing. They strongly supported the idea of moving away from the Remploy model. First and most importantly for the 21st century, they felt that we needed to get more disabled people into mainstream work. We need to get more disabled people into work because at present only 46% of working age disabled people are employed, compared with 76% of people who are not disabled. That means that there is a 30% gap in the employment rate and 2 million people out there whom we have to support.
In conclusion, the vision is that the money that has been protected must follow the person and will not go to loss-making businesses. Let me put that in context. Although the factory at Leven generated about £1.2 million in revenue for 2011-12, it is running at a loss of more than a third of a million pounds per annum. The factory at Cowdenbeath generated just under £0.8 million, but it loses £0.5 million in revenue per annum. We could use all that money to help support people with disabilities into work. We can help each one with, on average, £3,200 to get into work.
Of the 668,000 people with disabilities in Scotland, 152 work in a Remploy factory, but last year Remploy Employment Services got 1,700 people with similar disabilities into work. That is what we have to do—support all those people.
To answer directly some of the questions that have been asked, the Remploy commercial process is designed to maximise the number of jobs for disabled people. We are seeking viable bids for its business, wherever possible, and getting the best offers we can to come forward. That is what it is about—supporting disabled people.
Remploy is offering a three-year tapered wage subsidy of £6,400 per disabled person. The right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath has said that that subsidy is insufficient and has called for more money, but how did we come to that figure? We worked on past precedents. The right hon. Gentleman’s Government put wage subsidies in place for Workstep and we were guided by that, but the subsidy is worth more than that and other subsidies, such as the Youth Contract. We also have to strike a balance between the needs of Remploy’s disabled employees and those of other disabled employees, to whom we cannot offer that wage subsidy.
Yes, we have to take into account support for the workers, but not in a way that affects the commercial market for other companies in the marketplace. Significantly increasing the subsidy and support provided to existing businesses risks the very test that the commercial process seeks to perform, in that a business must demonstrate that it can be viable without continued Government subsidy. We have given Government subsidy in the past and, as I have said, the past modernisation plan failed—£555 million was put into it over a continuous period and it did not work. Therefore, we have to look at what is feasible and viable and at how we can move forward.
Esther McVey
I have three minutes to go, but I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman.
Mr Brown
This debate is about Remploy Marine Fife and questions need to be answered about it. I have made a practical proposal that the Government, the Scottish Administration and Fife council should meet and look at flexible arrangements, so that the shortfall is eliminated as quickly as possible for a viable product. Will the Minister agree to those meetings?
Esther McVey
I will, indeed, agree to those meetings. In fact, I will be in Dundee on 4 February and I will be more than happy to meet Members.
Esther McVey
The hon. Gentleman knows that I will meet Members. I was in Scotland only a couple of months ago and, as I have said, we want to take part in direct discussions.
In the closing minutes, I want to explain the work and support that we have put in place for ex-employees of Remploy through the people help and support package. We have put £8 million into that package, which was never done in 2008. I will remind hon. Members of what happened in 2008: 1,637 disabled people left Remploy, 1,006 took voluntary redundancy and 631 retired, because they were offered enhanced amounts of money to take retirement and redundancy. We have not done that. We have secured people in a significant number of jobs and helped them.
Westminster Hall
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Manufacturing (West Midlands)
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams, and to have secured the debate. I am impressed by the Minister because, in anticipation of the debate, he arranged for Jaguar Land Rover to announce 800 jobs over the weekend. If that is how it goes, we should have such a debate each week to ensure that another 800 jobs are announced each weekend.
Manufacturing is incredibly important to the west midlands, which is at the heart of industry. The industrial revolution started in the west midlands, and we rely heavily on manufacturing jobs, although we have seen many changes during not only the past decade but the past century. In 1997, when I left university and started working in manufacturing, 3.6 million people worked in the manufacturing sector, but that had sadly declined to 2.3 million by 2010. However, the decline in manufacturing jobs was not confined to that period; unfortunately, we have seen a steady and continuous decline under Governments of all colours. I hope that we can approach the debate in a spirit of consensus, because of the importance of manufacturing not only in my constituency but in all constituencies across the west midlands. Although I would like to say that the decline in manufacturing employment is a national issue and that the west midlands has been able to buck the trend—
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I agree with the hon. Gentleman so far in relation to Jaguar Land Rover, because the previous Government, like the present Government, did a lot to keep Jaguar Land Rover in the west midlands. More importantly, will the hon. Gentleman offer his support for the retention of the London Taxi Company in the west midlands, particularly in Coventry? It needs all the support that it can get. The Minister has assured us that he will support us to retain the London Taxi Company in Coventry.
Gavin Williamson
I cannot pledge what the Minister will say, but I personally offer my support. For such an iconic brand with such a sense of Britishness as the great London taxi to be built anywhere other than Great Britain would be an absolute tragedy. I understand that one of the problems with London Taxis International was that it outsourced the making of many of its parts to China and the product quality was not right at final assembly in Coventry. I do not, however, pretend to understand the root causes as well as the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) does.
The hon. Gentleman asked whether I would pay tribute to what the previous Government did to support Jaguar Land Rover. I would particularly like to pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) who did so much to support the automotive sector when he was a Minister, including with the establishment of the Automotive Council and other initiatives that the present Government have taken further and improved. That is why a consensual approach is important in the debate, because there is much to be gained from looking at where we can agree and how we can improve our industrial base.
It is my firm view that the decline in manufacturing in the west midlands has held back other sectors of the economy. The number of people employed in manufacturing in the west midlands between 2000 and 2010 fell from 462,000 to 279,000. That has been reflected in most of our constituencies. The gross value added that manufacturing contributed to the west midlands economy fell from 22.5% to 14.5%. That has a massive impact on the spending power of all our constituents and, therefore, a massive impact on retailers and service industries, which are all very important to the west midlands.
I may be considered an old romantic, but I believe that the beating heart of the west midlands is our manufacturing industry. We can produce the best goods, sell them around the world and be a great success. In South Staffordshire 3,600 of my constituents, or 15.9% of the active work force, work in manufacturing, which is almost double the national average. Although we may not have lots of factories, we have many important ones, including the new Jaguar Land Rover engine plant, and manufacturing has a massive significance for employment and prosperity in South Staffordshire.
Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
My hon. Friend is right to emphasise the decline in manufacturing jobs historically, but is it not right to say that the success of Jaguar Land Rover means that the problem facing the west midlands manufacturing industry is a shortage of skilled engineers? Should we not be sending out a message to young people, “Come to engineering, because there is a really attractive, stable, long-term, good career for you in engineering in the west midlands and elsewhere.”?
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend makes a valid point, and one of the brakes on expansion for many manufacturing businesses is the need for skilled, qualified and able labour to work in design, manufacturing and other aspects of their business. There has been a boom in apprenticeships in South Staffordshire, where 1,000 of them have been created in the past year alone, and the apprenticeships that so many manufacturing firms offer are some of the very best. I would tell pupils at Codsall community high school, Ounsdale, Edgecliff, Cheslyn Hay or Great Wyrley—I think I have managed to mention all my high schools—that they should look at a career in manufacturing where there is a high-quality apprenticeship, because that will offer them as many opportunities as a degree, which is the route that we have traditionally encouraged young people to follow.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does he agree that one of our big problems is that for many years we have not valued those who have gone into engineering, unlike other countries, such as Germany, which regard engineers as highly qualified, highly skilled professionals? Should we not put more emphasis on making engineering that sort of career in this country?
Gavin Williamson
I am pleased that a former solicitor recognises my importance as a former manufacturing man. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; we have tended to see manufacturing as a dirty industry, and we have often steered our children and young people away from it. We want to encourage many more people to take up the cudgels and go into manufacturing. Although manufacturing has shrunk as a percentage of gross value added, it still plays a vastly important role in the prosperity of the nation. Manufactured goods make up 48% of our exports.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
Yamazaki Mazak, a machine tools manufacturer that is one of the largest employers in my constituency, sells 80% to 85% of its production overseas in exports. It is hosting an event with UK Trade and Investment in March to show other manufacturers the benefits of export and make sure that they can access markets around the world. Does my hon. Friend agree that that is the sort of partnership between the private sector and the Government that we really need to get manufacturing in the west midlands going and to support UK exports?
Gavin Williamson
There has to be a clear recognition that industry and Government do not work in separate silos—they have to work hand in hand—and one of the areas that we have not put enough emphasis on is small and medium-sized enterprises. Of course, it is easy to talk a lot about some of the big names in manufacturing in the west midlands—I am sure that we will do so in this debate—but historically, SMEs have often significantly underperformed by comparison with their competitors in Germany and France in realising their export potential. If we were to encourage those SMEs, to see more of them attacking export markets with as much gusto as their competitors in Germany, France, Italy and Spain, that would make a vast difference not only in redressing our balance of trade but in ensuring that we create more jobs in the west midlands, including in South Staffordshire.
Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman has just mentioned a number of our competitor countries. However, is not one of the big differences in those countries the approach of the public sector and civil servants? It is fashionable at the moment to talk about some of the deficiencies of our civil servants, and this is clearly one of them. Those competitor countries actually look after their own industry, but we in the UK have ambulances and fire engines being imported; we only have to go down to Palace Yard to see police vans from Germany. Indeed, the Home Office has actually told the West Midlands police force that it cannot buy Jaguars for its motorway fleet. Is not that an absurd position to take, and does it not need all parties to get a grip of the civil service on this issue?
Gavin Williamson
The right hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Although I do not know the details of the West Midlands police force arrangements, a lot of Government procurement should be about ensuring that officials place a higher value on actually buying British; certainly, they should ensure that a value is placed on jobs being created in the west midlands and the rest of the UK.
Gavin Williamson
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who might have got a little bit lost on the way over from Northern Ireland.
David Simpson
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate; I came to make sure that he knew what he was talking about. Certainly, he has been very impressive thus far.
Although the west midlands is doing very well, the hon. Gentleman will agree that other parts of the UK are not doing as well. I come from a constituency that has the second largest manufacturing base in Northern Ireland. Does he agree that, to grow other areas, we need more of a level playing field, whether right across the whole UK or across the EU?
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. I want to ensure that we have a level playing field in procurement. We must recognise the fact that many Governments—whether in Germany or France—put a great value on ensuring that local employment is created as a result of their procurement.
Northern Ireland has benefited significantly, whether by buses being produced in Ballymena or other things. We would like to see various parts of the UK—whether Northern Ireland, the west midlands, Yorkshire, the north-east or the north-west—all benefiting from a Government who are passionate about buying British. I hope that we are starting to see that, but I would certainly like to see a lot more of it.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I congratulate him on securing this debate. On Friday, I visited Alstom with the Government’s chief scientific adviser at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, because Alstom is a major investor in energy, particularly high-voltage direct current. One of the points I noted was that our national grid buys most of its transformers from overseas. Stafford is the only place in the UK with a transformer manufacturer. However, the real reason that the national grid is buying from abroad is that in our procurement in the UK we do not take into account the quality of UK products and hence their longevity. The value-for-money approach needs to take longevity into account. If that were the case, I believe that we would be buying more from UK manufacturers.
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend, who is a constituency neighbour of mine, makes a valid point. Alstom also has a significant impact on my constituency. Looking at how things are procured, the value that is gained over a long period and the investment, in terms of jobs, training and apprenticeships that are brought to the UK, are all incredibly important points that must be recognised in Government procurement.
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
I welcome the consensual nature and tone of my hon. Friend’s debate, and I just want to build on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy). Is my hon. Friend aware that under EU procurement rules there is actually the possibility that a Government can introduce what is called a socio-economic weighting to a bid, which means that they can put a value on bids from companies in their own country, notwithstanding the other bids that come from across the EU? We saw that with the Bombardier problem, where it was argued by the civil servants involved that, in order to fulfil EU procurement rules, we had to have equal weighting for all bids from across the EU. Actually, what other EU countries do is place a socio-economic value on companies from their own country. Should we not send out a message today to the civil service that we should be doing the same?
Gavin Williamson
That is certainly a message that I will heartily endorse, because Government decisions on procurement have a massive impact. Often there is a lot that can be learned from our continental counterparts, primarily about how to ensure that we support and benefit our own businesses.
I will now go a little bit away from procurement to return to exports, especially the importance of exports in the west midlands. Of course, much of what we are producing is for export, and as I mentioned, almost half of the UK’s exports are of manufactured goods. We hear an awful lot of talk about how we need to improve exports from the service sector and our creative industries, and about bringing in more tourists to the UK. Those are all incredibly important issues, but if we could achieve a 10% increase in the amount of manufactured goods that we export, that would have a much more significant impact on our balance of trade, job creation and the wealth of our nation.
I very much welcome the work that has already been undertaken by UKTI and I encourage it to do more. However, I will go back to the point I made earlier, to say again that it is very easy for us all to focus on the very large businesses but there are some fantastic businesses that are quite small, perhaps employing only 20 to 200 people, and quite often they fall under the radar. Recently I spoke to a constituent, Louis Barnett, who exports chocolate from Britain; Mexico is one of his largest markets. However, he did not understand about export guarantees, or what else was available. Now he is working very closely with UKTI and he has a much better understanding of the support that is available to help his business and many similar businesses. That is the message that we need to get across—that there is a vast market out there. It is not just the west midlands, or the rest of the UK; it is the world.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. Does he agree that manufacturing is alive and kicking in the west midlands, and will he join me in congratulating Peterson Springs, a company in my constituency, which last year increased its exports by 20%? I would be delighted if the Minister would like to visit it.
Gavin Williamson
My hon. Friend is getting a very early bid in there; again, I will leave the Minister to respond to that request himself. However, I of course join her in congratulating that company on its work. I am sure that one of the great reasons it has seen such export success is its investment in research and development. R and D is important in the west midlands. Indeed, 72% of all R and D is derived from the manufacturing sector, so we must appreciate what a significant role the sector plays in terms of our universities and developing new technologies. One of the finest examples is the Warwick Manufacturing Group, which is based in the west midlands and really leading the way. It is a shining example of what we want to see more of, not only in the west midlands but right across the UK.
Jeremy Lefroy
I just want to point out the importance of the Government’s regional growth fund. In the case of Alstom—I have already mentioned Alstom, and I would be grateful if the Minister could visit it to see for himself the impact of the RGF—the fund has been used to invest in world-beating high-voltage direct current technology. For instance, last year Alstom received an order worth 250 million euros from the Swedish grid, even in the face of stiff Swedish opposition.
Gavin Williamson
I certainly concur with all the points that my hon. Friend has made, and my right hon. Friend the Minister will have a very busy diary by the time that he leaves Westminster Hall after this debate.
I am very conscious of time, and that other people want to contribute to the debate. So I will try to go through some of the points that I want to make very rapidly, and I hope that Members will not think me discourteous if I try not to take too many interventions from this point on. As I say, I am very conscious that others want to an opportunity to speak.
South Staffordshire has seen some enormous manufacturing successes since 2010. Last year, McCain Foods announced it was investing £3 million in its Wombourne factory, introducing new product lines, securing the factory’s future and creating jobs. We have seen a massive investment by Moog’s aviation division, which has moved from its old site in Bilbrook, in my constituency, just a couple of miles down the road to the new i54 site, which is also in my constituency. It has invested many tens of millions of pounds, securing British jobs—jobs that have a significant impact in not only South Staffordshire, but Wolverhampton. We have seen investment from Eurofins. Of course, the most significant investment came from Jaguar Land Rover, which invested £350 million in the i54 business park. That will, I hope, create 750 jobs and make sure that all the company’s engines are manufactured in the UK. The firm is investing significantly in new technology, such as its new four-cylinder engine, which will reduce emissions and, I hope, drive exports and domestic sales.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is to be congratulated on initiating the debate. He was right when he said there is a degree of agreement. If the scrappage scheme saved the automotive industry from collapse, the Automotive Council provided the focus for its regeneration, and it is welcome that there has been continuity of policy under this Government. However, on investment, which is crucial, does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that, in a global marketplace in which we need to export on the one hand and attract inward investment on the other— particularly in the automotive industry—prolonged uncertainty for years to come as to whether our country will remain in the European Union could deeply damage investment decisions?
Gavin Williamson
No, but I thank the hon. Gentleman, because we have worked closely on a number of issues that affect our constituencies. We might not agree on his last point, but there is certainly a lot of agreement on many other issues.
The investment in the i54, including by Jaguar Land Rover, happened not only as a result of Government support. We often forget that although central Government play an important role, the role played by local authorities has been just as important, whether it is South Staffordshire district council, Staffordshire county council or Wolverhampton city council. They put their money where their mouth is and supported investment in infrastructure.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
May I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on initiating the debate? Will he also give credit to the role of the local enterprise partnerships? Lichfield is a member of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP, which is dynamically run by Andy Street, who is also the chief executive officer of the John Lewis group. He is working with my noble Friend Lord Heseltine as part of a pilot programme, which could bring in a further £1 billion in investment. Would my hon. Friend like to say a few words about the role of LEPs in stimulating industry?
Gavin Williamson
I am happy to do so, because I was going to touch on that in relation to the Greater Birmingham and Solihull LEP pilot. I hope that it will be a massive success and that it can be rolled out to the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire LEP and the black Country LEP. I was also going to touch on the importance of city deals. Rather by coincidence, today is the deadline for them to be submitted, and the black country and the Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire LEPs have both submitted theirs. City deals will be a key mechanism in helping small and mid-sized businesses to expand, and they will give LEPs much greater powers and a much greater ability to bring money in. Whether we are talking about the regional growth fund or what the LEPs are doing, it is key that our focus is constantly on bringing in private sector investment to support public money.
Jack Dromey
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that the role of various key players is recognised, but does he agree that it is also important that we recognise the role of the work force? On the one hand, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has praised the British work force in the automotive industry. On the other hand, the remarkable Ralph Speth has said that the turnaround of Jaguar Land Rover could not have been achieved without the support and co-operation of the work force.
Gavin Williamson
The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Any business is only as good as its work force. The work force make the business; the managers, the people working on the shop floor and the designers are what the business is. The hon. Gentleman will not hear a single word of disagreement from me on that.
What I hope we will see from the LEPs is embodied in what we will see over the next couple of years, with the city deals and what is being piloted in Birmingham—a great expansion of their role, with them taking a much more active role, being much more involved in small, medium-sized and large businesses, and encouraging investment.
The regional growth fund has an incredibly important role to play. I welcome the fact that we have it until 2015. I also welcome the fact that, in the last round, the west midlands benefited from £123 million of investment from the RGF. Those are immense positives, which I welcome, but I would like the RGF to go far beyond 2015. I appreciate that it is not always within the gift of the Government to say when these things will go on to, but we want some degree of consistency in industrial policy. I always say that one of Germany’s great successes is the fact that it has taken a consistent approach to industrial policy pretty much since the war. There has been more of an evolutionary process, as against radical change when there has been a change of Government.
I very much welcome what the RGF does, but one slight flaw in it is the fact that it is aimed at very big investments. I applaud what the black country LEP did to bring together a consortium of businesses. A number of the people involved in those businesses live in my constituency, and they have talked about the important role that the initiative has had in helping much smaller companies to tap in to what the RGF can deliver. I encourage other LEPs to look at a similar mechanism and at how they can build consortia to tap into the RGF.
I would welcome it if the Minister could say something about the Government’s commitment to the RGF and give more commitments about what it can do. I was going to say that I will not engage in special pleading for the west midlands, but that would be a lie—I do want to engage in special pleading. We want the number of manufacturing jobs to increase, and the RGF will play an important role in that. Yes, cuts in corporation tax are important. Yes, Government support for everything from Catapult investment into apprenticeships is vital. However, for the west midlands to grow, the Government must back British and west midlands manufacturing consistently, all the way, absolutely to the hilt.
The local authorities in my constituency—Staffordshire county council and South Staffordshire district council—and Wolverhampton city council are very much working to make sure that we get tens of millions of pounds more in investment in the i54 business park. I would like a clear commitment from the Minister that he will support Staffordshire county council, Wolverhampton city council and South Staffordshire district council in getting that investment and that he is willing to listen if they need help and support from the Government. He has had an open-door policy since he came to his post in September, and I very much hope that that continues.
Together, consensually, as a group of west midlands MPs, we can make sure that the west midlands are the industrial heartland and the manufacturing centre of this great nation, and that our manufacturing businesses are once again growing and employing more people. We are starting to see that, and that is what we all want and what we are all striving for. I hope my right hon. Friend the Minister will help us to deliver that.
Hywel Williams (in the Chair)
At least eight hon. Members have indicated a wish to speak. I intend to start the winding-up speeches at 10.40, so I ask them to try to restrict themselves to about five minutes, if possible, so that everyone can get in.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) on securing the debate. I agree with a lot of what he said. He was right to emphasise the importance of continuity. I am pleased that he began his speech by mentioning the 800 new jobs that have been created at Jaguar Land Rover. That is a tribute to many people, including Jaguar Land Rover itself, under the ownership of Tata, which has really put its money where its mouth is. Tata understands the importance of investment in plant, skills and product, and in the supply chain to back that up. I will say more about that, but it is important to recognise the importance of JLR these days as a corporate citizen of the west midlands.
That said, the markets where Jaguar Land Rover is expanding are the far east and elsewhere. If it were as dependent on the European market as some other manufacturers are, however good a corporate citizen it is, the story would be different. We heard about Honda shedding 800 jobs last week—just outside the west midlands, admittedly—Ford announcing plans in October to cut 1,400 jobs at plants in southern England, and Vauxhall moving to a four-day week for more than 2,000 workers in Ellesmere Port. Only last week General Motors forecast that European car sales would weaken still further this year. I say that because the UK exports 82% of its cars, and the European market is vital to that. In all seriousness, going down the road of knee-jerk anti-Europeanism will not help. What happens in the eurozone will affect us, whether we like it or not. I hope that that big picture will be remembered on Friday.
The automotive industry is doing well. The west midlands is a key part of that, but the Government could do more to back it up. I want to say something about the supply chain. There has been £6 billion of major investment by the big manufacturers, but if we look at who supplies them, we see that, all too often, the parts come from abroad. Most of the big first-tier suppliers are not UK-owned, but there is no reason why more products could not be manufactured here and supplied to them through our second, third and fourth-tier suppliers. The UK could get a lot more benefit out of that if it ensured that the myriad often specialist companies in the west midlands and elsewhere got a greater piece of the action. The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has estimated that there could be £3 billion of extra opportunities if we could get more coherent support for the supply chain.
Some good things have happened under the present and previous Governments. The regional growth fund, which has been mentioned, and the advanced manufacturing supply chain initiative are good, but we need to do more, and that is the message coming from the automotive industry. It is a bit of a cliché, but it is true none the less, that the Government need to be consistent and joined-up, and to work on industry’s time scale, not the glacial pace at which too often they work. They also need to do more about access to finance. For small and medium-sized firms in the supply chain, access to finance is still an issue, and many such firms continue to tell me either that banks do not understand how they operate, or that they do understand but work at a glacial pace or make credit so conditional, so prohibitive, that only firms that probably do not need the credit in the first place can get it.
Mr Spellar
Does my hon. Friend agree that there is an absurd situation for suppliers who have long-term contracts with major companies such as Jaguar Land Rover or, indeed, Rolls-Royce, which has a massive order book stretching out 10 years? Rolls-Royce is having to fund them because the banks will not lend against that very predictable order book. Is not that madness?
Richard Burden
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are all a bit like cracked records when we say this. I chaired the Regional Select Committee on the West Midlands, and our first report was on that issue. We highlight it time and again, and if we are to make the step change that is needed, we must deal with it.
I have already taken five minutes, but I want briefly to mention two things, beginning with local involvement. Bringing banks and industry closer requires mechanisms that will allow that and encourage it to happen. Often, such mechanisms are the most successful when they are born out of crisis. I know that from my experience of the kind of work that was done after the collapse of MG Rover and partly in preparation for what eventually happened there. The regional development agencies were starting to do some good work on that. They have gone now, but a glue to stick things together—finance sector and industry co-operation, reaching out to SMEs and understanding the needs of manufacturing—remains vital. That is why Lord Heseltine’s report is so important and why I welcome the pilot scheme being mounted in the Greater Birmingham and Solihull area, but there is a need for follow-up. I hope that when the Government consider the bid submitted in relation to the pilot, they will see the huge potential for the local enterprise partnership and, more importantly, for the broader west midlands and beyond.
I acknowledge and support what has been said about procurement and skills, but I will not elaborate on that. My last comment is on technologies and the future. I have spoken entirely about the automotive industry, but when I do that, I am not talking simply about cars, or even commercial vehicles and so on. I am talking about an industry at the heart of manufacturing, which is often a catalyst for the development of other industries, whether in defence, in composites, in other advanced manufacturing, or in medical technology. That is why messages of the kind that are coming from the Automotive Council are so important and why we should understand the contribution made to manufacturing by Britain’s motor sport industry, many of whose companies are based in the west midlands. For those benefits to be developed, there must be a consistent Government approach. It is also vital to have mechanisms in our region that are controlled and run by people in the west midlands who understand manufacturing, who can decide local priorities and, just as importantly, who can mobilise and lever in the resources needed to increase our manufacturing industries’ potential and translate it into reality.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
I commend my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) for securing this important and timely debate. I am also delighted to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), not least because of my experience of working for MG Rover in his constituency for several years.
Manufacturing accounts for nearly 15% of the gross value added for the west midlands economy, above the national average. With about 290,000 people still working in manufacturing, we should recognise the strength that the sector maintains in the region. As co-chair of the Associate Parliamentary Manufacturing Group I was pleased to host a round table last year at Warwick Manufacturing Group, located at the university of Warwick, to discuss the future of manufacturing in our region. There was general agreement that if we can get the policy right, there is great potential for growth.
Our region has a number of strengths on which we need to capitalise. First, manufacturing is likely to become more highly skilled in the years ahead—the UK Commission for Employment and Skills estimates that by 2017 there will be as many people working in the higher end of the industry as the lower end—and we have a range of world-class research establishments such as Warwick Manufacturing Group, which will also be home to one of the Catapult centres for high-value manufacturing, and Coventry university’s automotive engineering research group, as well as the world-class universities of Birmingham and Coventry. I am glad that the Coventry and Warwickshire local enterprise partnership has sought to integrate those institutions fully into its five-year plan, but we need to do more to strengthen the triangle and create a strong manufacturing cluster right at the heart of the region.
Secondly, we have strong connectivity with the rest of the UK. Our region connects well to London and the south-east by road and rail, and our good access to aviation gives global reach. We need to continue to strengthen our regional infrastructure because it is key to boosting regional productivity and making our manufacturers competitive in the global marketplace. I urge the Government to work more closely with our local enterprise partnerships to ensure that the west midlands is given proper consideration when infrastructure spending is discussed.
Thirdly, we have a strong brand. At the Conservative party conference last year, I was pleased to speak at an event hosted by IDEA Birmingham, a collaboration between businesses and Birmingham City university, about improving growth in the region through good design. It was clear from that event and from speaking to businesses involved in it that our region’s heritage and reputation, which attracts businesses to invest, has the potential to draw in more inward investment. The Government have rightly stressed the need to rebalance the economy away from dependence on financial services and imports and towards manufacturing and exports, but we must ensure that we have an integrated approach that builds on the collective strengths of our region.
Finally, I do not want to miss this opportunity to invite the Minister to Warwick and Leamington to visit Aga Rangemaster and DCA Design International, companies which are local, national and international success stories.
Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)
It is great that we are having this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) on securing it. He is absolutely right to highlight the great news we have had this week of 800 new jobs at Jaguar Land Rover, and to draw attention to the contribution that small and medium-sized enterprises make to the manufacturing sector in the west midlands.
We have companies such as Revolvo at Queen’s Cross, which is a traditional bearings manufacturer that now exports to Brazil and produces bearings for large wind turbines, showing that traditional manufacturers can find new markets in emerging economies abroad and in new industries in this country. Eurocraft at Netherton produces the cabinets that house the communications equipment installed in streets across the country for broadband connections. Boss Design produces what is, without doubt, the best furniture in the world. The chairs that world leaders sat on at the Gleneagles G8 meeting and those that right hon. and hon. Members sit on when filming “Question Time” on a Thursday night are all manufactured in the middle of Dudley. Cab Automotive is a fantastic company in Tipton producing car components for manufacturers around Europe. It is bringing the supply chain back to the black country by beating German companies for contracts with German manufacturers.
Like many right hon. and hon. Members, I spend a lot of my time visiting local companies and meeting with organisations such as the chamber of commerce and Made in the Midlands and listening to their views. They tell us that they want, first, a stable and competitive tax regime that enables them to plan and invest for the long term; I therefore welcome the decision to reinstate capital allowances. Secondly, as we have already heard, they want access to finance—that is absolutely crucial. Eurocraft, for example, is winning orders from around the world but it has to turn business away because it cannot get the finance it needs from the banks to invest and fund expansion. Thirdly, they often complain about skills shortages in the region and their inability to attract young people into manufacturing.
It is no exaggeration to say that my constituency of Dudley has had a bigger impact than anywhere else in the country on the development of Britain’s economy. Dudley lit the spark that fired the industrial revolution and changed not just Dudley and the black country, but Britain and the whole of the world. That happened in Dudley.
Mr Spellar
My hon. Friend is of course entitled to make his case in his own way, but as the Member of Parliament for Smethwick, which contains the Soho works of James Watt and Matthew Boulton, I think that his proposition is, at the very least, contestable.
Ian Austin
It is true that Watt and Boulton and the rest of them exploited the industrial revolution, but it was triggered—[Interruption.] It is true. Perhaps my right hon. Friend needs a history lesson: the industrial revolution was triggered by learning to smelt iron ore with coke, which enabled the production of cast iron in sufficient quantities, and that happened first in Gornal in my constituency, so it is absolutely true that the industrial revolution started in Dudley. My point is that we have to be inspired by that history and to create in the 21st century a new industrial revolution to bring new businesses, investment and jobs to the region.
As we have heard, we have great strengths in the west midlands. We excel at innovation, which is the driving force behind our economy, we have an adaptable work force and we have companies that can produce absolutely anything, but we have to be honest about the fact that the regional economy faces major challenges in transport and trade, innovation and investment, and jobs and skills.
The recession hit the west midlands harder than anywhere else in the country. Since 1976, the region has fallen behind the national average—36 years in which we have dropped further and further behind. During a decade of growth under Labour, ours was the only region in which private sector investment fell, and although we have some world-beating businesses and great universities, we have not managed to attract new industries to replace the jobs lost in traditional ones. Fundamentally, that is because we have not had the skills that investors in industries such as computing and pharmaceuticals look for.
Even before the recent recession we had higher unemployment than in the rest of the country, and the proportion of jobs that are in the public sector or low-growth industries is above average. Birmingham should be the engine driving the region’s growth, but one in three jobs there are in public services and only one in 10 are in manufacturing. Underpinning all of that are the most worrying facts of all: we have too many people with poor literacy and numeracy and too many with no qualifications. In our regional economy, there are 70,000 fewer workers with high-level skills than in other regions, and we have a lower proportion of managerial, technical and professional jobs. Over the next 20 years, there will be huge growth in areas such as low-carbon manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, digital media and biomedical technologies, but the areas that get the jobs will be the ones that have the skills investors are looking for.
I refuse to accept that our best days are behind us. I am ambitious for our region and I believe that we are as good as anyone. I want to ensure that people in the west midlands have the opportunities that people elsewhere in the country take for granted. As west midlands MPs we should agree, first, to make education and skills the No. 1 priority, setting as an ambition for the region the biggest rise in educational standards anywhere in the UK. We need more people doing technical apprenticeships. I want to see a university technical college in every town in the region, equipping youngsters with the skills manufacturers need and persuading them to take up fulfilling and rewarding careers in industry. We need better links between schools and universities and a real focus in the black country, with businesses, schools, colleges, universities and local authorities there coming together to work out how to attract new investment.
We should consider introducing regional and industrial banking. Could we use local authority pension funds in the region to fund investment in new industries and emerging technologies? Let us sort out the region’s transport problems. I would like to see High Speed 2 not stopping at Coleshill, but going through Birmingham and into the black country, where we have the largest concentration of manufacturing companies anywhere in western Europe. Let us extend the runway at Birmingham and have more direct flights to India, China and Russia. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Warley (Mr Spellar) said, let us sort out procurement, to support the regional economy.
As Britain emerges from recession and the economy starts to grow again, if we do some of those things we will be able to build a stronger economy and exploit new opportunities with better skills and more innovation. That will transform the west midlands and the lives of the people who live there.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Williams, for allowing me to speak in this important debate.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson), who is a staunch advocate of both manufacturing and the west midlands. Manufacturing industry is extremely important to the west midlands and to my constituents. Twenty-two per cent. of people in work in my constituency are engaged in the manufacturing industries. I also have a large number of manufacturing companies in my constituency, from large manufacturers, such as Rolls-Royce and Triton Showers, to small and medium-sized companies that serve niche markets and the supply chain in the automotive and aerospace sectors.
I have visited many such companies in my constituency, and it is obvious that companies that are fully engaged with the growth markets of south America and China are doing very well. The decision of Jaguar Land Rover, which is fully engaged with those markets, to employ a further 800 people at Solihull is welcome. That is in stark contrast to the unfortunate situations that we have seen recently for manufacturing companies that are concentrated on the domestic and European markets.
I therefore welcome the Government’s action to support further investment in UK Trade and Investment with a 25% increase in year-on-year funding. Putting more money and resources into UKTI is important. I am sure that the Minister agrees that our efforts should be focused on getting the best value for money from that additional resource. I am also sure that he will ensure that the additional investment and resources are carefully monitored, so that we get value for money, particularly for west midlands manufacturing companies.
I commend the Minister and his colleagues, including the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary, for their hands-on role in promoting our exports. All those representatives of our Government are getting onto planes and getting out to emerging markets. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) thinks that that is funny, but I think that it is fantastic that our Ministers are getting out there and working with other countries. Many emerging countries have completely different cultures to ours, and they value the time provided by Ministers and senior Cabinet Ministers, who are doing a great deal of good and providing a great deal of benefit to our manufacturing industry.
Skills are our biggest challenge to grasping the opportunities that are coming down the track for the west midlands. Although we have a highly skilled work force in the west midlands, the work force in our manufacturing industries is ageing. We must ensure that we are creating skills to meet the challenges and opportunities that lie out there for the west midlands. I am still not sure that we have a golden thread of skills running through our growth agenda in the west midlands. We must do far more work on that.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an important point about skills. One of the recommendations of the Heseltine review, in relation to his idea of single-pot funding, is to have a much more radical devolution of responsibility for skills funding, with the local enterprise partnerships taking a more important role, to address the long-term problem that the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) also raised: we do not have the correct match of skills in the west midlands to take advantage of the massive opportunities before us.
Mr Jones
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. He is absolutely right. Further education is now taking a far greater role, with our further education colleges trying to put on more courses that suit local employment and industry. We must develop that further and get the public sector working more with the private sector.
One of my other great concerns is for some of our smallest manufacturing companies that employ four, five or six people. Although there has been welcome progress on apprenticeships and Government funding, we have not gone far enough. For a manufacturing company of that size to employ an apprentice, they often effectively need to designate one member of staff to mentor and look after that apprentice, and that causes a huge strain on a small business’s resources. Although many small business owners to whom I have spoken would like to start training apprentices, their business models do not allow for it. Nationally, we are now engaging business mentors, and I should be grateful if the Minister considered a similar regional system to engage people involved in manufacturing who are perhaps coming up to retirement, or who have retired, to work as mentors by going into companies to support the development of apprentices. Will he consider whether a funding stream could be developed for that?
We are short on time, so, finally, I plead on behalf of the Coventry, Warwickshire and Hinckley and Bosworth city deal bid, which is currently being submitted to the Government. The bid goes across county and regional boundaries, reflecting the rich manufacturing history and the current manufacturing activity within those areas. I am convinced that, if we can secure the city deal, it will help us to drive the skills agenda, to obtain growth from the high-value manufacturing that we can produce in our region and to connect with emerging markets. Will the Minister make a plea to my right hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury to ensure that the city deal bid is successful? I hope that we can keep driving our local economy forward.
Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) on securing this timely and important debate on an issue close to all our hearts as west midlands MPs.
I am sure there could be much discussion with my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), on the genealogy of manufacturing in the west midlands. My constituency’s claim probably focuses on the activities of John Wilkinson, who launched the world’s first iron boat in Bradley and made other innovations in the Bilston and Bradley area. I suspect that that ground is contested and we would all have to make our own claim.
The debate, of course, is not only the story of the past; it is the story of the present and future. I echo the welcome for the Jaguar Land Rover announcement and, indeed, for the investment under way on the border of Wolverhampton and South Staffordshire for the new engine plant. That site was ready for development only because of the activities of Advantage West Midlands, the regional development agency at the time, which prepared and kept the site to have something ready for Jaguar Land Rover to go into. I make that point not necessarily to try to rewind the clock, but to say that the state has a role, either locally or nationally, in helping to make such investments happen.
The important thing for the local enterprise partnerships, which have replaced the regional development agencies, is that they have the power and punch to carry out their role. That is why Lord Heseltine’s recommendations for more devolution of power and spending are important. There will be significant institutional resistance to that within Whitehall. The report is easy to write but a challenge to implement. If the LEPs are to be effective, and if the commitment of business people is to pay off, they need power and punch.
The hon. Member for South Staffordshire was right to say that manufacturing is not all about headline names; critically, it is about the supply chain and the small companies that dot our constituencies. I call that the ecosystem of manufacturing, and others refer to it as the industrial commons, but all those companies are interdependent and reliant on one another. I do not want to repeat what companies have asked for, because other Members have already addressed that, but the hon. Gentleman is familiar with Wescol—the owners live in his constituency, and the business is in my constituency —a manufacturer of gas equipment. LS Manufacturing in my constituency makes quality textiles. Wednesbury Tube makes copper pipe, and there are many others.
Businesses want the things that hon. Members have mentioned. They want reasonable energy costs; they look with some envy at the rebates available to energy-intensive industries in Germany. They certainly want a skilled work force, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North said. They also want the freedom to operate. That is an important message that we receive: they want freedom from business crime and metal theft—problems that we are not yet on top of and that challenge manufacturing businesses in many parts of the country.
Businesses want a stable tax environment. I welcome the autumn statement changes in capital allowances, but they prompt the question why capital allowances were cut in the first place. It never made sense to talk about the march of the makers and then impose more tax on the activity of making things. That position has now been reversed, which I welcome and have called for consistently over a number of years.
On the regional growth fund, there is a difference between announcing expenditure and getting expenditure to the companies that need it. Again, I reflect something that the Minister will undoubtedly be experiencing: due diligence is a good thing, but paralysis is not. There is a difference between announcing money and spending it. We need to get better at getting money out the door after it has been announced. It is important that that happens with the regional growth fund.
I have two other points to make in closing. Many of the issues that we are discussing are about supply-side measures. Businesses also need demand in the economy. There is not enough demand, and given that every major developed country is pursuing austerity policies, it is not surprising that businesses are struggling to employ, create and grow. It is important to have demand and the right investment to avoid the collective austerity that is dragging down demand across our economies.
I echo the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden): business needs certainty. If we are about to embark on years of uncertainty about where we stand in the world and in relation to Europe, it will not do our manufacturing businesses any good. Of course we are in a global game—it is not only about Europe; it is about China, India, Russia and other markets—but Europe remains our biggest export market. Sending a message to both inward investors and our own domestic investors that we will now have years of uncertainty about our relationship with our biggest export market is not good for manufacturing. I am sorry to make this somewhat partisan point in what is otherwise a fairly consensual debate, but it is important to stress that all of us in this Chamber are united in wanting more of the activity of making things. I believe that geopolitics—where Britain stands in the world—is critical to investment decisions. That is the important point on which I close.
Hywel Williams (in the Chair)
I remind the hon. Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) and the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley), who want to speak, that I wish to start the winding-up speeches at 10.40.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
I congratulate my neighbour the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) on securing this important debate. Nationwide, in the 10-year period around the turn of the century, we lost 1.7 million jobs in manufacturing across the country, so it is encouraging to see signs of improvement and manufacturing’s share of GDP increasing again. We have heard a lot in this debate about the renaissance in the automotive sector. Coming from Coventry as I do and having family connections to the car industry, I treat it with a special respect. It is encouraging.
I will concentrate my few remarks on the promotion of manufacturing in the west midlands in schools and universities, in the wider community and to exporters and customers abroad. The Manufacturing Advisory Service did a survey focusing on exports last year and found that 42% of respondents reported improvements in first-half activity last year, and 46% anticipated a further upturn. That is because they were exporters. Some 85% aspired to increase exports this year. MAS commented that exporting has been a key driver in improving manufacturing.
I was delighted that this Government continued with the enterprise finance guarantee scheme and opened it up to exporters, to whom it was not previously open due to EU restrictions. UK Export Finance has been renewed and reinvigorated, although it still has some way to go; I note that my neighbour the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) said that a company in his constituency had problems getting finance. Last year, 42% of exports from our region went to the EU, 22% to Asia and 16% to North America. Opposition Members are right to point out the importance of the EU single market to our manufacturers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) mentioned UK Trade and Investment, which is vital. UKTI has supported a great many manufacturers in our region, and it is approachable and willing to offer Members the resources at its disposal, including seminars to gear up for their manufacturing audience. I urge Members who have not taken up that opportunity to do so for the benefit of manufacturers in their constituencies.
I said that I would mention education. Skills are vital. My area of the black country has a skills deficit, as we have heard from other Members. Only 19% in our area have NVQ level 4 qualifications, versus the national average of 31%, and fewer people are educated to degree level. That must change. I am delighted by the Government’s commitment to apprenticeships. In 2011, we had 49,000 starts in engineering and manufacturing, and 17,000 of those were at advanced and higher level. It is vital that we keep that up. University technical colleges are a great breakthrough, and I wish the hon. Member for Dudley North success in attracting Aston to establish a UTC in Dudley, which would benefit my constituency.
I will conclude, as I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Mr Burley) wants to speak and we have only three minutes.
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
In the two and a half minutes that my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) has kindly let me have, I echo much of what has been said. Manufacturing is important to my constituency. The three towns making up my patch—Cannock, Hednesford and Rugeley—have a sizeable manufacturing and engineering base. More than 20% of my constituents are employed by manufacturing-centred small businesses. Manufacturing is vital to my constituents.
As Members have said, the west midlands and Cannock Chase are blessed with skilled workers in manufacturing. It is the ideal place for businesses to set up and invest. We have manufacturing firms of all sizes, including giants such as JCB Cab Systems, which employs more than 400 people, and ThyssenKrupp, which employs more than 900, right down to the small family firms with which my hon. Friends will all be familiar: Plum Logo, Mailcoms and Fuel Conservation Services, all of which employ between 10 and 30 people. All those firms are vital to supporting jobs and securing growth in our economy.
I have determined to visit as many of those firms as possible, not only to pay tribute to their hard work but to learn at first hand what challenges face local employers and listen to the views of employees. The three issues that have come up, which have been echoed in this debate, are training and skills, lending and promoting investment. I will not repeat the speeches made on those issues, but I want to impress on the Minister that it is vital to tackle the skills shortage in manufacturing in the west midlands and encourage more young people to take mechanical and engineering qualifications.
On bank lending I think, like many other hon. Members, that the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. Access to reasonable finance for firms that clearly have a future has become far too difficult. Ministers have a duty to remind the banks, which were so generously bailed out by taxpayers just a few years ago, that they have a moral duty to lend to viable small businesses to create jobs and growth. I have four seconds left, so with that I will hand over to the Minister, who we are all looking forward—
Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) on securing the debate and thank him for the consensual tone that he set, which has been characteristic of the debate. Today’s debate is on promoting manufacturing in the west midlands, and from listening to hon. Members today, I think there is much to promote. Hon. Members’ contributions have strongly brought out the region’s clear strength in automotives in particular and manufacturing in general.
I join other hon. Members, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), who brought his considerable expertise in the automotive industry to bear, in welcoming the great news announced in the past 24 hours that Jaguar Land Rover is to create 800 new production jobs at its plant in Solihull. That is a welcome counter to last week’s grim news that Honda will cut 800 jobs from its factory in Swindon. Jaguar Land Rover sold almost 360,000 vehicles last year—an increase of 30% on the previous year—and is rightly recognised, as we have seen today, as a true success of British manufacturing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) mentioned the potential for the west midlands of the development of advanced low-emission vehicle technology. It is similar to my region of the north-east, which was at the heart of, and the spark that brought about, the industrial revolution—I want to put that on the record. It is an example of how a modern industrial strategy should work: businesses and Government working not in silos, as the hon. Member for South Staffordshire rightly said, but together to identify the sectors in which we have a competitive advantage and the potential for high growth in the future; and Government enabling and facilitating the principal actors to come together through investment and co-ordination to realise that potential.
Gavin Williamson
I appreciate the time, so I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Does he think it is important for every Department, not only the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to encourage manufacturing?
Mr Wright
The hon. Gentleman is spot on. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills should not be the only Whitehall Department with responsibility for business; every Department in Whitehall should be responsible for business. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) for trying to press that point when he was doing fantastic work in the Department. It would be wrong for UK manufacturing and the UK economy as a whole if we thought that business resided in Victoria street. That is not how it should be and that should be impressed on every Whitehall Department. There also needs to be a degree of consensus across the House and Whitehall on the importance of manufacturing, which would facilitate the suggestion made by the hon. Member for South Staffordshire.
As was mentioned, continuity of policy is important. It is pleasing that much of the good news from Jaguar Land Rover and other parts of the automotive sector is the fruition of policies laid down by the previous Government as part of the new industry, new jobs initiative, the low-carbon vehicles sector initiative and the points made in government by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East. Such continuity and certainty over the next 20, 30 or 40 years would help British manufacturing and must be a hallmark of good industrial policy.
Despite the good news and positive figures from Jaguar Land Rover and the consensual tone of this debate, there are concerns, which I would like to flag up. Office for National Statistics figures published last Friday show that a manufacturing-led economic recovery has stalled; manufacturing output on a seasonally adjusted basis fell by 2.1% in November 2012 compared with November 2011, and that month’s figure in 2011 was itself a fall of 0.6% on the previous year. For all the talk from the Chancellor and others of a march of the makers, manufacturing output is significantly down, even from the recession—on ONS figures, the index of manufacturing is 6% below the level of summer 2010.
The national picture is confirmed in the west midlands. The survey published last Monday by the West Midlands chamber of commerce showed, for the last quarter of 2012,
“most companies, especially manufacturers, struggling to maintain their performance levels”.
In the survey, only 31% of manufacturers—down 10% on a year ago—reported an increase in domestic sales. Exports, which should be the lifeblood of an economic recovery, also showed a dip from their position last year. Steve Brittan, president of Birmingham chamber of commerce, said at the time of the survey’s publication last week:
“These figures are a concern and demonstrate that the government must act on its priorities.”
Given the huge potential of manufacturing in the west midlands and across the country, and the stalling, disappointing and deteriorating position for manufacturers, what will the Minister pledge to do differently to realise the potential?
The hon. Member for South Staffordshire mentioned the regional growth fund, and the Minister will no doubt be aware of the Public Accounts Committee report that shows that only £60 million of the £1.4 billion allocated has been spent on front-line projects. The west midlands was awarded 31 grants in the first two rounds of the regional growth fund, but as of October last year, some 18 months after the first round, only eight schemes had received funding. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East eloquently raised that point; there is a huge difference in Whitehall culture between announcing an initiative and getting the money to the people on the front line. Will the Minister update the House on how he has speeded up the process to ensure that money is provided as quickly as possible? What lessons have been learned for round 3? I understand that the west midlands secured £124 million for 17 projects in October 2012. Three months after the announcement, how much of that £124 million has found its way to those 17 projects?
The survey by the chamber of commerce, to which I referred, shows that the cash and financial position for manufacturers was getting worse over the last quarter. Only 16% of west midlands manufacturers registered an improved cash-flow position compared with 31% in the previous quarter. The survey also marked low investment in plant and machinery and training, which shows, according to the chamber, a general lack of confidence among manufacturers. Given the concern of manufacturers, the past performance of the regional growth fund and perennial concerns regarding cash and access to finance, what will the Minister do differently to realise the potential? Could he say a little more about how a British investment bank, announced in September by the Secretary of State, might have a regional dimension to assist west midlands manufacturers?
Hon. Members have spoken about the successes of manufacturing and how successful foreign direct investment can transform industrial performance. Jaguar Land Rover is the obvious example, but there are others and I hope we are not complacent. We need to determine how to help the English regions. The Minister may have seen Ernst and Young’s attractiveness survey for 2012, which showed London and the south-east securing more FDI projects than the rest of England put together, and that grip is intensifying. The west midlands showed year-on-year falls in FDI of about a quarter. The report tentatively suggests that it is “worth noting” that the closure of English regional development agencies, including Advantage West Midlands, occurred in 2011.
The report states that only 12% of respondents say that they would use UK Trade and Investment for queries regarding FDI. Foreign investors are unclear as to whom they should go to in the regions if they were considering investment in manufacturing. Given that the debate is on promoting manufacturing in the west midlands, it is a crucial question: who does a potential investor from Singapore or China contact in the west midlands to get things done and facilitate investment?
Mr Marcus Jones
The hon. Gentleman seems to be giving glowing praise to the role of RDAs, particularly in the west midlands. If they were so successful, why during the time of the RDAs did private sector employment reduce in the west midlands, not increase?
Mr Wright
In general terms—I declare an interest in that I worked for an RDA before coming to the House—[Interruption.] It is probably for the best. The RDAs produced something like £6 of private investment for every £1 of public investment.
Given the importance of a single co-ordinated point to ensure co-ordination, does the Minister think that the move from RDAs to local enterprise partnerships—I think there are now six in the west midlands—has improved matters and provided a more co-ordinated approach? Ernst and Young conclude in the survey that:
“A more strategic approach to FDI that places inward investment within the overall economic context is required if the UK is to retain its lead in an increasingly competitive global market for FDI.”
It should be one of the hallmarks of a co-ordinated and active Government industrial strategy, so will the Minister say a little about it?
Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) raised the important subject of Manganese Bronze. The Minister will be aware of this company, based in Coventry, which is Britain’s only black cab manufacturer and was placed in administration on 22 October last year. There is a strong possibility that a foreign buyer may manufacture the London taxis abroad. Will he say a little more on that and update the House as much as possible on the current situation? Specifically, will he set out what action he has taken with interested parties to ensure that the manufacture of black cabs takes place in the UK, and in Coventry in particular?
This has been a positive and consensual debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for South Staffordshire again. It is clear that we need to back British manufacturers, particularly in the west midlands, in a co-ordinated, long-term way. I am interested to hear what the Minister has to say about allowing that potential to be realised.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire (Gavin Williamson) on securing such a good debate on such an important subject. I thank all those who spoke and attended. Some 11 Government Members from the region have attended, as against four or five Opposition Members, although I do not want to make a point of that. I also thank colleagues for the spirit in which they made their points. We have had some interesting discussions on the precise history of the industrial revolution. We might have had some interesting discussions on the actual cause of the turnaround of the British automotive industry, which I believe is founded on the dramatic changes in labour relations undertaken by the Thatcher Government and the inward investment that Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit brought in when they brought Nissan to the north-east of England, but I do not want to pursue that point too far.
I thank all those who have spoken, especially those who have been free with invitations to visit their constituencies, all of which I will consider. I have not been left much time to reply to the individual points, but I am happy to write to all colleagues. Some good points have been made about Lord Heseltine’s review, the role of the local enterprise partnerships, wave two of the city deals, the importance of supply chains and what we are doing to improve skills. Some specific points have been made about black cab manufacturing and so on, and I am happy to reassure the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) that we are dealing with that issue.
The west midlands is vital not only to UK manufacturing, but to economic growth in the wider economy. It sits at the very heart of British industry. Last Thursday, I visited the Birmingham area to see for myself some of the great things—we have heard about many others—that are being achieved by manufacturers across the west midlands, such as Aero Engine Controls, a leading aerospace and defence manufacturing company and a key part of the supply chain of the aerospace industry, or Quality Plated Products, which will be using funding from our advanced manufacturing supply chain initiative to increase capacity, create more jobs and start a new apprenticeship scheme. I also visited what is now called Mondelez International, which owns the Cadbury brand, to launch its primary authority partnership with Birmingham city council. That deal will cut red tape, reduce duplication and ensure high safety standards while reducing costs. That is one of hundreds of companies that have taken the opportunity to work closely with their local authorities to reduce the burden of regulation.
The constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire is home to the high-tech i54 business park, where two global companies, Moog and Eurofins, are thriving. Jaguar Land Rover has become the third major international company that has chosen to move to the site, investing £355 million in a new advanced engine manufacturing facility, bringing with it 750 jobs and thousands more via supply chain opportunities.
No one is under any illusions, however, about the scale of the wider challenges we face. The eurozone’s continuing sovereign debt crisis is affecting our economy and depressing demand, causing uncertainty for business, and I recognise that the west midlands manufacturing centre has not been immune to such pressures, which were pronounced under the Labour Government. I think the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) was honest enough to admit that. They presided over the fastest ever decline in manufacturing as a share of the economy. Its share of GDP fell by nearly 10%, and almost 1.7 million jobs were lost in the sector. Under the present Government, its share of GDP is growing again and our manufacturing capability is increasing in quality—no more so than in the west midlands—and represents a crucial platform on which to build economic growth and recovery.
To kick-start recovery, the Government had to tackle the deficit and take tough decisions, but we have also taken a wholly different approach to unlocking growth. We are reducing the red tape that holds business back and creating a competitive tax system so that businesses choose to locate and grow in this country and, in the last autumn statement, we provided more measures to encourage greater investment in manufacturing, such as a significant temporary increase in the annual investment allowance from £25,000 to £250,000. That is a tenfold increase. An additional £210 million will be added to the regional growth fund until March 2015 which, with the £100 million allocated from previous rounds, means that a new total of more than £310 million will be available. There will also be an extra £120 million for the advanced manufacturing supply chain initiative. I assure you, Mr Williams, that the Government have never been clearer in our commitment to manufacturing, which we see as an essential building block of a more resilient, innovative economy.
The west midlands accounted for more than 7% of the United Kingdom’s gross value added in 2010. It is important for us all, wherever our constituencies are, that the west midlands is successful and prosperous. It has long been at the heart of British manufacturing. In recent times, we have had much welcome news of private sector investment, including by BMW at Hams Hall, by Jaguar Land Rover, as I have mentioned, near Wolverhampton, and by JCB, which is investing more than £31 million to develop new engine technology. The region also has a thriving small and medium-sized enterprises sector working in the advanced manufacturing supply chain, in particular in the automotive and aerospace sectors. A significant part of the Rolls-Royce supply chain is in the west midlands. Employment in the region has increased by nearly 60,000 since the general election. Jaguar Land Rover’s announcement of record global sales last year is excellent news.
The regional growth fund is helping to rebalance the economy, especially those areas that were over-dependent on the public sector. The fund is working and is unlocking private sector investment. The west midlands was awarded the largest regional allocation of the fund in round three. Some £194 million was provisionally allocated to programmes and projects with a strong focus on high-value manufacturing growth.
I was asked a couple of specific questions about the fund. My hon. Friend the Member for South Staffordshire asked about smaller companies. They can and will benefit through the programme bids that have been awarded under the fund, rather than through the big project bids for individual companies and plants. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) made a fair point about getting the money out of the door. We have set new triggers to ensure that final offers are agreed under round three within three months. That timetable expires this week. The grants must then finally be awarded within three months, by 17 April. We will set similar and probably faster triggers under round four, which we expect to announce later this week. I am determined to ensure that money physically gets out of the door and to the companies that need it as quickly as possible, subject to the proper due diligence that the Public Accounts Committee and our taxpayers expect to see carried out.
In conclusion, the Government are working hard to encourage and support British manufacturers and to create an environment in which they are free to thrive and compete in a global marketplace. The importance of the west midlands as a manufacturing region is one of the reasons why it makes such an excellent location to hold our third manufacturing summit, which is taking place at the Heritage Motor Centre in Gaydon on 28 February. Those annual summits are an important part of our approach to having increased engagement with the sector and will bring together key stakeholders, including senior leaders from Government and from national and local businesses. There will also be an exhibition at that summit to showcase local manufacturing excellence. We want manufacturers in the west midlands to be our partners in achieving economic transformation and recovery—a strategy that places world-class manufacturing at the heart of a healthy and rebalanced economy in the United Kingdom.
Party Political Broadcasts
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Williams. I want to start by saying a little about the history of party political broadcasts. The very first radio broadcast was as long ago as 1924, and we have had televised party political broadcasts since 1951, but in that time the format has hardly changed, and my argument today is that it is time for change. The combination of declining newspaper circulation and increased restriction on parties’ ability to raise and to spend funds means that we should take a fresh look at how we give them the opportunity through party political broadcasts to communicate directly with the electorate. It is time to value party political broadcasts more.
I shall say a little about why party political broadcasts matter, and emphasise that we all under-appreciate them. When I was press secretary to the then Leader of the Opposition some years ago, I attended the broadcasters liaison group, which was an annual get-together of the main political parties with the main broadcasters to discuss the format and some of the issues arising from party political broadcasts. The format followed a weary predictability, in that parties such as the Welsh nationalists and the Scottish nationalists complained to the broadcasters that they were not getting enough broadcasts, and the broadcasters complained to the main parties that they were too late delivering their broadcasts and films, thus causing all sorts of logistical problems. The main parties also complained that there was not enough flexibility in the system and that they were unable to get their message across as much as they would like.
Among politicos and those who are politically active, it is common to hear that no one watches party political broadcasts because they are old hat, no one is interested and no one cares, but the evidence does not bear that out. An Ofcom report in 2005 commissioned ICM polling, which found that party political broadcasts were second to broadcast news bulletins as the lead source of information for the public when deciding how they would vote. The importance of party political broadcasts to voters was higher than newspapers and radio, whether national or local, so it is important that we value them.
One hears from so-called communication experts in political parties that such broadcasts are old hat and that things have moved on with viral marketing and everything on the internet. The belief is that they are rather quaint and a relic of the past, but that is not true and the rise of the internet, certainly when it comes to politics, has been exaggerated. The internet has made an astounding breakthrough in shopping, social media and other aspects, but when people want political news, the traditional media undoubtedly remain the main source of information, particularly the broadcast news media.
As a result of our under-appreciation of party political broadcasts, a number of things have happened. The parties put less effort into their films. They tend to produce shorter broadcasts using more amateur, in-house camera teams, and production and finish have been in decline in recent years. Broadcasters have started to look for excuses to wind down their commitment to political broadcasts. The current Ofcom consultation recommends changing the time that parties have for broadcasts. At the moment, they have an option of 2 minutes 40 seconds, 3 minutes 40 seconds or 4 minutes 40 seconds, and a proposal on the table suggests that that should be standardised at 2 minutes.
It is worth noting that the UK probably has the most draconian laws and restrictions on political advertising in the democratic world, to the point of questioning whether that is compliant with article 10 of the European convention on human rights. I do not tend to pray in aid the European Court of Human Rights, or to suggest that we should follow its guidance on such matters, but we should reflect on the fact that there is a question mark about whether our approach is compliant and whether it might be open to future challenge. A report by the European Commission back in 2002 concluded that our current approach would probably stand up to a challenge in the ECHR, but only if we maintain a robust and free system for party political broadcasts.
Our newspaper industry is in decline. Some hon. Members will know that I have argued that we should have more credible, independent regulation of our newspapers and that that requires some form of statutory underpinning, but our press should be robust, and free to be one-sided, partial and heavily opinionated. I will always defend their right to hold strong opinions, but they have been in decline for many years and that decline may even be terminal. Their influence is certainly far less today than several years ago, and linked to that is the problem of increased restrictions on political parties, which face falling membership, making it harder for them to raise money. The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 introduced caps on party political spending, and new measures to strengthen still further transparency of donations and to prevent foreign donations. Cross-party talks are taking place on taking those restrictions further and placing caps on the size of individual donations.
If party political broadcasts are under-appreciated, political parties certainly are. No democracy can work without political parties making their case and having robust argument with one another. Some of the restrictions that we are introducing are right, but we must accept that they restrict political parties’ ability to communicate directly with the electorate, and leave more power than ever with the broadcasters. A duty of impartiality is enshrined in legislation, but the legal framework under which they operate creates a particular character of journalism. They are required to balance both sides, so they often come up with anodyne reports that do not help the public to reach an opinion.
There is always an emphasis on the two-way with the political correspondent, so a party leader who has just given a speech may be given 12 to 18 seconds to explain what they are trying to do, so that there will be plenty of time for a one-minute or two-minute two-way with the correspondent when they try to put a gloss on what the party leader is supposedly saying. That has led to over-emphasis on process and political strategy instead of giving politicians credit for doing what they do most of the time—saying what they believe. When I worked for the then Leader of the Opposition, I lost count of the number of times that he gave a speech about something he strongly believed, only to see it interpreted as a pitch to women voters or to the youth vote, or trying to appease core voters. It was always interpreted through the prism of political strategy, which undermines public trust in the political process, unnecessarily in my view.
A further problem with too-powerful broadcasting media is a tendency to have hostile interviews with a duel between the interviewer and the politician, because the programme’s objective is to make the politician look evasive and on the back foot. Programme formats are often designed to do that, whether or not that is the case. For all those reasons, we need to reform the system.
As I said, at the moment the larger parties typically are given three party election broadcasts during an election period. They have a choice between 2 minutes 40 seconds, 3 minutes 40 seconds, and 4 minutes 40 seconds. I think we should take a fundamental look at that, because the big problem with the current system of party election broadcasts is the lack of frequency. Somebody might see two Labour party political broadcasts but no Conservative broadcasts, or they might see two Conservative ones and none by Labour. We should look to increase their frequency but have shorter party broadcasts.
Rather than having three broadcasts of up to say, 4 minutes 40 seconds, my proposal is that instead we have a total of 12 minutes that can be used in a more flexible range of ways. They could be anything as short as one minute, so potentially, there could be up to 12 broadcasts of one minute, or there could be a mixture of long and short broadcasts. That would introduce flexibility, and the advantage is that public engagement and the chances that the public would see those broadcasts would be increased. It would also increase the chances of people staying tuned in long enough for them to receive the message.
I first proposed that idea at the broadcasters liaison group, way back in 2006. I have to say that at that point there was a “sucking on teeth” moment, as it was explained to me that we could not possibly have US-style political advertising here in Britain. That was an absolute no-no. We must never go down that route. However, I think it is time for us to challenge that lazy assumption, because as I said, we have laws in that area that are more draconian than in perhaps any other democracy in the world. We have an extraordinary situation where it is now okay to have advertising for toys to children at 6.30 or 7 o’clock in the morning while their unsuspecting parents are in bed, but we cannot possibly tolerate the thought of advertising political ideas to grown adults.
We need to challenge that idea and understand that the real objection to US-style political advertising is not the adverts’ length, but the fact that they are paid-for adverts, which means that money buys access to television and that it therefore buys power. That is not what my proposal envisages at all. There would be equal, equitable access to broadcasting time, calculated along similar lines to what we already have in the UK. Access would not be paid for, so a wealthy individual or a wealthy party would not be allowed to buy more airtime than any other.
The second thing to bear in mind is that with our party election broadcasts, we already have a number of rules that would prevent broadcasts, even if they were shorter, from going the route of US-style advertising. The most important rule is that a politician from another party, or footage of them, is not allowed to be used in a broadcast without their prior consent. In practice, that means that video footage of a politician’s opponents cannot be used in broadcasts, which means, for instance, that the Clinton attack on George Bush senior—the famous “Read my lips” advert that they ran—would not be allowed in the UK. It also means that the flip-flop windsurfing advert that was used so effectively against John Kerry by the Republicans in 2004 would not be allowed here in the UK. We have different rules, which would prevent advertising becoming like it is in the US.
Finally, we have to understand that there is a cultural difference in any event. When we look at the way American politics is debated, it can seem to us somewhat crass and somewhat brash, and it would not work here in this country. We would end up with a shorter type of broadcast that would fit our political culture. It is not inevitable that it would go the route of the US. Before we get too high-minded about it, it is also worth noting that many Americans tune in to watch Prime Minister’s questions each week for pure entertainment value, because they cannot believe that we tolerate something quite so hostile and aggressive on our Prime Minister.
In conclusion, I want to add that although people talk about this matter through the prism of what happens in the US, we should also remember what happens in the rest of the world. Australia, which has a similar parliamentary democracy to us, has a hybrid system: it has political broadcasts, but political advertising is also allowed. That is counterbalanced by a cooling-off period, so that in the final three days of an election, there is no political advertising at all. Barbados, which is small, but another Commonwealth country, has a system similar to what I outlined. The two main parties are given some 45 minutes of airtime, but there is more flexibility about how that time can be used. Ireland has a similar system of party election broadcasts to ours, and it frequently has broadcasts that are as short as one minute, which does not cause problems there. It is also worth remembering that in the rest of the EU, the new members and democracies in eastern Europe—countries such as Poland, Estonia and Finland—allow political advertising, and quite often that is completely unrestricted.
It is time for us to take a second look at this issue. If we were to reform this area, we could find a new way of allowing political parties to communicate directly with the electorate. If we got it right, it could be an alternative to the state funding of political parties, which, as we all know, the public have no appetite for.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Williams. I begin by thanking my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) for securing this important debate on a topic that I know he has been raising for some time. He provides the House today with an opportunity to discuss the important subject of party political broadcasting. As he has shown convincingly, such broadcasts are one of the most important democratic tools that we have available to us in the United Kingdom, so they are worthy of serious consideration in the House.
We as a Government recognise that party political broadcasts, in which I include party election broadcasts, are an important part of a healthy democratic society. Having guaranteed access for political parties to television and radio from time to time provides the opportunity for the main political parties to share their policies, explain their views and engage fully with the electorate—without the gloss of a BBC political editor overlaid on top, as my hon. Friend hinted. It allows viewers to consider complex issues that may not be even covered in the news, and, crucially, it does so in the context of a system that is fair and balanced. In addition, at the time of elections, the parties are better able to set out their agenda to the whole electorate for public debate. Access to that information is vital when people are making important democratic decisions, whether in general, local or European elections.
It is absolutely right that from time to time we carefully consider the rules surrounding party political broadcasts. As my hon. Friend probably does not need to be reminded, the Communications Act 2003 requires licensed public service television broadcasters and the national analogue commercial stations to include party political broadcasts and referendum campaign broadcasts in their programming, in accordance with rules determined by Ofcom, the independent media regulator. Other channels such as Sky are not under such an obligation, but party political broadcasts are shown voluntarily on Sky’s news channel. As the BBC is, of course, outwith that general regulation, there is a separate agreement between the Government and the BBC that places a formal obligation to include party political broadcasts and specifies that the regulation of that should be a matter for the BBC Trust.
Although my hon. Friend was correct to point out that certain parts of the media are under pressure, he will be aware of the new opportunity for all elected representatives to get our message across in the long-awaited advent of local television. Local television licences are, even as we speak, being awarded across the UK by Ofcom. The latest licences for Glasgow and Edinburgh have just been awarded, and I am looking forward to hearing who will be the successful bidder for the London licence later this year.
To return to the subject in hand, Ofcom’s guidelines on party political broadcasts set out the framework in which broadcasters must decide the allocation and scheduling of broadcasts. It is of course a matter for political parties to decide the length of broadcasts, but my hon. Friend is right that they are limited to certain lengths—two minutes and 40 seconds, three minutes and 40 seconds, or four minutes and 40 seconds. The BBC Trust and the Welsh authority apply similar rules to BBC services and to S4C. I note what my hon. Friend said about the Ofcom consultation suggesting a one-size-fits-all two-minute length for a party political broadcast. He made a persuasive case for allowing political parties the right to choose flexible lengths for their political broadcasts, depending on when they would be aired.
Let me state clearly who qualifies for party political broadcasts, because that is an important part of this debate. It is only the major parties: in Great Britain, the Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats; in Scotland and Wales respectively, depending on one’s point of view, the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru also qualify; and of course in Northern Ireland, the Democratic Unionists, the Social Democratic and Labour party, Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists. However, smaller parties can also be represented in party political broadcasts if they are registered with the Electoral Commission and contesting one sixth or more of the seats up for election. Of course, that has to be modified where a proportional representation system is in place.
There are additional rules about the qualification of parties in the different nations of the UK and how they qualify for broadcasts on Channels 4 and Five and on national commercial radio; and of course there are different rules relating to a referendum, European parliamentary elections, Scottish Parliament and Welsh and Northern Ireland Assembly elections, Greater London authority and local elections, and other key events. There is a plethora of rules, Mr Williams, and I know that you will breathe a sigh of relief when I tell you that I will not go through them. I simply refer you to Ofcom’s website, if you want to catch up on them later in the day.
Within the terms of the rules, the precise allocation of broadcasts is the responsibility of the broadcasters. Any unresolved disputes relating to the length, frequency, allocation or scheduling of broadcasts can be referred either by the political party or by the broadcaster to Ofcom.
I think that we in the House all accept that party political broadcasting should be regulated, because we want to ensure that party political broadcasts are fair and that different political parties are represented proportionately and appropriately. It is certainly still the Government’s view that the combination of the statutory framework, Ofcom’s rules and the voluntary arrangements of broadcasters achieves that, but that is not to say that we are opposed to any change or evolution in this area. In fact, we welcome discussion.
As I said, Ofcom draws up guidelines for party political broadcasts, and it reviews them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth pointed out, Ofcom is undertaking a review of several aspects of the guidelines, partly to take local television into account, but also to take into account the newly elected police and crime commissioners and the impact that their elections might have on future political broadcasts. Today’s debate is therefore an excellent opportunity to raise issues, and my hon. Friend has done exactly that. I should make all Members who are participating in this debate aware that the consultation closes on 21 January. I hope that if hon. Members want to make representations to that consultation, they will do so.
Some may disagree, but my view is that, in relation to the current system, we do not want to risk undermining the important principle of impartiality on British television and radio. That is what television viewers and radio listeners have come to expect. They can be sure that what they see and hear on television and radio is balanced, fair and impartial. That is different from the situation with newspapers, but, again, people who read newspapers will broadly understand the political slant or stance of the particular newspaper that they choose to buy.
George Eustice
I completely agree. If I gave the impression that I was arguing for broadcasters to be able to become partial, I would like to make it clear that I was not. Does my hon. Friend accept that we need a range of different sources of information for the public? Yes, we need tough broadcast news bulletins that will ask the searching, difficult questions, but for all the reasons outlined, we also need to create better opportunities for political parties to articulate their agenda and their message, in their own terms, directly to the voters.
Mr Vaizey
I am sorry if I gave the impression that I had got the impression from my hon. Friend that he did not think that news media should be impartial. That certainly was not the impression that I wished to give, but I do hear what he says and I think that that goes to the central thrust of his argument, which is that the current rules, to a certain extent, are archaic and that there should be more flexibility and innovation in the opportunities given to political parties. However, I stress that that is his argument; I will continue to hold the line in the rest of my speech.
I am sure that hon. Members recognise that Ofcom has developed the existing rules to ensure that the system remains workable, but it does take into account a number of considerations, which include ensuring that the public can clearly tell that they are watching a party political broadcast rather than a television programme or an advert. It is important to maintain that distinction.
We also have a long-standing ban on political advertising in the UK. That is an interesting issue and worthy of debate. I happen to believe that we should continue the ban on political advertising. I heard what my hon. Friend said about the stance of the European Court of Human Rights, but we need only look across the pond at the United States. I certainly feel that the ban in the UK gains a lot of credibility from watching what happens in the United States, where vast amounts of money are spent and targeted on hapless voters, particularly in key swing states, who see nothing but blanket political advertisements.
George Eustice
What is my hon. Friend’s objection to political advertising? Is it the same as mine, which is that paid-for political advertising gives an advantage to those with money, or is it that he believes that advertising per se is somehow an evil, wrong thing to do?
Mr Vaizey
I hate to think that I might have given my hon. Friend the impression that I think that advertising is a hateful practice. I am the Minister responsible for the advertising industry and I go out of my way to praise the UK advertising industry as world-beating. It is probably the best advertising industry in the world and provides hundreds of thousands of jobs in this country, so I certainly would not want to give that impression. No, my objection to political advertising is similar to my hon. Friend’s, which is that it gives an advantage to political parties that have deeper pockets than their opponents. It is also somewhat of a cultural objection: to a certain extent, politics in this country is still conducted on a relatively civilised basis, and I wonder whether political advertising might undermine that. However, this is becoming a debate about political advertising when it should be a debate about party political broadcasting.
We are undertaking a communications review, but as I have made clear, we are not contemplating radical change. Given the clear views expressed by my hon. Friend today, I hope that he will respond to the Ofcom consultation, as he has some interesting proposals. However, as I said, I think it is right and proper that we have our present system; it is right and proper that people engage with it and suggest certain changes that they may wish to see; and it is right and proper that an independent regulator oversees that debate and makes recommendations based on the consultation that it is currently undertaking.
Electoral Registration
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Thank you, Mr Owen, for chairing this important debate.
Democracy is deep in the DNA of my constituency, Blaenau Gwent. Growing up there, I learned about its rich social history, including how it provided leadership for the Chartist movement, which did so much to secure the vote for working people. From the caves in the village of Trefil, where they are said to have stored pikes before the march on Newport in 1839, to Nantyglo, where Zephaniah Williams, the Newport rising’s leader, lived, Blaenau Gwent has long been at the centre of democracy building in the UK.
Although the battle for the vote has been won by working people, to exercise their vote, people must first be on the electoral register. That leads us to the dry, but crucial topic of how to get the best register possible. Free and fair election machinery is one of the most fundamental services the state can provide for its people. From it, our democracy thrives. The electoral register is, as the Electoral Commission says, the bedrock of our democracy.
As we all know, the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill—the ERA—is in the Lords, following consideration in the House of Commons. We know, too, that Labour legislated to introduce individual electoral registration—IER—so there is no disagreement amongst us about the principle. For background: as of December 2010, the Electoral Commission estimated that the register was 85% to 87% complete, which means that 6 million people were missing from it. The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, the hon. Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who is responsible for political and constitutional reform, may have more recent figures, and it would be interesting to hear the Government’s latest estimate. I want the effective introduction of IER. I want many more, not fewer, people on the electoral register. I am worried about the Government’s proposals for IER in the future.
With all our different sources of identification, the megabytes of data available and the contact channels in use through modern media, a complete and accurate electoral register should be deliverable. Crucially, I want to see the annual canvass maintained. An individual knocking on a potential voter’s door is still probably the most effective way to get people registered. Face-to-face contact is as important as ever in our digital age. The Minister told me that the annual canvass will continue to be used as long as it remains the best way to register voters. That is good.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
When the changes to electoral registration were introduced in Northern Ireland in 2006, under a Labour Government, the need for an annual canvass was removed. Over the past five or six years, registration rates have gone down to 71%. Does my hon. Friend think that the figures from Northern Ireland have a bearing on the debate today?
Nick Smith
My hon. Friend makes an important point, which I want to cover later. The decline in registration in Northern Ireland is an important warning for the debate today and for the future of IER.
To return to the annual canvass, I am with the Electoral Commission: it should be a permanent feature. Also, surely the full implementation of IER should wait until the evaluation of all the current data-matching and data-mining pilots is complete. As we know, the first set of pilot schemes took place during the annual canvass in late 2011. The Electoral Commission found that the pilots had been both time-consuming and costly. Councils said that they lacked sufficient skilled staff to carry out the data input and matching. The pilots were funded by the Cabinet Office, so given the squeeze on local government, it must be doubtful whether councils can do the data matching without more money for such important work. Given that, the Electoral Commission says that data matching should be tested further, and I am glad that further pilots are taking place.
Data-matching trials with the Royal Mail and the Student Loans Company are also under way. They will be helpful for groups of people who have historically been difficult to register, which include younger people, people from black and minority ethnic communities, and people who rent from private landlords. I am sure we all want to reach such people.
Until now, we have considered data matching only with publicly held information, but I think it could be helpful to include private sector databases, such as credit reference agencies and tenancy deposit schemes. Privacy concerns must of course be addressed, but home addresses for contracts or purchases of, say, mobile phones, cars and personal finance can identify where voters live and so could be on the electoral register. Having said that, caution is essential.
Last November, the Electoral Commission, published a report, “Continuous electoral registration in Northern Ireland”. Its conclusion is stark: there has been a considerable deterioration in both the accuracy and the completeness of the electoral register in Northern Ireland over the past four years. From a register estimated in 2008 to be 83% complete and 90% accurate, the latest appraisal found one that is only 71% complete and 78% accurate. That is very worrying.
Chris Ruane
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way on that point. He is right about the 71% completeness, as of last year, but does he think that it will have a knock-on effect on the redrawing of boundaries? If the boundary change proposals are successful, they will go through in Northern Ireland with 29% of the population missing from the register.
Nick Smith
My hon. Friend makes a very powerful point. That is why the Electoral Commission called the electoral register the bedrock of our democracy: it decides how many people are in each constituency and where those constituencies are. It is essential that we get this right.
The management of continuous registration has not been able to cope with two important things: people moving home and people becoming eligible to vote. That is where it needs to be improved. The Electoral Commission has called for urgent action to remedy the situation and a more flexible form of annual canvass, so that households as well as individuals can update the register.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that continuous electoral registration will at least be easier in Northern Ireland than in some parts of our cities, particularly London, where population turnover is a good deal higher and there is much more diversity?
Nick Smith
That is a very powerful point. The churn in London and our cities is much greater than it is outside.
Chris Ruane
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way a third time. Does he agree that churn is great not only in our cities and student towns, but in seaside towns? There are 52 principal seaside towns in the UK that have high levels of transience, and their registers will be down too.
Nick Smith
My hon. Friend has helpfully corrected me. He points to the difficulties of churn in many parts of the UK. I have been to the lovely town of Rhyl, and I know of the difficulties there in getting a complete register.
Last week, the Minister said that
“continuous registration is working for the majority of the population in Northern Ireland.”—[Official Report, 8 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 142.]
Registration of 51% would be a majority, but surely that is wordplay and shows a lack of ambition; after all, 71% completion is failing nearly a third of the eligible electorate. The Government must up their game. Electoral registration needs to be professionally marketed and administered in all Government contact with the public, and perhaps with private sector data as well. Given concerns about under-registration, there should be a full carry-forward of postal or proxy votes for the 2015 general election. If that does not happen, the Government must ensure that sufficient resources are provided, so that as many postal voters as possible are verified and able to vote.
As a constructive critic, the independent Electoral Commission must have an absolutely central role in the switch to IER. I hope that the Minister will tell us today when online voter registration will be ready for launch. The Government must invest in and develop accessible online registration with greater speed. If the internet is used successfully for banking and payment systems, surely it can be developed for voter registration.
Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is being generous in giving way during this important debate. Does he agree that this plethora of initiatives—they are absolutely essential, as he is arguing—should include one by the Electoral Commission aimed specifically at people with literacy problems? I believe that they are under-represented on the register, and they certainly are in voting. Obviously, for that initiative to reach them, it needs to be delivered through audiovisual advertising.
Nick Smith
My right hon. Friend makes a good argument, and I hope that that will be included in the studies taking place. It is essential that as many people as possible can register and vote.
As we know, changes to electoral registration will be made at a time when local authorities face significant cuts. Expenditure in this area should be prioritised, because our democracy is too important to be whittled away by a thousand cuts.
Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
As a Newport MP, I very much enjoyed my hon. Friend’s earlier reference to the Chartists. We put a huge burden on our electoral administrators and, as he says, electoral registration is not immune to the big local authority cuts. Does he agree that, with more elections than ever before and given that burden, it is even more important that we resource election administrators properly?
Nick Smith
I agree. Election administrators rightly complain about the amount of resources they are given to do their important job. They should be supported both locally and nationally.
I believe that it is the responsibility of the state, not of political parties, to secure maximum voter registration, so I hope that the Minister will commit herself to that and give priority to those hard-to-reach voters, particularly the young. Voting is a habit best acquired early, and one that we should all strive to promote. The Government need to show much more ambition on voter registration. Let us get the 6 million people who should be on the electoral register signed up and able to vote in the future.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) on securing this debate, which is not only important, but on the afternoon following the vote in the House of Lords to postpone the next boundary review until 2018, clearly timely. I have to say that I welcome that decision. The proposed new boundaries would have benefited me electorally, but they are unfair and undermine our democracy, precisely because of the mismatch between population and registration that was so ably highlighted by my hon. Friend in his comments.
I want to illustrate that point by comparing my constituency with that of my political neighbour, the Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr Clegg). My constituency is in the heart of Sheffield—inner-city, multicultural, with large council estates and two universities—and 17% of households have nobody on the register. The Deputy Prime Minister’s constituency, which is like a piece of the home counties parachuted into South Yorkshire, is monocultural, with large areas of comfortable owner-occupation and a stable population, and only 4% of households have nobody on the register. There is therefore a huge disparity between the number of people we actually represent and the number of registered voters.
On the surface, simply considering electoral registration, the constituencies would look much the same size, but if we compare the 2011 census figures with the number of voters registered on 2 January, the picture is very different. Sheffield Central has 76,596 registered voters, and Sheffield, Hallam has 71,559, so my constituency is 5,037 voters larger. However, according to the census, Sheffield Central has a population of 115,284, whereas Sheffield, Hallam has a population of 89,356, so I represent 25,928 more people. Many of those excluded from the register are precisely the people who form a huge proportion of my casework—a picture that I am sure is reflected for many other Members with similar constituencies.
Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)
The Lords has quite rightly rejected this Government’s attempt to gerrymander the new boundaries in their favour. Does my hon. Friend agree that they should concentrate on getting electoral registration up, so that when we redraw the boundaries, it will be done on the basis of the most accurate figures possible?
Paul Blomfield
I very much agree with that point, which I will move on to. The relationship between the boundary review and the number of people registered to vote—the basis on which we calculate boundaries—is an important issue. As it stands, the boundary review would exacerbate the problem, not simply because of under-registration, but because of the point in the electoral cycle at which that review would be conducted, with the next one being in December 2015.
I worry that individual registration threatens to make the situation worse, which is why I have argued that we should base our boundaries on adult population, not numbers of registered voters. Whether or not we go down that route, there is a need massively to improve voter registration, because if we do not, we risk creating a US-style democracy, with huge under-registration that excludes the disadvantaged and disengaged and focuses elections on the needs of the more privileged, so poisoning our politics.
I am sure that many measures will be proposed by my hon. Friends, but I want to concentrate on young people. From my election campaign, I can think of many examples of speaking to young people on the doorstep. At the outset of the conversation, it was clear that they had no intention of voting and that they would never have been on the electoral roll had it not been for their parents, but in many cases—the marked register confirms this—after that conversation and having engaged with the issues, they voted. That vote would otherwise have been denied them. The Government need to focus specifically on imaginative ways to ensure the effective registration of young people—working with schools, using social media and considering other ways to address that group.
I want to talk particularly about students. Not all students are young, but the vast majority are, and given the impact of Government policy on mature student entry, an even greater proportion of students will be young people in future. Many of them are worryingly disillusioned with democratic politics. The Liberal Democrats’ broken pledge on tuition fees—this is not a party point, but none of them is here to listen; it is of some concern that that great reforming party has chosen not to engage in the debate or to show any interest in enhancing electoral registration—has not simply damaged their party; it has damaged trust in politics for a whole generation of young people.
Both Sheffield’s great universities are in my constituency, with 32,000 of their students living there. They live there for at least 31 weeks a year, and many of them for 52 weeks; it is their main place of residence. They contribute to the economy and life of the city, and they have a right to have their voice heard in elections. At the university of Sheffield, there is currently block registration of all eligible students in university accommodation, but that is threatened by the legislation on individual voter registration. I assume that the Government do not think that our universities are guilty of electoral fraud, so I question the need to rule out block registration.
Even if that argument is not accepted, there is a need to mitigate that policy’s impact. The former finance officer of Sheffield university students union made the point about the difficulties of individual voter registration for students very forcefully. He said:
“When students first arrive at University and live in halls, amongst all the other things going on, registering to vote often isn’t a priority and it is comforting to know that it’s often done automatically. If this is changed then it would become another form to fill in during the whirlwind first few weeks away from home and some students, particularly those not engaged in democracy will not be registered.”
Mr Andrew Smith
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. Like him, I have two universities in my constituency, and I strongly underline the points that he is making. Does he agree that a further difficulty is that the nature of much college and institutional accommodation makes it much more difficult to do a person-to-person, door-to-door canvass than in conventional streets? That will compound the problems that may occur with the under-registration of students.
Paul Blomfield
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention, and he is absolutely right. In Sheffield, there has been a trend away from houses in multiple occupation, which provided at least an opportunity for some contact during the canvass, to huge student flat complexes, in which the security arrangements make it impossible to engage by knocking on doors. That exacerbates the problem.
The difficulty of under-registration is that future boundary reviews will be conducted in the first term of each academic year. The students unions of both universities in my constituency run really vigorous electoral registration campaigns, and they have some impact, but they are held in the run-up to elections—in February, March and April—when people are beginning to think about voting. They do not run them in December, when data will be collected on which future boundary reviews will be based. When I am out talking to students in the days before elections, many of them are still unregistered when they finally decide that they want to cast their votes. Individual voter registration will effectively exclude tens of thousands of students—my constituents—from the electoral roll and therefore from consideration when boundaries are redrawn. They will be denied a voice unless we look at innovative ways to ensure that that does not happen.
I have spoken to the vice-chancellors of both Sheffield’s universities, and they would be happy for the voter registration process to be incorporated into the student registration process. I have discussed that idea with our electoral registration officer, who is keen to work with them. That process would involve a couple of simple questions on the student registration form, such as “Do you wish do register to vote?” Alongside that, there should be an explanatory note on entitlement to vote, because students are often confused about their rights to vote in their city of study and the city in which their parental home is located. That question would be linked to the collection of the student’s national insurance number, which would be a requirement of the process.
Sheffield is a great pioneering city, and we were at the forefront of the Chartist movement, too. If we can make the process work, there is no reason why it should not work elsewhere in the country. Will the Minister commit to meeting Universities UK and the National Union of Students to discuss that proposal and ways to maximise student registration?
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) on securing this debate on a topic that is close to many of our hearts. At present, registering to vote is the nearest thing we have to a social contract. It acknowledges that we live in a democracy. Depending on the figure we choose, however, millions of people are not registered to vote. We may disagree about the figure, but we all agree who is not registered: people who are disadvantaged, young people, people on low incomes, private sector tenants, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.
In the previous Session of Parliament I introduced a private Member’s Bill, which is more relevant than ever, which was designed to bridge the gap between the excluded group and everyone else. The idea is simple. If someone wants to connect with the state by getting benefits, a pension, a national insurance number or even a driving licence, they must be on the electoral register. That is not a big imposition. After all, if someone has to be on the electoral register to get a credit card, why not be on it to get a driving licence? Linking access to public services with the electoral register has two purposes. It will increase democratic participation and, more importantly, it will provide an explicit link between the democratic process and the benefits that we enjoy because we live in a democracy. It is classic rights and responsibilities. If someone does not like living in a democracy, fine. They do not have to sign, but they should not expect all the good things as something for nothing.
The electoral register already fulfils certain important citizenship functions. It is a way of deciding who does jury service. It is possibly the country’s most cost-effective anti-crime database. The police use it if they want to catch up with someone. Banks and credit companies use it to prevent fraud. Benefits investigators use it to check that people pay council tax and are on the right benefits. More positively, charities use it to help raise funds. Most obviously, of course, it gives people a chance to vote. It is in everyone’s interests, therefore, for the electoral register to be comprehensive.
We are about to enter an era of individual registration, or, as I prefer to call it, stopping mums helping their children to vote. When individual registration was introduced in Northern Ireland, the register collapsed by 11%, and we have heard in this debate that it might be down by as much as 29% at the moment. The Electoral Commission states that that adversely affected disadvantaged groups—young people, the poor and people who are in and out of unsecured shorthold tenancies. Those are just the sorts of people with whom we need most to engage to prevent social exclusion and the kind of senseless violence that we are witnessing in Belfast at the moment. Northern Ireland, as I said earlier, is a stable community compared with London.
In addition to individual registration, there is some confusion about how compulsory it will be to register to vote. Where registration is optional there is, unsurprisingly, a drop in who registers, especially among disadvantaged groups. In the US, 40% of people on incomes below $20,000 are not registered, and there are similar rates of disengagement among under-25s and people who rent their homes in this country. On top of that, there is confusion about councils’ annual canvasses. My council, Merton council, stated that only 65% of homes return registration forms, but after its canvass, 97% of homes have registered.
There is even more confusion because in 2015, those who do not individually register will be able to vote in the way they are used to if they vote in person, but people who vote by post or proxy will not be allowed to. That will cause many problems, especially for older and disabled constituents. That seems unfair, because the forms they signed promised them a vote indefinitely. I stress that I make that point even though it harms my electoral prospects. At last May’s elections, Labour had a 10% lead in Merton, but the Tories had a 13% lead among postal voters, so I want it to be noted that I am actually arguing here on behalf of the Conservative party. I make those points because I love democracy, not because I seek political advantage.
According to the Association of Chief Police Officers and the Electoral Commission, no election result has ever been decided because of over-registration, but we need only look to America to find people who believe that an election can be fixed by systematically removing voters from the register. I was in Ohio last autumn, canvassing for President Obama, and voter suppression is an increasing tactic of the right. They have seen their country become more diverse and liberal, and they think that they can sabotage that by taking people off the register, by going to court to stop early voting, by placing lawyers at polling stations in poor areas to intimidate voters as they stand in line or to slow down the lines, by insinuating that Latino citizens might not have full voting rights and by making it impossibly difficult for young black men with very minor felonies on their record to vote at all. For the sake of democracy, such voter suppression should not be allowed to succeed here.
The problem with our electoral register is not that there are too many people on it; it is that there are still 3.5 million people who are not. Telling people who want tax credits, a pension or a passport that they have to be on the electoral register might help. It will make the register even more accurate and ensure that more disadvantaged people engage in the democratic process. It will also, in a small way, begin to tackle the so-called “something for nothing” society. Making our social contract as explicit as that will tackle fraud and reduce social exclusion. More than that, it will ensure that more people have a chance to vote. Being registered to vote is a symbol of engagement. It shows that you are not on the margins, but part of the mainstream. Voting is not only for the elite; it is something we should celebrate for all. That is why, for the sake of democracy, I hope that other members will consider supporting my suggestions and making registering to vote more, not less a way of life.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
Thank you for calling me to speak, Mr Owen. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) on securing this very important and—as has been said before—timely debate.
I was first switched on to the issue of electoral registration by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) some 12 years ago, and I have been passionately campaigning on it ever since; I think that I have tabled something like 300 parliamentary questions to flush out information on this important issue.
Progress has been made. I think that the original proposals by the Government—I refer to the Conservative part of the Government—were meant to use the boundary review to get the 2015 election, and to use electoral registration to get probably the four or five elections after that. It has not turned out that way. Some gratitude must be shown to the Liberals for that, because they have seen the light and helped Labour and all other believers in democracy in slowing down the whole process.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) and his boss, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), on the fantastic way that they have handled this issue in recent years. I also congratulate the Civic Society—I include in that Operation Black Vote—as well as Unlock Democracy, Scope, the Electoral Reform Society and the Electoral Commission. I have locked horns with the Electoral Commission on a number of occasions, but it has done a good job as far as electoral registration is concerned. And, as I say, the Government have listened and I want to give credit for that.
I wish to raise a few issues here today, and one of them concerns funding. I carried out a survey in Wales, asking all the electoral registration officers how much they spent per elector on registration. Lo and behold, the more they spent on registration, the more people there were on the electoral register. The Government have offered £108 million to help with all these changes, but that money is not ring-fenced, so I ask the Minister, first, to ensure that the £108 million that is being given to local authorities for registration is spent on registration. Secondly, I ask her for full, careful and non-politicised deliberation on data matching and data mining, the details of which will be announced shortly. Thirdly, I ask that she look carefully at the level of fines for non-registration. The Constitutional Affairs Committee recommended a fine of £500 for non-registration, which might be a bit severe, but at the lower end a fine of £35 has been suggested, which would be absolutely—well, having such a fine would be the wrong thing to do. So those are three issues that I ask her to look at carefully.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) mentioned voter suppression. If the changes had gone through in their original form, we could have said that they were a form of voter suppression. To have 6 million people—not 3 million, but 6 million—off the register, with the Electoral Commission warning that that figure could go up to 16 million people if the original proposals went through, would mean that we would not have a functioning democracy.
I also ask the Minister to look at some best practice from Wales. The Conservatives are always lambasting Wales and saying that we have got it wrong; here is an example of where we have got it right. I am holding the form from Denbighshire county council to all its electors, and right in the middle there is a threat that if someone does not fill in the form they will be fined £1,000. Those who do not fill in the form receive a letter from the chief executive officer, Dr Mohammed Mehmet, and in the last paragraph it says:
“In order for me to fulfil my legal duty, I am therefore requesting that you complete the enclosed information sheet and return it to me promptly in the envelope provided. If you fail to supply the information requested within 14 days, I will have no option but to pass the matter to the council’s legal department.”
As a result of that, in the poorest ward in Wales—the West ward of Rhyl—registration went up by 34%. That has been achieved in Wales, so I will leave a copy of the form for the Minister to look at.
May I ask the Chair what time wind-ups will start?
Chris Ruane
I have been instructed to carry on by the Chair.
There are a few issues in the excellent document by the Electoral Commission, “Managing electoral registration in Great Britain”, which was published in June 2012. It gives some performance indicators. However, one of the worrying performance indicators is:
“Performance standard 3: House-to-house enquiries.”
“House-to-house enquiries” involves sending canvassers round, from house to house, to find non-responders. In 2008, 16% of electoral registration officers did not perform that role; in 2009, that went down to 5%; in 2010, there were only 2% of officers not carrying out this essential function to get the registration up; and in 2011, the figure increased by 800%, to go back up to 16%.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
This is obviously a very important issue when it comes to voter disengagement. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that there is also perhaps a role for political parties? When it comes to MPs doing their constituency work, and interacting with their constituents, perhaps whenever that work has been done the MP can say, “Are you on the electoral list and if you’re not, perhaps you can register?”
Chris Ruane
Absolutely. It is incumbent upon us all as MPs to do that—no vote, no voice. That issue needs to be considered as well.
May I respectfully ask that the statistics that I have given are sent to every MP, every Assembly Member, every Member of the Scottish Parliament and every Member of the Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland, as well as to every councillor across the land, so that we get some pressure from below? As well as Governments passing laws from above, we will get some pressure from below. If most MPs realised that their electoral registration officer was not fulfilling their duties, they would be on to them, but nobody knows about these facts and figures. So I ask the Minister if she will use her offices to ensure that this vital information is sent out to all MPs.
I realise that I have a colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore), who wishes to speak, so I will—
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
I remind Members that the wind-ups will not start until 3.30pm.
Chris Ruane
Okay. In that case, Chair, I shall go on even a little bit longer. [Laughter.]
Some of the issues pertaining to Northern Ireland have been mentioned by a number of Members—
Chris Ruane
I will give way on that issue, because I know that my hon. Friend is from Northern Ireland.
Jim Shannon
The hon. Gentleman has made that point about Northern Ireland. Just for the record, Mr Owen, I want to say that many people are not registered and those who vote perhaps give an indication in the wrong ballot box—that is my opinion, of course. However, after the disgraceful decision to remove the Union flag from Belfast city hall, the number of people who registered to make a decision and make a change went up greatly. Of course, by that stage it was too late. So, if people want to make a change, vote early.
Chris Ruane
Hopefully early, but not often. I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.
In the case of Northern Ireland, when the changes were introduced in 2006—I admit that they were introduced by a Labour Administration, and that the requirement to have that annual canvass and get out there “on the knocker” was not in place and there was continual registration—registration rates went down in the five or six years afterwards, to 71%, meaning that 29% of people were not registered. If the analysis is made, we will find out that those people, in the main, will be people who live in council houses, or tenants of social landlords, unemployed people or low-paid people, and quite often they will be black or minority ethnic. So quite often these are the people on the margins of society, and as I say there are currently 6 million of them missing from across the UK and the figure for Northern Ireland is proportionally higher than for anywhere else in the UK. So we need to learn the lessons from Northern Ireland if we are rolling out this Bill.
It has been claimed by the Electoral Commission, and I think by the leader of the Liberal Democrats as well, that these changes will be the biggest changes since the introduction of universal suffrage. If they are that big, we need consensus, and if there is not consensus I can promise the Government this—if Labour gets in at the next election, there will be a massive push from Back Benchers and Ministers to undo what has been done.
Labour did not politicise the issue of electoral registration for the 13 years that it was in government. I wish that it had. I was taking the message back to Ministers—Labour Ministers—and saying, “This is a big issue. We have 3.5 million people unregistered.” We could have politicised that issue. If those 3.5 million people ever voted, they would have been our voters. And in fact it was not 3.5 million people; it was 6 million people. If those 6 million people are added to the register, there would be no need for the equalisation of parliamentary seats, because the vast majority of those 6 million people would be in Labour seats. So this issue of registration has massive implications and I urge the Minister, and her team and the Prime Minister, to listen carefully and not to go about this process in a party political way but in a fair, balanced and consensual way.
When Labour came to power in 1997, after we had been out of power for 18 years, the first thing we did was to give away power. We did that by introducing proportional representation for European elections. In Wales, we went from four Labour MEPs to one. That was not in our party political interest. We had a majority of 180 Members of Parliament, and we could have established the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly without PR, but we did not. We could have dominated those institutions, certainly in Wales and Scotland, but we did not— we did things in a balanced way. Again, that worked against us.
What did we do with quangos? They were stuffed with Tories. The quango king of the country lived in my constituency. He was on £86,000 a year in 1996—more than the Prime Minister. What did Labour do? There was no more of that. We took out big, full-page adverts, usually in The Daily Telegraph, asking for good, decent people. We said that things would be non-party political. We gave away power in local government in Scotland. Everything was balanced.
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
Order. I am sure hon. Members want to get back to electoral registration.
Chris Ruane
In conclusion, I ask the Minister and her team to look at this issue in a non-party political way.
Siobhain McDonagh
I know how important my hon. Friend thinks the canvass is for electoral registration. Does he share my concern that the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill suggests that a Minister can abolish the canvass? Does he also share my concern that the canvass will consist of knocking on a door and exhorting people to fill in the form? If they have refused to fill in two previous forms, why would they fill in the third? At the moment, the canvasser stands there with a member of the household and completes the form with them.
Chris Ruane
That is an eminently sensible point, which I support.
In conclusion, partisanship should not be shown on this issue. The Minister should look at the lessons from Northern Ireland and from the data matching and data mining. She should also look carefully at the level of fines and at best practice from around the UK, including my constituency. If she does all those things, she will be supported by both sides of the House and all parts of the country.
Albert Owen (in the Chair)
Order. Before I call Sheila Gilmore, I remind Members that I will call the Front-Bench spokesman at 3.30 pm, and no other Members have indicated that they wish to speak.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) for securing the debate.
We assume that the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill will complete all its stages at some point and that individual voter registration will go ahead. The Bill will come into force in a period when quite a lot of important things are going on electorally. In Scotland, the process will take place at much the same time as the referendum, which raises considerable issues for electoral registration officers, who will have to manage the processes simultaneously. For the purposes of the referendum, there is a proposal—what happens will depend on the view taken by the Scottish Parliament later this year—to enfranchise 16 and 17-year-olds. If that happens—the Scottish Government have certainly indicated their intention to do it—it will raise procedural questions about how these things are done. Electoral registration officers in my city, for example, could therefore be dealing with a large number of issues at the same time as individual electoral registration.
Like many Members, I think it is important that we put in the effort. The canvass is important. It does not necessarily have to be hugely more expensive, although equally we should not take money away from electoral registration officers. We need to know where the effort needs to be put in, and if electoral registration officers do not know, they need only ask political parties, which can certainly tell them, because the differences in electoral registration in different parts of our constituencies can be extremely stark. We can almost predict where the low registration will be before we go into certain streets and start looking at the electoral register to discover just how many households are missing from it. Armed with that knowledge, we could concentrate on areas where we already know there is a shortfall. Things will only get worse—there is no doubt about that—so we need to concentrate on certain places.
We may need to think laterally about making it easier for people to register. For example, I was out knocking on doors at the weekend and the Member with me pointed out that several of the apparently unregistered houses belonged to council tenants. How did we know that? We knew what kind of new doors the council had recently put on those houses, and we took a bit of guess, albeit it was a fairly safe deduction. Those people had probably moved into those properties relatively recently. New tenants go through various processes with the council: they sign tenancy agreements and some, but not all, apply for housing benefit. That is an ideal opportunity to register people at the same time. People have to do a lot of things—they sign up for the electricity and other things—so why not make electoral registration part of the process, so that they can automatically register as they take up their new tenancy?
Often, it is those very people who come to our surgeries—they are certainly coming to my surgeries at the moment—and say things like, “I’ve just had this letter saying I’ll have to pay something towards my rent from April. I’ve never heard anything about this. I don’t know anything about this.” They see these things as politics, but politics is, of course, about things that happen to them. Once people realise that, they begin to be get a bit more interested, but no doubt some of the people who come to see us and are very angry are not registered. We therefore need to think about making electoral registration as straightforward as possible.
We could go into schools to register young people; that is not at all unreasonable, because once people are registered, the forms will continue in future years. I do not see why it is not possible—this was raised previously—to allow people to register quite late in the election run-up. When there is an election, people’s minds turn to registration. With modern technology and the ability to deal with late registration, we could perhaps let people register virtually up to the election, as happens in parts of the United States. If we do that, people who become interested and who see that the election matters will not find themselves unable to vote. I have known people turn up at a polling station only to discover to their horror that they are unable to vote. At times, they get very angry about that, because they have been fired up by what they have heard.
One thing that is slightly worrying to somebody who sat through the debates on the Bill and who is a member of the Select Committee on Political and Constitutional Reform is that we are now hearing that the situation in Northern Ireland is not as rosy as we were led to believe. The Select Committee looked at the issue and took evidence on it. We were aware that there had been a fall-off in registration initially, but we were given repeated assurances, first, that it was a temporary phenomenon that had been overcome and, secondly, that the rest of the UK would learn from the process and not make the same mistakes. Now, however, we hear that it might not be such a temporary phenomenon. That may be because there was concern at the outset, so extra effort was made to improve the position, but that declined again when the foot was taken off the pedal, which clearly shows that we have to keep putting in the effort. That is a matter of some concern because of the assurances we were given. Those of us who raised concerns about the Northern Ireland situation were told that we really had nothing to worry about, that it had been resolved and that things were moving forward much more successfully. That is not the case.
In the lead-up to the changes, the Government need to look carefully at improving registration levels, which clearly are not good enough in some places. That would be necessary even without individual voter registration. That may require electoral registration officers to work far more closely with their fellow local government employees, laterally in relation to council housing, but there is also housing association housing. They might even work with some private landlords to see whether a link can be made, because that group of tenants is probably the most mobile and they are the ones falling through the hole.
Once we have all the household figures from the most recent census, which have not been published yet, we will clearly see what we know anecdotally from our own areas, which is how much more private renting there is now than there was even 10 years ago. That is such a mobile population that it is probably a major factor in reducing levels of electoral registration. How can we make contact with people when they move in? Can we find ways whereby electoral registration officers do not sit somewhere, isolated, but work with letting agents, perhaps, to make the forms available?
Jim Shannon
One of the problems with the Northern Ireland process was that the data-processing system was not working correctly, so the information was not all collated. One of the reasons for that was the funding. Wherever a data-matching process is set up, bringing all the different bodies, benefits and rent allocations together, it should show where the person is, but it does not always work that way unless there is funding to ensure that that the data-matching process takes place. That is a lesson that has been learned in Northern Ireland. The system has not worked. It must work better.
Sheila Gilmore
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment and insight into problems that have arisen. There are dangers in relying on a technological answer. As we found with some of the data-matching pilots, different organisations record things very differently, although perhaps that should not happen; the technology does not always work; addresses are not always referred to in the same way. Such small differences mean that although the technology should make it possible to identify where a person is, even if they were not previously on the register, that may not happen. A small difference in the description of the address is enough for the technology to let people down.
There is nothing better than the individual approach, and we should not rely on technology to perform that task. Technology has a place, and if it makes certain things easier, all well and good. It may provide a base to start from, but it is wrong to assume that it will somehow get us out of the problem. Getting out to people where they are—for example, by having an electoral registration officer sitting in a supermarket with a stall and forms to catch people while they are there—is not a bad idea. There are all sorts of ways to engage better with people. I hope that that will be taken seriously, that electoral registration officers will be given the resources and information they need, and that good practice will be shared so that that can happen. Otherwise things will get worse. It is deeply depressing to go to what I suppose in my constituency is a typical tenement building and to find that of perhaps eight or 10 residences, barely half are registered, even under the present system. It is not good enough.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
This afternoon’s debate has been excellent, and I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) on securing it and on his first-rate contribution. He set out clearly many of the issues. It is a timely debate, because, as a couple of hon. Members have mentioned, the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill is now back on course after being mysteriously delayed by the Government in the other place. It is back on track and we look forward to its return to the Commons.
Several hon. Members have made good points. We heard about the situation in the United States of America where unfortunately voter suppression is all too often a political tactic of the right. I am sure that we all deplore that. Some hon. Members mentioned the need to focus on groups that are under-represented on the register: black people, young people, disabled people and those who are very mobile. We need to make a special effort to ensure that our electoral register is as complete as possible.
We have also heard about the Government’s change of heart when the Bill was passing through the Commons about whether a penalty should be imposed for an individual’s non-compliance in the process of registration. We welcome that, but we of course pressed the Government in Committee on how that would be administered and how much the fine would be. At that time, they understandably said they had not reached a final decision, but they have now had months to consider, and I wonder whether the Minister will say precisely how much the fine for individual non-compliance will be.
We also heard, importantly, about Scotland and were reminded that there will be a referendum in 2014 on Scotland’s continued membership of the Union. That will of course coincide with preparations for individual electoral registration. Uniquely in that election, but I hope not as a one-off—I would like the principle to be extended—young people of 16 and 17 will be given the vote for the first time. That will inevitably, I think, put great pressure on the electoral registration process north of the border.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent said, the debate is about the nature of our democracy and democratic participation. The electoral register is the lynchpin of our democratic process, and we all want it to be as accurate as possible. No one condones the examples of fraud that have taken place, but we must not exaggerate the amount. Just as importantly, we want the electoral register to be as complete as possible. We all want as many people as possible to have the chance, in a modern, thriving, healthy democracy, to exercise their democratic right.
I want to put some specific questions. First, on Northern Ireland, many of us were led to believe, as was mentioned in the debate, that the situation there was a good example to follow. We all recognise that the situation there is different from Great Britain’s, but nevertheless individual electoral registration was introduced there. We were told initially that there was a fall-off in the number of people on the register, but that that had improved. However, we now understand from the Electoral Commission that there is a marked reduction in the number. The commission’s report gives a number of reasons, but clearly one is to do with the decision taken in 2005 to discontinue the annual canvass in Northern Ireland. That appears to have had a significant impact on the chief electoral officer’s ability to track population movement.
Members have referred to the fact that people are increasingly mobile these days, and that is particularly an issue in our inner-city areas, including here in London. A key lesson that must be learnt from the Northern Ireland experience is the importance of retaining the annual canvass. We have discussed this issue at some length in the House, and Members have expressed concern about the Government’s possibly not continuing with the annual canvass. Although clause 7 of the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill provides Ministers with the power to amend or abolish the annual canvass, the Bill also states that the Minister must have the approval of both Houses and that the Electoral Commission must prepare a report. I welcome that, but I would like a cast-iron commitment that the Government, in learning from the experience of Northern Ireland, have no intention whatsoever of scrapping the annual canvass.
Siobhain McDonagh
Will my hon. Friend ask the Minister not only not to scrap the canvass but to ensure that canvassers can still help individuals on the doorstep to complete their forms?
Wayne David
That is an important point, because it is entirely complementary to the broader point about maintaining the annual canvass. An annual canvass is successful because it is about face-to-face contact; it is about electoral registration officers having a relationship with people and providing information about how they individually can complete their forms. The two points go well together. I would therefore like a cast-iron commitment from the Government that they have no intention whatsoever of putting a question mark over the future of the annual canvass.
That leads on to my second point, which is about the role of electoral registration officers. The ERA Bill proposes in sub-paragraph 6(2) of schedule 4 that the words “so far as is reasonably practicable” are introduced in relation to the role of electoral registration officers. I do not think that that the provision was modified in the Lords. Some people have suggested that that weakens the role of EROs and means that they cannot do their job as effectively, and although that is not necessarily the case, it introduces the potential to further allow EROs to limit the scope of their intervention. The important flexibility that currently exists is in danger of being weakened, and I would like reassurance from the Minister regarding EROs’ essential role in ensuring that individual electoral registration is implemented fairly and effectively.
Following on logically from that, I think that we all realise that, for electoral registration officers to be effective, they must have the necessary resources to do their job properly. The Bill’s explanatory notes state:
“A total of £108m was allocated at the Spending Review in 2010 to meet the cost of implementing Individual Electoral Registration. This includes £85m resource funding in 2014/15 to fund registration officers to make contact with each potential elector individually and invite them to register in 2014”.
There has also been reference to an extra £13 million per year being provided.
Chris Ruane
I take my hon. Friend back to the statistics for house-to-house contact given by the Electoral Commission in its document, “Managing electoral registration in Great Britain”. If the Government have supplied £108 million, there should be no excuse for that contact—knocking on people’s doors—to go down massively. What does my hon. Friend think is the reason for that? It happened under the Tory watch.
Wayne David
We must be mindful of the tremendous pressure on local government at the moment. Although moneys might be nominally provided for electoral registration, I would like the resources to be ring-fenced, to ensure that they are used for the process for which they are stipulated. We are not blaming local authorities —we can all understand the tremendous pressure that they are under in a cuts climate and that education and social services and so on require resources—but if money is not ring-fenced, it is all too easy for it to be surreptitiously shifted from one budget to another. That is why it is very important that the Government commit to introducing ring-fencing.
Jessica Morden
Does my hon. Friend agree that, if fines should come in, the money from them also should be ring-fenced for electoral registration purposes?
Wayne David
I understand my hon. Friend’s sentiment, but I do not think that it is quite that easy. A wrong impression might be given—a bit like with speeding fines—with electors under the impression that local authorities were deliberately fining people to ensure an extra source of income.
Jessica Morden
Just to clarify, I meant that if fines were introduced and the money went somewhere central, the Government should somehow consider how the money could be ring-fenced for electoral registration purposes. I appreciate that if the money went to a local council there could be a perverse incentive not to register people to charge more fines.
Wayne David
That is a sound sentiment, and I would welcome the Minister’s response. We certainly all recognise that adequate resources must be provided if the system is to work. Money, from wherever it comes, is to be welcomed, and we need as much of a focus as possible on this issue.
I understand that the Government, according to their implementation plan, were to come forward with a funding mechanism for local authorities by last December, and I also understand that that has happened. Have the Government gone a step further, however, and not simply talked about a funding mechanism but begun to consider how much local authorities will have and whether there will be differential allocation according to the amount of work that is necessary in each area? I refer back to a point made earlier about under-represented groups. The Government, through the Cabinet Office, have been doing good work in liaising with various groups that work with under-represented elements in society, but there is a need for extra targeted resources, to ensure that we get under-represented groups fully registered.
Finally on funding, I want to ask about the situation in Wales. I understand that last year there were ongoing discussions with the Welsh Government about a sum possibly being devolved for them to carry out their work in relation to local authorities in Wales. Can the Minister enlighten us on whether the discussions have concluded and what sum has been allocated for individual registration in Wales?
This is important legislation, and it is commendable that so many Members—Labour Members, at least—have attended the debate. I am slightly concerned that more Government Members are not here, but I hope that now that the Bill is once again making progress, thanks to last night’s definitive decision in the other place, our constructive dialogue will continue when the Bill returns to this House.
The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Miss Chloe Smith)
I thank the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Nick Smith) for providing us with a helpful and interesting debate. I will attempt to answer the various questions that have been raised, and I hope that I will entertain the Chamber for the remaining 21 minutes.
On the point of sheer entertainment, I will mention my constituency, as the hon. Gentleman mentioned his. The Chartists enjoyed their moment in Norwich, too. I live round the corner from Mousehold heath, the scene of a great point in the history of democratic and somewhat rebellious engagement, which is a fine thing to mention in this debate.
On a perhaps drier topic, encouraging individual registration is vital, and I reassure the Chamber that the Government do not lack ambition on that. It is the role of the Government, politicians, political parties, electoral administrators and plenty of others to encourage people to register to vote. The Government are committed to doing all we can to maximise registration levels, and to consider ways to modernise the system to make it as easy and convenient as possible to register to vote.
The Electoral Registration and Administration Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament and provided us all with a few moments of excitement last night, with perhaps a few raised heart rates here and there, will go some way towards changing the electoral registration process for the better by introducing individual electoral registration. The Bill will create a legislative framework to allow alternative channels for registration, such as online registration, which I am pleased to confirm will be available from July 2014. The Bill will also provide for the use of data matching to verify applications, to confirm existing entries on registers during the transition to IER and to find individuals who do not currently appear on the register. We have already carried out pilot schemes.
Siobhain McDonagh
Does the Minister agree that the findings of the data-matching processes so far indicate that the electoral register is the most accurate record in existence? The electoral register is more accurate than the records of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Department for Work and Pensions and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, perhaps because it is compiled by people who live in a particular area and who go door to door.
Miss Smith
In some ways, the hon. Lady is right. The electoral register, by its nature, is a repository of solid information, but it is important that we put to work other data sets held by different levels of government to maximise numbers. We all want the numbers to be maximised, and we must find the best ways to do so. We are carrying out various schemes to test the usefulness of matching electoral registers against several public authority data sets. A further set of pilots will commence shortly, some of which will address students and recent home moves.
Chris Ruane
Will the Minister explain why the date for introducing IER, which was agreed with all-party consensus under the previous Labour Government, was moved forward one year from 2015 to 2014? Why was that consensus broken?
Miss Smith
I thank the hon. Gentleman, in general terms, for his flashes of bipartisanship both in this debate and, occasionally, in the main Chamber, but I regret that some of his, dare I say, time-filling appeared to descend into slightly more partisan commentary. I will be similarly partisan in response: the version introduced by Labour cost more than our version to the tune of some £100 million, and I think it is worth comparing schemes on that basis. The previous scheme would have caused confusion because, effectively, it sought to run a voluntary version of individual registration alongside another process. I believe that the version before us is somewhat cleaner.
Chris Ruane
I thank the Minister for giving way a second time. Why, specifically, was the date moved from 2015 to 2014? Was it to gain party political advantage for the general election and because the Government foresaw the deadline for the next review of parliamentary boundaries in December 2015?
Miss Smith
In short, no.
Other hon. Members have asked various questions about data matching, which I must address so that I answer everyone in time. In particular, the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent asked about the use of credit reference agencies, which is a point that he has raised capably many times. We considered the possibility of a pilot using credit reference agency data, but I am advised that running such a scheme within the existing legislation would be difficult. As I said in my answer to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), I am interested in finding as many useful sources of data as possible, and I shall continue to look for them. I have no doubt that the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent and I will continue that debate as we continue our research, but I am aware of a number of shortcomings in using data from credit reference agencies.
There will be a move to digital applications from the current paper application form, which will make registration more convenient for a number of people. The move will increase accessibility for many people with disabilities. I will be talking to the Electoral Commission later this week, and I am happy to raise the points raised by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden on the accessibility of the forms. We will be actively encouraging applicants to use the online system, which we intend to be the primary channel for applications. It is important, however, that we retain the option of a paper form to cater for anyone who is not ready for the move.
I acknowledge the hon. Lady’s point on absent voters. She generously explained how important that group is in her constituency, and often, those in that group are older voters, whom we will consider carefully. I certainly would not wish to see any such group disadvantaged, and I will watch that carefully.
Sheila Gilmore
The Minister suggests that she wishes to watch the process carefully, but of course the Government have the power to change their mind about the proposal that people with postal votes should not be automatically rolled over. There is still time to do that before the new process comes into play. Rather than simply reacting to a problem after the event, perhaps the Minister might consider a change of mind.
Miss Smith
I thank the hon. Lady for that reminder of what a Minister is and is not capable of doing. I repeat that I will be watching all these matters like a hawk. Some are within our direct control, some are for the Electoral Commission and some are for Parliament as we complete the process. I reassure her that I am deeply interested in ensuring that we maximise registration levels in all corners.
The current plans for registration include the annual canvass, and I fully assure the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent that it will continue to be used for as long as it remains the best way to ensure that the register is as complete as possible. If data matching is used, and we hope that we might now be able to match well over two thirds of voters by using that method, a whole new world of possibilities is opened up as to how we might, on an annual basis, register the right people. I do not think a situation in which the annual canvass is less effective than new methods is beyond our lifetimes. I do not suggest that I know what those methods might be—I deliberately take a long view in posing this scenario—but it is possible to use the legislation ahead of time to introduce a power to give an instruction not to use an annual canvass if other methods have become more effective. I repeat that we are all interested in effective methods. I am not interested in ineffective ones. However, Members will have heard the fuller debate on that issue in the Chamber earlier this year when it came before the Commons. I reassure them once again that all the safeguards will remain in place before any such abolition will be considered.
Wayne David
I welcome what the Minister says up to a point, but rather than hypothetical future scenarios, we are looking for proof that the Government are learning the lesson from Northern Ireland, as the Electoral Commission said, and recognising the centrality of annual canvasses. What might happen in future is a matter for another time; we want a categorical affirmation that the lessons from Northern Ireland have been learned and that an annual canvass is here.
Miss Smith
It is important that I go on to Northern Ireland before we run out of time. We are absolutely clear that we will be learning and have learned the lessons from Northern Ireland, and we have looked carefully into the Electoral Commission’s report. We are taking steps to prevent a fall in registration levels upon the introduction of individual electoral registration by retaining the annual canvass—as I said, we have no plans to abolish it in Great Britain—by moving the 2013 canvass to early 2014 to allow a more accurate and up-to-date register to be used at the beginning of the transition to IER, and testing and evaluating the benefits of data matching, about which I spoke briefly, by confirming eligible electors through the data match process. That confirmation will give us a substantial baseline level of completeness throughout the transition to individual registration. All those things are vital. We have always recognised that the transition to individual registration poses a risk to completeness rates, so we are putting in place those safeguards.
Chris Ruane
Registration rates in Northern Ireland are down to 71% and could go lower. At what percentage—60% or 55%, for example—does the Minister believe that we will stop having a properly functioning democracy?
Miss Smith
I do not intend to answer that with a number, but as I have said many times and will say once more, we are all interested in the maximum level of registration in this country.
Mr Andrew Smith
Will the Minister respond to the very good point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) about the crucial difference that can be made by the ability of the canvasser on the doorstep to help people complete the form? Will she reconsider it and commit to moving in that direction?
Miss Smith
I will. I am grateful that the right hon. Gentleman asks, as it reminds me to ensure that I answer the hon. Lady’s question. I do not believe that there is anything to prevent canvassers from helping on the doorstep. I am happy to come back on that in further detail, as I see that we are running out of time.
On the civil penalty for failing to make an application to register when requested to do so by a certain date, the hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent asked me for a figure. It is currently subject to keen stakeholder engagement, and I look forward to being able to update the House in due course. In passing, I note under that heading that the civil penalty is about deterrence, not making money. The sum will fall to zero once the individual registers. There is no interest in turning it into a money pot; that is simply not what it is for. I reassure the Chamber that through the safeguards that I have described, we want a situation in which we have confirmed the majority of existing electors and automatically retained them in the register, which will allow us to ensure that the register is at least as complete as it is now while improving its accuracy during the transition to individual registration.
It is important that I discuss some other measures in the time available. The IER system must be flexible enough to respond to changes in society. Beyond the transition, we will assess the most appropriate channels for applications. We want it to be digital by default, and we want an IT service to underpin the process for validating all applications, in whatever format they are made.
The Government are, of course, committed to funding the transition to individual registration, as has been noted throughout this debate. We will fund local authorities in England and Wales directly through grants made under section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003, allocated for the purposes of paying for the transition. Local authorities will receive a non-ring-fenced specific grant to pay for the move to IER. It will not be included in the formula grant. Appropriate safeguards already exist in the legal duties, which will be seen by the House in secondary legislation, and those duties rest on electoral registration officers. Local authorities will clearly be obliged to fund a number of business-critical activities, and that is in compliance with their statutory duty to pay EROs’ properly incurred expenses. I am happy to deal with that matter more in correspondence if Members wish.
Encouraging democratic participation is vital, and I hope that hon. Members have noted my commitment to it in the flavour of my comments in this debate. We are seeking to work with a range of organisations to engage individuals and communities from all sections of society in the political process. I am afraid that I cannot avoid using a minute to respond to some of the more partisan points made by the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane). Nobody owns voters, places or cities. We all go out and work for them. I am sure that he joins me in that sentiment, and I look forward to working with him in his more bipartisan moments.
We know that registration levels are disproportionately low in some groups; I think that everybody has made that point in this debate. To help us understand current levels of electoral registration, we have carried out a detailed programme of research, including funding an Electoral Commission study on the completeness and accuracy of the register, an independent academic review of all available research and further studies into exploring the barriers to registration for groups missing from the register under the current system.
I said that I would mention some places on which the data-mining pilots are particularly focused. As I think hon. Members know, they are to be focused on attainers, students and recent home movers, among others. I have no concerns about being approached by Universities UK or the National Union of Students, although I note that those groups met my predecessor at a more urgent stage of the Bill. However, I am happy to have further such discussions with them. On the points made about student voters, I note that only 13% of halls of residence currently use block registration. That is instructive, as it suggests that there are alternative methods. It is vital to treat young people as adults who can and ought to register in their own right and under their own responsibility.
On other ways that we are working with groups in broader society, the Northern Ireland experience is helping us plan activities. We are working with Bite the Ballot and Operation Black Vote to increase understanding of the importance of voting and the process of registering to vote; I have done such events in Norwich, and I think it is important to do so.
We are continuing all those efforts to drive up registration rates as we move towards IER. To do so, we need partnerships with a range of organisations in the private, state, voluntary and community sectors. As I said, I welcome and appreciate all the good points made in this debate. I shall be speaking to the Electoral Commission later this week, as I do regularly as part of this work, and I shall impress on it as part of its responsibilities to communicate about registration to the broader public—hon. Members will know that that is one responsibility of the EC—the good points made in this debate.
In conclusion, the Government are fully committed to doing what we can to increase voter registration levels. There is no silver bullet solution. I do not think that increasing democratic engagement is the Government’s responsibility. To borrow words from the Scripts’ recent song “Hall of Fame”, I think it is a question for students, teachers, politicians and preachers. It is also a question for parliamentarians, parents, carers, role models and officials from political parties. We must provide people with compelling reasons to vote.
Post-16 High Needs Provision (Warrington)
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
As always, it is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen, but this is a debate I would prefer not to have; I would prefer that it was not necessary. However, some of the Government’s decisions on funding for post-16 high needs provision may damage some of the most vulnerable young people in Warrington—young people whose disabilities are profound and whose care needs are extensive. We have a duty to ensure that they are provided with the best we can give them. Yet when Warrington received its allocation in late December, it found itself plunged into a crisis because the amount of money allocated to it for the provision was far less than the amount needed for the number of places it required. I believe that that is not what the Government intended.
When the Secretary of State for Education announced changes to the funding system last March in a written ministerial statement, he said:
“Improvements to funding for high needs provision will mean it can be more responsive and will enable greater choice for children, young people and their parents.”—[Official Report, 26 March 2012; Vol. 542, c. 89WS.]
The Government’s own impact assessment said that the changes should
“improve accessibility of such provision to disabled pupils and students and should impact positively on equality of opportunity for this group.”
However, we cannot have choice if there are not enough places. We cannot have equality of opportunity if no funding is available. That is the position that young people in my local authority may find themselves in next year, because when the responsibility to commission post-16 high needs provision moves from the Education Funding Agency to the local authority, the amount of money that transfers over will be less than what the authority is spending now and will certainly not be enough to meet the number of places required next year.
Part of the problem is that the funding is based on the number of places needed in 2010-11—that is a three-year time lag. It is different from the way we fund other post-16 provision, which is based on the previous year’s figures. I would be grateful if the Minister explained why it is different and why young people with such special needs should be disadvantaged in this way. Warrington’s funding will be based on a year when it required 88 places, but it already requires 151, and next year it will require 186. Even with the uplift given to the 2010 figures, Warrington estimates that it will have enough funding for only 109 places—£1.5 million—whereas the amount it estimates will be needed is £3.9 million.
I commend officers and the portfolio holder for children and young people, Councillor Colin Froggatt, on the work they have done. They have said that they fear being able to fund only what are called elements 1 and 2 for special needs provision, which is course fees plus £6,000; they do not believe that they will have money for any top-ups at all. That will leave disabled young people in Warrington at a disadvantage compared with those in boroughs that can afford to pay top-ups to providers. I do not believe that we should fund special needs provision in such a way. Whether someone can get a place in the appropriate facility should not depend on the borough they happen to live in. I do not believe that that is either the Minister or the Government’s intention, but that is the consequence we are facing.
I can find no logic in the figures for Warrington. The special educational needs block grant of EFA funding is 35% nationally, whereas in Warrington it is 25%, yet the proportion of people with special needs in Warrington—0.5%—is close to the national average of 0.53%. There is no logic to the figures.
The EFA has sought to focus attention—wrongly, I believe—on the increase in the numbers of young people placed with independent specialist providers in Warrington. Interestingly, the EFA took 2009-10 as its start point, which is completely different from the one it uses to assess funding. True, only six young people were placed with ISPs that year, but there were 12 in 2010 and there are 19 now. The EFA is funding them, so presumably it agrees that that provision is appropriate for their needs. Warrington does not spend a much larger percentage of its budget on ISPs than is spent nationally—it spends 41% as opposed to 39% nationally. The Minister will know very well that, on the sort of numbers we are dealing with, the difference between those percentages is statistically insignificant and can be accounted for by one young person with vey high needs.
Nor is it the case that Warrington has not sought to improve its special needs provision. The local authority is seeking to build a special needs campus on the site of the former Woolston high school, with provision included for post-16 young people. However, the Government have delayed that by threatening to take the building away to give to a free school. They cannot have it both ways; they cannot say, “You must place fewer people outside the borough,” if at the same time they are delaying provision inside the borough.
Everyone has agreed that the figures on the number of places the authority will need next year are robust. Officials from the Department have been through them with local council officials, and there is no dispute about them. I have asked the authority to provide me with some examples of the sort of young people we are talking about. It gave me an example of a young man who is severely learning disabled, has communication and behavioural difficulties and is a wheelchair user. He needs one-to-one support throughout the day and access to physiotherapy, occupational therapy and a hydrotherapy pool. He is placed in independent specialist provision at the moment, but the Minister will know very well that for young people with such a high degree of need, it is often impossible to cater for them in-borough, because the numbers are so low that the facilities required cannot be built. The authority also gave me the example of a young person who has a place locally. He has epilepsy, autism and communication difficulties, and he too needs one-to-one provision throughout the day. Those are the kind of young people who deserve the best we have to offer.
A local authority cannot control the numbers needing that type of provision, nor can it magic them away. It must deal with the young people as they are. If we do not provide for their needs, we let down not only them, but their families, who invest an enormous amount of time, effort and emotional energy in caring for them. The least we can offer them in support is the right care and education for their children.
What, then, is the authority to do? It has been suggested to it that it should take some of the money allocated to under-16 SEN provision, but the Minister knows as well as I do that that budget is already stretched to its limit. He will have seen people in his surgery, as I have, who cannot get provision for their children of school age. Even if the authority can do that, there will still be a gap of approximately £700,000. Where is that money to come from?
The council was told by officials that it could take the money from elsewhere in its budget. Frankly, those officials are living in cloud cuckoo land. Warrington has already faced cuts of £50 a head in spending power. It has had to take £32 million out of its budget, and according to the Government’s own figures—the Government may have to revise those figures, because I know a number of authorities double-counted some things—as a result of this year’s settlement it will have to reduce its spending by 5.5%, or about £12 million. As in all authorities, adult social services, which might have been expected to provide some of the extra funding, are under huge pressure because people are living longer and requiring more support. It is unreasonable to argue that we should take money from other vulnerable groups to fund those in our community with the most pressing need, whether they are children with special needs at school or vulnerable adults.
The authority finds itself in an impossibly difficult situation. Seventy-seven young people could be left without funding for their places next year. No guidance is coming from the EFA on which young people should be allocated places. The authority’s hands are tied, because the guidance states that it should honour existing commitments and, to paraphrase, should not seek to renegotiate existing contracts, except in exceptional circumstances. Apparently, exceptional circumstances do not include not having enough money. In any case, the providers of many of those services are few and far between and operate, as the Minister knows, in a sellers’ market. To suggest that the contracts could be negotiated down is unrealistic and untenable.
We are left in an appallingly difficult position, which I hope the Minister will help us to resolve. The test of a society is how it deals with the most vulnerable—those who have no voice to argue on their own behalf, which is the case for many of those young people. The test of a Government is how they deal with unintended consequences. I do not believe that this Government intended these consequences, or that they intended to leave young people with serious disabilities and a high level of special need without places in the coming year.
There has to be another look at the provision. There has to be a way of resolving the problem through discussion between the council and the Department, because at the heart of this dispute are those young people. They did not seek this problem, they do not deserve to have the consequences foisted on them, and they deserve to have their needs met. That is what I hope the Minister can do for us this afternoon. It is simply morally wrong that those young people should be left without the provision they need next year. I hope that, in his answer, the Minister will offer us a way to resolve the issue, to the benefit of some of the most vulnerable young people in our area.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on securing the debate, which is important for her constituents. It is, in particular, important for a group of vulnerable young people, whose case she is right to raise today. I am grateful for the opportunity to address her points and to explain the reason for our funding reforms. I will then talk more about the specific situation in her constituency and council area. I assure her that we are taking care to help local authorities and providers prepare for the changes that will happen later this year. We want to ensure that they are given the flexibility to use the funds that we will make available through their dedicated schools grant allocation in a way that best meets the needs of the children and young people they are responsible for.
I offer some reassurance that we take the concerns that have been expressed by local authorities, including Warrington borough council, seriously. Officials in the Education Funding Agency and other parts of the Department for Education have been working closely with local authorities for several months to help them understand the reforms and the necessary adjustments to funding, and that process is ongoing. We have relied heavily on the information that authorities and providers have given and used that to inform the distribution of funds. Where there have been discrepancies or anomalies, we have tried to be even-handed in our approach so as to get as fair a distribution of funding as possible.
Before I go into the detail of the process and of the particular local issues that have been raised by the hon. Lady, it might be helpful if I explain the rationale for the funding changes, which could lead to the consequences to which she referred. We have a disjointed funding system, with different arrangements for the funding of children and young people, depending on whether they are in the pre-16 or the older age group and on whether they continue to attend school or are in further education. Our aim is to establish much closer alignment between the pre-16 and post-16 funding arrangements for those young people who have special educational needs, learning difficulties and disabilities. Local authorities will be required to establish a single high needs budget for use in meeting the needs of all age groups up to 25.
Local authorities currently have statutory duties to make provision available for all students aged 16 to 19 and for those aged 19 to 24 who have a learning difficulty assessment. They only have a funding responsibility for such students in schools, however, not for students in specialist or general further education colleges or sixth-form colleges. Additional support funding for those institutions currently comes directly from the Education Funding Agency, as the hon. Lady mentioned. Although the agency takes into account the local authority’s decisions on student placements, we believe that better funding decisions will be taken, and a more efficient use of resources achieved, if the commissioning and funding responsibilities are more closely associated within local authorities. That is one of the key aims of our reforms to the funding of young people with high level needs.
In seeking arrangements that offer good value for money, as taxpayers expect, I assure the hon. Lady that we are not using the change as an opportunity to cut funding overall.
Helen Jones
I am listening carefully to what the Minister is saying, but does he not accept that if the responsibility for commissioning those places transfers to the local authority, the funding has to transfer as well? The funding that is transferring to Warrington is less than that which will be spent this year, and is certainly not enough to meet the places that we need next year.
Mr Laws
I understand the hon. Lady’s concerns, and I hope that I will be able to address some of them and put her mind a little at rest as I go on.
On the national picture, our plans are to increase funding for post-16 students with learning difficulties and disabilities. We spent £585 million in this area in 2011-12, and we are planning to spend £639 million in 2013-14, which is an increase of 9%. In previous years, the budget for specialist provision, which is now administered by the EFA, has not been fully utilised. We are not reflecting that underspend in the transfers we are making to local authority high needs budgets, so overall spending on young people with high needs throughout the country is set to increase by a significant amount over this period.
In the new system, post-16 funding will be of two kinds. To provide stability to providers, a proportion of funding will be based on places, which I think the hon. Lady understands. Providers will receive an amount per place of nearly £11,000 for the year. That funding will be guaranteed for the year, whether or not the places are utilised, and it will flow to all providers from the Education Funding Agency according to a national formula. The other kind of funding—top-up funding—will reflect the excess of additional support costs over the place-led funding, and will be paid in every case by the local authority responsible for placing each student. This element of funding will follow the student and therefore ensure that funding is not allocated to empty places.
The hon. Lady rightly highlighted the local impact of the changes that we are making. Hon. Members will understand from what I have just explained that to move to this better system we must make adjustments to local authority funding allocations. As the hon. Lady indicated, budgets have been based on what was spent on high needs students resident in each local authority area in the 2011-12 academic year, which is the latest full set of data that the Department holds. Since last August, the Education Funding Agency has shared information with, and gathered information from each local authority. That is to inform the distribution of funds between the place-led element, which is driven by a national formula, and the student-led element, over which the local authority has discretion. In fairness to all local authorities, we have not attempted as part of the process to redistribute the budgets between them.
We have encouraged authorities to collaborate with all the schools and colleges that are currently educating their students with learning difficulties and disabilities, so that they understand the scale of demand for future high needs provision and can decide how best to meet that within their high needs budget. This exercise will enable the place-led funding for each school, college or other provider to be settled so they can plan for their intake in September. The remainder of the funds will be with local authorities, as part of their high needs budget, to allocate as top-up funding for individual students.
The process so far has been complex for some local authorities, including Warrington, because the pattern of provision has changed significantly in some areas in recent years, or because the required information has not been readily available or verifiable. Some authorities claimed increases in the number of high needs students of 25% or more over three years. Warrington council was one that declared such an increase—in fact, an increase of some 65% from 113 in 2011-12 to a projected 186 in 2013-14.
Helen Jones
I want to draw two things to the Minister’s attention. First, the local authority tells me that part of that increase can be accounted for because it has become better at identifying those with special needs. Under the old system, which was run through Connexions, we were not good at identifying those with high-level special needs. Secondly, I hope the Minister accepts that the figures given by Warrington have been verified by his own officials. There is no dispute about how many will need provision next year.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
It is true that the rate has gone up significantly in the last year, which is causing the anomaly. Even after it has gone up, it is still lower than the national average. Surely that is relevant to the way in which the computation is done, because it does not imply any abuse.
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend makes an important point. When looking at the statistics and trying to understand why the changes have taken place in specific authorities, my officials will carry out such checks to test the credibility of the data. We believe that this level of increase may in some cases result from misunderstanding or inaccurate predictions of the number of students with high-level needs because that scale of growth in numbers is not reflected across the country in the lower age groups. To manage expectations, the Education Funding Agency set a limit of 24% to cap the projected increase in the number of student places, and has encouraged authorities in some cases to provide more realistic estimates of places where the original increase reported cannot be justified. I am not saying that that is the case in Warrington, but in some areas that has been a concern. A cap has been necessary to be fair to all local authorities.
As a result of the exchange of information between Warrington council and the EFA, the position reached just before Christmas was that the post-16 element of its high needs allocation will be £677,000 next year, within a total high needs budget of £18 million. The EFA is now looking at more recent information from the council to see whether further adjustments are necessary to the amount allocated to it. The particular issue in Warrington is that it has predicted a significant increase of 65% in the number of places and a significant increase in consequent costs since 2011. Within the increase in recent years, a much larger number of students have, as the hon. Lady said, attended non-maintained and independent special schools and colleges, which tend to be more expensive.
Although the window for further adjustments to dedicated schools grant allocations has now generally closed, the further education and school sixth form elements of those allocations are not due to be finalised until early March. In general, we expect all local authorities to live within the overall dedicated schools grant that they have been allocated. For Warrington borough council that is £146 million, within which the high needs allocation is £18 million. We are aware that there may be unintended consequences arising from the changes due to specific local circumstances, such as those set out today by the hon. Member for Warrington North and my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat).
An opportunity remains until 22 February for a few local authorities to make an exceptional case to the Education Funding Agency, and I assure them that the EFA and my officials will look carefully at whether adjustments can and should be made if the changes have affected particular areas in ways that were not predicted, and if they are material. In its review of such cases, the agency will ensure that any further adjustments are not to the detriment of other local authorities. We want to be as fair as we can to all authorities.
Helen Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He is being very generous. Will he or a Minister in his Department meet a delegation from the borough council to try to iron out the issues, because they have serious implications for some very vulnerable young people?
Mr Laws
I will certain meet the hon. Lady and representatives from the council. Indeed, there will be a dialogue, as I have said, between the Department, the EFA and her local authority to ensure that there is a sensible conclusion. She will understand that until the process has been completed, I cannot give a cast-iron assurance of any outcome, but I can assure her that we are treating her concerns seriously, and looking into them. If adjustments are necessary, we are open to making them in a limited number of strong cases.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for drawing attention to how students aged 16 to 24 with high needs will be funded. This is an important question for many young people and their families, and I hope that I have been able to provide some reassurance about the national picture and reassurance that concerns at local level will be treated seriously if they are based on clear evidence that changes in recent years have not been taken fully into account. Our funding reforms will be complemented by new legislation later this year. It is being designed to address some of the wider problems with the current support systems for young people with learning difficulties and disabilities. In the meantime, we will continue to work with local authorities, including Warrington, and schools and colleges across the country to implement the funding changes, and to monitor and assess their impact. We will of course make adjustments in future years if that proves necessary.
I thank the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend for raising this issue seriously and in detail. As I said, I cannot give a commitment today, other than to say that we are engaging seriously with her and her local authority. We will examine the issue carefully, and I am happy to meet the hon. Lady and her colleagues from the area, if that is appropriate, to discuss the matter with officials. If we believe that changes are necessary, we will implement them.
Leisure Services (North East Lincolnshire)
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. With your permission, I have invited the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) to share the debate with me. I have advised the Minister, who is happy with that, and I hope that meets with your approval. The Minister has indicated that 10 minutes will be sufficient for his summing up.
I appreciate that this matter is ultimately one for the local authority, which in this case is North East Lincolnshire unitary authority, so I appreciate that it will be difficult for the Minister to give a direct response. However, although it is a matter for the council, a considerable amount of public money is involved and one of the funding streams is, either directly or indirectly, Government money. Local opinion is very strongly of the view that the current proposals for the future of leisure services in the borough will, if implemented, provide lesser facilities for a considerably greater cost.
In recent years, the authority has rightly undertaken a review of its leisure services provision and updated it to meet changing circumstances. One scheme that unfortunately fell by the wayside as a result of the financial incompetence of the Learning and Skills Council was a learning village situated only a few hundred yards from Scartho baths, which I will talk about in a moment. Unfortunately, the revised conclusions that have been proposed rest on rather doubtful projections that are hotly disputed by campaigners, who, after receiving expert advice, have put forward some well reasoned alternatives.
The most contentious of the council’s proposals is the closure of the Scartho road swimming pool, known locally as Scartho baths. The pool is approaching 50 years of age and it is accepted that significant investment is required if it is to be given a new lease of life. I should mention that the pool is in the constituency of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby, but it serves the whole of the council area and beyond. The council is proposing a 25 metre pool at Grimsby leisure centre, which is on the outskirts of the town and access by public transport is difficult for a great many local people. The leisure centre itself is now 40 years old and I acknowledge that it also needs refurbishment. It houses a range of facilities, most notably an ice rink, and I will return to the future of the rink shortly.
I am usually reluctant to criticise the local authority publicly, as I recognise that we as Members must work with our local councils, irrespective of their political colour, on a range of issues. However, this issue has been dominating the local media in north-east Lincolnshire and is therefore an exception. The hon. Gentleman and I have been supporting local residents, and in particular the Save Scartho Baths campaign, and there is overwhelming local opposition to what has been proposed. The hon. Gentleman went so far as to use his Christmas card to highlight the council’s folly.
Martin Vickers
Indeed—a new form of campaigning, which I am sure will catch on.
The hon. Gentleman and I have met with a developer who has considerable experience of providing similar facilities for local authorities and with the private sector. They have offered to carry out a free survey and feel confident that alternatives exist that could deliver more for the money available. Surely it makes sense to pause and accept that and other offers the council has received to ensure that the taxpayer gets value for money. Local people, even if the final decision goes against their wishes, at least deserve the satisfaction of being involved in a proper consultation and a fully transparent process. It is possible that the companies, having studied the proposals, met council officers and visited the sites, would conclude that the council’s proposal is the best way forward. It is unlikely, but it is possible. It is a disgrace that the council is denying those opportunities to deliver more for the taxpayers’ money. If more cost-effective solutions are available, surely they should be considered. It is suggested that for around £2.5 million the Scartho baths could be refurbished, adding another 15 to 20 years to its life.
Following the introduction of the Localism Act 2011, I know that the Government are keen to ensure that local authorities undertake proper consultation before making such major decisions about local facilities. It is not unknown for councils or even, dare I suggest, Governments—surely not this one—to go through what could be described as a sham consultation, but the one undertaken by North East Lincolnshire council on this issue reached a new low.
The consultation was undertaken when, following a public outcry, the matter was referred to the council’s scrutiny panel. Residents were quite reasonably expecting an extended, detailed debate, together with a proper consultation, to be able to indicate whether the Scartho pool should be refurbished or replaced. The only mention of the pool in the consultation was in one of the questions, which said, “The following facilities are coming to the end of their life, which would you replace? Please choose one of the following: Grimsby swimming pool or Grimsby leisure centre.” Other questions included, “Should the council continue to provide quality leisure facilities within the borough? Yes or No.” It would be difficult to answer anything but yes. Question 2 was, “Given the tough decisions the council is having to take around substantial reductions in funding, should it replace ageing leisure facilities?” Again, it is hardly possible to say no. It is irresponsible in the extreme for the council to plough on in such circumstances.
Campaigners have consulted a wide range of experts, and I am sure that the demand for transparency suggests that the council should at least stop and consider alternative proposals. It is possible that additional funding might be available. I spoke to the Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and he has indicated that there might be pots of money for which the council might be able to bid. I believe that now is the time for the council to pause and reconsider how best to move forward with the backing of local people.
That excellent journal of local record, the Grimsby Telegraph, carried a letter from one of my constituents, who says, having heard the council state that
“this current administration is committed to investing in tourism and leisure, I find it very reassuring. My difficulty is understanding how and why they seem to be getting it so wrong. Any reader of this paper will have noticed that they are getting little or no support for their proposals. The majority of the public, especially those who use our leisure facilities, find no justification in pulling down Scartho Baths. Indeed, it is just the opposite.”
I am sure that the plea will have reached the local authority. Until now, it has not acted on it, but I hope that further consideration will be given.
I mentioned the Grimsby ice rink, which is located at the leisure centre and is also under threat. In part that is due to the coolant used to keep the ice frozen, but my point is that the loss of the rink now seems inevitable, because although a previous council resolution stated that moneys returned from the council’s investments in Icelandic banks would be ring-fenced for either a new ice rink or refurbishment of the existing one, I understand that that ring-fencing has now been removed. The ice rink now seems doomed—yet another blow for residents of the borough.
The Grimsby and Cleethorpes area is a low-wage area: the average salary is £20,000 or thereabouts, which is considerably less than the national average and £3,000 less than the regional average. Although some excellent private facilities offer good discounts, the reality is that many people across the borough rely on leisure facilities provided by the council. I must say to the Minister that North East Lincolnshire council has not fared at all well from recent funding decisions by his Department, but that is a debate for another occasion. We all accept that we are living through particularly difficult financial times and that the authority must consider whether an £8 million new build is better than spending £2 million or £3 million on a refurbishment, particularly when most local people believe that they would be getting a better facility.
Like many local people, I learned to swim at Scartho baths and skate at Grimsby leisure centre—neither very well, it has to be said. We value the facilities and firmly believe that the council should call a halt to what is proposed, reconsider, involve local people in its decision-making process in a meaningful way and engage with Government agencies again to see whether, in this post-Olympic world, other funding streams are available. All we ask, as the local Members of Parliament, is that the council pause and reconsider. Surely, local people deserve that.
The Deputy Leader of the House said in his reply to the pre-Christmas Adjournment debate in the House, when I raised this issue previously, that my plea for the local authority to listen again was on record and that he hoped that the council would reconsider. I hope that this Minister will also ask that it do so, and perhaps a little more successfully. If the Department for Communities and Local Government can exert any pressure on the council, local people, I can assure him, will greatly appreciate it. Our plea to the council is a plea to pause and reconsider. Surely, that is not too much to ask.
Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
It is very important to raise this issue, and I am grateful for the opportunity to take part in doing so. I emphasise at the start that we have no desire to challenge the council and still less to try to dictate policy to the council. That is not the job of MPs. The council takes the decisions relevant to the council, and the swimming baths are relevant to its portfolio. The point of the involvement of MPs is, first, to represent the views of our constituents, and very strong opposition was demonstrated to closure of the Scartho Road baths. Indeed, a petition was signed by more than 5,000 residents of the area against closure. There was a strong feeling that they had not been properly consulted. We took up the case and managed to secure another consultation, although, as the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) said, it was not adequate, as the questions were fairly loaded towards the closure of the Scartho Road baths. However, the council did accept the need for a new consultation.
Our responsibility is, secondly, to get the best possible deal, in the light of the very acute financial stringency that the current Government have imposed on our council. It has suffered very badly in the cuts—certainly worse than any authority in the south would have suffered, or many richer authorities have suffered. Our responsibility is to get the best possible financial deal on the provision of swimming facilities, and we asked whether the best possible deal was achieved by refurbishing Scartho Road baths, which is 50 years old. In fact, it had its birthday in December. That is the first time a swimming baths has been almost as old as the Member for the constituency. However, the pool, like the Member for the constituency, is still in good condition and eminently refurbishable. Or was the best financial deal achieved by going for a new pool? That is what the council wanted to do. It wanted to establish that pool at the Willows leisure centre in Cromwell road. The aim was not to pay the staffs of two centres to do work that could be done by the staff of one centre and to economise in that fashion.
Another of our responsibilities was to ensure, if the council did go for a new pool, as it wanted to do, that that pool was the best possible pool, with the facilities that children, young people and adults need to train to become future Olympic champions and to go into championship swimming. There is now a passionate desire to train. A growing number of kids want to train to develop Olympic capabilities. There is a growing demand for that kind of facility and training. We want Grimsby to breed champions—it has in many other areas—and that means having the best possible facilities for the whole region. Ours is a region of 250,000 people; it serves the needs of 250,000 people. A good leisure pool, up to proper Olympic standards, would be a facility for the whole area, which is under-provided for in many respects.
In the light of what I have described, we thought it best—we thought it sensible—to take soundings from pool providers. There are a number of expert pool providers. They are comparatively unemployed—under-employed certainly—at present, with the cuts in council spending. We wanted to take soundings and get costings. One provider in particular, from the north-east, undertook to come down and give us free estimates and free advice on the best course.
We discovered during our inquiries that providers were building pools at much lower cost than the council was estimating would be necessary to build a 25-metre pool, as the hon. Member for Cleethorpes said. They could even provide a 50-metre pool—in other words, a pool up to Olympic standards. To train in such a pool, anyone from the Grimsby and Cleethorpes area would have to go to Ponds Forge, at Sheffield, which is the nearest available Olympic-sized training pool. Anyone who wants to go on to championship swimming has to train in such a pool, and that is the nearest one. Why should we not have a 50-metre pool for our area? That is the question. The provider that I have mentioned said that that was possible at a price that was still lower than the council was estimating it would cost to provide a 25-metre pool in the Willows leisure centre.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I congratulate my two constituency neighbours, my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell), on this excellent debate. A 50-metre pool is of course something that North East Lincolnshire council could work with other authorities in the area to try to provide, because we do have a vision of making ours an area of sporting excellence. North Lincolnshire, the East Riding and Hull could be brought into that potentially.
Austin Mitchell
I thought that the hon. Gentleman was going to express admiration for my appearance in a swimming costume, but as he raises a financial matter, I agree absolutely with what he says. There is no reason why we should not co-operate with other local authorities to provide something central for the area in Grimsby and Cleethorpes, which would remain the centre of population. That could draw swimmers, in the way Ponds Forge does to Sheffield, to the Hull area.
The provider said that the pool could be provided at a cost lower than the council had estimated for 25 metres, although the costs of running it would be higher. It would also be a pool that had diving facilities, which the council does not now intend to transfer from the Scartho Road baths to the leisure centre baths. Modern young people in training, particularly at championship level, need diving facilities and a diving well in the pool as well. All that could be provided at a lower cost than the council was estimating. We therefore argued that it was best to bring in these consultants to lay the ground—to give us proper information on what could be done and what was available. It is sensible, in taking any decision, for people to have the fullest information and the fullest costings before they let the contract, so that they know what they are doing.
It is important to keep Grimsby swimming, especially the young people. Swimming is for life, after all. Swimming is for health and swimming is for well-being. We want it to be encouraged and sustained in our area. This is where the Minister, I hope, will be able to help us and where Government can help. I do not expect the Minister to say, “By God, these two are all right and the argument is strong,” give way immediately and provide Grimsby with the money to establish a big pool, but I do hope for advice from the Government and from the Minister on the provision of facilities for Grimsby. What advice—what help—is available?
We had before the Public Accounts Committee the people responsible for the Olympic provision, which was very successful. I asked them, “What does Grimsby get out of the legacy from the Olympics?” After a certain amount of hemming and hawing, one official came up with the idea that we got the experience of and enthusiasm for volunteering. That is not enough. We need money as well to support local activities. What finances are available, first, for refurbishment of an existing pool and, secondly and more importantly, for the provision of a new, bigger pool—it could be a regional pool—to provide top-rank facilities of Olympic standard with a diving facility for the whole area? What finance is available from Government? How do we set about tackling this?
We want a centre of excellence for Grimsby, Cleethorpes and the surrounding area, to help local young people who aspire to be swimmers—perhaps in the Olympics and the swimming championships, which are now so important—to achieve their ambitions. Grimsby deserves the best. The hon. Member for Cleethorpes and I will ensure that it gets it.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) for securing the debate and to the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Austin Mitchell) for his comments. Hon. Members will no doubt be aware that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport sets the policy framework for sport funding decisions. Day-to-day decision making on the distribution of funding for sport and physical activity rests with the funding bodies, which, to touch on the closing comments of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby, are Sport England and UK Sport.
We all know, and have all recorded, how much the summer’s Olympics gave this country and how proud we are of everything achieved. Members here will rightly be particularly impressed with and want to praise the abilities of medallists from Lincolnshire, such as Sophie Wells, Hannah Macleod and Georgie Twigg. If we are to repeat the success of last summer’s games in 2016, we must ensure that our athletes have the best possible conditions in which to train. That is where today’s debate becomes particularly topical and why the Prime Minister announced that UK Sport will receive about £125 million a year over the next four years to provide sports’ governing bodies with the certainty that they need to put in place long-term plans.
In the few moments that I have available, I shall touch on a couple of specific points. The hon. Member for Great Grimsby commented on how funding is distributed between the north and the south. If he will excuse me, I must challenge him. The Library has published reports recently that show that the situation he described is not the case. I speak as a Member of Parliament for an eastern constituency in the south, which has had one of the biggest cuts in the country, thanks to the legacy of the funding settlement of the previous Government under Labour. I would strongly argue that point.
The hon. Gentleman also tempts me to talk about legacy opportunities. We will feed his comments through to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, because, as he will appreciate, it is an issue for that Department in particular. He is right about the concern to ensure that people across the country benefit from the legacy of the Olympic games, which partly comes down to the sporting opportunities that young people have to become the superstars and Olympians of tomorrow.
The Department for Communities and Local Government has responsibility for local government, including promoting the leadership role that local authorities play in the strategic management of the public estate in their areas. I know that hon. Members here all share the view that we need to disperse power from central Government to society—my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes and I took part in a debate a couple of weeks ago outlining that view. Localism is just that: doing everything that we can as close as we can to the residents and citizens we represent, fully involving them in decisions about their areas—local people making local decisions on local issues, with central Government involved only when absolutely necessary.
The Government have strengthened the distinct role of local government as an autonomous political institution that builds and leads communities and provides services. Our actions are giving local authorities unprecedented freedom to get on and work in the best way for residents and local businesses. The Government’s approach to localism is therefore about passing power down to citizens —greater power held locally by accountable local authorities to help them to make a difference in their communities.
It is to their great credit that all three Members here today are working not only cross-party, but cross-border to represent their residents. We should ensure that the local authority is very much aware that this is not about party politics, but about Members across borders and across parties coming together to do what they can to ensure that their residents’ views are represented. I acknowledge that and I think it only right that the local authority takes notice of the fact that Members have come together in that way. My thanks go to the hon. Gentlemen for putting forward such a cohesive position.
If Members will excuse me for being simplistic about this, there is a great quote from, I think, a Spiderman film:
“With great power comes great responsibility”.
In this case, that means that for local councils and authorities to be able to say that they clearly represent their communities, they must look at, listen to and work with communities to ensure that they make decisions with them. Members have made a strong case today, and in this case, whether or not that is true, the local community council and local authority need to look carefully at how they have gone about making their decision. I shall return to that point in a moment.
Local communities hold their councils to account, ultimately through their voting power at local elections. Local councillors making decisions should bear that in mind; it is an important part of the democratic process. The Government have also introduced measures that increase transparency to allow local people to have a better view of what is happening locally, to create more openness and to strengthen democratic accountability. We have introduced greater transparency on how public money is spent locally, and in this case, Members have clearly done a great job in highlighting decisions to local people.
The Localism Act 2011 introduced the community right to challenge, which enables communities and the voluntary sector to question how services are provided and to have the ambition to challenge and make plans to take them over. In this case, it is not necessarily impossible for local communities to look into that right, if they feel strongly.
As a result of the changes that we have made, local authorities have greatly improved the way that they manage their assets. There is still room for improvement to ensure that they make the right decisions, with the best value for money, in the best interests of local residents. To continue to support and drive the agenda forward, the capital and asset pathfinder programme, delivered by the Local Government Association with support from the Department, has already supported 26 councils. Councils that have been involved in waves 1 and 2 have already achieved significant local savings and have gone some way to offsetting the reduction in the rate support grant. Wave 3 of the programme, launched on 26 October last year, concentrates on promoting local growth as well as delivering efficiency savings. It sounds as though local authority in this case should look at that.
The Government believe that it is for local authorities, in consultation—I stress, in consultation—with their communities to decide how to make best use of their assets, including the relative benefits and costs of replacing or refurbishing assets, because they are best placed to know what works and what is most appropriate for their local area, in a way that central Government cannot. To do that, local authorities must consult and work with local residents and take their views on board.
Members commented on whether a consultation was genuine. I hope that they note that we responded and made changes following the last consultation that I ran in my Department on the business rates retention scheme, which shows that even central Government—to pick up on the comments earlier—can, should and do listen to consultations when making our final decisions, and local authorities should do so, too. We encourage, and I strongly encourage, local authorities to engage with their communities when considering options for managing their assets. We consider it best practice for local authorities to consider the preparation of their asset management strategies in consultation with their communities.
In conclusion, as Members outlined at the beginning and will understand, I am not in a position to comment on the specifics of the scheme my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes highlighted, because I have not seen the business case weighing up the relative financial situation. I have set out the Government’s general approach and view, and I support the concerns of the hon. Gentlemen and my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). Local authorities should consider the most efficient way to use what are ultimately scarce resources and, most importantly, that they do so in genuine consultation with the communities that they serve.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Ministerial Statements
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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EU Justice and Home Affairs Opt-in Decision
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Sajid Javid)
The Government have opted in to the European Commission’s proposals for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on insurance mediation (recast) (IMD 2) and proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on key information documents for investment products (KIDs).
The Commission’s objective in revising the IMD is to improve regulation in the retail insurance market in an efficient manner. The proposals for IMD 2 aim at ensuring a level playing field between all participants involved in the selling of insurance products and at strengthening policyholder protection.
The KID proposals aim to improve pre-contractual disclosure and the comparability of packaged retail investment products for consumers. They will do so by obliging manufacturers to produce a comparable and standardised disclosure called a KID, and requiring distributors to provide the KID before the sale.
Both sets of proposals currently include provisions on alternative dispute resolution which impose requirements on the UK’s civil justice system, in terms of the operation of limitation periods and the availability of interim remedies. On this basis the Government consider that the JHA opt-in protocol applies and that the UK can therefore choose whether to opt in.
The Government believe that in view of the wider significance of these proposals it is in the UK’s interests to participate, therefore we have opted in.
Local Authority Funds
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
On 19 October 2012, DECC launched a competition for local authorities to bid for £40 million of funding to deliver projects to reduce fuel poverty, help kick-start green deal delivery and help consumers to save money on energy bills through collective switching. Organisations were able to submit stand-alone bids for one of the funds, or joint bids across two or all three of the competitions.
DECC received a fantastic response, with bids received from the majority of local councils in England either for funding for individual projects, or as part of regional-based applications. All three elements of the competition were heavily oversubscribed. In response we have been able to allocate £46 million to the fund.
£31 million to help vulnerable householders keep warm this winter
DECC has been able to increase the funding available for the fuel poverty element so that we can support 61 outstanding projects, helping 169 local authorities across the country improve the thermal efficiency of homes in their area. This money will be targeted at low-income and vulnerable households, helping them cut their energy costs and keep warm this winter and in the future, by installing efficient heating systems and insulation.
In addition to this funding Government are making sure the most vulnerable households get direct financial help from their supplier. Over 1 million pensioners will get £130 off their fuel bills this winter as part of the warm home discount scheme, with the wider scheme helping around 2 million households overall this year. And direct from the Government, all pensioner households under 79 will get £200 winter fuel payment this winter and those over 80 will get £300—these payments will be paid out to an estimated 12.7 million older people in more than 9 million homes.
£10 million to kick-start green deal “Pioneer Places” projects
The green deal, the coalition’s exciting, new and innovative plan to help households in Britain improve their home and save on energy bills, goes live this month. For an introductory period, householders taking out a green deal will also be eligible for a cashback incentive. Householders who use the green deal to make improvements such as loft insulation, solid wall insulation and new heating systems will qualify. Packages could be worth over £1,000.
To help kick-start the green deal, funding has been awarded to 40 successful bids for green deal projects covering over 150 English councils. The money will be used for green deal household energy efficiency assessments, whole house retrofits to demonstrate the benefits of energy efficiency, and local events and other activities to raise awareness of the green deal. This “Pioneer Places” scheme builds on the £12 million investment already being channelled into seven green deal low-carbon cities, announced last September, enabling even more areas to benefit.
£5 million to set up collective switching schemes—“Cheaper Energy Together”
Money has also been awarded to 31 successful bids under the “Cheaper Energy Together” scheme, covering 94 local councils and eight third sector organisations in England, Scotland and Wales. Collective purchasing and switching is an innovative way for consumers to group together, through a trusted third party, and use market power to negotiate lower energy bills.
A press notice has been issued today including a link to a list of those projects that are to receive funding. A list of the successful projects have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Advanced Boiling Water Reactor
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Mr John Hayes)
I am today making a statement to the House to let hon. Members know that I have asked the UK’s independent nuclear regulators, the Office for Nuclear Regulation and the Environment Agency, to conduct a generic design assessment(GDA) of the advanced boiling water reactor (ABWR).
This is the nuclear reactor design by Hitachi-GE Nuclear Energy Ltd which Horizon Nuclear Power intend to use in the new nuclear power stations which they propose to build at Wylfa in Anglesey and Oldbury in Gloucestershire.
In October I welcomed Hitachi’s purchase of Horizon Nuclear Power and the confirmation that it intended to proceed with Horizon’s investment in Wylfa and Oldbury. This showed the willingness of international companies to invest in the UK’s low-carbon energy future and the confidence of the market in the Government’s proposals on regulatory reform of the electricity market.
The Government welcome all such investment. However, the nuclear industry in the UK is rightly subject to a regulatory regime to ensure safety, security and mitigation of any potential environmental detriment. Generic design assessment is now an established feature of our regulatory regime, and, as I told the House in December after the completion of the GDA process for the AREVA European pressurised water reactor (EPR), it has shown itself to be an excellent process for rigorous and transparent nuclear regulation.
I am therefore pleased to be asking the regulators to assess the ABWR through GDA. The application is an exceptional one. It is an application for GDA of a reactor design which has already been in operation elsewhere in the world. And it follows the purchase by the vendor and designer of the intended operator of two sites which have been determined in the nuclear national policy statement as potentially suitable for the deployment of new nuclear power stations, and the purchase of the sites themselves.
I therefore think we are right to conduct a separate exercise for this design. This does not rule out a further round of GDA covering other reactor designs which might be built in the UK and we intend to hold such a round at a future date to be determined by market developments and regulatory resources.
As with previous such assessments, the full cost of GDA will be charged to the requesting party which submits the design for assessment.
Police Officers and Staff (Remuneration and Conditions of Service)
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
This statement is about police pay and conditions. It provides the Government’s response to the police arbitration tribunal’s findings on the recommendations in the final report of Tom Winsor’s independent review of police officer and staff remuneration and conditions.
On 27 March last year I laid a statement to respond to Tom Winsor’s final report of the review of remuneration and conditions police officers and staff, in which I announced that I was directing the Police Negotiating Board to consider proposals relating to pay for police officers in England and Wales as a matter of urgency.
The Police Negotiating Board did not reach agreement on some important proposals in the final report, and these were referred to the police arbitration tribunal. The tribunal has now provided its recommendation and reasons, which I received on 6 December. The tribunal considered eight recommendations from the Winsor final report. The tribunal accepted one recommendation in its entirety, accepted three proposals with modifications and did not approve one other. The tribunal recommended that three related recommendations around compulsory severance should be the subject of further discussions in the Police Negotiating Board. I have today placed a copy of the police arbitration tribunal report in the House of Commons Library.
I am grateful to the tribunal for its careful consideration of these important issues. I have now considered the tribunal’s report thoroughly and I have decided to accept its recommendation and I am minded to implement the package of reforms it has put forward.
These reforms build on the changes we implemented following part 1 of the review, which I announced in a statement on 30 January last year. They continue our programme to modernise police pay and conditions so that they are fair to both officers and the taxpayer. They include measures to retarget pay to reward contribution, increase local flexibility and make important structural changes to enable further reform.
The tribunal deferred proposals around compulsory severance for further negotiations. These will be considered alongside other longer-term proposals I have asked the Police Negotiating Board to consider by July 2013.
We remain committed to the review’s principles and objectives, in particular to modernising management practices and to developing the vital link between pay and professional skills. The development of the skills agenda is an essential part of both modernising pay and conditions and of our wider programme of police reform and developing professionalism. This is something that the College of Policing will take forward in the context of the time scales recommended in the Winsor review.
Existing police pay and conditions were designed more than 30 years ago which is why we asked Tom Winsor to carry out his independent review. Police officers and staff deserve to have pay and workforce arrangements that recognise the vital role they play in fighting crime and keeping the public safe, and enable them to deliver effectively for the public and these reforms support the objectives I set out in the review’s terms of reference to:
use remuneration and conditions of service to maximise officer and staff deployment to front-line roles where their powers and skills are required;
provide remuneration and conditions of service that are fair to and reasonable for both the public taxpayer and police officers and staff;
enable modern management practices in line with practices elsewhere in the public sector and the wider economy.
In reaching this decision, I have had regard to a number of vital considerations, including:
the review’s three key objectives as set out above;
the tough economic conditions and the Government’s wider economic objectives, which include reduction of the deficit and the challenging but manageable reduction in Government funding to the police over the spending review period;
the need to maintain and improve the service provided to the public, taking account of a strong desire from the public to see more police officers and operational staff out on the front line of local policing and also recognising that there are less visible front-line roles that require policing powers and skills in order to protect the public;
the particular front-line role and nature of the Office of Constable, including the lack of a right to strike;
the Government’s wider objectives for police reform, including developing professionalism in the police and the creation of the College of Policing, the introduction of police and crime commissioners, the reduction of police bureaucracy and collaboration between police forces and with other public services;
the Government’s wider policy of pay and pensions in the pubic sector, and its proposals on long-term pensions and reform of the police;
the review’s analysis of the value of officer’s remuneration and conditions, as compared to other workforces;
parallel work by the police to improve value for money, including collaboration with the private sector;
the impact of the recommendations on equality and diversity.
The Government’s reform programme is working: crime is falling and public confidence is high. It is imperative that the police are able to benefit from these further reforms as soon as possible, and I will therefore immediately begin the process of amending the police regulations and determinations to implement the tribunal’s recommendation, including making any necessary consequential and ancillary changes.
Appointment to the UK Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
The hon. Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson) has been appointed as a full member of the United Kingdom Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in place of the hon. Member for North East Hertfordshire (Oliver Heald).
The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Jim Dobbin) has also been appointed as a full member in place of the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), who becomes a substitute member.
The right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Jonathan Evans), the hon. Member for Bolton North East (Mr Crausby) and the hon. Member for Halifax (Mrs Riordan) have been appointed as substitute members in place of the hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), the hon. Member for Devizes (Claire Perry), the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd), the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi).
Baroness Wilcox and Baroness Buscombe have been appointed as substitute members in place of Lord Ahmad and Lord Boswell.
Budgeting Loans
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
The Welfare Reform Act 2012 contains provisions for the abolition of the discretionary social fund scheme and the post of the social fund commissioner. The provisions about community care grants and crisis loans will be commenced on 1 April 2013 and the provisions about the social fund commissioner’s post will be commenced on 1 August 2013.
The budgeting loan scheme will however remain in place for claimants in receipt of existing legacy benefits until they migrate to universal credit.
There will be no change to how budgeting loans are to be delivered. In relation to requests for reviews, claimants who are dissatisfied with the outcome of an initial decision will still be able to ask for a review in the first instance by Jobcentre Plus.
The Independent Review Service which carries out second-tier reviews will be closed at the same time as the social fund commissioner’s post is abolished. Arrangements have therefore been put in place for the office of the independent case examiner to undertake a second-tier review for claimants who remain dissatisfied with their budgeting loan decision.
National Employment Savings Trust
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
Later today the Government will publish a response to the consultation document “National Employment Savings Trust (NEST): Proposals for amendments to the NEST Order”.
In addition, the Government intend to lay the National Employment Savings Trust (Amendment) Order 2013 before Parliament later today. Subject to the approval of both Houses, this is scheduled to come into effect from 1 April 2013.
The amending order will ensure that NEST’s statutory framework is updated to reflect current automatic enrolment requirements and to ensure that NEST continues to operate efficiently for the employers and members who use it.
I would like to thank the organisations who responded to the consultation. I will place a copy of the Government’s response in the Libraries of both Houses, which will also be available on the Department’s website: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/consultations/2012/
Grand Committee
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Defamation Bill
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)
My Lords, if there is a Division in the House, the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes. This is the Grand Committee on the Defamation Bill, and we are resuming debate on Amendment 23A. The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, moved the amendment, the Question was put, and the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, adjourned discussion after about 50 minutes. We are now going to discuss Amendment 23A, which says:
“Page 3, line 21, leave out ‘a website’ and insert ‘an electronic platform’”.
However, I know that the noble Lord, Lord Browne, wishes to say something before we start.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I am very grateful to your Lordships for allowing the possibility of raising an issue that is not related to the group that we are presently discussing, but which is directly relevant to an issue that we thought we had perhaps put to bed, in terms of this Committee’s deliberations, on the previous occasion. To my surprise, on about 10 January, it was reported on the BBC that Rutland County Council, taking advantage of the general powers that have been granted to it by Section 1 of the Localism Act 2011, intended to sue for defamation three of the members of the council. This was extensively reported on the BBC and locally in the Rutland area. Happily, the Rutland County Council, to the edification of everyone interested in this, has published the legal opinion on which it based this intention on its website.
Without going into the detail, it appears that the council’s lawyers have advised it that Section 1 of the Localism Act has repealed the judgment of the House of Lords in Derbyshire County Council v Times Newspapers Ltd by granting a power for local authorities, in these circumstances, to behave as if they were individuals. I have no idea whether that is right or wrong; but whether in fact that has happened ought to be explored before we close our deliberations in Committee on this Bill. I merely draw this to the attention of Members of the Committee, in particular to the Minister, with the request that he has this matter investigated and reports back to us before we conclude our deliberations. In the mean time, I will ensure that all the information I have managed to glean over the past couple of days is sent electronically to the Minister’s private office. I do not intend to say anything further.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
Assuming it is permissible for me to do so, I will say in response—because I was involved in the case—that I do not agree with Rutland at all, for reasons that I will go into hereafter, if necessary.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, the reason I buried my head in my hands is that the noble Lord, Lord Lester, explained before the Committee started that ill health was going to prevent him from intervening very often in our proceedings today—a resolution that lasted all of five seconds. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Browne, both for the intervention and for drawing this to my attention. I will have the matter examined and report back to the Committee.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
We now resume debate on Amendment 23A.
Clause 5 : Operators of websites
Lord Faulks
My Lords, in addressing the group that includes Amendment 23A, I have had a chance to reflect on the issues raised by these amendments and to read in Hansard the speeches made in the debate before we adjourned for the Christmas Recess. This has led me strongly to support the amendments—or most of them—in this group, if not to go further. I emphasise that I am in sympathy with this Bill, in particular with the raising of the bar to prevent trivial defamation actions. I would also like a limit on the right of corporations to sue, as we discussed on a previous group. I favour the amendments to the Reynolds defence, and the protection of peer-reviewed statements in scientific and academic journals as provided by Clause 6.
However, I have real difficulties with Clause 5, which we are currently debating. It seems to be taken almost as given by those in favour of libel reform that website operators should be in a special position and separate, say, from book publishers or newspapers. The reasons for this are said to be that website operators will generally act only as a conduit and have little control over content, and that liability for defamation potentially is inimical to free speech.
Parliament does not often have an opportunity to intervene in the law of libel and, as I am sure noble Lords will agree, it is most important that we get the law right, particularly when what we decide now may not be reviewed, except by the courts interpreting the provisions of the statute, for many years to come. That particularly is a heavy responsibility where courts all over the world are currently struggling to deal with the interrelationship of the law of defamation and the operation of the internet, and it is especially challenging to us to attempt any form of future-proofing.
In his very helpful speech to the Committee, my noble friend Lord Allan of Hallam told us that e-mail is not the communication mechanism of choice for young people—they much prefer instant messaging-type applications—and that a whole new range of communication services are coming into the market. It is reasonably well known that young people do not read newspapers much. Therefore, we are potentially considering the law in relation to what is going to be the most prevalent form of communication.
In its report on the Defamation Bill, the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House states:
“We consider that, as a matter of constitutional principle, the relevant provision should be to the greatest extent possible on the face of the Bill, so allowing full legislative amendment and debate. Moreover, only by seeing the proposed obligations to be imposed on operators will Parliament be able to consider whether the regime proposed is fit for purpose”.
Much in the current Bill is left to regulation but even that which is already provided for by Clause 5 causes me difficulties. It is plainly in the interests of website operators that there should be a special defence. They are an extremely powerful lobby with, as the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, pointed out on the previous occasion, the capacity to generate very significant profits.
As a member of the committee which last year considered the draft Communications Data Bill, I had the opportunity to see and hear from the representatives of the industry and to hear the very cogent and forceful advancement of their commercial advantages and disadvantages which might lie in the form of any future legislation. In particular, internet service providers were very reluctant to store any information which was not commercially useful to them, albeit that it might help the security services or the police to catch criminals. By the same token, they plainly do not want to have to face defamation actions and have the administrative inconvenience of trying to prevent defamatory material being published at all—if published is indeed the correct word, which is currently the subject of much judicial doubt.
I wonder whether our response to such large commercial organisations, although I appreciate that not all are large, would be the same if they were producing oil or manufacturing on a large scale, and we were told that it was inconvenient and potentially costly to provide a meaningful remedy to those who suffer from a company’s activities.
My noble friend Lord Allan talked about the democratisation of free speech but I am not convinced that much of the careless dissemination of rumour or innuendo that takes place can properly be defended on free speech grounds. Why does a substantial commercial company not have any obligation to take appropriate steps to either prevent or limit the publication of defamatory material or—and I stress this point—take out insurance in respect of those rare circumstances in which they will be sued for defamation?
The cost of an insurance premium would simply be a business cost and would mitigate the potential unfairness of depriving someone of a remedy who has been defamed. Will this open the floodgates? The law, as it presently is with the Defamation Act 1996 and the 2002 electronic communication regulation, provides some protection. But I an unconvinced that there is or will be a great wave of litigation brought against website operators. If the Bill becomes law, it will be only for serious defamation that anyone can sue at all. Furthermore, they must have the funds to do so. If in fact a website operator responds quickly to a complaint, broadly in the way envisaged under the Bill, it will limit the damages and thus deter a potential claimant from bringing proceedings at all.
Let me give an example of a defect in the provisions as they currently stand. Say that you were a teacher who had been accused of being a paedophile and that that was placed on a website. Particularly in the current climate, this would probably cause irreparable damage to your life and career, even if the allegation was wholly unjustified and subsequently withdrawn. However, provided that the website operator responded in the way envisaged under the Bill, you would have no remedy at all. Those few complainants who have serious complaints should be able to bring a claim, even if it causes some inconvenience and expense to the website operator, who will simply have to bear the cost. It almost certainly will have broader shoulders than the potential claimant.
I am far from convinced that we should be giving website operators a special defence. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s justification of that defence and to his answer to the amendments, although I notice that there is a government amendment to which we will come in due course. At present, I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Phillips is not going to pursue the clause stand part debate. There are a number of anomalies that we could point out—there may always be anomalies—but it is a particular anomaly, for example, that someone can sue for slander if the publication is limited to one person but will not be able to sue effectively in the circumstances envisaged here.
I know that the Minister is a great fan of the Human Rights Act. I wonder whether the provision will satisfy analysis in the courts, either here or in Strasbourg, in terms of an Article 8 right. I am of course aware of Article 10, but it seems to me that if I were that hypothetical teacher or someone in that situation, I would be relying on Article 8, regardless of this defence, to outflank the provisions on defamation. I have experience of cases where courts have held that remedies under the Human Rights Act exist independently of any rights under common law or under statute.
I regard the provisions as unsatisfactory, requiring greater explanation. I fear that, unless we provide a great deal more detail to deal with some of the difficulties which will be encountered, we will make bad law.
Lord Mawhinney
My Lords, part of my role in this Committee has been, as accurately as I can, to reflect the evidence and testimony that was given to the Joint Committee. I feel the need to repeat that process this afternoon.
Lest I be accused of being unduly biased, we had representatives of modern technologies come to give evidence, including one Member of this Committee. We heard the arguments, in particular, from those who run websites and are operators and might conceivably be the focus of defamation proceedings. A number of your Lordships present today were members of Joint Committee, so I can always be corrected if my memory fails me. I think that it would be fair to say that, overall, the evidence we got was that websites ought not to be beyond the reach of the law. This may or may not be a democratisation of free speech—whatever that means. Certainly, anybody and everybody can now get themselves a worldwide audience, which did not used to be the case. Whether that is a compelling argument for saying that such people will no longer be bound by the restraints of defamation is an entirely different matter.
The Earl of Erroll
My Lords, as I was about to say when Christmas interrupted, I should like to talk about the amendments. We have Clause 5 stand part coming up later, so, rather than having a general ramble around the subject, I thought that it might be worth trying to stick to the amendments, because they are interesting.
I look at the clause from the point of view of trying to make it practical and making the system work. This set of amendments is very useful. Replacing “website” with “electronic platform” in subsection (1), as Amendment 23A proposes, will be helpful, because the remarks with which we are concerned will not always be carried exclusively on a website. What is a website? Is a Twitter feed coming to your mobile telephone a website or not? There may or may not be a website driving part of it. There are things that will not be caught by the provision.
That leads me on to the problem of definitions, because everyone is using the words to mean different things. What exactly is a website operator? Some of the stuff that we are looking at here applies to what I would regard as an ISP, an internet services provider, or a CSP, a communication service provider. To them, the “mere conduit” defence, which is in EU law, can apply, because they are not moderating stuff; they are just channelling the information as it flies through the wires. However, they at certain points become something else, because they might also be providing other services. For example, they may be hosting websites but they may not be operating them. What is their liability? Do they need to take down stuff? Are they regarded as a website operator? The websites are operating on their hardware and they would probably be capable of taking down defamatory material. Is the website operator the person who is managing the website? Is it the person providing content into the website? Where do the designers and the people who are to do bits of it come in? I ask those questions because we need at some point to clarify who will be responsible for doing what when it comes to taking things down or—here I go straight to Amendments 25A and 25B—being expected suddenly to put up a response to a notice of complaint alongside whatever is on the website.
My daughter is a graphic designer who has designed a couple of websites for organisations. They do not permit feedback on their website, and although I cannot see where that might happen, something might come up. However, if the organisation wanted to modify that website and allow that, there is no way in which they could do it without going back to her and her programmer to provide the facility to do so. These things are not quite as easy as just putting a bit of type into next day’s newspaper. Particularly if it is a large organisation, some of these things will require a whole raft of change management, interfacing with a programmer and things like that. The practicality of this whole thing is the issue.
I can see exactly what they are getting at. It is a good idea in certain cases. One might try to make it mandatory, particularly for sites which are permitting and expecting feedback from the public. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, made a good point: we must not kill live feedback from the public about things that are going on. That is where the internet can be hugely powerful, to inform one about what you want to do. I use eBay a lot when I want to trade with someone and do business with them, and we rely on that feedback.
There is a good point but we must be practical about it. Something we have to remember is that when we talk about websites, we are not talking about three, four, five, a dozen, 20 or 50 large operators. There are half a billion websites globally, and the number is growing. There are about 100 million UK websites and growing—my figures are probably well out of date by now. It is on that sort of scale, yet most of our comments are being applied to a few large operators. Okay, they have huge profits, et cetera, but these laws will apply also to the small guys: the ones who will have to take stuff down immediately because they do not dare risk falling foul of some law, particularly if a large company pushes them into it. You can stifle the small business and the innovator very easily by having such laws. A small or medium-sized organisation or a person with a little bit of money has no recourse to the law because they cannot afford to go to the law. You have no protection, and must realise that in life—whether it is criminal or civil law, you cannot afford it.
Amendment 24 on associates: yes. Subcontractors and lots of other people are involved, and they probably need to be drawn into it. The amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, are both very sensible, particularly the business about a moderator. Nowadays, these things are so large that you cannot track everything, so I like his amendments to be made. On his Amendment 25ZA, people will need the assistance of the operator to find things out.
Amendment 25 of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, suggests that you must be reasonable, otherwise, where do you stop trying to check things? Surely you can only ask someone to act reasonably in trying to find something out. We have this issue coming up in the modifications to copyright law coming up tomorrow in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill. Part of the reason for some of the British Library issues there is that it cannot “reasonably” find out, for instance, who is the copyright holder for some works. In some cases, you cannot reasonably find out who did something on the internet. It is not practical to do so.
Amendment 29 on the defence being defeated by malice makes a good point. If something is deliberately malicious, or in bad faith, it is quite right that that should be excluded from defences.
All I really want to say is that we must worry about practicality. The difference between the internet and normal printed media is scale and its global reach. If we are not careful, we may end up doing things which apply only to websites where the computers are subject to UK law. The easy way around it is to locate everything outside the UK. That will kill UK business, and we are seeing that in certain other things. People are just relocating overseas because it is easier than dealing with compliance with UK law. It may seem reasonable and all for the greater good of humanity, but the trouble is that in this global environment it is easy to move overseas, and you cannot block people from doing that.
I like most of these amendments. The only thing is that Amendment 25A and 25B are not practical in their current form. They would have to be restricted to websites which had a particular intention and were designed in that way.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
My Lords, first, perhaps I may say how glad I am that Sir Brian Neill is with us now, having recovered, and how sorry I am to have told the Minister that I was not well, as it enabled him to attempt to curtail me. On these amendments, it is extremely difficult for one country to deal with these problems on its own within its own legal system, since, by definition, we are dealing with the world wide web. Secondly, it is a question of getting this right. The Government are right to say that they are going to deal with this by regulations rather than in the Bill, and that there will be full consultation on that. Thirdly, it is a question of a balance. In view of what we have heard already, I thought that one might think of the other side of the coin; namely, that unless we get the balance right there will be interferences with free speech which ought not to be there.
Mumsnet has written to my noble friend Lord McNally about this and its approach is interesting. Although it welcomes the Government’s efforts to reform the law, it is concerned with Clause 5 having a “significant chilling effect” on free expression. It states:
“Although internet businesses would be able to benefit from new defences, the practical outcome of the procedure as it stands will be that the vast majority of complained-of posts will continue to be taken down upon receipt of a complaint”.
Mumsnet then goes into how that will be and how it will be intimidated. It says:
“As with most major internet companies, Mumsnet is a responsible organisation that has no wish to be associated with abusive or serious defamatory comments. We have always acted promptly to remove abusive or defamatory posts once they are brought to our attention, and we will continue to do so … However, we feel that legislators have yet to fully appreciate that the problem, for companies such as ours, does not lie with seriously abusive or defamatory posts; our decision to remove those, once we are made aware of them, is easy and swiftly acted upon. The difficult cases are almost always relatively low-profile, and involve claims which—while they may be potentially damaging for the claimant—represent the truthful, non-malicious opinion or experience of members of the public. We feel it is unfair and onerous, in cases such as these, to expect Mumsnet administrators or members of the public to act as legal specialists, attempting to assess whether the complained-of material might be able to benefit from any of the defences in the Bill. We also feel that it is in no way unjust or unduly burdensome to expect the claimant—who, after all, will be in possession of the facts—to provide a minimum degree of information to support his or her assertion that the material is defamatory or unlawful”,
and so on. That is the other side of the coin, which one needs to be clear about. When we come to my separate amendment, I shall address why we need to raise the standard a bit on the word unlawful.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, as the debate, albeit part two of the debate that we started before Christmas, has indicated again, there are wide-ranging opinions. Let me first set out that the Government agree that it is about getting this right and getting the balance right. This is an evolving area and it is important that we discuss these matters fully. My noble friend Lord McNally and I are listening carefully and intently to the arguments being made. It has never been the intention, nor should it be, that websites should be beyond the reach of the law. My noble friends Lord Mawhinney and Lord Faulks asserted that perhaps that is what this clause is trying to do. On the contrary, it is not.
My noble friend Lord Mawhinney made the point about being beyond reproach, and that what is said on the web is instantly translated and is, as we all know, retranslated and retweeted, wherever that may go. However, to draw a comparison with the printed media, while there is a source available, there are times when a story is printed on the front page of a newspaper and gets picked up on the internet. When that story is shown not to be correct, the retraction is quite limited. In the same way, I suggest that the damage is done. Too often, what is remembered is the headline which struck when the news broke, how it broke and the sensationalism behind that news story. It is not just about the website, although I concur with my noble friend in saying that the website is something which can sometimes go beyond the limits of the person who is hosting it, and the person who initially posted it, because it is replicated elsewhere.
I will take each amendment in turn. In doing so, I will pick up the various points that have been made by noble Lords and comment appropriately. First, it is absolutely right that the law on defamation should apply in relation to online as well as offline material. The Government’s proposals would enable claimants to take action against the poster of the material, the person responsible for making the defamatory statement, rather than the website operator. However—and this is a crucial point—the operator will still be liable if the operator is shown not to have followed the process which is designed to enable that to happen. That is a crucial point.
My noble friend Lord Faulks suggested that websites are being given protection beyond other media channels. Let me be absolutely clear: the defence for such websites only applies where website operators are not the ones who post the statement. The closest parallel might be a letter to an editor which the paper chooses to publish: it is not automatic.
Amendment 23A seeks to provide for the Clause 5 defence to apply to other “electronic platforms”, rather than simply “websites”, that have defamatory material posted upon them by third parties. The purpose of Clause 5 is to provide a defence to website operators that host third party content over which they exercise no editorial control. We chose to focus on this specific category of service providers because, as the noble Earl alluded to a moment ago, it is about definitions. How do you define things? My own background in business dictates that when I saw the words “electronic platform”, I saw them from the perspective of the world of financial services, in which it often alludes to banking platforms, which are slightly more limited than websites.
I also undertook during the summer break—apart from visiting Australia as I informed noble Lords I would—to look up definitions. How do you define an “electronic platform”? The varying degree of definition not just of electronic platforms but of platforms themselves is interesting. There is no consistent application one can put in.
Looking to the development of the world wide web, the word “website” emerges from that. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, made the point that we are living in an evolving and ever-changing world. As we are looking at this issue, as crucial and sensitive as it is, I am sure that we will return to this in the years to come.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, also talked about DPP guidance on criminal prosecutions. We are certainly looking at the DPP’s guidance, but we can see nothing in our proposals that would be likely to conflict with that guidance specifically.
It is not clear what “electronic platform” in Amendment 23A is intended to cover. As I have said, it has been suggested that the term “websites” is too narrow and risks not capturing new technologies in this fast-changing marketplace. We can debate and discuss which term is more appropriate, but I go back to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Browne: we live in a changing world. If in further discussion in Committee or at Report a form of technology is brought to our attention that is akin to a website and serves the same purpose in hosting third-party content, and a suitable form of words can be found adequately to describe that in legislation, the Government are open to considering that point further.
Amendment 23B would mean that a website operator who complied with Clause 5 would have a defence only against a claim for damages in defamation. As Clause 5 stands, the website operator will have a complete defence provided that he complies with the new process. As noble Lords will know, damages are by far the most common remedy in defamation proceedings, and it is difficult to see what difference the amendment would make in practice. It appears unlikely that claimants would bring a claim for a remedy other than damages. The Clause 5 process will provide a quick and cheap means for a complainant to establish contact with the poster of the material and secure take-down. Should legal proceedings be necessary, action can be brought against the poster. In the event that such a claim succeeds, damages would be payable by the poster, and Clause 13 enables the court to order the website operator to remove the material. We therefore do not consider that the amendment is necessary.
Amendment 24 seems to stem from concern that a website operator will use associates to post defamatory material on their sites, knowing that they can hide behind the Clause 5 defence. The Government are not persuaded that there is a significant risk of that happening. The noble Earl also referred to practical issues. However, in the event of such a situation, the claimant would be able to pursue an action against the individual poster and would not be left without a remedy.
In addition, there is the obvious difficulty in respect of establishing what is an association. For example, who would qualify as an associate of the website operator and how would the claimant be expected to prove that association? Conceivably, an associate of the website operator could post something defamatory without the website operator’s knowledge. In such cases, it would seem entirely inappropriate to prevent the website operator from relying on a Clause 5 defence, provided, of course—I come back to the point I made earlier—that the operator had followed the Clause 5 process.
Amendment 24A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lucas, would mean that a website operator would not lose their defence if they had moderated the statement or had made or suggested alterations to the content. We do not believe that the amendment would be appropriate. Subsection (10) already makes clear that an operator would not lose the defence simply by reason of the fact that they moderated statements posted on the site by others. That will ensure that operators are not discouraged from moderating their sites in a responsible way. However, the amendment would go further and allow them a defence if they moderated in a way which changed the content of the statement. In practical terms, this could mean that an operator who changes the statement in a way which made it—dare I say?— defamatory, or makes the defamation worse, would be protected. I fully accept that that is not my noble friend’s intention.
I believe that my noble friend Lord Phillips seeks by Amendment 25 to add clarity. However, we do not believe that the amendment is necessary. I shall explain why. The Government’s view is that subsection (4) already provides that test. For the purposes of subsection (3)(a), it is possible for a claimant to identify a person only if the claimant has sufficient information to bring proceedings against the person. As such, the Government’s view is that the insertion of “reasonably” would not make it any clearer, because it is clear from the clause as it stands.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
Does my noble friend have any comprehension of just what that last process would require from the complainant—the time that it would take and the costs that would be incurred in getting the court order to reveal the identity of the poster? In reality, that puts an absolutely impossible barrier against anything like a reasonable remedy for the complainant.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
As I alluded to in my opening comments, this is about getting the balance right. If there were such a case, and I totally accept that there are issues that would arise here, there would be a cost element to this process. At the same time, there are many occasions when a balance must be struck on this, whether we are looking at professional websites or websites where people often post under a pseudonym and may be posting for good reasons of safety and security to protect themselves. That being said, though, I hear what my noble friend has said. I assure him again that we continue to consult with stakeholders across the board on the contents of such regulations and have sought their views on the practicality aspect of this new process. As I have said, this is something that we are looking at, and any suggestions that are made are looked at and discussed. I am sure that we will return to this, if not in Committee then on Report.
As I have said, we are looking at the issue of whistleblowing and the necessity at times to protect confidentiality, and setting that against the very arguments that have just been put forward by my noble friend. We feel that Clause 5 strikes the right balance. As my noble friend Lord Lester said earlier, there are two sides to the coin. The process set out in Clause 5 provides a quick and easy way for the claimant to obtain the necessary detail where the poster has no objection to providing it, but then places responsibility back on the claimant to secure a court order where the poster is unwilling to share the detail. This broadly reflects the position that applies in relation to anonymous material published offline. Where a claimant is unable to identify the author of a defamatory statement, and in the offline context does not wish to pursue the publisher, they can seek a court order for release of that information by whoever is in possession of it.
Amendment 26A would make a drafting amendment to Clause 5(4), replacing “was” with “is”. I can understand why this amendment has been brought forward, but I hope that I can reassure the noble Lords on this point. When the clause refers to posting, it is the act of posting with which we are concerned. No matter whether the posting stays up or comes down, that act has happened in the past, so it is our view that “was” is the most appropriate word. The amendment however raises important questions about what a website operator’s responsibility should be where a posting has already been removed. We are seeking views as to the content of proposed regulations and will take that issue away and consider it alongside the responses that we receive.
Finally, Amendment 29, in the name of my noble friend Lord Phillips, provides that a Clause 5 defence be defeated in cases where the claimant can prove malice by or on behalf of the website operator. The Clause 5 process requires the website operator to act in accordance with the process and entirely neutrally. It is difficult to foresee circumstances in which a website operator who complied with the Clause 5 process could do so maliciously. If it is the poster who is acting with malicious intent on behalf of the website operator, the claimant will still be able to bring proceedings against the person responsible for posting the statement. Therefore, we do not see what an amendment such as this would add to the clause.
Lord Mawhinney
My noble friend started by saying that it was the Government’s policy to achieve a balance and he repeated that as he made his way through the amendments. It was mildly ironic that he followed immediately after the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill, who read a rehash of Mumsnet evidence to the Joint Committee and finished by saying that he was doing it just to ensure balance.
On the one hand, as has been made clear, lots of organisations are saying, “Free the shackles; let us do this and that; there should be no, or minimum, restriction”. We know who is arguing for freedom to defame. On the other hand, there will be lots of individuals who find their reputations tarnished or trashed, and they will have no organisations standing up for them. Will the Government therefore argue for the individuals whose reputations are at stake to ensure that the end point is balanced? If not, how do they envisage balance, when you have got Goliath on one side and not even a mini Goliath on the other?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I thank my noble friend for his intervention, although my recollection of the David and Goliath story is that David ended up winning. Divine intervention is always something that one should bear in mind.
Coming back to the point raised by my noble friend Lord Mawhinney about clarity and balance, as my noble friend—and indeed the whole Committee— recognises, this is a difficult area. I reiterate that the Government want to get this right and we are still taking views, as we are in this Committee, on this area. We are consulting stakeholders, as I have already said, on the content of the regulations provided for under Clause 5 and have extended the deadline for responses in this respect to 31 January. I reassure my noble friend Lord Mawhinney, whose guidance and mentoring I always welcome, that this is about ensuring that, when it comes to issues of defamation, those people who have been proven to have fallen victim are properly protected and that recourse is available. However, the balance of that has to be in ensuring that there is not too much of a burden on website operators. In some cases, as has been illustrated by other noble Lords, it is something that is, at times, beyond their control. What is important is to ensure that website operators follow the appropriate process. That said—
Lord Mawhinney
I thank my noble friend but encourage him to edge slightly closer to answering my question. He said a very interesting thing: that we are consulting with stakeholders and, indeed, have extended the time for consultation. That actually makes my point. The stakeholders are on one side of the argument, and the individual whose reputation is at stake is on the other side of the argument. The consultation is not even balanced. That causes, I think, concern to a number of noble Lords in this Committee. It certainly does to me, and I would like to know what constitutes balance in the mind of the Government. Incidentally, I will just throw in that we are going to have plenty of opportunity shortly to debate this Government’s theological position, and perhaps my noble friend would take a little advice: I would not go there if I was him.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Theology is always one to park, but, as a man of faith—and as a fellow man of faith—I take my noble friend’s guidance on that. The point I am making is about stakeholders—those people who are looking at this issue. Yes, it involves website operators, but the point of this clause is that it is not the website operators doing the defaming, it is the person who has written the statement. That is the person who should be held accountable and responsible. Where the website operators’ obligations come in is whether they have followed the process as detailed in Clause 5.
Coming back to the point about balance that my noble friend made, this is not just about talking to website operators but about talking as well to people who represent claimants, to ensure that those people who represent the body that feels it may be subject to such actions are also heard and that their case is also made. However, I am sure that my noble friend would agree with me that, if we started consulting every single individual who may or may not be concerned on an individual basis with this, our Committee would continue for a very long time. Nevertheless, as I have alluded to several times—and I repeat the point again—in speaking to all these amendments it is important for me to place on record that the Government are aware of the pace of change in internet and electronic communications. Even as perhaps one of the younger Members of your Lordships’ House, I remember in my professional life when the internet first came alive. Things are changing by the minute, and the pace of change is somewhat beyond even my comprehension. There are innovations in electronic communications and, as I have indicated in all my responses, in particular in response to Amendment 23A, we have an open mind in respect of terminology. In addition, we believe that putting the details of the Clause 5 process in the regulations provides greater flexibility to adjust aspects of the new procedure should that prove necessary as technology develops.
Lord Faulks
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he has been patient and has had to deal with a lot of amendments. He was dealing a little while ago with Amendment 29 in the name of my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury. I understood his answer to be that he could not conceive of circumstances in which an operator of a website could be malicious, and this amendment was therefore not necessary. However, operators of a website are given an admittedly qualified privilege by Clause 5 which puts them in exactly the same position as those in other fields of the law who have a qualified privilege, the defence of which is defeated by malice. Is it not therefore inconsistent that such a remedy should not be available in the terms of this amendment? It may not happen very often, but that is no reason for it not existing at all.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I hear what my noble friend says. Perhaps we can refer to this matter; he makes a valid point. As he rightly acknowledges, we would not see this issue occurring on a regular basis, but I will certainly reflect on his comments on this.
A variety of amendments has been tabled. On “balance”, I suppose it depends how you define the word. However, in seeking to bring the Bill forward, and particularly with this clause, the Government are seeking to strike the right balance. We continue to listen, hear and consult with all parties on both sides of the coin. We are working to ensure that something practical and workable, which protects those who are subject to such actions, comes out of this process.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I was encouraged by my noble friend’s response, and by his batting at the subsequent bowling. It is clear that we are both aiming in the same direction and that, given the expertise of his colleagues and the good will of the Government, we may get somewhere interesting. I would be grateful if he would allow me to come in for a meeting with officials, preferably before the end of January if that is his consultation deadline, to pursue some of the practicalities; a nod will do on these occasions.
We should be more robust in talking to website operators about right of reply. This is merely a question of tweaking a few lines of code. It may be inconvenient for people to do it, but it is essentially practical. It is such a fundamental thing, given the way in which views, opinions and statements travel now, that one should be able to attach a reply to it and deal with it robustly in that way. To have a statement with a reply available to people as soon as they pick something up is a powerful thing in the internet world. That is has not been provided for is merely that it has not been coded. It is essentially not impossible under any circumstances with any website if people put their mind to it. It will not happen immediately, but it should certainly happen within a year if that is a requirement. I would be chary about accepting excuses on that.
There is something to be said for looking at different arrangements for statements about real persons as opposed to statements about businesses. Picking up on the points made correctly and forcefully by my noble friend Lord Faulks, if someone is accused of something which goes to their person, that cannot be allowed to hang around for seven days, or even seven hours, without being dealt with. It should not be within the policies of any reputable web operator that such statements are allowed on their website. These things belong in the hands of the police if there are real accusations. It should not be part of our view of electronic media that it is there to give currency to that sort of statement, whether true or not.
On the other hand, we must be powerful in allowing people to make statements about businesses or the way in which people do business, and to allow website operators to be robust in their defence of people who have made those statements on their websites. As Mumsnet said, the easy answer is to take them down. The only way to defeat that easy answer is to make very clear and very practical the responses that are available to the website operator so that they can have certainty in knowing whether a comment is sensible and that the law allows them to stand by it. That is what I want to pursue with the Minister when we have our meeting. On the point about maliciousness, we are talking about a lot of little website operators and not just the big guys, and there are some very malicious ones out there.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I would of course be happy to arrange a meeting. The benefit of being in the Moses Room is that your officials are right behind you, and I am sure that they have noted it as I have.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, as in December I wished the Committee a happy Christmas, maybe now that the Minister is back from Australia I can wish the Committee a happy new year. I thank the Minister not only for coming back from Australia to address us but for his response. I thank also everyone who has spoken, particularly my noble friend Lord Triesman and the noble Lords, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, Lord Lucas, Lord Faulks and Lord Mawhinney, for their support. I am grateful also for the contributions of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, does not need reassurance that his summary of the Joint Committee was, as always, spot on and symptomatic of what he did in that committee, focusing straight in on the victim, who often has no recourse to law.
There is a view that somehow the web is less serious than the printed word, but when I was learning my journalism, I was told, “Remember that today’s newspapers are tomorrow’s fish and chips wrappers”. Actually, some printed words are so ephemeral that the web is more serious rather than less serious.
I am still not quite sure what the Minister thinks is a website. Perhaps he will tell us in a moment whether Facebook is a website, whether a Tweet is a website and whether our Lords blog—which I recommend to you all—is a website, because it would be useful to know.
Given that we are in the slightly unusual position of having previously adjourned in the middle of an amendment and having the Hansard for part of it, perhaps I might quote what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, said on 19 December. He said:
“The disparity of arms between claimant and defendant is nowhere more vivid than in relation to the web operators, many of which are huge multinational companies. They do not do this for fun—they are not like a village notice board. They do it for profits, and mighty big profits … They are the Goliath in the defamatory relationship … and … their impunity is not justified in terms of freedom of speech”.—[Official Report, 19/12/12; col. GC568.]
That is really the nub of what we are talking about. Along with the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, I cannot agree with the view of the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, that, with the web, we are talking just about private speech in a public space. We are talking about a publication, whether it arrives on your iPad, on a laptop or on something else. The issue of anonymity arises more frequently on a website than it does in a publication, which is perhaps why we concentrate on it, but if what the Government are suggesting—the 72 hours, the seven days and then going to court—is accepted, everyone who wants to defame will just go anonymous. Why should they not just go anonymous, knowing that they will basically be beyond the reach of the law?
Some of our amendments to which the Minister has referred are fairly uncontroversial. I would have thought that the “electronic platform” proposal is surely worthy of consideration. We may not have got it right, but I hope that what we have at the end is robust even if it is done by attached guidance. However, I will concentrate on two of these amendments.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
My Lords, the amendment is grouped with Amendment 27 in the names of by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville and the noble Lord, Lord Allan, to which I shall also speak.
My amendment is at least easy to understand. It would simply add the words “and unlawful” on page 4, so that the notice of complaint under Clause 5(6) would require the complainant to specify a name, set out the statement concerned and explain why it is defamatory of the complainant—and, I would add, “and unlawful”—and then specify where on the website the statement was posted and contain such other information as may be specified in regulations.
Amendment 27 is much more prescriptive. I will not develop that argument because it is not my amendment, but Members of the Committee will notice it sets out in some detail what it is that the complainant is required to explain. Looking at the two amendments, mine is much less prescriptive than Amendment 27, although that does not make it necessarily better. The amendment gives effect to the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I serve, that,
“the threshold for a Clause 5 notice should be elevated to ‘unlawful’, which would also ensure consistency with the E-Commerce Directive and the Pre-Action Protocol for defamation”.
The committee noted that the Government said in response that they were,
“concerned that to adopt the higher threshold would overcomplicate the process”,
because,
“requiring complainants to provide details of why they consider the posting to be unlawful, rather than just defamatory, would make it more difficult for a layman to make a complaint without first having sought legal advice, and would add to the cost and difficulty involved”.
The Government sought to distinguish,
“between the purposes of the E-Commerce (EU Directive)”—
which uses the word unlawful—and Clause 5, so as to seek to “justify” the apparent “inconsistency”.
Under article 19 of the e-commerce directive, a website operator acting as an intermediary hosting material is potentially liable once notified that a statement is unlawful, as it would be under my amendment. By contrast, a website operator is not liable under Clause 5, provided that it does not post the defamatory material. The Government say that the website operator acts merely as a middleman or go-between and does not need to consider the merits of the complaint in order to protect itself from liability. However, the Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that:
“We are not satisfied with the Government’s distinction in this matter. We think there is a real risk that website operators will be forced to arbitrate on whether something is defamatory or lawful, and will to readily make decisions on commercial grounds to remove allegedly defamatory material rather than engage with the process. As drafted, Clause 5 risks removing material from the internet, which, although it may be defamatory, may be lawful if a relevant defence applies. Material which is lawful may be suppressed because website operators are served with such notices”.
The Libel Reform Campaign supports this amendment, which allows me to make an apology to both the noble Lord, Lord May of Oxford, and to it. Last time in Committee, I became grumpy when the noble Lord, Lord May, appeared, on its behalf, to suggest that the “responsible publication” defence in Clause 4 was not good enough. I think there was a misunderstanding. I have now received the briefing from the Libel Reform Campaign and realise that it supported the amendments being made to Clause 4 and that the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord May, were not intended to say anything other than that. Because of the sensitivity of the matter, I thought it right to make that clear at this stage.
I am trying to keep this brief, and not succeeding very well, but I should also add one other point. I need to quote the Ministry of Justice’s consultation on the Clause 5 regulations—the regulations, not Clause 5 as it is—because it seems inconsistent with the Government’s position on my amendment. It says, at paragraph 9, that:
“We propose that the following should be included in a notice of complaint (this is a combination of what is already listed in clause 5, and other points that we think should be in the regulations)”.
Here the Ministry is telling us what they think should be in the regulations. It has,
“the complainant’s name and a means of contact … specific information to direct the operator to where the post can be found on the website … the statement complained of together with an explanation of how the statement is defamatory of the complainant, including (as appropriate) details of any factual inaccuracies or unsupportable comment within the words complained of”,
and then other matters as well.
The Government apparently have it in mind that the regulations will require quite a lot from the complainant. I agree with that, but I am troubled that unless my amendment inserting the phrase “and unlawful” is accepted, the draft regulations will go further than is permitted by Clause 5. Although that sounds very technical, it is quite important to ensure that that is not so. It does not seem to be enough that the complainant can simply say that the complaint is defamatory. All that “defamatory” means is that the complainant is saying that it is not true and it affects reputation. That does not seem to me enough—and it does not seem to the Government to be enough, considering their view of the regulations—for that to trigger responsibility on the website operator. At least the complainant should have thought about whether it is not merely harming reputation but also in some way unlawful. This does not have to be done with great legal analysis, but there should be some such indication.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
I do not wish to interfere with the noble Lord’s attempt to be brief. Will he consider the observations that he has made, which he draws from paragraph 9 of the consultation document of which we have all been sent a copy, in the context of the words of the Bill itself—in particular, the words of Clause 5(6)(b) which require that the complainant in the notice, among other things,
“sets out the statement concerned and explains why it is defamatory”.
Would that not be a basis for a set of regulations that expand on it in the way in which this paragraph sets out?
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
My Lords, that may be so, in which case I made a false point on that. However, my main point is that it is not enough—and the regulations seem to accept this, in draft—to simply say that it is defamatory. It must in some way indicate that it is unlawful. That is probably common ground in the way in which I read the draft regulations. If that is so, and that is what we are told in our reply, it may well be that my amendment will not be necessary.
In my attempt to be brief, I appear to be arousing too much interest. I give way to my noble friend.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I think I know what my noble friend means in the distinction between what is defamatory and what is unlawful. However, it would be helpful to be clear with the Committee what distinction he sees between “defamatory” on the one hand and “unlawful” on the other.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
I am sure my noble friend Lord Phillips understands that I am speaking clothed in the majesty of the Joint Committee on Human Rights as well as my personal view. That committee and its advisers came to the view that simply saying “defamatory” was not good enough. All that “defamatory” means is that there is a false statement which is seriously harmful to the reputation of the claimant, whereas “unlawful” means that one also looks at what the Bill defines as unlawful and what the defences are. We are attempting to make that as clear as possible. Therefore, the complainant, in order to invoke this whole procedure, ought to do something more. It seems as through the draft regulations are aimed in that direction. I beg to move.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Viscount Simon)
Before I propose Amendment 26, perhaps I may ask noble Lords to curtail their enthusiasm in asking questions before the amendment has been proposed.
Viscount Colville of Culross
Clause 5 is very welcome as it recognises the huge problems facing both complainants and defendants in libel cases with the introduction of the internet and its increasingly important position, as we have all discussed, in the arena for the dissemination of information. I want this amendment to build on the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lester. I hope that Amendment 27, in the names of myself and the noble Lord, Lord Allan, will expand the discussion and set out the criteria for the definition of “unlawful”.
I am acutely aware of the ability of the internet to cause great damage to an individual’s reputation, as we have seen with the dreadful case of libel committed against Lord McAlpine, who has sued against many people who defamed him on Twitter. It is easy to focus on the high profile and serious cases such as that of Lord McAlpine and not on the many thousands of other libel complaints about online material where the distinctions between fact and opinion are more difficult to ascertain. We do not hear about these cases because, when in doubt, the website operators’ practice has been, in far too many cases, simply to remove the materials.
Smaller websites, such as Mumsnet and news and business blogs supported by WebPress, both of which support this amendment—indeed, they are not Goliaths, as the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, suggested—do not have the knowledge and capability to give their complaints proper scrutiny; nor do they have the legal resources to fight libel action and risk liability. The safest thing for them and many other internet intermediaries is just to take down the postings, which I believe would be damaging to free speech. It is therefore very important that Clause 5 strikes the correct balance between the right to protect the reputation of the individual and the freedom of expression on the internet. I want the notice of complaint procedure to be a cheap and easy means of striking this balance.
In Committee on the Defamation Bill in the other place, the Government rejected an amendment rather along the lines that I am putting forward today on the basis that it would be too onerous on claimants to have to consider the potential defences to defamation. The Joint Committee on Human Rights acknowledges this argument but considers the risk of website operators simply removing the material, rather than engaging in a proper analysis on the merits, as being too great.
The Government are correct to worry about whether claimants can be expected to understand the subtleties of libel defences, honest opinion and qualified privilege, and should not be forced to take legal advice in order to put forward the initial notice of complaint. However, complainants should at least be able to address the factual matters relevant to the complaint, including stating why any comments are unsupportable and why the claimant is likely to suffer serious harm. I want all the conditions to reach the threshold for the notice of complaint to be on the face of the Bill. Surely, if claimants are required first to check the Bill and then the regulations to find out what to put in the notice of complaint, as Clause 5(6)(d) suggests, it will only complicate matters.
I hope that the sub-paragraphs in my amendment will allow claimants to state basic factual information within their knowledge in relation to their complaint without having the need for lawyers. Paragraph (e)(i) under Amendment 27 asks the complainant why the allegations against them are defamatory. This already exists under Clause 5. Factor (ii) asks the complainant to state why the statement complained about is “inaccurate or untrue”. This addresses the possible defence of truth.
Factor (iii) asks the complainant to state why “any opinion” in the words complained of is “unsupportable”. It also might play in favour of the complainant because it asks them to provide any evidence to show that the comments in the posting are unsupportable. That would enable website operators to have some regard to the available defences of truth and honest opinion. This simply requires that the complainant provides factual evidence and so not have to get into a legal debate about whether the words complained of are statements of fact or comment.
Factor (iv) seems to be in line with the spirit of the Bill outlined in Clause 1, which ensures claimants should show that “serious harm” has been done to their reputation. It also fits with the interim guidelines put forward by the DPP on 19 December, which suggest that prosecutors should proceed against authors on social media only if the communication is more than offensive, shocking, disturbing, or satirical, or is more than the expression of unpopular or unfashionable opinion about serious or trivial matters, or banter or humour, even if distasteful to some or painful to those subjected to it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, suggested that Amendment 4 was a better way of dealing with this issue of seriousness. My concern is that that amendment is about commercial bodies, and not all comments on a site such as Mumsnet will be against commercial bodies; they might be against authors or experts in a field. It seems wise to have a seriousness threshold included in the notice of complaint.
In December last year I expressed my concerns to the Minister about the criteria for the notices of complaint. They are addressed in paragraphs 8 and 9 of the Ministry of Justice consultation sent out last week. I am grateful to the Minister for having included three of these factors from my amendment in subsection 9. However, I am concerned, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, suggested, that the two paragraphs might add to the confusion over the difference between the words defamatory and unlawful. Paragraph 8 sets out what are called the core elements to be included in the notice of complaint, which are the same as those stated in Clause 5(6) of the Bill, which will raise them to a defamatory standard. Paragraph 9 goes on to state that the regulations have the option of looking at other factors, including the three that I have suggested, which would make them unlawful. Surely this would only compound the confusion between UK and EU standards, which I have already expressed.
I move on to factor (f) of my Amendment 27. I gather that there is a technical problem, and that it should in fact be in subsection (7), so it is perhaps more of a probing amendment. I will, in any case, put it forward for the Committee to consider. It will make provision for a procedure whereby a complainant, a website operator or an author who wants to dispute whether the contents of a notice of complaint under subsection 3(b) have met the requirements of subsection (6). This is meant to deal not with serious allegations of libel, which will have to end up in court, but with grey areas of more trivial cases.
After all, the notice of complaint will only contain the information provided by the complainant. The website operator or author could have reasons to question these contents; for instance, where there is a dispute about whether the original posting is defended by fair comment or is a statement of fact.
The Ministry of Justice, in its consultation paragraphs 23 and 24, explains what will happen if the author refuses to give full contact details to the operator. In that case, the website operator will be required to take the posting down, if it is to rely on this Clause 5 defence. This will leave them in much the same position as they are now—needing to remove large amounts of potentially non-defamatory material in order to avoid liability.
Paragraph 24 suggests—and the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, picked up on this—that if the complainant wishes to take further action, he will need to seek a Norwich Pharmacal Order for the website operator to release the identity and contact details that it has in relation to the author. My concern, and that expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, is that this order can cost at least £3,000 in legal fees and may not deliver the identity of the author in the end. The complainant could end up with an IP address through the broadband provider, but that will not guarantee that the identity can be uncovered. It might in fact be necessary to get another Norwich Pharmacal order to trace the IP address through a further website, which may turn out to be an internet café, the email of which may be mickeymouse@hotmail.com. The complainant would then be out of pocket and still unable to contact the author.
Commercial sites such as TripAdvisor, as well as non-commercial websites such as Mumsnet, support this suggested procedure, as do commercial platforms like WordPress, which host small blogging sites, covering a wide range of subjects, some of which I hope your Lordships would regard as being in the public interest, such as news from Nigeria, advice on spare car parts and even which baby lotion to use. Many of these small websites and blogs cannot afford lawyers to defend a libel action, but would like to have a legal view on a disputed notice of complaint from a legal authority.
This procedure would also benefit the complainant, who would then be able to use the declaration by the master or a procedural judge, if it is in their favour, to deal with the problem of anonymous internet users repeatedly reposting the same material on other websites once the original website operator has decided to take it down. However, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, in his letter to me last month, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, in her speech of 19 December, expressed concerns that the procedure would allow any author to hide behind anonymity by claiming that they were whistleblowers, while placing an extra burden on the complainant to fund the procedure. I want to emphasise that the procedure would be a means for dispute resolution about the contents of the notice of complaint, and one which could be initiated by the claimant, the author or the website operator. I hope that this goes some way to mitigating their concerns.
I am not a lawyer, I am just a journalist, but I am advised that the new procedure could simply latch on to the present master’s application procedure on the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court. There could be a new section to the Queen’s Bench Division website with simple, procedural guidelines and copies of the standard form application and draft declaration for the claimant. The claimant could fill out the form, provide a copy of his notice of complaint and explain why it needs the Clause 5 criteria. That could be put before a master, who would decide whether to grant the declaration that the Clause 5 criteria have been met. Claimants would not need to lodge hard copy documents with the courts, as under the existing application procedure.
The master could ensure not just that the claimant had complied with the requirements of Clause 5 but that the claim met the basic requirements of a libel claim: that the words are defamatory, likely to cause serious harm and have no obvious defence. I ask noble Lords to consider my amendment favourably.
Lord Morris of Aberavon
My Lords, I make a brief intervention. I listened very carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Lester, said, in moving his amendment, but I need a little further assistance. I am not quite clear about his purpose. I do not think that he specified—I was listening as best I can—the distinction that he makes between a statement which is defamatory and a statement which, additionally, might be unlawful. The danger I see, if they have the same meaning, is that the courts will look at the provisions very carefully and regard them as otiose. What purpose is intended? Does it create an additional burden on the complainant? When he makes his representations under the clause, will the complainant have to define in what way the statement is unlawful? Perhaps we could have assistance on that score.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, I shall speak in broad support of the sentiment behind Amendment 27 in the names of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, and my noble friend Lord Allan, but first I address Amendment 26, which I support as a bare minimum. I also address the point put by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris, to my noble friend Lord Lester. I think that my noble friend understated the position on what is defamatory and what defamatory means. As I have always understood it, a statement is defamatory if it causes the necessary damage to reputation. It may then be that under existing law, a defence of justification can be mounted which shows that the defamatory statement is justified as true. That does not stop the statement being defamatory, but it stops the statement being unlawful. In other words, it starts off as defamatory—I see learned agreement on the other side of the Room—and then one looks at the question of defences.
It follows that without the word “unlawful” in paragraph (b), the requirement that the complaint,
“sets out the statement concerned and explains why it is defamatory of the complainant”,
goes only half way and is nowhere near enough. I echo the sentiments expressed by my noble friend Lord Mawhinney about the view of the Joint Committee on the Bill and the topic: the purpose of whatever procedure we adopt is to give some protection, as far as is practicable, to persons defamed on the internet and, on the other side, to impose some responsibility on website operators, without ensuring that an operator is stuck with liability for all the material posted on his site.
I strongly supported, and indeed took some part in formulating, the notice and takedown procedure for material from unidentified authors proposed in our report, with the possibility of an operator securing a leave-up order for material that, although it was from an unidentified author, nevertheless the operator believed ought to stay up—for instance, in the case of whistleblowers. The Government have opted for a different procedure, and it is right that that procedure draws the correct distinction that we drew between the posts of identifiable authors, who can then be identified and sued, and anonymous material. Whatever system we have, though, it is important that there should be some quick and cheap option that levels the playing field between complainant and author or operator. The detailed notice of complaint as envisaged by Amendment 27, as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, has explained, is a satisfactory first step.
I appreciate that it can be said that, subject to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, the word “unlawful” is required, but regulations could be made within the ambit of “defamatory and unlawful” that would expand upon the requirements for a detailed notice of complaint. However, I suggest that it is better that, rather than being left to regulation, the broad contents of the notice of complaint should be spelt out in statute. I say that because one of the purposes of the Bill, as we saw it in the Joint Committee, was to make the law as accessible as possible so that anyone could look up what procedures would be required by looking at the Act. By effectively leaving the requirements for a notice of complaint to delegated legislation, the simplicity of accessing the statute and accessing law on the internet is reduced.
It would then be necessary to add to the requirements for a detailed notice of complaint, something like Amendments 25A and 25B proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, in the previous group. I, too, was pleased to see the Minister’s response to those amendments show at least some flexibility or promise thereof. We would then have the beginnings of a system to ensure that, where defamatory material was posted by an operator, the detailed process of complaint would get some publicity because the notice of complaint would be put on the website by the operator. That would offer some partial protection to the person defamed. I applaud the suggestion that if the operator then fails to put up such a notice of complaint, which he can do, he must take his chances and accept that he is made liable to be sued by the deprivation of the Clause 5 defence.
I reiterate what has been said: neither the proposed system nor any system that we could possibly devise would be perfect, for the simple reason that my noble friend Lord Lester mentioned earlier today—namely, that we are trying to formulate a local response to an international phenomenon. However, I suggest in answer to some of the defeatism—the Minister was defeated up to a point in his earlier reply—there is no reason to give up on the problem because the system is not perfect and therefore do nothing. It is worth doing all that we can, I suggest, for two reasons. The first is that we can ensure fairness in respect of posts that are subject to our jurisdiction. The second, I suggest, is that by what we introduce in legislation, we can set an example of best practice for website operators elsewhere.
I would like to say a word or two about civil procedures that would be appropriate either under Amendment 27, under Clause 5 or under the regulations. I suggest that it is essential that any such procedures we adopt respond fully to the point made by my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury that the procedures that involve going to court can be very expensive. The answer from the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, that this can be dealt with in the ordinary way before Masters is a partial answer only, because those of us who have attended before Masters, and have prepared interim applications before Masters and district judges in other cases, know that they themselves can be very expensive indeed.
What we envisaged on the Joint Committee was a quick and cheap paper-based or internet-based procedure, with specialist district judges simply looking at the case presented to them on paper and making a decision. Those specialist judges would give their decision, but it would of course be only a holding position, because action would be deferred. However, it is not right to introduce, by what we do now, a whole new level of expensive procedure in respect of internet actions, which, from the McAlpine case, we know can sometimes result in £5 awards or £5 settlements over a very large number of cases. Those cases need to be kept small, simple, quick and cheap.
Lord Allan of Hallam
My Lords, I remind the Committee of my earlier declaration of interest that I work for Facebook, which is a reasonable-sized website operator. In supporting the amendment that I and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, have tabled, I first wanted to set out that we all have a common goal here, whichever side of the debate we are coming from. In a sense, it has been divided into sides, but I think that there is one common objective: unlawful defamatory material should be swiftly removed from wherever it should appear, whether in print media or on the internet. At the same time, there should be minimal collateral damage to content that is not unlawful. We want content that is lawful to stay up and people to be able to share it with each other, and content that is unlawful to come down. It is a simple objective, and both Amendments 26 and 27 are trying to take us towards that.
Amendment 27, in particular, is crafted in the context where we have people who are prepared to use any legal tools that we make available in ways that we did not perhaps intend, and will use them maliciously. There is no doubt that tools that are made available for people to request take-downs of internet content are used, and will be used, by people who are seeking to interfere with the freedom of speech of others. We must make sure that we have crafted the tools in such a way that we minimise that possibility, as well as maximising the opportunity for people to get content taken down that should be taken down. The objective is that 100% of the requests made through this process should result in the right form of action and that that action should be swift. I think the amendment, by specifying in more detail the form which the notice should take, is aimed to create what one might call a well formed notice. A well formed notice that has all the necessary information will be able to be acted on swiftly by the recipient of that information—in this case, the website operator—and the solution can be reached more speedily.
Lord May of Oxford
This is possibly a stupid point, and it may reveal my misunderstanding, but as I look at this—I said this during our first Sitting—there are occasions, particularly in the scientific sphere, when the intent is correctly defamatory, where one is saying, “This is wrong”, “This is dishonest” or, “This experiment has been faked”, and the like. Much of the wording of this assumes that if it is harming you, then you have rights, as it were, to stop the harm. However, I can think of lots of examples where the intention is deliberately and properly defamatory.
Lord Allan of Hallam
I think that the noble Lord, Lord May, is correct. If I understand the intent of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, it is precisely to address those circumstances where, again, somebody who intends to create a defamatory statement that is lawful is not prevented from doing so. For that reason, I support Amendment 26 as well.
In setting out the various criteria that we have included in Amendment 27, I hope that these will also address similar concerns, in that they will require the complainant to go into a little more detail about why their complaint constitutes unlawful content as opposed to simply content that they do not like. The reality today is that people will simply fire off a letter to a website operator, saying, “I allege that this is defamatory”, with very little more detail than that. It is very hard then for the website operator to act swiftly, which we all want, and to guarantee fairness, which I think that we also want, between the two parties involved.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I persist in seeing this Bill from the point of view of the little man. Others tend to see it more from the point of view of web operators—I refer not only to my noble friend who has just spoken. One has constantly to bear in mind the hardest case. Unless we get it right for the hardest case—that is, a person of few means but a reputation that he or she cherishes who is grotesquely, viciously, maliciously and intentionally libelled—and unless there is some protection in this measure against the web spreading it at rapid rate across the world, we will not have done our job properly.
I strongly support Amendment 26, although I wonder whether my noble friend thinks that the lay person would find the clause easier to understand if it said “unlawfully defamatory” rather than “defamatory and unlawful”. However, that is a small point.
On Amendment 27, I was most grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for what he said about the cost problems of a Norwich Phamarcal application. It is a great tribute to his fair-mindedness that he made that point. I tried to make it when responding to the Minister, who dismissed my earlier amendments. We have had a case in my office just recently in which there were four separate applications to the High Court to get at the identity of the defamer. Each time, it has led on to another anonymous name, and another and another. I think that the client has now given up, but the costs are in excess of £12,000. We cannot allow that state of affairs to persist, but I must move on, as that relates to other amendments.
The only point that I will make on Amendment 27 is that I have a certain anxiety about paragraph (f), which says that the regulations,
“may make provision for a procedure whereby a complainant can obtain from the court a declaration that his notice of complaint under subsection (3)(b) has met the requirements of this subsection”.
That is couched in discretionary terms—the regulations “may”. If the Government take this up in the regulations, it must remain discretionary. To force every person to lodge a notice of complaint through a High Court procedure—albeit before a Master and albeit, as my noble friend Lord Marks suggests, a special procedure—would in my view simply be impractical for the vast majority of individuals. They will not get near it. It is terribly easy for us lawyers to forget how formidable and forbidding it can be—
Viscount Colville of Culross
I emphasise that this must be a voluntary process. I said that this was a probing suggestion for people to talk about. It should be voluntary and the ability to use the procedure should be open to all parties.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I simply wrap up my point by saying that I am anxious about having this paragraph in the amendment, because I think that it could give the wrong idea to those who have to interpret it in future. I would be wholly against a way of lodging a complaint that involved a formal legal process, even of a stripped-down kind, if I can call it that, because it would, I suggest, make remedy more or less impossible for the vast majority of people.
The Earl of Erroll
I shall make a couple of comments about Amendment 27, particularly after the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury. Given the expense of trying to track someone down on the internet and finding out who is who, it will be impossible to identify absolutely reliably everyone who logs on. Unless we put a chip inside everybody and log that, it will not work. There are too many ways of concealing who you are. The banks have enough trouble with their “know your client” procedures, so what kind of trouble will an internet service provider have? It is not realistic to be able to nail down identity over the internet at the moment in the way that some people think that you can.
The point about expensive resolution led me to think about what the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, said about alternative dispute resolution. The website operator needs somehow to know whether to take something down. If a claimant is not willing to reveal who they are, there may be a public interest reason for it to stay up and there may be support from other places for its staying there. Nominet is operating a successful service for alternative dispute resolution on domain name conflicts. Otelo—the Office of the Telecommunications Ombudsman—also works terribly well in resolving disputes in an inexpensive way. In fact, the industry in each case bears the costs and it is not expensive. I wonder whether it would be worth exploring that.
Amendment 27 is interesting because it could provide some of the information that would be the framework on which a judgment could be made. For instance, a website operator could apply and say, “We would like to know”, through the alternative dispute service. Personally, I think that going through the courts every time would be far too expensive for all the small organisations and ordinary people trying to defend themselves against something malicious that was online.
I was amused by the concept of whether or not regulations could be used maliciously. That is an interesting concept and it probably has wings, as well as legs. There is an old saying that regulations are for your enemies, and it is amazing how maliciously you can use them.
Lord Faulks
My Lords, because of my general opposition to this clause, it is obvious that I would also oppose these very well meaning and well articulated suggestions of a mode of complaining by someone who feels that they have been defamed on a website. The debate has thrown up the fact that the industry is in the process of developing a response to this new problem, and I respectfully suggest to your Lordships that that is where the development should come from, not by means of legislation—we are bound to get it wrong and to be out of date. Rather, it calls for a response to a developing situation. If a code of practice is developed that provides an appropriate response, that will deter people from suing, certainly for anything other than the most serious defamations.
As for the amendment put forward by my noble friend Lord Lester, I entirely understand it and the fact that he wears his cloak from the JCHR. If there is to be such a procedure, however, it is asking quite a lot of an individual to make some form of assessment as to, first, whether it is defamatory and, secondly, whether it is unlawful. That would involve them reviewing possible defences: whether or not it was justified, which is an absolute defence; whether or not there was qualified privilege; whether there was responsible publication. That is a considerable series of hurdles for someone to overcome before deciding on and setting out the nature of their complaint.
On the alternative dispute resolution, of course I understand what animates that. It is very easy to sit around in a committee of any sort and suggest that something can be done quickly, cheaply and easily. The reality, of course, is that there are short cuts even within the current framework. People can get preliminary rulings on meaning and whether something is capable of being defamatory within the existing mechanism. I fear that what is suggested may sound like a good idea but may in fact simply be superorgative. It may add to what is already there and not provide the sort of cheap alternative mechanism that plainly is desirable. I respectfully suggest that the amendment should not be pursued.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I support what my noble friend has just said. Having listened to the various alternatives, I think that the idea of having to involve the courts is just going to freak out any website operator, particularly those who deal in any volume. You are asking for some sort of cheap way to get to a judgment that is essentially expensive because there are a lot of things to be considered.
I think that the right answer to this, as my noble friend just said, lies in giving really good guidance to the courts and to website operators as to what is protected under the Bill and what is not. That comes back to points that I made under previous clauses. I do not understand what is going to be protected under the Bill; what is going to be regarded as fair comment; what is going to be required in terms of the person making the complaint or statement stating the basis on which they have made it; or the references to “fact” that creep in, which is something that you as a website operator know that you can never establish. As my noble friend said earlier, we all have insurance to cover those things. I am sure that the same applies to Facebook as it does at the bottom end, which I occupy. That insurance is not vastly expensive and is available on sensible terms from sensible insurers. As long as you have reasonable systems to ensure that you are doing your best not to publish things for which you may be sued, you are protected.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
My Lords, perhaps I may slightly correct the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, who I think said, “I am not a lawyer, I am just a journalist”. At the risk of upsetting a lot of other people in the Room, I do not think that he has that the right way round. The Bill is for you who write and we who read what you write or produce on television.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, for clarifying that Facebook is indeed a website, which answers my earlier question. I use his words: we want swift removal of defamatory material with minimum collateral damage to lawful material. We may have to come back to that again at the end of the Bill’s proceedings. We can call it the Allan test and see whether we meet it.
I still have a problem with the question that my noble and learned friend, Lord Morris of Aberavon, raised earlier, which is about the distinction between lawful and defamatory. I found the evidence to the Joint Committee on Human Rights by Professor Phillipson on this compelling. Clearly, the whole of the committee did not, and I am not a member of the committee. The issues I want to raise are not legalistic but more about ethics and fairness, although I thank my colleagues, who have provided me with a little more legal background.
I want to go into a couple of cases which may be akin to what the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, mentioned on an earlier amendment about a teacher. I give two case studies. First, there is an Ofsted report on a school, and the local website reveals an affair between the head teacher and a parent, which is going on, but the evidence for it was found by Ofsted in its study, so it is a breach of privacy, because it was found by inspection and was then given without permission to the website. It then seems, under the privacy work being done by Leveson, that a case could be taken. Secondly, there is a separate case, where there is an Ofsted report on a school and a local website reveals an affair between a head teacher and a parent; however, it turns out not to be true.
If I have understood the difference with this higher hurdle, if what the noble Lord, Lord Lester, says is true, before the parent could take an action for defamation, they would have to know whether it was more than just untrue and bad for their reputation; they would also have to ask themselves, “Well now, was it in the public interest because the other party was a head teacher and therefore there could be a public issue?”. Or perhaps there is a defence because the claim was incredibly well researched and the head teacher was having an affair with a different parent, also called Smith, in the same street, and it was just a small technical error that caused the confusion, so it was responsible journalism. A hurdle is being asked for where that the parent, the claimant, would have to go and do some legal homework to try to think through what the defences were that the person who had written the untrue thing about them could put up against their action before they could actually start a claim—by which time their spouse would have left them. In fact, it would probably be better if the affair were true, because then they could get an action on privacy.
That brings me to a comment made by the noble Lord, Lord May. He seemed to be suggesting that as soon as you say something nasty about someone, it is defamatory. That is not my understanding. If I call him a rotten scientist, that is seriously defamatory, but if he calls me a rotten scientist, it is so patently true that it cannot be defamatory. I am not sure that some of the examples given would actually be defamatory; if you say that someone has been forging their research results and they have been, that is not defamatory because it is not untrue.
Lord May of Oxford
Many of the more celebrated cases in the libel tourism that has generated all this activity, such as the £1.5 million spent by the journal Nature in defending a plainly factual but defamatory statement about an Asian journal that was created simply to publish the papers of the sponsor, are of just that character. The statement were plain fact, but the action brought in this country by people outside it cost huge sums of money. The action involving Simon Singh was another example. What he was saying was plainly factual but was defamatory; it was intended to be so in every meaningful sense, and properly so. Somehow we keep losing sight of this in the legal elegances.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
I trespass on the noble Baroness’s time by giving another simple contemporary example. If I had said during his lifetime that Jimmy Savile was a horrible paedophile, that would have been seriously defamatory. Had I had access then to the information that we have now and he had sued me, I could have justified that. It therefore would have been defamatory but not unlawful. It is as simple as that.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
It has to be substantially true, actually; he had only to be a bit of a paedophile, had you had the information there.
The point that I am trying to make is that the person making the claim knows whether or not it is true. I know that I am a rotten scientist, and therefore to be able to make the claim I would have to try to find some evidence that I was a brilliant one, which might be a bit difficult. Asking someone to have to argue through the defences of the person against whom they want to take the action before they can start a case, if I have understood the amendment right, would create a higher hurdle for stuff on the web than for printed material, because the clause refers only to the web.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
The noble Baroness has misunderstood. Clause 5 is not about whether you can bring a claim. It states:
“This section applies where an action for defamation is brought against the operator of a website”.
It is intended to allocate responsibility between the alleged victim and the website operator, and to decide when the website operator has some kind of duty to keep up because of free speech or to take down, and what information must be provided under the e-commerce directive regulations and under the Bill. It is not asking a whole lot of questions as some kind of new barrier. It is about a proper procedure balancing. I hope that that is clear.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
That is clear, but it still seems to be a higher barrier to take action against an operator of a website than you would have against the editor of a newspaper. The amendment only covers operators of websites, unlike the rest of the Bill. According to Judge Eady,
“a person would need to know something of the strength or weakness of available defences”,
in order to know whether it was unlawful before going ahead. That seems a higher hurdle to ask a claimant to go through than if they were taking an action for something else. That may be what is wanted, but if so, we need to be very clear that this is a higher hurdle for a claimant in the case of operators of websites than for any other action for defamation. It seems to tilt the balance very much against the claimant being able to take any action in that case.
With regard to Amendment 27, which would add the list, the issue is the one that my noble friend Lord Browne raised at the beginning: whether this adds anything to Clause 5(6)(b), which states that, in taking an action, the complainant, in addition to giving their name, must set out,
“the statement concerned and explains why it is defamatory”.
That would go through points such as, “Well, it is untrue, it harms my reputation and it was published in a form that people could read”. Again, I wonder whether, having got rid of the long list that we had in Clause 4—because that was a box-ticking exercise, or feared to be one, about what was in the public interest—we are now doing exactly the reverse and trying to specify all the things that we have taken out of Clause 4. That seems to run counter to the idea of a very simple Bill, albeit that guidelines or regulations may go with it. Although there is nothing in the requirements that seems unacceptable, I am not sure that, having now made the other part so clear and simple, we want to put another list back in this part of the Bill.
Other noble Lords have discussed going to a Master, but in addition to the complications of that, and the costs, I also have worries about the timing. Again, in two or three weeks—I do not know how quick it would be—some things on the web will have gone around and been taken up. My major issue is whether the Committee is absolutely sure that it does want a different hurdle against website operators such that one has to go through all the defences that someone could have before being able to start an action. At the moment, we are not persuaded of that.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this detailed debate. Arguments have again been presented to show both sides of the coin. Amendment 26, in the name of my noble friend Lord Lester, would require a claimant to set out in a notice of complaint why the statement complained of was not merely defamatory but also unlawful.
Our clear aim in bringing forward the Bill is, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has said, to make the law on defamation clearer, cheaper and easier for the ordinary citizen to use. It is perhaps reasonably easy for an ordinary person to understand and explain why a statement may be regarded as defamatory; it is quite another for the same person to explain, without recourse to legal advice, how that could be deemed unlawful. That arguably would involve a thorough knowledge of the law, both statute and common, and a rebuttal of the various defences that might be available to the person making the statement. The aim is to avoid putting lawyers rather than the parties at the heart of the argument. For those reasons, the Government are opposed to the amendment.
That said, we of course share the concern of those who argue that complainants should give some explanation as to why they think a statement is defamatory. The note that we have provided to the House on the content of the regulations makes clear that, where appropriate, complainants should, in a notice of complaint, provide details such as the meaning attributed to the words complained of and why they are defamatory, including any factual inaccuracies or unsupportable comment. This reflects the wording in the defamation pre-action protocol in relation to the contents of a letter before a claim, and we believe that this is an appropriate level of detail to expect complainants to provide.
Amendment 27, in the names of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, has two purposes. First, it seeks to place in the Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, suggested, a number of requirements that a complainant’s notice of complaint should meet. As I indicated in speaking to Amendment 26, we share the concerns of those who argue that complainants should have to give some explanation as to why they think a statement is defamatory of them. I have explained the level of detail that we think is reasonable to expect a complainant to provide in order to enable the poster of the material to understand the basis of the complaint.
As I have also said, we believe that to require a claimant to go further and prove that the statement was unlawful would make it more onerous and difficult for a layman to make a complaint without first having sought sound legal advice, nor do we see how it would be in the interests of website operators, who would also have to seek legal advice, and could end up in litigation over the validity of notices that they chose to reject.
My noble friend Lord Marks talked about the need for as much detail as possible to be put in the Bill so that people can readily understand what is required. We believe that the regulations are the appropriate way to deal with the issues of detail within the framework established by Clause 5. However, we will ensure, after listening to the debate as well, that detailed guidance is published prior to the commencement of any new provisions to assist complainants, posters and website operators in understanding and following the new process.
The second part of Amendment 27 would allow the Secretary of State to make a provision in regulations for a procedure whereby a complainant can obtain from the court a declaration that his notice of complaint is valid—namely, that it meets the requirements of subsection (6). It has been indicated with regard to amendment that the procedure would also be available where either the poster of the material or the website operator wishes to apply for such a declaration.
I referred to the contribution made by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. I agree with him that the whole purpose of Clause 5 is to provide a simple, quick, cheap and effective means for the complainant to request the removal of potentially defamatory material and for the poster to engage with this request for removal and stand by his posting if he wishes to do so. It was suggested that the Norwich Pharmacal process may not be effective in securing the necessary information on the poster. We propose in the consultation that the poster should be required to provide the full legal name and contact details, including their postal address. If they fail to do so, the website operator would have to take the material down. This, we believe, should help to ensure that the Norwich Pharmacal process enables the complainant to obtain sufficient information to enable him to bring proceedings against the poster.
As several noble Lords have noted, the system that Amendment 27 proposes would seem to require complainants to go to court at the outset, prior to making a complaint, to obtain a court declaration that their notice of complaint is valid. Presumably, any complainant who did not have such a declaration would not have their complaint processed by the website operator. It is unclear to us how this procedure could be adapted to deal with applications by posters or website operators, and at what stage these would be made. In any event, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, has mentioned, this additional process is likely to add unnecessary cost, delay and burden for the individual. In at least some cases, we believe that posters will be content for their statements to come down. Under this system, complainants would have to incur the time and expense of going to court irrespective of the attitude of the poster. Additional burdens would be created for the court system. The proposed amendments do not strike a fair and appropriate—we come back to that word again—balance between the interests of freedom of expression and complainants’ rights to reputation.
I concur with many of the points made by other noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Faulks, and hope on the basis of the explanation that I have given that noble Lords will not press their amendments.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, my noble friend has got his answer to Amendment 26 completely wrong, particularly so far as website operators are concerned. I do not care a fig about knowing whether a comment is defamatory; it is obvious that “The food was filthy” is defamatory. What I want to know is whether I can publish it or whether the restaurant says, “No such meal was served on that evening” or “We know this fellow from before and he has been completely unreasonable on other occasions” or gives us some reason that the comment is fair. It is absolutely crucial that Amendment 26 is accepted. Just to know that something is defamatory gives you no information and you can see that with your own eyes; it is obvious. What is not obvious is why it is unlawful. In order to take a reasonably robust attitude to standing between a complainant and the person who has made the posting, and who may well quite reasonably wish to be shy, not least because they think that they have sinned against some large corporation that will skin them in the courts if they are identified, I would want as a website operator, as I imagine other website operators do, too—certainly, those to whom I have talked do—to be in a position to stand behind something that we consider to be fair comment. We need to know why the complainant thinks that it is unlawful. We all know why it is defamatory.
Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood
My Lords, it may be a response to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, to say that while there is of course a distinction between what is defamatory and what is illegal, it is not necessarily for the complainant to dictate why it is illegal. Thought might perhaps be given to making a regulation under Clause 5(3)(c) that put on the operator who sought to invoke this defence the need to say why, notwithstanding that the statement was defamatory, it was none the less lawful to publish it. That might be a better way of achieving the balance than putting, as other noble Lords have recognised, the often financially onerous burden on the complainant to anticipate and meet in advance the several defences that may or may not be urged as justification for the publication.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
The noble and learned Lord makes a valid point, which we shall certainly consider.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
My Lords, I am grateful to everyone who has taken part in this brief debate and particularly to the Minister for his reply, with which I do not agree and will have to come back at a later stage to explain in more detail why.
I should like to talk about the wider world, because what we are debating today will be of interest not only in this country but in Beijing and Washington DC. Noble Lords will probably understand that in the United States, on the one hand, the extreme position is adopted that there is absolute immunity, subject to malice, for website defamation. You cannot sue an American website operator under federal statute law, state statute law or common law in the United States. On the other hand, in China you have the opposite position, and the same is true in the former Soviet Union. In China in particular, the great firewall of China and the Chinese intranet prevent proper access to an uncensored website within China. Noble Lords will have read what happened last week, deplorably.
In Europe, we have a compromise. We have the e-commerce directive, which has a notice and take-down procedure in general terms. We have to obey EU law. We have e-commerce directive regulations. The balance is put in very broad terms and can be fleshed out in various ways, but it does not allow either an absolute immunity on website operators, American style, nor does it allow the extraordinary regulation by the state that obtains in the People’s Republic of China.
Curiously, the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, suggests that we do not need any law on this at all. That will make the noble Lord, Lord McNally, smile, if he remembers that when we discussed all of this many months ago, he quite rightly said that we have to try to clarify the internet position and we cannot just duck it; we need to have reasonable legal certainty in order to include it in the Bill. He was right, and it was quite right of the Government to seek to do that. It is extremely difficult, which is why most of this will have to be done by way of regulations and not in statute.
The burden of proof in all defamation cases under English law will remain upon the defendant. We have not adopted the Sullivan rule in this country and put the burden of proof on the claimant. The defendant therefore starts off and finishes with having the burden of proving the various defences. All that we are considering is what is appropriate for a complainant to have to provide to the website operator. The great problem is that the website operator—if it is Google, Yahoo! or Amazon, or a newspaper with a website—has no commercial interest in keeping matter that is in the public interest on the website if they are threatened with litigation or, worse, “unreasonably”.
Suppose, for example, that Google were to make serious allegations of corruption in the state of Ruritania, and someone from the state of Ruritania then complained about it being on the web. Google would have no commercial interest in maintaining that very important public-interest statement on the web, especially if it was going to be faced with multiple claims to take down without any obligation on the complainant. We are therefore trying to find a balance in a way that we protect free speech by not encouraging unnecessary take-down, while at the same time providing effective remedies to the serious victims of violations of reputation on the net.
The reason I do not agree with the Government’s present position is not just an argument about whether or not it is compatible with the e-commerce directive to leave out the word “unlawful”. It is also because the Government give the game away in indicating that the regulations that they are proposing will, in effect, do precisely what the words “and unlawful” will—or, as my noble friend Lord Phillips suggested, “unlawfully defamatory”; that would do perfectly well. However, there must be something more than a simple statement that something is defamatory.
I am sure that we will need to come back to this, because it is very important and difficult. I am not dogmatic about a solution. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McNally
Lord McNally
My Lords, I do not in any way want to provoke the Committee, but I am pleased to see that my noble friend Lord Lester is leaving, due to the stimulus of the debate.
Lord McNally
No, I do not want him to stay; I really think that he should go back to his sickbed, although his recovery during the course of the debate was significant. He said, “This short debate” but I humbly refer the Committee to the fact that our two debates today on a single clause of the Bill, which we have still not yet completed, have taken us two hours and 40 minutes in a 17-clause Bill, of whose Committee stage we are on day three of four.
Lord McNally
I hope that Hansard noted that comment from a sedentary position and the general approval from the non-lawyers in the Committee for that observation.
At some stages during those debates, as a non-lawyer, I thought of John Wilkes, the famous radical. When he was about to publish his newspaper, the North Briton, he was asked by a French acquaintance, “Is the press free in your country?”. “I am about to find out,” said Wilkes. I think, having listened to this debate, that in some respects the internet is going to find out whether or not it is free. My noble friend Lord Mawhinney asked me where we were with regard to balance. It is not a question of balance between right and wrong, but the debates that we have had today show that there is a balance.
One of the great things about continuity in this House is that I was on the pre-legislative scrutiny committee that looked at the Communications Bill, where we deliberately advised against trying to legislate for the internet. On reflection, I think that we were right. My noble friend Lord Phillips said that he was on the side of the little man. On reflection, one of the greatest boons to the rights of the little man over the past decade or so has been the worldwide web and its freedoms. While I hear the passion and the righteous indignation of those who have been defamed and hurt, we as a Committee have to be careful not to overlegislate something that on the plus side has some considerable benefits for the little man.
That was a complete abuse of procedure, because I am moving a government amendment of some simplicity. It was also because I am wracked by guilt: at one point during the debates, the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, helpfully sent me a note saying, “Are you on holiday?”. The truth is that when we were setting out who was going to handle what, I thought, “Clause 5 will be a nice snappy debate, since my noble friend Lord Ahmad—although he is learning disturbingly fast—should be given some experience of Bill-handling”. Little did I realise that he was going to have such a baptism of fire.
Amendment 28 provides for the affirmative resolution procedure to apply to the scrutiny of the regulations to be made under Clause 5 of the Bill, rather than the negative resolution procedure as the Bill currently provides. That is in the light of views put forward on this issue by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, the Joint Committee on Human Rights and others. The affirmative procedure will ensure that the regulations receive more thorough parliamentary scrutiny. I hope that, as such, it will be acceptable to this Committee and to the House. I beg to move.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for that explanation. Our noble friend Lord Ahmad has been doing a superb job, and I have been immensely impressed. I had assumed that my noble friend Lord McNally was silent because he was serving time in the penalty box after voting against the Government yesterday.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, those of us on this side of the Committee welcome this amendment because it follows the advice and recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and the advice of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, but mostly because an amendment—identical in effect if not in words—was moved by my honourable friend Rob Flello in Committee in the House of Commons and was rejected by the Government. The reason given by the then Minister Mr Djanogly was that:
“The Government consider that the detailed and technical nature of the proposed regulations, and the fact that they will govern procedural issues, means that the negative resolution procedure is more appropriate, and provides the appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny”.—[Official Report, Commons, Defamation Bill Committee, 21/6/12; col. 122.]
That sentence, in itself, argued for why that was exactly the wrong procedure for these regulations. I am pleased to see that the Government have accepted that that was the case and have now welcomed this provision into the Bill.
Having listened to the debate on Clause 5, I do not share the level of guilt that the noble Lord has for having had his colleague deal with it. I am delighted that my noble friend Lady Hayter has agreed to do this. She is well equipped for the job and, indeed, has much greater experience than I have in your Lordships’ House, which makes her better equipped for this complicated part of the Bill than I am.
I believe that the most important part of Clause 5 will be the consultation on the regulations, which everyone who has come to lobby me about this part of the Bill seems to be a part of. I understand that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, may well become part of this consultation process. Maybe it is time for all of us to become part of this consultation process, because looking as I do now, in the light of the discussion that has taken place in your Lordships’ Committee, at the 26 paragraphs of this consultation document, I would like to have my say about what should be in these regulations.
It might be helpful if some process was set in place so that those from all the various interests that are represented in your Lordships’ Committee who have shown an interest in this Bill could have an active role in a process of discussion in respect of these regulations. Otherwise, I suspect that at some stage in the progress of this Bill—perhaps on Report—we may find ourselves timetabling insufficient time for the debate that will ensue in relation to Clause 5.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, the clause stand part debate notice is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town. I consulted them when we last considered the clause—it seems aeons ago. The feeling between us was that, in view of the extended consideration of Clause 5—we have had two and three-quarter hours today and I think that we had an hour or two last time—it might be appropriate not to debate the Motion given that so many aspects to Clause 5 need further consideration.
Clause 5 is central to the Bill and, as my noble friend Lord McNally just said, the little man is liberated as well as in jeopardy. I am the first to accept that, but a great deal more thought needs to be given to it and I see no point at this juncture in debating whether the clause should stand part of the Bill, because it is at the heart of the Bill. I suggest that those of us who feel that we need to consult the Ministers and their team do so. I entirely concur with what the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said about the consultation, because the regulations will themselves be at the heart of the Bill, in a way that they rarely are. If some formal means could be found to enable the Committee to look at a preliminary draft of the regulations, that might be appropriate and helpful to all.
Lord Mawhinney
“Unattributed website content
The Secretary of State shall publish guidance for the operators of websites designed to ensure that unattributed material is not published on any website.”
Lord Mawhinney
Conscious of the time, I shall give a quick summary of what the Joint Committee decided by way of stimulating thought on this particularly tricky issue. I think that it is fair to say—I suspect that my noble friend Lord McNally will agree—that this is the single most difficult issue in the whole Bill: what you do about those who post on the internet anonymously? We have already had a considered view from the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, pointing out the costs attached and how difficult or, perhaps, impossible, it is to identify people who are anonymous.
The committee was given a lot of evidence from people who ran websites saying, “Leave us alone”. We heard evidence from newspaper editors saying, “Leave us alone”. We heard evidence from academics saying, “Don’t leave us alone”. We heard very little evidence from individuals crying “Help!”, but that is what we thought we were empowered to do. We were quite clear about posting on the web. If the name is attached, the law should apply and be pursued. Notwithstanding the self-evident self-interest of some people who gave evidence, we thought that if we know who has done it, they should be held to account for what they did. We did not get into the detail that the Committee has got into, nor should we, but that was the basic position.
When it came to anonymous contributions, everybody told us, “There is nothing you can do about it; it is a world wide web; they could be anywhere. The website could be attached to another website, buried in a third website, ad infinitum. It cannot be handled legally, period. Forget it, Joint Committee, and move on”.
We came to the view that it was pretty difficult to handle this from a legislative point of view. We did not want to engage in argument with those who kept telling us that. On the other hand, we were not willing to just forget about it. Two ideas surfaced. One of them is incorporated in the amendment, which is, in effect, a probing amendment. One way to deal with anonymity would be to rule it out: to say that you can take part only if you are willing to say who you are. That would be a relatively simple solution. I can hear some of the arguments against it even as I stand here, but that does not negate the fact that it is at least an option for the Government to consider.
Lord Allan of Hallam
My Lords, I am glad that the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, said that this was a probing amendment and I will speak to it in that spirit. It needs a response to clarify the concerns that there might be on behalf of the noble Lord, Lord McNally’s “little man” who uses the internet if we were ever to go down a route where there were these broader requirements for people always to identify themselves when speaking across the internet. As I read the amendment, there would be an absolute requirement for people in the United Kingdom always to identify themselves if they wished to avail themselves of internet platforms.
We need to bear in mind the key concepts in the context of other areas where government has quite rightly identified a need to be able to detect wrongdoing on the internet and to go after those who are carrying out that wrongdoing, whatever form it may take. Those are the basic concepts that we think about when considering the right to privacy and the necessity of proportionality. We certainly should not have a counsel of despair; we should try to identify people and make them own their own content in the circumstance of an allegation of defamation. I think that we are agreed across the Committee about that basic principle of trying to connect the people who have a complaint with those who have made that speech.
I certainly would not hold to a counsel of despair that says, “This is impossible”. In most cases, people can be identified. Most of the cases that we will be dealing with will be arguments between people who are identified and known to each other and who have an issue around whether the speech that one has made about the other is unlawful and defamatory and whether one of them wishes to take some action over that. In some of the cases that we have seen recently and that people have quoted, such as the Lord McAlpine case, it is clear that there has been an ability to identify and go after the principal people complained against.
When we think about those who genuinely are going to be able to hide behind anonymity, we are talking about a minority of instances. That is why I ask whether the test of requiring everyone to identify themselves whenever they speak would be a proportionate response to what will be a relatively small set of circumstances and whether it is necessary to do that.
Where I certainly have some sympathy, and we have had some reference to this already in today’s debate, is with regard to the cost of getting orders to disclose identity details. Again, we should be clear that those who provide internet services need some form of judicial authority to be able to disclose people’s personal data. I hope that we would all agree on the basic principle that it would be inappropriate for a service provider to disclose personal data about an individual simply on request; there has to be some kind of process that enables that release to be lawful and to be lawfully made. However, the current circumstances, as we have heard today, make that very expensive.
There is probably a lot of mileage that we could cover in terms of using legal processes that require the disclosure of data to narrow down the cases that we are talking about, where someone is genuinely and maliciously hiding behind anonymity, but I consider, as I referenced earlier, that those cases will be very much a minority. When we consider the measures that we should take in response, we should bear in mind that they should be proportionate and not do something excessive to deal with that tiny minority of problematic cases.
Lord Lester of Herne Hill
The Libel Reform Campaign is strongly opposed to this amendment but I shall not elaborate on what it says about it. I want to draw attention to one thing that may not have occurred to some Members of the Committee, which is how this debate will be regarded in Beijing. In Beijing, they have precisely this kind of amendment in their extraordinary firewall regulations because what they most want to do is identify political dissidents of one kind or another and then go after them for violating their internet regulations. This is exactly what they have and want to maintain, and if we give it any currency at all, they will use the fact that the United Kingdom has done so, even though our context is entirely different and we are not doing it to persecute dissidents and so on. I suggest that we should be very careful, in the lawmaking that we are indulging in now, to think about the transnational implications.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I hear what my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill has just said, and it is a very strong point. None the less, we have to legislate for our own circumstances. I come back to the point that we cannot leave the Bill in a state where individuals can be grotesquely, viciously and intentionally defamed, where huge platforms—website operators—can grow rich in allowing that to happen with total impunity and with no possible remedy for the individuals concerned. That cannot be right. I am reminded slightly of some of the arguments about the banking sector and the banks that are “too big to fail”. We cannot get into a mentality where website operators are too big to pay. We have never had a satisfactory answer for why website operators could not take out comprehensive insurance so that, if they were sued by individuals because of the defamations of those who post on their platforms, they could pay up in the normal way.
I have great sympathy for the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Mawhinney, put his case for Amendment 30, not least because we are all grappling with fiendish and unprecedented problems with no easy answer. Generally, I come down on the side of saying that nobody should have the right to defame others—in a way, incidentally, that will travel further and faster than any other system of publication in the history of the world—and be able to say, “Ooh, no, you can’t reveal my name; that’s a breach of my human rights”. There is another breach of human rights involved in defamation—indeed, it is worse because the defamer is doing it intentionally. I am, of course, taking the worst case. If you have to place in juxtaposition the vicious defamer on the one hand and on the other the possibility that that defamer’s particulars may have to be revealed by the website operator in the process of complying with our new legislation, I am afraid that I have to come down on the side of the person who has been defamed.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, speaking again as a web operator, I do not know any way of establishing a person’s identity just because they are posting. One could establish a web identity, but that may have a very fuzzy relationship with any individual. If someone posts, gives me an e-mail address and I verify that e-mail address, that is about as far as I can get. However, I think that we can reasonably insist on that. If we are offering website operators the protection of this Bill against being sued for what is posted on their sites, we can ask them at least to have verified a web identity. We can ask that they take some steps to have a method of communication with this person and do not just allow straightforward anonymous postings. Then, something put up on the net should come from someone with whom the website operator knows that they have an established means of communication. Whether or not that works, is fake or just ends in silence, I do not think you can ask the website operator to determine. But you can at least make them take the first step.
Lord May of Oxford
This is a sensitive and difficult issue but I find myself in agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Lester, and others that the downside of doing this outweighs the upside. However, it was also my impression—which may just reveal that I did not understand what was going on—that quite a significant recourse is already given by what we were discussing under Clause 5.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
Not if the complainant does not know the name of the author of the posting.
Lord May of Oxford
No, but they complain to the people who should not have allowed it to be posted. That is my understanding, which means there is a responsibility—
Lord May of Oxford
I apologise. I forget the curious thing that you must stand up, thus rendering the microphone less effective. Be that as it may, I thought that there was some recourse and a real encouragement to the person running the thing not to permit really bad behaviour, because there is that recourse against the person who owns the website.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
With respect, there is no recourse against the person who runs the website if they take the posting down. However, by that time, the damage to the complainant will have been done and will have reverberated around the world—and there will be no redress.
Lord May of Oxford
Did I misunderstand the part of Clause 5 that said there was a responsibility on the owner of the website not to permit outrages of the kind that the noble Lord just referred to? If there is, can you not sue?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I am afraid that the noble Lord did misunderstand.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town
This is an interesting one, particularly in respect of the use of the word “unattributed”, as opposed to “anonymous”. It seems to signify that you are looking at attribution, which may be to a group or something like that, and that it is about trying to find out who was responsible for this without necessarily naming them; I mean that it is about method, not necessarily the actual name. We are interested in the Government’s response to this, because it clearly highlights an ongoing view that what we do not want from the Bill—any more than we want what the noble Lord, Lord Lester, is afraid of—is to give a signal that the more anonymous the better.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am grateful for this debate. The more I listen to it, the more I realise that we are, consciously, going into unknown territory. As I said previously, we are taking a different approach from that we took 10 years ago with the Communications Bill, when the Government of the day, and Parliament as a whole, took the view that the internet should be left free for us to get the full benefits. Within the judgment of history that was probably the right thing to do. It allowed the massive growth of initiative and new companies and services, and the liberating effect I referred to for the individual citizen.
The most hopeful thing that I have heard today, because I respect his knowledge of this sector, is my noble friend Lord Allan’s comment that we should not follow a counsel of despair. That gives me great encouragement. There are, as has been said a number of times, those who say that the internet is beyond any single parliament or jurisdiction to control, and it is a global phenomenon that will just roam free. I do not believe that there are any man-made institutions which cannot be brought within the realm of governance, particularly democratic governance.
We face balances and different arguments. I have been in debates where the whistleblower has been the hero. The noble Lord, Lord May, has pointed out that, quite often when talking or trying to criticise, it is the powerful vested interests—not just the internet companies—that will try to close down criticism by intimidating the means of that information being disseminated. I am determined to try and get this right, but I am aware that we are going into areas where there are upsides and downsides to whatever we do.
I know of my noble friend Lord Phillips’s lifelong commitment to defending the rights of the little man, but I fear overlegislating in this area. We are just emerging from a debate in which it was suggested that our libel laws have become a bonanza for lawyers. I am worried that, in the concern to deal with some of the problems that have been raised, we might create another bonanza for lawyers. I sincerely believe that the contribution of lawyers to this debate has been extremely helpful, but I ask for time to study this debate in Hansard. As my noble friend Lord Phillips said, we have spent nearly five hours on this clause, and rightly so. It is the one in which we are going into untested territory. I want to see how it stands up to the criticisms that have come from both sides.
Amendment 30 goes much wider than issues of defamation, and is therefore beyond the scope of the Bill. It relates to broader issues concerning how the internet could and should be regulated. However, even if this new clause were to be limited only to defamatory material, it has been suggested that there has always been a tradition of being able to publish comment under pseudonyms or anonymously. My noble friend Lord Mawhinney has suggested that we should try to build some change in that culture, so that people are willing to put names to their criticism, and that that is a way forward. However, the practice is widespread. Like my noble friend Lord Lucas, I quite often go on to sites about hotels and restaurants where you get the most insulting comments about the levels of service, and sometimes they are very helpful when you are making your decision. It is also true that in the vast majority of cases it is entirely unproblematic; the hotels and restaurants live with the good and the bad, and leave it to common sense.
My noble friend Lord Mawhinney said that this was a probing amendment. It has produced strong arguments on both sides. I would like to study this issue. I also take the point about the consultation. The paper that noble Lords have received is not going to be very different from the consultation, but I understand the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, that he would like to join the game as well. I am going to look at what we can do in that respect.
It is obvious that we have to get this into better shape by Report. We have only four or five months until the end of this parliamentary year and, at the pace that we are going, we will need every day of that. I will take this amendment away in the probing spirit in which it has been moved; indeed, I will take the whole debate away. I have already agreed bilateral discussions on specific issues of concern with a number of colleagues, but I will see if there is some other way of bringing together a fuller debate on the contents and direction of the guidance. In that light, I hope that my noble friend will agree to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Mawhinney
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his helpful response. I would like to start where he finished. I particularly welcome the fact that he said that after he had given it serious consideration, he would produce something relatively definitive by Report. That is absolutely right, and it is extremely helpful. If I have learnt anything about this issue, it is that if we get it right in one go, we will be lucky rather than seriously impressive. That means something reasonably definitive on Report, which would allow for a second bite of the cherry at Third Reading, were that to prove necessary. I welcome what he has said, and I encourage him to continue with that thought.
We have had an interesting debate. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Phillips; part of our experience as a committee was that it was hard to find people to identify with the little man. The organisations were well organised, powerful, articulate and pressured, so part of our work was always to try for the elusive balance that we have talked about today. He has helped us enormously, as did the suggestion from my noble friend Lord Lucas about some sort of intermediate step, and I hope that he will think further on that.
I admit to being surprised that the Joint Committee should have taken China into consideration, and I apologise to those who feel that we were too constricted in our view. I have never been called a little Englander, nor even a little Irelander, so I apologise. I understand the point that my noble friend Lord Lester, was making, but I have to be honest and say that this is complicated enough without worrying what other countries are going to use as an excuse if and when we come to a judgment. That is not meant to be in any sense a little Englander type of comment.
At the end of the day, people’s reputations are on the line. We have already established that the cost of trying to get behind anonymity or lack of attribution goes against one of the principles of the work that the Joint Committee did, the work of which is shared by Members on all sides of this Committee. I thank my noble friend for his response and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
My Lords, that was the first time I have moved an amendment, so I hope you will excuse me.
This is an important amendment in an important Bill, particularly for scientists, engineers, doctors and writers, who approached me to take up the issue, particularly regarding the internet when used in a rather specialised way by these organisations. I have met many engineering and science institutions, whose membership comes to around 450,000 people, and on whose behalf they speak. I was also contacted by the coalition of Sense About Science, the Penn Club and the Index on Censorship.
This Bill offers legal protection, and in this clause there is emphasis on the peer-review process, which as a scientist and former editor I am very familiar with. I am also familiar with the fact that many scientists and engineers who are involved in public debate use the internet. The internet that they use is regulated by the institutions involved. We are talking about a much narrower brief; I do not know whether these people count as “little people” as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, but they are pretty important people and there are quite a lot of them.
This clause refers to the words “scientific or academic”, and I understand from earlier discussions that this includes engineers, medics and technologists. The amendment proposes that the privilege enjoyed by peer-reviewed articles should be extended to websites controlled and edited by chartered organisations and professional bodies. It attempts to build upon the current system, which is practical and financially supported.
The Institution of Civil Engineers, of which I am an honorary fellow, having studied engineering as a student, and the Institution of Structural Engineers have highly regulated websites on which people can make comments about, for example, a structure such as a bridge or some machinery. Those comments are then edited very vigorously, they talk to their lawyers so that they will not be defamatory or cause any difficulty and then they put the comments on their website, so it is a highly controlled system. They would welcome a clause along these lines, because they would then spend less time talking with their learned friends and would perhaps save money. They feel that this clause would put what they already do into practice or into a legal framework, which is a good way to proceed.
Some noble Lords have said in discussions this afternoon that we do not need this because it happens already. This is an example where things are happening already but they could work better and more effectively. Some people wrote to me from some institutions to say, “We’re not doing this very much; this would enable us to provide a better service to our members, who are very worried about a slightly increasingly litigious world”.
I will go through the clauses and will read each clause, as that will make it easier to understand. Clause 1 as amended would read:
“The publication of a statement in a scientific or academic journal or on a website edited and controlled by a chartered professional or learned body (a ‘recognised website’) is privileged if the following conditions are met”.
In a sense, some of the work has been done for this Parliament by the Privy Council procedure of providing chartering to professional bodies. Some of these professional bodies, of course, may be in considerable conflict with other professional bodies. The chiropractors, for example, are now a chartered body, and not all other scientific bodies are entirely in agreement with what they do. Nevertheless, this could still be within that framework.
The first condition, as we read this,
“is that the statement relates to a scientific or academic matter”.
“Scientific”, as I commented, includes engineering, technological and medical matters. If my amendments were accepted, subsection (3) would read:
“The second condition is that before the statement was published in the journal or on the recognised website an independent review of the statement’s scientific or academic merit was carried out by … the editor of the journal or recognised website, and … one or more persons with expertise in the scientific or academic matter concerned”.
If my amendments were accepted, subsection (4) would read:
“Where the publication of a statement in a scientific or academic journal or on the recognised website is privileged by virtue of subsection (1), the publication in the same journal or recognised website … is also privileged if”—
and then there are three conditions, the third of which is added by my amendment—
“the assessment was written by one or more of the persons who carried out the independent review of the statement; and … the assessment was written in the course of that review”—
and—
“the assessment was written by one or more persons with expertise in the scientific or academic matter concerned and was approved by the editor of the journal or recognised website”.
As I understand it from these institutions, this is all quite a rigorous process. Subsections (5) to (8) are also modified in that way.
This amendment is in the spirit of the clause, but it would extend it and would certainly be very much welcomed by these institutions.
Lord May of Oxford
I agree with all of this. It is very good and I want to do something, if I am allowed, that is probably improper. There are two issues in Clause 6 that I would like to have clarified, but I did not see the need to put down an amendment merely to raise the issue. Clause 6(6) says:
“A publication is not privileged by virtue of this section if it is shown to be made with malice”.
Am I correct that the word “malice” has a fairly explicit legal meaning? Anybody familiar with the academic world will know—
Lord May of Oxford
I can give the Committee many examples. One that does not reflect directly on me was during the GM controversy, when there was an experiment by Pusztai that claimed to show that GM foods killed rats. The Royal Society did a review of it that said that these experiments were so flawed,
“in many aspects of design, execution and analysis”,
that no conclusion could possibly be drawn. I have a sneaking sympathy for poor Mr Pusztai. He was a sad but well intentioned little man who did silly things. I am sure that he felt that that quote was malicious. I would like to be reassured that there is a legal sense to “malice” that means “consciously unkind”, as it were. If these amendments had been in place, Nature would have saved £1.5 million fighting a simple case.
When Clause 6 says,
“relates to a scientific or academic matter”,
I take it that that means that, by definition, everything in the journals is of a scientific or academic matter. Often they will be opinionated editorials about issues of interest to the academic community. I thought that I would raise those issues rather than trying to grab someone afterwards.
Lord Mawhinney
My Lords, I support the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton. Were I surrounded by the Joint Committee, it would be in agreement with my wanting to do so. I say to the noble Lord and, indeed, to my noble friend that the definition of “recognised” may need to be examined a little further and tightened just a little more, not least bearing in mind the point that the noble Lord, Lord May, has just made, but that is relatively straightforward. The principle seems to be a good one, in line with what we in the committee produced, and I commend the noble Lord.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am slightly sad that this privilege should not be extended to the Daily Mail, if one can imagine how that would work. I am concerned that the definition of “journal” should be wide enough. There are a lot of what might be called open-access journals now, rather than just the ones that are paid for, and I find them much more useful because I can actually get to read what is in them rather than being asked to pay £20 a time to see if what is in there is of interest to me. As the amendments point out, there are a number of websites that serve very similar functions, where intense discussions take place.
Even with regard to the Bill, how much does the word “journal” cover? Would it include Scientific American, for instance, or similar publications? At what point does something stop being a journal and start being a magazine or a publication that is ineligible under this part of the Bill?
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I support the direction of travel that the amendment proposes, but this is not yet a complete process. Let me explain. I had the benefit of a long engagement with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in the early stages of the evolution of this amendment, and I gave him my views on this issue, which were quite strong. My understanding was that the purpose of the early amendment that was put to me was to create an environment in which there could be a debate or dialogue on an issue of controversy, in the public domain and in a moderated fashion, but which would attract privilege.
I expressed my concerns to him about that as an idea, and I summarise them in this fashion: while I agree that there needs to be the sort of debate among scientists, technical people and academics that the noble Lord, Lord May, robustly describes regularly to us, to the benefit of our deliberations, I am not entirely sure that it is in the interests of everyone who is affected by that for it be taking place in public. To give an example off the top of my head, if someone had concerns, based on good technical analysis and engineering understanding about the braking system of a mass-produced motor vehicle, then if I were a shareholder in that firm I would be very unhappy if that debate took place in the public domain before it was settled. I would be equally unhappy if we as legislators allowed that public debate to have privilege, because one could guarantee that no one would buy that motor vehicle while that debate was taking place and it could ruin a business. I am sure that others can think of many other examples that would be entirely inappropriate. So I have reservations about that.
However, if the amendment is not seeking to generate that sort of debate or a forum for that sort of debate and to allow it to attract privilege, and I do not hear that it is, there is now an interesting evolution of the peer-reviewed statement in scientific and academic journals that Clause 6 was designed to create the opportunity for, and to allow there to be privilege. It could properly reflect the changing, modern environment that we live in, where there is the possibility that the organisations that have been given this role, if they all accept it, could provide an opportunity for healthy debate and discussion—an appropriate point in the public domain that would aid academic consideration, and which would aid technical and scientific discussion. I have a number of problems with that and I do not think that we should conclude our debate on this issue at this stage. I hope that the Minister will approach this in the way in which he approached Clause 5 and say that the Government will take this away and think about it.
My understanding of Clause 6 is that it depends on the fact that what is published in scientific or academic journals—they could be e-journals—is entitled to privilege because it is peer reviewed. It does not reach the public, a wider audience, until a controlled discussion has taken place among those people qualified to do so. People who work at that level in a discipline are used to reviewing each other at peer level. We have significant confidence in them. Those of us who do not have the expertise in particular disciplines rely on them heavily as regards what, for example, the BMJ, will allow to be published.
If another institution, or a set of institutions—for example, the institutions identified by these amendments —is willing to take on the responsibility of that level of peer review before it allows these statements to be published, I am entirely in agreement. If that generates a controversial debate, we should consider whether that debate started by a peer-reviewed assessment should attract a level of privilege. I do not know whether other Members of the Committee will share my view that this is a really interesting idea but that it needs a lot more work. I am not in a position to do that significant amount of work but the one question that I ask the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is: what is the equivalent of this addition of peer review? We on these Benches could not support a view on an issue of controversy, which potentially could be defamatory, being exercised in a privileged environment just because it was a view held among technically gifted people, scientists or academics. I think that it could be just as damaging.
Lord Mawhinney
Listening carefully to what the noble Lord, Lord Browne, has said, would it be fair to summarise that he is saying that further work needs to be done on the definition of the word “recognised”?
Lord Browne of Ladyton
With respect to the noble Lord—I am always anxious to agree with him because of the role that he played in relation to the formation of this area of policy—it may be my fault, although I am not sure whether it is my accent or the content of what I am saying. Perhaps I have not explained myself well enough.
The noble Lord’s summary is part of my concern, although I have a broader concern. In the light of the hour and the amount of time that we have already spent on this matter, and the fact that I suspect that we will find time to get back to this in more detail—perhaps offline, as it were, from the Committee—I will not lay out all the detail of my concerns about this. I have a number of them and that is one of them. My fundamental concern is that there is a hurdle to overcome before publication in the clauses as drafted: peer review. I am not entirely sure that, if we expand it into statements that are published on websites belonging to those other institutions, those statements will have the same imprimatur of peer review before they are published. If we could find a way to do that, I would be happy to support the proposal but it is complicated.
Lord Bew
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, for putting forward this amendment, and I am very sympathetic to his efforts. However, the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, has asked one question and I will ask two questions in the same vein. This is just for reassurance, because I think that we understand that there could be great benefit from this amendment, and a powerful case has been made.
First, the noble Lord knows this world and the world of academic journals. Is he sure that the person editing a website for a chartered professional association is necessarily of the same calibre as the person editing a peer-reviewed academic journal? The second question is related, and perhaps more profound: is he sure that there is the same requirement for qualified privilege as there is in certain areas for academic journals, where there clearly is a severe chilling effect? The questions are in the same vein as those posed by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, but are in the vein of a very sympathetic interest in the proposal that the noble Lord has put to us. He is quite right to say that he is speaking entirely in the spirit of Clause 6. I would like to have a little more reflection on the detail.
Lord May of Oxford
It is perhaps a little more complicated than some people think. I am not sure that people understand that some journals are purely electronic. Some of the major journals—PLOS ONE, for example—are online, while most of the conventional, older journals offer an option to publish additional material electronically. More than half the journals are run by the same learned societies that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, is talking about, so it is not a juxtaposition of things that you can physically hold up and others. It is a seamless continuum, and the spirit of this definitely needs some refining to make central what has been said so clearly: that the issue is peer review.
Lord Mawhinney
My Lords, I will chip in again. When I responded to the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, I said that it was subject to further work being done on the definition of recognition. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Browne, said that he was talking about something different, but I think that he and I are basically saying the same thing. In light of this further conversation, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that if his amendment is saying that the existing people become the judge and jury for their own individual production, then I am not sure that that is in keeping with the spirit of what the Joint Committee said.
A redefinition, or indeed a definition, of “recognised” has to have some element of other people endorsing the view of those who want to produce. I encapsulated that in referring to a clearer definition of “recognition”. The noble Lord, Lord Browne, and I are probably saying much the same thing, and I hope that those who spoke to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, recognise that being in a learned society is not in itself sufficient. There has got to be further definition of the word “recognition”. However, subject to that, which does not seem to me to be an insurmountable problem, I still welcome the amendment.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, I strongly support this group of amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I am sure that all the academics at the University of Essex, of which I am chancellor, would be cheering on their stools if they could hear this.
I just have one question for my noble friend Lord McNally, which may seem rather an odd one. This is all built around scientific or academic journals. That seems an odd pairing to me because I would have thought that most scientific journals were academic journals, although not vice versa. If there is to be a careful consideration of the terminology in the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, which I think is necessary and indeed essential, the Minister might consider whether or not “scientific or academic” is the happiest wording, as if one excluded the other.
Lord McNally
My Lords, the more that I hear about academia from the noble Lord, Lord May, and about the law from other Members, I am glad that I am in such a straightforward profession as politics.
This debate, again, has been extremely helpful. I worry, as I think a number of contributors have, that if the concept of “journals” includes those online, there is a question of how and where it stops. That is why we have tried to consult on this issue. It is interesting that when the legislation was first put forward by my noble friend Lord Lester, he did not make any provision for the protection of scientific journals, but particular concerns were expressed about the impact of the threat of libel proceedings on scientific and academic debate. We therefore believe that the addition to the general protections offered by the Bill of a specific defence of peer-reviewed material is appropriate. Other aspects of the Bill and work associated with it, such as the serious harm test and actions on cost protection, will also help to support free speech in these areas.
Let us be clear: right from the start, I wanted to provide protection for genuine academic and scientific debate. I have to say to my noble friend Lord Phillips that “academic and scientific” is a term that is generally understood—it does not mean the Beano. People know one when they see one. Within that, there is also the important context that we are looking for genuine peer review, which, again, is understood. I worry, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Bew, does—I will also be interested in the response from the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to the specific questions—that we must not push the envelope too far on this, otherwise we will run into some of the problems that the noble Lord, Lord Browne, raised. We are right to be cautious.
As I say, the issue featured prominently in our discussions with the scientific community. We also held discussions with the editors of all the key journals to ensure that appropriate conditions were attached, so that the clause applied only where responsible peer-review process was used. We shared the relevant aspect of the clause with those editors to confirm that this was achieved.
Amendment 31 would extend the defence to peer-reviewed material on,
“a website edited and controlled by a chartered professional or learned body”.
We are concerned that this would make the defence too widely available. We believe that it is important to ensure that only bona fide publications with appropriate procedures are given the protection of the new defence. That is why we have focused the clause on scientific and academic journals, where there is a well established process for peer review. I can confirm that the existing clause would cover peer-reviewed material that was published by such a journal in an electronic form. However, a potentially wide range of bodies may fall within the categories proposed by the noble Lord, and we are concerned that this would extend the defence into areas where peer review is not a common practice. That may lead to the defence being available in instances where it is more likely that the peer-review process will not have been applied sufficiently robustly.
The other substantive amendment in this group, Amendment 35, would privilege any assessment of a peer-reviewed statement’s scientific or academic merit if it was written by one or more persons with expertise in the scientific or academic matter concerned and was approved by the editor of the journal or website. This would appear to be aimed at extending the defence to statements such as replies to or commentaries on peer-reviewed material without the requirement that they themselves be peer-reviewed. Again, we consider that this would extend the scope of the defence too widely.
I was asked a couple of specific questions. The noble Lord, Lord May, was worried about the meaning of “malice”. We would expect courts to use the same test as applied in other forms of qualified privilege; that is, a defendant would forfeit the defence if they could be shown to have acted with ill will or improper motive. On the points made by my noble friends Lord Phillips and Lord Lucas about the term “scientific and academic journal”, we believe that the term is widely understood and that a definition of “journal” is unnecessary.
I think that I have covered the points raised; indeed, I think that some of the most pertinent questions were addressed to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, who may take the opportunity to make a brief reply. However, as the noble Lords, Lord Browne and Lord Mawhinney, invited us to do, we will look at this matter. As I said in discussion with the noble Lord, Lord May, I genuinely want to get this legislation right for the scientific and academic community; indeed, it is one of the most important challenges for the legislation. I am certainly willing to examine whether we have got our definitions and our scope exactly right, and I welcome the debate that the noble Lord has provoked with his amendment. I ask him to withdraw it.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
I thank noble Lords for their very constructive response. I want to emphasise the respective memberships of the institutions which wrote to me. The Institution of Civil Engineers has 80,000 members; the Institute of Physics has 45,000 members; the Institution of Chemical Engineers has 35,000 members; the Institution of Mechanical Engineers has 100,000 members; the Institution of Engineering and Technology has 150,000 members; the Royal College of Physicians has 30,000 members; and the Institution of Agricultural Engineers has not so many.
I have published papers in the scientific literature and for those institutions, and I can tell your Lordships that the standard of refereeing in most of our engineering institutions is extremely high. There are excellent scientific journals, but there are an awful lot of scientific journals with peer review in them that are pretty poor. That is why I was surprised that the clause as originally drafted set no quality level for the journals; no quality level has been supplied. It is not as if these are journals of institutions. The quality level that I want to introduce for the websites—“chartered”—is a great deal higher than is the case for the journals.
Lord Hunt of Chesterton
Some—I apologise to the noble Lord, Lord May.
This is an extremely rigorous process, so I do not recognise the notion of dilution suggested by the noble Lord, Lord McNally. This is not a free-for-all. If one civil engineer writes a letter to a journal about, let us say, a bridge, it is an extremely serious matter. This is now done regularly without many court cases, but it would be better if it were in the legal framework. We would be building on an established tradition.
However, time has been running on. I am appreciative of the Minister’s constructive response. I should like to talk to the drafters, and I hope that this matter will come back. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
House of Lords
Introduction: The Lord Bishop of Coventry
Introduction: Lord Williams of Oystermouth
Thames Tideway Tunnel
(11 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Berkeley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what will be the costs to the consumer of the Thames Tideway Tunnel.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord De Mauley)
My Lords, for Thames Water’s 13.8 million domestic sewerage customers, the tunnel is estimated to have an average maximum annual impact on bills of £70 to £80 at 2011 prices. This includes the cost of financing the project. The exact profile and duration of the cost to customers continues to be analysed. Spread over several decades, bills could gradually be affected from 2014-15, with the maximum impact estimated from around 2019.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister, and glad that they are still looking at the finances. Does he agree that if Thames Water had paid a reasonable dividend appropriate to a utility for the past 12 years and Macquarie Bank had not taken £48 million a year on management fees, this project could have been funded out of Thames Water’s assets without any extra charge on the customers? Will he therefore instruct the regulator Ofwat to look at all this again—to look at alternatives such as a sustainable drainage system—so that customers can perhaps get a reduction in their fees rather than this horrendous increase?
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, Ofwat has ensured that the regulatory ring-fence in Thames Water’s licence was tightened following its acquisition by Macquarie. The ring-fence licence conditions on Thames Water already include a condition requiring Thames Water to ensure that its dividend policy will not impair the company’s ability to finance its functions. As for alternatives to the tunnel, studies have looked at all kinds of alternatives over the past decade but none has shown a viable cheaper solution that would simultaneously address the current sewer overflow problems within a decade, deliver value for money and meet environmental objectives.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, this project has been known about for decades, I imagine, but over the past 10 years Thames Water has paid out £3.5 billion to shareholders. Should it not have known that that sort of money should have been saved to provide this essential ring system in London? Why should every customer of Thames Water pay for this project? Would it not be better if Thames Water did not pay any dividends for the next 10 years at the rate that they paid in 2012, and that covered the whole of the cost of the new project?
Lord De Mauley
What an interesting suggestion, my Lords. The standard model in the water sector is for customers to pay the financing costs of the company’s capital expenditure on underground assets together with a charge to reflect expenditure required to keep them in a serviceable state. I do not think that we would find investors if we were not able to finance it in this way.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford
My Lords, over the past two years Thames Water has paid out £650 million in dividends and £100 million in management fees. Can the Minister assure the House that Thames Water is not simply a private equity vehicle designed to save tax for its overseas investors at the expense of London customers and UK taxpayers, who are supposed to stump up for its infrastructure investment?
Lord De Mauley
Yes, my Lords; Thames Water pays its tax. All UK companies are allowed to claim capital allowances when they spend on capital investment programmes. Tax relief is allowable against the capital expenditure incurred with the aim of encouraging investment by companies. Water and sewerage companies have significant capital programmes in comparison with their revenues. They therefore benefit from tax allowances proportionately more than others. HMRC remains vigilant in ensuring that companies operating within the UK pay the tax they are legally obliged to pay.
Lord Bradshaw
Does my noble friend believe that the people who privatised our utilities expected that within 10 years they would be in the hands not only of foreign administrations and foreign countries but actually of the Governments of those countries? We have denationalised here and renationalised from abroad. Surely the regulator should get a lot tougher on these people who are making absolute fools of people who have to subscribe increasing sums to the maintenance of essential services.
Lord De Mauley
My noble friend makes a fair point, my Lords, but we believe in free capital markets.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, does the answer to the noble Lord, Lord Bradshaw, mean that the Government are indifferent to the extent of foreign ownership of our critical national infrastructure? Are they indifferent to the possible implications of that?
Lord De Mauley
No, my Lords, we are not indifferent; we take these things very seriously. As I say, however, we believe in free access to our capital markets.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, has the noble Lord seriously considered whether he has given adequate answers to all the questions that have been asked in the last five minutes? Will he write, and put in the Library, a full letter on the considerations in the Government’s mind about where we go from here on all these matters?
Lord De Mauley
I cannot think of anything that I would like to expand upon but I will look at the record and, if there is anything, of course I will write.
Lord Bowness
My Lords, I apologise to my noble friend for not giving him advance notice of this question. My understanding is that properties not connected to mains drainage do not pay sewerage charges. By analogy, are those properties within the Thames Water area which have no physical benefit from this proposal actually liable to pay the charges, or should there not be the equivalent of what used to be described as differential precepts? I declare an interest as somebody who lives in a property that may be in that kind of position.
Lord De Mauley
My Lords, my understanding is that those who are not connected and not currently paying sewerage charges will not pay this charge. If that is not correct, I will write to my noble friend.
Lord Knight of Weymouth
My Lords, I, too, live in a property that may be affected by the construction of the tunnel and I, too, have not given advance notice of my question to the Minister.
Although I see no other option but to proceed with the project, I agree with my noble friend Lord Berkeley that the huge cost to the consumer is of great concern. How will the Minister ensure that, in the interests of consumers, there is proper parliamentary scrutiny—in this House and in the other place—of the cost, which may well rise, and of the funding vehicle, which has now, by ministerial answer, been guaranteed by the taxpayer?
Lord De Mauley
That is a fair point. Anything that needs to come to Parliament will, of course, do so. If there is anything else that the noble Lord and I think it would be appropriate to debate, we will put it up for debate.
NHS: Liverpool Care Pathway
(11 years, 7 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Knight of Collingtree
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what procedures will be adopted in carrying out the NHS inquiry into the Liverpool Care Pathway announced on Monday 26 November 2012.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, as we announced today, the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, has been appointed to oversee the review of the Liverpool care pathway and is currently determining its procedures. The review will examine how the Liverpool care pathway is used in practice, and will look in particular at the experience of the Liverpool care pathway by patients, families and health professionals, as well as considering the role of financial incentives in its use. It will report by the summer.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree
My Lords, there will be very much satisfaction at the appointment of the noble Baroness concerned as chairman. Does my noble friend agree that this inquiry was set up following the receipt of more than 1,000 complaints from relatives of patients who had been put on the Liverpool care pathway, and that the Government are not ignoring their complaints, as those about Stafford were avoided some time ago? Is it acceptable that, out of 130,000 people who die yearly on the pathway—everyone who is put on it—only half are told that they are being put on it and neither they nor their relatives are allowed to know or complain that that is the case?
My noble friend the Minister is very widely respected for his fairness. Will he now consider attending a meeting sponsored by five Peers and a Bishop and addressed by two professors, two consultants and patients’ representative, to hear the case against what is going on?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for her endorsement of the appointment of the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, whom the whole House greatly respects. She is right that after seeing recent criticisms in the media and having received a great many letters in the department, the Minister of State for Care and Support, my honourable friend Norman Lamb, held a meeting at the end of November with patients, families and professionals, both supporters and opponents of the Liverpool care pathway. At that meeting, he announced his decision that there would be an independent chair to oversee a review of the experience of the pathway. However, it is important to emphasise that the pathway itself has not been called into question but, rather, how it is being used. My noble friend is right to draw attention to the concerns around the lack of engagement with patients and their families, which is often a feature of the complaints received.
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, does the Minister accept that the principles of the Liverpool care pathway, when precisely defined and carefully applied at the right time and in the right circumstances, make an invaluable contribution to the care and passing of individuals with terminal illness? In light of the circumstances referred to by the noble Baroness, does he further accept that the unfortunate recent publicity has been the result of circumstances in which those principles have been misinterpreted and misapplied?
Earl Howe
Yes, my Lords. The LCP, if I may use the abbreviation, is internationally recognised good practice as a framework for managing care for people in their last few days or hours of life. It was created as a way of bringing hospice-style care into hospitals and helping staff who may not be palliative care specialists to provide appropriate care to allow people to die in comfort and with dignity. However, we have consistently made clear in guidance for implementation that the pathway cannot replace clinical judgment and it should not be treated as a simple tick-box exercise. I am afraid that, from the complaints that have been received, that sometimes appears to be what has happened.
Baroness Browning
My Lords, I, too, welcome the appointment of the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger; I am sure that we all have confidence in her as chair of this review. Can my noble friend confirm that the terms of reference will specifically make sure that a direct comparison is made between what is appropriate in terms of the expertise and continuity to be found in the hospice movement and the rapid changes of staffing, including bank staff used in general wards of general hospitals?
Earl Howe
I am grateful to my noble friend for drawing attention to a very important point. It has always been emphasised in connection with the LCP that to ensure that it is used properly it is important that staff receive appropriate training and support, and that relevant education and training programmes are always in place. In view of the degree of staff turnover to which my noble friend refers, I am confident that the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, will have that fact in her sights.
The Lord Bishop of Exeter
My Lords, does the noble Earl agree that if there is to be full confidence in what is undoubtedly a useful clinical tool that has helped many thousands of people to experience better care in the last hours and days of their life, non-clinical priorities in the use of the pathway, especially financial priorities, must be eradicated, and every patient should be treated solely according to their needs? Does he further agree that it would be far better to link CQUIN payments to staff training in the use of the pathway, rather than the numbers of patients being placed upon it?
Earl Howe
My Lords, once again, I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger, will wish to look at that very issue. The CQUIN payment framework that the right reverend Prelate mentioned was designed to incentivise good practice, and the LCP is considered internationally to be best practice. In one sense, it is therefore logical that the two should be combined. It is equally important for me to emphasise that the Department of Health has not attached any set financial targets to the LCP; on the other hand, some commissioners in the NHS have introduced local incentives. The way in which those incentives have been applied should be the subject of close attention.
Baroness Jolly
My Lords, the Liverpool care pathway is widely used, but some care providers choose to use a slightly different pathway. Will my noble friend confirm that all similar pathways will be included in the inquiry led by the noble Baroness, Lady Neuberger?
Earl Howe
I will be happy to speak to the noble Baroness about that. I was not aware that she had that in mind. I do not think that there would be an objection on anyone’s part if she did, but it will really depend on the extent to which there is widespread concern about the use of those other pathways.
Health: HIV Strategy for England
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Collins of Highbury
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to publish a cross-departmental HIV Strategy for England, in line with the Political Declaration made at the United Nations General Assembly in 2011.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, tackling HIV remains a priority for the Government. We believe the way forward is to develop a framework that covers both HIV and broader sexual health issues. We therefore plan to publish a policy document on sexual health and HIV shortly.
Lord Collins of Highbury
I thank the Minister for that response. One issue that is obviously of big concern is testing. Half of the people diagnosed with HIV are diagnosed late. With the commissioning of HIV testing being highly fragmented under the new NHS arrangements in England, how will the Government ensure that HIV testing recommendations from NICE and the British HIV Association are implemented consistently across the country?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the new commissioning arrangements will allow each commissioning organisation to play to its strengths and will mean better services for patients. Local authorities will be able to link sexual health provision into other public health provision and other services such as family support and social care. HIV treatment is complex, specialist and expensive. That is why the NHS Commissioning Board will commission the NHS to provide treatment. During the White Paper consultation there was wide support for that. The key will be for local health and well-being boards and Public Health England to have a role in supporting integration at a local level to make sure that the commissioning of services is joined up in all parts of the country.
Lord May of Oxford
My Lords, the Minister will undoubtedly be familiar with the relatively recent and very thoughtful Select Committee report from this House urging specific measures aimed at reversing the regrettable rise in the incidence of new infections of HIV. Already one of those measures has been mentioned; not all of them are highly technical. Some of them address the fact that, in several studies, young people today show themselves to be much less well informed about sexually transmitted infection than in the past. Could the Minister assure me that these underlying problems outlined in that report will be taken account of in the proposed cross-departmental strategy and if not, why not?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the noble Lord is right to draw attention to the need for targeted prevention messages in this area. Following a competitive tender last year my department awarded the Terrence Higgins Trust a contract worth £6.7 million for three years. Known as HIV Prevention England, the programme targets gay men and African communities, the groups that remain the most at risk of HIV in the UK. That work includes promoting HIV testing through the Think HIV campaign; primary prevention messages, which we must get to the right audiences; and developing the evidence base on what works in HIV prevention. That DoH programme, I emphasise, is in addition to work funded by the NHS and local authorities.
Baroness Hussein-Ece
My Lords, the Minister will be aware of the links between HIV and tuberculosis, and of how important it is that when we talk about HIV we also talk about TB. Are there any plans in the strategy that is mentioned to include TB, given that cases of both HIV and TB are on the rise?
Earl Howe
My noble friend is absolutely right to mention the connection between HIV and TB. The complexities that arise from comorbidity of that order are fully taken account of in the approach taken by both the health service and local authorities to the testing and treatment of HIV patients. The individuals attending a TB clinic are offered and recommended an HIV test as part of their routine care. This is applicable to all patients irrespective of age. NICE has issued guidelines which recommend the use of a specialist test for people with HIV, and if the test is positive a clinical assessment will be performed to exclude TB and consider treating latent TB infection.
Baroness Gould of Potternewton
My Lords, is the Minister aware of a recent study undertaken on behalf of the British HIV Association on the relationship between women with HIV and domestic violence, which shows that half the women interviewed have shared a lifetime of what is called intimate partner violence—IPV? In the light of that evidence, can the Minister indicate what action is being taken by government to raise awareness of this very serious level of violence against women with HIV and, secondly, whether there will be any routine screening to find out the level of IPV among these women? Furthermore, does he agree that if we had a national strategy for HIV, surely issues such as this and things such as unemployment, as well as other areas, could be taken into account?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an extremely important issue about violence against women. There is a great deal of activity in my department designed to bear down on that and I should be happy to write to her about it. On the issue that she specifically alluded to at the end of her question, we think that, as most HIV is transmissible sexually, it makes much more sense to build that dimension into a sexual health strategy which embraces not only HIV but all transmissible sexual conditions.
Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, is the Minister aware that there are many commissioning bodies for various aspects of HIV, such as CCGs, a commissioning board, local authorities, community nurses and voluntary organisations? Does he therefore agree that it is most important to have some strict guidelines and a strategy so that there is not a muddle?
Earl Howe
The noble Baroness makes a very good point. I can tell her that the sexual health policy document, which we will be publishing shortly, will set out our plans for improving sexual health generally, as well as our plans for offering support to women facing unwanted pregnancy. It is an important document. It is crucial that we take the time to get it right and make it clear that, as she points out, all the commissioners in the system need to work together with the benefit of advice not only from the commissioning board but from local health and well-being boards at a local level.
NHS: Reconfiguration of Services
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what the implications are for the future reconfiguration of NHS services in the light of the decision by the Office of Fair Trading to refer the proposed merger of hospitals in Dorset to the Competition Commission.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and refer noble Lords to my health interests in the register.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, patients’ interests must remain the paramount consideration in any NHS reconfiguration, including merger. We expect the competition authorities to consider the costs and benefits of proposals and to make a final decision based on the balance of impact on patients.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, the noble Earl will recall that the Health and Social Care Bill was amended to emphasise the importance of the integration of services. This merger was designed to integrate services and to provide a higher quality of care in the hospitals concerned. Does he recognise that this intervention by the OFT, which knows virtually nothing about the health service, will send a signal throughout the National Health Service that the ideology of competition is graded as being more important than either the integration of service or the quality of service? Can we expect the Government to send a signal to the OFT that it should desist? Otherwise, this will cause great concern in the National Health Service.
Earl Howe
My Lords, the referral of this merger proposal by the OFT to the Competition Commission is not at all a result of the measures brought in by the current Government; it is a result of the provisions of the Enterprise Act 2002. Even if there had been no Health and Social Care Act last year, we would have found ourselves in this situation. This is the very first time that a proposed merger of two foundation trusts has raised competition issues and there is no doubt that the OFT would have had an interest whatever the situation. In the Act we avoided double jeopardy, whereby the Co-operation and Competition Panel, set up by the previous Administration, might have determined its view on this merger and then there would have been a second-guessing process by the competition authorities. We have avoided that and that is very positive. Aspects of this merger obviously impact on patients and patient choice, and it is right, in the judgment of the OFT, that scrutiny should be given to the matter.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, will my noble friend confirm that before the decision was taken to refer the proposed Dorset merger to the Competition Commission Monitor’s advice was obtained by the OFT, as it should have been pursuant to Section 79 of the 2012 Act? Is it right that in giving that advice Monitor’s duty was to have regard to the quality of healthcare services? If that is right, is this not an example of this part of the 2012 legislation working in precisely the way it was designed—putting patient care at the heart of decision-making in this difficult area of hospital mergers?
Earl Howe
I am grateful to my noble friend and I can give the confirmation that he seeks. Monitor’s advice was sought and obtained by the OFT. He is quite right that that it is one of the benefits from the Health and Social Care Act. In situations of this kind we expect Monitor and the NHS Commissioning Board to engage with the Competition Commission on FT mergers but before that with the OFT because Monitor, as a health-specific regulator, has the insight into the considerations that bear most closely on the interests of patients.
Lord Winston
My Lords, does the noble Earl agree that, whatever the explanation, the involvement of the OFT suggests an increasing privatisation of the health service? Given that the health service so often does not cost out individual treatments per patient very successfully, that raises the issue of competition between private providers in such areas as this. Would the noble Earl be kind enough to comment on that?
Earl Howe
I do not agree with the noble Lord. Competition issues arise within the health service and the matter in the noble Lord’s Question is specifically a health service issue. There are, of course, competition issues involving the independent sector and the charitable sector as well but that is not the focus here. It was the previous Government who recognised the benefits of competition for patients. Our attitude to it is very pragmatic. The key objective for commissioners is to ensure that patients receive the best possible services irrespective of whether they are from the public, voluntary or private sectors. It is for commissioners working with patients to decide where competition is appropriate. It is a means rather than an end in itself.
Earl Howe
I am aware of that issue. It is very much in the sights of Monitor as it conducts the fair playing field review which, as the noble Lord will remember, was the product of an amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, and passed in your Lordships’ House. The report that will ensue from that commitment by the Government will be published later this year and I am quite sure it will embrace the point mentioned by the noble Lord.
Business of the House
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
That Standing Order 40 (Arrangement of the order paper) be dispensed with on Thursday 17 January to allow the motion standing in the name of Baroness Hollis of Heigham to be taken before the motion standing in the name of Lord Smith of Leigh.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford)
I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, there are reports in the blogosphere that the Prime Minister has suspended Cabinet collective responsibility for the purposes of the Boundary Commission matters. Does this apply to consideration of the remaining stages of the Bill, following the extraordinary spectacle of Liberal Ministers voting against the Government’s measure last night?
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I assume that my noble friend meant to raise that question on the second Motion standing in my name. We are still on the first Motion. For the convenience of the House, I can take the matter early. The situation is that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, as leaders of their respective parties, have agreed that they will take different positions on this issue. That is in line with the approach that they have taken on a number of other specific issues. It does not affect collective responsibility for all other matters. Due to the specific agreement on this issue, it does not offend the doctrine of collective responsibility.
Business of the House
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
That Standing Order 46 (No two stages of a Bill to be taken on one day) be dispensed with on Wednesday 23 January to allow the remaining stages of the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill to be taken that day.
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Hill of Oareford)
I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
My Lords, as we are now on the correct Motion, perhaps I could ask my noble friend this question: when he says that it has been agreed that the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister will differ as regards collective responsibility, is that solely limited to the issue of boundaries, or does it apply to the remaining stages of this Bill?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I do not think that I have a huge amount to add to the first answer that I gave to my noble friend. The Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister have taken their respective positions and that does not offend against the principle of collective responsibility. That issue will now move forward.
Prisoner Voting
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
That it is expedient that a joint committee of Lords and Commons be appointed to consider and report on the draft Voting Eligibility (Prisoners) Bill presented to both Houses on 22 November 2012 (Cm 8499).
Disabled Persons’ Parking Badges Bill
Public Service Pensions Bill
(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Newby
Lord Newby
My Lords, this group of amendments is concerned with the recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, that each public service pension scheme should have an advisory group.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Anelay of St Johns)
My Lords, we are joined seamlessly at the hip—my noble friend Lord Forsyth will be pleased. On this occasion, I hope that noble Lords will feel it right to leave the Chamber quietly so that the aficionados of the pensions Bill can continue with their work.
Lord Newby
My Lords, as I was saying, this group of amendments is concerned with the recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, that each public service pension scheme should have an advisory group. Although these have always been dealt with administratively, we have listened to concerns raised in another place and proposals from stakeholders. As a result, we have decided to make these groups plain on the face of the Bill.
Amendment 45 introduces a new clause to require scheme regulations to establish a scheme advisory board. The central purpose of the scheme advisory board will be to consider and advise on the desirability of future changes to the schemes. The board will advise the responsible authority on any matter that it asks the board to consider, whether wide-ranging or focused on a single issue. The board’s role will supplement, rather than replace, the role of other persons and bodies in responding to consultations under Clauses 11, 19 or 20.
The scheme advisory boards may play an additional role in the locally administered police, fire and local government schemes. In those schemes, the board may also advise the scheme managers and pension boards when such advice is requested or on their own initiative. Subsection (2) provides that the board can advise them on the effective and efficient administration of the scheme, any connected scheme and any pension fund that relates to them.
This amendment is in light of proposals that employer and employee representatives have put forward in respect of the local government scheme in England and Wales. While the precise role will be a matter for scheme regulations, we envisage that the locally administered schemes will want to provide for the advisory board to offer central support to scheme managers. That advice is likely to cover matters such as best practice and ensuring consistent approaches to the management of the schemes.
The advisory board will identify policy and operational issues that need to be resolved, either by better practices at a local authority level or perhaps through changes to scheme regulations or guidance. In turn, the advisory board will be able to advise the relevant parties on how changes should be made to improve the management and administration of the schemes and their pension funds. For example, there will almost certainly be an advisory board role to agree and advise on the interpretation of the legislative requirements—potentially around co-commissioning of expert advice and systems—and the co-ordination and co-commissioning of services. It is likely that, for the funded local government scheme, it will monitor fund performance across the pension funds. The employer and employee representatives in that scheme envisage a role to support scheme managers and pension boards to improve fund management across the scheme. These amendments allow for that.
The scheme advisory board will not have a separate role in advising the scheme managers and pension boards in the nationally administered schemes. That is not needed in those schemes. Unlike the locally administered schemes, the scheme manager and responsible authority will be the same person. Importantly, the amendments maintain a clear separation between the advisory board’s policy role and the scheme manager and pension boards’ responsibilities for the management, administration and governance of the scheme. The noble Lord, Lord Hutton, highlighted the importance of this separation of roles in his report.
Finally, the amendment requires that scheme advisory board members must not have a conflict of interest that could prejudice the way they undertake their role. This does not prevent a scheme member, or an employer or employee representative, being a board member. Those are not interests that would prejudice the way they undertake the role—indeed, they are instead interests that support such an undertaking. I commend these amendments to the Committee.
Baroness Donaghy
My Lords, I want to speak to Amendment 45. The Local Government Association and the relevant unions welcome this amendment as it ensures an effective separation of responsibilities for boards at local level and at national level, as was required. While it is a positive step, a concern for the LGA and the unions is the scope of the role of the board as contained in the amendment, particularly the nature of the advice which the scheme advisory board can offer. The current wording of Amendment 45 restricts this advice to that of desired changes to the scheme. The LGA and unions believe that the introduction of a scheme advisory board offers the potential for advice, not only on scheme changes but also other areas including scheme governance, technical advice and cost management. Will the Minister comment on this?
Lord Hutton of Furness
My Lords, I briefly add to the welcome that my noble friend has given to this amendment. I am very pleased the Government have brought forward this amendment; as the Minister has said, it is in line with my report and its recommendations and so I welcome it unreservedly.
I have one question that the Minister may be able to answer; I hope he will forgive me for being a little technical. I have noticed there is a different definition of conflict of interest in his new clause to that in Clause 5. The definition in Amendment 45 does not include any membership of a connected scheme; is that a deliberate change in the definition or does he have further thoughts about the matter?
Lord Newby
My Lords, on the noble Baroness’s question about the broader scope for the local authority scheme, I direct her to subsection (2) of Amendment 45, which states:
“Where the scheme manager of a scheme mentioned in subsection (1) is a local authority or a committee of such an authority, the regulations may also provide for the board to provide advice (on request or otherwise) to the scheme manager or the scheme’s pension board in relation to the effective and efficient administration and management of … the scheme”.
That goes beyond simply the scheme content. It relates to the way that the scheme is run as well. There is already a much broader role in respect of the local authority scheme than for the nationally administered schemes.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, will not mind if I write to him to answer his question.
Lord Newby
“Scheme advisory board
(1) Scheme regulations for a scheme under section 1 which is a defined benefits scheme must provide for the establishment of a board with responsibility for providing advice to the responsible authority, at the authority’s request, on the desirability of changes to the scheme.
(2) Where the scheme manager of a scheme mentioned in subsection (1) is a local authority or a committee of such an authority, the regulations may also provide for the board to provide advice (on request or otherwise) to the scheme manager or the scheme’s pension board in relation to the effective and efficient administration and management of—
(a) the scheme and any statutory pension scheme that is connected with it, or(b) any pension fund of the scheme and any connected scheme.(3) A person to whom advice is given by virtue of subsection (1) or (2) must have regard to the advice.
(4) The regulations must include provision—
(a) requiring the responsible authority—(i) to be satisfied that a person to be appointed as a member of the board does not have a conflict of interest, and(ii) to be satisfied from time to time that none of the members of the board has a conflict of interest;(b) requiring a member of the board, or a person proposed to be appointed as a member of the board, to provide the responsible authority with such information as the authority reasonably requires for the purposes of provision under paragraph (a).(5) In subsection (4)(a) “conflict of interest”, in relation to a person, means a financial or other interest which is likely to prejudice the person’s exercise of functions as a member of the board (but does not include a financial or other interest arising merely by virtue of membership of the scheme).
(6) In this Act, a board established under this section is called a “scheme advisory board”.”
Lord Eatwell
“Pension policy groups
(1) The Treasury shall make directions providing for the establishment of a pension policy group for each scheme established under section 1.
(2) The pension policy groups will consider and advise on proposals to make significant changes to scheme regulations.
(3) Treasury directions under subsection (1) shall establish a single pension policy group relating to all schemes for local government workers.”
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, this also refers to administrative matters concerning particular pension schemes. The amendment would implement my noble friend Lord Hutton’s recommendation that pension policy groups should be established for each scheme at national level. To quote my noble friend’s report, he said that,
“even if all schemes have a pension board in future, there will still be a need for separate pension policy groups to consider at national level major changes to scheme rules”.
Many schemes already have such groups or bodies at national level, such as the National Health Service and Civil Service pension scheme governance groups, the teachers’ pensions committee, the Police Negotiating Board, the Firefighters’ Pension Committee and so forth. Part of the role of these groups would, as my noble friend recommended, be to ensure that information about key proposals for change and related costs are publicly available. It is very important to maintain confidence in these proposals to ensure good relations with scheme members and the smooth implementation of any changes.
My noble friend’s report also notes that these existing bodies were often established as part of the consultation and negotiation machinery for handling pensions as an element of a remuneration package, and have member and employer representation as appropriate. The appropriateness of member representation would, we hope, be taken into account if this amendment is accepted and pension groups established.
When this issue was considered in another place, the Minister replied to my honourable friend Mr Chris Leslie, who put forward a similar amendment. Mr Sajid Javid said:
“We will give further consideration as to whether it would be necessary or appropriate for the Bill to provide for a scheme-level group for the local government scheme in England and Wales”.—[Official Report, Commons, Public Service Pensions Bill Committee, 22/11/12; col. 453.]
It was on the basis of that commitment by the Minister in the other place that my honourable friend withdrew his amendment.
I would like to hear from the Minister this afternoon the nature of the consideration given by the Government, which the Minister in another place committed the Government to, and why they have not brought forward their own amendment to place the position of pension policy groups in the Bill. After all, if the advisory measures that we have just passed are administrative measures and are in the Bill, these are also essentially administrative measures, as Mr Javid pointed out, and surely they should be in the Bill as well. I beg to move.
Lord Whitty
I fully support the amendment put down by the Front Bench. However, with regard to the arrangements for the Local Government Pension Scheme, would it not have been better if the Government had set out in one place the totality of the arrangements that were intended for the local government scheme, rather than attempt yet again to generalise the provisions to cover most of the public sector schemes? It is probably too late for the Government to do that; in which case, I hope that they will support my noble friend’s amendment.
Lord Newby
My Lords, I am genuinely confused. In our view, Amendment 45 establishes pension policy groups. I do not know what the noble Lord’s Amendment 46 will do that our Amendment 45 does not. What is the function of his groups that goes beyond the functions of our scheme advisory board? In tabling this amendment, we thought that we had done exactly what my colleague in another place suggested, which was to take it away and bring forward proposals that did what the noble Lord wanted. My view was that our amendment not only does what the noble Lord wants but goes rather further, in providing for the scheme advisory board to advise the responsible authority on any proposed change in the scheme regulations, not just significant changes.
Lord Eatwell
Perhaps I might respond to the point that the noble Lord has just made. I think that he is being a bit obtuse. Amendment 45 refers to an advisory board to be established for each scheme; it does not refer to general national boards, which would cover a range of schemes that may be within a particular area of concern. This is a different animal. If he thinks that it is the same, it would have been enormously helpful if he had made it clear when he introduced the amendment, which he failed to do.
As I read this, the scheme advisory board refers only to defined benefits schemes. We know that there a small number of defined contribution schemes. Why are they left out? Amendment 45 also states that:
“Scheme regulations … must provide for the establishment of a board”,
which suggests a board related to each scheme, not the overall national bodies referred to in Amendment 46.
Lord Newby
Perhaps I may quote the noble Lord’s Amendment 46:
“The Treasury shall make directions providing for the establishment of a pension policy group for each scheme”.
That is what Amendment 45 says. What is the difference?
Lord Eatwell
Perhaps we are arguing over the definition, but it seems to me that the whole issue of the policy boards was that they were national boards. If we look at the actual boards that have been established, they are national boards, which have a national overview. If that is what was meant by Amendment 45, I am very happy. However, it would have been enormously helpful if the Minister had said so when introducing his amendment.
Lord Newby
I apologise to the noble Lord. There is no doubt in my mind that when government Amendment 45 says:
“Scheme regulations … must provide for the establishment of a board”,
for each scheme, that is the same definition of “scheme” as in Amendment 46. I am sorry if I did not make that clear to the noble Lord. I made in error the assumption that it was relatively straightforward.
Lord Eatwell
“(3A) A scheme under section 1 which replaces a defined benefit scheme may only be established as a defined benefits scheme.”
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, we come now to a series of amendments that have a common theme. We are all aware that the nature of the new structures defined in the Bill will involve a significant change in the terms and conditions of employees in the public sector and, to be frank, in many cases a deterioration of those terms and conditions. The Bill is the outcome both of the careful consideration made by my noble friend in his report and of the negotiations between the Government, the Local Government Association, the trade unions and so on, which reached a deal. What is extraordinary about the series of clauses we are about to consider is that one side of the deal has been put in the Bill—that is, the Government side—while the positions gained by the trade unions in the negotiations have been left out. Instead, those are supposed to be covered by the Government’s declaration that they have no intention of changing things. The Minister at the Dispatch Box can say quite happily that everything will be all right, even though this is a Bill which is intended to last for 25 years and no Administration can bind their successors.
Amendment 47 is characteristic of the problem to which I have just referred. The Government promised to provide public sector workers with defined benefit pension schemes in the form of career average pensions. That was the position put in place so skilfully by my noble friend. The striking thing is that the Bill does not honour that commitment because in Clause 7 it provides that schemes created under the Bill can be defined benefit, defined contribution or,
“a scheme of any other description”.
The only restriction on the type of scheme is that it cannot be a final salary scheme, and that of course was the important gain made by the Government in the deal. Where is the gain for the other side? This greatly undermines the security and confidence that public sector workers can have in their pension provision as they will know that this Bill allows the Government to renege on their promise to replace final salary schemes with career average defined benefit schemes. This amendment merely puts the Government’s promise on a statutory footing.
Noble Lords may think that I am exaggerating the concern that workers may feel about the possibility of the Government reneging on their side of the deal, but let me refer to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Newby, at Second Reading where he says that,
“although the Government have absolutely no intention to change the basis of the schemes, it makes sense for a piece of legislation which we hope has a long life itself to allow flexibility in the future if there are unforeseen changes”.—[Official Report, 19/12/12; col. 1585.]
It does not make sense to create a structure in the Bill that could result in a reneging by one significant side of the deal which has been made on people’s pensions for the next 25 years. If, at some future stage because of changes in economic circumstances, pressures on the public purse or whatever it might be, it became necessary to rethink the position established by my noble friend in his report and say, “I am afraid that because of changes in the world, we cannot even maintain career average defined benefit schemes”, it is not appropriate that the removal of career average defined benefit schemes could be done just on the nod.
It is surely important that if that were to happen the Government of the day should come back to Parliament and say that circumstances have changed and that they have to make another major change to public service pensions. When a Minister stands up and says that they have no intention of doing so, the immediate thought is that they are going to do it. As the Government have received the agreement of all parties to the change in the structure of defined benefit schemes, they should keep their part of the deal and have in the Bill that the removal of a defined benefit scheme will result in its replacement by a newly designed one. I beg to move.
Lord Newby
My Lords, this issue has been debated in another place on a number of occasions. There is a technical problem with the amendment over the concept of “replacing schemes”, which is pretty difficult to express in law. The key thing here is not the drafting but the principle that is raised by the amendment.
I am pleased to be able to add my assurances to those of the Chief Secretary and the Economic Secretary in another place. The Government have no—zero—intention of replacing the defined benefit schemes that have been negotiated with different scheme designs. Officials and members’ representatives have worked very hard to ensure that these reforms are sustainable. I am confident that they will last for a generation. The Government would not have invested so much time and energy in developing and legislating for the mechanisms in the Bill if we were intending to do anything other than retain defined benefit schemes. It is not the case that these mechanisms could be amended on the nod. If any future Government wanted to move away from the current defined benefit system, they would have to go through the procedures in Clause 20.
However, that is not really the point. As I have made clear, there is no possibility of this Government wanting to replace the defined benefit schemes that we have worked so hard to develop. We therefore feel that this amendment is unnecessary and I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, will withdraw it.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, that is extraordinary. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, has simply reinforced the argument that I made. We are expected to accept assertions about intentions in the future and that that is to be enough to cover this particular circumstance. I accept that there may be difficult technical issues in drafting but that is not the point, as the Minister himself said.
The point is that those members who have given up their final salary defined benefit schemes, and reached a deal that agrees to the Government implementing career average defined benefit schemes, should have confidence in the Government keeping their part of the deal. It should not just be the Minister standing here and this Government but Governments stretching over the next couple of decades doing this. That confidence would rest in the commitment to maintaining a defined benefit structure.
What I hear from the Minister is an unwillingness to do that. All he will do is say, “I will give assurances”. How can he give an assurance for someone standing at that Dispatch Box, whoever it may be, in 10 years’ time? He cannot, so the point of this amendment, ill drafted though it may be, is to ensure that any Government of the day changing the status of pension schemes for so many of the public servants who make our lives worth while and secure would have to come back to Parliament with primary legislation to change the nature of the scheme. I did not hear any commitment on the part of the Government to do any such thing and to include such security in their pension provision for those who serve us so well. I shall look at the drafting, but we shall certainly return to this on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Whitty
“( ) Where the change is negative, the order shall specify a zero increase.”
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I beg to move Amendment 48 and I support Amendments 49 and 50, which are in this group.
I appreciate that the Minister is a bit pained about this, but the need for this amendment is exactly the area to which my noble friend has just referred. There is distrust out there. In respect of this amendment, the distrust was blown out of all proportion by the sudden decision to replace RPI with CPI. I know that for those who run schemes it is quite a useful change as it has put funding on an easier basis, but for millions of pensioners it has reduced their pension expectations and caused considerable distress. What I am addressing here is the continued anxiety that the Government may once again change the terms on which it is based.
This amendment relates to the agreement to which my noble friend referred within the local government scheme between the local government unions and the LGA, which the DCLG and, by implication, the Treasury greatly welcomed. At the moment, the provision in this amendment is the understanding carried forward from the previous scheme in that agreement, which is not reflected in the Bill. Without the amendment, Clause 8 appears to allow the Treasury to change the revaluation again, more generally, from the CPI to another index that may in future be created by the Treasury. That would significantly alter the scheme costs and funding and the likely benefits for pensioners and future pensioners. The scheme design proposal in the agreement between the LGA and the trade unions clearly specifies that the revaluation of pensions shall use the CPI. In setting this revaluation, careful consideration was also given to the value of the accrual rate to be used and to the overall scheme design. In other words, it was a balanced package. The overall cost of the scheme contained that balance and should it change again, clearly those arrangements fall.
These designs were put forward to the employers and were agreed with the unions. There was a vote of union members and a whip around local government employers and, in the circumstances, there was overwhelming support for that agreement. The apparent ability, if we do not adopt this clause, of the Treasury to introduce changes in those arrangements and, in specific terms, to impose a decrease, in certain circumstances, in the accrued pension without consultation or agreement with those affected would seriously undermine the basis of that agreement. One of the benefits—undeserved, in one sense—of the Government’s approach to public service pensions in general was that it forced local government employers and unions to work out what they wanted for the long term. They have done so, and the Government endorsed that agreement. Part of that agreement is that there should be no such reduction and no change away from the CPI. Without provisions similar to those which my noble friend has moved and which are also included in very specific terms in this amendment, the issue of distrust will continue.
This is a relatively simple amendment, but I suspect from the puzzled look on the Minister’s face that he did not even think that the Bill, as it stood, would have allowed a negative adjustment, but it does; while the agreement between the unions and the LGA does not. I therefore hope, for clarification and for some reduction in the degree of distrust out there, that the Minister will be prepared to accept this amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Whitty has reinforced the issue that I raised in the discussion of the previous amendment. The Government seem to be content to make a deal and then put only their gains in the Bill and cover everything else by declaration of intent. Revaluation is absolutely central to the maintenance particularly of a career averaging scheme. A career averaging scheme requires a structure of revaluation whereby past earnings are revalued to take account of inflation, and earnings related to earlier years of pensionable service will be subject to revaluation year on year—over a very considerable timeframe now that we are looking at a career average as opposed to a final salary scheme, where revaluation is a rather simpler process.
As it stands, the Bill makes this extraordinary statement with respect to revaluation:
“For the purposes of making such an order the Treasury may determine the change in prices or earnings in any period by reference to the general level of prices or earnings estimated in such manner as the Treasury consider appropriate”.
In other words: any way they like. It does not refer particularly to RPI or CPI; it can just be any way they think appropriate.
The amendment tabled in my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Davidson would simply require the Treasury to act reasonably in determining the system of revaluation or the particular index structure that it identifies. This imports into the Bill the objective test of acting fairly. If the Treasury plans to be unreasonable and unfair, I would be grateful if the Minister would tell us. It seems to me that the very least we can ask is that the Government—not just this Government but future Administrations—should act reasonably in their selection of a particular index or revaluation scheme. That is the purpose of Amendment 49, which is grouped with the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Whitty.
Amendment 50 is, if you like, a belt-and-braces amendment. If the Minister were to accept that the Treasury will act reasonably, we would be quite happy to withdraw this amendment. If there is an arbitrary and unreasonable change in the methods of revaluation, the House has to approve such a change by an affirmative resolution. That is the sort of belt and braces standing behind this notion of reasonableness. However, if the Minister is content to say that the Treasury will act reasonably—which also imports, I am advised, the notion of acting fairly—we will be content to withdraw Amendment 50, which is there in case the Treasury is going to be unreasonable and unfair.
Baroness Donaghy
My Lords, I support this group of amendments. Lest my noble friend Lord Whitty and I are accused of running or producing the local government show, I want to deal with the Civil Service pension scheme in relation to this subject. According to the First Division Association, the current wording of the Bill does not reflect the discussions with the unions on revaluation, and seeks to extend the Treasury’s control far beyond that which is necessary and prudent. In the light of the FDA and others v the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and others in 2012, there is no need for this clause to be in primary legislation, as it is better suited to the scheme regulations that will lay down the parameters for each distinct scheme. There is no similar clause setting out the terms of the indexation of pensions in payment, even though that element is consistent across all schemes.
Fundamental to the agreement reached with the Civil Service was the understanding that, as with indexation of pensions in payment, revaluation would never be negative. If the relevant index was negative, as has been the case in recent history, the figure of zero is used and there are no increases or decreases applied. This is vital to the confidence of pension saving. Just as pensions in payment should not fall from one year to the next, a principle held by successive Governments, so pensions being accrued should not similarly be reduced. That reflects existing practice.
The FDA was not informed at any stage that the Government intended to deviate from that approach in the new scheme, and to do so now would be a fundamental challenge to the agreement. The continued inclusion in the Bill of a provision allowing negative revaluation to occur could have a profound effect on member behaviour, and specifically opt-outs. Scheme members are likely to react to an announcement that their whole pension is to be revalued downwards as a result of a negative figure for the consumer prices index in September; their response is likely to be one of mass opt-out. This is a hugely counterproductive approach for the Treasury to take on the pretext of share and risk, and the cost of management mechanisms already accounts for inflation—yet the Treasury wants additional cost to be accepted by members through this provision, which puts participation at risk.
Lord Newby
My Lords, the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, raises the important question about how negative growth should be treated in these new schemes. For the revaluation of active members’ accruals each year the Treasury will lay an order which will establish the changes in earnings or prices. Scheme regulations will then use these changes when applying the revaluation mechanism that they decided on in their proposed final scheme designs. This approach mimics the current arrangements for the indexation of public service pensions in payment; it allows for the agreed scheme-specific variations, but also ensures that the underlying growth measures are transparent and consistent.
As the noble Lords have pointed out, this approach allows for the growth measure to be negative. I am not looking bemused because I did not realise that that was the case; we have never sought to hide that fact. Before explaining the rationale behind this, I should point out that brief periods of negative growth are unlikely to impact significantly upon the total value of any pension, in much the same way that brief periods of unusually high growth would not. After all, pensions are built up over a long period. I should remind the Committee that negative growth is exceptionally rare. It is not the case that in recent times the preferred index has been negative; the CPI has never been negative. The Committee should also be aware that this clause impacts only on those scheme members who are in employment, building up their pensions. It does not impact at all on pensions in payment.
However rare negative growth might be, if scheme members can benefit from the upside risk of revaluation—which they will, since there are no plans to cap revaluation rates—it would be unfair, in our view, for them to be shielded from any potential downside risk. Furthermore, by imposing a revaluation floor, scheme costs would rise and could lead to a breach of the cost cap set out in Clause 11. This is because previous scheme valuations based on standard, long-term growth assumptions would have essentially underestimated the cost of future accruals. If this were the case, it would be likely to lead to an increase in members’ contributions or a reduction in the scheme accrual rate. This would be unfair to anybody reaching pension age when positive growth returns. Their benefits would have been reduced to pay for those people who benefited from the revaluation floor.
It is only right that public servants receive their defined benefit pensions so that they can plan properly for their retirement. However, there is no logic in going beyond this by protecting their accruing benefits from any brief periods of deflation before their pensions come into payment. I believe the approach of directly tracking growth—with no caps or floors—is the fairest way forward. As I have said before, the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, described the idea of an indexation floor as an “asymmetric sharing of risk”. We agree. It is fair to say that the Local Government Pension Scheme does not specify, as the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, implied, that there will be no decrease possible within the scheme rules. My understanding is that it says that the basis of revaluation would be CPI.
Another point was raised about legislating for the measure. I am now coming on to the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, about whether we should legislate for a specific measure and whether the Treasury is being given too much discretion. It has obviously been the case within the last generation that the basis of measuring prices has changed: it has changed from the RPI to the CPI. Our expectation is that the CPI would continue for a very long time, but these things sometimes change and we therefore believe that the best way of dealing with it is in primary legislation. Incidentally, I am not implying that if the measure changed, the pensions would change. It would simply be that the scheme rules would have to reflect any new measure that came into general use.
Moving on to Amendment 49, it is worth re-emphasising that the annual revaluation will set out the general changes determined by the Government’s preferred measure, which is CPI at the present time. As I said, it is necessary to give a limited amount of discretion to the Treasury to determine the measures, but we do not believe that this is going to be a likely or common thing. It is apparent from the wording of the clause that the estimates of changes must be made in a reasonable and appropriate manner. Any attempt to exercise this discretion in such a way that did not produce accurate and appropriate estimates, with reference to a reasonable index of prices or earnings, could be challenged by scheme members. Any decision which is not reasonable—even without this amendment—could be challenged by judicial review and struck down by the High Court, so we do not believe that this amendment would change the position or provide any additional protection to members.
Lord Eatwell
I have listened very carefully to what the Minister had to say. Of course, my amendment does not in any way restrict any necessary flexibility in the future in adjusting the manner in which revaluation takes place. However, it would—if I may use the term—sensitise the Treasury when making decisions of this sort to be aware that it is required to act in a reasonable and fair manner.
At the moment, the expression in the Bill provides the Treasury with such a carte blanche—
“estimated in such manner as the Treasury consider appropriate”—
that not even the words “reasonably” or “fairly” appear in the Bill. All we were trying to do was to avoid any rounds of judicial review over these matters and instead to ensure that when Treasury officials look at the calculation of an index—whether they are moving to geometric means or whatever they are doing—they consider very carefully whether this would be deemed reasonable in the public domain. The Minister himself has used the expression “reasonable and fair” in referring to what the Treasury will do, so surely this amendment has either no effect or a positive effect. We may disagree about whether it has no effect or a positive effect, but it does no harm and reinforces what the Minister has said. Surely, he would regard that as a good thing.
Lord Newby
My Lords, this question of putting “reasonable” into the Bill came up in a number of contexts on the Financial Services Bill. It would be perfectly possible to spatter this Bill, that Bill and every Bill with “reasonable”. The view that we took then, and which I take now, is that, of course, the Treasury always operates in a fair and reasonable way, but because it already has a broad legal obligation to do so it is simply unnecessary to put it into the Bill.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that. I am very glad that he is not bemused. Regrettably, his certainty and clarity in at least part of what he said does very little to assuage anxiety about the possible undermining of this scheme. Indeed, he has just said that the CPI is the preferred index at present. We have had the CPI for only 10 minutes. That reminds me of one partner in a long-standing relationship referring to the other as “my current boyfriend”. The Minister’s comments raise alarm, anxiety and uncertainty to an even greater extent than I presumed would be the case when we started this debate. I do not think that the noble Lord has answered that question.
On the question of whether past practice in the local government scheme has had a special provision for having a floor or negative valuation, certainly there has been no negative downward movement. When the new agreement was reached, the presumption was that that would not be the case in this measure either. Whether I need a clause on the front page of primary legislation is arguable. Nevertheless, it would have been helpful to seek an assurance that that understanding between the employers and the trade unions would stand. However, I will read the rest of what the noble Lord says. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Whitty
“Basis of valuation
(1) Within six months of the passing of this Act, the Government shall establish a review body to assess the appropriateness of current methods of valuation of a pension scheme’s liabilities and assets, and, if appropriate, to recommend changes that provide a broader base of valuation.
(2) The review body shall report within 18 months of the passing of this Act.”
Lord Whitty
My Lords, unfortunately, I have lost my notes at this point. I would describe this amendment as a probing amendment but it is actually more of a kite-flyer. It raises a very basic issue about how pensions are valued.
At the moment, certainly in relation to the local government scheme and probably others, a pension scheme has to be revalued every three years, which is a fairly substantial exercise based on all sorts of actuarial presumptions working out the value of the current assets, the value of future flows into and out of the scheme, and making an estimation of the future liabilities of the scheme. Those future liabilities can stretch over 80 years or so for future pensioners and, depending on the nature of the scheme, their dependants. Given that, it is important that it is properly reflected in the way in which that evaluation is carried out.
Lord Flight
I thank the noble Lord for giving way. Perhaps I might suggest that the real cause of the trouble is the IFRS accounting standards that require companies to disclose pension liabilities discounted at government gilt yields. That, in turn, has made companies pay contributions to cover the resulting alleged deficits. As the noble Lord points out, that has led companies to close their final salary schemes and to the false rate of interest resulting from QE. However, the real problem has been the uncritical acceptance by Governments of both persuasions of what I believe to be profoundly wrong IFRS accounting standards.
Lord Whitty
I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. I had not expected to agree with him this afternoon, particularly on subsequent amendments, but I agree with him on that issue. It is important to recognise that the acceptance of those accountancy standards is causing the problem. That is why the noble Lord, Lord MacGregor, in the speech to which I referred, suggested that the Bank of England, government actuaries and the accounting profession sat down and looked at those assumptions. Slightly more tangentially, the Treasury Select Committee in another place has also touched on this point.
I am suggesting that the Government take the initiative whereby, once the Bill is passed by this House in whatever form, they set up a review looking at whether the present conventions and the way in which these public service pensions are assessed are correct—although there is a wider application—and whether we are getting a seriously misleading impression that has a detrimental effect. As the noble Lord said, there has been a devastating effect on large numbers of private sector providers.
The amendment would have no effect on the rest of the Bill but would give the Government a lever to look at the issue again and provide for expert assessment, which, given that the newly formed schemes are not coming in until 2014, could come into place before the first revaluation of those schemes. I hope that the Government will take this matter seriously and have a look at it. I certainly hope that the House and anyone involved in looking at public and private pension schemes will recognise that this is a serious problem. I beg to move.
Lord Newby
My Lords, perhaps I might start by saying that the Government take the issue seriously, and it clearly is serious. However, I wish to set out the ways in which different public servants’ pension schemes are, and will be, valued when the Bill comes into effect.
As noble Lords are aware, the majority of the main public service schemes are unfunded. There is no pot of assets that can be valued; future benefit payments are paid out of general tax revenue. They need to be valued in a different way from funded schemes. It is important that these schemes are valued to ensure that contributions paid reflect the costs of employing staff. The Government therefore carry out valuations of unfunded pension schemes to determine the level of contributions. This is done using a number of assumptions and methodologies that adapt to changing circumstances and improvements in the method. These valuations will also be used to set the level of the employer cost cap. The assumptions used in these valuations take account of the risk profile faced by government in providing pension benefits. The valuations can therefore be different from those used by typical private sector funded schemes, where the primary purpose of valuations is to provide security to member benefits.
However, the Local Government Pension Scheme is in a different position. As has been discussed, it is a funded scheme, with benefits paid out of one of 89 different LGPS funds in England and Wales. These funds, as we have discussed many times in our consideration of the Bill, are individually managed. Valuations of the funds perform a similar function to those in unfunded schemes by assessing whether fund assets will be sufficient to meet liabilities and setting the contribution rates to be paid into the funds. This valuation process is managed at the local level and is dealt with in greater detail in Clause 12.
The amendment would place a statutory obligation on the Government to appoint a body to carry out a review of the way in which valuations are carried out in the public service schemes. This is unnecessary for either the funded or unfunded schemes. Under Clause 10, Treasury directions will set out the details of how valuations of unfunded schemes will be carried out. The Treasury will be obliged to consult the Government Actuary before these directions are made to ensure that they are fit for purpose. The Treasury has also committed to involving other stakeholders, such as public service employers, scheme actuaries and trade unions, when considering the approach to valuations.
Turning to the funded schemes, the Bill already provides for a greater level of scrutiny of LGPS fund valuations. Clause 12 specifies that employer contributions to these funds must be sufficient to ensure the solvency of the funds, which is an existing feature of the regulations. The clause also requires that contributions are set at a level that will ensure the long-term cost efficiency of the scheme. This is a new provision, which aims to prevent employers deferring the payment of any costs needed to meet the long-term liabilities. The clause will ensure that local fund managers take this approach. It requires an independent review of each fund’s valuation and the employer contribution rates that result from it. These reviews will result in a report covering all the LGPS funds, which will be made public.
The Government intend to publish a single report for the local government scheme in England and Wales. This will allow straightforward comparisons to be made across each of the 89 funds in the scheme. This new and enhanced level of scrutiny will provide a consistent basis for assessing the assets and liabilities of all LGPS funds, improving their transparency and management of these funds.
In addition, the scheme advisory board proposed by Amendment 45, which we have just debated, may also oversee and advise on the management of pension funds in the local government schemes. These boards will play a role in ensuring that the schemes—and individual LGPS funds—are well managed. As such, there will be an ongoing role for pension boards in the scrutiny of pension fund management and valuations.
Under the existing provisions in the Bill, there are a number of ways in which we can achieve what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, seeks to achieve. I will go away and look again to make sure that I am not missing anything or whether we do need a belt and braces. I am not sure that we would do it in the way that the noble Lord suggests and I am not sure that we need to do it, but this is definitely a serious issue. The Government want to make sure that nothing in the Bill means that we cannot take that initiative if we decide to do so anyway. I will go away and look at it again. If I think there is anything further that I can usefully say, I will write to the noble Lord, but I am not absolutely guaranteeing the letter.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I am very grateful to the Minister. I am glad that the Government see this as a serious issue and I am grateful to him for setting out what will be the procedure and structure of valuation in the future, specifically for the LGPS and more generally. I should have said at the beginning that my comments were primarily related to funded schemes, but of course post-2014 will bring a lot of the other public service schemes closer to being fully funded schemes—not quite in most cases. This means that the ratio between liabilities and assets and their correct valuation will be an important issue for all funded defined benefits schemes.
My amendment was intended to allow the Government at some future stage to look at the way in which these schemes would in future be assessed. I do not disagree with the mechanism but, as the noble Lord, Lord Flight, says, some of the presumptions and the passive acceptance of the accounting conventions could mean that the schemes looked seriously underfunded when in practice they were not. There may be other problems with the conventions and it would be wise for the Government to undertake this review whether or not it is seen as part of this Bill. I think it is something that the Government need to deal with.
I am grateful to the Minister for indicating that he is prepared to look at this again, and I think that in some contexts the Government will need to do so. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Eatwell
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, this group of amendments deals with various issues associated with pension age and the way it is adjusted relative to movements in the state pension age.
First, perhaps I may speak to Amendments 52, 55 and 57. These are minor amendments tabled to address what we see as a drafting anomaly. If it is not an anomaly, it would be very helpful if the Minister could explain why. The exemptions outlined in Clause 9(2) refer only to a person’s normal pension age, not to their deferred pension age. We believe that this means that the exemptions will apply only to active members of pension schemes and not to those who have moved on from their occupation and are classified as deferred members. In another place when this point was raised, time ran out, as it tends to there, and the Minister did not address this question at all.
I now turn to much more substantial amendments. Amendment 56 would insert a caveat with respect to changes in pension age. It says that such changes would not apply to members of a public service pension scheme who would be exempted from the operation of subsection (1) as a result of a scheme-specific capability review—in other words, those who do not come just within the broad categories of the fire and rescue services, a police force or the Armed Forces. There would be a scheme-specific review looking at the necessary capabilities of workers within a particular scheme. After all, some public sector workers not covered by the broad categories in Clause 9(2) have physically demanding jobs and it would not be appropriate to increase their pension age in line with the planned increases in the state pension age. For example, we could refer to mental health nurses, who occasionally have to physically restrain patients, and paramedics might also be considered.
However, what is really important with respect to the examples I have just given is that capability reviews are already under way. In fact, the Department of Health is undertaking the working longer review in relation to the NHS. This will make recommendations about the appropriateness of certain NHS staff working beyond the age of 65. However, the Bill does not exempt any NHS staff from the state pension age link; nor does it make any provision for the findings of a review—including the working longer review, which is now under way—to be taken into account, even though the review has not yet published its conclusions. Therefore, effectively the Bill makes this aspect of that review redundant, and the people working on it might as well just pack up and go home because the Bill effectively excludes any recommendation that they might make with respect to changes in the pension age of specific workers in the NHS. Amendment 56 would insert a caveat into Clause 9 so that a change in pension age would not apply to members of public service pension schemes who should be exempted from the operation of subsection (1) as a result of a scheme-specific capability review.
In another place the Government rejected this review on the basis that the amendment would create confusion and uncertainty. Why it would do that when you have specific capability reviews I am at a loss to understand. Secondly, the reason that certain professions are excluded is not just because of physicality but because they perform a specific public function. Again, that could clearly be undertaken and expressed in the terms of reference of a capability review, wherever that might take place. In this case the Government really have to think very carefully again. They set up the working longer review. They recognise that, in some specific cases not covered by the generality of Clause 9(2), there are cases where the link to state pension age should not be made and yet the Bill does not provide the means of incorporating the results of appropriate reviews.
I shall now speak to Amendment 59 which is also in this group. This refers to a recommendation made by my noble friend Lord Hutton in his review that the link between the state pension age and the normal or deferred pension age should be kept under review and should be reviewed regularly. The report recommends:
“The Government should increase the member’s Normal Pension Age … in most schemes so that it is in line with their State Pension Age”.
That, after all, is one of the key themes of this Bill. Then the report says,
“However, the link between the SPA and NPA should be regularly reviewed to make sure it is still appropriate, with a preference for keeping the two pension ages linked”.
Therefore, it should be reviewed in the light of circumstances. This Bill is implementing one half of my noble friend’s recommendation and leaving out the other half for a regular review.
A regular and independent review into the state pension age link would help to ensure that public service schemes remain sustainable if life expectancy is rising or whatever happens to it. One of the great mysteries of academic life is that one would expect demographers always to be incredibly accurate because they have such a range of data. They know how many people have been born in a particular year and they should be able to look forward to what will happen. However, one learns that demography is a very inexact science and demographers make—and admit that they do—a lot of mistakes and their circumstances change. After all, their profession would die if they did not have new things to worry about as the world changes. We need the possibility of a regular review of the link with the state pension age so we can ensure that members are being treated fairly and that the funding of the schemes, where they are funded, and the provision for non-funded schemes fit within the framework of the Government’s finances.
In another place the Government recognised the recommendation of the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, and said they expected reviews to be undertaken as and when future changes to the state pension age are announced—so they expect it to happen. However, it was not necessary to put it in the Bill as the Government will in due course make announcements about the review process, which is not desirable as it would restrict flexibility. How does it restrict flexibility? This is one of those blanket excuses, like “it is unnecessary”. It does not restrict flexibility at all; it just says, as the Government have conceded, that it would be desirable to have a review whenever the normal pension age is changed.
I have a particular question for the Minister in this respect. Suppose there is a review and it finds that the link is not working and something has gone wrong. What would happen then? Without having the review on the face of the Bill, it seems to me that the Government would have to return with primary legislation. Therefore, we are increasing the flexibility of the Bill by removing that threat to the flexibility of the operation of the Bill as a whole. I beg to move.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, I speak to Amendment 53, which is in my name. When the noble Lord responds to this group, I hope that he will be able to give the Committee some assurances in respect of the Government’s understanding of the special situation that firefighters find themselves in. They put their lives at risk on a regular basis to help and to protect members of the public and their property. I also hope that the noble Lord will confirm that he accepts and understands fully that maintaining high levels of fitness is crucial for firefighters and that there is evidence that, as we get older, cardio-respiratory fitness declines over the whole population. Therefore, asking firefighters to work until they are 60 in these front-line roles is not sensible and not safe for firefighters or the public.
I would like the noble Lord to comment on the review that has been undertaken by Dr Williams and his committee on the normal pension age for firefighters. The committee and Dr Williams were appointed by the previous Fire Minister, Mr Bob Neill, the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst in the other place. Let us be clear that the Department for Communities and Local Government’s document Firefighters’ Pension Scheme: Heads of Agreement in 2012 includes a requirement for the national pension age to be subject to regular review, informed by research carried out by the firefighters’ pension committee. I think that the Bill, coming at this time and relating to firefighters, has pre-empted the review, and that seems odd to me.
These decisions are really important and should be informed by evidence-based research, so I want to understand how the Government will use the research that they commissioned to inform the decisions that they make and the proposals that they will bring before Parliament.
Baroness Donaghy
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 54. At Second Reading I referred to ambulance service staff. I am hoping for the inclusion of ambulance service staff in the protected uniform services section of the pension regulations. I propose that the Bill should refer to ambulance service staff providing 999 responder services as opposed to referring to particular occupational groups such as paramedics, as there is a large number of non-registered ambulance staff who provide 999 responder services and registered paramedics who fulfil administration and managerial roles.
It is well documented that the main cause of ill-health retirement in the ambulance service is muscular-skeletal injuries and mental and behavioural disorders. These occupational hazards are not limited to staff working in paramedic grades and above but can be experienced by all staff providing 999 responder services. In addition, as a cost-saving measure, many ambulance services have created new support roles for 999 staff. Although the level of clinical intervention is different from that of a registered paramedic, their exposure to hazards and highly distressing circumstances remains the same. You have only to walk through the town centre of practically anywhere in the UK on a Saturday night to know that. They should be exempt from working longer.
The current NHS job evaluation scheme recognises these occupational hazards in job profiling for ambulance service staff. All ambulance grades that provide 999 responder services receive the same job evaluation level on the factors that contribute most to ill-health retirement. For example, an ambulance practitioner at the bottom of the Agenda for Change band 4 and an advanced ambulance practitioner on the top of band 6 score the same job evaluation level on physical effort, emotional effort and working conditions despite there being a difference of 19 pay points between these two jobs. The factors that heighten the risk of ill-health retirement remain the same.
In 2008, NHS Pension Scheme research indicated that the average retirement age in the NHS was 63, while in the ambulance service it is estimated that only one in 100 front-line staff reach normal retirement age. Staff working in the ambulance services are four to six times more likely to retire on the grounds of ill health compared with the rest of the NHS. A UNISON freedom of information request has shown that between 2008 and 2011 the average age of ambulance staff retiring on the grounds of ill health was 52. Muscular-skeletal injuries and mental and behavioural disorders—for example, post-traumatic stress disorder—represent more than 50% of the reasons for ill-health retirement. For that reason I believe that ambulance service staff providing 999 responder services should be included in these regulations.
Lord Sharkey
My Lords, I rise to speak in support of Amendment 56. I also have great sympathy for Amendment 54 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy. As the noble Baroness has so eloquently said, the working conditions and physical requirements of ambulance service staff who are 999 responders are very similar to those of the other exempt categories. However, the problem may be that there are quite a few other occupations whose members feel there is an equally strong case for inclusion within the exempt categories. Some of these occupations were discussed when this issue was debated in the Commons. I have heard Northern Ireland prison warders and staff in secure psychiatric institutions mentioned in this context and I know there are other claimants, too.
It is obviously very difficult to make judgments about which groups, if any, should be included alongside the uniform groups recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Hutton. I am not at all certain that it would be appropriate to add one particular category to those groups without considering, in detail, the claims of the other groups. That is not to say that there are no other groups that should be exempted from the standard state retirement age. In fact, I am personally convinced of the case put forward for ambulance service staff who are 999 responders. I think a sensible approach to this is contained in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, to which he has spoken so forcefully. It is surely sensible to give the Secretary of State the power by order to include other occupations in the exempt groups if he thinks the case has been objectively made and thoroughly examined by a scheme-specific capability review.
A very similar, or perhaps even identical, clause to that of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, was put forward by Chris Leslie in the Commons. I have read Hansard carefully and the Government’s response did not seem entirely convincing. I am glad that our different rules of procedure in this House will enable the case for Amendment 56 to be put once more and I am glad that the Minister will have the opportunity to reply in full. I hope that when he does reply he will find himself in sympathy with Amendment 56.
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
My Lords, I, too, would like to support in particular Amendment 53 and to some degree Amendment 54, especially with regard to the front-line staff in the ambulance service. I am sure the Minister is aware that in the private sector the task of the job and the onerous nature of that task is always directly related to age regarding how pensions are dealt with. Very often there is mood music around that says the public sector wants to be treated differently from elsewhere. As I know from my work with ICI, there were always certain jobs that were absolutely prescriptive in the task of the job and the risk of the job being associated with the age of individuals. We are really asking for that responsibility to be taken by employers in that context.
Lord Newby
My Lords, although these amendments all have a common theme, they are quite specific, so I will start with Amendments 52, 55 and 57. It is important to note that the link between the normal pension age and state pension age in most schemes is not the only provision in the Bill which is designed to manage the longevity risk. The link between the deferred pension age and state pension age in all schemes is just as important. This link is universal, with no exceptions. It therefore applies to former members of the police, firefighters and Armed Forces schemes with deferred pensions in those schemes.
There are two reasons why the Government have not extended the exemption from the state pension age link for these workforces to apply to the deferred as well as their normal pension ages. First, it would not be fair to other former public servants whose deferred benefits would not be payable until state pension age. We have been clear that exceptions to normal pension age have been made for police officers, firefighters, and members of the Armed Forces because of the unique nature of the work they do, which we value very much. Once police, firefighters and Armed Forces personnel leave their jobs and no longer carry out those unique duties, there is, in our view, no justification for them to be able to take their deferred benefits earlier than anyone else.
Secondly, there would be cost implications. As we are all aware, increases in—
Lord Eatwell
Perhaps I may deal with that first point about leaving the scheme. I accept that in the case of somebody becoming a police officer at the age of 20 or 21 and leaving at 25 the noble Lord has a good case. But let us suppose that the police officer leaves at the age of 55. Is the case the same? Here is someone who has worked in a physically onerous profession for all that time—34 years, let us say. He has moved to another job because an opportunity has come up but he has performed that physically onerous task for a considerable time, which will have had an effect on his overall well-being. Would it not therefore be reasonable in that case for the deferred pension age to be the same as for those who stay on for just a few years more?
Lord Newby
My Lords, the noble Lord gives an example. I was literally just about to give another example. I will come back to his example. My example concerns a former police officer who leaves service aged 35 to work as an office-based local government worker for the rest of their career. It is by no means an unusual or impossible example. Should their police pension still be available, unreduced, at 60? That is the question, particularly when a local government colleague sitting at a nearby desk must wait until the state pension age to take his or her full pension. Surely the answer can only be no. The strength of that argument is greatest if someone left the police after a year aged 22 and is weakest if they left it aged 59. I agree with that. The argument is not exactly the same at every age.
However, in looking at this, the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, recommended that we should go to the provision that we have indeed gone to, which is that all deferred pensions are payable in full from the state pension age. If we were to move towards what the noble Lord suggests, we would have an extremely complicated position where there were grades of deferment, if you like. We wanted first of all to have a relatively simple approach. We have followed the recommendations of the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, and we think that we have come up with a sensible, practical solution. We understand the argument, but we have deliberatively taken the view that deferred pension age should be the same as normal pension age.
On Amendment 53 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, the noble Lord was asking about the position of firefighters and the Williams review, and where we had got to with that. The starting point, as we know, is that firefighters continue to have their normal pension age at 60, as set out in the new Firefighters’ Pension Scheme in 2006. The Williams review of the normal pension age recognised that, as long as firefighters maintain their physical activity levels and adopt a healthy lifestyle, there is no reason why they cannot maintain operational fitness levels until the age of 60. The report does not call for a change in the normal pension age. However, as the report recommends, firefighters who wish to retire early will continue to be able to do so from 55, with an actuarial adjustment to their pensions. There were other detailed recommendations within the Williams review and the Government are still considering them.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
I thank the noble Lord. I will not press him further on this. He is right: the review has just come out and we are in the middle of debating the Bill. However, would the Minister agree to meet with representatives of the Fire Brigades Union and me between now and Report? The Williams report raises a number of issues that have a direct bearing on this, and further discussion is important.
Lord Newby
My Lords, I am always willing to meet the noble Lord. However, I will do so on the basis that we are not reopening the whole of the scheme. The Williams review has made it clear that there is no reason why the retirement age should not be 60. That, certainly, is not up for discussion. If there are other issues around it we can discuss those, although my initial view is that it is highly unlikely that anything else he is discussing would require amendments to primary legislation, although it may require amendments to the scheme rules. On that basis, I am very happy to have a meeting.
The next amendment in this group is Amendment 54, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy. It looks at further exemptions from the state pension link. We have set the current exemptions in line with historical precedent and the Hutton review. There are no other groups that are currently recognised in such a way through their normal pension age provisions as the three set out in the Bill. In fact, as a result of the previous Administration’s reforms, new employees in all other groups of public servants already have a normal pension age of 65. This includes ambulance service staff under the most recent changes to the NHS scheme, which were agreed to by unions.
As we are all aware, this Bill seeks to rationalise provisions across the public services, not to add further diversity. We are trying to move away from the general inconsistencies in the current schemes, which lead only to unfairness for subsections of particular workforces. That is not to say that we do not recognise the physical nature of the work that is carried out by groups such as ambulance service staff, or the risks attached to that work. The schemes introduced under Clause 1 have been developed very carefully with this in mind. They follow extensive discussions with members, trade unions and other member representatives to ensure that they best meet the needs of all members of each scheme. This includes ambulance service staff in the development of the NHS scheme. It would be wrong to reopen those negotiations—not least because, as my noble friend Lord Sharkey alluded to, there are many groups with degrees of stress in their job that are greater than those in others. We could spend a vast amount of time assessing afresh all those groups. Over the years that work has been done and it has led to the schemes we have now. It was also looked at again by Hutton. I am therefore extremely unwilling to start a long process of looking at a raft of groups when they have been considered before. I understand only too well the stresses and strains faced by 999 responders, but other groups face stresses and strains as well. As I say, we have decided that the three groups which are already exempt from the normal retirement age provisions are the only ones that we believe are in a distinctly different category from any others.
Amendment 56 also relates to this issue, but the difference from this amendment is that it would allow any group to be exempted from the state pension age link should a capability review recommend it. Presumably that would mean that the pension ages for these groups would be set out in secondary legislation. I have just explained why I do not agree with the spirit of the amendment. The link was a key feature of the Hutton report and was a cornerstone of the constructive discussions we held with unions and member representatives over the course of 18 months. The outcome of those discussions was the proposed final scheme designs, including the universal retirement age link which the Bill honours in full. We have no plans to reopen those designs, although we have made it clear that we will review the link to the state pension age as and when future changes to the state pension age are announced. The DWP White Paper published yesterday says that we intend to hold a review every five years, so the link will be reviewed when a review is announced.
The Bill as it stands takes a sensible future-proof approach to review the provisions when it is most appropriate to do so; that is, when there are other pension age changes that affect public servants. Naturally, those reviews will take into account any evidence submitted by interested parties—
Lord Eatwell
I understand what the noble Lord is saying, but can he tell us what the status of the working longer review in the NHS is?
Lord Newby
The noble Lord has an uncanny ability to ask me a question as I am getting to the relevant paragraph. I was about to say that the capability reviews are not reviewing the pension age link. They are considering the implications of working longer in the light of increased longevity and looking at how people are deployed as they move towards retirement. There is no question of these capability reviews reaching the conclusion that people should retire earlier as a block; rather they say, “If there are professions which have a significant physical component, how can we make sure that, as people move towards retirement age, the proportion of their work which has a significant physical element is reduced?”. A simplistic approach is to say, “Why can we not have firemen doing desk jobs from the age of 55?”. It is not as simple as that because there are not enough of those jobs, but that is the basic thought process we are going through in the reviews.
This is a challenge not just for public sector workers, but for the whole of society. People are living longer and the pension age is going up. Some people who are doing physical work will not be able to maintain the same degree of intensity at the age of 67 as they could at 47 or 27. As a society, how do we deal with this? What sort of mechanisms can we put in place to enable people to work towards a later retirement age in a way that avoids their facing undue stress?
To take an extreme example that does not cover the public services, I have a number of lawyer friends in their early 60s. Traditionally, solicitors in big firms would be forced out at that age because they were not earning as much as they did when they were 40. A very welcome development is that partners, with the encouragement of their firms, are thinking about what they can do that does not necessarily mean that they are expected to generate the profits and income that they did 20 years before, and in this way they can keep their expertise. That is at a different level from the public sector but it is still entirely welcome. The working longer reviews, about which we are talking here, look at exactly that kind of thing for people in the public sector. It is not about pension age but about how to ensure that we manage people who, as they move into their 60s, may not be able to work at the same intensity as they did when younger.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 59 regarding the reviews of the pension age provisions in the Bill. The Government have made a clear commitment to undertake these as and when future changes to the state pension age are announced. These reviews will look at, among other things, whether the provisions remain appropriate in light of scheme members’ longevity. This will ensure a consistent cross-government approach to all pension age policy and follows the recommendation by the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, that the provisions should be kept under review.
The state pension age review process that I have mentioned should mean that the core principle of this amendment, to ensure the public service pension age provisions continue to track appropriately changes in members’ longevity, will happen automatically. The work on state pension age reviews is still in its early stages. Yesterday the DWP published a White Paper that proposed a review every five years. We are still at a consultation stage and it may be that we move on from that but I do not know.
It would be premature at this point to seek to lock down the details of the reviews for public service pension ages. The state pension age reviews will obviously apply to more than just the pensions established in the Bill. It is therefore important that the Bill does not restrict the flexibility to design those reviews. Even though the reviews are not in the Bill, this does not restrict the powers to change the pension age provisions. Changes to state pension age will require primary legislation, so any consequent changes to this Bill could be made in at the same time.
Furthermore, it would be misleading to put reviews in the Bill and give the impression that these provisions may be continually changed when that is not the intention. The Government believe that we have appropriate provisions at the moment and we do not plan to change them. It is important that these are made clear to members so that they can plan for their retirement. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I note the comments in general of the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, for Amendment 56 in particular. This strengthens the position of those administering public service pensions by incorporating the notion of a specific capability review and therefore providing a standardised mechanism across the various sectors in public service. These could be utilised both to include groups in the exemption and, indeed, to confirm that groups should not be included in it.
The examples given by the Minister, of changes in working practices among his lawyer friends, indicate just the sort of thing that a capability review would take into consideration. It is regrettable that he has dismissed this in rather a cavalier manner, by just saying that it would make the thing too complicated. People’s lives are complicated. People lead very different lives, and we need a degree of flexibility to take account of those differences that they encounter. Simply having a one-size-fits-all approach to the public services, which is the case in the Bill—with the exception, of course, of the uniformed services, which we discussed earlier—does not seem to future-proof the Bill, a factor that the Government are so continuously concerned with. What will happen is that some real anomaly will appear; it will become a scandal and suddenly a matter of major press interest. You can just imagine the sort of the thing: for example, some elderly ambulance worker being unable to assist a prominent celebrity in distress. You can imagine how the tabloids would go for that. Or it could be a much more serious scandal. Being able to perform capability reviews would provide a degree of flexibility, which is exactly what future-proofing this sort of legislation really means.
The Government are being a bit blinkered over this. They are standing on the podium of simplicity, but simplicity does not always make for true effectiveness. However, I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, and I will return to this on Report. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Eatwell
“(4A) A person’s normal or deferred pension age under a scheme under section 1 will not change by operation of this section unless 10 years’ or more notice of the change has been given.”
Lord Eatwell
This is another amendment dealing with the issue of retirement age, but here it is a question of giving notice of a change in retirement age. The essence of this is that if people are aware a significant time in advance that their retirement age is going to change, then they have the opportunity of making provision for that change. If it is only a few years before the date at which they retire, it is much more difficult for them to change their circumstances or their arrangements in the light of the changed pension age.
This amendment is necessary because the Bill links the normal or deferred pension age in public service pension schemes to the state pension age and the state pension age can be changed in law with no protection for those approaching retirement. The Government have recently imposed changes to the state pension age when they gave women in their 50s only six years’ notice of an increase. I think that was excessively short. That meant that women in those circumstances had a relatively short time to make adjustments in their circumstances appropriate to the new change in the pension age that they face.
This amendment would ensure that if the Government were again to act in this arbitrary manner with respect to an increase in the state pension age it would not have a similar rapid knock-on effect for public service pensions. When the noble Lord, Lord Turner, carried out a review of state pensions for the previous Government, he recommended that a 15-year notice period be given before changing the state pension age, and the Pensions Policy Institute, which also looked at this with some care, recommended a 10-year period. During the Second Reading debate in another place, a Conservative Member, Mr Richard Graham, the Member for Gloucester, said:
“The Bill also protects everybody who is within 10 years of retirement, which is very important for so many of our constituents who are in their 40s and early 50s”.—[Official Report, Commons, 29/10/12; col. 114.]
Unfortunately, this Conservative Member had actually got it wrong because there is no such protection in the Bill for those within 10 years of retirement. Given that he was a Conservative Member, perhaps he had had some whispers from the Front Bench that there was an intention to include such a provision and this was left out by an oversight. So now we are giving the Government the opportunity to rescue their omission. Providing that the Government are not planning to increase pension ages with less than 10 years’ notice, they surely can have no objection to this amendment.
Lord Newby
My Lords, we agree with the underlying concept of this amendment that the pension age for those close to it should not change without sufficient notice. When normal and deferred pension ages change, there must be consideration of how such changes will impact on all those who are most affected. However, I hope I have made it clear that a key pillar of the Bill is the clear link that it will provide between the normal pension age and the state pension age. The DWP’s White Paper on state pension reform, published yesterday, sets out that future changes to the state pension age will be subject to a 10-year notice period. It therefore follows that the normal pension age changes will be subject to the same minimum notice period while the link remains in place. Therefore, from the noble Lord’s point of view, fortunately this amendment is unnecessary.
Lord Newby
Lord Eatwell
“Fair Deal
A member of a public service pension scheme is entitled to remain an active member of that scheme following—(a) the compulsory transfer of his contract of employment to an independent contractor; and(b) any subsequent compulsory transfer of his contract of employment.”
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, this is part of the deal that was made between the Government, the local authorities and the trade unions in putting together the agreement that was reached following the report by my noble friend Lord Hutton. It is a part on which the Government seem to be reneging. I really think that this is very important. This so-called fair deal amendment will ensure that a member of a public service pension scheme who is compulsorily transferred from his contract of employment to an independent contractor will be entitled to remain an active member of that scheme; and, indeed, if there is any subsequent compulsory transfer of his contract of employment, he could still remain a member of that scheme. This was a key part of the agreement reached with public sector employees and their representatives—this notion of a fair deal for outsourced workers. It would ensure that all public service workers compulsorily transferred would stay as active members.
As I say, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury confirmed the Government’s commitment to the new fair deal in July, in a Written Statement. He said:
“I can … confirm that the Government have reviewed the fair deal policy and agreed to maintain the overall approach, but deliver this by offering access to public service pension schemes for transferring staff. When implemented, this means that all staff whose employment is compulsorily transferred from the public service under TUPE, including subsequent TUPE transfers, to independent providers of public services will retain membership of their current employer’s pension arrangements.”.—[Official Report, Commons, 4/7/12; col. 54WS.]
Where is that promise on the face of the Bill? This is a promise that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury made, but it now seems to have evaporated. Where has it gone? As it stands, the Bill is very one-sided in how it reflects the negotiated agreement. The Government are happy to include the size of the agreement which suits them—for example, the requirement that no schemes are final salary schemes—but are not forthcoming with their corresponding promises made to public sector workers.
The Minister has repeatedly said that the Government’s word is adequate for protection of workers, and that government promises do not need to be enshrined in legislation. But if we take what the Chief Secretary to the Treasury said, surely the public would be rather bemused that that promise was made in terms and it has now evaporated. It is not there—where is it on the face of the Bill?
One issue to which we have continuously referred is that of the future-proofing of the Bill. Future-proofing does not mean not sticking to a deal or not making coherent commitments; it means having a degree of flexibility over major changes in circumstances discussed and agreed by the parties to the agreement. It does not mean just leaving part of the agreement out, as seems to be the case here.
Given the Statement from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, I feel that this amendment could have been moved by him, and indeed I move it on his behalf.
Baroness Donaghy
My Lords, I support my noble friend Lord Eatwell on this important amendment. This was a key part of the national agreement between employers’ unions and the Government. In the local government scheme, which is a funded scheme, employers choosing to withdraw from that scheme could leave substantial costs relating to future fund income to be paid by the council tax payer. Information is already coming in that some higher and further education employers, and recently an academy school, are seeking to find ways in which to get around their obligations to provide the local government pension scheme for support staff. We should bear it in mind that those jobs are often low paid and part time. We should also remind ourselves that having an occupational pension will make sure that those people are self-sufficient when they retire and do not become dependent on the state. So it is in all our interest that these schemes are upheld.
The news that we are hearing is that shared services companies are being created, or that people are attempting to create them, as a way of getting round the obligations that they entered into by allowing their staff to remain in the local government pension scheme. I remind the Minister that, as I am sure he is aware, a big drift away by employers could undermine all the schemes.
Lord Newby
I thank the noble Lord for moving this amendment on behalf of my colleague, the Chief Secretary. I am sure he will be very pleased when I tell him that he did so. The Government are completely committed to the fair deal policy and to its reform. Commitments have been made, both in this House and in the other place, to ensure that members of the schemes who are compulsorily transferred to independent contractors can retain membership of those schemes.
The noble Lord asked about the provisions in the Bill that are relevant to achieve this. Clause 26 will extend access to the existing civil service pension scheme to allow those members who are compulsorily transferred out to stay in the scheme. Clause 22 will allow scheme regulations to make provisions for pensions for other employees who would not otherwise be members of the scheme. The policy will be delivered via the contracts made with independent providers. This will ensure that members of the schemes will be entitled to accrue future benefits through the scheme after the first tender and any subsequent retendering.
There are specific reasons why the proposed amendment cannot be accepted. The Government are currently considering when and how the new fair deal policy will be implemented. We are also consulting on how the new fair deal should be applied to those who have already been transferred out of the public sector under the old arrangements. It would be premature to put something on the statute book while this work is under way.
The amendment also captures the Local Government Pension Scheme. We have been absolutely clear that the principles of the new fair deal policy should apply to the reformed Local Government Pension Scheme, but the policy has always operated differently in that scheme. The Department for Communities and Local Government will bring forward detailed proposals in due course; again, in our view it would be premature to legislate while this work is under way. However, if the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, has some specific instances which she can show us of how the current arrangements might be being subverted, we would obviously look at exactly what is going on and how we might deal with that. My guess is that the most effective way of doing it would not necessarily be via this amendment. Obviously, however, because we are committed to the principle, if that principle is being undermined, we would want to look at how that is happening and what we could do to stop it. With those comments, I hope the noble Lord would feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I looked carefully at Clauses 22 and 26 and they seem to be enabling clauses. They enable members who are compulsorily transferred to retain their membership of a public sector scheme, but they do not ensure that they will. That is the import of our Amendment 61. It seems to me that it was also the import of the Chief Secretary’s Statement. He said very clearly that following transfers, those members “will retain membership”. He did not say that they “may” or “could”, or that “facilities will be made available for them to”, but that they “will” retain membership. The Bill certainly does not make that provision.
The noble Lord also said that considerations are under way to find a means of implementing the Chief Secretary’s promise in an appropriate manner. I must say that it would have been a jolly good idea if that had been done before we got to this stage of the Bill, but people are busy and I understand that. Let us hope that this is resolved by Report, so that the Government can then bring forward the results of those considerations in the form of an appropriate amendment in order to keep their fair deal promise. They have made the promise, and we want to see that promise in the Bill—as, I presume, do they—in an appropriate form. If those considerations could be expedited over the next couple of weeks, we look forward to considering an appropriate fair deal amendment on Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Donaghy
Baroness Donaghy
My Lords, in moving Amendment 62, I wish to speak also to Amendment 65. Clause 10 sets the Treasury powers to dictate to the individual public service schemes how they are to conduct their valuations and the assumptions, data and methodology they should use. I seek to clarify two issues through amendment to the wording of this clause.
The first issue, contained in Amendment 62, is that the Local Government Pension Scheme in England and Wales consists of 89 funds. Each fund appoints its own actuary and agrees with that actuary the assumptions and methodology most appropriate to its specific fund. Funds vary significantly in their size, demographics and proportion of active contributing members to retirees and those who have left with deferred pensions. It would be unworkable for the Treasury simply to impose central assumptions on individual funds.
The Local Government Pension Scheme regulations already set out when funds have to undertake valuations, while control of fund valuations is set out in Clause 12. Therefore, I seek to amend Clause 10(2) to make clear that these valuations do not apply to the Local Government Pension Scheme, as the Government have already acknowledged. The Bill states:
“Such a valuation is to be carried out in accordance with Treasury directions”.
I want Amendment 62 to amend the subsection so that,
“Treasury directions would not apply to individual Local Government Pension … funds”.
The second issue, in Amendment 65, is that the assumptions, methodology and data used in scheme-wide valuations will determine the cost of the scheme. To ensure that the assumptions used in scheme valuations are robust and appropriate will require the input of scheme pension boards and scheme managers, which is why I seek to amend Clause 10(4). I beg to move.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, my noble friend Lady Donaghy has identified a considerable problem with cost control as expressed in Clause 10—the valuations section of the cost control part of the Bill. My noble friend’s amendment is very direct and clear with respect to the Treasury directions that she would like to see. My Amendment 63 takes a somewhat more ameliorative and subdued approach to dealing with this problem. However, it would ensure that Treasury directions are tailored to each local government fund and would therefore be much more accurate, rather than the possibility of a single set of directions being expected to apply to 89 local government funds which have significantly different characteristics. After all, each local government fund has its own assets and investment strategy. Different employers are involved and, crucially, most of the funds have different demographics. This means that each valuation needs to take into account the individual characteristics of those funds.
Considerable concern has been expressed about Clause 10 by well informed persons who are much better informed than me. For example, Alison Hamilton, the chair of the local government committee of the Association of Consulting Actuaries, said:
“Clause 10 certainly gives me cause for concern. … It is very important that the valuation takes account of the local demographics, and the local investment of the assets backing those pension funds. I attended a meeting where the Bill team tried to give some sort of reassurance that the valuation would be carried out as a one-size-fits-all under Treasury directions. That was not intended for the local government pension scheme. I would like the Committee to explore that and get something drafted”.—[Official Report, Commons, Public Service Pensions Bill Committee, 6/11/12; col. 169.]
Similar concerns have been expressed by the National Association of Pension Funds. I will not repeat what it said as it echoes what was said by Ms Hamilton.
When faced with this argument in the other place, the Government acknowledged that there was merit in it and stated that the Treasury would,
“take into account the individual nuances and features of the various … schemes”,—[Official Report, Commons, Public Service Pensions Bill Committee, 13/11/12; col. 347.]
when setting directions. They felt that the clause already allows enough flexibility for directions to take account of the differences between schemes. However, our amendment simply states what the Government’s intention apparently is—that the Treasury directions should not be based on, or be rigidly bound by, but should take into account,
“the individual nature of each of the different funded schemes”.
That is in accord not only with what is obviously sensible practice, according to the views of experts, but with what Ministers claimed in another place was their intention.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I strongly support Amendment 62 and the other amendments that have been spoken to. I have a simple amendment in this group—Amendment 64. Clause 10(4) states:
“Treasury directions … variations and revocations … may only be made after the Treasury has consulted the Government Actuary”.
My amendment probably reflects my general suspicion of the Treasury, which is deplorable, as the Minister is indicating. Nevertheless it is shared by many in the pensions industry and beyond. I would have thought that it should be agreed with the Government Actuary’s Department that the Treasury or that department should come to an accommodation on what the basis for the variations, revocations and directions should be.
I accepted the Government’s argument that in relation to other sorts of consultation—for example, consultation with stakeholders—regrettably, agreement, or certainly consensus, is not usually the outcome. However, as regards an issue relating to the basis of valuation between the Treasury and the Government’s own actuary, surely the Bill should state that those provisions are agreed rather than that the Treasury may act after what may be quite a superficial consultation with the GAD. I hope that that was the Government’s intention anyway but I wish to make the position clear through my amendment. I hope that the Government will agree to it.
Lord Newby
My Lords, the Bill makes provision for pension scheme valuations across all the public service schemes. These will be carried out in accordance with Treasury directions to ensure that valuations are carried out on a clear and consistent basis.
Amendments 62 and 63 seek to clarify how Clause 10 will apply to the valuation of the individual funds in the local government pension scheme or to disapply the provisions of the clause to those valuations. The Government are well aware of the concerns referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, and other noble Lords who have spoken, that this clause will be used by the Treasury to impose inappropriate valuation assumptions on individual LGPS funds. The amendments would ensure that this could not happen by removing these funds’ valuations from the scope of the clause or requiring the Treasury to take account of the nature of individual funds when making directions.
I hope that I can reassure noble Lords that these amendments are not necessary. First, the Government have no intention of making directions relating to the valuations of individual LGPS funds. This commitment has already been made in this House and in the policy paper published by the Treasury in November 2012, copies of which are in the Library. Secondly, Clause 10 needs to be read in the light of the Bill as a whole. It is clearly intended to deal with valuation at the scheme level, as can be seen from Clause 12, which makes provision for valuations at the level of individual pension funds. While that clause would provide for greater oversight of the local fund valuations, it will not mandate how they are to be carried out. Accordingly, we do not think that Amendment 63 is necessary.
In relation to the Local Government Pension Scheme, Clause 10 will be used only—I repeat, only—to set directions of how the model fund, an aggregation of the scheme costs at the national level, will be valued. We need to do that for the operation of the cost-control mechanism at a scheme level in LGPS but it will not directly affect the contributions paid into individual funds.
Turning to Amendment 64, Clause 10 already requires that the Government consult with the Government Actuary before making directions on scheme valuations. That amendment would add an additional requirement that the Government Actuary agrees the directions rather than just being consulted. The intention is to ensure that these directions form a sound basis for the scheme valuations and the Government, of course, support this aim. However, the Government cannot accept this amendment, as it does not achieve this aim and has unwelcome consequences.
The aim of the Government Actuary’s Department is to be,
“a highly valued principal provider of actuarial analysis and advice to all parts of the UK Government and other relevant UK and overseas public bodies”.
The highly valuable, actuarial advice that it provides is independent and professional and this aim would be compromised by the amendment. If this change were made, the Government Actuary’s decisions would inevitably influence the policy on valuations and he could come under pressure to determine elements of the directions themselves. This would fundamentally compromise his position as a truly independent adviser. This is not an outcome which anyone, including the Government Actuary, wants to see.
Amendment 65 highlights the importance of Treasury directions that will be made under Clause 10. These directions will set out the detail of how valuations of public service pension schemes should be carried out. Everybody has agreed that these valuations are of vital importance given their implications on both employer contributions and the employer cost cap. As such, all scheme stakeholders will need to be involved as the valuations are developed. However, the statutory consultation requirement that would be imposed by this amendment is unnecessary. I can reassure the Committee that we will seek to discuss these directions as they are developed. All stakeholders, including scheme managers, their actuaries, pension boards, and member representatives, will be given the opportunity to participate in this process.
I hope this reassures the noble Baroness that the consultation of scheme managers and pension boards that she has proposed will be carried out without the need for Amendment 65 and that she will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Donaghy
I thank noble Lords who have participated in this debate. There is a certain irony, particularly on Amendment 65. This was a very mild response to the Minister’s reply at Second Reading when I, like the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, asked for the agreement of the Government Actuary’s Department. He commented then that it did not wish to participate in what would be seen to be a political event, but wanted to maintain its independence. Amendment 65 was an attempt to recognise the reality of that and write in the involvement of scheme managers and scheme boards as a mild substitute. I am still sorry that the Minister is not willing to include that. However, until I have had a chance to study the official record of the Minister’s reply, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Whitty
“( ) This section does not apply to the fund valuations of the Local Government Pension Scheme.”
Lord Whitty
My Lords, Amendments 66 and 70 propose the exclusion of LGPS funds from the aspects of the Bill covered by Clauses 10 and 11 because those aspects are primarily related to the unfunded schemes. Clause 10 attempts to impose criteria commonly determined by the Treasury on valuations of all schemes covered by the Bill. Amendment 66 will clarify that Clause 10 is intended to apply to scheme level valuations only, thus preventing future misunderstandings, particularly in relation to the 89 different local government schemes. Without the amendment, there is a lack of clarity around the impact of fund valuations which are included in the Treasury’s scope within Clause 10. This lack of clarity surrounds the apparent inclusion of both local fund valuations and the national, notional model fund valuation under the control of Treasury regulations.
Individual fund valuations are currently undertaken by fund actuaries under parameters set out in different scheme regulations and assumptions are agreed with the individual fund. It would be a marked change if such valuations were to come directly under Treasury control. If it is intended to include only the notional model fund in the Treasury’s scope, this clause will need to be amended to prevent any further misunderstandings. There are concerns that the assumptions, data and models to be used as directed by the Treasury would not reflect what is currently being used at fund level, thus also undermining the validity of national modelling of costs. The easiest way out of this dilemma is to exclude the LGPS from the operation of those aspects of Clause 10.
Clause 11, which we will discuss later, covers the employment cost cap. The LGA and the trade unions involved in local government believe that this clause should be amended so that we again embed the agreement, reached by employers, unions and Governments, for a separate cost-management process. That agreement ensures that the principal stakeholders of the scheme are responsible for the control of cost management. There is concern that, as it stands, Clause 11 gives the Treasury discretion over how the cost cap is set. This could mean that there would be nothing to prevent the Treasury setting the cap in such a way that it would be easily exceeded, resulting in an increase of employee—and probably employer—contributions or a decrease in benefits. Amendment 70 would make this clear because it would exclude the funded local government pension schemes and funds from the effects of this clause and would better reflect the agreement, supported by the Government, that exists within the LGPS scheme. I beg to move.
Lord Newby
My Lords, I will start with Amendment 66. As previously discussed, the Bill makes provision for pension scheme valuations to be carried out in accordance with Treasury directions. This amendment seeks to clarify that the clause does not apply to valuations of the Local Government Pension Scheme. It would ensure that Treasury directions on valuations would not affect these valuations, which are carried out at the local level. In that respect, it would have a very similar effect to Amendment 62.
The arguments discussed under that amendment also apply here and Amendment 66 is unnecessary. I hope that the Government’s previous commitments, which I have just repeated, have made that clear. The Government simply do not intend to make directions affecting the valuations of individual LGPS funds. Alternative provisions for oversight of these valuations are made elsewhere in the Bill. The amendment is not needed.
Amendment 70 seeks to provide a specific exclusion for the LGPS from the employer cost-cap provisions in Clause 11. A robust cost-control mechanism, on a statutory basis, is still required for the LGPS, even though it is a funded scheme. Clause 11 should apply to the LGPS, as with any other scheme. The Government have had extensive discussions with the Local Government Association and the local government trade unions on this issue. As a result of these discussions, and to reflect the unique position of the LGPS as a funded scheme, the Government will give additional flexibility to the LGA and the trade unions in the management of scheme costs. The full details of these additional flexibilities will be finalised in consultation with key stakeholders and then enacted via the Treasury directions made under this clause and in the scheme regulations.
However, it is vital that the Government maintain a statutory backstop to provide reassurance to the taxpayer that action will always be taken if the cost of the scheme becomes unsustainable. This backstop, which will sit behind the cost-control arrangements that I have described, will apply in the same way as in other schemes. If the costs of accruing LGPS benefits, as measured at a national level by the GAD’s model fund, rise or fall by more than two percentage points, action will be required to bring costs back to the level of the cap, as in any other scheme. The requirement to consult on the action to be taken, with a view to reaching agreement, will apply as in any other scheme. If agreement cannot be reached, scheme regulations will set out a default action to be taken, as in any other scheme.
The cost-control mechanism is a key part of delivering good and sustainable pensions that will last for a generation. Without it, there is a risk that costs will once again spiral out of control and leave us with the choice of looking for higher contributions from, and lower benefits for, members or shunting the extra costs unfairly onto the taxpayer. Given these considerations, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw or not move both amendments.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, as regards Amendment 66, I am pleased that the Government are prepared to be explicit in their assurances that they do not intend to set directions in relation to individual local government funds. If I understood the Minister clearly, the situation is to some extent similar to that in Amendment 62. A statement that “the Government do not intend” is not a copper-bottomed guarantee, as we know. Nevertheless, I suspect that it is as far as we will get in our consideration of the Bill, and I therefore thank him for that.
As regards Clause 11 on the employer cap, it is clear that in whatever circumstances there needs to be cost control. The point that I am making is that within the local government schemes it is the responsibility of their governance to ensure that cost control applies. There is a Treasury engagement with the national notional scheme and other provisions oblige the Treasury to ensure that the schemes do not get out of control, as the Minister indicated. In fact, the local government scheme has not got out of control. There have been occasions when individual funds’ investment policies have been less than ideal, which have led to short-term problems, but in no period has the local government scheme, which has operated for decades, got out of control.
Given the ongoing governance of individual schemes and the new provisions that we have just agreed in relation to the national scheme, there is little likelihood of the scheme getting out of control in any case. It is therefore otiose for the Treasury to be able to impose individual employer contribution caps in the crude way in which it may need to do so in relation to unfunded schemes that have historically—on the odd occasion and possibly now—got out of control. I regret that the Government do not recognise that. We will discuss employer caps in more general terms in a moment, but I should have thought that it would be less trouble to the Treasury, and would make it clearer that the responsibility to ensure that cost controls operate rests fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the stakeholders in the local government schemes, if they were exempted from the ability of the Treasury to impose its own cost controls.
However, that is clearly not the road that the Government are prepared to go down. I will therefore not press Amendment 70 and beg leave to withdraw Amendment 66.
Lord Eatwell
“(4A) Treasury directions under subsection (3) may only be made after consultation with the persons or representatives of the persons who appear to the Treasury to be likely to be affected by the employer cost cap.”
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, as my noble friend Lord Whitty said, we turn to the general issue of employer cost caps. There is no doubt whatever that a cost cap is an appropriate measure with which we agree, as a means of ensuring that schemes are managed in a cost-efficient way. However, the way in which the cost cap is set is of crucial importance, not least because Clause 11(7) allows a scheme’s regulations to reduce members’ benefits or increase their contributions to meet a target cost for the scheme. How the cost cap is set is therefore important.
What does Clause 11 say? It states that the cost cap will,
“be set in accordance with Treasury directions”.
That is all. There is no requirement for the Treasury to consult or to relate cost considerations to any other set of criteria or measurement. The Treasury therefore has the widest possible discretion on how the cost cap could be set. This means, as my noble friend Lord Whitty suggested with respect to local government schemes—but it is true with respect to schemes in general—that there is nothing to prevent the Treasury setting the cap in such a way that it is easily exceeded, thus triggering the sort of reduction in benefits or increase in contributions anticipated in Clause 11(7).
All that the amendment seeks is to say, “Look, if you are going to change the cost cap, you should consult the people to whom this is being done, the people actually running the schemes, and you may find a degree of information that you otherwise did not have. You may find that measures can be taken, perhaps with mutual advice, to reduce the costs and bring them more into line with what is deemed appropriate”. The failure to consult on even the imposition of cost caps is a serious matter that reduces trust in the overall management of the scheme—and particularly in the Treasury’s role in the management of the scheme. All that the amendment says is, “Okay, the Treasury still has the role of setting the cost cap but it should at least consult before changing the cost cap or setting it in the first place”.
A point about this arose from our discussions in Committee on 9 January, when the noble Lord, Lord Newby, referred to the extension of Treasury regulations specifically to Scotland. He sought to reassure the Committee that the Treasury really was going to stay at arm’s length, as it has done in the past, and would not impose any rules on the Scots. They would have the opportunity, as they have now, to manage the details of their scheme, subject to this ultimate backstop in the sky that will never be used. I therefore ask the Minister specifically whether the cost-cap regulations, as set out in Clause 11, will apply in Scotland—in particular, to local government pension schemes. If they do, and there is no requirement for consultation, there is trouble ahead. This amendment will not only bolster the Government’s position with respect to the confidence with which their changes to public sector pension schemes are received, but will also secure the Government’s position with respect to any amendments to the cost cap in Scotland. I beg to move.
Lord Newby
My Lords, we absolutely share the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, behind this amendment. As I hope I can demonstrate, we have already made adequate provision in the Bill and in the way we are behaving to reassure him.
The first general point is that the Government set out general principles of consultation which will apply to Treasury directions, as to any another legislation. We have discussed these pension reforms extensively with all stakeholders and we will make clear commitments to do so in the future. These consultations will cover the cost cap and the details will be discussed with representatives of all the schemes via the normal scheme governance rules.
The key point is the existing provision in the Bill for consultation on the level of the cap in each scheme as part of the consultation on scheme regulations. The details of the cap will be set out in the scheme regulations, which will be subject to the consultation requirements contained in Clause 19, which states:
“Before making scheme regulations the responsible authority must consult such persons (or representatives of such persons) as appear to the authority likely to be affected by them”.
As with any other scheme changes, we are required by the Bill to consult on the cost cap.
The noble Lord asked whether the cost-cap regulations would apply to Scotland. The answer is yes, it would. The cost cap is clearly a reserved matter and the details about how it would work, which are covered by the scheme regulations, are in exactly the same position as all the other provisions of the regulations that will apply to Scotland as they do to the rest of Great Britain, but not Northern Ireland.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I wish the Minister well in his negotiations with the Scottish Government in this respect. I recognise the general issue of the regulation set in Clause 19, but it is of such importance, as I will illustrate when we come to Amendment 68, that it would be of particular relevance to have the notion of consultation included at this point. However, I will elaborate that argument when I turn to Amendment 68. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 67.
Lord Flight
Lord Flight
My Lords, my five amendments to Clause 11 and one to Clause 20 are about fleshing out how the cost-control mechanism will work. I should like to make the point up front that I well understand the sense of the Government endeavouring to achieve broad agreements with the public sector trade unions in a territory which is thus long term. I pay tribute to the honest broker work done by the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, in examining the territory in such detail.
There is a third party in addition to public sector employees and the Government, which is self-evidently the taxpayer. With pay-as-you-go pensions, the theoretical actuarial deficit or surplus is essentially irrelevant—no doubt, the wrong rate of interest is used anyway in discounting the liabilities—as is, in a way, the percentage of GDP as a cost. As long as we have a pay-as-you-go system, what matters is the cash-flow deficit which other taxpayers have to cover. As I pointed out last week, it was quite surprising to see the OBR forecasting a cash deficit of £15.4 billion by 2016-17. Subsequent to that calculation, the OBR, in its report of 12 December, pointed out that expected longevity is six years longer than the assumptions made when the figures I have just quoted were produced. That implies at least an additional £7 billion of cash-flow shortage. As things stand, from 2016-17 onwards there will be a cash deficit of some £22 billion or £23 billion per annum to be financed by other taxpayers. That is not satisfactory and it certainly follows that there needs to be a cost cap that functions and can deal with all possible options if costs get further out of kilter.
As it stands, the Bill does not cover costs effectively. Most of the key points will be in subsequent regulations. Clause 11 provides a legal framework for the system of cost controls but with virtually no details. It appears to give the Treasury greater future flexibility and control if, for example, there is a change in the inflation index. It is unclear what will happen if no agreement is reached in the areas that are set out in Clause 11 to achieve agreement.
The details of the cost-cap mechanism are yet to be agreed. The Treasury has published a more detailed document, which establishes an employer cost cap in public service pension schemes. In a way it is that document that we should be discussing as it has more detail in it. The Treasury has also published an actuarial valuation of public service pension schemes. The actuarial valuation is of less fundamental importance. However, it is that which drives the cost-cap mechanism, so it is important in that context.
The Bill specifies that all schemes must set a cap expressed as a fixed percentage of pensionable pay but it does not define what the percentage might be. It is difficult for the legislation to be costed at present and it is somewhat inadequate to be reviewing the Bill without knowing the percentage caps that will be recommended. There are no details as to what will happen if there is no agreement to any required cost adjustments and there is no specific regard to the cash- flow deficit that is being achieved. The HM Treasury paper establishes an employer cost cap in principle. It sets out the mismatch between the contribution rate which employees pay and the rate controlled by the cap, but that, too, has not been addressed. The Treasury paper provides that the cap mechanism deals only with cost changes relating directly to active members and not to deferred or pensioner members or to cost increases arising from other forms of charge.
In a sense, my amendments are not of huge significance but they endeavour to put a few more clothes on the arrangements. Amendment 67A would provide the principle that, if no agreement was reached once a cap was exceeded, the guidelines provided by the Treasury would need to be applied. Amendment 67B would provide for the cap to include increases in pension payments if cost cuts were required. As with the private sector in many circumstances, it would introduce an element of fairness whereby pensioners would share some of the pain if the funding had reached the stage where the deficit was so great that it had to be cut back.
Amendment 69A would require an affirmative Commons procedure if reductions in pensions in payment were proposed. Given the lack of detailed prescription, Amendment 70A would provide for how the cost cap should operate. It would require the Office for Budget Responsibility to publish periodic appraisals of employer cost-cap arrangements, quadrennially for unfunded pay-as-you-go schemes and triennially for funded local government schemes. It would also require the publication of the schemes’ valuation reports. The key is requiring the reporting of the annual cash-flow shortfall for the next five years, with comparisons between the Independent Public Service Pensions Commission’s projections for benefit payments as a percentage of GDP and the actual anticipated percentage of GDP. Obviously, the point here is that if GDP growth is a lot less than expected or hoped, which is proving to be the case, that will alter that figure. The GDP figure is important as projections are based on better GDP growth reducing the overall cost of public sector pensions as a percentage of GDP.
Amendment 71A would remove any government responsibility—that is, taxpayer responsibility—for financial support for any local government pension scheme. I hope that this is not necessary but there could be a potential financial liability for trustees—the Minister has a trustee role—if a local government scheme were in trouble.
The Bill does not refer to the ongoing constitution of local government pension schemes or specific regulation thereof. The Local Government Pension Scheme’s national standards boards feature in the consultation but have not been picked up in the Bill.
Finally, Amendment 118A adds “pensions in payment” as a protected element in relation to a scheme for which proposals for retrospective change may be made by the responsible authority. I have said that I think that is a fair point if such extreme measures are needed.
The bottom line is straightforward. If the cash-flow deficit becomes an unacceptable burden on other taxpayers, there are only four ways—or a mixture of four ways—in which it can be controlled. One is obviously through an increase in employee contributions, but the sort of increase required is, I think, too large for this to be practical as a sole solution. A second is reducing the accrual of pension rights, on which Clause 11 focuses. The next is reducing pensions in payment, to which two of my amendments relate, and the fourth is increasing the pension age. Although that is addressed elsewhere in the Bill, it is not specifically addressed as one of the ways of controlling costs. The Treasury paper on the employer cost cap does not make any specific reference to reducing pensions and it excludes any impact of cost increases from other sources.
I hope that the Minister will respond that my amendments are not necessary and that empowering the Treasury to do anything covers virtually everything. However, I am quite surprised that the deal that has been done comes before both Houses with the sort of cash-flow deficit that it has at a time when it seems obvious that public spending will in due course need to be cut significantly more than it has been or the public finances will be in a complete shambles. Adding £23 billion per annum to public expenditure through the cash subsidy of public sector pensions seems to be a pretty tall order. Although I understand the position and interests of members of public sector pension schemes, I repeat that I am surprised that we have not arrived at a proposal which is, in essence, cash neutral.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I am afraid that I cannot really support the noble Lord, Lord Flight, in these measures. I point out to him that they are internally inconsistent and, indeed, contradictory. On the one hand, Amendment 71A effectively removes all responsibility from the Government in relation to any potential, unlikely though it may be, default on the Local Government Pension Scheme.
Lord Flight
That amendment is intended to remove any financial liability, not to remove any obligation to get it dealt with.
Lord Whitty
Just so, my Lords, but the legitimacy of the Government being able to lay down the detailed criteria which his other amendments and indeed many of the Government’s stipulations in the Bill provide in relation to the local government scheme relies on the fact that everybody assumes that the local government scheme has the Government as its underwriter of last resort and that therefore that underwriter has the right to intervene in what is otherwise the equivalent of a private scheme between private institutions; namely, local government and private trade unions. They are not central government creatures. They have certain statutory responsibilities but they are separate entities. Therefore, the legitimacy of the Treasury in any sense making directions, stipulations and interventions, as the Bill provides and as the noble Lord’s other amendments would consolidate or take further, depends, so far as concerns the local government scheme, on that implicit underwriting. It is hoped that it would never be called upon. Nevertheless, it is there in the background. The situation in relation to the other schemes is different, but Amendment 71A relates specifically to the local government scheme and I think that it is contradictory to everything else that the noble Lord was advocating and much of what the Minister is advocating.
Lord Newby
My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Flight, about the need to keep the ballooning cost of public sector pension schemes under control. That is one of the key features of this Bill. The challenge, which I will come to in a minute, is that it is not straightforward, or indeed possible, to turn the tap off in pensions as you can in some other areas of expenditure.
I think everybody agrees that the cost cap is one of the key elements of these reforms and in order for it to be credible and robust we must ensure that costs will always be adjusted if the cap is breached. This can be done in a number of ways. While it would be preferable if all stakeholders were agreed on the way to do it, we have to allow for the possibility that agreement might not be reached. Clause 11 therefore specifies that scheme regulations must set out the steps to be taken to achieve the target cost if there is no agreement; there simply has to be a default adjustment.
The amendment seeks to strengthen this requirement by specifying that this element of scheme regulations must be in accordance with guidelines provided by the Treasury. This would ensure that the default action mandated in scheme regulations would be more consistent across schemes. I understand my noble friend’s intention in this amendment but it is simply unnecessary. Clause 3 sets out that the majority of scheme regulations made under the Bill require the consent of the Treasury before they are made. This requirement for Treasury approval will provide the assurances my noble friend is seeking because it covers the cost cap. He said in relation more generally to the cap that, for all the schemes, cash flow was more important than theoretical deficits and surpluses. At one level it is, but valuations of the theoretical surpluses or deficits are needed in the unfunded schemes because we have to plan how the Government will meet the cash-flow costs of the schemes over a long period going forward.
The intention behind Amendments 67B, 69B and 118A is to allow pensions already in payment to be altered, should action to adjust the costs of the pension schemes be required as a result of the employer cost-cap mechanism. In theory, this is one of the ways in which you constrain the costs. Unfortunately for the noble Lord, the Government cannot accept these amendments. Amendment 67B would allow pensioners’ accrued benefits to be reduced to reduce the cost of the scheme. As the Government have made clear, both in this House and in the other place, we are committed to protecting accrued benefits. Indeed, I hope to bring forward amendments on Report which entrench that view.
There are also significant legal hurdles to altering pensions in payment. In law, pensions in payment are owned by pensioners in exactly the same way as other possessions. Article 1 of Protocol 1 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects these possessions from any interference by the Government that is not only lawful but proportionate. We agree with that provision. Any Government attempting to alter pensions in payment would face a serious risk of legal challenge from pensioners arguing that their possessions should not be taken away in favour of protecting active members in employment from cost control. This would make it very hard for this amendment to work in practice even if we thought it was a good idea, which, sadly for the noble Lord, we do not.
Legal difficulties aside, it is right that those benefits that have already been paid for cannot be reduced. The ability to provide retrospective changes of this nature would mean significant uncertainty for all members of the schemes and potentially destroy any trust in them.
Baroness Noakes
Can the Minister clarify what he is referring to when he says that not being able to adjust existing accrued rights would also affect increases in pensions that were already in payment? One way of using the amendment proposed by my noble friend would be to constrain future increases through whatever indexation is in use at the time. Would it not be sensible for the Government to have that available to them for getting cost control? It is different from saying that you reduce the number of years accrued or the absolute amount of an accrued pension.
Lord Newby
It is, but I think that the same considerations apply. The employee or former employee in effect has a pension contract, which says that he or she is making a payment into a scheme; the employer is making a payment into a scheme and certain payments flow from that. Whether we are talking about rates of accrual or any other component of an agreed pension scheme, my understanding is that retrospective reductions—however they are done; even if we are not talking about a reduction but a freeze, it is a reduction of the implied or explicit rights already in the scheme—would fall foul of the legal issues I raised as much as any other component of the scheme.
I think that I had just about got to the end of what I was going to say on that amendment. Turning to Amendment 70A, I understand my noble friend’s intention in providing for an independent assessment of the operation of the cost-cap mechanism, and for transparency around the cost of public service pensions. However, the Government cannot accept this amendment. The role of the OBR is to improve the accountability of the Government by examining the state of the public finances and the long-term impact of government decisions. While it has a clear remit to analyse the long-term sustainability of the public finances, it has full independence in determining how to fulfil this obligation. The Government cannot specify that the OBR provides any specific data or analysis.
However, as my noble friend alluded to, much of the data that would be required under this amendment is already provided by the OBR. The OBR’s economic and fiscal forecasts, produced twice a year, have included a forecast of public sector pension payments and contributions over a five-year period. Indeed, the noble Lord referred to some of the figures it produced in November. For noble Lords who have not had the opportunity to look at them, I refer them to page 146 of the OBR’s Economic and Fiscal Outlook produced in December.
My noble friend’s amendments would also include provision for the OBR to pass judgment on the effectiveness of the cost-cap mechanism. This would change the role of the OBR. It is not a policy-based organisation and must be seen as impartial and independent. For the OBR to be seen to advocate or arbitrate on policies would draw it into political debate and could undermine this independence. If you allow the OBR to start giving advice or arbitrating on policies across the piece, that would completely undermine the role set for it. For that reason, policy on the cost cap, and public service pensions more broadly, must remain the responsibility of the Government.
Amendment 71A seeks to prevent the pension liabilities of local authorities falling to the Government. I should start by highlighting that the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is not a trustee of the pension scheme. Rather, the Secretary of State is the person who may make regulations to establish the scheme. Local authorities are responsible for managing and administering both their own budgets and the Local Government Pension Scheme. The authorities, not the Minister, are responsible for their liabilities under the scheme. Legislation requires local authorities to establish and manage pension funds and then set the appropriate level of employer contribution rates to ensure that those funds are able to meet the liabilities of the scheme. In addition, the new requirements in Clause 12 of the Bill will provide additional scrutiny of LGPS fund valuations. There are, of course, safeguards in place.
Baroness Noakes
What the Minister is saying is very helpful. Can he say explicitly that what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said—about there being a broad assumption that the Government stood behind local authority pension schemes—is wrong?
Lord Newby
My Lords, I shall write to the noble Baroness if I get this wrong—and the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, will shake his head or nod depending on whether or not I get it right—but I think that the responsibility for meeting obligations under local authority pension schemes falls to taxpayers within the local authority areas covered by the schemes.
Baroness Noakes
The point that the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, was making was not to dispute the basic legal position but to say if that were defaulted upon, there is an assumption underpinning these schemes that the Government stand behind them. That is why I asked the Minister to clarify his view of that.
Lord Newby
I will be very happy to write to the noble Baroness about it but the whole purpose of the cost cap is to ensure that we do not get into that mess. Given the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, in this area, I am very reassured by his confidence that the local government schemes will not get into this mess. The reason why the cost cap covers local government schemes is that, however unlikely it is, we feel that we need a method of dealing with them in this extremely unlikely eventuality.
Lord Whitty
My Lords, I think we all hope that it is an extremely unlikely eventuality and I genuinely believe that it is an extremely unlikely eventuality. Standing behind this is a slightly theological but nevertheless psychologically important matter. I suspect you cannot find it anywhere in statute but, as the noble Lord, Lord Newby, says, the ultimate responsibility of any failure of a local government scheme would rest, in some context or other, on taxpayers, and it therefore becomes the Government’s responsibility. I hope that the noble Lord can write to me as well, and perhaps to other colleagues in the House. I expect it will be quite a difficult letter to write.
Lord Newby
We look forward to that intellectual exercise. I think that I had just about dealt with Amendment 71A. Amendment 118A, to my mind, is grouped with Amendments 67B and 69A. They all relate to the same point about being able to constrain payments. All the considerations that apply to Amendment 67B and 69A apply to Amendment 118A as well.
Lord Flight
My Lords, the Minister has done a pretty effective job in removing the practicality of my amendment. I will just make the point about pensions in payment. I accept the argument that a contract is a contract, but for new people joining the public sector, a term of their employment could be that their pension right includes the possibility that, if their pension arrangements were in a mess, their pension could be reduced. In the case of an existing contract, I grant that it cannot be removed.
To the extent that it is possible, there ought to be broad similarity between what happens in the private sector and what happens in the public sector. Obviously, in the private sector, if a final salary scheme gets into a mess and the employer cannot finance the deficit, even though it goes to the Pension Protection Fund, people will not necessarily continue to get their full pensions with inflation increases and so forth. I think it is worth looking at seeking to design a scheme that is reasonably fair on both sides. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Eatwell
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, we return to the issue that I anticipated in my remarks a few moments ago, of the relationship between the cost cap and the benefits to be received.
I remind the House that Clause 11(7), in referring to the cost cap, says that the steps taken in conditions where the cost cap is not met,
“may include the increase or decrease of members’ benefits or contributions”.
Clause 11(7) is entirely unqualified in that respect. It could lead to an increase or a decrease in benefits. As currently drafted, there is absolutely nothing to prevent accrued benefits from being reduced. Indeed, one of the main concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, about the Bill, which he expressed in written evidence, is that it does not offer proper protection for accrued rights.
Interestingly enough, there is a Treasury paper on the issue of the employer cost cap. On page 6 of that paper it says:
“There is no intention to make changes to benefits already accrued via the cost cap mechanism”.
The very statement that there is no intention to reduce accrued benefits demonstrates that the clause as drafted includes the possibility of the reduction in accrued benefits. As we all know, in politics, the phrase “we have no intention” means “we are going to do it in due course”.
Surely the Minister can have no objection to this amendment, as he has promised that the Government will not reduce any accrued benefits. What is more, this amendment would not change the Bill in any way that is detrimental to the Government. It would be of enormous benefit, providing millions of public service workers with the confidence that the accrued benefits of their pensions are safe. After all, the Government may declare that they have no intention of using Clause 11(7) to reduce accrued benefits but, as we have said several times this afternoon, it cannot bind future Administrations. If the Minister really wants to ensure that accrued rights are safe, why not include this amendment in the Bill so that if the cost cap were ever to be used to attack accrued benefits, any future Administration would have to come to Parliament to amend the legislation?
I stress that this is not a repeat of our discussion about retrospection in Clause 3(3)(c). This is a different issue. It speaks specifically to a statement that benefits might be reduced and does not qualify which benefits might be reduced. It would be enormously helpful to the Government if they accepted this amendment and made it clear that not only do they have no intention but that they intend to legislate to ensure that members’ accrued benefits are not reduced, let us say, unintentionally by the cost cap coming in to exercise its role in maintaining efficiency in the provision of pensions. I beg to move.
Baroness Donaghy
I will speak briefly in support of my noble friend Lord Eatwell. I think I said at Second Reading that the issue of accrued benefits is a deal-breaker as far as the negotiations are concerned. It is about keeping one’s word. Enshrining this in the Bill would do a huge amount to reassure public servants, particularly those in Scotland who have not yet been properly consulted. I believe that if a public servant sat down and did an audit of all the discussions that we have had on Committee days one and two, they would see the Government’s unwillingness to put in the Bill all the areas in those agreements, saying, “No, we do not think that this, this or this needs to go in” and so on. I realise that this Bill is a legal framework but we are talking about the confidence that people can have in their pensions in the future.
We should not forget that it is not only Governments that can opt out of these things; individuals will make assessments about their own benefits and welfare and future, and it is very important for all our sakes that we maintain some kind of stability in this turmoil. If I can use a pun, the accrued failure of the Government to put any real assurances in the Bill might be viewed in a negative light by a lot of people who are very involved in this debate.
Lord Newby
My Lords, I will respond first to the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, before returning to the specific issue raised by the amendment. The vast bulk of the provisions that will affect people are not in the Bill; they are under the schemes. I have circulated the draft Civil Service scheme, an extremely long and detailed document that has in it most of the things—the headlines—that people will look at in determining whether they think the pensions they will get are fair and reasonable. I hope that those who worry that the Bill does not cover a lot of the things that they want covered can be reassured, as I have sought to reassure the House, that in the vast bulk of cases these points will be in the regulations, which obviously have the same force as the Bill.
With regard to Amendment 68, I will not repeat at great length that we have no intention to do what the amendment seeks to prevent. I do not need to refer the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, to the Treasury paper because he has read it. I do not need to remind people about the UK and European legislation that would limit the Government’s freedom to do what the amendment prevents because I have already done so. What I will say is that we are committed to giving further consideration to the protection of accrued benefits, of all sorts, in all circumstances. I plan to have amendments to that effect ready for Report; they will cover this point along with accrued benefits, so I hope that is a reassurance to the noble Lord.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that. Of course, he made that commitment at the previous day of Committee when we were discussing the whole issue of retrospection. I am delighted to hear that the amendments he will bring forward—relatively soon, I hope, so that we will have the opportunity to examine them carefully before we discuss them on the first day of Report—will also cover this particular eventuality. On the basis of that assurance I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Eatwell
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, this is again a belt-and-braces amendment. If the Government had not made a commitment to protect accrued benefits in an appropriate way, including benefits in general as referred to in Clause 11(7), we would want any change in the cost cap and the consequences of such to be considered on the basis of an affirmative Motion. Given that the Minister has made a commitment to bring forward amendments to deal with the issue of accrued benefits I will not move Amendment 69.
Lord Newby
Lord Newby
“Information about benefits
(1) Scheme regulations must require the scheme manager for a scheme under section 1 which is a defined benefits scheme to provide benefit information statements to each person in pensionable service under the scheme in accordance with this section.
(2) A benefit information statement must include—
(a) a description of the benefits earned by the person in respect of his or her pensionable service, and(b) such other information as Treasury directions may specify.(3) The information included in a benefit information statement must comply with such requirements as Treasury directions may specify.
(4) A benefit information statement must be provided—
(a) no later than the relevant date, and(b) at least once in each year ending with the anniversary of that date. (5) The relevant date is the last day of the period of 17 months beginning with the day on which scheme regulations establishing the scheme come into force.
(6) A benefit information statement must be provided in such manner as Treasury directions may specify.”
Lord Newby
My Lords, Amendment 72 delivers on the Government’s commitment to come forward with an amendment to require scheme members to be provided with information about their pension benefits. Amendment 83, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, is also in this group and is based on an amendment, tabled in another place, which we believe is not quite right for a number of reasons. I hope the noble Lord will be satisfied that Amendment 72 is an appropriate alternative.
The new clause will apply to each public service pension scheme made under Clause 1 of the Bill and, by virtue of Amendment 137, all new public body pension schemes. It requires that every active member of the schemes must be regularly provided with information about the pension benefits they have earned. The clause allows for this to be done in a number of ways, including via electronic media. The first statement must be provided within 17 months of the new schemes coming into effect and at least annually thereafter. Like me, noble Lords may wonder why 17 months has been chosen as the period in the amendment. The reason is that 17 months would take us to September of next year, which would mean that scheme members would have this information before they needed to submit their tax return. This is relevant only to high- end earners, who may need to take account of the contributions going into their schemes for tax purposes. This period will ensure that the schemes have the correct infrastructure in place to carry out this commitment. They can, of course, provide statements earlier where they are ready.
In developing the clause we have been mindful of the obligations that already apply to all occupational pension schemes, including the public service schemes. Regulations made under Section 113 of the Pension Schemes Act 1993 set out various information requirements. These are known as the disclosure regulations and include requirements to provide deferred members with information about the benefits they have earned up to the point at which they leave the scheme. As this legislation already requires information to be provided to those members, it would not be appropriate for our amendment to address them. The disclosure regulations also require defined benefit pension schemes to provide information to active members, but only upon request. The effect of our amendments will be to require each of the public service pension schemes to go further than this. Once they are up and running, information will automatically be provided to all active members at least once a year.
The disclosure regulations specify the information that all schemes must provide on request, how it may be provided and certain detailed points about how it must be calculated. Our policy is for the new benefit statements provided under this clause to be produced to the same standards. Rather than mirror the requirements of the disclosure regulations in the Bill, our amendment provides for Treasury directions to specify the information that must be provided to members. We have taken this approach because we are mindful that the disclosure regulations themselves may change over time and we will want the public schemes to keep in step. In fact, the regulations governing the disclosure of information in occupational pension schemes are currently under review. We have set out a commitment to consult on those provisions later this year.
We propose to retain parity between the Bill provisions and the disclosure regulations wherever appropriate. It is important that members are given consistent and complementary information about their pension scheme benefits. This approach is also consistent with that we have taken elsewhere in the Bill in extending the role of the Pensions Regulator to the public schemes. The Pensions Regulator will also have a role in overseeing the provision of benefit information to members of the public schemes.
Amendment 86 adds annual benefit information to the list of matters that the regulator will issue guidance on. Amendments 84 and 87 also include the new clause in the areas that the regulator will oversee and on which they can take enforcement action should schemes fail to comply with their duties. The amendments meet the commitment that we made on making information available and I hope that noble Lords will agree with them.
Lord Eatwell
My Lords, I listened carefully to what the noble Lord had to say and I am cognisant that this is a response to the arguments made in another place by my honourable friend about the disclosure and availability of information. My Amendment 83, which is in this group, also seeks to enhance communication to members. I will not go into in any great detail the argument about why that should be done because the noble Lord has already said why it should be done. But I would be grateful if he could set out what are deemed to be the deficiencies of Amendment 83 so that I have the opportunity to study his arguments between now and Report.
Lord Newby
My Lords, the main difference between the two is that the noble Lord’s amendment sets out what information would be included in the benefit statement. We are saying that we wish the information to mirror the disclosure regulations that apply to private sector schemes. These will change from time to time. They have improved over the years and become less opaque. They may change again and we want the information that people under public sector schemes receive to keep up with what is, if not the gold standard, the best practice under those regulations.
We will provide information that mirrors the regulations, which may change. The noble Lord’s amendment is very prescriptive about what the information is. I have not gone through it to see what it misses, if anything, beyond what we are planning, but I hope that when he reads what I have said he will find that we are covering rather more than he wants covered and enabling a certain amount of flexibility to meet best practice.
“(1) The Treasury shall make directions requiring the scheme manager or responsible authority of a scheme under section 1 to publish scheme information.
(1A) The Treasury may make directions requiring the scheme manager or responsible authority of a scheme under section 1 to provide scheme information to the Treasury.”
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
My Lords, this amendment makes it a requirement for the Treasury to make directions for the publication of scheme data. It retains the permissive nature for Treasury directions in respect of data that are for the Treasury’s own use.
In his report, my noble friend Lord Hutton condemned the data presently available for public sector pension schemes. His report stated that,
“the Commission has concluded that at present the availability of such data is at best patchy: some key data is not available, at least not publicly. This needs to be improved”.
My noble friend Lord Hutton stressed the need to improve the quality and accessibility of scheme data so that comparison can be made between schemes and individual administrators. With better data, comparison could be made in respect of administration costs, membership profiles and, for the 89 funded local government pension scheme funds that manage more than £150 billion worth of assets, with a return on investments, which noble Lords will doubtless consider rather important.
Comparison, as in many areas, allows good practice and permits weak performance to be identified. Once identified, rectification may then be put in place in relation to that performance. It also enables good practice to be distributed throughout the various funds. In terms of accessibility, my noble friend Lord Hutton recommended that data be published as far as possible to common standards and methodologies and collated centrally. Currently, there is no central, publicly available depository of information.
Clause 13(1) of the Bill is permissive and thus fails to ensure that the Government will implement any changes to the current system for collating public service pension scheme data. Given the importance of full and reliable data in assessing the performance of public sector pension funds, that is not a desirable position.
Amendment 74 would replace the permissive language of “information may relate” with the compulsory language of “information shall include”. Over the decades, the argument about “may”, “maybe”, “must” and so on in context has been a fruitful source of income for many lawyers, and I declare my interest as a lawyer. However, in trying to get clarity in this important area, I suggest that the option that means either you do it or do not do it should be replaced with a mandatory position. The permissive nature of the language is not adequate in this area. My noble friend Lord Hutton in his report was very clear that current pension scheme data were not adequate—in his words, “at best patchy”—and some key data were not publicly available.
The report stresses that data should enable the assessment and scrutiny of performance, viability and key facts associated with the different schemes. This cannot be done unless the data are placed in the public domain. I suggest that the Bill should ensure that key data are published and not merely list types of data that the Treasury “may” include should it decide to make directions under Clause 31.
The Minister has frequently referred to flexibility and in many areas that is very useful, but in certain other areas such as this it can be termed, in my noble friend Lord Hutton’s phrase, patchy, which is undesirable in this area. The amendment does not set out to establish every detail of the information to be published but to provide a framework for information requirements.
In Amendment 75 there is an effort to specify that scheme information should include full valuation reports. Again, my noble friend Lord Hutton’s report specifically stated that full valuation reports should be published by our public service pension schemes, yet they are not mentioned in the types of scheme information in Clause 13(3). Without the publication of full valuation reports, comparison between schemes, as noble Lords will immediately appreciate, becomes very difficult. Proposed new subsection (3A) would allow the Treasury to require scheme information to be published to common standards to make it easier to collate. That in turn would help better comparisons between schemes. This is a permissive amendment.
Amendment 76 would require the Office for Budget Responsibility to report at regular intervals on the long-term impact of public service pension schemes. As my noble friend Lord Hutton stressed, there is a need for fiscal policy to take account of the sustainability of public service pension schemes. In that regard, I assume that the view is entirely common. For fiscal policy to be properly informed in relation to the cost of future and past pension promises, there needs to be accurate and independent analysis of the long-term impact of public sector pension schemes on public finances. That is why my noble friend Lord Hutton recommended that the Office for Budget Responsibility should provide a regular published analysis of the long-term fiscal impact of the main public service pension schemes, including the Local Government Pension Scheme. This amendment would ensure that fiscal policy is better informed, and that policymakers and the public are more regularly and reliably informed about the cost of public service pension schemes. Again, one assumes that that is a common objective on all sides of the House.
The Minister in another place said that the amendment was unnecessary, given that the Office for Budget Responsibility already has a responsibility to examine and report on the sustainability of public finances. From this side we suggest that this amendment be accepted, because it facilitates the understanding of the various trends and developments that may take place within the economy that have an impact on fiscal policy, which in turn can have an impact on pension matters. I beg to move.
Lord Newby
My Lords, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Davidson of Glen Clova, has said, in his final report the noble Lord, Lord Hutton, set out the need for improved transparency of information concerning the public service pension schemes. His report highlighted the range of information that is currently published, including data published by the Office for National Statistics, the OBR, the Treasury and the schemes themselves. However, as he explained, despite this range of data there is no centrally collated information that allows the total impact of the schemes to be readily assessed. Also, differences in the presentation and underlying methodologies and assumptions hamper comparisons between the schemes and, for local government, the funds within them.
Amendments 73 to 75 seek to ensure that Treasury directions require scheme information to be published and specify what that information must include. This is distinct from the current permissive drafting of Clause 13. Greater transparency is absolutely essential if we are to invite analysis and debate on the performance of the schemes. I can reassure the noble and learned Lord that we are committed to improving the information that is made available. It is our intention to use a central direction to ensure that such publications are helpful and consistent across the schemes, and to set out what information will be available—which I think goes a long way towards what the noble and learned Lord is seeking to achieve.
Amendment 74 seeks to require that all information set out in Clause 13(3) is published. However, that list is not intended to be a fixed or exhaustive list of the matters that schemes will be required to publish. Rather, it is intended to set out the core areas of scheme information that the detailed requirements will be built around. The list provides a starting point. The Government are committed to greater transparency, but it is fair to say that there is more work to be done to identify what information should be published, what common methodologies and assumptions should underpin it, and how best to collate or co-ordinate its publication. Once we are doing it on a more systematic basis, we will also want to change or amend the information that is published in the light of comments that are made. I do not necessarily think that even the Treasury will get it absolutely right first time so it would not be helpful to determine a mandatory list now, when information requirements will undoubtedly change as a result of comments made on our first attempts, and over time.
I hope that I can assure the noble and learned Lord that Amendment 75 is not necessary. Clause 13 already allows for Treasury directions to require information to be provided in a particular format. That is the key. Further, Clause 13(3) is not exhaustive, and already allows for schemes to be required to provide or publish full scheme valuation reports.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 76. The OBR already includes the impact of public service pensions in its spring and autumn Economic and Fiscal Outlook reports and in its July Fiscal Sustainability Report. The OBR’s role is established by the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Act 2011. Section 4 of that Act places a duty on the OBR to consider and report on the fiscal sustainability of the public finances, of which the public service pension schemes clearly form a significant part. As we discussed on an earlier amendment, the OBR has already started doing this. The report it produced at the time of the Pre-Budget Report in December does exactly, I think, what the noble and learned Lord is seeking to achieve. The OBR clearly intends to carry on doing that, so that amendment is not necessary either. I urge the noble and learned Lord to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
I am grateful to the Minister for his clarification on a broad number of areas. One is gratified to discover that we are ad idem in terms of our objectives. I will consider what has been said by the noble Lord and I congratulate him, again, on the openness of Her Majesty’s Treasury to change, which is always useful. I will reflect on what has been said and will seek to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Newby
Lord Newby
“Review of standards of administration
(1) Within six months of the day on which this Act is passed, the Treasury shall commission an independent review into the standards of administration in public service pension schemes and how those standards could be improved.
(2) The Treasury shall lay before Parliament the report produced by the review as soon as reasonably practical after the report has been published.”
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
This amendment would require Her Majesty’s Treasury to commission an independent review into the standards of administration in public service pension schemes. I refer again to my noble friend Lord Hutton’s report, recommendation 22 of which expresses the desire that:
“Government should set what good standards of administration should consist of in the public service pension schemes based on independent expert advice. The Pensions Regulator might have a role, building on its objective to promote good administration. A benchmarking exercise should then be conducted across all the schemes to assist in the raising of standards where appropriate”.
The proposed new clause implements this recommendation by ensuring that the Government will receive independent advice on how standards of administration can be improved in public sector schemes. It also ensures that independent review will be publicly accessible, so that its implementation may be scrutinised and the recommendations easily accessed and implemented by schemes that wish to do so.
The Bill makes provision for the regulator to issue codes of practice at paragraph 14 of Schedule 4, but we say that this provision does not require the regulator or another independent expert to carry out, first, a review and then set out clear principles regarding good administration in public sector pension schemes. Were that to be done, it would, of course, enable these codes to be informed. An independent review would identify areas for improvement in the inevitable drive for better administration. As well as identifying best practice, it could inform future codes of practice and look at the possibility of streamlining and combining the administrative functions of schemes. In his report, my noble friend Lord Hutton observed that the commission,
“received suggestions and evidence from a number of commentators that public service pension schemes offer scope for streamlining and combining of their administrative functions”.
It is suggested that via this amendment one could examine ways in which the Local Government Pension Scheme in particular might benefit from economies of scale. It follows, therefore, that there is potential for sharing administrative costs and services, and creating broad contracts. I beg to move.
Lord Newby
My Lords, we have already taken steps in the Bill to ensure the effective and efficient administration of public service pension schemes. Until now, the schemes have been exempt from much of the legislation that applies to the governance and administration of other occupational pension schemes, but through Schedule 4 we are significantly extending the administration requirements on public service pension schemes. I would not necessarily commend Schedule 4 as it is extremely detailed, but to this extent I would do so because it sets out how we are changing the current arrangements by extending the administration requirements.
The schedule also extends the role of the independent Pensions Regulator in regulating the governance and administration of public service schemes, bringing it into line with the regulator’s role in regulating all other occupational pension schemes. As the noble and learned Lord has pointed out, the regulator will issue codes of practice relating to the responsibilities of public service schemes and be able to enforce compliance where schemes do not meet the requirements of the legislation. We are also taking steps to improve the transparency of the schemes and their governance by introducing pension boards, as we have discussed, as well as scheme advisory boards. Taken together, our changes will deliver the commitment to establish and monitor standards of administration in the public schemes.
The burden of the noble and learned Lord’s amendment is that before the codes can be introduced you need to have a review, and indeed he talked about an independent review. We think that we have dealt with the point about independence by the fact that the regulator is independent. Further, you cannot produce codes without reviewing what is already there. You do not simply sit down with a blank sheet of paper and not look at what already exists in terms of best practice elsewhere in the industry. Our expectation is that the Pensions Regulator will of necessity have to review existing best practice before it can produce its own codes. For those reasons, we think that the amendment is unnecessary. We think that we are going to do what the noble and learned Lord is seeking to achieve, but we do not need a belt-and-braces approach in the form of further cover in the Bill to ensure that it actually happens.
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
Again, I am obliged to the Minister for his clarification. However, if this side has a prejudice it is that it is always better to be better informed. I will reflect on the Minister’s words to see whether what he has said matches our common objective. Once again, I respectfully seek leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Newby
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
This amendment would provide that the regulator must issue codes of practice by changing the permissive expression “may”. As I said earlier, when one comes across this language, one is always presented with an option either to do it or not, and plainly in this context it is not an enabling use of the word “may”. It does not suggest “shall”, so we suggest in this amendment that “shall” would be the better way of proceeding. That is because the desirability of codes of practice must be common, given what the Minister has already said.
As it stands, Schedule 4 allows but does not require the Pensions Regulator to issue codes of practice for public service pension schemes. Under the schedule, these codes of practice would include guidance in relation to the exercise of functions and standards of conduct and practice. Plainly, the intention of these codes is to bring about high standards of scheme governance and administration. We say that there should be a clear requirement that the codes are produced by the Pensions Regulator rather than leaving this as a potentially permissive provision. I believe that the Minister in another place said that this amendment was not necessary, but we take the opposite view in that it introduces a compulsitor on the regulator to make these codes of practice clear to all.
I should say immediately that there are many aspects of Schedule 4 that this side welcomes, specifically the requirement in paragraph 19 that pension board members must have appropriate knowledge and understanding to enable them properly to exercise their functions, and the requirement for public service schemes to establish internal controls, as set out in paragraph 21. However, we are concerned that the regulator is not obliged by this Bill to produce codes of practice for public service schemes. I beg to move.
Lord Newby
My Lords, it would be an interesting little exercise to look at how many hours of your Lordships’ time is spent debating across the Floor of the House whether to use “may” or “shall”, and vice versa. In my view, they are certainly too many.
As we have just debated, Schedule 4 sets out the new role for the Pensions Regulator in providing regulatory oversight of the administration and governance of public service schemes. A key part of that new role is to issue codes of practice. These codes set out in more detail the legal requirements on schemes and how to fulfil them. The regulator already issues codes of practice for private sector schemes and the drafting in this Bill closely mirrors the drafting in the Pensions Act 2004. These amendments would turn the overarching power for the regulator to issue codes of practice into a duty.
Proposed new Section 90A(2), set out in paragraph 14 of Schedule 4, already imposes a duty on the regulator to issue codes of practice in relation to the 11 matters listed in that provision. This sits under the broader power in proposed new Section 90A(1) to issue codes of practice in relation to the exercise of functions under pensions legislation and the standards of conduct of those exercising these functions. The result is that as currently drafted, the regulator will already be under an obligation to issue codes in relation to certain areas of pensions legislation. The power in new Section 90A(1) allows the regulator to issue codes on other areas in addition to those already required by new Section 90A(2).
New Section 90A(2)(j) provides, as does existing Section 90 of the Pensions Act 2004 on which this provision is based, for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to add to the list of matters in relation to which codes of practice must be issued. I can therefore assure noble Lords that the regulator will be obliged to issue codes of practice for the public service schemes. These are a key part of implementing the independent oversight and regulation of public service schemes, as recommended by the noble Lord, Lord Hutton.
Amendment 91 in this group relates to codes of practice in Northern Ireland. However, those provisions are all proposed for deletion by Amendment 90, which has already been debated. However, on the main point, I hope that with the reassurances I have given, the noble and learned Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
If the Minister is surprised at the amount of time spent by this Chamber in debate on the potential differences between “may” and “shall”, perhaps he should reflect on the decades that are spent in court having to consider and implement what this House and the other place have actually traduced. I am endeavouring to reduce by a few decades debate in the pensions area on the use of “must” or “shall” instead of “may”.
It is clear that the Government accept that there is a duty for the codes of practice and we welcome that. The difference between us is how far these codes of practice must go. The Minister takes the private sector as the comparator. Sometimes it might be an idea for the public sector to aspire to a slightly higher standard. However, given that no doubt difficult proposition for the coalition Government, I beg leave to withdraw this amendment.
Lord Newby
“( ) the discharge of duties imposed under section (Information about benefits) of that Act (information about benefits);”
“(1) New scheme regulations made under sections 1 and 3 shall replace existing schemes’ current regulations and shall take effect on the amendment date.
(1A) Following the implementation of new scheme regulations under subsection (1), benefits shall only be provided in accordance with those new regulations.”
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
Amendment 91A and the other amendments in the group are designed to address the concerns with Clause 16, in particular relating to the Local Government Pension Scheme, as it allows for the closure of each of the 89 funds that make up the LGPS.
Our concern is that allowing closure could have a number of unintended consequences. It was mentioned in Committee that local government schemes are exempt from Section 75 of the Pensions Act 1995, so “closure” would therefore not trigger debts under that section. But that is by no means the only risk of the use of the operative word, “closure”.
There are thousands of employers in local government pension funds, each of which has individual admission agreements governing the terms of the employer’s participation in the fund. Those agreements are not necessarily in standard form, meaning that there are potentially thousands of different admission contracts. It is likely that at least some of these agreements will set out various powers for the local authority in the event of closure, including the power to collect a debt from the employer equal to its share of the scheme’s deficit. This could put a massive strain on participating employers and has the potential to put some of them out of business.
The Minister in the other place assured the House that the Government will not close the Local Government Pension Schemes but, respectfully, this misses the point that the Bill allows local authorities to close their funds and the Government cannot prevent them doing so. For their own reasons, local authorities may wish to close schemes in order to crystallise debts from certain employers. The Government have insisted that the word “closure” be used in Clause 16 but this does not in fact mean closure. We suggest that this might be approached differently, to avoid this explanation.
Closing a pension fund means that there are no longer any active members in the scheme but that the scheme continues. However, the Government insist that in the context of Clause 16, “close” does not mean “close”. Rather, it means that no benefits will be provided under the scheme. That is what I understand the position to be.
As Clause 16 is currently drafted, the word “closure” is not given the different meaning that the Government contend. Clause 16(1) provides that,
“no benefits are to be provided under an existing scheme ... after the closing date”.
That is not sufficient to change the word “closure” from its accepted meaning in pensions law.
If the Government want the word “closure” to have this different meaning, they should explicitly define this in the Bill. These amendments would ensure that schemes do not close but that they are amended. It is suggested that “amendment” is by far a better way of proceeding than continuing with the word “closure”. These amendments are designed to achieve the Government’s desired aims, which we share, but prevent what we suspect would be the unintended consequences that could arise if the Bill continues to allow “closure”.
Amendment 91D is new and provides that the closing date for a Scottish scheme is 1 April 2016. This is to address the fact that administration of the scheme in Scotland is more complex and that more time will be needed. The Bill requires that existing schemes are closed on 5 April 2015. This means that Scottish local government pension schemes have to be renegotiated and scheme regulations drafted. There has to be consultation, approval by the Scottish Parliament and then administrative implementation. This may be achievable in England, because negotiations over the schemes have been concluded and significant work has been undertaken on scheme regulations, as we have already heard. Sadly, this is not the case in Scotland as until this Bill there was no necessity to do so.
A new Scottish Local Government Pension Scheme was implemented as recently as April 2009. The focus was to implement the cost sharing and other provisions of that new scheme. This Bill imposes the principle of the English-negotiated solutions, which were not sought in Scotland.
Two years may seem enough time for the Scots to sort themselves out, but the reality is somewhat different. If one works back from April 2015, the timetable is as follows. At least a full year is required to implement the scheme administratively, which includes software changes; that, I gather, is a minimum period. At least a further year is required to undertake the legal process, including the drafting of regulations, public consultation, ministerial approval and the laying of regulations in the Scottish Parliament. This is based on Civil Service estimates, approved by a Scottish Minister. It is not simply a construct by this side of the House.
That timeframe leaves about two months for initial union consultation with members, negotiation with stakeholders, and then consultation with members and other stakeholders—councils, admitted bodies and so on—about heads of agreement. Pension negotiations, as the Minister will immediately accept, are complex and require extensive data that take a long time to produce. Agreements also require an equality impact assessment, which takes time too.
This timetable assumes that stages progress smoothly, with no significant difficulties. However, as in England, not everything in Scotland necessarily proceeds smoothly—in fact, in Scotland it is possibly less so. Making changes to the Scottish Local Government Pension Scheme is significantly different to doing the same to the English scheme. So far it has taken about a year for the Scottish scheme to catch up with its English counterpart. The last major change in England was in 2008 and 2009 in Scotland. An amendment that delayed implementation in Scotland until 5 April 2016 would therefore have the support of the trade unions, of the Scottish local authority body, COSLA, and of Scottish Ministers. I beg to move.
Lord Newby
My Lords, before I turn to these amendments I would like to notify the Committee of a development with regard to certain Scottish pension schemes.
The regulations made for local government, police or firefighters’ pension schemes in Scotland must follow the framework set by this Bill. However, Clause 3 does not require the Treasury to consent to them before they are made. This reflects existing devolution arrangements. The Chief Secretary sought to agree a mechanism to ensure that both Governments were kept appropriately informed of any changes to these regulations, or factors affecting them with the Scottish Government. This would have operated via a non-binding memorandum of understanding.
However the Scottish Government have now informed the Treasury that they do not consider there to be a need for such a memorandum. I can assure noble Lords that these schemes will not operate in a vacuum. Existing agreements will continue to apply to these schemes, and we will continue to support the Scottish Government in making these regulations fair and sustainable.
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
Will the Minister briefly elucidate the reasons that the Scottish Government have given for why they do not consider that consent is required? If the Minister cannot do that immediately, I would be happy for him to write to me.
Lord Newby
I think I will have to write to the noble and learned Lord. I am very happy to do so.
I shall return to the amendments and start with Amendment 91D regarding the Scottish scheme. I heard what the noble and learned Lord said about the Scottish Government being unable to implement the reformed schemes in the 27 months available, but the Scottish Government have at no stage asked a Minister for a delay to the implementation of the schemes, and we think there are very good reasons for avoiding a delay.
A delay in implementing the reforms would, for example, result in hundreds of millions of pounds of additional liabilities being accrued in the Scottish schemes. These additional costs would have to be met from the Scottish budget at the expense of Scottish jobs and services. Furthermore, a delay would disadvantage Scottish public service workers on lower and middle incomes by prolonging the period that they will continue to subsidise the pensions of high flyers. I am sure that the noble and learned Lord does not think that that is desirable. The only thing I would say by way of general comment is that it has been clear since the point at which this legislation was introduced that it would apply to Scotland and how it would apply to Scotland. My right honourable friend the Chief Secretary has written repeatedly to the Scottish Government about what is going on in England and how we are making progress, and therefore there is no objective reason why the Scottish Government should not be absolutely marching in lockstep with the Government in London in terms of producing the scheme rules. We think that the time has come for the Scottish Government to get their skates on, and we do not believe that there should be a delay in Scotland for the reasons that I have given.
Baroness Donaghy
As the Minister knows, I am extremely concerned about equality of consultation on this issue. Can he say objectively if the same applies to local government employers and all public servants in Scotland and that they are equally in step and are fully involved?
Lord Newby
I am afraid I cannot because it is not the responsibility of the London Government. We do not seek to micromanage what is happening in Scotland or to follow every minute of what the Scottish Government are doing in relation to these things, not least because if we did, we would be excoriated by the Scottish Government for interfering in Scottish affairs. These are Scottish affairs and I am afraid we cannot second-guess every bit of discussion that is going on in Scotland. It would make us extremely unpopular for no benefit because we are not responsible for the way those scheme negotiations are progressed.
I shall move to Amendments 92A and 93A. Concerns were raised in another place about the closing dates as originally drafted. Although I am confident that the dates as drafted would have worked as intended, to address the concerns echoed here, and following discussions with each of the schemes about their planned timetable for reform, the Government have tabled Amendments 92 and 93 to revise the closing dates. I hope that noble Lords feel that their concerns have therefore been addressed.
On Amendments 91A, 91C and 93B to 93G, I shall attempt to address noble Lords’ concerns relating to the extent and effect of the closure of the existing schemes. Taken together, these amendments seek to provide for the replacement of the existing regulations in order to make these reforms. This would mean that the new scheme regulations made under Clause 1 would have to provide for both accrued rights prior to reform and new service after reform with different rules pertaining to each. That would be unnecessarily complex and inefficient.
The Bill already enables new and existing arrangements for each workforce to be managed and administered together by virtue of Clauses 4 and 5. The new and existing schemes will have the same scheme manager and the same pension board. From the perspective of a scheme member, their existing and new pension benefits and the administration of their pensions will be seamless. I hope I can also reassure noble Lords that there is no need to place in the Bill any requirement to legislate for the new schemes. The Government have made a number of commitments in this House, in another place and elsewhere to enact the schemes in accordance with the relevant heads of agreement.
I realise that a number of concerns have been raised in another place about the use of the phrase “closing date”. We have given lengthy reassurances that these words have only the meaning that can be attributed to them in the context of the clause; that is, that they close the schemes to future accrual only. This was the subject of the correspondence between the Economic Secretary, the shadow Financial Secretary and the chair of the Local Government Association which I circulated to noble Lords a couple of weeks ago in which we sought to minimise confusion about the use of the word “close”. Government Amendments 111 to 114, to which we will come later, have been drafted to achieve that. I hope that noble Lords can now put their minds at rest on the subject.
We have been clear that our intention is to simplify and consolidate the existing legislation relating to the provision of pensions to public servants. In future, public service pension schemes will be made under the powers in the Bill. These amendments, as drafted, would not allow for such consolidation. Although I know what the noble and learned Lord was seeking to achieve, I hope he will understand why I cannot accept his amendments.
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
I am obliged to the Minister. I remind him that when I referred to Scotland, I said that things do not always seem to move smoothly there. There certainly seems to be a different understanding on this side about what Scottish Ministers, who I take to be the Scottish Government, have expressed by way of a view in relation to timing. As I said, things do not always move smoothly north of the border.
If my learned friend the Minister—he may be learned for all I know and may be my friend—wishes to avoid unpopularity in Scotland, perhaps I may suggest that he refrains from suggesting that the Scottish Government move in lock step with the UK Government and that they get their skates on. In any event, I hear what he says, and we will perhaps return to this in due course when we are both better informed.
In relation to closure, the Minister described possible confusion between the Economic Secretary and his shadow. It may be that this is in effect a difference of approach. I suspect that we will return to this on Report, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Newby
Lord Newby
My Lords, Clause 16 provides that no person may accrue further benefits in the existing pension schemes after a given date. However, while this is referred to as “the closing date”, it is important to note that this does not mean that these schemes will be closed or wound up on that date. They will continue to exist to pay the benefits accrued up until the closing date, and beyond that date for those who are eligible for transitional provisions.
Although the closing dates as originally drafted would have worked as intended, they were a cause of concern in another place. To address these concerns, and following discussions with each of the schemes about their planned timetable for reform, Amendments 92 and 93 will revise the closing dates. Therefore, for local government workers in England and Wales, the closing date is 31 March 2014, and for all other schemes the closing date is 31 March 2015.
Amendments 111 to 114 are designed to minimise the potential for misinterpretation regarding how the Bill will affect the current schemes. Perhaps I may reiterate what was made clear in another place. There will be no subsequent crystallisation of liabilities when the Bill closes the current schemes to future accruals. To provide further clarity on this point, these amendments will remove references to schemes that are closed and instead signpost to the clauses that restrict the build-up of future accruals in the schemes. I beg to move.
Lord Davidson of Glen Clova
There was initially a spark of hope that these amendments might have addressed the question of closure. That spark has died. However, I hear what has been said. I will confine myself to saying that we may return to this matter on Report.
Lord Newby
Lord Newby
Lord Newby
“Exception: benefits payable to or in respect of a holder of a devolved office.”
Lord Newby
“27A A scheme under section 48 of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012.
Exceptions: injury benefits and compensation benefits.”
Lord Newby
“14A A scheme under section 48 of the Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012.
Specified benefits: injury benefits and compensation benefits.”
Lord Newby
Lord Newby
Arrangement of Business
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, there appears to have been what is, to me, an extraordinary misunderstanding about an agreement in the usual channels about the process by which we would deal with business today. I had anticipated that on this Bill my noble friend Lord Newby would be proceeding beyond Amendment 92 and that group, and that we would be going to 10 pm; this was the agreement very clearly set out. This was the process on this particular Bill but I understand that, despite discussion with me personally this afternoon, when I went through the procedure, what I thought was a careful explanation by me was misunderstood. Therefore, the opposition Front Bench finds itself in a difficult position and believes that it is unable to proceed with further amendments on this Bill.
There are, from time to time, misunderstandings about matters of business. This one has surprised me, but it is a matter that one just deals with and this House likes to proceed in a businesslike manner. Therefore, unexpectedly, we are in a position where the Bill will now stop for today. The remainder will conclude on Monday, although clearly it could have progressed much further tonight. Instead, there is a bonus for those who are now taking part in a very interesting Question for Short Debate. The only people for whom it is not a bonus, I regret to say, are the noble Lord asking the Question for Short Debate and the Minister responding, whose speaking times remain the same. My quick bit of maths as I rushed out of the Chamber leads me to believe that it would now be in order that the QSD goes to one and a half hours, since it is the last business, and that therefore, apart from the opening speaker and the Minister, every other speaker, including the opposition Front Bench spokesperson, is allowed seven minutes instead of four.
Prisoners: Work Programmes
Lord Carlile of Berriew
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what opportunities for re-training for prisoners will be provided by the newly developed policies for work in prisons; and how such work programmes will be commissioned.
Lord Carlile of Berriew
My Lords, I feel as though I have won a very small lottery this evening, and I am very pleased that we will have an extended time to deal with what I believe is the important issue of work in prison. I welcome, too, the significant interest in this debate, not least from the noble Lord, Lord Myners, who recently succeeded me as the president of the Howard League for Penal Reform, which I welcome very much. I regret that my noble friend Lady Hamwee is indisposed tonight and will not be speaking in this debate.
I mention the Howard League not least because it is the only organisation, as I understand it, ever to have run a real free-standing business inside a prison; that is, a business paying the rate for the job and with the prisoners wishing—though failing—to pay tax. Because of bureaucratic obstruction—I anticipate that the noble Lord, Lord Myners, may say a little about this later—it proved impossible to run it as a true business.
In my capacity as a lawyer and as a politician, I visited a very large number of prisons over a great many years. If you visit any prison, you will of course find prisoners doing some work. It may be a bit of gardening, some cleaning or some good or indifferent training courses. Some do contracted work. There are in fact about 100 firms that are contracted through NOMS to engage prisoners in work. However, that work goes to some 9,000 prisoners only—less than 12% of the prison population. Even for those who work, the average number of hours of work in 2010 was 11.8 hours per week, which hardly equates to a working week, and they were paid an average of £9.60.
Prison has several functions, including the protection of the public and retribution. Surely an important function is to release a human being who can live in the real world, which may be a confusing place for someone who left it several years earlier. Former prisoners need to be able to survive—therefore, they need money. Absent earnings in some cases, or in many cases, they will steal to survive. They need to pay rent for decent accommodation. Otherwise, prison may unfortunately provide their softest option for warmth and sustenance. Believe me, there are more than a few prisoners who have chosen prison as the most comfortable place to live. Prisoners need activity, otherwise idle hands may return all too swiftly to the twin devils of acquisitive and violent crime.
The advantage of work for prisoners while they are in prison is that when they become ex-prisoners and obtain jobs with their acquired skills, they can obtain not merely activity and earnings. Work involves other people, and working with other people includes the companionship, discipline and, above all, the self-respect that almost all regular work gives, whatever its nature. The benefits of work in your Lordships’ House require no advocacy.
Most male prisoners—shockingly, more than half—did not work in the year before they entered custody. That is a depressing figure, particularly because there is a correlation between that figure and crime. An even sorrier tale is that in 2009, of those leaving prison, 27% of men entered work, which means that more than seven out of 10 men did not get jobs when they left prison; and 13% of women entered work, which means that nearly 90% of women did not obtain jobs when they left prison. If you look at schemes that have been run abroad, particularly in America, you will find that former prisoners employed by good managers, who provide high-quality training, become extremely enthusiastic and reliable workers. That is surely to be encouraged. The cost-benefit analysis is self-evident. But the fact that seven out of 10 men and nine out of 10 women leave prison without a hope of a job is in truth the narrative leading to the prison revolving door.
There is an unanswerable case for work, especially for longer-term prisoners serving three years or more. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to that point. For such longer-term prisoners, there would be time to train them and the opportunity to teach them new skills. Many prisoners are much brighter than their pre-imprisonment qualifications would suggest. I recall going into a cell not many years ago where a young man showed me his maths GCSE A* certificate. When I asked him what he was proposing to do, he said, “I’m going to be a maths teacher, sir. I’m going to take maths A-level and go to university”. He was obviously very talented at, and loved, mathematics. When I asked him how he had done in mathematics at school, he said, “I never went to school, sir”. There is one single example from my own experience of someone who could be greatly upskilled in prison and be given the opportunity to have not just a job but a real career.
My suggestion to the Government is that if real work is to be brought into prisons, prisoners should earn the going rate for that job, thus avoiding the criticism that by doing such work they would undercut other producers. If a real effort were made to bring contractors into prison to provide work, they would come and provide that work. They would know, after all, that their workforce would at least turn up every day, or in most cases, anyway. The prisoners would pay tax—why not?—and national insurance, make payments towards a pension, contribute towards their families, earn something that is entirely free—namely pride—and, above all, be much fitter for release. In return for their work, they could be allowed privileges and extra purchases and, as the Howard League has suggested, there could be a levy on their earnings to compensate victims.
Mr Kenneth Clarke announced in May last year, as Lord Chancellor, the Government’s One3One initiative. That is welcome but there is precious little sign of it bearing fruit. I am sure that the House would be interested to know what is being done. There is no sign of a proactive approach by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, for example, or from other parts of the statutory sector, to bring One3One to effect.
In the couple of minutes remaining, I want to add something about new prisons. The cause of fitting prisoners for the world outside and putting them to employed work depends on a number of factors. It depends on giving them work that provides some meaning for their future lives and on them being able to maintain a relationship with their families while they serve their sentences. I read with dismay the repeated proposal, which comes from any Government, from time to time, that a Titan prison should be built to replace some smaller prisons. A Titan prison would give rise to the usual government procurement problems; it would almost certainly cost a few hundred million pounds more than was estimated. There would be very serious security issues, which would force the authorities to break it down into a number of smaller prisons within a prison. There would be potential staffing problems for a massive establishment, particularly if it was on the sites that have been trailed in the media this week. It would be less likely to produce a Titan than a Titanic, and it is a voyage that sound penal policy should and could do without. I invite my noble friend, when he replies to this debate, to make it clear that at worst a Titan prison is just a thought, and that it is far yet from being a proposal.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on securing this debate. I declare an interest in that I am a chief executive of Tomorrow’s People and try to work with some of the people that the noble Lord spoke about to make sure that they secure sustained employment.
It will come as no surprise to anyone here that I believe wholeheartedly that acquiring skills, undertaking training and being prepared for employment during any stay in prison—most importantly, on leaving prison—is critical if we are to ensure that people are supported and helped to secure sustained employment and to stop reoffending.
I would like to speak in support of the newly developed policies for work in prison. The focus of my contribution to this debate is on the benefits to prisoners and ex-offenders, rather than on the commissioning process. The objectives speak for themselves—of prisoners on a working week of 35 to 40 hours, their day focused on routine and work, with the economic benefits to them of being paid and having a wage and some control, in a very controlled environment, as well as the economic benefits to the prisons themselves. There should be links to business—getting businesses involved in this work is very important—and, of course, the creation of jobs through businesses and their supply chains.
Education, training and equipping prisoners for the world of work is very important. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, referred to somebody who wanted to be a maths teacher after being in prison. I suggest that there are many people in our prisons who are very clever in ways we wish they were not, but if that were channelled in the right direction they could become exemplary employees, contributing to society while securing qualifications during the process.
While all of these objectives are good, I suggest that, for those who are responsible for the programme, it should not be seen as a two-part, two-section approach—something that happens in prison and then something that happens when you come out. For me, the journey that prisoners would take while working in prisons should be seamless. From day one when they start work, it should be part of their journey into sustained employment. Therefore, it is not just about securing the skills to work or to be involved in a business; it is about getting them ready for that time when they leave prison and—we hope, if the links with business are as they should be—they will continue to work for that business or supply chain. The other things that should be put in place are a network of support and somewhere to live so that all the things that would burden them on release are completely taken away. It would be reliant on their becoming good employees, adding value to the business and being what I would call economically independent.
There are examples around the world of work of a similar nature. If you look at this country, we have Timpson—a terrific organisation. We have probably all had our shoes repaired, keys cut or dog tags engraved by it. It has its academies in prisons and employs these people when they leave prison—people who are forever grateful to have had the opportunity to realise their destiny. We all know about the national grid service: this, too, is a great thing.
I have been particularly struck by a project I have seen in America called Delancey Street, which is a programme to stop people reoffending and make sure that they achieve their potential. They themselves run real businesses which trade for profit and do not rely on the Government for any money. It is a true inspiration; there is a four-star restaurant which is well worth patronising. It also has a car service that drives executives around—from companies such as Gap—and is paid for its service. It also has a removal company, which is quite remarkable because it is paid to remove things from people’s houses and put them somewhere else. I have to tell noble Lords that its first customer was Getty; he was moving and the people did not turn up with the removal van, so this lady—Mimi Silbert, who started this up and is about four feet tall and a human dynamo—went over and said, “My boys will move you”. He had no choice and she guaranteed that nothing would be stolen—maybe broken, but that was it. It is now the biggest removal company on the west coast of America, trading for profit. Moreover, it owns a Christmas tree plantation, where it sells all its trees to people in San Francisco. The customers pay a premium because they know where the profits are going. It is absolutely true that Delancey Street got the contract to decorate Tiffany’s.
I believe this is a tremendous thing for us to be doing. It is commercially sound, economically sensible, professional in every sense and shows a commercial compassion that we so need in this country.
Lord Wills
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on securing this debate on this important subject. He has set out the issues compellingly and I do not want to rehearse them here again or go over the ground set out so well just now by the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott.
I want to focus my remarks on the difficulties that small voluntary organisations face in making a contribution to the important work that is the subject of this debate, particularly if these organisations are offering activities that do not fit within conventional models of the work that prisoners do. I want to illustrate this through the experience of Fine Cell Work, a charity with which members of my family have been involved for some years. Fine Cell Work is a social enterprise that trains prisoners in paid, skilled, creative needlework; it is taught and supported by volunteers from the Embroiderers’ and Quilters’ Guilds. The prisoners are paid for their work, which is then sold around the world. The pieces are high-quality craftwork, interior design commissions and heritage pieces for organisations such as the V&A, English Heritage, Tate Modern and the National Gallery. Fine Cell Work has had great success in the 17 prisons where it currently works.
Craftwork in prison has been shown to help prisoners develop the more constructive and disciplined aspects of their personalities as they learn new skills and support their families with the money that they earn. It connects inmates to wider society and gives them hope for their future. This is exactly the sort of work that NOMS should be supporting. Apart from everything else, through the combination of work in cells and in studio workshops, it enables prisoners to do practical, skilled vocational work in a 50-hour week—which I think is unprecedented in prisons—with a focused link to employment opportunities on release. It is significant that 80% of the work of Fine Cell Work is done in cells. At a time when budget cuts are leading to more time being spent in cells, it means that prisoners can continue to learn skills that will make them more employable with minimal cost and supervision.
However, because this work does not fit within recognised categories, it has faced real obstacles in realising its full potential. Many prison managers still call it “hobby work” in spite of the professionalism of the products and its commercial success. More than £200,000 worth of goods are sold annually. Prisons have been reluctant to support the training side of the work by seconding education staff to support the charity’s volunteers. To reinforce the prisoners’ sense of achievement and encourage their rehabilitation, their skilled production work should be accredited, but the volunteers are not qualified to deliver accredited training on their own.
Fine Cell Work’s ability to progress has been obstructed by such lack of support and the difficulties it faces in meeting bureaucratic criteria. This is an innovative, small social enterprise but if it is to expand, it needs to work in partnership. It is not a normal business because 70% of its income comes from grants and donations, and it is discounted as a factor in rehabilitation because the very specific NOMS methodology makes it impossible to prove that Fine Cell Work on its own prevents reoffending. Therefore, in this new world, can the Minister say what NOMS can do to safeguard such unorthodox training and rehabilitation programmes over and above work regimes that generate revenue for prisons? What will NOMS do to help small organisations such as this provide the evaluation data that NOMS rightly requires to enable it to make judgments on what sort of providers it wants to operate in prisons? What must small, hard-pressed organisations such as Fine Cell Work provide from their own slender resources? What can NOMS do to facilitate partnerships between small organisations such as Fine Cell Work to enable them to achieve the critical mass they need to meet the requirements of the Ministry of Justice?
I hope the Minister will recognise the threat that the failure to nurture small organisations poses to creativity and innovation in these programmes. I hope he recognises that, over and over again, experience under this Government and the previous Government has shown that the default option of delivering public services by commissioning large organisations—whose main talent has often been only to comply with the bureaucratic procurement criteria of central government—has failed all too often to produce value for money. If we are to get value for money, and if we are to pioneer new approaches to delivering public services, we need these innovative, small organisations to flourish. They have a vital role to play in delivering public services, but to do that work they need a system in place that encourages them to do so and does not place unnecessary obstacles in their way. I hope that the Minister, in his response, can reassure your Lordships’ House on all these points.
The Lord Bishop of Liverpool
My Lords, although I am very sorry that we shall not be hearing from the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, this evening, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Wills, not least because one of my Christmas presents this year was an embroidered cushion from Fine Cell Work. It has attracted lots of comment as it has pride of place in my study. I am very grateful for this opportunity to commend the excellent work about which we have already heard.
This is a timely debate as old prisons are closing and new prisons are opening. Our old prisons were built on monastic lines with cells modelled on monastic cells so that prisoners would be encouraged to contemplate their crime, and reform. While we should never lose sight of that purpose, the architecture of new prisons should reflect the evidence that training and work programmes for prisoners can be transformative in rehabilitating offenders. Therefore, my question to the Minister is: will the architecture of new prisons reflect this aspect of government policy?
In my capacity as Bishop to Prisons and in the process of making a series of programmes for BBC Radio 4 last year called “The Bishop and the Prisoner”, I have observed closely two retraining and work programmes: the Clink and the Timpson workshops, about which we have already heard. In both cases, training of the prisoners is done on the job, skilling them for future employment.
The Clink is a high-quality, West End-style restaurant created inside a prison, with professional chefs training prisoners to cook and serve paying clients. Two restaurants are already established in our prisons and a further eight are planned. Of the 35 prisoners who have been through the Clink and released, 29 have found jobs and only three have reoffended. Those are remarkable statistics. If those statistics are replicated in the planned further eight prisons, the Government must surely take note of the success of this programme. I have not only seen the statistics, I have tasted the food—I suppose that I ought to declare an interest. I have also met the prisoners without any staff being present and have seen the impact of this programme on their lives in improving their self-esteem and raising their aspirations.
The Timpson workshops, to which the noble Baroness referred, operate in three prisons at the moment. These prisoners learn to repair shoes and as they learn they are paid for their improving productivity as they gain more competence. The brilliance of these schemes is that when they leave prison, the best get jobs in the Timpson business. In other words, the job in prison is the pathway to employment on the outside. It is a great incentive for these offenders to work and retrain. I have listened to prisoners in these workshops and seen how acquiring a skill for the first time is transformative of their outlook and prospects.
I underline the fact that this is all to the credit of NOMS. The noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has visited many prisons and so have I. It is clear to me that the determining factor in each prison is the visionary outlook of the governor. These schemes have benefited from the enthusiastic endorsement of the governors of the prisons concerned. Although Mr James Timpson, who provides much of the dynamism for these projects, says that from time to time his experience of getting NOMS to be more commercial is a bit like asking the North Korean Government to run Disneyland—to use his phrase—I am sure that NOMS will take that in the spirit in which it is offered. However, that comment highlights the fact that there is great scope within NOMS for a visionary governor to come alongside Fine Cell Work as well as the commercial enterprises and to use these to the benefit of offenders and to address the Government’s hope of reducing reoffending. Will the Minister engage the visionaries behind these and other projects in the design of prisons so that transformative training and work can be at the heart of prisons, both physically and metaphorically?
Lord Myners
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate in this debate secured by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile. It is a timely debate in the context of the Government’s announcement last week of planned changes to the prison estate and to post-release supervision and support. I look forward to the Minister’s response. I know that he has taken an active interest in prisons. He told me that he has recently visited Peterborough prison, where no doubt he had the opportunity to see, among other things, the excellent initiatives being developed there by Social Finance under the chairmanship of Bernard Horn and the leadership of David Hutchinson. I declare my interest as the successor to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, as president of the Howard League for Penal Reform.
As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, said, some prisoners are paid for doing chores but it is a derisory sum. It is pocket money; in fact, it is less than the average pocket money paid per week to teenagers. It does not constitute employment or a meaningful preparation for release. Prison may, necessarily, have a punitive element but it should not deny the dignity of prisoners. It should focus instead on preparing offenders for a return to the community in an economically and socially purposeful and productive manner.
For many prisoners, life behind bars is sluggish and boring. Too little time is spent on education and helping them to develop the skills necessary to overcome what, for many of them, have been chaotic and painful life circumstances. As the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, noted, and I saw in a recent visit to Brixton prison, there is a great wealth of talent in prison. There are prisoners who want to stop lives of crime and re-establish productive lives which are no longer chaotic, but we are failing them in not taking as much action as we could to prepare them to return to the community and not be drawn back into offending and a life of crime. I found it painful to listen to two extremely bright prisoners who had the right motivation but were desperate about what was going to happen on their release because they did not feel in any way prepared to walk out through those gates and back into a safe, secure and hopeful life.
One of the most productive things prison can do is to prepare offenders for the world of regular and paid work. For some of them, this might be the first opportunity in their lives to develop work skills that can be applied in the formal economy. The way to get good outcomes—for prisoners and society—from the time spent in prison, is to provide a life-changing opportunity rather than the current practice, prevalent in so many prisons, of the prison being a warehouse or even worse.
I therefore urge the Government to focus their resources and ability to mobilise employers, to seek ways to create opportunities for prisoners to be gainfully employed, earning a fair wage and paying tax, and to provide the opportunity for prisoners to make a contribution out of their earnings to their families. Many of them feel that the link with their partners, wives, husbands and children is completely broken. I endorse the observation made by the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, about Titan prisons, which will inevitably increase the distance of travel between a prisoner and his family. If the Government want to reflect on this, I suggest they look at the views expressed by Mr Dominic Grieve, who, when he was shadow Justice Secretary, demolished the proposals for Titan prisons made by the Government of which I was a member.
We want to provide effective linkages between prisoners and their families. Through paid employment at a competitive and fair rate, prisoners will be able to make monetary contributions to their families, which will make them feel a continued link, a responsibility and a sense that they have retained their dignity, rather than the current conventional practice in which the conceit of treating a prisoner’s partner as a single parent ignores any opportunity for continuing economic linkage between the prisoner and their family. We want to seize the opportunity to allow prisoners to learn transferable employment skills that will reduce the risk of reoffending, to their own benefit and that of the community.
This is not going soft on prisons or prisoners. It makes assuredly good economic and social sense. It reduces the risk of a vicious circle. Providing training and work is a very real way of breaking that circle. Paid work creates additional motivation and fosters a sense of near-normality. In so doing, we might be making a positive step to address the desperation of prisoners released with little support and little prospect of employment in the formal economy because of the absence of any training or working experience during the period of their imprisonment.
There are, of course, practical issues. What is the right rate for the job? How do employers have access to the prison estate? How do we ensure the continuity of service that a business will require? These challenges can be overcome if everybody has the will to do so. The right reverend Prelate has referred to the importance of the governor. I would also emphasise the importance of ministerial activity and leadership. I read in the Sunday Times Mr Steve Hilton’s views on how difficult it was for Ministers to make change. I urge the Minister to take a personal interest in this area. Can he get together with other Ministers, including in the Department for Business, with employers and trade unions—we will hear in a moment from my noble friend Lady Dean—and with other agencies like the Howard League to see if he can place his mark on this particular area and be the Minister who changed the way in which prisons operate in preparing people to return to the economy as effective workers?
Lord Addington
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on bringing this subject forward. Whenever we discuss, do any work on or pay attention to the subject of prisons, we are always struck by how repetitive the problems are, both for the people concerned and for those of us who have been talking about them over time.
Generally speaking, you take into prison someone who is an educational failure and has usually finished their education—at their own decision, or that of their group—at the age of about 14. They commit a series of petty offences and most are on a roundabout of increasing but short-term sentences. They usually finish their offending pattern by the age of about 35. By that time, they have no work pattern, they have broken down several family relationships, and the best that they can expect is a life on benefits. That is a depressing scenario on which there is absolutely no disagreement in this debate. I agree with the suggestions that have been made by my noble friends and everyone in the House who has spoken on this; getting people into a pattern of work is probably the most important thing that can happen to them. If we are to try to achieve any form of preparing people for adult life, that is a very good way forward.
One of the things that initially attracted me to this debate was the problem of getting training and qualifications for that group of people. In the debate and my preparations for it, I realised that the idea of providing the activity and experience of work—particularly given what the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, has said—is a positive step forward because this group is probably one of the most difficult to train. What attracted me initially to the activity within prisons, and led to my ongoing interest in it, was the incredibly large number of people there with special educational needs, particularly dyslexia. My interests in dyslexia have been broadcast far too often in this Chamber.
Most of the assessments reckon that 50% of the prison population are within the dyslexia spectrum. The lowest figure that I have seen is 30%, and that was on an assessment of a group of 300. Assessments could not be carried out on 200 of them because they were too violent. Why does that not surprise anyone who has worked in this area? It is for the simple reason that if you have to admit that you cannot do the basic functions of reading and writing, you are going to resent someone who presents you with something on which you are going to be tested. You might not be dyslexic; you might just be stupid in the way that you have always been told.
I could give examples from my life, such as the discovery that my daughter could spell better than I could when she was seven. This is something that I never thought I would do but I recommend to noble Lords a programme on channel Five about Shane Lynch. I do not know if the House of Lords has a large following of the band Boyzone, but he is one of its members. He made a moving and articulate programme about someone who is dyslexic going through the problem of having to admit, “What if I am not dyslexic? What if I am thick? What if I have failed?”. This was someone who had a soft landing. He was going to get involved in the garage that his father ran and that was his way forward. The music opportunity came along and he went off there. However, that very successful, rich and well known person was literally terrified at the thought that he might actually just be stupid in the way that people had told him, or in the way that he had assumed he was. In our prisons, we have people who have gone through the justice system for whom the idea of picking up a pencil and writing in public is a humiliating and painful experience. You have to reach them.
Recent government publications now mention special educational needs and take that idea on, but the one place that you cannot get this group of people into is a classroom—not unless you drive them there with whips and guns. For them, it is a frightening place where you reaffirm an unpleasant experience. It is quite obvious, once you think about it. Dyslexics are not the only group affected; you will find an overrepresentation of people with ADHD, Asperger’s and head injury. People who cannot communicate do not handle the criminal justice system well.
I recommend a document, Dyslexia Behind Bars, which is the result of a study run by someone I saw in Chelmsford prison that initially looked at head injury and dyslexia. Here, successful intervention was achieved, primarily by developing and training mentors to go in, speak to a prisoner on an equal level and communicate. Once you have that level of communication, other things become possible. Formalised training and help become possible, but only once you have established that degree of communication. The formalised classroom will not achieve this because people will not use it.
I hope that the Government will embrace the Chelmsford project because I presented a copy of the report to my noble friend Lord McNally, in the company of my noble friend Lady Hamwee, who is much missed. It describes how, when you go in and talk to people on their own level because they trust you, you can begin that communication process. If you are going to strive for formal qualifications in the modern world, you generally have to pass a written test or know how to say why you should get help with that test. In both cases you need information.
I hope that when the Minister replies he will pay attention to the very high number of people in prison who need help with accessing all forms of formalised training and, indeed, with filling out benefit forms when they leave. If we do not pay attention to this, we will create more trouble.
Baroness Uddin
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, for bringing this matter before the House in a most poignant manner. It gives me an opportunity to share my experience of working with Kazuri, a social enterprise working to re-house female ex-offenders and women who have suffered domestic violence.
I had the privilege recently to launch Kazuri’s report in the House, attended by grass-root practitioners and campaigning organisations, as well as NOMS and the Ministry of Justice. There were more than 80 individuals present. The meeting was addressed by the human rights lawyer, Imran Khan, and the barrister and legal specialist, Flo Krause, as well as by Julia Gibby, who had also prepared evidence to the Justice Committee’s inquiry on women in the criminal justice system.
There are 4,133 women in prison and, staggeringly, 224 of them are Muslim. The report calls for a dismantling of the existing female estate, saying it has no relevance to the needs of women in prison. I commend the report to the House and hope that many noble Lords will take the opportunity to read it, as it makes a harrowing case about the level of misogyny against women in prison. Women serving the end of their sentences at an open prison were surveyed by Kazuri, which identified consistent gaps in provision in training and educational opportunities.
In the current climate of privatisation of public services, the recent probation service announcements and the building of yet more Titan prisons, women are punished far more heavily in prisons that lack trained staff. Kazuri’s report states that underfunded privatised education and resettlement departments are ill equipped to facilitate resettlement and rehabilitation.
We must ensure that there is no further replication of the Work Programme, which has not been a successful example of large private sector companies working with the smaller social enterprises and charities, which walked away. I hope that the Minister will say how the Government intend to work with smaller companies and organisations to deliver more ethical and appropriate services, where large-scale organisations and providers have thus far failed.
It is alarming that, according to the charity Women in Prison, 87% of women who are serving custodial sentences have been victims of violence. According to the Chief Inspector of Prisons, HMP Holloway, which I have visited, no longer offers any courses in understanding domestic violence for the women prisoners.
While the Government are making strides generally to bring violence against women to a higher level on the policy agenda, this must be reflected in the prison estate. If women are not empowered to deal with the impact and long-standing trauma of prison, they will be released and simply fall back into cycles of abuse and—inevitably—crime, to which the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has eloquently referred.
As a Parliament committed to rooting out violence against women, we cannot leave women in prison out of this equation. Interestingly, the noble lord, Lord McNally, in response to a Question from my noble friend Lady Corston, agreed to yet another review when asked whether custodial care and offender management should be organised to meet gender-specific requirements. The Corston report is the most comprehensive review of women in the criminal justice system. It seems perverse that this universally accepted framework to look at the needs of women across the raft of ministries and statutory duties appears to have been sidelined by this Government.
I respectfully submit that the time for reviews is over. There have been numerous reports on and reviews into the plight of women in the criminal justice system, and I urge Her Majesty’s Government to look at the wealth of evidence collated by the Justice Committee as a result of its recent inquiry. Kazuri’s submission to the Justice Committee says that more women than men lose their homes and children as a result of their incarceration, and that more children and public services are affected in profound ways by the incarceration of women. Some 17,000 children suffer every year because their mothers have been placed in custody. Will the Minister say how the Government intend to tackle the disproportionate inequalities faced by women in the criminal justice system?
I submit that the eradication of inequality is not synonymous with treating everybody equally. This is both disingenuous and deeply flawed. It is disingenuous because it gives supremacy to a concept that few would be hard pushed to criticise—namely, upholding the prima facie eradication of inequality—without actually and actively giving weight to evidence and outcomes. It is also deeply flawed because the criminal law and indeed equalities law do not require that criminal offences, maximum penalties and the principles of sentencing should be the same irrespective of the sex of the offender.
When it comes to women offenders, we know what needs to be done. Small alternatives to custody units, intensive therapeutic interventions and the increased use of community-based sentences have all shown tremendous results in reducing reoffending in women and are far less expensive. Can the Minister tell me and the House what we are waiting for and when the directive will be announced to make the seemingly obvious happen?
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Carlile of Berriew, and congratulating him on obtaining this debate this evening. Had he been here, the late Lord Corbett of Castle Vale would certainly have been one of the participants. Over his 34 years in Parliament, both in the other place and here, prison reform was at the top of his agenda. Indeed, one of his many successes in that area was introducing his Private Member’s Bill guaranteeing anonymity for victims of rape. Over the years, the issues that he raised were not very popular, so it is encouraging this evening to listen to and participate in this debate, which is being approached by every speaker in a compassionate but very realistic way. Debates on this subject have not always been like that.
Prison, I am told, is about retribution and reform, but all too often the end result is the brutalisation of the individuals who are incarcerated. Sometimes they come out much more bruised and damaged than when they went in. The area of this debate that I should like to concentrate on is work and being paid for work.
When people go to prison, they sit around and do nothing for hours and hours, yet on their release we expect them to come out as whole human beings. Part of life is having self-esteem and feeling that we have a role to play in society. If a prisoner has a family, he or she wants to be able to hold their head up in that family and say, “I have paid the price. I want to pick up the strands of being part of the family and move forward”. Yet, as we have heard from the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, their chance of employment is very low. Work does not come naturally. It is about discipline; it is about getting up; and it is about contributing and feeling that you are doing something worth while. If in prison you come out with just over £9 for any work you get—and that is not £9 an hour but a week—the message is that what you are doing is not worth while. You are not a worthwhile person; you are in prison; you have offended against society; you are not even worth a half-decent payment or, in too many cases, any kind of training at all.
These are some of the reasons why the trade union movement supports this proposal very strongly. Prisoners work and prisoners get paid. Can the Minister be very clear about the Government’s approach and their policy and strategy going forward? We know that it cannot be resolved overnight. Trade unions would support prisoners being paid a decent wage. The national minimum wage is the obvious benchmark, as we do now have a benchmark. Any employer outside employing someone at below the national minimum wage can be prosecuted.
Work does not have to be done in the prison. It can be done outside under supervised control. It can be in the industrial scene, in the agricultural world or in a whole range of areas. It is at least trying to equip someone when they leave prison to be able to hold their head up and say, “I have had some training. I know what work is; I have done it, I have been paid for it, and I am now ready to take my place in society,”.
The Howard League statistics show that something like 30,000 male adult prisoners have long-term sentences. I just cannot conceive what it must be like to be a human being incarcerated for a long time in prison, with nothing to do or whatever work I am doing to be such a low grade that it is regarded as menial. Yet maybe I have the intelligence and ability, with some training, to do better. To then come outside and try to pick up the strands is an almost impossible task.
This debate this evening is an important one. It is probably one step down a long road but certainly there is no reason why the outcome cannot be very constructive. Of course, that depends almost entirely on the answer from the Minister this evening. I urge him to give us as much encouragement as possible and to set out just what the Government’s policy is in this area.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I join all other previous speakers in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on securing the debate and on opening it so eloquently and so fully. The European Convention on Human Rights proclaims the right of citizens, including prisoners, to have access to education and to vocational and continuing training. That is at the forefront of what the noble Lord has been discussing tonight. In fairness to the Government, it is something to which they have now addressed their minds. I welcome also their commitment to rehabilitation, while not necessarily agreeing with all the methods, including payment by results, which they propose to use.
However, it is quite clear—and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, effectively referred to this—that the biggest contributing factors to avoiding reoffending are if prisoners and ex-offenders have a home and a job to go to. Between them, those factors make something like a 50% difference to their chances of avoiding reoffending. It is interesting that a report from the Prison Reform Trust, Out For Good, demonstrates that one-third of prisoners with a home to go to also had a job to go to, which was three times as many as those without a home to go to. There is clearly a correlation there. One-quarter of those leaving prison enter a job on release but a survey of prisoners shows that half of them felt that they needed help to get a job. Equally, half lacked the skills required for no less than 96% of jobs, so there is a clear gap that has to be filled in their interests and in the interests of the community at large.
As my noble friend Lord Myners pointed out, sustaining links with family and employers is also key to reintegrating prisoners into the community and increasing significantly their chances of avoiding reoffending. I join with my noble friend Lord Myners and the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, in being extremely doubtful about the proposal to build vast prisons. They may be a very long way from centres of communication, from people’s families and from potential employers. That is not likely to contribute to the ready access to employment that one would hope to see.
However, it is not only the building of prisons that causes problems but the transfer of prisoners between different establishments. The National Audit Office pointed out that a third of training courses and the like in prisons are not completed, of which half are due to prisoners being transferred. It also pointed out that learning records are often lost when prisoners are transferred. Timpson and other organisations do valuable work with prisoners, but if they are involved and prisoners are transferred, again there is a potential break.
Of course, there are low levels of literacy and numeracy among prisoners. However, I note that Ofsted no longer judges the effectiveness of learning, skills and work in prison. I wonder why that is so and whether the Government should not look again at the issue and encourage Ofsted to become involved in carrying out precisely that kind of assessment. It seems to fall within its province.
In the past, when Ofsted reported, it found that only 15 out of 24 prisons had a satisfactory record on training and that there were too few links with employers. There was also a view formed by the Education and Skills Committee in the House of Commons that not enough is done for more able offenders. The estimates of the proportion vary quite considerably but a significant number of offenders have qualifications or the ability to obtain qualifications and, on being surveyed, they often feel that they are not given sufficient support in maximising their potential. The Education and Skills Committee expressed doubts about that. Again, it would be interesting to know what, if anything, the Government have concluded about that and whether they would seek to improve matters.
As we have heard, work does not necessarily need to be carried out within the prison establishment. It can be, and often it is helpful to be, outside in the community, in workplaces, or with voluntary organisations. I join my noble friend Lord Wills in encouraging the Government to promote the role of the voluntary sector and social enterprises in developing the skills and assisting not only in training but in employment.
In terms of employment, I wonder whether the Minister would be able to indicate the current thinking of the Government about how bringing contractors into prisons might work. There are already some in prisons but if that is to be developed, will the Government ensure that those employers are not able to undercut their competitors in the marketplace, for example, by paying very modest amounts either to the Government or indeed to the prisoners? I hope that the Government will recognise the force of the argument of the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, that a proper wage should be paid and that certainly some of it should be taken to compensate victims of crime. We all know the story of prisoners leaving prison with a very limited amount of money, whereas, as the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, has pointed out, they could be allowed to retain some, which would assist their reintegration into society on the basis that they had actually earned the money while in prison.
Have the Government looked at the report produced by the Prison Reform Trust, Time Well Spent: A Practical Guide to Active Citizenship and Volunteering in Prison? What responses have the Government had in terms of not just the employment side but the relationship and developmental sides of non-employment skills, which can clearly help people gain employment in the marketplace? The Minister may not be able to respond to all of these questions across the Dispatch Box tonight; perhaps he would write in due course. However, what has happened about the mandatory work placement programme that was announced in the document on employment support for prisoners, published last year? Given the general low level of performance of the Work Programme, has this had the anticipated impact on prisoners?
Finally, there are one or two points raised by the Prisoners Education Trust. Having surveyed a number of prisoners, it discloses that many felt they were unable to give a specific label to their learning difficulties, when they had them, because they had not had a proper screening or official diagnosis. It also noted that BME respondents achieved fewer qualifications in prison than white respondents. There was a request for increased access to computers and a wide range of books and materials to help prisoners with their learning. I do not know whether the Government have considered this document as a whole. Perhaps in due course the Minister could indicate whether they have done so and whether they are prepared to look at the issues raised, which clearly could contribute to meeting the important demand and requirement for assisting people to emerge from prison with skills, experience and a capacity to reintegrate into society. In particular, it would help them into a way of life which will diminish the chances of reoffending.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I join noble Lords in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Carlile for securing this debate and for his work with the Howard League. Its stewardship is in good hands as my noble friend hands over to the noble Lord, Lord Myners. I look forward to working with him on new initiatives. As the noble Lord, Lord Myners, pointed out, I am relatively new to this role but I have had the opportunity to visit a prison and have been looking into the initiatives. I shall share my thoughts on those over the next few minutes.
I welcome the opportunity to talk about prisoner work. I believe it is a key factor in ensuring that we deliver significantly less reoffending. Last week, the Government published proposals for transforming the rehabilitation of offenders, reinforcing the commitment to bring major change in the way we tackle reoffending. We acknowledge the contribution that businesses and community and voluntary organisations make in supporting the work of prisons and probation services. The noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, and the noble Lord, Lord Wills, mentioned some of these and I will come on to talk about specifics in a moment. The proposals will provide more opportunities for a payment by results model to generate innovation from our partners in mentoring and supporting prisoners to lead law- abiding lives. Their success much depends on finding and holding down a job. I welcome the words of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and associate myself with his concluding remarks.
In a Ministry of Justice survey carried out in 2010, 68% of prisoners reported that having a job would be important in helping them to stop offending. Some 13% reported that they had never been in paid employment. Work in prisons provides a rich environment for learning and qualifications and our current thinking places a strong focus on identifying labour market needs in the areas into which prisoners will resettle and designing the learning and skills curriculum to reflect this. Employability training will be paramount during the year leading up to release to ensure that prisoners have the best possible opportunity of finding work.
My noble friend Lord Carlile mentioned various statistics. In looking at some of the figures, I was startled to read that 58% of newly sentenced prisoners regarded themselves as having been regular truants while in the education system. Some 40% were excluded from school and 46% left school with no qualifications. That is the challenge which lies ahead.
It is not just about vocational training. We know that lots of prisoners lack basic numeracy and literacy. I saw it myself when I visited Peterborough. That acts as a major barrier to employment. We have therefore introduced a greater emphasis on assessing and addressing a prisoner’s literacy and numeracy skills when they first come into custody. Included within this is provision for foreign national prisoners for whom English may not be their native tongue. English language skills are about empowering people and empowering prisoners to become productive citizens when they leave prison. English language skills will not only be important for them in the labour market but also in helping them successfully to integrate within the prison environment, communicate with prison staff and participate in programmes that support their rehabilitation.
We have also increased opportunities for prisoners to take up apprenticeships and work is in progress to increase apprenticeship opportunities for prisoners through release on temporary licence and potentially in prison work areas. For example, four prisoners from Springhill prison are being released on licence to undertake land-based apprenticeships working on a 90-acre patch of Forestry Commission land near Henley-on-Thames.
On traineeships, the Government published a discussion paper last week. Traineeships will provide a new opportunity to help young people aged between 16 and 24 develop the skills and attitudes that employers look for. We would like traineeships to be available to prisoners, supporting them into apprenticeships and other opportunities at a later stage. We are still in the design stage, but the government discussion paper suggested three core elements: a focused period of work preparation training, including areas such as CV writing, interview preparation and job search; a substantial, high quality placement to give the young person a chance to develop workplace skills and prove themselves to an employer; and English and maths for those who have not achieved a GCSE grade C or equivalent. The availability of high quality work placements will clearly be an issue for prisoners. We would welcome ideas about how such placements might be made available. Indeed, I invite all noble Lords to contribute to this process.
Several noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Carlile and the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, talked about prisoners being idle. I come from a family where sitting idle was not an option; going out to work was. We must create those conditions for prisoners as well. We must do that by engaging them in the world of work. Work itself is rehabilitative, as many noble Lords have already said. But in my own brief experience of talking to prisoners, it is not just about the skills. It is about learning to get to work on time and the expectation that you are accountable and responsible not just for yourself but for the work that you do. It is the expectation that you will work a full day and then build leisure and other activities around your work, as we have all learnt to do over many years. It is about the ability, importantly, to work as part of a team taking and giving responsibility and following instructions. We must increase the opportunities for work within all prisons, and we are doing this.
We are looking to work closely with businesses as well. I was touched by my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott’s personal experience of working constructively with local and national businesses. We need to make it as simple as possible for our commercial partners to join in. This will support UK industry, enable growth and offer opportunities to deliver work in the UK, which may currently be offshore due to economic constraints and labour shortages.
Prisons are increasingly structuring their regimes to accommodate longer working hours; for example, by moving recreation activities to evenings and providing for prisoners to eat lunch in work areas. This has helped to increase the number of hours worked by prisoners and the number of prisoners working the average length of a working week across the prison estate.
The right reverend Prelate raised the issue of new prisons. I fully concur with his experiences and I assure him that any new prison will be designed to provide sufficient activities for those in custody to ensure that we get the best out of prisoners for their constructive benefit for the future.
As well as engaging prisoners in delivering production and service work there are substantial numbers of prisoners who work within prisons, as we all know, to keep them running—serving meals, in maintenance and cleaning. Indeed, I have seen that for myself. Many more prisoners participate in a broad range of activities to tackle their particular needs, including addressing thinking skills, anger management and so on and so forth.
The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, drew particular attention to training shortfalls. The important thing is that this is not a one-size-fits-all for every prisoner. We need to identify prisoner training needs and prisoner abilities as soon as they enter the prison environment so that they can live productively with tailored programmes suited to them.
If I may touch on the issue of tax and salaries, are prisoners paid for undertaking schemes? Certainly, prisoners who work outside the establishment in paid jobs pay national insurance and tax, while prisoners who are employed inside the prison are exempt from national minimum wage legislation. There are added elements, but in view of the shortage of time, I will write to noble Lords specifically on the issue of pay and tax.
However, as many noble Lords have mentioned, we cannot stop at the prison gate. This was a point well made by the noble Lord, Lord Myners. We want to ensure that offenders are better supported on release. Those prisoners who are eligible to claim jobseeker’s allowance are now immediately referred to the Government’s Work Programme. Work Programme providers are also encouraged to work with prisoners prior to their release, together with a number of other local partners, including Jobcentre Plus, the National Careers Service and education providers, who are all working collaboratively across clusters of prisons between which prisoners often transfer, to share information and drive this work.
We also mentioned different innovations in prisons. As I alluded to earlier, when I visited Peterborough prison, I was very impressed with its post-release support service, where ex-prisoners can call into a centre outside the gate, to receive help, information and support. The new reforms that we are proposing will look for and allow similar schemes to be replicated across the country.
My noble friend Lord Addington talked about dyslexia and learning disabilities. Making Prisons Work calls for a new focus on assessing and then addressing the needs of those with learning difficulties or disabilities. Again, referring to my personal experience in Peterborough, I learnt about issues such as resistance in the classroom. The classroom environment was created within the prison to help prisoners, but not in an intimidating way, to ensure that there was one-on-one training. Peer mentors are also very effective, involving prisoners who understand and have been through those experiences and share them. Most important is the element of trust; I saw that working well in Peterborough. I am sure that other prisons across the country replicate similar schemes.
The noble Lord, Lord Wills, talked about Fine Cell Work. I have read with interest about the work of that particular initiative. I assure him that I would be quite happy to put Fine Cell Work in touch with officials of NOMS; I am keen to learn more about this service. Indeed, as I was leaving Peterborough I was handed a pair of cufflinks made by the Jailbirds initiative, which are quite quaint. I should have worn them for this debate, but perhaps I will wear them another time. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Wills, and the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, who made reference to the particularly notable feature of Women in Prison, that we are also reviewing the women’s estate to ensure that it is organised as effectively as possible to meet gender-specific needs, including learning and development activities.
My noble friend Lord Carlile and the noble Lord, Lord Myners, touched upon the whole issue of Titan prisons. It is a bit of a scary term in itself. I assure both noble Lords that no decision has been taken on the potential size of any new prison. The Secretary of State has announced a review to examine the feasibility of constructing a new prison.
Let me assure your Lordships’ House that this is a very important issue. In my short time in charge of this brief, I have committed to seeing that we make progress, and I believe that noble Lords across the Chamber have much to offer in this respect. I would encourage them and I look forward to working with them. Our rehabilitation revolution is being supported by other initiatives such as the provision of more support and challenge to get prisoners off drugs, building on the success of the drug recovery wings and a review of the Incentives and Earned Privilege Scheme. I will continue to welcome all views, as will the Secretary of State, on taking forward this important policy initiative. Perhaps I may close by using his words when he launched the Transforming Rehabilitation consultation:
“Transforming rehabilitation will help to ensure that all of those sentenced … are properly punished while being fully supported to turn their backs on crime for good—meaning lower crime, fewer victims and safer communities”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/1/13; col. 19WS.]
Those are sentiments which I am sure will resonate across your Lordships’ House.