House of Commons

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

Wednesday 23 January 2013

The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock

Prayers

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Oral Answers to Questions

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

1. What recent assessment she has made of the level of anti-Semitism in Northern Ireland.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

The Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitic activities, estimates that there were fewer than 10 incidents in Northern Ireland last year. As we approach Holocaust memorial day, I know the whole House will join me in condemning anti-Semitism and all forms of hatred on the grounds of a person’s ethnicity, religion, disability or sexual orientation.

[John Mann]

I thank every Northern Ireland politician and every Northern Ireland party present in the House today for their active engagement in the parliamentary committee against anti-Semitism. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the interests and concerns of the very tiny Jewish community in Northern Ireland remain an important priority, despite their smallness in number?

[Mrs Villiers]

I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. He is right that the Jewish community in Northern Ireland is small—around 200, I believe—but that does not make it any less important to combat anti-Semitism. This is a disgraceful crime. The UK Government take it very seriously, and I would like to pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his work on combating anti-Semitism throughout the UK.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I, too, commend the work of the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) in this regard, and I thank the Secretary of State for what she has said today. Does she agree that the attack on anyone’s symbol or identity causes serious problems everywhere—as we have seen in Belfast and on other issues—and will she assure me that the Police Service of Northern Ireland will be given adequate resources, if required, to deal with anything that amounts to anti-Semitism arising in Ulster?

[Mrs Villiers]

It is important that the police take anti-Semitism and other forms of hate crime very seriously, both in Northern Ireland and in the rest of the United Kingdom—I know they do, as does Justice Minister David Ford. It is also important to reflect on the fact that a number of identities are present in modern Northern Ireland, including the Jewish identity. People should be able to practise their identities in a way that is free from oppression by other people.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

The Secretary of State is right to stress that there is no tolerable level of prejudice against any minority, no matter how small. Someone who espoused the ethic that no minority was too small to be protected or cherished was Inez McCormack, whose funeral takes place today. Will the right hon. Lady join in paying tribute to the work Inez McCormack did, not just as a trade unionist, but in stressing that the benchmarks for a new fair society in Northern Ireland must include equality, cherishing of difference and the protection of all minorities?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am happy and enthusiastic to join the hon. Gentleman in paying that tribute. For many years, I have campaigned against anti-Semitism, and I believe that it is a hallmark of a civilised society that it protects minorities. That is one of the vital reasons why we should all continue to be vigilant on the matter of anti-Semitism and other forms of hate crime.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. What assessment she has made of the recent public disorder in Northern Ireland; and if she will make a statement.

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

4. What assessment she has made of the recent public disorder in Northern Ireland; and if she will make a statement.

[Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)]

9. What assessment she has made of the recent public disorder in Northern Ireland; and if she will make a statement.

[Dr Alasdair McDonnell (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

10. What assessment she has made of the recent violence in Belfast.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

The recent violence in Northern Ireland has been intolerable. The Government fully support the efforts of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in their efforts to combat this disorder and to bring to justice those responsible for it.

[Lucy Powell]

While the activities and involvement of many young people in the recent disorder has been criminal and wrong, does the Secretary of State agree that what those young people need is some hope for the future, through jobs and training? What will she do to ensure that the Northern Ireland Assembly gets all the support it needs in that endeavour?

[Mrs Villiers]

The UK Government continue to support the Northern Ireland Executive through the block grant, which is approximately 25% higher in Northern Ireland than it is in England. Our economic strategy is focused on rebalancing the Northern Ireland economy, providing a boost by getting the public finances under control and keeping interest rates low. We are providing support for families by cancelling Labour’s fuel tax rises, and we have provided an income tax cut for over 600,000 families in Northern Ireland.

[Ann McKechin]

Belfast still sadly remains a city where communities are divided physically by walls and fences. What steps is the right hon. Lady’s Department going to take to help rebuild these communities and to link them together so that the disorder we have witnessed recently will become history rather than something we have to deal with in the present and the future?

[Mrs Villiers]

In addition to the economic measures I mentioned earlier, there has been a strong focus—by me, my predecessor and the Prime Minister—on working with the Northern Ireland Executive to deliver a shared future by healing divisions between different parts of the community in Northern Ireland. A huge amount was achieved with the Belfast agreement, but recent events demonstrate that there are still significant sectarian divisions, which it is now urgent to address.

[Gemma Doyle]

Does the Secretary of State agree that the Westminster Government have a responsibility to provide whatever assistance is needed to the Police Service of Northern Ireland to deal with matters of national security? Does she view it in that light?

[Mrs Villiers]

The impact of the recent disorder on resources is certainly a cause for concern. However, the United Kingdom Government are already giving the PSNI significant assistance through the £200 million of additional security funding that we allocated in 2011, and that money is helping the PSNI to deal with the current protests. Not only has it released resources for other forms of policing, but it has enabled the PSNI to purchase a new fleet of Land Rovers which are being deployed directly in policing the protests and combating the violence.

[Dr Alasdair McDonnell]

The current difficult situation is of concern to all of us. There is significant violence and illegal behaviour, and daily we hear anecdotal evidence of the potential economic withdrawal of some of the hard-earned foreign direct investment that we have received for the past few years. We need a solution. Would the Secretary of State be amenable to a round-table conference with the two Governments and all the Northern Ireland parties to sort out all the issues that confront us?

[Mrs Villiers]

All Northern Ireland’s political parties must work together to find a political way forward. The violence is unacceptable. The protests need to stop, and be replaced by a political dialogue. I have been urging the parties to engage in such a process, and I welcome the hard work they are doing in trying to set it up. I believe that the constructive meeting that I had with the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and the Irish Foreign Minister last week has provided an impetus for the political parties to continue their discussions on a political solution.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

As we have heard, the violence in Belfast has had a bad impact on the employment prospects of people in that city. This morning the Northern Ireland Finance Minister announced that he intended to launch an advertising campaign to make people aware that, in spite of everything else, Belfast is a great place in which to work and do business. Is there any way in which the Secretary of State can support him in his quest?

[Mrs Villiers]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s question, which gives me an opportunity to emphasise that there is much that is positive in Northern Ireland, and that 2013 still has the potential to be a fantastic year for it. There has been a very successful start for Derry/Londonderry as the UK city of culture, the G8 is coming to Northern Ireland, and the World Police and Fire Games, one of the biggest sporting events in the world, are to be held there as well. All that demonstrates the existence of a modern, forward-looking Northern Ireland that has resolved a great many of its problems.

The violence is counter-productive, and it is damaging Northern Ireland’s image abroad. I will strongly back efforts to bring people back to the centre of Belfast to support the economy there. I urge everyone to recognise that Northern Ireland is a great place for inward investment, a great place in which to set up a business, and a great place to visit as a tourist.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before I call the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), I must emphasise that we have a great deal to get through. We need short questions and short, sharp answers.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

May I continue the positive theme? The Secretary of State will be aware of the Belfast Telegraph’s excellent campaign, “We’re Backing Belfast”, which people have joined in supporting. Could the Secretary of State do any more to back the city at this time? Could she, for instance, arrange for meetings of the Northern Ireland Grand Committee to take place in Belfast, or arrange for the Cabinet to meet in Belfast in order to show support for it—and, perhaps, take the opportunity to announce economic measures such as a cut in corporation tax?

[Mrs Villiers]

Those are interesting ideas, and I will pass them on to those who make such decisions. As for corporation tax, the Prime Minister is considering the issue and will make an announcement in due course.

[Mr Dodds]

The Secretary of State will know of reports that leading members of the Provisional IRA who were formerly involved in its campaign of violence in Northern Ireland are now working with dissident groups there and providing them with expertise. What discussions has she had with the Chief Constable about the matter, and has she asked Sinn Fein what it knows about those people and their involvement in dissident violence?

[Mrs Villiers]

I regularly discuss with the Chief Constable the serious terrorist threat posed by dissident republicans, and I will continue to do so. The UK Government are vigilant in combating the threat from dissident republican terrorists. They are small in number but they have lethal intent, and unfortunately they also have capability.

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that it is not just city centre traders who have been affected by the current trouble. During her visit to my constituency last week, she met representatives of local businesses who have been affected by the disruption. Does she agree that we will only be able to create the conditions for long-term stability and growth on which we can build if the parties in Northern Ireland work collectively, along with both Governments, to develop a shared future and tackle sectarianism?

[Mrs Villiers]

I agree that the lessons from the past few weeks demonstrate, once again, how important it is that all the elected representatives in Northern Ireland work together to build a shared future and to heal sectarian division. I very much welcome the opportunity to come to the hon. Lady’s constituency and her office, and to meet those who have been affected by the protests. She continues to have my sympathy for the treatment that she has undergone and to which her staff have been subjected.

[Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)]

I join the Secretary of State, and hon. Members on both sides of the House, in standing against the recent violence. It is important that Westminster sends a clear message that it is unacceptable. Does she agree with me, and with what other hon. Members have said today, that we need more than just condemnation—we need action? Will she outline what steps she has taken and, more importantly, what steps she intends to take now to deal with these problems?

[Mrs Villiers]

My focus has been on meeting the people affected by this disorder, talking to the businesses and the communities that have been disrupted by it, keeping in very regular touch with the Chief Constable to give my absolute support to the brave efforts of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in keeping order on the streets, and driving forward a political solution from the political parties. I am in very regular touch with them, urging them to meet to discuss this issue, in order to find a political way forward to resolve these critical issues on identity and build a shared future.

[Vernon Coaker]

I thank the Secretary of State for her reply. Of course, as she said, there is positive news, but will she now, with the Northern Ireland Executive and the Irish Government, review what has happened? Will they then set out together concrete proposals to deal with the underlying issues, specifically those relating to culture and identity, social and economic deprivation, and sectarianism? In doing that, we can continue to work together to build the shared and prosperous future that we all want for Northern Ireland.

[Mrs Villiers]

As I have said, at last week’s meeting with the First Minister, Deputy First Minister and Irish Foreign Minister we did review the current situation. I will continue, as I know the Tanaiste will, to press the Northern Ireland parties to make real progress on this situation. It is now vital that we see practical steps towards delivering a shared future and healing those sectarian divides. That is a point I have made repeatedly in pretty much every speech I have made since being appointed. Now is the time for real progress and seeing the Northern Ireland Executive and all Northern Ireland’s political leaders going forward to deliver that shared future that they all very much support.

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

3. What discussions she has had with the Irish government on the recent violence in Belfast.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I have been in regular contact with the Tanaiste, Eamon Gilmore, in recent weeks. Last Thursday, we met the First Minister and Deputy First Minister in Belfast to discuss various matters, including recent violence and disorder.

[Ms Ritchie]

As well as discussing the violence, has the Secretary of State any plans to discuss the question of a border poll with Dublin and, in particular, the Social Democratic and Labour party’s idea of a long-term financial support framework for Northern Ireland, agreed between London and Dublin, which would survive future constitutional change while, over time, reducing the north’s net dependency on the Treasury? Will she meet my party to discuss such proposals?

[Mrs Villiers]

I am certainly happy to meet the hon. Lady and her party colleagues. I have not discussed a border poll with Eamon Gilmore recently. My feeling is that the conditions that require a border poll are certainly not present in Northern Ireland, and we have no plans to call one at the moment.

[Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)]

The United Kingdom Prime Minister has a number of times made apologies in this House. In the Secretary of State’s discussions with the Government of the Irish Republic, has she raised the issue of the Dublin Government making apologies concerning previous Republic Governments arming the Provisional IRA and therefore raining more than 30 years of terror and mayhem down on the innocent, law-abiding British people in Ulster?

[Mrs Villiers]

That is not an issue I have discussed directly with the Irish Government, but the Prime Minister has made it very clear that everyone with an involvement in Northern Ireland’s troubles has a duty to confront their role and address issues raised by the past.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

5. What steps she is taking in conjunction with the Northern Ireland Assembly to address the issues that have given rise to the Union flag dispute in Belfast.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I have discussed these matters on a number of occasions with the First Minister and Deputy First Minister, and with representatives from the other main political parties. It is vital that political leaders in Northern Ireland identify ways to reduce community division and build a genuinely shared society.

[Mr Campbell]

I thank the Secretary of State for her response. Is she aware that some of the underlying issues that have led to the flag dispute include getting jobs in the public sector for the Protestant community, cultural differentials between Ulster Scots and Irish and parading disputes? Those issues led to the flag dispute and then this morning the police ombudsman ensured that investigations will take place only into the IRA activities of the past. All those issues are causing problems and must be addressed. Will she liaise with the appropriate Ministers in Northern Ireland to address those issues and see that they are resolved?

[Mrs Villiers]

I agree that there are probably a number of underlying issues relating to the recent flag protests and I am happy to work with the relevant Ministers on all those matters, as I am already doing. The strong message I would send out is that it is far more difficult to address such issues when there is violence on the streets of Belfast. That is why it is essential that the violence stops and the protests are replaced by a political dialogue on a way forward.

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State reassure me that, irrespective of the scale of violence and unrest, the coalition Government will always support the democratic decisions taken on the flag issue?

[Mrs Villiers]

Yes, I can give him that assurance. Democratic decisions must be respected; they cannot be changed by rioting. If they are going to change, they should be changed through the democratic process and by dialogue.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

Will the Secretary of State congratulate the Unionist forum on its formation? Its task is to try to identify the issues and solutions across the whole of the unrest in Belfast.

[Mrs Villiers]

It is constructive to have dialogue across the board. The Unionist forum can provide a good opportunity to engage with the loyalist community and I welcome the fact that those heading it up have emphasised that there is a twin-track approach that will involve dialogue with the other political parties and other parts of the community.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

May I add to the comments made by the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) about the role played by Inez McCormack over many years? In moving the peace process forward, she always said that if we want to move from a shared divided past to a shared united future we must do that in a non-partisan way while recognising that we must compromise. The Northern Ireland parties in this House have attempted to work together, so will the Secretary of State give her commitment that she will ensure that that makes progress?

[Mrs Villiers]

Yes, I will.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

6. What discussions she has had with the devolved Administrations on developing a UK-wide strategy on tackling diabetes.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mike Penning)]

I have not been involved in discussions as my Department does not have responsibility for diabetes. It is for Health Ministers across the UK, including in the Assembly, to tackle diabetes in their areas.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the Minister for those comments. A strategy for the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland was started in 2003 to address the time bomb of diabetes. That concludes this year, 2013. Does the Minister agree that there is a critical need for a strategy to continue? What steps can he take to ensure that diabetes will be addressed over the next 10 years as there has been a 30% increase in Northern Ireland in the past 10 years?

[Mike Penning]

I took a keen interest in the subject when I was a shadow Health Minister and the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we must tackle the plague of diabetes that is affecting our communities. Diabetes is not just a health issue, it is a way of life issue and sport, in particular, can bring real benefits. I shall speak to the Minister in the Assembly about diabetes and we will write to the hon. Gentleman.

[Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab)]

In any discussions the Minister has with the devolved Administration on a UK-wide strategy on diabetes, will he ensure that he emphasises that type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes are entirely different diseases that should be dealt with separately?—[Interruption.]

[Mike Penning]

I am afraid that I could not hear a single word from the right hon. Gentleman. Would he be kind enough to repeat his question?

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is too much noise on both sides of the House. Let us hear the right hon. Gentleman.

[Mr George Howarth]

I asked whether in any discussions the Minister has with the devolved Administration, he would emphasise that type 1 and type 2 diabetes are entirely different diseases and that any strategy needs to reflect that in how it deals with them.

[Mike Penning]

I absolutely agree. Type 1 and type 2 are two completely different diseases, and while we talk a lot about type 2—we need to—type 1 has a devastating effect on communities and families, and we need to look at that, too.

[Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)]

7. What discussions she has had with the Northern Ireland Executive on youth unemployment; and if she will make a statement.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mike Penning)]

Youth unemployment is a very serious concern for the Government and for everybody across the House, and every effort is being made to reduce it. It is part of the strategy to make sure that youth unemployment is addressed in the Province, and we will make every effort to do that.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am most grateful to the Minister for that answer. Given that more than 90% of firms in Northern Ireland have 10 employees or fewer, does he agree with my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor that a tax break on national insurance for new hires would go some way towards helping to bring down youth unemployment?

[Mike Penning]

Youth unemployment in general is, of course, a matter for the devolved Assembly, but the UK Government must make every effort that we can. Certainly, I know that the Treasury will look at everything that the shadow Chancellor says and does, and at the spending commitments he gives. We must not think that this suddenly happened in 2010: as the hon. Gentleman will know, youth unemployment started to rise in 2004, in the boom before the bust that the previous Administration gave us.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There are still far too many noisy private conversations taking place in the Chamber. Let us have a bit of order for Mr Robert Halfon.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

13. Will my hon. Friend the Minister help young earners on low earnings by lobbying the Treasury to put the extra revenues raised from the 45p rate towards reintroducing the 10p income tax rate, which was abolished by the last Government?

[Mike Penning]

Together with the Secretary of State, I regularly lobby on behalf of Northern Ireland for money. The previous Secretary of State and Minister lobbied extensively to get the £200 million that was needed to make sure that the security situation in Northern Ireland was addressed. It is up to the Administration in Northern Ireland to spend the very generous grant that they get, which is substantially more than England gets.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

Does the Minister agree that, given the problem of youth unemployment and many other economic problems in Northern Ireland, Sinn Fein’s call for a referendum seems most inappropriate, and is nothing but a cynical exercise in republican breast-beating? In light of the Government’s new-found enthusiasm for referendums, should there by some chance be a referendum, will he give an assurance that the Government will be firmly on the side of keeping Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom?

[Mike Penning]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I do not wish to be unkind or discourteous to the hon. Gentleman, but the question was, and must remain, about youth unemployment. There is no requirement on the Minister to answer.

[Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)]

Despite the recent violence that we have witnessed, there is great work being done on the ground to combat youth unemployment and build community cohesion. Much of it is supported by funding from the European Union, through PEACE money. Will the Minister assure people in Northern Ireland that he remains firmly committed to the United Kingdom remaining within the EU, and to Northern Ireland continuing to benefit from PEACE money?

[Mike Penning]

As ever—[Interruption.] I never knew I was so popular. Making sure that youth unemployment is addressed in Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom is very important. The issue of the PEACE money, which is part of negotiations at the moment regarding the financial settlement, is way above my pay grade. Whatever happens, we will ensure the best possible deal for the United Kingdom.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

8. What the cost to the public purse has been of policing the recent protests and disorder in Northern Ireland.

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)]

I am advised that the additional cost of policing the recent protests is estimated at £3.9 million for the period up to 31 December 2012. That figure does not include costs arising from injuries to officers, or the cost of investigations to bring those responsible for disorder to the courts.

[Andrew Stephenson]

Can my right hon. Friend confirm that at a time of great pressure on public expenditure, additional resources that have to be spent on policing the protests and disorder in Northern Ireland are inevitably money that will not be spent on housing, education or tackling the kind of deprivation that some have suggested fuelled the protests in the first place?

[Mrs Villiers]

Yes, it is disgraceful that this violence has occurred, and the fact that it has had such an impact on police resources is deeply regrettable. It makes it much more difficult for the police to continue their commitment to community policing and outreach in the community, which is another reason why the violence has to stop.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

11. What discussions she has had with Ministers in the Northern Ireland Executive on attracting inward investment.

[The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mike Penning)]

We have given assurances, and continue to give assurance, to Executive Ministers that the Government will work closely with them to rebalance the economy in Northern Ireland.

[Andrew Bridgen]

The Northern Irish economy has suffered adversely for many years as a result of the lower rates of corporation tax levied in the Republic of Ireland. Will my hon. Friend update the House on the impact of the Government’s policies of lowering corporation tax and remaining outside the eurozone, and what effect that has had on inward investment in Northern Ireland?

[Mike Penning]

There are ongoing negotiations for further possible reductions in corporation tax in Northern Ireland, but one of the biggest things that the Northern Ireland Administration and UK Ministers can do is bring people to Northern Ireland to see the great success story there. Only last week, the seven leading Japanese businesses in the UK came to Northern Ireland and were enormously impressed by the progress that we have made there.

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 23 January.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

Before I answer the hon. Gentleman’s question, I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in paying tribute to Kingsman David Robert Shaw of 1st Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment. He died in Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham last Wednesday as a result of wounds that he sustained in Afghanistan. He gave his life for the safety of the British people, and his incredibly brave contribution must never be forgotten. Our profound condolences are with his loved ones.

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

[Nic Dakin]

I am sure that the whole House and the whole country would want to associate themselves with the Prime Minister’s comments about David Robert Shaw and his family and friends at this difficult time.

On Monday, the Prime Minister stated that the task for our generation was to struggle against terrorism. On Tuesday, his Government sacked 5,600 troops. Why is there such a gap between what the Prime Minister says and what he does?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that the hon. Gentleman asks an important question, and I do not deny for one second that we have had to take difficult decisions about defence spending in our country. However, let me make this point. At £33 billion a year, we have the fourth largest defence budget anywhere in the world, and it is important that we make sure that we have the right scale and shape of armed forces, and that they have the right capabilities. That is why, in the defence review, we are investing in drones, and investing more in special forces and in key intelligence capabilities, making sure that we have the aircraft we need to ensure that we have highly mobile armed forces. I am incredibly proud of what our armed forces do, and because we are now balancing their budget, they will be better equipped for the future.

[Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con)]

Sixty-eight years ago this Sunday, the Nazi concentration and extermination camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was liberated. As we mark Holocaust memorial day, will the Prime Minister commit to ensuring that young people in this country always have the opportunity to learn about what took place in the darkest period in our shared history, and will he commend the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that my hon. Friend speaks for the whole House, and indeed the whole country, in raising this vital issue on this day, and in praising the Holocaust Educational Trust—an absolutely brilliant charity and organisation that makes sure that young people from schools across the country have the opportunity to go and see the places where the terrible events of the holocaust took place. I had the immense privilege this week of meeting a holocaust survivor whose story was truly heroic and truly heartbreaking, but who in her 90s is still making these arguments and making this case so that future generations will learn. We should also learn, not just about the European holocaust, but from what has happened more recently in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia and elsewhere that, tragically, there is far too much prejudice and persecution in our world.

[Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)]

Can I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Kingsman David Robert Shaw of 1st Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment? He showed the utmost courage and bravery, and the condolences of the whole House go to his family and friends.

Can the Prime Minister guarantee that if he gets his in/out referendum he will campaign to stay in?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I want Britain to be part of a reformed and successful European Union. This entire argument is about what is in Britain’s national interests. We want a European Union that is more open, more flexible, more competitive, not just good for Britain, but good for Europe too.

[Edward Miliband]

I do not think that was quite a complete answer to my question. Let us see if we can press the Prime Minister a bit further about how he is going to vote. Is he saying that if he does not achieve his negotiating strategy, he will recommend—[Interruption.] The part-time Chancellor can hang on a minute. Is the Prime Minister saying that if he does not achieve his negotiating strategy, he will recommend that Britain leaves the European Union?

[The Prime Minister]

First, it is very welcome that the right hon. Gentleman is accepting the premise that the Conservatives will win the next election, and interestingly, not raising the fact that the unemployment figures are down once again today. Employment is up by 90,000 this quarter, and the rate of job growth last year was the fastest since 1989. But I answered his question very clearly. I want to see a strong Britain in a reformed Europe. We have a very clear plan. We want to reset the relationship. We will hold that referendum. We will recommend that resettlement to the British people, but the question now is for him: has he got a clue what he would do?

[Edward Miliband]

The clue is in the title—Prime Minister’s questions. He is supposed to be answering the questions. He has had six months to think about this. It is not too much to ask. The Minister without Portfolio, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), who is not here, would say unequivocally that he would vote yes in a referendum. The Secretary of State for Education, who is hiding away down the Benches there, has briefed that he wants us to leave the European Union. I am just asking the Prime Minister a straight question: can he guarantee that he will vote yes in an in/out referendum?

[The Prime Minister]

Yes, I support Britain’s membership of a reformed European Union. Only the Leader of the Opposition would go into negotiations expecting to fail. We go into negotiations knowing what is best for Britain. Let me put it to him again. We now have a very clear approach: a renegotiation and then a referendum. What is his answer? Let me tell him—he is meant to lead the Opposition, and you cannot fight something with nothing.

[Edward Miliband]

The reason that those on the Conservative Back Benches are cheering is not that they want to vote yes in an in/out referendum; it is because they want to vote no. That is the reality for the Prime Minister. He still has not answered the question. Let me put it another way and give him another chance. We know from his speech this morning that he wants to go off and negotiate for fairness, flexibility and motherhood and apple pie in Europe. Can he name one thing—just one thing—which, if he does not get it, he will recommend leaving the European Union?

[The Prime Minister]

I do not want Britain to leave the European Union. I want Britain to reform the European Union. We have set out the areas where we want—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Members are shouting their heads off at the Prime Minister. They must desist. Let us hear the answers.

[The Prime Minister]

We have been very clear about what we want to see changed. There is a whole series of areas—social legislation, employment legislation, environmental legislation—where Europe has gone far too far, and we need to properly safeguard the single market. We also want to make sure that ever-closer union does not apply to the United Kingdom. These are the things that we are fighting for. Let me put it to the right hon. Gentleman again. We want a renegotiation and then a referendum. What does he want? Or does he not know?

[Edward Miliband]

So four hours since the big speech, the Prime Minister cannot answer the most basic question of all—whether he is for yes or for no. Why can he not answer it? Why can he not say unequivocally that he will vote yes in a referendum? Because he is frightened, because of those on the Conservative Back Benches. The only thing that has changed since a few months ago, when he said he was against an in/out referendum, is not the situation in Europe, but the situation in the Tory party. Why does he not admit it? He has not been driven to it by the national interest, but dragged to it by his party.

[The Prime Minister]

The most basic question of all is: do you want a referendum? I do. Does he?

[Edward Miliband]

My position is no, we do not want an in/out referendum—[Interruption.] My position is precisely the same as the Prime Minister’s position when we voted together in October 2011 against an in/out referendum. My position has not changed; it is his position that has changed. And here is the truth: after six months of planning a speech on a referendum, he cannot even tell us whether it is a yes or a no —[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman. I said a moment ago that Members should not shout their heads off at the Prime Minister; neither should they shout their heads off at the Leader of the Opposition. They must stop—[Interruption.] Order. They must stop, and his questions must, and will, be heard.

[Edward Miliband]

The Prime Minister is going to put Britain through years of uncertainty and take a huge gamble with our economy. He is running scared of UKIP, he has given in to his party and he cannot deliver for Britain.

[The Prime Minister]

I have politely to say to the right hon. Gentleman that his whole argument about there being uncertainty is fatally undermined by the fact that he cannot answer whether he wants a referendum or not. Can I give him a little bit of advice? He needs to go away, get a policy, come back and tell us what it is. In the meantime, our approach is what the British people want. It is right for business, it is right for our economy, and we will fight for it in the years ahead.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

Q15. Around the world, 170 million children under the age of five are stunted. That means that they are so malnourished that it has affected their physical and possibly their cognitive development. The world has enough food for everyone. As leading non-governmental organisations such as Save the Children launch a major campaign against malnutrition, will the Prime Minister tell us what action the United Kingdom will be taking during its presidency of the G8?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue, particularly as we chair the G8 this year, and because some of the leading non-governmental organisations, including Save the Children, have quite rightly launched that campaign today. Above all, what Britain will be doing is meeting the commitment we made to spend 0.7% of our gross national income on aid—a commitment that we have made and that we have kept, whereas many other countries have broken their promises. We will be using that money to make sure that we focus on the issues of malnutrition, under-nutrition and stunting, because it is not acceptable, in 2013, that so many millions of families in the world go hungry every day and every night.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

Q2. The British automotive industry is a world-class success story, with 82% of the cars we produce being exported. The key is inward investment, and the key to inward investment is our continuing membership of the European Union. Has the Prime Minister heard the growing voices expressing concern from within the industry over the prolonged uncertainty that his speech this morning will create? Is he beginning to recognise the damage that he might do to our economy and to a sector that employs hundreds of thousands of British workers?

[The Prime Minister]

First, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is very welcome that, for the first time since the 1970s, Britain is once again, under this Government, a net exporter of cars. That is something to celebrate, but I simply do not agree with what he says about business. This morning, the Institute of Directors, the director-general of the CBI, the British Chambers of Commerce and the Federation of Small Businesses are all coming out and saying that this is the right approach. Let us get a good deal for Britain, let us reform Europe and make it more open and competitive, and let us put the choice to the British people in a referendum.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I welcome the Prime Minister’s support for ending hunger, and his use of the G8 leadership for that campaign. Does he recognise the importance of the root causes of hunger, such as the land grabs and the use of land for producing biofuels? Does he also recognise the need to ensure that investment in those countries is suitably transparent? Will he use the G8 to seek bold action on those root causes?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this. Because Britain is meeting its promises on money for aid, we are best placed to make the arguments about what I call the golden thread, which is all the things that help move countries from poverty to wealth: making sure that there is the proper rule of law, democratic systems, accountability, a free press and property rights. We will be making the argument in the G8. We need greater transparency about land ownership, greater transparency about companies and greater transparency about tax. These are all arguments that Britain will be pushing in the year ahead.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

Q3. Can the Prime Minister confirm that his Government are the first for 30 years not to offer hard-pressed consumers a Government-funded energy efficiency scheme, following the closure of Warm Front last week?

[The Prime Minister]

No. The energy company obligation scheme is many times the size of the Warm Front scheme. Warm Front helped 80,000 families a year, but ECO could help up to 230,000 families a year, so it is a bigger and potentially better scheme.

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

What assessment has the Prime Minister made of unemployment in my constituency, particularly the fact that more women are in work than ever before?

[The Prime Minister]

The point my hon. Friend makes is absolutely right. There are now more people employed in the private sector than ever before, and there are also more women employed in our country than ever before. When we look at the unemployment figures that came out today, we see that what is remarkable is that in employment is up in almost every region and unemployment is down in almost every region. There is a huge amount more to do, but clearly over 500,000 new jobs were created in the private sector last year, the fastest job creation rate since 1989. That shows that we are on the right track.

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

Q4. Does the Prime Minister believe that it is fair that Preston city council, which represents one of the areas of highest deprivation and poverty in the country, is receiving a 12% cut in its local government funding, while his own West Oxfordshire district council receives a cut of only 1%? Will he look at that again and give Preston a fairer deal?

[The Prime Minister]

Of course, local government right across the board is facing a difficult funding settlement—I do not hide from that—but the figures are as follows: the area formula grant per head in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency is £501, whereas in my constituency it is £320. I completely accept that needs are greater in different parts of the country, which is why the figures are different, but I think that the figures speak for themselves.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on a landmark speech this morning, which demonstrated serious leadership of our country and leadership on the important issue of Europe, but I invite him to agree with me on this issue: it is not simply the United Kingdom that is seeking to renegotiate the treaties, because there is also a serious imperative on those members of the eurozone that have introduced the disastrous single currency policy into Europe, which has caused economic chaos. They are the ones in need of treaty renegotiation, not just us.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he says. The point he makes is correct: there is a big change taking place in Europe because of the reforms that are necessary to deal with the single currency. That is why treaty change and change in Europe is coming. There is also already a big debate in Britain about our role in Europe. I think that politicians have a choice: we can either walk towards that, try to shape that choice to get a good deal for Britain and make changes that will benefit all of Europe, or we can stick our heads in the sand, as the Labour party is doing, and hope that the whole thing will go away.

[Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)]

Q5. Why does the Prime Minister think that Scotland’s two-year referendum process is too long but that his five-year Euro-marathon is just fine?

[The Prime Minister]

There is a very easy answer: the Scottish nationalists, in my view, misguidedly want to leave the United Kingdom as it is. I will be arguing, as will Members right across the House, that Scotland should stay in the United Kingdom. What I want to see in Europe is a changed Europe. Then we ask the people.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

Q6. Despite his busy morning, I am sure that the Prime Minister will have seen today’s report from the Department for Communities and Local Government highlighting the huge savings that can be made by turning around the country’s most troubled families, such as the £224 million saved by councils in Greater Manchester, which equates to £32,000 per family. [Interruption.] What is he doing to ensure that these lessons are put to good use by local authorities across the country?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, and I do not understand why people are trying to shout down what should be a cross-party initiative to try to deal with the most troubled families in our country.

One council spent up to 20% of its budget on just 3% of its families. This is a problem affecting all local authorities right across the country, and I very much commend the approach that the Communities Secretary is taking—to bring together local councils and work out how we can help these families solve their problems and thus reduce a major impact on taxpayers as well.

[Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)]

Q7. The Government’s welfare Bill will plunge 200,000 extra children into poverty, and children in places such as Liverpool are already suffering. Yet the Government want to make the poor go away by redefining poverty. Does the Prime Minister really think he is going to get away with that?

[The Prime Minister]

What I would say to the hon. Lady is that the introduction of universal credit is going to reduce the number of children living in relative-income poverty by around 250,000. Those are the figures.

On the issue of welfare, we face a clear choice. Given that in-work benefits have gone up by 20% over the last five years compared with just a 10% increase in wages, we believe that it is right that welfare benefits should not continue to go up ahead of wages. I note what Labour have done this week: great sound and fury, voting against the Bill and saying it is completely wrong, but completely refusing to reverse it. That is the complete policy vacuum that we face from the Labour party.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

Given the Prime Minister’s keen interest in single markets, will he look at mortgage lenders restricting legal work to a small number of larger firms and depriving local practices of the work that keeps them at the heart of local high streets in a thriving small business economy?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I will look closely at this. We do want to see a competitive market in financial services and conveyancing. It is a major issue in our economy at the moment to get that mortgage market moving.

There are good signs, as the Governor of the Bank of England said last night, that credit conditions are easing, but we need to make sure that they are easing for people who are trying to buy their first flat and first home, who do not have a big deposit or a lot of help from the bank of mum and dad. We need to make sure that we are on their side.

[Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)]

Q8. In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), the Prime Minister justified very large cuts in defence spending, with 5,000 troops being sacked right now, on the basis that he had had to face some difficult decisions on expenditure. But those decisions were made in 2010. The security risk facing this country is now much worse, as he himself has acknowledged and as many of his own hon. Friends fear. Given those threats, including in the Sahel, is there not an overwhelming case for looking again at the strategic defence review and ensuring that our troops have the numbers needed to justify our defence?

[The Prime Minister]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a serious point. The point about our defence reviews is that they are every five years, so there will be the opportunity to look at this all over again. What I would say to him about the level of risk—I made this point in my statement to the House on Monday—is that the risks are changing. We still face the biggest risk from the Afghanistan-Pakistan area, but the proportion of the risks that we face from that area has declined, so we are able to use resources as we draw down in Afghanistan to cope with the other risks that we face.

The overall point is absolutely that, yes, we are going to have a smaller regular Army, although the extra reserves will mean that the overall level of our Army hardly changes size. But they will be better equipped, more capable, more mobile and more capable of dealing with the modern threats that we face.

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

I congratulate the Prime Minister on his speech on Europe this morning. This Prime Minister has a history of going in to bat for Britain; the Labour party has a history of going in and surrendering things such as the rebate. Is not the big difference between that side and this that this side trusts the people and that side wants to deny them a say?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. Frankly, the British public have seen treaty after treaty introduced to this House, passing powers from Westminster to Brussels. They have seen a huge change in the European Union over the last 30 years. They see a big change taking place because of the eurozone, and that is why I think it is right to resettle our relationship with Europe and then to trust the people.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Q9. As with phone-hacking, blacklisting has destroyed the lives of many innocent people. Recent revelations show that the secretive, serious abuse of powers involved in blacklisting continues with the involvement of the police and the security services. Will the Prime Minister order an immediate investigation into this scandal, which has ruined, and continues to ruin, the lives of many hard-working men and women and their families?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman rightly raises the issue that the Opposition will be raising today in their debate. Let me say that the blacklisting that occurred was a completely unacceptable practice, and the previous Government were right to bring in legislation to make it unlawful. We have seen no evidence that the blacklisting regulations that were introduced are not doing their job, and the company responsible was shut down in 2009. However, I welcome the openness and frankness with which Labour is using an Opposition day debate to look at something that went wrong while it was in office.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend insists on five excellent principles, including democracy based on national Parliaments, and he rejects ever-closer union. Other member states want to go ahead with more integration and are demanding it. Last year, on the fiscal compact, they ignored his veto and went ahead, irrespective of the rules of the European Union. Will my right hon. Friend tell us what will happen if, by next spring, they insist on going ahead with their own intended proposals, and what will he do in response?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, I thank my hon. Friend for what he says. I believe that what is going to happen is that the eurozone countries do need to make changes to the European Union, as I put it in my speech this morning. They are changing the Union to fix the currency. That is what President Barroso’s report is about and what the four Presidents’ report is about, and it poses quite wide-ranging treaty change. I think this gives us the opportunity and the right to argue that for those countries that are not in the eurozone—and frankly, I believe, are never going to join the eurozone—there are changes we would like, not just for ourselves but for a more open, competitive and flexible Europe. So there is going to be change in Europe. The eurozone countries do need to make changes, but we should not back off from pushing forward our agenda as well.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

Q10. Is the Prime Minister aware that there can be nothing more gruesome than to see him headed out of austerity-riddled Britain to wine and dine at Davos with 50 top bankers who helped to create the economic crash and several hundred tax-avoiding millionaires? Does it not prove the theory that if you want to identify a posh boy, look at the company he keeps?

[The Prime Minister]

I seem to remember that last year I ran into the Leader of the Opposition, but we will leave that to one side. To be fair to the hon. Gentleman, I think that when he sees the speech I am going to be making in Davos, which will be arguing that we need greater transparency over tax, greater responsibility over the tax avoidance and tax evasion issues, and greater transparency about companies and about the land issue we were speaking about earlier, he might even find that he agrees with some of the things I am going to say.

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister cut through the irrelevant arguments coming from the Opposition and give the very simple message to the British people that if we have a Conservative Government after the next election, they will have their say in a referendum on Europe, but if we do not have a Conservative Government, we will not have a referendum?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I believe it is right to resettle our relationship with Europe to make it more open, more competitive and more flexible, to make us feel more comfortable inside the Union, and then to give the British people the in/out referendum they deserve.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Q11. Can the Prime Minister confirm that 3.4 million families with someone who is disabled will be worse off as a result of his benefit uprating cap? Why is he making life more difficult for these families?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, I would say to the hon. Lady that disability living allowance is not included in the cap, and disability living allowance is not related to people’s income; it is actually related to people’s needs. If we look as a whole at what we are doing with disability living allowance and the personal independence payment, we see that the overall the amount of money we are spending on disability is going to go up and not down.

[Sir Menzies Campbell (North East Fife) (LD)]

My right hon. Friend’s admiration for the economic and political wisdom of our noble friend Lord Heseltine is well known. In the light of my right hon. Friend’s speech this morning, will he consider inviting Lord Heseltine to conduct an inquiry into the consequences for the United Kingdom if we leave the European Union?

[The Prime Minister]

I always listen closely to what Michael Heseltine says and I am a huge fan of his plans for an industrial strategy. On the issue of Europe, we have not always agreed. He was a leading proponent of Britain joining the single currency and I have always been opposed to that. On the issue of the referendum, I gently remind my right hon. and learned Friend that an in/out referendum was very much part of his manifesto at the last election, but in the interests of coalition harmony, I think we will leave that to one side.

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

Q12. A Swansea constituent of mine with a chronic medical condition tells me that he has just £20 a week to spend on food and clothing after paying his utility bills, and that after the welfare cuts in April he will have just £2 a day. If the Prime Minister believes that we are all in it together, will he agree to review the impact of the welfare cuts on the very poorest, so that my constituent’s sacrifices are in line with his own?

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very closely at what the hon. Gentleman says and the circumstances, but it is worth making the point that, if we compare 2013 with 2010 in terms of the level of key benefits, we will see that an unemployed person on jobseeker’s allowance is getting £325 more this year than in 2010, that a couple on jobseeker’s allowance are getting £500 more and that a single, out-of-work mother is getting £420 more, so what the Opposition try to do week after week—paint a picture that we have unfairly cut welfare—is simply untrue.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Health inequalities in the country are persistent and damaging. Recently the Department of Health announced a 5.5% increase in its allocation to local authorities for their public health responsibilities and a 10% increase for Bedford and Kempston. Does the Prime Minister agree that those funds, locally directed, will go a long way to help tackling long-term health inequalities?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. For many years public health budgets were raided in order to deal with issues and problems in the NHS. Because we put in place an increase in the NHS budget—we have also ring-fenced some of the public health budgets—we are able to make sure that we tackle some of the real problems, such as smoking, diabetes and other issues, that will put enormous pressures on our health service in the long run.

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

Q13. The House has heard that the Prime Minister is looking forward to meeting people from national and international banks in the next few days. When will he visit a food bank?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, let me once again praise what food banks do in our country and let me point out to the hon. Gentleman that the use of food banks increased 10 times under the last Labour Government.

[Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister join me in paying tribute to all the athletes who took part in the British transplant games held in my constituency? Linked to that, will he encourage people to register for organ donation, which will help to save lives?

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly pay tribute to all those who took part in the British transplant games and to the many volunteers who made the games such a success. Gillingham did a fantastic job in hosting the games and my hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. They are a testament to the benefits of transplantation and I would encourage people to do as he says.

[Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)]

Q14. Seventy-seven of Warrington’s young people with the most complex special needs face being without places next year because of Government cuts to post-16 high-needs funding. Why should the most vulnerable young people in my constituency pay the price for the Prime Minister’s economic failure?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, let me make the point to the hon. Lady that the reason we are having to make cuts is because of the mess left by her Government. No one wants to have to make the difficult decisions that we have had to make in government, but I would argue that, when it comes to helping the disabled and the most vulnerable, this Government have always looked after them.

[Mr Speaker]

Last but not least, I call Crispin Blunt.

[Mr Crispin Blunt (Reigate) (Con)]

Pitt the Younger said that

“Europe is not to be saved by any single man”,

and then correctly went on to predict that England would

“save Europe by her example.”

I believe that my right hon. Friend is in danger of contradicting Pitt, because his example today and his exertions over the next four years stand the best possible chance of rescuing the European Union for both Europe and Britain.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for what he says. He makes an important point, which is that Britain’s agenda is not one of simply saying, “This is what Britain wants and if we don’t get it we will leave”, it is an agenda that is good for the whole of the European Union. We face a massive competitiveness challenge from the rising countries of the south and the east, and we must accept that Europe at the moment is not working properly—it is adding to business costs, adding to regulation, and we need to change that not just for our sake but for that of those right across the European Union.

A-level Reform

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

12:35

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

Today we have announced changes to A-level qualifications. As the key qualification for progression to higher education, it is clear that we need A-levels that are robust and rigorous. A-levels need to provide students with qualifications that match the world’s best and that keep pace with the demands of universities and employers. Reports from the Royal Society, SCORE—Science Community Representing Education—the Nuffield Foundation, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry, and many others, have identified significant problems with A-levels. I urge Members to read a blog by Fields medallist Professor Tim Gowers at Cambridge on some problems with maths A-level—problems that the Cambridge university maths project will address.

The Government inherited a system in which students start A-levels in September and immediately start preparing for exams in January. Pupils spend too much time thinking about exams and resits of exams, which encourages a “learn and forget” approach to studying. We want to end the treadmill of repeated exams that do not properly test advanced skills such as extended writing and mathematical problem solving. We want questions that encourage students to think and prepare for university study, not a sat-nav series of exams. The way that the Labour party repeatedly calls such skills “old fashioned” shows how totally out of touch it is with universities and businesses. Does it think that silicon valley wants people who can understand calculus and linear algebra, or students who turn up saying, “Don’t worry, we can Google everything”?

The Secretary of State has written to Ofqual chief executive, Glenys Stacey, setting out plans for changes to A-levels, and I will make copies of the letter available in the Library. In future, A-levels will be linear—taken over two years with students sitting their exams at the end of the course. That will lead to students developing deeper subject knowledge and greater intellectual maturity over two years of study. Ofqual, the exams regulator, has already announced its decision to remove the January exams from September 2013. The AS-level qualification will remain but will be redesigned as a stand-alone qualification. It will be as demanding as an A-level, but cover half the content. We expect that it will be delivered over either one or two years, so institutions can decide what is best for their students.

The Government will be stepping back from the future development of A-levels. All students should have access to qualifications that are highly respected and valued by leading universities. Universities will now have a greater role in how A-levels are developed. Leading academics have been clear that there are real problems with current A-levels, which they say do not equip students with the skills and knowledge needed for degree courses, including extended writing and research skills. We are pleased that the Russell Group—24 of the UK’s leading universities—has agreed to lead that process. The group has welcomed the opportunity to be involved and is considering how best to provide advice to Ofqual on both the content and the assessment of A-levels. The group will focus on those A-level subjects that are most commonly required for entry to our leading universities— the facilitating subjects: maths and further maths, English literature, physics, biology, chemistry, geography, history, and modern and classical languages.

We expect that the first new A-levels in facilitating subjects will be developed for first teaching in September 2015, with first exams sat in 2017. The Russell Group will seek the views of other universities as well as engaging with the relevant learned societies. Ofqual will lead a post-qualification review process each year, which will also involve the Russell Group.

The Department for Education is now stepping back from A-levels. A-levels had a global reputation before politicians took control. The Government are giving control back to universities. Furthermore, there is what the head of Stanford has called a “tsunami” heading towards the education world—the tsunami of the world’s best universities putting their best content and new online courses free on the web. This is a revolution that the DFE cannot, and should not seek to, control. The tsunami will raise the importance of advanced skills tested in rigorous A-levels, which the Labour party simply does not understand.

12:41

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

May I thank the Minister for her statement and for advance sight of it? I understand that the Secretary of State is rather busy today, which is why we have her and not him, and why I am speaking rather than my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—[Interruption.] I am not being patronising. I have welcomed the Minister’s statement.

It is somewhat ironic that the cause of the Secretary of State’s busy afternoon is that he has been summoned before the Procedure Committee to account for his Department’s failure to answer parliamentary questions. In effect, he is not here for his examination because he is in the headmaster’s study for failing to do his homework. As the part-time Minister for Schools does not do exams, the hon. Lady has made the statement, and I am glad she did so.

The Secretary of State first announced his plans to scrap AS-levels in July 2010. He now says that AS-levels will not be scrapped as such, but just rendered irrelevant by the fact that they will not count towards a final A-level grade. To describe that as a dog’s dinner would be an insult to the pet food industry. It is no wonder that leading universities are opposed to the change.

Why, when the Secretary of State says he wants to consult Russell Group universities on exam reform, has he completely ignored its opposition to this emasculation of AS-levels? Dr Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge university, has said:

“We are worried…if AS-level disappears we will lose many of the gains in terms of fair admissions and widening participation that we have made in the last decade.”

He warns—Government Members should listen to this—that:

“We are convinced that a large part of this success derives from the confidence engendered in students from non-traditional backgrounds when they achieve high examination grades at the end of year 12”.

The question the Opposition want the answer to is this: why are the Government treating the views of admissions tutors on what helps state schools pupils to gain Oxbridge admission with such total contempt? That view is shared across the university sector—it is the view not just of Cambridge university, but of the million+ group and Universities UK.

In addition, the Secretary of State says he wants to create “facilitating subjects” in A-level that are ready for teaching in 2015, but they will only be in the EBacc subjects. Yet again, there is no value for creative subjects or computing and engineering. What has he got against those subjects? His plan means there will be two types of A-levels: one designed, blessed and endorsed by him; and another that is seen as less valuable—once again, that is a two-tier system from the past.

Anyway, what is the Secretary of State doing designing exams? Is he going to write the questions and mark the papers too? Is he overstepping his powers? Is that what the Minister meant in her statement by “stepping back” from the design of A-levels? Are the plans an order from the Secretary of State or just an expression of preference? Given the widespread opposition to his plans, we need to know their status.

Today’s statement, as so often, is backward looking, and for the few and not the many. Let us have exams that open up life chances rather than reforms that will slam the door of opportunity in the face of the many.

[Elizabeth Truss]

It is absolutely no surprise that the Labour party opposes any change to our system: they are the educational reactionaries; we are looking to the future. We are looking to compete in the modern world, which is why we have leading universities, such as Cambridge and Imperial, helping us to develop the new curriculum. The Opposition oppose any change; they want students to be on an exam treadmill at age 16, 17 and 18. We want students to have the opportunity to think, to learn, and to study subjects in depth; they just want constant exams.

We have discussed these changes with the Russell Group, which is bringing forward proposals and leading these reforms. I have also been in conversation with Universities UK and the 1994 Group, as they want to be involved too. I suggest that the Opposition get with the programme, otherwise they will be left behind even further. Let us not forget what happened under Labour Governments. Let us not forget Curriculum 2000, which saw a drastic reduction in the number of students doing maths A-level—down 20% in two years. We are now the country with the lowest number of students who are studying that important subject in the entire OECD.

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

My feeling has always been that our children are over-examined, and I had a certain prejudice against AS-level as we go from GCSE to AS-level to A-level, but I was struck, talking to schools in my area and elsewhere, by head teachers saying that the confidence the AS-level brought to some pupils was a benefit. We should, therefore, be careful about any reforms and make sure that we can carry everyone forward. We should encourage as many pupils as we can to think deeply, but make sure that we keep everyone on board. Will the Minister tell us what assessment she has made of those risks?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. One thing I would point out to him is that 75% of universities offer places based on predicted grades at A-level, rather than on AS-level results. The big increase in participation at A-level took place in the 1990s, before Curriculum 2000 was introduced. That was when we saw a massive increase in the number of students going to universities, particularly from low-income backgrounds.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

If the Russell Group universities tell the Minister that exams at year 12 encourage state school pupils to go on to apply and attend those universities, will she change her mind?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Russell Group universities are keen to lead and be involved in this process, because they recognise, as do many academics I have spoken to at all kinds of universities, that A-levels are not fit for purpose in relation to the deep study that students need to do. The whole problem with AS, and then A2 following on, is that students are constantly examined, rather than having the opportunity to study subjects in depth. It is absolutely amazing that the party that complains about too many exams is opposing a move to enable students to have more time to study. All the university academics I have spoken to like the idea of having an extra term where students can be studying and not doing exams.

[Claire Perry (Devizes) (Con)]

As a former comprehensive school pupil who was lucky enough to study A-levels and go to one of the world’s leading universities, I know how important it is to make sure these opportunities are open for all. We have some of the finest professors and universities in the world teaching physics, engineering and maths, and they tell us that they simply cannot get the quality of British children in to study those qualifications. Will the Minister assure us that she is talking to those universities, and that these changes will ensure we have more home-grown mathematicians, engineers and entrepreneurs in the future?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for her question. She is absolutely right: we have some fantastic universities. That is why we are so excited that they are getting involved in developing new qualifications. Not only are they helping us with new qualifications—[Interruption.] I think the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) should actually speak to some of these academics and maybe he will get a slightly less biased picture.

[Kevin Brennan]

I do.

[Elizabeth Truss]

Well, I do not know who he was talking to. The point is that not only are we developing new A-levels, we are also developing a new mid-level maths qualification with Mathematics in Education and Industry and Tim Gowers, which I am very glad the Opposition support.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

May I say to the Minister that, as someone who is very interested in education and has been in this House for some years, I have never heard a statement so aggressively and unpleasantly delivered? Of course we need to reform our qualifications and there were some criticisms of A-levels. However, if she looks at the record, she will see that, historically, the way to do that is to base it on evidence from leading people, not just picking bits from people to quote in support of one’s position. We could have had a cross-party, bipartisan approach to this issue, led by someone such as Ken Baker, but we will not get it from this sort of aggressive attitude.

[Elizabeth Truss]

What I would say in response to that is that I did not see much consultation taking place when Labour introduced Curriculum 2000, which saw a massive reduction in the number of students studying maths. Comprehensive students are now half as likely to do A-level maths as their independent school counterparts, mainly as a result of the Opposition’s opposition.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

Having listened to the Minister’s statement, I hope she will ensure that all universities have a place in the process and not just the Russell groupers, which, as she has outlined, will be leading it, and that, in setting the overall framework for a qualification, the Government will not seek to micro-manage how it is assessed, to ensure that there is room for things such as properly assessed coursework, which will prepare students for university, where they will be expected to do more extended work.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I have spoken to a number of universities, both in the Russell Group and outside, as well as the 1994 group and Universities UK, and I am absolutely clear that we need subject experts from across all the universities to be involved in the process, so that we get A-levels that reflect the broad consensus across universities. He is absolutely right that in subjects where it may be appropriate to have different methods of examination—for example, art—we should look at that, too. We will be flexible according to the subject and we are certainly very interested in getting all universities on board.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I was interested to hear the Minister say that she wanted questions that encouraged students to think. I am afraid that that is what is already going on in our schools and colleges: students are thinking. Comments such as hers denigrate the excellent work that young people and the people working with them are doing now. Does she accept that A-levels are about more than preparation for Russell Group universities? She is in real danger if she models her curriculum change only on the direction of Russell Group universities, not on the panoply of need of all our young people.

[Elizabeth Truss]

I am afraid that, according to academics in universities, too many of the questions set in today’s A-levels do not allow long responses. In mathematics and physics they do not have multi-step problems that encourage students to think through answers and are very much more laid out than they were in the past. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to look at past papers and also leading countries—

[Nic Dakin]

I’ve looked at rather more past papers than you have!

[Elizabeth Truss]

I do not know if that is entirely true if the hon. Gentleman does not acknowledge the changes that have been made.

We also need to ensure that examiners are able to exercise judgment in the way they mark questions. That is important as well.

[Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)]

Could I just say to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) that if my hon. Friend the Minister had been a man, he would not have criticised her for making this statement?

Too many top universities have become too elitist; therefore, top professions have become the same—through no fault of their own, but through the subjects that people are guided to study. I welcome this statement. Does my hon. Friend believe, as I do, that it will result in more disadvantaged young people going to our top universities, which is the acid test of whether it has been successful?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I congratulate him on his work with the fair access to university group, which encourages students to study the rigorous subjects that will help them to get into top universities. One of the things we are also looking at is the accountability system and how we show what subjects students are studying, to encourage more students from different backgrounds to study subjects such as modern foreign languages, sciences and maths, where there is a particular gap in participation between those students and students at independent and grammar schools.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

My constituency is way down the bottom of the league table when it comes to participation in higher education. How will today’s statement help to address that?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Today’s statement will encourage students to take up subjects by giving them much more in-depth knowledge of those subjects and more time to study and learn, rather than having them feel that they are constantly examined between the ages of 16 and 18. At the moment in our examination system, we have tests at 11 and examinations at 16, 17 and 18. That is a very unbalanced system. I think that a system that encourages teaching, learning and in-depth study will be really attractive to students.

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

Having attended one of the poorest-performing schools in one of the poorest-performing authorities in the country, before going on to study A-level and then teaching the subject that I studied at A-level at both AS and A-level, I can confirm that there was certainly a diminishing of that qualification over the time I went from studying to teaching it. However, there is still a place for AS-levels and I am pleased to hear my hon. Friend acknowledge that. Can she tell us a little more about her vision for the AS-level qualification?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are keen to encourage more breadth at A-level. We want to see the development of high-quality AS-levels that students can study over one or two years. They will have the same content level as A-levels, but half the breadth. We are also developing new qualifications—we are asking other people to look at those—such as a mid-level maths qualification, which will enable students who do not want to do a full maths A-level to go on to do that instead. In addition, we are encouraging extended project qualifications, so that students in sciences and arts can demonstrate extended writing as well. It is part of our intention to encourage greater breadth, particularly so that students doing sciences get more opportunities to do extended writing and students doing arts and social sciences are able to study maths.

[Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)]

As a former teacher and an A-level chief examiner, I recognise many of the criticisms that the Minister has made of the exam system and I would be broadly supportive of the views she has expressed. Given that there is a big movement of students between Northern Ireland and England and between England and Northern Ireland, and given that Northern Ireland has its own exam board, what arrangements has she put in place for the consultation involving the universities to include schools and educational decision makers in Northern Ireland?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point, which I will certainly take up with my counterpart.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

For many of us, the first year in the sixth form was one of the best years of our lives. Apart from The Who and The Rolling Stones, it was also a year without examinations, the first time in our lives that we were able to study a comparatively small number of subjects and a good year to learn how to study. For the life of me, I fail to see how it is progressive to expect students simply to take examinations every year. Why should the first year of the sixth form not be a year in which pupils have the opportunity to spread their wings, start to study a small range of subjects and do so with some skill?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. One of the things about moving up to A-level is that it is a new level and an opportunity for students to study independently and be able to think. I remember from when I studied for my A-levels that it sometimes takes time for the penny to drop in more challenging subjects such as physics and maths. Constantly measuring students during that process has put them off. In my view, one of the failings of Curriculum 2000 was that many students dropped out of subjects such as maths after a year because they had not yet reached the point—the “Eureka!” moment—when the subject had sunk in.

[Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

The Minister kindly appeared before the Select Committee on Science and Technology and gave evidence in our inquiry into engineering skills, which will be published shortly. In taking that evidence, we covered some of the ground being explored today. Will she now give a commitment that before she closes her mind to the methodology applied to science and engineering practicals, she will take the widest view from across the learned societies, including the Royal Academy of Engineering, as well as engaging with the universities sector?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Yes, I would like to do that. We are working on the plans to make sure that more students study maths at the 16 to 18 level, as this has been one of our historic problems in failing to get more students into engineering. I am very committed, and I would be delighted to talk to the hon. Gentleman about it.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on her compelling statement, and I advise her to ignore the ridiculous remarks of the former Chairman of the Education Select Committee, the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman). Is the Minister aware that universities across the country will welcome this statement because it means a restoration of integrity to the system and a return to the gold standard? Does my hon. Friend agree that we must make sure that we get schools on side? Given that we share a borough, will she join me in a programme of visits to secondary schools in west Norfolk?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Norfolk Friend is absolutely right to say that we need to restore the link between universities and schools, which I think has been lost. It has meant that our school exams have not necessarily caught up with the latest research in the universities. It is so important to keep up with the cutting edge because we are competing against countries that are rising in the world. We need to make sure that we are linking to our leading educational institutions such as Cambridge university, which is not too far from us. I would be delighted to join my hon. Friend in a programme of visits; I am starting with Downham Market high school on Friday.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

Evidence-based policy making is something we can all support, so will the Minister provide us with the hard evidence that these plans will widen participation, particularly in constituencies such as my own in Hull?

[Elizabeth Truss]

At the moment, the evidence suggests that the reforms undertaken by the previous Government did not have a big impact on participation. What that meant was that students were studying fewer of the rigorous subjects such as maths, physics and modern languages.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

Does the Minister agree that there is a place at least for a percentage of regulated and properly moderated course work in A-level qualifications, so that young people disadvantaged through illness or disruption in other areas of their lives do not have to stake everything on one or two exams at the end of their courses?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The key point about the reforms we are announcing today is that students will be assessed at the end of their course. As for requirements such as coursework, I expect the Russell Group and other universities involved in the process to advise Ofqual on that.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State has criticised bite-sized units, but I have to tell the Minister that the reality is that people learn in bite-sized units and that the world of work is a series of bite-sized activities, so a bite-sized approach is entirely appropriate to the way we learn and to the way qualifications are designed. Is not the reality, then, that removing a modular element is a very retrograde step?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I do not think that is true. I think modularisation has encouraged a “learn and forget” culture, in which students study something, do the exam and then forget about it, moving on to the next chunk. Many of the subjects that students study at school build on previous elements, so it is an important discipline to be able to understand everything about the subject at the end of the course, rather than forget about something learned earlier. The other issue is the amount of time involved: we are spending a term of time doing exams rather than providing students with extra learning opportunities.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

Recently, A-level students have had the daunting prospect of aiming not just for As but for A*s. Will the Minister tell us what impact she expects this reform to have on the grade inflation that has been experienced with A-levels and GCSEs?

[Elizabeth Truss]

By linking A-levels more closely to universities, their entrance requirements and the skills and knowledge they possess, we will see a better control on standards.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

Many parents will have got the message that the Secretary of State is largely against assessments and in favour of exams. They may therefore be a little confused about the abolition of AS-levels, and will have to get over that. I was interested to note that in her statement, the Minister accepted that it was important for students to learn more, including about extended writing and research skills, which she saw as important for A-levels. Does the Minister expect there to be more assessments during those two years?

[Elizabeth Truss]

No, I do not expect that. We are talking about the extended project qualification, going alongside A-levels, but the point about A-levels is that there will be a terminal exam.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I welcome these reforms. We know that more universities have had to change their first-year course content or put on extra classes, especially in subjects such as maths. Are not universities best placed to design qualifications at the age of 18, as they will have to deal with the output?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The important point here is that the Russell Group has agreed to be part of this process; it wants to be involved. I think there is an increasing appetite for that among universities across the board. Universities UK has also expressed its interest because universities want to know that the students entering their institutions are well prepared. In certain subjects, academics have been very concerned about the level of preparation. They have quite often found that there is a difference between independent school students who get extra tuition and those currently doing A-levels in state schools.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

Will the Minister confirm that an impact assessment has been done on this policy change? If so, what assessment has been made of the effect on children from low-income families and black and minority ethnic communities regarding their education and career choices? Will she clarify whether this is a policy steer or an order?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As I said earlier, when Curriculum 2000 was introduced, we saw a drop in the number of students from comprehensive schools doing rigorous subjects. [Interruption.] We can see the negative impact of Labour’s policy on participation in the top universities—despite the introduction of organisations such as the Office for Fair Access, which had a dreadful record on social mobility and on students from low-income backgrounds studying certain subjects. In 2004, for example, it abolished the language requirement for GCSE. [Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I live in hope that the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), will aim for a demeanour of statesmanlike reserve, which I think would suit him well if he could cultivate it.

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

There are current alternatives to the A-level: the IB or international baccalaureate and the pre-U, which is being offered by a significantly increasing number of state and private schools. Does that not demonstrate that out there in the marketplace there is diminishing confidence in the A-level as a qualification?

[Elizabeth Truss]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It also indicates increasing competition. We are competing not just with other institutions in this country, but in the global marketplace with organisations and institutions that are developing new ideas and new qualifications all the time. There is also the online world, through which many of those things are going to become available. We need to make sure that our qualifications are keeping up at the highest level. My real fear is that if independent and other schools move towards the pre-U and our A-levels do not keep up, we really will damage social mobility.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

The Minister is proposing a leading role for the Russell Group, but what about all those excellent universities that are not members of it? Why should they receive second-class treatment from this Government in an increasingly two-tier system?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Russell Group of universities and others to which I have spoken are all keen to participate in this process. It is a question of organisation. There will be members from all universities right across the university sector on each of the subject panels, making sure that there is a broad base from which to develop these qualifications.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I welcome the statement, and I particularly welcome the inspired involvement of the Russell Group. Does my hon. Friend agree that the involvement of that group will give us precisely the qualifications that we are after?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Absolutely. I think we should be proud that we have some of the best universities in the world, rather than continually damning them as elitist. We want to make sure that more students from all backgrounds are able to access the important material that these universities are providing. That is why we have Cambridge working on a project to expand the school curriculum and to give extra material to students so that they have a rich diet on which to feast rather than the paltry diet they have had in previous years.

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

I heard what the Minister said about what she and her Department would do for facilitating subjects, but we already know that arts subjects will be excluded from the Ebacc, which I think will be much to the detriment of the UK’s creative industries in the future. What will the Minister and the Department do for the very important creative subjects?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Many creative subjects are also facilitating subjects—I would argue that both maths and English are creative subjects—but we are thinking about the other subjects as well, and engaging in further discussions with universities and other organisations about them.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on her strong and passionate delivery of a statement which I think will be broadly welcomed by students, universities and employers. Does she agree that allowing students to take the same exam three or even four times creates a distorted picture of their abilities which does not actually serve anyone?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I entirely agree. Our proposals have already been strongly supported by businesses as well as universities. The Institute of Directors has been very supportive, and, indeed, expressed its support this morning.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Life is not just about being able to sit exams; it is also about being able to demonstrate the ability to perform over a sustained period, and that is what employers want. Modular courses help young people to demonstrate such skills. Will the Minister tell us to what extent coursework and modular work feature in the Department’s plans? Will she also tell us on what evidence the proposed changes are based? She has not yet told us that, although she has explained her views on the previous system.

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Lady says that she does not think constant exams should be part of life, but under Labour, constant exams were certainly part of students’ lives. Taking exams is all that they were doing between the ages of 16 and 18.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I welcome the statement. At a recent meeting of the Education Committee to discuss the national curriculum, we heard from various academics that there was a real interest in the upskilling of those who study physics, chemistry and biology before their arrival at university, and that it was important for there to be an academic input in the formation of A-level courses that lead to university. Does the Minister take comfort from that, and does she agree with Professor Alison Wolf’s observation—much applauded by the shadow Secretary of State—about the need to recognise that universities need catch-up courses?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Another point that Alison Wolf made in her report is that we need more maths students: at present, universities are 200,000 short of the number that they want.

There are real problems with our current system, which is why we need to reform it. We need a system with which universities and employers are happy, and which provides the important subject knowledge that students need.

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I must tell the Minister, with respect, that I thought that the tone of her statement was wrong. It was a tad too aggressive, and unnecessarily so.

Is there not an anomaly at the heart of the Minister’s plans? She put a great deal of emphasis on the Russell Group. Does she not recognise that it is a self-selecting club and not a statutory body?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As my hon. Friend may know, there are various university bodies in operation. I have spoken to a lot of them, and also to a lot of vice-chancellors. We need a well-respected and rigorous organisation that will work with the other universities, but we also need an organisation that can hold the ring during the development of our reforms. Otherwise, confusion will be created.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I commend my hon. Friend’s proposals. They will benefit dyslexic A-level students, who are usually highly intelligent. However, will she assure me that the special arrangements governing, in particular, extra time in terminal examinations will remain?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I will certainly discuss that with Ofqual.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I welcome the statement, especially its focus on rigour and the continued investment in science, technology, engineering and maths. Those subjects will be very important to Britain’s employers in the 21st century. Can the Minister reassure us, however, that as well as consulting universities on the reforms, she will consult businesses and the colleges that provide so many of the A-level courses to which she has referred?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We will certainly consult businesses. However, industries and businesses have made it clear that they respect the judgments of leading universities, because they have the academic expertise to understand what is leading-edge research and what students chiefly need to know. That is why it is so important for universities to lead this process.

Point of Order

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

13:15

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams), who should have been behind the Chair, has been rescued by a rather timely point of order, although I do not think that it was designed for that purpose. The hon. Gentleman should be behind the Chair. That is where he should be, not playing with his iPad.

[Mr Sheerman]

On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. During the statement, I criticised the Minister for the aggressive way in which she had introduced and handled her statement. I did so on the basis of a long knowledge of education statements in the House, but following my remarks, two Members suggested that I was being sexist. I was not, Mr. Speaker: not one word of what I said was sexist in any way, and I deeply resent the fact that two Members used their questions to suggest that that was the case.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his attempted point of order. Let me simply say that it is not a matter for the Chair. Neither Member said anything disorderly. However, the hon. Gentleman has placed his attempted and, in his view, clear rebuttal on the record. I hope that he will take it in a good spirit when I say that in May this year, all being well, he will celebrate 34 years of uninterrupted service in the House. I am sure that he can bear the burden of those criticisms with stoicism and fortitude. We will leave it there for today.

BILL PRESENTED

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

Voting Age (reduction to 16) Bill

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Stephen Williams presented a Bill to allow persons aged 16 years or older to vote as electors at parliamentary and local government elections, and in referendums; and for connected purposes.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 March, and to be printed (Bill 125).

Energy Efficiency (Houses in Multiple Occupation)

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

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

13:16

[Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Energy Act 2011 to enable residents of houses in multiple occupation to benefit from the provisions in the Act designed to increase energy efficiency; and for connected purposes.

As a press release from the Department of Energy and Climate Change told us in 2010, from 2018 people will be able to become tenants of privately rented homes in the knowledge that their properties have a minimal decent standard of energy efficiency, and it will no longer be possible to let any homes that are on the lowest energy efficiency levels, F and G. An article headed “Huhne gets tough on landlords of draughty homes” included the statement that

“the government will make it unlawful to rent out”

a home

“which has less than an “E”… rating”.

Indeed, that is what appears, one presumes, in the Energy Act 2011, along with a new right, to be provided by 2016, for tenants to request energy improvements in their homes to be carried out by their landlords, perhaps through the new green deal arguments. It is a welcome step for tenants: action to deal with landlords who let cold homes, the prospect of a saving of as much as £400 a year on energy bills by comparison with the worst-rated properties, and, if tenants opt for it, an earlier right to ensure that the energy efficiency of their homes is improved. However, although welcome, that is only partly true.

In fact, the 2011 Act states that only tenants of whole houses are eligible to request landlords to improve their homes, and that only landlords of houses in which there is only one tenancy will have a duty to improve properties before letting them. As Members representing constituencies in many parts of the country will recognise, that means that rather a lot of tenants will be left out. They are tenants of houses in multiple occupation—those with homes in properties containing several lettings. Although the number of HMOs varies across the United Kingdom, that potentially applies to some 300,000 of the 3.4 million or so rented homes in the UK. Not all multiply occupied homes are excluded. Houses—student properties, where, typically, unrelated people live under one tenancy—will be covered by the legislation, but hundreds of thousands of other properties will not. Southampton has at least 7,000 houses in multiple occupation, perhaps half of which will be multiply let and therefore excluded from the ambition of getting tough on landlords with draughty homes, as set out under the Energy Act 2011. We will have the same landlords and the same draughty homes, with the new rights and requirements completely passing those tenants by.

I do not think that is right, not just because tenants in HMOs are more likely than most to be in fuel poverty yet will be paying more in bills than anyone else on this basis after 2018 or because much needed improvements in our housing stock will completely miss an important and known energy-inefficient housing sector, but because the new rights should be in place for all tenants, regardless of the exact nature of their tenancies. My Bill simply seeks to put those rights in place.

My Bill seeks to amend the 2011 Act in a straightforward way so that its detailed and welcome provisions extend to all tenancies and to all properties that are tenanted. It will mean that a tenant occupying part of a house with have the same right as one occupying a whole house to request those energy improvements. After 2018, the prospective tenant will have the same expectation of a reasonably warm and liveable property when they sign up to rent a floor of a house as when they sign up to rent the whole of a house. The Bill does not put a particular onus on landlords, who should be improving their homes in any case. They will still have available to them the landlord’s energy saving allowance, which is generally unrecognised—I hope it will be taken up more in the future—and which allows them to improve their properties.

I also do not think the Government should resist the Bill, because it is clear from the record of the proceedings of the Bill that became the 2011 Act that the Minister dealing with it—I see that the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) is in his place again today—clearly believed that the legislation would cover all landlords and all rented properties. It would therefore be relatively easy to put my Bill on the statute books simply by not objecting to it as it proceeds and putting right a serious omission from the 2011 Act. I would have cause to thank the Government were that to happen, but, most important, so would the hundreds of thousands of tenants who would come in from the cold in their properties of the future.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,

That Dr Alan Whitehead, Joan Walley, Mr John Denham, Martin Horwood, Peter Aldous, Albert Owen, Ian Lavery and Yasmin Qureshi present the Bill.

Dr Alan Whitehead accordingly presented the Bill.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 1 March, and to be printed (Bill 124).

Opposition Day

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[15th Allotted Day]

Blacklisting

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Relevant documents: Uncorrected oral evidence taken before the Scottish Affairs Committee, on Blacklisting in Employment, HC 156 (i-x)]

13:23

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that in 2009 the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the Consultation Association which revealed a blacklist and files on more than 3,000 individuals which had been used by more than 40 construction companies to vet individuals and deny people employment for reasons including being a member of a trade union or having raised health and safety concerns and that extensive personal information on individuals and their families was held; recognises that the majority of individuals have still not been informed that they were on the blacklist nor given the opportunity to seek redress, despite recent confirmation that blacklisting checks took place on Olympic construction sites and allegations that the practice took place on public projects including Ministry of Defence sites, Portcullis House and Crossrail; further notes that at recent Scottish Affairs Select Committee hearings on blacklisting the Information Commissioner Investigations Manager raised concerns that there may have been collusion by police officers and security services in the compilation of blacklists; and in addition that it was also alleged at the hearings that a blacklist of environmental activists was compiled; and calls on the Government to immediately begin an investigation into the extent to which blacklisting took place and may be taking place, including on public sector projects, and to ensure that appropriate and effective sanctions are in place to tackle and prevent blacklisting.

The motion relates to a secretive, insidious and shady practice that has brought shame on our construction industry. Those who were responsible for it have yet to be properly held to account for their actions, which is why we have brought this matter to the House today. After seeing huge construction projects successfully delivered safely, on budget and on time by our construction sector—such projects include the Olympic park venues and Heathrow terminal 5—it gives me no pleasure to raise this matter, but debate this matter we must. It would be a dereliction of duty for us not to do so, given what has come to pass. I heard the comments that the Prime Minister made earlier in response to a question about blacklisting that was put to him in Prime Minister’s questions, and I should say that the manner in which he approached the issue is entirely inappropriate. That is because this is not a party political issue, which is why I provided the Secretary of State with an advance copy of my speech in an effort to build consensus; it is an issue of justice.

Our simple goal with this motion is to help right the wrongs done to people who, dating back to the British industrial revolution, have built and continue to build Britain. They build the airports, the roads and the railways we all use. They build the offices and factories we work in. They build the houses that we live in. Given the hazards of their trade, many of them have lost their lives in so doing over the years. They are our nation’s construction workers. Construction work may be hazardous and not terribly well paid relative to other occupations, but it provides an income to those who do it. It puts food on the plate; it provides a livelihood. But for a long time many of our construction workers have suspected that they were being systematically denied work—work that they were more than qualified to do. As a result, lives have been ruined, families have been torn apart and many have been forced out of the industry. Why? How? How on earth did this end up happening?

It is the usual practice for employers or employment agencies to seek references on potential employees or to otherwise vet them before hiring. Such vetting practices should be, and are on the whole, open, transparent, fair and carried out in compliance with the data protection regime. In the majority of cases such practices would not raise any eyebrows. However, carrying out a blacklist check is quite another matter, and that is what was happening on a grand scale in the construction sector.

Blacklisting involves checking to see whether a worker is on a blacklist and then discriminating against the individual if they appear on it. It involves systematically compiling information on workers which is then used by employers, or people making recruitment decisions, to discriminate against workers, not because of their ability to do the job, but for other, more sinister, reasons. In this case, the reason was simply that they raised health and safety issues and/or that they were an active trade union member.

The extent of blacklisting activity in the construction sector was exposed for all to see following a raid in 2009 by the Information Commissioner’s Office. The raid was carried out by the ICO on the offices of a shadowy and secretive organisation called the Consulting Association following a tip-off. Though the raid occurred in 2009, new details on the activities of the Consulting Association are only just coming to light, thanks to the excellent work of, and the ongoing inquiry into blacklisting by, the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, which has been taking evidence from most of the key protagonists.

Trade unions, including the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians—UCATT—Unite and the GMB have also unearthed much evidence, as has the Blacklist Support Group. I am a proud member of the GMB and Unite unions, and I am proud to have UCATT headquartered in my constituency.

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

I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend said, and I am a proud member of UCATT. Does he agree that the work it has done on behalf on its members—construction workers up and down the country—led to what we saw in 2009 and that if it had not been for the arduous work it has carried out for many decades, we would not be in the situation we are in now? However, we still have a long way to go.

[Mr Umunna]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend’s comments.

The Consulting Association was born out of the old Economic League, which had been established in 1919 to promote free enterprise and to fight what its supporters saw as collectivism, socialism and communism—left-wing thinking to which they objected. The league was notorious for blacklisting more than 10,000 people, including Members of this House, trade unionists and journalists. In 1991, it was heavily criticised by the old Select Committee on Employment for dishing out clandestine and inaccurate information suggesting that individuals were unsuitable, leading to many being denied employment.

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s assertion that this should not become a party political point-scoring debate. However, Labour consulted in 2003 on introducing regulations against blacklisting but announced that they would not be doing so because evidence suggested that it had been eradicated in the early 1990s. Can he explain that to me?

[Mr Umunna]

It is fair to say that until 2009 hard evidence on the scale we saw unveiled by the Information Commissioner had not come to light. I accept that different Governments of different hues should perhaps have done more since the Consulting Association was set up in 1993, but I am not really interested in attributing blame. I am interested in ensuring that we right the wrongs and that should be our focus.

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend on behalf of my constituents who have raised the issue with me. Some were on the blacklist held by the Consulting Association and others fear they might have been or are concerned for other people. Mick Chalmers raised the issue with me because of his concern for others, for example. Does my hon. Friend think that the investigation needs to go further than the 3,000 people named on the blacklist? Many other people have suggested that that is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Mr Umunna]

I agree with my hon. Friend and will expand on that further.

[Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is right not to seek to apportion blame. I know that there were other distractions this morning, so I do not know whether he heard the interview with the Information Commissioner and the astonishing complacency with which he failed to address the fact that progress has been so slow in identifying even the 3,000, let alone others who might have been subject to blacklisting.

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Overall, although the Information Commissioner has done good work in this area his office needs to be far more proactive in its approach to the overall issue.

The Economic League was wound up in 1993 and its construction company members wanted to continue its activities in their sector, so the Consulting Association was set up. It spun off out of the league in 1993 and a former regional organiser of the league, Mr Ian Kerr, became its chief officer until it was wound up in 2009. Mr Kerr, through the association, ran a large-scale secret operation on behalf of the construction companies, which were all leading companies in the sector. Many of the construction companies have since sought to distance themselves from the association’s activities by claiming, for example, that its services were used by subsidiaries they did not own at the time. Some have simply maintained that none of their managers knew the practice was going on, despite strong evidence to the contrary. Let me be clear: these well-known construction companies were involved in some way, shape or form with the association and therefore with its practices and no amount of carefully worded legal statements, denials or excuses can hide that fact.

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

Blacklisting is by its nature a hidden and clandestine practice and the hon. Gentleman is making very important points about the construction sector. Does he think that there are other sectors in which the practices are as widespread?

[Mr Umunna]

There have been such allegations, to which I shall turn shortly.

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I was involved 22 years ago in the exposure of the activities of the Economic League, including working with The Guardian. When the Economic League was wound up, assurances were given by the construction employers that they would never again engage in blacklisting, yet we know that that scandalous practice continued. Thousands of building workers who wanted a job, were qualified for a job and who were desperate for a job could not get a job and spent years out of work. Is it not time that the construction companies were put in the dock for their shameful continuation of the shameful practice of blacklisting?

[Mr Umunna]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend.

Mr Kerr, who has since passed away, gave extensive evidence to the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs last November. In his evidence, he could not have been clearer about the involvement of the companies my hon. Friend mentioned.

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

It is not just the construction industry. In the manufacturing industry, we used to come across such cases. When I was a shop steward, some years ago now, an organisation called Aims of Industry was very active. I am glad we are having this debate, because it was shameful that a lot of people were condemned not to work again. We talk about equality and everything that goes with that, so surely that should be utterly condemned.

[Mr Umunna]

I completely agree. Such practices are totally shameful.

Mr Kerr disclosed that after he was prosecuted and fined £5,000 for breach of the data protection regime in respect of the activities of the Consulting Association, Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd paid the fine. Why did it do this? Not because David Cochrane, its head of human resources, was the chairman of the Consulting Association when it was shut down, although he was. No, the fine was paid by Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd because, as Mr Kerr told the Select Committee in November,

“I had put myself at the front and took the flak…so that they wouldn’t be drawn into all of this. They would remain hidden”.

Those involved cannot hide from the House today.

[Jim McGovern (Dundee West) (Lab)]

I am a member of the Scottish Affairs Committee and we took evidence yesterday from Cullum McAlpine, of Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd. Mr Kerr’s widow put it to us that there was an instruction from David Cochrane that the money paid to Mr Kerr should be put into his daughter’s bank accounts so that it could be hidden.

[Mr Umunna]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and all the other members of the Committee for the fantastic work they have done on this issue. I was going to come to that exact point, as the fine that was paid was essentially, in some respects, hush money. That is how I would describe it. According to the Information Commissioner, 44 construction companies made up the hall of shame that was the membership of the Consulting Association at the time of the 2009 raid I mentioned, including: five companies in the AMEC group; Amey Construction Ltd; six Balfour Beatty companies; BAM Construction Ltd; Carillion plc; Kier Ltd; Laing O’Rourke Services Ltd; Morgan Est and Morgan Ashurst, which are now known as Morgan Sindall; Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd, which I have already mentioned; Skanska UK plc; Taylor Woodrow Construction; and Vinci plc. Those are just a few of the companies listed. In fact, half of the 20 largest construction companies today and/or their subsidiaries were involved with the Consulting Association in 2009. They were charged a £3,000 annual fee for membership and then had to pay £2.20 for each blacklist check on a construction worker, which would be a drop in the ocean for them but would have severe consequences for the workers affected.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

The companies my hon. Friend named are some of the biggest in the workplace today. Is it not a disgrace that the people they were blacklisting were often those who were drawing attention to problems and health and safety issues in the workplace? That should have benefited those companies, but instead they wiped away the concerns and said that there was not a problem. The problem is not just blacklisting but what they were trying to hide in their places of employment.

[Mr Umunna]

Absolutely. What I find so reprehensible about this is that a person could be blacklisted simply for raising a rational, legitimate health and safety concern.

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

This is an absolutely appalling situation, and the cover-up has been going on for a long time. The companies concerned must know what has been happening. The 22 companies to which my hon. Friend referred operate in constituencies all around the UK. Is it not important that they come clean, and show how they have been covering up attempts by trade unionists to ensure health and safety at work, so as to avoid accidents? It is just appalling.

[Mr Umunna]

My hon. Friend is quite right. There has been a culture of denial; people are sticking their head in the sand, but the public and people working in the industry deserve some honesty.

[Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)]

I think that all of us would agree that blacklisting is entirely unacceptable. The previous Labour Government consulted on the issue back in 2003, but no action was taken until 2010. Why? Why was the practice not stopped?

[Mr Umunna]

I say this to the hon. Gentleman, with whom I have enjoyed debating since we both joined the House two and a half years ago: I have already stated that different Governments perhaps should have done more about the issue. I cannot say fairer than that. If people want to make political points about what the last Labour Government did, fine, but I am not sure where that will get us.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I think I was the one who raised the question in 2003. Many of us who were extremely frustrated and angry spoke on the Floor of the House about the regulations not being enacted, though they were brought forward and consulted on. The problem was this: the TUC sent a circular to every union, and it circulated in branches, too, but it was almost as though there was a rule of omertà within the industry; there was absolute silence and cover-up, right the way across that period. It was extremely difficult to get the evidence. Only when the Information Commissioner carried out the raid was hard evidence available.

[Mr Umunna]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution. I have read the Hansard report of his exchanges with the Labour Minister at the time.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that we are talking about not just those whose names appeared on the blacklist, but the many tens of thousands of people to whom it was made clear that if they raised issues such as health and safety, they might well appear on these lists? That was used to make sure that a lot of people did not raise perfectly reasonable issues.

[Mr Umunna]

That is right. Certainly, the anecdotal evidence that I have received absolutely confirms what my hon. Friend says. One of the problems is that there is what happens on the site and what happens in the boardroom. I have not come across a board director of any of the construction companies who would publicly or privately condone these practices, but these practices have been going on. One either acknowledges that and seeks to deal with them, or puts one’s head in the sand. It is the head-in-the-sand attitude that has been so unhelpful thus far.

[Charlie Elphicke]

As I said, I think we all agree that blacklisting is unacceptable, and was wrong. He mentions that the Information Commissioner took action in 2009. The regulations came into effect in 2010. The question, to my mind, is what can we as lawmakers do further, practically, in terms of the legal structure, sanctions and penalties?

[Mr Umunna]

I will come to that exact point in a bit. I shall explain how the association worked, for the record.

Mr Kerr maintained a list and files on at least 3,200 construction workers. Association members would feed him the names of workers, and information relating to them, to keep on file. It would be remiss of me not to mention that, regrettably—my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) may just have alluded to this—there are allegations that there were some cases of trade union officials assisting in this process. The material included personal information, including on workers’ private relationships, whether they had raised health and safety issues, and their trade union activities. The copies of the files that I have seen give details of people’s specific movements on particular times and dates.

Before they recruited workers, association members would check with Mr Kerr whether the said worker was on the list, and if they were, they would be taken against, and were, more often than not, denied employment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Jim McGovern) said at the Select Committee’s cross examination of Mr Kerr, for £2.20, the association could dictate whether a worker got a job and so whether they could

“put a meal on the table that week.”

[Mr David Hamilton (Midlothian) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing this subject to the House, and congratulate the Scottish Affairs Committee on progressing a scheme relating to blacklisting. I hope that we take up the argument that it is not just individuals such as me who were blacklisted; it was also the families. My wife could not get a job until she took my mother’s address. I was unemployed for two and a half years. It is not just the individuals who were blacklisted, but their families.

[Mr Umunna]

Absolutely. I can only express regret at the fact that my hon. Friend and his family had to go through that.

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

I am listening to the shock and horror being expressed by the Opposition, and some individual and personal cases have been described, so why did Labour not enact the regulations until March 2010? Given that all this intelligence was known, why did it leave it until the last 60 days of a 13-year Government to enact them?

[Mr Umunna]

The hon. Gentleman totally misjudges the tone of the debate. If he had listened to what I said, he would have heard that the Consulting Association started its work in 1993, so two Governments could have, and perhaps should have, done more on the issue; I have said that three or four times. He does not add much with his intervention.

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

I am listening to political points being scored. I have to remind everybody that there are people and families at the heart of this. Those families deserve justice. They have been caught up in a terrible injustice that they have not been able to deal with. A constituent of mine was involved in the construction industry in the 1970s and ’80s. He was heavily involved in the union, and did not work for four years. His family suffered. We need to know how far and deep this disgraceful practice went. It deprived people of their livelihoods, and deprived their families incredibly. They suffered; should we now just score political points and walk away? I do not think so.

[Mr Umunna]

I hope that the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) will reflect on those comments.

Let me give an example. An ex-scaffolder and father of four from Wigan on whom the association held information was, like my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton), unable to get work for several years. He said:

“this nearly ruined my marriage and it meant that my children were on free meals at school.”

Hon. Members who mentioned the impact on families were absolutely correct to do so.

Consulting Association invoices show that between 2006 and 2009, the construction companies involved paid just under £500,000 for blacklist checks and information. Given the amounts involved, it is inconceivable that the companies’ use and membership of the association would not have been known about and sanctioned at a senior level, yet so far, not one of the companies mentioned has apologised for its membership and use of the Consulting Association. That is an utter disgrace, given all that has come to light. The workers involved deserve an apology, and the companies involved should stop prevaricating and issue an apology now.

For the record, I should mention that when Mr Kerr gave evidence to the Committee, he confirmed the existence—this responds to the point made by the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford)—of a separate blacklist containing records on as many as 200 environmental activists, raising the possibility that there existed further, as yet unknown, blacklists relating to other sectors or groups that were being monitored.

[Jim McGovern]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way—he has been very generous in taking interventions. It was not only construction workers—in fact, not only workers—who found themselves on the blacklist. Mr Syd Scroggie from Dundee—a disabled war veteran who lost a leg and the sight in both eyes while serving this country—found himself on the blacklist. Why? Because he sent a letter to the local press commending them for awarding Nelson Mandela the freedom of the city.

[Mr Umunna]

That is deeply shocking, and quite extraordinary. I thank my hon. Friend for adding that to the debate.

Unfortunately, in the past few months we have learned that blacklisting checks were carried out on workers who were to be engaged on publicly funded projects. In November, Mr Kerr submitted evidence to the Select Committee in which he stated that member companies used the association’s services to check potential employees applying to work on major public sector contracts. He said that the projects ranged from airport runways to buildings such as Portcullis House on the parliamentary estate, the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, GCHQ, the Jubilee line, the millennium dome, private finance initiative projects, hospitals, schools, Olympic sites, roads, rail contracts and so on. That is corroborated by an admission last month by Balfour Beatty in a letter to the Olympic Delivery Authority. Without the knowledge of the ODA, Balfour Beatty admitted that it had used the services of the association in 2008 to check 12 prospective Olympic workers who, thankfully, went on to be employed. It was also corroborated yesterday by Cullum McAlpine, who is a director of Sir Robert McAlpine Enterprises Ltd, and was the chair of the association from 1993 to 1996, and confirmed to the Select Committee that Consulting Association services were used on a large number of public projects, again including the Olympics and the Jubilee line.

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

Given the scale and scope of this disgraceful practice, does that not underline the urgent need to get to the bottom of this and take action to tackle it? We are going to invest in huge national infrastructure projects, whether in the energy sector or more widely, and we must never let this happen again.

[Mr Umunna]

I completely agree.

There has been concern that blacklisting may have taken place on Crossrail after it was revealed that a former senior human resources manager employed by a contractor on that project, Ron Barron, was a regular user and contributor to the association’s services in a previous job. An employment tribunal found that he introduced the use of the blacklist at his former employer, the construction firm, CB and I, and checked names with the association more than 900 times in 2007 alone. He was engaged as a consultant before the decision of the employment tribunal case against his previous employer was published, and the contractor says that it was not aware of the case.

In addition, the Select Committee has heard that there was information on association files regarding the monitoring of workers by the authorities because they were Irish nationals, and it has been suggested that they were barred from working on Ministry of Defence sites for that reason. I have tabled parliamentary questions to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Ministry of Defence, the Department for Transport, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on all those topics. The answers that I have received indicate that there has been no recent discussion, correspondence or investigation of blacklists being used by construction companies engaged on public sector projects. That may have changed since I received those answers. I do not believe any of the Ministers answering my questions were seeking to be unhelpful in providing those answers, but given what I have just set out and what we now know, there is sufficient evidence to justify the Government carrying out a full investigation into the extent of blacklisting that took place, and which may still be taking place, at the very least on public sector projects.

After carrying out an investigation, the Government should set out what practical steps may be needed to stop blacklisting, and to prevent blacklisting checks on public projects in future. No doubt, they will want to consider and reflect on whatever findings the Select Committee makes when it reports. We can have a discussion as to what form that investigation will take, but we need to learn the full truth of what went on. Beyond blacklist checks being made on workers on public sector projects, David Clancy, the Information Commissioner’s investigations manager, who carried out the raid in 2009 on the association, has made very, very serious allegations in relation to the police and security services. Giving evidence to the Select Committee, Mr Clancy, a former police officer, said he believed that some of the information held by the association would have come from the police or security services, based on the nature of the information held. For example, an in-depth analysis of an individual’s home circumstances and what his neighbours thought about him featured on one file.

Mr Kerr denied that the association had any involvement with the police or authorities. However, he confirmed that the Economic League, some of whose records formed the bank of information held by the association, had met and exchanged information with the police. At the very least, it is likely that some of the information given to the league by the police made its way on to the files held by the association. Having seen examples of some of the records myself, it is clear that they contained information based on the surveillance of individuals, including periods away from construction sites. It seems improbable that such information came exclusively from construction firms themselves. That further underlines the need for a full Government investigation into blacklisting, which should consider the role of the police and other such authorities.

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong case. On his last point, even if the Government do not agree with anything else that has been said today, we have heard so much in the past few weeks about the role of the police over the past four decades—and the real worry is that faith in the police has been undermined by what took place two or three decades ago—that they must agree to investigate the cases raised today.

[Mr Umunna]

I absolutely agree. This is particularly serious and shocking, and if the police are to command the confidence of people in this country, the questions that hang over them in respect of their involvement with blacklisting must be properly investigated.

What about legal protections for construction workers and the system of redress for victims? Although it was and remains the case that it is unlawful to refuse employment on the grounds of trade union membership alone, at the time of the Information Commissioner’s raid on the Consultancy Association in 2009, there was no specific general prohibition on blacklisting. It was therefore left to the commissioner to prosecute Mr Kerr for failing to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998. As I said, he was fined just £5,000 as a result, which seems a shockingly small amount, given the devastation caused over the years. We have heard the evidence in the House this afternoon. Following the raid and the emergence of the blacklist, the Labour Government consulted on the issue of increasing the maximum monetary fine that could be imposed for serious breaches of data protection principles from £5,000 to £500,000. The increase came too late for the Kerr case.

Perhaps more shocking still is the fact that those firms that set up the association and became members—which supplied information to and accessed the blacklist—were neither charged with any offence like Mr Kerr nor ordered to pay compensation to the workers involved under that or any other law. To date, as I said, not one director of those companies has been brought to book for what happened. We also introduced the Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010 a few months after the raid. They provide for victims of blacklists to seek redress from employment tribunals and civil courts only. They do not contain criminal sanctions, but they make it unlawful to compile, supply, sell or use a “prohibited list”'. To be prohibited, the list must contain details of current or former trade union members, or details of people who are taking part, or who have in the past taken part, in trade union activities. Non-trade union members on a list that includes trade union members qualify for protection too. The list must be compiled with a view to its being used by employers or employment agencies for the purpose of discriminating when recruiting or during employment.

As cases have progressed through the courts it has become apparent that the regulations need to be strengthened. I am coming on to the point that the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) made. First, the regulations are not retrospective in effect. While they act as a strong deterrent to those considering using blacklists, many of the victims of the blacklisting in the past, whom I have described—and some hon. Members have been victims—are unable to make use of them to secure compensation. Given that this is the case, what more can be done to ensure that those who have been wronged have some form of redress or compensation?

Secondly, it is unclear to what extent those who are not employed, in the strict sense of that word, but are self-employed, may bring claims under these regulations where they have been refused work. We know that false self-employment in the construction sector is rampant, so this is an important point that needs to be cleared up.

Thirdly, claims can be brought in the employment tribunal or the county court. Though the cap on compensation in the tribunal is £72,300 and there is no cap in the county court, people often prefer—I know this from my previous practice as an employment lawyer—to claim in the employment tribunal because it can be less laborious for claimants and the cost consequences of losing a case are less severe. However, claims brought in the tribunal must be brought within three months of the alleged unlawful act. Claims brought after that time can be allowed only at the discretion of the tribunal. Again, that needs to be looked at, because so many of the people affected are not even aware that these unlawful acts took place.

The upshot of all this is that often the only legal remedy for a significant number of victims of blacklisting is through a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of a breach of their convention rights—article 8 on privacy and article 11 on freedom of information. That, of course, can take a long time and a great deal of resource. There are a number of cases going through the courts at present, which I will not refer to now as I do not wish to prejudice those trials, but we must be realistic about asking individual workers, many of whom have lost their livelihoods and so do not have huge resources, to enforce their rights against those very well resourced companies.

For these reasons I ask the Secretary of State, who I am pleased is here today, to carry out a review of the law in this area to see how it might be tightened up and protections and sanctions strengthened, and for him to report back to the House on his findings. I have deliberately not set out detail in respect of legal changes that may be needed to address these technical issues. That is something on which we can work together to achieve consensus. However, just as we correctly argue for robust legislation to protect whistleblowers, we must ensure that a climate of fear is not allowed to continue around the issue of blacklisting.

No worker on any building site or at other workplaces throughout the land should hesitate before reporting an unsafe site or a dangerous working practice. That means that they must have confidence that the law is with them—is firmly on their side—and that there will be no question of that report being noted down somewhere in a file for troublemakers, allowing firms such as the construction companies to get away with what they have been doing.

Finally, I turn to the work of the Information Commissioner.

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Umunna]

I shall make progress, as I am aware that many colleagues want to get in.

Although I welcome the fact that the Information Commissioner has taken steps to work alongside trade unions by sending a list of names and dates of birth of blacklisted workers to four trade unions to check the names against their membership lists and to help alert their members that they have been affected, it is crucial that the ICO puts in place a proactive process, as I said earlier, so that those who have been blacklisted can be informed and can seek redress. This is particularly the case in respect of those affected who are not members of any trade union.

The ICO still has questions to answer on its approach to blacklisting and the way in which the 2009 raid was conducted. Why, for example, were just 5% to 10% of documents on the site recovered? Why was the raid not followed up by searches, with the necessary warrants, of the construction firms that supplied the bulk of Mr Kerr’s information? For the sake of the victims of blacklisting, I hope the ICO will be able to resolve these concerns.

In conclusion, what happened is nothing short of a national scandal. The sadness is that we cannot say with confidence that these practices are not still continuing. That is why action is needed. This action may take some weeks or months, but the time for denials and hiding their heads in the sand by the construction companies involved is over, not least because unless they apologise and accept responsibility, the reputation of the entire industry will be tarnished. That is not at all fair to those companies in the sector who have not engaged in those practices.

With that in mind, I end by asking the construction companies involved to consider setting up a fund into which they could all pay and which could immediately begin to compensate those workers who were blacklisted for the immense loss they have suffered. That, in addition to a full apology, would be a good place to start in righting the wrongs which have been done to our construction workers over the years. I commend the motion to the House.

14:05

[The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)]

In trying to reflect the spirit in which the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) introduced the debate, let me begin by saying that we would all agree that blacklisting is a thoroughly objectionable and indefensible practice. He is right to focus attention in particular on the construction industry. We all know that that industry is not only important but dangerous, and the health and safety issues in that sector are extremely important.

The reason that the hon. Gentleman has brought the debate is to seek an investigation—an inquiry. I have been listening very carefully and I shall try to be constructive. What I am not clear about, even after listening to him for half an hour, is whether we are talking about the word “was” or the word “is”. He spoke about “may be”. That is rather an important distinction.

Are we being asked to reopen an investigation that has already been held and legislation that has already been passed under the previous Government? I am not trying to be partisan; it happened. Are we being asked to revisit history—frankly, I am sceptical about the value of that—or are we talking about something that is actually going on? If it is actually going on, it is a serious matter and it needs investigation. I, of course, will want to see it properly investigated, but we want some evidence.

The hon. Gentleman made a speech today and there has been a battery of articles in the newspapers—a big page in The Times this morning—alleging that these things are happening. Well, bring it here. I will investigate it if there is any evidence that we can investigate. Let us be clear. Are we talking about now, or are we talking about an investigation into history?

[Mr Umunna]

I believe that what happened in the past needs to be investigated because we know and we have the evidence only now that it happened in the past. I have just explained and taken the Secretary of State in detail through the latest evidence, in particular that given to the Scottish Affairs Committee. Given that this practice happened in the past, it is right that we investigate how it came to happen. Why did Government Departments not know that it was going on? What questions were being asked? What do we need to learn from that?

In respect of the here and now, allegations have been made—I was very careful about the language that I used—to suggest that that is still ongoing. That also needs to be investigated.

[Vince Cable]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will agree that those are quite different things. If we are reopening the past, that is a different kind of inquiry conducted by different people in a different time frame. I need to be clear about what we are being asked to do.

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

On the point that the Secretary of State just made, would it not be fantastic if everybody accused of wrongdoing did the police’s job and brought the evidence to the likes of the Secretary of State? The right hon. Gentleman is the Secretary of State. He can order the inquiry and he should do so.

[Vince Cable]

As I just said, if I can see any evidence that, under our Government—I have responsibility in this area—wrongdoing is taking place, or even evidence that suggests that it is taking place, I am very happy to investigate it. Nobody has yet come forward. As regards the past, one of the features that was not referred to earlier is the fact that the previous Government made it absolutely clear that the penalties and redress were not retrospective. That is what the previous Government determined. They could have applied fines retrospectively; they did not. They drew a line under history in 2010. That was their decision and that is what I inherited.

[Mr Umunna]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way again. In relation to what has happened and whether he should investigate matters that occurred in the past under previous Governments, his Government have announced the results of inquiries and set up inquiries across a range of Departments into what happened under previous Governments. That should not preclude an investigation now in respect of things that happened in the past.

On what is happening now, oral evidence has been given to the Scottish Affairs Select Committee outlining things that have happened. I am not talking about scurrilous press reports; I am talking about hard evidence—witness evidence—that has been given to the Select Committee.

[Vince Cable]

Let me just try to draw a line under this part of the argument. I am trying to be helpful; I do not see any particular value in having a party political barney over this. If there is evidence forthcoming about current practice, of course we want to have it investigated, and I will investigate it. For that reason, I am not going to recommend to my colleagues that they vote against the motion. It might well be true that there are issues here, and I do not want to close the door on the matter if there is evidence out there that needs investigating.

That is one set of issues, but there is a completely different perspective as far as the past is concerned. I will go over what happened in the past in a moment, but that is a different question. My responsibilities lie, as part of this Government, in dealing with things that might have happened over the past two and a half years. If things are happening, of course we must get to the bottom of it.

[Charlie Elphicke]

The question that forms in my mind is: have there been further cases of blacklisting since the regulations came into force? We have parliamentary privilege that we can use in the Chamber, and it is important that we should hear examples of blacklisting that have occurred since the regulations came into force, rather than simply holding an inquiry for the sake of holding an inquiry.

[Vince Cable]

That is, in a sense, what I was trying to say.

[Mr Umunna]

rose—

[Vince Cable]

Let me just answer this point.

I do not see the value of a fishing expedition. We need evidence that something is happening in order to investigate it.

[Mr Umunna]

rose—

[Vince Cable]

Let me just proceed a little more.

I should like to move on from that point and to ask, out of genuine curiosity, about the way in which this issue has surfaced in the form of an Opposition day debate. The Prime Minister was totally right to point out as a matter of fact that these things had happened before 2010, and I do not quite understand why that has caused such offence. Many of the issues that have been raised here relate to the conduct and behaviour of the Information Commissioner. As the hon. Member for Streatham and his colleagues know, those in the Information Commissioner’s Office are not Government officials responsible to Ministers; they are responsible to the House. The Information Commissioner is a different kind of animal from a Government Department. Many of the allegations relate to the courts, and to civil and criminal practice, for which we cannot take responsibility.

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

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Vince Cable]

May I just finish this argument?

I am genuinely baffled by the way in which the hon. Member for Streatham and his colleagues have approached this matter. He could have come and talked to me about this subject at any time. He knows perfectly well that I hold regular meetings in my office with his own colleagues on a Monday evening, and if they have individual cases that they are worried about, particularly confidential cases that they do not want to discuss elsewhere, we can discuss them. I am very happy to discuss them. Nobody has come to me on this issue in the past two and a half years, however.

I regularly meet the general secretary of the TUC. He—now she—is a valued stakeholder, and I talk to her on the same basis that I talk to the CBI. We have regular meetings, and at no stage in those meetings has anybody ever asked to discuss the issue of blacklisting. I meet national officers of the GMB, of Unite and of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, and occasionally their general secretaries, and none of them has ever raised the issue of blacklisting. So why has the subject suddenly surfaced in an Opposition day debate? It is difficult to get my head round what is going on here.

[John McDonnell]

I want justice to come out of this debate. The right hon. Gentleman will know—he can look at the Hansard record—that I have been raising this issue for more than a decade. On the point about past issues, things changed when the evidence exposed the potential of police or security services involvement. I raised that with the Prime Minister on 21 March 2012, and asked for an investigation. That was at the time when he was setting up the Leveson inquiry, and I felt that this matter was on a par with that. The response that I got from him was, to be frank, truculent. He suggested that the police should investigate police involvement in blacklisting. There is a qualitative difference now that we have the information from the Select Committee, particularly about the past involvement of the police and the security services.

[Vince Cable]

I have read in the paper—and the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has now said—that there is an issue affecting the police force and the security services, but has he, or the Opposition spokesman or anyone else, referred the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission? Has it been referred to the security services Investigatory Powers Tribunal? It might be that such referrals did not lead anywhere and that we need to look at doing something else, but were they made in the first place?

[Mr Umunna]

I am genuinely flabbergasted by the Secretary of State’s response. He asks why we have raised these issues now, in an Opposition day debate. It is because of all the evidence that has come out of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee. I can tell him that we have seen other evidence as well, from outside the Select Committee, including the exchange of letters between the Olympic Delivery Authority and Balfour Beatty, not to mention some of the stuff relating to Crossrail. That is why we are having the debate now.

In respect of the right hon. Gentleman’s point about the courts and the tribunals, I am not asking him to impose his view of what the judgment should be in a particular case. We know, however, that one problem with the regulations is that employment tribunals have failed because, if someone was employed as a contractor on a project, without a direct employee-employer relationship, and they have been blacklisted, the regulations are no use to them. That is why I am saying that we need to review the law and to strengthen it.

[Vince Cable]

I should like to move on, but I shall just make the point that if those practices are continuing, it would be an extremely serious matter. It would need investigating and we might well need legislative change because the previous regulations were not strong enough. That might well be the case. I am just asking Opposition Members, particularly those on the Front Bench, to co-operate with me, because I am very happy to take this matter forward if there is an issue to investigate.

As far as the past is concerned, I will certainly look at all the evidence that has come out of the Scottish Affairs Select Committee, and we will see whether it needs to be dealt with in a different way, because it is a matter of history. I am primarily concerned, however, with the implication that this is still going on. Of course, if it is still going on, it needs to be investigated and stopped. That is the essence of the problem.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Vince Cable]

I have taken a lot of interventions. I want to make a little progress, then perhaps I will take some more.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. A lot of Members want to speak, and the more time that is taken up with interventions, the less time will be available for their speeches. I do not mind which happens, but Members must choose. The Secretary of State has said that he will not give way for a while, and I know that some Members who want to catch my eye are getting frustrated.

[Vince Cable]

I should like to go through the issues that have been raised step by step. Most of them relate to the past. I want to start by describing factually the matters covered by the 2008-09 Information Commissioner’s investigation. He used his powers under the Data Protection Act 1998 to launch an investigation, based on a story in The Guardian newspaper that an intelligence system had been used to vet workers for employment in the UK construction industry. As a result of that, a search warrant was issued in 2008, leading to a search of the premises of the Consulting Association in February 2009. The investigation resulted in the successful prosecution of the Consulting Association for breaching data protection law and it was closed down. The owner, Mr Kerr—now, I think, deceased—was fined £5,000, which was the maximum fine at the time. The levels of fines have now been radically changed. Fifteen enforcement notices were issued against the Consulting Association and some of its user construction companies to stop them collecting and using personal data for vetting purposes.

The investigation looked further, but came to the conclusion that there was no evidence that blacklisting existed in other industries, or that the number of construction workers blacklisted went beyond those in the files secured by the Information Commissioner. In other words, it addressed the question that Members are now trying to raise in their interventions. It is important to reflect that that wholly independent body asked the questions that are now being asked, and that it came to that very clear conclusion.

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

I realise that the Secretary of State is attempting to be fair—[Interruption.] I will not divide the House on that, but it seems that way to me—I treat former Labour councillors from Glasgow with the utmost respect. My point is that evidence of blacklisting from that time has only recently come out. People did not know about it or hear about it, so what reaction can they give? I understand that during one of the Scottish Affairs Committee’s hearings a witness revealed that my name was on the list and that I had been described as a communist—me, a former altar boy! How will the Secretary of State deal with information that only emerges today but relates to the past?

[Vince Cable]

I, too, have been called a communist, including since this Government came into office, but I am not demanding an official investigation.

Then there is the question of the ICO’s handling of blacklisted individuals. As I understand it, the ICO—it is a fully independent body, not a Government agency—is trying to contact the individuals on the Consulting Association’s blacklist and help them with the long-term consequences. I repeat—this point seemed to get a little lost earlier—the ICO is a fully independent regulatory body, so we cannot pursue individual cases. I understand that there are some genuine practical problems. For example, some of the names cannot be deciphered and addresses are not available in some cases. However, my understanding is that the ICO is doing its best to trace every individual concerned and to assist them.

[Mr David Hamilton]

No doubt I was on the list because I was a communist at the time—[Interruption.] Those were the good old days. The Secretary of State indicated that he will not push this motion to a vote and that he was not for an inquiry. May I make the observation? All of us in the Chamber realised that phone hacking was taking place, but none of us could prove it, and we could not prove it until an investigation was initiated. That is the heart of the problem. Will he give an assurance that he will investigate and follow the investigation, even if it does go back a way, because I am sure that when he starts investigating what happens, there will be a history that goes right back? Will he take that investigation all the way back?

[Vince Cable]

The difference with the phone hacking scandal, of course, is that it has only just come to attention and been demonstrated, and there has now been an investigation into it. The ICO inquiry was an investigation into the things about which we are now complaining, and as far as I can establish it was a thorough and comprehensive inquiry.

[Dame Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for giving way on that specific point. It is important that the debate in this House sends the clearest possible message of support to the Information Commissioner in the further enquiries he intends to make on this. The analogy my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton) makes with phone hacking is absolutely right. For months—years, in fact—the defence that phone hacking was the action of one rogue reporter kept proper investigation at bay. I hope that the Secretary of State recognises that the evidence that has been provided, even in the short time so far, is sufficient to justify further investigation, even if only to send the clearest possible signal to the construction industry that blacklisting was, is and will be wholly and utterly unacceptable.

[Vince Cable]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. We will have to have very short interventions if Members also wish to catch my eye.

[Vince Cable]

Of course blacklisting is wholly and utterly unacceptable, and of course the industry needs to understand that—I think that was the first remark I made. If it is about sending signals, we have already done so, and of course we will have a close look at what the Scottish Affairs Committee has said and whether it has found any new evidence. I do not think that this debate has brought forward anything new, but perhaps the Select Committee has. Obviously, if there is fundamental new information, logically we will look at that, but we have not yet seen it.

Then there is the question of the existing legislative framework, to which the hon. Member for Streatham drew attention. Let me just go over the legislative framework. The Data Protection Act 1998 was the basis on which the investigation took place, and the Information Commissioner used the maximum legal powers available at the time, which have since been increased, hence the ability to use civil penalties of £500,000. There is also the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992, which makes it unlawful to employ a person because they are a member—or, indeed, not a member—of a trade union or because they refuse to join or leave a trade union. It is equally unlawful for an agency to refuse employment services on those grounds. As we have heard, an individual can bring an employment tribunal complaint within three months of an offence taking place, or longer if it was not reasonably practical to bring the claim in time. That is what many workers have done in this case. Finally, there is the legislation that the previous Government introduced, the Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010, under which it became unlawful to use, compile, sell or supply blacklists of trade union members or activities for discriminatory purposes such as employment vetting.

There was a decade of review of the 1999 Act and its implications. Several Members, including the hon. Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage), have asked why action was not taken more quickly. Let me go through the history of that decade. The Employment Relations Act 1999 introduced the power for the Secretary of State to make regulations to outlaw the creation, use, sale or supply of blacklists, but no regulations were introduced in 1999. Four years later, in 2003, the Government carried out a public review of the effect of the Act and concluded that there was no evidence of blacklisting, but they did publish draft blacklisting regulations and said that they would introduce them swiftly if the need arose. The ICO then investigated the Consulting Association, after which the Government introduced the regulations that had been published in draft.

Therefore, there was a very long process of consultation. Preparatory legislation was produced in case there was evidence that something had taken place, and indeed there was and the Government acted. My approach is exactly the same. If companies have found a way around the regulations and abuses are still taking place, we of course need to look at taking fresh steps, but I am waiting to hear that evidence.

[Mr David Anderson]

Will the Secretary of State address the point I raised with my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) about the involvement of the police and security services? The ICO’s investigations manager has stated in evidence:

“I believe some of the information would have come from those types of sources.”

Surely there is a public interest, and an interest in this House, in what public servants of the Crown were doing in feeding information to private companies.

[Vince Cable]

That is an allegation and, as I said a few moments ago, if there is serious substance to it and a good basis for investigation, it should first have gone to the Police Complaints Authority and to the body that looks at the security services. There is a process. It might be tedious to go through it, but that is what we have to do. If those avenues have been exhausted, perhaps we can take it to the next stage, but I have no evidence that they have even been tried.

The next question was whether we should now be investigating construction companies working on public contracts. That is the issue for today. As I have said many times, I am open to new evidence if it is available, because it is very clear that any company working on a public contract must comply with the law. Of course companies should not break data protection law, trade union law or the blacklist regulations.

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State keeps returning to the point that there needs to be evidence of blacklisting after 2010. How does he respond to the statement made only last week by Balfour Beatty that it used blacklisting when taking on workers for the construction of the Olympic venues?

[Vince Cable]

I am coming to the Balfour Beatty point, which I think related to events four or five years ago; I am happy to be corrected, but that is my understanding. Let me say what I think happened in that case. We knew that Balfour Beatty wrote to the Olympic Delivery Authority admitting that one company in its group made checks on 12 potential employees prior to February 2009. That was in response to a letter from the ODA, one of a number sent to high-profile contractors. The firm insists that all 12 people were given jobs and that there was no wider or further use of pre-employment checks. The ODA has taken a very clear and unambiguous stand condemning blacklisting in the operation of the Olympics. There is no question but that the practice was taking place well back during the last Government.

I have already responded to allegations of collusion by the police and security services. There is then the question of remedies; people have clearly been damaged, and evidence has been advanced. Let us review the redress. Those excluded from employment can seek redress in the county courts or the Court of Session in Scotland and other rights under the regulations can be enforced in employment tribunals.

I repeat the point I made in response to an intervention: the last Government took the view that legislation should not apply retrospectively and prior to 2010. I suspect that a lot of the frustration and anger of people who have been hurt by what happened relates to the decision not to apply the measures retrospectively.

[Caroline Dinenage]

The Secretary of State is being generous in taking interventions. Does he think in retrospect that it was a mistake not to make the legislation retrospective, given the evidence that we have heard, particularly from the Opposition, about the real human impact? Thousands of families have potentially been impacted and prevented from claiming compensation retrospectively.

[Vince Cable]

From a human point of view, drawing a line at that point clearly caused damage. However, on a wide variety of measures the House has always taken the view that retrospective legislation is dangerous and creates all kinds of problems.

A number of individuals believe that they have been affected by the blacklisting and they have taken action through the courts. As I understand it at the moment, last year 86 workers who believed that they were blacklisted launched a High Court claim against Sir Robert McAlpine for conspiring with other firms to keep them out of work. Legal proceedings on that action are still under way, so I cannot usefully discuss the matter. However, a major legal action is taking place and it will, of course, affect the issue of redress.

In conclusion, I repeat the points I made a moment ago. My primary concern, in the job that I now have, is what is happening under the Government in respect of my responsibilities in this field. I am concerned to read that abuse is, or even may be, taking place. My door is open at any time to any Opposition or Government Member who has evidence of abuse, because we want to stop it and we will certainly investigate it if it is happening. I will look carefully at the report of the Scottish Affairs Committee to see whether fundamentally new questions have emerged from its inquiry.

We will deal with the other issues in the summary session. If Opposition Members or trade unions have evidence, I really want them to bring it forward. Innuendo is not helpful; we need evidence.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I am going to introduce an eight-minute limit; hopefully, we will try to shave a little off the speeches here and there. We will see what we can do.

14:33

[Dame Tessa Jowell (Dulwich and West Norwood) (Lab)]

I welcome this debate and the “open door” tone of the Secretary of State’s approach, and I hope that we can build on that and reach a practical conclusion. The debate gives the House the opportunity to unite in condemning blacklisting as an assault on the legitimate rights of trade unionists. My second reason for welcoming the debate is that I want to underline the extent to which excellent partnership between trade unions and contractors is essential to achieving the progress in big infrastructure projects, particularly when building on the success of the construction programme in the Olympic park.

I will dwell only briefly on the analogy with phone hacking. It appears that in certain parts of the industry, phone hacking became insidious, endemic and culturally tolerated. The question that the Opposition are testing is the extent to which a similar acquiescence prevails in the construction industry today, even in the context of the very best intentions.

I should like to focus specifically on the construction of the Olympic park. To provide context, I should say that the work of the trade unions was the hallmark of the success of the Olympic park development. In that context, the allegations revealed by the widely praised and thorough investigation by the Scottish Affairs Committee come as a surprise and cause great alarm. Had it not been for the persistence and determination of the Committee, we would not be having this debate.

As we embarked on the construction of the Olympic park, there was a determination by the then Government that every public pound should work harder for a social purpose. A number of months were spent negotiating principles of co-operation with the trade unions. The signatories to those principles were the Government, the Olympic Delivery Authority, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, and the Mayor of London. The essence of the principles is captured in their pledge:

“The procurement processes will require contractors to uphold employment law and encourage them to promote effective industrial relations dialogue between employers and recognised unions, apply industry agreements, and to encourage a positive role for recognised unions in the workplace.”

I argue that those commitments set a blueprint for good industrial practice. They reaped great benefits for the country and for the regeneration of the Olympic park.

However, so insidious is the practice of blacklisting that, as has been mentioned, one of the contractors, Balfour Beatty, felt that it was okay and acceptable to check the database of the Consulting Association in relation to 12 employees. The fact that all 12 went on to get employment is not the point; the point is that Balfour Beatty felt that it was okay to use the practice of blacklisting to check the people out. That is completely antipathetic to the whole ethos of the development, in partnership with the trade unions, of the Olympic park.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I understand what the right hon. Lady said about the negotiations beforehand that took so long to get to this point and yet still blacklisting happened. Knowing what she does now, and having been involved in those negotiations in the past, what does she believe to be the lessons we can learn so that what happened cannot happen in future?

[Dame Tessa Jowell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I refer again to the Secretary of State’s reaction to this debate, which is to say, “Give me the evidence”, and that is perfectly fair. However, right hon. and hon. Members on the Labour Benches, and no doubt Members in all parts of the House, sense that this reprehensible practice has not been squeezed out of the construction industry altogether. This is an opportunity for the House to come together and set the scale of its resolve to end this practice and, in so doing, create a sense of liberation for many trade unionists who feel that it is always a threat sitting on their shoulder. That is why we are asking for this action. Specifically, we are looking at all the legal obstacles and impediments to bringing forward the necessary action and sanctions when construction firms fall short and resort to this practice, in whatever way.

The Olympic Delivery Authority had a senior trade unionist on its board as a way of facilitating easy access to the trade unions in voicing their concerns. I thank Barry Camfield, who was a senior official of the then Transport and General Workers Union, for the service that he gave. Many other progressive initiatives supported the central objective of partnership in the development of the Olympic park, including the establishment of a community and trade union learning centre that had a permanent presence in the park and gave hundreds of learners who were working there the opportunity to improve their English and maths skills and to master basic IT, and the promotion of opportunities for women and disabled people to find a place in the construction industry. The bigger mission was to change the face of the construction industry from being predominantly older and male to something much more diverse and much more open to the range of available skills, and there were huge achievements.

There was an emphasis on health and safety at the Olympic park. As we have heard, sometimes the fact that a trade unionist was very vigilant about reporting health and safety matters could be cause for discrimination against them. At the Olympic park, health and safety was given pre-eminence to such a level of achievement that the ODA was awarded a Diamond Jubilee award by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. It is unprecedented for a construction project of that size, scale and complexity to be completed without a single serious reported accident or a single death. That is what we get through partnership with the trade unions.

14:43

[Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)]

I congratulate the Opposition on bringing this motion before the House. I tried to intervene on the shadow Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), when he was about to deal with a part of the motion that needs a tiny bit of clarity—where it states that blacklisting “may be taking place” still.

[Mr Umunna]

I am happy to explain that. It goes back to a point made by the Secretary of State. I used the word “may” because there have been a lot of allegations about what may be happening right now, but we need people to come forward with the evidence. I believe that that evidence will be forthcoming to the Secretary of State fairly quickly after this debate.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for clarifying that.

I have no great knowledge of blacklisting, so when I decided to look into it for the purposes of this debate I read through the papers from the Scottish Affairs Committee, and it became fairly obvious that something pretty horrible had been happening over a long period. The right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) detailed her achievements in the delivery of the Olympic park. It is fascinating that even with such detailed negotiations involving the Olympic Delivery Authority, Government and trade unions, this practice could still take place. I would therefore ask her how, even with such detailed negotiations beforehand and probably a very beady eye being cast over all the proceedings, we can stop this practice happening. There is a lesson to be learned in relation to contracts and how we procure in future.

[Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)]

I have been contacted by trade unions in my constituency that are very concerned that some of my constituents might have been on the blacklist. Obviously, this will all come out in due course as the investigation gains pace. Does my hon. Friend agree that if the case is made for a change in the law, that could involve a very simple amendment to the relevant legislation, and the Government should act with great haste to make sure that this is sorted out?

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I very much hope that that is the case and thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.

The shadow Secretary of State talked about how different Governments had tried to act on this but found it difficult. I completely understand that, having gone through the history of blacklisting as best I could with the information provided to me. In 2003, as he detailed, the former Labour Government consulted on introducing regulations against blacklisting but announced that they would not bring any into force because the evidence suggested that blacklisting had been eradicated in the 1990s. Six years later, in 2009, they announced that they had plans to implement regulations to outlaw the blacklisting of trade unionists. I was quite surprised to find that Labour chose not to make compensation or penalties retrospective. If the weight of evidence that would be required was not available back in 2009 when the shadow Secretary of State’s party was making those choices and decisions, why is it so relevant to secure it now? As the Secretary of State said, and as the shadow Secretary of State will know, retrospective action has lots of unforeseen consequences and is therefore rarely taken by any Government of any political ilk.

In 2008, when the Information Commissioner’s Office closed down the blacklisting of construction workers by the Consulting Association, it did its job in a reasonable way, if slightly slowly, as the hon. Member for Streatham said. It went about trying to establish a fast-track service and a helpline to assist those who suspected that they had been on the list, but many significant entries on that list were incomplete and very dated. I therefore suspect that the gathering of the information slowed down the ICO’s investigation.

The law does now protect employees from blacklisting. When I read through the history in the articles I had assembled, I thought—this has not been mentioned by anyone else—that the problem is not so much the existence of a blacklist but people knowing of its existence and having to worry about whether their employment chances are affected by its being in effect. The pure knowledge of the existence of the list has a huge detrimental effect on people.

[Cathy Jamieson]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should look into the suggestion that there has been a separate blacklist of people who have been involved in environmental activism? As he rightly says, the fact that people are aware that a blacklist exists means that they will also want to know how to get information about whether their names have been included and how it has affected them.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I would hope that the current legislation would help to eliminate those issues and tidy them up. I could make a few political points, but I am trying to reflect the feeling of the debate so far. Employees in the UK are already protected against blacklisting by the Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010. The regulations allow them to bring a case to a civil court or employment tribunal, as detailed by the Secretary of State, if they suspect that they have been denied employment, suffered detriment or been unfairly dismissed as a result of an illegal blacklist.

The Information Commissioner’s Office is working to help people who are concerned that they have been affected in such a way and is, supposedly,

“committed to investigating any intelligence databases being operated in breach of the Data Protection Act 1998.”

The ICO continues to help people who are suspected of being on a list and is doing more, supposedly, proactively to contact others who do not know that their names are on a list in the first place.

We have to wonder whether the ICO has the capability to do the job that we are asking it to do, or the job that it has been doing, in its given time frame. It has so many names with only basic entries—some with no addresses and others without much detail at all—and finding and contacting them will take a huge amount of time. I am not arguing for more resources for the ICO; I am just making the point that this is a fairly big job on a fairly lax database, and that needs to be investigated.

I think I heard the Secretary of State say that there is no evidence that the practice of blacklisting trade union members is a widespread problem. I am comfortable, to a certain point, with the questions he asked of the Opposition, because the tiny bit of the motion that says that the practice “may be” happening now opens a new kettle of fish. It should not be going on now, because it is illegal under the 1999 Act.

The ICO undertook an investigation in 2008-09 and the Labour Government subsequently introduced blacklisting regulations. Given that the Scottish Affairs Committee has been given seemingly new evidence by those involved at the time, will the Secretary of State confirm whether there are grounds to go over the ICO’s original investigation?

I have tried to be non-partisan up to a point. I have some interesting experiences of trade unions. I used to run a business that operated with the help or hindrance of the Transport and General Workers Union. I ran the business during the last closed shop. It was not a great experience and it did not endear me to unions. However, I have a close relative who is a teacher and who was accused of doing something ridiculous. His teaching union—yes, one of those teaching unions that we on the Conservative Benches do not particularly like—was magnificent in the way in which it protected, helped and supported him. It provided a superb service.

I am not as wary of unions as some of the others on the Conservative Benches and I perhaps have more knowledge of them. I am, however, wary of the way this debate came to take place. The hon. Member for Streatham should be very wary of the potential for allegations to be made with regard to union paymasters and so on. [Interruption.] That is absolutely the case. We need only look at the Register of Members’ Financial Interests to see that there might be a link between debates on the Floor of the House and where they came from.

14:49

[Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I am surprised that the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) made that final connection, because I did not think that such a comment would be made during the debate.

The Secretary of State asked: why have this debate now? My response is: at last. We as trade unionists—I am a member of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians and the GMB, and a former trade union organiser—have been campaigning on this issue, which we know has been going on, mainly in the construction industry, but possibly in many other industries too, for many years.

It is also important to note that it is almost exactly 100 years since Robert Tressell wrote “The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists”, which was based on poverty wages, people’s terror of losing their job, and conditions at work that were almost impossible to bear. It has descriptions of people literally dying at work in the construction industry because conditions were so bad. It is only as the result of the introduction of the trade union movement, which led to decent health and safety laws, that the kinds of conditions described in the book have, thankfully, stopped.

If we look at the effect of blacklisting—I want to widen the debate a little—we will see that it undermines every single one of those hard-fought trade union rights that we have won. It also undermines decent, good, honest people who go to work.

[Mr Anderson]

Does my hon. Friend agree that anyone who is blacklisted because they have raised health and safety issues is actually being blacklisted for carrying out a legal duty? Every employee who has a concern about a health and safety issue has a legal responsibility under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 to report it. These people are not just being sacked, they are being refused access to work, so the problem is compounded by what employers are doing.

[Natascha Engel]

The one point that I want to make in my short speech is exactly that: not only are people raising legitimate issues; it is their legal duty to do so. Blacklisting is illegal, and it is illegal for a very good reason. Trade union organised workplaces are safer places to work, and for that reason, they are also more productive places to work. Blacklisting undermines every single one of those issues.

We need to remind ourselves of what the construction industry really is and what it means to be a construction worker. These are not office jobs; they are dangerous, risky jobs. People often work at great heights or with gas, electricity or asbestos, and they often have to travel miles away from home. It is insecure work, dependent on insecure contracts. As my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), the shadow Secretary of State, has said, people move away from their homes to get to these jobs and, once they are there, they do not know when they will get their next job. People are not paid much money for these jobs. Some are directly employed, but there is a system of bogus self-employment—of indirect employment through sub-contracting—which makes this a dangerous industry in which to work, and blacklisting only adds to that danger.

I want to build on what my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) said about the Olympic village and the Olympic park. UCATT has proof that a different set of rules was applied to the Olympic park and the Olympic village. As has been said, in the main the park directly employed people on what were complicated construction jobs, and the number of accidents and injuries was far lower than that on the site of the Olympic village, which was arguably a far more straightforward site because it involved building housing. Sixty-six per cent. less people on the Olympic park suffered accident or injury than on the Olympic village, which had a system of sub-contracting and lots of casual labour. That statistic in itself demonstrates the importance of direct employment in the construction industry, and the importance of trade unions.

The Department of Trade and Industry, as it was in the good old days when Labour were in government in 2007, produced a report about health and safety representatives—this goes back to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson)—stating that safety reps save the economy between £181 million and £578 million per annum. Even given the standards used by the Government and the comments of the hon. Member for Daventry, those are staggering savings for our economy. Trade union health and safety reps prevent between 8,000 and 13,000 workplace accidents. For trade unions to be present in the workplace is positive.

[Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)]

A number of my constituents have contacted me about blacklisting, which unfortunately they have suffered from historically. There has been much debate about proof, and there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that blacklisting is still going on with Crossrail. Unfortunately, however, unless there is an investigation, we will not be able to prove that as a fact. Will the Secretary of State please confirm that he will make a clear statement about High Speed 2, and ensure that no blacklisting is allowed?

[Natascha Engel]

I am delighted that my hon. Friend has promoted me to Secretary for State for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and in that brief capacity I will confirm what she asks. This is a very important point. Blacklisting is terrible because it is clandestine and secret, and unless we have an investigation and inquiry into the practice, we cannot know how widespread it is. It must be rooted out, and my hon. Friend makes a very fair point.

A TUC report from 2011 looks at the productivity gains of trade union membership—I want to emphasise the positives of trade unions to the economy. The productivity gain to the UK economy as a result of trade union reps in the workplace was estimated at between £4 billion and £12 billion—absolutely staggering figures—and savings of between £82 million and £143 million in legal and recruitment costs. When looking at blacklisting we need to focus on the bad side of attacking the perfectly legal and important activity of someone being in a trade union and ensuring that people feel confident enough to report any health and safety risks at work, especially in a dangerous industry such as construction.

I will conclude by saying that blacklisting totally undermines the good work done in good faith by trade unions at work. Freedom of affiliation is a mark of our democracy. Blacklisting is not just illegal, it is completely anti-democratic. A construction worker’s life is hard enough already, and we must ensure that blacklisting stops once and for all, so that a hard life is not made unnecessarily harder still.

15:03

[Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley) (LD)]

I will not delay the House long, because the Secretary of State has commented on most of the things that I was going to say. However, I agree with the rest of the House: we should obviously outlaw blacklisting in this country.

In January 2010 the Labour Government passed the Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010, which made it unlawful to compile, sell or use a “prohibited list”, or blacklist. Those regulations also include information on what a prohibited list would include. Therefore, as I understand it, the law is in place and does not allow retrospective claims. I would be pleased to be corrected, but I understand that that law has been in place since January 2010, and the Secretary of State is right to say that if blacklisting is continuing, we need to know and amend the law already in place.

[Mr Umunna]

On that point and the existing legal redress, as I said in my speech, false self-employment is totally rampant in the construction sector, and part of the problem with the existing law is that it does not cover a situation where someone is working as a contractor, because for them to get redress from those responsible for engaging in such activities is currently very difficult.

[Gordon Birtwistle]

I am happy with that intervention, which basically confirms what I have just said. If the law at the moment is not suitable, it needs to be changed. If there is proof of blacklisting from 2010 onwards when the law was introduced, an investigation should be initiated. If we find that the law is still being contravened and is not suitable to resolve the problem, that law needs to be looked at. I think the Secretary of State implied that in his contribution.

I come from the engineering industry, which is equally as dangerous as the construction industry, although I think engineering receives far more visits from the Health and Safety Executive than the construction and mining industries. Perhaps we could get some information from the Health and Safety Executive on why it feels that blacklisting is creating a lot of health and safety issues.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman elaborate ever so slightly on how he believes the Health and Safety Executive could confirm whether blacklisting is taking place in any industry?

[Gordon Birtwistle]

It could perhaps confirm that, in the construction industry, health and safety issues are not being taken seriously—perhaps I can put it like that—and then report back to the Secretary of State as part of his investigation.

In September 2012 the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) stated:

“Employees in the UK are protected against blacklisting by the Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010. The Regulations allow them to bring a case to a civil court or an employment tribunal if they suspect that they have been denied employment, suffered detriment or been unfairly dismissed as a result of the use of an illegal blacklist.

As there is no evidence that the practice of blacklisting of trade union members is a widespread problem—”

since 2010—

“the Government do not believe that there is a need for further steps at this time.”—[Official Report, 10 September 2010; Vol. 550, c. 109W.]

The shadow Secretary of State says that there is new evidence, and if he is able to show the Secretary of State evidence that the law since 2010 has not been working, perhaps it would be a good idea for him to do that and for the Business Secretary to accept it and instigate what is asked for in the motion.

[Mr Umunna]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Gordon Birtwistle]

No, because a lot of other Members want to speak. The Secretary of State has already indicated that he does not intend to press this to a vote and that is he prepared to listen to new evidence and hold cross-party talks with Members and with trade unions. If there is evidence that the law is not strong enough or that it has been broken, and that people who claim to have been blacklisted are not being listened to, he has said he is prepared to take that forward and look at a possible change in the law. I agree: I do not think we should have a vote tonight, as most sensible people would agree that we need to look at the issue again, and if it is proven that things have changed since 2010, we need to change the law. I support what the Secretary of State said earlier.

15:10

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

Blacklisting is not a new problem. We can go back to 1906, before “The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists”, when my great-grandfather was called to Monksbridge ironworks by his Liberal employer and told, “You can be a trade unionist, but if you join the Labour party,”—the new Leeds Labour party had been formed—“you will not work again.” For quite some time he did not, which created huge poverty.

In 1924, the Zinoviev letter was part-leaked by the new Economic League, which was formed by a Tory MP using parliamentary facilities. The Economic League continued—I came across it by accident in the 1980s when I applied for a job at Ciba-Geigy in Manchester. I went for an interview and was given the job. It was confirmed, and I was pleased because I wanted to move back north and it was good money, but a week later I get a phone call. A very embarrassed human resources person—I believe that is what they called them in those days—rings me up and says, “I’m very sorry, but you’re on a blacklist.” I said, “What do you mean I’m on a blacklist?” She said, “You’re on an economic blacklist and it’s our policy. There’s nothing I can do.” She was very embarrassed about it, but said, “You can’t have the job. The offer is withdrawn.”

That was the Economic League blacklist. Who put me on and for what reason I do not know. I was regarded by some as a pillar of the establishment at the time. I was described in one book as a veteran anti-Trotskyist fighter against the Militant Tendency and others, but somehow, I ended up on that blacklist. It could well have happened because my in-laws were members of that dreaded organisation the Communist party—they were well to the right of me and anyone in the Labour party. My mother-in-law was the president of the Sussex Communist party, and must therefore have been a known agitator—as a midwife. Alternatively and more seriously, I was almost certainly on the blacklist because—I have read up on this—I was involved organising the national anti-apartheid demonstrations. I organised a number of the students who went and was part of the team who pulled together the national demonstrations with Oliver Tambo and Jesse Jackson. Lots of hon. Members from different parties were no doubt there, but if they look back, they will see that anyone involved in the anti-apartheid movement somehow managed to get on the Economic League blacklist.

I already had a job, so being blacklisted did not affect me like it affected my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton). Not surprisingly, being a communist agitator and strike leader, he ended up on the same blacklist and could not find work. Luckily, I already had a job, so it did not cost me economically. However, I knew I was on the blacklist only because of the honesty of the embarrassed woman at Ciba-Geigy who told me.

If hon. Members look, they will see that there were not just a few thousand people on the blacklists but vast numbers. The companies funding the new body are the same construction companies. When one is exposed, they roll it into another. The perception is that some people are a threat to the employer, but that is total nonsense. The big fact and the big problem is that the vast majority on the blacklists do not know they are on them to this day. Those of us who are politically active might find out we are on the list—we can guess or work it out—but the vast majority simply would not know. Those people are going about their everyday business, and some nerd in an office sticks them on a list.

Let me tell the House about the nerds—I exposed one of them. This is an interesting story. When I was an official for the engineering union, we had a researcher. He was a strange lad because he came to see me every day with Trotskyist newspapers. I thought I knew about Trotskyist newspapers but he had ones I had never heard of. Hon. Members know that Trotskyists were like those in “The Life of Brian”—there were many factions and groupings and every one had to have a newspaper. Obviously, people were publishing their own newspapers. No one had ever heard of them but the lad had copies and would say, “Do you know this or that person?” I just thought he was a bit of a loony. He was. We caught him dealing Nazi memorabilia at Waterloo train station, which is odd for a researcher in a union. We challenged him and he left the next week, but there was a problem with his pension and we had to ring him about it two months later. We rang his number, which was a strange number, and a bloke answers it and says, “Economic League blacklist.” The lad had been using his position to infiltrate the union. He was sticking all sorts of random names on the list—no doubt there was payment by results. He was building up a list of people who would then not get work as a result.

That is the problem, and it exists not just in construction. I shall reveal another example from the Prison Service and Ranby prison—the Secretary of State wants information; he can have some. If the senior prison management do not like a person, they say they are a security risk. If a person is a security risk, they are not allowed a tribunal by definition. Rebecca Knighton, for example, was a lecturer at Ranby prison. She was drummed out on false premises that were without question made up, as confirmed by my own investigation, because her face did not fit. She cannot work throughout the Prison Service again because she is on a list as being a security threat.

A whole stack of prison officers, who have slightly more rights—I will not name them because we are currently fighting some of their cases—have their names on the list, which means they will not work in any prison anywhere in the country. A similar type of blacklist is created. It is invidious, unfair and anti-democratic. It is quite clear that Ms Knighton and the other prison officers at Ranby whom I have dealt with in my constituency have done nothing wrong—not even on the margins. They have done nothing, but have been stitched up for totally arbitrary reasons by individuals with access to management. I have privately called for a full investigation, but the example shows how blacklisting can work.

I was at the rally of the independent construction workers in Newark to argue about local jobs at the various power stations in Nottinghamshire and elsewhere in the country. A lot of those who get stuck on the blacklists, including my constituents, suspect they are on the lists but can never prove it. That has been the case until now. There will be other lists.

That is why the law needs to be improved. The Secretary of State was correct to say that the previous did Government did not get the law right, but that is not an excuse for this Parliament not putting it right. People should not unfairly and unknowingly lose their employment prospects because of prejudice or bias, or because of an argument they have had. In reality, that is how people get their names on the list. They are not political activists, and normally they are not trade union activists. The vast majority are on the list because they have had some fall-out with one of the gaffers. That is how they get on the list—entirely arbitrarily—and they do not have a clue why they cannot get jobs. That is why something needs to be done.

15:17

[Kris Hopkins (Keighley) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who made a passionate speech. I have been contacted by several constituents regarding the practice of blacklisting and welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I condemn those companies and individuals who have carried out such practices and note that the law now protects employees from blacklisting. Individuals can bring civil cases and take their case to employment tribunals if they suspect that they have been denied employment or that they have been unfairly dismissed as a result of illegal blacklisting.

I also note that, since the Information Commissioner’s investigation and the introduction of the blacklisting regulations in 2010, no evidence has been brought forward. Hon. Members have commented on cases today, and I look forward to hearing the evidence—the Secretary of State has said that he, too, looks forward to receiving it. I must therefore ask myself why we are having this debate. As a working-class bloke who has worked on building sites, I look to my bourgeois new Labour friends in the Opposition and conclude that the debate must be some form of guilt trip, because in 13 years of government, they introduced a regulation only 60 days before they left—it was in place for longer than the 50p tax hike that Labour introduced and claimed was a saving for the nation. The Labour Government let down a lot of people. As the hon. Member for Bassetlaw said, that is not an excuse for this Parliament not to address the problem, but the Labour Government failed.

Why are we having this debate today? I believe the trade unions have put an enormous amount of pressure on the Labour party—they are the Labour party’s paymasters. The Opposition have been obliged to introduce the debate. It is not so much a “Cash for debate” debate as a “Repent for Cash” debate. As we have heard, Labour Members are appalled, shocked and ashamed, but—I am sorry—they need to look in the mirror, because that is where a lot of the drama is as far as the blacklisting problem is concerned.

[Mr Umunna]

For the record, I think the comments the hon. Gentleman has just made are totally and utterly disgraceful, and not in keeping with the tone of this debate. I invite him to reflect on what his constituents are thinking as they watch him make this speech. The suggestion that somehow some undue influence has been put on us to secure this debate, or that somehow there has been any money involved whatsoever, is disgraceful and should be withdrawn.

[Kris Hopkins]

I absolutely stick with those words. For 13 years the Labour Government failed to address this issue, and then 60 days before the election they pop up and introduce a piece of legislation that somehow justifies their failure to look after working-class people. It is important that we have confidence in the Information Commissioner’s Office, that it has the laws available to pursue individuals and companies who are breaking the law, that there is a constant appraisal of the intelligence offered by different parties and that it acts on any relevant information, and that any victims of such acts have a clear route to redress. I am also pleased that we have a maximum penalty of £500,000, which is an important deterrent to individuals who may carry out such practices.

All through my time in employment I have been a great supporter of sensible trade unions, and all through my political career I have continued to build a strong relationship with them. It is extremely important that they have that responsibility. They have an important role to play in the workplace. If this was a Government debate on an issue promoted by a Tory donor, the Opposition would be outraged. While 81% of the Labour party’s funding comes from trade unions, including an £11,000 bung for the shadow Business Secretary, then although I think this issue is extremely serious—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. The hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins) must bear in mind that a bung is not something that we will accept. That is a suggestion that the shadow Business Secretary has been paid for this, and I hope that the word “bung” will be withdrawn.

[Kris Hopkins]

Absolutely. I withdraw. That is an £11,000 down-payment to the shadow Business Secretary. Although I think this issue is extremely serious—

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Order. Can I just suggest that I do not believe any money is paid to Members themselves—the office maybe, but I suggest that a Member is not directly in receipt of that money? We have to be very careful about how we use this language. I do not want the debate to deteriorate. It has been a good debate and both sides have been very honest, but we have to be very careful—we are on the line.

[Kris Hopkins]

Thank you for that clarification, Mr Deputy Speaker. Of course I will take that back, if that is appropriate.

This is an extremely serious issue. I applaud the excellent work of the ICO, and it should continue. I feel that this House is not used to its maximum when we have such a debate, which is motivated by such reasons. I am sorry that Labour has had to use an Opposition debate to recognise its own failures. I am absolutely sure that the Secretary of State, as he said earlier on, will take up these issues. It is a shame that the Opposition do not have confidence in the regulations that they brought forward.

15:19

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

The debate has been well received, apart from the contribution by the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who made some disparaging remarks about a whole number of people which were totally and utterly outrageous. It is good to see that he is completely isolated. Hopefully, that will remain the case. I, for one, will not be rising to the bait. I am very proud to be a member of a number of trade unions, and to represent trade unions both in Parliament and in my constituency.

I welcome the debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), the shadow Business Secretary. I share his desire to end the obscene scandal of blacklisting. At Prime Minister’s questions, an issue was raised about the secrecy of the secret services and the police being involved in trade unions, blacklisting and other things. I was in a meeting this morning with representatives of the Shrewsbury pickets, who were on strike in 1972. Some were jailed and some died as a consequence, and they are still looking for justice. They have just received a letter from a Minister saying that even though it happened nearly 40 years ago, the papers relating to the case will not be released because it is a matter of national security. The individual concerned was Jim Royle—Mr Tomlinson—whose reaction to that was, “My arse!” That is a quotation from him, not from me—it is the way he is.

I merely highlight the point that there are interventions and happenings by the security services and the police with ordinary working people every day of the year. For the Secretary of State to suggest that we do not have any evidence, or that it might not be happening at this point in time, is pure poppycock. Of course it is happening. The reason why people are not rushing forward with evidence is that the evidence is not at hand. There might be people here who have been, and still are, on a blacklist, but they are not sure, so how can they come forward? The difference now is that recently, in the Scottish Affairs inquiry, a whole number of people have given evidence agreeing that not only have they been involved in blacklisting, but they have been operating blacklisting for a cost, to the detriment of thousands and thousands of people.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) said that blacklisting goes back to the beginning of the 20th century. A little bit of research showed that, according to the “Henry Holt Encyclopaedia of Word and Phrase Origins”, the word “blacklist” originated with a list that England’s King Charles II made of 58 judges and court officers who sentenced his father to death. When Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660, some 13 of those executioners were put to death and 25 sentenced to life imprisonment. The others escaped. Times have changed, of course, which is not to say that some Government Members, perhaps the hon. Member for Keighley, agree that people on blacklists might be beheaded in the future. I am not suggesting that that is the case, however, and I will move on.

Some 400 years have passed since we had the 17th-century monarch taking away individuals lives; now we have 21st-century employers destroying people’s lives by denying them the opportunity to earn a living.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend have any thoughts about what the punishment should be for individual directors who, through their companies, fund the organisation of blacklists? Would he suggest that they be struck off as directors and barred from holding such office?

[Ian Lavery]

That is a very important question indeed, which I will come on to, if I get that far in my speech.

The blacklisting of trade unionists is an unfair and insidious practice that involves the systematic compilation of information about individual trade unionists by their employers and recruiters in order to discriminate against them, although not just because they are members of trade unions. There are people on blacklists who are not members of trade unions, but who have merely been to their employer and exercised their rights under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) said. If there is something wrong in the workplace, there is a duty under that Act to report it. As far as we are aware, people have suffered the consequences of doing that.

We are all very much aware of the information being discussed by the Scottish Affairs Committee. To be honest, I think it has been invaluable, because it has brought the issue to the forefront. For many years it has been hidden, but for the first time we now have real evidence. I believe that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham said, information will come forward after this debate for the Secretary of State to make some decisions on an inquiry. Some 3,600 files were seized by the Information Commissioner’s Office—files on politicians, academics, journalists, trade unionists and people who might just say, “Boo!” to their employers, who might not like it. There are many, many files. The Consulting Association’s blacklist, however, contained around 3,213 individuals and was used by more than 40 contractors, including most major UK construction firms, which vet individuals for employment.

A mass of information was left behind because it was not covered by any warrant. The information seized revealed that 40 of the biggest construction companies in Britain were drawn to paying money to find out who they should not employ. They included household names such as Taylor Woodrow, McAlpine, Balfour Beatty, Skandia and Carillion. To pick up the point my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) made, on its own admission, Carillion has had £2.5 billion per annum from public contracts, at the same time as placing ordinary citizens on blacklists and stopping them working. It cannot be allowed and it must be stopped as soon as practicably possible. From July to September 2008, McAlpine spent £12,839 making 5,836 blacklist checks—a total of 63 a day. That corresponded with McAlpine’s building of the Olympic stadium. How disgraceful can you get? A major company such as McAlpine penalising people for whatever, at the same time as having multi-million-pound Government contracts, is, as many people have said, absolutely insidious.

I believe we should perhaps go a little further than we have discussed today. I am obviously willing for more debate and discussion; indeed, if the Secretary of State is furnished with enough information, we should have a public inquiry into blacklisting on a par with Leveson. We need to call for those guilty of blacklisting not to be given any more public contracts until they apologise and compensate people and their families for blacklisting them. We definitely need a change in the law to make blacklisting a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment and unlimited fines. That would be a deterrent for blacklisting—that is something that we should be looking at and it should be in legislation. Carillion has been named. It is important that other organisations come clean, come to the fore, step up to the plate, erase the past, look to the future and stop blacklisting people, causing mayhem and financial distress to many, many people.

My heart gans out to them people who might be listening to this debate and thinking, “I’ve not had a job for many years; I wonder if I’m on the list,” and they cannot find out whether they are. Let us deliver a real result from this debate for those people, hopefully, as has been suggested—the Secretary of State says he has an open door—with the information we can bring forward. Let us hope that this is the first of many important debates to ensure that justice is seen to be done for those on blacklists and to prevent blacklisting in the future.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I am keen to get the last four speakers in, so please do not take it personally, Mr Rotheram, but we are dropping the time limit to six minutes.

15:34

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I congratulate the shadow Business Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), on demonstrating Labour’s solidarity with the construction industry by tabling the motion for today’s important debate. I also congratulate all Members who have spoken—with the obvious exception of the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who could not even be bothered to follow parliamentary convention and stay in the Chamber for two speeches after he had spoken.

After decades in which successive Parliaments have failed to rectify a national disgrace, we would not be here today without the solidarity, dignity and determination of the rank-and-file construction workers, whose spirit and tenacity in the face of adversity and hardship has been truly inspirational. I would like to place on record my gratitude to the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, which I first joined as a teenage apprentice bricklayer in 1979—[Interruption.] No, it was not child labour. UCATT has led the fight on behalf of construction workers for many decades.

In October last year, I tabled early-day motion 609, entitled “Blacklisted Workers”, which urged colleagues to support the call for justice for those placed on lists that prevented them from gaining or retaining jobs. To date, the early-day motion has received the support of 68 Members from six political parties. It should be pointed out, however, that not a single Conservative and only one Liberal Democrat bothered to sign it. Perhaps that will change after today’s debate, which has given us the chance to put clearly on the record whether we are on the side of insidious and immoral business practices or on the side of ordinary hard-working people.

Let me also declare an interest. Before coming to this place, I spent the best part of three decades working in the construction sector in one guise or another and saw first hand the effect that blacklisting had. Blacklisting is a national scandal, and recent revelations have demonstrated that the regulations introduced in the last decades did not go far enough.

I want to use my contribution to outline three things that I believe must now happen. First, I absolutely want to see all forms of blacklisting made illegal; secondly, I want to see criminal sanctions brought to bear against any individual or organisation that supplied, solicited or used blacklisting material; and finally, I want to see the introduction through primary legislation of a blacklisted worker’s right to compensation.

March 2009 proved to be a landmark moment for the construction industry. As we have heard, the ICO uncovered evidence against 44 companies—44 of some of the biggest companies in the industry—clearly showing that they were corrupt to the very core. They had purchased blacklists and used them to deny construction workers their legitimate right of employment. What made these revelations all the more devastating was that the companies that used blacklists were the same companies profiteering from millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money through public sector contracts.

How do we begin to end this scandal? It has to start by making blacklisting illegal. Looking specifically at the legislation that governs the rights of trade union members, we can clearly see that it does not offer adequate protection. First, section 137 of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act 1992 makes it unlawful for an employer to refuse to employ someone because of his or her membership or non-membership of a trade union. The Act does not make blacklisting illegal.

Secondly, there is the Data Protection Act 1998—the Act eventually used to prosecute Ian Kerr, the man who ran the Consulting Association. It is unclear with this Act whether or not a person’s trade union activity qualifies as data in the same way as details of a person’s trade union membership number qualifies as data. The gap in legislation needs to be addressed, because until we amend the law explicitly to state that blacklisting is illegal, the Act will not adequately protect workers.

The third piece of legislation is the Employment Relations Act 1999, which empowers the Secretary of State to make regulations prohibiting the use or sale of blacklists. The last Labour Government did many things well—we improved the health and safety of construction workers, and their employment rights, more than any other Government in history—but, in my opinion, we missed the chance to end this scandal once and for all. I hope that the Secretary of State will learn from previous mistakes.

I shall have to leave out the next bit of my speech, because the time limit is down to six minutes, and after taking out four pages—I think I am finally there—

[Ian Mearns]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Steve Rotheram]

Of course.

[Ian Mearns]

I wonder whether, in the last couple of moments available to him, my hon. Friend has time to suggest what should happen to those who are guilty of using blacklists as part of their employment practice.

[Steve Rotheram]

I thank my hon. Friend for saving me.

I know from personal experience that those who found themselves on blacklists were the kind of workers who fought for a safer work environment for themselves and their colleagues. They were the kind of workers who did not turn a blind eye when the company tried to dock apprentices’ wages, or failed to pay the work force on time. What kind of Parliament would we be if we failed to stand up for responsible workers who have been punished by irresponsible companies for many years?

We should all remember that blacklisting was not an act of blissful ignorance, but an act of blatant immorality. It should never be allowed to happen again.

15:41

[Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)]

Let me first put on record for the benefit of the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), who is no longer in the Chamber, that all the legislation that controls donations to trade unions was passed by his party when it was in government. Let me also put it on record that none of the people who donate money to the Labour party are languishing in jail, unlike people who have funded the two coalition parties, namely Michael Brown and Asil Nadir.

The motion ought not to divide the House, but I want to hear from the Minister whether she agrees with the last three lines of it, because that is the “doing” part. Will she commit herself to

“begin an investigation into the extent to which blacklisting took place and may be taking place”?

If, like the Secretary of State, she is going to try to dance on the head of a pin and, basically, say “It is everyone’s responsibility except mine”, she may as well divide the House. If she does not intend to do anything serious about this, we may as well forget about it.

This debate is about fairness, it is about justice, and it is about what most of us mean by being British. What do we mean by that? We mean that we, as a people, have an innate sense of fair play: we believe that everyone is innocent until proved guilty, and we accept that anyone who is accused of wrongdoing should at least have the right to clear their name. Blacklisting denies people those basic tenets in which we all believe as a nation and which are among the things that bind us together, and it has got to stop.

Let me tell the House about my history in relation to blacklisting. The most important person I know of who was blacklisted was someone whom I never met: my own grandfather. My grandfather was a local official in the Durham Miners Association during the 1926 strike. At the end of the strike, after he had been out of work for six months, he was told—like my good friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton)—“You are not coming back to work.” He was told by the manager, when he went to his house, “Gus, I want you back at work, but if I took you back, the owners would send me down the road.” The owners just happened to be the Bowes Lyon family, who, as we knew, ran this country and ruled this country for many years. That was the attitude that they took nearly a century ago.

Eight years of poverty followed. My grandfather died in abject poverty, which meant that my 14-year-old father became the family breadwinner. He was sent down the mines—against his wishes and the wishes of his mother, but there was no alternative.

In recent history, there were disputes in the mines in the 1970s and 1980s. There was clearly state intervention in all three of those disputes, but that was particularly the case in 1984-85. Nobody seriously doubts that within that dispute there was infiltration of the National Union of Mineworkers at the highest level; there was infiltration by MI5 in the general secretary’s office, and there were agent provocateurs on the ground. State employees were directing people in the back to work movement, and we saw the use of the military on the picket line and the very clear politicisation of the police. It is good news that the Independent Police Complaints Commission is now investigating the possibility that evidence was tampered with at Orgreave—we may at last get the truth from that.

Despite that history—despite the fact that 11,000 people were arrested during the miners’ strike, hundreds were jailed and more than 1,000 people were sacked—there is a qualitative difference between that dispute and what we are dealing with today. At least in that dispute most people had an inkling of what they were being accused of. My hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian might not have liked the fact that he was accused of doing certain things, but at least he knew that that was happening to him. He lost his job because of what was said about him, but people do not have a clue that this blacklisting is happening to them—that is the really invidious thing. It is simply unfair for people to be facing that. The people facing the blacklisting are on that list without knowing it, without the chance to make their case and without there being any trace of natural justice.

These people may have been placed on that list with the collusion of the police and the Security Service—those are not my words, but the words of the investigation manager of the ICO. If the Secretary of State does nothing else as a result of this debate, he should surely invite that gentleman to come in and have a word with him. I know that it is an independent organisation, but it acts on behalf of this House and of the people we represent. If the people we pay to uphold the law of the land are perverting the course of justice in what they do by undermining people who are trying to carry out their legal duty to ensure that their health and safety and that of their colleagues is paramount, there is something seriously wrong. The fact that this might have happened before 2009, with the collusion of elements of the state, should in no way let them off the hook.

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

My hon. Friend refers to things that happened during the miners’ strike, when there were indeed great injustices, but this blacklisting was happening only last year, during the construction for the Olympics, so it is very recent. It is current, and it is a disgrace that people who are legitimately raising concerns about health and safety are finding themselves placed on blacklists and denied employment.

[Mr Anderson]

It is an absolute disgrace, and I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. As I say, the people being blacklisted are doing something that they are compelled to do by laws that we in his House passed 40 years ago. They are doing the right thing, but by doing so they are losing their employment at present and their potential for future employment.

This morning, we heard the Shrewsbury pickets give a moving description of what happened to them. The really desperate thing behind what happened to them is the fact that the state was involved. Even today, 40 years later, the state is refusing to put documentation into the public domain for reasons of “national security”. I do not accept that. I think that what is being done in the name of “national security” is clear: people are hiding behind “national security” to protect the guilty, to protect the men and women in the shadows—the Security Service, the police and, going back to 1972, the politicians. They were clearly directing what was going on, in order to undermine the people involved and make sure that they faced a charge of conspiracy, which could have led to them doing life imprisonment. That is not something that is going to happen to the building organisations, who were using force against these people; there is no criminal sanction for them. We have the chance to do something seriously good here today, and I hope that the Minister will give us some hope that she is actually going to do something about this.

15:48

[Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)]

I have great respect for the Secretary of State, but I found his speech today very disappointing. He kept demanding recent evidence, but recent evidence is available if only one looks for it. Such evidence relates not only to Crossrail but to some Ministry of Defence sites and to the Olympic venue, other than in respect of Balfour Beatty. The real point is this: it is disingenuous to ask for evidence in an industry where there is a tight curtain of secrecy. If we really want the evidence, we actually have to look for it. The only way of getting this evidence is by setting up an inquiry, either a Department for Business, Innovation and Skills inquiry or a judicial inquiry, and put the relevant companies on oath to tell the truth. That is what the House is demanding of the Government today.

Blacklisting, as many hon. Members have said, is arguably the worst human rights abuse against workers in the UK since the war. It is worse than imprisonment in that it is usually imposed on the victim without his being given any opportunity to defend himself and it lasts for an indefinite period—often decades.

There are several issues surrounding the raid on the Consulting Association’s Droitwich offices in 2009, on which this whole debate hangs. Since it was widely suspected that blacklisting continued after the Economic League was wound up in 1993, why did it take 16 years for the authorities to act? Why was Ian Kerr, the retired special branch officer running the Consulting Association, given only a paltry £5,000 fine despite running an illegal database over 15 years that wrecked the lives of thousands of workers? Above all, why did the companies that sustained his business, and in some cases supplied the data, get off scot-free. Why did the ICO fail to take the full and necessary action that it could and should have taken?

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, the ICO may only issue an enforcement notice, which effectively says, “Stop doing that, and only if you don’t will it be a criminal offence.” In that case, why were enforcement notices issued against only 14 of the 44 companies involved? Not only is that a small part of the total, but the list does not include some of the heaviest users—McAlpine and Skanska—for reasons that have not been revealed, despite each of those companies making some 12,000 to 13,000 inquiries in a single year. That all suggests a distinct reluctance, to put it mildly, on the part of the authorities to deal with this huge and pervasive malpractice, involving at least 3,200 workers and probably many more, with the vigour and determination it clearly demands.

The implications go further still. First, as was stated earlier, representatives from the ICO stated at the employment tribunal hearing that some of the information held by the covert Consulting Association

“could only have been supplied by the police or security services.”

If that is confirmed, it reveals a conspiracy between the police, MI5 and many of the biggest building companies in the UK that is comparable to the phone hacking scandal.

I wrote to the Home Office last year to demand a public inquiry and a full investigation to get to the bottom of the scandal, but the Minister replied, with apparently unconscious irony, that the matter should merely be referred to the police. There were shades of what happened in 2009, when the phone hacking scandal was referred to the police and perfunctorily dismissed.

Secondly, David Clancy, the investigations manager at the ICO, told the Scottish Affairs Committee that the construction worker database accounted for, as he said, between “5% and 10%” of the material seen during the 2009 raid on the Consulting Association offices. On 24 October, I wrote and asked that the other 90% to 95% of the material should be located and its contents fully investigated. I was told in a reply on 30 October:

“There was other material in the Consulting Association’s office, but we did not need to search this to secure the evidence we were looking for, and we did not do so”.

Why not, since it was obviously likely that other material held on the site would be equally unlawful? Anyway, how did the ICO officers identify what material related to the building industry without checking all the other material to find out whether it related to construction?

Lastly, there is the question of the adequacy of the existing legal framework. It is currently a criminal offence to compile and maintain a blacklist but not to supply information to a blacklister, to solicit information from the controller of a blacklist or to use one. It is also unlawful to be excluded or dismissed from employment because of trade union membership, but there is no right not to be blacklisted unless that leads to adverse employment consequences. These are two yawning gaps in the law, and as a result of this debate the Government must take steps to fill both those gaps if this awful malpractice is finally to be stopped.

15:54

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

We would not have had this debate in any form—as an Opposition day debate or a Government debate—if it had not been for the rank-and-file campaign that has been waged over the years. We should salute those rank-and-file trade unionists and the Blacklist Support Group, who brought about this debate.

There are many lessons to be learned from this, both for the Government and for Opposition Members as we go into government. I welcomed the Employment Relations Act 1999, which was the first stage in trying to outlaw blacklisting, but in 2003 I and other Members were asking: “Where are the regulations? Why aren’t we enacting them?” We were told that there was no evidence, and that was because there was almost a vow of silence in the industry. That went for employers and, I have to say, as we have seen in the ICO information, some renegade trade unionists we need to hold to account.

The breakthrough came with the ICO raid. Members have criticised the ICO, and I have done so publicly, too, but I met the officers who carried out the raid and thanked them, at least for the breakthrough. In 2009, Mick Clapham, then Member for Barnsley West and Penistone, held a debate in the House at which a number of Members were present. I intervened, as did other hon. Members. The Government then brought forward the regulations. I convened a meeting in the House of the Blacklist Support Group, and we came together. To be frank, we thought that the regulations were too weak. The lesson we learned is that when we bring forward legislation, we need to ensure that it is effective.

We listened to the people who would be affected by the legislation. We listened to those on the shop floor who know how employers can get round regulations and avoid legislation. I pay tribute to all of them. Let me mention a few names. I pay tribute to the Institute of Employment Rights, John Hendy, QC, Professor Keith Ewing, and Carolyn Jones, because they have advised us all the way along. More important, I thank Dave Smith—I have his file here, if anyone wants to have a look at it. It contains detailed information on virtually his every activity. I notice that he was in a few organisations, and selling the same newspapers, as I was at one point. I also thank Steve Acheson, Mick Holder, Roy Bentham, Tony O’Brien, Steve Kelly, Steve Hedley, Tony Jones and Frank Morris and many more. Let us thank them for exposing what has gone on, because it was a disgrace.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) and the Scottish Affairs Committee, because if it were not for them, we would not have known about the involvement of the police and security services. I was angry and upset by the Prime Minister’s reaction when I raised the issue over a year ago, when the Leveson inquiry was set up. This is more important than any knockabout. The allegation that the police and intelligence services were involved means that we have to investigate. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) said, the fact that we got the answer, both from the Prime Minister and in correspondence, that the issue would be referred back to the police means that it was not being taken seriously.

I want the inquiry to look at what has happened. I want full exposure of everything that went on, because when that happens, other industries will come forward. Other trade unionists will say, “It happened to us.” I want to know the consequences, too. Like many Members here, I have met some of these people, and what happened ruined their lives—it destroyed them. They could not afford to keep a roof over their heads. Families split up. They were the consequences. I want the inquiry to look at how the law should be strengthened.

Let us not say that the issue is historical. This is happening at the moment. I have been on the cleaners’ picket line across the city—at Schroders, John Lewis and elsewhere. People employed as cleaners join a trade union and become the trade union representative. They are then victimised—and yes, in some instances, physically assaulted; we have evidence of that. Eventually, they are sacked or have to leave. All of a sudden, coincidentally, they cannot find employment anywhere else. There are cleaners who have had to change their name to get another job; then the employer brings in the UK Border Agency, and some of them have been arrested as a result. Let us consider the Alberto Durango case: a cleaner became a trade union rep, was victimised and is now blacklisted throughout the sector. This does go on.

There are also internal forms of blacklisting, whereby companies refuse to promote people or give them the jobs that they deserve. It happens in the civil service. I ask Members to look at the case of Finola Kelly, a member of the Public and Commercial Services Union who worked for the Equality and Human Rights Commission. She took a post on a short-term basis, and then wanted to return to her existing post, but her request was refused because of her trade union activities. We know that because the court has just ruled, and she has been awarded £25,000 in compensation. This goes on today just because someone is a trade unionist or because they stand up on health and safety issues, or simply because they want to ensure justice and fairness at work.

I want the inquiry to examine all those things from the past, but I also want it to open the doors and invite people to come forward with evidence. If necessary, for protective purposes, it should sit in camera with witnesses so that they can be truthful and honest without making themselves vulnerable to victimisation. As other Members have said, I want blacklisting to be a criminal offence. I want people to go down for what they have done to working-class people in this country. I want legislation to be retrospective, and I want the burden of investigation to be placed not on the blacklisted worker but on an independent investigator so that we can make sure that these crimes are exposed. My hon. Friends have mentioned the Shrewsbury pickets, and there was a press conference this morning. Forty years on, they have not had justice. I tell you now, we will not rest on the Opposition Benches until we secure justice and proper legislation and we protect workers once again.

16:00

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

What we have seen today is a stark reminder that workplace practices that should have no place in modern society continue to scar national decency.

I have to begin by responding to the Secretary of State. I thought that he got the mood of the House completely wrong in his response to my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna). This debate is not supposed to be political, and when Government Members read some of the views that they expressed in Hansard they may find them somewhat regrettable.

The word “blacklisting” is a malicious term that means to deny, ostracise or dismiss. We have heard the history from Charles II, cited by my hon. Friend the Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), to the early 20th century, discussed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann); from the Economic League in 1919 to the Consulting Association, which began operating in the 1990s. Clandestine organisations have sought to conspire to gather information on individuals whom they deem to be a problem. It has to be stated that it is only through the tireless efforts, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) said, of those individuals who suspected that something was afoot that blacklisting has been exposed. Great credit must go not only to those individuals but to the union, UCATT, and particularly Professor Keith Ewing for his report on blacklisting.

While the Consulting Association has long since been closed down, work to help those whose lives were blighted by the blacklists must continue, and that is the driving force of the debate and the motion. This is not a minor issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham has provided in-depth analysis of the issue, but it is worth reflecting on a few key facts. More than 3,000 individuals were on the blacklist that was seized by the Information Commissioner. More than 40 construction companies were not only vetting people but supplying information for those lists. Critically, the Information Commissioner’s investigations manager gave evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee in which he raised concerns that some of the information in individual files could only have come from the police and security services—I repeat: the police and security services. Perhaps the hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) will wish to reflect on that following his comments about this being just a union wheeze.

Mr Ian Kerr, who ran the Consulting Association and sadly passed away late last year, told the Scottish Affairs Committee that some of the information that he had obtained looked as if it had come from formal authorities. He said that in response to the Chair reading from a blacklist file that contained information on a worker’s van, the registration plate, and who it was formerly registered with, as well as the owner’s name, address and details. There are entries in unredacted files—my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington mentioned a file that he had—and I should like to read two that I have seen, and perhaps the House will reflect on whether or not this is just about trade unions:

“2000 April: Last viewed holding a banner supporting Barbie Lindsay at Pic-APak (…Believed to have a bricklaying ticket & Carpenter’s).”

“1999 July 12^th: Still picketing until 0930am”

each day before going to college

“for safety course.”

Those are entries in unredacted blacklist files.

Only last week, we heard an admission from Balfour Beatty that it carried out blacklisting checks on Olympic construction sites, with allegations that in projects including those for the Ministry of Defence and Crossrail, there may have been vetting of workers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) is absolutely right: the fact that employees obtained jobs is irrelevant—it is the fact that they were checked on a blacklist in the first place, which is something that Government Members have not mentioned.

The public projects are plentiful. The Scottish Affairs Committee heard yesterday from Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd that it may have used blacklists on Scottish building contracts such as the M74, the Quartermile development in Edinburgh and the Marie Curie cancer care centre in Glasgow. Sir Robert McAlpine Ltd said that it had not been established that anyone was denied employment as a result of those blacklisting checks, but that misses the point.

I have written to the First Minister in Scotland to ask him to investigate the use of blacklists in relation to public construction works in Scotland. Just this morning I received information following a written question from Neil Findlay, a Member of the Scottish Parliament, asking if the Scottish Government have awarded contracts to any of the companies mentioned on the Information Commissioner’s list. The reply came back naming 14 companies, including companies involved in the new Forth crossing. I quote from the written reply from Ms Nicola Sturgeon MSP, the Deputy Leader of the Scottish Parliament, who states:

“We are not aware of any evidence to suggest that blacklisting has been used in connection with the performance of any of these contracts.”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 22 January 2013; S4W-11922.]

That is precisely why we need a full investigation by both Governments to get to the bottom of what is happening and to determine whether any blacklisting still exists.

It is clear, again from evidence given by Ian Kerr to the Scottish Affairs Committee, that it is not just construction workers who were blacklisted, but environmentalists, as we have heard, journalists, academics and Members of this House, past and present. My right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) has been blacklisted, as have my noble Friend Lord McAvoy, my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) and the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown).

Most shockingly—I direct this to the hon. Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins)—this is not just about the trade unions. The most shocking example of an unredacted file that I have come across is a blacklist file for Professor Charles Woolfson, who wrote the report on the health and safety analysis of the Piper Alpha tragedy. I shall read part of the file. It is from December 1995, so it was during the period of the Consulting Association. It states:

“Author of contradictory findings on Health and Safety after Piper Alpha tragedy. Saying standards laid down since, are not being adhered to.”

It goes on to say:

“His activities are now being felt . . . Funding from oil industry to Glasgow University may be cut if the above activities continue”.

That is a non-construction industry health and safety blacklist file on a very senior academic at Glasgow university who analysed one of the biggest tragedies that ever befell the oil and gas industry in this country.

The majority of those blacklisted had no idea they were included on the secret lists and still do not know to this day. They have had their lives ruined by that, but one of the consequences that cannot be assessed is how many workers have been put off representing their colleagues on health and safety issues. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) mentioned that blacklisting has harmed health and safety representation.

It may be worth looking at two other files that I came across among the Consulting Association files. One stated:

“Migratory habits watched with interest Keeps extremely interesting company. Brought in H&S issues. Would not recommend for employment”

because of those health and safety issues.

The second file stated:

“Dark haired, stocky Liverpudlian with a strong accent. Close friend of Mr Smith. Both recently seen at a Left Wing meeting. . . Girlfriend is Miss L who has been involved in several marriages of convenience.”

These are from blacklist files that have been given to me unredacted. It is very clear what has been going on in the industry.

Let me summarise the debate and ask three things, which I hope the Minister will respond to more positively than the Secretary of State did earlier. First, there is an urgent need for investigation into blacklisting on public sector projects. The Secretary of State challenges this, but the Scottish Affairs Committee has presented powerful new evidence that merits an investigation into the past which, if done properly, will, I think, produce evidence for the present and the future. Secondly, there is a desperate need for a more proactive approach by the Information Commissioner’s Office. It is vital that the ICO puts in place immediately an effective process for trying to inform individual victims of blacklisting so that they can seek redress. If the blacklisting files for hon. Members are available, they should be produced. There is no excuse for the Information Commissioner to say that they cannot be identified or the ICO does not know where they are. Thirdly, we need a review of current legal protections, of which there are many, and hon. Members have mentioned them.

Finally, we are calling for a compensation fund to be set up by the construction companies to allow those workers who have been blacklisted to seek redress and justice through the fund. Blacklisting, as my hon. Friend the shadow Business Secretary said, is a national scandal. The House and Ministers need to do all they can to ensure that justice is sought and make sure that this never happens again.

My final point is that, if the Secretary of State is going to support the motion, and not divide the House, he will be supporting a motion that asks for an immediate investigation into the issues that we have been discussing today. If he declines to hold such an investigation, he will be going against the will of the House. I commend the motion to the House.

16:09

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)]

We have had a good debate today on an absolutely appalling practice. There have been light-hearted moments when hon. Members have mused on their own blacklisting history, but there is no way in which we can make light of the impact of the practice on individuals and their families. Many hon. Members have powerfully and eloquently expressed, through stories from their constituents, how it has wrecked careers, families and lives, made it impossible for people to get a job, and created huge financial problems, health problems and emotional stress.

We have talked about the past, and I enjoyed the history lessons from the hon. Member for Wansbeck (Ian Lavery), who talked about etymology, going back to the 1600s, and from the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who talked about his grandfather’s experience. He also told the House the horrendous story of the rather dodgy guy posing as an employee on behalf of the Economic League. That showed the extent to which some people were prepared to go to get information.

More recently, persistent suspicions and concerns were raised in the 1990s, which resulted in, among other things, the Employment Relations Act 1999. Regulations were drafted in 2003 and implemented in 2010, after the scandal of the 2009 Information Commissioner’s Office investigation. I want to dwell briefly on that investigation. It was launched after information was passed to the Information Commissioner suggesting that there had been serious breaches of data protection legislation. That demonstrates that the ICO is willing to investigate and to take action when it is provided with information and evidence, including anecdotal evidence.

I absolutely understand the feelings that have been expressed in the House today, however. The £5,000 fine imposed on the gentleman who had been running the Consulting Association was described by the right hon. Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) as “paltry”. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram) said that he wanted to see criminal sanctions imposed on those involved in the activities. Frustration was expressed by hon. Members that no one had been brought to book for what had been happening.

I absolutely share that frustration and that sense of injustice, but that was the regime that was being operated at the time. The £5,000 fine seems paltry, given the impact of the activities on so many thousands of people, but it was the maximum that could be imposed at the time. Calls have been made for criminal action to be taken, but those practices did not constitute a criminal offence at the time and we cannot make them a crime retrospectively. That is a convention that the House follows, with good reason, and we must abide by that principle.

[Ian Lavery]

The problem was not so much that the £5,000 fine was paltry; it was the fact that it was paid by a company that was carrying out blacklisting: Sir Robert McAlpine.

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. It is fair to say that Members have also expressed concern about the level of the fine, however, and it is right that the legislation now in place allows for a fine of up to £500,000. That is far more appropriate for such a serious offence.

I appreciate that there has been a generally good tone to the debate today, and that it has not been overly partisan, but it is simply factual to point out that if the 2003 regulations had been implemented in 2003, the victims uncovered by the investigation in 2009 could have received compensation of £5,000 or more each, and a fine of up to £500,000 could have been levied—£5,000 might not seem very much to a big construction company, but £500,000 certainly does.

It is also worth looking at the list of 3,213 people who the Information Commission uncovered were on the Consulting Association’s blacklist. One point that has not been made today—I want to put it clearly on the record because there are people who are interested in this issue and will be following proceedings—is that anyone concerned that they might have been on the blacklist can either go to the ICO’s website, at ico.gov.uk, or call the fast-track helpline on 0303 123 1113, to find out whether they were on it.

[Mr Umunna]

I have two points. First, this is not just an issue of data protection; it is an issue of human rights and employment law. Secondly, since we brought in the anti-blacklisting regulations a number of claimants have sought to bring claims but have been unable to do so successfully because they do not have employee-employer relationship. Will the Minister address my earlier point on the need to look at the law and how it applies to the self-employed, given the sheer scale of false self-employment in the construction industry?

[Jo Swinson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and will come to the points he raised. With regard to the people on the blacklist, 2,633 have got in touch with the ICO and 218 matches have been found so far. I hope that the publicity surrounding this debate will mean that the number will rise as more people get in touch and find out.

Concerns have been raised about how proactive the Information Commissioner has been. I think that it is fair to say that, of all the people who will be concerned about data protection when sending out sensitive personal details, the Information Commissioner is likely to be the most careful in doing so. Sending out letters willy-nilly when people might have moved and when using an old card file is not easy. However, I understand that positive and constructive work is going on with the unions, including GMB and others, to try to ensure that people can get some firm identification and that there is some proactive contact of the people on the list. That is important and I very much encourage it to continue, but I know that it is something that is already happening.

I was pleased to hear the contribution from the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell), particularly on the Olympics, which of course were such a source of national pride. She outlined the positive impact the construction projects have had, and indeed the excellent record on safety. She was absolutely right to highlight that it was totally and utterly morally wrong for the construction companies to think that it would be in any way acceptable to check whether employees were on a blacklist. Balfour Beatty has admitted that behaviour, which I think speaks for itself. It might not have been a crime at the time, but there is no moral justification for it whatever. It is absolutely aware that such behaviour is unacceptable and now illegal. The hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) eloquently set out why blacklisting is also counter-productive and dangerous, particularly with regard to health and safety issues, especially in the construction industry.

Time is short, so I will move on to the key issues about the evidence we need to look at. The Scottish Affairs Committee is taking evidence on that at the moment, and we will look carefully at the report it produces. Other elements have been mentioned, such as the Balfour Beatty and ODA issue, but the letters relate to pre-2009, so I do not think that they constitute evidence of current breaches of the blacklisting regulations. Indeed, the same is true for Crossrail, because the first contracts for tunnelling and stations were not let until December 2010. However, the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) mentioned in an intervention that she might have anecdotal evidence of that, so I would encourage her to come forward with it.

I welcome the shadow Secretary of State’s earlier comment that he thinks that evidence will flow pretty quickly after this debate. I repeat that the Government are keen to see any evidence that comes forward and encourage any individuals who have evidence to bring it to us and to the ICO. I give a personal commitment that when the Select Committee reaches its conclusions I will give them my attention and ensure that any evidence that illegal blacklisting is continuing is properly investigated.

[John McDonnell]

rose—

[Jo Swinson]

I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who has worked on this issue consistently for many years.

[John McDonnell]

If the Government are not willing to accept an inquiry at the moment, I suggest that, because these matters are much broader than the role of the Information Commissioner’s Office, they consider the appointment of someone independent of them and employers to whom people can go to provide evidence.

[Jo Swinson]

The ICO is independent of Government and employers, and it is fair to say that hon. Members would also take the view that the Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee is also fairly independent—of most people. It is important to ensure that people bring forward the evidence. If anything new arises, we will be happy to make sure that it is fully investigated.

The shadow Secretary of State mentioned the legislation. Clearly, significant protections are now in place, but there is the matter of false self-employment in the construction industry; there was a debate in Westminster Hall about that recently. That is a problem, although there are differences of view about its extent. Issues of employment law may need to be changed as a result of the evidence that many hon. Members now expect to come forward, and we are keeping all employment law under review during this Parliament. We will be happy to consider that.

As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State mentioned, we will not oppose the motion. Blacklisting is an appalling practice, which is unacceptable and illegal. Robust penalties are in place; the law provides for unlimited fines, in particular for the breach of an enforcement notice that the Information Commissioner has put in place. I look forward to seeing any evidence that requires investigation.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that in 2009 the Information Commissioner’s Office raided the Consultation Association which revealed a blacklist and files on more than 3,000 individuals which had been used by more than 40 construction companies to vet individuals and deny people employment for reasons including being a member of a trade union or having raised health and safety concerns and that extensive personal information on individuals and their families was held; recognises that the majority of individuals have still not been informed that they were on the blacklist nor given the opportunity to seek redress, despite recent confirmation that blacklisting checks took place on Olympic construction sites and allegations that the practice took place on public projects including Ministry of Defence sites, Portcullis House and Crossrail; further notes that at recent Scottish Affairs Select Committee hearings on blacklisting the Information Commissioner Investigations Manager raised concerns that there may have been collusion by police officers and security services in the compilation of blacklists; and in addition that it was also alleged at the hearings that a blacklist of environmental activists was compiled; and calls on the Government to immediately begin an investigation into the extent to which blacklisting took place and may be taking place, including on public sector projects, and to ensure that appropriate and effective sanctions are in place to tackle and prevent blacklisting.

Private Rented Sector

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

We now come to the motion relating to the private rented sector. I inform the House that Mr Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the Prime Minister.

16:21

[Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises the private rented sector’s growing role in meeting housing need; notes that there are 8.5 million people, including more than one million families with children, now renting privately; recognises there are major implications of the growth in this tenure for families and communities in Britain today; notes with concern the lack of protection afforded to tenants and landlords by the unregulated lettings market and the confusing, inconsistent fees and charges charged by letting and management agents; further notes the lack of stability, security and affordability for families and other renters; further notes the increasing number of complaints about rogue landlords and the poor standards in the sector compared with other tenures; calls on the Government to regulate residential lettings and management agents and to end the confusing, inconsistent charges regime, making fees easily understandable, upfront and comparable across agents; further calls on the Government to promote longer term tenancies where tenants want them; and finally calls on the Government to introduce a national register of landlords and empower local authorities to improve standards and deal with rogue landlords.

The question for debate today is simple: how do we ensure that the private rented sector provides enough homes that are sufficiently stable and secure, affordable and of a decent standard? Nearly 8.5 million people, including more than 1 million families with children, now rent privately. Labour believes that the private rented sector has an important role to play in meeting housing need. As a result of the biggest housing crisis in a generation, more and more people are being locked out of home ownership and are looking to find their homes in the private rented sector.

The housing crisis gets worse by the day. House building is down; new starts are down 9% in the past year alone to fewer than 100,000. Homelessness is up, having risen by more than a third since the general election. People struggle to get mortgages and rents are ever rising in the private rented sector.

Most people dream of owning their own homes and we want them to realise their dream—as we did in government, when more than 1 million more families were able to buy their own homes. However, more people are finding themselves in the private rented sector, and for longer periods than at any time in years gone by.

We want a strong and thriving private rented sector that works for all those people, but the evidence shows that too many tenants are being ripped off by unscrupulous letting agents, lack security in their homes, face ever-increasing and unpredictable rents, and are plagued by rogue landlords and poor standards. We need a private rented sector that protects tenants and landlords from being ripped off by unscrupulous letting agents who do not protect their money and are not clear about the fees that they charge.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Last year, I conducted a secret shopper survey of letting agency fees in Leicester West. One agency charged a £125 application fee, a £150 tenancy fee and another £100—I do not know what for—on top of a month’s rent in advance. Does my hon. Friend agree that such huge, unclear and unfair fees must be tackled?

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is to be commended on her initiative. On a wider scale, Which? undertook that same kind of mystery shopping initiative, and it demonstrated an enormous variation in charges. For example, the charges for checking a reference vary between £10 and £275. As I will argue later, the opaqueness and the scale of the fees charged is wrong, and that must change.

We need a sector where 1 million families with children have the certainty that the rent will not rise at any time and that their children will not be forced to move school. We need a sector where there is no place for rogues who prey on vulnerable tenants and where every home is a decent home.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

There are many areas in my constituency where I am afraid that private rented housing is not fit. A recent poll by The Guardian suggested that 84% of people wanted landlords to be required to make rented homes decent. How can we ensure that the right of people to live in decent homes with secure, value-for-money tenancies does not risk landlords exiting the market?

[Jack Dromey]

I will come to that precise point later.

The sad facts are these: 37% of homes in the private rented sector do not meet decent homes standards, and we have a business model that does not work for tenants or for landlords. In no way do we want to promote flight from the private rented sector; on the contrary, we want to transform the private rented sector so that we move in future to a sector of choice that works for landlords and for tenants.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

A third of my constituents live in private rented accommodation. Because of a combination of rapidly rising rents and the new benefit cap, many poorer people are being forced out of my area and out of central London. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is high time that we not only regulated the letting agents and the landlords but dealt with the need for fair rents in this sector?

[Jack Dromey]

Again, I will come to that point later.

We must move progressively towards more affordable and predictable rents, while recognising that moving to longer-term tenancies is better for the landlord, who has a secure income stream, and better for the tenants, because the evidence is that they pay considerably less.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Because of benefit caps, including housing benefit caps, almost 1,500 families in my constituency are being forced out of properties in Hammersmith and Fulham. In talking about displacement into the private sector, will my hon. Friend also address the condition of these properties? If the Government are going ahead with their misguided plan to force people out of social housing and out of London in this way, they at least have a duty to see that the condition of the properties they are moving into makes them fit for habitation.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, not least because £9 billion of housing benefit is paid to landlords in the private rented sector, so we are right to expect decent-quality accommodation in return.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

Do not local authorities already have powers to enforce measures against private landlords—powers that were given to them by the Housing Act 2004, which was passed by the hon. Gentleman’s party when it was in government?

[Jack Dromey]

As I will explain later, the use of those licensing powers has been very effective in some local authorities around the country.

Labour is calling on the Government to act now to change the private rented sector so that it works for all: for tenants and for landlords. I read with interest an article—it appeared only today—by the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), who is Parliamentary Private Secretary to the former Housing Minister, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps). It is entitled, “The private rented sector is blocking aspiration and isolating families”, and the very first sentence is:

“The private rented sector is no longer fit for the people it now serves.”

That is absolutely right. If there is a growing recognition across the House that that is the case, we welcome it.

We cannot have two nations divided between those who own their own homes and those who rent. That is why Labour is determined to find a one nation solution to the problems associated with private renting. Everyone, whether renting or buying, should have a decent home at a price that they can afford and enjoy security in that home. Thus far, the Government have taken some welcome steps in the right direction, but they have overwhelmingly failed to rise to the challenge now posed in the private rented sector.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the biggest mistakes of the many that the Government made in their first few months was to cancel the register of landlords? The desire to change policy and improve the quality of private rented housing is now much more difficult, because we do not know where all those private landlords are.

[Jack Dromey]

A national register of landlords will not in itself solve the problems we face, but it could make a significant contribution. I will address that in greater detail later.

Never has action been more badly needed than now. Millions of families up and down the country are living through the biggest squeeze on living standards in a generation.

[Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jack Dromey]

I want to make some progress, but I will gladly give way later.

Families are reeling from the latest waves of energy price hikes and facing ever-greater bills to renew their rail season tickets, and now millions face living in the most insecure of all housing tenures—the private rented sector.

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for referencing my article, which is on The Spectator’s “Coffee House” and for promoting me to the position of right hon. Gentleman. I agree that we need to increase security of tenure for those in private rented houses. What specific changes referenced in my article would he make to the Housing Act 1988 to ensure further security for PRS tenants?

[Jack Dromey]

I will come later to the precise point of how to move to longer-term tenancies by linking them, for example, to indexed rents.

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

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jack Dromey]

I would like to make some progress.

On the problems facing both landlords and tenants, a landlord from Yorkshire who wrote to me about his letting agent told me that the agent planned to charge his tenants—a young couple—£400 just to renew their tenancy agreement, and planned to charge him £100. That is £500 for a 15-minute job. The landlord said that the tenants could not afford to renew and he was in danger of losing the tenancy. As he put it, this is an example

“of the rip off charges that these agencies charge and the further pressure that this then puts on the housing market in these tough economic times.”

This is not just about the fees that letting agents charge; many of them are entirely unregulated and provide no protections to their customers, whether they be tenants or landlords. More than 4,000 managing and letting agents are entirely unregulated. It is possible to set up a letting agency with no qualifications whatsoever. There are no requirements on their conduct or safeguards for the consumer and, unlike estate agents, there is no need to register with a redress scheme whereby awards can be made against agents for financial loss to clients. In other words, letting agents operate in the property market’s “wild west”, as the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors puts it so well.

The RICS are not the only chartered surveyors who back the regulation of letting and management agents. The Minister for Housing tabled an amendment to a Bill in 2007 on behalf of the then Conservative Opposition, to regulate what he called

“an industry that now handles over £12 billion of people’s money annually and yet, ironically, it is an industry that is without…redress”.

He argued that, as a Conservative, he was

“instinctively cautious about arguing for more regulation. However, as a chartered surveyor and a constituency Member of Parliament, I know that we need to put lettings on the same regulatory footing as sales.”––[Official Report, Consumers, Estate Agents and Redress Public Bill Committee, 24 April 2007; c. 190-192.]

I agree with him. Does he agree with himself, or does he agree with his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield, who scrapped such proposals? Surely multiple identities are not a prerequisite for the position of Housing Minister.

[The Minister for Housing (Mr Mark Prisk)]

That final comment was slightly laboured. I did table a probing amendment—as all good Opposition spokesmen do—but will the hon. Gentleman explain why the Labour Government refused to act on it?

[Jack Dromey]

I welcome the hon. Member’s support, which I presume will read across into supporting the Opposition motion before the House today.

Regulating letting agents would protect tenants and landlords, and raise the reputation of an industry that Which? recently ranked second from bottom across 50 consumer markets. The Opposition hope that the Government will support the proposals and back our motion today, not least because the proposals have the support of the entire sector—the Association of Residential Letting Agents, the National Landlords Association and the British Property Federation. We also hope that the Government will recognise that the private rented sector simply does not provide the 1 million families with children, and other tenants in the sector, with the stability and security they need.

[Andy Sawford]

Is my right hon. Friend aware of a recent study by Crisis which shows that instability is a growing problem because of the Government’s cuts to housing benefit? It showed that three quarters of people are finding it much more difficult to find affordable accommodation, and there is a particular problem in Corby and east Northamptonshire—and across the country—for under-35-year-olds on the shared accommodation rate.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right and there will be an increasingly serious impact on many people in our constituencies as a result of the Government’s benefit and welfare changes.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

rose—

[Jake Berry]

rose—

[Jack Dromey]

I will make a bit more progress and then I will gladly give way to both hon. Members.

On security and stability, the private rented sector gives a legal minimum of just six months before the landlord can evict a family, and they can raise the rent by any amount with two months’ notice. We recognise that there are tenants who value the flexibility offered by that form of tenure, and we believe that such flexibility should remain for those who want it. However, the greater number of families with children who find themselves living in the private rented sector, either through choice or circumstance, must be able to enjoy longer-term tenancies so that they can plan where they send their children to school.

In 2011, families with children in the private rented sector were 11 times more likely to have to move than if they owned their own home. There are real costs of such insecurity and instability to children and young people because insecurity holds them back at school. Evidence shows a troubling gap in attainment between children from families who move home at short notice and those who do not. There are real costs to tenants who pay fees when moving home, from administration costs to deposits, often running into thousands of pounds. There are costs to the communities concerned where the bonds that tie us together are weakening.

However, this is not just about tenants, families and communities; the system does not work for landlords either. A report by Jones Lang LaSalle, a respected estate agent services and investment management company, has shown that landlords’ returns and business models are enhanced by longer-term tenancies linked to index rents. The case for longer-term tenancies and predictable rents is clear: it offers landlords secure returns, and tenants who need it—particularly the million-plus families with children—the security they deserve.

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

The three great stresses are death, divorce and moving house. If children and young families are moving every six months, what type of stress does my hon. Friend think that is putting on those families and communities?

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is right. The disturbing evidence of the impact on educational attainment is associated with disturbing evidence that bad and overcrowded housing—sadly, 37% of the private sector is precisely that—has a serious impact on the GCSE results of children and therefore their lifelong earnings potential.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

On the length of tenancies, does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is nothing to stop landlords and tenants agreeing longer terms? There is an institutional problem. People assume that the terms need to be six months or a year, but if we can make more people aware of the legislation, landlords and tenants should be able to agree longer terms.

[Jack Dromey]

I agree that there is an institutional barrier, but there is an absurdly short-termist culture in the private rented sector. In fairness, landlords face problems, including, for example, buy-to-let mortgages that insist that tenancies cannot be longer than a year. The question is how we achieve the security and predictability of affordable rents that I have described.

[Jake Berry]

I should take this opportunity to draw Members’ attention to my declaration of interests—I should have done so in my previous intervention. What change in the law does the hon. Gentleman propose? I accept there is a problem with the banks, which I will address in my speech, but what change in the Housing Act 1988 does he propose?

[Jack Dromey]

No doubt the hon. Gentleman eagerly read all the Opposition’s proposals in the policy document we published in December. We have said that we will consider—including through a dialogue with the entire sector—a combination of incentives, including, for example, tax incentives. Landlords are vociferous about the impact of—dare I say it—direct payment. On the other hand, we will consider whether we need a change by way of statute. However, our direction of travel is absolutely clear. Those 1.1 million families must have the ability to count on longer-term tenancies, which they need and want. I hope the next stage is for the Government to engage with the Opposition on how we can achieve that necessary change.

[Jake Berry]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for clarifying his position. Does he therefore agree that no change in the law whatever is required, and that we instead need a change in the culture of letting? Does he also agree that it would be more responsible to talk about working with landlords to try to change that culture rather than about burdening them with new regulation?

[Jack Dromey]

We are working with landlords. For example, the first thing the Opposition did was work with landlords, letting agents, the British Property Federation and a range of others on the regulation of letting agents. As one, they supported the Labour party proposal for regulation. We are moving forward in dialogue, but we must send an unmistakable message on the destination we must reach. It is then a question of how best we reach it. I hope hon. Members on both sides of the House agree on the destination.

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jack Dromey]

I will make further progress if I can.

If it is true that the majority of private landlords are responsible and treat their tenants well, it is also true that too many rogue landlords undermine responsible landlords and prey on vulnerable tenants. The small but dangerous minority of rogue landlords make people’s lives a misery. They condemn their tenants to living in run-down, unsafe or overcrowded properties, and they intimidate those who speak out and threaten them with evictions.

Despite an increase in the number of prosecutions against such landlords, the problem is getting worse. We could consider, for example, the health care assistant paying £350 a month for the pleasure of living in a shed in Newham; those found living in a walk-in freezer in Newham; or the landlord in Welwyn Hatfield who subjected his tenants to unsafe and potentially lethal living conditions, blocking the fire escapes and removing smoke detectors, and blackmailing his tenants to take the blame for the conditions in the house.

[Lyn Brown]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for citing two examples from Newham. In Newham, the private rented sector’s annual turnover is estimated to be approximately £300 million, and yet we had 12 men sharing a flat whose only source of water was a single sink for washing, cleaning and cooking; two people sleeping in a commercial freezer; and, worst of all, 38 people, including 16 children, living in one family-sized home. All were paying rent to a landlord who was profiting from the fact that these people felt they had nowhere else to go.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. The evidence is that in excess of 40% of people in Newham might soon be living in the private rented sector. I commend Newham council and the admirable leadership by its mayor, Sir Robin Wales, for introducing a licensing scheme, initially in Little Ilford and then borough-wide, and, as a consequence of effective local enforcement action and the licensing arrangements, uncovering, exposing and tackling problems of appalling abuse.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for kindly giving way; he is being very generous with his time. He is rightly highlighting some of the terrible conditions in the private rented sector in which some of our constituents live. He will know that the private rented sector has some of the most energy inefficient properties. and that people who rent spend the most on their electricity and gas bills, paying for heat that escapes out of their properties rather than keeping them warm. Does he therefore share my disappointment that the Government did not take the opportunity, in the Energy Act 2011, to introduce a minimum efficiency standard in the private rented sector? Instead, from 2018, they are insisting that landlords must introduce a green deal package, but that will not necessarily lift the property above an F or G rating.

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is right. What we need is a decent homes standard that extends across all homes for rent, public and private, and includes energy efficiency.

A survey carried out by Shelter found that complaints against landlords increased by 27% in the past three years, rising to more than 85,000 last year. These are not minor matters: 62% of those complaints are related to serious and life-threatening hazards, such as dangerous gas and electrics, and severe damp.

[Damian Collins]

I, too, draw the attention of the House to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. On the point I made earlier, local authorities have the power in law to take action against rogue landlords who leave their properties in such a state, including putting the property right themselves and billing the landlord for the work. Why are more councils not doing this?

[Jack Dromey]

They can if they know who those people are and where they live. One of the values of a national register is precisely that it is a light-touch, non-bureaucratic, simple obligation that just asks landlords what their contact details are and what premises they own.

[Rosie Cooper]

During the course of my casework I have come across a seriously unscrupulous agent called Lancashire Lettings Agency. It has an appalling record that is well known to Lancashire county council’s trading standards and various other agencies. The Lancashire Lettings Agency continues to operate in this era of well-intentioned voluntary arrangements. It has a history of charging people £200 to do a credit check, and my hon. Friend will not be surprised to learn that people fail that credit check and lose their £200. Does he agree that it is time for action to better protect the often desperate people who are searching for a home from these kinds of agencies, and that only action will make a difference?

[Jack Dromey]

My hon. Friend is exactly right. That is why the Association of Residential Letting Agents, which represents letting agents, has been one of the most vociferous advocates of letting agent regulation, supported by the National Landlords Association, the Residential Landlords Association and the British Property Federation. There is a universal agreement in the sector that the time has come to regulate letting agents, so that in the future we do not have the practices of the past that she has detailed so graphically.

[Mark Pawsey]

rose—

[Jack Dromey]

I am anxious for as many speakers as possible to contribute to the debate, so I want to start bringing my remarks to a conclusion.

There can be no place in future for rogue landlords. The time has come to drive them out, but the problem is not simply criminal landlords. There are also a large number of amateur landlords, who—through having inherited a property, for example—are often accidental landlords. Often well-meaning, many are unaware of their rights and responsibilities when letting out a property as a home for another. A recently publicised case illustrated the severity of the issue. It involved a young mother of two, just 33 years of age, who had made her dream move to a private rented home in Cornwall. Six days later she was found dead by her young daughter, electrocuted because of a faulty heater. The electricity had not been inspected since 1981, when the house was rewired.

Sadly, this is no surprise because, as I have said, 37% of homes in the private rented sector do not meet the decent homes standard—a greater proportion of the total stock than in any other sector. Nearly 15% of private rented homes lack minimal heat in the winter. Imagine, Mr Deputy Speaker, being unable to heat your home in this weather for even minimal warmth.

[Mark Pawsey]

rose—

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

rose—

[Jack Dromey]

I am moving to a conclusion.

Poor housing has wider costs, including to the taxpayer. The annual cost of poor housing to our national health service is up to £2.5 billion. Labour wants a strong private rented sector—vibrant and diverse, helping to meet the nation’s housing need—but the nation does not need a sector in which landlords and tenants are hit with rip-off fees and charges by unscrupulous letting agents. The nation does not need a sector in which families do not have access to longer-term tenancies and predictable rents, leaving them feeling insecure and unable to plan their lives. The nation does not need a sector in which there are rogue landlords preying on vulnerable tenants and, in the worst cases, risking their lives. We cannot have two nations, divided between those who own their own homes and those who rent.

We therefore call on the Government to regulate letting and management agents to ensure that tenants, landlords and the reputations of reputable agents are protected—regulation that, I stress again, is supported by the entire sector and industry. We call on the Government to end the confusing, inconsistent and opaque fees and charges imposed by letting agents and ensure transparency and comparability. We call on the Government to introduce a light-touch national register of landlords and to grant local authorities greater powers to root out and strike off rogue landlords who are found to have broken the rules, in particular by way of criminal behaviour, so assisting more councils, including leading Labour local authorities such as Newham, as we have heard, Oxford, Blackpool and now Liverpool, which are already using the powers granted to them by the last Labour Government, to tackle some of the most appalling abuse by some of the worst landlords in England.

We call on the Government to take action to ensure that families and tenants who want longer-term tenancies are able to enjoy them, providing flexibility for those who want it and security for those who need it—a very different model of the private rented sector for the future; a sector of choice in the 21st century, like in many continental European countries. We call on the Government to back our motion today. I commend the motion to the House.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Members can resume their seats. Before I call the Minister to move the amendment, I want to explain the time limits. I shall be listening very carefully to see how long the Minister takes to move his amendment, and then I shall have a better idea of what the time limit will be. However, those who wish to speak should not be thinking about more than a five-minute contribution at the beginning.

16:49

[The Minister for Housing (Mr Mark Prisk)]

I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “recognises” to the end of the Question and add:

“the importance of a vibrant private rented sector in providing a diverse range of quality accommodation to those who do not want or currently cannot buy their own home; supports action to be taken against the small minority of rogue landlords, without burdening the whole sector with unnecessary costs; warns that excessive red tape would force up rents, reduce choice for tenants and undermine future investment; believes that the Government should work with councils to promote their wide range of existing legal powers; welcomes the Government’s action against ‘beds in sheds’ criminal landlords and steps to tackle social housing fraud; and supports the Government’s new £200 million ‘build to rent’ fund and the £10 billion in debt guarantees for investment in the long-term rental market.”.

I very much welcome this debate, and I note your opening remarks about needing to be brief, Mr Deputy Speaker. I shall do my best to ensure that all Back Benchers can participate with their own contributions. This is an important debate because, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) rightly said, it is about a part of the housing market that is of growing importance and concern to Members across the House. We have tabled an amendment to the motion, because we believe it is flawed. However, some of the aspirations behind the debate are shared across the House, so I would like to try to take a constructive approach to what I hope will be a positive debate.

[Mark Pawsey]

The Minister and the shadow Minister will both be aware that this subject is about to come under investigation by the Select Committee, which will take evidence from many of the bodies to which the shadow Minister referred and will be coming forward with recommendations within the next two to three months. Does the Minister agree that this debate would be more appropriately held after we have heard that evidence and come forward with some proposals?

[Mr Prisk]

I hope the Opposition have listened to my hon. Friend’s eminently wise advice about timing, but we are where we are. I will certainly want to look at what the Select Committee has to say.

As a Government, we recognise the growing importance of the private rented sector in meeting our constituents’ housing needs. Indeed, as we have heard, some 8 million people now rent privately. Home ownership, of course, remains a goal for most families, and we strongly support that ambition. Let us be clear, however, that home ownership is not for everybody. Many younger people need the flexibility that the rented sector offers. Even those who want to buy will rent while they are saving for their deposit, so a bigger private rented sector is very much here to stay.

[Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Minister accept that rents are rising—both in London and across the country—and that this is causing considerable difficulty for people in the private rented sector?

[Mr Prisk]

It is a mixed picture. I appreciate that in the hon. Gentleman’s part of north London the pressures might be different from those in the rest of the country. If we look at the official Valuation Office Agency numbers, we find that the figures are recorded as static. It is, as I say, a varied picture across the country, and we need to be alert to that important point.

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

The Minister points out that some people do not wish to buy and are happy to rent. Does he recognise the term “generation rent”, whereby 1 million families want to have their own home but cannot because they are trapped in a rented property?

[Mr Prisk]

I recognise that we have had a dysfunctional housing market, whether it be owner occupied or rented, for 15 or 20 years. Indeed, we saw the rate of house building drop substantially under the last Administration. This is something that has crossed Governments of both political persuasions; it then shows itself when some people are unable to transfer from one part of the market to the other. I take the point, but we need to recognise that this is a long-term challenge.

I said we wanted this to be a bigger sector, but we also want it to be a better sector, providing tenants with a good choice of decent, reasonably priced accommodation. It is true that the majority of privately rented homes fit that bill today, but it is not true of all of them. As constituency Members of Parliament, I am sure that we will all have come across individual, sometimes appalling, cases involving unfair charges, poor quality accommodation or, frankly, just shoddy service. I think we can agree on the need to improve the sector; the question is how.

As a Government, we believe that many of the current problems are a consequence of years of under-supply. Over the last 15 years, that gap between supply and demand has grown, especially after the crash of 2008. In some areas, as I said to the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), rates will have risen because there are not enough homes to meet the demand. The quality of accommodation, let alone the service, will have suffered when landlords who face little competition rent out their properties. Expanding the supply of rented homes lies at the heart of our strategy. That is why we have taken the radical step of establishing a debt guarantee scheme of up to £10 billion specifically to encourage institutional investment in the sector. Alongside that, we are putting in place a £200 million build to rent fund to kick-start innovative projects.

The new investment will not only boost supply but bring a different type of institutional landlord into the marketplace. This will bring much greater choice for tenants with regard to the type of property and facilities and indeed the terms of the tenancy. These institutional landlords will also bring a longer-term perspective, often of 25 or 30 years. That brings the opportunity for greater stability for tenants, and it also means that we as policy makers need to ensure that what we set is clear and consistent over that time frame.

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

Will the Minister applaud Labour-controlled Hyndburn borough council, which has brought in an institutional investor—a pension company—to refurbish some 200 properties in the Woodnook area in Accrington? It has featured extensively in the housing press, and was on “The One Show” last night.

[Mr Prisk]

I suspect that the hon. Gentleman wishes that he had been on “The One Show” as well. However, I am always happy to encourage and applaud innovation when we see it.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Prisk]

I will give way briefly, but then I will continue my speech, if I may.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

My hon. Friend rightly mentioned longer time scales. Will he inquire whether it would be possible—not today, but in future—for the Ministry of Justice and his Department to examine cases dealt with by the Leasehold Valuation Tribunal involving Mr Joseph Gurvitz, the Peverel company and the Tchenguiz family businesses, and to establish what lessons can be learned from them?

[Mr Prisk]

I will look into those cases very carefully—I am aware of them—but I think that it would be wiser for me to take no further steps. My hon. Friend has made his point, however, and it is a good one.

We recognise that competitive pressures alone will not eradicate bad practice among landlords or, indeed, among letting and management agents. Private tenants include many of society’s most vulnerable groups, people who may not be able to negotiate and who may not even be aware of their rights. There will always be an important role for regulation in the protection of tenants: sensible, well-balanced regulation to ensure that homes are safe to live in, tenants’ deposits are protected, and tenants are not misled when signing a lease. For that matter—to be fair, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington made this point himself—regulation is also needed to protect landlords from rogue agents, or from tenants who routinely do not pay their rent.

[Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Prisk]

I will give way briefly, but I must press on after that.

[Graham Stringer]

I am grateful to the Minister. He is making a great deal of sense, but there is a third category of people who often need protection: neighbours. In many instances, landlords are in cahoots with appalling tenants, and use the antisocial behaviour of those tenants to drive other people out of, in particular, terraced houses, so that they can buy up the whole terrace. Does the Minister agree that, although the Housing Act 2004 and the licences that resulted from it were an advantage, local authorities need to be able to take immediate and direct action in such instances?

[Mr Prisk]

If the hon. Gentleman will give me some of the details of an individual case, I will double-check, but I am fairly sure that the necessary powers are already available to local authorities. However, he is right to raise the issue of antisocial behaviour. I shall not be referring to it specifically in my speech, but I believe that it causes genuine misery to decent tenants.

I have mentioned the need for regulation, but it must be said that much of it is already in place. Let me give some examples. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 give tenants specific protection from letting agents who mislead or engage in aggressive business practices. Tower Hamlets took advantage of those regulations recently. The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 protect tenants from unfair conditions, such as unfair restrictions on ways in which they can use a property. If a landlord unfairly withholds a tenant’s deposit, the tenant can already seek redress through a Government-sponsored tenancy deposit protection scheme which covers about 2.5 million tenancies. The worst abuses—harassment and illegal evictions—are already criminal offences.

We have seen that trading standards can and will prosecute letting agents. There is a good example in West Bromwich, where a letting agent, Mr Dhuga, was taken to court by Sandwell council’s trading standards team, He had been falsely claiming that his business was a member of the Property Ombudsman scheme, and a member of this and that. Sandwell won, and as a result Mr Dhuga will have to pay more than £6,000 in fines and costs. I congratulate Sandwell on bringing the prosecution and on publicising the case in order to deter others.

However, more can be done. Last year, for example, we became aware of a number of landlords in parts of London with tenants in outbuildings, or “beds in sheds”. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington gave an example in Newham. These are complex situations. Often, alongside the housing issue are illegal immigration, tax evasion and other criminal activities. We recognised that to root out those rogue landlords, the enforcement agencies needed to work differently and much more closely together. My predecessor developed a new, collaborative approach that can tackle complex problems on the ground. We then provided an additional £1.8 million to help local teams, particularly those in nine areas; even on one of the early raids 39 people were found to be in appalling conditions, and that has put a stop to it. Of course, the “beds in sheds” case is slightly unusual, but it has shown that we can, and should, make much better use of existing law to tackle the minority of rogue agents and landlords.

The Opposition’s motion contains a number of ideas that were recently trailed in a speech by the Leader of the Opposition. Some of the ideas are more statements of hope than detailed policies. I was hoping, perhaps naively, that we were going to get the detail from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington. We did not get that, but we should none the less explore what the Labour party is proposing. First, the hon. Gentleman has said that he wants the introduction of a national register of landlords, which he says will help local authorities to root out rogue landlords. However, he has not said what form of additional powers local authorities would have, what would happen to the existing voluntary schemes or what the costs would be.

What is clear is that for the majority of law-abiding landlords, such a register— whether or not it includes the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), who registered his interest for this debate—would mean that those who are doing the right thing and are already accredited will have a new, additional burden placed on them. When Labour, in office, last proposed a register it said that the register would cost £300 million, and that was without the extra powers that the hon. Gentleman seems to allude to. We must also bear in mind the fact that higher costs for landlords mean higher rents for tenants. In addition, many of the worst landlords—the rogues he rightly highlights—would continue to operate, under the radar. If they do not sign on, what guarantee is there that local authorities would be able to take action? Let me cite an example and then if he wants to intervene, I will be happy to let him do so.

As we have seen in Scotland, after five years—

[Debbie Abrahams]

rose—

[Mr Prisk]

Just a moment. As we have seen in Scotland, after five years just 0.5% of licensed landlords have either had their licence revoked or have been refused. What makes the Labour party think its scheme will be any better?

[Jack Dromey]

The Minister is citing the impact study produced at the time we made those proposals, but he fails to talk about the benefits that would accrue to the sector, which the study asserted would be up to £1 billion.

On the nature of the sector, the overwhelming majority of landlords are small landlords, and it would take them a matter of minutes to register who they are and the properties they own. Such a register would enable Government and local government to communicate with landlords about changes to the law or entitlements. Crucially, it would enable tenants to check that their landlord was registered and it would help local enforcement. With a licensing scheme or environmental health enforcement, if action is taken against a landlord who is found guilty of serious criminal behaviour, that landlord would no longer be registered, and rightly so.

[Mr Prisk]

We heard some details there, the most interesting of which was the admission that there would be a new cost of at least £300 million—all hon. Members will note that. Instead of having a national register that has the danger of being both toothless and highly expensive, we believe that enforcement can be closely focused and robustly applied using existing laws. We have heard about how local authorities have a number of powers to tackle these landlords, and I will give the hon. Gentleman a couple of examples.

In Southwark, 12 people were crammed into a flat above a café that had no fire protection and where the cooker was at the top of the only staircase out. Southwark council has used its powers, issued an emergency prohibition order, stopped the use of the flat as residential accommodation and brought in social services. In a similar case in Epsom and Ewell, someone was getting six tenants into an unsafe property, where he did not have the appropriate arrangements. He got a £20,000 fine and rightly so. I say to the hon. Gentleman that a national register sounds easy and simple, but he baulked at the thought last time around when in government—or his colleagues did. If we are really going to crack down on the rogues, we need to use the laws we have before trying to pass new legislation.

[Graham Jones]

Does the Minister think that every rented property should have double-glazing? As I understand it no legislation can enforce double-glazing in properties; if they are single-glazed, that is just the way it is.

[Mr Prisk]

For the Minister to decide at the Dispatch Box that every home owner and letting agent should now have to have double-glazing would be very unwise, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman understands. We want to ensure that a national register is identified as costly and, to be blunt, probably highly ineffective because the rogues will flout it, much as they do the current law. Enforcement is the key.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Prisk]

I want to move on to the second issue, because I want to ensure that we deal with the crucial question of agents.

That second issue is the question of fees. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington has told us that he wants to end confusing or inconsistent fees and charges that can be levied by some letting and management agents. I agree. I have seen clear evidence of bad practices in the letting sector, especially in the Which? report, which identifies that there are practices that need to be ended.

Our goal is that landlords and tenants should understand in advance the fees and charges that agents will levy. They will then be in a position to make informed decisions about whether to use their services. Frankly, that is not the case at present, and the hon. Gentleman is right to highlight that. There is widespread agreement that we need to drive up standards across the lettings sector and drive out the rogues. In practice, that means that we should be making better use of the existing consumer protection legislation, which already outlaws many of the practices that affront our constituents.

Good self-regulation is expanding across the sector. A clear majority of letting agents are now part of a self-regulatory scheme and more than 8,000 are now part of the Property Ombudsman, or TPO, scheme, ensuring that both landlords and tenants have access to redress when things go wrong. We are determined to extend that further, but the Government recognise that this is a complex area that needs careful consideration. Indeed, that was the discussion I had with the then Minister, Ian McCartney, in the debate to which the hon. Gentleman referred. I can tell the House that the Office of Fair Trading will shortly report on the lettings sector and I and my colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the right hon. Member for Bath (Mr Foster), will be keen not only to read but to consider its recommendations and see what more can be done.

Understandably, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington talked about the need to give families who rent greater security and

“remove the barriers that stand in the way of longer term tenancies”.

We did not quite get the admission that that might involve compulsion of landlords. I think he started to veer that way, but saw sense at the end as the practicalities are very challenging.

I think it is right to strike a careful balance. We can all understand that families with children will want greater stability, especially if the youngsters are at school, but we also know that many people prefer shorter tenancies and do not want to commit for the long term. We need to be careful not to reduce the flexibility of the framework, given the wide and diverse range of renters in the market today. The latest evidence shows that most tenants in the sector stay for at least a year, not the six months that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Indeed, in 2010-11 more than 40% of private tenants had been in their home for more than two years, and 20% for more than five years.

It is worth correcting the record by stating that only 9% of tenancies are terminated by the landlord. In the large majority of cases, it is the tenant who terminates the tenancy. That is not surprising if we stop and think about it for a moment, as for many tenants the key advantage of renting is that flexibility. Only a couple of weeks ago, I went to south Newham, to Canning Town, to meet young workers who rent at the new Fizzy Living scheme. The hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who represents that constituency, was here a moment ago but has now left. Those workers made it very clear to me that a six-month deal is exactly what they are looking for and that they do not want greater rigidity and inflexibility. We must recognise that the people who rent now are a far more diverse range than they were five, 10 or 15 years ago and that the flexibility in the system must reflect that reality.

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Prisk]

No, I will not, because I have been on my feet for long enough and other Members wish to contribute.

One of the features we would expect from the reforms I mentioned earlier is that institutional investors would positively welcome longer-term tenancies that gave them a steady income stream, as the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington said. We are therefore working to enable the market to develop a fuller range of lease terms that match what tenants and landlords want. The key point is flexibility, not prescriptive regulation.

[Mr Raynsford]

Will the Minister give way on that point?

[Mr Prisk]

No, I am going to conclude. I am sorry, but I am aware that many Members wish to speak.

The private rented sector represents an increasingly important part of the housing market. The Government want a bigger and better rental market, and that means taking radical steps to attract new investment, and so give tenants greater choice. It means having an effective regulatory framework for the long term, and cracking down on rogue landlords and letting agents—the minority—while promoting best practice among the majority. Good progress has been made, but there is much more to do. I welcome the debate and commend the Government amendment to the House.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. There will be a five-minute time limit on speeches to begin with, but that may be revisited so that we can get as many Members in as possible.

17:15

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to speak on such an important issue. Week after week in my constituency surgeries, and in my postbag, housing has been the No. 1 issue that constituents bring to me. That is why, last October, I launched a campaign aimed at improving the availability of affordable housing in Newcastle. It is also why, when Live theatre, a theatre in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne East (Mr Brown), asked me to write a short play on the issues that my constituents face, I focused on housing. By the way, Live theatre is an excellent example of Newcastle’s long-standing support for the arts, now threatened by the Government’s unprecedented and unfair cuts.

In the last month, housing has been displaced as the No. 1 issue, and I am sure hon. Members will be interested to know why. Is it because the Government have succeeded in building more houses, or in encouraging the private sector to do so? No. It is because of their unprecedented attack on the most vulnerable in society, and those working the hardest to improve their lot—the disabled, those on the minimum wage, and those dependent on tax credits. The Government have changed my casework load so that benefits are now the No. 1 issue that constituents bring to me. It is not that housing is less important; it is just that the Government are so busy undermining the resources of so many people that many more are forced to raise the benefits issue with me.

Everyone needs a safe and affordable roof over their head. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) has described the impact that rogue landlords are having on far too many families up and down the country. In Newcastle, 4,430 households are actively applying for housing. In the first six months of last year, 500 landlords started the process of removing tenants from their home. In that year, only 377 new homes were built. If we want to know why, we must look to the Government’s 60% cut to the budget for new and affordable homes.

Newcastle will get £3 million from the new homes bonus, which is funded by top-slicing, through which we will lose £6.5 million, so we would be better off without the new homes bonus. As a result of the failure to build the homes we need, the housing shortage is growing, and the Government are responsible for pushing private rents up to a record high.

[Jake Berry]

It is interesting to hear the hon. Lady’s concern about the availability of social housing. Will she join me in regretting the fact that after 13 years of Labour Government, we had 250,000 fewer social houses in this country than we did at the start?

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, as it gives me the opportunity to highlight an effect of the buying of council houses under the right to buy, which had many positive impacts for some families but had a devastating impact on the availability of social housing in my constituency and in constituencies up and down the country. The Government are only making that worse by reducing the funding available for building new homes, and by creating an economic environment in which construction companies and developers are afraid to invest in building new homes. The Government have been widely condemned for that record.

I believe that private sector landlords perform a useful and desirable service, and we propose to introduce legislation to support them. As the proportion of families in private rented homes increases we should examine the behaviour of private rented landlords and the service that they offer. For example, in Newcastle, the average weekly rent for council housing is £67, and for housing association housing, it is £79. However, for private rented housing, it is £120. In Newcastle, private rented homes are to be found in some of the most deprived wards. Newcastle has 14,000 private rented households—12.7% of the housing market—but 37% of them fail the decent homes standards, and 13.1% do not have central heating, against 3.9% generally.

Labour’s motion calls on the Government to take real action to protect renters—more than 1 million families and rising, and others who live in the private rented sector. I should like to end by quoting from correspondence sent to me by a constituent when she knew that I was speaking in this debate. She said:

“I currently work part-time due to lack of employment prospects and I just cannot afford to rent in Newcastle and still pay all the bills and transport costs. My pay is just not high enough so at 27 I am stuck living with parents, as is my sister. I am not alone in this and I fear for my generation, for whom the only solution to this problem seems to be to hope to find a partner to share the bills with.”

That is why I support the motion.

17:22

[Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)]

The recent census figures clearly identified the fact that we have a 69% increase in the number of people renting in the private rented sector, often for a sustained period, if not for life. Some people do that through choice, others through necessity. What we need to concentrate on—and I welcome the fact that the Opposition have instigated their second debate on housing since 2010—is how we can extend tenure for people in the private rented sector. As the face of tenancy has changed, it is now time to change tenure.

Assured shorthold tenancy was introduced in 1988, and it was a huge step forward from the restrictive Rent Act tenancies that not only cut rent but often resulted in landlords unintentionally granting lifetime tenure. The effect was to stop landlords investing in property, but as a result of the Housing Act 1988 the private rented sector has grown as an asset class in which people feel confident to invest, and which crucially provides homes to people who desperately need them.

We have heard that 1 million families with children live in the private rented sector. Anyone who wants their son or daughter to go to a local primary school cannot make those plans if all they have is six months’ secure tenure. Those of us who have a mortgage often fix our mortgage interest for three, four or five years because, living in uncertain times, we want certainty. We should not continue to deny that certainty to people in the private rented sector.

The assured shorthold tenancy, which was once the hallmark of a mobile and vibrant private rented sector, is starting to block the aspirations of families, and has damaged their ability to become involved in their local community. It puts a block on their involvement in the big society.

The assured shorthold tenancy must become more family-friendly, and we can do this without changing any law, by reading across lessons from the commercial property sector. Long leases with rent reviews and rolling break clauses have been in vogue in the commercial property sector for more than 200 years. Where we have an increasing number of families renting in the private sector, we need to read across some of the benefits seen in those longer tenancies.

Landlords hate vacant properties—they are expensive and they attract squatters; landlords have to redecorate them; they get no rent for them; and their bank starts agitating and asking, “How are you going to pay the mortgage this month?”

[Graham Jones]

I accept the hon. Gentleman’s general point, but does he accept—mine is a neighbouring constituency to his, so he will understand this—that landlords are happy to board up flats in regeneration areas or areas in which they think they will benefit, and simply abandon them?

[Jake Berry]

The hon. Gentleman clearly identifies one of the huge failings of the housing market renewal programmes. We could have another whole debate on that, but we will not have time to cover many of the issues today.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

On the point about houses being boarded up, it is interesting that my hon. Friend is talking about leading the industry, rather than regulating it. If we make the mistake of over-regulating, will that not have the perverse effect of more houses being boarded up, reducing choice and supply for people who want long-term tenancies?

[Jake Berry]

I agree absolutely. If we want the private rented sector to remain vibrant and to become the tenure of choice for many people, we have to make it attractive for landlords and for tenants. That is why I commend the Government’s £200 million build to rent fund, which will change the face of landlords and see us move much more towards institutional investors who are interested in longer-term settlements, rather than the accidental landlord who in many cases is new to the sector, plans to sell the house and is looking for a short tenancy while he tries to do so.

The cost of vacancies is huge. Holding a vacant property is not what professional landlords want to do, so as Jones Lang LaSalle pointed out in their recent report, landlords can benefit from a longer tenure, as well as tenants benefiting. If it is good for tenants and for landlords, why is it not happening? My personal view of the solution to the problems of the assured shorthold tenancy failing families is that we should look towards a six-year term with rent reviews, which would give landlords certainty of funding and would give tenants certainty. It would fit quite well with the number of years that young people spend in school.

Those rent reviews could be retail prices index-related. They could just go back to market rent. Landlords would know when their rent roll was going to increase and they could factor that into the rent when they granted the lease. Also, tenants would be able to look forward to rent increases and budget for them now, rather than the landlord putting the rent up after a year to some unrealistic fee, forcing them to move. In addition, those longer-term leases would require realistic break clauses. The great benefit of the assured shorthold tenancy in its current form is that it does not trap tenants in properties. It also does not trap landlords into letting properties for longer than they want to. Any new longer-term tenancy would need realistic rolling break clauses for both the landlord and the tenant.

We do not need to change the law to do this. We need to change people’s hearts and minds to do it. The biggest block is the funding restrictions from banks. Most buy-to-let landlords, if not all of them, in their facility agreements, which I have negotiated on behalf of landlords, will often have a preclusion from granting a tenancy over a year or two years. This is the exact opposite of the commercial property sector, where banks will consent to longer leases because those give them certainty of rent roll and increase the value of the property. Private sector houses with a longer-term lease would have more value, not less.

There is a role—I hope the Minister will continue to lead on it—for the Government to press banks to enable landlords to grant longer tenancies. It is already happening in the Olympic park and we need to do better work to ensure that it is available to more families in my constituency.

17:29

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I very much welcome this debate. The important issues that are being raised are extremely relevant to my constituency, which has large numbers of people living in the private rented sector. It also has a growing number of residents living in managed blocks, particularly in the city centre. I have held public meetings and conducted resident surveys on these important issues, and I already have a considerable case load relating to them. There are many shocking cases of bad practice by letting and managing agents in Manchester Central. In raising them in the House today, I want to shine a bright light on some practices that can only be described as unscrupulous and murky, and that have left many of my residents significantly out of pocket and with little protection.

To redress the balance between tenants and owners with letting agents and rogue landlords, and between owners and residents in managed blocks and their managing agents, we need to give urgent consideration to the following measures: the regulation of letting agents and managing agents, which has already been discussed; the establishment of a national register of landlords, with local authorities including Manchester city council given the powers to improve standards; the reduction of barriers to residents getting the right to manage their own blocks; and giving organisations such as leasehold valuation tribunals—known as LVTs—real teeth, so that their decisions cannot simply be ignored.

I will explain more about those points in a moment, but first I would like to give the House my view on why I think the private rented sector needs further regulation. I believe that a huge market distortion is costing the taxpayer a great deal of money. We have all come across examples of letting agents charging fees and of people having to pay onerous deposits, which they rarely get back. Less publicised is the recent practice of asking potential tenants to provide a guarantor. That involves a legally binding arrangement whereby if someone fails to pay their rent, somebody else has to pay it for them. In addition, potential tenants have to go through credit checks, and we are now seeing a two-tier system in the rental market, in which people who do not pass the credit check and cannot provide a guarantor are consigned to living in very poor properties and paying hugely inflated rents. Those rents could buy a luxury home in a more desirable part of town, if those people were able to arrange that. I do not believe that those rents accurately reflect the risk involved to the landlords. Many of those tenants are also in receipt of housing benefit, so those extortionate rents are often being funded by the taxpayer. That is why the situation needs to be looked at urgently.

The subject of managing agents is a big issue in my constituency, and it will become a growing issue in many city centres as more and more people start to live in managed blocks. The stories surrounding some, but not all, of the managing agents operating in my constituency are truly shocking. Time and again, I have come across the following problems: high charges, along with poor service and maintenance; charges being put up erroneously without warning; retrospective payment demands for work or services that were not agreed to or were poorly carried out; and long-term service contracts being awarded to associate companies of the managing agents.

One example of that involves residents living in the Riverside block in Hulme, whose management fee has doubled since 2006 and is due to go up a further 10% in April. They are powerless to prevent that. When residents and owners try to come together to exercise their right to manage, they often face high barriers. In some of the bigger blocks, it is not always possible to find and mobilise the required ratio of owners, because of the high number of absentee landlords. Even when the majority of owners can be mobilised, and the right to manage has been won, the legal barriers are considerable. When the residents and owners of No. 1 Deansgate in the city centre won the right to manage last year, the managing agent and freeholder were told that they had no right of appeal, yet, with the help of the legal firm that they hired, they were able to get an appeal agreed by the higher tribunal. The residents and owners will continue to fight for their right to manage, but the legal process has already cost them thousands of pounds and is likely to cost them £10,000 more.

The challenges do not end when the right to manage has been won. Owners in the Little Alex block in Moss Side manage their block, but the freeholder takes out the buildings insurance with an associated company, in what can only be described as a dubious arrangement. The insurance includes a number of elements that the owners do not want. The leasehold valuation tribunal has determined in favour of the residents, yet the freeholder is continuing to charge them, and it seems the LVT has no teeth whatever. That is why we need further regulation—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am extremely grateful to the hon. Lady. I call George Hollingbery.

17:35

[George Hollingbery (Meon Valley) (Con)]

In the interests of allowing as many colleagues as possible to contribute to the debate, I hope to keep my remarks very brief—five minutes is simply not long enough to develop a substantial argument. We know that the private letting market is extremely important in this country. Indeed, it is of rising importance. The Communities and Local Government Committee published in May 2012 our report “Financing of new housing supply”, for which we took a great deal of evidence on the barriers to investment in the private letting market, particularly from institutional investors. That evidence was very important.

Straightforwardly, regulation, and certainly uncertainty about it, can lead to difficulties in encouraging meaningful institutional investment in new supply. That is particularly important, because I believe firmly, as I think do shadow Front Benchers and Government Front Benchers, that large institutional investment in private rented housing is a really interesting way forward for providing better and higher-standard accommodation with long lets to more people across the country. We should therefore do whatever we can to try to make that happen.

Raising finance is difficult at the moment. I want to quote from a report produced for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation by Professor Michael Ball of Reading university in November 2010:

“Regulations and the threat of more regulation put off investors. This is generally due to the costs of compliance. Rogues ignore rules, so it has to be demonstrated that the total costs of compliance by all landlords are outweighed by improvement in the quality offer by the few. The paradox may arise where regulations deter good quality investors and the resultant accommodation shortages generate substantial financial incentives for those prepared to flout the rules.”

We need to be careful to understand that a well-meaning regulation can easily put off potential institutional investors, because their investment might lead to much better regulated and longer-term private rents in the sector. I want the House to be aware that there is plenty of academic evidence available showing that regulation can be a barrier to raising finance simply because of the uncertainty it generates for long-term investors.

The Government have already invested considerable sums in that area. We have already talked about the £200 million fund to provide equity finance for builders and developers for this interesting nascent market. Of course, the £10 billion debt guarantee scheme should allow more of those long-term investments to be made. The Housing Minister told The Spectator last week:

“What we need to do is attract and encourage new players to the market, while at the same time avoiding the excessive regulation that would force up rents and reduce choice for tenants.”

That must be right. The Select Committee agreed and its report’s first recommendation was for a more flexible approach:

“We encourage local authorities to consider taking a flexible approach to affordable housing requirements in planning obligations on a case-by-case basis, where this will help to stimulate build-to-let investment and will not be to the detriment of the wider housing needs of the area.”

Ultimately, if we need to provide more purpose-built private housing for rent, what we need, ironically, is less regulation, not more. That will produce housing owned by large-scale investors who will have a vested interest in the long-term viability of their property portfolios and who are much more likely to operate in an ethical and transparent way. I refer hon. Members to Grainger in my constituency, which is putting together exactly that sort of investment and development. I believe that is the way forward. I believe that well-meaning regulation could be dangerous in that regard. I absolutely understand the desire to regulate letting agents more. That is essential, makes good sense and we should do more of it, but we need to be very careful when we impose regulation on the wider marketplace.

17:38

[Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It is a little disappointing that Conservative Ministers and the Secretary of State have now left this crucial debate.

I wish to speak in favour of the motion and address standards, value for money, the security offered by the private rented sector and the effect that that is having on our local housing market in Haslingden and Hyndburn. The private rented sector is very large in Hyndburn and the statistics provided by my local authority on standards are of great concern. Across the borough, 49.2% of privately rented homes do not meet the decent homes standard and 29.6% have category 1 hazards. In some wards, 35% of properties are rented out and in some streets and neighbourhoods the figure is about 90%.

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

It is interesting to note that the local authority has the figures on the number of homes that are not up to the required standard. What, therefore, is it doing with the 100-plus regulation powers that it already has to put that right?

[Graham Jones]

That question is easy to answer. My local authority is the third worst hit in terms of revenue grant and it is doing everything it possibly can. If the Government take resources away, they have to accept that it becomes difficult for local authorities to meet their obligations. That is the position in which the local authority finds itself.

I return to the scale of the problem. In the ward of Spring Hill, 71.6 % of houses do not meet the decent homes standard; in contrast, only 17.2% of social housing in the ward does not. In Central ward, 73.6% of houses do not meet the decent homes standard, compared with 32.1% in the social rented sector. That is a damning indictment of the state of the private rented sector in my constituency and the behaviour of some who let those properties. I should say briefly that the housing health and safety rating system is not fit for purpose and is due for an upgrade.

What do Haslingden and Hyndburn constituents get for the privilege of renting a home? Last year, national TV crews came to Hyndburn to see the sorry state of the sector. One house that TV crews visited in my neighbourhood had asbestos, single wooden windows, damp, mould and electrical sockets hanging off the wall with live electrics exposed at a low level. A young mother and a toddler were housed there as there was nowhere else better. The house had innumerable category 1 and 2 hazards, as is common throughout the constituency.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) said, the Government should tackle the dangers of electrical safety, not just by regulating electrical safety certificates but by the mandatory installation of residual-current devices in every rented property.

Nationally, the last English housing survey revealed that the number of people who agreed with the statement “the landlord does not bother with repairs” was twice as high in the private rented sector as in the social rented sector. In Haslingden and Hyndburn, the figure is far higher. At another property in my neighbourhood, I saw a questionable gas fire, which was checked by a gas fitter. It was condemned immediately and removed. For 12 months, the landlord had been asked to look into it. Shockingly, the property was rented by a parent with a two-year-old and four-year-old.

Such stories reflect the chronic state of the private rented sector in Haslingden and Hyndburn. There is a huge problem, not just with rogue landlords, but absent and long-distance ones. Crucially, there are also amateur landlords who know nothing about property maintenance and are simply looking for a quick profit. I ask the Minister to consider this point. Landlords need guidance, and a national register would assist landlords, tenants, neighbours and the local authority to work together.

Recently, a woman suffering from exactly the problems that the Leader of the Opposition has recently identified came into my surgery. She is a single mother with three children. She had been forced to rent a three-bedroom former council house now owned privately through the right to buy. She had been the victim of domestic abuse and her partner had abandoned her and her three children. Her rent is £600 a month, while the rent at the Hyndburn Homes property next door is just £300. The average price of a Hyndburn Homes property is about £64 a week, yet a private rented property costs £108 a week—68% higher.

Then there is the scandal of top-up, which has not been mentioned, whereby landlords raise rents way above housing benefit levels and push families and young, innocent children into the worst poverty imaginable. The lady I mentioned received £425 in housing benefit, so the Department for Work and Pensions was paying £125 more than on the property next door, but that still left her with a £175 shortfall per month that she had to find from the other benefits that she received. Her children were going hungry and she had to be clothed with clothes from the charity shop just to keep a roof over their heads. Moreover, the house was in a terrible state of repair because it had been bought under the right to buy, and the landlord had shown no interest in making good.

When I contacted schools in my local area, they confirmed a rise in the number of poorly clothed and hungry children turning up for school in the morning. My surgery is filled with people desperate for decent housing, all of whom are housed in the private rented sector, while the local authority has a very long waiting list for housing association houses. A recent survey highlighted that Hyndburn has the second highest number in England of people living on the breadline.

I would like to speak for much longer, but time is running out and I will have to conclude my remarks.

[George Hollingbery]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Before I take the forthcoming point of order, I am afraid that in the interests of trying to accommodate the level of interest I am going to reduce the time limit for Back-Bench speeches, with immediate effect, from five minutes to four minutes. In that way, I hope to be able to get everybody in if people are helpful.

[George Hollingbery]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I apologise for delaying the House’s business. In my speech, I omitted to alert the House to the details of my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I apologise to the House for doing so and now alert it appropriately.

[Mr Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order, and the House will be too.

17:46

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

In the short time available to me, I want to focus on an area of the private rented sector that gives me particular cause for concern. As we have heard, many people’s experience of the private rented sector will be positive. They will have good landlords with an interest in maintaining good properties because they want to supply the market and to have competitive rents and full properties. That is what a lot of people, institutions and organisations entering the sector will want. As we all know, however, the poorer people on lower incomes or in receipt of housing benefit, who are at the bottom end of the private rented sector, tend to get the worst deal. Those are the sorts of people we see in our surgeries, and Members across the House will be familiar with the situation.

I am particularly angered by the behaviour of some landlords maintaining properties in areas where they know there is a shortage of social housing and a high demand for capacity. They will own a lot of cheap, older properties that need a lot of work done on them, and they are guaranteed an almost constant flow of tenants. Some will be enjoying payments of rent and housing benefit directly from the local authority, giving them a controlled and largely guaranteed income. They will know that in most cases tenants cannot afford to move. If the tenants are unhappy, even though they are renting in the private sector, they do not have the freedom that people with more means have in deciding to end the agreement and move somewhere else. People trapped in that situation will not have the means to move and are stuck there.

Although, as I said earlier, local authorities have the power to take action against landlords who are maintaining properties at a low level that is causing risk of harm to their tenants, those landlords know that by the time the property is inspected by the local authority and a request for change is made, to which the landlord may be resistant, months can go by before anything is done, if it is done at all. The tenants are stuck and the landlords can largely do what they want. That is a disgrace, particularly where landlords are in receipt of housing benefit.

[Jake Berry]

Is not my hon. Friend making a good argument for a massive expansion of selective licensing? Local authorities already have the power to use selective licensing in areas of low demand, and in my constituency that has been used with great success. Is that a good way of regulating landlords?

[Damian Collins]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. Of course, local authorities do already have the power to do that. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) said, the London borough of Newham has introduced a licensing scheme across its entire area. This should not be a matter of national policy or a compulsory requirement but something that local authorities should have the discretion to enforce at their will. My concern, though, is that the enforcement of a licensing regime might put rents up, because the landlord will pass the cost on to their tenants, and might restrict the number of properties available in the market. Those concerns were also certainly raised in the consultation that Newham itself ran on the introduction of its licensing scheme.

I wonder whether there should be incentives for landlords to be more responsible in the way in which they manage and maintain their properties. Direct payments are probably a topic for debate on another day, but should not a landlord qualify for direct payments of housing benefits that give them a guaranteed income stream only if they maintain their properties at a certain level?

[Mark Pawsey]

Does my hon. Friend agree that a longer period of tenancy with greater security of income would be the exact incentive that landlords need to improve their properties?

[Damian Collins]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. We should certainly consider doing that with regard to the social sector and housing benefits. I do not think that local authorities and the Government should be in the business of paying housing benefit to landlords who do not maintain their properties at a decent standard. We should not be doing that. I think that the guaranteed flow of income and the massive supply of people who are looking for accommodation give us the power to negotiate with the market and the private sector in an important way.

I would also say that private landlords who wish to rent their properties out to tenants on housing benefits should be part of an accredited scheme, run by one of the organisations that represent the housing sector, be it the National Landlords Association or another body. There should be an incentive for people to sign up voluntarily to those sorts of schemes.

The Private Sector Tenants’ Forum, which was consulted by the London borough of Newham, said that its tenants

“had some concerns—above all, that landlords should not be discouraged from letting properties and that licensing costs for landlords should not increase tenants’ rent levels. They also wondered if the regulations could be enforced effectively in practice.”

That is my one concern about the national register of landlords proposed by the Opposition. It is fine in principle but, on the ground, the local authority needs to have the resources to enforce the agreements and check the properties. I suspect that the reason why hon. Members from all parties have raised the concerns that they have about the state of properties in the private rented sector is that local authorities are not making those checks or enforcing measures against the private sector landlords. Perhaps the authority does not have the resources to do so. It would seem from what the London borough of Newham has said that it hopes that the licensing scheme will pay for some sort of enforcement, but I doubt whether that would be possible.

[Graham Jones]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Collins]

I want to conclude my remarks so that other Members can speak.

We should consider some sort of incentive scheme so that private sector landlords who are in receipt of state money and benefits have to maintain their homes to a decent standard in order to qualify for those benefits. That would give us some control at the bottom end of the market and, I hope, the ability to influence positively the accommodation and standard of living of many of the poorest people in our society.

17:52

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

The private rented sector plays an increasingly important role both in Nottingham and across the country. More families are being forced into the private rented sector even though they would like to buy their own home. They just cannot get a foot on the housing ladder. Many other families would like the quality, stability, security and affordability offered by social landlords, including housing associations.

Our city has a well-respected arm’s length management organisation, Nottingham City Homes, but the properties are simply not available. At present, 10,000 households—more than in other city authorities in the east midlands—are waiting for an NCH property, and far too few new affordable homes are being built.

Of course, many people choose the flexibility that private renting can offer, and with a student population of more than 50,000—about one in eight city residents— Nottingham’s private rented sector is vital to the success of our city. Although both universities provide halls of residence on campus and there has been an expansion of purpose-built student accommodation, many students want or need to live in the private rented sector. The rapid expansion of the city’s student population, which has increased by 36% in 10 years, has presented challenges locally.

I have spoken about the issues arising from high concentrations of homes in multiple occupation in Nottingham. Some long-term residents began to feel that their local neighbourhoods were changed beyond recognition, but I cannot talk about that right now because of the time.

The Labour Government recognised those issues and took action to help, giving local authorities the power to control the development of HMOs and working towards the introduction of a national register of landlords. Thanks to the determined efforts of local councillors, local residents and groups such as the Nottingham action group on HMOs, those provisions were applied effectively in the city.

The incoming coalition Government took away those powers and scrapped plans for a national register of landlords. I want to explain, albeit briefly, why that was the wrong decision and why action is needed now to protect tenants. I will focus on the needs and experiences of my student constituents, but many of the issues apply equally to Nottingham’s other private rented sector tenants.

In many cases, those renting flats and houses have positive experiences and responsible and professional landlords. In a minority of cases, however, the picture is very different and one of poor landlords and unscrupulous letting agents who cause misery not only for their tenants, but often for their neighbours too as properties and gardens on the street are neglected and fall into disrepair.

The university of Nottingham student union’s accommodation and community officer, Sian Green, recently submitted evidence to the Communities and Local Government Committee’s consultation on the private rented sector. Her evidence on the quality of private rented housing is clear:

“It is the experience of our students that there is no consistent quality when it comes to Private Rented Housing. For as many students who will find good quality, well-maintained housing, there are as many, if not more, that will struggle with poor property standards. In addition to this, where there is a poor standard of property, students will also struggle to get their landlords or letting agents to respond to requests for repairs or concerns about problems with their accommodation.”

She also notes that casework at the student union’s student advice centre has increased by 151% in the last year.

Just last week I heard concerns from Ben, a constituent of mine, as he gave an all-too-familiar story about grime and dirt in the house, damp affecting health, a leaking roof, vermin, a broken fire alarm and intimidation by his landlord—I wish I could say more about it. Unfortunately, Ben is right and not only are there real problems for students, but the Government have failed to act. That is precisely why Nottingham student union and the National Union of Students are in line with our position on seeking better accreditation and a proper register of landlords, as called for in the motion.

17:56

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this important debate. As I said in an intervention, I find it difficult to understand why the Opposition have initiated a debate on this topic at this time, just as the Communities and Local Government Committee is about to start its inquiry. Would it not make more sense to hold such a debate immediately after the Committee produces its report?

The private rented sector plays a significant role in housing provision, and for many people renting privately has become a preferred choice as they look for the flexibility that the sector provides. After owner occupation and social renting, the private sector has become an accepted and effective third form of occupying a home. As Shelter points out, more than 1 million families with children are now renting privately, and many are renting by choice.

In any discussion of the private rented sector it is important to acknowledge how the Conservative Government rescued it. Between 1915 and 1979 owner occupation of social housing increased dramatically, while private rented accommodation fell from 75% of all properties in 1918 to as low as 8% by the 1980s. Only the Housing Act 1988, which introduced radical change under the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, ended the slide of the private rented sector and abolished rent controls.

[Jake Berry]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Housing Act 1988—a seminal piece of legislation—clarifies the fact that reducing regulation can improve the sector? It is not always about increasing regulation.

[Mark Pawsey]

My hon. Friend is entirely right. Until 1988, anybody who owned or had inherited private rented accommodation under the fair rent regime was anxious to sell immediately on taking vacant possession because the returns available in that sector simply did not justify investment in it.

Some serious issues face the private rented sector, including an appropriate concern about rogue landlords—the House has heard accounts of tenants living in substandard accommodation. There are various claims about the extent of rogue landlords, and I hope that when the Communities and Local Government Committee takes evidence it will be able to identify the true extent of the problem. Tenants should feel confident when they enter into an agreement that their landlord will stick to his responsibilities. The question before the House is whether regulation is the best route to deal with rogue landlords, and indeed rogue letting agents. The Association of Residential Letting Agents states:

“With the majority of letting agents operating legitimate, professional practices, one could argue that it is the responsibility of consumers”—

and, in this case, landlords, who in the main are professional people—

“to make an informed decision about which agents they use”.

I agree on that point. I am not convinced the Government should get involved.

Interestingly, in June 2010, the Department for Communities and Local Government stated, as my hon. Friend has, that:

“In the past over-regulation drove landlords out of the rental market.”

Over-regulation would reduce the number of properties to rent and would not help tenants or landlords.

[Damian Collins]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the landlords who are happy to flout the current law on what is considered to be a decent standard of home will not be concerned about new regulations, because they will flout those too?

[Mark Pawsey]

Absolutely. Other hon. Members have made the point that councils have the powers to deal with rogue landlords. We need councils to use them. The Department for Communities and Local Government states:

“Councils already have powers to require landlords to take action to rectify hazards in their property and where landlords resist, to make and charge for improvements, and to prohibit use of the affected parts of the property.”

The question for the House is what the Government should do to encourage local authorities to make greater use of their existing powers. I hope the Minister refers to that.

Hon. Members have mentioned letting terms. Many tenants and landlords believe their agreements should be for either six or 12 months, but as we have discussed, there is no reason why they should not be longer. A longer-term agreement is often in the interests of both tenant and landlord. Many investors in residential property are in it for the long term. I accept the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) on the terms of buy-to-let mortgages, but not all properties are subject to those. One piece of evidence that the Communities and Local Government Committee hopes to uncover is the proportion of accommodation in the sector that is subject to such mortgages and the proportion that is owned outright by investors.

Tenants often want the greater security of a longer period. I would like the situation that exists in commercial property whereby people promote and advertise the properties available on the basis of the length of the letting term. Some landlords will always want to let for a short term, but those properties should be identified as such.

I look forward to the Committee’s work in talking to representatives of landlords, tenants, letting agents and councils, so that it can better understand what is happening in the sector, what is working well and what is working badly, the current state of the market, the different perspectives, and how the sector can be improved. However, I subscribe to the premise that regulation is unlikely to be the solution to all our problems. I will therefore have great pleasure in supporting the amendment.

18:02

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

Two boroughs cover my constituency—Stockport and Tameside. There are currently 7,500 people on the waiting list for Stockport Homes and around 8,000 on the list for Tameside New Charter Housing Trust. Social rented housing in the two local authorities is therefore in acute short supply. Last week, I learned from a case I was dealing with that only one property suitable for a family with children was available to bid for in the whole of Tameside.

The only option for such families is to consider renting in the private sector. At the outset, I should say that there are some very good private landlords—they invest in their properties, repairs are done quickly and the properties are well managed through responsible agents. I do not wish to tar all landlords with the same brush, but my experience is that many landlords do not fall into that category.

I shall give examples. One of the first pieces of casework I took up back in 2005 concerned some pretty basic housing repairs. I visited my constituent in Denton. He lived in an ex-council semi-detached property built in the 1940s. The home next door was still in the public sector and had just undergone a complete re-fit—new roof, new windows, new doors, bathroom, kitchen and central heating—under the Labour Government’s decent homes standard. Sadly, the house I was looking at was not a complete mirror image. It had the original 1940s metal window frames. It was damp. It had a 1960s kitchen that was falling to pieces. There was mould and the house was cold and draughty. Worse, the landlord was based in the Irish Republic and did not want to do any repairs. To add salt to the wound, the rent on the property was almost £100 a month more than the rent on the property next door. I thought then, and I believe now, that if it is right to have the decent homes standard in the public sector, it is right to have a decent homes standard for all homes.

I want to fast forward from seven and a half years ago to just two weeks ago, and talk briefly about the experience of my cousin Alison, who has given me permission to talk about her experience. She has fallen on hard times. She is a proud, clever and talented individual, and a brilliant mother of two young boys. After a bad bout of mental illness caused by her near death while giving birth and the subsequent break-up of her marriage, she is trying to move back to Tameside where she grew up.

Alison has been bidding without success for New Charter Housing Trust properties, so my wife and I went with her to a number of letting agents in Denton two Saturdays ago. Out came the property portfolio—some lovely houses—and then the discussion about her circumstances. She will probably need to rely on some housing benefit for a brief period while she settles in, sorts out her health needs and hopefully regains employment. With those two words, “Housing benefit”, the portfolios closed for a large number of those properties, even ex-council houses. To put it politely, what was left were shabby, crumbling, damp, draughty terraces with no money invested in them, and which are not fit for habitation.

Alison is what the Prime Minister would class as a striver—benefits are a stop-gap. This is a mum of two who, before her illness, worked every hour God sent and who even after her illness worked some hours in her local Sure Start centre in Wythenshawe and paid her mortgage. Sadly, her experience is what it is like in the real world. Thankfully, she has found some suitable housing, but it was no easy task.

On this side of the House, we want to ensure that the letting and management market better serves tenants and landlords. That is why I will be supporting our motion tonight.

18:06

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Opposition for securing this important debate, and for the measured way their Front-Bench team have introduced it. They have pointed to a serious and old problem. Fundamentally, it consists of a shortage of the right sort of decent, affordable property, with rogue landlords exploiting the situation, and an insecurity of tenure existing in places where it should not. I used the phrase “old problem” advisedly, because if anybody knows anything about the Communities and Local Government Select Committee in the previous Parliament, they will know that, under Phyllis Starkey, who was then the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West, it concentrated fervently on housing issues. The Committee was not uncritical of Government policy and initiatives, whether talking about decent homes, empty homes, HMO regulation or pathfinders. It was rarely the case that initiatives were judged by the Committee to be an unqualified success.

We must all acknowledge the reality that all recent Governments have been slow to respond to clear demographic trends: immigration; the break-up or fracture of households, which is another pressure on households that we do not often talk about; the slow build rate, which I think the Labour party would own up to and which was not as good as Labour would have liked it to be; and the effective and deliberate termination of the role of councils in the running and provision of houses. The former Member for Sedgefield, Tony Blair, was repeatedly reminded of that deficiency at Prime Minister’s questions.

Essentially, we are left in a situation where most parties are reconciled to the idea that the housing market itself must provide—the state has, as it were, tactically withdrawn. This is simply about how to regulate, or, alternatively, how to stimulate the market. This Government like to stimulate, and fear to regulate. In fact, I think there is a rule that before introducing one regulation, they have to get rid of two. That is a nice slogan, but ultimately a slightly mad policy. If the Government do not stop regulating and the rule is applied consistently over time, the logical consequence will be that there will be only one regulation left, and then the rule itself will be become inapplicable.

The amendment warns us of “excessive red tape”. To say that excessive red tape is a bad thing is something of a tautology. I do not know whether anybody actually backs excessive red tape, although it is possible that there are some red tape fetishists out there—“Fifty Shades of Red” or whatever. However, the amendment is making a legitimate point about exercising caution. Landlords are a various bunch. Some MPs are landlords and have MPs as tenants. Some landlords are quite orthodox business men. Some people turn their pension into a flat. Some landlords are institutions, such as the Oxford colleges, the Church of England and so on; and some, as we have all acknowledged, are frankly rogues.

In preparing for this debate, I reminded myself that two of my daughters are accidental landlords, one failing to sell her house in Cardiff when moving north and another failing to sell her flat in London when moving to Cheshire—she is now both a landlord and a tenant. There is therefore an issue about how we regulate such a mixed bag and a legitimate fear that in doing so we might create something that is more costly than we intend or that actually reduces the number of landlords we have—that is, the supply. Therefore, we talk about landlords and how we regulate them, but it depends on who they are and what the local market looks like.

In my constituency, the landlords are pretty good—they have formed themselves into almost a self-policing body—but we have rogue landlords, particularly in the HMO sector. But there are some landlords—one major landlord in my area—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman’s time is up. I am saddened by that, as I think the House will be too.

18:11

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

In moving the amendment, the Minister referred to a dysfunctional housing market in some areas for 15 to 20 years. When I was seeking re-election as a councillor in 1987, my election leaflet called for regulation of the private sector in the housing market, because in my first term of office, from 1983 to 1987, we came across a range of antisocial behaviours that emanated mainly from tenants in private rented houses in central Gateshead.

In other parts of Tyneside we saw scenarios building up where properties were bought for cash at auction and immediately let to tenants who the landlords knew would cause trouble in the neighbourhood, bringing down the value of surrounding properties, which would then be brought up for cash at auction, and so on. What was behind that? It was the fact that money could be laundered by buying up houses and then getting a legitimate income stream by letting to tenants who would be in receipt of housing benefit.

[Jake Berry]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Ian Mearns]

I will not. I am going to make progress.

Ill-gotten gains were being used to buy up properties in order to secure a long-term income stream, paid for by the taxpayer. For some of those private landlords, there is no doubt that the whole idea behind the ploy was that the surrounding properties would also fall prey, and so on, leading to a spiral of decline.

Of the three sorts of rented properties that we normally talk about, the private rented sector is now in receipt of the greatest amount of housing benefit, with £9.2 billion going into that sector. When so much hard-earned public money—£9.2 billion of hard-gotten taxpayers’ money—now goes into the private rented sector, why would we not want to regulate the recipients of it? There are, I am afraid, many rogue landlords all around the country, but housing markets in different parts of the country are very different. By regulating letting agents and management agents, we will be able to protect tenants, reputable landlords and the reputations of trustworthy agents. A national register of landlords would allow local authorities to strike off rogue landlords and stop them receiving public money in the shape of housing benefit for properties that are not well managed, but often cold, damp and dangerous for the tenants.

Frankly, it is a national scandal that public money is going into the pockets of rogue landlords, subsidising them through housing benefit. Although the Government might disagree, I ask them to reconsider, given that regulation of the private rented sector is a two-way stream, with safeguards for landlords and tenants, bringing the support of the law and local regulatory authorities to the aid of both, in what can sometimes be, frankly, murky legal territory.

I note that one Government Member suggested perhaps withholding benefits from landlords who do not maintain their properties, but how would that work in practice without a register? Quite often, the same landlords will have properties in many different locations, and if they are adopting such practices in one place, we can virtually guarantee that the same thing is happening in many others. There are many things in this market that need to be cleaned up, but we should absolutely be doing so, because it is being subsidised by the public purse.

18:14

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

I declare my interest in this topic, as reported in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I support the need to take action against letting agents, and I support action taken against rogue landlords, as I support action against any rogue operating in any sector—whether it be builders, window salesmen, car salesmen or any rogue at all. The answer, however, is not further to regulate the whole sector because of what Shelter calls

“the small but dangerous minority of rogue landlords who are making people’s lives a misery”,

but to enforce what is already in place.

There are currently more than 100 pieces of legislation and regulation, containing about 400 individual measures affecting the private rented sector. Figures from Shelter show that only 487 landlords in England were prosecuted last year from a cohort of about 1.2 million. That is low. What is needed is support for local authorities better to enforce existing regulation to root out more effectively the criminal landlords who blight the lives of tenants.

[Jake Berry]

Is it not an example of how regulation will not work that the tenancy deposit scheme can be avoided by rogue landlords simply by taking a rent deposit rather than a breakage deposit? Is that not evidence that regulation will always be avoided by criminals?

[Craig Whittaker]

That is exactly right. In some cases, landlords do not take deposits at all, as I shall explain later.

What is the point of having more legislation and regulation when local authorities are not enforcing what is already in place? Let me point out that a recent English Housing Survey found that 85% of private tenants were either very or fairly satisfied with their landlords, which compares with 81% for social housing tenants.

As an MP, I meet my local landlords association and associations nearby, so I can say that if a stable rental contract that gave renters a five-year term came into force, we would go back to the bad old days of the ’70s and ’80s when landlords advertising their properties would plainly put on the adverts “No DSS”. [Interruption]. It is true. I wonder whether the Opposition Members who proposed this motion ever went out to speak to landlords. If they did, they would find that landlords who rent particularly to the local housing allowance sector often cannot get a bond, let alone four weeks’ rent up front. They have to wait for the local housing allowance payment to come to the tenant before they get paid, and unless they go and collect the rent on the day the tenants are paid, they often find their rents are short.

[Mark Pawsey]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that if there is too much regulation, landlords will simply exit the sector?

[Craig Whittaker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I pointed out earlier, we will see landlords refusing to rent to various groups within the sector.

Last week, I spoke to one of my local landlords who has more than 450 homes that he rents out in West Yorkshire. He told me—a story I hear time and again at this time of year—that 40% of his local housing allowance tenants paid short in December and a further 20% did not pay the rent at all, and not because the rents were above the local housing allowance threshold. In one story he told me, the door was answered by the tenant’s young daughter, who was keen to show him the vast array of computers and designer presents she had received for Christmas. He was then told by the tenant, however, that there was not enough money to pay last month’s rent, and he was asked if she could pay it back over the course of this year.

This is not a rogue landlord, but one who maintains all his properties to a high standard—he is actually a very good landlord. What on earth are these landlords going to do when universal credit is introduced later in the year, and the ability to get local housing allowance paid direct when the tenant is in arrears is removed? That is not an issue for today, but I can see those “No DSS” signs coming back as we speak. This will not tackle the problem of rogue landlords, but, sadly, will probably increase their number.

Many vulnerable tenants do not need five-year leases. If we want to do something to help them, let us introduce a support package of budgetary controls and training as part of the wider picture. One of the reasons—and I do mean “one” of the reasons—for the amount of churn in the sector that relies on local housing allowance is the fact that those people simply do not pay their rent, or find themselves in a financial mess.

The motion does not address the real issues, including the issue of rogue landlords. If anything, the measures that it proposes would increase the number of such landlords and push more tenants into their hands. The answer is to help, and force, local authorities to enact and enforce the 100-plus pieces of legislation that already exist, as well as helping vulnerable tenants with such matters as budgetary control.

18:20

[Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)]

I believe that we have a shortage of housing and that rents are too high. Being a simple soul, it seems to me that the answers to those problems are fairly clear: we need to build more housing, and we need to reduce rents. Let me say to any Government Members who think we do not need to reduce rents that in my constituency the average weekly rent of a two-bedroom flat in the private sector is £440 and the average household income is £635 a week, and let me tell those who are unable to do the calculation that the rent paid by such households constitutes 70% of their income. We cannot allow that to go on, especially as rents are continuing to rise. One of the benefits of introducing the regulation and reduction of exorbitant rents is that it would save a lot of money for the taxpayer, who is currently finding £9 billion for private sector landlords to pocket. People who receive housing benefit do not keep the money in their handbags and wallets; it goes to the landlords.

We also need to build more housing. People ask where the money will come from. Well, the money saved on housing benefit for private landlords could be used to build more homes, but my own view is that, because the ridiculous process of pouring quantitative easing into the banks has benefited no one except the banks themselves and has not stimulated the economy, the money ought to be invested in housing. I am told that the Bank of England and other banks around the world would find it unacceptable if it did not go to a bank, and it therefore seems to me that the obvious answer is to establish a housing bank to finance housing. I hope that our Front Benchers will seriously consider that proposition.

The situation in my constituency is the worst that I can remember—and I have been battling away in the constituency for more than 40 years, first as a human being, then as a councillor and then as an MP. I have tried to look after people and ensure that they obtained decent housing that they could afford. That housing is not available now, and although the proposals in the motion would certainly ease the pain, I do not think that they would cure the problem. We need a much more extreme approach.

Let me give an example from my constituency. A woman came to my advice surgery. She lives in what was a council flat that was bought under the right to buy and then bought to let. She lives there with her nine-year-old daughter, who is doing well at primary school, and her 19-year-old son, who is doing well in a serious apprenticeship. She is paying £485 a week in rent to live in what was a council flat. Instead of increasing her housing benefit in order to help her to stay there and give her some security for her family, the Government have reduced it by £160. People in my constituency are being priced out of the places where they have grown up, where they live, and where they provide vital services for the rest of us.

18:23

[Mr Nick Raynsford (Greenwich and Woolwich) (Lab)]

May I, at the outset, draw attention to my interest, as declared in the register?

This debate has covered a number of issues on which I would like to have contributed my thoughts. In particular, I would like to have spoken about how to support and encourage the further expansion of the private rented sector while raising standards and tackling poor conditions; how to safeguard tenants from excessively high rents and exploitation; how to avoid private rented housing being forced into inappropriate roles that it is not well placed to fulfil; and the case for regulating letting agents. All those points were discussed well by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), but there is no time for me to comment on them and so I shall focus on just two issues, which have been touched on in the debate and which merit a little further consideration.

The first issue is the case for longer-term tenancies, which has been articulated by hon. Members on both sides of the House. Such tenancies are entirely compatible with the growing confidence in the private rented sector. I well understand how in the 1990s landlords who were nervous about the prospect of regulation favoured the idea of shorthold tenancies as the preferred option. In fact—this is an important message—when the Housing Act 1988 was passed the shorthold tenancy was not the default tenancy; the assured tenancy was the default. That was changed in the 1990s by the then Government. One measure that could send a clear message about our interest, across the House, in encouraging more longer-term tenancies without imposing an unreasonable regulation would be to return to the 1988 Act formulation, making the assured tenancy the default and leaving the shorthold tenancy as an option. I can see no objection to that. I tried to intervene when the Minister was discussing this issue, and I hope that now he has heard the case put to him in more detail than I could have in an intervention he will give it serious consideration, because this message could command support across the House. It would make a real change and would encourage more longer-term tenancies.

The second issue I wish to touch on is the case for more institutional investment. Again, we all agree on that, but I would like to add a caveat. The studies undertaken by the academics who have done the best work in this field—I think in particular of Christine Whitehead at Cambridge university and Kathleen Scanlon at the London School of Economics—show that in European countries with well-developed private rented sectors institutional landlords are not the majority. In Germany, which is often cited as the best example, 60% of private landlords are small landlords. In France, 95% of private lettings are done by one or two people only, and not by institutions. So although it is sensible to encourage more institutional investment, we should not be blind to the fact that the norm across Europe is that the small landlord plays a rather important role, and we should not put all our eggs into the basket of institutional investment. There is a real merit in institutional investment—there is the natural common interest of the landlord having a long-term view and welcoming longer-term tenancies because that guarantees rent continuity. Those are all good reasons for encouraging institutional investment, but we should not treat it as the panacea. We must have a more diverse private rented sector which continues to attract investment by smaller landlords.

18:28

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

May I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests?

At the turn of the 20th century, the image of private sector housing tattooed into our collective memories was of the slums brought to life in “Oliver Twist”:

“rooms so small, so filthy, so confined, that the air would seem too tainted even for the dirt and squalor…dirt-besmeared walls and decaying foundations”.

That was Dickens’ portrait of Jacob’s Island in Bermondsey, and just a few years ago I spoke to two pensioners in Bermondsey about those conditions. We did something about that situation. The Addison Act of 1919 changed those circumstances. Slums were cleared and, for the first time, the Government took an active role in providing housing at low rents to working people.

In the decades after the second world war, my father was able to arrive in this country and get a mortgage for £6,000 on a house in Dongola road in Tottenham, whereas my aunt got a brand new flat in a new housing development called the Broadwater Farm estate. By the 1980s, the explosion of cheap credit meant mortgages were affordable and many now had the opportunity to buy their house for the first time. That was not perfection by any means, but at least there was a choice. For those who wanted affordable accommodation with a lengthy and secure tenure, council houses were available; for those who wanted their own home, mortgages were available and house prices were reasonable; and for those who wanted the flexibility, there was an affordable private rented sector.

The situation did not last. Right to buy was not accompanied by funds to replace and the Housing Act 1988 created assured shorthold tenancies that allowed landlords the power to raise rent by however much they wanted or evict tenants with only two months’ notice. People were crowded out of renting socially and they have now been priced out of home ownership. In place of those options, the private rented sector has boomed. From a low of just 1.7 million at the start of the 1990s, the number of households in the private rented sector has more than doubled, but most are there through circumstance, not choice. They enter the sector holding none of the cards. The result is that people are conned, exploited and, frankly, ripped off.

As the sector booms, it is time to talk about how tenants can share in the proceeds of that growth rather than being the victims of it. Right now the system is rigged against the very people it is supposed to serve. Every new tenant enters a sector where demand soars but supply remains stagnant. The consequence is an explosion in rents, even during a recession. Ten years ago, private rents averaged a fifth of weekly earnings; today they are creeping towards a third. Those living in the capital are finding that rent alone claims more than half of their pay, and that is taking its toll. As Shelter has pointed out, 7.8 million people are struggling to pay their rent each month.

What do we need to do? Clearly, we need some solutions. The state should not be subsidising slum landlords who force their tenants to live in Dickensian squalor. As recommended by the Rugg review in 2008, we need a compulsory register of landlords, such as that being pioneered in Newham, which would at least create the minimum means by which the worst landlords would no longer be able to operate. That is why we need a new statutory code of practice for letting agents that ends the practice of extortionate fees. There need to be tax incentives for responsible landlords and we need to encourage longer tenancies with the option to index any rent increases to inflation, to ensure both tenant and landlord can plan financially.

18:32

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I am delighted that we are having this debate, and very sad that it is so short, meaning that so many colleagues can speak only for a short time.

This is an enormous issue. As I pointed out in my intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey), a third of my constituents now live in private rented accommodation. I keep a tally at my advice bureau every week of the highest rent I have come across in comparison with the rent that would have been paid if the house had remained a council property. Last week, I came across the following example. Flat A was a council tenancy, had been fully refurbished to the decent homes standard and was £100 a week. The tenancy was secure, the family was happy—so was everybody—and the children were doing well. The flat next door was £440 a week and repairs were not done. The ex-council tenant lives in Southend or wherever else and can apparently live comfortably off the income from one flat bought under right to buy. What is going on in the rented housing sector is disgusting and obscene.

[Ms Karen Buck (Westminster North) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Jeremy Corbyn]

Unfortunately, I will not give way to anyone as it will prevent others from speaking. We need an understanding of the urgency of regulation of the private rented sector to ensure that those people who go into it as tenants can be assured of getting their deposit back, which they often do not, of not being charged excessive search fees by the agencies, of not being harassed out of the property, and of its being maintained. Local authorities have some powers in that regard but we need far more powers for them to intervene and ensure that conditions are decent.

The experience in my constituency and that of my neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), is that there is a large amount of funny money going into London. People are buying up large quantities of property, mainly in west London, and that has a knock-on effect on the whole private sector across London, leading to excessive rent rises. My constituents cannot afford to remain living in the area where their children go to school, or where they work, and they cannot afford to stay there if members of their family are unemployed but have caring duties relating to the wider family, so there is enormous population turnover. Having short-term tenancies with very high rents corrodes community and family life, and is fundamentally very damaging for all of us in the long run.

The local authority faces huge housing demands; it has 13,000 families on the priority list, and the council cannot possibly house them in its housing stock of 30,000 homes, so it has to house them in the private sector. On some occasions, there is a rent deposit scheme, but that is quite rare. On most occasions, the council is forced to house people in the private sector, wherever it can find homes. Very few people are rehoused in the borough; the local authority’s responsibilities are discharged all across London. Some London boroughs discharge those responsibilities to places well outside London.

Unless we build more council houses, regulate the private sector and guarantee that all our children will have somewhere decent, safe and warm to live, study and grow up, we pay the price—in ill health, in under-achievement in schools, in family break-up, and in crime. It is up to us to do something about that. We should start with regulation, because there will always be some private sector involvement, but we should then move on, particularly through investment in council housing, which will help us to solve this problem.

18:36

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

This is a much-edited speech, I am afraid.

Not everyone is getting the sort of home that they need. They are routinely pushed into conditions that no one in the Chamber would accept for themselves or a member of their family. Demand for housing continues to outstrip supply, and even in a relatively small local authority area such as Stockton-on-Tees, more and more families are being pushed into the private sector. I am proud that Stockton-on-Tees borough council has taken the initiative in implementing a number of measures to deal with problems and make the private rented sector work more fairly.

We are unique in Stockton-on-Tees in benefiting from a landlord’s toolkit, which provides a range of measures to help raise standards in the sector. It is there to support landlords and tenants, and provide enforcement where it is needed, in order to improve and maintain property, management standards and behaviour. The council now licenses houses in multiple occupation and uses the housing health and safety rating system to assess properties when a complaint about living conditions is received from a tenant. There has also been the introduction of a landlord accreditation scheme, a landlord liaison scheme and tenant referencing. There are also landlord forums, training and newsletters. These measures are helping to improve life for private sector tenants on the ground.

Our council is also doing its bit to help increase housing supply. It works with registered providers and a social enterprise to bring outmoded properties back into use. That provides apprenticeships and training opportunities for young people, as well as quality, well-managed housing for tenants, many of whom are, or were until recently, homeless. Our area has also benefited from a willingness on the part of the council to identify and bring to account rogue landlords who wilfully neglect their responsibility. When a property fails to perform its most basic function—keeping its inhabitants warm, safe and dry—there are inevitable implications for public health.

I urge the Minister to take a close look at what Stockton-on-Tees borough council is doing, encourage other parts of the country to follow its lead in developing innovative policies to deal with private rented sector problems as they emerge, and think about ways to promote good practice and ideas that could aid councils in tackling the problems that we know are rife in the private rented sector.

There are thousands of good landlords all over the country, many of whom operate in my constituency. They provide a good service at a reasonable price, respond to tenant need, and do not, for the most part, act unreasonably. However, there is also the other type of landlord. One term for them is absent landlords; I can think of some other terms, but I do not think that I should use them in the House. They buy up properties such as those in Port Clarence in my constituency for a few thousand pounds—one went for £12,000 recently—and let them out to whoever will come along with the necessary cash, or benefits, more likely. Some do not care about maintenance, and some, I have been told, have not even visited the area, so they are hardly likely to engage to improve their properties and the lives of the people who live in them. Others fail to manage tenants properly, which results in tenants causing absolute havoc in their neighbourhood with antisocial behaviour.

The Government should encourage local authorities to use the powers given to them by the Labour Government to tackle some of the appalling abuse that we see all too often, I hope that they will step away from any notion that would reduce those powers. They can build on what the Labour Government did in the past by taking up the suggestions in the motion, and I hope that those suggestions will be supported.

18:40

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

I should like to declare an interest—not a financial one as a lobbyist for private landlords but as secretary of the all-party group for housing in the north. In that regard, I was rather disappointed that the Minister and his colleagues could not attend an excellent event held in the Commons last night. I should like to use the little time that I have to take up some of the points that were made then.

There is a chronic shortage of decent, affordable housing in the UK. In the past two years, the number of housing starts has fallen. Indeed, it has been lower in every quarter since Labour left office, as indeed has been the number of housing completions. Last night, an excellent report was published. There is at least one good thing to come out of Sheffield Hallam—the university, and the centre for regional economic and social research, which produced a terrific report on the economic impact of housing organisations in the north. It has quantified the benefits of the social housing sector. My hon. Friends the Members for Hyndburn (Graham Jones), for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), and for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) have highlighted the difference in costs between the social rented sector and the private rented sector.

That has been brought home to me forcefully by the case of a constituent who was worried about losing her home in April because of a loss of housing benefit as a result of what has been referred to as the bedroom tax. She had an income from jobseeker’s allowance of £72 a week, but she had to find an extra £9.60. The alternative suggested to her was to move out of her two-bedroom housing association property, which she had occupied for a number of years, into a one-bedroom private sector property—in my area, such properties just do not exist. Bizarrely, the cost of the one-bedroom private sector rental—at least the allowance paid by the local authority—was more than the rental of the two-bedroom housing association property.

I am trying to make a point about opportunity cost and how we might address the problem of a shortage of affordable housing to rent by investing in the social rented sector through housing association homes and council housing. There is a virtuous circle: in the four regions that make up the north, those organisations directly employ 41,000 people, and support 75,000 jobs—more than the automotive and call centre sectors put together. They make a huge contribution to the north-east economy: here is an engine for economic growth that offers a real opportunity for the Government not only to address the housing shortage and the housing crisis but to create employment and economic activity.

Building new social housing should be a priority. Demand has increased year on year, as has the need for investment in our communities and local economies. That would offer a huge opportunity to provide apprenticeships offering practical skills to young people. If the Government will not do anything to help “generation rent”, I sincerely hope and believe that the Opposition and the next Labour Government will.

18:44

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

We have had a well-informed and excellent debate this afternoon, with contributions from 17 hon. Members. We have heard about issues ranging from the rent differential between the private rented sector and the social housing sector to the impact on the housing benefit bill; about poor, sometimes shocking standards in the private rented sector; and we have heard descriptions of the activities of rogue landlords and the exploitative activities of some of these fly-by-night management and letting agencies.

Members have cited the inadequate supply of council housing, and we also heard about the innovative action that some local authorities are taking to address the problems that we heard about this afternoon. Some Members on both sides of the House talked about the need for family-friendly tenancies and the need for institutional investment. We heard about the European model of the private rented sector and how that might have some application in this country. Some Members spoke about the need for more regulation; others spoke about the need for less regulation. Everybody on both sides of the Chamber agreed that there is a desperate need to raise standards.

Different solutions would, I guess, be proposed from one side of the Chamber or the other, but it is clear to me that there is a consensus across the Chamber that we are living through the worst housing crisis in a generation. The English housing survey suggests that two thirds of all newly formed households now enter the private rented sector. Projections for the next 10 to 15 years suggest that more than a million young people will be permanently locked out of home ownership, and more than a quarter of low to middle-income families will be living in private rented accommodation that they can ill afford.

A recent YouGov survey suggests that 1.4 million people are falling behind on their rent or mortgage payments, 44% are struggling to pay their rent or mortgage, more than a million have had to resort to payday loans, 2.8 million have used an unauthorised overdraft, and 10% of those have to do so every month. To cap it all, families struggling to make ends meet are having their tax credits slashed and their housing benefits squeezed.

The dysfunctional mortgage market is making matters worse. Home ownership is now beyond large numbers of people who would previously have aspired to own their own home. This is contributing to the surge in the number of private tenancies, which is the highest it has been for 50 years or more. Most of those people are paying considerably more than they would if they were buying their accommodation with a mortgage. It is not surprising, therefore, that private rented sector rents have risen twice as fast as wages in the past 10 years. That explains that phenomenon.

Many are living in substandard housing, as we heard during the debate. That is why we need a one nation housing strategy for the private rented sector—a one nation housing strategy that recognises this shift in tenure patterns, a one nation housing strategy that does not leave millions of our fellow citizens subject to insecurity and exploitation, and a one nation housing strategy that tackles the unscrupulous landlords who make so many people’s lives a misery. Of course many landlords are perfectly reputable, but there are a significant minority of rogue landlords who should be driven out of the market. The motion before the House tonight would go some way to achieving that goal.

With 37% of the private rented sector falling below the decent homes standard, the time for action is now. With 4,000 unregulated lettings agencies up and down the country, a laissez-faire approach is unacceptable. A citizens advice bureau survey found that 73% of tenants are dissatisfied with their lettings agency. I therefore do not agree with the Housing Minister when he suggested that self-regulation was the way forward. Meanwhile, rent levels in the private rented sector are soaring and the housing benefit bill is ballooning. Recent research by the House of Commons Library has shown that more than £9 billion or 40% of the £22.7 billion spent on housing benefit each year goes to private landlords. Council housing accounts for £5.6 billion and housing associations £7.9 billion.

When the present Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), was Housing Minister in 1991, he said:

“Housing benefit will underpin market rents—we have made that absolutely clear. If people cannot afford to pay that market rent, housing benefit will take the strain.”—[Official Report, 30 January 1991; Vol. 184, c. 940.]

Housing benefit certainly has taken the strain in the intervening years, but at what cost? I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman did not mean to create a Mary Shelley monster when he made that public policy pronouncement. Is it now fair to penalise the victims of that policy failure by imposing restrictions on tenants? It is hardly their fault that private sector rents have gone through the roof.

We need a one nation housing strategy, not some kind of abstract housing policy that has unintended consequences. We need a one nation housing strategy to right a social wrong that is leaving millions of our citizens in a precarious situation, including more than 1 million families with children. The introduction of a national register of private landlords would be a good start, and empowering local councils to drive up standards would be welcomed by tenants and landlords alike.

Good landlords have nothing to fear and everything to gain from the proposals in our motion. Promoting long-term tenancies and predictable rents would provide reassurance for tenants and certainty for landlords. It would involve a simple step that would have a significant impact. Tenants would be shielded from irresponsible operators, and decent landlords and agents would avoid being tarred with the same brush as the unscrupulous minority. By introducing consistency in fees and charges across the sector, we would ensure that everybody knew where they stood from the outset. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) said, we simply cannot have two nations—those who own their homes and those who rent. That is why I urge Members to oppose the amendment and to support our motion.

18:51

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Don Foster)]

I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

I was initially surprised to hear that the Opposition were planning a debate on housing. After all, their housing record during 13 years in government has not given them much to boast about. That said, however, when I saw the issues raised in the motion, I had to acknowledge that they would be of interest to Members on both sides of the House and, more importantly, to many of our constituents. After all, the private rented sector is of growing importance and provides accommodation for around 17% of all households in England—that figure has nearly doubled in the past 20 years—and they represent 3.6 million households.

The majority of the private rented sector is operating well and the vast majority of tenants are satisfied, but, as we have heard in the debate, there are some real problems that must be addressed. They include problems involving rogue landlords, poor quality accommodation and exploitative letting agents charging exorbitant fees. We have also heard concerns about the length of tenancies and the need to increase supply. We need to find solutions to those problems, and today’s debate has been extremely helpful in considering ways forward. I welcome the helpful and constructive tone of the debate. In fact, we could say that it has been a one nation debate.

I apologise that I shall not have time to mention all Members who have spoken. The hon. Members for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) and for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) both made it clear that there are many very good landlords and letting agents. They also pointed out, however, as did right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House, that there are too many who are not. The hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) raised concerns about the right to manage and about leasehold valuation tribunals. Those are really leasehold issues, and she will be delighted to know that my hon. Friend the Minister for Housing has today written to a number of people in the industry to address those very issues. The hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) talked about the need to review the housing health and safety rating system, and we would be interested to hear from him on that. If he would like to come and talk to me afterwards, I will discuss double glazing with him as well. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish also mentioned a particularly expensive level of rent, and I am sure that he will draw his constituents’ attention to the opportunities to use the rent assessment committee.

My hon. Friends raised a number of equally important points. My hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (George Hollingbery) talked about the barriers to investment in the private rented sector and drew attention to concerns about the impact of new regulation. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), who is an active member of the Communities and Local Government Committee, reminded us of the Committee’s work in that area. Like him, we all look forward to the outcome of that work.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) talked about red tape fetishism and, becoming rather distracted by planning to write his new book, “Fifty Shades of Red”, ran out of time, but his concern about regulation reminds us that not all regulation is bad. It was therefore wrong for the Opposition’s motion to describe the lettings sector as “unregulated”. As my hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) pointed out, there is a large amount of regulation in this area. Surely the key should be to find ways to make better use of existing powers and regulation before seeking to introduce new regulation, a point that was drawn to our attention firmly by Sir Adrian Montague in his review of the private rented sector.

As I have said, there are areas of concern, such as rogue landlords, which many right hon. and hon. Members mentioned. I remind the House that local authorities have a large number of wide-ranging powers that can be used to bring tough and effective enforcement against bad landlords. We reminded councils of those powers recently in our publication, “Dealing with rogue landlords”. Some councils are doing exemplary work, with enforcement teams, proactive inspections, the development of clear and proper compliant reporting procedures and landlord accreditation schemes, such as the excellent one in Portsmouth. Of course, under the Housing Act 2004, in certain circumstances councils can also introduce their own licensing schemes, as has been mentioned. Really good examples include Sunderland, Leeds, Hartlepool, Blackburn, Bolton, Burnley, Sedgefield and many others.

Another thing that has not been mentioned so far in the debate is the need to send a clear signal to rogue landlords that poor practice will not be tolerated. That is why the caps on the level of fines for offences under the 2004 Act will shortly be lifted. We believe that the Opposition’s proposal for a national register of landlords, in the way they have described it, would be too prescriptive, expensive and over-centralised. It is worth reminding ourselves that Labour’s own impact assessment stated that a full licensing scheme would be onerous, difficult to enforce and would cost £300 million. Surely we should be looking at local solutions to local problems and developing the regulations that already exist.

Concerns were also expressed about letting agents. Although it is true that there are already many pieces of legislation that provide protection for tenants, that is an area where we could be looking further. The hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) will know that the Office of Fair Trading is looking at that as we speak, and the Government will be listening to the recommendations not only from the OFT, but from the Select Committee.

This has been a useful debate on an important topic. The Government want a bigger, better private rented sector—

Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab) claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

Question agreed to.

Question put accordingly (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.

18:59

Division 139

Ayes: 225

---

Labour: 214
Democratic Unionist Party: 4
Plaid Cymru: 3
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 2
Independent: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1

Noes: 292

---

Conservative: 246
Liberal Democrat: 44
Independent: 1

Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the proposed words be there added.

19:14

Division 140

Ayes: 284

---

Conservative: 240
Liberal Democrat: 42
Independent: 1

Noes: 220

---

Labour: 210
Democratic Unionist Party: 4
Social Democratic & Labour Party: 2
Plaid Cymru: 2
Independent: 1
Alliance: 1
Green Party: 1

The Deputy Speaker declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to (Standing Order No. 31(2)).

Resolved,

That this House recognises the importance of a vibrant private rented sector in providing a diverse range of quality accommodation to those who do not want or currently cannot buy their own home; supports action to be taken against the small minority of rogue landlords, without burdening the whole sector with unnecessary costs; warns that excessive red tape would force up rents, reduce choice for tenants and undermine future investment; believes that the Government should work with councils to promote their wide range of existing legal powers; welcomes the Government’s action against “beds in sheds” criminal landlords and steps to tackle social housing fraud; and supports the Government’s new £200 million “build to rent” fund and the £10 billion in debt guarantees for investment in the long-term rental market.

Access to Postgraduate Study (Oxford University)

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Greg Hands.)

11:30

[Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)]

I am delighted to have secured this Adjournment debate, which will enable me to raise the case of my constituent, Mr Damien Shannon, who has been refused a place at St Hugh’s college, Oxford as he is unable to meet its financial requirements. It will also allow me to make some more general points about the growing importance of postgraduate education for individuals, the economy and social mobility.

Mr Shannon lives in Salford. He is an intelligent and thoughtful young man. He has sought to pursue his education in the past few years despite his difficult financial circumstances. Damien obtained a good degree in history and politics through the Open university, and then wished to undertake a one-year MSc course. He applied to St Hugh’s college, Oxford, and was absolutely delighted when he was offered a place for October 2012. However, that place was contingent on him being able to fulfil the financial requirements of the college, as well as meeting its standards, and this was where the difficulties began.

Damien has no financial support from his family. The fees for the one-year taught MSc course were £10,000, and he managed to secure a career development loan from the Co-operative bank to meet that requirement. As the Minister knows, there is no student loan scheme for postgraduate education, a subject I will return to later when I have specific questions for him to answer.

Damien had passed the academic test and had raised the funds to pay for his fees. Then came the fatal blow. The college required a guarantee that Damien had immediate access to £13,000, which the college deemed necessary to meet his living costs during his period of study. First, it said his rent would be £516.66 a month, which it claimed was the cost of renting a reasonable sized room in shared accommodation at market rates in the private rental market. That figure bears no correlation to Oxford city council’s local housing allowance figure, which is currently £342.98 for a room in shared accommodation. However, the £516.66 figure is enforced regardless of the rent an applicant actually has to pay.

Secondly, the college stipulated that an applicant should have £56.73 a week for food. That is almost the entire sum that someone under 25 on jobseeker’s allowance receives per week to meet all their non-rental living costs. The college figure is based on the requirement to eat a certain number of meals in college. Now, Damien has told me that he is perfectly confident that he could cater for less, and indeed does so now, but he was never given the chance to do so.

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on bringing this matter to the House. Does she not agree that the basis of our democracy must be that it is for students to determine how much they have got to survive on once they get on to the course? It is not for the university to determine that. If the university is concerned, it should be reaching out to help students from poorer backgrounds, not putting them off and hindering them in this way.

[Hazel Blears]

I agree entirely. It is the responsibility of students to be aware of their own personal affairs. In this case, we are talking about postgraduate students—some of the most intelligent people in the country. If they are not capable of sorting out what they need to pay for their rent and their food, I do not see that it is the place of a college to interfere to that degree in private life. I also believe that it is for universities to support people in these circumstances. I have made inquiries at Oxford and at other universities. Of all the scholarships that are available, none are means-tested, so they are not available or targeted at people from poorer backgrounds. That needs to change. I had a conversation with Oxford university this afternoon and there might be a bit of progress, which I will tell the Minister about in due course.

The third issue—if hon. Members thought it could not get any worse, it does—is that the college requires £1,050 per annum for utilities and £2,700 for clothes, books and socialising. Oxford university has one of three copyright libraries in the UK—it contains a copy of every book that has ever been published—so I am not sure why there is a need for money to buy books. As for clothes and socialising—this relates to the point my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) raised—how is it right for the college to dictate such matters to postgraduate students, who are some of the brightest people in the country?

Finally—this does concern me—the college refuses to allow income from part-time earnings to fill the gap. It says that postgraduate study at Oxford is too demanding, yet it employs its own graduates as junior deans, junior welfare officers and teaching assistants. How can it be that other part-time work—perhaps a couple of hours in a pub in the evening or a Saturday morning job—would detract from someone concentrating on their studies, while formal work as a teaching assistant, junior dean or welfare officer does not? I do not believe that doing a couple of hours’ part-time work would be devastating to the demanding programme of study at Oxford.

I spoke yesterday to Universities UK, which told me that other universities allow part-time work, as many students would otherwise find it impossible to pursue postgraduate studies. I understand that Oxford’s own figures, in its most recent report analysing postgraduate studies, show that some 47% of applicants who were offered places on academic merit have been unable to take up those offers because of their inability to raise the necessary funds. Therefore, nearly half of all those students are unable to take the next steps in their education simply because they do not have enough money in the bank.

I contacted Oxford and St Hugh’s college to listen to their views before this debate. I have not received a written response, despite sending a lengthy letter, but this afternoon I had a rather disappointing conversation with the pro-vice-chancellor for education at Oxford. In seeking to justify the financial guarantee that is required, she told me that other universities have a greater drop-out rate, as students discover that they are unable to manage financially. To some extent, by requiring a guarantee that nearly half the applicants are unable to meet, Oxford effectively reduces its exposure to risk. Its retention figures are bound to be better because half the students, recognising that they are unable to meet the financial requirements, do not take up their courses and are therefore not at risk of dropping out.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Does the right hon. Lady know whether the problem therefore lies with this particular Oxford college or whether it extends over all Oxford colleges?

[Hazel Blears]

The case that my constituent has brought to my attention relates to his application to St Hugh’s college, but this afternoon I talked generally to the pro-vice-chancellor for education, who talked to me about the whole of the Oxford system, so as far as I am aware the problem applies across the piece.

The pro-vice-chancellor also explained to me that poorer students who could not raise the funds could go off to work for a couple of years—she gave me an example—and save up the money for their courses. So, those with £21,000 up front can come straight away and get on their postgraduate courses—and possibly have access to better jobs and the wage premium that is available—but those who do not have £21,000 have to go away to work and save up. That seems to be unfair and discriminatory on the grounds of income.

The pro-vice-chancellor also told me that Oxford had raised £30 million in order to be able to support graduate students. I am absolutely delighted about that, but again, so far none of that money has been directed towards students from poorer backgrounds, which is absolutely essential. She obviously wants a national system of postgraduate student loans, but I have said clearly that, in the absence of a national system, it is not good enough for universities simply to wait for that to happen. If the university has £30 million, it is vital that some of it should be targeted towards people in circumstances such as those faced by my constituent Mr Shannon. I am therefore pleased that the pro-vice-chancellor has said that the university will look at what it can do with the significant sums that it has been able to raise.

I do not want for one moment to put off people from poorer backgrounds from applying to our best universities. I am a trustee of the Social Mobility Foundation, which does excellent work on encouraging young people to aim high—indeed, to aim for the very best. I want our young people to be at the best institutions. I know that work has been done over the last few years to try to widen access to undergraduate degrees, but postgraduate qualifications are becoming increasingly expected if people are to access to some of our professions. That is why I am so exercised about this situation.

That brings me to the wider impact on social mobility. Alan Milburn, who has been appointed as the independent reviewer of social mobility, produced a report in October last year, in which he said:

“Increasingly, some jobs require a postgraduate qualification, and it is one of the routes into numerous professions such as journalism, accountancy and academia. The lifetime earnings of an individual who has completed a master’s degree are 9% higher than someone who has a bachelor’s degree.”

That provides clear evidence of the wage premium. He continued:

“The current system is not working. While foreign students are flocking to join our graduate courses, our own students are not joining them in sufficient numbers. In particular, those without independent means struggle to pay their course fees and to cover their living expenses while studying. That is bad both for national income and for social mobility, as those who are unable to pay are excluded…Lack of access to postgraduate study is in danger of becoming a social mobility time bomb.”

He recommends that we need better data. I think everyone is agreed on that; we do not have sufficient data on the background and socio-economic position of postgraduate students. He also recommends very clearly that

“the Government should consider introducing a loan system for funding postgraduate students. To start this process, the Government should commission an independent report, building on the principles of the Browne Review, to come up with proposals”

for such a loan system.

Alan Milburn is not the only one to raise these issues, as we recently had an independent inquiry by the Higher Education Commission. It looked closely at the issue and took evidence from many witnesses. It says:

“We need to improve access…Postgraduate education is ‘the new frontier of widening participation’—with prospective students currently barred from study if they cannot afford fees or access sufficient credit. There are a number of fields and professions where postgraduate qualifications are becoming a de facto requirement for employment.”

It also backed the idea of student loans, and asked for a taskforce to report by December this year. This debate is becoming much more widespread than ever before. There are a number of people getting first degrees, but in order to distinguish themselves, it is almost a requirement nowadays to have a postgraduate qualification.

I have some specific questions for the Minister. First, I ask him to take a view, and I have no idea whether he will on this subject, and say whether he agrees that the financial guarantee relating to living costs—not to tuition costs, because those have to be paid—and in particular the bar imposed by the university on taking earnings from part-time work into account is unfair and discriminates against those without access to significant funds. If he does agree, what action can he take to try to challenge this requirement and secure its removal?

Secondly, will he make some inquiries to the Charity Commission? I have written to it to ask whether such a requirement is in breach of the public benefit requirements contained in the Charities Act 2011. More generally, will he explain why there is no student loan scheme in place for postgraduate study, and does he accept that postgraduate qualifications are now sought by employers in many professions, that they provide a gateway to better-paid jobs and are therefore a crucial element in promoting social mobility? As I say, the Higher Education Commission has recommended this taskforce, so I hope the Minister is able to tell me that he accepts the recommendation, that he will get on with the taskforce and will come up with a scheme to enable people to have access.

Damien Shannon walked into my constituency surgery just 10 days ago. Until that moment, I had no idea that Oxford university, and possibly others, was operating a system of selection of postgraduate students based not on academic merit alone, but on wealth and having immediate access to cash funds for rent, food, dining in college, clothes and for socialising. By its own admission, almost half the students who have the academic ability to pursue their studies are unable to take up their places because they simply do not have the money required. In my view, that is simply wrong. Not only does it crush the hopes and ambitions of these students who cannot afford to study at some of our best universities, it deprives our country and our economy of some of the brightest and best minds we could have. It is unfair and short-sighted.

There is much talk about widening participation, of fair access, of encouraging social mobility and of using the talents of everyone, but I am afraid that as long as rules like this apply, postgraduate education will continue to be the preserve of those who have money behind them. Those who do not will be unable to contribute to the knowledge and prosperity of our country. We need a proper system of financial support and loans for postgraduate education; otherwise, those with talent and ability will remain excluded from our system and will not be able to achieve their potential and to succeed.

I urge the Minister to have the courage to tackle this unfairness head on, and to demonstrate his personal commitment to fairness and social mobility. I have high expectations of him, as I have of many young people in my constituency. I know that those young people have skills and talent. Damien is an extremely talented young man, but at present he is not able to pursue the course that he wants to pursue and make the contribution that I know he is capable of making. I hope that the Minister will have some encouraging and optimistic words not just for Damien, but for the hundreds, indeed thousands, of students who are in a similar position throughout the country.

19:40

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) on raising this issue. Let me immediately agree with her that it involves some very important wider issues, to which I shall turn shortly. I hope she will appreciate, however, that although she has spoken about her constituent Damien Shannon in conditions of parliamentary privilege—and I have read about him in the newspapers as well—a legal case is pending as a result of a dispute between him and the Oxford college concerned. It would be difficult for me to take up some of the specifics to which she referred, not just because there is to be a court hearing but because of a wider issue, namely the autonomy of our universities. That autonomy was most recently embodied in legislation passed by the last Government, which made clear that it was not for Parliament—or Government—to instruct universities on their admission policies. It is therefore hard for me to discuss the specific case of this individual and this university.

I do, however, completely understand the wider issues raised by the right hon. Lady. Let me begin by making it clear that postgraduate education is becoming far more important. There is an increasing range of jobs for which a postgraduate qualification is expected, and Alan Milburn was right to describe that as a growing challenge in the area of social mobility and the spreading of opportunity.

I began my career as a civil servant, entering the Treasury as a former undergraduate with a single degree, but most people who join the Treasury now probably have a postgraduate qualification. I am not sure that it has made the conduct of economic policy any better, but that is beside the point. The qualification levels among people entering those jobs and, indeed, many of the professions has changed in a generation, and that is the background to the wider debate about postgraduate qualifications.

I have followed the arguments about these matters very closely. In fact, in the past two and a half years we have hardly changed Government funding for postgraduate study. Notwithstanding all the controversy about our changes to undergraduate finance and despite the wider need for public expenditure control, we have been able—along with the Higher Education Funding Council—to sustain, broadly, past levels of funding for postgraduate education. HEFCE’s allocation for taught postgraduate provision is being maintained at about £135 million and it will provide about £235 million for postgraduate research degree supervision support, while the research councils will spend about £340 million on postgraduate research provision.

I occasionally read about reductions in support for postgraduate provision. In tough times we have been able to maintain that support, but because postgraduate qualifications are becoming increasingly important, the salience and significance of the debate about access to them becomes ever greater. That is why the right hon. Lady has raised the issue this evening, and, as I have said, I accept her point—and Alan Milburn’s point—that we must not erect a new barrier to the spread of opportunity.

[Hazel Blears]

I understand the limitations on what the Minister can say about the individual case, but is he at all concerned that 47% of people who apply to Oxford are unable to take up their places, despite having the academic qualifications, simply because they cannot raise the money up front?

[Mr Willetts]

I would be concerned if any people who had the ability to benefit from education at any level were not able to take that opportunity. I have just heard the figure that the right hon. Lady cites, having not previously been aware of it. Successive Governments have not been able to extend a general financial support to postgraduate students. I do not want to get into discussing cases of individual universities, but Oxford university argues that it understands the need for more scholarship support so that people are not debarred from postgraduate study at Oxford by financial pressures. My understanding is that in only the most recent few months it has raised £30 million in extra support. I heard, as I am sure hat the administration governing bodies at Oxford will have done, the right hon. Lady’s points about the case for scholarships linked to need and financial circumstances. However, successive Governments have so far not been able to offer a general Exchequer support for postgraduate students. No Government have even been able to offer a means-tested maintenance grant for these students. It is very hard for any Government to go straight into that.

Let me take the right hon. Lady through some of the wider arguments. First, like her, I have read the report by the Higher Education Commission—I have read several recent reports. I do not think I am breaking any confidence by saying that I recall being shadow Secretary of State, discussing this issue with the then Secretary of State, Lord Mandelson, as he now is, and urging that the terms of reference for the Browne review be drawn so broadly as to include postgraduate provision—I remember proposing that to him. The terms of reference for Browne would have made it possible for Browne to make proposals for postgraduate provision, but Browne rather ducked the issue. He focused on these very old proposals on undergraduate provision, and all he said on postgraduates was that the situation needed to be monitored. We of course came into government and received the conclusions from the report, which the previous Government had commissioned. By and large—not perfectly—we acted on those provisions, including by asking Adrian Smith, who was then a senior official in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and is now at HEFCE, to monitor what is happening to postgraduate education. This matter was covered by the terms of reference for the inquiry that Labour set up and we have complied with the proposals from that report on monitoring the situation, but Browne was not able to crack the wider problem.

[Hazel Blears]

One of the rewards for winning a general election is that people move from opposition into government, so the Minister is now perfectly well placed to put into action the plans he had when he was in opposition. Will he grasp that opportunity and do so?

[Mr Willetts]

And of course one of the rewards of going from government into opposition is that people can call for proposals that they were never able to afford or deliver while they were in government, so it works both ways.

I am open-minded on this issue. I accept that there are genuine concerns about social mobility, as expressed by Alan Milburn and others. I can see postgraduate qualifications becoming increasingly important. I am following with great interest the debate that has been launched with several different reports—the Higher Education Commission report is one but I want to touch on several others, too—on how our financing system could be changed to assist people into postgraduate provision.

[Mr Lammy]

Does the Minister recognise the urgency of the issue, given the changing nature of our economy? Students now need postgraduate education far more than previously and are also unlikely to have the money. At the same time, the sector has become truly global. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) has shown, the feeling is that institutions such as Oxford are more keen to take overseas students with the cash than local British students. The figures show that British students are losing out in these circumstances. That is why we need to grasp the problem, although I recognise that that is difficult.

[Mr Willetts]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, who has experience of this area in government, about the importance of the global issue. I appreciate that both right hon. Members have rightly focused on the wider social mobility issue and neither has tried to claim that the changes to undergraduate finance are the problem. Of course, the monthly and annual repayments of student loans for undergraduates will fall under our new arrangements, so that is not the issue. Regardless of what is happening in undergraduate education, the debate is much more about social mobility and the changing economic scene.

I welcome the interventions from several groups of experts. We have had the Higher Education Commission report that has been mentioned and an ingenious proposal from Tim Leunig of the CentreForum. Even the NUS, which in other contexts is against the loan and repayment scheme, has called for a postgraduate loan scheme, which is what I think the right hon. Lady was calling for. There are risks as well as attractions in that approach, and the biggest single risk is that as soon as we had a general public expenditure programme or loans scheme, the Treasury would immediately become interested in how many people were eligible, controlling postgraduate numbers and setting new conditions. It would be a great pity if this open and diverse sector found itself with a highly regulated loan scheme that constrained its growth.

I do not accept and have not been persuaded at this stage that a Government-funded loan scheme is the answer, but I am happy to consider that proposal and others if people make them.

[Hazel Blears]

The Minister has said that he values the openness and diversity of the postgraduate sector. How diverse can it be when the requirement is to have £21,000 cash immediately available to pay up front? Is that not an issue that narrows the sector through selection by wealth rather than academic merit?

[Mr Willetts]

I fully understand that we cannot afford the sheer waste of talent if people who can benefit from any level of education do not participate. As well as the fairness argument, there is an efficiency argument and when fairness and efficiency point the same way, it leads to a clear recognition on both sides of the House of what must be done.

We have now had the opportunity offered by the Browne report, which led simply to a proposal on monitoring, which HEFCE is doing. We have also had several interesting proposals from outside bodies. Only this afternoon, I spent two hours at HEFCE at a seminar on postgraduate finance that it organised to go through the possible options. Of course, I realise that some of the proposals are for loan schemes and there are other ideas, too. I want more career development loans to be taken up and I follow the figures with great interest, as I am keen to see whether there are barriers to people taking up such loans. I am not commenting on the specific case that was mentioned, and I do not know whether that option was investigated, but it is an important way of getting support and I welcome it.

I am also very interested in whether universities, by fundraising and using links to alumni, can find ways of delivering needs-blind admissions to their postgraduate courses. This is a very good moment for the right hon. Lady to have called this debate as there are a range of ideas out there. All I can undertake is that I will carry on considering them. If anything looks to me to be well targeted and affordable at a time when public money is tight, I undertake to consider it very sympathetically. As yet, no idea has been proposed that meets all those criteria and we must be wary of extending the hand of Treasury control to postgraduate education, a sector that has hitherto not experienced that.

The only other point I want to make in the limited time that is left is to stress that we will explore proposals made in the studies involving employers, universities and banks. We are keen to have those conversations and I am absolutely—

19:55

House adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No. 9(7)).

Westminster Hall

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

Wednesday 23 January 2013

[Martin Caton in the Chair]

Terminal Illness (Access to Medicines)

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

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

09:30

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

May I thank you, Mr Caton, and Mr Speaker for allowing me to hold this important debate today and particularly my hon. Friend the Minister for being here to respond? I am pleased to introduce this debate on such an important subject. A number of people have worked hard on this issue for a long time, and I am glad that their work has now come to fruition in this debate. The debate is on access to medicine for people with terminal illness, which is a subject that I and others have wanted to raise.

Ensuring that people with a terminal illness have access to medicine should concern us all. Unfortunately, such illnesses will affect many people, including many people in Westminster Hall today. It is unacceptable that so many people, when they are diagnosed with an illness, find that no drugs are available to help them to overcome their condition.

I hope that it is an area of common ground that we need to speed up the development and availability of drugs to treat life-threatening illnesses. The current testing and development process is too long, cumbersome and expensive. The Minister and I would agree on that, although we may differ slightly about what needs to be done about it.

A recent report from the Office of Health Economics found that, on average, it takes five years after the launch of a new drug for it to win approval from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. That amount of time can be more than doubled when added to the time taken for a new drug to go from the development stage through to phase 3 and beyond. It is also very expensive, incurring costs of more than £1 billion, and it can take more than 10 years to bring a new drug to market.

The impetus for this debate came from a meeting I had with one of my constituents, Les Halpin, in Portcullis House last year. The way in which Les set out his views on drug development inspired me to do all that I can for him and his campaign. He convinced me that a great deal of political pressure needs to be applied, to ensure that change is made.

Sadly, Les was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in May 2012. He has a doctorate in statistics, and following his diagnosis, he began to conduct a huge amount of research and talked to as many experts as he could to

“understand the disease that is probably going to kill me.”

Indeed, Les had an interview on BBC Radio Gloucestershire this morning and he was barely audible. However, we have kept in constant contact since we met, and I admire his bravery.

Les told me that, equipped with his research, he began to understand MND better than many medical professionals, which is not surprising given his intellectual ability. The internet is a resource that enables many patients, especially those who suffer from a rare disease, to do the same type of research to some degree. Les poses the question on behalf of patients in similar situations:

“Why should they not be allowed to make informed decisions about their treatment?”

MND is an example of a rare disease for which there is no cure. It is a horrible disease, involving—over a period—all the organs of the body shutting down, leading inevitably to death. About 5,000 people in the UK suffer from MND; one in every 100,000 or so people will be diagnosed with it each year. The condition affects twice as many men as women.

The outlook for people with MND is very poor. People with limb-onset MND will live for three to five years, and people with bulbar-onset and respiratory-onset MND will live for even less time—probably two to three years—but slightly more fortunately, people with other less common types of MND can live for much longer and some people have lived with MND for decades; for example, the physicist Stephen Hawking, who was diagnosed with MND more than 40 years ago.

One medication, called riluzole, can extend the lifespan of some people with MND, but it has a very limited effect; on average, it only extends life expectancy by about three to six months. The drug was developed more than 20 years ago, and in the subsequent years, no new drug for MND has been developed or approved. So the real purpose of the debate is to highlight the lack of new drug development for people with rare and life-threatening diseases.

Having applied his statistical approach to the problem and having talked to leading experts from around the world, Les has concluded that it is very probable that it will require more than one drug to treat MND effectively. The problem is that clinical drug trials normally only test a single drug, which ignores the possibility that, as with the treatment of HIV, a cocktail of more than one drug is required. That is the key. Reform of how we develop, test and approve drugs is therefore crucial. Les sums it up in his own words:

“Imagine a world where MND patients worldwide have access to drugs at this stage of testing—they are proven safe for humans, and possibly known to be efficacious in other neurological diseases, just not for MND specifically. Patients are given the freedom to choose which drugs they think might help them; the process is monitored, and patients and doctors alike can report on their effects. Data is stored centrally, and thus can be analysed to determine the effects of individual drugs and of drug combinations. Ideally this requires some way of objectively measuring the progress of the disease—something which has not been possible in the case of MND in the past.

However, huge strides have been made recently in determining biomarkers for MND—measurable characteristics that reflect the progress of the disease. Biomarkers are also being developed or are available for other rare diseases that would benefit from this approach. Once a volume of data has been collected from thousands of patients worldwide, this can then be analysed and used to inform future research into these diseases, and influence investment from pharmaceutical companies.”

To his immense credit, Les has initiated a campaign to bring focus to such issues. It is called Empower: Access to Medicine and is designed to provide a new platform to open up the debate about the lack of drug development for patients with rare or life-threatening conditions. I am proud to be a trustee of the campaign, which is now a registered charity.

The campaign has already sought out the views and ideas of a range of respected individuals and organisations. For example, Dr Richard Barker, director of the Centre for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical Innovation, has rightly remarked that

“opening up the discussion around the lack of availability of effective drugs for rare and life-threatening diseases is a vital first step on the path towards accelerating new innovative drugs.”

I hosted an event in the House last June to enable a wide range of such people to meet Les and discuss his thoughts. I was particularly grateful to Lord Howe for meeting Les on the same day to discuss his thoughts in more detail.

As a patient-led movement, I believe that the Empower: Access to Medicine campaign has a real role to play in bringing all the stakeholders together. Also, I echo the words of Baroness Masham in a debate in the other place on 20 November last year, when she said that the campaign is

“a unique one, created for patients by patients. It is a powerful voice, rarely heard, but one that I believe could have a real impact on how pharmaceutical companies, regulators, politicians and the general public view drug development.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 November 2012; Vol. 740, c. 1785.]

I will now take a few minutes to raise some of the issues that I believe require consideration by the Minister and her officials.

All drugs can have side effects. It is only through a full understanding of the efficacy of a drug or treatment that a patient can make an informed decision about what they want. From my conversations with Les, I have been struck by the fact that, for patients with life-threatening illnesses, the risk ratio—this is an important point—of “doing nothing”, as Les puts it, is hugely significant. Patients should have the ability to access all information on a drug, even if the risk of adverse effects or failure is great.

The director of Genetic Alliance UK, Dr Alastair Kent, sums it up well:

“Given that there is no such thing as a completely safe drug, the issue becomes one of establishing whether or not the anticipated health gains for patients are sufficient to outweigh the risks inevitably associated with prescribing a powerful (and potentially somewhat toxic) medicine to a patient with a serious and possibly life limiting disease.

Traditionally the evaluation”

of drug safety

“has been made by committees of experts—scientists, ethicists, clinicians etc sitting without patient and family input to their processes in order to reach a conclusion about whether or not patients can be allowed to take the risk. While it is clear that these experts have an important contribution to make, patients and families are”

in these days of openness and information

“increasingly demanding a say in this decision making process.”

The real kernel of the debate is that we address the risk aversion that can too often hold back the development of a new drug. Professor Sir Peter Lachmann, a former president of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and professor of immunology at the university of Cambridge, has argued that risk aversion has

“led to a false perception that most prescription drugs on the shelf are almost entirely safe. Unfortunately this is not (and never will be) the case. This misconception has meant that when things do go wrong people often, if understandably, look for someone to blame. This blame normally involves litigation; and that normally involves significant cost.”

In a recent article for QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, Professor Lachmann sets out his argument in more detail, and I warn Members that this bit of my speech is slightly legalistic. He focuses on the change in legislation in the 1980s, when the Consumer Safety Act 1978 was supplanted by the Consumer Protection Act 1987, which introduced the European product liability directive into UK law. In Professor Lachmann’s view, under the Consumer Safety Act, if a patient agreed to take a medicine that they knew had not been fully tested and thereby assumed the risk themselves, that prohibited any claim by them if some harm later materialised. Unfortunately, the Consumer Protection Act changed that, by introducing a system of strict liability, under which a person or company is legally responsible for the damage or loss caused by their acts or omissions, regardless of culpability.

Professor Lachmann rightly concluded that it is often the fear of litigation that drives a great deal of the regulation of medicines and, therefore, a significant amount of the cost behind drug development. Let us not forget that the cost of new drugs is also preventing small and medium-sized enterprises in the life sciences sector—many of them in our constituencies—from developing in the way that they should.

Professor Lachmann sets out four solutions, and I should be grateful to the Minister if she considered them carefully. First, we should abolish strict liability in this area and replace it with liability based on negligence. Secondly, we should revise the definition of negligence, so that in deciding whether it was negligent to seek to develop a new drug, account is taken of the consequences of doing nothing, as well as the consequences of trying to do something. Thirdly, we should change the law on waivers, so that any patient who is prepared to try a new medicine, with the risk that it may have unknown side effects, is at liberty to do so. Finally, we should, at least in this area, abolish the no win, no fee arrangements.

I was pleased to introduce Les to Lord Howe at a meeting in the Department of Health last June. I should therefore be grateful to the Minister if she set out the latest progress on the early-access scheme, which was first mentioned in the life sciences strategy published in 2011. As Lord Willis of Knaresborough said in the other place recently, the scheme could allow earlier access to drugs than the current regime permits. That is promising, but will the Minister confirm that the Government aim for the scheme is to produce just two to five new drugs a year? What can the Government do to significantly scale that up?

I would appreciate an update on adaptive licensing. There are different interpretations of what it means; but, in essence, it is a more flexible and streamlined approach to research and, I hope, the licensing of new drugs. One objective of the European Medicines Agency is to pilot a new approach along those lines, and my hon. Friend the Minister is to be commended for her decision to bid to host the pilot. Will she therefore outline the latest situation and what plans the Government have to ensure that the UK continues to take a lead on this issue?

I turn now to the report by the Select Committee on Health on NICE. The report, published on 16 January, touched on issues that are highly relevant to the debate. The Committee was highly critical of the delay in setting out precisely what a value-based pricing system for drugs entails. I share its concern, yet the section of the report focusing on research data and access to clinical trial data troubled me most. It is deeply concerning that drug companies have been allowed to withhold information about drug trials. Members should think about that for a minute. If a drug is developed, but it has unwarranted side effects and does not do the job it is supposed to, no one will know about research. Other drug companies will come along, do exactly the same research all over again and will have exactly the same problems. Surely, therefore, it is in everyone’s interests that the information is published.

I therefore fully support the Committee’s recommendation that there should be a professional and legal obligation to ensure that all regulators, including NICE, have access to all available research data about the efficacy and safety of new pharmaceutical products. Stephen Whitehead of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry summed it up well when he told the Committee:

“negative trials often give you as much information that is helpful as positive trials.”

Few people would disagree with the Committee’s argument that it should be neither legal nor ethical to withhold research data about pharmaceutical products that are in clinical use. The Department will respond to the Committee’s report in the coming weeks, and I urge the Minister to reflect on this issue, even if she cannot say anything about it because her response to the Committee is still pending.

The ongoing consultation on the NHS constitution is another opportunity to strengthen patient rights and enshrine them in law. In particular, I urge the Government to seize the opportunity offered by the consultation to give more weight to individual patient choice and to allow patients greater freedom to determine what existing and new medical treatments they undertake. Will the Minister say when the Government will respond to the consultation on the NHS constitution and whether any proposed changes to it will be approved by Parliament?

I want now to move to a slightly different issue, because it would be relevant to mention the accessibility of end-of-life care. If it were not for the fantastic work that nurses and others do, many people who have had an experience similar to that of Les would have suffered a great deal more than was necessary. Some 73% of people, when they reach the terminal stage of an illness, want to die at home, surrounded and comforted by their family and friends, and it is a dismal fact that only 27% are currently able to do so. Access to a community or specialist nurse is a requirement for those who want access to medicine but who are unable to self-administer. This is a twofold problem, which can be solved only when adequate time is spent on the issues of access to medicine and end-of-life care.

I hope that the debate will ensure that these issues remain firmly on the agenda of my hon. Friend and her fellow Ministers. Many colleagues, from all parties and in both Houses, have taken a keen interest in these and related issues. Through his Medical Innovation Bill, my noble Friend Lord Saatchi seeks to address the issues that hold back innovative practice in the treatment of patients with life-threatening conditions. He has spoken movingly of his experience and that of his wife in this regard.

If the debate can in any way contribute to that process, it will be a fitting legacy for Les Halpin and his excellent campaign. Several people have asked me what the debate is all about, and the answer is simple: how would any of us who, God forbid, might develop a terminal illness gain access to an effective medicine? In future, what we need are not terminal illnesses, but treatable illnesses.

09:49

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on bringing the matter to the House. I want to focus on the end-of-life issues that he dealt with in the second part of his speech. Obviously those concern us all, but I want to concentrate on them because of several interactions that I have had with constituents on the subject, and because there is a need for drugs. I am confident that the Minister will respond positively and I look forward to her comments.

I have spoken recently about ending the so-called GP death list—a term that I use very carefully; some people see end-of-life issues in that way and are concerned. I was shocked when I read an article that stated that thousands of patients have already been put on those so-called registers,

“which single them out to be allowed to die in comfort rather than be given life-saving treatment in hospital”.

That is one thing that has emerged from discussions that have taken place. The article states that nearly 3,000 doctors have promised to draw up a list of patients they believe are likely to pass away within a year. It is claimed:

“As part of an unpublicised campaign endorsed by ministers, GPs have been encouraged to make lists—officially known as End of Life Care Registers”—

which the hon. Gentleman mentioned towards the end of his speech—

“of people they believe are going to die soon and should be helped to do so in comfort.”

That is the terminology that is used. In my opinion if a patient refuses further treatment this is their decision, not the doctor’s. Treatments must be made available throughout the NHS to those who want and need them—those who need care.

How many times have we heard of patients with no hope suddenly going into remission? An example concerning a child with cancer recently came to my attention. The doctor advised no more treatment, but the sister of the little boy was not ready to say goodbye, and for her sake the family asked for one more course of chemo to prolong the time left and prepare the other child for the expected death. The little boy responded to the chemo that was given in the hope of allowing a few more weeks of life; but that time has turned into six months. Who knows what the future holds? The point I am making is that there are probably many examples from across the United Kingdom where a wee bit of extra effort can be made and where it may not be necessary to prepare for the inevitability of death, if there is also a possibility of life through drug treatment. Imagine if that family had not been allowed to ask for, or the doctor had had the power simply to refuse, the last bout of chemotherapy. That is not an everyday occurrence, but it does happen and it should give us reason to pause and think before making drastic moves.

In 2008 the Labour Government announced a range of proposals aimed at improving the care available to patients with life-threatening conditions. They stated that a key part of the new proposals was a change to the way the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence decides which medicines are approved for diseases that affect only small numbers of people. The hon. Gentleman focused in his speech on some diseases that do not kill a great many people in the United Kingdom, and on which, therefore, drugs companies do not spend money; but perhaps they should. I want to discuss that issue. What has changed in the past five years? Is there a greater availability of drugs? I am not sure that that is the case, and would appreciate confirmation from the Minister of how many more medicines have been approved on the list. Many UK universities do great work investigating drugs and conducting research with pharmaceutical companies, and Queen’s university Belfast is one of them, at the forefront of the good work being done on new drugs for ailments including cancer, diabetes, and dementia and Alzheimer’s. Students come from all over the world to do research and to learn there. I commend the university, which has been able to source individual funding, and the many other UK universities doing similar work.

The campaign Empower: Access to Medicine, set up by a man suffering from motor neurone disease, recently caught my eye. The campaign calls for a review of the law and ethics on drug development, as it takes many years and billions of pounds to take a new drug to market from A to Z. The last drug licensed for motor neurone disease, which damages the nervous system, leaving muscles wasted and weak, was riluzole, which has been in use for 20 years. Can there have been no scientific advances since then? I do not believe that. Les Halpin has commented that

“to see primarily it’s the regulations that are slowing the whole process down, it just means we could be waiting an awful long time until a new drug is produced.”

I have a dear friend, whom I have known for many years, who has motor neurone disease. I have seen a healthy man go from being a fun person in the peak of health to someone wasting away in a chair. The drugs have given him a longer life, and perhaps a better quality of life latterly, but they cannot stop the onslaught of the disease. The finality of what will happen to him is clear.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that beyond the difficult and onerous issue of NICE approval of drugs that he and the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) outlined, and which needs to be resolved, is the cost of drugs, post-approval? We need more work to be done on dragging down the cost, to make them more accessible.

[Jim Shannon]

There are parts of the world where drugs can be made more cheaply, and they include India. The drugs in India are equal to those made in the USA, for example, but can be made more cheaply. Why do not we obtain those similar drugs, at a cheaper price, so that we can provide the relevant care, as my hon. Friend has suggested? We should take that on board.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be interested to know that last week I went to India where I had that precise conversation with several organisations. We hope that a memorandum of understanding will emerge, involving the regulatory bodies with which I had meetings. The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that we can take advantage of the great work being done in India to produce medicines that are just as good as those made anywhere else, and often at a fraction of the price.

[Jim Shannon]

Those are the sort of responses we hope to hear, because they show that the Government are working. The Minister, as we knew she would, has come up with a practical, physical response, and is doing the things that we have been hoping will come out of the debate. I thank her for initiating the process she outlined, and for moving things forward.

I am pleased to support the hon. Member for The Cotswolds in his cause of drawing attention to motor neurone disease, cancer and other illnesses, so that a treatment path will not be simply a step along the road to the end of life, but may enhance the quality of life. Perhaps a successful treatment path can be developed. According to Empower: Access to Medicine,

“Speeding up the development and availability of drugs that treat life-threatening diseases would benefit everyone in society.”

I believe that too. Everyone present will know people whom new drugs could help. The current testing and development process is long, cumbersome and expensive. In fact, a recent report by the Office of Health Economics found that it takes five years, on average, after the launch of a new drug, to win NICE approval. That time scale can be more than doubled when the time taken for a new drug to go from the development stage through to phase 3 and beyond is added. As an example, no new drug has been approved for motor neurone disease since riluzole was approved 20 years ago. Are we happy to sit back and rely on that one drug, or should there be more research? We need more research; we need to fund it, and we need it to be made possible.

Currently, pharmaceutical companies do not have a financial incentive to invest in developing new drugs for rare or “orphan” diseases—I am being careful in my terminology—because of the small number of the population who are affected and the high and uncertain costs of the drug development process. The drug regulatory regime is therefore clearly having a significant impact on those with life-threatening and rare diseases.

Just yesterday, the shadow Secretary of State held a meeting on special commissioning. Five speakers introduced the issues. The gentleman who spoke on cystic fibrosis said that drugs are available only in certain parts of the United Kingdom. He is worried that we are setting an imbalance, which I have taken up with my colleague back home, Edwin Poots, the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, to ensure that cystic fibrosis drugs are available to sufferers when they need them not only in England, but in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The panel hosted by the shadow Secretary of State outlined the need for drugs allocation. There was a guy representing HIV patients, and 100,000 people in the United Kingdom are receiving HIV drugs to prolong their life. The man who spoke yesterday has lived for 20 years with the drugs that are available, but are those drugs available across the whole United Kingdom?

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for making those extremely good points. The point he makes about cystic fibrosis crystallises the health service’s dilemma. A small drug company came to me the other day, and told me that it has developed an absolute cure for a certain type of cystic fibrosis if it is caught very early in life. The problem is that the drug will have to be administered for life, and the life cost of the drug for the very small number of people whom the drug will absolutely cure, and whose quality of life it will improve, is £180,000. That is why his remarks on the need to drive down the cost of developing drugs in this country are so important.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his constructive intervention. I take his comments on board, and I believe the Minister has a willing ear, too.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

My hon. Friend the Minister reminds me sotto voce that I was corresponding with her, and I am extremely pleased to say that she has approved the drug I mentioned. So that small number of people will now have an absolute cure.

[Jim Shannon]

If this goes on much longer, I would want the Minister to reply to every Westminster Hall debate, because we have asked for two things and got them both, which is good news.

I will now illustrate the need for drugs for three categories of people. The first category is those with dementia. There has been debate in the House and in the papers over the past week on dementia treatment. In Northern Ireland, we do not have the highest diagnosis rate for dementia in the United Kingdom, but at 63% the diagnosis rate is high. The support services are perhaps not as equal to that as they should be, which we will take up with the Minister to see how we can improve.

The facts are that some 370,000 people have not yet been diagnosed for dementia treatment—first it is diagnosis, and then it is drugs—so there is a combination of how the health system works best. People are given drugs including Aricept, which reduces symptoms and slows progression. The drugs might not always cure the ailment or disease, but they certainly can improve life and make it a wee bit more amenable.

The second category is cancer, and there will not be a family in the whole country that has not been touched in some way by cancer. The Government have set up what they refer to as a “fast track” for cancer patients. There is some indication that the fast track is perhaps not working in the way that it should, but the Government have a £750 million cancer strategy, which plays a key role. As with dementia, the strategy is diagnosis, early intervention and prevention through all the surgeries and clinics across the United Kingdom.

The third category is breast cancer. A new breast cancer drug has had some coverage in the press over the past few weeks. The Minister has been tremendous in her response to our points, and perhaps she could give us some indication of how that drug will be made available to those with breast cancer. The drug has the potential to prolong life. The papers have said that, for some people, the drug can prolong life for 20 years. Such drugs must be available if that is the case. I am keen to hear how that will go.

It is long past time to take active steps to ensure that terminally ill patients or patients with life-threatening conditions are not simply given a form of end-of-life care—it has to be more than that—but are treated for their conditions. New drugs and medications should be actively sought, instead of accepting a diagnosis of illness as a death sentence.

The hon. Member for The Cotswolds mentioned hospice care. We are fortunate to have so many organisations, and if I name some, I will leave some out, so I am not going to name any. They all do tremendous work. The hospice care those organisations deliver to the person who is dying or recuperating and the help they give to families is tremendous. We owe them a lot.

I support the hon. Gentleman in this debate, and I am disappointed there are not more people here, because it is a debate that affects us all. Our constituents would be keen to ensure that we are involved in this debate.

We have been fortunate this morning to have very positive responses from the Minister, and I look for more. What steps are this Government, and our Government in Northern Ireland, taking to ensure that another five years are not lost and that we can make a change to bring hope, instead of despair, to those who refuse to accept a one-size-fits-all diagnosis and who wish to have access to the best drugs available at a price we can afford and that delivers more treatment and care for everyone?

09:59

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for introducing the debate and explaining this important issue so well. I also pay tribute to Les Halpin, whom I had the privilege to meet. I use the word “privilege” exactly, because it was a privilege to meet someone who is so afflicted and yet so thoroughly constructive.

I once had the opportunity to attend a session with the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence when it was investigating a particular drug for a complaint called ankylosing spondylitis—I have not written that in my notes, so Hansard is on its own. The session was robustly and impressively chaired, and the drug and issues concerning it were thoroughly examined. During my period in Parliament, NICE has come up again and again, and various complaints have been raised by Members of Parliament, the pharmaceutical industry and patient groups. One complaint is about the inordinate time it often takes to develop a drug, which certainly appears to be the case; the other complaint, made by big pharma, is the cost that NICE adds to the development of drugs.

The example of India has been cited, but I am not sure that that is a good parallel. I have been to India and spoken to pharmaceutical companies out there, and they seem to specialise not in developing the more esoteric lines of drugs but in developing and marketing lines of generic drugs or taking up drugs that are out of patent and producing them at less cost than their western counterparts.

NICE would genuinely acknowledge that it adds to the cost of development, but there is also a question about its rigorous but circumscribed methodology. There were many debates in this place a few years ago about Alzheimer’s drugs, and the issue appeared to be not that the drugs do not work, but that they do not work for everyone in a sufficiently predictable way for NICE to approve them; although I have met constituents who can genuinely testify to the benefit of a drug that NICE is not prepared to go with. Of course, there are similar cases in which people genuinely disagree with NICE’s decisions. Most Members of Parliament will, at some time during their career, write a letter on behalf of a constituent who simply cannot get a drug because a primary care trust is sheltering behind the mantra that NICE does not approve. All that set aside, NICE represents a model that has been emulated worldwide, because with NICE we end up with cost-effective, efficacious and safe drugs.

To go back to the case I witnessed in NICE headquarters many years ago, I was surprised that sufferers with that particular complaint were in the room and thoroughly involved in the process. As the process went on, however, I discovered that one of the people—the reference point, as it were, for the piece of research—had died during the project. That, perforce, will happen many times if one enlists people already diagnosed with a terminal illness; some people’s needs are more urgent, some have less to lose and in the case of terminally ill people, some are not classified in that way unless there is no available cure.

A reasonable case can be made for relaxing the rules, to have more trials and to get more innovation in such circumstances; patients, science, medicine and future patients would all benefit, provided, of course, that the patient was genuinely a volunteer and properly advised of the risks. Another proviso I have just thought of, as India was mentioned, is that the volunteer was afflicted with the particular complaint, because in no way would we be happy with a world where people were trialling drugs for reasons other than their own benefit.

The question is, should we have a more flexible system than the orthodox one that we have put in place through NICE? I was at a breakfast this morning about NHS research, and I was pleased to learn that over the past decade or so, the number of NHS patients featuring in research has increased appreciably. Apparently, a decade or so ago, only about 2% of cancer patients featured in a clinical trial or piece of research, whereas now the figure is some 20%, which is a significant improvement, so we must not kid ourselves that even in the orthodox setting of the NHS valuable pieces of research are not being conducted.

As I see it, there are still arguments against what Les is suggesting, and he must be acutely aware of the force of some of those arguments. The Minister is a lawyer and, even with a disclaimer in advance, it is difficult to avoid the spectre of litigation if a drug that has not been thoroughly stress-tested is in use; it is hard to assure oneself that it is not at least a possibility. Cost might still be an issue, if the drug is very expensive, and the NHS has to consider carefully whether to spend a lot of money, perhaps to no effect. There is always the possibility of an unsafe medicine or of one that has not been thoroughly tested having catastrophic effects and worsening someone’s decline. That can happen even when the drug is tested; everyone can recall that thalidomide was tested, quite thoroughly in some respects, but not to the nth degree, with disastrous consequences.

Such entirely valid considerations are not a case against a different regime in principle, they are a case against what might be regarded as a gung-ho approach. After all, as the hon. Gentleman said, all medicines have side effects. The worst thing someone can do when prescribed a medicine is to take out of its box the long sheet listing all the possible side effects; if they read it, they simply would not take the medicine, regarding themselves as safer by not taking it. Where a drug has no known side effects and there are genuine grounds for belief in its potential benefits, some sort of pre-approval system is genuinely arguable for terminally ill patients, rather than having to wait for full NICE approval—the full works. Flexibility is not a non-legitimate demand in any context. We have to bear in mind that although there are general rules, there will always have to be sensible provisos, exceptions and caveats about an application.

I am reminded of the forthcoming ban on the use of opiates when driving. I am obviously keen that people under the influence of methadone or heroin do not take those drugs and then get in a car. Some people, however, have long-term, chronic conditions and are taking an opiate, but they are well used to the symptoms provoked and could or should be safely allowed to drive a car. I am sure that they would drive the car with no difficulty at all. Whatever rules we have need to be flexible for such cases. Likewise, whatever rules we have about the safety of medicines need to recognise that for some people, the environment in which they are taking the medicines, their circumstances and the risks they face are quite different. We need flexibility, where the risks are limited and where the benefits to science and the individual are potentially massive. There has to be an intelligible response of some sort to the sincere request made by the hon. Gentleman and by Les Halpin.

Furthermore, I agree with the hon. Gentleman on another extremely important issue—I did not expect him to raise it, but he did. If we are looking at a more innovative, research-based NHS, it would help enormously if pharmaceutical companies signposted the dead ends they have been down, indicating where things had not worked. That would save enormous sums of money, possibly for their competitors but certainly for the health of the nation and the NHS. I congratulate the hon. Gentleman and reiterate my sincere tribute to Les Halpin. I hope that he is in good shape today and listening to the debate, and that we can get a result for him.

00:00

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be called to speak under your chairmanship again, Mr Caton.

I extend my sincere thanks to the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) for securing this important, emotive and timely debate. He laid out the issues in a compelling fashion, complemented by the testimony of other Members from across the House. The debate comes a day after my right hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State held a specialist commissioning summit in the House to discuss some of the very issues before us today.

When dealing with terminal illnesses, it is important to recognise all of the lives affected by terminal and degenerative illness. It is important that stories and experiences of those with such diseases inform our debate, so that we do not focus purely on statistics. Behind every statistic is an individual and a family with real human issues that wear no party colours, and they may have no interest in our party colours. I am sure that all hon. Members have experience of constituents who have suffered from such debilitating illnesses and realise the importance of doing whatever we can whenever we can to improve their access to treatments that could improve their quality of life. I express my most sincere best wishes to those people dealing with terminal conditions today, and to their families, carers and everyone whose lives they touch.

I also praise the constituent of the hon. Gentleman, Mr Halpin, for the work that he does to highlight the issue and to push for improvements and greater access to drugs to improve palliative care. Today’s debate is proof that this place can be influenced by the public and by individuals—individuals can make a difference. We must look at what we can do to improve access to medicines and we must continue to explore ways and methods to encourage the synthesis of new drugs and to make those available to patients as soon as possible, while also maintaining the fundamental focus on patient safety, as has been said. That is a fine balance to strike and I look forward to learning how the Minister plans to address it.

Making new, safe and effective treatments available to all patients who require them must be the end goal, but it cannot be an isolated goal. We must look at ways to increase the availability of already licensed drugs and we must look at non-drug-based treatments as well, which can vastly improve the quality of life for patients in need. A number of charities have expressed a view that a move to adaptive licensing of drugs could benefit patients. The European Medicines Agency suggests:

“Adaptive Licensing seeks to maximise the positive impact of new drugs on public health by balancing timely access for patients with the need to provide adequate evolving information on benefits and harms”.

It must be recognised that adaptive licensing would bring a number of benefits, such as encouraging pharmaceutical industries to develop new drugs and to bring them into service quickly. It is suggested that new drugs could be available after phase 2 testing, the main focus of which is safety rather than efficacy.

There are, however, a number of issues with that approach. After phase 2 testing, drugs might be expected to be safe for human consumption, but the efficacy of any drug would still not be proven. Going on to prove efficacy at stage 3 could raise some ethical and personal difficulties. At present, a phase 3 trial is needed to demonstrate that any drug is effective. Under adaptive licensing, would those with early access be classified as part of a conventional phase 3 trial? If early access formed part of a conventional phase 3 trial, would existing trial guidelines be maintained for the use of data received on early access recipients? Clearly, ethical and personal issues would arise from both questions.

First, how can the efficacy of one drug be compared with that of another, existing drug, or with a placebo? Using blind tests in which one drug is administered to one group, and another drug or placebo is administered to another group would raise ethical issues. Doctors might knowingly deny access to a drug that has been proven to be effective because of the chance that a new drug could also be effective. Secondly, on a personal level, how could we be sure that patients are fully comfortable with and aware of the risks of taking medicines before they are fully approved under the current system? I acknowledge the point made by the hon. Gentleman about the patient being in charge of the choices with which they are presented, and more fundamentally in charge of their own treatment and destiny.

We must be careful not to suggest that adaptive licensing is risk-free and the only logical solution to a problem. Patients participating in early adoption of medicines might have better access, but there would be clear and obvious risks. That is not to say that we should discourage the synthesis of drugs that are less effective than those that already exist. The development of drugs is clearly a highly precise science, but the application and treatment of medicines sometimes resembles an art form. For some patients, the most effective available drugs are useless and, for want of a better phrase, less effective drugs could be invaluable.

I raise these issues not because we should oppose the introduction of adaptive licensing, but because we must fully explore the ramifications of introducing a change on this scale, and I look forward to hearing how the Minister plans to tackle these delicate and fine issues. We must also understand what it would mean for our life sciences and our research and development capability in the UK, but first and foremost, and fundamentally, what it would mean for patients and patient choice.

In the spirit of this debate, we should look at ways to improve care and provision of other types of available treatment, such as care facilities in communities, and assistance for patients at home. The care a patient receives does not depend solely on the medicines they receive, although clearly that is hugely important, and we should continue to explore ways in which that can be widened.

It must be noted that, as other hon. Members have said, very few drug options are available to people with terminal illnesses such as multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease. As well as doing everything we can to speed up the development of new drugs while protecting patients’ well-being, we should explore other methods of treatment for those with terminal illnesses. We must all acknowledge that the NHS is always changing as society changes. The art of drug and medicine application demands a more bespoke and tailored patient experience and more wide-ranging treatments.

The principle behind adaptive licensing is commendable, and one that anyone would find difficult to oppose. It would ensure better access to drugs, but it would not necessarily alter things that much. As has been said, pharmacology recycling bins are filled with trials for promising new medicines that ultimately proved to be ineffective or even dangerous. Loosening access to trial drugs requires greater peer reviewing of early data and methodology to ensure patient safety.

There is a strong argument for allowing more off-label prescribing of drugs that have already passed safety tests. They could be an option open to doctors and patients if they are believed to be effective in treating a condition they were not originally intended for, and I would be extremely interested in hearing what the Minister has to say about that. Even if adaptive licensing was adopted now with a robust system of safeguards in place to protect the well-being of patients, those with terminal illnesses would not start to see improved access for a number of years. We are all aware that drug manufacturing does not happen overnight.

One of the harsh realities of debates such as this is that changing regulations today will not benefit patients tomorrow or the day after. What we need right now is improved care for those with terminal illnesses, and support for their carers. Improved facilities offering specialised care would go some way to improving patients’ quality of life, as would earlier, faster diagnosis of terminal conditions. All Members of Parliament have heard of cases of suffering that could have been prevented, and diagnosis that could have been earlier, resulting in a better experience for patients and their families.

Access to drugs may vary throughout the country and that cannot be tackled by a fractured system. That is a huge concern as we move towards April and beyond. I hope the Minister will explain how she can guarantee that a clinical commissioning group in Cornwall meets the same standard in access to medicine as a group in Cumbria. Adaptive licensing would improve access to drugs, but not without risks, and I hope the Minister will be able to outline a safe and secure framework that could be put to the House for greater scrutiny. At this stage, not enough research has been done to guarantee that access to drugs can be expanded through adaptive licensing without exposing patients to ineffective and potentially dangerous drugs. I hope that much more work will be done to show that a patient’s well-being and quality of life can be protected while ensuring that more drugs are made available.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

The hon. Gentleman has touched on an important matter than has not yet arisen in this debate: the possibility of different protocols for prescription of medicines by different clinical commissioning groups. My gentle suggestion to the Minister is that it would be unacceptable if the new system developed a postcode lottery whereby people in some areas had access to a new drug, but people in others did not.

[Mr Reed]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. He is entirely right, and I do not believe that any hon. Member in the House would want that. Many of us have seen and read accounts of the problem he illustrates, and we must not hasten any further move towards that. We should all seek to address such issues as and when they occur.

The hon. Gentleman intervened just as I was coming to the end of my remarks, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

10:26

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Caton, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) on securing this debate on a subject of which he clearly has considerable knowledge. I thank other hon. Members who have spoken, and pay tribute to the work done by Empower: Access to Medicine, particularly that of Mr Les Halpin, who has been spoken about in glowing terms. I add my good wishes to him to those of my hon. Friends the Members for The Cotswolds and for Southport (John Pugh)—the latter is giving me a thumbs-up, as I remembered the correct name of his constituency. A great failing of mine is not to remember it. I hope that Mr Halpin is able to watch this debate, and I know that he and many others will want to read it.

If I may say so, the debate is a good example of Parliament at its absolute best. Yet again, there is a story in one of the papers criticising Members of Parliament for expenses properly incurred. If only the press, instead of printing another knocking story, would come along and listen to debates such as this when important issues are put into the public domain with care and considerable knowledge. As is often the case in such debates in Westminster Hall, there has been an outbreak of political unity. Political parties play no part in this issue, and Members properly ask the Government tough questions. I pay tribute again to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds because he is a pleasant thorn in the Government’s side, and properly so. He has raised and is championing an issue that a constituent brought to his attention, and is holding the Government to account.

I fear—well, I know—that I cannot answer all the questions that my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed) have asked and, as is the usual rule, if I cannot do so, my excellent officials will provide written responses. The matter is not in my portfolio—I am not making excuses—so I am not particularly familiar with it, and I am grateful for the excellent briefing that has been provided by my officials. Perhaps I will be forgiven for reading out a large part of my speech, which I do not normally do because I like to look as though I understand everything I am speaking about, but the subject is important and technical.

I would like to take credit for the approval of Kalydeco, a drug for cystic fibrosis users, but it was the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence that gave approval for it to be prescribed. The only reason I know anything about it is because one of my constituents wrote to me. A cystic fibrosis campaigning group has quite properly been contacting Members of Parliament, urging them to make all the representations that they can about the benefits of the drug. A very small number of people will benefit, because it relates to those who have cystic fibrosis because of a particular genetic disorder, but it will undoubtedly revolutionise their lives. I was certainly pleased to see that it will now be available for prescription.

The development of new medicines is a long and expensive process, as we all agree. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry estimates that only one in 5,000 researched new compounds receive regulatory authority approval, taking 10 to 12 years on average. That is the scale of the research and the difficulties, in many respects.

The life sciences industry is undergoing rapid change. The time and cost involved in developing new medicines is rising, and the old “big pharma” model of having thousands of highly paid researchers working on a pipeline of blockbuster drugs is declining. A new model of collaboration, about the outsourcing of research and early clinical trials on patients, has emerged. Many patients with serious or life-threatening illnesses, who understandably expect that they should be able to access the latest and most effective treatments, feel that regulatory procedures can hamper access.

Turning to life sciences strategy, this country has a strong history of drug discovery and development, and improving access to medicines has long been a Government priority. The “Strategy for UK Life Sciences” was launched in December 2011. Recognising the issues facing the life sciences, the 10-year strategy includes measures to support innovation and early-stage development. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister published a progress report and refresh of the strategy only last month.

My hon. Friend talked about adaptive licensing, as did other hon. Members. I would like to set out the arrangements that we are putting in place for an adaptive licensing pilot programme, with the objective of advancing and maximising the potential of existing flexibilities in the drug licensing processes to improve public health and stimulate innovative drug development.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency—I shall refer to it as the MHRA, as opposed to its otherwise very long name—has convened an expert group on innovation in the regulation of health care and agreed to a tripartite programme to take that work forward. It includes work at EU level on how the existing flexibilities in EU regulation can be used to bring forward innovative products; work at national level exploring options to help companies maximise the potential of existing drug licensing processes; and work at arm’s length from the MHRA and Government. The co-ordination of some other activities required for the pilot will be undertaken by the Centre for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical Innovation, including the exploration of suitable candidate products. However, pharmaceutical companies must come forward and nominate candidates for adaptive licensing.

Last year, we consulted on an early access scheme to make certain new and promising medicines available to patients in the UK before they are formally licensed. The MHRA is currently assessing the consultation responses. If introduced, the early access scheme would be designed for promising new medicines that will treat, diagnose or prevent life-threatening, chronic or seriously debilitating conditions without licensed treatment options. It would provide a scientific opinion from the MHRA on the benefits and risks of a new medicine about a year before the licensing process was completed. That additional information would assist both clinicians and patients in making treatment decisions in areas of unmet need, such as those described earlier by my hon. Friend. Both programmes are in a very early stage of development, as I think we all appreciate, and we will have more to say on that in the near future.

Turning to stratified medicines and genomics—I cannot pronounce it, but I am sure that Hansard will correct me if I get the word wrong—ongoing work on stratified medicines will improve our understanding of why groups of people with particular diseases respond differently to treatments. That point was very well made by my hon. Friend the Member for Southport. Our initiative to sequence 100,000 whole genomes from NHS patients will provide valuable information for researchers to gather new insights into health and disease and to develop new diagnostic tools and treatments.

Rare diseases are classified as conditions affecting no more than five in 10,000 people in the EU. Patients with rare conditions deserve the same quality, safety and efficacy in medicines as those with more common conditions. Since the pharmaceutical industry has little interest, under normal market conditions, in developing medicines intended for small numbers of patients, the EU offers a range of incentives to encourage the development of what are called “orphan” medicines in order to address the unmet clinical need.

Applications for the designation of orphan medicines are reviewed by the European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Orphan Medicinal Products—in its short form, the COMP. Via the MHRA, the UK takes an active role in the decision-making processes at the COMP, ensuring that applications for orphan drug designation are appropriately recognised and encouraging companies to develop their products further. Taking that one step further, I join the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in paying tribute to the research being undertaken at Queen’s university Belfast, and I know that many other universities throughout the whole United Kingdom are doing research into that sort of medicinal pharmaceutical advancement. They do not have some of the constraints of pharmaceutical companies, or perhaps the desire that some of those companies have to make a profit, so it is often universities that are best placed to do some of that invaluable research and development.

[Jim Shannon]

The work that is done at Queen’s university could not happen without partnership with the pharmaceutical groups, and clearly, they can use the partnerships to their advantage in creating new medicines. Partnerships are what life is very much about. A partnership is how we can work together to make it better, and that is a partnership that can work.

[Anna Soubry]

I am grateful for that intervention and I completely agree. It is great when we see business working with our universities on research. It can be highly productive and undoubtedly mutually beneficial, including to the rest of society, and that collaborative approach is much to be welcomed. It is fair to say that many universities, at first, had a bit of resistance to working with business, seeing it somehow as sullying themselves. However, over time they have recognised the absolute mutual benefit to both and, of course, that includes, should it be successful, a benefit to society.

[Mr Jamie Reed]

I am grateful to the Minister for her contribution. It is clear that there is an emerging cross-party consensus—dare I say it, a coalition—which is a tremendous sight to behold for everyone who cares about this issue. She talks about the difficulties posed by the research and development sector when it comes to manufacturing medicines for orphan diseases, and the costs inherent in producing them because of the market basis on which they are produced—no argument there. However, could she explain how that might affect the commissioning choices of clinical commissioning groups when it comes to purchasing those very same medicines, given the inherently inflated costs?

[Anna Soubry]

I cannot give a short answer in this debate, but that is important and it has been raised by a number of hon. Members. On that basis, I will ensure that a proper and full written response is given, both to the hon. Gentleman and all other hon. Members—I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Southport and the hon. Member for Strangford will also be interested in the answer. All present will certainly get a written answer to that, because it is an important point; clarity is clearly being sought, and it will be given.

Returning to NICE, once effective new drugs are brought to market, it is important, as we all know, that they are made available to the patients who will benefit most from them on terms that represent value to the NHS—that means, of course, value to the taxpayer. NICE has played an important role in that by providing robust, evidence-based guidance to the NHS on drugs and treatments. In the great majority of cases, NICE now publishes draft or final guidance on significant new drugs within a few months of their launch. In 2011, for drugs appraised using its single technology appraisal methodology—the methodology used for the great majority of new drugs—NICE issued draft or final guidance an average of four months after the date of market authorisation. The end-of-life flexibilities introduced into NICE’s appraisal process from 2009 have allowed a number of important drugs for terminal illnesses affecting a small number of patients to be made available on the NHS.

The NHS constitution sets out patients’ rights to medicines positively appraised by NICE, underpinned by a statutory funding direction. In December 2011, the NHS chief executive’s report, entitled “Innovation, Health and Wealth”, introduced a NICE compliance regime to help to ensure that medicines approved by NICE are made available on the NHS quickly and consistently. Furthermore, since the cancer drugs fund started operating in October 2010, more than 25,000 patients have received cancer drugs that they would previously have been denied. Our priority is to give NHS patients better access to effective and innovative medicines. That is why we will move to a system of value-based pricing for new branded medicines from January 2014, following the end of the current pharmaceutical price regulation scheme.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, because I sense that she is coming to the end of her speech. Could she comment on two aspects that I raised? The first is the early access to medicines scheme. Quite rightly, the current licensing scheme is intended to eliminate all risk, but could there not be a system whereby, for people with a terminal illness, a drug might be given a provisional licence on a fully informed patient basis so that it could be trialled by those people, perhaps for the benefit of others coming along afterwards? Secondly, could she comment on the issue of strict liability—the legal liability for drugs of this sort being given, which makes it very difficult for people to use such techniques?

[Anna Soubry]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising those points. As he will understand, I cannot give a commitment either way on them, but they are very important points—points that I took not only out of his speech, but out of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Southport, who referred to me as a lawyer. I am a criminal lawyer, but I am not trying to take any responsibility for this, because it is a long time since I studied negligence and strict liability. However, I absolutely accept that there is a very strong argument to be made that the current state of the law does not help. Equally, there is a strong argument, as has been advanced, about people with a terminal illness being able to be prescribed medicines on a provisional basis, in precisely the sorts of conditions that my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds described.

The hon. Member for Strangford, in particular, raised end-of-life care. That is a very difficult issue. It is the subject of almost endless debate in this place, or at least it should be. For what it is worth, my personal view is that often these matters should be the subject of discussion between a patient and their GP. Although it was many years ago that my father faced a terminal illness, he spoke at length, before the final stages of his illness, with our then general practitioner, who was utterly brilliant, about his death and how that death could be in some way planned for, if it is ever possible to do such a thing. Sometimes that can be done. There is sometimes a certain amount of flexibility to be able to plan a death and to say what one does and does not want. These are intensely personal matters. I sometimes think that there is a danger of over-regulation and almost too much transparency, if there can ever be too much transparency. Sometimes it prevents what should be very private discussions.

The other thing to say is that families, too, often feel excluded from many of these decisions. It is important that families are involved as much as possible, especially when the person is quite elderly. We all know the sorts of case that exist. Perhaps this is an old-fashioned view, but I think that the unique and very special relationship between a patient and their GP—perhaps their nurse as well—is incredibly important, and there should almost be an acceptance that it is between the two of them in the final stages.

Like many Members, I suspect, as a constituency MP I have received letters from constituents who have spoken with real distress about their hopes for the final stages of a loved one’s life just not being recognised. I think that it was the hon. Member for Strangford, or perhaps it was my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds, who talked about the number of people who wanted to die at home but were not able to do so. [Interruption.] It was my hon. Friend, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would take up the point as well. As I said, a number of my constituents have spoken very movingly about this. I am thinking of one particular case in which a woman described how she had sat and talked with her late husband about the desire for him to die at home. They were sensible people who had thought these things through, but as it happened, because of a failing in palliative care—we have not got it all right, by any means—that did not happen. That is terribly sad and, frankly, in many cases there are no excuses for it. I am digressing, Mr Caton—forgive me—but I think that we should be able to have a more open and honest debate, which would then bring up the very issues that my hon. Friend has raised.

I have almost concluded my remarks, but I want to touch on a very important point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Southport about India. I think that I am right in saying that he said that, in his opinion, India did not have a particular history of innovation in creating new drugs. But my view is that it does have a remarkable capacity to look at existing drugs and produce them considerably more cheaply than other countries, including ourselves.

When I went to India last week, one of the things that I came away with was that what drives the Indians is affordability. As might be imagined with a population of 1.2 billion, there are excruciatingly high levels of poverty and deprivation, but there is also an emerging health care system. I know that there is a great deal of research, which is being led by the desire of doctors to improve clinical outcomes. The doctors often go to great research institutions and say, “How can you help us to develop this?” or “How can we solve this problem?” There is therefore innovation in India but my hon. Friend’s point was a good one.

I understand that the development of new drugs for rare and life-threatening diseases is vital, and it is important to the coalition Government. I hope that I have been able to illustrate the breadth of the work that the Government are undertaking to improve access to new and existing medicines for NHS patients and to encourage the development of important new drugs to treat life-threatening diseases. I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds and others that the Government’s priority is to ensure that NHS patients are able to access the most appropriate treatments to treat and manage their conditions.

10:47

Sitting suspended.

Housing Benefit and Disabled People

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

11:00

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I welcome the Minister to her place and offer belated congratulations on her appointment. I wish to raise with her the effect of the changes to housing benefit on people in the social rented sector who are deemed to be under-occupying a property. I thank my constituents John Turner and Matthew Hancock, Karen Armitage of Stafford and Rural Homes, and my colleague Pauline Ingall for bringing this matter to my attention.

From April 2013, size criteria for new and existing working-age housing benefit claimants will be introduced; they will replicate the size criteria that apply to housing benefit claimants in the private rented sector. The Department for Work and Pensions’ impact assessment estimates that out of 660,000 claimants affected by the new rules, some 420,000 are disabled. The impact assessment offers the explanation that

“Disabled claimants are, on average, older than non-disabled claimants. One consequence of this is that disabled claimants are also less likely to live in households with children… Fewer people living in a household means that large accommodation cannot be justified under the size criteria, and Housing Benefit entitlement is reduced.”

In the debate on the Welfare Reform Bill last year, I raised the matter of disabled people sometimes needing more rooms than provided for by the rules. One family in my constituency with disabled adults and children needed separate rooms for the couple and a separate room for one of the children under the age of 10. The then Minister for disabled people, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Maria Miller), gave a clear answer. She said that

“if a disabled person has the need for an overnight carer, additional rooms can be allocated. Indeed, if there are disabled people in the house who require rooms, there will be clear support there for them to be able to have those rooms.”—[Official Report, 1 February 2012; Vol. 539, c. 937.]

I also raised the question of adaptations, which have sometimes had many thousands of pounds spent on them to enable a disabled person to live in the property. It does not make sense for people to move from such properties to others that will themselves require costly adaptations. I therefore welcomed the fact that of the additional £30 million per annum being added to the discretionary housing payment scheme by the Government from April this year, £25 million is intended to be used

“specifically to assist those disabled claimants who are in properties where a significant adaptation has been made to cater for their individual needs.”

I have contacted the two councils in my constituency to ask them how they intend to allocate the additional funding. Stafford borough council has been working with housing associations to identify tenants affected by the new legislation. It will be concentrating its extra funding, which I estimate to be some £75,000, on disabled people whose property has been adapted and on foster carers; the support will be for 12 months. South Staffordshire district council, which has an additional £64,000 funding, will give short-term support, one to three months, to disabled people with property adaptations. The support is short term, because the council wishes to assess the situation before it commits to the longer term.

Both councils have been proactive in arranging mutual exchanges of properties between those who have spare rooms and those who are overcrowded—they have been doing exactly what the Government wish to encourage. However, both councils face serious shortages of one-bedroom properties for couples or singles, as much of the housing in the area has two bedrooms. That raises two questions for the Minister. First, can councils be sure that they will continue to receive at least the level of additional funding each year for discretionary housing payments that has been granted in 2013-14? Given that much of the funding will be for disabled claimants in adapted properties in which they are likely to live for many years, the need for DHPs will continue. Secondly, is the guidance for the assessment of the number of rooms required by disabled people being set out in the terms that the Minister used to me in the House last year? In addition to the case I mentioned, there are instances where disabled people live on their own or as a couple in a two-bedroom property with little or no storage space, and they tend to use the second room, which is often small, to store equipment that they need—perhaps a wheelchair or a mobility scooter. My understanding of the Minister’s comments in the House last year is that the second room should not be counted as a bedroom.

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a compelling case. Some of the individuals affected are severely disabled and the uncertainty that he has outlined is creating great worry, and not just for them; some parents of disabled people are also concerned about the situation. Is it not imperative that an element of certainty is introduced to the system?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention and I agree with him. Certainty is vital, which is why I am asking for clarification, and hopefully clarification in the terms used by the then Minister for disabled people in the House of Commons last year.

[John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman on behalf of the whole House for pursuing this matter so consistently, and I congratulate him on having the benefit of having as a constituent John Turner, who I know is an assiduous campaigner on this matter.

Consistency across the country is also necessary. There needs to be monitoring by central Government of how the policy is being applied, because I think we will discover, as we are already discovering in some areas, inconsistency of approach by individual councils.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is right: in the two cases that I have outlined of Stafford borough council and South Staffordshire district council, we can already see some differences. Those differences have arisen not for ideological reasons, but because each council takes a slightly different approach. I am all in favour of local councils making their own decisions, but if we end up with a situation wherein some councils’ conditions for DHPs are drastically different from those of other councils, there will be serious problems. Of course, there is also the question of the different profile of housing stocks in different parts of the country, which has an impact on what the hon. Gentleman has said.

To continue discussing space, the size of the rooms also needs to be considered, but the rules specifically rule that out. A typical tenancy agreement may describe the bedrooms as “two plus one plus one”—in other words, one double bedroom and two single bedrooms. The single bedrooms are described as single for a reason—they are often very, very small, as I have seen for myself. Yet a family comprising, for example, a couple and two boys under 16 would be considered as under-occupying that type of property. The rules encourage that family to move to a two-bedroom property, which may itself be described as “two plus one” and where they would effectively be in breach of the tenancy. Surely, size of rooms needs to be taken into account when determining whether there is under-occupancy. I ask the Minister to reconsider the rules.

Of course, the family that I have just spoken about might not be able to find a such a property. In many areas, there is a shortage of suitable housing into which tenants can downsize, which is a serious problem, and it is probably the most significant reason why disabled people are by far the most likely to be affected by the changes to the housing benefit rules, given that, as the impact assessment stated, disabled people will tend to be in smaller households. There is nothing that disabled people, or indeed anyone else who is affected, can do about that situation. They cannot move into properties that do not exist.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. Obviously, this is a massive issue for disabled families, but more widely there are 660,000 people on housing benefit who are likely to be affected by the changes, mostly those who are living in two or three-bedroom properties who will need to move to a one-bedroom property; they will be penalised, by an average of £728. Does he think it is fair that those people will be penalised in such a way when there is such a shortage of one-bedroom properties?

[Jeremy Lefroy]

It is a very difficult situation. I fully understand the Government’s need to get to grips with the housing benefit bill, and I will come on to that issue in a moment. I know that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions considers these matters extremely carefully, and I have had personal discussions with him about them. I agree that there is a need to try to free up the larger housing stock for those people who are over-occupying properties—people who are overcrowded; I also have constituents coming to me with that problem. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is a problem of the kind he describes.

Will the Minister say whether, in allocating DHPs between councils, any allowance has been made for those areas in which there is short supply of the one-bedroom housing that is most suited to disabled people who are living on their own or as couples without the need for a carer? If no such allowance has been made, that needs to be taken into consideration, at least for a while, until councils or housing associations have been able to provide such one-bedroom properties.

Two of the reasons for introducing the rules are to encourage greater mobility within the social rented sector and to make better use of the housing sector stock. Those are important reasons at a time when families are struggling in overcrowded accommodation—a situation I am sure that all Members know of from their surgeries. The problem is in the application for existing tenants who are affected by the changes, two thirds of whom, as we have seen, are disabled. It is difficult to see the purpose in encouraging a family with, say, two girls, one of whom will be 16 in a year or two, to move away—even if they can find a smaller property—only for them to need to move back into a larger property when the under-occupancy deduction no longer applies.

If family incomes were such that an additional £12 or so a week was affordable, there would be no cause for concern, but for families in which one person is disabled, income is more than likely to be limited, and the need for a discretionary housing payment therefore grows. It is to deal with such cases that I encourage the Minister to increase the additional funding for discretionary housing payments. If £25 million is set aside to offset the reduction in housing benefit for disabled people whose homes have been adapted—that sum may in itself be insufficient—there will be little left for other difficult situations.

On another matter, a constituent visited me two weekends ago to put the case of fathers who live apart from the mother of their children but look after the children for, say, three nights a week. The bedroom they have kept for their children is considered spare, and hence subject to the reduction in housing benefit. I do not believe that a bedroom that is occupied by one’s children for almost half the week can be described as spare. The fathers therefore face a choice between paying the weekly amount while trying to live on jobseeker’s allowance or employment and support allowance, and going into debt—those are their own words—or not having their children to stay. They all say they will do the former—go into debt—rather than not have the children to stay. I do not believe it was the original intention of the changes to force them into such a choice. We must not put obstacles in the way of fathers remaining in touch with their children. I ask the Minister to look again at the rule that does not count a bedroom used by children for two or three nights a week as part of the occupancy of the home.

The housing benefit bill rose from £11 billion in 2000-01 to £21 billion in 2010-11. Even in real terms, that is an increase of £6 billion a year. I fully appreciate the need to get a grip on this, but ultimately it is growth in the economy, improving incomes and a massive programme of building social and affordable homes, which I hope all Members will support, that will bring that bill down. In the meantime, I ask the Minister seriously to consider changing the rules as I have proposed in respect of children of parents living apart, and the minimum size of rooms that are expected to accommodate more than one child. I also ask that the Government ensure that the statement by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke when she was Minister for disabled people about there being “clear support” for disabled people to have the rooms they require is properly implemented.

At the same time, I ask the Minister to consider making an additional amount available to local councils’ DHP funds. That will give councils the opportunity to assist those whom the additional £12 or so a week, which they cannot avoid because of the lack of suitable properties to move into, takes over a tipping point at which their finances become unmanageable, potentially leading them toward eviction and homelessness.

11:13

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Esther McVey)]

It is a pleasure to take part in a debate on such an important issue, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) on securing it. It is also a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Caton. I believe that it is the first time that I have done so.

As we have heard, there is considerable interest among hon. Members in all parts of the House in housing benefit and how the benefits system supports disabled people, and it is important that we make time to discuss those issues in detail. Before I address some of the specific issues that have been raised, I will set out the Government’s approach to housing provision for disabled people.

As hon. Members will be aware, the Government are in the process of reforming the welfare system that will result in housing benefit for working-age people being replaced by universal credit. Current housing benefit arrangements include specific provisions for disabled people that mirror those for other means-tested benefits. They include, for example, a range of disability premiums, earnings disregards and permitted-work rules. With universal credit, we are simplifying the current arrangements to ensure that disabled people benefit from improved work incentives and a smoother transition into work.

My hon. Friend is right to point out that the cost of housing benefit has increased by about 50% in real terms over the past decade, with expenditure totalling £23 billion in 2011-12. That is simply unaffordable in the current economic climate. To begin to address it, the emergency Budget in June 2010 introduced a series of reforms to housing benefit paid to claimants in both the private and social rented sectors. Starting in April 2011, and finishing last month, we set up a series of reforms to local housing allowance, which is the basis for housing benefit awards made to people renting in the private sector. Those changes are intended to exert downward pressure on rents and introduce fairness into the system—for example, by setting caps on the benefit that is paid to ensure that the benefit system is not funding accommodation that many hard-working families could not afford.

Disabled people are not exempt from the reforms, but steps have been taken to provide some additional support to minimise potential adverse impacts on them. My hon. Friend mentioned the number of people affected by the social sector size criteria who are disabled. It is important to stress, however, that that reflects the general proportion of disabled people living in social sector housing overall. In answer to his question, I can confirm to my hon. Friend that the criteria allow for an extra room where a household has an overnight carer.

I am pleased to hear that Stafford borough council and South Staffordshire district council have been working proactively with tenants to identify, for example, where there may be scope for a mutual exchange. I have had other reports in the Department for Work and Pensions of such direct engagement with tenants. I must stress that many other options may be open to people, including those that they arrive at privately to deal with their own circumstances. Things that people can do—and are already doing—include moving somewhere smaller, finding the extra money required, or taking in a lodger. We are now waiving the income tax on that up to £4,250 a year. No tax would be payable on that sum. It is important to note that the private sector may have a supply of different sized properties and that people could move out of the social and into the private sector. When properties without the right number of bedrooms are not available in the social sector, they might be available in the private sector.

[Anas Sarwar]

Is the Minister seriously suggesting that people who are among the poorest and most vulnerable in our communities will be able to find £728, on average, from their annual income, to make up for the deficit in the housing benefit that they will get?

[Esther McVey]

I am not being specific about what people should or should not do. I am saying that there is an array of options, from which someone will find their best solution. The hon. Gentleman will, like me, have met people at surgeries who have said that they have come together as a family to work on the best solution for everyone. It is not a question of one person in isolation but the whole family. Many options are available. As we have said, we are living in tough financial times. What I am talking about is not something that we can take on board easily. We must just consider the fact that there are 1 million spare bedrooms in the current housing situation, but that 250,000 families live in overcrowded houses. We must ask what we can do to support those people.

[Anas Sarwar]

Will the Minister give way?

[Esther McVey]

I will proceed a bit further, and then if the hon. Gentleman wants to ask a further question he can.

There are always specific cases where the options in question may not be sensible or appropriate, and that is why we have trebled funding—a considerable amount—for discretionary housing payments, to give local authorities more flexibility to help people affected by the changes. Overall discretionary housing payment funding in 2013-14 will total £155 million. The funding has been allocated to support the bedding in of specific reforms, but we have listened to feedback from local authorities and as a result have built in flexibility that will allow authorities to allocate funding based on local needs. That flexibility includes, for example, helping disabled people who have made adaptations to their homes to remain in them, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend.

As I have said, there will be provision for those disabled people who need overnight, non-residential carers to receive additional payments for an extra bedroom. The hon. Gentleman pointed out that we are giving many types of support. The trebling of the discretionary benefit really does go to support the people most in need.

[Anas Sarwar]

On flexibility, is the Minister open to the idea of introducing a safeguard for people who cannot reasonably move to another local property because of the lack of availability and of sanctioning them only if they refuse a reasonable request? Is she open to that safeguard?

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Gentleman is speaking hypothetically. We have put in extra discretionary funds, because local councils will know exactly who those individuals are. We have put in extra money, and we have said that it is possible to move between the social and private sectors. With all the options that we have put in place, we believe that we will find solutions for all cases.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I am grateful to the Minister for her answers. Will she give us some assurance that the additional discretionary funding, which we need to look at again to see whether it is adequate, will be continued through 2014-15 and 2015-16? Often the adaptations are such that it is not possible for a disabled person to move property in the next year or two. One of my constituents has adaptations worth some £30,000. It does not make any sense for them to move from their property.

[Esther McVey]

My hon. Friend makes a good point, and I will come on to that a little bit later and explain in detail what we are doing. He will also appreciate that I cannot make spending commitments into the next Parliament. None the less, with regard to the discretionary housing payment, the Government are committed to ensuring that the reforms are well implemented. We are working closely with local authorities and the Local Government Association regarding this payment usage. As part of the review of these reforms, we are taking ongoing feedback, and I will be pleased to pass on the points raised here today and any further evidence that emerges as the reforms are rolled out. We will continue to monitor and evaluate the impact of the changes.

I should like to put it on the record that a lot of the negative impacts that people talked about last year, such as an explosion of homelessness and mass migration, have simply not emerged. We all want to ensure that there is a smooth transition and that the change is affordable. Of course we are using common sense. My hon. Friend talks about expensive modifications. We know that we have to take that into account, which is precisely why we have trebled the discretionary fund.

We have also made arguments for exempting certain categories from the social sector size criteria measure. However, we do not believe that blanket exemptions are the most effective and affordable approach to targeting resources, because they do not take into account local knowledge. We have therefore avoided exemptions where possible and favoured the discretionary housing payment, because local decision makers are best placed to make decisions based on individual circumstances.

[Ian Lucas]

The Minister is being generous in giving way. Can she foresee circumstances in which someone who requires an overnight carer is not allowed an extra room within the housing benefit provisions?

[Esther McVey]

That is precisely why we are monitoring and evaluating the scheme, and we will continue to do so for two years to see what extra support might be needed. Of course we are watching and observing what is going on. [Interruption.] I will complete my comments here. However, we are committed to undertaking the independent evaluation of all housing reforms. The first report on the private sector is due to be published later this year, and work on evaluating the social sector changes will be implemented in April, with initial findings being available next year.

I trust that I have answered many of the questions that have been raised today. On other specific matters, I will get back to my hon. Friend. As I have already said, this is an important debate, and it is crucial that we closely monitor the situation. We are considering the most vulnerable people in society, and we have a commitment to them.

[John McDonnell]

I do not want the Minister to sit down thinking that there is no housing crisis out there. She referred to the predictions on housing benefit not coming true, but they have in my constituency. I have the worst housing crisis since the second world war. Nevertheless, she has mentioned monitoring, which is critical. Will she give an assurance that that monitoring will be published regularly, so that the House can receive and debate it? The points raised by the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) are critical. We must see what is happening on the ground, because a number of local authorities might want to work with Government to plan a transition over time. There will be a number of families for whom alternative private accommodation or social housing is not available and might not be available for years. An assurance that the monitoring will be published and that we will be able to debate it in the House would be helpful.

[Esther McVey]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Of course, we have to monitor the situation, and I have confirmation from colleagues that the monitoring and evaluation will be made public. At the moment, there is much speculation about what might happen, but that is hypothetical. We do not know about that, but by monitoring closely, by introducing a discretionary fund and by working in a common-sense way with people on the ground who know best about local needs, we can get this right.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I welcome the Minister’s commitment to monitoring, which is important. Will she say a few words about fathers who, unfortunately, are separated from the mothers of their children and who are not allowed to count the presence of their children in their home for up to three nights a week as part of the occupancy of that home? That is an important point. She and I, and I think all hon. Members present, feel that it is important for children to have regular access to both their parents—in this case, to their fathers.

[Esther McVey]

Again, my hon. Friend asks a key question. The heart of the matter is that we do not want children to suffer. Children must have what is right for them, but where a tenant has non-residential children, housing benefit may already pay for a room for the child or children in the place where they usually reside. Funding an additional room in both parents’ properties could be a double provision, but discretionary payments are the best way to address specific complex cases, which we are talking about here.

I am glad that all those points have been highlighted, and they will all be closely monitored. I thank my hon. Friend for bringing such an important debate to the House.

11:28

Sitting suspended.

Housing Benefit Entitlement

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Hugh Bayley in the Chair]

14:30

[Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon, Mr Bayley. I wanted to select the rules on the under-occupancy of social housing and housing benefit entitlement, which start this April, for this debate today because the Government’s proposal is divisive legislation. In fact, it is not only divisive but arbitrary, spiteful and deeply cynical. It has been devised either by those who have no understanding, knowledge or experience of social housing and do not care, or by those who have understanding, knowledge and experience of social housing and should know better.

The under-occupancy rules say all that anyone needs to know about this Government—tax cuts for the rich and a bedroom tax for the poor. The bedroom tax is being created by a mindset that believes only those who own their own homes can live in a community and those who rent with Government support, even though many of them are in work, are deemed to be a burden on that community and not entitled to, or deserving of a home and that they should be moved at the behest of others and not themselves.

What do the under-occupancy rules mean for social housing and council tenants? If a household rents from a social landlord and is in receipt of housing benefit, and it is deemed to have one spare bedroom, the property is seen to be under-occupied. The tenant’s housing benefit is reduced by 14% for one bedroom and by 25% for two bedrooms. It has been estimated that about 660,000 tenants will lose an average of £728 a year, starting from April.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that these proposals will also affect those who are in work? I had a constituent in my surgery a couple of Saturdays ago who had been made unemployed. He had gone out and got a part-time job in a filling station. His wife is a local carer as well, and because they live in a three-bedroom house—they have lived there for 30 years—and their family have left, they will be affected by the bedroom tax. Is that fair for striving people like that?

[Phil Wilson]

It is obviously not fair, but the bedroom tax is hitting people whether or not they are in work. This regulation is just plain wrong. The reality is that if a married couple have lived in a three-bedroom house for many years and had two children who have grown up and left home, the two children’s bedrooms are now deemed to be spare. The house is seen as under-occupied and the couple’s housing benefit entitlement is cut accordingly.

[Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)]

The biggest social landlord in my city of Sunderland, Gentoo, has informed people who will be affected by this change, and even if those people are saying, “We’re happy to move to smaller premises,” there simply are not the smaller premises to move to. Is that fair?

[Phil Wilson]

That is a very good point, and it is something that I will come on to later in my speech.

As I was saying, a married couple with a three-bedroom house, which they have lived in for a long time, will need to top up their rent from another source if they want to stay in the home and obviously, since the family is receiving housing benefit, any sources of additional income are extremely limited. That is something that this cynical Government are fully aware of.

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

In my constituency, which is very young, there are a number of families who have two children of the same gender living in a three-bedroom property. Under the new rules, they would only qualify for a two-bedroom property. What would my hon. Friend’s advice be to them? Or perhaps I should ask what the Minister’s advice would be to a family who have a 15-year-old boy and a 12-year-old boy, with the 15-year-old about to turn 16 in a few months’ time, but in the meantime—from April onwards—the family will have to find that extra rent. Will that drive the family into the hands of moneylenders, or do the Government have a plan?

[Phil Wilson]

We should wait until the Minister responds to the debate to find out exactly what the Government propose for that situation, but I do not think that it will be very much really.

Basically, the hypothetical family who I am talking about could be forced to leave the family home, and that is exactly what it is—a family home, not just a house. They will have no space for their grandchildren, who will not be able to stay with their grandparents. For families who are forced to downsize because of the cuts in housing benefit and who are in need of a one-bedroom property, the National Housing Federation has found that, although approximately 180,000 social tenants are under-occupying two-bedroom homes, less than 85,000 one-bedroom social homes are available.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way; he will have a few applications to intervene on him, given the interest in the debate. I completely agree with his analysis of the general impact of the proposal, but will he say something about the complete lack of any exemption? Foster carers, who are doing everything they can for society, will be hit by the proposal between placements. It is absolutely unconscionable. Surely, this cannot be the way for the Government to proceed.

[Phil Wilson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will come on to foster carers in a little while.

The lack of mobility in this sector—between two-bedroom properties and one-bedroom properties, for example—is a product not of tenants needlessly under-occupying larger homes, but of the logjam created by a national shortage of affordable homes, particularly two and one-bedroom properties.

[Dame Anne Begg (Aberdeen South) (Lab)]

I spoke to the Glasgow Housing Association last week, which is the largest provider of social housing anywhere in the UK. It reckons that the shortfall that it will face could mean that 700 houses that it would have built each year will now not be built. So, rather than helping with the housing shortage, the proposal is making things worse.

[Phil Wilson]

That is another good point. I will come on to discuss that situation, which is also affecting my own local social housing providers in County Durham.

I understand that the Department for Work and Pensions has recognised the lack of available smaller properties. In its impact assessment, it notes that there is a mismatch between household size and the availability of suitable homes in the social sector for under-occupying claimants to downsize. I will now look at how that will affect County Durham, especially my constituents in Sedgefield.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. In north Lincolnshire, North Lincolnshire Homes—the social housing provider—has 1,500 people who are deemed to be under-occupying properties and only 40 single-bedroom properties become available every year. People in huge distress are coming to see us about this matter, and it is very distressing.

[Phil Wilson]

It is very distressing, and the point that my hon. Friend raises again about the lack of one-bedroom properties will be starkly set out in the next part of my speech.

Livin, which used to be called Sedgefield Borough Homes, has about 8,500 properties, and about 1,609 of those households will be affected by the bedroom tax: 1,365 households are under-occupied by one bedroom and the remainder are under-occupied by two bedrooms. Livin only has 204 available one-bedroom properties. East Durham Homes—another housing association, which covers the communities of Wingate, Wheatley Hill, Thornley and Deaf Hill in my constituency—has said that it would take seven years for it to re-house all the tenants affected by the bedroom tax. For Livin, the period required to re-house affected tenants would be much longer. Both East Durham Homes and Livin estimate that the bedroom tax would mean that the 2,977 of their households that would be affected would have to find almost £1.8 million from elsewhere to go towards paying the rent on their existing homes, or the people in those households would have to go into arrears or move out, but there are not enough one-bedroom properties.

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

My constituency, which is a neighbouring constituency to that of my hon. Friend, is similarly affected. There is another housing association in my constituency, Dale and Valley Homes, and there are a further 875 people affected in this way. Some of those individuals are being pushed to live on as little as £23 a week. Does he not think that that is utterly disgraceful?

[Phil Wilson]

At the beginning of the 21st century, it obviously is. Bishop Auckland, the constituency that my hon. Friend represents, shares some of the statistics regarding Livin, because it covers both our constituencies, and it is concerned because of the proposal that its rent arrears could double from 4% to 8% in the future. In a briefing note prepared by Livin, it said:

“Rent arrears will increase, affecting cash flow, which could mean that the loan facility made available to Livin for improvements and development of the housing stock may be required to fund administration. This could only be considered as a temporary position and Livin would need to readjust its spending to avoid borrowing for ongoing day to day costs.”

I said earlier that the impact of these new rules would be arbitrary on families and communities. Here are a couple of examples. The DWP’s equality impact assessment shows that 66% of claimants who will be affected by the bedroom tax are disabled. Although recipients of disability living allowance are exempt from the overall benefit cap, the DWP has chosen not to exempt them from the bedroom tax.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning disabled people. He may be aware that Ministers have made much of access to discretionary housing payments for disabled people. Indeed, Ministers have implied that the money has been allocated specifically to meet the needs of disabled people. But, of course, the money is temporary and limited, and the discretion of local authorities whether to pay only to disabled people cannot be fettered. Is it not totally misleading to imply that discretionary housing payments will in any way compensate for what has been lost?

[Phil Wilson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will address that in my speech, which many hon. Members seem to have read. The Minister will probably say that that budget is being increased, but it is not ring-fenced.

A man came into my constituency office. He is divorced, and he cares for his children for part of the week. He receives housing benefit and lives in a two-bedroom house. The children’s mother, however, is deemed to be the main carer, so his housing benefit will be docked by 14%. He will need to move into a one-bedroom property, if he can find one. His main problem is that, if he moves into a one-bedroom house, how will he look after his children for part of the week?

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

Is it not extraordinary that no Conservative Members are here, other than the Parliamentary Private Secretary, to defend the policy?

A couple came to my constituency office, and they live in a specially adapted bungalow. The wife has to have morphine through the evening, so the husband has to sleep in another room. Under the proposals, they will have to move out of that specially adapted bungalow, all because some politicians want to say that they are getting tough on scroungers. That is not about fairness; it is about cheap, nasty politics.

[Phil Wilson]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point with which I do not think any Opposition Member would disagree.

The gentleman who came into my constituency office is an example that exposes the modern Conservative party and, indeed, the coalition. Conservatives like to see themselves as the party of the family, but they are not the party of poor people who need support to keep their family together.

To address those issues, the Government have offered additional discretionary housing payments to help people with disabilities remain in properties adapted for their needs. As those payments are often limited to just a few months, however, they are not a viable long-term solution, because they fail to give people with disabilities the assurance that their housing needs are secure. Also, the payments are made from budget-limited discretionary funds. The payment budget distributed by local authorities will come under significant pressure, following major cuts to local housing allowance for private sector tenants, and local authorities might choose to prioritise those who are at risk of homelessness, rather than social tenants with disabilities.

The Fostering Network—the voice of foster carers throughout the country—successfully campaigned for a £5 million addition to the discretionary housing fund to compensate foster carers who may have their housing benefit cut from April. The network is hearing from foster carers who have received under-occupancy letters. Some housing departments either do not know about the fund or will not use the money for foster carers. The network reports that 9,000 foster families are needed to meet the foster carer shortfall in 2013. There is already a recruitment crisis, and the network is concerned that the situation will worsen as a result of housing benefit reform.

The Minister will no doubt say that the under-occupancy rules will bring the social housing sector into line with the private sector, but the new rules are retrospective and penalise people who brought up their families in a council house in which they may have lived for years—the average tenancy for social housing is some seven years. The bedroom tax penalises couples who have done the right thing and who over the years may have spent their own money on decorating and maintaining the property. The property is not theirs to keep, but they have respect for what is their home anyway.

No doubt the Minister will also say that the change is required to help to pay off the deficit, because the Government expect the bedroom tax to save £450 million to £500 million. The Government’s plans are spiteful and cynical, because the only way that the £500 million will be saved is if those who live in under-occupied properties cut their standard of living still further by trying to remain in their home, by not downsizing and by paying the additional rent. The Government are trying to get tenants to pay their own housing benefit out of money that they do not have.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

My hon. Friend’s constituency, like mine, is a recruitment area for the British armed forces. Is he aware of the case raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop)? A mother, whose son has joined the armed forces and is fighting in Afghanistan, will be hit by the tax because her son is not at home and she has an extra bedroom. Is that fair from a Government who say they are standing up for our armed forces?

[Phil Wilson]

That is not the way to treat the armed forces, especially when they are on active service in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The Government say that they are trying to save money, but that is impossible for the great majority, who will be forced to choose between their home and a basic standard of living. There is a shortage of one-bedroom properties. If people choose to move into the private sector, rents and housing benefit claims might be higher. The changes hit right across the board, including members of the armed forces, the disabled, the vulnerable and sick people who sometimes, but not always, need a carer.

[Meg Hillier]

In my constituency, private sector rents are so much higher than in the social rented sector that moving is not an option for people in such circumstances. Does my hon. Friend agree that in my constituency, and I am sure in other constituencies too, many people do not understand that the change will happen from 1 April, or from when their tenancy renews? Does he foresee a big social problem arising from the Government’s lack of ability to communicate this invidious policy?

[Phil Wilson]

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. As MPs, we are seeing a great increase in benefit casework. As we get closer to 1 April, the casework will get even harder.

The under-occupancy rules are the manifestation of the Government’s appalling manipulation of the welfare debate. The language is the same old narrative that we have had down the ages: to secure their own position, the Tories pit one section of the community against the other. Once, it was the deserving poor and the undeserving poor; now it is strivers versus shirkers.

This legislation is unbecoming of a civilised society: it is born of ignorance and raised by prejudice. What is deserving of a civilised society is a new house-building programme, decent jobs, a growing economy and one nation in which we truly are all in it together. The legislation is wrong and should be repealed at the earliest opportunity.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

I intend to start the wind-ups at 3.40 pm, which gives us 53 minutes or so. Eleven Members are on my list as seeking to speak, so I will impose a time limit of five minutes to begin with. I warn Members that that might leave some of them at the end with slightly less than five minutes, and if there are interventions even less still.

14:39

[Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on securing this important debate.

This policy, more than any other, except perhaps direct payment, will have a major impact on local housing associations and social housing providers. Wigan and Leigh Housing manages 22,600 properties, and 68% of our tenants are on housing benefit. Of those properties, 4,571 are under-occupied and in receipt of housing benefit. Nearly £3 million in housing benefit payments will be lost to that social housing provider, and our shortfall is in one-bedroom and two-bedroom accommodation. For example, our one-bedroom stock is 5,591. In 2011-12, 852 properties were void, and demand for those properties was 2,089 people. We simply cannot re-house people in one-bedroom properties.

If, as predicted by the Cambridge Centre for Housing and Planning Research study, 32% wish to downsize and move to the private sector, that will not offer any savings. In fact, more will be paid for a two-bedroom property in the private sector in Wigan than is paid for a three-bedroom property in the social sector. We have an oversupply of three-bedroom properties. The cumulative effect of the council tax changes will be some £3.50 a week for exactly the same group of people. The study estimates that 26% of tenants will not be able to pay the under-occupancy charge. If 42%, as estimated by the study, do not pay, the ultimate sanction will be eviction.

Has the Minister tested the courts’ view of a tenant who has requested a move, for whom no property is available and who cannot pay? What will be the courts’ opinion? If such people are evicted, based on an average eviction cost of £6,852 per person, my local social housing provider will lose £13.1 million. That £13.1 million will not be spent on building houses, repaying debt or improving stock for tenants. Wigan has done some modelling and made some assumptions about what will happen if the under-occupancy tax goes through as planned, and the change will cost the Department for Work and Pensions £229,000 per annum and, as I said, the authority a possible £30 million in eviction costs. There is no saving for the Department—it is not a policy aimed to save money.

Moreover, as my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield mentioned, the reassurances about the discretionary housing payments will certainly not meet people’s shortfall. The total budget for Wigan is £456,000, which will assist with only 15% of the charge. If the amendment proposed by Lord Best was agreed—a penalty only for under-occupation by two bedrooms or more—the situation in Wigan would be mitigated somewhat and the DWP savings would be delivered. In Wigan, if one bedroom could be under-occupied, the savings to the DWP would be £371,000 and the scheme would reduce the number of tenants affected to about 1,000, potential bad debt to £249,000 and eviction costs to close to £3 million. That is not a great policy, and it would pass central savings to the local budget, but it would be more manageable in areas such as Wigan.

What modelling has been made for areas such as Wigan of that amendment and the increased savings for the DWP? Has all the modelling been London-centric? Will the Minister consider looking at Wigan and other areas in the north and north-west, where there is a shortage of smaller housing, to mitigate at least the effect on communities and tenants?

The under-occupation tax is trying to solve a problem that simply does not exist in my area and other such areas. In doing so, it is creating massive problems for individuals, social landlords and communities.

14:52

[Lisa Nandy (Wigan) (Lab)]

I am losing my voice, as you can probably tell, Mr Bayley, but I was so upset and incensed by the proposals that I am doing my best to speak on behalf of the 4,000 Wigan households that will be affected from April. Collectively, those households will have to find nearly £55,000 a week in extra rent. I am clear that the vast majority will not be able to manage, so they will have to downsize. As we have just heard, however, we have a problem: we do not have one and two-bedroom properties available. The demand for them already far outstrips demand for other properties; for example, 62 households are waiting for four-bedroom homes and 2,000 for one-bedroom flats.

Put simply, downsizing is not an option, so tenants will be forced into the private sector, where rents are between £20 and £40 a month higher. If only half of tenants make that move and claim the local housing allowance, the Department for Work and Pensions will not save a single penny, but those families will have had their lives disrupted, leaving the homes that they have grown up in and with children forced to move schools and childhoods destroyed.

I have little doubt that Ministers are aware of such implications of the policy. Last year, I wrote to the then Minister to ask whether a constituent would be expected to move in April—his mother had recently died from cancer, leaving him under-occupying, and he is now suffering from terminal cancer himself. The Minister did not give me a commitment that my constituent, a man with only up to two years to live, would not have to move. The policy, to use the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson), is one of the most spiteful and callous that I have ever seen enacted by a Government.

In Wigan, it is not clear whether people will be able to find homes in the private sector, because larger properties make up 75% of the stock. It will take 33 years, at current building rates, for private and social housing collectively to meet needs. The situation is unclear, but if those people simply cannot afford to live in their properties, they may well have grounds for being re-housed as unintentionally homeless. Can the Minister tell me where he expects a housing authority such as mine, without access to smaller properties, to put those people? How on earth can creating this unnecessary, callous revolving door of homelessness, destroying people’s lives in the process, possibly be a moral policy to pursue?

Finally, I want to make a specific point about foster children, to which my hon. Friend alluded. It is absolutely scandalous and a damning indictment of the Government’s lack of commitment to the most vulnerable children that, apparently, no thought at all was given to foster children when the policy was devised. Foster children simply do not count—they are invisible—for the purposes of the policy and the purposes of a spare room. The money that has since been made available through a discretionary fund, as my hon. Friend said, is not widely known about among foster carers or local authorities. Furthermore, that pot amounts to only £100 per child, which is woefully inadequate for the foster children already in the system, let alone for the many more whom the Minister’s colleagues in the Department for Education are rightly seeking to place.

We have a huge shortage of foster carers in this country, and the situation for children waiting in the care system must be urgently rectified. Where is the thought given to those children, or the commitment from their Government? Why did the Government overlook those children in the first place? Why do those children simply not count? Why has so little money been made available? Despite concerns expressed by the Under-Secretary of State for Education, the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), why has the policy not been reversed? Why was the money for such children not ring-fenced? It might not even be used to help their situation. Can the Minister, if he will not reverse such appalling regulations, at least commit to amending them, so that they do not make the situation worse for some of the most disadvantaged children in this country?

14:56

[Rosie Cooper (West Lancashire) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Bayley. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on securing the debate, which gives Members the opportunity to highlight the abject failure and inherent contradictions that lie at the heart of the Government’s housing benefit reforms. Lord Freud, in response to hon. Members’ letters, suggests that the reforms are aimed at encouraging mobility within the social rented sector, at strengthening work incentives and at making better use of social housing. My response is clear: they don’t, they won’t and they can’t.

I will highlight, through constituents’ cases, how the policy is nothing more than a crude and naked attempt to place an ever greater burden on some of the most vulnerable people in our communities by slashing budgets. I get the sense that, as an abstract idea, reducing the welfare bill by cutting housing benefit to all the supposed scroungers living in houses far bigger than they need is a policy that will press all the Government’s public relations buttons. The problem is that we are not talking about abstractions; we are talking about families, people’s homes and perhaps forcing people to choose between food, heating and paying the rent.

I have 103 families affected, and I wish to race through three examples. One such constituent is accepted by the council as unintentionally homeless. She has a five-year-old child, is pregnant and is in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance. She could be a perfect example of the type of person whom the Government are seeking to characterise, stigmatise and castigate. Yet, when the local authority comes back to her, it is with an offer of a four-bedroom property, so her housing benefit will be reduced by 25%. That constituent and her young family will go from being homeless to facing extra financial burdens. In the long term, that means increasing her debt, so she faces possible eviction by the very people who gave her the house, because she cannot pay the 25% contribution required as a result of being given a property that was too big in the first place.

West Lancashire borough council, as the housing body, is, by its allocation policy, complicit in the inappropriate letting of properties. That allocation policy perpetuates the exact problem that the Government claim that they intend to solve by reforming housing benefit. If I were being kind, I could suggest that the case highlights the fact that social landlords and councils do not have the range of housing stock to meet the challenges that the Government are setting. People are making short-term decisions to put a roof over their heads and neglecting the long-term consequences of under-occupancy. Why is my constituent left to face the consequences of a decision that will be forced on her?

My second example is that of a disabled man living in a two-bedroom property—it was a three-bedroom property, but it was adapted. His daughter is in the armed forces, so he technically has two bedrooms empty. If he moves to a smaller flat—there are none available, by the way—the council will have to pay for adaptations to be made to the new flat, while removing the adaptations from the original flat to make it available for re-letting.

Another case involves a constituent who is separated. He has his children to stay on alternate weekends and midweek. The Government say they defend families and put them at the core of what they do, but this policy does not show that at all. The February 2012 impact assessment says:

“savings in Housing Benefit expenditure will only be realised in full if social tenants do not seek to move from the homes they are under-occupying”.

Rather than wanting people to move, the Government would prefer them, ideally, to stay where they are and pay the increased costs, even if they do not have the money.

This policy is absolutely unfair, and that has been shown by the contributions made so far. The Government are abjectly failing to offer people the range of accommodation or the jobs that would enable them to alter their situations. I do not call it fair when the Government place greater burdens on the most vulnerable.

15:01

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) for securing this important debate on a critical issue. I want to talk about two families who came to see me in Rochdale, but they are just two of the many who have come to see me. I also want to speak briefly about the impact on community cohesion and the role of housing providers.

Mr Berry and his family came to see me relatively recently. After a serious accident 17 years ago, Mr Berry and his wife had no choice but to take the council home offered to them. Since then, they have brought up their two children—a boy and a girl—in the three-bedroom property. They have made modifications, and they have made the house into their home. They are very much part of the local community. However, the Government’s bedroom tax means that they will have to move out of their house. After 17 years, the family are being pulled out of the community in which they have lived for so long. That leads me to the first point I want to make.

Families who have lived for decades on council estates in places such as Rochdale are being forced to move. Homes are being taken away from people, and they will be filled by Asian or Afro-Caribbean families, because that is the nature of the demographics in places such as Rochdale. That will have a direct impact on community cohesion, and that impact should not be underestimated. It will create tensions, and there is the potential for conflict. The Government’s impact assessment on this policy took no account whatever of community cohesion. It is as though the policy has not been thought through.

Let me turn to the second family who came to see me, just before Christmas. The husband is a paraplegic. They have lived in their property for 15 years. The council has spent £18,500 adapting it. It has three bedrooms, one of which is used to accommodate a lift. The other two bedrooms are used by each of the individuals in the home. They have been visited by Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, and they have been told that they will have to pay £22 a week extra or they will have to move out. The family described that as the last straw. They have been through so much in their lives. The lady was crying in my surgery on the eve of Christmas, because of the Government’s policy.

I explained to the family the possibility of receiving temporary discretionary housing payments, but they are not enough. The Government do not seem to understand the misery that they are creating. They have housing providers such as RBH running around implementing their policy, which is having a devastating effect on families and communities. That leads me to my second point.

Housing providers such as RBH have an excellent track record in managing their stock. RBH has mixed communities, because it focuses on creating a balance. It takes into account people’s individual needs, and it constantly reviews under-occupancy and acts on it. The Government should leave housing providers to manage their stock; it is not for the Government to micro-manage such things.

Let me finish by making two important points. First, there is the potential for community conflict as a result of this policy. Secondly, if this is such a good Government policy, why is there not a single Conservative or Liberal Democrat Back-Bench MP here to defend it?

15:05

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

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on bringing such an important issue before us. It will have huge unintended and unpredictable consequences for at least 80,000 people in Scotland, some of whom are among the most economically impoverished in our community.

The problem with the way in which the Government have sought to frame the debate on changes to the occupancy rules is that it fails to acknowledge that that debate takes place against the backdrop of changing population demographics and underlying problems in the supply of affordable housing. It is also being implemented against the backdrop of a labour market in which jobseekers far outnumber vacancies, and increasing numbers of jobs are seasonal, temporary or based on zero-hours contracts. All this talk about subsidised spare bedrooms is yet another attempt to vilify people on low incomes in a vain effort to justify their having to pay the price for the financial crisis and the double-dip recession.

To debate this issue properly, we need to acknowledge that there is a fundamental mismatch between the social housing stock available and the needs of tenants and prospective tenants. Most of our social housing stock was built at a time when families were much larger and the population was less mobile. Across Scotland, about 44% of social tenants require a one-bedroom home, but only 24% of the homes available are that size. In other words, many tenants have no choice but to live in a home that is larger than they need. An estimated 69,000 tenants in Scotland cannot currently be accommodated in a suitably sized house in the social rented sector.

In Aberdeenshire—my own patch—we have a growing population and a depleted stock of public sector housing, and there is a chronic shortage of affordable property to rent. There are more than 7,000 people on the waiting list. Many of them have little prospect of being offered a house any time soon. Although Aberdeenshire has a much higher percentage of one-bedroom properties than most local authorities, it still does not meet demand. People desperate for a house will take any house offered, whether or not it is the appropriate size.

The main issue I want to talk about is the unintended consequences of the bedroom tax on individuals, social landlords and the wider economy. It is hard to predict how tenants in receipt of housing benefit will respond to the cuts, bearing in mind that the real-terms cut in working-age benefits will also put the finances of most of them under considerable strain. We can probably assume that some of those who can move, will move. Some might seek to absorb the cuts within their existing finances, while some might take out loans to cover the gap between their rent and their income, which is a risky short-term strategy. It is highly unlikely that housing association tenants will mitigate the impact by taking in lodgers, because many are explicitly prevented from doing so by the terms of their tenancy agreements. We have to face the fact that some tenants will fall into arrears. When we consider the bedroom tax in tandem with the move away from direct payments to landlords and other benefit cuts, we have a recipe for significant problems with rent arrears, and a possible rise in evictions in the social and private rented sectors.

Housing associations fear that financial instability and cash-flow problems could affect their credit ratings, and I echo the point made by the Chair of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg). Social landlords need to be able to borrow to invest in new properties and maintain their existing properties. If lenders start to see them as a higher risk, their borrowing costs will rise, which will inevitably put inflationary pressures on the rents of existing tenants and thwart the investment that is so badly needed.

The bedroom tax threatens to undermine the progress that has been made in Scotland over recent years in introducing new, affordable social housing to deal with rising demand. It is a mean and miserable measure that will cause real financial hardship to people on low incomes. It will drive people into rent arrears and into debts they will struggle to repay. It will also drive people from their homes and uproot them from their communities. Too many of the people affected by the measure are moving in and out of low-paid, insecure, temporary short-term work. Because of the bedroom tax, not only will they have no job security; they will lose housing stability as well. Coming hard on the heels of real-terms cuts in financial support for low-income households, the changes will exacerbate our existing economic malaise, by taking money out of the very communities that need it most. They will make it more difficult for non-governmental actors to invest in quality, affordable housing.

I urge Ministers to think again and to look at the Benches that are empty of people prepared to defend the policy. If Ministers are devoid of empathy, I encourage them to take a hard-headed look at the unintended economic impact of the bedroom tax, and to consider the unacceptable social costs.

15:09

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on obtaining this important and well supported debate.

I quite understand that at a time of housing shortage it is important, particularly in Stockport, which has more than 7,000 people on the social housing waiting list, to ensure that people have the appropriate housing and to address issues of under-occupancy. My problem with the policy is the way it is being implemented, and the lack of local flexibility for the families and individuals who, through no fault of their own, will be disproportionately affected. It is always a problem with blanket policy changes. No central edict can take account of people’s varying individual circumstances, and inevitably the result will be that some will be put in desperate circumstances.

I will give only one example. I have a constituent who lives in a two-bedroom flat and who receives housing benefit. He is under the care of Manchester royal infirmary renal team, and is about to start dialysis at home, while awaiting a kidney transplant. He needs the extra room for the dialysis machine and to store fluids. He told me:

“My concern is when the new rule comes into effect this year, I’ll need to downgrade to a one bedroom flat as the housing benefit won’t pay for the extra room”.

I took up his case and have been told that he is not exempt, but that if he had an overnight carer staying in his flat he would be exempt. I am sure that the Minister would agree with me that it is very disruptive for someone who has a long-term illness to move home, and possibly area. I do not think that the Government intended the policy to have such an adverse effect on seriously ill and vulnerable individuals. However, part of the problem is the lack of flexibility given to organisations such as Stockport Homes to respond in a way that gives them discretion in those very difficult cases.

Stockport has 1,500 tenants affected by the rule, who now need rehousing in one-bedroom flats; but we have a turnover of only 300 one-bedroom properties a year. Where are people expected to go? The alternative, of course, is the private rented sector, but recently there has been an increase in private rented sector repossessions in Stockport, and landlords are not keen on taking people in receipt of housing benefit. Also, we have a smaller private rented sector than elsewhere. That means that people will inevitably have to move out of the area.

Different areas have had different local housing policies. For example, under previous housing policies, families in Stockport have been offered a three-bedroom flat or house if they have a boy and a girl both over five years old. However, the new policy means that if they receive housing benefit they can have a three-bedroom flat only if they have a boy and a girl over 10, so families currently living in three-bedroom flats or houses in my constituency will be hit by the rule. Moving out will be very disruptive for children, who will have to change schools. They will lose their friends and their parents will lose family and community links. Often, those are the very families that other agencies are concerned to support in a settled environment.

It does not make sense to me that the policy of one Department can so adversely affect the policy of another. Localism, and local partnerships working together to support families, should mean that some flexibility is given to local social landlords about the implementation of the policy. That would mitigate some of the disruptive impact on families who, through no fault of their own, were rehoused under previous housing policies.

[Kate Green]

On the point about discretion, the local authority will be able to use the discretionary housing payment, to the extent that there is money in the pot; but does my hon. Friend agree that it will be first come, first served? If her constituents’ circumstances are presented late in the financial year, there will be no money to enable the discretion to be exercised.

[Ann Coffey]

My hon. Friend makes an important point; and the payment is meant to be temporary. It will not support someone on a long-term dialysis programme.

Finally, it is difficult for Stockport Homes to let two-bedroom flats, and that is the reason for the current under-occupancy. Now it is going to have to advertise outside the area for tenants for those properties. It is a strange social policy that results in people having to leave the area where they have family and community links to make way for people to come in, from outside, to an area where they have no such links. That is another unintended but serious consequence of the proposals. My plea to the Minister is that he will consider giving social landlords some discretion so that the worst of the consequences to vulnerable individuals and families, who we all agree should not be affected, can be mitigated.

15:16

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

I too congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on securing this important debate.

One of the justifications for the changes is that they will bring about a better use of currently available housing stock and that somehow penalties for under-occupancy will force tenants to leave their homes—I stress they are homes, not houses—releasing two-bedroom properties and thereby alleviating overcrowding. The theory might get off the ground if there was evidence that such exchanges were possible and practical; but the evidence is that whereas 180,000 social tenants are allegedly under-occupying, just under 68,000 single-bedroom properties became available last year. We have heard today that it would take an age to achieve what is intended. There simply are not the properties to go round. That analysis does not even begin to take into consideration new entrants to the market. The waiting lists are considerable. The policy simply does not stack up.

In Middlesbrough the policy will have an impact on 2,410 claimants. The reduction in benefits across the piece will be something short of £1.5 million. Of course in the areas of my constituency where people are already struggling, and finding things hard, the additional burden will be the final straw for some. There will be untold misery. I heard from Citizens Advice recently about my constituent David Holdsworth, who lives in a three-bedroom property with his wife and severely disabled 33-year-old daughter. He is paralysed from the waist down and has continence issues. His wife is his full-time carer and sleeps in the spare room. Because of his disability it is not practical for her to stay with him. They have been informed that the bedroom tax will affect him, because they have a spare room. He cannot afford the cut to his benefits, and the solution that has been put to them is that he and his daughter should move into a home and his wife should move into a one-bedroom property, breaking up the family.

Another example concerns a gentleman who lives in a three-bedroom property. He is the father of triplets and his three daughters live with their mother, but during the school term they stay with him for periods in the week. One of his daughters is autistic, and he says that she needs her own room, for reasons specific to the family. According to the bedroom tax he has two spare rooms, and his benefit will be cut by nearly £30 a week.

Some weeks ago my hon. Friend and I called at the door of a lady in Pallister park in my constituency, who was living in what had been her family home. She and her husband and daughter had lived there 38 years. Her husband had passed away, and her daughter had moved on to life with a husband and family. My constituent has been told, after 38 years, that she has a spare room and must leave. In reality, that resource—that home—is used. She is a grandma and takes the two children so her daughter can go out to work. Now she is being told she must leave the house. No one-bedroom properties are available to her, so her only option is to go miles away, and disrupt that family unit totally and utterly. That is a consequence of this terrible measure.

Anxiety is an issue. Not everyone knows what is coming, but many people are getting used to the idea and are knocking on the doors of constituency offices, and going to their citizens advice bureau. The terror and worry of thinking that they will lose their home is something that hon. Members who should be in the empty seats on the Government Benches do not begin to understand.

Niall Cooper, national co-ordinator for Church Action on Poverty said:

“There is a real danger that people will be pushed into the hands of loan sharks by the housing benefit cuts…For some this will push them over the edge”.

We know where they are going with the annual percentage rates that they may face—into spiralling debt with homelessness on the horizon. This dreadful provision should be revoked immediately, and people should come to their senses before it is too late.

15:19

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) for this debate. We could be here for much longer, as is increasingly the case with our debates on these so-called reforms. I hope that when the Minister replies, he will not waste time pretending that the aim of the measure is to re-allocate social housing. There are other ways of doing that, and building more houses is one of the more important ones. However, the measure does not do that. If every local authority successfully reshuffled people in houses, almost certainly the same proportion would be on housing benefit, so there would be no saving. The Government have the saving in their budget, so it is not about that and they should not bother to pretend that it is.

A constituent who is in her 50s lives in a two-bedroom housing association house near the city centre, and has been there for six years. She has received a letter suggesting that she could take in a lodger. Her second bedroom is very much a single bedroom and very small. I do not know whether most people who support the measure ever go into the sort of houses that are being built. The kitchen is off the living room, which is fine for a family, but how does that work with a lodger who may be a stranger? Not only would she be sharing a bathroom, perhaps with a younger person whom she had never previously met, she would be sharing a kitchen off the living room. That is not even semi-practical, and my constituent was outraged at the prospect, but £50 from her benefit is very steep.

Many local authorities will do their best to help people, as will housing associations. They will look at the allocation policy to see whether they can make things easier, although they will merely be moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. They may manage to move some people, but the majority of homeless applicants are single people who will have to be housed in one-bedroom houses if they need housing benefit. Local authorities will be juggling one group of people with another. Even if some tenants in two-bedroom houses are moved into one-bedroom houses, homeless people who are waiting for one-bedroom houses but cannot be moved into those two-bedroom houses will wait even longer.

This week, I looked at what was available not just in my constituency, but throughout my city. Some 36 one-bedroom properties are advertised. The council and all the housing associations, bar two very small ones, advertise together. Ten of those properties are sheltered housing, and people who are not eligible cannot be housed in those houses, so that is 10 out of the way already. Another 11 properties are ground-floor flats, which are mostly allocated to people with what is called gold priority—top medical priority—for housing, because they are on the ground floor and if a ramp is necessary it can be put in.

Some people with gold priority may also be affected by the bedroom tax, which might be convenient, but the chances are that they will not. If we give those ground-floor flats to able-bodied people who do not need them, people who are waiting to get out of a third or fourth-floor flat for medical reasons will become angry. People frequently bend my ear about that if they think it is happening. People who must be moved because of the bedroom tax cannot be prioritised.

That leaves 15 houses available for let this week. A one-bedroom third-floor flat has attracted 110 online bids—that is not the total because paper bids can also be made—since last Friday. A one-bedroom first-floor flat in the city centre attracted 303 bids. Even a one-bedroom flat in a multi-storey building has attracted 35 bids. Those are active bidders, not people on a waiting list that might be described as not real. Those people are probably not yet affected by the bedroom tax, but the houses are simply not available. The real reason for the spiralling housing benefit bill is not under-occupancy of social housing; it is the huge expansion of the private rented sector and its high rents. That is what the Government should be addressing to bring down the housing benefit bill.

15:25

[Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)]

This is the third debate I have attended on this issue in the past two days, which gives an indication of its seriousness. The Minister replied to one of those debates yesterday so he should be increasingly aware of the concern about it. I shall focus on the occupancy provisions as they affect disabled people, because we have heard much from other hon. Members about other issues.

I shall refer to two cases, having been approached by parents of adults with disabilities who will be profoundly and specifically affected by the changes. One, Mrs Rosemary Burslem, asked me to specify the particulars of her son’s case. She is in her 60s and has an adult child, David, who has severe disabilities. He has autism and needs overnight sleep-in staff, as well as one-to-one staff support during the day and two-to-one support when he goes out in the community.

In the view of David’s mother, who has looked after him for many years, it would be inappropriate for him to share a house with anyone with a learning disability because his behaviour is very challenging. He regularly takes food out of the fridge, as well as cutlery and crockery to bedrooms for no apparent reason. He flushes the toilet regularly, and switches electrical items on and off. His behaviour is regularly obsessional, which makes it virtually impossible for him to share accommodation with anyone. David has what Mrs Burslem describes as mega-tantrums. She says they are like the tantrums of the terrible twos, but 30 times worse because he is in his 30s. He is angry, frustrated and feels unwell, and is unable to work or live easily with other people. He then acts for no apparent reason, and all that makes it extremely difficult for him to live with anyone else.

The difficulty with the proposals is that they do not recognise or take account of such circumstances. I know that there are discretionary housing payments, but the reality is that that family is coping now with the uncertainty arising from the proposal.

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Without full details of the case it is difficult to discuss it, but the hon. Gentleman said that the lady is in her 60s. Will he clarify whether she is above or below state pension age?

[Ian Lucas]

She does not live with David, so I am not sure whether that is relevant.

The problem is that the proposal is causing uncertainty to the family now, and there is no certainty about whether discretionary housing payments will be for an extended period or affect them permanently. I will forward full details of the case to the Minister. I do not expect a specific answer now.

I have been contacted about another case of adult parents who share a house with an individual who suffers from spina bifida and hydrocephalus. An additional room in their house is used for the storage of oxygen and other disability aids, and a separate room is used as a living room by the individual concerned, who has specific and profound additional needs. Under these proposals, none of the particular circumstances for those individuals is taken into account, and they are some of the people who we all think—and I am sure the Minister thinks—should have our support, but they have no guarantee that they will continue to receive it. The fact is that this set of proposals is creating enormous worry for people who have huge burdens in caring for people whom they care profoundly about. They have contributed enormously to society by helping to look after those people for very many years, and we are letting them down badly.

I implore the Minister to look at the particular applications of the rules in those cases to ensure that those people can be looked after. When they came to me and said, “Look into these matters,” I could not believe for one moment that the system would not include discretion to cover individual cases such as those. The proposals are ill-conceived and are causing enormous distress up and down the country. The Government, and I am sure the Minister, did not intend to create such situations. He needs to look at the proposals again.

I heard the Minister’s response yesterday, and in it, he referred to the deficit, but the reality is that the Government, at the same time as they are letting those people down, have chosen to give a tax cut to the richest people in the country. That is the type of political choice that we all have to make, and the reality is that the Minister has supported that choice. He needs to get his act together to change his approach and support the people who need support, and not the people who have most.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

All Members have been very disciplined in their speeches, so we are almost on time. It seems to me that in a debate of this kind it would be a shame, and wrong, to cut the time for the two remaining Back Benchers, so they will each have five minutes, and the Front Benchers therefore will have nine minutes each.

15:32

[Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Bayley, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on securing the debate.

Like other hon. Members, over the past few months, I have been contacted by many of my constituents who simply do not know what to do about the policy’s implications. There is not a smaller house for them to move into, and they are not going to be able to afford their rent.

One of my constituents lives in a three-bedroom house, which he needs, as he looks after his children at weekends—similar to some other examples we have heard—but his housing benefit will be cut. If he has to move to a one-bedroom house, does it mean that it is right that his children only get to see him if they all sleep in the living room at weekends? Where should they do their homework? Would he even get access to see his children if he does not have somewhere for them to sleep, if the courts were involved in making a decision?

I have also been contacted by a couple who foster up to six children at a time, and again, they are not exempt from the cut. Is the Government’s policy honestly to cut housing benefit for foster parents, which means that they have to downsize and that they cannot foster children any more? What on earth are the Minister’s plans for the children who will then not be able to be placed with foster parents? Another constituent has sent me his monthly expenditure breakdown. The only thing he has left to cut is his contents insurance, and even then, that will not make up the difference.

What about tenants whose house has been specially adapted for them? Councils do not have the money to adapt another tranche of houses for all the people who have an extra bedroom. Some councils are considering knocking down a whole block of flats—from two-bedroom flats into one-bedroom flats—to try and deal with this. The Minister is nodding his head. Does he honestly think that that is what councils should be spending their money on? Okay, he does. We have that on record. I am a bit shocked about that.

I also want to raise the impact of the bedroom tax on serving members of the armed forces and their families, as alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones). A prisoner can be away from home for up to 52 weeks and not have their housing benefit docked, but if someone is a serving member of the armed forces, their housing benefit will be docked if they are away for 13 weeks or more. It is astonishing that Ministers are giving prisoners more flexibility to claim those benefits than serving personnel. They are choosing prisoners over patriots. Some 96,000 members of the regular forces do not live in service accommodation, and I want to know how many of them will be affected. The Minister seems to be indicating that they will not be affected. Perhaps he can explain how that is, because we are aware of examples where they will be. Service families and personnel could be hit for doing their duty for their country.

Reservists will be affected too. They do not live in forces accommodation, so surely an even higher percentage of them will be hit. The Government are trying to increase recruitment to the reserve, so how do they think the prospect of having a housing benefit cut will affect those plans? They must publish the impact of the bedroom tax and set out very clearly who will be affected. It is the least they can do to clear the matter up for our forces. Either Ministers do not realise that serving personnel and their families will be affected, or they think that it is right that prisoners should have an exemption, while those protecting our country do not.

I want to read out a couple of lines from an e-mail that I received from a constituent about the impact that the policy will have on him:

“I am 40 years old, receiving incapacity Benefit, and live alone in a 2-bedroom flat. I struggle to make ends meet as it is at the moment, and literally keep track of every penny I spend. I do not drink, or smoke, or go on holidays, or socialise—my existence…consists of hiding from the world in a cold flat (I cannot afford to use the central heating) and reading. I cannot even visit my parents because I cannot afford £4 bus fare.

Come next April, I will no longer be able to afford to live. I do not enjoy my life, but have struggled to retain it. These changes are likely to be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back, and I am sure I am not the only person considering this.

I would like to know, in your opinion, what I can realistically do next year to survive.”

I have replied to my constituent, but I could not tell him how he can survive when the impact of this policy is felt, so I wonder whether the Minister could tell my constituent what he can do.

15:37

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on securing this most important debate. I, for one, am not surprised to see the Government Benches empty, because people cannot defend the indefensible.

I want to speak on behalf of the 2,400 tenants of Bolton at Home and more than 4,500 tenants of Wigan and Leigh Housing who will face unaffordable bills because the Government have decided that the poor should pay the price of the wrongs of the rich. The policy demonstrates an absolute lack of understanding of the nature of social housing and communities.

The majority of social housing in the north-west is three-bedroom, and families with two children have rightly been allocated three-bedroom houses so that each child can have their own room, and also, because that is the available housing stock. Please remember that many of those families have one or both parents in work, in low-paid jobs. Housing benefit is an in-work benefit.

What is going to happen now to constituents with a boy and a girl? They are currently nicely housed in a three-bedroom house. Is it the Minister’s expectation that they would move into a two-bedroom house until one of the children reaches the age of 10, when they would have to move into a three-bedroom house? What happens when one of the children moves out? Are they then expected to move back into a two-bedroom house, and then into a one-bedroom house when both the children move out? That is even if all the housing stock is available. Just imagine the monetary costs—how could people on low wages or benefits afford new carpets and curtains each time they have to move house, or does the Minister expect them to have bare floorboards and newspaper at the windows? What about the children’s schooling? Will they have to keep moving schools, or will the family have to find additional money for transport to school? Fundamentally, what about the community? Social housing is not only somewhere that you sleep; it is where you live and become part of a community—a community that will be fractured by this ridiculous, ignorant policy. The policy will also have a perverse effect. Already in Bolton, groups of three young men are applying for three-bedroom family houses, so that they can each claim shared-room rate.

Hon. Members have talked about many other aspects of this policy, so I will finish by talking about Isobel, who came to see me about her situation—I have changed her name. Isobel lives in a three-bedroom house. She has a daughter who has just moved out, into a fairly insecure relationship, and she has a 17-year old son with Down’s syndrome. Isobel is a full-time carer and she herself understandably suffers from stress and depression. Isobel’s son—I shall call him Carl—is severely affected by Down’s syndrome. He has what I can best describe as autism-like symptoms. He cannot cope with change to his routine or environment. He needs everything to be in its place and everything to be done in the same way at the same time every day. Indeed, while Isobel was visiting me in the surgery, she received two phone calls to come home as quickly as possible because Carl was becoming extremely agitated by her absence.

Isobel has told me that Carl could not cope with a move. Moreover, Isobel gets support from her community. Neighbours understand Carl’s behaviour and support her both physically and morally. What is she supposed to do? She cannot work; she cannot move. What is the Minister’s answer to that question? I hope he will not say that she could get a discretionary housing payment. Bolton at Home does not yet know how much it will get, but it has already worked out that it will not have enough money to support everyone in need.

The Government do not seem to understand that social housing is a positive choice for low-paid workers, for carers and for a number of others. It is not something that is transient. It is the home in which someone wants to live their life and to bring up their children until they move into their bungalow or sheltered housing. Surely the Minister cannot continue with this mean, ignorant and, frankly, incompetent policy.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

We have made up a minute, so the Front Benchers now have nine and a half minutes each.

15:41

[Ian Austin (Dudley North) (Lab)]

I not only congratulate but thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) for calling this debate. The number of my hon. Friends who have taken part and the brilliant, passionate and well informed speeches that they have made show how important this issue is for so many of their constituents.

We agree with the Government in wanting less overcrowded and less under-occupied social housing. We want to see sensible, practical welfare reform. We also agree that the housing benefit bill needs to be reduced. The problem with the Government’s plan is that it is unlikely to ease housing supply or to save money. In fact, it could end up costing more. It could also mean, as so many of my hon. Friends have said, that disabled people, war widows, foster carers and the families of members of the armed forces all lose out. As we have heard, some could even be made homeless.

However, despite all the criticisms, defeats in the House of Lords and warnings from housing associations, local authorities and experts at charities such as Shelter and Crisis and organisations such as the National Housing Federation, Ministers are determined to press ahead. As a result, in a few months, about 660,000 tenants will be charged up to £20 a week for bedrooms that Ministers say they should not have or they will be forced to move. Ministers claim that living in a council flat with a spare bedroom is

“a luxury the country can no longer afford”.

I will set aside the nauseating spectacle of a millionaire Minister telling poor people that they are living in luxury and will instead consider whether the policy will work. It is supposed to make under-occupiers move into smaller accommodation, but the Government’s own impact assessment makes it clear that all the savings that it is estimated the policy could make are based on the assumption that no one will actually move at all. Instead, all the savings come from reductions in people’s benefits. This policy is literally based on making some of the poorest people in Britain poorer, and it is being implemented, as we have heard, at precisely the moment when millionaires and the super-rich are getting a tax cut.

Let us consider a practical example. Someone with terminal cancer who is receiving employment and support allowance and is in the support group, which is for people who are not expected to work again, has a spare bedroom in a two-bedroom council house because their child moved out recently. They would be happy to move into a smaller home, but the council does not have one available. According to the National Housing Federation, although 180,000 social tenants in England are under-occupying two-bedroom homes, only 68,000 one-bedroom social homes became available for letting in 2009-10.

Usually, there simply will not be a one-bedroom social home for the cancer patient to move into, and more one-bedroom homes will not become available as a result of the policy because, after all, it is not possible to under-occupy a one-bedroom flat. Therefore, they would lose £14 a week, on average, which they would need to make up to their landlord from their benefit income. That is £60 a month straight out of the pocket of someone with terminal cancer. How are they supposed to cope with that loss of income? The Government suggest that they work to make up the difference, or take in a lodger. For people with terminal cancer or the most genuinely disabled people, work is often not much of an option, and it certainly should not be forced on them. Taking in a lodger simply is not an option for many vulnerable households either.

Therefore, one of three things could happen, not just to the family I am talking about, but to hundreds of thousands of others, too. First, they could lose income and be pushed into poverty. Secondly, they could move out to a smaller home in the private sector, but that means higher rent and higher housing benefit bills, and a policy that is supposed to be saving money will end up costing much more. Thirdly, they could end up in rent arrears, be evicted and even end up homeless.

Let us be honest: homelessness is a real possibility. Even the office of the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government—a man not known as a bleeding-heart liberal—warned that the Government’s housing benefit reforms could make 40,000 people homeless and that the policy could cost more than it saves. The Government claim that discretionary housing payments will help to make up the shortfall between housing benefit and rent, but both the National Audit Office and the Child Poverty Action Group find that the funding available is likely to be woefully inadequate.

I would therefore like to ask the Minister a few questions—first, about the cost of this policy. We have heard already that the policy will make savings only if it does not work, and it is set to push people into private rented accommodation, making supporting them all the more expensive. Will he tell us why the Government have estimated the costs of the policy on the basis that no one moves, but loses benefit instead? Will he tell us what estimates they have made of the number of people likely to move into expensive private rented accommodation? Given the serious concerns about the cost of the policy, can he give us an assurance that under-occupancy deductions will not be increased if the Government do not make the expected savings?

The Government seem to have casually accepted that as many as 40,000 people could be made homeless by the policy. What does the Minister say to the housing association that has told us that it expects to have to evict one third of its tenants? How many children does the Minister think will have to move school as a result of the policy? Have the Government put any measures in place to ensure that local authorities can cope with the increase in the number of homeless people? What estimate has been made of the cost of supporting homeless people and getting them back into housing?

I would also like to ask some questions about the people who will be forced to rely on discretionary housing payments after the changes. The Government have indicated that they expect disabled people with adapted housing and foster carers to apply for the funding. Why should they face the prospect of being moved out of adapted homes on the basis of whether their local authority has enough money left in the DHP pot? Surely, that is a monumental waste when significant time and money has already been invested in their homes. Discretionary housing payments are short term, and new applications must be made every few months, so how are disabled people and foster carers supposed to plan their lives when they cannot be sure that they will be able to afford their house in a few months’ time? Local authorities desperately need to know how much funding they will have, to plan their responses to the changes, so why did the Minister tell the House at the end of October that the Government still have no idea how much money will be allocated to local authorities for the next two years?

It has also emerged that not just disabled people and carers might be forced to rely on short-term discretionary housing payments, but soldiers. The Daily Telegraph recently reported, as we heard earlier, that the families of service personnel will face deductions if they keep a room for a family member away on duty. Why should brave men and women serving their country in the armed forces have no room to come home to, because under-occupancy deductions have caused their family to move? What assessment have the Government made of whether the policy contravenes section C.4 of the armed forces covenant, which states:

“Members of the Armed Forces Community should have the same access to social housing and other housing schemes as any other citizen, and not be disadvantaged in that respect by the requirement for mobility whilst in Service.”

Can the Minister tell us what discussions he has had with the Ministry of Defence on this issue?

As I said, there is no dispute about wanting to tackle overcrowding and under-occupancy or the need to get the housing benefit bill under control, but as Labour Members have shown, the current plans are unlikely to ease housing supply or to save money and could end up costing more. Worse still, they will put people in debt and risk making them homeless. Labour’s alternative where under-occupiers would face deductions if they had been offered a smaller property and refused it would have worked and would have saved money. The fundamental truth is that the best way to get the benefits bill down is not to attack the families of disabled people, soldiers or poor tenants, but to get everyone back to work. That is what Labour’s jobs guarantee would do. Britain needs reform that is tough, fair and, most of all, works.

15:48

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sedgefield (Phil Wilson) on securing the debate. This is indeed an important issue. This is the second debate on it this week to which I have responded. It is good to have the opportunity to put on record the response to a number of the issues that have been raised and to deal with the myths that are growing up around service personnel, but it is worth briefly setting this debate in context. Most of my remarks will be about the specific matter in hand, but it is almost being implied that the Government woke up one morning and thought, “Wouldn’t it be great if we could take some housing benefit off people?” It is important to understand why this is being done.

In the final year of the last Labour Government, every time the Government raised £3, they spent £4. The word “morality” has been used extensively in this debate. Borrowing money that we expect our children to pay back is not a progressive thing to do. Parents who go out and blow money on their credit card and say to the kids, “When you grow up, you can pay it off” would be regarded as irresponsible. That is what we have to deal with now. Whichever party had taken control in 2010—

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

No, I will not give way. Both parties set out deficit reduction plans, which involved spending cuts worth tens of billions of pounds. Public spending consists fundamentally of public sector pay and social security and tax credits—those are the two big areas. Both sides agree that public sector pay has to be held back, but benefits and tax credits also have to be part of the mix. Within the benefits budget, where could we have looked? Where is the low-hanging fruit? Where are the easy things to cut? Of course there is precious little of that. Housing benefit is a large part of the benefits budget and it has been rising fast, so is there an area in the housing benefit budget—

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

No, I will not give way. Is there an area in the housing benefit budget where we can save money and tackle some of our housing problems?

[Sheila Gilmore]

rose—

[Steve Webb]

I have said that I am not giving way. This is an area of the housing benefit budget where we can better manage the housing stock. Let me give a specific example. It has been said in this debate that for housing benefit not to cover a spare room is immoral; that is the tenor of what has been said. When Labour introduced the local housing allowance, private sector tenants did not get housing benefit for a spare bedroom. Where is the morality in saying to private tenants that they cannot have a spare room, when social tenants, who are paying a subsidised rent, can? They could be living next door to each other, and we are favouring the social tenant over the private tenant. Why should housing benefit not cover spare rooms for private tenants when it does for social tenants? It is simply not fair.

The second unfairness that we have to tackle is overcrowding. A quarter of a million households in England are overcrowded, and they have had no voice in this debate. They are trying to get family homes, and homes that they need. They are living in overcrowded accommodation—

[Lisa Nandy]

Build some houses.

[Steve Webb]

I should like to point out that the shortage of affordable social housing did not start in 2010. Somebody had 13 years to sort that out, and it needs to be tackled now.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

Order. May I ask Members not to make remarks from a sedentary position? The Minister has quite a lot of points to respond to, and he has made it clear that he does not want to give way.

[Steve Webb]

Thank you, Mr Bayley. The second unfairness that we must tackle is the needs of people who live in overcrowded accommodation. A quarter of a million of them need to have a voice in this debate, because all too often they do not, and we must tackle that.

People have rightly said that these are family homes. They are not just houses; people have lived their lives in them. I accept that, which is why we have exempted people over state pension credit age. Essentially, someone who is a pensioner is not affected by these changes; we are talking about people of working age.

How will people respond to the change? There are a range of responses. It has been mentioned that housing benefit is an in-work benefit in some cases. Nationally, the average loss from this policy is £14 a week. For someone who is in work on a minimum wage, that is the equivalent of about two and half hours of additional work; it is not quite that because of tapers and so on, but we are talking about a few hours of extra work as one option—

[Lisa Nandy]

Where is the work?

[Steve Webb]

Again, the hon. Lady is talking from a sedentary position. She cannot control herself. On the day that we have published yet another set of figures showing another fall in unemployment and record growth in employment, she asks, “Where is the work?” The myth that there are no jobs available when we have more people in employment than ever before needs to be countered.

For some people, taking a job or working extra hours is an important part of the solution. It has been mentioned that taking in a lodger or a sub-tenant is not an option for some people, but for many it will be. The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford) said that that might be an issue. In general, housing associations and social landlords should allow orderly sub-tenancies—a person cannot just take someone in and tell the landlord after the event. There has to be a strong reason to refuse such an option. The presumption is that it can be done, so it is part of the mix.

I had a constituent who was a single person living in a three-bedroom social housing accommodation. She had a letter about under-occupation, so she phoned me up. She said that she had a brother and sister-in-law who could live with her. That is a better use of the housing stock; it meets their housing need and covers the shortfall. Such improved use of the housing stock benefits us all.

I want to address discretionary housing payments, which were raised by the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) in her thoughtful contribution. The hon. Member for Wrexham (Ian Lucas) also mentioned discretion. We are being asked to do contradictory things here. Where people have identified groups such as foster carers or people with major disability adaptations to their property, rather than central Government defining exactly what that means in every case, we have allocated the money that we think is needed to deal with the problem and given it to local authorities to respond on a case-by-case basis.

We think that such local discretion is right, but we have been asked to give local discretion, except in every such case also to have an absolute right to make a discretionary housing payment or to exempt people. That is the tension. There are all sorts of individuals whom we might think should be exempt. Trying to sit down and write a regulation or a statutory instrument to define exactly who all those people are does not work, which is why we have allocated discretionary housing payments—this year of £60 million and next year of £155 million—to local authorities. Let me take as an example Durham’s local authority. Last year, it had £177,000 of DHPs. Next year, it will be £880,000 of DHPs to respond to the sorts of people whom hon. Members have mentioned.

I want to respond to the issue about service personnel. I assume that the things that have been said are based on ignorance, rather than on an intent to mislead. Let us take the example of a married serviceman or woman. If one goes away, it does not matter, because there is still a one-bedroom need, so married service personnel are not an issue. Service personnel who live in service accommodation are also not an issue, because they are not social tenants on housing benefit.

We are talking here about service personnel who live in social rented accommodation with their parents and who are on housing benefit, so we are getting to narrower and narrower groups. If a member of the armed forces who is on a wage is living at home with his mum and dad, the benefit system says, “Ah, there is somebody in the house on a wage.” We expect that person to pay up to £70 a week towards the rent—it is called a non-dependant reduction. When the serviceman or woman goes to the front line, and if they are away for a long period, we no longer treat them as a non-dependant in the household, so we no longer deduct £70 from the housing benefit. When a young person goes away to fight for a long period, the parents’ housing benefit will in general go up. That is not the story that the Labour party has been putting out today.

We have been asked about foster carers. We think that the discretionary housing money that we have made available will assist around 5,000 foster carers. Let us bear in mind, though, that this is not all foster carers. I am talking about foster carers who might be in social rented accommodation, on housing benefit and in need of a spare bedroom, so a subset of all fosterers. Of course the fostering organisations would prefer a total exemption; I accept that. Failing that, their estimate is that these are about the right numbers of people, and we have had meetings and discussions with the fostering organisations.

The important issue of children was raised. The majority of people who are affected by this measure do not have dependent children. We are generally talking about older people. None the less, the position of families with children is important. It was suggested that two teenagers of the same gender should not be expected to share a bedroom. I do not follow that argument. I shared a bedroom with my brother until we were 18, and I do not think that it did us any harm. At a time when we have a great shortage of affordable accommodation, I cannot see what the problem is with older teenagers of the same gender sharing a bedroom.

An important question has been asked about whether DHPs are temporary or permanent. In the past, DHPs were a temporary fix. If someone had a short-term problem, they needed a bit of DHP to bail them out and then they moved or did something about it. Under the new system, DHPs can be for the long term, because some situations will not change. If someone lives in a house that has been substantially adapted, that will not change. Local authorities are getting revised guidance and will have to think about DHPs differently, because some people need longer-term certainty, as has been properly said.

The hon. Member for Banff and Buchan said that we had a size mismatch, and indeed we do. When a council is doing something about it—building houses to match the housing need—the hon. Lady asks how I can possibly think that that is a good thing.

[Dr Whiteford]

Will the Minister give way?

[Steve Webb]

I have just 60 seconds to go. When councils build houses of the right size to match housing need, they should be applauded and not condemned.

The hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) said that we need to manage over-occupation and under-occupation. We have had decades to do something about that, but nothing has happened. Some housing associations have welcomed the opportunity to look at the housing allocations to make better use of the precious resource of social housing. I fully accept that there will be disruption as a result of this measure, which is why we have a two-year programme looking at all this work, evaluating the impact and publishing the research. If we need to make changes to the system as we go because there are perhaps groups or impacts that we have not thought of, we will be in a position to do that. The matter will be thoroughly researched, and we will publish the results. At a time when we need to save money, being fairer to people in the social sector and the private sector and tackling overcrowding as well as under-occupation is a fair way to reduce the spending deficit that we were handed by the Opposition.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

I congratulate all Members—Back Benchers and Front Benchers—on sticking to the time limits, so everyone was able to get in.

Global Hunger

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

16:00

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

It is a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Bayley, and I welcome the opportunity to debate this issue. I thank Mr Speaker for granting such an important debate, which could not come at a more appropriate time.

This is the year for the UK to take decisive action to end the worst scandal of our time, the blight of hunger. It is also fitting that this is the year when we take the leadership of the G8, nearly 10 years on from our pledge to make poverty history. It is time that we assessed our progress and made a further commitment to the world’s poor.

In the past decade, we have come a long way towards eradicating poverty in the world’s poorest regions. More than 50 million children have started going to school in sub-Saharan Africa, while deaths from killer diseases such as malaria have fallen by almost 75%. But we have not gone far enough. While one in eight women, men and children go to bed hungry every night, and each year 2.3 million children still die from malnutrition, the inhuman tragedy is unacceptable and we simply cannot rest on our achievements.

It is clear that the most vulnerable in our society are still not benefiting from our efforts to make poverty history. The millennium development goals have not yet delivered the structural changes that are so desperately needed. For that reason, today I will outline a vision that I believe this country can turn into reality, provided we seize this very important moment. We need to join the 100 organisations that are launching their campaign today to call on the UK Government to take action.

[Sir Tony Cunningham (Workington) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is a unique point in history and that we desperately need to seize this unique opportunity?

[Mr Clarke]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. I am delighted that he is shadow Minister for International Development, and I know that he will pursue these points with great enthusiasm.

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

It is a pleasure to intervene in a debate called by my right hon. Friend, precisely because he, perhaps more than any other Member of the House, has committed himself to this issue over decades. That is recognised across the House, by Members from all parties.

My right hon. Friend referred to the new campaign that is being launched by non-governmental organisations. Leading up to Gleneagles seven years ago, the “Make Poverty History” campaign applied pressure and made a real difference, not only in mobilising public opinion but in affecting Governments. Does he hope that we will see similar public support for a massive new campaign that leads to the kind of changes we need?

[Mr Clarke]

Yes, I absolutely agree. My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. I hope I might be forgiven for not giving way later on, because I hope to give the Minister at least 15 minutes—or as near to that as possible—to respond to the debate.

I return to the thoughts I was offering. Food prices are more volatile than they have ever been, and even here in our own country hard-working families are struggling to feed their children. The message is simple: there is enough food in the world for everyone if we act now to address the structural causes of poverty. Hunger and malnutrition are not caused by a shortage of resources but by our inability to see beyond our own immediate needs. The time has come to look beyond politics, country borders and economic partnerships, and to make a decisive leap forward for the sake of humanity.

However, that prompts a question: what are the structural causes of poverty? They are the political choices made by Governments throughout the developed world that ingrain inequality and injustice. We have a global mission and duty to ensure that the poor do not become poorer while the rich become richer.

Small-scale farmers in the developing world produce more than half the world’s food—a staggering figure—but look at what is happening to their land. Obviously, sizable and suitable land is vital for farmers to grow food, but globally, in the past decade, an area eight times the size of the UK has been sold off or leased out. Such land deals, done behind closed doors and with no transparency or participation by the people affected, often see local people unfairly lose their homes, land and access to the resources that are vital for them to be able to grow or buy enough food.

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Clarke]

I am sorry; I said earlier that I wanted to give the Minister a reasonable amount of time.

The situation seems to me to be absolutely disgraceful. Beyond the way land is bought, sold and used, the system is opaque. Once food is produced, it enters the global market, which is dominated by a handful of multinational companies in a system with little transparency. That is not to say that those companies are inherently bad, but we would be foolish to overlook their incredible power. For example, 90% of the global trade in grain is controlled by five companies. Who benefits from that control? Shareholders, or people who are hungry? Companies have more information about us than ever before, yet as global citizens we have little useful information about their social and environmental impact. There are reporting requirements under the Companies Act 2006, but they are not useful to investors, producers, Government or civil society. Decisions continue to be made in the shadows, without participation by the people they affect. That cannot be right.

We in the UK could take a leading role to end the scandal. With the Prime Minister at the head of the G8, we can do a great deal. We could take action to ensure that small-scale farmers keep hold of their land to grow food. We could crack down on the tax dodgers depriving poor countries of resources to ensure the right to food.

[Sir Tony Cunningham]

rose—

[Mr Clarke]

I said that I would not give way, but I will on this one point.

[Sir Tony Cunningham]

I was in Zambia recently, when a British company owed the Zambian Government £70 million in unpaid tax. Imagine how many hospitals, schools, clinics, vaccinations, mosquito nets and so on could be made available to the Zambian people for that much money.

[Mr Clarke]

I am glad that my hon. Friend managed to make that important point.

We could work for global agreement on new sources of climate finance, which is important. We could underpin everything with transparency, the rule of law and strong institutions. To do all that, we must fulfil our existing commitments on aid and investment for agriculture and nutrition, the very basis of a functioning society.

If we look back in the history of our great nation, to the time of social writers such as Charles Dickens, hunger was a plague on our society, but political leadership took Britain out of that abyss. If we look at the world we live in today, there are still many challenges. The poverty in our own country is very real. The recession hits the poorest families hardest, and resources are scant. There is always the temptation to see no further than our immediate needs, but I sincerely urge the Government and the people of our country not to make that mistake.

Britain is where it is today because of key political choices made during times that were also hard; the NHS and the welfare state were created when the country had barely recovered from the second world war. Now is the time, during hardship, when our effort counts most. As Martin Luther King, Junior, once said:

“Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable...Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

We can make a difference. If the Government were to commit to enshrining in legislation the promise to spend 0.7% of our gross national income on aid, they would ensure that the UK is one of the first to reach a promise made 42 years ago, setting an outstanding example for others to follow. I will put that into meaningful context. Once reached, the 0.7% target amounts to 1.6p in every pound spent by Government, compared with 5.8p for defence, nearly 20p for health and just over 30p for welfare. That contribution would take us one step closer to a world free from hunger, but it is not enough; we must go further.

In the midst of a crisis, the UK has a vital opportunity in 2013 to lead a new drive to tackle global poverty and hunger. We will be one of the first major countries to reach 0.7%; we are the chair of the open government partnership; we will be working closely with the current presidency of the EU, the Irish Government; and, above all, we have the presidency of the G8. We must lead other countries at the G8 in increasing contributions to address hunger. We must collectively commit, at the very least, an additional £417 million a year to sustainable small-scale agriculture to achieve food security for more than 418,500 people.

Will the Minister tell us whether the UK plans to take forward those commitments? Of equal importance, it is crucial to establish when the Government will put aside parliamentary time to pass the 0.7% Bill, thereby fulfilling their promise.

Women and children in the world’s most fragile places are the furthest from meeting the millennium development goals, and their well-being must be our priority. That is not only a moral duty; it makes economic sense. In 2006, the World Bank estimated that malnutrition causes a 10% loss in lifetime earnings for individuals, and reduces gross domestic product by as much as 3%. An estimated 20% of deaths related to lack of nutrition are caused by short stature, which is an outcome of childhood malnutrition. That is not a failure of production; it is a failure in the way we process, distribute, buy, sell and consume food and manage waste. In other words, the global food system is broken, and it is killing people.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, approximately 195 million children globally are stunted, and data from previous years show that almost 80% of those children live in just 24 countries. Studies have shown that if basic affordable measures are introduced to address key immediate causes, child death could drop by as much as 25%. It is by investing in children in the countries most affected by hunger that we will make the biggest impact.

Our children are our future, and to neglect those in greatest need is to harbour the resentment and bitterness that later erupts into the wars that we now see spreading across Africa and elsewhere. I am delighted that today our non-governmental organisations and charities are coming together for the first time in eight years to launch a major new campaign, which shows the politicians who believe in it that we are not alone. I hope colleagues can attend the launch tonight in Mr Speaker’s house.

Those charities and agencies are there every day, on the ground, all over the world helping people in need on our behalf, as I have seen for myself. Their supporters, the people of the United Kingdom, have time and again dug deep into their pockets, and generosity and compassion have prevailed. They are, therefore, in a strong position to invite politicians to add to what they have been doing, and they are about to do so again. Their call this time is that we do everything we can to close the widening gap and fix the food system for our common future.

Beyond state action, we need to ensure that every powerful force in the food system plays a positive role, including multinational companies. We can do that through creating transparency, which leads to accountability. By updating the Companies Act with a simple reference to human rights, the information that companies have to disclose about the impact of their operations can be made useful, and paint an honest picture rather than showing edited highlights. It is not too much to ask that those with great power are held to account. Transparency is about highlighting good practice and exposing bad practice, encouraging businesses to take a longer-term view of their business models and practices. At the same time, we can demand more transparency in how the Governments of developing countries spend their money—a type of transparency that we enjoy here at home—so that their citizens can also hold them to account, and so that we can ensure our money is well spent.

Campaigning is not always comfortable for Governments and politicians, but we can reflect upon what we can achieve: Live Aid, the jubilee debt campaign, the millennium development goals, the Make Poverty History campaign and the Green Climate Fund. Those things changed the world for the better, and we can do that again.

Timing is vital; the scale of the challenge should fill us with urgency. If we do not act now, the situation will get a great deal worse as food prices become more volatile and environmental shocks become more frequent and destructive, not to mention another generation’s full potential being lost to the scourge of starvation.

That sense of urgency should also make us hopeful, not only because of the opportunities that are before us this year or because of the commitment of our people, but because of the commitment here in Parliament. While world hunger is high up our agenda, and rightly so, it is time that we all worked together, using all our skills, resources and commitment to get child hunger off the table.

16:17

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Alan Duncan)]

I thank the Labour Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Workington (Sir Tony Cunningham), and hon. Members for their restraint in speaking, so as to give me adequate time to answer the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke). Indeed, I also thank him for securing this important debate, which is very timely, because today UK NGOs will launch their IF campaign, which highlights the precise issue that we are debating this afternoon—global hunger. In fact, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development is looking forward to speaking at the launch of the IF campaign this evening.

The Government recognise that global hunger represents a human tragedy that happens every day on a massive scale. Around 870 million people simply do not have enough food to eat, 165 million children are chronically malnourished and 2 million children die needlessly every year from malnutrition. So I am pleased to have this opportunity to set out the ways the Government are addressing the problem in 2013, a year in which the UK can play a transformative role in helping to end hunger.

The UK has a good, strong track record of taking action to prevent hunger. By 2012, the UK had met in full its commitments, made at the G8 L’Aquila summit in 2009, to provide resources to improve global food security. That has helped millions of people to fight chronic hunger and malnutrition in more than 20 countries. We expect to continue to provide a similar level of resources for the foreseeable future.

Looking to the future, the Government have committed to reach 20 million pregnant women and children under the age of five through our nutrition programmes; to help to ensure that 6 million of the world’s poorest people escape extreme poverty; and to ensure that by 2015 another 4 million people have enough food throughout the year.

Tackling hunger and malnutrition involves increasing the availability of food by boosting agricultural productivity. The UK Government support the agricultural research network—CGIAR—with resources for research to improve agricultural productivity, which will help to feed millions of people.

On the issue of land and its increasing attraction to investors, the Government believe that private sector investment in poor countries is key to achieving global food security and economic growth. We also believe that responsible commercial investment in small and large-scale agriculture has the potential to be transformational. However, it is vital that the rights and interests of people living and working on that land are taken fully into account.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) on securing the debate, and the organisations that have put together the IF campaign. By 2025, nearly 1 billion young people will face poverty because of malnutrition and hunger during their youth. The Minister rightly mentioned agriculture and the use of land. What work are the Government doing to ensure that Governments in developing countries and large corporations are actively working with an effective and ethical tax system to ensure that money stays in those countries for sustainable development?

[Mr Duncan]

Let me complete what I was saying about land, and I will then turn to tax. On the land issue, the key point is that we welcome the successful negotiation of the voluntary guidelines on responsible governance of tenure, which were concluded by the Committee on World Food Security last year.

The UK Government absolutely recognise the importance of tax transparency in development. As the Prime Minister said at Question Time today, the UK will use its G8 presidency this year to tackle tax evasion and aggressive avoidance.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

The Department for International Development has an excellent programme in Rwanda for registering the land of smallholders. Is there a possibility of rolling it out in other countries to ensure that smallholders have their title registered for security?

[Mr Duncan]

Absolutely. A proper legal framework for ownership of land is crucial if property rights are to be exercised fairly, particularly among some of the poorest people. That building block in any country’s framework of law is crucial for the guarantee of such rights.

To tackle hunger, we need to improve poor people’s access to food. They spend a large proportion of their income on food, so are least able to cope when food prices rise unpredictably. UK aid provides money to a consortium, led by FARM Africa and Self Help Africa, which aims to increase the production and returns of nearly 1 million smallholders. We also provide support for safety nets so that the poorest people have a buffer to help them to survive and recover from economic or natural shocks that threaten their ability to feed themselves and their families. For example, DFID supports the Ethiopian Government’s productive safety net programme, which provides predictable cash or food payments to around 8 million people.

[Robert Halfon]

I fully support the campaign for enough food for everyone, and I particularly congratulate Save the Children. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the UK should support increased fiscal transparency in developing countries so that their citizens can hold their Governments to account and press for greater civil participation for local citizens to see better how their money is spent to increase food supply?

Mr Duncan: I share my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm for such transparency, and indeed part of the menu of DFID’s activities in many of our bilateral country programmes is to enhance such political accountability and better governance of the people their politicians serve. We want to help countries to extend accountability, which we take for granted in this country, to their own people wherever possible.

Ultimately, our aim is to ensure that poor households, particularly those with young children, do not suffer from the sort of malnutrition that the right hon. Gentleman described. DFID is scaling up its nutrition programmes in more than 10 countries. We recently announced a new three-year £35 million programme in Yemen, for example, to treat and prevent under-nutrition among 1.65 million women and children. I take a particular interest in that country, where it is thought that perhaps a third of all children under five are malnourished.

We also contribute to research and development to improve the nutritional content of staple food crops. In Africa and Asia, with UK support, HarvestPlus is providing seeds and tubers nutritionally enriched with vitamin A, zinc and iron, which should benefit more than 3 million people.

Of course, no country or Government can tackle global hunger alone. Last year, the UK supported the launch of the G8’s new alliance for food security and nutrition, which aims to lift 50 million people in Africa out of poverty through economic growth and agriculture. This year, during our G8 presidency, the Government will attempt to improve and expand the new alliance. We will work to bring in more African countries and deepen its impact; for example, providing a strong focus on empowering women, who make up 40% of the world’s agricultural work force, and on promoting responsible private sector investment in African agriculture.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being generous. An issue that he has not yet touched on in any detail is the importance of tackling corruption, ensuring that any money, whether tax or aid, is used to deal with economic development and poverty. Can he include a comment about that?

[Mr Duncan]

Certainly. There are two aspects of the overarching label of corruption. First is the risk of our taxpayers’ money being fraudulently diverted, which happens minimally and against which we have the most rigorous safeguards in all our practices in the Department. The second is a broader issue. In many of the countries where we work, there is endemic or pervasive corruption in society and among politicians. We will therefore soon be publishing, as recommended by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, corruption strategies for each of the countries where we work, primarily directed at the pervasive corruption in the country itself but always with an eye on how our own funds are properly used, I hope, in that country. The hon. Lady is absolutely right, because ultimately those who suffer from corruption are the poorest.

The UK is a partner of the Scaling Up Nutrition movement, which is a coalition of developing countries, donors, international agencies, NGOs and businesses, spearheading efforts to build an effective international response to the problem of under-nutrition. As part of our Olympic legacy, in 2013 the Government will host a follow-up to last year’s hunger event to continue our focus and that of the world on the issue. NGOs play a vital role on the ground delivering key food and nutrition services. They help to build national awareness and consensus on problems that are often complex. The NGOs’ IF campaign will therefore provide welcome momentum.

While working hard to tackle global hunger, the UK will continue to provide humanitarian relief and respond to emergencies as they arise. This year, for instance, we will provide £15 million to support more than 500,000 people in five Sahel countries. Furthermore, the Prime Minister has a role as the co-chair of the UN Secretary-General’s high-level panel on the post-2015 development agenda. The Government will have a role in shaping the future of development and an end to poverty. Finally, again this year, the UK will be the first G8 country to meet the commitment to spend 0.7% of its gross national income on official development assistance, giving us greater capacity to address the challenge of hunger and poverty, among many other such challenges. In conclusion, I assure the House that the Government’s commitment to tackling global hunger for the very poor will continue with renewed purpose in 2013 and beyond.

[Hugh Bayley (in the Chair)]

An excellent debate, which I am very glad to have heard. At the launch later this evening, I hope to see some of the Members who participated, including those who were present throughout the debate but were unable to speak, such as the hon. Members for Upper Bann (David Simpson), for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) and for Ipswich (Ben Gummer).

Progressive Supranuclear Palsy

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Westminster Hall

16:30

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley. I am delighted to have secured this debate, in which I will draw to the Chamber’s attention the needs of a specific group of people who need us to take action on their behalf.

In Towcester, in my constituency of South Northamptonshire, there is a national charity called the PSP Association, which is the only charity in the UK working solely for people with the neurological conditions progressive supranuclear palsy and the related disease corticobasal degeneration and those who care for them. PSP and CBD are diseases closely related to motor neurone disease and Parkinson’s disease.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend clarify how many people suffer from PSP compared with motor neurone disease?

[Andrea Leadsom]

I will address that later, but my hon. Friend is right to make that point, because it is believed that more people suffer from PSP than from MND, despite the fact that the latter disease is much more commonly known in general society.

PSP and CBD are similar diseases, and PSP is often used as shorthand for both conditions. In progressive supranuclear palsy, progressive means that it gets steadily worse over time; supranuclear means that it damages parts of the brain above the pea-sized nuclei that control eye movement; and palsy means that it causes weakness. Members may never have come across PSP before, but, sadly, it takes many lives.

PSP is caused by the progressive death of nerve cells in the brain, leading to difficulty with balance, movement, vision, speech and swallowing. Over time, PSP can rob people of the ability to walk, talk, feed themselves and communicate effectively. The average life expectancy is seven years from the point of diagnosis. Those who are diagnosed with PSP suffer severe and unpredictable impairments that have an enormous impact on the individual and their family. PSP is a dreadful disease.

I am pleased that since 2010, having written several times to the Department of Health, there is now better recording of PSP on death certificates, giving a clearer indication of the number of sufferers. Our attention, however, must now turn to diagnosis. Statistics show that some 4,000 people are living with PSP in the UK, but because diagnosis is still so uncertain, neurologists believe the figure could be as high as 10,000. Astonishingly, as my hon. Friend mentioned, there may be more PSP sufferers than sufferers of MND in the UK today.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. She has mentioned the relatively small number of people living with PSP, but is not part of the problem that many health care and social care professionals do not fully understand the condition?

[Andrea Leadsom]

Yes, my hon. Friend is right. That is one of the points that I want to put to the Minister today.

The PSP Association offers advice, support and information to people living with the disease. The association also funds research to find potential treatments for the condition. The charity’s aim is to ensure that people affected by PSP do not feel that they have to face the future alone.

Although the PSP Association operates with few resources and no statutory funding, it supports people living with the disease and their carers through a variety of means. The association has a telephone helpline and information advisory service, for example, and it offers support groups across the country and a small team of specialist care advisers. It produces a wide range of publications and communications.

The PSP Association is active in scientific research, and it has given projects £2.5 million in funding over the past 15 years to find causes, treatments and an eventual cure for PSP. I sincerely congratulate the association on its wonderful work, and I am delighted that many PSP supporters are here today.

I will share the story of one recent fundraising event. As patron of the PSP Association, I was delighted to be invited to the Dorchester—Sebastian Coe was the guest of honour—as the guest of Brigadier Michael Koe, the association’s founder and former chairman, and Christopher Kemball, the current chairman.

The tragic irony of PSP is that Brigadier Michael Koe, who is a constituent of mine, lost his wife to PSP. His four sons, who were determined to do something to raise awareness of the disease, decided to run in the London marathon. The brigadier blagged his way in to Lord Coe’s offices when he was still a Member of Parliament, using the fact that they shared the same surname although not the same spelling, to ask for help in promoting awareness of PSP.

Lord Coe offered his help. He went out and had photos taken of himself training with Brigadier Koe’s sons. For the next few years, he supported them in that way only to find that on the fourth anniversary of his involvement, his own mother was diagnosed with PSP, so he ended up with his own bitter experience of how PSP can affect families. He has kindly sent a short quotation for today’s debate, which I would like to share with hon. Members. He says:

“I am always pleased when an opportunity to raise awareness of PSP and the challenges faced by those affected arises. My mother lived with PSP for a number of years so I know only too well how important it is to receive the appropriate and timely support from health and social care, and the difference it can make to the individual affected and their family.”

Although many sad stories were told at the Dorchester that evening, the event was a huge success. Lord Coe had invited many sporting legends such as Daley Thompson and Steve Cram, as well as some of the current Olympians. It was quite an amazing evening and they raised more than £200,000 for the worthwhile cause.

The work of Brigadier Michael Koe and his family and their determination to honour the memory of his wife is truly touching. I pay tribute to the fantastic work that he has done in promoting the importance of the awareness of PSP.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on bringing this very important matter to Westminster Hall. Does she agree—I suspect that she does—that physio and aids should be made available at an early stage of diagnosis, so that those in the last few years of this debilitating disease have a quality of life and a relationship with their families at a time when they need it most?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman makes an extremely good point. He raises issues that I want to come on to in terms of calls to action for the Minister. Sadly, the speed of degeneration of PSP sufferers often means that the need for extra resources quite rapidly increases, so it is important that the right care pathway is put in place.

The association is developing a UK-wide research network to allow researchers to share their knowledge, experience and data from their studies into the condition and to increase the number of people with PSP that individual researchers can have contact with.

In 2011, the association commissioned a UK-wide needs mapping exercise for people with PSP and their carers. The results highlighted that the nature and rapidity of PSP means that the needs of those living with the condition are very specific. For example, the palliative care that would be deemed to be required in the late stages of many conditions or at the end of life may very well be required for someone with PSP for almost half of the time that they live with the condition. The rapid progression of the disease and often early onset of communication and cognitive problems have a huge impact. Advance decision making on end-of-life issues needs to take place much earlier with PSP than with many other conditions.

The ongoing needs of a sufferer are ever-changing, and so is their need to see a range of health and social care professionals who can provide the right care, support and equipment at the right time. It is not easy for the carers of people with PSP who face equally difficult challenges trying to navigate their way through the labyrinth of health and social care services and to keep up with the pace of the disease and the ever-changing needs of those for whom they are caring.

As a charity, the PSP Association is indebted to other organisations such as the Neurological Alliance and Carers UK for championing the needs of carers at every level. Although the work of such organisations is critical, it should not replace the needs of carers also being addressed by the statutory services.

In April this year, we will see the introduction of clinical commissioning groups, which will hold the purse strings for our local health services and will be responsible for commissioning the health and social care services for their local population. We are awaiting the imminent appointment of the national clinical director responsible for championing patient involvement and improvement to neurological services in England. Those reforms of our health and social care services are very much welcomed by the PSP Association, but with a caveat, which is that it is essential that people with PSP, their carers and other people living with similar neurological conditions have a voice locally.

The PSP Association has developed a care pathway guide for PSP that outlines the standards of care and support that sufferers will need from diagnosis onwards. It is intended to inform and educate health commissioners and social care professionals to ensure that people with PSP are made as comfortable as possible. Care must also be co-ordinated, as it is essential that it involves a multidisciplinary approach and a regular assessment of the patient’s ongoing needs. That is not only about commissioning services locally, but about saving the NHS funds used in unnecessary emergency admissions to hospitals.

A recent report by the National Audit Office found that the number of emergency neurological admissions to hospital had doubled since 2005. Between 2004-05 and 2009-10, the number of neurological emergency admissions increased by 32% compared with a 17% increase in general emergency admissions over the same period. As well as putting a significant strain on the NHS, that has a severe impact on the well-being of patients and their families. The PSP Association is proactive in helping to predict the care needs of patients in the future. That is vital in reducing emergency hospital admissions with increased awareness of PSP.

As MPs representing our constituents, we need to support neurological charities such as the PSP Association and ensure that people suffering from neurological conditions are fully understood and considered in the proposals for health and social care reform and in the commissioning of services locally and nationally. Access to timely, co-ordinated care and improved integration across health and social care services should be seen as a priority, to enable quality of life for people with PSP and those who care for them.

I should be grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister if he responded on four key points. First, how are people with PSP and other rare neurological conditions being considered in the proposals for health and social care reforms? Secondly, what support is available not only to the individual, but to the carer, especially as the needs of PSP sufferers are quite specific in terms of palliative care? Thirdly, what education and training is given to health and social care professionals, so that they are aware of the specific condition and can respond to the needs of sufferers and their carers? Finally, what can be done to ensure that more research into PSP is carried out, so that the diagnosis is quicker and more accurate?

I am grateful to the Minister for being here today. I look forward to his response and, I hope, the answers to some of those questions.

16:43

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bayley, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom) on securing the debate.

A great value of these Westminster Hall debates is that, on something such as this, Ministers are forced to think about a specific issue that might not otherwise come across the radar and to devote some time and attention to it. They also get officials thinking about things as well, so I am grateful to the hon. Lady for securing the debate and for speaking so clearly and passionately about it. I know that she is a patron of the PSP Association, and I welcome anyone here who is from the association or associated with it in any way. It is so good to have you present this afternoon.

I join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the work of the association. She described the support that it can give families who have a loved one with this condition. For those individuals, it is a lifeline of critical importance. The great value that disease-specific organisations can provide is in this real attention to detail and an understanding of the condition that the statutory services often cannot offer. Their role in supplementing the formal NHS is therefore of critical value. I pay warm tribute to the work that they undertake.

My hon. Friend mentioned Lord Coe. It is great to have someone such as him as an advocate for the condition and for the PSP Association. It was an extraordinary and unhappy chance that his own mother ended up with the condition and died from it. I should also, of course, pay tribute to the work of Brigadier Koe, who clearly has made a big impact in advancing the cause of better care and treatment of people with this condition.

Voluntary sector organisations will have a crucial role to play, offering their expertise, as in the care pathway guide that I know the PSP Association has pioneered. The expertise of such organisations will be invaluable locally to clinical commissioning groups, to which my hon. Friend referred, and the new health and wellbeing boards, which will be a crucial local forum for discussion of a range of conditions, including rare conditions. Such organisations will also offer their expertise at national level to the NHS Commissioning Board, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence and others.

The Neurological Alliance is the collective voice of more than 80 brain and spine charities and, through its national leadership group and network of regional alliances, is an influential player in this field. I understand that the PSP Association is a member of the alliance and I would encourage it to feed into the alliance’s work as a means of getting its voice heard. That is clearly a very important route.

I turn to the question of research. With no cure as of now, research offers a source of hope for those living with PSP. The Department of Health funds NHS research and development through the National Institute for Health Research. In addition, the Medical Research Council funds a broad portfolio of medical research. Neither the NIHR nor the MRC usually ring-fences funds for expenditure on particular topics. Research proposals in all areas compete for funding, based on their strength as a proposal. Both organisations welcome applications for research into any aspect of human health. Those are subject to peer review and judged in an open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the scientific quality of the proposals made. The principle that decisions on individual research proposals are best taken by researchers through peer review is a cornerstone of science funding in the UK and is strongly supported by the coalition Government. Such decisions are rightly left to those best placed to evaluate the scientific quality, excellence and likely impact of the proposals under consideration.

My hon. Friend asked how people with PSP would benefit in April this year, when our new health and care reforms take effect. Through our reforms, we are aiming to ensure that, as far as possible, people with conditions such as PSP can maintain or enhance their quality of life. This Government are committed to providing the best possible quality of care for people with rare conditions. When we took office in 2010, we endorsed the right in the NHS constitution that says that no one should be left behind just because of the rarity of their condition. I recognise that there is often a problem within health services of a lack of knowledge among the clinicians themselves. I think that point was made in an intervention. It is always a challenge to ensure that we spread understanding and awareness.

From April 2013, the NHS Commissioning Board will directly commission services for people with rare conditions on a national basis. Those new arrangements for commissioning will bring real benefits to people with rare conditions such as PSP. By commissioning these services just once rather than reinventing the wheel all over the country, we will be able to avoid duplication in planning and ensure that the highest level of care is commissioned for patients, regardless of their geographical location. With rare conditions, that is the best way to ensure that there is a real concentration of expertise, so as to ensure that commissioning is carried out in the best possible way.

The NHS Commissioning Board will host four new strategic clinical networks for up to five years, including a clinical network covering mental health, dementia and neurological conditions. These clinical networks are potentially of enormous value. We have seen the value of them in treating cancer and other conditions. Now there is the potential for benefits to be gained in the treatment of neurological conditions. Through this particular network for mental health, dementia and neurological conditions, the board itself and clinical commissioning groups will have access to a broad range of expert clinical advice to inform decisions about the way that care for local populations is planned and delivered.

Through quality standards developed by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, commissioners, clinicians and providers of services will have evidence-based descriptions of what good care and support should look like. We have asked NICE to develop a quality standard on relatively uncommon neurological conditions, as part of a library of approximately 180 NHS quality standards. In addition, people with PSP will also benefit from the cross-cutting quality standards, which have already been published and which cover end-of-life care and patient experience in adult NHS services, the point being that a number of these standards are applicable across a range of different conditions. So people with PSP will also benefit from the quality standard on long-term conditions and people with co-morbidities and complex needs, which we have also referred to NICE for development.

My hon. Friend also discussed the importance of the patient voice within the local health system. That is of critical importance. As we move away from a paternalistic health system to a personal health system, listening to what the patient actually wants and what their priorities are will be vital. The theme of patient empowerment and voice is central to our health and care reforms, and local HealthWatch organisations—together with their national body, HealthWatch England—will champion patient voice in the health and care system.

I should also mention that in the mandate, which is the Government’s statement of our priorities for the NHS and which the NHS Commissioning Board is legally obliged to seek to implement, there is a specific requirement for people with long-term conditions to have a personal care plan, and they themselves will be involved in the preparation of that plan. That happens in places already, but it does not happen uniformly, and we must make it the norm rather than the exception. We have to absolutely recognise that everything must be focused on the patient’s interests in shaping the system to deliver that care.

Consequently I encourage those with PSP to feed their views into local HealthWatch organisations—the local patient voice—which formally take up their responsibilities on 1 April. Local HealthWatch organisations will have a seat on the new health and wellbeing boards, and through that they will be able to ensure that patient and public views are represented and can help to shape local health and care services.

I turn now to end-of-life care. My hon. Friend also spoke about the importance of palliative care. As she described, rapidly advancing diseases such as PSP may require palliative care throughout the progression of the disease, in order to support patients, as they face a declining physical and mental state, and their families. We know that the current system of care does not work well enough. Some patients receive excellent care and their families receive excellent support, while others miss out. This is partly a reflection of the origins of specialist palliative care as a discipline in the care of people with cancer, and that remains the main focus of palliative care services, but those services must be appropriate for all conditions, obviously including PSP.

We have highlighted the need to extend services to those with other conditions or diseases. The end-of-life care strategy aims to improve care for people approaching the end of life whatever their diagnosis and wherever they are, including enabling more people to be cared for and to die at home, if they wish. About 50% of people still die in hospital, although most people want to be able to die at home if that is possible, and we must ensure that their interests and priorities are respected in that regard. The National End of Life Care Programme has developed an end-of-life care pathway for neurological conditions, working with the Neurological Alliance and the National Council for Palliative Care. The pathway, which was published in 2010, sets out a framework to support the provision of improved care for that group, including those with PSP.

We are committed to increasing awareness of rare conditions—a point made by my hon. Friend in her speech—including PSP. That commitment has been demonstrated through the development of the UK plan for rare diseases. The plan will bring together a number of recommendations designed to improve the co-ordination of care and to lead to better outcomes for everyone with a rare disease, including people with PSP. We have consulted on the rare disease plan, and we published a summary of the consultation responses in November last year. Work is on track to produce the plan by the end of this year, which will help people with PSP and many others with rare conditions.

My hon. Friend also focused on education and training. Our doctors and other staff across the NHS receive some of the best training in the world, and as my hon. Friend recognises, it is important for that to include the right information and techniques to alert them to the possible presence of a rare disease when a patient presents to them. We must recognise that PSP is a rare condition, one among the hundreds that a health professional may see during their career, and it may not be feasible or practical to draw particular attention to it above all those other conditions. That said, we recognise the difficulties and, as part of our consultation on the UK rare diseases plan, we invited ideas on what more can be done to train doctors in the identification of rare diseases and on whether there are innovative ways of familiarising health professionals with rare diseases in their professional training. Furthermore, the consultation identified that training for all NHS staff to raise wider awareness and understanding of rare diseases was also important in promoting equality and in combating the stigma and discrimination sometimes associated with such diseases.

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend when she drew attention to the vital role that carers play in supporting people with conditions such as PSP. Between 2011 and 2015, the Department is providing the NHS with an additional £400 million to support individuals in their role as carers. The “Recognised, valued and supported: next steps for the Carers Strategy” document sets out Government priorities in the area, reinforced in the 2012-13 NHS operating framework, which sets out the priorities for that year.

My hon. Friend described the labyrinth that people with conditions and their carers often find themselves trying to negotiate. One aspect of the reform legislation, which I very much welcome, is the focus on integrated care. Too often, carers are in silos, and people are pushed from pillar to post. They can so easily fall into the gap. If we can develop a much more integrated approach to support people with a rare condition such as PSP, with clinicians at primary and secondary level working together much more closely, everyone would benefit.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the issue. As I said, the value of this debate is to draw the matter to Ministers’ attention and to obtain a wider airing for and focus on such conditions which would not otherwise be the case. I am happy to continue to engage with my hon. Friend to ensure that people with PSP receive the treatment and care that they deserve.

Question put and agreed to.

16:59

Sitting adjourned.

Written Ministerial Statements

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Written Statements

Wednesday 23 January 2013

Taxation of Pensioners

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Written Statements

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

The Government launched the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) in July 2010 to provide independent advice on simplifying the tax system.

The OTS has today published the final report of its review of the taxation of pensioners, commissioned by the Government on 5 July 2011.

The Government asked the OTS to carry out a two-stage review of pensioner taxation. The first stage of the review looked at the administrative and legislative complexities faced by pensioners and suggested key areas for further review. This was completed in March 2012 and the Government gave their response at Budget 2012.

The OTS has now completed the second stage of its review, focused on the key areas suggested in the first stage. The Government will make their response to this report at the appropriate time.

Electronic copies of the report have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

UK Sport and Sport England

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Hugh Robertson)]

The Government are committed to delivering a real sporting legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games and to creating a world-class organisational structure for sport. Today, I would like to update the House on progress with the reorganisation of UK Sport and Sport England which we have been considering as part of the Government’s package of public body reforms.

The project board, chaired by Sir Keith Mills, identified a number of significant strategic and operational benefits from closer working, including a shared approach to sports governance and talent management, as well as a programme leading to co-location and shared services by 2014. Much progress has been made with these reforms in 2012. In view of this, and the challenges associated with merging a UK-wide organisation with an England only body, I have concluded that we will retain UK Sport and Sport England as two separate entities with a shared reform agenda. To maintain momentum, and ensure that the two organisations deliver the economic and strategic benefits intended from the merger, we intend to conduct a joint review of both organisations in 2014-15, as part of the Government’s rolling programme of reviews of non-departmental public bodies. They will also be asked to co-locate, share significantly more back office services and align their strategies. With this approach, I am confident that both organisations will be able to reduce their administrative costs over this spending review period and that we can deliver the strategic benefits of closer working between the two organisations with immediate effect. This fits logically within the context of the Government’s public bodies reform programme which will reduce the number of public bodies by a third, and it directly contributes to improvements in accountability and transparency, and will cut out waste and duplication from the system. It will also contribute to Government-wide reductions of over £2.6 billion in the administration costs of public bodies over the spending review period.

Local Major Transport Schemes

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

In September 2012, following a period of consultation, the Department for Transport set out firm proposals for the devolution of funding for local major transport schemes from 2015.

Since then we have, as promised, provided detailed guidance for local transport bodies (LTBs) on the setting up of local assurance frameworks, including a set of minimum requirements to be met before funding is devolved.

We also invited local stakeholders to agree locally the preferred geographical basis for LTBs so that we could then provide each with an indicative population-based funding level, which would inform the development of their scheme programmes.

I am today publishing those indicative funding figures and they are listed in a document being provided to the Libraries of both Houses, as well as being published on the Department for Transport’s website.

The actual allocations will be determined following further spending rounds within Government. Accordingly, I am advising all LTBs to make contingency provision in their programmes for actual budget levels to be one third higher or lower than the indicative figures being published today.

LTB boundaries were mostly agreed by consensus between the local partners. However, there were three areas where local partners could not reach such an agreement. For those areas we have calculated the indicative figures on the basis of an appropriate share of the overlapping areas. The basis for this is set out in the additional document.

In all areas we will need to be responsive to evolving agendas, particularly in relation to the Government’s response to the Heseltine review, the emergence of city deals and the move in some areas towards combined authorities. These developments may, in time, inform the refinement of LTB geographies. However the planning for new schemes and programmes cannot be delayed if we are to maintain the momentum of new infrastructure that is so vital to the economy.

Finally, I am pleased to announce that, in recognition of the key role we envisage for local enterprise partnerships in transport, the Department for Transport will be providing them with funding totalling £5 million in this financial year. This is in addition to the funds for capacity building in local enterprise partnerships already announced in the Chancellor’s 2012 autumn statement. Local enterprise partnerships will have discretion on the use of this funding but we hope that it will improve their capacity to play a leading role in transport, including participation in LTBs.

Permit Schemes

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

I am today announcing that, in line with the principles of localism, the role of the Secretary of State in approving local authority permit schemes for works in the street will be removed. This announcement follows a consultation on the proposals, which closed last spring.

Permit schemes provide highway authorities with the means to better manage activities on their road network, to minimise inconvenience and disruption to road users. Highway authorities do not have to introduce permit schemes. Where schemes are implemented, the authority is able to grant permits to works promoters to undertake works on the highway. This provides greater control over works in their area, and enables them to promote better working practices, for example, working outside peak hours where appropriate. A permit scheme also enables improved co-ordination of works.

Once implemented the change to the approval process will reduce bureaucracy and will offer local authorities the ability to develop, introduce and operate schemes in their area, to best suit local needs. These changes are in line with both the Government’s commitment to ensure regulatory proposals are proportionate and our desire to see congestion caused by roadworks reduced by effective management, and for works promoters to be held accountable for that congestion.

Authorities with schemes in operation report that they reduce the time taken to complete necessary street works. To optimise the benefits and minimise the administrative burden of future permit schemes, I have recently published guidance to focus new schemes on busy and traffic sensitive streets. This will ensure a proportionate approach and maximise benefits to all road users. To give time for local authorities to adjust to this new approach, I will retain the Secretary of State’s approval of schemes until at least 2015. As well as removing the Secretary of State’s approval, I intend to change the permit scheme regulations to make the consequential changes and embed these developments into both regulations and guidance.

The full consultation response can be found at:

www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-transport. I am placing a copy in the House Libraries.

To take forward these proposals, I plan to introduce appropriate changes to the Traffic Management Act when a suitable legislative opportunity arises, and also to make the resultant changes to the permit scheme regulations.

Defined Benefit Pension

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)]

Following the autumn statement, the Government will, this Friday, publish their call for evidence on two potential policy changes—whether to allow companies undergoing valuation in 2013 or later to smooth asset and liability values; and whether to provide the Pensions Regulator with a new statutory objective to consider the long-term affordability of deficit recovery plans to sponsoring employers.

The call for evidence document will be available on the Department’s website from 25 January 2013 (www.dwp.gov.uk/consultations) together with details on how to contribute.

House of Lords

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

Wednesday, 23 January 2013.

15:00

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds.

Children and Young People

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

Question

15:07

Asked by

[The Earl of Listowel]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that children and young people in the care of the state, and making the transition from state care, experience reliable and enduring relationships, including with siblings, foster carers and social workers.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)]

I thank the noble Earl for his gracious words. This is the first time that I have addressed your Lordships’ House, and it is a great honour to be able to do so. I thank the House and the staff for being so incredibly welcoming and kind and, as this is my first appearance at the Dispatch Box, I am tempted to say, “Long may it continue”.

I thank the noble Earl for raising an important issue for my first Question because, although it is not within my department’s brief, it has troubled me for many years. Lasting and supportive relationships are particularly important for children in care and their long-term outcomes. That is why we are taking action to increase the speed and number of adoptions, to improve the recruitment and training of foster carers and social workers, and to raise the quality of care in children’s homes. We also have a programme of work to improve support for care leavers making the important transition into adulthood.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply and his gracious words. I welcome him to the House of Lords, congratulate him on his appointment to the Front Bench, and apologise to him for not putting those words a little earlier in these discussions.

The children in care who often have the most broken relationships are those in children’s homes, often having had many placements in foster care before arriving there. Is the Minister aware of the very good example of Break children’s homes in Norfolk, where the average stay for a child is two years—often children will stay for four years or more—and active efforts are made by the homes to keep in touch with children once they move on into adulthood? Will the Minister look at this best practice to see whether it can be applied more widely to children’s homes in general where the turnover is high? On average it is seven months.

[Lord Nash]

I shall try to get the words out in the right order now. I agree that many children in children’s homes have had failed foster placements. Our statistics show that 29% of children placed in children’s homes have had five or more previous placements. I have met quite a few children who have had over 20 placements. That is why we set up the expert working group: to look at how to improve the quality of support these children receive, building on good practice. This group has now reported to Ministers, and Ministers will make announcements on this shortly. We recognise Break’s impressive record—four years is an impressive average length of stay—and that is why we invited Hilary Richards of Break to be a member of the department’s expert group on quality.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, before he lost his job, the previous Minister for Children, Tim Loughton, said that it was a scandal that there remains under this Government,

“an enormous and widening attainment gap”,

between children in the care of the state and their peers, and that this is still evident throughout the school system and in further and higher education. In welcoming the noble Lord to his brief, which I think includes educational attainment, can he tell the House what priority he will put on the educational attainment of children in care and what steps he will take to close the attainment gap?

[Lord Nash]

The Government have strongly encouraged local authorities to have a senior educational officer known as a virtual school head to track closely the progress of every child in care and ensure they receive the support they need. Children in care are entitled to free early education for two year-olds, the pupil premium while at school and the new 16-to-19 further education bursary. Every child in care has to have a personal education plan setting out how they will be supported to fulfil their potential. Every school, including academies and free schools, has a legal duty to have a designated looked-after child teacher, and children in care get top priority in school admissions.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, I asked a Question many years ago about adoption, and it has been asked again many times since. The age at which children are adopted is still far too high. Could we not avoid having so many children in care by applying more widely the concurrent adoption system, whereby a parent hoping to adopt can have the child to foster at a very early stage, even before the age of one year? All the world recognises that bonding works far better if a child comes to a family as early as possible. Would that not save us having ever so many unattractively aged children who people do not seem to want to adopt, sadly?

[Lord Nash]

I share my noble friend’s concerns on this. There is no doubt that the average time taken for a child to be adopted—two years and seven months, and a further year for a black child—is far too long. It is also true to say that would-be adopters in the system have not been well treated, when they should be welcomed with open arms. We are determined to reduce the time taken for adoption, and have introduced adoption scorecards to compare the performance of different local authorities, which varies widely. We have also published draft laws to stop ethnicity being a barrier to adoption. We are addressing the adoption recruitment problem by streamlining the adoption approval process, and we have published draft laws that promote the idea of fostering for adoption much earlier.

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, has the Minister noted the Children’s Society report on the value of advocacy? It highlights significant inconsistencies in young people’s access to an independent advocate. What are the Government doing to improve the availability of advocacy services for children and young people in the care of the state?

[Lord Nash]

The Government believe that listening to those who use services is one of the best ways to improve them. Indeed, a lot of the new Ofsted framework is based on what it has been told by children, and the framework is now much more focused on outcomes for children. We have strengthened the children in care councils and strengthened legislation on the role of the independent reviewing officers to give them a duty to monitor the support provided for children under their care plans.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, following the Minister’s helpful comments about service users’ comments, the Care Leavers’ Association has grown steadily since it was formed in 2000 and, in its own words, is:

“An ever growing union of care leavers”.

Its advice and support is exemplary and a real help to young people getting ready to leave care. Can the Minister assure the House that every child facing the transition into leaving care is given the link to this website by their social worker, foster parent or care home manager?

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, the Care Leavers’ Association is an excellent user-led charity run by care leavers for care leavers. I agree that local authorities should give information to all care leavers about the support and advice that they can get from a range of voluntary sector groups, including the Care Leavers’ Association.

[Lord Northbourne]

Does the Minister agree that damaged children who have been passed from pillar to post in the care system often have a desperate need for secure attachment to one or more adults who care not only for them but about them? Are local authorities implementing their obligations under the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000 and, in doing so, are they paying sufficient attention to a troubled child’s need for secure attachment and a sense of belonging?

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Lord’s comments about relationships and attachment. I myself have spoken to many people who have told me that the worst experience of care is the loneliness of leaving it. It has always troubled me that we spend a lot of money and time with these young people but they are then often left on their own when they leave care. This is something that troubles us greatly. We are taking action to recruit and retain more social workers and, to focus on this, are reforming and improving their ongoing training. We have, for instance, invested more money in the excellent programme, From Care2Work, started by the previous Government to help care leavers into work. We recently published the Charter for Care Leavers, and the Minister for Children wrote to all DCSs on 30 October last year, mentioning not only the charter but data packs on care leavers and the staying-put arrangements, which seem to be working quite well and which we will be promoting further.

UK Trade

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

Question

15:17

Asked by

[Lord Vinson]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to encourage export competitiveness and import substitution in view of the United Kingdom’s trade current account deficit, running at £29 billion in 2011.

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, this Government recognise that trade is essential if we are to achieve sustainable, balanced growth in the UK economy. That is why we published a trade White Paper providing a long-term strategy for UK trade and an industrial strategy setting out a long-term approach to supporting business. It is why we increased funding to UK Trade & Investment, enabling it to double the number of small and medium-sized firms it supports from 25,000 to 50,000 by 2015.

[Lord Vinson]

I thank the Minister for his very considered reply and I am sure we all wish him well in his new post. Does he agree that every penny to meet this £10 billion indebtedness has to be borrowed internationally or met by the sale of national assets such as Cadbury, Northumbrian Water, BAA and others, without which the deficit would be much bigger? Would he also agree that we cannot indefinitely trade at a loss and see our borrowing pay for a million jobs in other countries, not least in the EU? Surely, we should start creating jobs at home by buying British, encouraging import substitution and preventing the pound rising to levels that make our exports uncompetitive.

[Lord Popat]

I thank my noble friend for endorsing my appointment and for giving me the privilege to answer, for the first time, one of his Questions. I turn to the Business Secretary’s foreword to the 2011 trade White Paper, where he says that we must,

“restate the case for open markets”,

and resist,

“the temptation to put up trade and investment barriers”.

I agree that we should take action to support domestic industries, and we are doing this through the growth review and industrial strategy, and by providing help and advice to exporters, in particular our SMEs.

[Lord Bilimoria]

My Lords, I welcome the noble Lord to the Front Benches. I have seen, as the founding chairman of the UK India Business Council, the help that the UK Government give through UK Trade & Investment to businesses to export. However, can the noble Lord tell us what more the Government are doing to help exporting, particularly to BRIC countries, and explain why UK Export Finance levels of finance seem to have fallen and there is very little take-up of new UK Export Finance products?

[Lord Popat]

The noble Lord asks a very interesting question that covers a wide range of subjects. Let me start with emerging markets. The world has changed; we are repositioning ourselves again and emerging markets are key for us—we give them a special priority. Within those emerging markets are the BRIC countries. I know the noble Lord’s interest and I pay tribute to his work for UKIBC. I was in India two weeks ago with UKTI, our excellent high commissioner in Delhi and a UKIBC colleague of the noble Lord’s. They work with India to make sure that we double our exports there by working with large numbers of corporations both in the UK and in India.

To answer the third part of the noble Lord’s question, insurance is being looked at and reviewed. I agree that we need to make a number of schemes available to our exporters, and it is up to UKTI—as it is well aware—to make the people who export aware of it, too.

[Lord Howarth of Newport]

I add my welcome to the noble Lord. My Lords, the IMF estimates that fiscal tightening in advanced economies will be 1% in 2013, compared to 0.75% in 2012. The squeeze will be particularly severe in our main export market, the European Union. Against this background of external weakness, how can it make sense for the Government to use fiscal policy to weaken demand in our domestic market as well? Who are our producers to sell to?

[Lord Popat]

My Lords, we are in an open economy and that is why the Government have come forward with a plan for growth. We want to make sure that we create one of the most competitive tax systems in the G20; we want to make sure that we are open for business and that we welcome inward investment into the UK, and so we will be competitive. The only way to grow is to encourage new businesses, to help existing businesses to grow and to create a climate in which our businesses can do well. However, we cannot help internationally. We are positioned in such a way that we have to work and live in an open economy.

[Lord Higgins]

I congratulate my noble friend on moving from this Bench to the Front Bench, and wish him well in his new office. I hope he is more comfortable because this Bench is certainly due for refurbishment.

Does my noble friend agree that in the context of this Question the exchange rate is crucial? Has he seen reports over the past week or so of comments made in Germany that there is a danger of an exchange rate war? Does he agree that this would be disastrous for all countries concerned, and that Her Majesty’s Government should do everything possible to avoid such a thing happening?

[Lord Popat]

I thank my noble friend for those compliments. I am sure there is something that can be done about the Bench. I welcome the noble Lord’s interesting question. We helped to let our pound fluctuate freely in the international market. Although sterling has appreciated by 7% since January 2012, it is still around 23% below the January 2007 peak. All I can say on the exchange rate and the value of sterling is: let the international market decide what the value of our currency should be, rather than it being something we directly influence.

[Lord Mitchell]

My Lords, on behalf of these Benches I welcome the noble Lord to the Dispatch Box. Even though our politics are different, he and I both come from a business background, and both of us are from north-west London. We also shared the same profession when we studied at night school—we were both waiters. He worked on Kilburn High Street, I worked in Greenwich Village, and I bet I had the better social life.

I want to come back to the BRIC economies—that is, Brazil, Russia, India and China. This country exports more to Ireland than we do to all those countries combined. I ask the noble Lord: what further action we can take to improve our exports to these BRIC countries?

[Lord Popat]

I thank the noble Lord for those comments. The BRIC countries are very important. As I said earlier, we have a very special relationship with emerging markets, in particular the BRIC countries. Exports to BRIC countries fell by 15% between 2008 and 2009, but grew by as much as 66% between 2009 and 2011. Exports to the BRIC countries now make up 6% of total UK exports. I agree that there is huge potential. My noble friend Lord Green has visited all the BRIC countries twice in the past 18 months to make sure that we have more trade.

The noble Lord is quite right that we do more trade with Ireland than with India. With 1.2 billion customers, we do around £13 billion a year in two-way trade with India. There is huge potential. The Prime Minister himself is putting special emphasis on the BRIC countries and I am sure that over time we will increase our exports to the BRIC countries—which we have already done in the past two years, by 66%, which is pretty good.

Local Government: Finance Settlement

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

Question

15:25

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of Liverpool]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that financial settlements for local government funding are fair.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Communities and Local Government (Baroness Hanham)]

My Lords, the Government have proposed a fair settlement for 2013-14 and 2014-15. Each local authority’s baseline funding level and the calculation of its tariff and top-up are based on figures that take account of the different needs of each area. The settlement allows local government to keep nearly £11 billion of business rates and keep the growth on that share of business rates, providing a direct financial incentive for councils to deliver growth.

[The Lord Bishop of Liverpool]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her Answer, and I assure her that my Question arises out of very genuine pastoral concern. Can the Government not think again in the interests of greater fairness and make more allowance for the highest levels of deprivation in both rural and urban areas? For example, in Liverpool there is to be a 52% cut in services over four years, which will directly impact upon services to mentally ill children, vulnerable families and the elderly housebound.

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, I know that the right reverend Prelate is very involved in the discussions that are taking place about settlements and the various levels of deprivation. I believe he held a conference last week that addressed this important subject.

However, the methodology that has been used and is set out in the formula funding document, which has been out to consultation several times, takes account of deprivation and the high cost of providing services in areas that have high deprivation, where local authorities have a low ability to raise funding. Such authorities will receive more funding than authorities with a low cost of providing services and a high ability to raise funding locally.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, under the local government settlement for the two years ending this March, the Audit Commission reported that in the 20 most deprived areas of the country revenue spending had fallen by 14% and in the 20 least deprived by 4.4%. In the most recent settlement, the 20 most deprived authorities will have their spending power cut by an average of 8% and the least deprived by 0.7%. Can the Minister tell me what definition of fairness justifies this distribution?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, the distribution has been carried out, as it always is, against a formula which makes sure that there is fairness of distribution across the piece. As the noble Lord has just suggested, the highest loss of spending power is 8% and the lowest is much less than that. The department has taken a great deal of care to try to ensure that funds are well distributed across the country. Noble Lords will know that what we are dealing with here is, again, one of the difficulties of having a deficit left by the previous Government.

[Lord Tope]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is at least as fair to look not only at the amount of funding the Government give each local authority but at the amount of funding each household gives to its local council? For instance, is she aware that in Liverpool the average annual council tax payment per dwelling is £961, whereas in Surrey it is £1,667, perhaps reflecting levels of deprivation? Is that fair?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, all I can say is that this is being done against the background of a formula which is pretty well understood. The average household spending power across the country is £2,000. The settlement is as fair as it can be in the financial circumstances.

[Lord Harris of Haringey]

The Minister tells us that she is presiding over this pure system of allocating resources between local authorities which is delivering fairness. Did Ministers change the formula for distribution so as to produce a result whereby, as my noble friend from the Dispatch Box pointed out, the most deprived areas are losing the most?

[Baroness Hanham]

My Lords, the formula has not been, as has been suggested, tinkered with; that is how it has come out. It is fair to point out that the local government settlement is not the only funding that local authorities get; there is also the new homes bonus and other contributions that local authorities can have. It is not just the settlement.

Airports: Heathrow

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

Question

15:30

Tabled by

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will hold an inquiry into the operations of London Heathrow airport following the recent severe disruption.

[Baroness Browning]

My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Forsyth, and at his request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in his name on the Order Paper.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, Heathrow has already incorporated all 14 recommendations of the 2011 independent Heathrow resilience inquiry into a £50 million improvement programme, including more snow clearance vehicles and improved operational command and control and passenger welfare procedures. These enabled Heathrow to reduce disruption significantly compared to 2010. Airlines have also improved their responses to severe weather. However, we are asking them to explain why aircraft de-icing problems occurred at Heathrow and what improvements are needed.

[Baroness Browning]

I am grateful to my noble friend, but we will all have witnessed on the television the misery of passengers and, of course, the damage done to the UK’s reputation. Is it not time for Heathrow to learn the lessons quickly so that we do not have these annual reports following what was, after all, a rather modest snowfall?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I agree that there has been some disappointment about performance at Heathrow, and my right honourable friend the Minister of State will be having a chat with its management. However, noble Lords will be well aware that TV loves to portray a bad news story. It is interesting that it did not portray the problems at other European airports, which were also very significant.

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords—

[Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it is not a question of de-icing or clearing the runways? British Airways comes on the television screens explaining proudly its problem that, “We run at 99% capacity. The slightest difference in allowing time between flights means that we have to cancel”. It turned out in this case that one in 10 incoming flights was cancelled on one day, and that on another it was one in five. Is it not time that an airport that is trying to pretend that it is an international hub stops running at a rate of capacity that is clearly outwith its capabilities to sustain?

[Earl Attlee]

I think that the noble Baroness is suggesting that an extra runway would solve the problem. However, I should point out that Charles de Gaulle airport experienced a cancellation rate of 40% despite having four runways.

[Lord Bradshaw]

My Lords, I have managed all sorts of transport terminals and routes. The only way to deal with the problems at Heathrow would have been to put in a contingency plan which reduced in advance the number of flights taking off and landing. Proper contingency planning is needed so that passengers are advised well in advance not to leave their homes, not to leave their hotels and not to sleep on the terminal floor. Will the Minister encourage the CAA and other aviation authorities to introduce such plans?

[Earl Attlee]

My noble friend is quite right in his analysis of a possible solution. Indeed, that is what happens. A committee called HADACAB determines whether we need to cancel some flights in advance in order to provide capacity to do things such as keep the runway clear. In addition, in future, as a result of the Civil Aviation Act 2012, the Civil Aviation Authority will be able to set resilience conditions on the operator’s licence, but that will not be until April 2014.

[Lord Davies of Oldham]

I am so sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was unable to ask this Question. That would have given me the opportunity to agree with him twice in consecutive days, which would be some kind of record as far as he and I are concerned.

As the Minister is so well briefed as to tell us what other European airports suffered delays, will he put in the Library an analysis of these problems, because north American airports, which have vastly more problems with snow than the UK, seem to keep planes flying through a great deal of it? It would be interesting to have a real, proper comparison.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, the way I would explain the situation with regard to my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lady Browning is: out of the frying pan and into the fire.

As the noble Lord will understand, the meteorological conditions in north America are very different from those at Heathrow. It is interesting to note, however, that airports such as Zurich, Geneva and Basle also experienced cancellations.

[Baroness Butler-Sloss]

My Lords, I was one of those held in Madrid because of BA’s failure to take us on Friday. It re-booked us on Saturday, but again we were unable to fly BA. However, Iberia, closely connected with BA, had no problem whatever in taking us half an hour after the BA flight time. What is happening when a company such as Iberia, closely connected with BA, can fly and carry passengers without difficulty when BA cannot?

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I suggest that the noble and learned Baroness writes to BA for an explanation.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords—

[Lord Berkeley]

My Lords—

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, I think I can keep going. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, my noble friend said that Charles de Gaulle has four runways, but the comparison she was making was in capacity. We would like to know what percentage of capacity Charles de Gaulle is running at compared with Heathrow.

[Earl Attlee]

My Lords, I believe that Charles de Gaulle runs at about 75% capacity.

Business of the House

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

Motion on Standing Orders

15:37

Moved by

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

That Standing Order 48 (Amendments on Third Reading) be dispensed with today in respect of the Third Reading of the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill.

Motion agreed.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

Report

15:38

Schedule 2: Sharing and checking information etc

Amendment 1

Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

1: Schedule 2, page 18, line 15, at end insert—
“(1A) Provision under sub-paragraph (1) must authorise or require institutions providing secondary education (as defined by section 2A of the Education Act 1996), the Student Loans Company Limited, the Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency, tenancy deposit schemes (as defined by section 212 of the Housing Act 2004), and credit referencing agencies (as defined by section 145(8) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974), to disclose information to another person for the purpose of assisting a registration officer in Great Britain.”

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, Amendment 1 stands in my name and in the name of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton. In preparation for the move to individual electoral registration, the Government have been running some data-matching pilots, which we welcome. These pilots show a success rate of about 70% of existing electors—that is, from the household register—being confirmed through data matching with DWP data. However, looked at in more detail, the success rate in the 14 pilot areas varies markedly, with a low of 55%—that is, just over a half —of those in Tower Hamlets being matched between the data-matching scheme from DWP and the existing household register.

Having evaluated the pilots, the Electoral Commission said that it,

“found that there was significant variation across the pilot areas. Extra resources will be required by electoral registration officers in these areas where more of the electorate will need to be contacted directly … to encourage them to register individually”.

The commission also noted:

“It was also not possible to test the actual system that Electoral Registration Officers will use under IER”—

individual electoral registration—

“due to delays in the development of the IT system”.

We need to know from the Minister today whether the resources will be made available to electoral registration officers, whether the Government are confident that the IT will be on time and appropriate and whether there are back-up plans if future evaluation indicates ongoing problems.

What we know from these data-matching pilots, which use DWP and similar data, from the Electoral Commission and from the experience of Northern Ireland is how very difficult it is to capture and maintain certain groups of our citizens on the existing household register, never mind the new individual register that this Bill will introduce. If those groups already most likely to be disenfranchised—those in private rented property, the young, students and the mobile—are to be included in the democratic process, it will be essential that every possible effort is made to find those people and invite them to join the electoral register.

This amendment seeks to add some key authorised, official and secure databases to the existing, publicly produced lists that will be checked to find people so that local electoral officers will be able to write to those on such lists to encourage them to register. The groups listed in the amendment—the DVLC, the Student Loans Company, secondary schools, tenancy deposit schemes, and credit reference agencies—are all defined and thus regulated in some way in legislation. They are also covered by good data-protection protocols and have quality governance systems. This amendment would authorise them to provide relevant information to election officers, who can then write inviting those not on the register to sign up.

We know from every bit of research that those who are not, in fact, on the electoral register often assume that they are. This may be because they have other dealings with the state. They may have been issued with a driving licence or even an endorsement. They may be receiving or paying back a student loan. They may have money held by a tenancy deposit scheme or be at school. Given the move to individual registration, there is surely a right for all such people, many of whom think that they are on the register, to be invited to register, with it being clear that being on all those other lists does not make them a voter. All of this might appear obvious: that such sources of data will be key to finding those millions missing from our existing registers, let alone from the new system. However, without this requirement in the Bill, we fear that such data will not be shared in a timely manner and that many of our fellow citizens will never receive a personalised invitation to register to vote.

Northern Ireland moved ahead of us to individual electoral registration and found that its work with schools was very good at getting pupils to register. However, as soon as those pupils left home, registration fell away. As the Electoral Commission’s report shows:

“The majority of inaccuracies are related to entries for people who were no longer resident at the address”.

It also noted that there has been,

“a significant and worrying decline in the accuracy and completeness of Northern Ireland’s electoral register, largely as a result of an approach to maintaining the register which has not been able to keep pace with population movement”.

It is vital that we do not have a similar significant and worrying decline in our register, which is already perhaps 6 million short of what it should be. This amendment will help; perhaps only in a small way, but it will help. I beg to move.

15:45

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, it may not surprise the House that I have very considerable sympathy with the arguments just made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, and with the amendment tabled in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, as it is remarkably similar to the amendment that I moved in Committee. I made my points in support of it at col. 473 of Hansard for 29 October, and I shall not detain the House by rehearsing all them. However, I emphasise that we on these Benches feel very strongly that it is very important to make a success of what we are setting out to do through this Bill and that the widest possible range of data sources are used to encourage more people who are missing from the electoral register to be on it.

Of the organisations in the amendment, the Government have so far said publicly that they will move substantially on the Student Loans Company database only. There are very important issues still to be addressed, which could be addressed in further regulations, so it should not be necessary to vote at this stage. At some point, the House would like to know that the very good practice used in Northern Ireland of returning officers visiting schools as part of a civics lesson and registering 16 and 17 year-olds to make sure that they can vote when they are 18 and suggestions put forward in Committee about using things such as the tenancy deposit protection scheme and credit reference agencies’ information will be taken forward.

In particular, we would like to know from the Minister, if possible before the end of this debate, that action will be taken to try to ensure that the DVLA database is used in the same way as the DWP database, if not in exactly the same way for any legitimate reason. In the debates we have teased out the fact that very many people are missing from the electoral register because they move house. If we were simply to use the database of those people who notify the DVLA that they have moved house to then notify electoral registration officers that they should contact those individuals and invite them to be on the electoral register, that could ensure that many of the people missing from the voter registers were included.

These things could all be done relatively easily. I am hoping that it will not be necessary for us to vote at any point here, or on regulations on these issues at a later stage, but it is important that we receive some assurance from the Minister that the Government will take these points seriously if they are to assure us that they are sincere about improving the completeness of the electoral register as well as its accuracy.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we have come a long way in discussing this issue since the Bill was subjected to pre-legislative scrutiny, and the character of the Bill has changed quite a lot as it has gone through both Houses. We have also learnt as the various data matching and data mining exercises have been piloted, and that continues to be the case. We had an interesting and informative debate on this subject in Committee and, as I said then, the Government are sympathetic to the spirit of the amendment, which seeks to ensure that the best possible use is made of data matching to identify people not on the register who may be entitled to be. The outcome of the second round of data pilots showed that some 70% of voters could be confirmed through the DWP database. As the noble Baroness said, this varies from local authority to local authority, but it enables us to focus on the 30% who are not confirmed.

We are all aware that it is the frequent movers and young people—above all, young men—who are the hardest to identify. In the various pilots under way, we are experimenting with using other databases. I remind noble Lords that, in last year’s data matching pilots, data were matched with organisations such as the DWP, HMRC, the Royal Mail—which was particularly useful for people who had given their changes of address—the Department for Education, the Higher Education Funding Council for England, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the Department for Transport, the Student Loans Company, the Ministry of Defence and, for Scotland, the Improvement Service company. In early 2013, we are currently planning to undertake pilots of data mining using databases held by the DWP, the Department for Education, HEFCE, the Welsh Government, the Royal Mail, the Student Loans Company and a small number of county councils.

Some data sets are held locally and some centrally, some are public and, as far as the credit reference agencies are concerned, some are private. The Bill enables us to remove any barriers to the usage of private sector data, and we have not ruled out the possibility of working with credit reference agencies to see what value their data sets can add to data matching for individual electoral registration.

I repeat: this is an area in which the Government are already very actively engaged. The amendment is not necessary. This schedule gives us the power to remove barriers to data sharing. Working through regulations enables us to discover new, useful data sets as we move forward. The Government are continuing to test which data sets are the most useful and effective in identifying potential electors.

Pre-empting such careful consideration of which may be the most appropriate data sets to use by specifying them in primary legislation could limit flexibility by requiring the unnecessary use of data sets that add no value to the work of EROs. The amendment would mean that the Government could not bring forward a data-matching order that did not include one of these agencies. That could potentially mean ruling out the future use of as-yet-unknown data sets or carrying out multiple data-matching exercises. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, that we are in active discussion with the Department for Transport on the use of DVLA databases and others. It is likely that in 2013 we will be testing out other such databases.

The amendment is unnecessary and limits flexibility in an area where the Government are already engaged in intensive action to identify the best data sets to assist EROs in performance of their duties. I hope that I have said enough to reassure the noble Baroness and to enable her to withdraw the amendment. We all share the objective of coming out of this exercise with the maximum possible number of people on the register—and, as the noble Baroness has said, not just on the register first time around but staying on the register as they move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I thank the Minister for that, and, of course, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, for his support. I am sorry that we pinched his words, but they were rather good words.

I disagree with the Minister on only one thing: when he said that the wording would make it compulsory and it might be difficult. If that really was the Government’s only opposition to it, we have Third Reading later tonight and we could have made it accurate. That was perhaps a slightly churlish bit of the response.

The rest of the response we found very heartening. There seems to be an attempt to look at most databases. It is particularly important to look at transport and the DVLA. The Minister mentioned that young men were some of those hardest to find. The last time I looked at it, young men had some of the highest records for both ownership of either cars or driving licences—or, sadly, for endorsements on them—so that is a particularly good way of finding them.

The Minister will not be surprised that we will continue to keep a watchful eye on this, to make sure that as much is done as possible. We will keep an eye out for any regulations that help. For the moment, however, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

Amendment 2

Moved by

[Lord Lexden]

2: After Clause 6, insert the following new Clause—
“Representation of the People Act 1985 (Amendment)
(1) The Secretary of State may by order made by statutory instrument amend the Representation of the People Act 1985 either—
(a) in section 1 (extension of parliamentary franchise), to omit subsections (3)(c) and 4(a) and in section 3 (extension of franchise for European Parliamentary elections), to omit subsections (3)(c) and (4)(a); or(b) to substitute for the period of 15 years provided for in each of those sections a longer period (“the relevant period”).(2) If the Secretary of State makes an order under subsection (1)(b) he may subsequently make further orders under subsection (1)(b) provided that any such subsequent order may only provide for a further increase in the relevant period.
(3) An instrument containing an order under subsection (1) shall be subject to approval by resolution of both Houses of Parliament.”

[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, I have tabled Amendment 2 in order to return to an issue that I raised in Committee last week. I return to it, and underline some of the points that I made last week, because the issue is one of great importance: the complete disenfranchisement at the parliamentary level—I stress at parliamentary level only—of the vast majority of our fellow countrymen and women who have lived outside the United Kingdom for more than 15 years, retaining their British citizenship, in which so many of them take the deepest pride. Apart from a very limited number living in nine small Commonwealth nations, they cannot vote in the national parliamentary elections that take place in the countries where they reside. The world over, the parliamentary franchise rests on nationality, not on residence and not, it should be emphasised, on the payment of taxes. As the noble Lord, Lord Wills, stated in Committee last week,

“taxation has never been a criterion for voting in this country and it is not now”.—[Official Report, 14/1/13; col. 484.]

Under our current legislation, the overwhelming majority of British subjects living overseas cannot vote in our parliamentary or European elections after 15 years’ absence. They are therefore deprived of the most fundamental of all democratic rights, which so many great British men and women of all parties strove so hard over long years to secure for all British adults.

Their disenfranchisement is thrown into sharp relief by the superior wisdom shown by so many other countries, which extend to their citizens living abroad a lifetime’s right to vote in their parliamentary elections. The overwhelming majority of our EU partners make such provision and so do other countries elsewhere in the world, including, in particular, the United States. We have failed to keep abreast of a prominent and continuing international trend. It is high time that we caught up.

Our disenfranchised fellow British subjects living overseas are large in number. Perhaps I may remind the House of the key figures. Some 5.6 million British subjects are estimated to reside beyond our shores, of whom some 4.4 million are of voting age. A not inconsiderable proportion have of course been abroad for less than 15 years and so are eligible to vote here, although there is no way of establishing the total number of those who fall into this category. Even estimates of the number by the Electoral Commission or other authoritative bodies are, as far as I know, lacking.

However, there is no doubt that at the moment many of them are not taking up their democratic right. No more than 23,388 people living overseas are on our electoral rolls today. It is important to be clear. That does not mean that only a mere 0.5% of those eligible to register have done so, as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, suggested last week. No one can tell what the percentage is since we do not know the number of people who have been abroad for less than 15 years. Even so, it is true that many who could register have not done so.

There are some who say that this shows the indifference with which many British subjects overseas regard the democratic right that they possess, and use this as an argument against removing or extending the existing 15-year limit. I believe that that is a profoundly mistaken conclusion. Many who have been abroad for less than 15 years are deterred by the complex and time-consuming registration procedures to which they are now subject. That problem should be tackled by simplifying the procedures through the introduction, as rapidly as possible and in line with developments in Britain itself, of online arrangements, as I suggested in Committee, using a British passport as the key means of establishing identity.

Moreover, many expatriates see little point in claiming for a season a right that will be summarily withdrawn at the end of it. There is a natural human tendency to place less value on what is provisional than on what is permanent and assured. Others feel that the sense of affection and attachment with which they regard their country is insufficiently reciprocated by Parliament and by some politicians. That impression tends to be reinforced by speeches that are sometimes made attributing to British subjects rather ignoble motives, such as a delight in cheap alcohol, for leaving our shores. It is sad that the benefits that our country derives from our expatriates are not always properly celebrated.

There also seems to be a reluctance to accept that, in today’s world, distance is no longer a barrier to an expatriate’s participation in their country’s affairs. However, as my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill said,

“if there was any rationale in the pre-internet age for the 15-year cut-off, to do with knowledge of what is going on in the United Kingdom, it has long since disappeared”.—[Official Report, 2/3/11; col. 1123.]

The day after our Committee debate last week, French state television featured a group of French citizens who had lived in Australia for more than 30 years. The tenor of the broadcast reflected France’s longstanding view that those who live abroad long-term should be thought of as great informal ambassadors for France in a wider world. That is a tradition that we should emulate. It can be no coincidence that half of all French citizens living overseas are registered to vote in their country.

I believe that we need to breathe new life and warmth into the relationship between our country and its expatriates. They should be made to feel truly welcome as participants in our affairs. The best way to do that would be by placing them all on the same basis with regard to parliamentary voting rights, which provide such a profound affirmation of national identity. Principle points to no other conclusion.

My noble friend Lord McNally has said that,

“early in this Parliament we should have a really radical look at voting for our overseas residents”.—[Official Report, 2/3/11; col. 1133.]

Since then, it has been stated from time to time that the Government have the issue under review, a formula that I trust is not a euphemism for evading action. Indeed, I hope that it is the not inconsiderable practical and administrative implications of change that are under review, in preparation for action.

If we are to reach out successfully to our valued expatriates, the process of dismantling the 15-year rule needs at the very least to begin. My amendment would give the Government flexibility in determining the pace of change by enabling them to extend the time limit beyond 15 years in stages through secondary legislation. My noble friend Lord Norton said last week that this would provide time to reflect and build a consensus in order to extend the period.

The proposal does not involve the creation of a new right but the extension of an existing one. For that, secondary legislation would not be inappropriate. However, if such a route to change were followed, it would be important to keep the final aim firmly in view—the complete removal of all discrimination against our fellow British subjects living overseas. I beg to move.

16:00

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, I will not detain the House long as I made our position clear in Committee and it has not changed. As I said then, we believe that my noble friend Lord Lexden has hit on a very interesting and important issue about nationality and representation. There is clearly a strong case for some rationalisation and, indeed, for a careful look at the way in which our EU partners handle this issue, as was again said today. At the same time, we must note that the majority of them have a very different electoral system from our own. Here in the UK, we have a system of single-Member constituencies with a special link between an MP and his or her constituents. It is irrational to have people who used to live in my old constituency in north Cornwall, for example, still on the electoral roll 15 years or more after they have left for possibly sunnier climes.

Let me clear up any misunderstanding: every UK election, with the notable exception of European parliamentary elections, is in a sense a local election. Voters in a particular locality decide which local representative would in their judgment best represent their interests and those of that specific locality. It is also true that many local issues, from development threats in that locality to the level of council tax more generally, can be major factors even in a UK parliamentary election. For those who have left that locality 15 or more years ago to have a potentially decisive voice in such an election is illogical. I still remember the occasion when I was elected with a majority of nine. For all I know, that majority of nine came from many thousands of miles away and had no direct interest in that locality and that local parliamentary election.

Last week my noble friend Lord Deben, who is not in his usual place this afternoon, attacked me on this issue in a splendidly enjoyable diatribe. I make it clear: I do not defend or, indeed, reject the single-Member constituency that we have at present in the UK, but it is a fact of political life. Therefore, anything we do on this issue has to take that into the reckoning. If he or anybody else is now expecting a change to a multi-Member or list electoral system for the House of Commons, I am as surprised as I am delighted. However, I do not think that he is.

In the absence of any such reform, we urge my noble friend Lord Lexden to think again about his strategy. If he is to address the anomalies that he has rightly identified, he must take up the issue of an additional constituency for overseas voters. Several contributors to last week’s debate in Committee, including my noble friend Lord Lexden, referred to the French arrangement for overseas voters. Indeed, again, he made very important reference to the experience of French overseas voters. However, the significant point is that they have a separate constituency; they do not interfere with the individual constituencies in mainland France. In those circumstances, we believe that this amendment puts the cart before the horse. We believe that the creation of a separate constituency on the French model—or, indeed, constituencies, if the numbers justify something beyond one constituency—would be a much more appropriate way to make this injustice less of a problem in future. Surely that is the right and only way for the interests of former UK residents to be represented without diluting those of the people who still live in this country.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I support the amendment moved so ably by my noble friend Lord Lexden. It is a novel amendment but a modest one. In Committee, there were essentially two objections to the proposal to extend the 15-year limit on British nationals who live abroad having the vote. A third objection was to the mechanism proposed by my noble friend, which is again before us today.

One objection to extending the 15-year limit was that citizens who have retired to live abroad and enjoy the sunshine of foreign climes had effectively fled the United Kingdom and therefore should not be able to vote—certainly not for any great length of time. My noble friend Lord Tyler referred in Committee to the fact that some people may deem them to have deserted these shores. That is to misunderstand the situation of British nationals living abroad. Most emigrants from this country live abroad for work-related purposes. Some will be moving around the globe for their companies, which may well be UK companies. The fact of living abroad for some years is no proof of leaving the UK on a permanent basis.

My noble friend Lord Tyler raised a second objection, to which he referred again today. He argued that citizens living abroad do not have a clear constituency link, and he queried how an MP could represent,

“people who live perhaps thousands of miles away in a very different economic and social context”.—[Official Report, 14/1/13; col. 481.]

Well, I presume that they can do it in the same way in which they currently represent those who live abroad but have not yet done so for 15 years and are registered to vote. It is perhaps also worth reminding ourselves that the MEPs for the south-west of England also represent Gibraltar, where people live some way away in a different economic and social context.

The other objection was raised by my noble friend Lord Gardiner of Kimble in respect of this particular amendment, on the grounds that it would be unusual to make such a change in secondary legislation. I note that he said “unusual” and not “unique”. In any event, what is involved here is not a new right but an extension of an existing right. Far greater changes affecting individuals are made through secondary legislation than is being envisaged here. What the amendment does is provide some flexibility. In Committee, my noble friend Lord Gardiner said that the question of extending the time limit,

“remains under consideration within government”.

The amendment provides the means to move forward, should that consideration result in recognition that the time limit should be extended.

The grounds for extending the time limit were made in Committee by my noble friend Lord Lexden. As I stressed in that debate, we need to recognise the contribution made to the United Kingdom by citizens living abroad. They are a major source of soft power for the United Kingdom. My noble friend Lord Gardiner acknowledged,

“the continuing loyalty to the United Kingdom of so many who have lived and worked overseas for many years”.—[Official Report, 14/1/13; col. 489.]

We should look upon our citizens around the globe as a continuing asset and not as a body of people to be cast aside and treated as having deserted these shores. If they wish to demonstrate a continuing commitment to the United Kingdom, they should be enabled to do so.

My noble friend’s amendment provides the means for doing so but, at this stage, without commitment. It enables the Government to complete their consideration of the issue. I therefore commend the amendment to the House.

[Lord Campbell-Savours]

My Lords, I intervene only briefly to ask a question, because the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, quite rightly drew the House’s attention to the sensitivity in very marginal seats to votes coming in from abroad. I want to know what happens in conditions of fraud. We have an individual registration system and the suggestion is that we should extend the right to vote to those who have been overseas for more than 15 years. What happens if a fraud takes place? Where are those involved to be prosecuted? Can they be prosecuted? Are they to be extradited? Does this not raise all kinds of problems in terms of prosecution? Perhaps the Minister can give the answer.

[Lord Bates]

I am toying with supporting my noble friend’s amendment but I just wish to seek clarification on a couple of things. The areas that I find totally persuasive are those raised by my noble friend in moving the amendment and those referred to by my noble friend Lord Norton of Louth, particularly when he talked about soft power. That soft power extends in a network world increasingly to include economic power. These people are overseas on business—they are economically active. There is a global network of 4.4 million or more people who can speak up for and promote Britain, as well as provide information on and connections to the commercial arms of the respective embassies and consulates overseas.

My only difficulty is this. My noble friend Lord Lexden pointed out that currently 4.4 million people are of voting age but only 23,500 or thereabouts are registered to vote, although I do not know what proportion actually voted at the last election. First, does my noble friend agree that it would be useful for the Electoral Commission to undertake extensive research into the reasons why people do not register overseas for this right to vote, which is extremely important to them? Secondly—perhaps this is better addressed to my noble friend on the Front Bench—does he agree that the time has come for the Government to appoint someone to champion the voice of overseas residents who have the vote here? In that regard, I cannot think of a better person to head that up than my noble friend Lord Lexden.

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard]

I support the amendment. I got a very dusty answer in Committee, and I do not really agree with most of the arguments against the amendment. If you start from first principles and the idea of the greatest happiness for the greatest number, in my view this does no harm. Moreover, it is only an enabling measure; it does not change anything. It creates a power to change things, which, to me, makes it seem rather modest. Having a single constituency or two constituencies for expatriates is an extremely good idea in my view, but I suspect that it might be found to be not relevant to this Bill, which would be shocking.

I feel that I have not yet heard a compelling argument against this power. I am encouraged that it is supported not only by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, but by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, who is a great expert in these matters.

On the question of electoral fraud, where it would be prosecuted and how the miscreant would be brought to justice, I agree that that might be quite difficult to do if we were rash enough to opt out from justice and home affairs and the European arrest warrant.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

I hope that the noble Lord did not hear what I just said to my noble friend, which was, “He’s wicked”.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for bringing the amendment to the House. His commitment to this is clear. Having worked abroad, I can say that it is always very nice to have someone speaking for us, as it were.

As we made clear in Committee, the Opposition do not support the amendment. We remain unconvinced that those who left these shores 20, 30 or more years ago should continue to vote for a Government under whom the rest of us pay our taxes and live with the consequences of our vote. Those people will not live with the consequence of theirs.

However, I want to stress another consideration which I raised in Committee. Should this extension go forward, such non-residents would then also be able to continue to make unlimited donations to UK political parties. By being on the electoral register, they are also categorised as permissible donors to a political party. The previous Government, in the light of ongoing concerns about overseas funding of our politics, passed the Political Parties and Elections Act 2009. Section 10 of the Act prohibits a registered party from accepting a donation of more than £7,500 in any year from a UK national living abroad and on the electoral register, unless they become resident in the UK and pay UK income tax. Sadly, however—and I think wrongly—this section of the Act has not yet come into force and the coalition Government have indicated that they have no intention of bringing it into force. Perhaps the Government would like to take a moment to announce a change in their view on this, in which case we would be up and ready to welcome it immediately.

However, as that provision has not been brought in, it means that all those UK nationals permanently living abroad would be allowed to give donations to our political parties, because the test of whether an individual is a permissible donor is whether they are on the electoral register. Therefore, if overseas electors were able to stay on the register for longer than 15 years, they would remain permissible donors for as long as their wealth held out. For this reason—if for no other—we could not support the amendment.

16:15

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I start by declaring an interest: I have two sisters, two nephews and one son who are British citizens living abroad at the moment. At least three of them, I think, are dual nationals; this is, of course, one of the many complications in addressing this. I said at an earlier stage that I knew a British civil servant who had gone to visit his cousins in Vermont so that he could vote in the US presidential election—on the right side, I am happy to say. This is one of the many complications in addressing this large area. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, for ensuring that the Government will take a more active approach to this consideration from now on. I should criticise my noble friend Lord Tyler for suggesting that there could be, possibly, sunnier climes than Cornwall. I thought, when I was a boy and saw the Cornish Riviera Express go by, that it was called that because Cornwall was very warm. Among the messages that I, and probably others, have received from voters abroad—in particular from a group in the Var, Provence—have been some rather abusive messages suggesting that any attempt to take away the winter fuel allowance from people living in Provence would encourage them all to register en masse.

This is a complex area, and the short debate we have had suggests the many complexities that exist. The Government’s view remains that the franchise for UK elections is set out in primary legislation, and that it should be changed by primary legislation and not by regulation. It was pointed out earlier that, of our 4.5 million potential overseas voters, only 30,000 were registered at the peak in 2010. That is weak evidence that there is a pent-up demand that we are failing to satisfy.

The French have a great many more overseas residents registered, but the French approach to registration of citizens abroad is very different from the British one. Certainly, the Foreign Office would have to consider the consular resources available for much more active registration of British citizens abroad. I think the right figure at the moment is that some 50,000 British citizens abroad are currently registered with consulates, which suggests that if we were to follow the French model, we would be going through a whole sea-change in our relations with our overseas citizens. We do not know how many of our estimated 5.6 million overseas citizens are dual citizens; we do not know how many of them were born in Britain or born abroad. We have some interesting questions about how this would work: for example, in which constituency would British citizens born overseas be registered when they wished to vote? There are a very large number of questions even before we get to the question of special constituencies for them, and I would suggest that the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, should pursue the question of an all-party inquiry into this rather neglected area, not leaving everything to the Government here.

The choice of constituency, after all, is a contentious one. I recall many arguments in the past between the two coalition parties about the way in which people who have second homes in Devon and Cornwall might be registered, and about the constituency in which they should vote. In marginal seats, the addition of a very substantial number of overseas voters could alter the whole political balance. I will criticise the noble Lord, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard, for pinching my joke, and say that of course, if we are prosecuting someone for fraud, the European Arrest Warrant is appropriate for use against people in Spain and Cyprus.

Having said that, I encourage the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, to withdraw his amendment. We recognise that he has made his mark on the Government. There is a delicate issue here. I note that the Irish simply do not give the right to vote to their overseas citizens. I suspect they think that there are simply too many of them and that they would outweigh the domestic constituency. There are large questions here about what rights we might grant, for how long and for how many people we might grant them, and whether we should grant them for people who were born abroad. We might appropriately consider these questions, but, I suggest, not in the context of the Bill. Now that the noble Lord has registered his point with considerable vigour, I encourage him to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for suggesting that I undertake the considerable duty of giving consideration to the establishment of an all-party inquiry. I am extremely interested in that suggestion. If I may, I will seek a meeting with him about how that might proceed. On the face of it, an all-party inquiry is extremely attractive.

The Bill has now provided the House with two major opportunities to consider the current seriously flawed and inadequate electoral arrangements for our fellow British subjects living overseas. I hope that our discussions have created a better understanding in Parliament of the issues, and at least challenged some of the misconceptions that have long been rife. I hope, too, that they have given at least a measure of encouragement to British expatriates. Large numbers of them will have watched our proceedings today and last week with keen interest. Many in this House will share my strong hope that many more expatriates eligible to register under the existing 15-year rule will exercise their right, as consideration continues to be given to the removal of that rule.

As my noble friend the Minister emphasised, the issues are firmly on the political agenda. They need to be pursued, in detail, with vigour and care. In these circumstances, it would be inappropriate to divide the House. In the knowledge that efforts to secure progress will continue, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 2 withdrawn.

Clause 7 : Power to amend or abolish the annual canvass

Amendment 3

Moved by

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

3: Clause 7, page 5, line 40, leave out paragraph (b)

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, Amendment 3 stands in my name and that of my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer of Thoroton. The amendment is simple. Its purpose is to maintain the annual canvass. Clause 7(2)(b), which we seek to delete, would authorise the Minister to abolish the annual canvass. This long-standing canvass is a critical tool in compiling the register, and is the only way of judging whether the other systems that take information from a variety of data sources are working. Without the canvass there will be no check on the completeness of the register. All those experienced in this area are adamant that the old-fashioned canvass remains a crucial tool in locating citizens domiciled in Great Britain. Houses do not move. Ensuring that eligible residents are on the list is best done via the canvass. Nothing else competes.

Furthermore, we are concerned about the impact of the removal of the annual canvass in Northern Ireland, which the Electoral Commission considers contributed to the dip in registration there. Jenny Watson, head of the Electoral Commission, stated in her covering letter to the commission’s report on Northern Ireland that,

“the processes … employed by the Chief Electoral Officer … are unable to keep pace with either people moving home or people becoming newly eligible to … register. … We need robust process to respond to people moving … or becoming … eligible to… register … Any decision to remove the annual canvass in Great Britain … must be seriously thought through to ensure that any change would not lead to a drop in registration”.

Anna Carragher, the Electoral Commissioner for Northern Ireland, described how its Chief Electoral Officer,

“was no longer required to conduct a fresh canvass of electors every year”.

She commented that,

“data matching techniques … insufficient for maintaining an accurate and complete register”.

The report on Northern Ireland is clear. It states:

“Data matching initiatives have not been able to compensate for a full canvass of all households”.

Despite this, and after that report, Chloe Smith, Parliamentary Secretary of the Cabinet Office, in a debate in the other place last week, continued to place her faith in data matching, claiming it would open up a whole new world of possibilities for how we might annually register people to vote. She said:

“I do not think a situation in which the annual canvass is less effective than new methods is beyond our lifetimes. I do not suggest that I know what these methods might be”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/1/13; col. 234WH]

She does not know but, nevertheless, she wants the power in a Minister’s hands to abolish the annual canvass. This is not reason enough to keep the power in the Bill as a kind of “Just in case”, “Well, perhaps” or “Here’s hoping we have a better method”. Does the Minister accept that Ms Smith’s faith in data matching directly contradicts the evidence of those in charge of and evaluating the Northern Ireland experience? We need evidence that the Government are learning from Northern Ireland and have recognised the centrality of the annual canvass.

While the Government have said they currently have no plans to abolish the annual canvass if there is nothing superior with which to replace it, they still want to legislate in this Bill to allow the change in the future. We remain deeply unconvinced by their argument. The continuing presence in the Bill of the power for a government Minister to abolish the annual canvass is potentially damaging to our democracy. The House, I am sure, will be concerned about giving an elected politician, in government, the power to dispense with this crucial democratic tool. I hope the Minister will therefore accept this important amendment and agree to remove the power from the Bill. I beg to move.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness. Many of us in this Chamber who have been involved in canvassing for by-elections, general elections and local government elections will know that, while it is an enjoyable experience, not every place you go to is a semi-detached or detached dwelling. Sometimes you find yourself on commercial premises and are surprised that someone is resident above a garage or a haulage company. Sometimes you are greeted by a friendly doberman or a territorial rottweiler when you approach to do a canvass.

Canvassing is no easy task—it is by no means a light job—and the men and women who take it on are the unsung heroes of the people within the democratic process who try to get a decent register together. Albeit that they are paid, they do it on a voluntary basis. Once the task is finished, they are paid a sum of money and they are gone. It would be very sad if we did away with this system of gathering votes because, as has been said before, including by me, every time there is a boundary change there is always a complaint that the electoral roll is inaccurate. These men and women go about the business of ensuring that there is great accuracy and, as I say, that is not an easy task.

The Minister might say that it would go through only with a parliamentary order that could be debated in both Houses. However, we all know that a Minister, quite unintentionally, could put the order through on a day when the work of the House is light or perhaps during the wash-up period when there is a lot of other activity. I think that the amendment is worth supporting.

16:30

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, the annual door-to-door household canvass is an extremely important part of the current registration system and has been shown to be very effective. Recent evidence from Northern Ireland shows that it was clearly a mistake to remove the annual canvass from the registration process there when individual electoral registration systems were introduced. However, some are arguing that for the data-mining and data-matching exercises to be successful, the Government may want to signal that at some point in the future it may be possible to remove the annual canvass. Personally, I cannot envisage it in the foreseeable future, but I accept that if all the other methods being tried to register voters prove as successful as some of us hope, there may be a case for doing so in the future. However, it would be unwise for the Government to proceed with removing the annual canvass without considerable consensus and the advice of the Electoral Commission that it was safe to do so, and without the new electoral registration systems being put forward in this Bill having been in place and embedded for a very considerable period.

I accept that we have made extensive changes and effected substantial improvements to this Bill, but I am unhappy about this power remaining in the Bill unless we know that positive parliamentary approval would be required for any Secretary of State to cancel the power for the annual canvass. However, as I say, I do not think that the power should be exercised at any point in the foreseeable future.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I start by stressing again that we all share the goal of getting as complete and accurate a register as possible and, indeed, of maintaining it over the years. I am looking at the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, whom I was about to call my noble friend because I have learnt a lot from him during the consideration of this Bill, as I have on previous occasions.

Over the next 10 years we will move more towards online and digital registration by default and we will find that communication between the citizen and the state becomes much easier. That is one of the large, indeed revolutionary, changes that we expect to go through. I would also remind noble Lords of what I said in Committee, which is that in certain parts of the country new housing in particular is making it increasingly difficult to carry out a full canvass. I visited the electoral registration office for Wandsworth. The figures there show that currently some 50,000 housing units are sited in gated communities or apartment blocks with entry phones, while the proposed development of the Battersea Power Station site will add a further 16,000 such units.

We all recognise that the annual canvass is useful and important. I can assure the noble Lord, Lord Martin, that there are areas in Bradford where some houses are back to back and others are not; some houses where people use only the front entrance and others where they use only the back, so many of us are well aware of the difficulty of finding out who lives where. Nevertheless, the extent to which we find it easy to catch people when they are in and get them to answer their doors, and thus to rely primarily on the annual canvass, is itself changing. This provision has been put into the Bill to remove the necessity of coming back to the House with primary legislation for a change when we are confident that other methods—in particular, online methods—provide more efficient and cost-effective ways of ensuring that we have a complete and accurate register.

I also stress that, under the Bill as drafted, there is a statutory role for the Electoral Commission in any changes. This does not create a power that is simply in the hands of the Government. In addition to the changes requiring the approval of Parliament, the Electoral Commission must be consulted and give its approval. The commission itself considers that Clause 7 and the other clauses relating to piloting and implementing changes to the annual canvass are appropriate. It stated that,

“it is sensible to include these provisions in this Bill to allow the findings from pilots and the early years of IER to inform the future role of the canvass. The Government has already made changes to this part of the legislation to reflect comments made by the Commission during pre-legislative scrutiny”.

The commission’s report is also required for any specific changes that the Government make under the powers in Clause 7. Under Clause 8, the Minister bringing forward the order must ask the Electoral Commission to,

“prepare a report assessing … the extent to which the objective in subsection (2)”—

the registration objective—

“is met … and … the merits of alternative ways of achieving the objective”.

The Electoral Commission would be required to publish its report within three months, and the Minister would then be required to present that report to Parliament alongside the draft order—which is subject to affirmative resolution of both Houses—that would make the changes.

Our aim with this provision, and the associated provisions I have outlined, is to create a system that is flexible and able to respond to advances in technology but also one that is transparent and has the right amount of scrutiny and safeguards built into it. Having given those assurances, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel sufficiently confident to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I want to be absolutely clear. Does the Electoral Commission have to give its approval or its advice? I ask in the context of what is happening in Scotland.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

The Electoral Commission has to provide a report assessing the extent to which the registration objectives have been met. That report has to be presented to Parliament, and the Minister has to respond. Both Houses of Parliament then vote on whether they accept the Minister’s approval. It is a fairly strong set of safeguards.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, they are not strong enough. We are coming, later on, to an amendment on the 10 pm closing, where the Electoral Commission has also given its advice and the Government are seeking to overrule it. I think that reflects the question just asked: it is about advice and not approval, and a report coming here and to the other place that the Government could then override. It will basically be a government decision. They always have a majority, as we know, in the other place, while in this place we have a custom and practice not to vote against regulations. That basically means it is in the hands of a Government, who do not have to take the advice—although they have to listen to it—of the Electoral Commission.

I am afraid that I am not sufficiently assured that this power, which allows an elected Government to abolish the annual canvass, is one that should remain in the Bill. The Minister talked about it being 10 years before online registration will really be there. That seems a long time to leave the power to abolish it in the hands of the Government. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Martin, for his support and want to test the opinion of the House.

16:39

Division 1

Ayes: 199

---

Labour: 150
Crossbench: 37
Independent: 3
Democratic Unionist Party: 1
Plaid Cymru: 1

Noes: 223

---

Conservative: 137
Liberal Democrat: 61
Crossbench: 17
Independent: 3
Bishops: 1
Ulster Unionist Party: 1

16:51

Clause 11 : Orders under Part 1

Amendment 4

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

4: Clause 11, page 8, line 5, at end insert “(but paragraph 27A of Schedule 5 contains an exception to this)”

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this amendment is part of a group tabled in my name along with Amendments 5, 8, 10, 14 and 15. Together, they provide for an extended carry-forward of non-individually registered electors unless this is deemed unnecessary.

This group of amendments is one that I hope noble Lords on all sides of this House will welcome—indeed, names from the Labour Front Bench are attached to one of them. The amendments aim to give reassurance that the electoral register following the implementation of individual electoral registration will be as complete and accurate as possible.

My noble friends and I have set out the steps incorporated into the plan for implementation of individual electoral registration under the Bill that will help to achieve this outcome. These include: the confirmation of around 70% of existing electors through data matching; a transition period that includes the general election, when non-canvass-period registrations are likely to peak; and the numerous steps to encourage registration that are built into electoral registration officers’ duties.

However, having listened to arguments in this House and elsewhere, we can see that there is a desire for a further safeguard such as that proposed in the amendments. Their effect is to postpone to December 2016 the final date for the transition to a register made up entirely of individually registered electors following a third canvass under the new system.

The Secretary of State will, however, have a power to take that final step in 2015—in keeping with existing plans for implementation of IER—if he is satisfied that the transition to IER can be concluded at that point. Perhaps I might stress, mischievously, that this will be after the election, and the question as to who the Secretary of State will be and which party or parties he represents is of course a matter which none of us at this point knows. Let me be clear that it is this Government’s intention to continue to work towards concluding implementation in 2015, but we will review that position ahead of making a decision.

If the decision is made to conclude the transition to IER in 2015, an order subject to the negative procedure will be made by the then Secretary of State in the three months after 1 June 2015. When the annual canvass period concludes that autumn, those entries carried forward from the pre-transition register published in spring 2014, where the elector has not been confirmed through data matching or successfully applied under IER, will be removed from the register. The revised register published on 1 December 2015 will then be made up only of individually registered electors, as under the current plans for the implementation of IER.

If the order is not made, this process will be delayed by a year and will take place following the 2016 canvass, with the December 2016 register containing only individually registered electors.

I have mentioned some of the factors built into the transition to IER which the Government feel will support the maintenance of the current level of completeness. I remind noble Lords that we intend, with the encouragement of the Electoral Commission, to move through the transition and complete it as rapidly as possible, subject to confidence being built that we have successfully managed to capture the maximum possible number of individual electors.

The amendments enable the change to an IER-only register to be left until 2016, but we are confident that the Secretary of State of the day will feel able to make the order to take the final step of transition in 2015. However, we recognise the hesitations in the House and have thus provided that additional safeguard. I beg to move.

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, I shall be very brief, except to say that sometimes I sit here, as I have today, wondering what world it is that we think that we live in. The world around us is changing a lot faster than we are prepared to change the electoral system, apparently. As I have said before and will say only briefly again, what we really need is a national register based on every individual getting benefits, et cetera, only if they are on the register, backed up with an ID card—sorry, a smartcard. I had better not use the term ID card as I know that it sometimes causes frissons down people’s backs. Smartcard technology is now very advanced. Although I am grateful to the Minister for calling my name in aid in the previous debate, the fact is that 10 years is now a very long time in technological terms. If you look only at the two years since this Government came into power, when we abolished—wrongly, in my view—ID cards, the way in which smartcard technology has moved in those two years now makes it very feasible to have one register and to divide it up into the constituencies. Everybody who is on the national register and is a holder of an ID card will then be entitled to vote.

Personally, I think that we ought to be moving to a system whereby the actual voting is done electronically as well, using that smartcard. That will come, but, at the moment, it would appear that the last place in which we will be using a pencil will be to mark a cross on a ballot paper in some school, where people have to go out in the cold and wet to do it. I think that even golfers will give up the pencil before this Government are prepared to give up the pencil for ballots under the electoral system. Please, please, will the Government take this slight delay as an opportunity to look again at how we can introduce a national register to ensure that every citizen of this country is entitled to vote in the next general election?

[Lord Rennard]

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Tyler and I have both signed the amendments in this group. They clearly result from the lengthy discussions we had in Committee about the right time to end the carryover for electors from the household register to the individual register. The debate then centred on how confident we can be as to how good the transition to individual electoral registration will be seen to be by 1 December 2015. Some people may be very confident that it will all work well in terms of both completeness and accuracy; as your Lordships know, I am a bit less confident about that. None of us can be certain about which is the right assessment to make until the transition is actually under way and properly tested. As we know, we are piloting various things at the moment but with software which will not even be the final software for use when we are fully into individual electoral registration. It was for that reason that I was determined in Committee that there should be a mechanism by which we could extend the carryover if, for example, the Electoral Commission reported by 1 December 2015 that many people would unjustifiably be removed from the electoral register and that the register was at that point significantly less complete than at present.

16:59

The Electoral Commission will, of course, give advice on this issue, but I do not think that it is appropriate for the commission to decide on such an issue. The Electoral Commission should advise us, and Parliament itself must be able to decide on this issue. It would not be right for a Minister simply to decide that—in his opinion, or in the opinion of the Government—it was the right time to make such a fundamental change. These amendments are right to extend the period of carryover for voters on the existing household register to 2016 as a default legislative position, while permitting the Minister to propose to Parliament that the carryover be ended in 2015, with the proviso that either House can disagree.

The government amendments in this group provide an essential failsafe and are an important part of protecting our democratic system. If it appears that this transition has not worked effectively enough in 2015 but a Minister tries to press ahead in any event, Parliament can prevent that Minister doing so. I am therefore very grateful to all those who have contributed to debates on this subject, and for the discussions that I have had with Ministers and for the flexibility shown. We on these Benches will therefore support the government amendments unamended.

Finally, I have a brief word on Amendments 6 and 7, tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, which are about postal votes. I tested the logic of the Government’s position on this issue in Committee. We received considerable reassurances that postal voters will be given considerable assistance in ensuring that they can continue to have access to a postal vote, should they decide to do so. They are also, importantly, still able to vote in person should they wish to do so. They are not losing their right to vote if they are not registered under the IER system by the time of the relevant election. The Government have made a little concession on this issue. Perhaps it is something that we will still have to review but, for the moment, we on these Benches are satisfied by what the Government have said.

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

My Lords, these amendments in effect fall into two categories. First, on dealing with the carryover of the register up to 2016, the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, will be aware that an amendment similar to the one that he has put down was moved in Committee. We of course welcome the fact that he has extended the carryover period to 1 December 2016. I welcome it for the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, gave in his speech and the reasons given in the speeches heard before.

Given the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, I am slightly worried that he is starting from the predilection that the Government will exercise their powers to stop the carryover at 1 December 2015. I would be anxious about that and would hope that the Government, whichever Government they were, looked at the matter with an open mind rather than saying, “We hope that we will be able to use the powers”. One thing that has emerged during these debates is that everybody expects there to be a real diminution in the number of people who are on the register, at least the first time around. I very much hope that it is looked at from an objective point of view rather than a biased one.

In connection with that, I should say that this is an incredibly important issue for our democracy, again as I think everybody accepts. It would be much better if Parliament definitely had to debate this issue, which would be the effect of our Amendment 9 to government Amendment 8. We achieve that by saying that there has to be a positive vote in Parliament before the carryover is moved back to 1 December 2015, rather than having the negative procedure, which would mean that somebody would have to object in either House.

It would be useful if the Minister could explain why something that goes right to the heart of our democracy can go through by default. I was deeply disappointed and injured by the fact that my new friend the noble Lord, Lord Rennard, did not feel able to support me on this, although I know that in his heart he really does—I should make it clear that he has not said that to me. Will the Minister explain why he thinks it is not appropriate that this be dealt with by, in a sense, a compulsory prescription to Parliament where the Government—whoever they may be—think they have to in relation to the level of coverage in the register? That seems an appropriate matter for a Government to report to this House on.

[Lord Tyler]

The noble and learned Lord suggested earlier that he has some misgivings about the motivations and independence of thought of the Secretary of State in December 2015. Does that mean that he does not expect to be in that role?

[Lord Falconer of Thoroton]

I have to be frank with the noble Lord: I do not expect to be in the role of Secretary of State. I have no idea who the Secretary of State will be. My anxiety was not what I know would be an open-minded and fair approach should it be a Labour Administration—indeed, a Liberal Democrat Administration as well. My anxiety was the coalition’s predilection, should it remain in power, to say, “We think the position is that we should try to bring it back to 1 December 2015”. That is all I was thinking of. That is our position on the carryover.

On proxy and postal votes, my understanding of the logic behind carrying over for one extra year is that you recognise that even though there will be much publicity and support for people to register themselves individually, it will not work with everybody. If that logic applies to individual registration, it is bound to apply to those whose proxy or postal vote you have to carry over. We are surely in a position where we wish to encourage people to vote. If you believe that you have a proxy or postal vote, and then you discover you have not, the likely effect is a reduction in the number of people who can vote.

To my immense disappointment, for reasons he did not adequately explain, the noble Lord, Lord Rennard—this is not a criticism of him—said that he was persuaded by the logic. He did not say why, and I was therefore unable to know why one should be persuaded by the logic. I would be grateful for an explanation from the Minister as to why the logic applies to extending registration to 1 December 2016, where there will be help, but it does not apply where there is a proxy or postal vote. This is an important matter that goes to the heart of our democracy.

However, I do not want to sound churlish, and I am very grateful that there has been extension for the other bit of the carryover to 1 December 2016.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords for contributing to this short debate. The statement made by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, that everyone expects a diminution of registration in the process of transition is not one that I accept. As I have stressed throughout, we are facing a number of problems with electoral registration altogether. We have the difficulties of identifying potential electors; we have the difficulties of keeping, in particular, young voters on the register; and all the research that I have looked at in the past two years demonstrates that we have the problem of disillusionment with politics as such, which leaves a number of people positively to wish not to be on the register. As I take part in local politics in Bradford, I come across large swathes of people who have no interest in politics whatever and simply do not wish to be on the register. They are very often in Labour-held council wards.

I think we all recognise that what needs to accompany the process of transition is a range of activities by the Government, but not just the Government, to make sure that everyone understands what is going on, that people are alerted to the need to move through to a process of individual registration, and that we work with schools, colleges, universities and others to persuade people that it is part of their engagement with our civil society to register to vote. I hope that the Labour Party will play an active role in this. I recall discussing with a senior Labour figure the desirability of a Labour Party electoral registration drive, to which the answer was, “You know very well we can’t do that these days. We have too few members, and most of them are retired”. That is a problem, incidentally, which all political parties now face, of course. We have fewer members than we used to have. We are not so good at getting out and rounding up the marginal people. The Government certainly intend to be out there in schools, colleges and elsewhere, drawing attention to what is going on.

The reason for the Government’s position on Amendments 6 and 7 is that the largest area for electoral fraud in recent years has been postal vote fraud. We know that a certain amount of this has not proceeded through to prosecution. Talking to electoral registration officers, as I was last summer, I was told that a great deal is known that is not provable and, as such, is not prosecuted. However, we are clear that, particularly in local elections, postal vote fraud has been the largest area of electoral fraud.

If we are thinking about the accuracy as well as the completeness of the register, we wish to hold to ensuring that those who have existing absent-vote registration renew that registration as they go through this process. This will be accompanied by making sure that those who are in sheltered accommodation, and those in particular areas where absent-vote registration is concentrated, are aware of what is happening and are encouraged to renew their absent-vote registration. This is a question of the accuracy of the register, and not just the existence of voting fraud but the perception of a high level of voting fraud. For that reason, we resist Amendments 6 and 7.

On Amendment 9, the question is how confident one is that we will manage the transition with a degree of success. We all recognise that the completeness level of the register we have today has fallen and that, as we go through this process, we will have to work very hard to ensure that we improve on the levels of completeness. However, the safeguards that we have provided and the concessions that we have made in the government amendments in this group are sufficient to give the assurances that are needed. We therefore encourage the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, to take confidence in the reassurances that I have offered and not to move his amendments.

Amendment 4 agreed.

Schedule 5 : Transitional provision to do with Part 1

Amendment 5

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

5: Schedule 5, page 29, line 23, leave out “second new canvass” and insert “third new canvass”

Amendment 5 agreed.

Amendments 6 and 7 not moved.

Amendment 8

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

8: Schedule 5, page 36, line 33, at end insert—
“Power to bring forward effect of paragraph 627A (1) The Minister may by order provide for paragraph 6 to have effect as if the reference to the third new canvass were a reference to the second new canvass.
(2) An order under sub-paragraph (1) may be made only in the period of 3months beginning with 1 June in the year in which the second new canvass begins.
(3) A statutory instrument containing provision under sub-paragraph (1) only is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament (and section 11(2) does not apply to it).”

Amendment 9 (to Amendment 8) not moved.

Amendment 8 agreed.

Amendment 10

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

10: Schedule 5, page 37, line 2, at end insert—
““the third new canvass” means the third canvass under section 9D of the Representation of the People Act 1983.”

Amendment 10 agreed.

17:15

Amendment 11

Moved by

[Lord Pannick]

11: After Clause 18, insert the following new Clause—
“Voting procedure
(1) Schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983 (parliamentary elections rules) is amended as follows.
(2) In paragraph 37 (voting procedure) after sub-paragraph (6) insert—
“(7) A voter who is in the polling station or in a queue outside the polling station for the purpose of voting at the time specified for the close of poll shall be entitled to apply for a ballot paper under sub-paragraph (1) above and a ballot paper shall be delivered and the voter entitled to vote in accordance with this paragraph.””

[Lord Pannick]

My Lords, this amendment stands in my name and in the names of three other members of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee—the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, chairman of the committee, and the noble Lords, Lord Lexden and Lord Lang of Monkton. As I explained in Committee, the amendment seeks to address a problem which occurred at the 2010 general election and which may recur at the 2015 general election unless we address it now. The mischief is that voters who arrive at the polling station before 10 pm but are not issued with a ballot paper before 10 pm are unable to vote.

Your Lordships’ Constitution Committee and the Electoral Commission have considered this problem. They have both arrived at the clear conclusion that if an eligible voter arrives at the polling station and presents himself before it closes at 10 pm, he should not be denied a vote because of circumstances beyond his control which mean that he does not receive a ballot paper before 10 pm. This amendment would address that problem. The Electoral Commission has communicated to your Lordships that:

“We strongly support this amendment”.

It has advised that the wording of the amendment is appropriate and correct.

Last week, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and I had a very useful meeting with the Minister in the other place, Chloe Smith, and I am very grateful to her and to members of the Bill team for the care, attention and time that they have given to this issue both last week and during the course of this week. I understand that the Government now accept the principle of the amendment and that the Minister will tell the House that he proposes to table an amendment for Third Reading later today.

In the light of that, I will say nothing more at this stage, save that I beg to move.

Amendment 12 (to Amendment 11)

Moved by

[Lord Lipsey]

12: After Clause 18, line 10, at end insert—
“(3) Section 66A of the Representation of the People Act 1983 (prohibition on publication of exit polls) is amended as follows.
(4) In subsection (1), after “before” insert “a time 30 minutes after”.”

[Lord Lipsey]

I owe the House an explanation, whichever way things go tonight, for moving an amendment which I believe to be otiose. Perhaps I may briefly explain. The matter at stake is whether there would be a problem in accepting the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, because voters queuing at a polling station would be able to hear the result of an exit poll and could change their vote. An exit poll cannot be published before 10 pm but it could be published at 10 pm and the result could become known to those people queuing at polling stations.

That may seem a bizarre hypothesis but it was advanced at some length on 14 January by the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, when he replied for the Government to an amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. He must have meant it because he said it with some conviction, although it would be fair to say that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, had not previously had responsibility for the Bill. At the time, the Government had the problem that the Minister who knew about the Bill did not believe in it as it then was. Therefore, they had to find someone to take his place. But let us leave that aside because the noble Lord said it and, therefore, it must have been the policy.

How sensible is this argument? There is no evidence—I repeat, no evidence—that an exit poll has ever affected the vote of any voter. John Curtice, the leading psephologist at the University of Strathclyde, who kindly researched this for me, said:

“I have not uncovered any pieces on exit polls having an impact on voter choice”.

It does not happen.

It is true that exit polls can in certain circumstances affect elections. The effect is on turnout. There is no British evidence on this. There is American evidence, although it dates from the 1980s, referring to a Reagan election. In the event, people on the east coast voted. The exit polls were reported and voters in California who were going to vote for Reagan did not bother to vote because they had heard that on the east coast he was winning easily and so why bother. The turnout could have been affected by between 1% and 5%. If you try to apply this to the hypothesis in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, you have the situation of a person who comes rushing back from work thinking that he can just get his vote in. He rushes to the polling station and finds to his consternation that there is a queue. However, thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, he can have a ballot paper anyway. Provided that he is in the polling station by 10 pm, he gets a ballot paper. Then he switches on his telephone and learns that the exit poll is showing that the Tories are going to win. The man then says to himself, “I have rushed back home, rushed to the polling station and been prepared to stand around while they finally produce a ballot paper for me but, having heard what the exit poll is showing, I am going back home without voting”. It really is a most absurd hypothesis. Even if in some extraordinary case it was true, what is the chance of it affecting the election result?

The amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, might result in a few hundred extra voters picking up ballot papers, even if we mess up things again as badly as we did last time. They will not be all of one party, of course. Let us suppose that a few of these voters did walk out and went home, most of the seats in places where this occurred would have been safe or quite safe. The chances of those voters not being there and not casting their vote making any difference to the result are practically zero.

When I was in Whitehall, we used to play a game late at night as to who could get a Minister to make the most ludicrous argument in either House of Parliament. It was a fantasy game, of course. This measure would have been a strong qualifier to win the gold medal in that game. However, just in case anybody believes this argument, I have provided a belt-and-braces amendment so that the exit polls cannot be published until 10.30 pm and, as a result, all those watching the 10 o’clock news will not know the result of an election. At least, thank goodness, the danger of the Pannick amendment affecting in any way the result in a single seat will be averted. Is that a price worth paying? Your Lordships will decide.

[Lord Lang of Monkton]

My Lords, as a member of the Constitution Committee and a signatory to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, I rise to support not only what he has said but what I hope the Minister is about to say. Indeed, I have cast my notes aside because their tone was such that, had I proceeded, he might have withdrawn what he was about to say.

I am delighted to hear that common sense seems to have prevailed because a vote is a fundamental right in a parliamentary democracy. That is something of which we should never lose sight. Heaven knows, not enough of the electorate cast the votes that they are entitled to cast. For guidance we need look no further than the procedures in this House where, because of rising population, the increasingly awkward structure and access to where we vote and the time limit that we are up against, the doorkeepers have very sensibly developed their own process whereby, after eight minutes, they move in behind those who are present and waiting to go through the Lobbies, and nobody else can vote. If that can happen here in this rowdy House, I suspect that it can happen in the polling stations up and down the land if proper, sensible legislation is enacted. I will say no more and, in the interests of the cause, I will now resume my seat, supporting what I hope I am going to hear.

[Lord Tyler]

I, too, want to speak briefly to Amendment 11 in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Pannick and Lord Lang, and their colleagues. It is tempting to follow the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, who always entertains the House, because he demonstrated not only the ludicrous nature of some of the objections that we had from the Front Bench last week but a rather ludicrous solution to those objections, if I may put it like that.

I wish to follow the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick. We, too, have benefited from some very useful discussions with Chloe Smith, her ministerial colleagues in the Cabinet Office and the Bill team. I hope that my noble friend on the Front Bench will indicate that those discussions have brought forth a fruitful conclusion. I hope that that will be dealt with tonight. I do not think that it can be left any later in the passage of the Bill.

There was a time when it was suggested that this concern arose simply from some inadequacy or administrative incompetence in a few polling stations and the anticipation of the outcome in a few constituencies in 2010, and that there was therefore no need for any statutory change. We on these Benches felt that that was not sufficient and, for the important reasons advanced in Committee last week and briefly touched on this evening, we should make it absolutely clear that an elector who has gone to all the trouble of going to the polling station and is there before the allotted time has elapsed should be given every assistance to cast their vote. If the citizen is inside the polling station or in a queue before the deadline, that situation is similar to when someone is in a shop and wishes to make a purchase, the shop is open for business and closing time has not happened. Surely, in a polling station, the citizen should transact the business of democracy in exactly the same way and be permitted to vote.

We quoted in Committee last week the practical example in Scotland where this attitude was assisted by an acceptance of that principle. The Electoral Commission has strongly supported us again on the amendment. It is a failsafe amendment. We assume that there will not be great crowds turning up at the very last minute because of a change—a very small change—in the legislative framework of elections. It is surely the right thing to do and I am grateful for all the indications that there have been from Ministers that they now are listening, not just to the mood in this House on this issue but to the careful, considerable advice of the Electoral Commission, which is, after all, Parliament’s adviser on an issue of this sort.

[Lord Martin of Springburn]

My Lords, I welcome the fact that the noble Lord is going to do something on Report. As has been mentioned, the procedure in such circumstances in Scotland is that a member of staff goes out and marks the end of the queue. However, we should not overlook the fact that most polling stations we are talking about are schools that have a yard, where at least a janitor can close the gates and have some control. Sometimes, if the polling station is a church or portakabin, those queues could be out on the street. When someone is arguing that they are entitled to be in the queue, the safety and health of the staff concerned must also be considered.

Although I welcome the amendment, a major responsibility remains with the returning officers in every city and constituency. After all, the labourer is worthy of his hire but, none the less, every returning officer is given a one-off payment, over and above their local authority salary. I looked at the figures for Sheffield Hallam where, in that constituency alone, 340 people lost out. It is a disgrace that that happened, because I have rubbed shoulders with colleagues with majorities of less than 340.

Perhaps I may put it in simple terms: if we were running a fund-raising function, dance, sale of work or whatever, and we got the catering wrong on one occasion, we would make sure that we got it right the next time. There is a responsibility on returning officers, if they got it wrong in Sheffield Hallam, to get it right the next time. The amendment should not allow them to sit back and forget that they have a responsibility. By the way, there were Scottish local government elections last year and only three people among the whole of the local authority areas in Scotland were concerned about whether they would get their votes. If a large queue formed outside a large school in one year, in the next year in which there is an approaching election, the returning officer should go about the business of creating another polling station—perhaps in a nursery or church around the corner. Also, the returning officer should make sure that communications are good within the city or the constituency, whichever applies. The staff at a polling station who see queues forming should be able to phone up and say, “We need extra help here and you must get that help right away”.

I also understand that at the last general election some polling stations had as many as 3,000 electors to one polling station. That is ridiculous. It should be somewhere in the region of 1,000 electors. For the sake of clarity, I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, that in Scotland the building or classrooms where voting takes place are known as the polling place and the designated streets are known as the polling station. That is a small matter but perhaps the Minister can consider it for Third Reading.

17:30

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, had noted in previous debates on this issue, the sentiment behind the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on behalf of the Constitution Committee, with the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and my noble friends Lord Lexden and Lord Lang, is fully appreciated.

Having heard the view of the House and seen the cross-party support for this change, the Government are content to accept the principle of the amendment. Our resistance to it in its current form has been based on a concern about unexpected and unforeseen consequences flowing from the change, and we still have that concern. We have identified some of those consequences in debate and, in looking at them more closely since, have concluded that they need to be addressed.

The amendment as it stands brings ambiguity and uncertainty to the impact of other legislative provisions upon the broadcasting of exit polls and other matters pertaining to secrecy within electoral law that are subject to criminal penalties of fines or up to six months in prison. There are other impacts on legislation that refers to the close of poll.

The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, has brought forward a further amendment to seek to address the issue of exit polls. Unfortunately, while deferring their publication until 30 minutes after close of play might deal with some potential instances of delay, it would not catch all such instances—for example, if there were a very considerable queue. In that sense, it would defer the problem to a later time.

It is also necessary to make some drafting changes to the amendment to ensure that it applies consistently. The amendment, as a consequence of the intricacies of the current law, does not apply to Northern Ireland. It would be most regrettable if we were to accept it and have a position where voters in a queue at 10 pm could receive ballot papers and vote after that time in Great Britain but not in Northern Ireland.

On that basis, and recognising the will of the House and the laudable principle behind the proposed change, the Government propose to bring forward at Third Reading an amendment that makes the change being sought in terms of electors voting at close of poll but which also contains a provision, through a proportionately limited power, to make further amendments on commencement to deal with all the potential consequences that it has on other elements of electoral legislation.

On the basis of the Government’s commitment to bring forward a clause at Third Reading that achieves the aim of the amendment in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, on behalf of the Constitution Committee and which deals with these further issues, I trust that the noble Lords will feel able to withdraw their amendments.

[Lord Lipsey]

I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment 12.

Amendment 12 (to Amendment 11) withdrawn.

[Lord Pannick]

I am very grateful indeed to the Minister and to the Minister in another place, Chloe Smith. I am also very grateful to the Bill team for the considerable efforts that they have shown in addressing the substance of this amendment. I entirely accept that the amendment as put forward at this Report stage could be improved; I entirely accept that it is necessary to deal with Northern Ireland; I entirely accept that it is necessary to say expressly in the amendment that close of poll is still at 10 pm, with the consequence that that has for the publication of exit polls thereafter; and I entirely accept that it is appropriate for Ministers to have a power on commencement to introduce consequential amendments. Again, I am very grateful for the care and attention that the Government have given this matter. There is widespread agreement around the House that the principle of the amendment is correct. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 11 withdrawn.

Amendment 13

Moved by

[Lord Norton of Louth]

13: After Clause 22, insert the following new Clause—
“Opt-in to the edited version of the electoral register
(1) From 1 December 2013, the inclusion of the name of an elector on the edited version of the electoral register shall only take place when the elector has given permission for his name to be included.
(2) For the purpose of subsection (1), permission shall be deemed to have been given when the elector ticks a box on the electoral registration form indicating that he wishes to be so included.”

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, in Committee I raised the issue of the edited version of the electoral register. I return to it in this amendment because of the Government’s unsatisfactory response. The edited version of the electoral register engages important principles regarding personal data. The edited version is generated as a by-product—essentially a commercial by-product—of a citizen’s duty to supply personal data in order to be registered to vote.

I made the case in Committee for the edited register to be abolished. I had argued the case before and, in making the case in Committee, I was able to pray in aid the Electoral Commission, the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee of the House of Commons and the Association of Electoral Administrators. Each has argued the case for abolition. In Committee, I quoted an editorial of the Guardian in December 2011, which argued that the edited register,

“lingers on, a travesty of the democratic process that sullies the relationship between voters and state, and illustrates just how casually politicians think about democracy”.

In its briefing for Committee stage, the Electoral Commission contended that prohibiting the publishing of the edited version was,

“particularly important, given the need to maintain people’s confidence in the security of their personal details”.

In responding, my noble friend the Minister said that, on balance, the Government had decided to retain the edited register because of what was seen as a greater principle—that of commercial gain. There was no engagement with the argument beyond that. The Government’s stance would presumably justify reverting to the sale of the full register to any organisation that wished to purchase it.

However, given that the Government have decided in favour of retaining the edited register—and we will doubtless return to that issue in the future—I have decided to pursue the issue of the opt-out. In Committee, I argued the case for electors to opt in to the edited version of the register, rather than—as now—opt out. This is, to my mind, crucial in the use of personal data. If electors are to have their personal data sold to third parties, then they should have to give their consent to it being sold in this way. As I said in Committee, consent must be given rather than assumed. That need for consent is reinforced by the Minister’s reminder in Committee that under individual electoral registration, an individual’s choice—or rather, in many cases, assumptions made about an individual’s choice—will automatically be carried forward.

The Electoral Commission, in its briefing on today’s amendments, has made clear that it supports this amendment. It states:

“We believe that, if individuals are required by law to provide personal information for the purpose of electoral administration, they should be asked clearly if they also want their personal information to be sold. Their personal information should only be sold if they have explicitly given their consent”.

In Committee, the Minister’s line of argument was essentially that the situation had improved since the days when the full register could be sold—rather ignoring the circumstances leading to the creation of an edited register—and that the existing situation provided appropriate protection and control. That was asserted rather than justified. Where personal data are concerned, we need to apply a higher threshold than that which is being applied. The present arrangements rest on assumptions about electors’ wishes rather than their explicit consent and what appears to be implicitly the view that changing to an opt-in provision would be too much trouble. Perhaps in reply my noble friend will explain what precisely the obstacle is to moving to an opt-in provision. Surely the principle of consent must outweigh the claim of convenience.

I will raise a general point deriving from this amendment and from others moved in Committee, not only by me but by other noble Lords. The Government appeared unwilling to engage with points of principle relating to the franchise and to the protection of personal data. Their response was couched essentially in terms of convenience and practicality. This bears out the concern expressed by the Constitution Committee in its report of the previous Session on the process of constitutional change. More than a decade ago, when I chaired it, the committee expressed concern at the lack of a culture within government of dealing with constitutional issues. As the committee noted in its report of last Session:

“The evidence we have received points to this lack of coherence remaining a serious problem”.

The Government need to demonstrate that they are able to engage in debate about the principles underpinning our constitution and the way in which we conduct elections. My amendment raises important questions that take us beyond matters of administrative convenience. If the Government are not willing to accept the amendment, they must give a compelling argument for their stance. We need to do whatever is necessary to protect personal data and the integrity of the registration process. I beg to move.

[Lord Tyler]

My Lords, as always, the noble Lord, Lord Norton of Louth, made a compelling case. However, it would be wrong to suggest that the current situation is in place not because of a very long, very careful, very extensive and very thoughtful process. The edited register is the result not just of some quick legal judgment but of a long political process, started by the previous Labour Administration.

The electoral register has been available for sale in one form or another since 1832. In 1999, Labour rightly recognised—before the register was challenged in the courts—that there was a case for changing the Victorian arrangements. In 1999 a Home Office working group recommended, first, that electors should be allowed to decide whether their personal details should be included in a register that was made commercially available and, secondly, that the full register should continue to be available to electoral users, while a licensing arrangement should be agreed to ensure that its use was restricted to electoral purposes only.

As far as I am aware, that recommendation was by broad agreement across the parties. The situation resulted in Section 9 of the Representation of the People Act 2000, which created the so-called “edited register”. It was only when the Government consulted on how to implement the new principle that they were challenged in court about the old system. In 2001, Brian Robertson from Pontefract won his case when the judge concluded that the compulsory disclosure to commercial organisations of data given for electoral purposes was in breach of the Data Protection Act and of the newly passed Human Rights Act. He won the legal point in court, but it appears that the political and moral point had already been acknowledged by the Labour Government in 1999, and here in Parliament in 2000. The edited register was finally implemented in regulations in 2002. The problem that the amendment before your Lordships seeks to solve is one that has already been dealt with in the 2000 Act and the 2002 regulations.

Your Lordships’ House is always rightly concerned about the unintended consequences of legislation that we scrutinise. We should be particularly alert to the unintended consequences of this amendment. The edited register does not just have a commercial purpose; it is also used by a great many charitable organisations. The suggestion from my noble friend that it was only commercial reasons that the government Front Bench advanced last week may or may not be true, but those reasons certainly are not my concern. My concern is that a large number of highly reputable, very public-spirited actions by very public-spirited organisations could be impeded by the removal of the edited register, or by it becoming ineffective. For example, the Salvation Army is a particular advocate for its retention. Each year it finds and reunites some 3,000 families by using the edited register. That is as much an issue of principle as of practice. The edited register underpins efforts to locate and connect organ donors—which, again, is very important—and even bone marrow donors.

17:45

Local government uses it for purposes for which, even as the compiler of the register, it cannot use the full register. In particular, councils use it for debt recovery. That function in local government draws attention to another wider cause—its use by credit reference agencies to find people who have abandoned their debts. It would be odd for us to be pressing hard for the banks and other lenders to increase the flow of credit and, at the same time, say to them, “If people don’t pay back, we’ll hinder your efforts to find them”.

I recognise that the Select Committee in the other place has made recommendations but it also said that the opt-in version of the edited register, which the noble Lord, Lord Norton, seems to be advocating,

“might well make the edited register too incomplete to be of much use”.

That is the weakness of the amendment: it neither abolishes the edited register nor leaves it as a useful resource for the proper purposes that I have described.

The balance is about right already as the result of a long, consequential and careful consideration by the previous Administration and the present Government of not only its immediate purpose but its unintended consequences if there were a major change. If someone wants to avoid contact by commercial or charitable organisations, they can opt out on the electoral registration form. When individual registration is fully introduced, every individual will get that opportunity; they will no longer have to rely on sub-contracting it to another member of their household.

I would welcome assurances from the Minister that we can look, for example, at how the edited register is described. I do not believe that “edited register” is an especially transparent description, and clearly we could change it.

However, for most who do not mind the simple fact of their name and address being registered locally, there remains a compelling case for retaining an edited register. It assists charities, it assists in the flow of credit, it can reunite families, it can even bring about organ donations and, in a modern market economy, it can provide a useful way for people to market their products to consumers. I find it difficult to understand why that is such an objectionable objective.

The previous Government got the regulations broadly right. As such, my noble friend Lord Rennard and I will oppose the amendment this evening if it is taken to a Division.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve]

My Lords, this is not a subject on which I would often speak, but I have thought a great deal about the inconsistencies in our practice: having data protection legislation and yet an electoral register where you can opt-out of the publication of your address.

The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is right—there are too many people who have an interest in having access to this information for good purposes, by and large. If this were on an opt-in basis, have the Government done anything to obtain a picture of how many people would be likely to opt in. I imagine that the value of the register would be wholly destroyed. We know how many people have learnt in the age of the internet never to tick any of the boxes that state that you are willing to receive any further information for any purpose, even a worthy purpose.

I have a feeling that we are on the cusp between information that has to be public and information that our clunky data protection legislation regards as private. It is incoherent. We have ended up regarding home addresses in some contexts as personal information that is not to be transmitted or disclosed to others without express permission, and regarding them in other cases as public information that is non-personal and that may be published. It is not so much the purposes that concern me, whether they are commercial or not; it is that ultimately the opt-in register might be radically incomplete and not useful for many purposes.

[Lord Wills]

My Lords, a change in public policy on this issue is long overdue, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Norton, on his persistence in returning to it on Report. I associate myself with everything he said in support of his amendment. In the past, Ministers have talked about the register being used as an aid for business and commerce, and we have heard in this debate about its uses for charities and other organisations. However, in my view, so far Ministers have advanced no good arguments, either practical or principled, about why such a public subsidy—because that is what these uses of the electoral register represent—to particular business sectors should take precedence over all the arguments for the other side that have been put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Norton: weakened protection of personal data, the likely damage to registration rates caused under the present system, and the introduction of a commercial element into a relationship that should be founded on fundamental democratic principles.

When I was the Minister responsible for this issue in the last Government, I was minded to adopt an approach very similar to that put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Norton, both in Committee and today. Predictably, perhaps, I was vigorously lobbied by representatives of credit agencies who made fearsome claims about the potential detriment to businesses that would arise from any changes. Clearly there are arguments on both sides of the issue, so I asked those who had lobbied me to come back with detailed evidence of the potential damage: their analysis of what might be done to replace the electoral register as a source of data for them, how much the alternatives might cost, and a detailed principled case for public subsidy rather than their being put into the same position as other private sector firms that produce goods and services and fund their businesses from their own resources. I felt that when these people came back with the information, a proper assessment could be made of the advantages and disadvantages of different policy approaches.

I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, and the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, that the same arguments apply to charities and other non-governmental organisations that use the electoral register for wholly commendable objectives. The argument is not so much about the usefulness of the electoral register, because that is clear and I think we all agree on it. The argument I would put is whether this is the best use of public money. What principled case is there for using public subsidy in this way, and could the sums involved perhaps be deployed more effectively in other ways? I have never seen any evidence to that effect, either as a Minister or subsequently. If there were any compelling evidence I might be prepared to change my mind, but in the absence of detailed analysis and evidence it seems that the noble Lord, Lord Norton, has made a compelling case for change. I hope that the Government, even at this late stage, might think again.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the last Government did consult on the future of the edited register and received some 7,600 responses, of which 7,450 were in favour of its retention. Last year, Ministers carefully considered the future of the edited register again and took further detailed representations from both sides of the debate. They concluded, as had their predecessor, that the edited register should be retained. We saw no evidence that people are put off registering and agreed with those who highlighted the wider social and economic benefits that it provides.

We have heard from the participants in this debate a different balance of views on whether the register is being sold for commercial gain or is providing a public subsidy to commercial firms. That is actually a rather contradictory impression, because my understanding is that the money charged by councils is intended to cover the costs of providing it, so it is maintained neither for commercial gain nor to provide a public subsidy.

As on many other things, I consulted my wife about the question of the edited register, and she gave me an extremely sharp response. She reminded me that at one stage she had actually opted the family out but had then run into difficulties when my son tried to rent a flat during his fourth year at university; she did not have the credit reference that was required for the credit reference agencies. There are real public benefits of different sorts in providing the register. We talked previously about using the credit reference agencies as a form of assistance in making sure that we have as complete an electoral register as possible, and we have to recognise that the growing interdependence between private and public databases is something from which we all benefit. We should not try to hold them at arm’s length.

I have to say that, on the balance between privacy and transparency, I am increasingly a Maxtonite. I believe that we are heading towards a society that will benefit from greater transparency and in which a sense that every bit of privacy we give away is a threat to our individual existence will not be acceptable. Incidentally, some months ago the Swedish ambassador told me that in the Nordic states, transparency extends to publishing citizens’ salaries and the taxes they pay on those salaries. I am sure that that would currently be regarded as a deep intrusion into the privacy of the citizen here in Britain, but it is the sort of thing with which I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Maxton, might agree. Moreover, I find some aspects of this issue rather attractive. The trade-offs between transparency and privacy are complex; they are not simply all one way.

The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, asked how much research has been undertaken into opt-ins. I am advised that it is believed in government that an opt-in would be extremely confusing. It is not clear whether people would believe immediately that an opt-in was in fact an opt-out. The resulting register might be so incomplete that it would not be worth maintaining.

Some 10 years ago we moved from a compulsory register to an edited register. People are used to the system—

[Lord Maxton]

My Lords, I intervene only to make a rather mundane point. The register is a great historical document as well as being useful for electoral purposes. Perhaps my question is for the noble Lord, Lord Norton, rather than for the Minister, but is there a timescale for this? Is there a point at which the full register would become available to those who wish to study this particular period in history?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

That is an excellent question to which I cannot give an immediate answer, but I promise to write to the noble Lord. However, that in turn raises the question about the future of the census, another historical document that we will have to come back to. We are beginning to move away from a paper register that is maintained locally and therefore not easily accessible, to online registration, which in the future will make it much easier for those interested in family history to access.

The Government take the handling of personal information seriously and are keen to ensure, in the context of the move to individual electoral registration, that electors are able to make a fully informed choice on the edited register. There should be sufficient balanced and impartial information on electoral registration forms to ensure that electors understand what the different versions of the registers are and the purposes for which their data may be used.

18:00

As the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, remarked, the edited register serves a variety of purposes, some of which are commercial and some of which are very clearly valuable in social terms. To this end, the Government have therefore proposed, in the draft secondary IER legislation, that application forms will include a clear statement on the processing of data supplied by the individual and are looking at the language used to describe the uses of the registers. The Government will be working closely with the Electoral Commission to ensure that the forms will be user-friendly, clear and straightforward.

The Government believe that providing electors with a choice of an opt-out, alongside sufficient information to allow the individual to make an informed choice, provides electors with appropriate protection and control. So long as electors have an informed choice and can alter their preferences, there is little practical difference between an opt-out and an opt-in. We are not aware of any large-scale demand for change in the current situation.

In view of all these important safeguards, I can see no reason for removing the current opt-out arrangements. I therefore thank the noble Lord for the debate but ask him to accept the Government’s assurances and to withdraw this amendment.

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, I am grateful to those who have contributed, and especially to the noble Lord, Lord Wills, for his support on this amendment. I do not regard the responses that I have heard as particularly satisfactory. The Minister’s objection appears to be that electors are not bright enough to understand the difference between an opt-in and an opt-out. However, we do not know whether citizens are making an informed decision because they are not making that opt-in choice. It is notable, as happened in Committee, that neither my noble friend Lord Tyler nor the Minister addressed the core issue of principle that I raised. The objection was really practical—who benefits from the edited register—rather than on the core point about the use of personal data, how they are protected and whether people make an informed choice. In many respects, the points made by my noble friend Lord Tyler bore out the point I was making.

The fundamental point is that we place stress on the protection of personal data. As my noble friend Lord Tyler said, we had long discussions leading up to the Act in 2000. I took part in those discussions and made the case that what we did then did not go far enough in terms of the protection of personal data. It is definitely something we need to pursue and return to. As far as I am concerned, the Government need to think again. As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, and the noble Lord, Lord Wills, have said, the Government need to engage in serious research on this. It is not something that is going to go away. It is something we will doubtless come back to; indeed, we will come back to it.

On this occasion, we are clearly not making much progress but at least we have put down a marker. We will return to it because the protection of personal data is extraordinarily important. There is a core principle: people must give their consent. If the edited version is going to collapse because they do not give their consent, then I am sorry, but they must give it. In my view, electors are sufficiently intelligent to understand clear instructions on the point of an opt-in and opt-out. If the benefits are clearly explained then at least they can make an informed choice. However, it really must be up to electors rather than the Government making assumptions on their behalf. As I say, we will return to this, but in the mean time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 13 withdrawn.

Clause 26 : Commencement

Amendments 14 and 15

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

14: Clause 26, page 15, line 2, at beginning insert “Subject as follows,”

15: Clause 26, page 15, line 3, at end insert—
“(1A) Paragraph 27A of Schedule 5 comes into force at the end of the period of 2 months beginning with the day on which this Act is passed.”

Amendments 14 and 15 agreed.

Report received.

Arrangement of Business

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

Announcement

18:04

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, that concludes the Report stage of the Electoral Registration and Administration Bill. I understand that the Public Bill Office will soon have available for consultation an informal print of the Bill as amended on Report. Any noble Lord may table amendments for Third Reading within the next 45 minutes. The Third Reading will not begin before 90 minutes after the conclusion of Report.

Kashmir

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

Question for Short Debate

18:04

Tabled by

[Lord Ahmed]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they support a peace process between India and Pakistan to resolve all outstanding disputes, including regarding the right of self-determination for the people of Kashmir.

[Lord Ahmed]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords from all parts of the House for taking part in today’s short debate. Since 2004, civilians living near the line of control have welcomed and celebrated the sense of peace in both Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir, even though there were 75 ceasefire violations and eight people died in an exchange last year. Diplomatic efforts by both India and Pakistan prior to that saw such events as the granting of most favoured nation—MFN—status to Pakistan by India in 1996. Pakistan has made attempts to return this favour to India more recently.

We hear a lot about the terrible Mumbai attacks, allegedly perpetrated by LeT, from Pakistan, which have damaged relations. However, the Indian Home Secretary, Mr RK Singh, on Tuesday said that the intelligence agencies had the names of at least 10 persons involved in the Samjhauta Express, Mecca Masjid and Dargah Sharif blasts who were associated with the terrorist organisation RSS, which I understand is linked to the BJP and is backing Mr Narendra Modi, Chief Minister of Gujurat. He is a leading candidate in the BJP leadership elections and a future Prime Minister of India. That is frightening.

Further tensions have been created since Sunday 6 January this year, when Pakistan reported that one of its soldiers was shot dead by Indian troops. Four more fatalities have occurred, which has further escalated the tension between the two nations. Both sides are laying blame on the other, further escalating tension. Indian’s claim that one of its soldiers had been decapitated by Pakistani soldiers has been totally denied.

I understand that Pakistan’s Foreign Minister has contacted the United Nations Military Observer Group for India and Pakistan and asked it to conduct an inquiry into the breach of the ceasefire in an exchange of fire in the Rampur-Haji Pir area on the line of control. She has denied allegations of tit-for-tat tactics by Pakistan and has urged the media to avoid negative propaganda. She has called for a dialogue and for calm on all sides.

I thank the House of Lords Library for sending the recent press reports which have noted an escalation of cross-border violations and stressed the seriousness of the damage that it will have on bilateral relations between the two powerful nuclear states. I believe that this has huge consequences for regional peace as well as global peace due to the danger of nuclear weapons.

Noble Lords will be familiar with the reports of the ongoing torture, murder and rape of ordinary civilians in Kashmir. A systematic campaign to induce fear is a tool fearlessly employed by Indian forces as a means of social control. I recall that the Foreign Secretary, the right honourable Mr Hague, made a policy statement last year asking the UN to include rape as a “weapon of war” in conflict situations. I pay tribute to the Channel 4 documentary last year, which exposed abuses of human rights and the existence of 2,700 unknown, unmarked and mass graves. These graves contained over 2,943 bodies across 55 villages in Kashmir. This came from research conducted between November 2006 and November 2009 by the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir. The report was conducted by an American professor, Angana Chatterji, the renowned human rights lawyer, Parvez Imroz, and their colleagues. The graves contained bodies from murders that took place between 1990 and 2009. They included corpses of victims of massacres and executions committed by Indian military and paramilitary forces. More evidence has since emerged and is being exposed.

This is a clear indication of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. Despite there being clear evidence of breaches of human rights, to date, there has been no statement from the International Criminal Court regarding this matter. The ICC prosecutors have been vocal regarding African regimes; but what about serving officers of the Indian Army? At this stage I draw the attention of noble Lords to the petition signed by 25 British MPs, four Peers and four MEPs for the mortal remains of Maqbool Butt, the founder of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, who was hanged in a jail in Delhi in 1984, to be returned to the family to be buried in Kashmir.

The Minister will be aware of the case of Nepalese Colonel Kumar Lama who was arrested earlier this month and charged in the UK with two counts of torture during his country’s civil war in 2005. On 6 December 2012, the Guardian reported that 500 alleged perpetrators of human rights abuses—from low-ranking policemen to serving Indian army generals—had been involved in shooting, abduction, torture and rape in the Indian-administered Kashmir. A complete list has been published by the International People’s Tribunal on Human Rights and Justice in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Can the Minister confirm whether Her Majesty’s Government would be willing to arrest any of these accused if they ever tried to enter the United Kingdom? Will she consider putting those names on our watch list and banning them entering the United Kingdom? Noble Lords will be familiar with the heavily publicised case of Jyoti Singh Pandey, a 23 year-old Indian student who was raped and subsequently died. I pay tribute to the Indian public for their collective display of zeal and vigour in their attempt to bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice. Their voices were heard in all corners of the globe by people who shared their sympathy and disgust at the crime committed. It is with such spirit that I ask noble Lords today to turn to the suffering and rape of girls and women in Kashmir. Their cries must not go unheard, and the perpetrators of this crime must also be brought to justice. Their suffering must be brought to an end.

There have been recent reports of prisoners of war in Indian prisons from 1965 and 1971. Whether they are prisoners of war from Pakistan or from India, they should all have been released, and should be released now. Kashmir remains one of the world’s oldest and longest militarised zones, with United Nations observers on the line of control since 1949. It must not be forgotten that self-determination has been a struggle fought by Kashmiris long before the struggle for an independent India and Pakistan. This struggle for self-determination has been debated and promised in history by former Prime Minister Pandit Nehru on many occasions, including 19 July 1951 when he said:

“Kashmir has been wrongly looked upon as a prize for India or Pakistan…Kashmir is not a commodity for sale...It has an individual existence and its people must be the final arbiters of their future.”

My observation over the years has only strengthened my view that self-determination talks, confidence-building measures or comprehensive dialogue between India and Pakistan are meaningless without the involvement of Kashmiri leadership.

I have also heard many a time that Britain has a moral responsibility to the people of Kashmir because of its colonial history in that region, yet nothing seems to be done. The United Nations Security Council resolution of 1948 and 1949 promised a free, “fair and impartial plebiscite” for the Kashmiri people. I know that they are old resolutions. I know that they are not enforceable by force, but can the Minister confirm whether Her Majesty's Government recognise these resolutions as valid and legal documents?

Can the Minister confirm whether Her Majesty's Government have raised with the Indian Government the ratification of the UN Convention against Torture and its optional protocols? Can the Government consider suspending military relations with India until India ratifies the UN convention? Is she aware whether the UN special rapporteur on torture to India, including Kashmir, has published any findings in relation to the above?

I want to see better relations between India and Pakistan. I want both peoples to prosper and live in peace. For the sake of millions of poor Indians and poor Pakistanis, I want to see the end of money wasted on nuclear weapons, and instead spent on health and education and on the eradication of poverty and disease. This can be achieved only by resolving the bitter dispute, the long-standing issue of right of self determination for the Kashmiri people. This issue must be resolved before the international community withdraws from Afghanistan or I fear Kashmir may give extremists a rallying point.

18:14

[Lord Loomba]

My Lords, this subject has been debated many times before both in your Lordships’ House and in the other place. Nearly 10 years ago, when the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, asked a similar Question, the then Government clearly stated that the differences between India and Pakistan were a matter for those two nations. Just last year, the then Foreign Office Minister said that relations between India and Pakistan were a matter for those countries alone and that other countries should not attempt to intervene. However, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, for initiating today’s debate, and I am pleased to participate in it.

For over six decades bilateral relations between Pakistan and India have been overshadowed by the Kashmir dispute. The Simla agreement and the Lahore declaration, which are the cornerstones of India-Pakistan relations, commit both countries to resolve all issues peacefully through direct bilateral approaches. There is no question of involving a third country in any aspect of India-Pakistan relations. As neighbours, it is in the interest of both India and Pakistan to work out a relationship which will ensure peace and security for both countries.

I am convinced that peace and prosperity will prevail in India and Pakistan, and it will be a win-win situation if both countries develop trade and trust between them. Despite geographical proximity and the resulting potential for reduced transportation costs, direct bilateral trade has failed to reach its full potential. Although it has increased substantially in recent years, in 2010-11 it remained at $2.6 billion, far below the $40 billion that could be achieved. Estimates of indirect trade through third countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Iran, Afghanistan and others range anywhere between $500 million to $10 billion a year.

In the last decade or so, a number of initiatives have been taken by both countries towards this end. Former Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee’s initiatives to bring the two countries together have been carried forward by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. If Prime Minister Vajpayee launched the Delhi-Lahore bus service, Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh took steps to increase bilateral trade. I can recount several other peace initiatives taken in this direction.

Sadly, terrorism remains India’s core concern in the relationship with Pakistan. I do not have to remind noble Lords that the terrorism which takes place in India is carried out by infiltrators. Talking about the state of Jammu and Kashmir, I would like to mention that the territory has faced, in some ways, an extraordinary situation over an extended period, primarily due to cross-border terrorism. The main issue, therefore, is the continued infiltration of foreign terrorists from across the border. If terrorism can be stopped, I have no doubt that the peace process between India and Pakistan will start automatically, and I also have no doubts that it will be a sustainable peace process, bringing prosperity to both countries.

In conclusion, I would like to remind your Lordships’ House that we must support democracy and secularism—those most treasured of Britain’s political beliefs and values. Terrorism has no mandate and I hope that the Minister in her reply will rightly condemn such activities as a means of resolving the Kashmir dispute.

18:19

[Lord Parekh]

My Lords, I begin by thanking my good friend the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, for securing this debate and introducing it with the passion and eloquence that we have come to associate with him. He has been a good champion of his people and I admire him for that, although I do not agree with most of the things that he has said.

Relations between India and Pakistan have passed through several stages. It was Pandit Nehru who suggested, within five years of taking office, that there should be a confederation between the two countries, a proposal he reiterated on several occasions. Relations have passed through various phases because the two countries do not seem to be able to make up their minds on exactly how much to co-operate, at what pace and in which direction.

In Pakistan there are institutions and agencies that would like the two countries to get together; there are others that think differently. Ever since the military has been a dominant force in Pakistani politics, relations with India have remained rather tense, although I see that Pakistan is beginning to show a more ambiguous, nuanced approach. Given the penetration of the military into the economic sphere, and the fact that the economic sphere offers the opportunity for Pakistani business to flourish, there is a great deal of demand for closer ties between the two countries, including the proposal for giving India most favoured nation status.

At the same time, terrorist attacks such as those on the Indian Parliament and the Taj Hotel in Bombay have been occasions when the relations between the two countries seemed to point in the direction of hostility. In other words, there are gestures in both directions and one will have to see how things move and at what pace.

Our concern today is not to talk so much about India and Pakistan in general—this is not a summit between five noble Lords, one from Pakistan and the rest of us from India—but rather to concentrate on Kashmir. I know that the noble Lord has been preoccupied with Kashmir for quite a while.

I have taken a stand which has not been very popular in the Indian community or the Indian establishment. I have always argued that to talk about Kashmir “belonging” to India is an ambiguous expression. If “Kashmir” refers to land, land can belong to another country. But if “Kashmir” refers to people—which it does—no people can belong to another, short of slavery. Therefore, to say that Kashmir belongs to India is a very dangerous proposition if it is taken to mean that the people of Kashmir can be held hostage by the people of India.

I have wondered how best to handle the question. A plebiscite is not the answer. If I were the Prime Minister of India—which happily I am not—I would go for it because I would know that I would be able to organise a plebiscite but Pakistan would not. The 1948 resolution requires that both sides should withdraw their armed forces. Under Pakistan’s constitution, Pakistani-occupied Kashmir is already an integral part of Pakistan and therefore it is not open to Pakistan to cede Pakistani-occupied Kashmir or allow it to become separate.

It is also the case that in order for the United Nations resolution to be implemented, Kashmir will have to be whole, which means that the territory of Kashmir that Pakistan has ceded to China will have to be restored. In order for the 1948 resolution to go through, Pakistan would have to vacate Pakistani-occupied Kashmir and regain the land it has ceded to China. Neither of these conditions can be met, so India could easily say, “Let’s have a plebiscite”, knowing full well that the other side would not be able to meet those conditions.

There are other reasons why I can imagine India not agreeing, because if you agree to a plebiscite in Kashmir, you might have to do that in the north-east and other parts of India, and that is a non-starter. In addition, if the plebiscite went the other way one could not be entirely sure how the 148 million Muslims in India would respond and no Government could risk the disorder that this might cause. So a plebiscite is not an option.

At the same time, the existing situation is not an option either. It is absolutely right to say that India has behaved badly in Kashmir in recent years. Its forces have been responsible for violations of human rights. However, this has been recognised by the Indian media, as the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, pointed out. There are plenty of groups in India that have campaigned against this. The National Human Rights Commission of India has campaigned against this. There is a tremendous amount of Indian opposition—people like myself, Arundhati Roy and lots of others have written about it. Within India itself there are enough alternatives available to put pressure on the Government to do something about it—the kind of thing, I am afraid, that does not seem to obtain in Pakistan.

What should we be doing? India cannot continue as it is doing now. At the same time, one cannot expect that the two halves of Kashmir can remain as they are, for all kinds of reasons. For the time being at least, one must respect the line of control; expect and require the Indians to behave much more sensibly in Kashmir, as they used to do but have not done in recent years; and hope that the compulsions of democracy in India and Kashmir will force a course of events resulting in an increasingly relaxed climate in Kashmir and India, and between India and Pakistan, so that the situation can be handled much more intelligently than it is being handled now.

18:26

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lord Ahmed for initiating this debate on what is an important subject, which, despite the number of Questions that have been asked in this House and the other place, still does not receive the coverage that it merits in this country and indeed further afield.

Perhaps I may read out an answer that I received to a Parliamentary Question on Kashmir, which is as follows:

“Our position on Kashmir is well known and well established. We believe that the best way forward in Kashmir should involve simultaneous progress on discussions between India and Pakistan, as provided for under the Simla agreement of 1972. There must be improvement in human rights in Kashmir, a genuine political process and a clear cessation of external support for violence in Kashmir”.—[Official Report, Commons, 1/3/95; col. 1040.]

That answer was given to me on 1 March 1995 by the then Minister, Mr Tony Baldry. Nearly 20 years further down the road, very little—if anything—has changed, except that the violence appears to have escalated.

I spoke about Kashmir in another place on a number of occasions during the 1990s, largely because the issue had been brought to my attention by the sizeable Kashmiri population in my then constituency of Glasgow Central. Indeed, the community was so insistent that I should see for myself the situation in that part of the world that it arranged visits for me to Azad Kashmir. I visited Muzaffarabad, Mirpur and other places to get a better feel of the situation than through the imploring of my constituents, which I assure noble Lords I received much of. There were also many lobbies in London at that time involving people of Kashmiri origin from many UK cities. That was two decades ago but we do not seem to be any further forward.

My noble friend Lord Ahmed outlined the litany of recent human rights abuses in Kashmir, which was really harrowing. That is not just because of what that must involve on an individual level for so many people, not least in terms of rape, which is possibly the worst act of war that anyone can commit—as my noble friend said, it is an act of war—but it seems that while our Government are raising the issue and answer questions in much the same way today as they did in 1995 and since then, nothing seems to change. What steps is the Minister prepared to say that the Government will take to intervene—I use that word advisedly—and make a serious attempt to bring the two countries together with a view to providing a solution?

The Question that we are discussing today mentions self-determination for the people of Kashmir. The original UN resolution, Security Council Resolution 47, adopted in 1948, mentioned that there should be a plebiscite. A plebiscite would be for all the people of Kashmir and, as I argued in the 1990s, should not ask merely, “Do you want to be under the aegis of Pakistan or do you want to be under the aegis of India?” but “Are you in favour of an independent Kashmir?”. That is a perfectly legitimate question which only the Kashmiri people can answer. Of course, they have never been allowed to answer that question because it has never been put to them. The question of self-determination underpins this whole issue.

There is no need to regurgitate the history of the issue, which I would maintain goes right back to the day when Maharaja Hari Singh, then the ruler of Kashmir, decided to sign the territory over to India. It is interesting that it was India that went to the United Nations in 1948 for the resolution which eventually emerged and it was then India, as history tells us, that prevented it happening because of disputes over Pakistani troops and their withdrawal from Kashmir. I do not seek to blame one country more than another, because that serves no purpose, but the question of a plebiscite or any kind of self-determination seems to have moved right off the agenda. Even the Hurriyat conference stated as long as 10 years ago that it no longer saw that as a realistic possibility. We have reluctantly to accept that, but it does not mean that we should not seek to offer the people of Kashmir the right to have their say in some meaningful form, whatever that should be. Kashmir is today the most militarised territory in the world, with up to 1 million troops stationed there. I do not know whether it is the longest-lasting territorial dispute—perhaps Palestinians would say that theirs is slightly longer, although it dates from about much the same time—but after three major wars, in 1947, 1965 and 1971, and a very tense standoff in 2002 which we thought at one time might lead to nuclear conflict, the need for intense diplomatic efforts on the part of our Government is urgent. I just wonder why more pressure is not put on the Governments of both India and Pakistan. Is it because India is such an emerging and important economic power now? Is it because Pakistan has to be an ally in the fight against terrorism in that part of the world? I do not know, but we should press for some kind of action. If UN Security Council Resolution 47 is now redundant, why not make it at least a starting point and go back to the United Nations to see whether a new one could be framed or some meaningful way of moving things forward via the United Nations could be found.

This Government have a moral responsibility, as did every other Government in Britain over the past 70 years because of the partition of India, and everything flows from that. I say to the Minister, in not a critical but a constructive way, that I hope she will be able to take back to her colleagues in her department the message that something needs to be done. I think that this Government can play a meaningful role in bringing the two countries together and trying to take things forward.

18:33

[Lord Desai]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking my noble friend Lord Ahmed for bringing this topic to your Lordships’ House. To the substantial question of what Her Majesty’s Government can do, I think that the answer is not much. As far as possible, Her Majesty’s Government should keep out of this. I remember what happened to my right honourable friend David Miliband when he went to Delhi and made a statement on Kashmir. I had to spend several evenings defending him and telling people, “No, he’s really a good man”.

This is a bilateral issue. Since the Simla Agreement of 1972, as several noble Lords have pointed out, the UN no longer has any locus standi in the matter. This was a mutual agreement between the two countries. Neither the UN military observers nor the UN Security Council as of now has any locus standi in the matter.

I was in Pakistan 15 years ago and spent a whole month in Islamabad. I was very struck that the second question I was asked in every social gathering—after how I was and so on—was, “Why do you not give up Kashmir?” My answer was that I had a British passport, so Kashmir was not mine to give up. They said, “Forget about that. You really have Kashmir and you ought to give it up”. I suddenly realised that India has Kashmir by virtue of the agreement with the old king, Maharaja Hari Singh. Pakistan’s sense of nationhood depends on having Kashmir as part of Pakistan. There is a great asymmetry in feeling about Kashmir in those two countries. India has the bulk of the valley of Kashmir and Pakistan has only a sliver and wants all of it. Flying on Pakistan International Airlines in those days, I saw a map of Pakistan that included all Kashmir in Pakistan.

I can see that there is a very strong feeling in Pakistan that, somehow, something happened and Kashmir should have come to it. The state of Jammu and Kashmir has three components: one is the valley of Kashmir, which is majority-Muslim; then there is the Jammu, which is predominantly Hindu: and then there is Ladakh, a huge area which is mainly Buddhist if anything. When we talk about Kashmir, it is one of the three components of Jammu and Kashmir that we mean. You could not really hold a plebiscite even if it was possible, except on the condition that the votes of the three regions were counted separately and you had different choices, because, ultimately, Pakistan cares only about the valley—which is the most beautiful part as well.

Forgetting about the plebiscite, what we have to do is to maintain the status quo. In both areas—I do not think that there is a paradise of human rights in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir or even in Pakistan itself—we have to have civil society people monitor violations of human rights, complain about them, point them out and try to make the Governments involved behave better. In that respect, civil society in the UK can perform a function, but that function cannot be performed by the Government, who would be well advised to stay out.

I have always championed, and written about, an independent Kashmir which would be like Switzerland with a condominium guaranteed by all the major powers plus India and Pakistan. When I put forward this idea in Pakistan, I was violently opposed by people saying, “No, an independent Kashmir will not do. Kashmir is part of Pakistan”. I think that in India also there is considerable opposition.

This is one of those endless disputes, like that between Israel and Palestine, which goes on and there is nothing much that the UN can do about it. We have to make sure that the people involved in that tragedy are assured as peaceful and lawful an existence as possible and hope that India, which is a kind of older brother in this dispute and already has a democratic structure in Jammu and Kashmir, will improve governance in Kashmir. It should try to make sure that violations of human rights which take place are addressed and that the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, about which there is a lot of debate in India—not only with respect to Jammu and Kashmir but also with respect to the north-east—is removed in its application from the area of Jammu and Kashmir.

Perhaps something like that can by urged by civil society groups in the UK, because it is already being urged by civil society groups in India. I do not say that that will happen, but we have to keep up the pressure. It is very important on humanitarian grounds that we keep up the pressure and try to improve as much as we can the lives of the people of Kashmir on both sides.

18:39

[Lord Triesman]

My Lords, I join others in thanking my noble friend Lord Ahmed for instigating this debate. It is a serious matter. There have been three wars over Kashmir between those two countries, and that is bad enough, but they are also nuclear powers, which makes it all the more dangerous. I agree with my noble friends Lord Parekh and Lord Watson, who in different ways in wise observations made the point that the blame game is hardly likely to help any part of the process. We are not immune from it in this House, although I wonder whether it ever helps.

The events of the past couple of weeks have been worrying and threatening. There have been five deaths, one of them an Indian soldier who there is reliable evidence to say was beheaded, although there is much doubt as to who actually did it. Exchanges across the line of control are not uncommon but fatalities are, thankfully, relatively rare. On 11 January, India described the violations and armed infiltrations as “matters of serious concern”. India was “on alert”. Pakistan summoned India’s ambassador to protest over the death of one of its soldiers, and the tone of India’s language was also a matter of objection by the Pakistani Government. Pakistan denied responsibility for any of the attacks, including the beheading. An Indian opposition leader chillingly called for,

“at least 10 heads on the other side”.

My noble friend Lord Ahmed was quite right to deplore the excesses of language that have emerged on both sides. At senior levels in both Governments and military leaderships, more bellicose language is being used. Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, while calling for calm, also accused India of “warmongering”. India’s army chief predicted instability and said that in respect of periods of relative calm,

“there can be no business as usual”.

In that light, it is perhaps extraordinary that military commanders have carved out what is at least a de facto truce at the moment. Cross-border firing stopped, I believe, on 16 January. Since then, although both sides are bristling with weapons, no one has crossed or fired across the line of control. How remarkable, in its way, that is. Two senior generals, India’s Vinod Bhatia and Pakistan’s Ashfaq Nadeem, made the truce agreement in a 10-minute telephone conversation, which illustrates what is possible in extreme circumstances. It is hopeful and it is helpful, but it is fragile. Peace, just getting back on track after the Mumbai attacks in 2008, is plainly at risk, and the line of control creates little security.

Our relations with India are obviously very strong. It is a powerful country and, even given some of the terrible threats that my noble friend mentioned to civil society and the safety of women, India is a partner with great stability. The quality of the relationship between our two countries should give us confidence that a dialogue on regional security is always possible. I fully share the point made by my noble friend Lord Parekh about making a pragmatic and sensitive approach.

Relations with Pakistan have become stronger, and they have to, precisely because of the problems faced by the Pakistani nation, which pose critical issues for us. The international community cannot neglect Pakistan, and its security is crucial to peace in the region. It is hugely influential in the region and in the Islamic world more generally. It is, as I said, a nuclear power. Internal violence in 2008 killed at least 2,000 people. If the coalition withdraws from Afghanistan prematurely, that could have enormous consequences for Pakistan.

The Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas have for a long time been the epicentre of global terrorism. AQ and its associates have exploited ungoverned space and instability where they can. Pakistan itself is now robustly tackling the terrorist threat with considerable courage.

Many people in Pakistan live in extreme poverty, as we all know, and the floods have affected a great many more people. It surprises me that the European Union spends just half a euro per person in Pakistan, compared to five to 10 times as much in other parts of the world that are more developed and less crucial to our security. I ask the Government this evening to give greater priority to this issue in discussion with the EU High Representative.

I was very pleased that my noble friend Lord Ahmed mentioned the Channel 4 documentary on the mass graves. I thought it a powerful indictment, and part of a tradition of extremely powerful Channel 4 documentaries. Like the Sri Lanka documentary, which was powerful, accurate, verified by Ofcom and the basis for UN decisions to condemn war crimes by the Sri Lankan Government, I believe that we have another documentary that should have a similar impact. I have long asserted, and I assert again, that Channel 4 has qualities that we should all look to in order to see that they are shared by some of the rest of our media and recognised by many international partners.

It is plainly not possible in a short debate to do full justice to this issue. It would be wrong to ignore the possibilities of intense diplomatic effort—quite rightly called for by my noble friend Lord Watson—by neglecting the potential engagement of Ban Ki-Moon. That effort, if it is to be made, should be made now before fragility across the line of control becomes sustained conflict. Kashmiri independence is and remains, as the noble Lord, Lord Loomba, said, a matter likely to be solved only through bilateral negotiations in the region. My noble friend Lord Desai was also quite right to say that there is a very limited amount that we can do.

What we can do is this. We can say to the United Nations in friendly terms—this will be a matter where there is no difference across the Floor of this Chamber—that we detect the early signs of what may be very much greater instability with much more dire consequences. This is a moment when it can potentially intervene with some benefit.

18:46

[The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, for calling this debate on the peace process between India and Pakistan and the right of self-determination for the people of Kashmir. He has a long record of raising this issue and has consistently highlighted the concerns that he raised again today. Before I respond to his specific Question on India-Pakistan relations and Kashmir, I would like to put this discussion in context by setting out the current state of the United Kingdom’s relationship with both India and Pakistan.

India and Pakistan are longstanding and important friends of the UK and we enjoy close relations with both countries. Our unique historical and cultural ties still bind us, as do our important Indian and Pakistani diaspora communities, some of whom have taken part in the debate today. I knew, when I saw the speakers’ list, including four British Indians and one British Kashmiri, that this debate was going to be extremely interesting.

The United Kingdom is committed to an enduring relationship with Pakistan built on mutual trust, mutual respect and our many shared interests. Both our Governments are committed, through our enhanced strategic dialogue, to strengthening practical co-operation across the bilateral spectrum in areas such as trade, development, security, culture and education.

The Prime Minister called this a “Naya Aghaz”, a new beginning, forming an unbreakable bond of friendship between our two countries. Our relationship is broad and deep. There are many challenges that we agree that we need to deal with together. Only last week, as the Minister responsible for Pakistan, I spoke at the United Nations Security Council debate on counterterrorism, initiated and chaired by Pakistan.

My noble friend Lord Loomba raised the issue of terrorism. We also accept that Pakistan is on the front line of terrorism, making bigger sacrifices in fighting terrorism than any other country. As the Prime Minister has said, when confronting terrorism, Pakistan’s enemy is our enemy. In Britain we understand the terrible losses that terrorism has inflicted upon Pakistan, and we feel them deeply too.

In relation to India, the United Kingdom enjoys an equally strong relationship—a relationship founded on a broad range of mutual interests, from education and climate change to security and defence. The Government have prioritised our relationship with India. When the Prime Minister made his first overseas visit to India in July 2010, he made clear that we would build a stronger, wider and deeper partnership. I can inform the House that he intends to visit again this year to strengthen further what is becoming an increasingly important relationship.

There have also been an increasing number of other high-level visits and exchanges over the past two years to both countries, including the Foreign Secretary’s visit and visits from the Department for International Development. I have had the pleasure of visiting both India and Pakistan. In 2011 I visited India for the first time, going to both Delhi and Amritsar and holding meetings with, among others, India’s now Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid.

As I have said before, we have in this country large diaspora communities from both India and Pakistan that have made enormous contributions in this country. In many ways they have continued to discuss these matters, as we have seen here in your Lordships’ House. It is clear to me that the UK enjoys strong bilateral relationships with India and Pakistan, and that we are working in partnership with both countries to make them even stronger.

I would now like to set out this Government’s assessment of India-Pakistan relations and the right of self-determination in Kashmir. We welcome the renewed engagement between India and Pakistan in recent years; we are particularly encouraged by the substantive progress on liberalising trade and visa arrangements. We hope that both sides will continue to take further steps to help the growth of both countries’ economies. It is this basic normalisation of trade relationships and contacts between ordinary citizens on both sides that will help assist other programmes of confidence-building measures. I was pleased to see the programme between the Jang Group and the Times of India called Aman ki Asha, which I thought went some way towards normalising relationships between the two countries.

We also welcome the number of high-profile, high-level engagements and regular official talks between both sides. The visit by President Zardari, during which he met Prime Minister Singh, and the meetings between the countries’ Foreign, Finance, Home and Commerce Ministers have continued to build the relationship. We recognise the importance of a strong relationship between India and Pakistan, not only for the good of their bilateral relationship but for regional stability.

The position of our successive Governments in relation to Kashmir was animated well by the noble Lord, Lord Watson. On Kashmir, our position has always been that it is for India and Pakistan to find a lasting resolution to the situation there, which takes into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people. I fully understand the strength of feeling about the dispute among many people in Britain. We are aware of the level of parliamentary interest and the all-party parliamentary group discussions on this issue. However, I believe that any attempts by the United Kingdom or other third parties, however well intentioned, to mediate or prescribe solutions would hinder progress. It is for the two countries to move towards resolving these issues directly. That is why successive British Governments, including the previous Labour Government, have taken the position that they have.

This Government continue to monitor developments in Kashmir closely, including the political, security and human rights situation on both sides of the line of control. We are all too familiar with the violence that has plagued Kashmir for far too long. It has affected the security and prosperity of ordinary Kashmiris. That is why we welcome peaceful dialogue to resolve all differences. We are concerned about the incidents that have taken place over the past fortnight on both sides of the line of control in Kashmir. Regrettably, those incidents caused the loss of life of soldiers on the line of control, as well as the suspension of cross-border trade.

We are encouraged by the recent steps taken to de-escalate tension and hope that all sides will continue to exercise restraint. British officials in New Delhi and Islamabad are in close contact with the Governments in both capitals on this issue. We also welcome their commitments to dialogue and to not allowing these incidents to derail the positive developments in bilateral relations. The UK is committed to supporting efforts to promote peace-building, which will help bring about stability and prosperity in the region. Our resources from the Conflict Pool will continue to support work towards this objective. In 2011-12, Her Majesty’s Government spent approximately £1.6 million, through their Conflict Pool, on regional stability programmes.

The noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, raised the issue of human rights. We take that issue extremely seriously. He also raised India’s ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture. Noble Lords will be familiar with the United Nations Human Rights Council’s universal periodic review, which covers every country in the world. In the universal periodic review of India in May, we recommended that India expedite the ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture and its optional protocol, and that it adopt robust domestic legislation to this effect. We have not raised the proposed visit by the UN special rapporteur but we understand that the visit has been postponed until after the ratification of the convention against torture.

The noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, also raised the issue of Colonel Lama from Nepal and asked whether the UK would take similar action against those accused of torture in Kashmir. In accordance with the UK’s international obligations under the UN Convention Against Torture, and provided that there is sufficient admissible evidence and that it is in the public interest, the UK can take jurisdiction over torture wherever it is committed in the world. A decision would clearly need to be taken on a case-by-case basis.

The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, raised the Channel 4 documentary, “Kashmir’s Torture Trail”. We are aware of that documentary on Kashmir. We monitor developments in Kashmir closely and regularly raise concerns about the human rights situation on the line of control. We welcome the fact that Prime Minister Singh has made it clear that human rights abuses by security forces in Kashmir will not be tolerated and note that the Indian Government have started an investigation by the Jammu and Kashmir state human rights commission. We welcome the initiative by Prime Minister Singh to appoint three interlocutors to engage with a wide range of interested parties to help resolve the situation in Indian-administered Kashmir. The Indian Government have recently published the interlocutors’ report; it sets out a range of confidence-building measures, including addressing human rights concerns. I understand that the Indian Government will take a decision on how to implement that report after a period of consultation.

It is clear that a resolution of the dispute over Kashmir must be for India and Pakistan to find, while taking into account the wishes of the Kashmiri people. We welcome the progress to date to build confidence between the two sides but recognise, too, that much more remains to be done. The United Kingdom will continue to encourage India and Pakistan to take further steps to strengthen their relationship, but we recognise that the pace and scope is clearly for them to determine.

18:57

Sitting suspended.

Electoral Registration and Administration Bill

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

Third Reading

19:35

Clause 6 : Amendment of Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011

Amendment 1

Moved by

[Lord Hart of Chilton]

1: Page 5, line 26, at end insert—
“( ) In section 3(2)(a) of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 (timing of Boundary Commission reports), for “before 1st October 2013” substitute “before 1st October 2018 but not before 1st September 2018”.”

[Lord Hart of Chilton]

My Lords, this amendment and those grouped with it make a number of changes to Clause 6, which was inserted by this House in Committee. They are in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Rennard, Lord Kerr of Kinlochard and Lord Wigley. The Government have assisted with the drafting of these amendments to ensure that the meaning and effect of the new clause is entirely clear and effective, and I expect to hear that the Minister agrees with that.

Further, the secretary to the Boundary Commission for England has indicated to me that all four Boundary Commissions would welcome the changes made by these amendments to ensure that the Boundary Commissions are certain about what the legislation requires of them. Therefore these amendments make a number of changes to remove any ambiguity from the meaning of Clause 6 and generally to tidy up the clause while ensuring that it still achieves the intended outcome. There is no change of substance whatever, and I ask the Minister to confirm that he agrees.

In particular, this amendment amends Clause 6 to ensure that there is clarity on which electoral register is to be used by the Boundary Commissions in the boundary review and on by when the commissions have to report. It specifies that the Boundary Commissions must submit recommendations to Ministers not before 1 September 2018 and before 1 October 2018. Taken in conjunction with the provisions in the PVSC Act, it would be clear that the electoral register as at 1 December 2015 would be used in this review. The formulation of the amendment makes it clear that the current review, which is based on electoral register data as at 1 December 2010 is cancelled as the boundary review under the clause would be required to be based on data as at 1 December 2015. Again, I ask the Minister to confirm that this is his understanding.

The amendment seeks to ensure that the effect of Clause 6 is clear and that necessary consequential changes are made, and I ask the House to accept this amendment.

As to other changes made by the amendments, they provide, first, that the Boundary Commissions would not have discretion to consider inconveniences attendant on boundary changes as a factor when drawing up boundary proposals for the review that must report before 1 October 2018. The PVSC Act provides that the discretion to consider inconveniences would be disapplied for the purposes of the first review under the changes made by the PVSC Act. This is because there would inevitably be more inconvenience attendant on the first review under the PVSC Act as it reduces the number of constituencies from 650 to 600 and, for the first time, it applies equality of electors as the overriding principle in drawing up constituencies. As the boundary review under Clause 6 would, in effect, become the first review under the PVSC Act, it is appropriate that we disapply this rule for that review, in line with Parliament’s intention two years ago. Does the Minister agree?

Secondly, it amends Section 14(3) of the PVSC Act to provide that the review that this House called for into the effect into the reduction in the number of constituencies provided for under that Act is now scheduled to take place in 2020 after the 2020 general election, and not in 2015. The Electoral Commission maintains that it would make no sense to review in 2015 a reduction that would not—in the Bill we have to send to the Commons—take place before 2020. I agree with that. Does the Minister?

Thirdly, an amendment would ensure that Clause 6 would amend the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986 on the timing of boundary reviews, instead of the PVSC Act. That is a technical drafting point.

Finally, an amendment would make a consequential change to the Long Title of the Bill to explain that it amends the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986. I beg to move.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, very briefly, I support the amendments moved so ably by the noble Lord, Lord Hart, to which my name is attached. I will not go into the details because they have been well explained.

However, it is quite understandable that when an amendment of the sort that was moved in Committee finds its way through to the Bill there are consequences that nobody has thought out. My understanding is that this will avoid further amendments being necessary in the other place and that this will therefore, hopefully, avoid ping pong occurring with the Bill.

I understand that the four Boundary Commissions—not only for England, but for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland—also concur with the amendments. This is clearly a sensible way forward. I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate that our understanding is correct and that this is helpful.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we had a lengthy debate on Clause 6 in Committee. It is well known that there are differing views within this House on the merits of that clause, and I do not wish to reopen the debate on it here today. The purpose of the amendment is to make changes to Clause 6, which this House added to the Bill in Committee, to ensure that the meaning and effect of the clause is clear. I hope that the whole House would agree that we should ensure that there is clarity about the meaning of provisions that we send to the House of Commons, and which could end up on the statute book, and that we improve the drafting of legislation when we are able to do so.

In the interests of ensuring well drafted legislation, we therefore welcome the noble Lord’s amendment, which seeks to remove any ambiguity from the meaning of Clause 6. In a matter as important as the setting of constituency boundaries, which is fundamental to our democracy, we should ensure that there is clarity over the rules governing the conduct and timing of boundary reviews and that the Boundary Commissions are clear on what the legislation requires of them.

There has, of course, been consultation about the drafting of this clause. I confirm, as the noble Lord, Lord Hart, has asked, that the Government’s understanding of the meaning of the amendment is exactly as he has described it. That is agreed.

The amendment would ensure that the effect of Clause 6 is clear, and that necessary consequential changes are therefore made. I urge noble Lords to agree to the amendment.

Amendment 1 agreed.

Amendments 2 to 4

Moved by

[Lord Hart of Chilton]

2: Page 5, line 27, leave out “10” and insert “11(2)”

3: Page 5, leave out lines 28 and 29 and insert “for “1 October 2013” substitute “1 October 2018”.”

4: Page 5, line 29, at end insert—
“( ) In section 14(3) of that Act, for “2015” (in both places) substitute “2020”.”

Amendments 2 to 4 agreed.

19:45

Amendment 5

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

5: Insert the following new Clause—
“Voters waiting at polling station at close of poll
(1) Schedule 1 to the Representation of the People Act 1983 (parliamentary election rules) is amended as follows.
(2) In rule 37 (voting procedure) as it extends to England and Wales and Scotland, after paragraph (6) insert—
“(7) A voter who at the close of the poll is in the polling station, or in a queue outside the polling station, for the purpose of voting shall (despite the close of the poll) be entitled to apply for a ballot paper under paragraph (1); and these rules apply in relation to such a voter accordingly.”
(3) In rule 37 (voting procedure) as it extends to Northern Ireland, after paragraph (3) insert—
“(4) A voter who at the close of the poll is in the polling station, or in a queue outside the polling station, for the purpose of voting shall (despite the close of the poll) be entitled to apply for a ballot paper under paragraph (1); and these rules apply in relation to such a voter accordingly.””

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, the Government have brought forward this amendment to recognise this House’s support for a change to allow electors in a polling station or queuing outside at the time for close of poll who have not yet had the opportunity to receive a ballot paper and cast their vote, to do so. It takes the principle proposed in the amendment previously tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, on behalf of the Constitution Committee, and the further amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, on issues around exit polls.

The amendment addresses the inclusion of Northern Ireland in the scope of the change it will bring about. It isolates the change in relation to close of poll from impacting anyone who broadcasts an exit poll while people in the queue are still voting, thus removing the ambiguity on application of the criminal sanctions that they might have faced, and provides for proportionately tailored powers to make further changes to legislation to address other impacts that it has on provisions that also relate to the close of poll.

The amendment applies to the law governing UK parliamentary elections and does not as a matter of course apply to all other polls, elections or referendums. Depending on the relationship of the Representation of the People Act 1983 to other legislation and the effects of any combination provisions, the change may or may not also apply to other polls. The powers sought in the amendment are aimed at being able to address uncertainty and ambiguity about when and how it may apply to other provisions and for other elections or referendums.

The Government think that it would be better for electors if we were to make sure that any such changes were brought about in a co-ordinated manner and do not open up the possibility of electors in a queue being able to vote in a poll on one date but not on another. It helps us avoid, at least in part, the need to make legislation on a piecemeal basis for different polls, an issue which has been raised in relation to the complexity of that legislation. It also brings clarity for those administering elections and, more importantly, for those voting in them. I trust that noble Lords will accept this amendment in the spirit in which it has been brought so that the change sought can be introduced in a workable and effective fashion. I beg to move.

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town]

My Lords, I wish to take this opportunity to say how much we welcome this measure. I think that we started to discuss the Bill in this House in July last year and noble Lords will be pleased to know that this is the last time they will hear me speak on it. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, who has been extraordinarily helpful to us throughout the discussions on the Bill. He was ably helped by the noble Lords, Lord Gardiner of Kimble and Lord Taylor of Holbeach.

This has been a tricky Bill in some ways and the Bill team has served us well, as I am sure it has the government side. We thank the members of the Bill team as well as the clerks, who we have perhaps stretched beyond their normal role, including at the last minute tonight when the relevant paperwork was turned round quickly to enable us to get to this stage of the Bill. In doing so, we have seen the House at its very best.

I also take the opportunity to thank my noble and learned friend Lord Falconer, who has guided us through the Bill. We have in our office the most marvellous Jessica Levy, who has made sure that we have been kept well up to date at all times. We very much support this amendment and thank the noble Lord for tabling it.

Amendment 5 agreed.

Clause 26 : Commencement

Amendments 6 and 7

Moved by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

6: Page 15, line 8, at end insert—
“(4A) An order under subsection (1) bringing into force any provision of section (Voters waiting at polling station at close of poll) may—
(a) make provision in consequence of, or for giving full effect to, that section, or
(b) make supplementary or incidental provision for the purposes of that section.
(4B) An order made by virtue of subsection (4A) may—
(a) modify any Act (whenever passed), including any provision inserted by a provision of this Act apart from section (Voters waiting at polling station at close of poll), or
(b) modify subordinate legislation (whenever made).
(4C) An order made by virtue of subsection (4A) that contains provision modifying an Act may not be made unless a draft of the statutory instrument containing it has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.
(4D) Any other order made by virtue of subsection (4A) is subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament.
(4E) In this section—
“modify” includes amend, repeal or revoke;
“subordinate legislation” has the same meaning as in the Interpretation Act 1978.”

7: Page 15, line 11, at end insert “or of any provision of an order made by virtue of subsection (4A)”

Amendments 6 and 7 agreed

In the Title

Amendment 8

Moved by

[Lord Hart of Chilton]

8: Line 2, at end insert “; and to amend section 3(2)(a) of the Parliamentary Constituencies Act 1986”

Amendment 8 agreed.

Bill passed and returned to the Commons with amendments.

House adjourned at 7.49 pm.