House of Commons

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

Wednesday 16 January 2013

The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock

Prayers

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

1. If he will meet Digital UK to discuss the adequacy of levels of service experienced by television viewers in north-east Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

I am always happy to meet relevant organisations to discuss issues affecting levels of services provided to the people of Wales.

[Susan Elan Jones]

I thank the Minister for his response. Digital UK is funded by the TV licence but the level of service it has been offering to many of my constituents, and other people in north-east Wales, has been totally shambolic in terms of the lack of provision of English or Welsh language Welsh television services. In some cases it has even told people to buy Freesat boxes, which is pathetic. Will the Minister ensure that the situation is sorted pronto, and that if Digital UK carries on being that pathetic it will be required to fund those Freesat boxes? The situation in north-east Wales is unsustainable.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am aware that in certain parts of Wales there are specific issues concerning the reception of digital television, and that some communities cannot receive the full suite of digital channels that most people receive. I understand that most of those problems are relatively straightforward to sort out, but where there are persistent problems I will be more than happy to meet the hon. Lady and Digital UK, and possibly Ofcom, which may be more appropriate in that respect,

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

My hon. Friend will be aware that the reason for the digital switch-off was the sell-off of analogue frequencies for 4G. Does that mean that there will be adequate 4G coverage in north-east Wales—and elsewhere—when 3G services are superseded?

[Mr Speaker]

For the time being we need not preoccupy ourselves with elsewhere, merely with north-east Wales.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am advised that coverage in north-east Wales will be similar to the previous analogue coverage. Where communities experience a loss following the switchover or the roll-out of 4G services, the Government will be happy to pursue that issue and take it up with the relevant agencies.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Does the Minister share my concern about services to people in north-east Wales from BBC Radio Cymru as the royalties dispute proceeds, and will the Government intervene?

[Stephen Crabb]

This is an issue of concern and the Wales Office is in very close touch with all parties involved in the dispute. This is not actually a matter for the Government—it is a contractual discussion between the BBC and performing artists—but we are hopeful that a resolution can be found very soon.

[Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)]

Knighton in my constituency—very near to north-east Wales—is able to receive only 17 channels as opposed to the 50 channels received in Swansea, Cardiff and the Minister’s constituency. Will the Minister join me in making representations to UK Digital on that matter?

[Stephen Crabb]

That issue is similar to the one raised by the hon. Member for Clwyd South (Susan Elan Jones). Where communities rely on relay transmitters, as opposed to the principal digital transmitters, they do not receive the full suite of channels and may receive only the 17 public service channels provided by BBC, ITV and S4C. We will continue to look into the matter and discuss it with hon. Members who have constituents facing those issues.

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

2. What recent assessment he has made of the defence industry in Wales; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

The defence industry is a significant contributor to Wales and the UK’s economy, contributing more than £22 billion of annual revenues, of which £5.4 billion is from exports. Companies such as General Dynamics, EADS and BAE Systems ensure that the defence industry makes a vital contribution to the economy in Wales.

[Mr Amess]

Notwithstanding attempts to try to intimidate me not to attend Welsh questions, will my right hon. Friend tell me what representations he has received on the research and development of General Dynamics?

[Mr Jones]

I am always extremely grateful—as I am sure the entire House is—to see my hon. Friend take such an interest in Welsh matters. In November I visited EDGE UK, which is part of General Dynamics, and I was tremendously impressed with its exciting research and development programme. It is an excellent example of a part of the defence industry that is benefitting Wales hugely.

[Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)]

The Royal United Services Institute think-tank produced a paper demonstrating that 40p of every pound spent on a UK-based—indeed, a Welsh-based—defence contractor brought 40p back into the UK economy. Will the Minister ensure that the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence understand the importance of supporting our Welsh defence industries so that we can also support the UK economy?

[Mr Jones]

The Wales Office and the MOD are keenly aware of the importance of the defence industry to the economy of this country, and the hon. Lady is right to say that it makes a significant fiscal contribution. That is why I was extremely pleased to visit EDGE UK last year and see it making such a huge contribution to the economy in that part of Wales.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

The MOD has disclosed that on safety grounds it has ruled out Devonport as a suitable relocation site for Trident following Scottish independence. Is the Secretary of State as surprised as I am that the First Minister is making a case for Milford Haven, when the MOD has not undertaken any safety assessment of the casualty rate in south-west Wales following a strategic attack or a Trident-related accident?

[Mr Jones]

I think the MOD is extremely satisfied with the facilities offered to the Trident fleet and Faslane, and expects to be based there for the foreseeable future.

[Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the automotive industry in Wales; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend on her inclusion in the new year honours. I know her many friends and fans across the Principality will share my delight at that recognition.

The automotive industry is vital to the Welsh economy, accounting for more than one-fifth of manufacturing turnover and generating more than £3 billion annually. The industry has also been instrumental in attracting foreign direct investment to Wales.

[Dame Angela Watkinson]

Will the Minister join me in congratulating Toyota in regaining its position as the largest motor manufacturer in the world. Is that not good news for its plant and employees at Deeside enterprise zone?

[Stephen Crabb]

I saw the news that Toyota is once again the world’s largest car manufacturer. That is obviously good news for the company itself, but it is great news too for the UK and for Wales, not least at Deeside where Toyota is now in its 21st year of manufacturing. During that time, it has created thousands of high-quality jobs and made a vital contribution to the north Wales economy.

[Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)]

The Minister will know that one of our biggest brake manufacturing companies is Meritor, based in Cwmbran in my constituency. It relies heavily on European business, so the exchange rate with the euro is important, as is our membership of the European Union. Does the Minister not agree that mixed messages coming from his Government about our membership of the European Union do great damage to industry in Wales, including our automotive industry?

[Stephen Crabb]

I think there is a very clear and united message coming from the Government about the need to increase our exports and rebalance the economy following the failed economic model of the previous Government. We are working very closely with the automotive sector in Wales, and UK-wide, to see further growth in this sector.

[Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)]

4. What recent discussions he has made on aviation policy in Wales; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

I have had discussions with Cabinet colleagues and the First Minister about Cardiff airport and aviation policy in Wales more generally.

[Alun Cairns]

The Welsh Government have taken the remarkable decision to tie up much needed capital public funds in the purchase of Cardiff airport, in spite of our thoughts and concerns. Will the Secretary of State take every proactive step possible to encourage new airlines to consider using Cardiff airport in order to increase the number of destinations it serves and to make the place sustainable, especially given the importance of the British Airways maintenance centre, which uses that runway?

[Mr Jones]

As I said, I discussed this matter with the First Minister recently. The purchase of Cardiff airport is of course a matter for the Welsh Government. I have no doubt that they will be looking to see a robust business case for that purchase, and we will be considering the issue of the operator of the airport very carefully, too. My hon. Friend makes an important point about the importance to the local economy of the BA maintenance facility.

[Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)]

In order to stimulate jobs in aviation and the aerospace industry, will the Secretary of State press the Chancellor to give Swansea super-connected city status in the forthcoming Budget?

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman will know that Swansea made a bid for super-connected status, which was considered. Newport got super-connected status, which I am sure is welcomed by the people of Newport. He will know that a business case has to be made. He was very much to the fore in the business case for the electrification of the railway line to Swansea, and I hope he will play a similar role with regard to super-connected status.

[Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

5. When he last met representatives of the tourism industry in Wales and what representations he received at that time; and if he will make a statement.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

The Wales Office continues to work closely with both the tourism industry and the Welsh Government, who have principal responsibility for policy in this area. Wales remains, of course, the very best part of the UK in which to holiday.

[Mr Llwyd]

I thank the Minister for that reply, and I fully agree with him for once. I remind him that the tourism industry in Wales accounts for 10% of employment, both direct and indirect, which is higher than in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland. As I am sure he is aware, at the end of next month we have Wales tourism week. What steps is his Department taking to ensure that this very important industry is given the political priority it requires?

[Stephen Crabb]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, of course, about the critical importance of the tourism industry to Wales. I recall from last year that the Wales Office team had a busy Wales tourism week, and we look forward to a similarly busy week at the end of this month, going out promoting tourism in Wales and meeting tourism representatives and operators.

[Mr Speaker]

I call Mr Glyn Davies.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The tourism industry in mid-Wales—

[Mr Llwyd]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I apologise. The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Mr Llwyd) is taking a second supplementary on his own question. I had not realised he was going to do that, but he is welcome.

[Mr Llwyd]

What efforts will now be made—the industry is concerned about this—to ensure that Wales is marketed effectively abroad by VisitBritain? For many years now we have suffered because we have been undersold—knowingly or otherwise—by VisitBritain.

[Stephen Crabb]

Again, the right hon. Gentleman is quite right. VisitBritain has an important role to play in promoting Wales as part of promoting the UK more generally. He will be aware of the additional resources that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor announced in the autumn statement for VisitBritain. The challenge for Wales is how we capture a greater share of the UK tourism spend coming into the country. We look forward to meeting VisitBritain very soon to talk about the specific challenge facing tourism in Wales.

[Glyn Davies]

Thank you again, Mr Speaker. Tourism in mid-Wales is very much based on landscape and the scenic beauty of the area. What assessment has my hon. Friend made of the impact on tourism in mid-Wales if the Mid Wales Connection goes ahead, with its 600 additional turbines and 100 miles of extra power cables, and of the damage that will do?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend will be aware of the close interest that the Department of Energy and Climate Change is taking in the proposed development in mid-Wales. Members on both sides of the House will share his concern that the beauty of mid-Wales be preserved as best possible.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

13. The long-standing tourism links between north Wales and Merseyside are underpinned by the transport connectivity. The Welsh Assembly Government have now announced that they want to start building a business case for electrifying north Wales rail, including the line from Wrexham to Liverpool. Will the Minister pester Department for Transport colleagues on my behalf and ensure that it shares all the information it has from business cases for investment in English railways?

[Stephen Crabb]

I thank the hon. Lady for that question. We are already there; we are already pestering the Department for Transport. It is a good example of the collaboration now between the Wales Office and the Welsh Government. We are working closely to help to build a business case for electrification and further improvements of the north Wales lines.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

Visit Wales may well be the responsibility of the Assembly Government and there are issues of concern about the marketing of Wales overseas by that organisation, but in those discussions with VisitBritain will the Minister argue confidently for a robust Welsh approach, Welsh identity and resources for Wales, because hitherto that has not always been the case?

[Stephen Crabb]

On the tourism marketing of Wales, the hon. Gentleman will be aware that those decisions lie with Welsh Ministers. I know that some Members are puzzled about some of the decisions they have taken about how they deploy those resources, but it is a matter for them. The Wales Office is keen to do whatever it can, including with VisitBritain, to see that Wales excels in the tourism sector.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Encouraging visitors to visit Wales could be greatly helped if they did not have to pay the highest tolls in the UK on entering Wales. Will the Minister ensure me that he is vigorously campaigning with the Department for Transport to reduce tolls when the ever-extending concession ends?

[Stephen Crabb]

The evidence on the economic impact on the Welsh economy of the Severn bridge tolls is mixed, not least in respect of tourism, which relies on the bridge to carry visitors into Wales. All I would say at this stage is that until 2018, when the concession ends, no decisions can be taken about the future use of those tolls and whether they will remain at the current levels or whether other options are available.

[Mr Peter Hain (Neath) (Lab)]

6. What assessment he has made of the economic effect on people working in Wales of reductions in tax credits and other benefits for working people.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

The measures announced in the autumn statement will mean that working households are on average £125 per annum better off in 2013-14.

[Mr Hain]

Is the Secretary of State aware that Neath food bank is now seeing more people in work—many part time and desperate—than out of work? One hundred thousand working people in Wales are now being hammered by his welfare cuts, some among the 230,000 households in Wales that will be forced by the Government to pay council tax for the first time in April. Will he now take down from the Wales Office website his promise that people will be better off under this Government in work and admit that some cannot even afford to eat?

[Mr Jones]

Certainly not. In fact, people who are in work are considerably better off. The average earner on the minimum wage who works full time will by next April be paying half as much in tax as he did at the beginning of this Parliament, in the wake of the right hon. Gentleman’s Government. If he is not willing to tackle the appalling legacy of the welfare shambles that he left, we will be prepared to do so.

[Jonathan Evans (Cardiff North) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my amazement at the complaint we have just heard from a senior member of the last Government, a Government who twice froze personal allowances and doubled tax for low earners, from 10p to 20p as a starting rate? Is not the reality that the massive £3,000 hike in the personal allowance—which Labour does not like to hear about—is helping low-paid people in Wales and the whole of—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is an experienced Member, but unfortunately his question was too long and substantially irrelevant. The Minister will focus on the responsibilities of the current Administration, briefly.

[Mr Jones]

I have to say to my hon. Friend that it does not amaze me at all. This Government are dealing with the mess that the Government of the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr Hain) left. That is the fact of the matter; everybody knows that.

[Owen Smith (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Could the Secretary of State tell us exactly how many households will see their modest incomes cut as a result of the reductions in tax benefits and other social security benefits that he voted for last week?

[Mr Jones]

What I can say is that working households across Wales fully understand the need to tackle welfare and benefits. If the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to do that and stand up for working households, this party is.

[Owen Smith]

There was no answer there from the Secretary of State, as usual. Let me tell him the answer. There is no excuse for his not knowing, because his own income assessment makes it clear that 400,000 households—a third of all households in Wales—will lose out as a result of these changes. Let us contrast that with the 4,000 households—that is 4,000 versus 400,000—that will get a tax break as a result of the millionaires’ tax cut. That ratio of 100:1 tells us everything we need to know about this Government. The 99% pay while the 1% profit. Let me be clear: Labour will continue to speak for the 99%; the Secretary of State can speak for the 1%.

[Mr Jones]

As a consequence of the measures taken by this Government, 1.1 million taxpayers in Wales are paying less tax, while 109,000 taxpayers in Wales are now paying no tax at all. That is what we are doing for hard-working people, and I am appalled that the hon. Gentleman sees fit not to support them.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

7. What assessment he has made of the availability of skills in the nuclear power industry in Wales.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

Hitachi’s investment at Wylfa will help to ensure that our nuclear work force remain highly skilled and some of the best in the industry. Talented young apprentices on Anglesey can look forward to an excellent future at Wylfa.

[Neil Carmichael]

Locally in Gloucestershire, as well as through the national training academy for nuclear, we are working hard to ensure that we have sufficient skills—and retain those skills—ready for nuclear new build. What measures will the Secretary of State be proposing to ensure that Wales, too, benefits from the ability to improve that capacity?

[Mr Jones]

My hon. Friend is right: the development of nuclear skills is key. The Government have created the Nuclear Energy Skills Alliance to co-ordinate the work of all the expert skills bodies relating to nuclear. The Welsh Assembly Government are also represented on that alliance.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State will be aware of the new energy centre in Llangefni—indeed, he has visited—which upskills people in the nuclear industry and for low carbon. However, with unemployment increasing considerably in 2012 and the announcement of a further 350 jobs at risk at Vion, will he meet me urgently to discuss the skills and jobs issues that are harming the prospects of young people and under-skilled people in Wales?

[Mr Jones]

I join the hon. Gentleman in commending the work of Coleg Menai, which is doing a tremendous job in training apprentices for Wylfa. He will know that I am always ready to meet him to discuss any issue of concern to his constituency.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Would it not be better to invest the money elsewhere because of the uncertain future of nuclear power, given the huge cost overruns in Finland and France and the fact that those two power stations are already three to four years late? Owing to the uncertainties relating to nuclear power, should we not be investing in renewable energy, and particularly in tidal energy, which is Wales’s North sea oil?

[Mr Jones]

The Government are committed to a mix of energy that includes renewables and nuclear, and nuclear will play an extremely important part in that mix. The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes), has announced that the generic design assessment of the Wylfa reactor has commenced. The reactor will be a huge asset to the nuclear industry in this country.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

8. What steps he is taking to tackle fuel poverty in Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

Notwithstanding the relatively mild winter that we have had up to now, fuel poverty remains a huge challenge. The Government are addressing that via a range of measures to ensure that those in most need are able to heat their homes affordably.

[Nick Smith]

More than 5,000 people in Blaenau Gwent would be up to £200 better off if the Government adopted Labour’s plan to force energy companies to put the over-75s on to their cheapest tariff. We have heard the Minister’s warm words, but why are the Government not doing much more to help people with their bills?

[Stephen Crabb]

We will take no lessons from Labour on how to respond to the issue of fuel poverty. We are taking real action, not least through the green deal, through our continued support for winter fuel payments and cold weather payments, and through implementing the Prime Minister’s promise to ensure that everyone gets access to the cheapest possible tariff through their provider.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Cutting domestic electricity bills in half would practically end fuel poverty in this country. The Americans have done that through the exploitation of shale gas. Would it not be right for us to get behind that exciting new technology as well, to remove people from fuel poverty in Britain?

[Stephen Crabb]

My hon. Friend is quite right to suggest that shale gas has been something of a game changer for the energy market in the UK. In the autumn statement, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced a range of measures to explore the potential for shale gas in the UK, alongside strict new regulatory safeguards.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

The Minister will no doubt have seen the report from the Department of Energy and Climate Change which shows that people in Wales pay some of the highest gas and electricity prices in the whole of the UK. Why does he think that is the case?

[Stephen Crabb]

There are price variations right across the UK, and it is not possible to say that this is a Wales-specific issue. We stay in close touch with the regulators, and we are looking particularly at off-grid prices for liquefied petroleum gas and for fuel oil. We are aware of some competition questions in that area, but we do not believe that this is a Wales-specific issue.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

9. What recent assessment he has made of the aerospace industry in Wales; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr David Jones)]

The aerospace industry plays a key role in the Welsh economy, and Wales benefits from the continued investment made by major aerospace companies such as Airbus and GE Aviation.

[Andrew Stephenson]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Will he join me in welcoming Air Asia’s £5.5 billion purchase of 100 A320 aeroplanes from Airbus? That will be good news for the aerospace sector in Wales and in my constituency, where there are several aerospace companies with Airbus contracts.

[Mr Jones]

Yes. I was pleased to go with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to witness the signing of that contract. It represents a tremendous boost to the factory at Broughton. It will secure the jobs of 1,500 workers, as well as of those in the wider supply chain.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

The success of Airbus is based on European co-operation. Does the Secretary of State think that his hopeless Government could possibly learn from that example?

[Mr Jones]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right; Airbus is an excellent example of European co-operation, and we expect it to remain so.

[Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)]

10. What assessment he has made of the Government’s income tax policy so far as it relates to Wales.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

14. What assessment he has made of the Government’s income tax policy so far as it relates to Wales.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Stephen Crabb)]

In 2013, the increase in the personal allowance for income tax will be the largest ever cash increase and shows that this Government are committed to creating a fair tax system that rewards hard work.

[Karl MᶜCartney]

Like many in my constituency, I am sure that the people of Wales and, perhaps in particular in Llanbedr Pont Steffan, welcome the changes to personal allowances that our Government have implemented. Would the Minister care to take this opportunity to confirm how many residents in Wales have benefited since 2010, having been taken out of income tax altogether following this Government’s welcome changes to the personal tax allowance?

[Stephen Crabb]

It is indeed great news in Llanbedr Pont Steffan and elsewhere in Wales that, as a result of the decisions taken by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the autumn statement, an additional 13,000 people will be lifted out of tax altogether, with a total benefit to people of £1.1 million.

[Guto Bebb]

The Silk commission proposals will provide the Welsh Government with the power to vary individual tax bands. Does the Secretary of State share my concern that the Welsh Labour Government might be tempted further to target the 6% of Welsh taxpayers who pay the higher rate of income tax and contribute 33% of all taxes raised in Wales?

[Stephen Crabb]

The Government are considering the recommendations of the Silk report and will be reporting on them very shortly. That is the appropriate time to take them forward.

[Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)]

We all know that millionaires benefit from the Government’s tax policies. Will the Minister tell us how many millionaires there are in Wales?

[Stephen Crabb]

The hon. Gentleman knows as well as I do that there are relatively few millionaires in Wales. What I can tell him is that in every year of this Parliament, they will be paying more tax than they did in each year of the last Labour Government.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Is not the real danger with the Government’s changes to tax and benefits that we will see in Wales, particularly in deprived communities where the vast majority of people work, that those people will have less money in their pockets, less money to spend in local shops and there will be more shops closing and fewer people in jobs—a double whammy for the Welsh economy?

[Stephen Crabb]

If the hon. Gentleman wants to be taken seriously as having a message on deficit reduction, he should know that deficit reduction cannot begin until a serious approach to welfare reform is taken. Government Members are doing that in a fair and responsible way—a way that rewards hard work.

The Prime Minister was asked—

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 16 January.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

I am sure the whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute to Sapper Richard Reginald Walker of 28 Engineer Regiment, attached to 21 Engineer Regiment. It is clear to see from the tributes paid that he was an outstanding soldier and hugely respected. Our deepest sympathies are with his family and friends at this difficult time.

I would also like to mention the helicopter crash in central London this morning. The whole House will wish to join me in sending our thanks to the emergency services for their rapid and professional response to this situation.

This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, and in addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[John Glen]

For too long many women, and especially hard-working stay-at-home mums, have been penalised by the country’s pension system for interruptions to their national insurance contributions. After 13 years in which the previous Government did nothing to address this situation, does the Prime Minister think that this week’s announcement of a single-tier pension will finally deal with this grave injustice?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The single-tier pension is an excellent reform. I very much hope it will have all-party support, because it holds out the prospect in 2017 of a basic state pension of over £140 rather than £107, taking millions of people out of the means test, giving them dignity in retirement and particularly, as my hon. Friend says, helping low-paid and self-employed people and, above all, women who have not been able to have a full state pension in the past. It is an excellent reform, and I hope it will have the support of everyone across the House.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Sapper Richard Reginald Walker of 28 Engineer Regiment, attached to 21 Engineer Regiment. He showed the utmost courage and bravery, and all our thoughts are with his family and friends.

I also join the Prime Minister in passing on condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the helicopter crash in London this morning and in paying tribute to the emergency services.

When the Prime Minister first became leader of the Conservative party, he said that its biggest problem was that it spent far too much of its time “banging on” about Europe. Is he glad those days are over?

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear!

[The Prime Minister]

Even the leader of the Labour party should accept that a massive change is taking place in Europe: a change that is being driven by the changes in the eurozone. Frankly, the country, and political parties in this country, face a choice. Do we look at the changes, see what we can do to maximise Britain’s national interest, and consult the public about that, or do we sit back, do nothing, and tell the public to go hang? I know where I stand; I know where this party stands—and that is in the national interest.

[Edward Miliband]

Let us hope we can find out today where the Prime Minister does stand. I suppose I should congratulate him on one thing—deciding on the date of his speech. Well done. Another example of the Rolls-Royce operation of No. 10 Downing street.

In advance of his speech, what is the Prime Minister’s answer, which investors need to know, to this question: will Britain be in the European Union in five years’ time?

[The Prime Minister]

On important decisions, may I first of all congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on an important decision that he has made this week—to keep the shadow Chancellor in place until 2015. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Rarely do we see so much cross-party support.

My view is that Britain is better off in the European Union, but it is right for us to see the changes taking place in Europe, and to ensure that we argue for the changes that Britain needs, so that we have a better relationship between Britain and Europe, a better organised European Union, and the full-hearted consent of the British people. Those are the choices that we are making. What are his choices?

[Edward Miliband]

Maybe we are making a bit of progress. In October 2011, as I am sure the Prime Minister will remember, he and I walked shoulder to shoulder through the Lobby against the 81 Conservative Members who voted for an in/out referendum. You might call it two parties working together in the national interest. At the time, the Foreign Secretary—I think he is on his way to Australia to get as far away from the Prime Minister’s speech as possible—said that the reason for our vote was that an in/out referendum

“would create additional economic uncertainty in this country at a difficult economic time”.

Was the Foreign Secretary right?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, he was entirely right. It is interesting that the Leader of the Opposition only wants to talk about process, because he dare not debate the substance. I do not think it would be right for Britain to have an in/out referendum today, because we would be giving the British people a false choice. Millions of people in this country, myself included, want Britain to stay in the European Union, but they believe that there are chances to negotiate a better relationship. Throughout Europe, countries are looking at forthcoming treaty change and thinking, “What can I do to maximise my national interest?” That is what the Germans will do. That is what the Spanish will do. That is what the British should do. Let us get on to the substance and give up the feeble jokes.

[Edward Miliband]

First of all, I thought the jokes were pretty good. But I am talking about the substance. The Prime Minister’s position appears to be this: an in/out referendum now would be destabilising, but promising one in five years’ time is just fine for the country. Let us see if that is his position, because what does it mean? It means five years of businesses seeing a “Closed for Business” sign hanging around Britain. What did Lord Heseltine say—[Interruption.] I know that Conservative Members want to jeer Lord Heseltine, one of the few mainstream voices in the Conservative party. He said:

“To commit to a referendum about a negotiation that hasn’t begun on a timescale you cannot predict, on an outcome that’s unknown…seems to me like an unnecessary gamble.”

Is he not right?

[The Prime Minister]

It is absolutely no secret that, when it comes to Europe, there are disagreements between me and Michael Heseltine. Michael, for whom I have a huge amount of time, was one of the leading voices for Britain joining the single currency. I am delighted that we have not joined, and we should not join—under my prime ministership, we will never join the single currency—and that is also the view of millions of businesses up and down this country. What business wants in Europe is what I want in Europe: to be part of Europe, but a more flexible Europe, a more competitive Europe, a Europe that can take on the challenge of the global race and the rise of nations in the south and the east.

Let me put it to the right hon. Gentleman again. When change is taking place in Europe and when the single currency is driving change, is it not in Britain’s national interest to argue for changes which will make the European Union more competitive and flexible, and which will strengthen and sort out the relationship between Britain and the European Union, and then to ask the British people for their consent?

That is our approach. Apart from coming up with what he considers to be very amusing jokes, what is the right hon. Gentleman’s approach?

[Edward Miliband]

The biggest change that we need in Europe is a move from austerity to growth and jobs, but the Prime Minister has absolutely nothing to say about that. This is the reality: the reason the Prime Minister is changing his mind has nothing to do with the national interest. It is because he has lost control of his party. He thinks that his problems on Europe will end on Friday, but they are only just beginning. Can he confirm that he is now giving the green light to Conservative Cabinet Ministers to campaign on different positions—on whether they are for or against being in the European Union?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman tries to make the point that Europe should somehow be moving away from the policy of deficit reduction. He is completely isolated in Europe. Not one single Government—not even socialists in Europe—believe in pushing up borrowing and borrowing more. That is the simple truth. What is in Britain’s interests is to seek a fresh settlement in Europe that is more flexible and more competitive. That is in our interests, and that is what we will seek.

Let me ask the right hon. Gentleman this: does he not understand that what has happened over the last decade—during which a Labour Government signed treaty after treaty, gave away power after power, saw more centralisation after more centralisation, and never consulted the British people—is what has made this problem such a big problem in the first place?

[Edward Miliband]

The whole House, and the country, will have heard that the Prime Minister did not answer the question about whether he had given the green light to his Cabinet—to his Conservative Cabinet colleagues—for some of them to campaign for being in the European Union and others to campaign for getting out of it. That is the reality of the position, and of the weakness of this Prime Minister. At a time when 1 million young people are out of work and businesses are going to the wall, what is the Prime Minister doing? He has spent six months preparing a speech to create five years of uncertainty for Britain. When it comes to Europe, it is the same old Tories: a divided party, and a weak Prime Minister.

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman has absolutely nothing to say about the important issue of Britain’s relationship with Europe. What is his view? [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The response from the Prime Minister must be heard, and it will be.

[The Prime Minister]

There will be a very simple choice at the next election. If you want to stay out of the single currency, you vote Conservative; if you want to join the single currency, you vote Labour. If you want to take power back to Britain, you vote Conservative; if you want to give power to Brussels, you vote Labour. That is the truth. What we see from the right hon. Gentleman’s position is that he wants absolutely no change in the relationship between Britain and Europe, and that he does not believe that the British people should be given a choice.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Q15. The Prime Minister has rightly focused the Government on growth. The development of new housing plays a key part in the provision of that growth, as well as the provision of much-needed new homes. In my constituency, two developments will provide 8,000 new homes between them. Will the Prime Minister join me in praising Rugby borough council’s attitude to new development, and perhaps visit Rugby to see how we are going about it?

[The Prime Minister]

I should be delighted to visit my hon. Friend in Rugby. He is absolutely right to say that we need to build more houses in our country. That is because, unless they have help from their parents, first-time buyers are now, on average, in their thirties. We need to build more homes in order to allow people to achieve the dream, which so many have already achieved, of getting on to the housing ladder.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Q2. In 2010 the Prime Minister and his party said it was lying and scaremongering to suggest they would reduce family tax credits for families earning less than £31,000, but we found out last week that the threshold will, in fact, be £26,000. Will the Prime Minister apologise to families he has failed to protect and has made poorer while he has been in government?

[The Prime Minister]

This Government have had to make difficult decisions on public spending and welfare, but we have protected those on the lowest incomes and we have made sure there have been increases in some areas. That is what we have done with child tax credits, and it is a record we should support.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

Q3. The residents of Thanet enjoy burgers but also love horses. They will have been shocked to hear this morning that they may have been eating horsemeat. Will the Prime Minister assure us that he and his Government are doing a lot to reassure the diners of Thanet?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend raises a very important and extremely serious issue. People in our country will have been very concerned to read this morning that while they thought they were buying beefburgers, they were buying something that had horsemeat in it. That is extremely disturbing news. I have asked the Food Standards Agency to conduct an urgent investigation. It has made it clear that there is no risk to public safety, because there is no food safety risk, but this is a completely unacceptable state of affairs. The FSA will meet retailers and processors this afternoon and work with them to investigate the supply chain, but it is worth making the point that, ultimately, retailers have to be responsible for what they sell and where it has come from.

[Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)]

May I thank the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition for their condolences to the families of those who died in this morning’s helicopter crash in my constituency, and add my condolences and sympathy? Does the Prime Minister agree that amazing work was done this morning, particularly by the fire service? Firefighters from Clapham station arrived very swiftly. Given London’s changing skyline, does he also agree that—not today, but at some stage—we will need to look much more closely at where, how and why helicopters fly through our central city?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to praise the emergency services once again. I think everyone could see from the terrifying pictures on our television screens this morning just how swiftly they responded, and how brave and professional they were. On her point about the rules for helicopter flights—and, indeed, other flights over our capital city—I am sure that will be looked at in the investigations that will take place. She is right that that is not an issue for today, but it is inevitably something that has to be carefully looked at.

[Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)]

Q4. Last week I organised an entrepreneurship seminar in Chiswick for women wanting to set up their own businesses, and one of the questions they asked was about the cost of child care. This Government have extended 15 hours of care to the most disadvantaged quarter of a million two-year-olds and extended that to three and four-year-olds. Does that not show that this Government are supporting families and women who want to work?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Over the past couple of years we have seen one of the fastest rates of new business creation in our history, but we do need to encourage female entrepreneurship in particular, because if we had the same rate as other countries we could help to wipe out unemployment all together. As my hon. Friend said, we do help families with two, three and four-year-olds with child care. We also help through the tax credit system and, as the House knows, we are looking at what more we can do for hard-working people who want to go out to work and need help with child care in order to ensure they can do the right thing for their children and families.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

When will the Prime Minister visit a food bank? He is most welcome to come to Rotherham.

[The Prime Minister]

Let me say again that we should recognise and welcome the work that food banks do. The last Government rightly recognised that through giving food banks an award. [Interruption.] As this question has been asked, and as some hon. Members shout out a lot about food banks, let me remind them of one simple fact: the use of food banks went up tenfold under the last Labour Government, so before Opposition Members try to use this as a political weapon they should recognise it started under their own Government.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

Q5. The National Star college in my constituency provides world-renowned care for some of our disabled youngsters with the most profound and complex learning difficulties to enable them to lead independent lives. Sadly, its future, like that of a few similar colleges, is being placed in jeopardy by a decision not to ring-fence its funding. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will wish to solve this problem, so may I invite him to the college to see this wonderful care for himself?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to discuss this issue with my constituency neighbour, who rightly praises the fantastic work carried out by the National Star college. It does an excellent job in improving the life chances of young people. I know that the college has concerns about the new funding system and that my hon. Friend has contacted the Minister responsible. We are changing the way in which funding is allocated, but that does not necessarily mean that the funding will be cut. I am very happy to discuss this with my hon. Friend, but the new funding system does allow local authorities to have more say in how the funding is distributed, and I am sure they will want to recognise excellent work, including from this national college.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Q6. Is the Prime Minister aware of the trauma facing thousands of families, particularly in London, who live in private rented accommodation, where the housing benefit payments do not meet the rapidly increasing rents? These people are then forced out of their homes and out of their boroughs, and the community suffers as a result, as does the children’s education. Does he not think it is time to regulate private sector rents and bring in a fair rents policy in this country, so that families are not forced out of the communities where they and their families have lived for a very long time?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman must recognise that we inherited a housing benefit system in London that was completely out of control; some families were getting as much as £104,000 a year—that is for one family for one year. Even today we are still spending about £6 billion on housing benefit in London. We have to recognise that higher levels of housing benefit and higher rents were chasing each other upwards in a spiral. I do not support the idea of mass rent controls, because I think we would see a massive decline in the private rented sector, which is what happened the last time we had such rent controls. We need proper regulation of housing benefit, and we need to make sure that we have a competitive system for private sector renting and that we build more flats and houses.

[Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)]

The deficit has to be brought down, but if tax credits and benefits are capped for the next three years at 1%, people on low incomes will be left vulnerable to increases in food and energy prices. If prices go up by more than expected, what contingency plans do the Government have for benefits and tax credits?

[The Prime Minister]

The most important thing is to make sure that people are getting a good deal on energy prices, which is why we are going to be legislating to make companies put people on the lowest available tariffs. That is something the Government are doing that will help all families.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Q7. As a diabetic, may I welcome the fact that last year the Prime Minister lit up No. 10 for the first time on world diabetes day? One third of all primary school leavers are either obese or overweight, yet they still consume cans of Coke and Pepsi that contain up to eight teaspoons of sugar. What steps is he proposing to take to engage manufacturers in a war against sugar? If we do not act now, the next generation will be overwhelmed by a diabetes epidemic?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise this issue, which is one of the biggest public health challenges that we face in our country, and to highlight the problem of excessive consumption of sugar. That is why we challenged business, through our responsibility deal, to try to reduce levels of sugar, and that has had some effect. We have in place a diabetes action plan, which is about how we improve early diagnosis, how we better integrate care and how we provide better support. But, frankly, this is one of those health challenges that is not just a challenge for the health service; it is a challenge for local authorities, for schools and for parents, too. As someone who is trying to bring up three children without excessive amounts of Coca-Cola, I know exactly how big this challenge is.

[Gareth Johnson (Dartford) (Con)]

Twenty years ago this week, Claire Tiltman, a 16-year-old pupil at Dartford grammar school for girls, was stabbed to death in my constituency. Nobody has ever been convicted of the crime. Both her parents subsequently died never knowing who had taken their only child from them. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that this Government will continue to provide full assistance to Kent police to help bring justice in the case of one of Britain’s most brutal unsolved murders?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this case, which is particularly tragic because, as he says, the girl’s parents have both died. Of course we will do everything we can, but above all it is for anyone who knows anything about this case to talk to Kent police, because in the end it is their responsibility to try to solve the case. As for taking action to deal with appalling knife crimes such as this, as my hon. Friend knows, the Government have taken a set of important actions.

[Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

Q8. Thirty-nine people suspected of serious child sex offences who fled the country have been brought back to Britain quickly under the European arrest warrant to face justice. Sadly, many of the Prime Minister’s Back Benchers want to scrap the European arrest warrant, making it easier for paedophiles to escape justice. Will he today categorically rule that out?

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, we have the opportunity to work out which of the home affairs parts of the European Union we want to opt out of and which ones we want to opt back into. That is rightly being discussed in the Government and in the House, and I am sure they will listen very carefully to his arguments.

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

Great progress is being made in improving the rights of park home owners, many of whom are vulnerable and on low incomes. Currently they are not eligible for the green deal. Will the Prime Minister ask his civil servants to investigate this matter to make sure that assistance with energy efficiency is available to everybody who needs it?

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very carefully at what my hon. Friend says. This Government have taken some steps forward on the rights of park home owners, of whom I have some in my own constituency and therefore know how important it is that we get the balance of law right. I will look at her point about the green deal, a very important measure to try to help people with their energy efficiency and to keep their bills down. We want it to be available to as many people as possible.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

Q9. Yesterday Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, told the Public Accounts Committee that GPs were imposing unjustified restrictions on cataract operations. It seems that the Prime Minister and his reorganisation are taking the NHS back to the 1980s, when the NHS was the sick man of Europe. Will he take this opportunity to apologise to elderly people who are waiting unnecessarily for their cataract operations?

[The Prime Minister]

Compared with 2010-11, last year there were 400,000 extra operations in our NHS. Across our NHS, there are 5,000 more doctors and 5,000 fewer administrators. We have got the level of mixed-sex wards right down. The level of hospital-acquired infections—[Interruption.] The point that I am making, which I know the Opposition do not want to hear, is that the NHS is improving under this Government because we are putting the money in and they would take the money out.

[Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)]

Q10. Many of us were inspired by the Prime Minister’s speech on political reform delivered in Milton Keynes when we were in opposition. He promised to make politicians more outwardly and properly accountable to the people. To make that happen, we were promised a system of open primary selection, which has already had such a refreshing effect in the constituencies of Totnes and Gosport. When does the Prime Minister expect a system of full-blown open primaries to be in place more widely, as promised in the coalition agreement?

[The Prime Minister]

I do support the use of open primaries. As my hon. Friend says, in the Conservative party we had a number of open primaries. I hope all parties can look at the issue and debate how we can encourage maximum participation, including in the selection of candidates.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

Q11. Let us talk about Europe and the national interest. Millions of British women would be hit by the proposal in today’s Conservative Fresh Start report to opt out of the EU law on equal pay. Will the Prime Minister rule out such an opt-out today?

[The Prime Minister]

As I explained at the beginning of Prime Minister’s questions, the Government have massively helped women through the single-tier pension. I will look very carefully at the proposal that the hon. Gentleman mentions and I will write to him.

[Mr Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

Q12. I know my right hon. Friend is aware of the extreme flooding suffered in the west country in November and December last year, impacting many homes and businesses and sweeping away the rail link between the west country and London, leaving us cut off for several days. Will he please ensure that our Government take every step necessary to improve the resilience of this vital rail link so that we never get cut off again?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this question. I am well aware of how bad the flooding was and I went to Buckfastleigh to see how badly the town had been flooded for myself. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport has discussed the recent flooding with Network Rail’s chair and chief executive, and he will visit the area soon to look at this. We are working with Network Rail to improve the resilience of the overall network and we will do everything we can to ensure that these important services are maintained, even when they are challenged by floods such as those we saw last year.

[Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)]

Does the Prime Minister accept that a statement on Europe designed to be populist runs the risk of polarising this House, undermining key UK relations with America, confusing and alienating our friends and partners in Europe and, disastrously, starting a process that sleepwalks the UK out of Europe?

[The Prime Minister]

I think the most dangerous thing for this country would be to bury our head in the sand and pretend there is not a debate about Britain’s future in Europe. The most dangerous thing for this country would be to see the changes taking place in Europe because of the single currency and to stand back and say that we are going to do nothing about them. What Britain should be doing is getting in there and fighting for the changes we want so that we can ask for the consent of the British people to settle this issue once and for all.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

Q13. Will the Prime Minister tell the House what the Government are doing to keep pensioners warm in this cold weather and will he join me in congratulating the Suffolk Foundation on the great success of its “surviving winter” campaign?

[The Prime Minister]

This Government have given the biggest increase in the basic state pension—an increase of £5.30 a week last year. We have kept the winter fuel payments, we have kept the cold weather payments at the higher level and we are replacing the Warm Front scheme with the energy company obligation, or ECO. Although the Warm Front scheme helped some 80,000 houses a year, the ECO could help up to 230,000 houses a year. That is what we are doing, that is how we are helping old people, and it is a record we should be proud of.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

Q14. The Prime Minister should know that the Office for National Statistics recently released figures that showed 24,000—24,000—extra cold weather deaths over the winter of 2011-12. The majority of those who perished were over the age of 75. Does the Prime Minister think that his Government should do more to help the elderly and the vulnerable and less to help millionaires through tax cuts?

[The Prime Minister]

As I just said, we are doing more to help the elderly and the vulnerable, with a record increase in the basic state pension that was bigger than what the Opposition would have done under their rules. We are keeping the cold weather payments at the higher level, which the previous Government only introduced before the election. We are keeping our promise on winter fuel payments. We are taking all those steps and ensuring—again, this is something that was never done by the Labour party—that energy companies will have to put people on the lowest tariffs. That is a record we can be proud of.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Tarn-Pure, a business in my constituency, is enduring a hideous regulatory farce thanks to the Health and Safety Executive and the European Union. Will my right hon. Friend remind the CBI that the British economy is very reliant on small and medium-sized businesses, which are far less able to cope with bad regulation, particularly when it is badly administered in the UK?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Businesses large and small are complaining about the burden of regulation, not just from Europe but more generally, and that is why we should be fighting in Europe for a more flexible, competitive Europe in which we see regulations coming off rather than always going on. The view of the Opposition is that we should sit back, do nothing, accept the status quo and never listen to the British people or British business, either.

Point of Order

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

12:33

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. As you will be well aware, during last night’s Adjournment debate on Remploy I tried on a number of occasions to ask a question of the Minister. She refused to take interventions on the basis, I think, that she did not have enough time. The debate finished at 7.29, one minute before it was due to conclude. Is that consistent with parliamentary procedure?

[Mr Speaker]

It is purely up to the Minister to decide whether to take an intervention, so that is simply not a matter for the Chair. I note the accuracy of the hon. Gentleman’s point about the time at which the debate concluded, but that is not relevant to the autonomy of the Minister in deciding whether to take an intervention. The hon. Gentleman was certainly a persistent woodpecker and I feel sure that he will be so on subsequent occasions. He has put his concerns on the record, but nothing disorderly took place.

Corporate Accountability and Safeguarding of Adults from Abuse and Neglect

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

Motion for leave to bring in a Bill (Standing Order No. 23)

12:34

[Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to hold corporations criminally accountable for abuse and neglect in care settings; to make provision to compel any person or organisation to supply information to Adult Safeguarding Boards; and to introduce a new offence of corporate neglect whereby a corporate body can be found guilty if the way in which its activities are managed or organised by its board or senior management is a substantial element in the existence or possible occurrence of abuse or neglect.

I should like to begin with a quote:

“We as parents are there to protect our children and for whatever reason we failed to do so and it’s huge burden of guilt.”

Those are the words of Ann Earley, the mother of Steve Tovey. Steve has learning difficulties and was a victim of abuse at Winterbourne View hospital. Like everyone else, I was shocked and appalled by the events at Winterbourne View that were exposed by “Panorama” last year. The 11 perpetrators of those crimes rightly ended up in the dock and were punished. However, no stone should be left unturned when protecting vulnerable people.

My Bill proposes legislation that would see those who provide care and support held corporately accountable for abuse and neglect on their watch. In the words of Judge Ford, who presided over the Winterbourne View case, a “culture of ill-treatment developed” at the hospital that “corrupted and debased” the staff,

“all of whom were of previous good character”.

That statement goes to the heart of the reform that I am proposing. It reflects what many believe they witnessed at Winterbourne View: a care provider that betrayed those in its care and left unchecked a culture which, bit by bit, tolerated ever-more degrading treatment of vulnerable people, allowing a culture of cruelty to fester—and charged £3,500 a week for that. That is why, as the then Minister, I ordered the report into what happened at Winterbourne View so that we could make sure that lessons were learned, and it is why today I present this Bill to the House.

My Bill has two elements: to improve adult safeguarding and to close a loophole in the criminal law. It would amend the Health and Social Care Act 2008 to include a new offence of corporate neglect. This new law would act as a deterrent. It would force weak boards of directors to pull their socks up, visiting their services, talking to and, vitally, listening to the people who use those services and listening to and including the families of those whom they are caring for—and, yes, engaging with the staff, being interested in them and in their professional development. As the chief executive of care provider Care Management Group, Peter Kinsey, put it to me recently:

“If there is a systematic failure, as at Winterbourne View, then executives and ultimately the Board are responsible for not having measures in place to pick up concerns and failings in quality.”

That must be right. It is why good providers have absolutely nothing to fear from this Bill. Only those organisations that allow abuse and neglect to go unchallenged should be worried.

We would not be the first country to legislate on this issue; there are international precedents of this kind in law. For example, in Alberta in Canada care corporations face fines of up to $100,000 in such cases. Under my Bill, corporations found guilty of corporate neglect would face unlimited fines, remedial orders and publicity orders. That reflects the approach already enacted by this House in the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007.

When things go wrong—when terrible abuse and neglect take place—the public expect those who take the fee to be held to account. It is not just the public who think so; many in the care sector do as well. Introducing a criminal sanction has the backing of the charity Action on Elder Abuse and of the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group, whose members include the Carers Trust, Leonard Cheshire Disability, the Multiple Sclerosis Society, Mencap, the National Autistic Society, and Scope.

The second element of my Bill concerns adult safeguarding. The serious case review into the abuse at Winterbourne View uncovered a raft of missed opportunities and bad care. The authors of the review also uncovered a

“lack of financial transparency and co-operation”

from Castlebeck, the company in charge. This meant that the review was not as comprehensive as it should have been—a blow to adult safeguarding in general and a barrier to those seeking to learn lessons from Winterbourne View. That is why my Bill proposes to amend the law to require any person or organisation to supply information to an adult safeguarding board—a provision that is already in place in relation to children’s and young people’s safeguarding in England. I know that the Government take very seriously their responsibilities with regard to protecting vulnerable people, but there is a gap in the law that needs to be closed.

Before Christmas, the Government, in their final report on Winterbourne View, pledged to consider how corporate bodies could be held to account for abuse and harm. That was incredibly welcome news and I was particularly pleased to hear the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) commit the Government to changing the way in which we care for adults with learning disabilities in this country, but there is still much to do. I am convinced that my Bill would help to drive up the quality of care, acting as another safeguard against abuse.

The author George Eliot said:

“Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity.”

At Winterbourne View, staff carried out horrific acts because of the opportunities a culture of cruelty created. This Bill would help to remove some of those opportunities, and I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Paul Burstow, Hazel Blears, Jack Lopresti, Glyn Davies, John Pugh, Andrew Stunell, Tracey Crouch, Mr David Ward and Mr Michael Meacher present the Bill.

Paul Burstow accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 March, and to be printed (Bill 120).

Opposition Day

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[14th Allotted Day]

Examination Reform

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

12:44

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes the breadth of opposition from business, the creative industries, champions of vocational education and schools to the Government’s plans to introduce English Baccalaureate Certificates; and calls on the Government to rethink its plans.

This debate goes to the heart of the challenge facing our education system. The central question for the debate is: how do our schools best equip the young people of today to play their part in the economy and society of tomorrow?

Labour believes that a true baccalaureate approach, one that recognises skills, knowledge and the core characteristics needed to succeed in the future, should be at the centre of this debate. Although as a country we have made great progress in improving education, there is still a lot for us to do as we strive to compete with the highest performing jurisdictions. Our future economic competitiveness relies on our ability to produce aspirational citizens and young people with the skills, knowledge, resilience and character to get this country ahead in the world.

That is why we have called this debate. Yes, we need reform in our system of assessment and qualifications. That is why Labour has asked Professor Chris Husbands from the Institute of Education at the university of London to lead an independent review of 14-to-19 education in England. This is the exact approach that has been taken by the Labour Government in Wales.

We want to build a consensus on sustainable curriculum reform. Surely, before we decide on changes to assessment, it would make sense to reach a decision on what is needed from the curriculum. Instead, what we have from the Secretary of State is a plan drawn up last year on the back of an envelope that enjoys very little support. The Association of School and College Leaders said in its response to the Government’s consultation:

“This reform will only be successful if those who have to implement it feel involved and if there is an attempt to build consensus around the changes proposed.”

If we look back to the introduction of GCSEs in the 1980s, we will see that they were established with cross-party support. I share the concerns expressed by the former Education Secretary, the Conservative peer Lord Baker, that rushed reforms, lacking political consensus, do not offer the best way forward. We believe that the Government’s plans to introduce a narrow subject range of English baccalaureate certificates will undermine our future economic position, not strengthen it.

Concerns about both the substance and implementation of EBCs have been widely voiced. They have been voiced by business, including by the CBI and those in the creative industries and the knowledge economy. Sir Jonathan Ive, the pioneering inventor behind the iPod who was knighted last year for his services to design and enterprise, recently opposed the narrow focus of the Government’s plan:

“It will fail to provide students with the skills that UK employers need and its impact on the UK’s economy will be catastrophic.”

[Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept responsibility for the reforms undertaken by the last Labour Government, including the modularisation of GCSEs and the 2007 reforms? Both those major reforms have caused enormous damage to the reputation of GCSEs as a brand and to the underlying education that is provided under the new curricula.

[Stephen Twigg]

I certainly accept that we need to learn from the strengths and weaknesses of the changes that have been made. We made a number of reforms. I was a Minister when Curriculum 2000 was implemented, which created the AS-level. That was a positive reform that has stood the test of time. There is a case to look again at modularisation, but as I will say in my speech, that does not require us entirely to remove controlled assessment from the core subjects that make up the secondary school curriculum.

Sir Jonathan has been joined by other leading British innovators in warning the Secretary of State that his plans are “jeopardising Britain’s future prosperity”. Research carried out for the Department for Education by Ipsos MORI demonstrates the effect that the EBacc performance measure has already had on creative subjects. For example, more than 150 schools have withdrawn the important subject of design and technology from their curriculum. There have been similar declines in drama and art. I fear that the Secretary of State’s plans for EBCs risk making the situation even worse.

A survey by YouGov for the National Union of Teachers that was published earlier this month found that more than 80% of teachers said that the proposed changes to exams at 16 were being rushed. Louise Robinson, the president of the Girls Schools Association, has said that the Education Secretary is transfixed by

“a bygone era where everything was considered rosy”.

She said:

“You can’t be forcing a 1960s curriculum and exam structure on schools. These children are going to be going out into the world of the 2020s and 2030s. It is going to be very different from”

the Secretary of State’s

“dream of what it should be.”

It is an indication of the Secretary of State’s unpopularity that voices from the private schools sector and the National Union of Teachers are united in their opposition to his plans.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

A great achievement.

[Stephen Twigg]

It is a great achievement, as my hon. Friend rightly says.

[Mr Gibb]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain why 295 independent schools have switched from the GCSE to the international GCSE?

[Stephen Twigg]

That is a completely different situation. There are many things that we can learn from the decisions of private schools, and indeed state schools, to adopt the IGCSE. In developing an appropriate consensus on the best qualifications for secondary schools, there is a lot that we can learn from the IGCSE, and indeed from the international baccalaureate.

The high-performing jurisdictions in Asia, which the Secretary of State often rightly quotes, are looking to our success in innovation and creativity. I therefore argue that now is not the time for us to move backwards. As they look to us, it is a false debate that says that we cannot have both rigour in maths, English and science and a broader, richer curriculum. As Michael Barber has pointed out:

“Leaders in Pacific Asia are realising that what worked in the last 50 years is not what will be required in the next 50. They have come to the conclusion that their economies need to become more innovative and their schools more creative. It is one thing for an education system to produce well-educated deferential citizens; another to produce a generation of innovators.”

We are right to want our schools to focus on maths and English for all. That is why the Opposition are committed to maths and English for all up to age 18—a proposal that was backed by the CBI in its recent education report.

As well as rigour in maths and English, we need it right across the curriculum. Excluding crucial subjects such as design and technology, computer science, engineering and arts subjects will not promote innovation in our schools. Those subjects are important to our future as a country, including our future economy. Will the Secretary of State or the Minister tell the House the Government’s plans for those subjects that will not be included in the EBCs? Last September, the Secretary of State said that he wants Ofqual to assess the expansion of EBCs into other subject areas, but that sounded to me—and to many others—like an afterthought rather than a central feature of his plans.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

As the hon. Gentleman is well aware, under the previous Labour Government a qualification in cake decorating was considered the equivalent of a maths GCSE, and a level 2 qualification in horse studies was the equivalent of four GCSEs. Is that right and will he stand up to defend what the Labour Government did in promoting such equivalents? Will he return to an age where cake decorating is the equivalent of a GCSE in maths, and horse studies the equivalent of four GCSEs?

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Gentleman is capable of a more intelligent argument than the one he has just made, and I hope we can have that moving forward. The Labour party wants vocational qualifications that are fit for purpose, so let us have a debate about how we can secure that.

When I ask parents in my constituency what is their biggest concern about education, they often say, “Will it prepare our children for the jobs of the future?” Of course parents want schools that instil knowledge, but they know that knowledge alone is not enough. Parents value the role of schools in educating their children to become active citizens and informed consumers, and to participate in the economy and jobs of the future. That is the prism through which this reform should be viewed. A true baccalaureate approach will require forms of assessment that are truly fit for purpose.

Last September, the Education Secretary told the House:

“We want to remove controlled assessment…from core subjects.”—[Official Report, 17 September 2012; Vol. 550, c. 654.]

and he nods in assent to that today. As I understand, however, the power to decide on forms of assessment lies with Ofqual. Is the Secretary of State planning to bring forward primary legislation to change that so that he has the power to make such decisions? I see he is nodding. Will he say whether he will do that and whether it is his intention to write the questions, invigilate the exams and mark the scripts as well?

The Education Secretary has expressed his preference to scrap controlled assessments, replacing them with three-hour exams at the end of two years’ study. In no other walk of life would we expect three-hour linear exams alone to provide the basis for an assessment of the depth and breadth of learning. Will the Secretary of State tell the House on what evidence from this country or abroad, he has based his preference for entirely removing field work in geography, laboratory experiments in science and presentational skills in English, favouring instead a linear exam that could encourage rote learning over deeper understanding?

The third area where the Government’s plans fall short is perhaps the most worrying. We know the Secretary of State’s plan A because it was published in the Daily Mail in June last year. What he really wants is to reintroduce the two-tier system of O-levels and CSEs—yet another example of the “Upstairs, Downstairs” mentality to which the former Children’s Minister, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), referred at the Education Committee this morning. Having failed to secure his preferred scheme, however, it now seems that we have a stealth version of a two-tier system.

The Secretary of State told the House in September that his plans would not amount to a two-tier system, yet he is proposing a statement of achievement for those who will not take EBCs. Is that not a return to a two-tier system? In fact, it is arguably even worse than the old CSE system, because at least in that system high-performing CSE candidates still had the chance of getting an O-level. Will the Secretary of State tell the House what value will be attached in reality to those statements of achievement? How will they help young people secure places in further education or work, or as apprentices?

We as a House should, on a cross-party basis, reject the talent myth that divides children into winners and losers before they have even had the chance to demonstrate their potential. Such defeatist thinking is socially regressive and caps our potential as a nation. What estimates have the Government made of how many young people will not be entered for EBCs in core subjects? At the other end of the spectrum, the Secretary of State has hinted on a number of occasions at the reintroduction of what is called norm referencing—placing an artificial cap on the proportion of high grades. Are the Government going to proceed with that?

With EBCs we have had from the Secretary of State a lesson in bad policy making—putting the cart before the horse by putting assessment before curriculum, choosing dogma over evidence, and no attempt to build consensus for a lasting solution. Ofqual has expressed real concern about the Secretary of State’s timetable and careful implementation is vital if changes are to succeed. Will the Government, even at this stage, rethink the rushed timetable for those changes?

I accept that the education system is ripe for reform, but we need reform that works. That is why the Labour party has set out a plan for reforming vocational education, with a technical baccalaureate at 18, including English and maths for all. The Secretary of State has undermined important vocational courses. The engineering diploma, for example, was devalued by the Education Secretary before being reinstated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Government have not given that crucial area the priority it deserves. While the CBI criticises the Education Secretary’s plans for EBCs, Labour would get businesses to accredit vocational courses.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I am listening with interest to the hon. Gentleman’s statement about what Labour would do, but will it overcome the fact that 42% of employers have to conduct remedial training for the young people who come to them?

[Stephen Twigg]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right and that is part of the reason we have said that English and maths should continue beyond 16, right up to 18. As an advanced industrialised country we are unusual in not requiring learners to continue with both mathematics and the home language, and we have put forward that positive reform precisely to meet the concern raised. I see nothing in the Government’s proposals for EBCs that will address that bad situation, and a real risk that it will make it even worse.

When the Secretary of State set out his proposals last September he had no plans to include vocational education. A few weeks later, the Labour party set out its proposals, including for a technical baccalaureate. How did the Secretary of State respond? The Conservatives put out a press release stating that the certificates would “make young people unemployable.” That is what they said in September. Two months later the Under-Secretary of State for Skills, the hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matthew Hancock), who is not in the Chamber today, supported Labour’s Tech Bac. We have seen from the Secretary of State that vocational education is, at very best, an afterthought, and in reality his policy on vocational education is a total shambles. I believe that education is crucial.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

The hon. Gentleman’s predecessor as shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), welcomed in full the Wolf report on vocational education, which preceded consultation on academic subjects. Does he welcome it in full, or has he changed Labour’s position?

[Stephen Twigg]

I certainly welcome the Wolf recommendations in full—absolutely in full. They provide an important guide for the work we are doing to develop vocational education. However, the Secretary of State may want to return to the Dispatch Box to explain why the Conservatives dismiss the technical baccalaureate—will he take this opportunity to support it?

[Michael Gove]

I am delighted to take this position again. I do not want to turn this into a conversation, but it is striking that before I asked my question the hon. Gentleman said our plans for vocational education were a shambles and he now says that the report, which we have implemented in full, was absolutely right. I am therefore in two minds about what the shadow Secretary of State’s position is on vocational education. On the one hand he endorses the Wolf report, which we have implemented, and on the other hand he says that our proposals for vocational education are a shambles.

[Stephen Twigg]

The reality, as a number of colleagues on my side were shouting, is that the Secretary of State has not implemented fully the Wolf report. We will support him in doing so. We will work with the Government to develop a technical baccalaureate if they are serious about it. However, if the Government were really focused on these issues, they would not have done what they did to the engineering diploma.

[Michael Gove]

rose—

[Stephen Twigg]

The Secretary of State is keen to intervene and I will take his intervention. Why did it take the intervention of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to reassemble the engineering diploma?

[Michael Gove]

Which parts of the Wolf report implementation have we not fulfilled that the shadow Secretary of State would like us to fulfil?

[Stephen Twigg]

The full implementation of English and maths right through to 18 is in the Wolf report and the Government have not said that that is one of their plans. We believe, for the reason given by the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) on the Government Benches, that English and maths to 18 is vital to our future. The technical baccalaureate is a proposal that we have made and the Secretary of State’s junior Minister has backed it. We want to see movement forward. It is not just about the Wolf report; it is about moving forward to a system where we have vocational qualifications that are fit for purpose and where English and maths sit alongside those good, vocational qualifications.

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Gentleman says that there is one thing in the Wolf report that we have not implemented—English and maths to 18. I would contest that. Is that the only thing that he can think of? Have we implemented everything else? I should point out that there is no reference to the technical baccalaureate in the report.

[Stephen Twigg]

I am sorry that the Secretary of State seems to regard young people continuing with English and maths to 18 as a trivial proposal in the Wolf report—it is a central, important proposal. If he moves to implement it now he will have our full support, because it is vital to the future of this country. If vocational education really was at the heart of the Government’s proposals, why was he silent about it when he made his announcement in September? Why was the focus of the announcement in September on the EBacc subjects and anything else an afterthought: EBacc certificates for English, maths and science, EBacc certificates later for the other EBacc subjects, and then some vague possibility that Ofqual would devise other certificates for other subjects? If vocational education in creative and other academic subjects were really being given the seriousness that the Secretary of State claims, we should have a set of reforms that apply across the entire curriculum, not the narrowing of the curriculum that the Government have proposed through their English baccalaureate certificates.

[Michael Gove]

I would just like to repeat my question. Are there any other recommendations in the Wolf report that we have not implemented?

[Stephen Twigg]

The Secretary of State should stop digging. I welcome the Wolf report. It was published, as he pointed out, when my predecessor was in this position. I have been in this position for 15 months. The Wolf report is important, but the world is moving on. It took us to propose a technical baccalaureate. I am delighted that, albeit belatedly and half-heartedly, the Government seem to be supporting that, but my central point is that he set out proposals last September that were silent on the technical and practical subjects that are so vital to vocational education. I look forward to the day when I answer the right hon. Gentleman’s questions from the Government side of the House, but he seems very keen to question me today. I will of course take his final intervention.

[Michael Gove]

I am sure we are all grateful that this will be the final one. First of all, the hon. Gentleman says that we have moved on from the Wolf report, so having welcomed it he now believes it is obsolete—that is interesting. [Interruption.] Well, if it is not obsolete, can he tell us which aspects of the Wolf report—not the one that he has mentioned; we will return to that—we have not implemented? Are there any others at all? I am all ears.

[Stephen Twigg]

I reaffirm that we welcome the Wolf report in full. We are in favour of English and maths to 18. As the right hon. Gentleman acknowledged, the Government did not come forward with proposals for that. When and if they do so, we will give them our support. The Wolf report is very important. It is not obsolete; it is an important piece of work that needs to be fully implemented. We will support full implementation, but we need then to move to build on that. The technical baccalaureate is a proposal to achieve that. English baccalaureate certificates that will not be in crucial creative, technical and practical subjects risk undermining the progress that the Wolf report has given us. If he says that we are going to have a new—I think he has used the term “golden standard”—qualification called the English baccalaureate certificate that will apply only to certain subjects and will be given a high status in the accountability framework, that is bound to lead to an acceleration of the trend that I have already described, where fewer schools are doing design technology, fewer schools are doing art and fewer schools are doing drama. That is surely something that all sides of the House can be very concerned about.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Recently, I met Airbus and Rolls Royce, who said that they are having to recruit graduate engineers from abroad, because we are not producing enough of them in this country. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s changes will make that situation far worse than it already is?

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend makes the point powerfully, and it is absolutely the right point to make. It is not simply Opposition Members who are making it—it was the central argument of the CBI’s excellent report on education before Christmas, when it called for a pause in the Government’s proposed EBCs. That is why, in our motion, we urge the Government to rethink. We have reflected on what we are hearing from business, as my hon. Friend rightly reminds us, and from the world of education that they are not the reforms that take our education system, our economy, or our broader society in the right direction.

The Government’s plan for EBCs is very much in tune with the Secretary of State’s wider programme for education: a narrowing of the curriculum, backward looking in terms of assessment, and a policy for the few, not the many. Last year, the Secretary of State presided over the fiasco in GCSE English marking. Now, on his plans for changes to exams at 16, week after week we see increasing opposition, whether from business, entrepreneurs, teachers or parents. In contrast, I want to see a true baccalaureate approach to assessment and qualification reform. Labour Members are working to build a consensus in the worlds of business and education on reforms that will work and will last; reforms that will strengthen, not undermine, our standing in the world. On that basis, I commend this motion to the House.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I will take the hon. Gentleman’s point of order in a moment. Just before I call the Minister for Schools, the right hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) to respond from the Government Front Bench, I should say that in order to try and accommodate the level of interest, I have decided to impose an eight-minute limit on each Back-Bench contribution. Mr Brennan, I could never forget you and I was in no danger of doing so.

[Kevin Brennan]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Given that, unusually, the Secretary of State has decided to wind up the debate rather than to respond to the opening speech and has intervened on the shadow Secretary of State on five occasions, is there any means by which the time could be extended to allow the Opposition Front Bench the opportunity to intervene on him the same number of times without him being able to cry shortage of time?

[Mr Speaker]

The short answer is no, and I should emphasise, for the avoidance of doubt, that nothing disorderly has occurred.

[Kevin Brennan]

I did not say that.

[Mr Speaker]

The hon. Gentleman, as he rightly says, did not say that. The order in which Ministers appear at the Dispatch Box is exclusively a matter for the Government. It may be unusual, but there is nothing improper about it whatsoever. The House will now wish to hear Mr David Laws.

13:09

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

We warmly welcome today’s debate on what is an incredibly important topic. It has already been surprisingly interesting because of some of the shadow Secretary of State’s comments on his party’s developing policy. I praise him for the candour with which he has approached the debate.

I thought I heard the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the qualifications framework and examination system that we inherited from the previous Government were seriously flawed and ripe for reform. I think I heard him acknowledge that there were problems with the system of modularisation. I think I heard him welcome the radical and dramatic reforms—many of which seek to deal with problems that emerged under the last Government—pioneered by Alison Wolf as a consequence of her report. I thought I even heard him acknowledge, under cross-questioning by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), that the last Government were wrong to deny state schools the ability to use IGCSE qualifications, which are now used widely in the system.

Partly as a consequence of the hon. Gentleman’s candour, therefore, and partly because of the forensic cross-questioning he received from those on the Government Benches, we have made a lot of progress in establishing that the existing examination and qualification system is deeply flawed and that we are right to be pioneering change.

[Stephen Twigg]

May I tempt the right hon. Gentleman to match my candour? I mentioned the engineering diploma, which was one of the qualifications downgraded by the Secretary of State. The industry responded and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to reassemble a version of the engineering diploma. Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge, with matching candour, that the way in which that was handled was a disaster for that crucial area of industry?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman has been listening to too much tittle-tattle. The Secretary of State and all members of the Government are committed to a credible and strengthened vocational qualifications framework. I will say more about that later.

[Chris Skidmore]

Given that we are having these confessional moments, will the right hon. Gentleman also welcome the fact that the shadow Secretary of State has endorsed in full the Wolf report, which stated that under the last Government more than 400,000 teenagers were taking vocational qualifications that were essentially a waste of time?

[Mr Laws]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Indeed, that was the second or third of the four confessions we heard from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman today.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Laws]

In the spirit of interventions set by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, of course I will give way.

[Kevin Brennan]

I am sure the Minister is grateful to his right hon. Friend. Does the Minister recognise these words?

“There has been a breathtaking rise in performance in education since 1997. Inner London was a basket case pre-97; ninety per cent of students were failing to get decent grades at 16 back then. The improvement’s been astonishing, dramatic, unbelievable.”

They were his words in February 2010.

[Mr Laws]

As a revelation, something that I said on television three years ago is not particularly impressive.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Laws]

I will make a little progress before I take other interventions.

In spite of the rather political exchanges we have heard from the Opposition Front-Bench team, I want to say that, as Lord Adonis has recently written, education should not be a political football. We are talking today—this is why the shadow Secretary of State was right to table the motion—about designing a new qualifications system for millions of young people in this country. They and their parents expect us to take the right decisions for the right reasons. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I both want to hear from Members from all parties today. The coalition Government have strong views on this issue, but we always listen to those who have sensible and constructive contributions to make.

I should also confirm that, with your permission, Mr Speaker, and as the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) mentioned a second ago, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be replying to the debate rather than opening it for the Government. That enables me, with your permission, Mr Speaker, to be absent for a short period to fulfil an existing commitment, for which I apologise to the House.

Before I turn in detail to the points raised by the shadow Secretary of State, I would like to step back and consider briefly what the Government are seeking to deliver. Our ambition, quite simply, is to raise standards for all young people. We believe that the majority of young people are capable of leaving education with a wide range of good qualifications at good grades. We are also determined to close the wholly unacceptable gap between outcomes for the most disadvantaged pupils and the rest, which is why we have introduced the pupil premium and many other reforms. Of course, however, improving results and closing the gap are ambitions shared across the House, and I have never been shy in acknowledging some of the progress made under the last Labour Government, including in places such as inner London, where we have important lessons to learn.

If we are to realise this ambition for the schools system, however, we also need to ensure that our education system is delivering in at least three key areas. First, we need to know that the improvements in exam results are real and do not simply reflect grade inflation and falling standards. Secondly, we need to ensure that young people are choosing subjects because of their quality and relevance, not simply in order to meet league table and accountability targets, as I fear was the case for a period under the last Government. Finally, but crucially, we need to ensure that the content and stretch of qualifications are appropriate for the highly competitive environment—the shadow Secretary of State talked about this—that we will face in this century. We should be setting standards of stretch and rigour in our qualifications, not just to ensure the credibility of domestic standards over time, but to guarantee that the educational aspirations and outcomes for English children match the very best in the world.

[Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)]

Jonathan Ive, the designer behind the iPhone, has said of the EBacc:

“It will fail to provide students with the skills that UK employers need and its impact on the UK’s economy will be catastrophic.”

He said that the EBacc

“will starve our world leading creative sector of its future pioneers.”

What does the Minister say to that?

[Mr Laws]

I do not agree with that suggestion; otherwise I would not support the reforms. Indeed, I believe that they will have exactly the opposite effect in delivering higher standards and the ambitions I have just set out.

To be blunt, most people consider that, in the three areas I have just set out—as key ambitions for our qualifications and examination system—the last Labour Government failed to deliver. They failed to maintain standards, and confidence in standards, over time, as I think the shadow Secretary of State acknowledged; they failed to ensure that children were always choosing qualifications for the right reasons, and I would be surprised if the hon. Gentleman did not acknowledge that serious criticism; and in their commendable ambition that all should succeed, they failed to ensure that the rigour and stretch of our qualifications kept pace with the best in the world. Therefore, the qualification reforms that we are debating today have two objectives: first, we want to restore confidence in standards, and secondly we want to ensure that the quality of our qualifications matches the best in the world.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I want to ask the Minister about the best way of preparing young people for life and the world of work. Does he honestly think that a three-hour exam at the end of two years does anything other than test a theoretical knowledge, and that the ability to demonstrate a good theoretical knowledge does not translate into skills for life or work? He must accept that and there must be some balance between the theoretical knowledge demonstrated in an exam and other demonstrations of ability, as far as employers and life skills are concerned.

[Mr Laws]

Of course, there are some subjects for which practical skills have to be able to be assessed properly, but in fairness the hon. Gentleman should also acknowledge the serious concerns about coursework and the credibility of assessment. It is sensible to address those concerns in our reforms, and I believe that for many subjects it is possible to do that without compromising high-quality accountability in the qualifications system.

[Stephen Twigg]

I gave three examples in my speech of areas of practical coursework—in geography, science and English. Does the Minister disagree with me about any of those?

[Mr Laws]

I am not going to pre-empt the outcome of the consultation. I am happy to look at the areas the hon. Gentleman suggests, although so far I am not personally persuaded that I have heard clinching arguments for some of the subjects. Far more obviously we potentially need a different system of assessment in subjects such as art and music, but I am not sure that he has so far made a convincing case for some of the areas he has mentioned.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Laws]

I want to make a little progress, then I will take some other interventions, but I am conscious of the fact that a large number of people want to speak.

Our reforms combine rigour with a commitment to fairness and social mobility. They will raise the bar, but they will not shut the door on any young people. The shadow Secretary of State asked whether we would have a system in which a defined proportion of students would be able to get particular grades. I can assure him that we are absolutely not going down that route. We launched a consultation on 17 September setting out our proposals for reform. That consultation closed on 10 December. The Secretary of State and I and other Ministers are now taking the time to consider all the responses carefully before we make final decisions.

Before I turn to some of the more detailed points, let me say a little more about the case for change. GCSEs were a bold and radical development in education policy. They introduced the idea that all children, whatever their background or ability, could sit a single exam in all academic subjects and receive a grade recognising their progress. GCSEs replaced a system that was fundamentally unfair, in that it divided children into winners and losers at an early age and helped only a minority of students to prepare for further study and decent jobs. The crucial principle of universality is one that we as a coalition Government are determined to retain. Contrary to what the shadow Secretary of State said, our reforms look forwards. They do not look backwards. There will be no return to the divisive, two-tier system of the past. The reforms also look outwards, to learn from the best-performing systems in the world today—systems that deliver rigorous qualifications, accessible to all children. However, 25 years on, the GCSE is now ready for change. Students and teachers are working harder than ever, but not all are achieving qualifications that properly reflect their ability and support them to progress successfully.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

By and large, many of the reforms that have been proposed would have my support and that of my party. The Minister talks about consultation, but given that there are exam boards in those parts of the United Kingdom where education has been devolved and where students will be applying to universities in England, for example, and given the need, therefore, for comparability of results in the different countries that make up the United Kingdom, what consultation has he had—or does he plan to have—with Ministers responsible for education and exam boards in parts of the United Kingdom other than England?

[Mr Laws]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his broad support for some of the proposals we are debating today. I believe in devolution in the United Kingdom, as does he. Where individual Administrations and Governments decide that they want to go down a different route, it is right that it should be open to them to do so. Indeed, I believe we can learn in the United Kingdom about different solutions that people choose and then work out over time which are seen to succeed. However, I will talk to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about the point the hon. Gentleman makes. If there is anything we can do to assist with some of his concerns, I am certainly willing to contemplate that.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman has explained the need for change at GCSE and provided an analysis—an accurate one for the most part—of the legacy from the Labour party. Can he explain why abolition of one suite of GCSEs is the right response, rather than simply introducing the measures and changes he has itemised for GCSEs as they stand?

[Mr Laws]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points and the work that the Select Committee on Education has done on this and associated areas. I believe that in some of the core subjects where we are making these changes there is value in signalling the extent to which they will be improved and varied from the existing GCSE qualifications. There is some merit in underlining—through a change in how we describe these qualifications—how fundamental the changes could be. That will also be relevant for people when they assess the suite of qualifications and their future value in the labour market.

[Mr Stuart]

rose—

[Mr Laws]

I will give way again, but then I must make some progress.

[Mr Stuart]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being most generous. He is right about signalling. Is there not a risk from the Government’s saying officially that GCSEs as a brand are broken and irrecoverable of sending the signal that the remaining GCSEs—most subjects—for which children will spend an awful lot of time studying are also broken? Surely he must either have plans to abolish GCSEs altogether or recognise that such signalling has risks as well as benefits?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and that is exactly why we say in paragraph 4.7 of the consultation paper that to

“ensure the benefits of this more rigorous approach to the English Baccalaureate subjects are felt across the whole curriculum, we will ask Ofqual to consider how these new higher standards can be used as a template for judging and accrediting a new suite of qualifications, beyond these subjects at 16, to replace GCSEs”.

I promise him—I will come to this later—that we have no intention of allowing the status of the other subjects, which are not at present in the core English baccalaureate certificate, to be downgraded. We place huge value on those subjects, and I will set out later how we will take the matter forward.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Laws]

I will take one more intervention, then I will have to make some progress in order to allow others to get in.

[Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)]

Is not the most important signal that we must send on behalf of young people to tell future employers that they have been rigorously tested in a way that will make them suitable for work? That is the way we will take our economy forward in future too.

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. Whatever policy solutions different employer groups favour, there is an absolute consensus that the problems we are setting out to address are real ones in the system which all the employer groups want us to address.

As I have said, I believe there has been a real improvement in education over the last two decades, but it is now widely accepted in all parts of the House that there has also been grade inflation. Until summer 2012, GCSE pass rates had increased every year since they were first introduced, but when we compare that achievement with our performance in international tests—where there is no incentive for achievement to be inflated—we see a different story. Between 2006 and 2009, the proportion of students achieving a C grade or higher in English and mathematics at GCSE increased by 8%, but England’s ranking in the OECD’s highly respected programme for international student assessment—or PISA—league tables stagnated over the same period. Universities and colleges complain of the need to provide remedial classes for apparently well qualified new students. That is why the shadow Secretary of State for Education has said:

“Sensible, thought-through and evidence-based measures to increase rigour and tackle grade inflation will have the…support of the Opposition”.—[Official Report, 26 June 2012; Vol. 547, c. 175.]

Significant evidence of grade inflation is available in a range of academic reports, and I am pleased that that is now common ground among many of us.

The coalition Government have already acted to address some of the problems that emerged under the last Labour Government, including those that have caused the recent problems in marking GCSE qualifications—problems that have their origin under the previous Government and not, in fairness, under this Government or this Secretary of State. We have started to address the weaknesses of the current GCSEs, which privilege bite-size learning over deep understanding. Ofqual, the independent exams regulator, has already acted to make the GCSE more rigorous—for example, by tackling the re-sit culture and restoring marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. We have introduced the English baccalaureate, which has powerfully incentivised more pupils to study key academic subjects. We did not hear from the shadow Secretary of State about the enormous increase in uptake in areas such as modern languages since the English baccalaureate was introduced, which I would have thought most Members would welcome.

However, we need to go further. We believe in the professionalism of teachers and those who set exams. They want to do what is best for students—rigorous teaching and rigorous assessment—but the system they are currently working in is flawed. The combination of competition between exam boards and a high-stakes accountability mechanism in the form of league tables has led to a race to the bottom by exam boards. We must address that. In our consultation, we proposed introducing single exam boards for each subject, with franchises given to the winning exam board after a competitive process. In a letter to the Secretary of State on 26 September last year, the shadow Secretary of State made it clear that he supported that proposal. Others have raised delivery issues and risks in relation to the proposal, and we will look carefully at all those points. We will also shortly be publishing a consultation on how we will reform the accountability system for schools.

[Stephen Twigg]

The Minister referred to “others” expressing their concern. I assume that among them was Ofqual, which wrote to the Secretary of State in November to express its concern about the timetable for change. Will the Government consider adopting a different timetable so that, if changes are to be introduced, they can be implemented with care?

[Mr Laws]

All those issues are, of course, part of our consideration following the consultation. We have already made the decision, at the time that we made the announcement on the EBCs, to move back the start date so that they will not start being taught until September 2015. We will ensure that the timetable for delivery is achievable.

As part of the accountability consultation, we will consider floor standards and incentives to take high-value qualifications. We will also consider appropriate incentives for schools to teach all their students well, rather than focusing only on students near the C/D borderline.

Let me now turn to some of the specific issues that have been raised during the consultation. The Secretary of State and I are determined that these new, more rigorous qualifications will meet the needs of the vast majority of students who are currently served by the GCSE. The reforms and improvements to education that we are making will enable more students to operate at a higher level—that is exactly their point—and, as exams become more rigorous, we will equip students to clear that higher bar. So there is absolutely no reason to believe that there will be a substantial change in the proportion of students achieving a good pass. Indeed, our clear aim is that, over time, a higher proportion of children will secure a good pass.

The consultation has shown that there is an understandable concern that we should continue to give strong support to many subjects that are not part of the EBC core subjects of English, maths, science, history, geography and languages. The Chairman of the Select Committee has raised that point today. I want to make it absolutely clear to all Members that the Department for Education remains fully committed to ensuring that pupils receive a well-rounded education, with high-quality music, art and design, drama and dance all playing an important part.

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

The Minister has referred to the uptake of foreign language studies on a number of occasions. The reality is that most schools have been ditching the subjects that children might have wanted to study, simply to comply with the Ebacc requirements. Where is he going to find room in the school timetable, after the Ebacc subjects have been accommodated, for the teaching of all those subjects that he has just mentioned?

[Mr Laws]

First, we have made a deliberate decision to keep up to 30% of the school timetable available for the teaching of non-EBC subjects. Secondly, I think my hon. Friend is being rather generous about the reasons for the massive decline in the study of subjects such as modern languages. That happened because schools and others had an incentive to encourage students to go for the qualifications that were easier to pass, even if they were not right for their education and future progression. That is exactly why we are addressing those issues in our reforms.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Laws]

I am going to have to make some progress, I am afraid.

Parents want to see their children secure a strong grasp of the core academic subjects, but they also want them to have a fully rounded education, with opportunities in the other areas that I have mentioned. We are determined to ensure that those opportunities will be available. We are committed to ensuring that pupils will be able to take good-quality qualifications in all subjects at the end of key stage 4 that are fair, rigorous and rewarding. Indeed, we said in our consultation that we would ask Ofqual to consider how the higher standards that we are proposing for core EBCs could be used as a template for judging and accrediting a new suite of qualifications at age 16 to replace current GCSEs. We acknowledge that there are subjects for which 100% reliance on formal written examinations is not the best form of assessment, and we will be working with Ofqual, the Arts Council and others to review qualifications outside the core EBacc subjects. We will make an announcement, including on a proposed timetable for reform, in due course.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

May I probe my right hon. Friend a little further on the subject of tiering? The GCSE was tiered in certain subjects, and I understand that, with the introduction of the EBCs, that will be abolished. Will he tell us what share of children took tiered GCSEs last year? What are the positive and negative implications of the loss of the tiering that was found to be necessary to provide an appropriate assessment of a child’s level of attainment?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is quite right to raise that issue. We are looking at it closely as part of the consultation. I think he would acknowledge that the principle behind our reform is absolutely right. We will look at individual subjects to ensure that the reform is deliverable and that it has the intended consequences.

[Stephen Twigg]

May I reinforce the point made by the Chair of the Select Committee? Ofqual’s letter to the Secretary of State in November states:

“Our first concern is that the aims for EBCs may exceed what is realistically achievable through a single assessment…Our advice is that there are no precedents that show that a single assessment could successfully fulfil all of these purposes.”

What is the Minister’s response to that?

[Mr Laws]

These are the issues that we are taking account of as part of the consultation. As I have said, we will reflect carefully on all the responses and make our announcement shortly.

Turning to vocational qualifications, I also want to make it clear that this Government fully support high-quality vocational study. We believe that all students benefit from having a strong academic core of qualifications, particularly up to age 16, but good quality vocational education will remain an option, both pre-16 and post-16. We have already committed to improving the quality of vocational education so that those 14 to 16-year-olds who are better suited to vocational qualifications can be confident that those qualifications will be comparable with the best academic qualifications in terms of content, assessment and opportunities to progress. In the past, too many vocational qualifications simply did not measure up.

[Bill Esterson]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Laws]

I must make progress, I am afraid.

This coalition Government have rightly sought to address the major challenges about the future of our qualifications system. Securing the right qualifications and examination system for young people in this country is one of the most important tasks for our Department, so it is absolutely right that we should take time carefully to consider all the contributions and views before we make our final decisions. What is clear is that the current system cannot continue as it is. I welcome the support of the shadow Secretary of State for that view, and I am only sorry that more Labour Members do not recognise the necessity for some of the detailed proposals that we are making.

We have a shared aspiration in this House for much better performance by all our young people, and that is welcome, but if we are truly to serve the interests of all young people, including the most disadvantaged, we have to be prepared as a country to face the other challenges. We must have an examination system that commands public confidence and in which changes in results truly reflect changes in real standards and performance. We must have a qualifications system that supports students to make the right subject choices that will lead to progression and success. We must have a qualifications system that matches the best of any country in the world, and that challenges and prepares our young people to reach world-class standards. Those are challenges that some others might wish to duck, but this coalition Government are united in their determination to take the right decisions for this country, and for its young people in particular.

13:38

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

The Education Select Committee, of which I am a member, has held detailed discussions with the Secretary of State, with curriculum and assessment experts and with others in the field, including representatives of universities, other learned bodies and employers, on the Government’s proposals to change examinations at 16. I know that many Members want to express their concern that the proposed Ebacc will restrict and limit qualifications, particularly in religious education, music, information technology and art. I have spoken about that many times in the House, and I do not propose to focus on it again today, but I want to repeat that subjects such as RE and music have a huge role to play in underpinning other vital subjects—philosophy, ethics, mathematics, even medicine—in later and higher learning. I find it strange to hear the Minister say that he is not downgrading these subjects. How can some subjects not be downgraded if other subjects are being upgraded? That simply does not make sense.

As I understand it, the Secretary of State proposes to introduce the EBacc qualification as a replacement or as a higher-value qualification for GCSEs in 2017. Perhaps he will clarify that for me in his summing-up speech. He proposes to change the way all examinations are administered, yet we saw the chaos created in the system in 2012, when the administration of just one subject—English language—was changed. At the same time, the Secretary of State proposes to franchise examinations and to open them up to wider competition. Although there are, in my view, dangers in each of those proposals, collectively the impact will be a recipe for chaos and disaster in the system. That is why I want to ask about the cumulative impact of all these changes.

What is so important about GCSEs is that they are examinations for all pupils of all abilities. They were initially introduced by a Conservative Government in 1988 in response to huge unhappiness, largely among parents, many of whom were middle class and whose children had been pushed down the CSE route. The Secretary of State at the time built a huge consensus around GCSEs. There was cross-party support for their introduction in this House, supported by teachers, head teachers, universities and learned bodies, parents and employers. I fail to see any such consensus on the introduction of a replacement for GCSEs. My understanding is that many of the people in the groups I mentioned have not been spoken to at all and that the independent body, Ofqual, has expressed real concerns about this change. The Secretary of State told us in the Education Committee that he intended to talk to the winner of the Turner prize—so that should help.

Will the Secretary of State clarify whether he intends to introduce this new examination in 2017 as a replacement for GCSEs or to create a two-tier system with GCSEs as the lower qualification? There is a lack of clarity about that.

The evidence presented to the Education Committee has demonstrated that while reform of GCSEs is required—indeed, periodic reform of any qualification is required—the brand is not broken and that it is the Secretary of State himself through his language and actions who is intentionally trying to damage the brand beyond repair for his own ends. Everyone who has spoken to him—and I mean everyone—has said that GCSEs deliver what we ask them to do, and that issues such as modularity versus linear or grade creep can be repaired, changed and improved within the GCSE brand.

Let me move on to the way in which we deliver examinations. We on the Select Committee have looked at that, too, and we agree that there is a conflict of interest where examination boards are both designing the syllabus and setting the examinations. We saw the remedy in separating that out, without necessarily opening the whole thing up to competition. The Secretary of State has told us about his plan to move towards “relationships” rather than contracts as a way of getting round EU contract law. Good luck with that! I do not think that will fool anybody, least of all the courts. My worry is that the current expertise in Guildford, Oxford and Cambridge will exist in future years in multinational companies in New York, Berlin and Frankfurt, without any involvement of our universities and learned bodies. We look as if we are doing for examinations what has been done in rail and energy, which has not exactly been a huge success. I ask the Secretary of State to think carefully about that.

Each of these proposed reforms has dangers, but I am mostly concerned about the cumulative impact of doing all this at the same time. One insider in the system recently told me confidentially, “When the blood bath happens, I expect this Secretary of State will be long gone.”

Important though they are, we are not talking about trains, electricity lines or reservoirs; we are talking about our children and their futures. There is real danger in what the Government are proposing—in the timing but, most importantly of all, in the cumulative impact of these proposals. I ask the Secretary of State to think again about them, especially about the aim to deliver everything at the same time. The risks are huge and the potential for chaos is massive.

13:44

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to take part in this debate, which has been interesting and stimulating up to this point. What are the aims of Government policy in education? There are two: to raise standards for all, and to close the gap between rich and poor. I think those two aims bring the whole House together in support.

Expert advice from the university of Durham and elsewhere is that there has been grade inflation, which means an undermining of confidence in the currency of GCSEs. It has to be said that we saw some occasionally rushed changes driven by the Department under the last Government, which contributed greatly—although we have not yet reached our conclusions on it—to the GCSE English furore last year. The truth is that changing so many elements at the same time contributed to the difficulties we saw with the English GCSE last year.

I agree with many of the criticisms made by Ministers. I believe there are issues surrounding modularity, and I am delighted to hear from the Minister that he is not moving towards an absolute position on every single subject. It is right to be informed by an understanding that modularity has been counter-productive in too many ways, without necessarily getting rid of it where it is the best way of delivering the most effective assessment.

The Government’s move to reduce the number of re-sits is also correct, as is their move to address equivalences. The shadow Secretary rightly raised some issues about one of the few successes that came out of the diploma debacle—specifically, the engineering diploma. As disasters go, the fact that it has been reconstituted at whoever’s behest suggests that it has not been that catastrophic and that sufficient flexibility exists in the system to allow the good elements to be retained.

As I have said before in education debates, we attempt to define what is wrong with the current system, perhaps spending rather too long on that, and we then talk about the nirvana we would like to move towards, doing very little on what is in front of us now—the mechanics of the changes. We do not give them enough protection because we get into a fight with one side defending its period in office and another side pointing out that there are some serious problems and asking whether the other side is going to deny it.

To his great credit, as has been acknowledged, the shadow Secretary of State has said that he could see a few problems but that that was as far as he could go. That does not mean, however, that the Government’s particular recommendations are the right ones. It means that there is a case for change. We then have to make sure that we examine it. As for the controversy over the diploma, I recall the now shadow Chancellor, whom I would describe as gleaming-eyed in his certainty, sitting before us as expert after expert came before the then Children, Schools and Families Committee and said, “Slow down; listen to the evidence; take your time; get this right; there is a real chance for a legacy”—leaving something that, if got right, would last for whoever was in government in the future. The right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) did not listen, and we ended up with much of what was positive about the diploma being lost, with only some of the good salvaged from it. We do not want to make that mistake again. It is important that we carry people with us, not least politically. Otherwise, whatever happens to the Labour party at the next election or the one after that, we will not see the benefits of having a more rigorous system in place.

I ask the Government to consider some slowing down. The Secretary of State told the Select Committee that

“coherence comes at the end of the process.”

Well, I think coherence comes at the beginning of the process. To look at it simply, if we are dealing with assessment, we first need to work out what needs to be taught—the curriculum. That can be looked at in isolation and work can be done on what we think should be taught. Everything else then needs to be looked at coherently. We need to look at the assessment that matches it, and then at the system of accountability that drives behaviour in schools, drives the allocation of teachers to certain types of pupils in all sorts of ways. The Government have acknowledged that, and we need to get it right.

We have had an announcement on new qualifications before we have had the findings of the secondary curriculum review. I think that looks like putting the cart before the horse. It would be helpful to have those findings. I am grateful to the Secretary of State for undertaking to do an accountability review, but qualifications and accountability need to be seen as a coherent whole, working with the curriculum and the syllabus. I worry that we have not quite got that right.

Appropriateness of assessment is an issue. The Government want to set the bar higher. The Secretary of State is a dynamic man, who wants people to aspire and thinks that a lack of aspiration and acceptance of poor performance has gone on too long, and has entrenched poverty. He is right about that. But if we move the metric up, what is it about the measure that will change teacher quality? It can have some effect, but let us face it, is it the key driver of improvement in education quality? I do not think so. If we exclude equivalencies, in 2011 48% of children did not get five good GCSEs including English and maths. If the GCSE currency is so bankrupt, weak and devalued, and yet half of children are failing to achieve that measure, it is not obvious that pushing it up will magically lift performance, unless the accountability is wrong. However, our accountability is driven and focused to an obsessive and damaging extent. It pushes schools to focus desperately on trying to get people over the line, and yet 48% of kids still do not get over it. That is not because they are not focused enough on it; they could not be more focused—they are excessively focused on it.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Is it not possible that moving the metric up could have the perverse outcome of demotivating people?

[Mr Stuart]

My hon. Friend, who serves on the Education Committee, leads me neatly on to structure.

How sufficient was the understanding—I did not have a sufficient understanding—of the nature of how our qualification system works? I come back to tiering. Ministers did not know—they will correct me if I am wrong—the share of young people who were doing tiered exams. Last year, in AQA English—the largest board—45% of children did the tiered exam. One of the Secretary of State’s objections is that by putting them into this thing where, a bit like the old CSE, the top grade they could get was a C, the two-tier system was alive and well within our GCSE system, we just did not know it, and that we must get rid—maybe it came out of coalition politics; maybe it was the leak of the new O-level—of any form of separation or tiering. We must make sure our assessment is appropriate, because otherwise children will sit exams that, unless some genius designed them, put them off learning, rather than encouraging them. [Interruption.]

[Bill Esterson]

While the debate rages in front of me, I want to check—[Interruption.]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I say to Mr Brennan and the Secretary of State that that is enough. Let us hear the intervention from the hon. Gentleman.

[Bill Esterson]

I thought the Secretary of State was giving another of his famous soliloquies in his team meetings, which we heard about this morning.

What is the view of the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) on the role of assessments within qualifications and the balance between that and end-of-year exams, because that is one key change in the EBCs proposed by the Secretary of State?

[Mr Stuart]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who serves with distinction on the Education Committee. I am sympathetic to the Government’s view on a move to more linear exams, notwithstanding that the Secretary of State must be careful not to tread in areas that are rightly those of Ofqual, the independent regulator. The fact that controlled assessment is being reviewed—I forget exactly what stage it is at—by Ofqual suggests that it, too, has concerns, which I think it has expressed to the Education Committee previously. It is right to ensure that the system has public confidence. If we improve assessment within schools, and our confidence in it, we might be able to move the balance back in the right direction. I think the Government are right to say that the assessment should come more towards the end of the process.

There are two parts to the administration of exams. First, there is the wholly new EBC qualification, which has been introduced on the basis that the GCSE brand is broken, at least for the main subjects that are not being upgraded—the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) was right to mock slightly the idea that one can upgrade one without effectively downgrading the other. I am not sure the case has been made. It takes a long time to establish a brand in the education market, and I do not see why we should not repair what we have got, which I do not see as fundamentally broken. I have met Engineering UK and employers of all sorts, and notwithstanding their agreement with the Secretary of State on many of his insights about the need to tighten what we have, none of them thinks that establishing a wholly new qualification is the right answer.

The second part is the issue of moving to a franchise system. On that, the Department for Transport and its troubles are lesson enough to go slowly. Ofqual itself has said that if we insist on creating new qualifications, we should at least consider decoupling from the market reform. Handing over to lots of people a five-year monopoly on provision of the most sensitive exams before really thinking through the incentives and possible implications is perhaps not the wisest thing to do.

13:56

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), and the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chair of the Education Committee, who has made a thoughtful contribution to the debate.

My hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) has mentioned that at the Education Committee’s session this morning, the former children’s Minister, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), referred to weekly, often cancelled, ministerial meetings, which I think he said were often like soliloquies. I asked him who was doing the soliloquising. He said, “Can you guess?” I asked him whether it was more Hamlet than Lear, or more Lear than Hamlet. He said, “Well, think about that yourself as well.”

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about English baccalaureate certificates and the education of our current and future generations. As a member of the Education Committee, I have on many occasions expressed my serious concern about the introduction of the English baccalaureate in secondary schools, which occurred initially in 2010 without any consultation with education professionals, and was implemented retrospectively, to the detriment of many improving schools, who were then pushed further down league tables—tables that, I believe, are of questionable use when it comes to adding value to our education system. Can the Secretary of State produce the huge weight of evidence on which he has developed the policy, because I am struggling to find much of it?

As we have heard, the Government propose to replace GCSEs in the EBacc subjects—maths, English, the sciences, a language and history or geography—with English baccalaureate certificates. From what we can gather, that would involve three-hour end-of-course exams and no coursework element. I am troubled by many parts of the proposals, which I will attempt to go through systematically.

First, on the consultation regarding EBCs that ended in December, members of the Education Committee, parents, students, governors, businesses, teachers, head teachers and other education professionals have expressed considerable concern that the proposals have been rushed through and that the consultation parameters were too narrow and did not allow for comprehensive discussion. Many, including me, believe that the proposals surrounding examinations should not have been decided upon, and certainly not introduced, until the forthcoming review of secondary school accountability and the secondary national curriculum had taken place. Another result of the policy will be the introduction of a two-tier education system, in which pupils who do not achieve the EBacc will be given a statement of achievement that will not reflect their true ability or potential to employers and colleges, who will more than likely deem a certificate of achievement to be inferior. I am afraid that that is a sad fact of life. That is largely owing to creative and vocational subjects being disregarded and assessed as in some way second class. I reiterate the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham: how can we upgrade some subjects without having the impact of downgrading others?

Such an attitude to creative and vocational subjects is disgraceful and worrying, given our country’s history of ingenuity and technological entrepreneurship. I question a policy that places the importance of Hebrew and classical Greek above that of business studies, information and communications technology, or design and technology. Those subjects were taken by one of my parliamentary staff, who is now studying for an MA and who considered them to be invaluable to her personal development. Several other valuable subjects have been removed from the menu.

In restricting subject options, we are also restricting pupil potential. Any system that prevents our young people from flourishing should not be endorsed, and should certainly not be introduced. I wonder whether the Secretary of State will revise his policy if proof materialises from universities and employers that the education system is failing to prepare young people for further learning and work in technical and artistic fields.

Another aspect of the policy that concerns me is the likelihood that, in the case of most subjects, there will be no assessment other than a three-hour end-of-course examination. That, too, highlights the two-tier nature of the policy. Many pupils thrive on an examination system that involves a combination of modular work and examinations. By introducing a qualification based purely on exams, the Government are almost casting aside all the pupils who do not excel at examinations but have a flair for coursework. I believe that that is counter-productive, and that it will be detrimental to a large proportion of young people. It strikes me as an idea that springs from a vision of a golden age of education in the 1950s, and possibly even the 1850s: an idea based on nostalgia for an era that never existed.

In my opinion, too much emphasis is being placed on employability. I believe that we should be asking ourselves what education is for, and concluding that it should be about trying to provide a system which, while preparing young people for work and working life, also produces well-rounded human beings. Employers, moreover, are likely to require a measure of an individual’s capacity to work systematically for a given period, rather than his or her ability to perform in a one-off three-hour afternoon examination. Let us help to prepare our young people to thrive and contribute to our community, rather than trying to retrofit them through a citizenship service. Let us try to do that while we are educating them.

I believe that, if we are to answer the question of what our education system is for, we should begin by revisiting the Tomlinson review of 2004, and using it as a starting point for the fashioning of education policy for the future. I think that that would be greeted warmly by a great many people in the education profession. I also think that the review has been broadly regarded as a missed opportunity from the period between 1997 and 2010 when Labour was in government, although I should add that Labour was faced with a massive education mess to clear up in 1997.

During an Education Select Committee session, the Secretary of State suggested that it would be possible for more children to succeed in a more difficult exam because they would be “taught better”. I found that response almost delusional. I believe that such comments devalue the hard work of our teachers, who work in difficult, emotionally draining environments, and many of whom already give far more than what is expected of them. It is all very well constructing an education system and a menu of examinations that may or may not fulfil the needs and aspirations of thousands of clones modelled in the image of the Secretary of State for Education, but the vast majority of children, I am glad to say, are not like that.

14:03

[Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the soliloquy of the hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), although I should point out that the EBacc combination of GCSEs will not drive out subjects such as ICT and business studies, or, indeed, art and music. When English, maths, science, history or geography and a modern language are taken into account, 30% of the curriculum time will still be available, so there is no need for those subjects to be excluded.

I understand what was meant by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Chairman of the Select Committee, when he described the reforms as “the driver” of higher standards, but they are not “the driver”, and were not intended to be. They are “a driver” when combined with the other reforms that the Government have introduced and are introducing in, for instance, improving initial teacher training, raising the bar for entry to the profession, making changes in the curriculum, and changing standards of behaviour in schools. I believe that, taken together, those changes will bring about significant improvements in standards in our schools.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that pupils are not required to drop creative subjects, but that has been the result. He has referred to improvements in behaviour and achievement. Interestingly, all the studies of creative education, creative partnerships and so on concluded that they improved the attendance, attainment, behaviour and achievement of children.

[Mr Gibb]

I do not disagree with that at all. Creative education and partnerships can be motivational for young people. The creative subjects are very important for all students in all schools, and vocational subjects can be very important motivators for some students. However, I think that we should take a reality check when talking about the EBacc. It includes English, maths and science—all of which are already compulsory for students aged up to 16, as they were under the last Labour Government—and languages, which were compulsory for students aged up to 16 until the disastrous decision in 2004 to make them compulsory only for those aged up to 14. So we are only talking about a humanity, namely history or geography, and one subject cannot drive out all the other optional subjects that young people can study up to the age of 16. I think that those on the other side of the debate are exaggerating the consequences. I also think that it is important to reverse the decline in the number of students taking history and geography, and very important to reverse the decline in the number of those taking modern languages.

[Andrew Percy]

I think the point that my hon. Friend is missing is that the study of foreign languages or humanities—subjects that I used to teach—is not always desirable. We should go back to the question of what is best for the child, which is a child-centred education. That means not compelling children to study subjects that will be of absolutely no use to them in the future.

[Mr Gibb]

I must disagree with my hon. Friend. In 2000, nearly eight out of 10 young people were taking a modern language GCSE, and all children were studying a modern language up to that point. Their intellectual development will have benefited from the study of that subject, even if it did not result in a qualification.

[Bill Esterson]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Gibb]

I will, but I will not take any more interventions after that.

[Bill Esterson]

There is a grave danger that teachers will become increasingly likely to opt for the EBacc subjects and stay away from the vocational subjects, because the vocational subjects will provide less opportunity.

[Mr Gibb]

I disagree with that as well. Good schools provide a broad and balanced curriculum, and that will continue to be the case regardless of the reforms, while poor schools will continue not to provide such a broad and balanced education. That is why the Government’s academy reforms and school improvement reforms are so important.

Let me now address the allegation that there is a lack of evidence for the necessity of the reforms. There is, in fact, ample evidence. Both the Royal Society of Chemistry and Durham university have found that students of similar ability are being awarded higher grades than their equivalents in the past. A 2012 survey by the CBI—an organisation that has been cited in this debate—found that 42% of businesses were not satisfied with the literacy of school leavers who joined them, and 35% were not satisfied with the maths ability of school leavers. During the short period between 2005 and 2011, the proportion of A to C grades in maths and English rose from 46% to 60%. During the same period, we were falling in the league tables of the programme for international student assessment.

According to Ofqual, demand for GCSE maths and science has lessened, and GCSEs have become increasingly predictable as exam boards have guided schools towards parts of the curriculum that will be examined. As for the International GCSE figures, 295 independent schools have switched to IGCSEs, and they have tended to be the top independent schools. So far, 66 state schools have begun to offer IGCSEs.

I worry about competition between exam boards for an increasing share of the schools’ exam market. That is big business: £300 million a year of business. Inevitably, such competition leads to the chipping away of standards in small increments, which, over a period of years, will result—indeed, has resulted—in lower standards and expectations. In the correspondence that has been cited, Ofqual said:

“We quite appreciate the rationale underlying the market reform proposals and agree that competition has influenced standards in the past.”

One of the most damaging aspects of the last Government’s GCSE reforms was the introduction of modularisation. They introduced that despite the evidence that it leads to more teaching to the test, that it reduces curriculum flexibility for teachers, and that it fragments knowledge. It also increases the number of resits. Research by Rodeiro and Nádas in 2012 found that pupils admitted that they would have worked harder had there been only one chance for them to pass the exam. That is why the Government were right to end GCSE modularisation for those starting their courses in September 2012. They were also right to introduce marks for spelling, grammar and punctuation in those GCSEs where that is relevant: English literature, geography, history and religious studies.

In 2007, under the last Government, the quango, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, introduced wholesale reform of the secondary curriculum at key stages 3 and 4, which fed into revised GCSEs. We moved from a knowledge-based curriculum to a skills or competence-based curriculum, which, in essence, resulted in a greater focus on the skills of learning and how to learn, rather than the knowledge inherent in a subject.

This 2007 skills-based curriculum has done enormous damage to our secondary schools. The argument of the pro-skills lobby is best summed up by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, whose website says:

“A 21st century curriculum cannot have the transfer of knowledge at its core…it cannot be an ‘academic’ curriculum where pupils spend most of their time reading and writing and learning facts that have been organised into academic ‘subjects’.”

I fear the Labour party would want to take us back to that position if it were to win the next election.

This is the essence of the argument: with so much knowledge in the world, how can it be possible to select what should be taught in just 11 or 13 years of school? Would it not be better, it is argued, to teach children how to learn so they are equipped to discover for themselves the knowledge they need? This argument is not new and it did not start with Google. Its origins lie in a progressive view of education emanating from Teachers college, Columbia university in New York in the 1920s. However, as E. D. Hirsch argued in his book, “The Schools We Need And Why We Don’t Have Them”, the idea

“that a thinking skill in one domain can be readily and reliably transferred to other domains”

is “a mirage”. Learning French is very different from learning physics or maths.

At the core of the 2007 national curriculum is a series of general aptitudes, including a desire to produce

“successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve”

and

“confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilled lives”

and

“responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society”.

All these are worthy objectives, but they should be delivered not through the academic curriculum, but through the ethos of a school.

The 2007 national curriculum translates these objectives into skills-based aims for each subject. In history, for example, the curriculum is divided into the skills of “historical enquiry”, “using evidence” and “communicating about the past”. Therefore, a school can teach as little, or as much, as it wishes of British and world history, provided that it teaches the broad concepts of “change and continuity”, “cause and consequence”, “significance” or “interpretation”. The detailed narrative and complexity of a period of history comes second to the teaching of one or more of these generic skills. As a consequence, much important historical detail is lost, and many very important periods are not taught at all. Meanwhile, the scholarship skills of reading a history book, taking notes, précising, and essay-writing are neglected. That demonstrates why the Government’s reforms are so important.

I am also worried that schools are not setting enough internal tests and end-of-year exams in years 7, 8 and 9. Testing is important, and I was alarmed when I heard references to the Tomlinson proposals, as in the long term they would eliminate any external examination at 16, which would be a retrograde step. There is a study that shows the importance of testing for the acquisition and retention of knowledge.

I urge the House to vote against the Opposition motion.

14:14

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am going to take advantage of the fact that the Secretary of State has decided to conclude the debate by taking the risk of trying to persuade him to change his mind. I do not know why I think I might succeed in that when so many more eminent people than me, including Sir Nicholas Serota and Dame Liz Forgan, have failed, but I think it is worth a crack. The Secretary of State will be bored by what I am about to say, as I have asked him many questions on this subject, but I believe it is worth another crack because he is a relatively cultured member of the Cabinet. He is one of those rare creatures who still read books, and he recognises the value of creativity.

I have been going on about this subject for some time. My argument is that the Secretary of State should add a further subject to the suite of subjects in the EBacc, so that it is not all about pupils writing out what other people have thought, but is also about them creating objects and learning for themselves. In March 2011, I asked the Secretary of State why 60% of schools that responded to a survey said the introduction of the EBacc had resulted in a narrowing of the curriculum. His general response to me at that point—before I had started being very boring—was rather positive. He said my argument was well-made and he sympathised with it.

I have also been badgering the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on this subject. In November she said:

“The hon. Lady needs to understand that the English baccalaureate has creativity at its heart.”—[Official Report, 22 November 2012; Vol. 553, c. 708.]

Frankly, however, it does not, and that is the problem. It is an examination, or suite of examinations, about knowledge. I agree with the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) that it is very important that people learn stuff, but I also believe that educational achievement is about finding out how to do things. We need to learn things, but education must not be just about learning other people’s facts.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Do not the kind of tests the hon. Lady is criticising also involve synthesis and analysis?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Indeed, but the point is that pupils are analysing other people’s achievements and creations. One of the reasons why our country outperforms all our competitors in the number of Nobel prizes won is because we have a tradition in our learning and education that combines creative education and learning how to create with excellent science education. That is why we are able to produce so many innovative achievers.

[Damian Hinds]

When all these Nobel prizewinners were at school, were subjects such as art and music option subjects or compulsory curriculum subjects?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Members on the Government Benches have said a number of times that there is space in the curriculum for these subjects. The problem, which none of them has yet addressed, is that since the introduction of the EBacc, school after school has reduced provision in those subjects. A tool is available, which the Government have chosen not to use. I do not think there is a respectable argument not to include in the EBacc at least one subject in which a young person’s creativity is what is assessed. I am arguing not for the exclusion of anything, but for the inclusion of assessment in subjects such as design and technology, music, art and drama.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

George Nicholson, a published composer and director of graduate studies at the university of Sheffield, makes precisely the point my hon. Friend has made about the degrading of creative subjects. Would she argue that, at the very least, a sixth pillar must be added to the EBacc, covering such subject areas, as the Henley review recommended?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

That is precisely the point I am seeking to make: there needs to be an additional pillar that includes these kinds of subjects.

I am worried about the Secretary of State, because in his response to my question about the achievements in Nobel prizes and so on, he said:

“The arts are mankind’s greatest achievement.”

We both share that view, but he went on to say:

“Every child should be able to enjoy and appreciate great literature, music, drama and visual art.”—[Official Report, 3 December 2012; Vol. 554, c. 579.]

That is not enough; it is not sufficient for children just to be able to enjoy and appreciate, and one thing we have to do as part of education is to develop in children the ability to create. I welcome Henley’s report, but Robinson’s report on creativity in education, produced more than a decade earlier, rightly suggested that we should define creativity as

“Imaginative activity fashioned so as to produce outcomes that are both original and of value.”

This is one thing that children should learn in school. It is not sufficient to expect them to learn it outside school. Many of us ensure that our children are able to learn it outside school, but many children do not get that opportunity and it is those about whom I am most concerned.

I am also concerned about the effect on our country’s achievements. There is a reason why we are a world leader in creative industries: our tradition of creativity in education and of requiring these subjects to be part of every child’s entitlement. I am concerned—I have yet to hear an answer on this from Government Members—as to whether there is any tool that ensures what I believe the Secretary of State wants, which is that children should be able to learn the ability to create. The schools that he most admires—Eton, just next to my constituency, and others—provide outstanding creative education. They are not following a set of league tables that make them jump through hoops and be judged just against their EBacc levels.

On this issue, I am reminded of the bit in Dickens’ “Hard Times” where Thomas Gradgrind says to Sissy Jupe, who knows everything there is to know about horses, “Define a horse.” She sits there silent, not knowing how to do it, and then Bitzer says, “Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth”. That is of course the right answer, because ours is a world determined by facts. The bit of the story that many of us have forgotten is where the inspector speaks later. Dickens has him saying:

“You are to be in all things regulated and governed…by fact. We hope to have, before long, a board of fact, composed of commissioners of fact, who will force the people to be a people of fact, and of nothing but fact. You must”—[Interruption.]

Oh! Trust iPad!

[Bill Esterson]

That definitely was not in Dickens.

[Fiona Mactaggart]

No, indeed. The inspector goes on to say, “You must not allow flowers and birds on your china, because they aren’t there. You must not allow horses on your wallpaper, because they aren’t there in fact. You must not allow flowers on your carpets, because they are not there in fact.” I do not believe the Secretary of State wants that world, but, unthinkingly, this EBacc is leading us towards it, not because that is what he wants to achieve, but because that is the measure by which our schools will be judged. We know, because every piece of research since he has introduced this measure by which we judge our schools shows it, that schools are cutting their education in creativity and reducing the number of their teachers qualified to teach these subjects. That is betraying future generations and it will damage our country’s international achievement, economic success and, in particular, the success of our creative industries. I beg him to think again, because I think he is capable of doing so and I think he is big enough to do so.

14:24

[Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)]

I do not have an iPad to quote Dickens from, but I do have a couple of bits of paper with some notes on. I have drawn them up from my time and experience, limited though it may be as I am so young, of being in the classroom, both as a pupil and a teacher. I enter the debate on the EBacc with some trepidation, because the last time I did this I was described in a national newspaper as a “left-wing Conservative”, which contrasted somewhat with a description of me on Twitter this weekend as a “right-wing Tory who should be taken outside and shot”. That had not been posted by a constituent, I hasten to add.

As many people have said, the previous Government certainly achieved some great progress in education and in standards in this country. However, at the end of their 13 years in power an awful lot had not been achieved and some great challenges had not yet been responded to. I wish to describe one thing that I saw in the classroom at that time. All Governments find, sadly, that the teaching profession feels that every Secretary of State is, “The worst Secretary of State we have ever had”—until the next one. We used to hear that all the time, but that was largely because the goalposts were continuously changed. The measures were continuously changed and, as happens with all Governments, we ended up focused entirely on the league tables. The one thing they did do was create an inspection regime that punished schools for happening to be in deprived areas. I did not find that the inspection regime helped teachers; it seemed to be more designed to catch teachers out.

We cannot deny that in terms of literacy and numeracy there is something seriously wrong in this country. A lot of employers say to me, “We get young people coming to us who have bits of paper that say that they have reached certain standards in English and maths, but when we put them into the workplace we find that they are nowhere near those standards.” So clearly something is going wrong. When I was teaching we had what I used to call the great GNVQ fiddle. I got a lot of stick for it because I was also a member of the city council at the time. League tables were being fiddled through vocational qualifications and through equivalencies. I saw that in one of my schools, where young people were not actually given a choice and were instead told that they were going to undertake certain GNVQs because we knew the impact that that would have on our league table position. I recall champagne corks being popped on the front steps of the Guildhall in Hull when we had a 600% increase—a 1,000% increase in some schools—in standards. Schools with some of the most challenging catchment areas that had had terrible results in the past were, suddenly, overtaking schools in the neighbouring authority; much more middle-class schools, which had far less pressure on them and had previously achieved much greater results, were suddenly being overtaken, all on the back of the great GNVQ fiddle. Of course, as soon as the league table measures changed and the gold standard was introduced, the schools in challenging areas, sadly, plummeted back down to the bottom of the league tables.

Something had to be done about modular exams, because they have contributed to a slip in standards. So I support a lot of the thrust of where the Government are heading. However, one issue I have a big problem with is the implementation of the EBacc. We are told that a lot of the elements of it are not going to be compulsory, but the reality is that in the teaching profession schools teach to whatever the measure is. The measure will become the EBacc, as it is becoming already. So there will not be this space available—

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Has my hon. Friend considered what would happen if we were to abolish league tables—[Interruption.] We can do that. What would happen if we then gave the power to head teachers?

[Andrew Percy]

I have considered that, but, sadly, I do not have an answer, as league tables are probably a necessary evil. We need to be able to judge schools against one another. We can play about in terms of how we measure them, but we will end up with a league table. The league table will exist in any case, in the form of a school’s reputation locally, if nothing else. So there always has to be some form of measure. The sadness of the situation is that we put so much emphasis on the league table position when it comes to inspection regimes and all the rest of it, and we sometimes forget about what we are actually achieving for our children.

As I was saying, the EBacc will become, in most schools, the standard by which schools are judged against one another. The theory is all fine, and I have heard talk in the past about how everybody should have access to an Eton education. That is a fantastic theory, but it misses the point that although we want everybody from everywhere to have access to an Eton education, it is not always going to be the desirable or necessary route for every young person. I have nothing against providing that as an option, but it is not suitable for everybody. Sadly, schools are ditching subjects that young people may have chosen to do in the past and students are being forced on to foreign languages and even on to doing subjects such as history, which I used to teach. Perhaps in two and a half years’ time I will be delighted that there is increased demand for humanities teachers. Perhaps the Secretary of State has produced a post-political career employment plan for me, but it would not be appropriate for every young person with whom I have come into contact over the years to take my subject. They will not get anything from it. It is not of any value to them in the future.

Among the guff and nonsense in Every Child Matters, the previous Government talked a lot about a child-centred education, and I would like us in this debate to get back to that. We have talked a great deal about what Government want to see. We have talked about what parents want to see. We have talked somewhat about what employers want to see. But at the centre of all this should be what is best for a particular child. For some children, delivering the EBacc and giving them access to it will be appropriate, but for others that is simply not the case.

When we talk about providing an Eton-style education for everybody, we forget the immense challenges that many of our schools face in delivering. I have nothing against foreign languages, for example. I am learning one myself, with less success than I would like. [Interruption.] I am learning Hebrew, with not a great deal of success. Delivering a foreign language in the school that I used to teach in was incredibly hard. Our young people would go home to parents who would say to them, “Why are you learning a foreign language? What’s the point of learning that sort of muck?” They were not going back to a nice middle-class home. A lot of the kids who I used to teach were not Tarquin and Fluella, who would be driven off to a gîte in France every year where they could practise their French, or where they would be told by their parents the importance of doing that. We have to factor into the discussion the child’s background and the possibility that they will not have support at home.

We are, in effect, setting some children up to fail by forcing them on to a subject that they will not get support with at home, that they do not need in the future or for the basis—

[Mr Gibb]

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s speech. I respect his experience and I respect him as a Member of the House, but I am alarmed by what he is saying. Our schools have to be able to redress the background that those children have and make up for the lack of support at home in the school. That is what we must do and what this Government must achieve if they are to close the attainment gap between those from poorer and wealthier backgrounds.

[Andrew Percy]

I could not agree more, but we will set young people to fail if we force them down a route on which they will not be supported. In education it is not as simple as saying, “This is the curriculum offered at Eton—the gold standard. This is what we must offer in this school. If the teachers just worked a little harder and if everyone tried a bit harder, we would get the same outcomes.” We would not and we have to understand and accept that. We have to move beyond the theory of what would be lovely to deliver, and deal with the reality of what is deliverable in our schools. I question, as I have already, whether some of these subjects were desirable or necessary for the young people I used to teach and for the employment that they wished to go into.

I have another example. We have just got agreement for a studio school in Goole, with support from the Secretary of State, who came and saw Goole high school at the time. The vision there is to deliver a completely different style of curriculum and to say to young people, “Make the choice at 14 whether to attend the studio school.” The model we have is that there will be a grammar school stream, which will be the academic school, there will be the studio school and there will be a smaller vocational school for the most challenging children. We want them to divide at 14 into those different routes, according to what will be best for them in the future. The problem that we will have if the EBacc becomes the gold standard is that attracting children to the studio school will become incredibly hard because it will look as though it is the lesser choice, compared with the school that will be offering the EBacc. It conflicts a little with the statements and policies that we have had on studio schools, as though we were saying that the studio schools can offer certain subjects, but the gold standard will be the EBacc, which they will not be able to offer.

I like the idea of the technical baccalaureate. I do not care whether it is Labour’s idea or the junior Minister has taken it up as the Government’s idea. It has some merit and I hope we will pursue it.

On measuring, one thing we should measure better is where a child ends up. Never mind measuring the bits of paper; where is a young person in five, six or even 10 years’ time? Then we can make a better assessment whether the education system has provided for them, rather than measuring where they are at 16 or 18.

I am trying not to be too critical because I support much of the thrust of the policy. Certainly, academic rigour is necessary in certain subjects, where they are appropriate for the young person. The one plea that I would make, which is often made by the profession, is that when we get through this, we must have in our schools a period of stability so that everybody—parents, young people and the teaching profession—knows where they are.

14:34

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

The Department for Education seems to have a habit of not listening to people. The High Court ruled that the Secretary of State had unlawfully failed to consult councils before cutting the planned school building programme. Currently 150 schools, 42 councils and six professional bodies are contesting last year’s GCSE grades fiasco, after the Secretary of State refused calls to intervene. Now, with the English baccalaureate certificate, people once again fear that the Secretary of State is not taking account of their views.

There is of course nothing wrong with reviewing the exam system with the intention of making it more effective, but there are real concerns that the EBacc will be drawn too narrowly, excluding vocational and arts subjects. There are concerns, too, that it will mark a return to the divisive two-tier system of O-levels and CSEs by giving students who are not suited to academic subjects only a second-rate qualification. There are real concerns that by relying almost exclusively on a lengthy final examination, the EBacc will disadvantage students who are bright but not necessarily suited to that particular format, and that it will fail to test their full range of skills. There are further concerns that, allied to league tables, it will undermine the achievement of schools that are most successful in added-value measures.

In Croydon North parents, governors, students, teachers and head teachers fear that the Government are not listening to their concerns about these proposals. In a world where both China and India, every year, produce more new graduates than there are in total in this country, we need to identify, nurture and utilise the talents and abilities of every child in our country. Without that, we will be unable to compete in the coming century because we will fail to harness the talent and unlock the potential of every growing citizen.

Instead of looking forward to the demands of coming decades, these proposals look backwards to the failed two-tier examination system of decades past, a system that classed children as successes or failures without recognising that every child is different and that every child has something to contribute. It also fails to value subjects that are critical to our future economic success. One way that Croydon hopes to improve its fortunes is by attracting more high-tech IT and creative industries, such as the dotMailer business that I had the pleasure of visiting last week. The EBacc places no value on the subjects that will equip local students to take advantage of such opportunities.

Of course academic rigour is necessary. Of course we need to allow the most able students to demonstrate and enhance their abilities; but the proposed single-tier test could result in the most talented not being able to demonstrate their full abilities, and in others not being able to demonstrate their strengths. It is critical that England’s exam system commands the support and confidence of the whole country, not least parents and students, schools, the teaching profession, and business. These proposals do not achieve that, and this rushed consultation is no way to secure the world-standard examination system that our young people need and deserve. I hope very much that the Secretary of State will listen to these voices.

14:38

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

We have had, as others have said, a good debate. There are areas of consensus, which is what the shadow Secretary of State wants us to achieve, and those are to be welcomed. The first of those is that there is a need for some reform. I will not rehash what we have already heard, but there have been problems with the system and with people’s confidence in it, which I share.

We need to look at rigour, which is now a fashionable word on everybody’s lips. We also need to examine the pressures of assessment crowding out learning. We want to make sure that there is room for deep, wide-ranging learning so that teachers are free to teach. The coalition Government have been clear about that from the outset. We should be clear that we have excellent teachers, probably the best qualified and best motivated that we have ever had, who are doing a great job. If results have improved, it may be in part because there has been competition between exam boards and changes in assessment patterns. It has also been because of improvements in teaching—the Secretary of State has acknowledged that, and I do too—and because young people themselves have worked incredibly hard to achieve those results. It is not an either/or situation. As the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said, we must remember that those young people should be at the heart of all the decisions we take and the discussions we have.

Our duty as legislators is to raise aspiration even further, but to raise it across the ability range too. The Secretary of State has rightly highlighted the small number of people from the most deprived backgrounds—those on free school meals—who have gone on to attend Oxford or Cambridge, so that gives us one measure to consider. I hope—I am sure it is true—that we as a Government will look across the ability range to make sure that whatever people are capable of achieving, they are supported in doing so. It is not just about the very high flyers; social mobility is about making sure that everybody gets to where they could go. That is good for them, but it is also good for us as a country to ensure that we are making use of their skills and talents in future. We want a system that allows them to achieve, supports them in doing so, and does not dispirit or disillusion them in any way.

The Government have acted on vocational qualifications to distil what has worked and what has not—what is of value and what is not—to try to ensure that we have a suite of qualifications that people in business understand and can have confidence in. I welcome that work. The Government have also been prepared to revisit issues with engineering to make sure that we have got things right. That is a mature and grown-up way of doing things.

On qualifications at 16 and the GCSE, the Government have discussed internally how they should respond to the need for reform. It is unfortunate that back in the early summer a leak was reported in a national newspaper suggesting, some thought, that there was an intention within the Conservative party to move towards a two-tier qualification. The Secretary of State has made it clear that he is happy with a pattern of having one wider qualification that develops in future. The shadow Secretary of State seemed to want to return to where we were with the business of the leak instead of looking at it in the context of a formal Government announcement, but we have moved on from that. I am sure that he would acknowledge that people such as Mike Tomlinson and John Dunford have acknowledged that the proposed qualification is not a two-tier system. For example, the proposed statement of achievement would ensure that the same small number of young people who are not entered for GCSEs get something. Under the current system they have not had anything, so that is a step forward. It is important to get my understanding of that on the record. To his credit, the Secretary of State, with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Schools and other Ministers, is considering the views expressed in consultation to make sure that we get it right. That is absolutely the right approach.

I welcome the fact that Opposition Front Benchers have used some of their supply time for this debate. I might question the terms of the motion, but I welcome the debate. In recent weeks I have submitted several bids for a Westminster Hall debate on the subject, and this debate has given me the chance to make the points that I want to make.

I should like to draw attention to a couple of issues that others have raised. On assessment, my right hon. Friend the Minister said that nothing was set in stone. However, the Secretary of State and my right hon. Friend’s predecessor, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), from whom we have already heard, have been very keen that examination is a recognised and rigorous way of carrying out assessment. The system must work as a good assessment of the young people who are able to take that approach and to achieve under those circumstances.

Others learn and should be assessed in a slightly different way. That is not to say that I agree with programmes of study that are assessed by 100% continuous assessment. We need a balance. In the past, GCSEs were much more balanced, and that has got out of kilter. Assessment through examination during the course is another problem, because it can lead to constant learning and cramming towards a test. I can understand that from young people’s point of view it is good to bank something early on but, on balance, that has negatives.

We want to make sure that coursework is assessed properly. We in this Government trust teachers, so we know that they will be able to tell the difference between something written by the student they have in front of them week in, week out and something that has been written by their parents or friends or has been taken from the internet. It is possible to make those judgments, and we need to support teachers in making sure that they have the skills and knowledge to do so if they are lacking. We can also tighten up through moderation and so on. I hope that the door is not bolted on 100% examination for all subjects, because that bears greater exploration.

Another issue is the name of the qualification. We already have in the English baccalaureate a suite of qualifications that means one thing, and now we have an English baccalaureate certificate, so it is debatable whether the name is right. However, as long as the qualification is right I am more relaxed about its name. There is some justification for discussing which subjects are included and which are not. If it is introduced gradually to different subject areas over time, it is possible that those who get it first will be seen in a different way from those who get it later on, and we have to be careful about that.

I broadly welcome the focus on reform, which has been widely called for by people outside this place as well as by parties in the House. In particular, the statement of achievement is a big step forward for young people.

[Kevin Brennan]

Given what the hon. Gentleman has said so far, what is it in the motion that he disagrees with?

[Dan Rogerson]

The motion is set up to say that the Government should scrap their thinking and start again. The Government are examining and will respond to the consultation, which one could call rethinking. [Interruption.] We know what Opposition days are about—they are a chance for the Opposition to get their point of view on the record, as I am sure that they will; in fact, they have done so more successfully today than they have in the past on these issues. [Interruption.] Both sides have had the chance to clarify matters through their conversation over the Dispatch Box; I was not being churlish about the shadow Secretary of State’s ability to get his point across.

I hope that as the Government look at the responses to the consultation they re-examine some of these issues to make sure that we have got this absolutely right. What we want at the end of the process is a qualification that stands the test of time so that the young people who are now being born in my constituency and others across the country and who may well take the examination in future will find that it is still valued and understood by employers, teachers and everybody else. We must get it right. We have an opportunity to do that, and I am sure that the Government will take it.

14:47

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I am delighted to follow the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson). I am pleased that he focused on young people themselves. We need a bit of “back to basics” on this subject. We must ask fundamental questions about what we are doing. What are these assessments at 16 for, and who are they for? If we ask about the what and the who, everything else will flow sensibly from that.

We need to bear in mind that we are speaking in a context that is changing. We are not only facing the challenges of the 21st century, not the 19th or the 18th century, but we are at a point where there has been cross-party consensus on raising the participation age first to 17 and then to 18. GCSEs were brought in as a “leaving the system and going into employment” exam, and then that framework was changed so that people leave not at 16 but at 17 or 18. That raises serious questions about what these exams should be like and who they are for.

Assessment is a fundamental part of the educative process. Across this House, there is a joint, consistent commitment to the value of assessment. Formative assessment, which goes on day in, day out in every classroom—it will be going on at this moment in myriad different contexts—determines how learning is driven forward for each individual or clusters of individuals to get the best out of them. That is going on all the time, and it is far more complex than summative assessment. We spend nearly all our time getting excited about summative assessment and the nature of the exams or assessments that take place at 16, 17 or 18, or indeed at other times, but we must get the formative assessment right to make sure that it drives better teaching and better learning.

Members from all parties have made some excellent contributions. I would pick out in particular my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who spoke from experience. Often, in debates such as these, some Members speak from experience and their views resonate because they have sense and power behind them, but others speak as a result of their beliefs. That is not to say that those beliefs are not valid—they often are—but belief as against experience is an interesting dilemma and battle of ideas.

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. He often says that our policy needs to be evidence-based. Could he give some examples of the exact evidence in addition to that from the teaching profession?

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Let me pick out just one quote from Deborah Annetts, the chief executive of the Incorporated Society of Musicians:

“It is as if the Olympics never happened. Design—gone, technology—gone, music—gone. This short sighted, wholesale attack on secondary music education will emasculate not only our world class music education system but also our entire creative economy”.

Those may be apocalyptic words, but they reflect the depth and breadth of the views of people who really care. I recognise that all parties involved in the argument care, but I shiver a little when I hear belief after belief, but no evidence. That is a dangerous way of changing and making policy, and it imperils the quality of what goes on both inside and outside our classrooms.

[Mr Ward]

The hon. Gentleman has been dragged away from a crucial point that he was making about formative and summative assessments. A horse race would have different winners 10 yards before the finish line and 10 yards after it. The crucial thing is not just the who or the what that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, but the when. It is the judgments made at a particular age that divide people into successes or failures.

[Nic Dakin]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. He reminds us of the central question that I asked at the beginning of my contribution, namely: what and who is this assessment for? Summative assessment is extremely costly. It costs a huge amount in energy to prepare for it and in time spent on it. The whole of the summer term of the final year—year 11—is more or less taken up by summative assessment. We have to ask ourselves whether that time is best spent on summative assessment—and for whom—or whether it would be better spent if it were used more creatively to drive forward other things that we want our young people to have at age 16.

Why have such a wide range of exams at 16 if they exist only for the accountability of institutions? That is the issue. As the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) has said, there is a problem when those assessments at 16 are used for the purpose of the accountability of institutions. It distorts behaviour if those assessments are taking place for the benefit of the institutions rather than the individual. Qualifications are framed by the curriculum, and the choices that an individual makes in any system—hon. Members have given examples from the past and present of the paths that young people have decided to follow—are influenced by the interests of institutions, not those of individuals.

I fear that we are moving away from the strength of personalised learning, which was beginning to blossom. It was not perfect and issues needed to be dealt with, but there was a consensus behind it that was driving greater achievement, greater progression and greater performance in the post-education world. We are in danger of moving back to another age of greater failure. The hon. Member for Brigg and Goole drew attention to the dangers of lowering aspiration and increasing failure, and to the risks inherent in following that route.

I want to draw attention to the work that I have been doing on behalf of the noble Lord Haskins by chairing the skills commission on the Humber local enterprise partnership. It is a business-led skills commission, but I am its chair, which is slightly bizarre. We have been taking evidence from industry. It was more than a year before the Secretary of State met the CBI, but he met News International many times during that period, which is a reflection of his priorities and who he deems more important on this issue among business and the media.

I have been listening to the views of people in the real world of commerce and business. The reason they are often excited about some of the Secretary of State’s other ideas, such as university technical colleges, studio schools—[Interruption.] Let us give everybody the blessing of coming up with those ideas. The reason they are excited about those experiments is that they give industry the opportunity to help frame the curriculum. They say that that frees up the time. What they are really bothered about—this message comes back strongly across the piece—is not so much academic excellence, but softer employability skills. They take the academic excellence as read. What they say is missing when young people come through the workplace door is their readiness for work. To be frank, the direction of travel of English baccalaureate subjects puts at risk the time available to prepare pupils for employability skills and so on.

It is all very well for the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton to say that it should be in the school’s ethos that such things are taught, but he has not done as many timetables as I have. Doing a timetable is a complex business. It is what delivers time to young people—it is a rationing mechanism. Once time has been set aside for something to happen, the time is reduced for other things to happen. What is happening at the moment is a natural and obvious restriction of the curriculum. That does not mean that a breadth of curriculum subjects is not available in different places, but it does mean that individual student choice is being greatly reduced.

I bear witness to the sensible and intelligent contribution of the Chair of the Education Committee, who, as always, spoke with not only a great focus on improving the quality of education, but a great realism. He reminded us of the quality of the brand of GCSEs and of their performance. We may want them to perform better, but he reminded us that they are a brand that deliver and perform quite well, that we could work with and develop them better, and that what people involved in the consultation are saying is, “Let’s get on with it and let’s make it better together, but without tearing up the past or the present.”

14:58

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

I want to start by reflecting on the details and the worryingly selective nature of the motion. It is clear that it has been written by somebody who is, sadly, unaware of the fact that the planned reforms of qualifications for 16-year-olds have been welcomed by organisations such as the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce and the Engineering Employers Federation.

The motion completely ignores the fact that Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors, has stated:

“We welcome Michael Gove’s new exam reforms. This announcement will undoubtedly help to shore up confidence in the British education system. Business leaders want a stronger curriculum and more rigorous exams, and these measures are welcome progress towards delivering that.”

Sadly, the motion also ignores the wise words of Dr Adam Marshall, director of policy at the BCC, who has stated:

“Unfortunately, in recent years too many new employees have lacked basic skills and required remedial training for inadequate literacy and numeracy. Employers must be assured that qualifications reliably reflect a given level of skill, and will welcome an end to artificial grade inflation and planned changes to increase rigour.”

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in the consultation for the Education Committee’s report on the English baccalaureate certificate, which was heavily subscribed to by people and organisations outside the House, not a single response was overwhelmingly supportive?

[Chris Skidmore]

I want to add to that in what I am saying. A responsible Opposition would not cherry-pick individual examples of what is happening with the EBC, but would reflect in their motion the fact that there is support for it. I intend to recognise the support that has not been recognised in the motion or in this debate so far.

Steve Radley, director of policy at the EEF, the largest manufacturers’ organisation, said of the Government’s planned reforms:

“Employers will broadly welcome the need for greater rigour, particularly in English, maths and sciences, having long complained that ever greater academic attainment levels have not produced young people with economically valuable skills ready to enter the workplace.”

Whoever wrote the motion is seemingly unaware that the Wellcome Trust has stated:

“We welcome the proposal to improve the quality and rigour of examinations at Key Stage 4. There is real potential to modernise the curricula with expert input and to ensure a continuous progression to A-levels and further qualifications.”

It added:

“We welcome changes to qualification content that will improve the quality of examinations and provide more challenge for the most able students.”

The author of the motion, whoever they are, does not appear to realise that it is not just the major organisations that represent business that welcome the Government’s—

[Stephen Twigg]

The CBI.

[Chris Skidmore]

I remember when the hon. Gentleman was in government, and he regularly claimed the CBI was not representative of business. The CBI is just one of many organisations. The motion should reflect the fact that there is support for EBCs.

As the Financial Times stated in an editorial published last September,

“these proposals should result in a better assessment of secondary-level attainment.”

Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, has stated:

“There are aspects of these reforms which make perfect sense, such as the potential for flexible timing to suit student needs and a retreat from the idea of a two-tier system. For once,”—

this is at odds with the shadow Secretary of State—

“we seem to have a decent lead-in time, to prepare properly. We are also comfortable with a more demanding standard for top grades, as exams should stretch our most able.”

[Stephen Twigg]

I am the author of the motion. He accused me of having decried the CBI in government. Will he either substantiate or withdraw that comment?

[Chris Skidmore]

I will substantiate the comment by saying that I remember the Labour Government not acting on the CBI’s comments. The CBI said every year for 13 years—for five years of which the hon. Gentleman was a Labour Education Minister—that we needed qualification reforms, and the Labour Government did nothing to reflect that. We now have a Government who are bringing in new qualifications, which are being welcomed by the British Chambers of Commerce and the EEF, that will ensure that more young people are prepared for the world of work.

I was going to say, “Whoever penned the motion,” but it was obviously the shadow Secretary of State.

[Stephen Twigg]

It says on the Order Paper who the motion is from.

[Chris Skidmore]

I was giving the hon. Gentleman the benefit of the doubt, because I thought it might have been written by a new researcher who had just come in. It is obvious that he has no understanding of the current debate or if what is going on in the wider world.

For instance, if the hon. Gentleman had listened to the “Today” programme on 17 September, he would have heard Sir Mike Tomlinson, the former chief inspector of schools, saying:

“I agree entirely with the removal of the modular structure and the resit situation.”

He added that the new exam system

“will give us a system that has more positives than presently”.

The hon. Gentleman, who was an Education Minister in the early 2000s, once rejected Tomlinson and did not listen to his proposals. I hope he will listen to him now.

It is a shame that the hon. Gentleman who wrote the motion does not check his Twitter feed more carefully. If he did, he would have discovered that the Labour peer and former Education Minister, Lord Knight, tweeted at 6.4 am on 17 September that

“GCSE needs reform - modularisation led to gaming.”

There we have a former Minister for Schools and Learners admitting that there is no point in continuing with modularisation. The reforms will deal with that fact.

It is a shame that the shadow Secretary of State decided that it was a good idea to call a debate to oppose bringing back more rigour to our examination system without looking at where the public stand on the matter. According to a YouGov poll taken in June 2012, 60% of the public, including parents, think that it has got easier to get a good GCSE in recent years, compared with only 6% who think that it has got harder. It also shows that 47% of Labour voters think that it has got easier to get a good GCSE in recent years, compared with only 7% who think that it has got harder. Perhaps he should listen to Labour voters. It is not only the public and parents who have little confidence in the current system. According to the latest Ofqual survey, just 51% of students in 2011 had confidence in the GCSE system.

We know why that is. A yawning gap has opened between the image of educational success that GCSEs have presented over the past few decades and the reality of what is taking place globally. While GCSE results have risen to record levels, they have not been matched in international league tables. Fifteen-year-olds in England have fallen down the rankings from seventh to 25th in reading, eighth to 27th in maths, and fourth to 16th in science. As the OECD has commented:

“Official test scores and grades in England show systematically and significantly better performance than international and independent tests”.

It added that

“the measures based on cognitive tests not used for grading show declines or minimal improvements.”

Perhaps we might be able to gain some consensus on that fact. After all, on 26 June last year, the shadow Secretary of State said:

“I absolutely acknowledge that there is grade inflation in the system”.—[Official Report, 26 June 2012; Vol. 547, c. 179.]

Perhaps he might also like to acknowledge that, in 1997, 49.9% of pupils entered GCSEs in English, maths, two sciences, a language and either history or geography—the core subjects that now make up the EBacc—but that the figure more than halved by 2010, with only 22% of pupils sitting those subjects. Perhaps he might even like to demonstrate regret for the fact that when he was an Education Minister, Labour decided to remove the languages requirement for 14 to 16-year-olds. By 2010, that had resulted in 200,000 fewer 16-year-olds taking a modern language GCSE. Surely he must be ashamed of that record of achievement.

The Government’s introduction of the EBacc is already having a significant effect on the adoption of rigorous subjects. An Ipsos MORI survey of pupils who will take their GCSEs in 2014 suggests that the percentage of pupils taking the full EBacc will increase from 22% in 2010 to 49% by 2014. Over the same period, the percentage of pupils taking a GCSE in history will go up from 31% to 41%; those taking geography will go up from 26% to 36%; those taking a language will go up from 43% to 54%; and those taking triple science will go up from 16% to 34%.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend share my deep concern about the finding of the Institute of Physics that only 49% of maintained schools sent a girl to take A-level physics in 2011? Does he agree that it is vital that more young people take triple science so that more girls do physics and play a role in our physics future?

[Chris Skidmore]

Absolutely. It is not only the gender balance that we need to tackle. There is also a gap when it comes to the most deprived pupils in society—those on free school meals. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) did not mention that the EBacc shines a torch on underperformance because it shows the gap between those in the most deprived areas and the most affluent in society. We must close that gap by using the EBacc as a crucial measure.

Many countries, including France, Finland, Germany, Japan and South Korea, have more than two compulsory subjects. They have modern languages and history as compulsory subjects. Having more subjects that pupils must take ensures that there is a greater measure.

We are in a global race in which qualifications from the 20th century will no longer equip us with the skills and knowledge needed for the modern world. We need not only to look outwards and emulate countries that are powering ahead, fuelled by a rigorous education system that will not accept second best, but we must also look inwards at ourselves and recognise that if we do not reform our education system we will be letting down future generations of pupils who will be competing in this modern, international world. That is why we need reform—we recognise that the world has changed, and we must change with it.

15:08

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

In following the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) I should like to consider what he said about the profound effect of the EBacc. We can all agree that it has indeed had a profound effect on creative subjects such as art, design, drama and music, which are clearly being sidelined despite the incredible value that our creative sector brings to the UK economy. Some 15% of schools have dropped one or more arts subjects since the EBacc was introduced, and the latest figures, from summer 2012, show a serious decline in the number of entrants for design and technology: down 5.1%, for art and design, down 2.4%, for music, down 3.6%, and for drama down 6.3%. I therefore agree with the hon. Gentleman that the introduction of the EBacc has had a profound effect.

I want to pick up on the theme pursued by other Members who talked about preparation for work and for life, and ask the Secretary of State some questions that I hope he is considering. What are qualifications for? What is education for at age 16 and beyond? What are we trying to achieve with our qualifications? What is in it for young people and for the country? In a globally competitive world in which we struggle to keep up with countries that, until recently, were regarded as developing, we have different needs for our future work force. In a world with technology on a scale that many of us never imagined when we were at school, the needs of young people are completely different from those considered when GCSEs were created.

In September, the Secretary of State said in his statement that

“nations that were slow developers 20 years ago are outstripping us economically, and now that ways of learning have been so dramatically transformed in all our lifetimes, it is right that we reform our examination system. We know that the old model—the ’80s model—is no longer right for now…We know that employers and academics have become less confident in the worth of GCSE passes because they fear that students lack the skills for the modern workplace and the knowledge for advanced study.”—[Official Report, 17 September 2012; Vol. 550, c. 653.]

No one in this Chamber would disagree with a word of what the Secretary of State said in that statement, but the question is what we need now from qualifications, schools, education, and for and from our young people. How do we compete in a world where we are rapidly being overtaken by China, India, Brazil and countless other countries?

Employers tell me that they want young people who can solve problems and who have strong communication skills and an ability to get on with others, but good sets of GCSE passes—or other written exam passes—do not necessarily correspond to those three skills. Businesses need staff who will help them to thrive, and we also need people who will start and grow their own businesses. We need excellence in the services that support our creative industries and our high-tech manufacturing that will produce the jobs and growth that will enable this country to thrive and our people to enjoy prosperity.

There is no question but that we need academic qualifications. High standards in English and maths are the cornerstone of success for this country, but so too are qualifications in engineering and the arts. The young people I speak to want to study vocational subjects—engineering, design and technology, music, art, catering and hairdressing. Those subjects are crucial for young people who want to pursue their chosen career and a country that wants its economy to succeed. In short, success in school and beyond results from the combination of academic and vocational study, and our qualification system needs to reflect that mix.

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is spelling things out very clearly. Does he think that the CBI put its finger on the pulse of the issue when it said that there is a risk of making the mistakes of the past by trying to micro-manage what is going on, instead of allowing other things to happen?

[Bill Esterson]

My hon. Friend has vast experience as the former principal of a sixth-form college and he knows exactly what he is talking about. Yes, the CBI made it clear in its report that high-stakes testing at 16 must not be a barrier to achievement at 18. It said:

“There is a risk that the mistakes of the past—both teaching to the test by schools and micro-management of the school system through the means of exams and league tables—may be repeated in the EBC. For this reason, we favour pausing to ask a more fundamental question about the role of examinations before 18, namely what their purpose is.”

I hope that the Secretary of State—while he is sending something out on Twitter or texting one his staff—will perhaps find the answer to that question so that when he sums up the debate he can tell me and, more importantly, the CBI.

The Secretary of State’s proposals indicate a preference for an end-of-year exam, with no assessment or coursework, in a number of subjects, but in the real world how useful is the ability to succeed in a three-hour written exam? I would question whether it is of much use at all. In many jobs, the ability to perform tasks is essential, and, yes, success in work is closely linked to an ability to perform under pressure, often under time pressure. However, in the long run it is the quality of the product or service that an organisation delivers that is critical to success. The role of the individual in contributing to that success does not appear, as far as I can see, to be in any way linked to the ability to pass an exam.

The ability to solve problems, to think on one’s feet, and to communicate effectively face to face, on the phone, by e-mail, in a letter or in a report are all essential skills in the world of work and outside it. They all depend on good English, yet there will be no spoken communication element in the EBC, no testing of real world skills linked to the use of IT in English and no testing of key communication skills such as customer service, which is a vital skill in today’s world. I am not saying that GCSEs were perfect, but surely we are moving further away from a qualification and examination system that measures those real world skills, not closer to it.

[Nic Dakin]

Does my hon. Friend think that the reasons he has set out explain why Lord Baker, who has much experience in this matter, describes the proposals as “a huge mistake” and fears that they will not survive a change of Government?

[Bill Esterson]

Yes, and of course Lord Baker was one of the architects of the GCSE system. He recognised the need for change, so he is in a strong position on this matter. He has credibility and a track record, and the Government should certainly listen closely to what he has to say.

Standards in English and maths are crucial. We can all agree on that and we all do, but the question is how those standards are measured. I do not believe that we measure them effectively, either for young people or for the economy, purely through the use of a linear exam system.

In my business career I worked with many young people in telephone call centres, among other places. Call centre managers often bemoaned the lack of basic literacy of the younger recruits. Often those with GCSEs in English of grade C or better were unable to write properly and struggled when talking to customers on the phone. There is clearly a problem, but the solution we found was to help young trainees with practical skills. They included literacy skills, because they had not picked them up at school. The key was to make training practical—to make it relevant to their jobs and to their lives outside of work. Because the training took place at work, it was in context and they understood for that reason. The students were motivated to learn and to do well at work. How do we replicate that within the education system before students go to work? I do not see how it can be done in the artificial environment of a linear exam process.

To make learning practical and real is a simple concept, and we should be able to do it in school. In short, we should be able to design a system where young people learn what they need for life, in a way that motivates them and helps businesses to flourish. However, to make sure young people are ready for life, they need to learn skills that they can use and which are of use to employers.

[Michael Gove]

I am listening with great interest to the hon. Gentleman. He has made a number of interesting and worthwhile points, and has outlined some of the weaknesses that he sees with existing and proposed qualifications. Are there are any qualifications that he thinks hit the nail on the head and do the job that he has described?

[Bill Esterson]

I am certainly familiar with some work qualifications. If the Secretary of State is looking for ideas, I hope he will look at them as examples and consider how they could be introduced, with good work experience, into the education system.

To ensure that young people are ready for life, they need to learn skills they can use and which are of use to employers. Someone who has a qualification that shows they can already do a job is of much greater interest. Perhaps the answer I gave to the Secretary of State demonstrates a way of doing just that.

15:19

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

A short while ago, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), challenged the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) to say what he objected to in the motion. I must say that we new MPs are used to seeing rather stronger worded motions than today’s, which makes me wonder whether the Opposition’s heart is really in it. The motion talks in general terms about requiring a rethink, but without specifying or committing to the things that they think are wrong and the things they would do differently.

The Opposition cite a few opponents of the Government’s plans, however, and they are worth reflecting on. Business, they say, is opposed. My experience from the Education Committee was that, if we were looking for a unified voice from business on qualifications and so on, good luck! To the extent that there is a unified voice, however, it is complaining about the things that the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) talked about—employability and workplace skills—but it is talking about the young people coming through the system now, not about some change that might happen in the future.

The Opposition also cite as opponents the champions of vocational qualifications, but that ignores the fact that the Government are also reforming vocational education and training. They have commissioned the Wolf review and are now implementing it. We must recognise, however, that Alison Wolf states, again and again, the value of academic qualifications alongside vocational qualifications. It should not be seen as an either/or. From a social mobility perspective, we know that countries with earlier specialisation tend to be associated with lower levels of social mobility, whereas those in which people specialise later do better in that regard.

On the creative industries and the arts, I had the opportunity recently to have a fascinating discussion with Mr Julian Lloyd Webber. Of course, any lobby or interest group will lobby to have its subject as part of the suite of subjects that has this name—many of us will have benefited from hearing from a lot of religious education teachers, for example. On the arts and creative industries, however, the argument is based on a false premise. Britain is a world leader in these industries—a world leader in the arts—but that was achieved without those subjects being forced on pupils in school, with or without a national curriculum.

When the shadow Secretary of State was at school, when you were at school, Madam Deputy Speaker, when I was at school—when all of us were at school—in most schools, art and music were optional subjects at aged 15 and 16 and they were over and above a set of subjects that pretty much everybody would do. The EBacc suite—[Interruption] I like the word “suite”—is not a compulsory set of subjects.

[Mr Ward]

What the hon. Gentleman says about the education we received many years ago is true, but back then there was not a national league table by which the institution was judged on the basis of whether it had an A-level in art, drama or whatever. That is the fundamental change that has taken place.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is right to identify that, and it is that focus on the five-plus C-plus—almost regardless of what subjects they are in, with the exception of English and maths, which have held an elevated position—that has caused the problems that now need to be addressed. Even if the Ebacc were made up of a compulsory set of subjects, there would still be ample room in the curriculum for optional subjects, just as there always has been.

I would never claim that everything that happened between 1997 and 2010 in education was bad, but I am afraid that this whole system around qualifications, examinations and league tables is one area where things went badly awry. This was a time of stiffening international competition, yet in this country, we had grade inflation, smashing all domestic records, while slipping down the international league tables. That eroded confidence in the system, and the people that lets down are not the politicians, but the young people themselves.

Although the current shadow Secretary of State rightly acknowledges the existence of grade inflation, that is a relatively new road-to-Damascus conversion for the Labour party. Until relatively recently, it was keen to keep hammering on that all the improvements in children’s outcomes were actually real improvements and that we should celebrate them, rather than criticise them.

[Stephen Twigg]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

Both those things are true, which is possibly the point the hon. Gentleman wanted to make, and I absolutely acknowledge the real improvements. We may have brighter kids, and we certainly have more engaged parents and families, better teaching and teachers, better recognition of special educational needs and different styles of learning and all sorts of things that we would expect to improve over time, and which have. On top of that, however, there has without doubt been grade inflation and gaming of the system on an epic scale, and that is what these reforms seek to address. It is worth listing some of those points further.

[Ian Mearns]

I am grateful to my honourable Friend—I will call him my friend because we are friends—for giving way. When I took over as chair of the education committee in Gateshead in 1993, in the previous year fewer than 30% of youngsters got five good GCSEs. In Gateshead the figure is about 80% now—although it is about 55% including English and maths. We cannot honestly think that the vast majority of that change in 20 years was due to grade inflation.

[Damian Hinds]

I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman—and friend—exactly what proportion is accounted for by what. I celebrate the achievements of the children in his constituency and that area, and of those schools. We should never be reluctant to do that: their achievement is fantastic. Some element of that has been a real improvement; what I am saying is that there is also another element. Indeed, I think that everybody across the political spectrum and throughout almost the entire educational establishment—we are still working on the National Union of Teachers—now acknowledges what is a blindingly obvious fact.

The three areas where the gaming and the inflation take place are in the mechanics of the system, the subject mix and competition between boards—I want to return to the point that the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) raised.

[Nicola Blackwood]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I think I ought to plough on, if I may.

On the mechanics, so many things can be done with the syllabus content and breadth, through modularisation, resits, early takes and, potentially, the questions set and the stringency of marking, although certainly—we extracted this over some weeks in our Select Committee inquiry—an upwards-only tolerance in the expected outcomes across a cohort of students around the country. In other words, every year there is a certain level that we would expect to reach. We could be either side of it; in reality, things only ever went one way, leading to in-built inflation in the system. The second area is the subject mix. It is beyond doubt—some of the statistics that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) and others mentioned bear this out—that some children have been steered towards subjects that were not the most appropriate for them to study, but which suited their schools in terms of how they would appear in the league tables. Then there was the debacle over so-called equivalences.

The third point—a few hon. Members have mentioned this today—is competition between exam boards. It has been suggested that there is not really a problem with competition between exam boards so long as we separate the organisation setting the exam and the organisation doing the syllabus or specification. I can absolutely see the arguments for having competition at the operational level—delivering exam papers and that sort of thing—but I just do not see the argument for competition in either the specification or the setting of exams. So much of this debate—including when we had it in the Select Committee with some of the exam boards and others—is all about accessibility. I worry about the word “accessibility”. It is a good word—we want more people to be able to access things—but it ends up being used to mask all sorts of other things, all of which ends up meaning: “Well, if we just make it that tiny bit easier, more people will want to do it.”

The bad effects of the competition between different exam boards can be seen in little unexplained spikes in market share for individual boards in individual subjects and in more and more schools using multiple boards for different subjects. The average number of exam boards per school is now about three, which is pretty remarkable when we consider that there are only four boards altogether. That means that almost all schools are using almost all boards. As reported relatively recently in The Times Educational Supplement, there are also relatively new trends, such as schools entering children for GCSE and IGCSE at the same time, to see which one comes out better, or entering with different, multiple boards for early modules and examinations, to see which is likely to give them the best chances of progressing.

Through all this, we without doubt came to a point where we had too much teaching to the test, with children in some schools—not all schools—having a much narrower experience than they should have had. Schools have been paying £100,000 a year on examination entries—a number that doubled in just a few years. It is worth reflecting that had that not happened, we could have had a lot more teachers in this country. Some children were pushed into inappropriate subject choices, with too much focus on the C/D borderline and an overall failure to equip as well as we should our young people to make the most of their talents and our nation to make the most of what we have got in the world.

We have reached the point at which the Government must reset the clock, so that we can have exams that are consistent and understood and that are pinned to the highest world standards. We must remove the race to the bottom between the different exam boards and inspire confidence in employers, in educational institutions and, above all, in young people themselves.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. The wind-ups need to start at 3.40 pm. In order to fit in the last two Back-Bench speakers, I am changing the time limit to five minutes. I am dividing the time equally between the two speakers. I call Neil Carmichael.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am perfectly happy to give up my five minutes so that my hon. Friend can speak for 10 minutes.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

The hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) will not get 10 minutes; he will get eight, as that has been the time limit. It is very gracious of the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) to withdraw; I thank him for that.

15:30

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) for that gesture, although I am not going to speak for what must now be only seven and a half minutes.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman does not have to speak for eight minutes—if he does not, there will simply be longer wind-ups—but he should get on with it.

[Neil Carmichael]

First, I want to pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on beliefs and experience. We all have beliefs and some of us have had experience as well. One of my sharpest experiences was that of marking examinations taken by undergraduates who displayed an innate intelligence but not necessarily a huge ability to communicate. We should all think about that during the course of this debate, because it is important that communication skills and mathematics should be embedded as early as possible.

My second point is that there is much more continuity between those on the two Front Benches than might first be supposed. That came to my attention when I was reading Lord Adonis’s recent book on education. He has paved the way for some of the changes that we are continuing—

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, but Lord Adonis does not support this one.

[Neil Carmichael]

I am not suggesting that Lord Adonis supports everything that we are doing; I am saying that there is some continuity. That is good, because we need more continuity in education policy. A lot of the measures that we are introducing will be useful, in that they will make things better and build on some of the achievements of the previous Government. That needs to be said.

My third point is that I am a firm believer in the Ebacc, as I stated when the Education Select Committee looked into that subject. In fact, that was the only time I ever voted against the publication of a report. I did so because I believe it is important that the Ebacc should be promoted. One of the myths that needs to be completely debunked is that the Ebacc will stop other subjects being taught. That is clearly not the case, because most, if not all, schools also offer a wider variety of subjects. That is what they are supposed to do, and what they will continue to do. I do not believe that enough attention has been paid to the role of Ofsted in ensuring that schools are going beyond the Ebacc subjects. We need to be much clearer about the process involved in the inspection regime, and about the impact that the Ebacc will have on the delivery of other subjects.

Linked to that is Professor Alison Wolf’s report, which has been discussed by the shadow Secretary of State and the Minister for Schools. I think that Alison Wolf’s report is first class. It sets the scene for proper vocational training. She makes two points, however, that have thus far been overlooked. First, she believes that an academic framework is absolutely necessary for pupils, and that it is not inconsistent with going on to vocational studies. In fact, she notes that it is a good thing to have an academic basis for vocational training. The second point that she makes very clearly in her report is that there is plenty of time in the school day to go beyond the Ebacc and into vocational training. I think that is critical, because it applies to post-16 education—beyond school and into colleges—as well. We need to bear those two points in mind when we think about the EBacc.

It is important to underline what the Minister of State said about universality. I was particularly impressed with it, as I think we should have a system in which all pupils are treated fairly and all pupils have a fair chance of taking an examination, so that we do not get division between one type of pupil and another. One of the great achievements over the last decade or so has been exactly that—and we should celebrate it. I would say, however, that the EBacc builds on that and does not threaten it, which is something of which we should be proud.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

My hon. Friend describes his support for a universal exam. To achieve it, the Government have said, the boundary must be higher than the grade C GCSE. There must be a risk, must there not, that quite a number of people will feel that they have failed and that the certificate of achievement will not be a currency of much value in reflecting the work they have done.

[Neil Carmichael]

The currency with the least value is the one that allows too much inflation. The brutal fact is that we want to avoid grade inflation, and the measures being introduced in parallel to this change seek to do precisely that. I think that that is exactly what we need to do.

[Mr Stuart]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way again. When grade inflation is inadvertent, denied, counter-productive or whatever, there is an argument about the level at which the qualification should be set. If we cease grade inflation at some point in time, we will be fixing it as being “the level”. It is interesting to reflect on what the appropriate level is: perhaps we should have something much harder, but the Government appear to be talking about reversing that inflation and setting the level of a pass—however it comes out—at a higher level than it is now. Already, 50% of kids do not achieve five good GCSEs including English and maths.

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank my hon. Friend for his second intervention. The simple answer is this. What we need to ensure is that we have a set of grades whereby the student can be properly assessed and valued. That is what we need to do, that is what the EBacc is all about and that is why grade inflation should not be welcomed or tolerated. It needs to be dealt with not just through the type of examination and certificate, but through the way in which marking and so forth is done.

I shall finish on the point about business. Much has been said about whether business wants the change. In my constituency, business definitely does. I run a festival in manufacturing and engineering each and every year. I do it because I really want to encourage young people to get involved in those key areas, which would clearly benefit from the EBacc. At every festival, I pick up the fact that business wants to know that people are coming out of schools with more experience and more capacity in mathematics and the STEM subjects more generally. The EBacc will help, so that is what we should aim for.

It is a false description if people say that when something starts off, nobody wants it. When it proves itself, as the EBacc undoubtedly will, business will see that the right decision has been made. That is an important point. Anyone who talks to the organisations that represent engineering, manufacturing and associated activities will find that they are interested in the move towards the EBacc, that they think it is the right way to test and examine children and that they think it will be useful to them when they start recruiting. I shall conclude on that note.

15:39

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

We have had a high-quality debate this afternoon with contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns), the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed), the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore). We found out from him that at 6 am in the morning, he is checking Lord Knight’s Twitter feed—not something the rest of us would necessarily do at that time. We also heard contributions from my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) and the hon. Members for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and for Stroud (Neil Carmichael). The hon. Member for Kingswood was obviously only half awake because he seemed to think that Lord Knight’s Twitter feed said that he supported the proposals, which is certainly not the case.

It is more and more clear that the Government’s proposed EBacc certificate is the wrong reform on the wrong timetable. What is more, the Secretary of State has got it the wrong way round. In one sense, I am certain that he agrees that it is the wrong reform, because we know that it is not the reform that he wanted. He announced the reform that he wanted using the now traditional method for making important Department for Education announcements—via a leak to the The Mail on Sunday. He was celebrating his great news triumph when word got through to the Deputy Prime Minister in his hotel room in Rio, presumably wearing his onesie—[Interruption.] That is true; it might be too hot in Rio for a onesie.

The Deputy Prime Minister was so furious with the Education Secretary that he not only made him withdraw his plans and modify them into the incoherent mess that we have been hearing about today, but made him sack his trusted lieutenant, the former schools Minister, and replace him with the current part-time schools Minister, who I think is off in the Cabinet Office doing his other job—a Lib Dem incubus in the Secretary of State’s lair. [Interruption.] He has now come to the Chamber. A bit like horsemeat in a burger, it can be swallowed but it is not very palatable. Even the Secretary of State thinks that it is the wrong reform, because he has had to drop the overtly two-tier approach that he favoured for the covert one that we have heard about today. Everyone else knows that it is the wrong reform, because it does not address, as we have heard overwhelmingly from Members on both sides of the House, the real issues and challenges for education at 16.

First, the reform is anti-creativity. Many people are asking: what do the Secretary of State and the Government have against creativity? As we saw in a debate on the EBacc certificate in another place on Monday, he calls his new qualification a gold standard, but how can a qualification on which the Secretary of State places such a valedictory appellation have no place for the arts? As the former Education Secretary Baroness Morris of Yardley in another place said:

“How can an assessment that marks the end of the national curriculum not recognise achievement in music, dance, drama, art, design and craft?”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 14 January 2013; Vol. 742, c. 547.]

The EBacc is also the wrong reform because it does not seriously examine the purpose and relevance of high-stakes public examinations at 16 when the participation age has been raised to 18. That topic is causing a veritable buzz in the world of education. The Secretary of State needs to listen not just to his closest advisers and cronies and his own soliloquies. We need a proper debate and consensus around reform, which addresses the key issues that the Chair of the Education Committee has often cited, as he did again today—in particular the long tail of underachievement. Perhaps we should rename the EBacc certificate the GOVE—general opposition to vocational education—because the Secretary of State has nothing to say on how we can have a gold standard in vocational education. That is why we have had to take the initiative in developing the Tech Bacc, in which he seems so uninterested.

Another reason the EBacc certificate is the wrong reform is its rigid and mystifying insistence that it should be assessed by final essay-based examination only. The Secretary of State was rightly asked earlier whether it is his role to decide that anyway, and perhaps we will get an answer in his speech, but essay-based exams measure only a narrow range of skills and knowledge. I have been trying to understand what makes the Secretary of State so against controlled assessment and practical exams and why he thinks the only valid way of testing anything is a three-hour written examination at the end of a course. What traumatic event in his past could have led him to have this seemingly inexplicable aversion to the appropriate use of controlled assessment and his insistence that only written exams should count? Then I remembered—

[Michael Gove]

The driving test.

[Kevin Brennan]

He is ahead of me—he is very quick. The driving test is administered on a basis of a written test combined with a practical controlled assessment, and the Secretary of State failed his driving test on six occasions. And this is the man who does not believe in re-sits!

Had the driving test consisted of a course in the theory of driving followed by a three-hour written test, the Secretary of State would no doubt have passed first time, with flying colours. He might have achieved a merit, perhaps even a distinction, maybe an A* for demonstrating his in-depth understanding of the intricacies of the highway code. But would that have made him a better driver, and would the public have been safe with him behind the wheel? Possibly not.

This is the wrong reform, and it is also being carried out according to the wrong timetable. It is not just the foot-draggers, the naysayers and the vested interests who are saying that. It is being said by Glenys Stacey, the head of Ofqual and the Secretary of State’s guardian of exam standards, who has written to him expressing her concerns—incidentally, we know about her letter only as a result of dogged forensic questioning of the Secretary of State by the Education Committee—and it is not being said just by Ofqual either. In response to a recent survey, more than 80% of teachers said that the changes were being rushed, adding to the huge majority of heads who said that the changes would not be an improvement, and reinforcing the call from the CBI—about which we have already heard today—for a pause in the Government’s timetable.

I am old enough to have taken O-levels—I also have a CSE in woodwork, a grade 1—and A-levels, and I taught for O-level, GCSE and A-level. One thing that I do know is that it is impossible to introduce successful examination reform without being clear about the curriculum, without consensus, and without proper piloting of new qualifications. GCSE reform was kicked off by Shirley Williams, and brought in by Keith Joseph after many years of development. It is necessary to aim for that breadth of consensus at the start if lasting reform is to achieved. However, the English baccalaureate certificate proposal is not a product of consensus based on evidence; it is being rushed through to meet a political, not an educational, timetable. That is the wrong recipe for reform, and the right recipe for chaos.

The Secretary of State’s reform is being introduced for the wrong reasons, the wrong way round. The Secretary of State says it is about rigour, but rigour is achieved through engaging, imaginative, high-quality and creative teaching, not through dispiriting learning by rote that is based only on facts. That is not a recipe for rigour; it is a recipe for rigor mortis in the classroom—the stiff dead hand of Gradgrindian misery about which we heard earlier.

In a recent television interview, Lord Baker reminded us of the welcome contrast between the current CBI report on education and that of one of its predecessor bodies, which states that all that was, or should be, required of the curriculum was that it should teach “literacy, numeracy and obedience”. Sometimes, listening to what is said by members of the Government, I wonder whether that is what they believe now. As Lord Baker also said, if that is all we think is required today, God help us, because that is the attitude that has created

“the long tail of underachievement”,

demotivated generations of young people, and wasted the talents of so many.

It is, however, the background noise that hisses around the Secretary of State’s approach to this reform. The proposal is the wrong way around. It puts the cart before the horse, the exams before the course, and the outcomes before the aims.

Here are some possible aims of a curriculum for the Secretary of State. It should produce

“a confident person who has a strong sense of right and wrong, is adaptable and resilient, knows himself, is discerning in judgment, thinks independently and critically, and communicates effectively; a self-directed learner who takes responsibility for his own learning, who questions, reflects and perseveres in the pursuit of learning; an active contributor who is able to work effectively in teams, exercises initiative, takes calculated risks, is innovative and strives for excellence; and, a concerned citizen who is rooted”

in his country,

“has a strong civic consciousness, is informed, and takes an active role in bettering the lives of others”.

The Secretary of State may think that that is wishy-washy. It is, in fact, a list of the aims of the curriculum in Singapore, and perhaps he ought to take a look at it before he starts to design a new exam system. How can this style of examination achieve those aims? It cannot, which is why Singapore has been reforming its education in our direction.

This is a case of wrong reform, wrong timetable, wrong way round: wrong, wrong, wrong. The new three Rs are all spelt with a W, standing not for “reading, writing and arithmetic” but for “wrong, wrong, and”—as the Secretary of State might say—“thrice wrong”.

15:49

[The Secretary of State for Education (Michael Gove)]

First, may I congratulate the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), on securing this debate? It has been advantageous to the House and of benefit to me to be able to hear a range of views about how we might reform our examination system, and I am grateful to all Members who spoke in what felt at times almost more like a seminar than a parliamentary debate. As well as speaking with passion from the heart, many Members had specific experience. The hon. Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed) was a distinguished leader of a successful Labour council, and the hon. Members for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) and for North West Durham (Pat Glass) have both had council responsibility for children’s services, and under their stewardship standards for their children were high. [Interruption.] Forgive me: the hon. Member for North West Durham has a range of past experience that qualifies her to speak on these subjects, but, sadly, she was never a councillor.

All the contributions have given me an opportunity to reflect on what we should assess and on how we should assess achievement at the age of 16. One of the important consequences of the process of consultation we have initiated is that a vigorous debate has been taking place, not only in schools and among teachers, but also, as the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) pointed out, among people in the creative and cultural worlds. As the shadow Secretary of State pointed out, business organisations and associations have also engaged in that debate.

There was, perhaps, consensus among Members that the current situation is unsatisfactory. The shadow Secretary of State quoted the CBI liberally in his speech. The CBI is no friend of the situation that prevailed under Labour for 13 years, however. This is what the CBI report on education says about the situation we inherited from Labour:

“This approach represents a triumph for relativism, with pupils either taught to the test while developing no real mastery of the subject being studied or left to fester in study of subjects where they will do least harm to the school’s overall results and league table position. In truth, however, this cult of relativism has blighted every stage of their educational journey.”

Those are strong words and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) pointed out, they reflect a broad consensus in the business sector that we need to change our examination system.

Understandably, the CBI and others have questioned the purpose of assessment at 16. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) pointed out in a brilliant speech, it is important that we have rigorous, summative assessment at that stage. The Labour party has questioned the appropriateness of that. If Labour believes we should get rid of proper, rigorous assessment at the age of 16, it should say so. If, as the shadow Secretary of State hinted in an interview in The Guardian, Labour believes we should go back to the 14 to 19 Tomlinson diploma approach, it should say so. Disappointingly, although the critiques mounted from the Opposition Benches had much to recommend them in terms of forensic detail and passion, precious few positive alternatives were offered.

We were accused of having neglected the vital importance of a rounded education in two specific areas: cultural subjects and vocational subjects. I want to say a little about each. There was an exchange—I was tempted to call it a dramatic monologue, or soliloquy, punctuated by noises off—between the shadow Secretary of State and myself on the Wolf report, but putting that to one side, I am pleased that there seems to be consensus about the Wolf report and its recommendations. The shadow Secretary of State says it is important that English and mathematics are taught to the age of 18. We should bear in mind that Professor Wolf says people who have not secured a good GCSE pass or equivalent in English or maths at the age of 16 should carry the subject on, and that is Government policy. We would only contend, however, that people who secure a good pass in English and maths at 16 but who wish to specialise in other, perhaps creative or vocational, areas should not be forced to carry those subjects on. We should develop courses for such people who want to move beyond GCSEs. Someone may not want to pursue A-level mathematics, but may believe that a mathematical course would be appropriate, and we have worked with Cambridge university and Professor Tim Gowers on that area.

The care we have taken to implement every detail of Professor Wolf’s report reinforces the fact that before we said how we were going to reform academic qualifications, we said how we were going to reform vocational qualifications. We have heard a lot about carts and horses, and about priorities, in this debate. We put vocational qualifications ahead of academic qualifications in our desire to reform. I am not just talking about the Wolf report; the Richard report on apprenticeships, which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills rightly welcomed recently, as I have done, sets a path for the reform of the most trusted brand in vocational education—the apprenticeship. The Richard report was welcomed yesterday by Lord Adonis and it points out the steps we have been taking to change apprenticeships so that they are no longer a theoretical driving test, such as that described by the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan). They are no longer the inadequate, poor qualification that, sadly, used to exist in some cases. An apprenticeship will now be conferred on somebody only where they not only secure English and maths to an acceptable standard, but have an occupationally specific qualification which guarantees or confers mastery in a specific area and can be graded on more than simply a pass-or-fail basis. The fact that this reform was so carefully designed and has been so widely supported underlines our support for improving vocational education.

[Stephen Twigg]

May I bring the Secretary of State to the subject of today’s debate? In my opening speech, I asked him about the issue about which Ofqual has raised real concern: the preparedness of the system to be implemented in the way that he says. Is there any possibility that he will change the time scale in response to the real concern that hon. Members on both sides of the House have reflected today?

[Michael Gove]

I was grateful that a number of concerns were raised about different parts of implementation, and they have been raised during the consultation. It is important that I look seriously, as I am doing, at all the points raised in the consultation. Following on from the very good speech made by the Chairman of the Select Committee, it is important that we respond having reflected on all the points that were made and that our response is not simply yes to this and no to that in a piecemeal and cherry-picking way. We should present a sustained and coherent response to what has been an informed and helpful consultation.

I wish briefly to discuss creative subjects, because, in a brilliant speech, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) both paid me a compliment and set me a challenge. One thing I would say is that there is ample time in a well-constructed curriculum for creative subjects, as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) and a number of other hon. Members. The idea that this Government have not been taking creative and cultural education seriously is belied by the facts. First, we ensured that we had a national plan for music education, following on from Darren Henley’s report, that has seen not just sustained investment in new music hubs that provide high-quality music education and increased access to instrumental tuition, but our expanding of the In Harmony orchestra initiative, which was borrowed from the El Sistema idea in Chavez’s Venezuela. We have also commissioned a report on cultural education from Darren Henley, which has led us to implement a variety of changes, including having a cultural passport for every child to record their cultural and creative engagement during their time at school. We have provided extended access to Saturday schools for those able and capable in art and design. In addition, a Conservative Government—not a Labour Government—have for the first time introduced a national youth dance company for talented and gifted individuals who want to and should make a success in dance. So the future Akram Khans and Michael Clarks will have that opportunity as a result of our changes.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Michael Gove]

We have only two minutes left and there are still a number of points to cover—

[Stephen Twigg]

I gave way five times.

[Michael Gove]

In a speech that was significantly longer. In the time available, I wish to deal with one or two of the other points that were raised, particularly the one discussed by the Chairman of the Select Committee. He asked whether qualification reform is the key driver of change and improvement in education. The answer, which I wanted to underline, was given by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton: it is a key driver. The hon. Member for Cardiff West pointed out that nothing matters more than the quality of teaching, and that is right. But the qualification reforms that we have put forward will ensure that there is more time for teaching. If we remove controlled assessment, which teachers tell us takes between six and eight weeks of what could be teaching time, we allow more high quality teaching to be made available to the students who need it. So there is a link between the style of assessment and the capacity to improve a child’s education.

Let me take this opportunity to point out that we do not need to change, nor is it the case simply that we can make requests of Ofqual. Ofqual can consider them and has in the past made wise judgments. I should say that the shadow Secretary of State has consistently questioned the judgment of Ofqual. We have been clear that it is an independent regulator and we back it.

In the course of the debate, a number of misconceptions were repeated. It is the case that we believe that a move away from modular towards linear assessment reduces the chance of gaming and frees time for teaching, but it is important to say that we do not think that every subject should have three-hour exams. Nowhere in our consultation have we said that three, six, nine or 12-hour exams are appropriate. We believe that rigorous examination in academic subjects requires the deployment of end-of-course linear assessment, but there are a variety of subjects, many of them creative, which, as the Arts Council recognised, should be assessed in other ways.

I note that it is 4 o’clock. I hope this conversation can continue. I thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and the House for your indulgence and, in particular, I thank the Members who contributed to the debate for the brilliant speeches that I so much enjoyed the opportunity to listen to this afternoon.

Question put.

16:00

Division 134

Ayes: 239

---

Labour: 232
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 3
Plaid Cymru: 3
Independent: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1
Conservative: 1

Noes: 308

---

Conservative: 253
Liberal Democrat: 46
Democratic Unionist Party: 6
Independent: 2

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I now have to announce the result of the deferred Division on the question relating to the draft Charging Orders (Orders for Sale: Financial Thresholds) Regulations 2012. The Ayes were 279 and the Noes were 214, so the Ayes have it.

[The Division list is published at the end of today’s debates.]

Fuel Poverty and Energy Efficiency

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

16:17

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that the typical annual dual fuel energy bill has now hit a record high of £1,400; notes with concern the warning from the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group that 300,000 extra households could be pushed into fuel poverty this winter; further notes analysis by National Energy Action which shows that support for fuel poor and low income households will fall dramatically under the Energy Company Obligation; believes that the most sustainable way for households to cut their energy bills is to make their homes more energy efficient; and calls on the Government to ensure that the Green Deal is offered on fair terms and at affordable interest rates to the public, without punitive upfront assessment fees or early repayment fines, to ensure that appropriate action is taken against energy companies that have not met their obligations under the Community Energy Saving Programme or the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target, and to extend the deadline for Warm Front until the full budget for 2012-13 has been committed to expenditure.

As the cold weather sets in and parts of Britain are plunged into sub-zero temperatures, millions of families up and down the country, who are already reeling from the latest wave of energy price hikes, who have been hit by the strivers’ tax and who are facing an even bigger bill to renew their rail season tickets, now find that even the most basic human task of heating their homes has got a little bit harder than it should be. Today, the average family’s annual energy bill stands at a record high of £1,400, up by nearly £300 since the last election.

There are things beyond the control of any Government. No Government can control the weather from day to day or global gas prices, but the test of any Government is the way they respond to those events and the choices they make. I want to address the choices that this Government have made and show what we would do instead.

When we heard that a written ministerial statement was forthcoming today, it crossed my mind that the Government might have thought about our motion’s proposals and seen sense. Instead, the statement says nothing and does even less. I am afraid that it is not worth the paper it is printed on.

No doubt the Secretary of State will tell us that everything is okay. He will tell us that the warm home discount is helping low-income and vulnerable households, but he will not admit that it was the previous Labour Government who legislated for a compulsory rebate from the energy companies to their poorest customers. Nor will he mention that, under the Government’s scheme, hundreds of families with children are still not getting the help to which they are entitled. He will tell us about the support for local energy schemes that was announced yesterday and the energy company obligation, but he will not say how, even when those are taken into account, the level of support that this Government are providing for vulnerable, low-income and fuel-poor households has halved from what it was last year and that it is a fraction of that in years before that. He will say that it does not matter that Warm Front is ending or that the carbon emissions reduction target and the community energy saving programme have finished, because ECO is being introduced. However, over the next 10 years, the Government expect ECO to lift only 250,000 households out of fuel poverty. That is 50,000 fewer than will fall into fuel poverty this winter alone.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that 850,000 more people are now in debt to their energy suppliers? What does she think the Government should do about that?

[Caroline Flint]

It is very worrying, as my hon. Friend has stated, that Consumer Focus has indicated that both electricity and gas customers—often the same household will pay both bills—are finding that the debt that they owe their energy supplier is going up. That should be an indication that more needs to be done.

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the right hon. Lady agree that it is a scandal that under this Government, for the first time in 30 years, there is no Treasury-funded scheme to insulate people’s homes? Does she support the call to use the revenue from the carbon floor price or the emissions trading scheme on fuel-poverty measures?

[Caroline Flint]

I agree; as I will say in my speech, when Warm Front closes on Saturday, it will be the first time since the 1970s that a British Government have not provided an energy efficiency programme. That is a shame. In answer to the hon. Lady’s second question, I believe that we should look at how we can better deal with the issue of energy efficiency. Although the motion does not cover the suggestion that she has made, we have outlined how we can use some money that is already available to get to some of the most vulnerable households.

The difference between Warm Front and ECO is that the Government pay for Warm Front, whereas consumers pay for ECO through their bills. Starting ECO is therefore no excuse for ending Warm Front before the budget is spent.

As a result of the choices that this Government have made, more people are being pushed into fuel poverty, more people are being forced to choose between eating and heating, and pensioners are going to bed early to seek warmth in a house that they cannot afford to heat. Not only Labour Members are saying that. Transform UK predicts that more than 9 million households will be in fuel poverty by 2016. The Hills fuel poverty review, which was commissioned by this Government, but about which we have heard little since its publication, warned that unless Ministers change course, 200,000 more people are set to be in fuel poverty in the next four years and millions of families will be pushed into even deeper fuel poverty. Before Christmas, the Government’s advisers on fuel poverty, the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group, predicted that 300,000 more people will fall into fuel poverty this winter.

[Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I agree with the right hon. Lady that we want lower energy bills. Does she understand that America followed a much more successful policy than the EU by going for cheap gas? Would she recommend that the EU learns from America so that we can have cheaper gas for all our people as well?

[Caroline Flint]

We have to look at the diversity of our energy supply, but it is unfounded to suggest that there is a silver bullet in relation to gas, because it is unknown as yet. There is another side to what America has done. For example, 40 million people in America are involved in collective switching schemes and, at a local level, community energy generation programmes have been supported through investment. There are things that we can learn from our cousins in America and elsewhere.

However, we are debating the choices that have been made by this Government. The fact that expert organisations are telling all of us as policy makers that the number of people in fuel poverty is going up means that we have to address it. It has not happened by chance or by accident; it has happened because of the choices that this Government have made. They have chosen to end Warm Front. They have chosen to cut winter fuel payments. They have chosen to cut dramatically the support for vulnerable, low-income and fuel-poor households. I am afraid that that is something that they have to face up to.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Will my right hon. Friend reflect on the fact that this ministerial team, in its different guises during this Parliament, and having had a destructive influence on the industry and on jobs in my constituency through the hasty downgrading of input tariffs, has now sneaked out the announcement that it will do away with the Warm Front scheme, which will further erode jobs in my constituency and have a devastating impact on the potential for people to get their houses insulated?

[Caroline Flint]

My hon. Friend is right. One side of this debate is about how we can help those who are fuel poor and tackle housing stock that leaks energy through its walls, roofs and windows. Another side is about hope for the future and addressing, through new forms of energy and energy efficiency, the prospect of real growth and jobs. I will say a little more about the number of jobs that are being lost.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Caroline Flint]

I will give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and then I will make a bit of progress. I might take more interventions later.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

In a previous reply my right hon. Friend spoke about collective switching schemes. May I inform her that, as of this afternoon, 15,034 UK residents have signed up to the Labour-controlled Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s Fair Energy initiative? That will help them benefit from substantial combined purchasing power across the Greater Manchester city region’s 10 councils, and lower household bills as a result. Is that not a result of Labour in action?

[Caroline Flint]

It very much is an example of what Labour councils can do at local level and I am proud that the British Labour party was the first political party in British history to launch its own energy collective switching scheme.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Caroline Flint]

I will make a little progress. A great political myth of our age is that there are no alternatives to the choices that the Government have made, but the truth is that if they can find £3 billion for a tax cut for the highest earners in the country—worth on average £107,000 a year for 8,000 people earning more than £1 million a year—they could have found some money to have kept Warm Front going, to have not cut winter fuel payments, or even to have invested in the green deal to keep interest rates down. However, they did not.

If the Minister wants to compare records I would be happy to do so. Time and again we have heard Ministers claim that fuel poverty went up under the previous Labour Government, which is just not true. Let me lay the myth to rest with a few facts.

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Lady give way?

[Caroline Flint]

No.

The simplest test of any Government’s record is to compare the number of people in fuel poverty when they left office with the number when they took office.

[Mrs Main]

Will the right hon. Lady give way on the point about numbers?

[Caroline Flint]

If the hon. Lady would like to listen to some facts she might learn something. Figures published not by Labour but by the Minister’s Department paint a very different picture to the one the Government try to portray. In 1996, the year before Labour entered office, 6.5 million households were in fuel poverty. In 2010, the year we left office, that number had fallen to 4.75 million—nearly 2 million fewer households in fuel poverty. That can be spun however people like, but those are the facts. Under Labour, fuel poverty went down, not up. That happened because of choices we made—choices to introduce winter fuel payments, to invest in energy efficiency through Warm Front and the decent homes programme, and to ensure that all new homes for the future will be energy efficient and zero carbon. We made a choice to invest in our health services, hospitals and communities to protect the ill, the elderly and the poor from the cold—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) asks from the Government Benches what that has to do with it, but as she should know, a good health service helps to prevent cold-related deaths.

Those are policies for which the Labour party fought and argued, often in the face of opposition. They are policies that Conservative Members pretended to support and pledged to protect when they knocked on doors seeking people’s votes, but which they quickly dumped as soon as they agreed to trade with their coalition partners.

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

The right hon. Lady does not raise the standard of debate when she uses statistics in that way and does not engage with the real issue of how we measure fuel poverty. That is why the Government asked Professor John Hills to carry out a review of how we measure fuel poverty. The right hon. Lady knows that fuel poverty has been correlated more with the price of gas, and at one stage, because of the way fuel poverty statistics work, the Queen was deemed to be in fuel poverty. We want to reform those statistics so that we have a better debate and a better way of targeting money on those in fuel poverty. Does she agree with that?

[Caroline Flint]

Well, the Government certainly are not doing the job of tackling fuel poverty, and that will be outlined further in my speech and in the motion. Who in the House would disagree that the best way for people to save money on their bills is to improve their energy efficiency? That does not just keep out the cold for one year, it does so every year. If ever a Government set out to prove that they were out of touch and completely lacked any common sense, they would begin by making it harder for people to make their homes energy efficient.

[Charles Hendry (Wealden) (Con)]

rose—

[Caroline Flint]

I will perhaps take an intervention a little later, but I have taken quite a lot of interventions and I want to make some progress.

Let me come on to the green deal. We have always said that we want such a scheme to work. All three parties went into the general election with a pay-as-you-save scheme in their manifestos, and the pilot started under the previous Labour Government. Properly executed, it could really help to cut people’s bills and create jobs. In the build-up to the launch of the green deal, the Government have not been shy of making big claims for this policy. Ministers have proclaimed that it would reach 14 million homes by 2020, and 26 million by 2030. We were promised that it would create up to 100,000 jobs by 2015. They told us it would be the biggest home improvement scheme since the second world war. That is not the scheme before us today.

Under this scheme, just to find out eligibility and what measures are available, someone might have to pay £100 or more. This is a scheme where, instead of using the green investment bank to make green deal loans good value—as happens in Germany—interest rates could be as high as 8%. People could end up paying more in interest repayments and charges than the original measures cost. This is a scheme where, if people try to do the right thing and pay off their loan early, or have to pay it off because they are moving house and the new owner does not want to take on the green deal, they will be hit with penalty payments running to thousands of pounds. Yes, the Government who preach about debt will penalise people who want to pay off their debts. Under this scheme, according to the Government’s own impact assessment, the number of lofts lagged every year will plummet by more than 80%. This is a scheme that has so far seen nearly 2,000 people in the insulation industry lose their jobs, and 1,000 more put on notice of redundancy. For all the hype, this is set to be the green disaster, and the public will vote with their feet. Given the choice of deal or no deal, the public, in their millions, will be saying no deal.

Let us look at the obligations on energy companies. Not only have the Government made a mess of their flagship policy, but they have failed to get the energy companies to keep their side of the deal. In government, we put tough obligations on the big energy companies to make them offer energy efficiency measures for free, or at a very low cost, to households in deprived areas. Those programmes were known as the community energy saving programme and the carbon emissions reduction target, and they came into force on 1 October 2009 and ended on 31 December last year. Ministers and Ofgem have therefore had two and a half years to keep the policy on track. Instead, they sat back and did nothing, as month after month companies failed to stay on course, and they watched, in the final few months, as the energy giants threw money at the problem of take-up, which they should have dealt with far sooner and more effectively, instead of leaving their customers to foot the bill.

Ministers cannot say that they did not have any warning. On 16 May last year, I told the Government in this House that the energy companies were not on track to meet their targets. Let me remind the House what the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) said in response:

“we fully expect them to deliver their obligations and we will make sure that they do.”—[Official Report, 16 May 2012; Vol. 545, c. 554.]

Now that the scheme has closed, will the Minister tell us whether he has kept his word and made sure that the energy companies met their obligations, or will he now admit that because of his complacency the energy companies have missed their targets? As a result, families across the country are facing a cold winter with poorly insulated homes when they could have been helped. If those companies have failed to honour their obligations, will he tell the House that he will expect Ofgem, as it states in the motion, to use its full range of powers to take tough action to ensure that companies know that there is a price to pay if they do not do what is required of them?

[Charles Hendry]

The point I wanted to make earlier—I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way—is that in the interests of transparency can she confirm that the number of people in fuel poverty started to come down in about 1995 or 1996, as wholesale prices came down? They continued to decline until 2005, when they bottomed out at approximately 1 million, and then rose inexorably to 3 million, 4 million and 5 million from that point onwards as wholesale prices increased. That was not a matter of political success or failure; it was a matter of wholesale prices more than anything else.

[Caroline Flint]

I do not accept that it is just a matter of wholesale prices. There are issues about prices and I recognise the experience that the hon. Gentleman brings to the Chamber on this issue, but the truth is that if we had not had the decent homes programme, the Warm Front scheme and other measures to help tackle homes that leak energy, in both social and private housing, we could have left office with more people in the grip of fuel poverty. The truth is that the numbers went down.

Under Labour, the Warm Front scheme helped well over 2 million households insulate their homes, improve their energy efficiency and cut their bills. No one would pretend that the scheme is perfect—no scheme of such a size ever is. I have dealt with cases in my constituency where people have not received the kind of service expected, but when Warm Front closes on Saturday, the Government will be, as I have said, the first Administration since the 1970s not to have a Government-funded energy efficiency programme. I do not think that that is a fine record to set.

In its final year, it is no exaggeration to say that Ministers have run the scheme into the ground. The number of people receiving help this year is on course to hit an all-time low. Between 2006 and 2010, nearly 250,000 people were helped each year, but so far this year fewer than 22,000 households have been accepted for help—not 80,000, as the Prime Minister told the House earlier today. In the Secretary of State’s own constituency, just seven households have received assistance in the last year. I am not sure whether that will feature in his election literature in 2015.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I understand that the Warm Front scheme helped a lot of people, but the right hon. Lady will recognise that the Public Accounts Committee report on Warm Front said that it was badly targeted, that about 75% of households were not expected to be in fuel poverty and that it did not really help any countryside house that is off the gas grid.

[Caroline Flint]

Labour has already said that those families and homes off the gas grid should come under better regulation supervised by a new energy watchdog. I take the point from the hon. Lady and others who are concerned about that. As I have already said, I am not suggesting that Warm Front is perfect. These schemes always need to be assessed to see whether they are delivering, but the truth is that 2 million homes were helped. Warm Front helped to ensure that people’s homes up and down the country were warmer.

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is a disgrace that 60% of homes in the country that can take cavity wall insulation have still not received it and that only 2% of those with solid walls have been insulated?

[Caroline Flint]

Absolutely, and the question is this: what have the Government been doing for the past two and a half years? [Interruption.] Well, for a start, 2 million homes received a Warm Front grant under Labour. What is this Government’s record? Let us talk about that. Even families who have been accepted as eligible for help under Warm Front are facing huge delays. Despite being asked parliamentary questions, so far the Government have refused to reveal the average waiting time, but yesterday morning on “Daybreak” I learnt of a single mum called Susannah Hickling who was forced to wait nine months.

From asking other parliamentary questions, I have uncovered a huge backlog. In response to a question on 18 December, the Government were forced to admit that of nearly 22,000 successful applications for Warm Front grants—fewer than we have had in previous times—just 6,000 have resulted in any work, meaning that nearly 16,000 families who have been told that they will receive help are still waiting, in the middle of winter. I understand that the Government are now saying that the backlog is only 14,000. That is hardly a sign of success. If that is the case, I hope that the Secretary of State will update the House on how many households are waiting and when they can expect the work to be done.

On top of that, a further 9,000 people have applied for assistance but are still anxiously waiting to know whether they will get any help before Warm Front closes for good. Notwithstanding the insulation or energy efficiency measures that have finally been installed, the amount of help that people end up receiving has been quietly slashed by two thirds compared with last year. This year, the average level of grant provided under Warm Front is just £997, but last year it was more than three times as much at more than £3,000. In short, we have a scheme in its dying days under which people are receiving less help than ever before, with a massive backlog and thousands of families being given the cold shoulder.

Disgraceful though that is, it gets worse. Despite all the hardship—the cuts in funding, the reduced help, the delays—the Government have been forced to come clean and reveal that more than half the budget is predicted to remain unspent. In answer to a parliamentary question from me on 12 December, the Government confirmed that, from a total budget of £100 million this financial year, just £34.8 million has spent, while another £15.1 million has been committed but not yet spent. That means that more than £50 million that this Government chose to set aside to help low-income households through Warm Front might not even be spent at all. Given that the average Warm Front grant this year has been just under £1,000, that means that some 50,000 low-income or vulnerable households could have received help but will not, unless the scheme is extended and Saturday’s deadline is pushed back.

Let me ask the Secretary of State a straightforward question. What possible justification can there be for shutting down a scheme and turning away people in need when only half the budget has been spent? If he cannot answer that question, will he not see sense today and agree to extend the Warm Front scheme until the entire budget has been spent or committed to expenditure? No one is asking for more money or for the budget to be increased. We are simply saying that if the Government have chosen to set aside £100 million for Warm Front this year, they should at least ensure that this support reaches the people it was intended to reach.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

rose—

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

rose—

[Caroline Flint]

I give way to my hon. Friend.

[Gloria De Piero]

It is a particular outrage and a disgrace—call it what you will—that there is money left over given that I and, I am sure, colleagues across the House are being contacted by constituents, including vulnerable and elderly people, who are trying to get help from Warm Front, but who have been told that they must wait or have not had the answer that they need in these freezing temperatures. It is nothing short of a disgrace.

[Caroline Flint]

It is indeed a disgrace. I do not say this without thinking about it first, but I think this Government have basically driven the scheme into the ground.

It makes it even more unforgiveable that we find ourselves in exactly the same situation as last year, when, despite repeated warnings, the Government had an underspend in the previous financial year of £50.6 million in the Warm Front scheme. Instead of that money helping people to reduce their energy use and cut their bills, it went back to the Treasury—presumably to help to fill the holes in the Chancellor’s borrowing targets. Why were Ministers not on the case? They have known since October 2010 that Warm Front was due to end this Saturday. After last year’s debacle, if I were a Minister I would have been all over this issue and not waiting for another car crash. Indeed, if I can access that information through parliamentary questions, Ministers should have known about the underspend, the backlog and the thousands of applications still waiting to be decided on. If they knew there was a problem, why were they not on the sofas of “Daybreak” or “This Morning”, or out in the country promoting the scheme and ensuring that people knew the help was available? The Government are keen on performance-related pay; perhaps they should start with the pay of Ministers at the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

[Richard Fuller]

I am extraordinarily grateful to the right hon. Lady for giving way. Perhaps my question will move her on to something more constructive and what we can do to improve some of the schemes. She has mentioned the Warm Front scheme and some of the problems with the backlog, but the Public Accounts Committee found that only 35% of the households that were likely to be fuel-poor would be eligible. Does she not think that it behoves us to look at improvements to the scheme? What would she recommend constructively that we could do better?

[Caroline Flint]

I will tell the hon. Gentleman what I recommend. There is £50 million in the Warm Front budget. The Government should delay the closure of the scheme and extend it so that more people can get what they need. Indeed, only 22 people in his constituency got Warm Front in the last year. Is he happy with that? Is he satisfied that £50 million will go back to the Treasury, rather than helping people in Bedford and every other part of this country? I suggest that he put that in his press release for his local paper, explaining why he will sit on £50 million before letting it disappear from the communities in Bedford and everywhere else in the country.

Sometimes there are Opposition motions whose purpose is to express a clear dividing line between us and the Government; sometimes they will contain policies or proposals with which we know the Government will not agree; on the odd occasion they will even be used to make a political point or two. In preparing today’s motion, however, we focused on common-sense solutions to some of the problems relating to Warm Front, the green deal and the obligations of the energy companies, in order to ensure that our energy efficiency schemes deliver, that help reaches those who need it most and that, even in these difficult times, people who are struggling are not needlessly left out in the cold when money is available and has been committed to help them. It is in that spirit that I urge all hon. Members to support a green deal that is a good deal, tougher action on the energy companies if they fail to meet their obligations, and the extension of Warm Front until its entire budget has been spent. I commend the motion to the House.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Seventeen people have indicated that they wish to take part in the debate. The wind-ups will start at 6.40 pm, so we have a limited amount of time for Back-Bench contributions. I shall wait to see how long Mr Davey’s contribution takes before I announce the time limit on Back-Bench speeches, but hon. Members should not think too far outside the five-minute box.

16:45

[The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)]

I am grateful to the Opposition for this opportunity to set out the many things the Government are doing this winter, and in the winters to come, to help people to keep their energy bills as low as possible and to keep their houses warm. I am under no illusion about how hard it is out there this winter. Times are tough, many people’s incomes are not going up, and the cost of necessities such as food is rising. I understand that higher energy prices are hitting some people hard, so let me make it very clear that rising energy bills are one of my greatest concerns.

We need to set the story straight on why energy bills have been rising. They have been driven remorselessly up by wholesale fossil fuel prices, as the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) admitted. Global gas prices were 50% higher in the five years to 2011 than in the previous five years, and they have continued to rise. Sustained higher world oil and gas prices have taken some by surprise because, in the past, prices have fallen when the developed world has experienced recession and low growth. But today, probably for the first time in modern history, the fast-growing economies of China, India, Brazil and other parts of the emerging world are all demanding oil and gas. So world oil and gas prices have remained stubbornly high, and are likely to remain high.

[Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend referred initially not to rising oil and gas prices but to rising fossil fuel prices. Is it not the case that, although coal prices have fallen significantly, we are seeing no benefit from that because we are closing coal-fired power stations, including Kingsnorth in my constituency on 17 December, because of an EU directive?

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is not quite explaining the situation fully. There is an awful lot of coal being burnt in this country and elsewhere, because of its low price, but that has not changed the picture because of the high price of gas.

Britain cannot control the global market. We cannot drive down international wholesale prices, but we must still do everything we can to help the people and businesses facing those rising global prices, especially the most vulnerable and those in fuel poverty—and, despite what the right hon. Member for Don Valley said, we are doing that.

Government policy is designed specifically to drive a wedge between global energy prices and energy bills, now and in the future. It is designed to enable us to cushion and insulate people from the hikes in global fossil fuel prices as best we can. The coalition has a plan to tackle ever-rising energy bills. When the Labour Government were in power, they talked big but did very little. They did not effectively target help on those who needed it most, they did not establish a new market in home energy efficiency and they did not reform the electricity market. We are doing those things. We are acting, whereas they just talked.

[Caroline Lucas]

Will the Secretary of State explain how promoting a major new nuclear power programme, which will require a subsidy of about £4 billion a year and which will inevitably push up prices, is compatible with trying to reduce the impacts on people in fuel poverty? It is going to make energy far more expensive.

[Mr Davey]

Two things surprise me about the hon. Lady’s question. First, she seems to know the details of the ongoing negotiations between EDF and the Government. I pay tribute to her if she knows them, but I have to tell her that her figures are completely wrong. Secondly, I would have thought that, given the real threat of catastrophic climate change, low-carbon energy would have changed a number of people’s views on nuclear power, if we can make it cost effective without public subsidy, in line with the Government’s policy.

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is deliciously ironic that the Green party should be attacking the coalition Government for pursuing a form of energy generation that requires some kind of subsidy when it is determined to festoon the country with wind farms that require enormous subsidies to generate anything at all?

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend tempts me down a particular road, but it does not relate to the motion, so for reasons of time I am happy to get back to what I want to say.

[Charles Hendry]

I was delighted to go to the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) to help open a wind-turbine manufacturing plant, which is keen to take advantage of this technology. That was not, however, the point I wanted to make in this intervention. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Labour did not just talk, but blocked progress? When the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), and I proposed a green deal as an amendment to the Energy Bill under the last Labour Government, Labour vetoed it. We could have seen progress two years earlier than it has happened.

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he is an authority in the House on this issue. It was not just the green deal or nuclear or other things that Labour failed to do when in government; it failed to get investment into the energy system in the UK, and we are having to make up the backlog.

We are helping people now, in the short term, by intervening directly—getting extra money into the pockets of those who need it to pay their bills and looking after those who are struggling most—through the warm home discount. We are helping people now and in the medium term by helping everyone to be able to help themselves to cut their bills by saving energy through the green deal. We are ensuring through the Energy Bill that our country and future generations are not hit by future volatile fossil fuel prices, as we are being hit by major reforms for a more competitive, more diverse market of suppliers and energy sources. Let me deal with each of those areas in turn

[Richard Fuller]

rose—

[Mr Davey]

Before I do, I shall give way to my hon. Friend.

[Richard Fuller]

We all recognise the differences between this Government and the last Government. This time money is short, whereas the last Government spent like drunken sailors money that they did not have. When we deal with fuel poverty, we thus want to ensure that the funding is focused on those who really need it. Will the Secretary of State address the issue that under the last Government schemes were not targeted on those who really needed them, and tell us what this Government are doing about it?

[Mr Davey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am coming on to talk about that right now. Looking at the actions we are taking, it is clear that we are helping the poorest and most vulnerable with targeted extra money to help with winter bills. We need to make sure that those who feel the cold most sharply and those who can least afford to pay can put on the heating in the knowledge they will receive extra help to pay for it. For many pensioners, winter fuel payments make a valuable contribution to paying their energy bills. That is why we have protected winter fuel payments in line with the budget set out by Labour. Last year, we made over 12 million payments to over 9 million households at a cost of around £2.6 billion.

We are doing more for the poorest pensioners and for many other vulnerable households through cold weather payments. When the coalition came to office, cold weather payments were at £8.50 a week and had only temporarily been raised to £25. As cold weather payments target the most vulnerable when they need it the most, the coalition decided, despite the tough financial situation, to keep cold weather payments at £25 a week and to make that permanent, investing an extra £50 million a year. About 4.2 million people are currently eligible—older people on pension credit, disabled adults, families with children under five on an income-related benefit. They can now be sure that—year in, year out—if the temperature drops dramatically, they will get help with energy bills. We should be proud of that.

[Mrs Main]

The Secretary of State is making an enormously persuasive argument, far more persuasive than simply continuing with Warm Front, which was not targeted and certainly did not reach the people it should have reached. This is a much better use of public money.

[Mr Davey]

I will come on to the energy efficiency part of our measures; at the moment, I am showing how we are using money very effectively to help people with their bills.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Davey]

I want to make a bit more progress.

In addition to the winter fuel allowance and cold weather payments, the coalition brought in the warm home discount—a legal obligation on the energy companies that we introduced for direct cuts to the energy bills of the most vulnerable. The Opposition rarely mention this, although to be fair to the right hon. Member for Don Valley she mentioned it today. She will know that so far this winter, more than 1 million low-income pensioners have already received the warm home discount to help keep them warm—and, with them, almost a million other vulnerable households with mandatory rebates worth £288 million this year alone, automatically cutting the bills of the most vulnerable by £130 a year. The Opposition do not normally mention that because it is clear evidence that we are doing everything we can to tackle fuel poverty, despite the financial situation we inherited. Even before cold weather payments can be claimed, a poor pensioner over 80 is guaranteed to receive £430 of help with their energy bill. Under Labour, a vulnerable household was not guaranteed anything, but with the coalition’s warm home discount, they can get £130 off for sure. That is real help.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

How can the Secretary of State say that a pensioner over the age of 80 was not entitled to £400 under Labour, when they were entitled to £400 under Labour’s winter fuel scheme? Will he come clean and tell the House that his Government have cut that to £300, at the same time as cutting the £250 to £200? Can he tell us one week in this winter in which the cold weather payment has been paid to people in the UK?

[Mr Davey]

First, cold weather payments are related to the weather, which the coalition Government do not control, as the right hon. Member for Don Valley was at least good enough to acknowledge. I am afraid that the hon. Lady’s figures are wrong. Under Labour, £300 of winter fuel payments went to all pensioners, but through the warm home discount we guarantee £130 off their bills from the energy companies, so that amounts to £430 off for elderly pensioners. That did not happen under Labour.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

One thing the Government could do is make winter fuel payments earlier so that people who are off grid and buy large amounts of oil, gas, coal or wood got more value from the money the Government are giving them. Will he consider that? Such a proposal was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Mr Weir) in a Bill that was blocked by Government Members.

[Mr Davey]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the Department for Work and Pensions administers that benefit, and I am sure that he has made that request to the Secretary of State for that Department. My Department has been encouraging people in many parts of the country who are off grid to buy early, because they can get much better deals than if they leave it until later.

Although the extra payments are welcome to those who get them, they are not received by everybody. They do not address the fundamental problem of homes and appliances that waste energy and money. Britain’s draughty homes account for a quarter of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Millions of homes do not have full double glazing. More than half do not have enough insulation or an efficient condensing boiler. Most do not even have proper heating controls. The single most effective means of bringing bills down for people, including for the most vulnerable, is to help people waste less energy. Energy efficiency is about using less energy to provide the same warmth, or more. That means lower bills and lower carbon emissions.

[Caroline Flint]

I quote the written ministerial statement from today:

“The Warm Front scheme has been an important policy in tackling fuel poverty among private sector households in England though the installation of a range of heating, insulation and other energy efficiency measures”

and since 2000 it

“has helped around 2.3 million households vulnerable to fuel poverty.”

Given that this budget has a £50 million underspend, will the Secretary of State explain why he is not urging his colleagues in Government to extend the Warm Front deadline so that the budget can be spent to help the very people he has just been talking about?

[Mr Davey]

I am coming to the Warm Front scheme, because the right hon. Member for Don Valley made much of the fact that we are closing it down. Under the previous Government, the Warm Front scheme was the vehicle by which some vulnerable households were helped, but we consider the scale of the fuel poverty challenge to be much greater, and, as she has admitted, there were problems with the scheme. We are far more ambitious, because fuel poverty must be tackled and Britain has some of the oldest and, therefore, draughtiest, housing stock in Europe. If we are serious about climate change and tackling high energy bills, we should not help just those who are at risk of fuel poverty, although they should of course be a priority. We believe that everyone should have the opportunity to green-proof their house and achieve lower energy bills in the process.

Warm Front will be closing, as announced more than two years ago, but applications will continue to be accepted up to 19 January, and the work will be followed through, for all who apply up to 19 January. I have set out to the House today in a written statement how that transition will work. Even before 19 January, we brought in Warm Front’s successor—the affordable warmth scheme, which the right hon. Lady did not mention, and which is part of our new energy company obligation. Affordable warmth is up and operating, and low-income households who previously could get Warm Front can now get affordable warmth. It and the energy company obligation, which are both now in operation, will support our most ambitious policy of all—the green deal.

This is a transformative moment. We shall see the full launch of the green deal this month. From 28 January, all households will be eligible for it. They will be able to make energy-saving improvements that will be paid for, over time, through their energy bills and the savings that they make. This is an affordable way of retrofitting millions of homes, making them cheaper to heat and lowering carbon emissions at the same time.

The right hon. Member for Don Valley rightly wanted to talk about Warm Front and the details of its budget. I shall deal with that now, although she herself admitted that there will problems with Warm Front. As she said, we have spent £38.4 million of the £100 million budget, and £15.5 is committed. We expect to spend about £70 million by the end of the year. We will not return the remaining £30 million to the Treasury, as the right hon. Lady implied, because we want to do all that we can to address fuel poverty, and we have worked hard to ensure that the money is spent on tackling it, organising a local authority competition for cash from a special fuel poverty fund. I told the House yesterday that about £30 million was being provided for local authorities across the country to spend on local energy efficiency projects for low-income and vulnerable households. There will be no waste. As it comes to the end of its life, Warm Front is being recycled, and what is replacing it is infinitely better.

Opposition Members seem to think that Warm Front was a fantastic scheme, but people had to apply for it, whereas under affordable warmth the energy companies will have to go out and find people in order to help them. I should have expected Opposition Members to support that.

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

The Government announced yesterday that extra money would be available under the affordable warmth scheme. In Stoke-on-Trent, it will amount to £290,000, which could help 200 homes. However, when a quarter of the population are in fuel poverty, that is a drop in the ocean.

[Mr Davey]

Opposition Front Benchers criticised me for not spending the money. I have just told the House that we are spending the money, and now I am being criticised again. I am afraid that sometimes one cannot win.

[Richard Fuller]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Davey]

I want to make a bit more progress.

[Caroline Flint]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Davey]

I will give way to the right hon. Lady.

[Caroline Flint]

When—in, I believe, October 2012—the Secretary of State announced the competition for local authorities seeking to win money to help energy efficiency locally, did he make it clear that it would be Warm Front money? He has said that £30 million will go towards the scheme. What is happening to the other £20 million of Warm Front underspend?

[Mr Davey]

The right hon. Lady was clearly not listening when I said that we expected that amount to be spent by the end of the year. [Interruption.] It would help if the right hon. Lady listened now. She will know that uncertainties are involved in schemes such as this—even Labour could not macro-manage everything—but we expect to spend about £70 million.

The right hon. Lady asked whether we had announced that the money would come from the Warm Front scheme. We did not do so, because we were not absolutely sure what we would be spending on Warm Front by the end of the year. I wanted to ensure that we were making fuel poverty a priority, and that any underspend from Warm Front or anywhere else was targeted at it. Now the right hon. Lady is criticising me—

[Caroline Flint]

The Secretary of State has misled Parliament.

[Hon. Members]

Withdraw!

[Mr Davey]

I certainly think that the right hon. Lady should withdraw that. Being accused of misleading Parliament, even from a sedentary position, is serious, and I think that she will wish to withdraw that accusation.

[Caroline Flint]

I am happy to withdraw it, but I will look into the facts to establish whether it was made clear in that announcement that the money would come from Warm Front.

[Mr Davey]

We did not need to.

Through targeted intervention to help the most vulnerable and by helping people to insulate their homes, we can help them to keep their bills down, but if we are to keep bills as low as possible in the long term, we shall need to ensure that there is a competitive market of diverse suppliers and diverse energy sources in which consumers can obtain the best possible deal. The Energy Bill, which is now before Parliament, is designed to do just that. We had a full debate on Second Reading just before Christmas, so I shall not go into the details of the Bill now, but I will say something about tariff switching, because I think that that has already been raised in the debate.

Switching has been the principal way to ensure suppliers compete for customers and to enable more suppliers into the market, but some statistics suggest the system is not working as well as it might and the majority of consumers do not seek out the best deals. Some 75% of consumers are on their supplier’s standard variable rate tariff, which tends to be more expensive. We therefore need to shake up the market.

We shall do so in two ways. First, we must help the vast majority of consumers who do not shop around to get the cheapest tariff their supplier offers that is in line with their current preferences. Secondly, we need to help and encourage people to shop around for even better deals, with better and more helpful and simple information on bills.

Many Members will by now know about my personal focus—some might say obsession—on collective switching, as it can help cut bills, promote competition and address fuel poverty. That is a collective solution to fuel poverty that the Labour party never thought of in 13 years. It is about encouraging people no longer to be passive consumers of energy, but to be active consumers, clubbing together to strike a better deal than they can get alone, and using the weight of thousands of voices—or whole local authority areas—to drive a harder bargain. It was not the Labour party that first pushed this idea into the political debate; it was this coalition Government and, if I dare say so, I and the Liberal Democrats in particular. This is about rekindling the spirit of co-operatives.

I have spoken many times about the many examples of this policy working, including examples in Belgium, the Consumers Association’s “Big Switch”, and examples involving South Lakeland district council and Cornwall Together. Yesterday, I announced the winners of “cheaper energy together”, a £5-million competition I set up last year to stimulate collective switching across the UK. I was thrilled so many councils and community groups applied. There were 114 bids, and the 31 successful bids cover 94 different local councils, so this year millions of people will have the opportunity to take part in collective switching schemes.

New ideas such as collective switching are part of the answer to high energy bills and fuel poverty, but no single measure will bring bills down, keep bills down and end fuel poverty. Today I have outlined a series of measures that will help people, both this winter and in winters to come, to keep warm at an affordable price, to save energy and to change the dynamic in the markets. While no Government can control global energy prices, we will do everything we can to limit the impact on people.

Taking all our policies together, by 2020 the average household energy bill will be 7%, or £94, lower than if this Government were not pursuing our energy and climate change policies. Last year, our independent review of fuel poverty suggested that our policies are reducing fuel poverty: we are doing the right things. That is good news, but there is no room for complacency.

No party in this House has a monopoly on compassion. When there are reports of people having to choose between heating and eating, we are rightly determined to make sure that we help the most vulnerable. I will do everything I can with my colleagues across Government, as well as working across the House and with business and consumer groups alike, to make sure that the choice between heating and eating becomes a thing of the past.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. A five-minute time limit on speeches is in place, and if Members shave a bit off their allowed time all of them will be called. Members should also be aware that if there are a lot of interventions, Members will be dropped off the list.

17:08

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

This is one of the very few issues that can unite households across the United Kingdom. Labour Members have demonstrated that our party believes it is important to speak up for consumers, who are at the sharp end of ever-rising energy costs. Families and households are struggling to pay their bills. Let there be no doubt about the hardship that is being caused to millions of families and people, old and young, working and non-working.

Set against that background, it is important to understand that consumers have no appetite for rhetoric. They want Government intervention. They are demanding a fair price for the necessities of gas and electricity. We parliamentarians should be on the side of the consumers and be demanding transparency from the energy suppliers.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

The energy companies have paid out £7 billion in dividends. Does my right hon. Friend agree that some of that money could have been used to lower energy costs for the needy in this country?

[Mr Clarke]

My hon. Friend has made an excellent point.

Just before our Christmas recess, I raised this issue with the Prime Minister when I said:

“let us be transparent…as one body has advised, approaching 9 million households suffer from fuel poverty, which is the highest since records began? Will he explain to the House and our constituents, as we approach Christmas, what the Government are prepared to do about the horrible scandal of fuel poverty?”

To be fair, the Prime Minister agreed with me in his reply, saying that I was

“entirely right that fuel poverty is a scandal and that it needs to be dealt with”.—[Official Report, 19 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 851-52.]

However, he challenged my figures. Today, in common with my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), I put on the record the fact that they came from the Government’s own advisers. The Energy Secretary must know that that is the case. If we are going to set the record straight, as I believe I have just done, we may learn what plans the Government have to help to reduce the horrendous levels of fuel poverty, which are clearly identified in the report I referred to and clearly understood by hon. Members on both sides of the House.

No fuel poverty figures are available on a Scottish constituency basis. Lanarkshire has two councils, and at this point I wish to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) for the excellent point he made about councils getting together—mainly Labour councils—to protect their constituents against the excesses of the prices being imposed on them. North Lanarkshire council has 37,000 households in fuel poverty, which represents 26% of the housing stock. The adjacent South Lanarkshire council has 45,000 households in fuel poverty, which represents 32% of the housing stock. Given those shocking levels of fuel poverty, my Lanarkshire MP colleagues are supporting an initiative that has resulted in my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) and I meeting the leadership of the North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire councils—again, that took place just before Christmas. I do not want to overstate the position, but the response from the Lanarkshire council leaders and the situation we have reached are deeply encouraging. Although it is important to hold the Government to account for their policies, it is now incumbent on Opposition Members to be more thoughtful and innovative. That is what my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley and my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish are aiming to do. Our duty is to offer alternative solutions, as we are doing.

On 23 January 2007, I said:

“It is my intention to explore every avenue with all relevant bodies. I have written to Ofgem—the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets—which has a duty to consumers, and to the Office of Fair Trading, which has a duty to ensure that, frankly, a cartel is not operating against the public interest.”—[Official Report, 23 January 2007; Vol. 455, c. 381WH.]

I am more convinced today than I was then about the probability of a cartel of energy companies being in operation. For example, I tabled three very simple parliamentary questions asking for facts that consumers are entitled to know, but not one was the subject of a reply. If we are talking about transparency, right hon. and hon. Members of this House are entitled to replies to the questions they put. If we are to hear from the Prime Minister information that is clearly wrong and if his Ministers give us the impression that they are living in another world, we are entitled to ask what the facts are. We are entitled to build on those facts, which we know because of our own experience in our constituencies. On the evidence so far, what is happening on fuel poverty suggests that it is time that this House asserted itself and said enough is enough.

17:15

[David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)]

We are all united today in lamenting the fact that so many people are suffering as a result of fuel poverty. I listened with great interest as the Minister, the shadow Minister and right hon. and hon. Members discussed what they would do about it—all the schemes that they have put in place, the Warm Front scheme, cold weather payments, the green deal, the affordable warmth scheme, collective switching, bashing the energy companies, subsidising people to put insulation in their lofts, and whether pensioners were getting £300 or £400 under Labour. There was no agreement about that, but it struck me that there was not a great deal of difference in what any of them were suggesting. The only difference was that Opposition Members were promising to do more of it and spend even more money, although of course they have no money because, as they admitted, they spent it all. There was very little difference.

We are failing to address a fundamental question. The energy policies of all parties in the House are predicated on the fact that man-made carbon dioxide emissions are causing global warming, that this is a problem and something must be done, and that the something that must be done is to change the way in which we generate electricity so that we do it through renewables and fund this through subsidies, which have to be passed on to consumers. Of course more people are suffering from fuel poverty under this Government and the previous Government. They always will, because we are pursuing policies that are increasing the cost of energy and we should be honest about that.

If we are to be honest about that, we would have to be honest about something else as well: the problem that we are trying to confront does not appear to be a problem. In 15 years, according to the Met Office website, there has been no increase in temperature. Let us think about that for a minute. Since 1992 the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has been chucking out predictions, one after another, telling us that there are going to be monumental rises in temperature as a result of the fact that we are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

In the 150 years of industrialisation, the temperature increase has been around 0.7° and much of that will be due to the fact that we were coming out of a period of unusual cooling anyway from about the time that we industrialised. But for the past 15 years there has been no increase whatever. All the industrialisation that has gone on in China, India, Brazil and all those other countries has not led to a trace of an increase in global warming, which is another reason why so many people will stay in fuel poverty: they will continue to have to spend large amounts of money heating their homes.

I have spent a great deal of time looking into this issue. I voted for the various carbon taxes and the climate change Bills, and I am coming to regret the fact that I did. But I did not have the information that is now out there. For ages I could not even find the Met Office figures that show that there have been no increases. If there are no increases, it is surely reasonable to conclude that something other than carbon dioxide is affecting the atmosphere and climatic and temperature changes. If that is so, perhaps we need to rethink our entire energy policy—all of us.

I have come to the conclusion that it is time to do away with the carbon taxes, the subsidies and all the rest of it, to allow energy companies to generate electricity as cheaply as they can and to sell it to consumers as cheaply as they can. I look at America, where this approach has been tried out. The price of electricity for domestic users has halved in the United States as a result of the exploitation of shale gas through fracking. Obviously, Ministers will get no support from the environmentalists, but they will get no support from them anyway.

The first Member who intervened on the Minister was the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), the Green party Member, complaining about subsidies. I have never heard anything so ludicrous as a member of the Green party complaining about energy subsidies and energy price increases. We have followed its policies to some extent and obviously all renewable energies need subsidies and they will always lead to an increased cost, which is passed straight on to the consumer.

[Caroline Lucas]

I did not want to interrupt the hon. Gentleman because I did not want to give him any encouragement whatever, but he has now challenged me. Does he accept that fuel bills are rising now because of rising gas prices, not because of anything to do with support for renewables?

[David T. C. Davies]

I can assure the hon. Lady that I need absolutely no encouragement whatsoever. It would be a pleasure to discuss this issue with her at some point. She will understand that gas prices in the United States have not just halved—they are around a quarter of what they were a few years ago as a result of the exploitation of shale gas. I am tempted to suggest that she should join me in supporting that exciting new technology, but I have a feeling that I know what the answer will be. Of course she will not support it, and she will not support the Severn barrage, either, even though that would allow us to generate electricity without carbon emissions. She will not support nuclear power, even though that allows us to generate electricity without the carbon emissions that she would suggest are the greatest threat to our climate.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making a very interesting speech. He has mentioned the United States and the fact that gas prices have gone down by a factor of four. The other interesting thing about the United States is that it was the OECD country that reduced carbon emissions the most last year, by replacing coal with gas—exactly the opposite of what Germany is doing.

[David T. C. Davies]

I thank my hon. Friend for that point. I am out of time and I will not impose on you, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Tear up the carbon taxes, tear up the subsidies—let us start again, deliver the cheap energy we know is out there and end fuel poverty that way.

17:20

[Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)]

As I follow the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies), and having heard the exchanges just now, I know that I am on the side of the Secretary of State. It is vital that whatever the Government do on energy policy puts into effect the Climate Change Act 2008. If hon. Members, in the five minutes they have in which to make a speech, go on and on about the issues of climate change and scepticism—as we have just heard from the hon. Gentleman—we will not deal with the large number of people who, as we sit here, are unable to deal with the cold in their own homes.

Five minutes is not a proper amount of time in which to rush through a speech, but if there is any way that the Secretary of State could use the revenue from the European emissions trading scheme and the carbon floor price to provide the additional resources needed to eradicate fuel poverty once and for all, that would be just one contribution to this wide-ranging and complex debate that could make a difference to people in my constituency and across the UK.

As we heard from my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke), as many as 9 million people will experience fuel poverty by 2016. We must deal with that and doing so would I believe give heart to the 25% of households in Stoke-on-Trent who are in fuel poverty. Last week, the cold weather payment was triggered. That means that those people are having to decide whether to heat their homes or to feed their families. Our constituents are having to make those choices, so our debate today is timely. Although I welcome the money announced yesterday that will improve however many households, it will not produce effects on the scale needed to deal with the hardship that people face.

We have heard about the Warm Front scheme, and although it had its problems, the fact that it will end this Saturday—although we were given prior notice—raises the question of what will happen to that funding. I do not think that it should just go back to the Treasury or that the Department of Energy and Climate Change should just say that there will be extra money for different programmes. We need additional money and I urge the Government to consider that in the context of the current crisis.

Many Members want to speak, so I shall be brief. The green deal is fine for those who will be able to take out loans at 7% interest rates, but that will not be an option for the majority of people in my constituency. If we can increase expenditure on energy efficiency, that will create jobs, putting money back into local economies to make a difference.

The energy company obligation—the ECO scheme—will probably be of some help in Stoke-on-Trent. As we worked so hard to set up the warm zone scheme, into which I had a big input over the years, we are now well placed to know where the households are that can be targeted.

My final point is about district heating networks, which we must consider from the point of view of innovation. We need to look at what the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is doing and how the Treasury is making money available. We also need to look at best practice in other European countries. If the Government are going to have a heat strategy that tries to increase the use of waste industrial heat in urban centres, that is exactly what Stoke-on-Trent would benefit from. The Government have set up a competition on carbon capture and storage. Why could they not think about giving technical support to ways of introducing district heating systems and providing some of the capital, preferably using money from the UK Green Investment Bank?

We need to step up the way in which we are dealing with fuel poverty and the whole energy agenda by viewing it as a crisis. It is not only about the need to decarbonise the economy; the crisis is also there in the homes and lives of our constituents. In this debate—I welcome the fact that it is an Opposition debate—we must find a way of moving the whole agenda forward.

17:25

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

I will start on a positive note. The motion states that

“the most sustainable way for households to cut their energy bills is to make their homes more energy efficient”.

I could not agree more, as I said in my speech on Second Reading of the Energy Bill. To recap:

“Energy saving is the quickest and cheapest way to cut carbon emissions and so should be at the heart of…reform.”—[Official Report, 19 December 2012; Vol. 555, c. 930.]

However, I struggle with much of the rest of the motion, as Labour’s record on fuel poverty was appalling. Between 2004 and 2009, the number of households in fuel poverty rose from 2 million to 5.5 million, with the burden falling disproportionately on vulnerable households. If we accept the shadow Secretary of State’s logic, this was entirely—or at least mainly—down to choices made by the then Government. Under Labour, fuel poverty among vulnerable households trebled in just six years, with an increase of 500,000 from 2006 to 2007, just before the financial crash. In 2008, the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group went as far as to say:

“The Government appears to have given up on the legally binding 2010 Fuel Poverty Target”.

I am prepared to admit that a lot of that was due to wholesale energy prices, and that is what one does in a grown-up debate when one is searching for solutions and consensus. But it is a pity that Labour Front Benchers do not seem capable of that.

In Government, we are introducing measures to help millions of low-income and vulnerable households to meet the cost of heating their homes through the energy company obligation and the warm home discount scheme. There are winter fuel payments for more than 12.6 million pensioners in 9 million households and additional cold weather payments. We have welcomed the report by Professor John Hills that suggested a move away from the current definition of fuel poverty. The review is right to say that we should direct support to those who need it most rather than merely those with very large, difficult-to-heat houses, regardless of their income. I am pleased to say that we are not taking, and will not take, our lead on the issue from Labour, because this Government are committed to sustainable and affordable energy reform that will help people today while protecting our planet, our jobs and the economy in future.

In the medium to longer term, unfortunately, pressures on wholesale energy prices will probably mean that household energy bills go up. However, we have introduced new measures to ensure that energy companies are up front with people about the tariff they are on, and we are making suppliers more accountable to consumers by strengthening Ofgem’s role. Let us be clear: wholesale energy prices are a reason for increasing our investment in renewables to increase our energy security and help to insulate this country from the unpredictable wholesale market instead of running headlong towards the mirage of cheap shale gas. These reforms are radical and positive, and they will ensure that people get the best value for money.

Measures announced by the Government to ensure that consumers get the best deals on their energy prices reflect our determination to tackle rising energy bills. This is not just for fuel-poor households. Which? has stated that 82% of consumers list the cost of energy and fuel as a top financial concern, and it is even worse for those who are off-grid. We are therefore encouraging increased competition in the sector, and we have also made sure that providers are up front with consumers about whether they are on the cheapest tariff. Only yesterday it was announced that the £5 million made available by this Government to set up collective switching schemes has been awarded to 31 successful bids. One of those is Changeworks, which has formed a group of several Scottish local authorities, including Edinburgh, as well as Kingdom housing association. I welcome the £414,000 that they have received to assist with that.

As I have said here before, the best way for most consumers to reduce the impact of rising bills is through energy efficiency measures. The green deal will have a positive impact on the energy efficiency of households. As the report of the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group states, it provides

“an opportunity to establish an effective framework that can deliver against the twin objectives of eradicating fuel poverty and significantly reducing carbon emissions”.

Time is beating me.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mike Crockart]

No, I will not, because—[Interruption.] If the hon. Lady listens for a moment, she will learn that I have missed out on the opportunity to speak at the end of debates in the past because other hon. Members have taken interventions, so I will not do that.

Finally, the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group notes a lack of public knowledge and awareness of Government schemes aimed at improving energy efficiency. That is certainly a concern and I am sure that the Minister is taking it seriously. As local Members, however, we need to assume our own responsibility, so I encourage each and every Member to set an example by becoming an early adopter and having our own houses assessed and improved under the green deal.

17:30

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Fuel poverty varies a great deal around the UK. The rate in Northern Ireland is 44%, which is explicable by the lack of gas up the pipe—more people are off-grid. The rate in Scotland is 28%, in Wales 26% and in England 16%. The Bevan Foundation estimates that fuel poverty in Wales is high, with 332,000 households in fuel poverty. Figures are also available for the regions of England. Fuel poverty hits rural England very hard indeed, but it is interesting that the rate in the south of England is 11.5%.

Wales is disproportionately hit by higher fuel bills. Incomes in Wales are lower and the percentage of people’s incomes devoted to energy is higher, and that, of course, leads to fuel poverty. We are also hit hard by Government policy on benefits. If benefits are to go up by only 1%, including, I might add, benefits for hard-working families, fuel inflation will, clearly, be much higher. That is not unique to Wales, but it is hitting us particularly hard, given the level of wages in Wales and the number of people who are dependent on in-work benefits.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Some 86,000 pensioners in the United Kingdom fail to claim all of their pension credits, 12,000 fail to claim their full housing benefit and 24,000 died in the last calendar year owing to cold-related illnesses. Is it not time that the Minister, along with the Department for Work and Pensions, make every effort to ensure that all those moneys that are not claimed are claimed by those vulnerable people who need it most?

[Hywel Williams]

That is a very good point. I hope that the Government’s pension policy will address some of that under-claiming. I will refer later to a particular aspect of this question—namely winter payments—which the hon. Gentleman will certainly be interested in.

There is less availability of mains gas in Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland and rural England. That leads to rural areas being dependent on off-grid fuel, which is a point that I made to the Secretary of State earlier. People have to adopt and then pay for alternatives that are, of themselves, much more expensive and, of course, they have to pay up front. I came across a case last week of a pensioner who had been saving hard all year, essentially to put £600-worth of fuel into a tank in her garden. It was quite a strain.

Delivery in winter, particularly of gas, can be difficult, as we found in north-west Wales two years ago, when some households with pensioners could not heat their houses because the lorry could not get up to the house and they could not afford to put money up front earlier in the year. It is all very well to talk about switching and getting the best deal but, as I said earlier, pensioners would be much better off if they could spend the money given to them by the Government earlier in the year, when coal and gas are cheaper. They would get more bangs for the buck—I am sorry for that particular remark, but they would get more for their money.

There is limited potential for switching because of the cost. People cannot change the equipment easily if they are off-grid. For example, converting a solid fuel stove to gas costs a great deal of money. Switching suppliers is less common among those with off-grid fuel than for those with electricity or mains gas. The Office of Fair Trading figures for 2011 show that 3.7% of people with such solid, liquid and gas fuels switched supplier. People who depend on cylinder gas, although I concede that they are very few, are in an even more difficult situation.

I was glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Angus (Mr Weir) introduced a private Member’s Bill to allow winter fuel payments to be made earlier in the year, but it was blocked. I hope that the Government will look at that idea sympathetically.

Wales is in the bizarre situation of being rich in mineral and renewable sources of energy, but having one of the highest levels of fuel poverty in the UK. We are energy rich and fuel poor. According to the Welsh Government, we have the potential to produce double the amount of electricity that we need. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change here in London, Wales is a net exporter of electricity, and yet energy prices in Wales are among the highest.

We in Plaid Cymru have called for planning decisions on energy to be devolved. It is our belief that that would improve the situation markedly. Last year, my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) presented a simple and reasonable Bill to devolve energy planning policy to the Welsh Government.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Hywel Williams]

I will resist, given that I am nearly at the end of my remarks and other people want to speak.

We want to see devolution that puts Wales on an equal footing with Scotland and Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, that was resisted by Government Members, with a few honourable exceptions.

As many Members have said, people should not have to choose between heating and eating—not in the UK and certainly not in energy-rich Wales.

17:37

[Kwasi Kwarteng (Spelthorne) (Con)]

I am very grateful for the opportunity to speak in this important debate.

At the outset, we must establish a couple of facts. First, as we all know, the British Government are even now borrowing £100 billion a year, so the budget is very constrained. Secondly, despite the budgetary constraints and the economic pressure that we are all under, the coalition Government remain pledged to keeping the winter fuel allowance and to their environmental commitments in the green deal. Those are significant facts.

If we look at fuel prices—I notice that the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) is chuntering in a sedentary position—over the past 20 or 30 years, it is an indisputable fact that privatisation led, in its initial phase, to a fall in prices. Competition and a degree of free enterprise reduced costs.

We all know that over the past 10 years in particular, costs have increased. That has been caused by two factors. The first, which has been alluded to by the Front-Bench speakers, is the increase in fossil fuel prices and energy prices. People have talked about the rise of China. The fact that it is developing quickly and consuming a huge amount of energy has put prices up.

The second factor, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies) alluded, is green legislation. Members from across the House hold different views about the nature or reality—or the unreality if that is what they feel—of climate change. However, it is indisputable that the green legislation that was introduced to decarbonise our economy has added to fuel costs in the short run.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

As we use tariffs to increase electricity produced from wind turbines and solar power, we are subsidising that electricity through consumers. That will, in itself, push up the price of energy and bring about more fuel poverty. We must recognise that.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

There must be a realisation that we cannot expect to regulate and put more taxes on activities, while at the same time expecting those activities to be cheaper. There must be some give in all of this. The Government have managed a balancing act pretty well in very difficult times. We can look—I intend to do so in the second half of my speech—at the record of the previous Labour Government, certainly between 1997 and 2010. In many ways they were deeply irresponsible on this issue.

Another factor that drives up costs is supply. In this rather lengthy debate on which we have embarked, no one—apart from a few comments from Opposition Members bashing private companies—has mentioned supply, yet that is crucial to cost. The previous Labour Government did nothing to secure this country’s long-term energy future. There was no planning or provision for energy supply.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a point about supply. Is it not the case that during Labour’s years we started with 15 energy suppliers and ended with six? The Labour party reduced, not increased, the supply.

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that pertinent remark. Not only was there a reduction, but there was no recognition of any long-term strategic need of this country.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

Forgive me. There was, however, a considerable amount of spending, and as the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) has acknowledged, that spending was not particularly smart. It was not directed to the most vulnerable; Labour simply spread it around in their usual style and hoped they would get results as a consequence. Again, that was a deeply irresponsible way in which to conduct the public finances.

[Caroline Flint]

In a mature way I was honest about acknowledging that big Government schemes often have situations in which the service is not as good as it might be. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that helping 2 million people through Warm Front was not worth doing?

[Kwasi Kwarteng]

I am not saying that for a second. I am saying that it is one thing to spend money, but quite another to spend it effectively. Under the previous Labour Government, yes, it is true, the money was spent; they were world champions at spending public money and no one disputes that. I am, however, disputing whether that money was spent effectively. Many people—indeed, the electorate in 2010—believed that that money was not spent particularly effectively.

In the remaining moments of my speech let us look more closely at Labour’s record. As the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) pointed out, fuel poverty increased hugely during the Labour years. I am not so partisan as to say that it was all Labour’s fault, and I have acknowledged that there were rising fuel costs and that we were in a commodity cycle which meant that fuel costs were going to go up. It is a fact, however—such facts cannot simply be wished away—that fuel poverty increased dramatically under the previous Labour Government for the reasons I have outlined.

It is nauseating for Government Members to be lectured on fuel poverty by the right hon. Member for Don Valley and her friends, when their record was so dismal. The Government Front Bench are trying to do exactly the right thing under straitened economic circumstances and with difficult public finances. They are trying to get a fair deal not only for our constituents, but for businesses up and down the country. There is a recognition that a lot of interests are being balanced in a fair way.

17:44

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

I would like to bring to the debate an issue that a number of my constituents have asked me to raise: direct debit payments to energy companies. As the Secretary of State recognised in his opening comments, the cost of living is rising, energy bills are soaring and there are increasing concerns about job security, and so people are trying to manage their finances responsibly. Debt is a major worry for low-income families, as it is for us all. According to research by Save the Children and YouGov, 71% of parents on the lowest incomes are worried that energy bills will push them into debt. Heating the home is always a priority.

Direct debit appears to be a good way to predict and manage your monthly expenditure, and energy companies often offer incentives if you pay by direct debit. Many of my constituents have taken up the offer, thinking that they are saving money and acting prudently. Across the country, 65% of people are paying by direct debit. For a few months, the arrangement works. Then the energy companies send a letter saying that the direct debit payments are going up, often by more than 50%. The companies say that this is to account for “increased usage”, and that the original estimate they gave, which was the reason to switch to them, was inaccurate. From my personal experience, customers are not given alternative methods of payment or told by how much usage has increased, just that extra money will be taken from their account. That is presented as a fact and is not a point for debate, leaving no option but to accept and pay the increased amount, regardless of the impact on the household budget.

This summer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) wrote to all of the big six energy providers. Only SSE and npower responded. Npower, the biggest provider of energy in Yorkshire and so most pertinent to Rotherham, stated that more than 3.7 million domestic customers were in credit to it. Surely that figure proves that the majority of people do not need their direct debit to be increased. Npower also stated that the average level of credit is £106.89—£106.89 of my constituents’ money is sitting in the energy companies accounts. My constituents are not receiving interest on that money. They cannot draw it down to pay for their children’s clothes or food. In fact, they probably do not even know that they have this money, as the energy companies do not tell them unless they leave or specifically ask the question.

A study by the respected Institute for Public Policy Research think-tank found that as many as 5 million homes were being overcharged by their energy supplier, with some households paying £300 a year more than necessary—that cannot be right. Why are the Government and Ofgem letting this happen? Money is really tight at the moment. Some people in Rotherham are forced to go to loan sharks to make ends meet, saddling themselves with mind-numbing interest rates when all the time the energy companies have their money in their fat accounts. Many of my constituents are at zero at the end of each week. They have to micro-manage their budgets just to keep out of debt. That planning and prudence are completely thrown out of the window when the energy companies increase their direct debit payments unannounced.

Currently, there is nothing that people can do about this situation, as most people are tied into contracts. While the savvier may change suppliers at the end of their contract, we know that the majority do not. Switching between energy companies reached its lowest level ever in the first quarter of last year. Partly, this is due to people being disillusioned with the energy companies—thinking they are all the same—and partly it is apathy, but often it is because of the complexity of the process. This is especially the case with people over-75, who are the least likely to investigate cheaper tariffs and switch suppliers. They are the least IT literate and the least aware of the savings they could make by switching. I am very supportive of our campaign to make all energy companies put over-75s on the lowest tariff. That simple act would ensure that up to 4 million pensioners would benefit from lower energy bills. From the pensioners I have spoken to in Rotherham, the security of knowing they are on the lowest rate would give them great peace of mind and help considerably in managing their pensions.

The current situation regarding direct debits is that neither the Government nor Ofgem even require energy companies to report on how much the customer is in credit. We need to abolish Ofgem and replace it with a tough regulator with a statutory duty to monitor wholesale and retail energy prices and ensure that the suppliers pass on these savings. A strong regulator could tackle the shady dealings occurring with direct debits. To restore faith in the energy companies, we need them to be transparent and accountable, and the Government need to take strong action to make that happen. At the moment, suppliers seem to be riding roughshod over us all, seemingly without caring about the impact of their decisions.

17:49

[Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)]

This is a timely debate, given the weather outside and the big increases in fuel prices over the past few years, which are causing real problems for people. It is highly appropriate, therefore, that we are discussing this issue.

Ensuring that people stay warm requires progress in many areas: energy supply, energy efficiency, market reform and taking advantage of the opportunities that new technologies will provide. Progress in one area alone will not deliver us the desired outcome of cheaper bills for households and businesses. Market changes across the world are an important driver of costs, of course. Global demand has been growing, and that influences what happens here in the UK. We must recognise that wholesale prices have doubled here since 2007. The issue of supply is not covered by the motion, but increased supply will cut bills, so it should be recognised. I therefore support the Government’s initiatives to increase supply, whether it is the renewal of nuclear, opportunities presented by shale gas or the expansion of renewables. The answer lies in multiple solutions and multiple sources. Over the past few years, we have been too casual in recognising the importance of ensuring long-term, secure and affordable supply.

The motion states that energy efficiency is one of the most important ways of cutting bills sustainably. I completely agree that it is an important factor. We have made progress on that over the past few years, but the progress needs to be faster and better targeted. It is a complicated area, with that complication coming from different places. We all know that there are different ways of making our homes more energy efficient, but some times the range of options can be daunting. The installation of renewable energy also presents significant opportunities, but again the range of options is daunting. Do I choose solar, ground source, air source, water source, heat pumps, photovoltaic or biomass?

It is not easy to navigate those options, yet I remain a huge fan of renewables and would like to draw the House’s attention to my personal experience while a councillor on Harrogate borough council. We installed ground source heat pumps in council properties, starting in more rural areas that were off mains gas. Our motive was to bring cheap, clean power to homes that would not otherwise have had it. We were the first council in the country to do that, and it was a great success.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am pleased to support the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for renewables. Does he agree that community-owned energy can play an important part, not only in increasing supply, but in getting fuel bills down, because communities can share in the profits? Would he urge his Government to bring forward their community energy strategy without further delay?

[Andrew Jones]

I think that community ownership will play an important part in the future, and I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will pick up on that point later.

I have to say that retrofitting was expensive, because we were not just fitting heat pumps, but fully insulating homes. Nevertheless, the cost of heating fell for the homes with the pumps, and carbon emissions were much reduced as well. It required some changes in behaviour in how residents used their power, but that was easily communicated, and I spoke to many residents who were basically extremely positive about what had happened.

Ministers deserve credit for the green deal. I have seen the high upfront costs that insulation and energy efficiency improvements bring, and removing the challenges of these upfront costs will remove one of the biggest barriers to progress. Under the green deal, bill payers will be able to get their energy efficiency improvements without having to pay upfront, as businesses will provide the capital and consumers will pay back the costs over time through their energy bills. I like some elements of the scheme in particular, but I will emphasise just two things: the way businesses can be included and the way the scheme will be extended to the private rented sector.

The range of tariffs has been highlighted as something that can be confusing. I agreed with the points that the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) made. It has been hard—probably deliberately so—for people to see which tariff was right for them. It took me months just to get my supplier to merge my personal accounts, including gas, to take advantage of a dual-fuel tariff, and I was not even changing suppliers. My personal experience is mirrored up and down the country. It is simply far too hard to make changes, so I applaud the Prime Minister’s work to cut through all this and ensure that by next year everyone is on the lowest tariff that is right for their needs.

A further area of complexity is the range of schemes that are available to help. Sometimes they are hard to access or even know about in the first place. Last month I visited two constituents, Mr and Mrs Courtman, who needed a new boiler installed, as theirs was breaking down and they urgently needed reliable heat at home for their health. Unable to afford a replacement, they turned to the local council’s home improvement agency to see whether help was available. Help was available; the point is that it came through the SSAFA—the Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen’s Families Association—and an npower scheme. However, Mr and Mrs Courtman were not even npower customers, so how could they even become aware of the scheme? It is hard to know where to go. That is why I produced a guide called “How to Save Money on Your Energy Bills”—alongside other colleagues in the House—which I have been distributing locally in Harrogate and Knaresborough and which has been well received.

Let me end by reiterating the point that market simplification, Government assistance and new technologies all have important roles to play, but it is long-term work to boost capacity that will be critical to delivering what we all want for the future.

17:56

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

It is in poorer areas such as Croydon North where rising energy prices really hurt. More people there than on average depend on prepayment meters and fewer homes are likely to be insulated, because they were built before cavity walls were a requirement. An above-average number of local households are fuel-poor. When rising fuel bills are combined with the high cost of housing and rising train, bus and tube fares, the result is a big squeeze on the disposable incomes of hard-working local people. National and local government must take a lead in giving people the power to change things, because empowering consumers can help to deliver greater fairness.

First, it is time for the energy regulator Ofgem to end the unfairness of the poorest paying higher energy tariffs than the rich. Why should a millionaire in a mansion pay a lower tariff than a hard-pressed family on an estate? One of the starkest examples is that of prepayment meters. Around 6 million people in the UK—many among those on the lowest incomes—use such meters. Most are unable to switch accounts or take advantage of deals to save money, including by using direct debit and fixed-rate contracts. The meters cost substantially more than the standard tariffs offered by energy companies, so the poorest end up paying hundreds of pounds more every year than those on middle and higher incomes. That is unfair and should be put right by a regulator on the side of consumers.

Secondly, it is time to end rip-off energy exit fees. Millions of people face charges of up to £100 in exit fees just because they want to switch their accounts to a lower tariff. That is anti-competitive and contradicts the Government’s advice to customers that switching accounts will save them money. The Government must change the law to make switching energy tariffs free, as other places have, including the Australian state of Victoria.

Thirdly, it is time to get serious about insulation. Last year the Energy Saving Trust said that London was at the bottom of the league table for insulating homes. From 2008, just 5.1% of London’s homes received insulation, compared with 16% in the north-east, which was the best performing region. The Government’s green deal scheme was launched in October to give people the chance to insulate their homes, yet interest rates on green deal loans are as much as 8%, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) said. To make the green deal work, Ministers must ensure that finance is available at an affordable rate.

Finally, we need to encourage more energy-purchasing co-operatives to start up, to provide competition for the big six. That will require changes to the Energy Bill, which is currently going through Parliament. In 2011, residents on a Brixton housing estate set up the Brixton Energy solar 1 scheme, which was the UK’s first inner-city, co-operatively owned energy-generation project. It has been a huge success, generating renewable energy, providing an annual return of 3% for investors and delivering savings for residents through lower household energy bills. We need the support of the Government to champion co-operative energy in order to catch up with countries such as the United States, where 42 million citizens are members of energy co-operatives. I salute those councils, some of which have been mentioned today, that have already set up collective energy switching schemes to secure lower energy prices for local residents.

Fuel poverty is not an inevitability. The Government should support communities that are already taking action, and they must act themselves to ensure that we have an energy market that is fairer for everyone, with a level playing field for community energy generation and with no household excluded from accessing the lowest tariffs.

18:00

[Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)]

I should like to kick off by saying how worth while it is to hold this debate today, given that it is going to be very cold over the next few days, and probably for the rest of the winter as well. I am delighted to be able to speak from a pretty unusual position, in that I am an urban Tory. There are not many of us outside London. I am delighted that I do not have a single piece of farmland in my constituency, or very much in the way of suburbia either. There is real deprivation there, however. There is a 20-year difference in life expectancy between one end of the city and the other. The issues that we are discussing today are very important indeed.

Fuel poverty needs to be taken seriously, and at the end of the day, we are dealing with three areas. The first is energy security: can we supply enough energy for ourselves in this country? The second is the need to deal with CO₂ emissions. The third is the need to target our welfare to ensure that we are delivering it to those who desperately need it.

The previous Labour Government failed to deliver proper energy capacity. It is likely that, in the next couple of years, we will be reduced to about 4% capacity, although it has been as high as 14% in the past. We have failed as a country to deliver a proper set of energy facilities, and we now need to ensure that we include nuclear power in those facilities, although I know that some people here will not be keen on that. We also need to ensure that we have a proper amount of renewables. Devonport dockyard in my constituency is going to have a marine energy park, and I was delighted that the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) was able to come down to Plymouth to announce that. It is a very positive development that will also help the growth agenda. We need to ensure that we have sufficient energy capacity.

Last year, I paid a visit to the British Antarctic Survey, which has done an enormous amount of drilling down into the ice. It has pulled out a good 800,000 years worth of ice and examined it. Its research shows that, except during the past 300 years, there have not been high levels of CO₂ emissions. The past 300 years of industrialisation have made a very big difference indeed, however. Unless we do something about all that, things are going to get much more expensive. Hon. Members will have seen on their televisions over the past couple of months that the whole of Devon and Cornwall has been under floods, as my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton) knows. It is going to become increasingly expensive to deal with those issues.

It is also important that we target our welfare. I read a paper recently that made it clear that in 2009—this was not when we were in power, I am sorry to say—the Public Accounts Committee found that 75% of the households receiving Warm Front support would have been unlikely to fall into fuel poverty. We need to take a positive approach to that matter.

I very much welcome all that my right hon. Friend the Minister has done on the green deal, but I believe that we need to have a much more joined-up Government. A lot of people live in affordable and rented homes, and we must ensure that the new buildings that the housing associations are delivering will be compliant with our energy campaign standards and that they will be much greener. Similarly, we must ensure that the improvements being carried out to Ministry of Defence properties will be environmentally friendly. I have had a great many discussions in the past two and a half years, but I believe that this is one of the most important debates that we have had.

18:04

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

It is a statement of the obvious to say that fuel poverty is a function of both the cost of fuel and the income of the household of the consumers involved. We all know that over the next few years there are going to be massive changes in the benefits system because of the Government’s welfare reform measures. I shall not go into the rights and wrongs of them, which can be done on another day, but it is quite clear that such changes bring a great risk that those who are already vulnerable and on low incomes will lose out even more. That is true not necessarily because of the changes to benefits—I have said I am not raising that issue today—but because under any new system, major change or major upheaval in the applicable criteria bring the real risk of people falling through the net. Their applications for support from fuel companies might not get through at the right time.

That point has been made in an excellent report from Citizens Advice Scotland on energy issues recently brought to the attention of its citizens advice bureaux. The report states:

“With several years of upheaval ahead for the benefits system, suppliers should be proactive in monitoring usage, particularly amongst prepayment customers. Where customers are self-disconnecting, suppliers should proactively contact those customers…Arrears should be identified quickly by suppliers and communicated to customers to allow them to address the issue before the debt becomes unaffordable.”

I shall not go into any more detail, but this is a good report. I can send a copy to the Minister, who I hope will agree to read it and to take account of its suggestions. The Government must take that on board to ensure that what is being done through the green deal is closely linked to changes in the benefit system. This applies not just to the Government, but to suppliers, who need to keep an eye on what is happening.

My second point relates to the Government promise to make energy companies offer the lowest tariffs to their customers. I do not think we heard much about that in the Secretary of State’s opening speech, and there is still a lot of uncertainty, as we all know, about how that is going to operate. What still appears to be the case is that any benefits from that new policy will not go to those on prepayment meters—an issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Steve Reed). I urge the Government to make it absolutely clear when this policy is developed that those on prepayment meters should automatically be given the cheapest tariff that the supplier offers. There should be no qualification or hesitation about that.

My final point relates to how the green deal will operate in Scotland. The Minister will know that, because the energy company obligation is a UK or Great Britain-wide measure while the green deal equivalent is delivered in effect by the Scottish Government, the responsibility falls on two Governments to ensure that the system works as effectively as possible. I raised this matter with the Minister, who was helpful in providing some information about it. I have to tell him, however, that there is still a great deal of uncertainty within the industry and among consumers in Scotland about how the green deal will operate in Scotland. That is partly because of the role of the different Governments and partly because of the need to work on solid-wall properties, reflecting the peculiarities of the Scottish system of property ownership. As my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) will know, that can sometimes vary between different cities. I hope the Minister will ensure that attention is paid to making the green deal work effectively in Scotland and in all our constituencies.

I am a great supporter of the principles behind the green deal. That is why I find it a tragedy that such a very good idea has not to date shown its full potential. As the Minister well knows, the Insulation Industry Forum has pointed out that although it strongly supports the green deal,

“the delays in the Government’s implementation of it have now begun to destroy some of our businesses as well as undermining the Coalition’s green ambitions for the country.”

That is, as I say, a tragedy. I hope that the defects in the implementation of the scheme so far can be repaired, so that all of us who support the green deal in principle can see it bring the benefits that we want to all our constituents.

18:09

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

It is a shame that the shadow Secretary of State took such a combative and shrill tone at the beginning of this important debate, because no one has a handle on caring about their constituents. I was privileged to serve on the Energy Bill Committee in the previous Parliament, and I noticed that the then Government took no measures to tackle the complexity of tariffs or the issue of those who are fuel poor and who use metered fuel, although the Labour party is raising those issues today. I encourage the Minister to keep up his good work, because we do not have money to throw around as the previous Government did. In all the comments from the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), including from a sedentary position, I have yet to hear whether Labour would continue Warm Front in some form after 2016 or introduce another scheme. Perhaps she will enlighten us in the winding-up speeches.

[Caroline Flint]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Mrs Main]

I will not, because she did not give way to me when she was being particularly vociferous on how good Labour was on fuel poverty.

As I said in a debate on fuel poverty in the previous Parliament, my constituency is usually regarded as an affluent one, but it does have areas of multiple deprivation needs. In 2006, St Albans had 2,400 households in fuel poverty; in 2008, it had 3,500; in 2010, according to the latest figures available, there were even more. A degree of humility about such calculations is, therefore, important. It should also be recognised that in constituencies such as mine, a higher amount of family income is spent on rent and mortgages, so many people feel fuel-poor, whether or not they are technically in fuel poverty. I welcome the fact that under this coalition Government most families will be put on the best tariff that suits them if that is possible.

We have very little time to debate the matter today, but the green deal will be an affordable way of tackling fuel poverty. I believe we would be casual with taxpayers’ money if we simply splashed out the dosh—the right hon. Lady said that it was £50 million, but the correct figure is £30 million, which will be reinvested. The Labour party would have continued the Warm Front deal, which, as Members on both sides of the House have said, was fraught with difficulties. When elderly constituents of mine were told how intrusive the Warm Front deal would be in terms of where the boilers would be located, and how they had to go along with what they were being offered, rather than having it tailored to suit their needs, they backed out of it, and were left with nothing. Rather than imposing something, the green deal gives people choices to tailor a system to suit their household.

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

My hon. Friend is making a characteristically brilliant speech that succinctly crystallises what many of us had been thinking. She has put her finger on one important point: under the Warm Front scheme, one company was a monopoly provider with the contract for the whole country. Under the ECO and affordable warmth, real competition and consumer choice will be allowed, meaning better value for the bill payer and more choice for the people who have installations in their homes.

[Mrs Main]

I thank the Minister for that strong clarification. People said to me that they would have liked to take up some of the opportunities offered by Warm Front, but they did not like the installers, who were sometimes rude and ineffective, they did not like being dictated to about how their house would be operated on to make it more efficient, and they did not like a take-it-or-leave-it package without the opportunity to pick and mix. What the Minister refers to is yet another proposal from the coalition Government that is much better for the consumer.

[Gregory Barker]

My hon. Friend has given practical reasons why hundreds of Members of Parliament on both sides of the House received thousands of complaints about the Warm Front scheme.

[Mrs Main]

I thank the Minister for that comment. That is why it would be ridiculous just to insist that Warm Front continues and to splash the money about until it is gone. The coalition Government have a forward-thinking plan on how to offer consumers what best suits them, including the best deal on tariffs, and how to help all families, whether or not they are technically in fuel poverty.

I hope that if nothing else comes out of the debate, we agree that we should not waste energy. Whether or not we agree on climate change, wasting energy will be ruinous for people in the future.

[Oliver Colvile]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mrs Main]

Briefly, because I have given way already.

[Oliver Colvile]

There is a tendency for electricity from the national grid to be dissipated because it has to travel so far. We need to ensure that much more is available locally.

[Mrs Main]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I hope that he will forgive me if I do not explore the issue he has raised.

I pay tribute to RES in my constituency, which has developed numerous innovative ways of finding renewable energy solutions. I think that we should have a pick-and-mix arrangement—a whole basket of energy solutions. The last Government were in complete denial. When we were debating the Energy Bill, I observed on many occasions that they seemed to have no solutions. The present Government, however, are having to find a way forward.

Rather than making shrill proclamations about our taking everyone to hell in a handcart, the right hon. Member for Don Valley should welcome the fact that we are giving consumers a better choice, and that we have agreed to support the poor and the vulnerable. We work within the Government budget because, in the end, it is taxpayers’ money that is being spent. I think that this Government are forward thinking enough to find the right way forward, and to do what is right for the consumer.

18:15

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

As I listen to the debate, I wonder how many people in Selly Oak are sitting shivering tonight, frightened to turn on their heating, or worrying that what they are buying is disappearing owing to the draughts and lack of insulation. In February last year, in response to a survey that I carried out among my constituents, 63% said that they were using less heating in their homes as a result of energy price rises, while 43% said that they were cutting back on other items to afford their energy bills. Consumer Focus points out that the number of households in debt to their electricity supplier has risen by more than 25%—1 million households—yet the energy companies are on target to see their profit margins rise by 14%.

Let me ask a question that others have asked. Why, at a time when the number of people struggling with fuel costs is on the increase, have the Government spent only half the budget of the Warm Front scheme and turned down thousands of people? Nearly 13,500 families have been rejected. Given all the problems with the green deal, what would be wrong with extending Warm Front for another year, or at least until after the total budget has been spent? That would not only help those most in need, but help the insulation industry, which is experiencing job losses because funding is being withdrawn prematurely. Nearly 200 jobs have gone in the west midlands, and about 100 people have been given notice of redundancy.

[Gregory Barker]

The hon. Gentleman may not have picked up the Secretary of State’s words earlier. We can confirm today that the whole Warm Front budget will be spent on measures for the fuel-poor. We will be introducing Warm Front measures, but they will not be introduced exclusively through Warm Front. The balance—the underspend—will be spent on exactly the same people, but through a local authority competition that will deliver the measures more quickly and effectively.

[Steve McCabe]

I did indeed hear the Secretary of State’s words. What I understood quite clearly from them was that he is filching money from the Warm Front scheme to pay for a scheme that he announced some time ago, and that he did not tell us at the time that he was robbing Warm Front. It is what, in the trade, is normally called sleight of hand.

Ongoing concern about green deal finance means that it is unlikely to get going until around autumn this year, if ever. The Government’s own impact assessment shows that their plans will cause the loft and cavity wall insulation industry to fall off a cliff. Why does the Minister not act now? He does not have to say that it was the idea of my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint); he could announce an interim plan in a couple of weeks, and take all the credit himself. That would be OK: we would not tell anyone.

I want to be fair to the Government, so I will assume that they did not set out to rob people as they are doing through so many of their other policies. I think that on this occasion their problem is that they simply do not know what they are doing. As a flagship policy, the green deal is costly and complex. The scandal of punitive up-front assessment fees needs to be tackled as a matter of urgency before the whole idea falls into disrepute, and the Government need to look again at the interest rates associated with the project. At 7.5%, it will be far cheaper for those who have the cash to pay up front for improvements than to use the green deal, and, of course, those who cannot raise the cash will simply shiver or find themselves exploited by a Government scheme that is beginning to look like it was modelled on payday loans. Then there is the helpful penalty charge if people want to pay it off early, which means they will be rinsed for another few thousand pounds. I am afraid that any objective analysis of this programme suggests it will fail, and the Minister really ought to act now before it is too late.

There is speculation about the abolition of Ofgem. What I and my constituents want is a regulator with some teeth and some backbone who will stand up for their rights, who will not be conned over wholesale price rises and who will force energy suppliers to pass on price cuts when wholesale energy costs fall.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

Given what the hon. Gentleman is saying about the regulator, does he regret the fact that when the Leader of the Opposition was Energy Secretary he left a situation in which fines levied by Ofgem on the industry were given back to the industry, so this coalition Government are having to change the law to make sure fines levied by Ofgem will be given back to consumers?

[Steve McCabe]

I do not think there is any problem with the regulator redistributing that money if it is to the benefit of people. I would be a bit wary of talking about fining people, however. I also remember that this Government’s first direct hit on energy consumers was the VAT rise they imposed not long after coming to power.

We need a tougher regulator because at present the energy companies are running rings around Ofgem. An Institute for Public Policy Research study found that as many as 5 million homes are being overcharged by their supplier, and some households are paying almost £300 per year more than they need to pay. It also states that if the market was a truly competitive market, that could knock £70 off the average household bill at a stroke.

It is not too late for the Minister to take corrective action on Warm Front and the green deal and to help thousands of families and elderly people, as well as protecting jobs. If he does not take some corrective action in respect of the regulator, we will be mortgaging our homes to pay our fuel bills before this Government leave office.

18:19

[Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)]

I do not believe that any Member attending this debate does not want to see the eradication of fuel poverty. I do not believe that this Government want to stand over 26,000 winter deaths every year, or 65 people dying of cold each week, or more people dying of cold than die in road accidents every year. I do not believe that the Government want to stand aside and see so many people suffer and die from cold.

One aspect of this debate worries me, however. Since I was elected to the House, I have had two Westminster Hall debates on fuel poverty and I have spoken in a number of debates on energy prices, and on each occasion the Government have said, “We’re going to do something to eradicate fuel poverty. We’re going to help people who are struggling to pay their bills.” I wonder, however.

Today, so many Government Members have blamed the last Labour Government for presiding over what they claim were 13 years of increasing fuel poverty, but those Members are saying and doing nothing to help people. Tonight, there may be people sitting in front of their television who may go to bed early with an extra pullover or coat on, because they are fearful of lighting an extra bar on their electric fire or turning up their central heating a little more, as their fuel bill has gone up by £107 in the last two years. What Government Members are saying does absolutely nothing for people in that position. Those people do not care about the green deal, they do not care about energy markets, and they do not care about the profits of the energy companies. A Save the Children survey found that half of all families are cutting back on food in order to be able to pay their fuel bills.

Fuel poverty is a moral issue. It has an impact on so many Departments and areas of government. The chief medical officer has said that cold-related illnesses and diseases cost the NHS £850 million a year. Children are the ones who suffer the most. Poverty affects the oldest people in society and the youngest. What does poverty mean? It is all very well quoting statistics, but what it really means is children going home to cold, damp houses and being written off before they start—that is a shame. We need also to consider the people with cancer or a disability. The winter fuel payment is a good scheme, but it does not stretch to the most vulnerable in society and perhaps it needs to be better targeted.

However, I wish to discuss a simple solution today. The Government are imposing carbon taxes on energy companies to wean us off our obsession with fossil fuels, but the money raised by the taxes—the European emissions trading scheme and the carbon floor price—is not being passed on to the consumer for them to get insulation. The taxes are being passed on by the energy company and the consumer has to pick up the bill, and we must change that.

In five years’ time, carbon taxes will have raised £4 billion for the Government. That money should be directed towards insulation, boilers and the other things that can keep people warm and reduce the loss of energy. Of course, these things are already available—people can buy a new boiler—but that costs money. If we moved the revenue from carbon taxes towards the consumer, we could give everybody a grant to improve their insulation. The problem with fuel poverty comes down to one thing: the price of gas, coal and oil has gone through the roof. If we cannot stand up to the energy companies, the Government should fund insulation programmes to stop energy escaping. This country has more winter deaths than Norway and Sweden, and that is because those colder countries understand that insulation is important. That is why the Government need to invest. James Maxton, the great socialist, said that poverty is man-made and therefore subject to change. We have to take action today to change fuel poverty for so many people.

18:27

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

This Government are failing to tackle fuel poverty because they have not managed to tackle the energy companies and bring in the tough regulation needed to make them moderate their prices. As we have said, we would make the energy market more transparent and create a tough new energy watchdog to replace Ofgem.

I will cite just one example of why we need a much tougher watchdog. Ofgem allowed Swalec, which is now part of SSE, to double its standing charge between September 2011 and October 2012—a massive 100% increase. Since October 2012, Swalec has been charging customers a standing charge of £100 a year for their electricity and an additional £100 a year should the customer also get their gas from Swalec. Such charges just feed into the bills of my constituents. Swalec’s prices are of particular concern to people in south and west Wales, because Swalec is the traditional supplier for the area, and Wales has one of the lowest percentages of people who have switched energy company for their electricity.

That doubling of the standing charge in less than 15 months is hitting low users disproportionately hard, punishing people who are struggling to keep their bills down and who switch off appliances whenever they can. No matter how much they switch off, whether to save money or to save the planet, Swalec is taking £100 off them just to stay connected—£200 if they get gas from Swalec as well. I am sure that if these people had computers, they would be thrilled to know that the SSE site tells them that £50 per customer per fuel is profit—is that not wonderful news for them? It is an absolute kick in the teeth for loyal customers. SSE knows jolly well that many customers who have stuck with the traditional south Wales company for years are probably the least likely to switch provider. It is all very well to say that customers can shop around, but unless people have easy internet access it is impossible to compare the prices. Even where people do have that access, the process can be extremely confusing. In any case, people are wary of switching. They hear horror stories and they are worried about being caught out by some sort of penalty charges for switching, or worried about the goalposts being moved just after they have switched and finding that things have changed yet again.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) explained, people are wary also of going on to direct debit because they are pretty well convinced that the companies take more than they should be taking, and that they will take advantage at every turn to make sure that the money is in the banks of the energy companies, rather than in the pockets of the people that they are taking it off. The energy companies tell us that that is for simplification purposes, but I am cynical about that. By increasing the standing charge, energy companies avoid the problem of having to decrease energy prices if there are fluctuations in price. They have heard that that is what people are talking about. They have heard that we, the politicians, would like to see them decrease energy prices, but if they stick the increase on the standing charge, they will not need to do that.

Energy companies have also heard that we might want them to put people on to the cheapest tariff. So what are they doing? They are raising the cheapest tariff, aren’t they? They are making energy more expensive for the lowest users. The cynic in me says that the companies have good reasons for upping the standing charge. The effect is regressive. Like any form of regressive taxation, it means that those who have the least money are proportionately punished the most.

It is right and proper that the Government’s cold weather payments should be raised when energy prices are rocketing, but they are for exceptional circumstances. For the vast majority of the UK it is not often that temperatures for an entire seven-day period average zero. It is far more likely that there are three or four days of cold weather, then a slightly milder period, then more cold weather and so on. There are fluctuations, so the number of times during the year when people will be able to claim those payments is extremely limited.

Finally, I wish to say a word about the Warm Front scheme. I am horrified to hear that £50 million is not being spent on good insulating programmes. I contrast that with the Welsh Government, who are continuing with their Arbed and Nest schemes, which they have adapted. They have looked at many different ways—

[Gregory Barker]

I can assure the hon. Lady that that is exactly what is happening. Any underspend from the Warm Front scheme is being spent on exactly the type of measures that she mentioned.

[Nia Griffith]

So are we clear, then, that that money has been ring-fenced and that it is in addition to any other planned money that was going to come into energy schemes anyway?

[Gregory Barker]

We are scaling up the proposals that we had for the community challenge in order to deliver into that programme a much greater amount of money than would otherwise have flowed.

[Nia Griffith]

I hope the Government will follow the example of the Welsh Government, who have also drawn down European money. I am sure the UK Government could do that for the areas of the UK where that might be possible. The Welsh Government have rolled out a number of programmes in their Arbed and Nest schemes, which cover a range of different types of property, particularly those that are hard to heat and those that are part of social housing, as well as properties that are privately owned.

18:33

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for permitting me to speak. This is the first time that I have spoken in an energy-related debate so I will be grateful for forbearance if I do not know all the terminology.

I came to the House with very positive feelings about the Warm Front scheme. Prior to the general election in 2010 I was contacted by an elderly gentleman, who said, “I have never contacted anyone before, I have voted for your party all along, and I have a problem with my heating at home.” He had served his country, always done the right thing and brought up his family, but he was on his own, he was in his 80s and he had no heating at home. I engaged with the company—I think it was Carillion at the time in the region—and it did a superb job in following up. It had been complicated for him to get help but the company did an excellent job in supporting him. It was wonderful to see that reaction. It is a great sadness that he has since passed away.

I do not lightly criticise the Warm Front scheme. It was a very good scheme in that instance, but we have to face facts. It is a shame that the shadow Minister did not respond as positively as she might have done to my inquiry. When money is short, we have to make sure that it goes to those who most need it. That is incredibly important. We cannot pretend to people that we can spend money that we do not have to help people who perhaps do not need it just because they would like to have it at the cost of directing money towards those people who really need it. I applaud the Government for ensuring that, when there is less money available, they protect the money for, and focus it on, the most vulnerable.

Most of my comments relate to how the Government are trying to focus on ensuring that all the taxpayers’ money that is being spent goes to those who most require it. Will the Minister assure us that the Government is targeting taxpayers’ money for people in fuel poverty more on those on the lower decile incomes and on those who are most vulnerable? What measures is he taking to ensure that that happens?

Directing money towards those who most need it is important, but ensuring that it gets there—and does so effectively—matters, too. I was intrigued by the response to a letter from the shadow Secretary of State to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State on the installation times under the Warm Front scheme. I noted that during the last period of the Labour Government, the time it took to install insulation or heating was very long. The installation of insulation took 30 working days, on average, under the previous Government and it took 60 or 70 working days for heating. I noticed that that had come down during the past couple of years and I would be interested if the Minister had further comments about the efficiency of the Government’s proposals to tackle fuel poverty, ensuring that the work and necessary steps are done as quickly as they can be, and about how they are holding the insulation and energy companies to account as quickly and frequently as they can.

A number of hon. Members on both sides of the House have said that the underlying causes of fuel poverty are multiple. I applaud the Government for considering a more rational view of assessing fuel poverty—I think the Secretary of State mentioned that the Queen would be counted at one stage, so that clearly needs to be considered. The statistics on fuel poverty in different parts of the United Kingdom show that there are clearly issues. My interest obviously lies with the town of Bedford and also with England.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

I accept everything my hon. Friend says about Warm Front. Does he accept the findings of the Public Accounts Committee that the majority of people who were likely to benefit from, and be targeted by, that scheme were less likely to be in fuel poverty?

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend makes precisely the right point: we need to ensure that money is focused on those who most need it and that that money gets to those people as efficiently and effectively as possible. That is what I heard in the Secretary of State’s speech today, which was focused very positively on what could be done rather than on, if I may say so to the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), throwing around statistics that were not particularly relevant to what could be done right now. When we look at the statistics, we can see that underlying issues lead Governments to take certain actions. I am interested to hear what the right hon. Lady or her colleague, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger), will have to say when they wind up, but it would have been nice to have heard some more positive engagement from the Labour Front Benchers. It would have been nice to have heard what they would do and what positive suggestions they would propose. Opposition is not just about shouting one’s point of view—it is often about engaging with statistics and answers and coming forward with positive solutions. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Minister will be very positive.

[Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Before the hon. Lady intervenes, I remind the hon. Gentleman that when the clock hits 6.40, I will ask him to resume his seat.

[Sarah Newton]

Is it not important that we learn the lessons from the ridiculous situation in which people who were off-grid were made to have oil as their central heating system, which they could not afford after the first time the system was filled? Under our schemes, they can now have something sustainable, such as a ground source heat pump.

[Richard Fuller]

I appreciate that positive contribution from my hon. Friend. I guess that sums up what I would like to say: as many Members on both sides of the House have said, many constituents are facing tough decisions on their heating this winter. We are beholden to engage positively in support of the Government in the initiatives they have taken. It is critical that the Government—I look to the Minister for an answer today—ensure that their initiatives are focused on those who most need the support—that is, the most vulnerable. If he is doing that, he is doing this country a great service.

18:39

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

This debate has been lively and informed, with eloquent and powerful contributions from those on both sides of the House. It has shown once again that we have an energy Department that is in chaos and unable to deliver its policies, and it is the public who are paying the price in higher energy bills.

As many hon. Friends have said, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), Ministers cannot hide the shambolic management of the Warm Front scheme. Over the past two years, the scheme’s budget has been cut by two thirds, and the number of people getting help from it has fallen from nearly 250,000 homes per year three years ago to fewer than 22,000 households so far being selected for help this year. I listened carefully to the speech by the hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller), but the situation is contrary to what we have heard from Government Members. The criteria for people who want to apply for Warm Front explicitly say that in order to qualify people must have a poorly insulated home or not have a working central heating system, and, further, must have a household income of £15,860 or less. I strongly believe that when the scheme was created back in 2000 it was a good scheme. In fact, it is important to note that in the statement that was released by the Department today the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), said:

“The Warm Front scheme has been an important policy in tackling fuel poverty among private sector households”.

Under this Government, the amount of support that each household is receiving has fallen and there is a massive backlog of people who want help but cannot get it. To add insult to injury, in addition to the £50 million of underspend last year there is £50.6 million this year. I have listened carefully to representations from both Ministers. I have also had time to go through the press statement that was released back in October, which makes no mention of the fact that the pot of money for local authorities was going to be taken away from the Warm Front scheme. Why did Ministers not announce that at the time? Was it part of a deliberate strategy to undermine Warm Front so that people did not take it up? I listened to what the Minister said a moment ago, but there is not an exact match in relation to the underspend. Further to that, thousands of people this winter are suffering with high heating bills.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) reminded us of the price that people up and down the country are paying for this incompetence, with huge increases in the price of gas and electricity. Energy bills have risen by almost £300 since this Government came to power, and the average fuel bill now stands at a record £1,400. I have spoken to many people in my constituency who cannot afford to turn on their heating even on the coldest of days. Those who have least are being hit the hardest. My hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) and for Islwyn (Chris Evans) mentioned the rise in fuel poverty in our country. As the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) and other hon. Members said, our constituents are having to make the choice between heating their homes and putting food on the table. The Government’s own fuel poverty advisers are warning them that this winter 300,000 more households will go into fuel poverty.

In his opening remarks, the Secretary of State referred to the energy company obligation, but he did not say that according to his own impact assessment the Government expect to see by 2023—10 years’ time—a reduction of 250,000 in the number of homes in fuel poverty. To have a reduction of only 250,000 in 10 years is a very sad state of affairs, and it is less than the increase in fuel poverty that will occur this winter.

My hon. Friends the Members for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) and for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) rightly highlighted the problems that their constituents and people right across our country are facing and suffering because of the increase in direct debit payments. This is against the background of the startling fact from Save the Children and YouGov that 71% of parents on the lowest incomes are worried about their energy bills pushing them into debt. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak pointed out that nearly 1 million people are in debt to their energy company; that is information from Consumer Focus.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) highlighted in her opening speech, the Government’s mismanagement of the Warm Front scheme is not the only thing that we are concerned about. A number of Members from all parties have talked about the green deal. Ministers have promised us this flagship scheme, but we are worried that what they have delivered so far is more like a submarine, because it is so far below the radar that polling shows that most people have not even heard of it, let alone want to take it up. [Interruption.] The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle says from a sedentary position that the scheme has not started, which is in stark contrast to what the Secretary of State told Building magazine, namely that the green deal had started on 1 October.

As has been said many times, all parties support the principles behind the green deal. The former Energy Minister, the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) intervened earlier and made a point about an amendment tabled to the 2010 Energy Bill. The reason why that amendment was not accepted is that Labour was already running a pay-as-you-save energy efficiency scheme—a green deal pilot was already running when the amendment was tabled.

We do not believe that expecting people to pay £100 just to get an assessment, or to pay double the up-front cost of the measures because of high interest rate payments, will inspire the millions of people who need to take up the green deal scheme in order urgently to improve the energy efficiency of properties and homes up and down the country. We have some of the most energy-inefficient properties in Europe.

The hon. Member for Bedford asked about practical solutions. I would ask him to refer to our motion, which makes some practical suggestions. Likewise, we highlighted all our concerns about the green deal when we discussed it during the Committee stage of the Energy Bill, but we are still talking about them a year and a half down the line.

The hon. Members for St Albans (Mrs Main), for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) and for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) talked in positive terms about the green deal, but I would ask the hon. Member for Edinburgh West, who talked about a report by the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group, to look at the group’s most recent report. It raises serious concerns that we will all be subsidising expensive works for people who can afford to insulate their homes, rather than distributing money to people who cannot afford to heat their homes in the first place. In the FPAG’s evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee, it notes that it

“has consistently stated that the Green Deal per se will not benefit the fuel poor.”

I was disappointed that the Secretary of State did not respond to a serious point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley, so I shall raise it again. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) was right to highlight the tragic figures released today by the Insulation Industry Forum, which show that, so far, 1,782 jobs have been lost in the insulation sector—800 of them in the past two weeks—and that a further 1,100 insulation workers have been put on notice of redundancy. I urge the Minister to respond to that, because those are people up and down the country who are now not in work and struggling to get by.

Ministers cannot say that they were not warned. Last year the Association for the Conservation of Energy projected that there would be up to 16,000 job losses in the sector if the Government did not seriously address the issue of the transition from previous schemes to the green deal and the energy company obligation. We know that in the run-up to Christmas more than 34,000 insulation works were cancelled as a result of energy companies withdrawing their funding ahead of the CERT and CESP deadline. We also know that a further 27,284 installations have been put on hold because new funding is not yet available. If Ministers had acted to put in place a smooth transition from CERT and CESP to the green deal and ECO, this work could then have gone ahead and job losses could have been avoided.

It is not as if there is no work that could be done now. I refer Ministers to a report on page 2 of The Independent today. Despite Ministers’ claims to the contrary, DECC’s own estimates show that at least 8 million homes in the UK still need loft insulation and 5.8 million need cavity wall insulation. Is it not time that Ministers got around the table with the industry and sorted out this mess?

It is clear from this afternoon’s debate that Ministers have taken their eyes off the ball. The motion proposes simple things that the Government could do today to clear up the mess and fix the green deal by taking tough action to force the energy companies to keep their obligations and extending Warm Front so that help is given to those who need it most during the current cold snap. I urge all Members on both sides to support the motion and I commend it to the House.

18:50

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

We have heard many excellent speakers from across the House and I am grateful for the opportunity to conclude the debate.

Unfortunately, the many excellent speakers did not include either of the speakers from the Opposition Front Bench. That really is sad when we are debating such a serious issue. Any sensible, objective observer would recognise that this has been a problem under successive Governments. Labour did not have a magic wand. During the last Parliament from 2005 to 2010, when the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) was in government, fuel poverty rose substantially, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) pointed out. The right hon. Lady is in total denial about that fact. It does her credibility no good if all she does is to make narrow partisan points, because there are a lot of people on both sides of the House who speak with a great deal of knowledge. We might not always agree and we might not share the same conclusions, but to be in total denial of the basic facts and to trot out ridiculous partisan points lowers the tone of the debate across the whole Chamber. When Members on both sides of the House have spoken with such passion, it is a shame that those on the Opposition Front Bench, particularly in opening the debate, looked as if they were auditioning for a part in “The Thick of It”. It really is a little beneath them.

I am more concerned not that the Opposition Front Benchers have undermined their own political credibility, but that they are trying to score party political points by talking down the green deal. In doing so, they are talking down all those small and medium-sized enterprises that are investing in the green deal and all those people who are trying to inspire confidence to get people to invest in order to bring forward what I am certain will be the most transformational energy efficiency programme that this country has ever seen—a programme that is built for the long term. All the Opposition want to do is to use the efforts of people in business and their employees to score cheap party political points. I am sorry that that is how they have decided to play this important issue, which ought to command significant cross-party consensus. In opposition, we tried, where possible, to build that consensus. Obviously, they are going to plough a very different route.

This week’s cold weather has focused our minds on those who are at the bottom of the ladder, struggling to keep warm. The coalition understands the urgency and scale of the challenge. We are not going to make cheap political points or pretend that the situation is anything other than very concerning. However, unlike the Labour party, which had 13 years in government to do something transformational, the coalition Government have a plan. Not only do we have a plan, but after only two and a half years, we are taking action—very real action. We have already passed the substantial Energy Act 2011 and are well on the way to taking another substantial Energy Bill through Parliament. The Labour Government had 13 White Papers, and what did they have to show for it in the end? More than 5 million people in fuel poverty. We are doing a great deal that we can be proud of.

During the debate, we heard a number of positive contributions. There was a measured and sensible contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart). There was a powerful demolition of Labour’s policies, which were irresponsible with consumers’ and taxpayers’ money, from my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng). He clearly pointed out that, yes, we can do good, and Warm Front made a difference to a lot of people. In terms of value for money, however, that extraordinary amount could have been spent much, much better. The fact that it was a monopoly provider, that there was no competition from other firms and no choice for people at the bottom of the ladder, was not to the scheme’s credit. Under the ECO—an integral part of the green deal—we will deliver much better value and, pound for pound, many more measures than we were able to provide with Warm Front. Year on year, significantly more people will be helped through ECO than were helped through Warm Front. The fact is that the Labour party confuses spending large amounts of money with getting the best outcome.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) spoke with great expertise and passion not only about energy efficiency but about renewable energy. That point was picked up by another champion of the sector, my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile), who showed how we can marry those two agendas—in fact, we need to need to marry them as we go forward.

Perhaps the most candid and powerful speech of the afternoon came from my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), who really put the record straight on fuel poverty and effectively blew the whistle on Labour’s claims. She was right to say that whatever we think about climate change and renewable energy, it is always wrong to waste energy and for people to live in poorly insulated, poorly heated homes.

We must remember that reaching out to the most fuel poor and vulnerable is not easy. That was recognised by Professor John Hills and it is not a precise science. Often the households we are trying to reach—I know that Labour Members also want to reach those people because they see them in their constituencies and surgeries—are very dysfunctional. Often, people are in temporary accommodation, and certainly not their own accommodation. They do not read a daily newspaper and might be hard to reach because they probably do not read the information provided by the local council. Trying to get to those hard-to-reach homes is a difficult job, which is why we need a new approach.

We could have carried on with Warm Front and the status quo, but it would have taken us over 80 years. In fact, we may never have got there because over the past five years, despite the amount of money that Labour threw at the problem, fuel poverty was going up. We need a transformation in the way we deliver fuel poverty solutions, as well as delivering more investment. The green deal and the ECO are our best possible shot.

I do not deny that the green deal is not perfect, and I have no doubt that we will want to improve the scheme in light of experience. However, those on the Opposition Front Bench are trying to write it off before we have even begun to roll it out and the first green deal plan has been signed, and before it has really got going. I think that is despicable. I am pleased to say that Labour councils up and down the country are not taking the same negative partisan approach. Talk to Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds or Newcastle. Those councils do not have that narrow partisan view of the world that we have seen demonstrated tonight. They are taking a responsible view—as are many Opposition Back Benchers—and working with us in the interests of the fuel poor to deliver better outcomes for people in their areas.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) asked me to assure him that we will target our fuel poverty solutions in the best possible way. There will be tighter criteria. Pound for pound the ECO will be more effective and transparent than Warm Front. It will not be a monopoly and it will deliver a better service and greater choice.

We know that the cost of living is a huge concern to all our constituents. That is why the coalition Government are taking radical action, and instead of Labour’s countless White Papers—

[Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)]

claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Main Question accordingly put.

18:59

Division 135

Ayes: 234

---

Labour: 223
Scottish National Party: 4
Democratic Unionist Party: 3
Plaid Cymru: 2
Independent: 1
Green Party: 1

Noes: 314

---

Conservative: 260
Liberal Democrat: 52
Independent: 1

Business without Debate

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

deferred divisions

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 41A(3)),

That, at this day’s sitting, Standing Order No. 41A (Deferred divisions) shall not apply to the Motion in the name of Mr David Lidington relating to the EU Training of Somali Security Forces and Malian Armed Forces.—(Mr Evennett.)

Question agreed to.

European Union Documents

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 119(11)),

EU Training of Somali Security Forces and Malian Armed Forces

That this House takes note of Unnumbered Explanatory Memorandum dated 13 December 2012, submitted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, relating to a draft Council Decision amending and extending Council Decision 2010/96/CFSP on a European Union military mission to contribute to the training of Somali security forces (EUTM Somalia) and Unnumbered Explanatory Memorandum dated 18 December 2012, submitted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, relating to a draft Council Decision on a European Union military mission to contribute to the training of the Malian Armed Forces; and supports the Government’s intention to agree these draft decisions.—(Mr Evennett.)

Question agreed to.

Human Rights: Iran

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Mr Evennett.)

19:15

[Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)]

I am particularly pleased that you are chairing this debate, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I know your profoundly held views on the issue of human rights in Iran. Many colleagues are attending the debate tonight and, as I am having great difficulty in pronouncing some of the names that I need to read out, I would be grateful if they could intervene to help me with that exercise.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk about Iran’s human rights record, which is an absolute disgrace. The record of the clerical regime’s 34-year rule includes the execution of 120,000 of its political opponents, yet the world remains silent. It also includes the catastrophic repression of women, oppressed nationalities, and followers of various religions; the destruction of the majority of the middle class; the obliteration of the private sector; the falling of at least 40 million people below the poverty line; unemployment standing at 35%—an absolute disgrace—and a 40% inflation rate; and the plunging of the nation’s official currency.

At the same time, Iran’s regime is sowing the seeds of discord right across the middle east, not least in Syria, where the mullahs are lending huge assistance to the dictator Assad, who is a very wicked man indeed. The regime is also attempting to eliminate Iraq’s democratic opposition leaders, as well as the 3,300 Iranian dissidents in Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty. The mullahs are a particular concern, owing to their dangerous pursuit of nuclear weapons. Let there be no doubt in the House that those nuclear weapons would be directed towards the destruction of the entire world.

I shall keep my remarks brief, as I hope to be able to give my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe at least a couple of minutes in which to respond to the debate. I shall focus on the regime’s brutal efforts to suppress a Persian spring, which stopped the possibility of democratic change occurring organically in Iran. Iran’s fundamentalist regime has embarked on a brutal campaign of mass executions to terrorise its people and prevent a resurgence of the protests calling for regime change.

[Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the regime has simply run out of chances and that it has to go? Does he also agree that the one constructive thing that we could do would be to let the legitimate leader of the Iranian opposition, Mrs Rajavi, come to this country to talk to British politicians and the people in our media, so that they could see the alternative?

[Mr Amess]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman. As he knows, I stand shoulder to shoulder with him on this issue.

On 13 November, 44 people in Iran were sent to the gallows. At least 450 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2012, according to the tally publicly announced by the authorities, which we can hardly believe. The true number is far greater.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and for bringing such an important debate to this Chamber. The number of Members here is an indication of its importance for us. The hon. Gentleman has not mentioned it yet, but is he aware of the specific persecution of pastors of churches such as evangelists? If someone is a closet Christian, they are left alone, but if someone tries to promote the gospel or evangelise, they are persecuted, as shown by the fact that 85 people were jailed for it in 2009 and more than 100 people were jailed for it in 2010. Does the hon. Gentleman feel that this is not just about human rights, but about religious rights?

[Mr Amess]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman on that point, as I do on so many other matters.

Some 1,000 prisoners—yes, 1,000 prisoners—are currently on death row in prison. The regime has appointed a death panel to expedite the implementation of the death penalties for prisoners on death row, yet the world remains absolutely silent.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for the passion with which he is making his case. Does he agree that it is right that the world should not remain silent? Iranian citizens are not the only ones affected; as the case of Saeed Abedini shows, so are citizens of countries around the world. If my hon. Friend will indulge me, let me explain that he is a 32-year-old US citizen who lives in Idaho with his wife, who is also a US citizen, and their two children. He was visiting Iran to see his family and was taken off a bus, arrested, put in prison for several months, tortured and, this very week, is due to appear before a judge. He risks 18 years in prison or even the death penalty. For what? It would appear only for holding the Christian faith.

[Mr Amess]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, who has done the House a great service in bringing that terrible issue to our attention. I compliment her on the wonderful work she has done ever since she was elected.

The mullahs have at least 60 repressive institutions in the country, including several types of anti-riot agencies, several sections for torture and at least 12 others for filtering websites and controlling e-mails. Not only has this regime meddled in the affairs of Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza; it has recently interfered with the BBC Persian TV service, which experienced deliberate and illegal interference from within Iran from the first day of the 2009 Iranian presidential election. The former director-general Mark Thompson—for whom I do not usually hold a candle—highlighted the issue of BBC Persian staff and their families facing harassment and intimidation at the hands of the Iranian authorities, which has naturally put BBC staff under immense pressure. I know that the noble Lord Patten is trying to do the best he can to sort out that mess.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

On the issue of the media, my hon. Friend interestingly draws attention to recommendation 5 of the report of the all-party parliamentary group on the persecution of Christians in Iran. It states:

“We ask the British Government to work through European institutions to facilitate EU regulations that will ban signal-jamming on European-owned satellites.”

We must do better to ensure that freedom of speech goes across the airwaves—not least to the BBC.

[Mr Amess]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing that matter to my attention, and I applaud the wonderful work he, too, does as a Member of this place.

Those staff deserve praise for their bravery in spite of danger, and they deserve the protection of this Government. I ask the Minister to dwell particularly on that point in his reply.

On the 27 November, the UN General Assembly’s third committee condemned Iran for widespread human rights abuses—but what has happened? It is all very well condemning them; what has happened in reality to change the system? The committee cited the

“continuing alarming high frequency of the carrying-out of the death penalty in the absence of internationally recognised safeguards, including an increase in the number of public executions.”

As we have already heard, a 35-year-old dissident blogger was arrested by Iran’s cyber-police on 30 October at his home in Robat Karim. On 6 November, his family was told to collect his body from Tehran’s detention facility, and he was buried the following day. He had been brutally tortured to death while in detention in an attempt to obtain a forced confession—a method used extensively by the Iranian regime against the opposition and dissidents. Witnesses said his body was “crushed”, based on the torture marks. Yet again, however, the world does nothing. The case of Khosravi illustrates the arbitrary nature of the regime’s judiciary, and its mistreatment of political prisoners.

[Fiona Bruce]

My hon. Friend talks about the arbitrary nature of the judiciary, and is it not true that in Iran it can be difficult to find lawyers to defend such individuals, especially as on occasions not just the accused but their lawyer can be thrown into prison?

[Mr Amess]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right; yet again the world remains silent.

In 2008, following arrest by the Intelligence Ministry, Khosravi was given a six-year prison term for providing support to the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran, the largest Iranian opposition group.

[Mr Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his leadership of our parliamentary group in highlighting many of the abuses of the Iranian regime. He talked about how the situation is escalating. It is escalating as we speak, as the Iranian Parliament is trying to pass a law to prevent single women, the dissidents to whom he refers and people who have been championing human rights, from leaving the country without the consent of a guardian. Barring people from leaving is being used as another means of repression. Does he agree that the Government should put pressure on Tehran on that point, too?

[Mr Amess]

My Welsh hon. Friend is absolutely right on that. Again, we need to ensure that the Foreign Office do something other than utter endless platitudes, which I am absolutely sick to death of.

Khosravi was tortured and subjected to extreme duress in solitary confinement for a period of 40 months, and following two retrials, sentenced to death after conviction on a fresh charge of “enmity against God”. In 2013, that is crazy.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the Adjournment debate. I am grateful to one of my constituents, Professor Brad Blitz, who only last Thursday sent me a list of five people, including Jabber Alboshoka, Mokhtar Alboshoka, Hadi Rashedi, Hashem Shabani, and Mohammad Ali Amoori, who have all had their death sentences upheld. Does my hon. Friend agree that they have been sentenced not because they are criminals or have done anything to offend the state, but because they are all part of the Ahwazi minority, an ethnic group that the mullahs and the Iranian Government are determined to wipe out?

[Mr Amess]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I wonder whether he and I should swap places, as he has done a far better job of pronouncing these difficult names than I have in my brief speech.

Elmira Vazehan began a hunger strike on 5 October to protest against the regime’s refusal to allow her to have an operation. She is suffering from heart disease and cancer. She was arrested in December 2009, accused of having relatives and family members in Camp Ashraf, and charged with “waging war” by working with the main democratic opposition group, the PMOI. She was initially sentenced to death and subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison, and yet the world remains silent. Nothing is ever done.

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Ahmed Shaheed, in a recent report to the UN General Assembly, described what human rights activists in Iran are subjected to. I wish the Government would send me to address the United Nations General Assembly. I would welcome the opportunity to shake things up.

[Mr Joe Benton (Bootle) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising this important issue. I share the same concern as other Members who have intervened about exiled Christians and people suffering from the inability to express their freedom of conscience. I propose to raise the matter at some future meeting of the Council of Europe, because it is appropriate that the issue is raised there. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that not enough is being done to bring the issue to the attention of world authorities. Does he share my wish that the Government back the initiative to take the matter forward at the next opportunity in the Council of Europe?

[Mr Amess]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend, as I do on so many other issues. I hope that our Minister will act on what he has said.

In view of the Iranian regime’s complete disregard for 58 United Nations resolutions, and given that it has denied access to various UN rapporteurs for the last seven years, it is essential for its human rights dossier to be referred to the UN Security Council for binding measures.

I also want to draw the House’s attention to the human rights abuses being committed, at the mullahs’ behest, against the 3,300 residents of Camp Ashraf and Camp Liberty in Iraq. Dissidents who have resided in Iraq for more than 25 years built a modern town called Ashraf, which they developed from the ground up. Its residents have been major targets for the mullahs in Iran. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Ashraf residents who disarmed voluntarily were designated by the coalition as protected persons under the fourth Geneva convention.

[James Wharton (Stockton South) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on raising this important issue. Does he agree that it is not just a matter of raising the subject of Camp Ashraf in the House, and with the Government and international institutions? Would it not be welcome if the western media did more to draw public attention to the disgraceful things that have gone on in that place, and to the human rights abuses that have occurred?

[Mr Amess]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The media cover absolute trivia, yet there is no coverage at all of something as important as the execution of 120,000 people, presumably because it does not involve sex or celebrity status.

Unfortunately I shall have to dump most of the rest of my speech, because I want to allow the Minister a couple of minutes in which to respond to the points I have made. Let me say, however, that I am extremely unhappy about Martin Kobler, the special representative of the UN Secretary-General in Iraq. He gave the residents repeated assurances about their welfare and protection at Camp Liberty, but, sadly, those residents have been badly let down. Those assurances are not worth the paper on which they are written.

As one who knows the Foreign Office of old, let me say this to my right hon. Friend the Minister. Many Members in all parts of the House are fed up with the lack of action on this issue. When President Obama won his first term of office a little over four years ago and chose Mrs Clinton to be his Foreign Secretary, we heard much about what America would do about it, but what has happened? Absolutely nothing. I have reached a point at which I am prepared to say that, ultimately, this is about oil. Money talks. I think that if there were any consistency on the issue, action would have been taken.

First, I ask my right hon. Friend the Minister to talk to our right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, and to ensure that further diplomatic relations with this dreadful regime are conditional on its stopping the ongoing executions and torture. We had appeasement from the last Government, and I do not expect it from the Government whom I support. Secondly, I ask my right hon. Friend to refer the mullahs’ terrifying human rights dossier to the UN Security Council. If he will not do that, I certainly will. Thirdly, I ask the Government to assure the security and protection of the inhabitants of Camp Liberty and Camp Ashraf, to call on the UN to give it refugee camp status, and to respect Ashraf residents’ property rights and their right to sell their goods, according to the original agreement. Finally, I ask the Government to recognise the Iranian Resistance for regime change.

For too long we have had platitudes and good intentions, and I now expect action from Her Majesty’s Government.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Mr Burrowes has permission from the mover of the debate and the Minister to make a short contribution.

19:34

[Mr Burrowes]

I congratulate my hon.—and dear—Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) on securing this important debate. Members across the House must continue to raise our voices on behalf of those suffering abuse and persecution in Iran. I had the privilege of chairing an inquiry on behalf of the all-party group on Christians in Parliament, which led to the publication of the “Report on the Persecution of Christians in Iran”. It was presented to the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), in October. Our focus was the terrible circumstances faced by Iranian Christians, and I welcome this opportunity to acknowledge that the Iranian regime has blighted—and, indeed, terminated—the lives of so many individuals from a variety of backgrounds, not only Christians, but Baha'is, Sufis, Sunnis, journalists, film-makers, homosexuals and political activists. That is totally unacceptable and this report for the first time systematically catalogues the abuses, such as the arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of more than 300 Christians in the past two years, including Church leaders such as Farshid Fathi, who was arrested in December 2010 and sentenced to six years in prison. He has just spent his third Christmas away from his wife and two young children.

The report contains first-hand statements about physical and psychological torture. It speaks of the murders by Government agencies of Christian pastors, and includes the testimonies of Iranian witnesses and evidence of education and employment discrimination driven by agencies of the state, and of many more abuses as well.

Since October the abuse has gone on day in, day out. Rev. Vruir Avanessian was celebrating Christmas with about 50 believers in a private home in Tehran when police arrived and raided the house. He was arrested and detained in the notorious Evin prison for 15 days. He was released on 10 January, but is awaiting a court summons, as are the others who were present. The abuse continues, therefore.

The report marks not the end of the process, but the beginning. The persecution in Iran has been raised on numerous occasions by many Members, and we must continue to work together and be determined to expose the ongoing iniquity. We must be unrelenting in our ambition for others to enjoy the simple liberties with which we are so blessed in our own country, and we must be resolute in the struggle for justice.

We trust that this Government will, as the report recommends, use the appropriate channels to urge the Iranian regime to uphold its obligations under both its own constitution and international law in its treatment not only of the Christian population, but of all those citizens who are being denied their liberties—freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of religion. We look forward to hearing the Minister’s response to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West in a few moments, and to hearing the Government’s response to the report’s recommendations in due course.

19:37

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West (Mr Amess) for securing this debate on such an important subject, and I pay tribute to him and my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) for consistently championing the cause of human rights in Iran. As my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate has just said, one of the most striking and appalling aspects of the situation in that country is that Iran’s own constitution and laws provide for precisely the liberties the breach of which we learn of week by week in the reports from Iran.

A few years ago when I was an Opposition spokesman I briefly visited Iran and was told with great pride by representatives of the Government about the position given to the Armenian and Assyrian Churches in Iran, and the fact that seats were reserved for religious minorities. That stands in stark contrast to the treatment of individual believers and pastors, as has been reported in my hon. Friends’ speeches and in interventions from both sides of the House this evening, and as is apparent from the catalogue of tragic cases of people—particularly, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out, from the Evangelical and House Church movement inside Iran—who have been imprisoned, tortured and treated in the most appalling fashion.

[Jim Shannon]

We are talking about the Muslim order of Islamic guidance—I believe that is what it calls itself. It is the blackshirts of that organisation who come to target evangelicals specifically, and that organisation should be condemned at the highest level.

[Mr Lidington]

There is no doubt in my mind that deliberate and systematic persecution of Christians takes place in Iran. Iran’s supreme leader called last year for efforts to be made to stop the spread of Christianity in Iran. Ironically, that is being done in the name of a faith that prides itself on the message of mercy and compassion, and in the name of a prophet of Islam who accepted the place of Jesus as one of the honoured prophets of Islam. The Koran contains many of the stories of Jesus, including the nativity, told as part of Islam’s own religious revelation. That makes still more shocking what we are observing in Iran today.

Where I differ with my hon. Friend the Member for Southend West is on his challenge that the Government, or the rest of world more generally, are silent on these matters. I can absolutely understand his anger and frustration at the fact that these abuses of human rights have continued year after year, but the British Government have been resolute in calling Iran to account for its human rights violations. We will continue to monitor closely and speak out against such violations in Iran, which not only contravene international law but do not even comply with Iran’s own laws or professed values.

I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary and that of the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), to this evening’s proceedings. They have frequently condemned the many instances of human rights violations reported to us. We believe that that has contributed significantly to both public and international awareness of individual cases and of Iran’s human rights record, and has helped build pressure on the regime. Sadly, we know, too, that many more abuses remain behind closed doors. The promotion of human rights has always been seen by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary as something that should lie at the very heart of British foreign policy. We regularly make clear to Iran, through the various international forums in which we participate, the importance we place on respecting international human rights law.

[Mr Amess]

I just want to make something very clear to my right hon. Friend, although I do not want to sour things. This country followed America’s lead and got involved in all sorts of violent conflicts, with disastrous consequences. I was one of the people who voted for the war with Iraq, and that frustrates me. However, the real cause of my frustration is that, despite all this pressure, nothing actually changes. I want some action. Why do we give this dreadful Ahmadinejad a platform at the United Nations?

[Mr Lidington]

That is not something over which the Government of the United Kingdom have control. Iran is a member of the United Nations. President Ahmadinejad would normally be banned under United States law from visiting the United States, but as the Head of State of a member of the UN he is entitled to travel, via the United States, to the UN General Assembly or to other United Nations meetings in order to represent his country as a member of that organisation. Whatever the sense of anger we feel about that, it is, on balance, not a bad thing that President Ahmadinejad should have to go to speak at the United Nations and be aware, through what happens in the chamber, that representatives of many countries walk out when they hear him speak—

19:45

House adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 9(7)).

Division 133

Ayes: 279

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Conservative: 223
Liberal Democrat: 49
Democratic Unionist Party: 5
Independent: 1

Noes: 214

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Labour: 209
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 3
Plaid Cymru: 3
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1