House of Commons

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

Thursday 7 February 2013

The House met at half-past Nine o’clock

Prayers

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

Business before questions

New Writ

Ordered,

That the Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new Writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the Borough constituency of Eastleigh in the room of Christopher Murray Paul Huhne, who since his election for the said Borough constituency has been appointed to the Office of Steward or Bailiff of Her Majesty’s Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham in the county of Buckingham.—(Mr Alistair Carmichael.)

Oral Answers to Questions

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)]

1. What steps his Department plans to take to increase the number of women in the workplace.

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

The number of women in work is higher than at any time in British history. We propose a new system of shared parental leave and extending the right to request flexible working to all workers, which will further promote female participation in the workplace by increasing flexibility and choice. We are also committed to seeing more women in senior positions in the UK’s top companies, initially focusing on board representation.

[Harriett Baldwin]

In the last tax year men paid £92 billion in income tax whereas women paid £36.8 billion, which is 60% less. Normally I am in favour of lower income taxes, but in this case will the Secretary of State explain what else he is doing to help to equalise those figures and, most importantly, bring an extra £55 billion into the Exchequer?

[Vince Cable]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work she has done through the Working Families charity to promote shared parental leave and on female participation in the finance sector. It is not entirely a problem that women are paying less income tax; raising the tax threshold will help low-paid women in particular to pay less tax, which is one of our objectives. Female participation and promotion and women rising to the top in business are also key objectives of our policy, and that will produce the equality for which my hon. Friend strives.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

Warm words butter no parsnips. The cost of child care holds women back from entering the work force. Does the Secretary of State regret his decision to support the reduction in child care tax credits and will he now push for that to be reversed?

[Vince Cable]

The Government are supporting women with young children, and families in general, to the tune of about £5 billion through the child care element in tax credit and free early years tuition, which for low-income families has been extended to two-year-olds, as well as tax relief on employers’ schemes. That amounts to very substantial support for child care.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The number of women in the workplace has been increasing for some time, of course, but in Wirral women public servants faced with the threat of redundancy and women leaders of small business tell me the cuts to Wirral council are threatening their job security. Will the Secretary of State ask his colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to have a rethink about some of the heaviest cuts that are falling on places such as Merseyside?

[Vince Cable]

It is never good when people lose their jobs, and I always regret that, but the simple fact is that in Wirral, as in other parts of the country, the number of public sector local and national Government jobs lost is far outweighed by the number of jobs created in the private sector; over 1 million have been created over the past two years.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

2. In how many months net lending to businesses has (a) increased and (b) fallen since January 2011.

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

12. In how many months net lending to businesses has (a) increased and (b) fallen since January 2011.

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

Figures from the Bank of England show that between January 2011 and December 2012 lending to businesses by UK banks increased in six months, and decreased in the others. The Government and the Bank of England are working to increase lending across the economy, for example through the funding for lending scheme and the new business bank.

[Mike Gapes]

Over the last two years net lending has gone down by £28 billion. What is the Secretary of State doing about that, apart from his various failing piecemeal initiatives, which do not get to the nub of the problem? The problem is a lack of consumer confidence and the banks’ failure to lend enough because of their lending criteria. What is he going to do about that, so that he will have a better record in two years’ time?

[Vince Cable]

Certainly, the decline in net lending to SMEs is a serious issue, which I frequently refer to. It is a genuine problem and Government schemes have provided support in a variety of ways, including about £7 billion of net lending and £1 billion alone from the enterprise guarantee scheme.

Before we are lectured on this, we need to go a little further back and remember who was in charge when the banks collapsed and the lending crisis erupted. The hon. Gentleman may recall, given that, like me, he has been a Member of the House for some years, the Cruickshank report of 2000, which pointed out that the banks were overcharging their business customers, providing a poor service and making excess profits. The last Government had an opportunity to reform the banking system then. They did absolutely nothing about it, which is why we are in this mess today.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Small and medium-sized enterprises in Oldham have told me how they are struggling to access finance. We now know from Bank of England data that bank lending fell by £18.6 billion last year. On top of this, SMEs were owed more than £36 billion in late payments in 2011. Will the Secretary of State back an inquiry I am launching as part of my Be Fair—Pay on Time campaign to investigate the issues associated with late payments?

[Vince Cable]

I would like to acknowledge the contribution the hon. Lady has made through debates in the House to this very important issue. The Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), has launched a significant initiative with business in order to reduce that problem. We also have a trade financing scheme, working with Kingfisher to try to ensure that credit flows through the supply chain. The key point is that credit does not depend solely on banks; it also depends on the big primes, whether in the retail sector or in manufacturing, and we are providing substantial support to small companies caught up in that problem.

[Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)]

Businesses in Huntingdonshire are reporting to me that access to credit has significantly improved over the last year, which is very good news indeed. The complaint I am increasingly getting is that banks are becoming detached from their customers—that, because of regionalisation and formulaic processes, they still cannot get to the right people. Are the Government addressing this issue?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, the decline of relationship banking has been a long-standing problem and it underlines the difficulties my hon. Friend describes. The factual position is that last year a third of all applications to the banks for loans were declined, according to SME Finance Monitor. When appeals were made to an independent arbitrator, some 40% were successful, which shows how bad the banks are in sifting good credit from bad.

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

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the new business bank is not the silver bullet solution for all firms’ financial needs? What is he doing to diversify the sources of finance for business, particularly SMEs?

[Vince Cable]

No, it certainly is not a silver bullet but it will make a significant difference in increasing diversity in the system, in providing wholesale financing for some of the new entrants into the market, and in making Government support more concentrated and easy to access. It will be an important contribution, and the plans are already under way. The expert committee met for the first time a couple of days ago, and we are already looking at products and projects that hopefully will provide some £300 million, geared substantially with private money, over the course of this year.

[Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Banks tell me that small businesses will not ask for money because of their lack of confidence in a flatlining economy. Small businesses tell me that banks will not lend to them because of the risk factor and the desire to increase their capital balances. The Government say they are going to introduce a business bank. When will the business bank be up and running to address these problems, and in what different way will it operate to overcome them?

[Vince Cable]

The business bank has already been organised and as I just mentioned, the expert committee met for the first time a couple of days ago and its products are already being prepared. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have to go through the state aid process before it can operate fully. In the meantime, it can operate within constraints—pari passu lending, for one thing—and I can assure him that it will make a significant contribution.

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

Will the Secretary of State join me in welcoming the news that in the third quarter of 2012 there was a record number of company formations in Gillingham?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, and I think my hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that although we frequently hear from the prophets of doom on the Opposition Benches, a large amount of entrepreneurial activity is taking place. The percentage of the population engaged in business has increased from about 6% to 9% in the past two years, and what is happening in Gillingham is an example of that.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Once again, anyone listening to the recent exchanges will not have the slightest confidence that this Government are taking any meaningful steps that will make a difference. Six weeks ago, in the last Business questions, the Secretary of State told us that after the expert group had met he would come here to tell us the timeline and what was going to happen. He keeps telling us that this bank is going to make a significant difference, but nobody really believes we will see any meaningful progress in the next two years. Certainty and responsibility are very important, so can he unequivocally confirm today that the Government are following the policies that he is advocating on access to finance for small businesses? If not, can he explain what the Government should be doing to make a difference on that?

[Vince Cable]

Of course I can confirm that we are pursuing the policies I have described. I get a sense that the hon. Gentleman has not the faintest idea about the issues involved in establishing a new bank. This Government have established, through government, two new banks, one of which is already operating on a significant scale— the green investment bank. The other is the new business bank, which is going through the necessary processes. [Hon. Members: “When?”] Opposition Members ask when, but do they have the slightest idea what is involved in running a bank and doing due diligence, having presided over the collapse of the banking system ignominiously and having allowed the banks to get totally out of control, with the disastrous consequences that we are now dealing with?

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

3. What support his Department is providing to the life sciences sector.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

9. What support his Department is providing to the life sciences sector.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Our life sciences strategy, launched by the Prime Minister, has already triggered more than £1 billion of business investment in life sciences. That is good for growth and good for the NHS.

[David Rutley]

As my right hon. Friend is aware, Macclesfield and north-east Cheshire are well known for their strong base in life sciences skills and the economic contribution of companies such as AstraZeneca. In the light of that, what further steps is he taking to encourage investment in the north-west, and in north-east Cheshire in particular?

[Mr Willetts]

I pay tribute to the work of my hon. Friend, and I recall visiting the AstraZeneca facility at Alderley park with him last year. There is a very strong life sciences cluster in the north-west. We are supporting it with extra investment in the new Manchester cancer research centre and in the Manchester collaborative centre for information research.

[Stephen Metcalfe]

At a recent meeting of the Science and Technology Committee, Professor Dame Sally Davies, the Government’s chief medical officer, talked about the increasing amount of antibiotic resistance in disease and stated that

“the apocalyptic scenario is that when I need a new hip in 20 years I’ll die from a routine infection because we’ve run out of antibiotics.”

Will the Minister therefore tell the House what steps the Government are taking to fix what some have described as the “broken pipeline” in the development of new drugs?

[Mr Willetts]

I have heard Dame Sally Davies speak eloquently about that challenge, which is why the Secretary of State for Health will, I understand, be launching an action plan on that particular issue in the spring. What we are doing in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is backing investment and ensuring a pipeline of new drugs for the future. That is what the patent box is about, it is what research and development tax credits are about and it is what the new biomedical catalyst is about. We can be confident of the support we are providing for medical research in the UK.

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

I hope the Minister will forgive me for describing that answer of his as a tad complacent. The fact of the matter is that when we talk to leading academics and leading investors in business we find that they think that in life sciences we are lagging behind the other countries we are competing with—particularly China, but also many other places. They are worried that what will happen in life sciences is what is steadily happening in pharmaceuticals, whereby we are losing our pharmaceutical industry and it is switching overseas.

[Mr Willetts]

There is certainly a global race and I believe that the Government’s policies are securing us a strong position in it. We are not complacent, but the improvements in the tax relief, the protection for medical research and the innovations taking products closer to market ensure that when companies look around Europe it is clear to them that Britain is the best place to locate their pharmaceutical activities.

[Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)]

The Scottish life sciences sector is worth £3 billion to the economy and employs 32,000 people. Last week, Edinburgh’s BioQuarter announced that three new companies have just moved in. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as we have already heard, the life sciences sector is about more than the golden triangle in the south-east of England?

[Mr Willetts]

That is absolutely right. As well as what is happening in the north-west of England, the Edinburgh BioQuarter is of international repute and the university of Dundee is the centre of another excellent cluster of medical research. This is a British strength, not simply a strength in the London-Oxford-Cambridge triangle.

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

4. What assessment he has made of the need for business certainty for firms to secure investment and long-term growth.

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

Industrial strategy sets out a long-term approach to deliver greater certainty and growth in partnership with business. We will publish 10 sector strategies jointly with business throughout 2013.

[Stephen Doughty]

Whether it is on energy, infrastructure or Europe, the Government are sending out confused signals, no signal or the wrong signal to business. On the latter point, what representations has the Secretary of State had from businesses on the impact on investment and growth of his Government’s decision to hold an in/out referendum on EU membership in 2017?

[Vince Cable]

Inward investors always make it clear that they want certainty and clarity in that matter. TheCityUK recently did a survey which suggested that the stability of our membership of the single market accounted for roughly 40% of decisions to commit to the UK.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

I am sure my right hon. Friend agrees that it serves no good purpose at all in the context of certainty to delay airport decisions until way after the next election. Will he confirm that he has put pressure on his colleagues in government to use the opportunity of the interim report at the end of this year to provide clarity for businesses, residents and communities?

[Vince Cable]

I know that the hon. Gentleman shares many of my concerns about airport expansion. The wider national interest must be safeguarded and we have commissioned Sir Howard Davies to do a proper and thorough investigation into the extremely difficult issues associated with Heathrow expansion.

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of the leaked letter from the Business Secretary to the Prime Minister, in which he acknowledged the need for

“a compelling vision of where the country is heading…Where we know big investment decisions are going to be made…we need to…provide certainty to business.”

In only the past few weeks, Bloomberg New Energy Finance stated bluntly:

“Investors have made clear to the UK government that policy uncertainty has undermined investment”,

and the National Audit Office said in its report on infrastructure that

“uncertainty over government policy might lead project sponsors, lenders and contractors to defer or abandon projects in the UK for opportunities elsewhere.”

One year on from his letter, why has nothing improved?

[Vince Cable]

A great deal has changed. There is now a great deal of support not only in government but across business for the industrial strategy. If the hon. Gentleman had been following the news he would have seen that some sectors, particularly the car industry and aerospace, have highly impressive growth and a long-term commitment to Britain. That is what we are trying to achieve.

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

Will the Secretary of State look again at the sudden change in the combined heat and power regime announced in the 2012 Budget? The CHP provisions are expected to last until 2023 and the change has resulted in a severe financial penalty to energy investors, such as Sembcorp in my constituency.

[Vince Cable]

My hon. Friend’s question more directly relates to the responsibilities of my colleague the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. On the broader point about energy policy, however, there is much greater clarity with the electricity market review. Particular sectors and their treatment under it, such as those involved in CHP, perhaps need to be reconsidered and I am sure that my hon. Friend will talk to my colleague about that.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

5. What recent assessment he has made of the effects of his reforms to higher education and student fees; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Our higher education reforms are increasing cash for teaching at our universities and delivering more choice for students. Higher applications this year are up by 3% and the proportion of 18-year-old applicants from the most disadvantaged backgrounds has increased to the highest level ever. Every English region has seen applications increase.

[Mr Thomas]

With £9,000 tuition fees, universities are seeing considerable variations in their student numbers—potentially up to 40% in some cases. What research has the Minister done into the reasons behind the 13% drop in student numbers last year?

[Mr Willetts]

The variation in applications between universities is what happens when there is competition and when the money goes with the student. That is a key feature of our reforms. This year we are seeing applications up. Given the hon. Gentleman’s genuine concern about this issue, I should have thought that he would welcome the fact that the application rate for disadvantaged young people from England is at its highest ever level—19.5%.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

May I congratulate the Minister on his excellent reforms and urge him to push forward with all the efforts that he is making to attract foreign students to the UK?

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend is right. There is no cap on the number of overseas students who come to Britain. All legitimate overseas students are warmly welcome in our country.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

Will the Minister acknowledge that both universities in my constituency, along with many others across the sector, have been negatively impacted by the ill-considered and hastily introduced student control measures last year? Will he recognise that he made a mistake by rushing into that and explain what he is going to do to mitigate the damage?

[Mr Willetts]

Let us be clear. The student control system that we inherited involved allocating a fixed number of student places to every university in England. We do not believe that that is the right way of ensuring competition and choice in our education. That is why we are introducing new flexibilities, so that universities that succeed in attracting more students can take on more students.

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

The Government are right to be encouraged by the fact that we have seen the highest ever number of applicants this year from Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, the EU and outside the EU, and the third highest ever from England, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds. Will Ministers continue to focus on those from disadvantaged backgrounds and on young men, of whom there appear to be relatively smaller numbers of applicants, compared with young women? I am sure we need both to feel encouraged to go to universities in equal measure.

[Mr Willetts]

My right hon. Friend is right and I pay tribute to his efforts in this area. Clearly, we must not be complacent. There is always more to do, and I hope that in all parts of the House we can agree that we must communicate the crucial message that no student has to pay up front to go to university; they pay back only if they are graduates in well paid employment.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the effect of the regional growth fund on job creation in the north-west.

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

To date, 59 projects in the north-west have been awarded a total of £225 million. In addition, £153 million has been granted to 16 programmes, specifically aimed at supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in the region. Taken together, this money will help create tens of thousands of jobs in the north-west.

[Andrew Stephenson]

The regional growth fund has been a great help to businesses across Lancashire and the north-west. In the next round my right hon. Friend can expect to see some excellent bids from Pendle. Will he confirm that he will look closely at these fantastic bids? If they are approved, they will be a real boost to Pendle and east Lancashire.

[Michael Fallon]

I certainly will. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding the House that the fourth round of the regional growth fund is now open. I urge any colleague in the House to encourage potential applicants to apply before 20 March, not least because the fund is proving good value for money. In the north-west it is leveraging in some £5.50 for every £1 of public money spent—some 10 times the proportion of the unlamented regional development agency.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

Will the Minister confirm that the average cost of jobs created by regional growth funds such as that in the north-west is £33,000? This is more than the cost of jobs created by the regional development agencies, which the Government abolished.

[Michael Fallon]

No, I cannot confirm that figure. This is taxpayers’ money for projects that would not otherwise go ahead. They are recommended by an independent advisory panel as good value for money and they are subject always to proper due diligence.

[Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)]

7. What discussions he has had with Royal Mail regarding its privatisation; and if he will make a statement.

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

I regularly meet Royal Mail and the Communication Workers Union to discuss a future share sale. Since Parliament decided to secure the universal postal service through the Postal Services Act 2011, we have relieved Royal Mail of its historic pension deficit and established a new regulatory regime. The final step is to give Royal Mail access when it needs it to private capital and to honour Parliament’s commitment that at least 10% of the shares will be made available to employees.

[Ian Lavery]

Royal Mail is the jewel in the crown of this nation, and it is cherished by millions. There are grave concerns about the privatisation of Royal Mail in terms of price hikes, job losses and a reduction in services. May I urge the Minister to withdraw the privatisation plans and invest heavily in a publicly owned Royal Mail?

[Michael Fallon]

It would be very odd to deny Royal Mail—a business with a turnover approaching £9 billion—access to the capital markets that other large, successful companies enjoy, and which it will need in order to innovate and invest for the future. It would also be wrong to withhold from its 130,000 staff the chance that Parliament has given them to own shares in the company.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

Having served on the Committee that considered the Postal Services Bill, I welcome my right hon. Friend’s determination to implement the will of this House and to succeed where the previous Labour Government tried and failed. Is it not clear that for Royal Mail to benefit from the enormous growth in online retail, and consequently in its parcels business, it needs to be free to invest without competing for scarce public money?

[Michael Fallon]

My hon. Friend puts it very well. Royal Mail, like any business, needs capital to be sustainable over the long term in order to continue to improve its efficiency, to invest, to innovate, and to seize the opportunities presented by new markets, not least those arising from online retailing. It should not have to compete for scarce public capital against other services such as schools and hospitals.

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

What measures will the Minister put in place to ensure that Royal Mail is not taken over by a private equity firm following privatisation?

[Michael Fallon]

No decision has yet been taken on the timing and size of any share sale. The key is to ensure that a big, successful company is no longer denied access to the capital markets.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

This week Royal Mail reported that it had selected a number of agencies to assist in the

“largest privatisation since British Rail”.

The Ofcom consultation, “End-to-end competition in the postal sector”, has stated that that is not relevant to its primary duty of protecting the universal service obligation as regards rival operators cherry-picking profitable Royal Mail work without having to meet its high standards of same-price, every-place, six-days-a-week delivery. What guarantees can the Minister give that Royal Mail’s service standards will not be put at risk? Does he share my deep concerns about Ofcom’s stance on end-to-end competition?

[Michael Fallon]

Only the ideologues on the Labour Benches could possibly want to continue to block the access of this company to the private capital markets. Let us be clear: Parliament gave Ofcom a clear statutory duty to secure the provision of the universal service six days a week, and we expect it to carry that out. Ofcom’s consultation on delivery competition has now closed, and it will issue its guidance in the spring, subject to that duty to safeguard the universal service.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

8. What the tobacco industry exports which created 2% of Egypt’s sovereign debt owed to UK Export Finance were used for; when those exports were made; and whether they were to the Government of Egypt or to private companies.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

The 2% of Egypt’s sovereign debts relating to tobacco industry exports arose following defaults by the Government of Egypt, who purchased tobacco-processing equipment from UK exporters in the 1980s. The debts were rescheduled in 1987 and 1991 through the Paris Club. The 1991 rescheduling included 50% multilateral debt forgiveness, resulting in the UK forgiving £260 million of debt.

[Mr Hollobone]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern and that of my constituent, Rev. David Milner, and the Jubilee Debt Campaign that Government-backed UK loans and credits to developing countries should be for worthwhile projects based on responsible lending criteria, should have affordable repayment terms, and should not imperil sustainable economic growth in the countries concerned?

[Matthew Hancock]

Of course UK Export Finance should support growth that is sustainable. It has recently published on its website the sovereign debts owed to it by overseas Governments in order to become yet more transparent.

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

10. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Defence on the development of the Government’s strategic defence review.

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

Preparations for the review are under way. My Department is fully engaged on the industrial aspects. Together with Steve Wadey from MBDA, I co-chair the defence growth partnership, which is addressing the competitiveness of the defence sector and especially how we can better exploit the links between civil and military technologies.

[Mr Cunningham]

May I do something unusual, which is to thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for their help in saving the London Taxi Company in Coventry? What discussions has the Secretary of State or the Minister had with Rolls-Royce on the possible impact of its decision on the supply chain and through job losses?

[Michael Fallon]

I know that the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Coventry North West (Mr Robinson) discussed that matter in the Department on Monday. I met Rolls-Royce yesterday. I understand that its decisions have to be made primarily in response to changes in key international defence programmes. If the hon. Gentleman is referring to the potential decisions about Ansty, he will know that any run-down there is expected to take several years and that no final decision has been taken.

[Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)]

The biggest threat to British defence companies is the shortage of engineering skills. That threatens our prosperity, their success and our security. I therefore invite my right hon. Friend to look as sympathetically as possible at the ten-minute rule Bill that I will introduce next week, which aims to inspire more young people, especially girls, to take up the exciting opportunity of pursuing a technological or engineering career.

[Michael Fallon]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He will know that the number of engineering apprenticeships and applications to study engineering are already increasing. The skills needs of the sector will be a key focus for the defence growth partnership.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

Redundant Ministry of Defence sites can blight a local area, but they also offer the potential for new jobs and brownfield development, as is recognised by the Swindon and Wiltshire local enterprise partnership. Will the Minister recognise that in any advice that he gives to colleagues when they are considering the bids for the second wave of city deals?

[Michael Fallon]

That was a most ingenious formulation in support of the bid from the Swindon and Wiltshire local enterprise partnership in wave 2 of city deals, which is under consideration at the moment. I will ensure that the use of redundant land is one of the aspects that we consider.

[Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)]

11. What assessment he has made of the effect on consumer behaviour of Government advice on debt.

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

The Government established the Money Advice Service in July 2011 to co-ordinate and monitor free debt advice. We also support advice through the National Debtline and Citizens Advice. Nevertheless, the evidence suggests that many people are still unaware that there is free debt advice and so fall prey to high up-front fees and profit-driven advisers. Today, I am therefore announcing a new debt management protocol that will protect consumers and ensure they know where to go for free debt management advice.

[Ann McKechin]

Last week, I listened to a pointless radio advert from the Money Advice Service that advised people how to get a mortgage. Surely debt advice from the Government should focus on priorities such as vulnerable families who are finding it difficult to afford basic food or their rent, far less the luxury of obtaining a mortgage.

[Jo Swinson]

I understand the frustration that the hon. Lady feels. Of course, the Money Advice Service is there to provide not only debt advice, but information on a wide range of financial issues and there is place for that. She highlights the huge importance of raising the awareness of the free debt advice that is available. The new protocol that has been published today should help to do that, because debt management providers who charge for their services will have to make people aware that free options are available before they sign up. That will help people to get the advice that they need.

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

Last week, I met representatives of Corby citizens advice bureau, which does an excellent job in my local community. Given the appalling human cost of the cumulative impact of the Government’s measures, such as the cuts in council tax benefit and housing benefit, and the crisis that we expect to see in April when universal credit is implemented, does the Minister regret scrapping the financial inclusion fund, with the loss of 500 citizens advice advisers at a time when their help is most needed?

[Jo Swinson]

It is a little rich of Labour Members to talk about the difficult situation that people are in as if they had nothing whatever to do with it. They forget that they left this country in a perilous economic situation. The hon. Gentleman is right to recognise that people are finding it very difficult. That is why the Government are helping by cutting income tax for 20 million people and taking more than 2 million of the lowest-paid people out of paying income tax altogether.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

13. What steps he has taken to raise awareness of export support services among small and medium-sized enterprises.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

We have reformed UK Trade & Investment to ensure that it better supports small and medium-sized enterprises. Some 90% of UKTI’s trade customers are SMEs, and its awareness raising includes a plethora of local activities, including MP constituency trade seminars. One hundred and forty colleagues, including me and my hon. Friend, are holding UKTI trade seminars in their constituencies, and I urge Members from all sides to get involved.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank the Minister for that response. In my experience, and that of my constituents, UK commercial banks could do more to promote trade finance. Does my hon. Friend think they are doing enough to promote services offered by UK trade finance?

[Matthew Hancock]

Not yet, but they are about to. UK Export Finance is establishing a series of regional advisers who through banks, lawyers and accountants will reach more SMEs. That is part and parcel of a widespread message going out to all businesses that if they want help exporting, UKTI is there. The trade seminars in Members’ constituencies will be an important part of that.

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that one of the biggest frustrations for small businesses is the Government’s tendency to launch a plethora of schemes and press releases to go with them? I congratulate the Government on holding a bonfire of the brochures in the life sciences sector, and on setting up a dedicated life science investment office that is staffed by two industry experts who support the Department’s generalists in providing targeted advice.

[Matthew Hancock]

My hon. Friend makes that comment far better than I could.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

14. What proportion of new over-18 apprenticeships have been taken by people in existing employment since May 2010.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

Apprenticeships are designed to help people develop the skills they need to enter an occupation, and to reskill and progress within a job. The 2011 apprenticeship pay survey found that 77% of apprentices had some experience of work with the same employer before the start of their apprenticeship.

[Kevin Brennan]

Will the Minister undertake to make clear in all statements about apprenticeships how many are new starts in employment, and how many are existing employment? Will he confirm that a lot of the increase in the number of apprenticeships has come from converting the previous Train to Gain scheme into apprenticeships?

[Matthew Hancock]

It is very important not only for people to enter the workplace, but to improve their skills within it. For instance, 99% of those on management apprenticeships had some previous experience of work in the company, which is to be expected. It is about getting people out of unemployment, but also ensuring that their skills improve while they are in a job.

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

North London chamber of commerce and Enfield’s Johnson Matthey are tonight hosting a local business awareness of apprenticeships programme, and are determined to exceed last year’s recruitment of 107 new apprentices. Will the Minister offer a message of support for tonight’s event and, in particular, for Mr Barry Connelly of Johnson Matthey of Enfield who has led that programme?

[Matthew Hancock]

I would be pleased to support Johnson Matthey and the work it is doing to expand the number of people in apprenticeships, and indeed to increase the quality of apprenticeships. I know that the apprenticeships it offers are of high quality and it is well worth raising awareness of that and getting involved.

[Mr Gordon Marsden (Blackpool South) (Lab)]

The Government’s latest figures show that apprenticeship starts for young people under 19 are down by 15%, and Ministers are complacent about the risks to apprenticeships for over 24-year-olds from their further education loan plans. It is obvious that we urgently need a game- changer for apprenticeships, so why is the Minister still ignoring what the Opposition and now the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee have called for: Government procurement contracts, not least on projects such as high-speed rail, to ensure that companies sign up thousands of new apprenticeships in order to win those contracts?

[Matthew Hancock]

The shadow Minister does rather better when we take politics out of apprenticeships, not least because there has been a record number of apprenticeship starts over the past year. On HS2, I say only that Crossrail—the largest construction project in Europe and signed off by this Government—has precisely the sort of arrangement for which he asks.

[Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)]

Apprenticeships are rightly a focus for the Government, and the extra investment is extremely important and welcome. Does the Minister acknowledge that some companies have a problem when apprentices choose to leave? Will he consider ways in which to compensate the company that puts people through an apprenticeship scheme in the first place?

[Matthew Hancock]

Ensuring the success—wherever possible—of apprenticeships is important. I will look at the issue the hon. Gentleman raises, but the most important thing in ensuring as high a success rate as possible is that the learning within apprenticeships is as relevant as possible to the company involved. We are working to improve that, and I hope that will reduce the incidence of the problem he describes.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

Schools and colleges still do not promote apprenticeships for the most able students as an alternative to university. What are the Government doing to rectify that situation?

[Matthew Hancock]

That is an important question. This summer, we introduced destination data that showed not only the proportion of children who go to university but the percentage from each school and college that go into apprenticeships. There is a new, important duty on schools to provide independent and impartial guidance. Ofsted will conduct a thematic review—to report in the summer—to show how progress has been made.

[Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

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

My Department plays a key role in supporting the rebalancing of the economy through business to deliver growth, while increasing skills and learning.

[Stuart Andrew]

A number of businesses in my constituency that I have visited have reported welcome news of an increase in orders from abroad. However, they have raised concerns about the time it takes to get export licences. In order to help those companies to remain competitive, what is my right hon. Friend’s Department doing to try to speed up efficiency in that respect?

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

The Export Control Organisation is currently meeting its primary target of approving 70% of licence applications within 20 working days. Last year, it met its secondary target of approving 95% within 60 working days. However, I well understand the frustration of legitimate exporters. The ECO is working with the Foreign Office to improve performance still further.

[Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)]

The EU Council is gathering as we speak. From the common agricultural policy to the absurdity of the European Parliament sitting in two places, it is clear that the EU needs reform. It is also clear—to the extent that any reform involves a significant transfer of power from Parliament to the EU—that we all agree there should be a referendum. Does the Secretary of State agree that, although reform is crucial, the immediate priority for British business is to grow our economy, and that continued membership of the EU is fundamental to that goal?

[Vince Cable]

I agree. The way the hon. Gentleman phrased the question suggests that, despite some of the drama, there is a lot of common ground. As I understand it, all three party leaders want us to remain within the EU. We all support the need for radical reform and for a referendum on the conditions set out in recent parliamentary legislation.

[Mr Umunna]

To pick up on a question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) earlier, I have spoken to many businesses—large and small—that believe that the Prime Minister’s approach to the EU risks Britain stumbling out of the EU. Companies in numerous sectors—from Virgin to Siemens, and from BMW to BT—that account for 170,000 direct jobs, never mind indirect jobs, have reiterated the importance of our continued membership of the EU to their businesses. In the Secretary of State’s leaked letter to the Prime Minister, he said the Government must build more certainty and confidence for business to invest. Does the Secretary of State believe the Prime Minister’s EU policy has helped or hindered that process?

[Vince Cable]

The Prime Minister’s pressure for EU reform is necessary. I work with like-minded Ministers in other European countries to help to deliver that reform. We are all agreed that we need a minimum of uncertainty to attract inward investment. It is incumbent on all who want jobs in Britain to sound that positive message.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

T2. With youth unemployment falling—sadly, it is still too high—is it not more important than ever that we prepare young people to enter work properly with the right skills, on which York college and Askham Bryan college in my constituency are doing great work? How will the proposed traineeship scheme support that?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills (Matthew Hancock)]

I am extremely enthusiastic about the proposals for traineeships. They will help to get people who need work preparation, work experience, English and maths and a plethora of other skills ready to take on an apprenticeship and go to work. Colleges such as York college will play an important role in delivering that.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

T3. This week the British company Centrica withdrew, along with RWE and E.ON, from investments in nuclear power following its investment of £1 billion. That proves that nuclear electricity is now unaffordable unless the Government invest £20 billion of subsidy in a French company. Will the Secretary of State follow his commendable initiative on Greencoat UK by investing in what is Britain’s greatest unused source of power, which is tidal power—clean, green, British and eternal.

[Vince Cable]

We are certainly promoting research on new generations of renewable energy, and the hon. Gentleman will be aware of the new centre in Glasgow established specifically to look at tidal and wave power. I do not recognise his figure of £20 billion of subsidy for the nuclear industry. I am sure we are not going there.

[Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)]

T4. Will the Secretary of State join me in congratulating Sam Davies from Whitland in Carmarthenshire for doing so well in the “We Made It” competition recently? Will he also get behind that competition, as it encourages so many young people into STEM-based jobs?

[Michael Fallon]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. Yes, we welcome the “We Made It” competition. Manufacturing offers young people enormous scope to do something really worth while and to be well rewarded in the process. Through programmes such as See Inside Manufacturing, we are ensuring that young people see for themselves the wealth of career opportunities in manufacturing, and understand how studying science, technology and engineering at all levels leads to well-regarded career opportunities.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

T6. The Secretary of State is aware of concerns about anti-competitive practices in the waste electrical and electronic equipment recycling market. What will he do to protect the position of small and medium-sized recycling companies such as Mercury Recycling in my constituency? Will he meet me to discuss this issue and wider concerns?

[Vince Cable]

We have a tough, respected and effective system of competition and anti-cartel policy. If the hon. Lady is concerned about anti-competitive practices, I will certainly raise this with the Office of Fair Trading, but it is an independent agency that makes its own decisions on which cases to investigate.

[John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)]

T5. I, like many, welcome the substantial increase in apprenticeships. However, it is equally important to encourage as many employers as possible to take on apprentices. Does the Minister agree that giving employers a national insurance holiday during the period of an employee’s apprenticeship would encourage more employers?

[Matthew Hancock]

I certainly agree that encouraging more employers to be involved is critical. The apprenticeship grant for employers in small and medium-sized businesses that have not taken on apprentices before is worth more, at £1,500 per apprentice, than a national insurance holiday. I encourage companies to get involved.

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

T7. The Secretary of State was briefed about the York central site next to York railway station when he was in my constituency last year, so he knows well its potential to generate growth and jobs, a potential improved by the Government’s welcome decision to join High Speed 2 with the east coast main line at York. Will he meet me and representatives of York city council to discuss what the Government can do to help the council bring the site into use?

[Vince Cable]

Yes, I am familiar with the site. It was strategically important for childhood trainspotting, as I recall, quite apart from its potential for housing and regeneration. I am happy to meet the hon. Gentleman. I have already discussed this matter with the council leader and the chief executive. They need some support for infrastructure, although the scale of that is not terribly clear, but we are certainly keen to take this forward.

[Guto Bebb (Aberconwy) (Con)]

T8. Does the Secretary of State share my concerns that the Financial Services Authority redress scheme for businesses mis- sold interest rate swap products excludes those businesses that have a life swap value in excess of £10 million, despite the fact that those businesses would otherwise be characterised as “unsophisticated” by the FSA’s own rules?

[Vince Cable]

First, I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his work on behalf of the up to 100,000 companies that have been mis-sold these swaps. It is a terrible scandal and he was one of the first people to highlight it. I think the position is now much better, but he is right to say that there are some anomalies at the borderline. The definition of “sophisticated companies” is not simply confined to scale, which I think is the point he is trying to make. I will continue to make that point to the FSA and the banks.

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

The Secretary of State knows that Nissan is vital to the north-east’s long-term economy and provides much-needed jobs and investment. Is there not a significant risk that the uncertainty about Britain’s future in Europe, which will continue for many years, could jeopardise this?

[Michael Fallon]

I am well aware of Nissan’s importance to the north-east. I visited recently and have spoken to the senior management at Nissan about the Prime Minister’s speech to reassure them that we see a future for this country within a protected and enhanced single market. That is what is important for Nissan and many other companies in the sector.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

T9. My right hon. Friend will be aware of the growing funding problems for postgraduate students. Most have to pay large sums up front, borrowing from banks or their families if they are rich enough, which creates huge social mobility problems. Has he had a chance to look at the proposals in my policy paper, “Developing a future: Policies for science and research”, or, indeed, the very similar proposals from the Higher Education Commission and the National Union of Students?

[The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)]

Postgraduate education is very important. We have maintained funding for it through the Higher Education Funding Council for England, but I am following with great interest the imaginative ideas being brought forward and we are open-minded if people have proposals for increasing access to borrowing and finance for postgraduates.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

In an earlier question, on the privatisation of Royal Mail, the Minister deliberately referred to the fact that shares would be sold off to the people in Royal Mail. It almost harks back to the “share-owning democracy” of Mrs Thatcher, when she privatised all the public utilities and almost without exception those public utilities—E.ON, EDF and all the rest—are now owned by Germany, France, Spain and even further afield. That is what happens to share-owning democracies. Instead of gazing into crystal balls, read the history!

[Michael Fallon]

I not only read the history, I remember the history because I was here, when the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues—

[Mr Skinner]

You voted for it!

[Michael Fallon]

I voted for it, and he and his colleagues advised the workers in BT—[Interruption]—not to buy the shares and more than 90% of them did buy them. In this instance, Parliament has quite rightly provided that up to 10% of the shares should be reserved for employees. I think that the more than 130,000 people who work for Royal Mail should have the chance to share in the success of their company.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

There will be no swearing in my question.

My right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities will be aware of Chester university’s great success in getting industrial support. The vice-chancellor, Professor Tim Wheeler, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) and I all have a free spot in our diaries on 1 March. I was wondering whether my right hon. Friend would come and join the celebrations with us.

[Mr Willetts]

I very much hope to join that event. I hope to be up there that day. If not, I will be there on another occasion, because I am a great admirer of what has been achieved at the university of Chester.

[John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State imagine that the counterfeiters, the smugglers and the others will welcome the introduction of plain packaging for the tobacco industry?

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

I know that there have been strong views on this issue in all parts of the House, and the Department of Health has undertaken a consultation on it. We await the results of that consultation, which will be analysed carefully. I am sure that the interesting counterfeiting issues that the hon. Gentleman raises will need to be considered alongside the health issues.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

With Chinese new year celebrations and firework displays this weekend, will the Minister urgently receive a delegation of MPs and immediately suspend new regulations—which have just been implemented five years early—that will lead to the collapse of the British fireworks industry?

[Jo Swinson]

I know that my hon. Friend is speaking up for the industry on this issue. I met him at the end of last year. BIS policy officials have had two meetings with the industry. Lawyers have also had meetings, and a further meeting is due next week to try to resolve the issue he raises. Yesterday I received a letter from him and the hon. Members for Bracknell (Dr Lee), for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) and for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly). I will be happy to meet them next week as a matter of urgency to discuss this.

[Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)]

There are concerns that the UK is lagging behind its competitors in the registration of graphene patents. The USA has more than 1,100; we have just 46. Does the Minister agree that this is an example of why the Government need to provide more strategic direction and to support important technology sectors for the future?

[Mr Willetts]

We have, of course, invested more than £60 million in graphene research, notably, but not only, in Manchester. I have seen that evidence from patents. It is a reminder of the importance of ensuring that we are absolutely out there supporting the commercialisation of graphene, and that is what we are committed to doing.

[Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my hon. Friend the Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) on taking the Groceries Code Adjudicator Bill through Parliament, and on allowing the adjudicator to impose fines. Will she look favourably on the adjudicator taking their own initiative in investigations from day one?

[Jo Swinson]

I thank the Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee for her question and, indeed, MPs from all parties who have campaigned for the adjudicator. Christine Tacon was announced as the adjudicator-designate a few weeks ago and we are looking forward to the pre-appointment scrutiny by the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee. We want to make sure that the adjudicator will be able to undertake investigations where there is any suggestion or suspicion that the code is not being complied with.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Last week, at a time of great uncertainty on the high street, the Co-op, working with the Farepak victims committee, announced that it would be the first major retailer to protect and guarantee customers’ Christmas savings in the future. Will the Minister welcome that move? May I also thank her and the Secretary of State for their work with Farepak victims? Long may it continue for consumer protection in the future.

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Lady is right to highlight the excellent scheme that the Co-op has just announced. It should be celebrated and I hope that other companies will be encouraged to follow suit, because I know that giving this kind of protection to customers will be very welcome indeed. I will continue to work with her and other hon. Members on the issue.

[Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)]

Although I welcome the fact that university applications are up and that a higher proportion of them are from people from poorer backgrounds, will the Minister for Universities and Science join me in reminding my young constituents that, whatever the fees they are charged, they will only start paying them back once they earn more than £21,000?

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. These reforms increase resources for universities. They are not putting off students from less affluent backgrounds and it is graduates, not students, who pay. That is a very fair and progressive way of financing higher education.

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

Does the Secretary of State agree that, if the United Kingdom stayed in the European Union and completed the single European market, our growth could increase by 7% within a decade, but that if we left the EU and had a relationship with it such as that of Norway or Switzerland, our exports could be as much as 14 times lower over the same period?

[Vince Cable]

I certainly agree that it is desirable, for reasons of economic growth, that we remain part of the European Union and single market. The hon. Gentleman may not be aware, however, that both Norway and Switzerland observe the rules of the single market as well.

Business of the House

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

10:32

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?

[The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)]

The business for next week is as follows:

Monday 11 February—I expect my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to make a statement following the European Council, followed by consideration in Committee and remaining stages of the European Union (Approvals) Bill [Lords], followed by general debate on the local government finance settlement for rural local authorities. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

Tuesday 12 February—Opposition Day [17th Allotted Day]. First part, there will be a debate on an Opposition motion on education. Second part, there will be a debate on an Opposition motion on infrastructure.

Wednesday 13 February—Motions relating to the police grant and local government finance reports, followed by motions relating to the draft Social Security Benefits Up-Rating Order 2013 and the draft Guaranteed Minimum Pensions Increase Order 2013.

Thursday 14 February—Debate on a motion on protecting future generations from violence against women and girls, followed by general debate on preventing sexual violence in conflict. The subjects for these debates were nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The business for the following sitting week will include:

Monday 25 February—Second Reading of the Children and Families Bill.

[Ms Eagle]

I thank the Leader of the House. Yesterday a number of supermarkets and suppliers withdrew ready meals because of concerns about contaminated meat and adulteration. There is growing concern about this issue and consumers are rightly worried and want reassurances, yet the Government appear to be slow to react. Could the Leader of the House arrange for an urgent statement on this matter by a Minister from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs?

On Tuesday, the Lords accepted amendments to the Defamation Bill that included plans for a new arbitration service to hear libel cases, along the lines of the recommendations of Lord Leveson. Has the Leader of the House had an opportunity to look at those who voted for the amendment? This week’s alternative coalition included Lord Fowler, Lord Hurd, Lord Ashcroft and the Prime Minister’s father-in-law, Lord Astor. Half of the Conservative party voting against him on equal marriage is one thing, but now the Prime Minister cannot even persuade his own father-in-law to vote for the Government. Tuesday’s vote showed that there is cross-party agreement on the need to implement Lord Leveson’s recommendations, to ensure that the suffering of the Dowlers and the McCanns will never be repeated. Will the Leader of the House tell us when the legislation will be returning to this House for Members to consider? Will he undertake to ensure, when it does, that he will keep within the spirit of that cross-party agreement and not seek to rupture it?

Yesterday, astonishingly, the Prime Minister claimed that the Government’s taxes and benefits were progressive. On that very day, the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies claimed that the tax changes being introduced this April were regressive, with the richest tenth gaining the most while the bottom 50 % lose. At the same time, the IFS warned that the social security bill was going up and that borrowing was going to overshoot by £64 billion. The reason is that the Government’s economic strategy is failing. May we have a statement from the Chancellor, ahead of his Budget?

Yesterday, the motion on the Order Paper from the Leader of the House that the House should sit on Friday 22 March was objected to. It is not immediately apparent why Government business managers need the House to sit on that day, so will he explain that in his reply? The Government’s legislative programme is hardly packed, so that cannot be the reason. I wondered whether, after last year’s omnishambles Budget, the business managers might have been planning an extra day of debate to give the Chancellor room to perform a few U-turns. An extra sitting day on the Friday would, of course, enable the House to rise on the Tuesday, meaning, conveniently, that the Prime Minister could once again miss Prime Minister’s questions. Given the Government’s mismanagement of the economy, it is little wonder that the Prime Minister wants to duck out of PMQs after the Budget. Will the Leader of the House now think again about that Friday sitting, given that it is a day on which many MPs will already have constituency engagements?

The Daily Mail reported yesterday that the Prime Minister recently spoke in the ballroom of the Hurlingham Club, where

“the Dom Perignon flowed like water at £100 a bottle”

and

“ordinary club members complained about being unable to get in the entrance because of all the Rolls-Royces and Daimlers clogging the drive”.

In that rarefied environment, did the Prime Minister really make a speech about how the Conservatives had

“modernised and were no longer the party of privilege”?

Will the Leader of the House join me in congratulating the team who found the remains of Richard III? He was only in charge of this country for two years, and he was of course the first leader of the country to lose his horse and get stabbed in the back. The Prime Minister has already lost the horse lent to him by Rebekah Brooks, and he has found a stalking horse in the form of the hon. Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie). And as for being stabbed in the back—well, it is no wonder that the Education Secretary is so keen on the history of our kings and queens.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her questions. I thanked her and her colleagues at business questions last week for having announced the subject for the Opposition day debate prior to that, and I thank her again today for having ensured that I was able to announce the Opposition day business for next week. I appreciate that.

The hon. Lady asked me a question last week during the debate on the effectiveness of Select Committees, but I did not have the relevant figures in front of me at the time. She sought the publication of more Bills in draft. I can confirm that, in the last Session, we published more Bills in draft—13 Bills—than in any previous Session under the last Government.

[Ms Eagle]

A two-year Session.

[Mr Lansley]

The shadow Leader says that it was a two-year Session, so I am happy to be able to tell her that in this Session, which is not a two-year Session, we have thus far published 10 Bills in draft, and I am hopeful that before the Session is ended, we will match the record of the previous Session.

The shadow Leader of the House asked me about my colleagues at DEFRA. As she will know—there was an equine theme to her questions—

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Come on—get a move on. If not a gallop, at least a canter.—[Interruption.]

[Mr Speaker]

There should be no chuntering from a sedentary position. Less of the wit or attempted wit.

[Mr Lansley]

That was not even an attempt to be funny. I will talk to my colleagues in DEFRA and in the Department of Health, which is responsible for the Food Standards Agency and has given evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. I will ask them to ensure that the House is kept up to date. Following previous business questions, I will ensure, too, that before the House rises for the short recess next Thursday, we are updated in respect of the situation in Mali by means of a written ministerial statement.

The hon. Lady asked about the timetable for the Defamation Bill. That is a matter for the other place, although I understand that it is intended that Third Reading there will take place on 25 February. It will, of course, arrive here thereafter. The hon. Lady will recall that in that debate in the other place, my noble Friend Lord McNally made it clear that we expect to be able to publish proposals relating to the response of the Leveson recommendations in the course of next week. We are doing so actively on a cross-party basis. It is precisely because we want to secure cross-party agreement that we are acting together in that way. To that extent, the amendment passed in the other place was clearly premature. I hope that, when people see the proposals as they come forward, they will recognise that we are actively seeking to ensure that we achieve the recommendations and principles set out in Lord Leveson’s report, albeit in a way that continues to respect the need for a press free from political interference.

Curiously, the shadow Leader seemed to ask me to seek from the Chancellor of the Exchequer a Budget statement prior to the Budget statement. We will settle for one Budget statement; that will be more than enough. It will give the Chancellor the opportunity to reinforce the simple fact that we in this country have credibility behind our fiscal stance and, indeed, our monetary policies. The new Governor of the Bank of England is giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee right now, but we all know from what was said by the OECD and others internationally that the commitment of this coalition Government to the reduction of the structural deficit and to the achievement of fiscal consolidation has allowed for our active monetary policy, notwithstanding the international pressures, and has gained us the credibility that has clearly contributed to the confidence that has brought 1 million more jobs since the election and low interest rates, which are of central importance, not least to mortgage holders.

The hon. Lady might have explained the Labour party’s policy to colleagues—a confused complaint about borrowing yet wanting to borrow more—but it was responsible for the most appalling inheritance of debt.

The hon. Lady asked about last night’s motion on the sitting of the House on 22 March. The reasoning is very straightforward. There is a calendar—the House has welcomed this fact—that has allowed Members and the House service to plan ahead. The calendar was very clear that the House would rise for the Easter recess on Tuesday 27 March—I hope that date is right—and colleagues will have planned on that basis. Following the Budget on 20 March, accommodating both the requirements of the Budget debate and the needs of the Backbench Business Committee for a pre-recess Adjournment debate will require the House to sit on 22 March. I hope Members will recognise that that is for the benefit of the House, enabling business to be secured, including Back-Bench business.

I join the shadow Leader of the House in congratulating the archaeological team from the university of Leicester. Let me add, on a personal note, that I remember visiting the archaeological team with my daughter. She subsequently went to Southampton university, but at that time she was considering reading archaeology at Leciester, and perhaps she now regrets not having done so.

It will, of course, be a matter for the university of Leicester, in due course, to deal with the question of the re-interment of Richard III, but, like the shadow Leader of the House, I hope that the interest generated by the discovery of his remains will enable those who are interested in the history of this country—not least young people—to recognise what a significant date 1485 was in that history.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. As per usual, dozens of Members are seeking to catch my eye. I simply remind the House that there is a further statement to follow—from the Secretary of State for Education—and then two debates under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee. There is real pressure on time, and I appeal to colleagues, whom I am keen to accommodate, to ask short questions, and, of course, to the Leader of the House to provide us with pithy replies.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

May we please have a debate on the future of pedlary in the United Kingdom? During last night’s debate on opposed private business, the Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), announced that the period for consultation on the proposed reform of the laws on pedlary and street trading was to be extended by a month. A debate would enable Members in all parts of the House to contribute to that consultation. Pedlars are the ultimate in micro-businesses, and we need to ensure that there is no danger of their being regulated out of existence.

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure the House continues to take an interest in that issue, as it did yesterday. I heard my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary say that the consultation period had been extended, and that the promoters of the four private Bills were well aware of that and were able to accommodate it in relation to their Bills. I am sure that the House will have an opportunity to ask questions about the matter—perhaps during the next session of questions to the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, which might correspond with the timetable.

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

Today’s Hull Daily Mail reports that Peter Del Grosso, a former rogue wheel-clamper with a recent criminal conviction for racially aggravated assault, is now a legally registered parking ticketer. Given Labour’s warning, during the passage of the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012, that that would happen, may we have a debate on the Floor of the House about the effectiveness of the coalition’s legislation on the issue?

[Mr Lansley]

I should be happy to ask my colleagues at the Department for Transport about the specific case that the hon. Lady has raised, but I think that, in general, it should be recognised that the coalition Government have achieved a £3.3 billion reduction in cumulative regulation costs since the election. One cannot wish for growth and at the same time continue, as the last Government did, with the constantly accumulating cost of regulation.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Today’s report from the Institute for Fiscal Studies makes sobering reading. It emphasises the need to continue to control public spending. May we have a full day’s debate on the economy? Given that there are only about two years to go before the general election, and given that the Opposition have so far failed to support a single public spending cut or endorse a single welfare reform, the nation is entitled to be able to consider in some detail how both we and the Opposition are to address control of the nation’s public finances in a responsible manner.

[Mr Lansley]

We made an additional day available for a debate on the economy following the autumn statement, and we do not have long to wait until the Budget and the debates that will follow it. However, my hon. Friend has made some good points. Control of public spending is integral to our economy. If we did not control our spending, we would lose credibility. There would be a risk of a rise in interest rates, and a significant risk of our losing the international confidence and credibility that we currently command. The Government have maintained that spending control: we have consistently met the target in the spending plans that we have set out, or even achieved a reduction below that level.

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

May we have a debate on how foreign companies can be prevented from buying British companies and then closing them after a short period of time after removing their assets and sending them to China? Some 80 jobs in my constituency are currently under threat because of that, and it is not the first time this has happened in the Govan area in recent years.

[Mr Lansley]

As the hon. Lady knows, it is never easy to reconcile oneself to these things, but we live in an international marketplace. We need to win in what is a global race and, frankly, the capacity of investors to invest in this country is integral to that, and to the free movement of capital across the world. We benefit from that free movement of capital, not least in terms of inward investment, but sometimes it has a downside as well.

[Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)]

The Pennine Sailing Club and the Valley Bowmen of Huddersfield archery club in my constituency recently each got £50,000 of Olympic legacy lottery funding. May we have a debate on the success of the national lottery, and can we also help our constituents and community groups navigate their way through the myriad funding schemes so they can benefit our local communities?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend is right to highlight that, and I am sure the Pennine Sailing Club and the Valley Bowmen of Huddersfield archery club are very deserving recipients of lottery funding support. Some 400,000 groups and organisations across the country have now benefited from lottery funding since the lottery was established in 1994. There are some very good mechanisms for organisations to access lottery funding, including the funding search tool at lotterygoodcauses.org.uk/funding.

[Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)]

At yesterday’s Prime Minister’s questions it was clear that the Prime Minister had no idea about the implications of his bedroom tax. May we have an urgent debate on that, so the Prime Minister can get up to speed?

[Mr Lansley]

On the contrary, the Prime Minister absolutely understood that housing benefit has risen dramatically and that it is essential to control it. He was absolutely clear, too, that under the last Labour Government the kind of rules that were applied to social housing had been applied to private rented accommodation, and that raises the question of why there should be a difference. He was also very clear that, as resources are finite in the current circumstances, we should ask why we are funding almost 1 million unused bedrooms in the social housing sector when there are 1.8 million people on the social housing waiting list.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

May we have a debate on the negative role of parasitic agents in professional football?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend and many other Members have, over quite some time, raised the question of football governance. I will discuss the possibility of holding a debate on the subject with colleagues, although I am unsure which mechanism might be used—perhaps the Backbench Business Committee. The Culture, Media and Sport Committee report on football governance is a good starting point for moving on to consider when the House might look at these issues more generally.

[Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)]

Targets to reduce the number of people being killed and seriously injured on our roads served the country very well for over 30 years. In 2010, the then Transport Secretary abolished targets. The new Secretary of State has introduced forecasts. May we have a debate on road safety in general, in which we might clarify the difference between targets and forecasts—or, indeed, if there is any difference at all?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman is very knowledgeable about these matters, and I will ask my colleagues at the Department for Transport to respond to his question. What I will say, however, is that we are looking for outcomes, and what really matters is finding the mechanisms that enable us to improve road safety.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

Harrow council tops the league for both the number of staff suspended and the length of time for which they have been suspended. One member of staff has been suspended for two and a half years on full pay. The council has also refused £3.6 million in Government grant to freeze the council tax, preferring to raise it to the third highest in London. May we have a debate on inefficiency and ineffectiveness in local government?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend makes important points relating to his constituency and local authority. If he catches your eye, Mr Speaker, in the debate on the local authority finance report, he will have the opportunity to raise the issue of securing value for money in his constituency and others.

[Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)]

Is the Leader of the House aware—he will not be, but I will ask him anyway—that at 9.30 this morning, the Post Office announced that it will be seeking franchisees for 50 Crown offices across all the constituencies in the UK? I asked the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills about that as he was leaving the House this morning, and it appears the Post Office did not tell him about the announcement. Can we have a statement from the Secretary of State on what the Post Office is up to, where the Crown offices in question are, what will happen if a franchisee cannot be found, and the impact this will have on the Government’s promise to seek a mutual arrangement for the future of the Post Office?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman correctly understands that he could have raised these matters during BIS questions—

[Michael Connarty]

I was not called.

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I know that the hon. Gentleman is not complaining, but I simply mention in passing that he was a relatively late entrant to the Chamber. No offence was committed, but there were other Members who had been here longer whom I thought were more deserving at the time.

[Michael Connarty]

I was not complaining; I was making a joke.

[Mr Speaker]

Indeed. He is a good-humoured fellow.

[Mr Lansley]

I am accustomed to questions to me being described colloquially as “poor man’s Prime Minister’s questions”; I did not realise they had become “poor man’s BIS questions”, as well—perhaps poor man’s every kind of question.

I will secure an answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question from my ministerial colleagues. However, we are very clear—in contrast with the record of the last Labour Government—that there will be no programme of post office closures under this Government. I have seen in my own constituency the confidence that gives, particularly to villages where post offices have temporarily shut down.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Virtually every week, I read in my local papers the Bradford Telegraph & Argus and the Yorkshire Post about serious offenders having been brought to justice through advances in DNA testing and the use of the DNA database. Extraordinarily, however, this Government seem to think that there are far too many people on the database and are trying to find ways to take them off it. May we have a debate on the effectiveness of the DNA database in bringing serious offenders to justice, and how we should use it to maximum effect to help the police bring them to justice?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend addresses a very important point, which we understand: the need for effective use of the latest forensic techniques to enable us to tackle crime; but at the same time, the need to respect civil liberties and people’s right for their DNA, which can be acquired in a range of circumstances, not to be held where there is no good reason for the authorities to retain it. The balance between those two issues has been discussed, but my Home Office colleagues will be happy to discuss the issue again and answer questions in future.

[Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)]

May I ask the Leader of the House to arrange for a statement from the Department for Work and Pensions on its promise to give £8 million to redundant Remploy workers to get them back into work, and to give them benefit advice? To date, there is little evidence of any of that money reaching the people it is supposed to reach. A statement would help to clarify where their money is and how it is being used.

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman will recall, as I do, that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey), referred to this issue when she was here answering related questions. I will encourage her to identify an opportunity, at Work and Pensions questions or before, to update the House on the redundancy arrangements for Remploy workers.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

May I congratulate the Chair on invoking Standing Order No. 40 last night, which I think we all enjoyed, thus expediting a whole series of votes called by only a dozen or so Members? Some of them seemed to take sport in delaying the passage of Bills against the will of the House. This has affected the Bournemouth Borough Council Bill, costing the council hundreds of thousands of pounds and delaying the Bill for about three years. May I therefore ask for an urgent review of the voting process for private Bills?

[Mr Speaker]

I was waiting for the appearance of the word “statement” or “debate”. I am most grateful for the compliments of the hon. Gentleman, but I am sure he wants not just a review but a statement.

[Mr Lansley]

I never fail to be impressed by the judgment of the Chair on these matters, but the Chair, like all of us, works within the Standing Orders of the House. If my hon. Friend feels that the procedure of this House requires a change, I would encourage him to address his points, along with his evidence, to the Procedure Committee.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

May I press the Leader of the House again on the urgent need for us to have a debate on the bedroom tax when the Prime Minister is present? He needs to understand the disastrous consequences he is inflicting on thousands upon thousands of people in this country, particularly those in my constituency; I receive letters by the day telling me about the consequences of this decision.

[Mr Lansley]

I will not reiterate the points I made to the hon. Member for St Helens North (Mr Watts), but I just say to the hon. Gentleman that the Prime Minister was very clear yesterday about the necessity of this measure. I do not hear, nor did we hear yesterday at Prime Minister’s questions, any explanation from the Labour party as to how it proposes to meet the financial requirement that we have to control expenditure. Labour Members are occasionally free in debates to say, “Oh yes, we must control expenditure” but they have resisted every measure that has been introduced, be it on welfare, on the benefit cap, on housing benefit or on other things. They must understand that they cannot criticise in circumstances where they do not have a credible alternative.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

Following the Prime Minister’s statement yesterday on the publication of the Francis report, will the Government make time for a full debate in this Chamber, so that MPs from all parts of the House can discuss the report and its conclusions?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend and other hon. Members will be very concerned to ensure that the report is fully debated, and he may know that a number of Staffordshire MPs have sought a debate through the Backbench Business Committee. The Committee will consider that request and I will be happy to understand in due course whether the Committee can accommodate such a debate.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)]

In a particularly callous move, the Foreign Office has withdrawn concessionary visa arrangements for children from Chernobyl, thus depriving many of an opportunity to receive respite and to boost their immune system in constituencies such as mine. May we have a debate about how the Foreign Office decides on these concessionary visa arrangements, so that we can try to persuade the relevant Minister to change his mind about this appalling decision?

[Mr Lansley]

From memory—obviously I will correct this if I am wrong—Ministers at the Foreign Office have met representatives who are seeking these concessionary visa arrangements. I will, of course, ensure that the hon. Gentleman is informed about the result of those discussions, but I am not aware that I will, before Foreign Office questions, have a likelihood of being able to ask that question directly.

[Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)]

If the Backbench Business Committee is good enough to grant a debate on the scandal at Stafford hospital, will my right hon. Friend avoid arranging any Government statements for that day, so that we can have a full debate about the implications of the Francis report? After what we learned yesterday about the culture of box-ticking managerialism at the hospital, it seems to me that those people who close their eyes to reform of the NHS should open them and let us get on with it.

[Mr Lansley]

Of course my hon. Friend understands that we always endeavour to keep the House fully informed of announcements of Government policy, through the means of statements, and to seek not to impede the business of the House. That always involves a balance, and we will endeavour to strike it well. I understand his point that many Members, understandably, feel strongly about what Robert Francis had to say in his report. I feel strongly about it, because it demonstrates that appointing Robert Francis to undertake that public inquiry was absolutely the right thing to do. It also points clearly to the kind of changes in culture and behaviour that the NHS needs now and has needed for a long time. This is not about the structures, because in the course of the past two and half years we in this House have given the NHS the structures it needs. In the introduction to his report, Robert Francis makes it clear that we now need to achieve those culture changes within the structure of the new reforms and they can be achieved in that way.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Would it not be a really sneaky trick for the House not to sit on the Wednesday after the Budget? It would mean that the Prime Minister would not be able to answer in relation to the Budget for four full weeks, by which time, if last year’s Budget is anything to go by, nearly every element of it will have been undone. The Prime Minister would then have to do a massive mea culpa and apologise to everybody for having misled them all the way along for four weeks. Would it not be better to sit on the Wednesday or for the Prime Minister to lead the debate on the second day?

[Mr Lansley]

I published the calendar for the House last October. It set out very clearly, to correct what I said earlier, that Tuesday 26 March was to be the day on which the House would rise. It is perfectly possible for the business of the House to be accommodated by that date, but we must sit on the Friday for that to happen.

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

Notwithstanding the comments made by the Leader of the House a few minutes ago in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), there is an evident lack of democratic accountability in the national health service. I am sure that all Members have come up against those barriers at various times. Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on that issue?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that when we come to debate the Francis report my hon. Friend and others will be able to make many points, including that one. I draw his attention to the simple fact that the implementation this year of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 will give local authorities much stronger powers through the health and wellbeing boards to ensure that commissioning is agreed with the local authority and democratically elected representatives, as well as direct powers to fashion a public health improvement plan for their area.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Last week, I raised with the Leader of the House the issue of the deployment of British troops in Mali and north Africa and he promised me that the House would be kept updated. I raised the question again yesterday on a point of order following the Prime Minister’s extensive visit to the area last weekend and apparently all we will get is a written statement. That is not good enough and is not acceptable. We need a full statement and a full debate on the significant deployment of British troops in that area, which might last for a very long time and should be of great concern to everybody in this House. I ask him again: may we have a debate with a votable motion so that we can discuss the situation and the long-term objectives of the British deployment?

[Mr Lansley]

I noted the hon. Gentleman’s point of order yesterday and I will reiterate what I said to the shadow Leader of the House earlier: I and my colleagues will ensure that there is a report to the House next week before the House rises. I will not reiterate all that I said last week, but we continue to look carefully to ensure that we meet fully the convention that before there is a commitment of our armed forces to conflict and combat for any substantial period, when it is not an emergency, this House should have the opportunity to debate that. As the hon. Gentleman understands from what I said previously, this involvement has an urgent character but it is not the Government’s intention or plan to commit our forces to combat and conflict.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

I welcome the fact that the Government have increased the income tax threshold, lowered corporation tax, worked with local authorities to freeze council tax for the third year and scrapped Labour’s fuel duty escalator. A report earlier this week said that if we were to abandon air passenger duty we could increase economic activity by £18 billion a year and increase GDP by 0.46%. May we therefore have a debate on how tax reductions can stimulate the economy further?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend will understand that the level of tax must be set in a way that optimises revenue while minimising the adverse impact on economic performance. That is a constant effort on the part of the Treasury, and it is one reason—this is not specifically related to air passenger duty—why reducing the top rate of tax to 45p makes good economic sense as well as revenue sense. That has been done in the context of completely understanding, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies has agreed in its analysis, that following the Government’s tax changes the wealthiest 10% are making the greatest contribution to meeting our requirement for fiscal consolidation.

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

I make no apology for raising this matter as a business question—I tried to raise it at Prime Minister’s questions and during topical questions today, and I arrived early on both occasions. The Leader of the House has said how passionate he is about global capitalism and free markets, but media ownership is a different question. We have had no statement, and I think we should have a statement or a debate, on the fact that Virgin Media might be taken over by an eccentric American oligarch. That means that two major American companies, led by rather strange characters, will own our media empire. When will we have a statement about that threat to our media?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Gentleman shares my belief that if we are to be competent and create wealth, we must be prepared to understand that we do so in a global marketplace and there are capital and investment consequences from which we will benefit. But he should not confuse that with a belief that competition and rigorous competition authorities are essential to make that happen. I will take no lessons in relation to that because as a Back Bencher I wrote, together with the noble Lord Puttnam, the provisions that were put into the Communications Bill to apply a public interest test to media mergers.

[Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)]

May we have a statement on the repeated Spanish military incursions into British waters off Gibraltar, and an opportunity for us to pass on our thoughts to the Government on how robust the British response should be?

[Mr Lansley]

I will of course be glad to see if there is anything further that needs to be said to my hon. Friend in relation to these matters. I answered questions in the latter part of November, I believe, relating to Spanish incursions and made it very clear that we would not allow those to impinge in any way on the integrity of the position of Gibraltar.

[Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)]

The Royal College of Physicians says that by 2050 half the population will be obese, at a cost of £5 billion to the NHS. May we have a debate on how to deal with this public health time bomb?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that, if time allows, it would be helpful to debate that issue. We must understand, however, that it is not just a matter of childhood obesity. Most of the people who will be obese by 2050 are already adults, so we cannot solve the problem by tackling childhood obesity alone. It is adults who must take responsibility, but we must understand that at the same time as we do all the things that we are doing—calorie labelling, calorie reduction, getting rid of artificial trans fats, reducing saturated fats—people need community support and opportunities to get more exercise and to make better decisions. Features such as front-of-pack labelling give them that opportunity, but they must be willing to take it.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I appeal to remaining colleagues to ask single, short supplementary questions without preamble, and to the Leader of the House for brief replies. We might then get on to the next business.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

May we have a debate about Leicester’s historically dodgy, bogus and arrogant claim on Richard III and why north Yorkshire is the only place that he should be returned to, according to his wishes?

[Mr Lansley]

My hon. Friend knows that the legal position is straightforward. The licence gives to the university of Leicester an obligation, but also discretion as to the choice of location for the interment of Richard III’s remains, but there will be other claims. I completely understand the claims of both Westminster abbey in relation to the burial of Anne Neville, and York minster.

[Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)]

We need an urgent debate on the bedroom tax and particularly the exemptions. I have a constituent who is a foster carer and who needs the extra bedroom. She provides a service for vulnerable children and she should not be penalised for that.

[Mr Lansley]

The deductions from housing benefit were explained by the Prime Minister yesterday, and I have heard them being explained very carefully to the House previously. The hon. Lady should understand that in addition, as the Prime Minister said again yesterday, resources are provided to meet the specific requirements she raises and local authorities can respond to such circumstances.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

On 29 January, Mary Portas visited the town of Nelson in my constituency following the Government’s decision in May to designate it a Mary Portas pilot town and to give it £100,000 to revitalise its high street. May we have a debate on the excellent Portas pilots and what the Government can do to breathe life back into our high streets and town centres?

[Mr Lansley]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of the Portas pilots. The funding of £2.3 million is only one little part of the effort that it has enabled. The multiplier effect in high streets is very important, including on those beyond the Portas pilots. It might be a slight contrivance to extend next week’s debate on local government finance to discuss the matter, but I hope that it might be one mechanism used to illustrate how local authorities can use resources effectively to generate economic activity.

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

You will remember, Mr Speaker, that I have raised the idea of Bob Dylan coming to Swansea to play at a centenary Dylan Thomas concert in 2014. Well, the times they are a-changing, and I have had a letter from Bob Dylan’s manager to say that he would prefer to perform in the summer in case of inclement weather. I wonder whether the Leader of the House would find time, as the House’s “Mr Tambourine Man”, to come to the concert and, more importantly, timetable a debate in this House before 2014 on cultural and literary icons of the UK and Wales.

[Mr Lansley]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I must say, though, that I am surprised by what he says, since I have understood from him that the sun always shines in Swansea.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

Following on from my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith), may I ask, as a proud Yorkshireman and a York MP, for a debate on returning Richard III, the last king of the House of York, to his rightful resting place—the great city of York?

[Mr Lansley]

I will not reiterate what I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon (Julian Smith). The claims are there, but the law is very clear.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

In business questions in May, I raised the scandal of Criminal Records Bureau checks blighting the lives of tens of thousands of people years, or even decades, after conviction, or even cautions for minor offences or misdemeanours. The Leader of the House’s predecessor, the right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young), was graciously helpful, the Home Office less so. In the autumn, the exclusions from the police commissioner elections highlighted how absurd and outrageous this practice is. The High Court has now told the Home Secretary to think again about CRB checks. May we have a debate in which the Home Secretary can explain why she stubbornly refuses to correct this gross injustice?

[Mr Lansley]

The House will be aware of the recent High Court case. The Government must recognise our responsibility to ensure that CRB checks are thorough and comprehensive. We are directing them towards jobs with access to children and vulnerable adults where the vulnerability is real and the need for confidence is absolute. Having said that, the Home Office will respond in due course, and the right hon. Gentleman might like to think about raising the matter in Home Office questions on Monday.

[Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)]

On Christmas day in 2011, my constituent Khuram Sheikh, a Red Cross worker, was brutally murdered in Sri Lanka. Since then, the justice system in that country has moved exceptionally slowly. I met his family just before Christmas, and they are still mourning. Foreign Office Ministers are putting pressure on the Sri Lankan Government, but still more needs to be done. A parliamentary debate on the failure of the Sri Lankan justice system would be very welcome.

[Mr Lansley]

I am sorry to hear what the hon. Gentleman says about his constituent’s family circumstances. Foreign Office questions are on 5 March, and he might like to consider raising the matter then. Alternatively, Members often think that an Adjournment debate on such circumstances might be appropriate.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

On 4 December, I tabled a round robin question asking each Department how many computers, mobile telephones, BlackBerries and other pieces of IT equipment had been lost. I have received answers from every Department —very interesting they are too—apart from the Cabinet Office. Will the Leader of the House use his influence to get me an answer, bearing in mind that I also tabled a named day question on 16 January and have not had an answer to that either?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that the House knows that I am anxious to ensure that we are always timely in our answers to questions, and I will endeavour to secure an answer for the hon. Gentleman.

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Following the right hon. Gentleman’s alleged answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), will he arrange a seminar for all Ministers to explain the precise meaning of the word “question”, the precise meaning of the word “answer”, and the need for a link between the two?

[Mr Lansley]

I will not organise such a seminar because I think that that is understood by Ministers.

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

Last month in Education questions, I raised with the Secretary of State the latest delay to the rebuilding of Hetton school in my constituency due to Government financing issues. Will the Leader of the House impress upon his ministerial colleague the urgency of that matter because I am yet to receive a response?

[Mr Lansley]

I will seek a response from my right hon. Friend. The Minister for Schools, my right hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr Laws) is on the Front Bench and will, no doubt, have heard that question.

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

May we have a debate on the best use to which the Government can put the rather hefty fines that some banks are paying over the manipulation of LIBOR? Do the Government agree that it would be a good idea to transfer that money to the new green investment bank in Edinburgh?

[Mr Lansley]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and the whole House would agree that the fines have so far been used very well in support of the military covenant. However, I will raise his suggestion with Treasury colleagues.

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

Will the Leader of the House consider holding a debate on the effects of the bedroom tax in Glasgow? Is he aware that the tax will remove £18 million a year from the Glasgow economy, cost 202 jobs and reduce wages by £5.3 million? Do we not need a debate to expose the tax as not just socially brutal, but economically disastrous?

[Mr Lansley]

I will not reiterate what I have said. The hon. Gentleman has to understand that to meet our requirement to reduce the deficit that we inherited from the last Government, we inevitably have to make decisions, including decisions about the level of benefits. As he knows full well, when 1.8 million people are seeking accommodation in social housing, the fact that there are nearly 1 million underused bedrooms across the country must be factored into how we constrain housing benefit expenditure.

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

Last year, G4S secured the contract to service court buildings. It is now drastically cutting the hours of cleaning staff and making them redundant. May we have a debate on introducing plain English into written parliamentary answers, because it is not clear from the slippery replies that I have received so far from the Ministry of Justice whether that is being done as part of the MOJ contract or whether low-paid, part-time workers are paying the price for another G4S miscalculation?

[Mr Lansley]

I have always been a devotee of Sir Ernest Gowers’s pursuit of plain English. I will endeavour to ensure that I and my colleagues meet those kinds of strictures.

[Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)]

On Richard III, the case for Leicester is overwhelming, so hands off, York! I ask the Leader of the House to really think about holding a debate on the bedroom tax. When that policy was debated in Westminster Hall recently, no Government Back Bencher turned up to defend it. Given that it will affect so many vulnerable and disabled people, Opposition Members are keen to hear from the Government how it can possibly be described as fair.

[Mr Lansley]

I have made it absolutely clear, as did the Prime Minister yesterday rather better than I could, that we must meet the requirement to control the ballooning housing benefit expenditure left by the last Government. The Labour party have resisted every effort to do so. When there is unused accommodation in the social housing estate, it is important for there to be incentives for it to be better used. There are nearly 1 million unused bedrooms. It is not a tax; it is a deduction in housing benefit expenditure. Many of the examples that have been presented by Opposition Members completely ignore the fact that there are other deductions in housing benefit expenditure, particularly in relation to private rented housing, which demonstrate that Labour always accepted this as an argument.

Curriculum and Exam Reform

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

11:23

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

With your permission, Mr Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the future of qualifications, school league tables and the national curriculum.

Last September, we outlined plans for changes to GCSE qualifications that were designed to address the grade inflation, dumbing down and loss of rigour in those examinations. We have consulted on those proposals and there is a consensus that the system needs to change. However, one of the proposals that I put forward was a bridge too far. My idea that we end the competition between exam boards to offer GCSEs in core academic qualifications and have just one wholly new exam in each subject was one reform too many at this time.

The exam regulator Ofqual, which has done such a great job in recent months upholding standards, was clear that there were significant risks in trying to both strengthen qualifications and end competition in a large part of the exams market. I have therefore decided not to make the best the enemy of the good, and I will not proceed with plans to have a single exam board offering a new exam in each academic subject. Instead, we will concentrate on reforming existing GCSEs, broadly along the lines put forward in September. There is a consensus that the exams and qualification system we inherited was broken.

Our first set of reforms were to vocational qualifications, which had been allowed to become less rigorous options under the previous Government. Alison Wolf’s report outlined how to improve the quality of vocational courses and expand work experience. It secured near universal support and it will soon all be done. We are also reforming apprenticeships. Under the previous Government, the currency of apprenticeships was devalued alongside every other qualification. The Richard report on apprenticeship reform will restore rigour, as Andrew Adonis has explained so powerfully.

We are also reforming A-levels. Schools and universities were unhappy that constant assessment and modularisation got in the way of proper learning, so we are reforming those exams with the help of school and university leaders. GCSEs will also be reformed in a similar fashion. The qualifications should be linear, with all assessments normally taken at the end of the course. Examinations will test extended writing in subjects such as English and history, have fewer bite-sized and overly structured questions, and in mathematics and science there should be greater emphasis on quantitative problem-solving. Internal assessments and the use of exam aids will be kept to a minimum and used only where there is a compelling case to do so, to provide for effective and deep assessment of the specified curriculum content.

Importantly, the new GCSEs will be universal qualifications and I expect the same proportion of pupils to sit them as now. This is something we believe the vast majority of children with a good education should be able to achieve. However, reformed GCSEs will no longer set an artificial cap on how much pupils can achieve by forcing students to choose between higher and foundation tiers. Reformed GCSEs should allow students to access any grade while enabling high-quality assessment at all levels. The appropriate approach to assessment will vary between subjects, and a range of solutions may come forward—for example, extension papers offering access to higher grades alongside a common core. There should be no disincentive for schools to give an open choice of papers to their pupils.

I have asked Ofqual to ensure we have new GCSEs in the core academic subjects of English, maths, the sciences, history and geography, ready for teaching in 2015. These proposals will, I believe, achieve a swift and significant rise in standards right across the country, equipping far more young people with the knowledge and skills they need to achieve their full potential.

However, reforming qualifications alone is not enough to ensure higher standards for every child, and we must also reform how schools are graded to encourage higher expectations for every student. Existing league tables have focused almost exclusively on how many children achieve a C pass in five GCSEs, including English and maths, but that deceptively simple measure contains three perverse incentives. It encourages schools to choose exams based on how easy they are to pass, rather than how valuable they are to the student; it causes a narrow concentration on just five subjects, instead of a broad curriculum; and it focuses teachers’ time and energy too closely on those pupils on the C/D borderline, at the expense of their higher or lower-achieving peers.

Today I am proposing a more balanced and meaningful accountability system, with two new measures—the percentage of pupils in each school reaching an attainment threshold in the vital core subjects of English and maths; and an average point score showing how much progress every student makes between key stage 2 and key stage 4. The average point score measure will reflect pupils’ achievement across a wide range of eight subjects. As well as English and maths, it will measure how well pupils perform in at least three subjects from the English baccalaureate—sciences, history, geography, languages—as well as computer science, and also in three additional subjects, whether arts subjects, academic subjects or high-quality vocational qualifications.

That measure will incentivise schools to offer a broad, balanced curriculum, with high-quality teaching and high achievement across the board. It will also affirm the importance of every child enjoying the opportunity to pursue English baccalaureate subjects. By measuring average point scores rather than a single cut-off point, the new measure will ensure that the achievement of all students, including low attainers and high achievers, is recognised equally.

Alongside today’s proposed changes to exams and league tables, we are also publishing our proposals for the new national curriculum in England. Over the past two years, we have examined and analysed the curricula used in the world’s most successful school systems in jurisdictions such as Hong Kong, Massachusetts and Singapore. We have combined the best elements of their curricula with some of the most impressive practice from state schools in this country. The result is published today in a new draft national curriculum for the 21st century, which embodies high expectations in every subject.

We are determined to give every child, regardless of background, a broad and balanced education, so that by the time their compulsory education is complete, they are well equipped for further study, future employment and adult life. All the current national curriculum subjects will be retained at both primary and secondary levels, with the important addition of foreign languages, to be taught in key stage 2. Our new draft programmes of study in core subjects are both challenging and ambitious. They focus tightly on the fundamental building blocks of study, so that every child has the knowledge and understanding to succeed.

A key principle of our reforms is that the statutory national curriculum should form only part of the whole school curriculum, not its entirety. Each individual school should have the freedom to shape the whole curriculum to their particular pupils’ aspirations—a freedom already enjoyed by the growing numbers of academies and free schools, as well, of course, as schools in the independent sector. Programmes of study in almost all subjects—subjects other than primary English, mathematics and science—have been significantly slimmed down, and we have specifically stripped out unnecessary prescription about how to teach, and concentrated only on the essential knowledge and skills that every child should master.

In maths—learning from east Asia—there is a stronger emphasis on arithmetic and more demanding content in fractions, decimals and percentages, to build solid foundations for algebra. In the sciences, there is rigorous detail on the key scientific processes from evolution to energy. In English, there is more clarity on spelling, punctuation and grammar, as well as a new emphasis on the great works of the literary canon. In foreign languages, there will be a new stress on learning proper grammatical structures and practising translation.

In geography, there is an emphasis on locational knowledge, using maps and locating key geographical features from capital cities to the world’s great rivers; and in history, there is a clear narrative of British progress, with a proper emphasis on heroes and heroines from our past. In art and design, there is a stronger emphasis on painting and drawing skills. In music, there is a balance between performance and appreciation. We have also replaced the old information and communications technology curriculum with a new computing curriculum, with help from Google, Facebook and some of Britain’s most brilliant computer scientists. We have also included rigorous computer science GCSEs in the English baccalaureate.

With sharper accountability, a more ambitious curriculum and world-class qualifications, I believe we can create an education system that can compete with the best in the world—a system that gives every young person, regardless of background, the high-quality education, high aspirations and high achievement they need and deserve. I commend this statement to the House.

11:29

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

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement.

Under this Government, the words “GCSE” and “fiasco” seem to be linked indelibly. This is a humiliating climbdown. The trouble with this Secretary of State is that he thinks he knows the answer to everything, so he digs out the fag packet and comes up with his latest wheeze. What does that result in? It results in free schools that do not get built, scrapping AS-levels, which Cambridge university hates, and the rejection of English baccalaureate certificates by the CBI, which says they are a mistake. This is a familiar routine; one of the Secretary of State’s advisers briefs the Daily Mail, and when it falls apart by lunchtime, it is time to blame the Liberal Democrats. His priority is pandering to the right wing of the Conservative party.

Parents and pupils are left confused and frustrated. Will the Secretary of State now apologise to them for this shambles? Having done down their hard work on GCSEs, will he accept that that was the wrong thing to do? The statement demonstrates once again his flawed vision for education and a total misunderstanding of the future needs of our country.

Last September, the Secretary of State said:

“After years of drift…we are…reforming our examination system to compete with the world’s best.”—[Official Report, 17 September 2012; Vol. 550, c. 655.]

Is it not the case that he is the one adrift? This is a total shambles. Forced into apologising to the House when he scrapped Building Schools for the Future and forced into a partial U-turn on school sport, he should have learnt his lesson by now. It is simple, really: before announcing a bright idea, would it not make sense to check it first with the deputy headmaster?

I want to pay tribute to those who have argued against the Secretary of State’s plans. The CBI said that they would leave young people in a holding pattern when they need a clear target to aim for at 18. Entrepreneurs, such as the inventor of the iPhone, said the impact on this country’s economy would have been catastrophic. The head of the leading private schools association said that the Secretary of State was hankering after a bygone era. Backward looking, narrow and two-tier, the best thing would be for the Education Secretary to go back to the drawing board. Instead, we have another back-of-the-envelope plan: a new national curriculum, following the last one that his own expert advisers said was deeply flawed.

Education is too important for this kind of short-term thinking. Most children only get one chance at their GCSEs. Surely their future is too important to be subjected to the usual party politicking and parliamentary game-playing. [Laughter.] Conservative Members laugh at the suggestion that that is the case. If the hon. Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) visits schools in his constituency, that is the message he will hear from teachers, parents and pupils. We have to focus on standards, and move beyond this shambles. Surely there should be a cross-party consensus on a future plan for the next generation of qualifications. That should be based on the best available expert evidence, not on the back of an envelope. Will he do things differently this time?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the shadow Secretary of State for his questions. He asks: when we get things wrong will we apologise? Yes. In my time as Education Secretary I have made mistakes. Every Minister makes mistakes. When I made mistakes over Building Schools for the Future, I was happy to come to the House and acknowledge that I had made an error. Where I have made mistakes in other areas, I have been happy to acknowledge that I have made an error, and the very first thing I said today was that I embarked on one reform too far by seeking to move towards single exam boards. I am happy to acknowledge today that that was an error.

One thing we did not hear from the shadow Secretary of State was his view on that reform, because when he wrote to me on Wednesday 26 September 2012, he said:

“I welcome the proposal to introduce single exam boards for each subject.”

I acknowledge that that was a mistake, but in the brief and shining moment that he had the House of Commons in the palm of his hand, I am afraid that the shadow Secretary of State did not enlighten us about his view on single exam boards. He did not enlighten us on his views about vocational qualifications, apprenticeships or A-levels.

He asks me if I will work with others to ensure cross-party consensus. I am delighted that there is cross-party consensus on our reform of vocational qualifications, as he has acknowledged. I am delighted that there is cross-party consensus on our reforms of apprenticeships, as Andrew Adonis has acknowledged. I am delighted that there is growing support for the changes to A-levels and university entry, as I have acknowledged. What I hope to see is consensus on how we reform GCSEs. There is growing consensus in that the National Association of Head Teachers and the Association of School and College Leaders have welcomed the changes we are making today. There is also growing consensus in that the CBI, the Institute of Directors and every body that represents industry says that we need to restore rigour. I hope, after today, that we can get clarity from the hon. Gentleman and consensus across the House, and that we can work together, as we have so successfully on so many other issues, to ensure that children get the high quality education they deserve.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is much interest in this subject, which the Chair is keen to accommodate, but I remind the House that there are two debates to take place under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee, the time for which is not protected. We have to finish the main business by 5 o’clock, so I need short questions and short answers. We will be led in this exercise by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton.

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

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement and, in particular, on the publication of the new national curriculum. Does he share my view that the 2007 curriculum, written by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and introduced by the last Government, was hugely damaging to educational standards in this country and the cultural and scientific literacy of school students, and that the new, knowledge-based curriculum published today will do an enormous amount to raise standards, undo that damage and put our curriculum on a par with the best in the world?

[Michael Gove]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the fantastic work he did during his time as a Minister to ensure that some of the mistakes made in the past were reversed and that some of the successes achieved in the past were built on. I absolutely agree with him: the curriculum took a wrong turn in 2007. Real improvements were made to the national curriculum and how it was taught when the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) was Education Secretary. Sadly, those improvements were not maintained. I hope we are now back on course in order to ensure that our curriculum ranks with those of the highest-performing jurisdictions in the world.

Copies of the national curriculum, my letter to the exam regulator Ofqual and all the other relevant documents will be placed in the Library.

[Mr David Blunkett (Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough) (Lab)]

Flattery will get the Secretary of State nowhere. I welcome the glimmer of humility, as well as many of the changes announced this morning, not least the range of subject areas that will now count for the value-added tables and for GCSEs. Will he confirm that all these subjects will now be of equal weight and that citizenship will not only remain in the curriculum, but have a national programme of study?

[Michael Gove]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman not only for his distinguished tenure of the office of Education Secretary and the reforms he introduced, but for the statesmanlike way in which he has responded, which I am sure others can learn from. I can absolutely and with pleasure confirm that citizenship will remain a programme of study at key stages 3 and 4. I look forward to working with him to ensure that this valuable subject is even better taught in more of our schools.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I welcome today’s announcement and I am pleased that the Secretary of State has listened to the concerns of head teachers in Chatham and Aylesford. Under the last Government, heads would have just started to plan or implement a reform or strategy when it would be ripped up and changed. I fear that we are continuing down the same path, so can the Secretary of State assure the House that he will end the constant tinkering with the curriculum, so that heads can get on with planning and delivering good education for their students?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. One of the benefits of the national curriculum approach that we are taking today is that one of the areas that matters most to heads and teachers—how they teach—will be devolved to their responsibility. It has been the case in the past that prescriptive teaching methods and particular styles of pedagogy have sometimes intruded into the national curriculum. We have stripped them out to concentrate on the knowledge that every child should expect to have and that every parent needs to know their child is receiving.

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

The right hon. Gentleman galloped through his statement so fast that I would have challenged anybody in this House to follow it in any detail. He tells us that it has been widely accepted by all sorts of people who could not have had very much notice of it. Let me bring him back to the point: this is a dramatic U-turn, but the fact of the matter is that we kept telling him, “Consult, base your policies on evidence and try to be bipartisan.” I have not seen any evidence of that, and if the new proposals do not meet those criteria, they will also fail, as will the reforms of A-levels.

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who was a distinguished Chairman of the Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families. I am sorry that the speed of my diction was too fast for him, but I believe that the clarity of our proposals was understood very well by those on the Opposition Front Bench and other Members who have spoken. As I mentioned earlier, our proposals have also been welcomed by head teacher organisations. They have given that welcome because we did exactly what the hon. Gentleman enjoined me to do: we consulted. We put forward proposals, some of them very radical, for change to our examination system. Many of those proposals have been welcomed. One of them—one that was dear to my heart—was a bridge too far. I have listened, and that is why we have dropped it. I hope that in future we will continue to work—as I have worked so pleasantly with him in so many other areas—to achieve consensus for all our children.

[Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)]

Over the past few months we have had a number of debates in which I and many other Members have pointed out to the Secretary of State our concerns about some of his proposals. I am delighted that we are now moving towards a rigorous, reformed GCSE, a slimmed-down national curriculum, which has been a long-cherished aspiration of the Liberal Democrats, and an accountability measure that will push schools to encourage all pupils to do their best. In the consultations that the Secretary of State continues to have, will he ensure that we get that measure right so that we continue to push up participation in subjects such as modern foreign languages, while also guaranteeing the place of creative and technical subjects and religious education?

[Michael Gove]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for the constructive way in which he has engaged in both the consultation and the broader debate. The points that he and many of his colleagues have made during that consultation have been the right ones. They have been designed to ensure that we recognised that there were faults with the examination and qualification system that we inherited, that they needed to be put right, and that challenge and rigour were welcome, but that we also need to listen to what school leaders and head teachers are telling us about how to implement that.

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

At midnight tonight, the Science and Technology Committee will publish its report on engineering skills. Clearly, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on its content just now, but will the Secretary of State give me an assurance that he will read it very carefully? It is an evidence-based report that commands the cross-party support of the whole Committee, so will he assure us that it will get an evidence-based response?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman’s Committee for the fantastic work it has done in the past and I look forward to reading the report. We have ensured, I hope, with the national curriculum changes we are making, that the building blocks of a mathematical and scientific knowledge will be there in order to ensure that higher-level engineering qualifications can be enjoyed and achieved by a wider group of pupils than ever before. Of course, when we make our propositions, we always look at the evidence. I was delighted earlier this week to see that a number of scientists in America were looking at the initial outline of our approach to our curriculum. We are moving in the right direction, with a greater attention to evidence than any other jurisdiction in the world.

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

I welcome the statement, because it signals that there is still much to do. I also recognise that those on the Opposition Front Bench support the need for change. Will the Secretary of State reassure the House that the EBacc will continue and that he will emphasise the need to make sure that teachers think more about all pupils, not just those who are hovering around the C grade?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend who, both as a school governor and as someone with experience in further education, speaks with authority. He is absolutely right. The changes that we will make, I hope, to the accountability system will ensure that schools are incentivised to help students of all abilities. The English baccalaureate is a valuable measure that has already driven up participation in sciences, languages and history, and it will remain as a key element and measurement of how schools are responding to the needs of their pupils.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I welcome the retention of the GCSE brand, but when will the Secretary of State learn from his mistakes, like a good learner, and stop meddling and tinkering, to echo the words of the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), and trying to micro-manage the school system in a way that will, I am afraid, inevitably and sadly disadvantage young people?

[Michael Gove]

I certainly shall not stop challenging the entire school system to do better for all our children, because my first priority is always to ensure that the generation of children who are in school—who, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), has pointed out, only have one chance—get schools that are pressurised to do even better for them.

As for micro-management, almost all the changes that we have made during my time as Secretary of State have been to allow teachers and heads greater control and to free them from micro-management in order to ensure that they can concentrate on teaching and learning. The success of the academies programme, which more than half of secondary schools have now adopted, shows that head teachers are enthusiastic about this Government’s desire to empower them with greater control over the curriculum and how teachers are rewarded.

[Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)]

As a member of the Education Select Committee, I welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I thank him for listening to what the Committee said in its report “From GCSEs to EBCs: the Government’s proposals for reform”, which was published last week. It is a rare thing for a Minister to pay attention to a Select Committee, and I am sure that all the members of the Committee will be grateful to him for doing so. Will he tell the House whether there will still be significant reforms of the content of GCSEs? Will there, for example, be an opportunity in the history GCSE for a narrative British history qualification to be created?

[Michael Gove]

First, may I place on record my thanks to the Select Committee? Sadly, the Chairman of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), cannot be in the House today, for very good reasons. I am grateful for the detailed work that all the members of the Committee did in response to our GCSE reforms. There was consensus between the Committee and Ofqual on one of the flaws in our proposals, and I listened to the evidence that they both produced. I am happy to acknowledge my debt to the Select Committee and to Ofqual, because, as I mentioned earlier, they have persuaded me not to implement at this stage a key part of the reform programme that we put forward.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

When I said, on 16 January, that I would have a crack at changing the Secretary of State’s mind, I did not believe that I would be here within a month thanking him for changing his mind—and I do thank him for that. I understand from his statement that three subjects in addition to the EBacc subjects will be recognised when determining how schools achieve. Will he take this opportunity to stress the importance of creative subjects and practical examinations for many people at the age of 16?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady has conducted a campaign on behalf of creative subjects with skill and panache. The fault is only mine that there was some confusion in the minds of some students and teachers about the distinction between English baccalaureate certificates and the English baccalaureate. There was a fear among some—which I felt was unfounded, but I understand how it arose—that artistic and creative subjects would be marginalised. I hope that the clarity that we have provided today on the accountability in the reforms will reinforce the fact that, for the hon. Lady and for me, artistic and creative subjects are central to a broad and balanced education.

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I commend the Secretary of State for listening and learning. If more people did the same, the country would be a better place. As someone who has been a school governor for longer than he has been a Member of Parliament, may I ask him to ensure that children are given really good careers advice before they decide which subjects to take at AS-level in the improved national curriculum? That will be very important.

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. One of the changes that the English baccalaureate has helped to cement is that students will be clearer about the subjects that they need to take in order to get on to a particular course or into a particular university or college. Given how fast the world is changing, it is vital that we ensure that the advice is tailored to every student in the right way. It is also important that students recognise the potential of new subjects, such as computing, to offer them an even richer range of chances to succeed.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

We can only live in hope that Hong Kong, Massachusetts and Singapore do sport in their schools. The Secretary of State has presided over a reduction in the number of hours that PE teachers spend outside the classroom organising sport, and the children in our schools are spending less time on PE and physical recreation on his watch. What is the position of sport in his new, strengthened national curriculum?

[Michael Gove]

Sport is stronger than ever in the national curriculum, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to feed back on the draft, which shows a renewed emphasis on competitive and team sports. I hope that he will welcome that. I am grateful to The Observer newspaper for showing in a recent poll that a majority of parents believe that school sport is being either protected or enhanced under this Government, rather than diminished. It is great to see that parents know that, on the ground, our commitment to sport is stronger than ever.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

I am hopeful that the Secretary of State’s announcement will stop schools concentrating on the children who hover on the D to C borderline. Will he ensure that all schools are recognised for the progress of every pupil, and that they publish their progress data in comparative tables so that parents, teachers, carers and adults who look after young people can see that a school’s success includes those at the very top and the very bottom of the ability range?

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. Of course it is important that children and young people leave school with qualifications, but it is also important that we incentivise schools to ensure that those students who are very low attainers are the focus of particular attention. The progress measure that we are planning to introduce will be a powerful driver to help those students, and the teachers who are their best hope for success.

[Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)]

A lot of us think that it is the certainty, leading to arrogance, of the Secretary of State that led him to read out 10 pages of waffle. All he needed to do was say, “Sorry, got it wrong; will do better.”

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to hon. Gentleman, as ever, for lessons on humility and how to avoid arrogance, and how to acknowledge that we have made mistakes in the past. As in so many areas of life, he is my model in all things.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

In the recent past, examining boards have competed with each other to offer better results. This has been a driver of grade inflation. Now we are moving away from having a single board per subject, how can we be sure this will be dealt with?

[Michael Gove]

This is a very good point. I was keen to try to deal with this problem of competition, which I believed generated a race to the bottom. While I was keen to do so, however, I recognised that it was a step too far at this stage. We retain the option of moving in that direction if exam boards do not change the way in which they operate, but I have been encouraged by the eagerness with which awarding organisations have responded to Ofqual’s desire to ensure that standards are higher. I note that the shadow Secretary of State did not acknowledge Ofqual or thank it for the work it did to ensure that the English GCSE and other GCSEs were protected as gold standard qualifications. I am confident that the current leadership of Ofqual is doing the right thing. I believe that the steps and instruments are there to ensure that we can have more rigorous qualifications.

[Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State intend to reintroduce the Grand Old Duke of York into the curriculum when he marches schools to the top of the hill and then marches them down again? Will he tell us how much his climbdown has cost?

[Michael Gove]

I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman is familiar with nursery rhymes. This has been a week when Dukes of York have been in the headlines. [Interruption.] Little did I realise how popular hereditary peers would be on both sides of the House. In this process of consultation what we have managed to achieve, for remarkably little cost, is a degree of consensus about how much reform we need.

[Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)]

During his reply to the statement, the shadow Secretary of State said I should visit schools in my constituency. I am delighted to tell him that I do. His last visit to my constituency was to campaign for a Labour candidate in the local elections who ended up humiliated in coming third, behind the Conservatives who won the ward and the British National party in second place. May I urge my right hon. Friend to take no lectures from the Labour party on achievement?

[Michael Gove]

I thank my hon. Friend for that elegantly and pithily put question. I would also like to take the opportunity to invite the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby to execute his own U-turn. As I say, on Wednesday 26 September he said he believed that we needed single exam boards for each subject. I no longer believe that is appropriate or necessary, but we are still none the wiser as to the Labour party’s position on that issue.

[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

The Secretary of State accepts that we must learn from our mistakes. He referred in his statement to Ofqual saying that there were significant risks in trying to both strengthen qualifications and to end competition in large parts of the exams market. Will he tell us why he did not realise before now that there were significant risks?

[Michael Gove]

I was clear that the programme of reform we put out in September was ambitious, and I wanted to ensure that we could challenge the examinations system—and, indeed, our schools system—to make a series of changes that would embed rigour and stop a drift to dumbing-down. I realised, however, as I mentioned in my statement, that the best was the enemy of the good. The case made by Ofqual, the detail it produced and the warning it gave, as well as the work done by the Select Committee, convinced me that it was better to proceed on the basis of consensus around the very many changes that made sense rather than to push this particular point.

[Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)]

I commend the Secretary of State for listening to the consultation, which is a sign of strength, not weakness. Given that we are a creative people, as illustrated by the strength of our creative industries, may I have his assurance that we will not marginalise creative subjects at school?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend has lobbied me with characteristic politeness, persistence and authority on behalf of creative subjects, and I am happy to give him that assurance. I believe that the new accountability system on which we are consulting today will ensure that creative and artistic subjects, alongside high-quality vocational subjects, can take their place in making sure that schools are graded appropriately.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

The head teacher who told me last year that he had gone to bed in 2012 and woken up in 1956 probably thinks that today he woke up on groundhog day. Does the Secretary of State not realise how much harm he does to young people every time he disparages the GCSEs that they work so hard to achieve? What value does he think employers should place on today’s GCSEs?

[Michael Gove]

I think the real harm occurs when children are at schools where teaching is not of a good quality, and where ambitions and aspirations for those children are insufficiently high. One of the problems we have experienced in the past is that employers have said that some qualifications—including those introduced under the last Government—do not command confidence. That is a tragedy, but today we are playing a part in the ending of it.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I greatly welcome the move away from the blunt, simplistic “five-plus C-plus” measure involving the “three perverse incentives” to which my right hon. Friend referred. Will he strive to make the new progress measure a lot simpler and easier to understand than “contextual value added”, which was so complex that it was hardly ever used?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend—who used to be a member of the Education Committee—has made a very good point. One of the other problems with contextual value added was that it seemed to embed a culture of low expectations by automatically assuming that students from particular ethnic minority backgrounds would do less well. The “value added” measure that we hope to introduce will be clearer and simpler, and will also embed high expectations for every student.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Only last Friday, when I visited a secondary school in Bebington, in my constituency, I was greeted at the gates by exasperated teachers who were fed up with learning the latest news about their subjects on BBC News 24. Now that the Secretary of State has apologised, will he put things right by answering the question that he was asked earlier, and telling us how much all this has cost?

[Michael Gove]

Over the last three years, the Department has made significant savings in every area by concentrating on better value for money. I think that, overall, this move will save money for a variety of schools and students by ensuring that modularisation, controlled assessment and coursework—which have absorbed so much energy and time—will no longer absorb energy, time and money from our schools.

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Are not the really important points that we should greatly enhance aspiration in all pupils, particularly those in lower-income groups, and that we need to do something about grade inflation if any public examination is to have some value? May I also say to the Secretary of State that it seems to me that the only purpose of consultation is to enable people to listen to those who are consulted, and that paying respect to what they have said is a mark of ministerial strength rather than ministerial weakness?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It is absolutely the case that I have strong views about improving the education system, and that I am happy to debate in any forum in order to present those views, but it is also the case that I believe that it is through debate—through the testing of propositions—that we can reach a consensus, a synthesis, on how best to proceed. I am delighted that so many of the changes that we have made which were initially controversial and vigorously contested—from the introduction of academies and free schools to changes in the way in which teachers are paid and rewarded—are now accepted. However, when the arguments overwhelm me and I recognise that I am wrong, I think it best to retreat.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Basically, the Secretary of State has failed his resits. It is a delight to see him eating humble pie. Boris Johnson might say to him festina lente, and that might become his motto for the rest of his career in his present job.

The Secretary of State has said that he wants all schools to flourish in many different ways, and wants the methodology of teaching to be different in every one, but it is teenage pregnancy that has prevented many young women from being able to prosper in society. It means that poverty is as hereditary as wealth in this country. When will the Secretary of State ensure that proper sex and relationship education is statutory?

[Michael Gove]

Let me say two things to the hon. Gentleman. First, I congratulate him on his deployment of Latin. [Hon. Members: “What did he say?” He said, essentially, “Make haste slowly.”

Secondly, I happily acknowledge—as one who, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), took seven opportunities to pass his driving test—that resits are sometimes necessary. Winston Churchill once said that success meant moving from mistake to mistake without any loss of enthusiasm along the way.

As for the hon. Gentleman’s point about sex and relationship education, I can tell him that sex education is already statutory.

[Chris Bryant]

I did not ask about sex education; I asked about sex and relationship education.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

And it has failed.

[Michael Gove]

A resit will be necessary.

Teenage pregnancy is a real problem, as is the risky behaviour of so many young people from poorer homes who do not have high levels of educational qualification. One of the things that we can do about that is ensure that they are taught in the right way at primary school.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I welcome the rare display of humility that my right hon. Friend brings to the Dispatch Box today, and his determination to introduce education reform. One third of our European Union postings are filled, but two thirds are unfilled because we do not have candidates with second and third languages. What is he doing to encourage more students to take up languages in primary and secondary school?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments, although I do not know whether he was suggesting that humility at the Dispatch Box was rare or humility from me was rare—but let us cherish it whenever it occurs.

One of our biggest problems has been our insular approach to teaching foreign languages. The English baccalaureate has been one of the means by which we have increased the number of students studying French, German, Spanish and also new languages such as Mandarin. I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, therefore, and our new measure and our new national curriculum requirement that languages be taught at key stage 2 in primary schools will help to ensure that we become a less insular nation.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

This is a timely statement, because tomorrow in my constituency I am due to meet parents who have been concerned about the suitability of the Ebacc structure for the needs of their children. Can the Secretary of State reassure them that the new extended curriculum will meet the needs of students who struggle in more formal and traditional learning environments and with formal examination structures?

[Michael Gove]

It is designed to do exactly that. Some students are written off prematurely and it is assumed—often because of their background or as a result of poor early primary education—that they cannot cope with formal learning, but more students can cope than is currently acknowledged. However, I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady that it is very important that we make sure students of all abilities are supported. That is what our new accountability system will do, and it is also what the changes to special educational needs provision in the Children and Families Bill being brought forward by the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), will do.

[Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)]

Will the Secretary of State confirm that he will not be swayed from his obsessive, relentless, brilliant and, frankly, ballsy approach to preparing British children for the fire and fury of the global competitive race?

[Michael Gove]

Absolutely. As I said earlier, my approach is always to argue strongly for radical change and then to make sure that where that radical change is right, it is implemented, consolidated and agreed, and where that radical change may just occasionally be a step too far, then to acknowledge that we only make progress in this life by recognising when to cut our losses.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

I greatly support what the Secretary of State is doing, but some of us are not convinced he was wrong to want to put in place a single exam board for each subject because of the grade inflation that has come about as a result of having multiple exam boards. He said he would keep this matter under review. Will he give us an idea of how long he will give the existing regime to prove itself before he might revisit the matter ?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I think there was a case for the change he describes, but I felt that the best was the enemy of the good, and we agreed it would be better to put this to one side. We are still not clear whether Labour believes we should move towards having a single exam board. That was its position last September; we do not know whether it has U-turned since then. It is important that we give the exam boards a chance to show that they can improve GCSEs, but if they have not done so in the next Parliament, more steps could be taken.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

“A Bridge Too Far” was a fine British artistic achievement, and I welcome my right hon. Friend’s embrace of it. Will he underline the importance of arts and design in the curriculum?

[Michael Gove]

I am a great fan of that movie, especially the role played by Sean Connery, who is one of my heroes.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

More Michael Caine, I think.

[Michael Gove]

Both, actually.

Our new history curriculum will affirm the important place of British heroes and heroines in fighting for liberty over many centuries. Let me also take this opportunity to say that the role of Mary Seacole is not just cemented but enhanced in the curriculum. I also believe the new history curriculum is fairer in its treatment of black and minority ethnic figures in European and world history, and is more inclusive in its approach to the contribution women have made to our past, but I look forward to hearing all responses from both sides of the House about how we can make sure the subject is taught properly. As for creative and artistic subjects, we will do everything possible, working with the Arts Council and others, to make sure that they are of high quality.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

Examination league tables have many merits, but there is often a conflict between them and the young person in question getting the best impartial advice to suit their future. Can my right hon. Friend assure me that where that conflict arises, the best advice and the future of the young person will always win?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right—that was the case with existing league tables. They were a good thing and helped to drive up standards, but they created perverse incentives and I hope that the reforms we have put forward today will ensure that young people are better advised about the options that will enable them to succeed.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Last, but certainly not least, Bob Blackman.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is clearly crucial that young people gain key skills at the earliest possible stage, particularly in mathematics. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that under the new curriculum, children will learn their 12 times table at the age of nine, rather than learning the 10 times table by the age of 11? Does that not demonstrate the huge shift that is going on to improve standards?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. There is a higher level of ambition at every stage in the national curriculum and a decisive shift towards 21st-century subjects, so that mathematics is more rigorous and the computing science curriculum is more attuned to the demands of today. Critically, that curriculum will not only prepare people to be the programmers of the future, but help to keep children safe online by ensuring that e-safety is at the heart of how children are taught in primary school.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

Well, at least we got 31 Members in in 32 minutes.

Point of Order

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

12:11

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. You will know that last week, a Minister inadvertently voted in favour of and against a particular proposition. This week, six Members voted both in favour and against, in the same Division, on the Government’s same-sex marriage proposals. Historically, the House has always deprecated this because it creates a problem if, for example, people are counted twice for a quorum. Moreover, we now have new rules on what counts as a no-confidence motion leading to a general election, whereby the number of Members counted is important.

May I therefore ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to discuss with Mr Speaker referring this matter to the Procedure Committee so that we come up with a firm view? “Erskine May” is very conflicted on what can happen: in some circumstances, people are allowed to revise their vote, as happened in December 1947.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for having given notice of his point of order. As he knows, the Chair has deprecated intentionally voting in both Lobbies—that is, other than cancelling out inadvertently incorrect votes, as he mentioned. We have no formal procedure for registering abstention in this House, and I would not wish us to have an informal system that would not be understood by those outside this House, and which might well mean that Members who abstain from voting are unfairly criticised for being absent. So I continue to deprecate the practice, but if there is pressure to examine a formal alternative, that would be a matter, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, for the Procedure Committee, which I am sure has heard the message loud and clear.

Backbench Business

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

New Nuclear Power

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Relevant Document: The Twenty-fourth Report from the Committee of Public Accounts, on Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: Managing risk at Sellafield, HC 746.]

12:13

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that both the Coalition Agreement and numerous ministerial statements have committed the Government to provide no public subsidy to new nuclear; further notes that negotiations are currently ongoing between the Department of Energy and Climate Change and new nuclear suppliers to fix the strike price in advance of the legislation on energy market reform; is concerned by wider issues of subsidy and transparency and in particular that this process pre-empts the legislation; is further concerned that new evidence suggests that this constitutes an unjustifiable subsidy to a mature industry; and therefore calls on the Government to pause the process so that the Public Accounts Committee can examine whether the contract for difference being offered for new nuclear power generation offers genuine value for money.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for generously allowing time for this debate. This motion is not about whether nuclear power is a good thing in principle; nor is it about whether the Government’s whole energy policy is on the right track. For the record, I think it is. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State—he has just taken his seat—should be congratulated on the green deal, the world’s first green investment bank, the carbon floor price and most of the energy market reforms contained in the Energy Bill, as should his predecessor. It may be a bit optimistic to say this now, but I hope that Chris Huhne’s time in this House will be remembered for the great work he did in shaping a greener future for the UK.

The Department has chosen a particular method for locking in green investment: the contract for difference. Contracts for difference are normally a kind of bet on future asset prices that might be expected to carry some kind of health warning, to the effect that those participating in them could lose a significant amount of money. In this case, of course, the potential loss is to British energy bill payers, as the contracts for difference will effectively guarantee a certain price for energy generated from particular sources even if the market price falls lower than that price. The difference will not then be paid by us as taxpayers, but as energy consumers through our electricity bills.

I would still say, so far, so good. There are a number of justifications for contracts for difference—for taking that risk on behalf of energy consumers—in the case of renewables and carbon capture and storage, and not just because they are low carbon. First, these are new technologies, at least at scale, that represent a significant risk to investors precisely because they are new and still emerging. Investors in such a market need significant reassurance and reduced risk, and contracts for difference can do just that by promising predictable revenue streams which will in turn make it easier and cheaper for energy generators or CCS developers to secure finance. In the longer run, encouraging renewables will also help consumers, because the cost of renewable generation is on an historic downward trend, unlike fossil fuels or nuclear. Once established, renewables and CCS should provide a cheaper and more diverse range of energy supplies that will make British energy supply much more resilient in the face of fluctuating global energy prices.

The second reason why renewables and CCS need this kind of price-based support is that they include many new and diverse technologies: from good old hydroelectric to onshore and offshore wind; from geothermal to heat exchangers in the air and in the oceans; from photovoltaics to concentrated solar power; from tidal flow turbines to barrages, tidal fences, tidal lagoons and wave power; from biogas and biomass to anaerobic digestion and more exotic forms of energy from waste, such as gas plasma. We might even one day be able to add artificial photosynthesis and who knows what else to that list. Government should not pick winners from among these myriad emerging technologies, let alone the various suppliers and developers. Price-based contracts for difference, properly negotiated, offer a means by which technologies and developers can be supported, but still be incentivised to keep on reducing costs and become more competitive.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

I am listening very carefully to my hon. Friend’s argument as to why contracts for difference should apply to those technologies and not nuclear. He says that Government should not be choosing winners and losers, and I agree. Does he therefore think that the contract for difference price—the strike price—should be the same for all the technologies he has just listed?

[Martin Horwood]

Clearly not, because in the case of onshore wind, for example, there are many competitive developers developing different varieties of technology. It is a competitive market still, in a way that nuclear, as I shall explain, is not.

The goal, of course, is to provide clean, sustainable and cheap energy while meeting challenging but critically important greenhouse gas reduction targets. Do these contracts for difference represent a subsidy? Well, as the Treasury has confirmed to me in a written answer, yes, of course they do. Every energy bill payer is a taxpayer in their time off; but subsidy is justified for renewables, for all the reasons I have given. However, would it not be extraordinary if into this exciting, young, diverse and competitive energy market, a 56-year-old freeloader—a tailgater, a leftover from another era—tried to slip unnoticed and pick up all the same kinds of advantages and support? Would it not be even more extraordinary if that old freeloader was not even represented by a diversity of competitive companies, but just one or two; and more extraordinary still if the most significant of those turned out to be the state-nationalised energy supplier of another country, already subsidised by its own taxpayers?

That is precisely what is happening with the nuclear industry, and what is more, the level of support—the precise contract for difference and the strike price for specific energy sources—is being negotiated behind closed doors as we speak, before the relevant legislation has even passed through this House. The details are set to be revealed to us only after the event—after the deal has been sealed.

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

rose—

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

rose—

[Martin Horwood]

I first give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith).

[Zac Goldsmith]

I hate to jump in front of the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, but I am pleased to be allowed to intervene. Only a couple of days ago, EDF issued a warning, effectively, to the Government that unless they guaranteed it profitability—or words to that effect—it would follow Centrica’s lead and abandon nuclear in the UK altogether. If that is not a request for a subsidy, it is hard to imagine what is.

[Martin Horwood]

The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. In fact, the energy chief executive of Electricité de France, Vincent de Rivaz, told the Financial Times:

“the only thing missing is the contract for difference. Once we have that, we’ll have a compelling investment case to attract partners into the project”.

In other words, “If you don’t subsidise us, there is no business case.” Even with the prospect of subsidy, the business case is not that compelling. On Monday, Centrica pulled out of its partnership with EDF, writing off a cool £200 million and launching a share buy-back scheme to return another £500 million of unused capital to its investors. Like RWE and E.ON before it, and like any sane investor in my view, it has decided that it is not going to touch these new nuclear plans with a bargepole.

[Joan Walley]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for bringing this debate to the House this afternoon. Let us consider things in the light of what the House decided last week on the importance of the Liaison Committee and the scrutiny that there should be of all Government policies. This is a cross-cutting issue that affects the Public Accounts Committee, the Environmental Audit Committee and the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change. Given all that, if we are really going to get transparency about what is going into the contracts for difference, so that we can determine whether there is or is not a subsidy, should there not be proper scrutiny by one Select Committee or a combination of Select Committees of this House? That transparency is what the hon. Gentleman is asking for in bringing this issue to the House this afternoon.

[Martin Horwood]

The signatories to the motion have included the Public Accounts Committee in it, but the hon. Lady makes a good case for perhaps extending that level of scrutiny to her own Committee. Of course because there is commercial sensitivity about some of these negotiations, it would be possible for those Committees to meet in private, as other Committees of this House do when dealing with sensitive subjects.

As I was saying, like RWE and E.ON before it, Centrica has decided that it is not going to touch these new nuclear plans with a bargepole—and it is not hard to see why. I do not know of a nuclear power station anywhere in the world that has been completed on time, on budget and without public subsidy. The new third-generation pressurised water reactors planned for the UK—sometimes called European pressurised reactors or EPRs—are already in deep trouble elsewhere. The Olkiluoto plant in Finland was begun in 2005 and should have gone on line in 2009. The latest estimate is that it will not be generating power before 2015, at least six years late. The first cost estimate was €3.7 billion, but now that has risen to €8 billion. Construction in Flamanville in France began in 2007. The Flamanville facility is now four years late and counting, while the costs have escalated even further and faster than those in Finland, from an original guess of €3.3 billion, according to Le Monde, to the €8.5 billion announced just in December. One French commentator said that this latest announcement undermined the credibility of EPRs as a technology export, and Centrica was obviously listening.

Will anyone take Centrica’s place? EDF is apparently talking to partners it has worked with in China, but I would just warn the Secretary of State that, according to the recent Nuclear Materials Security Index report, China ranks 29th among the group of 32 nuclear nations on nuclear security and materials transparency. Given wider security—

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

rose—

[Martin Horwood]

I am sorry but I cannot give way because of the time limit.

Given wider security and international relations concerns, it would seem to be worth thinking twice, just as the Americans have recently done, about allowing Chinese companies to take a major stake in any strategically important British energy supply projects.

Hitachi stepped in to replace E.ON and RWE on the other projected new nuclear plants, but Hitachi has only taken an option on UK new build. Its proposed advanced boiling water reactor design is still perhaps some four years from regulatory approval and Hitachi, too, is waiting on the strike price negotiations.

More and more research is questioning the cost-effectiveness of nuclear. The Energy Fair group of energy consultants and academics has stripped out all subsidies and says that the real cost of nuclear power is at least £200 per MWh, which is much more than the cost of offshore wind power at £140 per MWh or that of onshore wind power at less than £90 MWh. If EDF has done similar sums—there have been rumours in the industry of asks as high as £165 per MWh for the strike price—that raises the extraordinary possibility that nuclear power, a mature and not very competitive industry started in 1956, might be asking for a strike price comparable with or even higher than that of the newly emerging wind industry. Frustratingly, even Parliament does not know whether that is the case.

Finally, I come to the rather obvious point that nuclear is a fossil-fuel technology. If the worldwide investment in nuclear continues in China and elsewhere, despite all these risks, the price of uranium also will inevitably rise, making nuclear here even more uneconomic. Nuclear sceptics may have a very unlikely ally in this debate. The Treasury’s levy control framework, which caps the costs that can be added to consumers’ bills, currently specifies a figure of £2.6 billion a year. Tom Burke, writing in The Guardian, cites estimates that the cap would have to rise to £12.5 billion or more to provide 16 GW of nuclear power by 2025. As he says:

“Anyone who thinks that the Treasury will agree to a levy cap this large is dreaming.”

The risk, of course, is that support for nuclear will therefore squeeze out possible support for renewables.

Let me remind hon. Members on both sides of the House that the coalition agreement in May 2010 promised

“the replacement of existing nuclear power stations provided... that they receive no public subsidy.”

Agreed coalition policy was restated by the former Secretary of State in the annual energy statement a few months later:

“new nuclear can go ahead so long as there is no public subsidy.”—[Official Report, 27 July 2010; Vol. 514, c. 868.]

He did not say, “no unfair subsidy” or, “no unjustified subsidy”; he said, “no subsidy whatsoever”.

Liberal Democrats and Greens have long opposed nuclear power. But Conservative Members, with their strong commitment to sound finance and their horror of unjustified subsidies, should be alarmed too, even if they reject Électricité de France’s accusation of jingoism against the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee), who dared to question the cost-efficiency of adding our own subsidy to that of the French taxpayer. And Labour MPs should remember the mantra that their Government maintained throughout many long hours of debate on their last Energy Bill, which I remember because I was a shadow environment spokesperson; again, the line was, “No public subsidy”.

The request in this motion is modest. It seeks not the instant abandonment—

[Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

I am sorry to intervene on the hon. Gentleman, and I congratulate him on raising very important issues. For the Public Accounts Committee, issues of transparency and subsidy are hugely important. However, the PAC’s remit is to look at contracts after they have been signed; we cannot take away the job of the Government, which is to decide. We will hold contracts rigorously to account, and we are already ready to examine this contract once it has been signed. Will he accept that our role is in ensuring value for money after the Government have decided? We would hope that our inquiry would also inform future Government contracts in relation to nuclear power.

[Martin Horwood]

The difficulty is that this one may be the main contract for nuclear power, so the suggestion from many non-governmental organisations—not only what we might call the usual suspects, but organisations such as the Consumers Association—is that an independent panel of experts should be convened. That might be an alternative, as the Chair of the PAC has made some reasonable points.

As I said, the request in the motion is modest. It seeks not the instant abandonment of nuclear power, nor the overturning of Government energy policy—far from it. It merely seeks a pause and a referral of the strike price negotiation to the Public Accounts Committee, other Select Committees or an independent panel of experts—such approaches would be equally acceptable. The body can sit in private if issues of commercial sensitivity are involved.

On the face of it, Électricité de France is trying to pull a fast one on British energy bill payers, taking a subsidy designed for clean, green, new, emerging, competitive technologies with falling prices, and claiming it for a 56-year-old industry with precious little competition and a continuing history of spectacular cost overruns, for which we stand to pick up the bill. I ask hon. Members to support the motion.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I remind Members that the following debate is heavily subscribed, so I am going to reduce the limit to eight minutes.

12:28

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

I welcome the Backbench Business Committee’s decision to select this important subject for debate, and I come to the debate from two distinct but somewhat interrelated perspectives. I will speak in a moment about the general economic competitiveness of our nation and a need for nuclear to be part of our energy mix to help with that competitiveness, but the first point I wish to make is a constituency one.

Hartlepool has had a nuclear power station for about 30 years. It is currently operated by EDF Energy and it generates about 2% of Britain’s energy requirements. More than 500 people are employed at the station in my constituency; it provides highly skilled, well-paid jobs, and those wages are then pumped back into the local economy. In the past couple of years, the station has had its operational life extended to 2018-19. There is the scope for Hartlepool to have a replacement power station, but we are in the second wave of such replacements and any replacement would not be expected to be operational until 2025 at the earliest.

I am passionately for the idea of a replacement power station, as the commissioning of such a station would provide a much needed short-term and long-term boost for my local economy. Tees Valley Unlimited has estimated that such a new nuclear build in my constituency would generate 12,000 construction jobs, as well as a net increase of more than 5,000 jobs in operations and 1,000 in manufacturing. Given that Hartlepool has one of the highest levels of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment—one in four young men is not in employment or training—the prospect of a long-term well-paid secure job in building and running a new power station is very attractive for school leavers. The Teesside sub-region has a number of major players in the nuclear supply chain, such as AMEC and Aker Solutions, so the wider north-east economy would also benefit.

I am very concerned—this is my second point—for the economy of my constituency and the general competitiveness of our country. I am concerned that we will see a gap between current stations going offline and their replacements becoming operational. In Hartlepool, we will see a gap of about five or six years at best, meaning that we will find it difficult to avoid power cuts and brownouts. That will not help us in the global economic competitiveness race and it will not help consumers in this country.

In such circumstances, it is vital that our argument is not so much about subsidy as about clarity and stability in policy to provide investors with as much confidence as possible so that they invest in the long term. However, the only thing that seems to be clear is that have we no clear strategy on nuclear energy.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) mentioned Centrica’s decision not to invest in the UK nuclear sector. The company believed that returning half a billion pounds to their shareholders was a better use of its money. I was reading the Lex column in the Financial Times this week and it said that Centrica’s decision

“suggests that developing the next generation of nuclear power is too daunting a task for the private sector”.

Given that, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency, some 60% of the total lifetime costs of a nuclear plant must be allocated to investment and construction, investors will be paying out substantial sums of money without seeing returns for the best part of 12 to 15 years. In such circumstances, it is obvious that construction and investment risk must be mitigated as much as possible and to that end investors need to be reassured that long-term stable agreements will be put in place.

[Martin Horwood]

The explanation that Centrica gave was not that there was insufficient public support—that was expected, as the contract for difference negotiations are ongoing—but that there would be escalating costs and a worsening prospect of a return on investment because of the history of plants going over budget and over time.

[Mr Wright]

The hon. Gentleman mentions contracts for difference and he also did so in his speech. That is my major criticism of the Government, because when people are thinking about investing for 40 or 50 years it is important that we try to mitigate the risks as much as possible. That is presumably the rationale behind contracts for difference.

As I have said, I have a power station in my constituency and want another one, but we still have great uncertainty about how CFDs will operate, including about the length of contracts, how contracts will be allocated or paid for and the process for setting the reference and strike prices. In such circumstances, investors who want to invest for the long term are naturally jittery. In its report on planning for economic infrastructure last month, the National Audit Office identified policy uncertainty as a key risk, concluding that such uncertainty

“could result in project sponsors, lenders and contractors deferring or abandoning UK projects in favour of opportunities elsewhere. Financing charges for projects may rise as investors and lenders perceive policy uncertainty as a risk.”

That certainly seems to have happened in the nuclear sector, with the loss in recent years of E.ON, RWE and SSE, and now Centrica.

I mentioned that I was reading the Lex column in the Financial Times this week, and it concluded:

“low-carbon nuclear must be part of the global energy mix. If governments want to attract private capital, they must be more realistic about pricing, cost and regulation.”

That is as true for the UK sector as it is for the global energy mix.

[David Mowat]

I agree with just about everything the hon. Gentleman has said and would make the point that Hartlepool puts more into the grid than the entire onshore wind sector in this country. He is correct to make his points about up-front investment, but does he agree that the CFD structure, with a strike price lower than that agreed for wind, is the best way of achieving that?

[Mr Wright]

Let me make two points in response. The hon. Member for Cheltenham said that in many respects this is an either/or game and that we choose nuclear or renewables. In my area, which has a long and proud history of engineering, manufacturing and energy production, it is not an either/or game. We can have a fantastic offshore wind-processing facility in my constituency, where we have a great supply chain, as well as having nuclear. We can have a ready supply of school leavers to go into the energy engineering sector. I want the Tees valley to be a centre of excellence for energy.

The second point made by the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) is valid and goes back to what I was saying earlier. Investors are unclear about what is going on and there is no stability with CFDs. As the investment time scale lasts 40 years with up-front costs, that must be addressed.

The Government must act in a more focused way than they have in the past to provide clarity to investors for the long term. If we do not have that, our competitiveness as a modern economy and our ability to attract large-scale financing for such projects will be undermined still further. We will not be able to keep the lights on and stay competitive as a nation if the Government maintain their current approach and that is why I hope that they will address the risks today.

12:36

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

As someone who has witnessed first hand the long-lasting devastation of a nuclear accident at Chernobyl, where signs of contamination remain to this day—even affecting Cumbria, when the disaster struck 25 years ago and 1,200 miles away—I believe that nuclear should be an option of last resort on risk and environmental grounds alone. The debate is not about environmental risk but about price and the coalition commitment not to subsidise any new nuclear.

The set price under negotiation would guarantee income levels for companies generating electricity. In other words, should the market price fall below the set price, taxpayers will be responsible for footing the bill. The contracts envisaged are expected to last up to 35 years, so nuclear power companies would be immune to future changes in the market demand for their products.

EDF’s recent statement that it, like Centrica, might abandon its nuclear reactor construction plans if the Government fail to pledge an adequate minimum electricity price demonstrates the extent to which future nuclear plants will rely on taxpayer funding. That subsidy by any other name shifts the notoriously high economic risk from nuclear corporations to the consumer and will be presented to Parliament as a non-reviewable contract that is likely to be binding for decades. That outrageous deal, forged behind closed doors, directly contravenes our coalition commitment and wholly pre-empts the energy market reform legislation and the proper democratic process of parliamentary scrutiny.

I am a committed free marketeer as I believe that the free market is far and away the best method by which to allocate resources efficiently. Consumers should have the ultimate say on how products are delivered and at what price. I accept that the utopian free market ideal is sometimes not possible, especially when considering high-cost barriers to entry.

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

The logic of the hon. Gentleman’s argument means that, if we leave it entirely to the free market, all we will build over the coming years will be gas turbines.

[Mike Weatherley]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong, and I shall come on to the reasons for that later. Many alternatives from emerging markets must be considered, rather than the obsolete and declining markets.

We should try to keep as close to a free market as possible, whenever possible, rather than take the easy state intervention option. Indeed, my political hero, Sir Keith Joseph, emphasised that by saying that market competition

“contains within it the source of constant improvement”.

Any new subsidy to this mature market is an affront to that principle and will artificially restrict the growth and innovation of the sector in an age of feasible new green and renewable energy.

[David Mowat]

I, too, am a free marketer in general. In this case, however, if we leave it to the market alone, the answer will be coal or maybe gas. Does my hon. Friend not believe that carbon is a bad thing for society, that the Government must therefore intervene to put a price on carbon, and that the CFD structure that they are introducing is a mechanism for putting a price on carbon, which is good for us and good for the planet?

[Mike Weatherley]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. If I may, I will ask him to listen to my concluding remarks, which will show conclusively that by not subsidising nuclear, we will have a greener economy, rather than a carbon-dependent one.

If new nuclear is unable to meet the free market test, showing that it is competitively viable in the long term, it should yield to other forms of energy, particularly green forms of energy. When it comes to striking a price now, there are so many unknown variables that this can be done only by accepting that any price agreed will need future Government support. Members in favour of nuclear seem to accept that, which is horrific, given the coalition agreement.

The first of these unknown variables is the decommissioning of nuclear power sites. Decommissioning is a multi-faceted and complex process in which costs are hard to estimate accurately. The Public Accounts Committee last week noted the huge decommissioning failures at Sellafield, where the clean-up will take 120 years and cost £100 billion—twice the original estimate.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mike Weatherley]

I am sorry. I cannot give way because I am allowed only two lots of injury time.

Other factors can cause decommissioning costs to jump. Current laws can be amended. The 2002 White Paper “Managing a Nuclear Legacy” identified exactly this point as being a factor in the Sellafield costs. Secondly, fuel and waste management represent additional unknown financial burdens. Fuel management is particularly problematic. The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority notes, for example, that oxide fuel must be stored for decades before it is possible to place the fuel in a geological disposal facility. That brings me on to a crisis point: no GDF exists in any country. The UK Government have yet to locate an appropriate site for one on UK land. The full cost of constructing and operating such a facility is therefore unknown. Some £400 million of Government funding was spent examining a potential site for a GDF in Cumbria, only for Cumbria county council to vote against the plans last month on safety concerns.

Thirdly, the need for public funding is unlikely to abate over time. As the BBC journalist Richard Black points out, with the full life-cycle of nuclear power stations stretching over such long time frames, it is impossible to guarantee that companies originally involved in the running of the power plants will still be in existence or financially capable of meeting some of the costs of the decommissioning processes. Fourthly, aside from the decommissioning and other costs mentioned previously, the financial burden that a nuclear accident would place on UK taxpayers would be enormous, and this potential liability needs to be built into any pricing structure. Operators have some obligation to limited liability to cover accident costs, but these are capped, with Government underwriting the costs above the cap.

In March 2012 the Government response to the consultation held on increasing nuclear third party liability admitted:

“An incident of the scale of Fukushima would lead to costs that far exceed an operator liability limit.”

The response confirmed that Government intervention would very likely be needed. Proponents of nuclear will say that the likelihood of accidents is low, but the Government’s own advisers have confirmed that it is “not zero”. As recent history has shown, severe accidents do occur—five major incidents worldwide so far.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mike Weatherley]

I will try to give way before the end, if I can.

A good indicator of commercial viability is where the sector’s insurers stand. A 2010 Department of Energy and Climate Change working paper concedes that commercial insurance companies would not be willing to cover some of the nuclear industry’s liabilities.

The UBS financial group said recently that investing in nuclear power is a

“courageous 60-year bet on fuel prices, discount rates and promised efficiency gains.”

As my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) noted, the EPR design planned for Hinkley Point has been planned twice before—once in France, where the costs have more than doubled and construction is five years behind schedule, and in Finland, where costs have almost trebled and construction is six years behind schedule.

A further cost which needs to be considered is that of protecting nuclear facilities from terrorist attacks. This includes protecting nuclear facilities from cyber-terrorist threats and providing adequate protection for nuclear materials in transit. Again, the cost is unknown.

Margaret Thatcher was a key advocate of removing subsidies from

“outdated industries, whose markets were in terminal decline”.

Today the market in decline is the British nuclear power industry when pitted against the alternatives.

I leave the Secretary of State with four questions and one frightening statistic. First, why is DECC being permitted to agree a contractual set price for nuclear power, in contravention of the coalition agreement not to allow nuclear subsidies? Secondly, why will this contract be presented as a non-reviewable document to Parliament? Thirdly, will the risks detailed earlier in my speech be taken into account in any price agreed? Fourthly and most importantly, will the Secretary of State consider delaying the negotiations until the relevant Committees have had a chance to review whether it represents value for money?

Finally, the frightening statistic: using formulas developed by Steve Thomas of Greenwich university and Peter Atherton of Citi, at a strike cost price of £161 per megawatt, which they have calculated, set against today’s wholesale price for electricity of around £51 per megawatt, and a 30-year contract life for the two proposed plants at Hinkley and Sizewell, it would cost householders and businesses or taxpayers £155 billion by 2050, and that is without any of the additional costs that I identified earlier. Imagine the renewable energy industry if we had invested over £155 billion in it. We would be world leaders, and I have every confidence that it would be low carbon and meeting all our energy needs.

00:00

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

I agree with every word said by the hon. Members for Hove (Mike Weatherley) and for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). We are in an extraordinary situation in relation to our nuclear policy, charging ahead to a certain financial train crash. Huge sums will be spent and Parliament is to be kept in ignorance of the details of what is going on. That must be changed. We have heard the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee say that her Committee has no responsibility until the contract has been signed. By then, it will be too late and we will have committed ourselves to a period of probably 30 years at least to pay an enormous cost to a company that is not British, that is in France and that is already subsidised. It is crazy.

We have seen the stampede of all the companies—E.ON, RWE and now Centrica—away from investing in nuclear power, and for very good reason: it is a financial basket case. I will not repeat the figures relating to the two new nuclear stations, in Finland and at Flamanville. They are the future, but one is four years late, and the other is six years late; one is €3 billion over budget, and the other is €5 billion over budget.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend and I will never agree on nuclear power, but to set the record straight, there are nuclear power stations that were built on time and on budget in Taiwan and many other places by Hitachi with Japanese technology. My hon. Friend identifies one technology in one country.

[Paul Flynn]

My hon. Friend, like my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), has a point of view. They have nuclear power stations and nuclear jobs in their constituencies, and naturally they have to fight for their constituents. One can understand the distortions of view that inevitably result from that.

The history of nuclear power has been a story of false dawns all my life. I can remember as a schoolboy going to an exhibition in Cardiff called “Atoms for Peace”. I remember ZETA, a fusion reactor that was going to produce electricity that was too cheap to warrant a meter. We had the steam-generating heavy water reactor, one of the worst civil investment decisions since the building of the pyramids—huge investment that produced nothing of value. Margaret Thatcher had plans to build 10 nuclear power stations, but only one was actually built. My party was seduced by the pied piper of nuclear power fairly recently.

[Mark Tami]

Let me put it on record that I do not have a nuclear power station in my area. Is it not the logic of my hon. Friend’s argument that instead of building a great new green generation of stations, this country will import electricity from abroad, probably from French nuclear power stations?

[Paul Flynn]

That is a very limited view of the history of the matter, which I will come to. As recently as 2007, however, my party took the view that nuclear was economically unattractive. That was in one of our manifestos. But an event took place in Downing street where there was a PowerPoint presentation to the then Prime Minister that said, “Mr Blair, there’s going to be a gap in our electricity supply because the advanced gas-cooled reactors are going to become obsolete and that will create a problem in a number of years that will have to be solved.” Within a year of the Labour Government changing their policy on nuclear power, having decided that what had been economically unattractive was okay, the life of the AGRs was lengthened and the gap had disappeared. The spin had taken place, and we were seduced into the view that nuclear was inevitable.

All parties, I believe, went into the last election with the promise that nuclear was acceptable if there were no subsidies, but where are we now? There are enormous subsidies. In 2008, I heard a debate in this House about the insurance costs for the Government of nuclear power. The most recent figure that we have for the cost of a nuclear accident is £200 billion for Chernobyl, and the taxpayer would have to pay that.

[Martin Horwood]

I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman says, but I must correct him on one thing. He said that all the parties went into the last election supporting nuclear power. The Liberal Democrats did not—we were opposed.

[Paul Flynn]

I am delighted to be reminded of that. However, I could spend the rest of my speech quoting what the Secretary of State and many other Liberal Democrat Members have said about this. Why has their position changed? As the hon. Gentleman rightly said, they were not in favour of nuclear power; I was suggesting that they went into the election promising no subsidies. The Secretary of State has been attracted by the red boxes or by other considerations, and he has had some kind of ministerial lobotomy whereby he can no longer see what is obvious—that nuclear power, which he never believed in until only two years ago, is a false trail.

[Martin Horwood]

Obviously I cannot speak on behalf of the Secretary of State, but I remind the hon. Gentleman that when the national policy statement passed through this Chamber, not even Liberal Democrat Ministers voted for it. Under the terms of the coalition agreement—I think we might have had to strike a similar deal with his party—we abstained at that time.

[Paul Flynn]

I have some hope that the Liberal Democrat party will return to the paths of virtue.

A few hours ago in this Chamber, I asked the Business Secretary a question in which I praised him for what he has done with Greencoat UK by investing money in wind power and urged him to do the same in relation to tidal power. Let me say a few words about tidal power, because it is ignored.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Flynn]

I cannot do so any more because I have run out of injury time.

My constituency, like that of several other Members on the English side of the Bristol channel, is washed by an enormous cliff of water that travels up and down the estuary twice a day. There is immense power there that is unused and wasted. This can be tackled, but not by a barrage, which has so many difficulties and objections that it would be impractical. It is not necessary to build a brick wall across a tidal flow to get energy from it. Water wheels work very simply: the water flows and they tap the energy. The best way in which we could get that energy cheaply and cleanly is through a series of small machines in the water to tap the energy that could then be linked with a pump storage scheme, possibly in the valleys of south Wales. That would provide demand-responsive energy—base load energy—that was entirely predictable and did not alter like wind or any other sources. It would be available, clean, British—

[Albert Owen]

It is expensive.

[Paul Flynn]

My hon. Friend says that it is expensive, but it is very cheap. He should take a trip to La Rance in Brittany, where for more than 30 years there has been a tidal power station producing the cheapest electricity in France.

Thanks to the Public Accounts Committee, we now have a clear picture of the future. Let us look at the enormity of the sums involved. Professor Tom Burke, who was an adviser to a previous Government, has said:

“The scale of the proposed investment is very large. The contract will last for a very long time at a strike price of £100/MW and a 30 year contract like this would require a subsidy of £1 billion/year above today’s wholesale price for electricity. This would lead to a transfer of £30 billion to EDF”—

Électricité de France, a French company—from the pockets of British taxpayers. He continued:

“Should the whole of the 16GW of new nuclear anticipated by the Energy Minister be financed on similar terms it would cost householders and businesses £150 billion by 2050.”

Back in 2008, I tabled an early-day motion forecasting that any profits that might be made from nuclear power would be enjoyed by foreign companies. We have seen the stampede that is now going on with E.ON, RWE and Centrica, and that is all for business reasons. Any profits would be enjoyed in France, but the enormous cost would be paid by British taxpayers.

There are huge liabilities involved. We hear about £67.5 billion—an astonishing figure—for dealing with nuclear waste. The Flowers committee report said in 1976 that it was irresponsible to go on generating electricity from nuclear power without a solution to the waste problem.

[David Morris]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Paul Flynn]

I cannot give way any more.

The waste problem is continuing at a cost of £1.5 billion a year. We still do not have the solution and we are in the same position with the £67.5 billion. The answer used to be to dig a hole and bury it. Now, thanks to Cumbria council’s decision, quite rightly, not to build—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I call David Mowat.

12:56

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I am pleased to have the chance to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) on securing it.

Before I begin my remarks, I want to address two of the points that the hon. Gentleman made. First, on the subsidy issue, of course it is true that we are paying more for nuclear than we would pay if we let the market ride, because the market would take us to coal, and if not coal, to gas. Whether we call that a subsidy or a price for carbon, I do not know. I personally believe that we must address the decarbonisation issue, that nuclear power is part of the solution, as is wind, and that the contract for difference mechanism is a way of acknowledging a price for carbon. If we want to call that a subsidy, I accept that.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman said, as I have heard others say, that it is reasonable to subsidise new technologies such as wind, solar and all the rest, but not nuclear, which is an old technology dating back to 1956. That is a false argument. It is a little like saying that physics is an old technology because it started in about 1900 and we have had it for all that time. Nuclear is changing and evolving, just as wind power did. There are different types of nuclear power. Is thorium technology new, or are the different types of reactors new? It is a very difficult argument to maintain. If we are serious about decarbonisation, it is hard not to see nuclear as part of the solution.

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

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Does he agree that the latest design approved by the Office for Nuclear Regulation for the new reactors that EDF proposes to use shows that those reactors are more efficient than before, and so we are rewarding that investment in technology to ensure that we get more value for money?

[David Mowat]

My honest answer is that I do not know if they are more efficient. I assume that they are—why would they not be?

I am of the view that we should not go nuclear if there are low-carbon technologies that can outperform it at scale and within the time frames that we need, because I accept that there are issues with nuclear. For example, we have not solved the waste problem. The question for the House, though, is whether that problem is more severe than global warming. We must make choices. We need to decide whether the waste issue is containable—no pun intended—whereas the global warming issue is not containable. However, it is nonsense to pretend that nuclear is not part of the decarbonisation of the world.

[Albert Owen]

The hon. Gentleman is making a sensible and powerful argument. On waste, the House needs to recognise that we are talking predominantly about legacy waste that successive Governments have not dealt with but needs dealing with now. That waste comes not only from civil nuclear but from the defence industry and the health sector. On the other hand, we will be some 50 years into the future before anything of that kind comes out of a new-build nuclear power station.

[David Mowat]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the issue of legacy waste is not relevant to this discussion, but neither is it a great advert for the nuclear industry. It is true that much of the waste that is causing the difficulties in Cumbria is military and health waste, rather than waste from nuclear power stations. However, it is also true that the old stations were not designed with the disposal of waste in mind and we are paying the price of that.

[Paul Flynn]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Mowat]

I have given way twice, so let me see how I get on and I will try to come back to the hon. Gentleman.

I support the broad thrust of the Energy Bill. The DECC assumption is that we need to construct 60 GW of capacity by 2035 and that up to a third of that will be nuclear. Much of the rest will be made up by renewables, including wind and biomass, but I am afraid that some of it will come from gas.

There are three competing targets in energy policy. The first is cost, which we talk about very little, the second is energy security and the third is decarbonisation, which we talk about a lot. I will say a little about each of those targets.

Cost matters and fuel poverty matters. We need to decarbonise our economy, but old people being cold and dying of hypothermia is not a price worth paying for that. We should be very circumspect about cost and we must consider the cost equation for the different technologies. I accept that the cost of renewables is coming down, albeit from a very high base. We also need to consider the cost to our industries. I gently tell the House that a large part of the GDP in the north comes from heavy industries. If we want to rebalance the economy, we must bear it in mind that GDP growth correlates with energy use. We will not achieve that aim if we have differentially higher energy prices. We must be careful about that.

The UK faces unique issues in respect of energy security. We have decided to decommission 20 GW of nuclear and coal capacity over the next five or six years. The figures vary depending on who looks at the matter and when, but by 2017 we will have a capacity excess of about 4%. That is dangerous and we need to address it. If it is not addressed in time, the default will be to use fossil fuel. Gas power is about the only thing that can be produced at scale quickly enough. We cannot build wind capacity at that level quickly enough.

We often talk as if this country is one of the worst performers in Europe on carbon, but both the absolute figures and the trajectory on carbon per head and carbon per unit of GDP show that the UK is one of the best performers of the major economies in Europe. I will not end the comparisons with Germany because it uses 20% more carbon per head and 23% more carbon per unit of GDP than us, and yet it has three to four times more renewables. Why is that? The answer is that it burns substantially more coal than us. The trajectory appears to show that it will burn yet more coal than it has in the past. The way to decarbonise is to get off coal, and nuclear power can be part of that.

What are our options? The first option is to use less power. I hope that the green deal works because there is no question but that it is the best thing that we can do. The option that I like least is imports. There is a risk that the Government will go down that route. The fastest growing source of electricity is imports coming in from France through the interconnector with Holland.

[Michael Ellis (Northampton North) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[David Mowat]

I am afraid that I cannot.

I am not very impressed by the interconnector with Ireland or with our building a big wind farm in the middle of Ireland and sending the jobs over there. Another option is gas. For pragmatic reasons, that will be part of the solution. It replaces coal and creates much less carbon.

I welcome the use of wind and solar energy. However, we debate these options as if they are mutually exclusive. If our 2050 target was to be met entirely by wind power, the 4,000 wind turbines that we currently have would have to be multiplied by a factor of about 30.

[Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)]

rose—

[David Mowat]

I will not give way. The hon. Lady might have wanted to talk about offshore wind. That could be part of the solution. However, these technologies have a lot of ground to make up on price.

Carbon capture and storage has been talked about a little. That is part of the solution. I regret that this country has not moved faster on CCS. One reason for that is that we have over-emphasised renewables because they are subject to an EU directive. Progress on CCS would not have counted towards that directive, even though it would have helped us to decarbonise.

I think that there are problems with the case for nuclear. As I said at the start of my remarks, the problem of waste has not been fixed. It is perfectly legitimate for people to think that that is a reason not to go ahead with new nuclear. However, I believe that the risks from waste are smaller than the risks from global warming and that we therefore need to decarbonise. I say to the Secretary of State that unless nuclear can prove that it has a cheaper strike price than other low-carbon technologies, there will be questions about going ahead with the deal. Although nuclear produces less carbon than renewable technologies—for example, it produces significantly less carbon per kilowatt-hour than solar—there is still the issue of waste. I do not know how the caps that have been put into the deal will work. The hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) made the point that the probability of an accident is never zero. That is true, but it does not mean that we should never do anything.

Of course, nuclear provides base power, whereas renewables are intermittent. Even with the waste issue, I believe that we must move ahead with nuclear as part of the mix in the way that the Government are doing. I wish them luck with the negotiation, although I regret that they are negotiating with only one company. Frankly, the Labour party is the cause of that because it sold off vast tracts of our nuclear industry.

In my last 40 seconds, I will ask some questions of the Secretary of State. As I said, we now produce less carbon than most OECD countries and European countries. The Secretary of State must therefore be circumspect in ensuring that the cost of our electricity supply is competitive and that we do not move ahead a lot more quickly than the rest of Europe. As I said at the beginning in response to the hon. Member for Cheltenham, I do not understand why the contract for difference price for other low-carbon technologies is so much higher than that for nuclear. I will finally just say that—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I call Joan Walley.

12:59

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

I apologise to the Secretary of State that I will not be here for his winding-up speech. In the short time that I have, I want to put on the record a couple of important points relating to last week’s Liaison Committee debate in the House about how Parliament can best scrutinise Government policy.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) on securing this Back-Bench debate. The issue that he has raised is whether new nuclear will go ahead with or without public subsidy. The plain truth is that we have no means of finding out. Because of the commercial confidentiality surrounding the discussions about the contracts for difference, there is no way of telling how much of the Treasury money that was intended to be used for feed-in tariffs and to provide the long-term investment in renewables that we need is being diverted into nuclear power. If that money is being used, it is in direct contradiction to the coalition agreement that any new nuclear would come forward on the basis of market forces.

It is impossible to understand how Government policy is being taken forward in this area, because of the complete lack of transparency and of an evidence base. There is real urgency, not only because we have to act on climate change, keep the lights on and invest for the long term, but because the Energy Bill is going through the House and all the decisions are going to be made with no possibility of scrutiny. As the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee has said, she will be able to scrutinise the decision only after it has been made. This is a complete double whammy and we have no way of knowing about the situation.

Will the Secretary of State look again—if not now, he should do so in future discussions with the Liaison Committee—at Energy and Climate Change Committee recommendations stating that it was a mistake by the Government to muddle together nuclear with renewables? Will he, together with his Cabinet colleagues, look at the implications for the green economy and the long-term investment that is needed? If that has to be done in private, he should do it in private with Privy Counsellors or whoever, but we need genuine scrutiny of what the contracts for difference comprise.

I want an energy policy that is fit for purpose, creates jobs and reduces carbon levels, but I believe that the current lack of transparency is not in the interests of good governance or science-based evidence. If the Government chose, they could, with the support of the Liaison Committee, look urgently at a way of getting that information on to the public record.

[Michael Ellis]

Will the hon. Lady also accept that there is a priority and that the Government should focus, as should we all, on an issue she has not mentioned—energy security? Would she be content if the Government were not conscious of that and were held over a barrel by others because our energy security had not been properly considered?

[Joan Walley]

Energy security is top of my list as well, but I would not want the Government—not just now but in 2050 and beyond, which is why we are looking at the decommissioning of nuclear waste—to be held over a barrel as a result of a decision made now that will have a lasting legacy in years ahead.

[Zac Goldsmith]

Given recent threats from EDF Energy over the past couple of days, it seems to me that we are already being held over a barrel in relation to the strike price. We are being asked for extraordinary levels of subsidy by an industry whose subsidy appetite should be not disappearing but declining after 50 years. Instead, it seems to be increasing.

[Joan Walley]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and given what has happened this week with Centrica, and the uncertainty over how the new nuclear power stations will be constructed, everyone is being held over a barrel. That does not mean, however, that we should not sit down and work out together transparently a way of creating an energy policy that is fit for purpose and that our constituents deserve.

13:12

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

Our future energy needs and how we meet them are critical to this nation. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) on securing this debate, and I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright), who is a friend outside this Chamber.

My constituency is one of the biggest energy producers in the country and my area contains gas, onshore and offshore wind, and—biggest of all—two nuclear power stations. I am incredibly supportive of the nuclear industry and have established Conservative Friends of Nuclear Energy to help advocate it. The nuclear industry is worth protecting and developing. Indeed, I would go so far as referring to it as the ultimate low-carbon industry.

People in my constituency are sick of onshore wind blighting the countryside. My mailbag is always full of letters from various conglomerates that want subsidies to develop onshore wind. Our nuclear power station is a huge employer and incredibly popular among those who live closest to it. In fact, my constituency has been designated for a third nuclear reactor, and we have a good chance of getting it built. For all the good news, however, there are many misconceptions about the industry.

[Zac Goldsmith]

On that point, is my hon. Friend saying that subsidies are acceptable for nuclear power but unacceptable for onshore wind? That seems to be where his speech is going.

[David Morris]

No, I think that wind has an important part to play in the mix, but I am unequivocal when I say that we should have subsidies in the nuclear power industry as well.

There are many misconceptions about the nuclear industry, not least the energy market reforms that are hugely generous to companies such as EDF. The reality is rather different. All three new-build companies—Horizon, EDF and NuGen—are building plants at their own expense. Contracts for difference guarantee a price for the electricity produced, but that is done for one simple reason: it is impossible to raise £7 billion to build a nuclear power station unless the banks have some idea of what the turnover will be. That is why we need contracts for difference to bring predictability to the price.

A recent report by the Department of Energy and Climate Change suggested that contracts for difference could lead to a fall in bills of between 6% and 8%—welcome news during these difficult economic times—but to characterise that as a subsidy is wrong. In fact, DECC has made it clear time and again that it will not subsidise new nuclear energy. I have not always supported that position, but it would be remiss of me not to point out that the Department is firm in its view.

Every study I have seen shows nuclear energy as one of the cheapest large-scale low-carbon technologies. It is also a huge employer and will soon account for 0.4% of British GDP, equating to 32,500 jobs. I believe that nuclear is the future of low-carbon technology. It is clean, cheap and provides employment opportunities in areas that really need them. I support nuclear energy and the energy market reforms. They are the way forward and will keep the lights on for decades to come.

13:16

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

I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) and for Hove (Mike Weatherley) on securing this important debate.

New nuclear power will not be subsidised. That is what my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Mr Hayes) said, as did his predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), and it is also stated in the coalition agreement. Since the Government have been clear about that, perhaps this debate is really about a non-existent subsidy and we should instead be debating our future energy needs.

[Paul Flynn]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Coffey]

Not yet. I will go a bit further. As my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) pointed out, we should be focusing on carbon. My hon. Friend the Member for Northampton North (Michael Ellis)—I have just realised that neither of my hon. Friends is in his place—mentioned energy security, and that is why I believe nuclear power is key to the mix in the short term. The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) referred to other energy sources, and we must develop low-carbon technology as well as storage, which is currently one of the barriers to many sources of renewable energy.

[Paul Flynn]

On energy security, after Fukushima, every single one of the 52 reactors in Japan closed down and Germany turned against nuclear power. If there is another accident—we have one every decade—would not the danger when the lights go out be the public’s reaction and a refusal to allow the generation of nuclear power in this country, just as happened in Japan after Fukushima?

[Dr Coffey]

I believe that the public are reassured by the work of the Office for Nuclear Regulation, and Dr Weightman, a world-renowned specialist, went to Fukushima to help sort out some issues. I do not know exactly why Fukushima ended up as it did but, in addition to the tsunami, there were other issues definitely related to that. I think the situation in Germany is more of a political situation.

[Paul Flynn]

rose—

[Dr Coffey]

I will not give way further on that matter. It would not surprise me if Germany is burning more coal and importing electricity from Poland in the short term.

I welcome the contracts for difference mechanism introduced by the Government. Such contracts will not be exclusive to nuclear but will include all the large-scale, low-carbon elements such as renewables and carbon capture and storage that we require for a reliable mix of energy supplies. I often refer to my constituency not simply as Suffolk Coastal but as the green coast. We have offshore wind at Greater Gabbard and at Galloper, and we will have the East Anglia offshore array. It has been suggested that those wind farms in my constituency could produce 8.2 GW for the country. If that is combined with Sizewell B and the proposed Sizewell C, it is possible that my little bit of Suffolk will generate about a quarter of the nation’s electricity needs. We are truly fizzing in that part of East Anglia.

Crucially, once the Government agree a strike price with the generator that is fair and sustainable, whatever the source of energy might be, the contract will provide stability for consumers and operators alike. The market price will be topped up when below the strike price, but when it is above that level—people do not think that that will happen, but I can see it happening—the generator will have to pay back the difference. The Library suggests that that two-way relationship is a “key advantage” of the Government’s policy. We should recognise that it means the Government can strike a fair deal that runs both ways.

The motion states that there is “new evidence” proving that CFDs amount to a subsidy, but the supposed exposés in the press in recent months are hollow claims. It has been suggested that the Government will secretly funnel money to operators, but they have been clear on their intention to publish the contracts, except where there is a need for commercially sensitive information to be kept private on a very narrow range of points. The Government do not negotiate in public when they are spending money in other areas, and we should not expect them to do so in this case.

[Martin Horwood]

Does the hon. Lady remember any other occasion on which the House was asked to agree to the Government committing up to £30 billion of taxpayers’ money without public scrutiny?

[Dr Coffey]

That figure has been mentioned several times, but I do not recognise it. My expectation is that the money is included within the Department of Energy and Climate Change budget or that it has been set aside by the Treasury. I am therefore not sure I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s point. The Government certainly do not get involve in commercial negotiations on similar matters.

[Martin Horwood]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Dr Coffey]

I will make more progress, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman if I have time later.

In my view, despite those claims, support for new nuclear is not about subsidy, but about stability. A stable and open regulatory regime is vital to unlocking the potential benefits that energy investment, and particularly nuclear, can bring.

The first-round consultation for Sizewell C closed yesterday in my constituency. If it goes ahead, it will be immensely important for the local economy. It is estimated that new nuclear projects such as Sizewell C could boost our gross domestic product by up to £5 billion and create more than 30,000 jobs. Those will be highly skilled, well paid and high-value jobs. For example, an electrician working in the nuclear industry can probably earn the best part of £40,000 to £50,000, if not £60,000. That is not too different from MPs’ salaries.

[Mark Tami]

Does the hon. Lady agree that, if we do not move ahead now, we will lose a lot of those skills, or those skilled people will move into other areas, because of the uncertainty hanging over the industry?

[Dr Coffey]

The skills are transferable, even if people need specialist additions. The general investment in energy skills we are making is important, but the skills are transferable from renewable to nuclear, oil and gas. However, I recognise the hon. Gentleman’s point. The critical mass of employees needed for the construction and operation of the plants is vital to ensuring those high-value earnings.

New nuclear will be a global asset for this country. It could be an export market, whereas we currently import. It is therefore good that the Government are backing the nuclear sector, which is a major driver of growth in many ways. It is absolutely right that they are committed to making the UK the most attractive country in the world for nuclear investment. Hitachi has not signed a cheque yet, but has indicated its decision to invest £700 million in this country. Unfortunately, the inactivity in the UK under the previous Government means that a nuclear plant has not been completed in recent times, and we desperately need one.

There are many other advantages to new nuclear. For example, nuclear power is already a highly cost-effective option for energy projects. The annual report submitted to the Select Committee on Energy and Climate Change inquiry stated that nuclear power is the cheapest available generating technology over the lifetime of a plant, at an average of £74 per MWh. The Department of Energy and Climate Change estimates that projects starting in 2018 will generate energy for £64 per MWh. The range of possible costs is also the smallest for any generation type.

As I have said, the advantages of nuclear will be more than just economic—other advantages include the stability and security of supply. We will not be dependent on the wind or the sun, and nor will we need to rely on overseas places that might turn off the supply of oil, coal or gas. On the point eloquently made by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South, carbon emissions are low for nuclear power plants—they emit 18 times less carbon over their lifetimes than coal-fired plants.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham referred to projects in France and Finland, but he should congratulate the Office for Nuclear Regulation on its thorough work on the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. I understand that in France the design was not completely nailed down and permission was given more quickly than would have happened in this country. I am confident that there will be less opportunity for things to go wrong here. We have reduced the risk of the construction price, even if it has taken longer to get to this point. Hon. Members have discussed Centrica. I am not surprised, because the matter was trailed some time ago. It is a passive investor in the project, so I am not surprised that funds are being used elsewhere.

I am sure hon. Members from Cumbria share my disappointment that the county council overrode the district councils’ views, which supported the site. However, community benefits are important—rightly, because communities put up with disruption during the construction of nuclear power plants. I will not go into all the details of potential benefits for my constituency. There will be jobs, but there will also be significant disruption. It is important that my constituents are catered for and that the disruption is minimised, which is difficult. I am sure many hon. Members would agree with the idea of giving free electricity to people within a certain range of the nuclear power station, as happens in France. I am sure such a measure would be popular in parts of Suffolk.

There is a lot going for new nuclear. We have not rushed; no one can say we rushed the negotiations, which are ongoing. There would be more hon. Members in the Chamber, but the Energy Bill Committee is sitting. It is right that the Government are taking their time to ensure that the deal with EDF and other energy suppliers is balanced so that the taxpayer is not saddled with an unfair deal.

I commend the Government for the scrutiny they have proposed for contracts for difference. I mentioned the Bill and the parliamentary process. The Government have committed to putting the contracts to the House before and after Royal Assent. They will commission an external, independent view of the contracts and publish a summary of the report, plus a value-for-money assessment and a fairness opinion. The process is not rushed or opaque. I recommend that Members oppose the motion, but I will not press it to a Division.

13:27

[Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)]

I am very glad to have a few minutes to make a contribution to the debate. I apologise to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to hon. Members because I could not be here at the beginning of the debate. I had made a prior commitment to a constituency engagement in a primary school ahead of Chinese new year.

I was brought up on the Welsh side of my family in north Wales. In the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, nuclear power became popular in north Wales, because there was a power station to be built, which produced jobs in Meirionnydd that would not otherwise have existed. The power station gave both construction and nuclear power employment. I therefore understand why colleagues who have nuclear power stations in or near their constituencies become advocates for the cause. The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) made that case adequately.

I also understand the scientific appeal of modern nuclear technology. I looked around Sizewell before it was finished—it was the last reactor to be built. It was fantastically interesting, and I am excited by such modern technology. However, since I have been a Member of the House, every time the Liberal party and the Liberal Democrats reviewed energy policy, we have consistently concluded that there are very strong reasons for not going down the nuclear road. That is not for theological reasons but for rational reasons, which, in my view, are as strong now as ever.

[Mark Tami]

Does the right hon. Gentleman question his party’s stance on wind power? The Liberal Democrats support onshore wind in the House, but take a not-in-my-back-yard approach elsewhere. Quite often, they are the leading opponents of projects.

[Simon Hughes]

I do not accept that. I was the Liberal Democrat shadow Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in the previous Parliament—the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) is now the Labour shadow Secretary of State. I therefore did not just speak in debates in the House but went round the country to look at offshore and onshore wind sites, the nuclear industry and so on. I am very clear that the Liberal Democrats have been enthusiastic supporters of both onshore and offshore wind power, and of tidal and solar power. The reality is that if we had had an integrated EU energy policy a long time ago that harnessed hydroelectric power from Scandinavia, solar power from the Mediterranean and other power sources—not least from countries such as Ireland and our own with fantastic wind and wave power—we would probably not be having this debate, because there would have been no question of going down the nuclear road as we would have our own energy sources shared around the continent. However, because we are not there, we import energy from abroad. We are having a debate about how to become self-reliant, and nuclear energy is back on the table.

The arguments for not going down the nuclear road are that it is hugely expensive and whatever the future might hold the past shows that nuclear power programmes have not been delivered on time or on budget around the world. Secondly, it has never been proved that we can deal with the waste in a secure and safe way indefinitely. There may be adequate, secure ways of holding waste in the short term, but there is no scientific evidence that there is a permanent way to ensure that waste can be held and then disposed of. One reason why the debate in Cumbria the other day went the way it did was that people have not been persuaded, even in areas where it brings a lot of jobs, that this is the sort of industry they want.

[Mark Tami]

I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has been to Finland, but it has a waste solution that works. The problem is that those who are opposed to new nuclear build cling to the idea that there is no solution on waste, because they know that if they lose that argument, their case is lost.

[Simon Hughes]

I have been to Finland, though not to look at the waste issue. When I was party spokesperson, I went to Sellafield and had tours of the site. I am very happy to go to Finland again.

I was making the point that there are three strong arguments. I have made the arguments that on cost and on safety in the long term, nuclear does not work. Thirdly, it is the most depersonalised form of power in the world—there is no community control. It becomes the plaything and business of the few, rather than the energy of the many. It is not something that a community, village, town, city, region or country can control, but something that is developed and run internationally. We need to have control of our power sources, and the best way to achieve that is through renewables and energy that we produce and control ourselves.

The debate is about what we do now and what we ask the Government to do. The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, who has been a friend of mine for many years, has an important responsibility. Our party kept its anti-nuclear position right up to the general election, and it was in our manifesto. When we negotiated the coalition agreement with the Tory party, which is pro-nuclear, with a few dissenters, obviously we had to come to a deal. We would have had to have the same conversation in negotiations with the Labour party, because it is overwhelmingly pro-nuclear too. It would not have been any different; it would have been the same. I guess that we would have had the same outcome and retained our anti-nuclear position as a party. The deal we were willing to do in Government was that we would let it go ahead if it was needed, provided there was no subsidy. When we voted on the plan there was, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) said, an opt-out clause for Liberal Democrats and we did not vote in favour of the plan that included nuclear. The big question therefore remains: what is a subsidy?

[Paul Flynn]

Can we anticipate another principled stand by the Liberal Democrats, like the one they took on boundaries, to oppose any subsidy on nuclear power?

[Simon Hughes]

The hon. Gentleman is being mischievous. He and I are on the same side in this argument, so he should love and care for his friends, and not seek to be rude. Indeed, the Welsh Labour party was desperately pleased that the new boundaries did not go through, so let us have a little less of the attack on us.

We have our position that we negotiated in the coalition agreement; that is fine and we will deliver on it. However, my job and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham is to hold my right hon. Friend the Minister, the Department and the Government to account. That is why we need to nail what is currently going on and stop—either in the Energy Bill, which is in Committee and will be coming back here, or elsewhere—any mechanism whereby power is given to Ministers to do deals with companies such as EDF that could produce the sort of hidden subsidy mentioned by the hon. Member for Newport West.

The hon. Gentleman referred to Professor Tom Burke, who is a friend and constituent of mine, and I had a long and up-to-date conversation with him on this issue only this weekend. I am clear that the figures cited by the hon. Gentleman are the figures we are talking about. The reality is that if the strike price is £100 per megawatt and there is a 30-year contract life, that would be a subsidy of £1 billion a year above today’s wholesale price for electricity. That would be £30 billion to EDF from Britain’s householders and businesses—the very people we are trying to protect from high energy bills. If the whole of the 16 GW nuclear energy currently planned by the Government were financed on similar terms, that figure would be £150 billion by 2050.

Somebody asked—I cannot remember who it was; I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham —whether there had ever been any suggestion of such a large amount of money going through without scrutiny. The answer, as you will know as well as anybody, Mr Deputy Speaker, is that in this place we have often authorised huge amounts of expenditure with no debate. Indeed, when my right hon. Friend the Minister was a spokesman on Treasury matters for the Liberal Democrats he used to complain that we would spend lots of time debating taxation, but almost no time debating spend. Consolidated Fund Bills relating to billions of pounds of expenditure would go through with no debate at all. We are trying to say that we should stop and check now because we believe there is a danger of a really big subsidy being agreed under the table, as it were, in terms of parliamentary transparency, that we cannot then pull out of or unscramble.

[David Mowat]

We have established that this technology is more expensive than coal, but it is not more expensive than other carbon-free types of technology. In the view of the right hon. Gentleman, is the price for carbon a subsidy? He seems to be implying that it is.

[Simon Hughes]

That is exactly the debate we are engaged in. What are subsidies and what are equal subsidies? When we agreed that there should be no subsidies for nuclear power in the coalition agreement, which is the programme for the Government, my understanding was that that did not mean that we would define subsidy differently. The agreement said no subsidy for nuclear power. The Government have to take a different view, if they wish to, on whether they want to subsidise any other form of power and renewable energy. In the past, we have subsidised renewables to get them off the ground and get the market going. We do not believe there is any justification for subsidising the nuclear industry. Irrespective of the carbon price, the European debate and what we do with other elements of the energy industry, we say that the deal between the parties in the coalition clearly states no subsidy.

The call is for the Government to understand that, but the call today is to ensure that my right hon. Friend the Minister, on behalf of the Government, gives an undertaking that there will be independent scrutiny of this whole exercise before the Government make any commitment without parliamentary assent. Our constituents do not want to be locked in to a nuclear industry indefinitely at great expense. We have a responsibility to make sure that that does not happen.

13:37

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

I congratulate hon. Members on securing this debate. Even if we hold different views, it is important that we find time to debate the role of nuclear power in our energy mix. I think we have heard nine speeches in this short debate so far, and all of them, in their different ways, were reasonable contributions.

At the outset, I will make my position clear: we strongly support and are absolutely committed to new nuclear build in Britain. In our view, the challenge of climate change is so great that there will be a role for new nuclear power in our energy supply in the future, alongside an expansion of renewable energy and, we hope, investment in carbon capture and storage. Let me set out why we support nuclear power, what assurances we are seeking from the Government and the nuclear industry for future nuclear build, and why we will not be supporting the motion before us.

I have always been clear that an effective energy policy must meet three criteria: it must be secure, it must be low-carbon and consistent with our climate change obligations, and it must be affordable. Let me start with security. Today, nuclear power accounts for about one sixth of the electricity we generate. In the next 20 years, however, all Britain’s remaining nuclear power stations are scheduled to close. Of course we support energy efficiency measures to reduce demand, and we look forward to the Government bringing forward proposals in the Energy Bill. However, even if demand does not increase, which seems unlikely, we will still need new electricity generation to replace power plants as they close.

Unless we replace Britain’s nuclear power stations as they come offline, we will leave a significant gap in our electricity generation capacity. As for what we replace them with, my view is that the best way to secure our energy supply is to encourage a diversified mix of generating technologies. A diverse energy supply makes the system more resilient and reduces the risk of interruptions or sudden, large spikes in electricity prices. Not allowing energy companies to invest in new nuclear power stations would increase our dependence on fewer technologies and expose the UK’s energy supply to risk.

Clearly a secure energy supply must also be safe. Every Government have the responsibility to remain vigilant and ensure that our regulatory regime in the nuclear industry is robust. Although there is no room for complacency, I draw the House’s attention to the Weightman report, which was published after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Dr Weightman was tasked with investigating the implications for nuclear safety in the UK. He found no fundamental weaknesses in the current licensing regime or safety principle, and concluded that there were no grounds to restrict UK nuclear reactors or stop building new ones. On that basis, we believe that investing in nuclear power supports the security of our energy supply.

[Paul Flynn]

Does my right hon. Friend recall that Dr Weightman was expressly forbidden from considering the costs of Fukushima, which—it is quoted—could have been an extra £2 billion for one new reactor? Today’s debate has been about costs. Surely we cannot rely on Weightman for that.

[Caroline Flint]

I was talking about safety, but I will come to costs later. It was absolutely right for the Government to commission that report. Regardless of that report, however, I believe we should always be vigilant and not complacent. I feel assured that we in the UK can be justly proud of the regulatory system, the way it operates and our safety record.

Let me turn to our climate change obligation. Based on the significant evidence available, the life-cycle carbon emissions from nuclear power stations are significantly lower than for fossil-fuel generation and about the same as for electricity generated from wind. Investing in new nuclear is therefore consistent with decarbonising the power sector by 2030 and reducing our carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. No one would pretend that new nuclear alone can solve climate change; equally, no one should deny that new nuclear power stations could make a significant contribution to tackling it. By way of illustration, if our existing nuclear power stations were all replaced with fossil fuel-fired powered stations, our emissions would be anywhere between 8 million and 16 million tonnes of carbon a year higher as result. As I have said, investing in new nuclear should come not at the expense of demand reduction or investment in other clean energy, but alongside it.

Let me turn to affordability. There has been much speculation about the strike price that the Government will agree for new nuclear developments. Obviously I am not privy to the Government’s negotiations, which are ongoing. Estimates of the future costs of generation from technology are often uncertain and vary widely. However, according to the most up-to-date research commissioned by the Government, when we take into account the lifetime levelised costs of the various sources of energy and the up-front capital, fuel, maintenance, decommissioning and waste costs, the latest estimate still has nuclear as the cheapest of the various clean technologies. At a time when energy bills stand at a record high of more than £1,400, we must secure and decarbonise our power supply in the most cost-effective way possible. On the basis of the information we have today, I do not see how we can do that without investing in new nuclear.

Having set out in broad terms why we support new nuclear, let me say a word about what, in return for that investment, we should expect of the nuclear industry and ask of Government. First, new nuclear build has the potential to contribute to economic growth and job creation—a point eloquently expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright)—but developers have a responsibility to support young people into work and provide them with the skills and training that will allow them to progress in a career in the nuclear industry. Secondly, I can assure the House that we take the issue of waste seriously and understand that the public are rightly concerned about it. As we established in the Energy Act 2008, and in the light of the Public Accounts Committee report on Sellafield, which was published on Monday, operators of new nuclear power stations must meet the full costs of decommissioning and their full share of waste management costs, not leave taxpayers to foot the bill.

Thirdly—and perhaps most topically, given that the Energy Bill is being debated in Committee as we speak—the process for agreeing contracts for difference for new nuclear must be robust and transparent and deliver value for money for consumers. We support new nuclear power, but it is for energy companies, not the Government, to fund, develop and build new nuclear power stations. The development of new nuclear capacity must happen without Government subsidy. Having looked carefully at the proposals for contracts for difference in the Energy Bill—which do not involve any direct transfer of Government money to nuclear generators or provide nuclear power with any support that is not also available to other forms of clean energy—I am satisfied that that is the case. Also, in the event of the market price being higher than the price that nuclear generators have agreed with the Government, generators must pay back the difference.

However, there is a role for the Government in ensuring that we as a country attract the investment we need to keep the lights on, cut our carbon emissions and keep the cost of electricity as low as possible. That means that safeguards must be put in place to ensure that bill payers—who will ultimately be funding this investment—get value for money. I do not think the proposal in today’s motion is the best way of achieving that; however, I do think there are issues that Ministers should address before the Energy Bill returns to the Chamber on Report. From the exchanges at Energy and Climate Change questions last week and from the points my hon. Friend the Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Tom Greatrex) has made in Committee, the Secretary of State knows what improvements Labour would like to see.

We would like the investment contracts that are agreed to be laid before Parliament within three days of being entered into. We would like provisions to ensure that any change to investment contracts are published and subject to proper scrutiny. We would also like greater protection to ensure that if construction costs are lower than those projected, a compensatory mechanism will ensure that the strike price reflects a fair return to the company, but also a fair deal for bill payers. I think those are all fair points. From what the chief executive of EDF said when he appeared before the Energy Bill Committee, I think he regards them as legitimate concerns too. With an eye to what we might inherit in 2015, I hope the Secretary of State will consider those ideas and amendments in the constructive spirit in which they are made.

In summary, we recognise that new nuclear power cannot be a one-way thing, where energy companies get the necessary planning permission and price agreement from the Government without offering something in return that benefits the local community where the plant is built, as well as the wider economy. However, I am pleased to have the opportunity today to reaffirm the position of Her Majesty’s Opposition and put it firmly on the record that we believe that nuclear power will have an important role to play as part of a more balanced, secure and low-carbon energy supply for the future.

13:47

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

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for the opportunity to set out the coalition Government’s policy on new nuclear power. This has been a well- informed and constructive debate. A wide variety of views have been expressed, so let me start by putting my views on the table and setting out how I see the political reality of nuclear power and policy.

Notwithstanding some of the sentiments expressed today against nuclear power, the coalition Government policy on nuclear power enjoys wide agreement in this House, as we heard from the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) just now. The national policy statement for energy infrastructure on nuclear power generation, which was debated in the House on 18 July 2011, detailed the case and the need for new nuclear power stations in the UK. It set out how a new generation of nuclear power stations are a key part of our future low-carbon energy mix, tackling climate change and helping to diversify our supply, contributing to the UK’s energy security. That policy statement passed with only 14 votes against. Both the Conservative party and the Labour party are in favour of new nuclear power. That makes for a majority in this House of 450-plus.

The reality of the overwhelming support in Parliament for nuclear power is reflected in the coalition agreement, as set out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes). We have implemented a process allowing Liberal Democrat MPs to maintain opposition to nuclear power, while permitting the Government to put in place the requirements for new nuclear construction. I completely respect those who have long been opposed to nuclear technology on principle. I have had my concerns in the past, as the record shows, but I am now satisfied that the safety and legacy issues are manageable. My remaining concern—this has always been my principle concern—is about the cost of new nuclear. I will deal with that later in my speech.

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

rose—

[Mr Davey]

I give way to the hon. Lady.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. As a matter of courtesy, after walking into the Chamber Members usually sit for a little bit longer than the hon. Lady has before intervening. I know she has a keen interest in this issue and that the Secretary of State has given way, but I hope she will not intervene again.

[Caroline Lucas]

It is very kind of the Secretary of State to give way. The Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) will testify to the fact that that we were both on a late train. I apologise.

The Secretary of State is right to say that the majority of the House is in favour of nuclear power, but this motion is not about nuclear power per se; it is about public subsidies, and I am not sure that a majority is in favour of the huge subsidies that will go to nuclear power.

[Mr Davey]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady and am glad that her train arrived. I will deal with the issue of subsidy later.

I urge the hon. Lady and, indeed, all colleagues to consider that the environmental case for new nuclear has got stronger in the past decade or more. I am one of those from the green movement who have been prepared to recognise the low carbon benefits of nuclear generation, which remain even when life-cycle analysis of carbon for a new nuclear station is taken into account. I believe that nuclear, alongside ambitious energy efficiency, renewables and carbon abatement, can play an important role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Nuclear’s cost-effectiveness has to be seen in the context of climate change and decarbonising our power sector. It is right that this House asks the tough questions on the affordability, value for money and cost-effectiveness of nuclear power, for those questions are at the heart of this Government’s policy on nuclear power.

Before I turn to the key issue of the cost of nuclear and of subsidies, let me briefly address recent issues affecting nuclear policy and this debate. The first is GDF—the geological disposal facility for nuclear waste—and what will happen after the recent vote in Cumbria. It was the priority of the previous Government, as it is of this Government, to ensure the safe management of nuclear waste. Britain has a huge legacy of nuclear material to store and dispose of, whether or not we build a single new nuclear reactor. As we develop our new nuclear build programme, it is right that we press ahead with tackling that legacy. I believe that geological disposal is the right policy for the long-term safe and secure management of higher-activity radioactive waste.

Indeed, what happened in Cumbria convinced me even more so, for both Copeland and Allerdale councils voted to participate in the next phase of the work to identify potential sites for geological disposal. The communities that were most likely to host the facility wanted it. However, the Government agreed that Cumbria county council also needed to vote in favour in order to proceed to the next stage, but it did not, which is disappointing. However, the invitation for communities to come forward remains open.

This is a long-term programme, looking at the next century and beyond, to site and build a geological disposal facility. The views in Copeland and Allerdale make me confident that the programme will ultimately be successful. Last week’s decision does not undermine the prospects for new nuclear power stations, but it does require us to redouble efforts to find a safe, secure and permanent site for disposal.

[Albert Owen]

The Secretary of State is right to say that we need to deal with the legacy waste now. In fact, we should have done so generations ago. Does he also agree that all parties in this House have a responsibility to contribute to that debate, including the Green party, which I know has concerns about it? Much of this waste is not civil nuclear; as I said in an earlier intervention, defence and health projects contribute to some of it. We need to dispose of it safely and quickly.

[Mr Davey]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that past Governments failed to tackle this legacy. The previous Government put in place a framework, which we are continuing, and it is right that we now grasp this legacy, because it shamelessly has not been grasped in the past.

[Paul Flynn]

Will the Secretary of State give way?

[Mr Davey]

No, I want to make some progress.

On new build, is it is for energy companies themselves to construct, operate and decommission power stations. Industry has set out plans to develop about 16 GW of new nuclear capacity in the UK. This level of new build equates to some £60 billion of new investment, with up to 19,000 jobs created at peak construction, benefiting the communities directly concerned and driving growth right through the supply chain. We want to make the UK a leading destination for investment in new nuclear, which will play a key role in our future energy mix.

We welcome EDF Energy’s continued commitment and determination to take forward the Hinkley Point C project. Centrica’s decision to withdraw from the consortium reflects that company’s investment priorities and is not a reflection on UK Government policy. Indeed, the recent purchase of Horizon Nuclear Power by Hitachi is clear evidence of the attractiveness of the new nuclear market in the UK.

On subsidy, there has been understandable concern about how the programme for new nuclear power will be paid for. After all, expensive mistakes have been made in the past. I welcome this opportunity to explain the no-subsidy policy in the context of electricity market reform.

This far-reaching reform of the UK electricity market will encourage investment in low-carbon electricity generation, which is critical to tackling climate change and meeting our legally binding carbon targets. Electricity market reform is the most transparent and most market-based means of bringing forward the transition to a low-carbon economy. Under EMR, as set out to Parliament in October 2010, new nuclear will receive no levy, direct payment or market support for electricity supplied or capacity provided, unless similar support is also made available more widely to other types of generation.

By similar, we do not mean the same. Whether similar support is being provided must take account of the material circumstances. It is not a mechanical exercise; it is a matter of sensible judgment. It is obvious that the characteristics of a small onshore wind farm are very different from those of a large offshore wind farm and, indeed, those of a nuclear plant. The obvious example is that an offshore wind turbine is expected to last for about 25 years, while a new nuclear power station could potentially generate electricity for more than 60 years. Nuclear energy would provide base-load generation, whereas other forms of low-carbon electricity would be intermittent. These different characteristics are likely to require differences in the support provided under our electricity market reform.

A key element of EMR is contracts for difference, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood) rightly pointed out in his speech. Contracts for difference have been designed to stimulate investment in all forms of low-carbon generation, including renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage. They provide a stable price for operators to encourage investment, making it easier and cheaper to secure finance for low carbon.

The key point is that we recognise that CFDs significantly reduce risks to developers and incentivises investment in low carbon. It is right that new nuclear power will be entitled to benefit from Energy Bill measures such as contracts for difference and investment contracts.

[Paul Flynn]

In secret, without the House knowing.

[Mr Davey]

I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is heckling from a sedentary position, because he is very informed on this subject, even though I disagree with him.

[Paul Flynn]

I have a simple question. Is the Secretary of State able to provide an assurance that there will be no subsidies to nuclear power without the full knowledge and consent of this House?

[Mr Davey]

I am trying to explain our policy on no subsidy, but the hon. Gentleman interrupted me. If he will listen, the position is being put on the record in a way that I have never had a chance to do before.

Our aim is for a broadly standardised approach to contracts for difference that will allow for comparability between technologies and the introduction of competition for CFDs. I do not think that what is needed is a line-by-line comparison of the terms of each contract. That is not what our policy says or requires. In fact, there are likely to be variations in CFD designs between one technology and another, and perhaps also between different projects within the same technology. What is important is that the terms agreed deliver a similar result across technologies and projects, and that they result in a proper allocation of risk. In addition, each contract will need to deliver value for money for the consumer and be compatible with state-aid rules. A contract with a nuclear developer that does those things would be compatible with our no-subsidy policy.

Let me be clear—this is not about getting a deal at any price. We have put in place rigorous processes to ensure that any contract for Hinkley Point C, the most advanced nuclear project, represents the best possible deal for consumers. We are also committed to transparency with regard to any contracts for new nuclear—more transparency on nuclear than this House has ever seen. Under the Energy Bill, all investment contracts must be published and laid before Parliament. We have commissioned expert technical and financial advisers to conduct open-book scrutiny on the developer’s project plans and costs, and we will also publish a summary of the reports from our external advisers and our value-for-money appraisal for Hinkley Point C. Hon. and right hon. Members will be able to see the evidence and judge for themselves.

[Tessa Munt]

Will the Secretary of State clarify a point for me? I understand that, in chapter 5 of the Energy Bill, a single sentence gives effect to schedule 3 of the legislation and that it has been drafted with intentional obscurity to give the Secretary of State the power to make an agreement with the generator to purchase electricity at a fixed price, as well as the power to vary the price that has been set in the contract and to keep secret any details of the price except the reference price and the strike price.

[Mr Davey]

I might have to write to my hon. Friend about the note on schedule 3 to the Bill. I would say to her that we are being very open and transparent about the approach, as she has previously recognised.

Nuclear power remains a key part of the Government’s strategy for transition to a low carbon future. I recognise the strong concerns that have been expressed about affordability; I share them. That is why this is not a deal at any price. Nuclear power must be affordable and must offer value for money. We have a huge challenge ahead of us. We need to replace a fifth of our power generation in this country in this decade. We need to decarbonise our electricity sector to meet our emissions targets and our responsibilities to the next generation. We are embarked on the largest infrastructure programme in Government, with £110 billion of investment over 10 years. Are there risks? Of course, but the risks to the country and to the planet if we do not meet this challenge are infinitely worse. Affordable, low carbon new nuclear is just one part of the answer, but let the House be in no doubt that it is part of the answer.

14:01

[Martin Horwood]

This has been a tremendous debate and we have aired some important issues about the phenomenal subsidy that might be on the point of being given to Électricité de France. The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) made some important points. We do not agree on much on nuclear policy, but at least he was honest in making a straightforward request for public subsidy. The hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Simon Hughes) made a powerful case about the sheer scale of the subsidy. We could be talking about £30 billion being transferred over 30 years to Électricité de France, not from the Department, as the hon. Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) seemed to think, but from British householders and businesses. That is an extraordinary level of transfer to be committing to without any real scrutiny.

The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge), and the Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), also made a powerful case for greater scrutiny of that process. I think that those on the Labour Front Bench were going in that direction, although the request that details of the deal should be laid within three days of the event is not much of an improvement on their being laid months later. A miss is as good as a mile, I am afraid.

The hon. Member for Hove (Mike Weatherley) talked about the other hidden subsidies as well as the contracts for difference. They include the unknown liabilities relating to geological storage and disposal, and the £1.2 billion cap on the liability for nuclear accidents when the actual cost of the Fukushima nuclear accident was $250 billion or more. We can say that we have a very good safety record and that we have never had a nuclear accident, but that is what Japan could have said, the day before Fukushima, and it is one of the most technologically advanced countries on the planet.

In the light of some of the technical issues raised by the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee relating to the motion, and of the interest in the next debate on emergency medicine—which I share, as my own emergency department is at some risk—I am content to ask leave to withdraw the motion. I would like to put on record my gratitude for the support of the hon. Members for Hove, for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) and for Newport West, my hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Tessa Munt), my right hon. Friends the Members for Bermondsey and Old Southwark and for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell), my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) and other hon. Members who could not be here today. There will be opportunities as the Energy Bill progresses to revisit these important issues relating to the public subsidy of nuclear power, which have not received sufficient scrutiny and attention, but we have made enormous progress on that front today. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Accident and Emergency Departments

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

14:04

[Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. In his statement on 31 January, the Secretary of State for Health said that he had asked Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director, to review the recommendations of the trust special administrator to replace Lewisham’s accident and emergency department with an urgent care centre. The Secretary of State then said of Sir Bruce Keogh:

“He believes that overall these proposals, as amended, could save up to 100 lives every year through higher clinical standards.”—[Official Report, 31 January 2013; Vol. 557, c. 1075.]

The serious implication of that was that lives were currently being lost. We now know that nowhere in his report to the Secretary of State did Sir Bruce mention the saving of 100 lives per annum. The Secretary of State has been made aware of the disputed facts, and I therefore wonder whether you, Mr Deputy Speaker, have had any indication that he will return to the House to explain his statement of 31 January.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

I have had no such request to come to the Chamber, as the right hon. Lady would expect. She has, however, put her point of order on the record and I am sure that people will have taken note of it.

14:05

[Mr Virendra Sharma (Ealing, Southall) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of the closure of accident and emergency departments.

On behalf of all my Back-Bench colleagues who wanted time to be allocated for this important debate, may I put on record my thanks to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and to the Backbench Business Committee for today’s scheduled parliamentary time? The closure of accident and emergency departments is a national issue and one that has profound impacts on the current and future provision of health care across the country. Concerns about the A and E closures and accompanying hospital reconfigurations have been voiced by members of all political parties including Back Benchers and Front Benchers on both sides of the House, so it is crucial that we have this debate.

Weighty decisions are being made about A and E closures across the country by NHS bureaucrats, under the guise of localism and clinically led decision making, without the democratic accountability that is vital for decisions of such importance. In order to bring these decisions to the Secretary of State for Health, local council scrutiny panels have to refer such decisions to the independent reconfiguration panel, which then reports its findings to the Secretary of State. Why are primary care trusts in their dying days making such critical decisions and not clinical commissioning groups? It is vital to have democratic accountability for these decisions and, although it is not sufficient, this debate will shine some much-needed light on these huge decisions that will have profound impacts on all our constituents. I am pleased that the Government have belatedly announced a national review of A and E services, but I am horrified that the review is planning to report by March this year. This is being done in an obscene rush, and it cannot be the considered review that we need.

There are proposed and actual A and E closures in my constituency and in those of other hon. Members. It is clear that this is an NHS-wide change that will affect every constituency in the land. The NHS needs to change and be fit for purpose in the 21st century, and I am not saying that there must be no change. Clearly, we have to provide health care in changed ways, but I am concerned about the pace of change, the impacts on the poorest and the financial drivers of the changes. The financial drivers are clear. The Nicholson challenge means that the NHS is seeking to cut spending by £20 billion by 2014-15.

[Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the care of patients must be at the heart of any changes in the NHS, and not finance? In my part of London, there is a proposal to close the A and E at King George hospital, but it would be madness to do so at a time when Queen’s hospital in Romford has far too many A and E patients and when a Care Quality Commission report has just condemned the quality of care for people who visit that A and E unit.

[Mr Sharma]

I thank my right hon. Friend for putting that case so strongly. I do not think anyone—inside or outside the House—would fail to agree with that suggestion.

In North West London NHS, the proposal translates into a £1 billion cut to budgets over the same time scale. The medical director of North West London NHS said that it would

“literally run out of money”

unless the closures proceeded. The scale of change driven by this financial pressure is unacceptable. It is targeting the poorest and most vulnerable, and it is unfair on the hospitals that have been financially solvent. That last point was graphically illustrated last week at Lewisham hospital, whose A and E was unjustly proposed for closure because of a neighbouring trust’s financial insolvency. That brought tens of thousands of incensed protesters on to the streets.

Sadly, this is happening in Ealing, too, whose hospital is faced with losing its A and E department, yet it is financially viable and has been for many years. It is being sacrificed on account of financial problems in other neighbouring hospital trusts. This threat of closure in Ealing exists even after the Prime Minister assured me, in a response to my question, that there was no such threat.

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

Although this is a debate about the closure of A and E departments across the country, does my hon. Friend accept that it seems particularly unfair that London, with nine accident and emergency departments apparently set for closure, is being hit so hard in losing vital NHS services?

[Mr Sharma]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I shall definitely cover that point later in my speech.

As in Lewisham, the people of Ealing took to the streets in huge numbers last autumn in protest at the proposals from North West London NHS whereby if the preferred option A is chosen on 19 February, it would mean the closure of four A and E departments in west London: in Ealing, Central Middlesex, Charing Cross and Hammersmith hospitals. The campaign to save our hospitals has been broad and deep, bringing together MPs and councillors of all political parties, and organisations and individuals from all segments of society.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I am concerned about the future of the emergency department at Cheltenham general hospital. It is not exactly in the same situation as London, but it lies in reasonably close proximity to the Gloucestershire Royal hospital down the road in Gloucester. The consultants and trust management in Gloucestershire tell me that their problem is not financial but the number of consultant posts and more junior medical posts that they can fill, and that there is a national shortage in emergency medicine. Is that a factor in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, too?

[Mr Sharma]

I disagree with that. The evidence shows that all these decisions are finance-led. It is not to do with the clinicians’ or consultants’ proposals. That may apply in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, but I can assure him that it is not true of west London.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) will join us later and the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) will speak later, too. I thank them for their support for our campaign. I would also like to acknowledge the tremendous efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who would be in his place here were it not for his Front-Bench duties in the Justice and Security Public Bill Committee. Back in June, when North West London NHS announced its plan to close four of our A and Es, my hon. Friend organised a public meeting, which gave rise to the Hammersmith “Save our Hospitals” campaign. He has been at the forefront of the community campaign in his own constituency and has been instrumental in organising MPs of all parties to come together for this debate. He asked me to mention particularly the threat to Charing Cross hospital, which will lose not merely its A and E but 500 in-patient beds, turning a world-class hospital into a local urgent care centre.

My hon. Friend would have reminded us that this is the second time he has defended Charing Cross from closure. He stands now with his constituents, as he did in the last century during the dark days of John Major’s Government, holding a candle for Charing Cross at its Sunday evening vigils. That light did not go out, and I am sure it will not be allowed to go out now.

Let me now raise some of my specific concerns—as well as welcoming you to the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I have very grave concerns about the way in which the consultation was carried out in north-west London. It was carried out over the Olympic summer months, with an impenetrable document of 80-plus pages and a response document with leading questions that set community against community, doctor against doctor, and hospital against hospital. There were also significant parts of the consultation period when no translated materials were available for many of my constituents who speak various community languages. That was totally unsatisfactory.

Notwithstanding those difficulties, some people in Ealing were able to complete the consultation and overwhelmingly rejected the preferred option that means the closure of Ealing’s A and E, maternity, paediatric and other acute services, and the closure of Central Middlesex, Hammersmith and Charing Cross A and Es. Moreover, a majority of respondents across the whole of north-west London rejected the fundamental premise of the proposed changes—that acute services should be concentrated on fewer sites. I fear that such an inconvenient consultation response will be ignored and ridden roughshod over.

Equally, I fear that the clinical opinion of Ealing’s GPs and hospital consultants who opposed the preferred option will be ignored, despite this being one of the Government’s four tests for such reconfigurations. The clinical concerns are real and should not be brushed over. Let me address some of the key concerns.

First, the scale of change being proposed in north-west London and the associated risks of such large-scale changes is causing great concern. Taking out in one go four of nine A and Es that serve a population of 2 million—set to grow continually over the next 20 years —is a high-risk strategy. Concerns over A and E capacity are growing, as hospitals up and down the country say that their A and Es are full and that they are putting patients on divert to other hospitals. This has happened recently at Northwick Park hospital—one of the hospitals that Ealing patients are meant to be treated at if the four A and Es close. If these proposals go through, yes, there are plans for some increased investment at both Northwick Park and Hillingdon A and Es, but there are well over 40,000 patients a year using Ealing hospital’s A and E alone, in addition to those currently attending Central Middlesex, Charing Cross and Hammersmith—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. I think the hon. Member was told that he had a 10-minute limit imposed on him, as applied in the previous debate. Sadly, however, his time is up. If he wants to make a concluding remark, however, I think the House would allow him to do so.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear.

[Mr Deputy Speaker]

We will give the hon. Member two minutes to conclude.

[Mr Sharma]

Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Let me finally say to the Minister that there should be a moratorium on all A and E closures until a proper, considered and full review of A and E services has been carried out, as opposed to the current rushed review. I hope that the Minister will listen.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I am extremely grateful to you, Mr Sharma, for your understanding.

From now on, Back-Bench speeches will be limited to eight minutes.

14:19

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me, Mr Deputy Speaker. My constituents will be paying close attention to this debate.

For some weeks the press in my constituency has been awash with allegations about both maternity and accident and emergency services at our local NHS trust. What concerns me is not that the services will change, but the scare stories surrounding all this. I have received a letter from Jackie Daniels, the chief executive of the trust, confirming that it will not shut the A and E department at Royal Lancaster Infirmary. She wrote:

“‘The A and E at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary serves the population of Lancaster and surrounding areas and treats in the region of 50,000 people each year. Whilst it would be wrong of me to second guess the future, I personally find it hard to imagine Lancaster not having emergency services. Let me be clear, we do not have any plans to shut the Accident and Emergency department in Lancaster.

We are deeply concerned that these continual rumours are undermining confidence and frightening the public. We will continue to work with the public, staff and stakeholders to better understand the review of services to help allay these concerns.”

So the chief executive of the trust has said that not only has she no plans to close the A and E, but she cannot even imagine a scenario in which anyone would close it, not least because it serves 50,000 people a year.

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

May I urge the hon. Gentleman to be careful about this? Most Labour Members face closures of A and E departments that serve twice that number of people.

[David Morris]

I shall come to that in my speech.

A concerted Labour campaign has been mounted by local party members who actually work in the NHS to make people believe that the A and E department is likely to close. The campaign involves press briefings, an online petition, a Facebook group, and even people walking around the centre of Morecambe with clipboards inviting people to join it. I want the e-petition to be removed from Directgov, and I have written to the Cabinet Secretary asking him to intervene. We cannot allow a dishonest campaign to be fought on Directgov e-petition platforms. If the A and E department is not under threat, it must be concluded that people are being frightened for the purpose of political advantage, which, in my view, is morally wrong.

Perhaps it is time to admit the truth: the trust is getting better under the present Government. A new and better management was introduced by the former Secretary of State. Only a few weeks ago, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) opened a new minor injuries unit in my constituency. A new health centre in Heysham, costing £20 million, was opened last year, and four new wards have just opened at Lancaster hospital. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend—for he is my hon. Friend outside the Chamber—the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) for ensuring that maternity services in Barrow remained secure.

All that was paid for by a 2.8% increase in funding for the NHS under the present Government. This debate is part of a national campaign to scare people into believing that the NHS will be deconstructed.

[Margaret Hodge]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[David Morris]

I will later.

This, I believe, started with a disingenuous story in Corby, which was used to great effect. It has now become the scare story in Lewisham and now, surprise, surprise, the scare story in Lancaster and Morecambe. Those A and Es are not under threat. They are not closing down. The public will see through this Labour campaign to start a fire and then claim to put it out, saving us all.

14:24

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris), who made what I must say was a quite extraordinary speech. I realise that I may be in danger of being a little ungracious, given that he was kind enough to thank me. I shall say a little about the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, which our constituencies share. However, I must first say to him—on behalf, I think, of several Members who are present—that to suggest that the impending closure of Lewisham A and E department is a scare story from the local Labour party does an incredible disservice to the many thousands of families who are deeply alarmed and worried about what is happening in the area.

[Margaret Hodge]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on managing to save his A and E department, but does he not agree that money should go to where patients are? In my area, north-east London, 132,000 patients currently attend the Queen’s hospital A and E department, and 100,000 attend King George’s hospital A and E. Closing an A and E department that serves more than 100,000 patients is unfair to patients and madness in terms of funding distribution.

[John Woodcock]

My right hon. Friend is right to speak of the crazy situation in which heavily used accident and emergency provision across the country is under threat. I intend to say a little more about the particular challenges faced by geographically isolated regions such as mine, but first let me say how grateful I am to the Backbench Business Committee for securing the debate, and congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) on a very powerful opening speech.

I want to speak briefly about the accident and emergency department at Furness General hospital in my constituency, and, in doing so, stress the importance of ensuring that A and E provision remains accessible to the high-tech, highly skilled industries in which this nation must continue to lead the world. Barrow’s A and E department is not yet under immediate threat of closure, but there is grave concern about the impending review of services throughout the Morecambe Bay area, which has been driven at least partly by the trust’s need to make significant cuts in its operating budget in the years ahead.

A trust covering 300,000 people would often be served by just one A and E department, but in the Morecambe Bay area there are two. That is due to the particularly challenging geography of the area, and, in particular, the time that it takes to travel the 50 miles from my constituency to Lancaster with only a single road connecting Barrow to the M6.

The hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale directed all his fire at the local Labour party, and in doing so highlighted—probably quite helpfully for the party—the excellent work that it is doing with its campaign on the streets. I was probably more disappointed than surprised that he made no mention of his hon. Friend the Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), who is campaigning hard to take A and E provision away from Lancaster and transfer it to Westmorland General hospital.

Let me make it crystal clear why no one should get the idea that Barrow’s A and E department could move. Not only would every single resident in the geographically isolated Furness peninsula suffer unacceptably long journey times if it were closed; its removal would be a significant blow to industry in the area, and would ultimately threaten our potential to become a national cradle for advanced manufacturing. The manufacturing companies on which our local economy depends—including shipbuilding, nuclear engineering and pharmaceutical companies—have enviable safety records, but they nevertheless carry a small but inherent risk of industrial injury. As responsible business men, local employers seek to mitigate and manage that risk, but part of their management includes access to a full accident and emergency service in the locality.

BAE employs 5,500 people in Barrow, representing the largest of the many sites in the nation’s critically important nuclear submarine supply chain. This is what the company’s submarine arm told me for today’s debate:

“BAE Systems Maritime Submarines is possibly one of the highest risk manufacturing sites in the UK with a broad spectrum of safety hazards. Although these hazards are effectively managed and the site has a strong safety record, the absence of locally provided A and E services would have serious implications for the business. The treatment administered within the first hour following incidents is critical. A number of minor incidents, particularly associated with foreign object ingress to eyes, are referred to Furness General Hospital per week. Therefore additional ambulances would be required to transfer injured personnel, significantly increasing the ambulance demand within the area. Decontamination of people would currently be provided by FGH Accident and Emergency following a major incident at the Barrow site. This may include the cleansing of chemicals or radioactive substances.”

If, God forbid, something like that were to happen, time would be of the essence. Here in Furness, as in several areas of the country, A and E closure could put at risk the lives of employees who perform a service to their country and would ultimately endanger key parts of the nation’s prized industrial base. It is vital that Ministers wake up to the full spectrum of risks posed by the approach they seem intent on imposing on our national health service.

14:33

[Patrick Mercer (Newark) (Con)]

I followed with interest the excellent speech of the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock), and I thank the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) for, along with a number of us, securing this debate.

I hope we can step above the confines of party politics in talking about this crucial matter, which terrifies people, especially the elderly and frail. I shall talk about Newark, of course, but I also want to talk about this matter nationally. The A and E in Newark was closed under the last Labour Government. The difficulties with Newark hospital have continued from that party’s regime into my party’s regime. I do not care about that, however. What I care about most is delivering the right service to my constituents, in particular the elderly, the frail and the vulnerable, who depend much more than other groups of people on A and Es and their substitutes.

[David Morris]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this issue is above party politics?

[Patrick Mercer]

I totally agree. I would never dream of being critical of my hon. Friend, but I do think that this is such an emotive subject that we can be distracted from the realities by the fears these proposals raise.

I hope that I will speak for everybody who lives in semi-rural and remote areas—as I do, living north of Newark—and who depends on hospitals such as Newark. Newark no longer has an A and E. We, like many other parts of the country, are now at least 20 miles away from our nearest A and Es. Our nearest ones are at Lincoln County, Grantham or—extraordinarily and disgracefully—King’s Mill, which is part of the same private finance initiative with which Newark finds itself lumbered.

Newark sits on the A1 and is adjacent to the M1, and it also sits on the crucial and very busy east coast main line railway. The sorts of incidents the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness described in the nuclear industry could also arise on the road and rail networks in and around Newark, yet Newark has no A and E, in common with many towns of the same size in similar areas.

I do not understand why there has been such confusion over my A and E, and I ask the Minister to explain. If this has happened in Newark, I have no doubt that it happens elsewhere, and that it will continue to do so. Let me explain. When I returned to my home town of Newark in 1999, we had a department called “A and E.” Only subsequently did I find out that it was not an A and E at all; it was a sort of minor injuries unit with a big notice above the door saying “A and E.” Nobody had had the political courage to say, “Take that notice down.” That was nothing to do with the Labour Government or the coalition that subsequently came to power; it was to do with the staff in charge of the local NHS, who eventually grasped the nettle and said, “No, this is no longer an A and E.” The fuss caused was disproportionate.

For 10 years, nobody had had the courage to say, “This is not right; we are lying to the people of Newark.” Why was this allowed to happen? The Minister is a fellow Nottinghamshire Member of Parliament, so she knows about what happened at Newark, but I do not understand how A and Es can continue to function like this, and how the protocols of the ambulance crews that service A and Es can cope.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need clear national definitions of what emergency departments do? We currently have many different types of departments that are called A and Es. Some may have major trauma, others may not. Some may do acute stroke and heart attack; others may not. The Government must put in place a classification that is recognised across the country and, as my hon. Friend says, by the ambulance services.

[Patrick Mercer]

My hon. Friend has clearly been reading my notes, as that is exactly the point I am going to make. If we look at the composition of the anti-tank platoon of the 1st Battalion, The Royal Anglian Regiment and the composition of the anti-tank platoon of the 3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment—I know that you, too, think a lot about these matters, Mr Deputy Speaker —we will see that they are identical; they have the same weapons, the same troops, the same kit and so forth. There is no difference between them. Why, therefore, do we have this byzantine set of organisations in our NHS, so that an A and E can be a sort of an A and E, perhaps, or not an A and E at all, or an MIU-plus—or have a notice outside its door that is wholly misleading?

Why do ambulance services not have a standard set of operating procedures? Why do they call them protocols? Why do protocols vary? Why are not the staff correctly, and centrally, trained to understand what an A and E delivers, so they can know when they arrive at a hospital that the casualty they are carrying will receive the sort of treatment an A and E should deliver? More to the point, why are those ambulance crews not in a position to understand that, perhaps, town X’s A and E—or MIU, or whatever—cannot cope with a certain sort of injury? As a result of all this confusion, we waste time, resources and lives. This is not the province of party politics. Party politics is not worth a damn when it comes to the lives of our constituents.

I recognise, and most people recognise—even the nay-sayers, the negatives, the people who still want a policeman in every village and the return of the home guard, and even those in Newark who do not understand that we are not going to have a general hospital there—that we are never going to have A and Es, in all their glory, returned to towns the size of Newark. However, despite asking for commonality, I ask the Minister to recognise that there has to be flexibility, although I appreciate that that sits uncomfortably with my last point. The Minister understands the country and its dreadful road systems. May we please take a flexible view of these things? Could clinical cases be assisted in places such as Newark, so that minor injury units can indeed provide other critical services than those they currently provide? We do not need to be hidebound by these things, but we do need to be regulated. We do not need to be narrow-minded, but we do need to understand that different communities have different needs, and that roads in particular impose different travelling times and different strains on ambulance services across the country.

A great deal of noise and fuss is made all the time about the A and E, the critical services and the minor injuries unit in Newark, but that is only a fraction of what our hospitals do. It was widely bruited about in Newark until recently that the hospital was going to close, and yet on Monday I helped to open a new ward there. It is not a critical ward, and it has nothing to do with the minor injuries unit or the A and E; none the less, it is an exceedingly important part of the hospital, nine-tenths of which does not deal with critical matters.

[David Morris]

Does my hon. Friend agree with me that the NHS is actually getting better under this Government?

[Patrick Mercer]

Yes, I do. In my own town, things have improved but, by golly, there is a long way to go before we get to where we need to be. There is one thing that I do not agree with my hon. Friend about. The East Midlands Ambulance Service NHS Trust has had the courage to say that it is not performing properly. I appreciate that it is not part of the NHS trust which forms part of Newark hospital. But patently, A and Es, minor injury units—whatever we are going to call them— cannot work effectively unless the communications between each are properly formulated, properly regulated and properly led.

14:42

[Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) on securing this debate and on the fine speech he made to open it. My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) is in Committee and is unable to join us at the moment, but I know she will agree with all the remarks I am about to make.

Reconfigurations should be on the basis of clinical grounds and patient safety. That is not so in Lewisham. I should not be part of today’s debate, because the A and E at Lewisham hospital should not have been threatened. The only reason it is threatened is that the trust special administrator, acting under the unsustainable providers regime, was sent into the neighbouring South London Healthcare NHS Trust. I do not believe that the trust special administrator had the powers to take in Lewisham hospital, as part of the proposed solution to the failure of that trust; indeed, my local authority is giving consideration today to mounting a legal challenge.

I have come here today to ask the Minister again to explain Government policy, and to act as a warning to others. Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust is solvent, highly regarded and meets all its clinical standards. The A and E is used by more than 115,000 people every year, yet the TSA proposes to close the A and E, downgrade maternity and sell off two thirds of the land to support a separate, failing trust. My colleagues and I argued that this was a back-door reconfiguration. In response to my urgent question of 8 January, the Secretary of State acknowledged just that. He said that the four tests for reconfiguration would have to apply to the Lewisham proposals. He said:

“the changes must have support from GP commissioners; the public, patients and local authorities must have been genuinely engaged in the process; the recommendations must be underpinned by a clear clinical evidence base; and the changes must give patients a choice of good-quality providers.”—[Official Report, 8 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 169.]

I can tell the House that not a single test is met in the case of Lewisham. The newly accredited GP commissioning group—created through the Government’s flagship policy, of course—is totally opposed to these recommendations, and its chair has said that she is considering her position.

The engagement process was a farce. The public questionnaire did not mention the closure of the accident and emergency department at Lewisham and the consultation document did not mention the selling off of the land. Some 25,000 people joined a protest march just a week ago, and 53,800 have signed the local petition. For “increased choice” read “massive loss of local services”. But it is the third test—the clinical evidence base—on which I wish to concentrate.

It is now clear that the Secretary of State had real concerns about these recommendations and thus he sought cover from Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS medical director. We now have access to Sir Bruce’s advice. He said:

“The TSA must ensure there is no risk to patients by inadvertent under provision at hospitals receiving displaced Lewisham activity.”

On the proposed urgent care centre at Lewisham, he said:

“Consideration should be given to…direct admission…facilities”.

He also recommended the

“addition of senior Emergency Medicine doctors”

as a further safeguard.

Lewisham’s A and E is one of the few such departments consistently meeting its four-hour standard. The buildings were recently refurbished, at a cost of £12 million. Lewisham’s is one of the better performing intensive care units in the whole of England. It has twice-daily consultant ward rounds and access to diagnostics on Saturdays and Sundays. None the less, the Secretary of State has decided to remove the ICU, to remove consultant cover and to displace about 30,000 seriously ill patients—those who are likely to be admitted to the A and E —and take them by ambulance to another hospital. He is creating a smaller, less effective A and E, but there is no capacity at any other A and E in south-east London. Ambulances are often directed away from hospitals like King’s to come to Lewisham. Recently, a 76-year-old waited 18 hours in the A and E at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Woolwich. The Secretary of State is just saying that he will throw £37 million at it to expand the facilities elsewhere, once he has closed down the Lewisham A and E.

All that ignores the fact that patients arrive at Lewisham hospital on foot, by private car and by bus, and of course the ambulance service is under enormous strain; people being treated in ambulances are parked up at A and E units all over London. Yet we are told that south-east London should have only four or four and a half A and E departments, not five, in order to improve clinical care.

I do not dispute the case that has been made on cardiac and stroke services, but it is not obvious that it applies in respect of other kinds of illnesses and problems. Asked to explain things, the Secretary of State said:

“That principle applies as much to complex births and complex pregnancies as it does to strokes and heart attacks, and it will now apply for the people of Lewisham to conditions including pneumonia, meningitis and if someone breaks a hip. People will get better clinical care as a result of these changes.”—[Official Report, 31 January 2013; Vol. 557, c. 1081.]

Dr John O’Donohue, a consultant physician at Lewisham, responded to those points in a letter to Sir Bruce Keogh. He said that there have been

“no maternal mortalities in the past 7 years. This is despite the fact that high-risk pregnancies form the majority of our maternity workload.”

He also made the point that

“UHL is in fact one of the highest performing Trusts nationally for the management of hip fractures.”

He went on to say:

“Guidance on…meningitis emphasise the speed of administration of definitive treatment and not the size of the hospital”.

He concluded:

“There is…no basis in clinical evidence for the assertion made by the Secretary of State.”

But the Secretary of State went even further, asserting that Sir Bruce

“believes that overall these proposals, as amended, could save up to 100 lives every year”.—[Official Report, 31 January 2013; Vol. 557, c. 1075.]

We now know that no such reference was made in Sir Bruce Keogh’s review. I have spoken entirely about the adult A and E facility, but there is of course also a very fine children’s A and E unit at Lewisham, which has been much neglected in these considerations.

Lewisham now faces a reconfiguration that it is not said to be a reconfiguration. It now faces having an A and E unit that is not a proper A and E, and a maternity service that no woman giving birth to her first child will be able to go to. Will the Minister explain to me today how that is improved clinical care? How is it improved patient choice? It is an absolute disgrace, it is completely unjustified and we will all fight it to the very last.

14:49

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate and endorse my colleagues’ expressions of appreciation to the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) for obtaining it. It was a pleasure to be one of his co-sponsors.

The debate is badly needed. Not a month seems to pass without another NHS trust announcing that it will close one or more hospital departments, and at least 15 NHS bodies in England are pursuing major reconfiguration plans. There is, however, increasing concern in the medical field that NHS care for emergency patients might be going wrong in too many instances. Essentially, this is a debate about specialism and generalism. Rare complex surgery, for example for brain tumours or severe multiple injuries, is clearly best done in large volumes in specialist centres. I do not dispute that—nor do the overwhelming majority of clinicians—but it is not true for the common types of emergency surgery that are best done within good time in a quality district general hospital.

Hip fractures, for instance, are very common and the results are better if surgery is done as soon as possible, preferably on the next day’s operating list, by a surgeon who has at least three years’ experience of fixing hip fractures, yet around the country hospitals are being reconfigured to provide a specialist service in a major centre, leaving, as many experienced clinicians assert, thousands of patients with delayed and worse care.

[Sarah Teather (Brent Central) (LD)]

As I listen to my hon. Friend, I am struck by an example from my constituency, where the likely closure of the A and E will mean that people living in Harlesden will find it almost impossible to get to Northwick Park hospital. It is important for patient experience that their relatives can visit them.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. That is a very important point and I shall be covering it in more detail later in my speech.

Last October, a group of 140 senior doctors wrote to the Prime Minister expressing alarm over proposals to close and reconfigure A and E units around the country. In their open letter, they said that they had yet to see evidence that plans to centralise and downgrade A and E services were beneficial to patients. A 2010 report by the National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death showed that the reason people often die after surgery is not that the surgery was difficult but that there was a delay in getting them to an emergency operation. I fear that that will be worse if more A and Es are closed as there will be no surgeon on site, or the patient will face an over-long travel time to a fully functioning and adequately staffed emergency department. The report was clear, suggesting that applying one-size-fits-all medicine to a heterogeneous population with varying needs fell short in ways that were both predictable and preventable. Crucially, it stated:

“Delays in surgery for the elderly are associated with poor outcomes”.

The letter to the Prime Minister also backed this view:

“Not only do many people in some of the country’s most deprived areas face longer journeys to hospital, but those in rural areas face longer waiting times for ambulances and crowded A and E departments when they arrive.”

Let me point out the obvious: that will mean more delay for what should be routine emergency surgery.

That is in contrast to how I foresaw developments in May 2010 when the coalition Government came to power. Unlike Labour, the coalition ring-fenced NHS funding.

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

How can sums be ring-fenced if at the same time the Department insists on a 1% surplus—that is, money that cannot be spent?

[Stephen Lloyd]

The key difference is that the coalition Government ring-fenced it whereas the Opposition were considering a 20% cut—that is quite substantial.

Four reconfiguration tests were designed to build confidence among patients and communities as well as within the NHS. The right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) has already listed them, so I do not need to repeat them. In Eastbourne, my local hospital is run by East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, which also manages the Conquest hospital in Hastings. Last year, it consulted on the provision of orthopaedics, general surgery and stroke care in East Sussex. In my view and that of the cross-party Save the DGH campaign group, led by our remarkable and hard-working chair Liz Walke, it was clear from early on that the trust’s aim was to remove core services from my local hospital, the Eastbourne district general hospital, irrespective of the consultation.

This was not the first time the trust had tried to remove core services from Eastbourne. Only five years earlier it had tried, unsuccessfully, to downgrade our maternity services. At the time the trust claimed that that would provide safer and more sustainable services for the people of East Sussex. However, after much local opposition the independent reconfiguration panel found against the trust’s proposals, so when my local hospital trust again consulted on health services in East Sussex, my constituents and I were very worried. I was uneasy, as so many local clinicians started to share with me confidentially their deep concerns about the trust’s proposals.

I reassured constituents that we were in a stronger position than last time because the coalition Government had shown their commitment to the NHS by ring-fencing the NHS budget at a time of deep financial constraint. In addition, the Prime Minister and the then Health Secretary, the current Leader of the House, had continually stated that the NHS would be led by the public and clinicians, and to ensure this they had introduced the four reconfiguration tests that were mentioned earlier.

Imagine my horror when, just before Christmas, my NHS hospital trust had its proposals confirmed by the East Sussex health and overview scrutiny committee and was given the go-ahead for its plan to remove emergency orthopaedics and emergency and highest-risk elective general surgery from Eastbourne district general hospital and site them only at the Conquest hospital in Hastings, as much as 24 miles from some of my constituents.

The consultants advisory committee, the body which represents consultants at Eastbourne DGH, conducted a confidential survey of its members’ views on the trust proposals. More than 90% of DGH consultants responded to the survey, with 97% of those respondents opposed to the proposals. I remind colleagues in the House of the four tests. A confidential GP survey was also conducted and 42 GPs in the town also opposed the trust’s plans. In addition, 36,766 local people signed a petition against the proposals.

[Mr Sharma]

Is this not the story of every trust, including Ealing and other west London hospitals, where the local consultants and GPs have totally opposed such proposals but the threat of closure still exists?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I agree. My point is that the four tests look good on paper but my anxiety, which I am putting to the Minister, is that they may not be so good in practice.

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

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Stephen Lloyd]

I will continue, as I have only two and a half minutes left.

In short, either the Government’s reconfiguration tests are not being properly adhered to, or trusts and PCTs are merely using them as a smokescreen to hoodwink local communities. I do not believe for a moment that this is what the Government originally planned, so what is going wrong and why? It is clear that many very experienced and expert clinicians believe that most areas must retain emergency departments, with co-located essential core services to manage the bulk of common emergency conditions, which I spoke about earlier, or to stabilise patients prior to transfer to specialist units.

In conclusion, I am far from confident that the current process to determine whether or not reconfigurations of health services or A and E are being done in the best interests of local people is working, irrespective of the four tests that I talked about earlier. This must be addressed and that needs to be done quickly because if we get it wrong, lives could quite literally be lost unnecessarily. The NHS is our most cherished institution, often referred to as the glue which binds our society together. I pay tribute to the coalition Government for protecting NHS funding at a far higher level than was the case in any other Government Department but—and this is a “but” laden with real anxiety—I fear we may be getting the reconfiguration elements wrong. I hope the Minister will address my specific concerns about the reconfiguration element and about specialism v. generalism, to ensure that the right and the best service is provided for my and all our constituents.

15:00

[Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab)]

I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd). I thank him, the hon. Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) and my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) for securing this debate and the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to their representations.

I will return in a moment to a few things that the hon. Member for Eastbourne said, because he got to the thrust and the kernel of a lot of the problems with the four tests, although his attitude towards them is a good deal more generous than mine.

[Mr Love]

The four tests were invented for the reconfiguration of Chase Farm hospital, which predates everything that we are discussing today. If we look back at what happened there, it is clear that it did not matter what local opinion was, what local medical opinion was, or that everyone at Chase Farm was opposed—there was a determination to go ahead regardless. So the whole thing becomes a farce and a complete sham, and the four tests do not really add up to anything in terms of protecting local services.

[Jim Dowd]

My hon. Friend has it exactly. That is precisely our experience in Lewisham, which I will elaborate on in a few moments, where we have seen that the four tests are a fig leaf and entirely inconsequential, and, more than anything else, that the Secretary of State can blithely announce that he has decided that they have been met and that that is all that counts. There is no review, no appeal, no objective analysis, no consideration of alternative views: it is just a case of the Secretary of State saying yes. It is precisely as Humpty Dumpty said: “Words mean exactly what I choose them to mean, and that is it.” That is the position of the Secretary of State.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) went over a lot of the ground that is concerning us in Lewisham regarding the outrageous proposals by the trust special administrator appointed in South London Healthcare NHS Trust. Let me emphasise that the reason for the anger, the outrage, the fury and the sense of seething injustice in Lewisham is not that people there are particularly prone to believe scare stories—it is that they know exactly what is going on. They know that they are being punished for the failings of others at a time when Lewisham hospital has made every effort to meet the financial targets and, more particularly, the service targets, and to retain the confidence of local people.

I would therefore say this to anybody whose local trust is performing badly: fear not, for under this Government you will be rewarded. What people really need to be careful of is being anywhere near a trust that is doing badly, because even though their local trust may be doing well, the Secretary of State will appoint his henchmen—and women, for that matter—to go in there, jackboot their way around the place, spend millions of pounds of public money, and then come up with a scheme that does not do much to achieve the purpose for which they were appointed but rather deals with others who have played the game and played by the rules: and under this Government, more fool them.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

I have quite a bit of sympathy with some of the points that the hon. Gentleman is making because some of my constituents work at Lewisham hospital and have contacted me about this issue. However, he has to make his argument in a balanced way. Is it not the case that under the previous Government, when there was a problem in one PCT neighbouring PCTs were required to subsidise it, and that that, to a degree, unfair as it seems to people, is the consequence of having a national health service rather than separate individual units?

[Jim Dowd]

No, that is not the case.

It is a question of whether being reasonable gets one anywhere. People in Lewisham have tried being reasonable with the trust special administrator and with the Department of Health, but so far it has got them nowhere, so they are having to consider other methods.

Just how many hospitals up and down the country are under threat is evident from the Members who are present this afternoon. In many cases, the accident and emergency unit is the heart of a buoyant and thriving hospital. So much else stems from the work of A and E units. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow and Furness (John Woodcock) outlined the point that in many parts of the country outside London, it is as much a question of geography as the number of people because of the threat that people will have to travel great distances to get the treatment they need. A and E units have such a critical function that Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, the medical director of the NHS who has already been mentioned, has highlighted the scale of the problems across the country and, I am led to believe, is undertaking a review of A and E units.

I am somewhat less reassured by Sir Bruce’s view of democracy and the role of local representatives. He is not alone in holding that view. Many medical professionals and particularly administrators—Sir Bruce straddles both roles as he is an administrator and a clinician—believe that they should decide what is best for people and that people must put up with it. They believe that local representatives, whether they be Members of Parliament, local councillors or the local council, have no right to interfere. I have to say to Sir Bruce and the other professionals at the Department of Health who operate under that illusion, that that is not how a democracy works. In a democracy, people need to be persuaded that what is being done is in their best interests. If there is to be change, the result must be a system that is safer and more reliable than the one that it replaces. Simply turning to people in a patronising and condescending fashion and saying, “You don’t understand what we understand,” is not the way to treat the citizens of this country.

The threat posed by the unsustainable providers regime in the South London Healthcare NHS Trust is a threat to every single trust in the country. If the Government get away with the way in which they have conducted the regime in Lewisham, they will be able to do it anywhere. The whole scheme has been designed, promoted and decided on by the Department of Health without any objective external appraisal.

The objective of the exercise in the case of the South London Healthcare NHS Trust was to revive a dormant and defunct NHS London scheme to reduce the number of A and E units and functioning hospitals in south-east London from five to four. That plan was put before the previous clinically led review, “A picture of health”, and rejected. It was also rejected by the subsequent review of that review by Professor Sir George Alberti, who is now the chair of the trust board at King’s College hospital. The plan did not survive because it does not make sense on clinical grounds. What is happening now in south London is being done entirely on financial grounds.

Although Lewisham hospital is being devastated via this back-door reorganisation, the Secretary of State and his predecessor originally denied that it was a reconfiguration. Unfortunately, in his statement last Thursday, the Secretary of State confirmed that it was a reconfiguration. Had they been honest and straightforward and told the truth at the outset, there would have been an entirely different procedure, which would have been amenable to external review and would have had an appeals process. They would have had to stand up the case for the action that they are now contemplating. This situation has been engineered entirely by the officials and their acolytes within the fortress of Richmond house. All the clinical evidence that they have taken any notice of has been paid for. It has come from people who work at the Department of Health or people who have been brought in to the so-called clinical advisory group by the trust commissioner.

It is an irony bordering on contempt, not only for the people of south-east London, but for people from much further afield, that the trust special administrator who was brought in to save the overspending South London Healthcare NHS Trust overspent his own budget by more than 40%. The final bill is not yet in, but he has spent £5.5 million. All he did was take off the shelf a scheme that NHS London, while in its death throes—it has only a month or so before it is replaced—wanted to use. We need only look at the chronology to see that this is what was intended all along. The trust special administrator did not reach a conclusion; he started with the premise to shut down Lewisham hospital.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Jim Dowd]

I certainly will; I need the extra minute.

[Anna Soubry]

Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the trust special administrator was given a brief and did not act independently? Does he recognise that he had two hospitals in PFI agreements that were losing £1 million of taxpayers’ money in those agreements—money that should have been spent on health services?

[Jim Dowd]

That is not true; we do not have that. That is in South London Healthcare NHS Trust. Lewisham Healthcare NHS Trust is in balance—[Interruption.] I am saying that a trust special administrator was given a remit to close Lewisham hospital. Why on earth were Lewisham Members invited to the meeting to discuss South London Healthcare back in July? This scheme has been hatched in the Department of Health, and the Minister does herself no credit by attempting to defend the indefensible.

15:10

[Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)]

I am not sure I can keep up with the pace of the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd), but I am delighted to follow him and I have some sympathy with one of his points. I felt compelled to write to the NHS medical director, Sir Bruce Keogh, having seen his comments about the role of politicians.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

It is 2-1.

[Nick de Bois]

It is true. As my hon. Friend says from a sedentary position, the Evening Standard claimed, “Nick de Bois 2, Sir Bruce Keogh 1”, so I hope I wrote on behalf of all Members. The medical profession is at the root of this issue. If it wants to win arguments based on evidence, so be it, it can win those arguments against politicians, but it also has to win the hearts and minds of the people it serves. That is why we should not be taking lectures on the role of MPs and democrats.

I would like, unapologetically, to talk about my hospital, which has been introduced briefly by my neighbour, the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love). As a hospital facing threats of change—not all good by any means—Chase Farm hospital must predate almost every Member present in the Chamber, perhaps with the exception of the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). Going back to the early 1990s, it was promised the proceeds from the disposal of the Highlands hospital. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) said, the story I am telling crosses more than one Government, so I will try to tell it in a non-partisan way because my interest is in getting the best for my constituents.

After my constituents were let down by the promise of investment from the sale of Highlands hospital—now a pleasant residential area—no money was forthcoming, and in 1999 an administrative merger between Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals was proposed, which we were assured would lead to no clinical changes and have advantages. The effect of the merger was that the healthy balance sheet of Chase Farm was sucked dry to support a hospital that was bleeding payments—the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge may identify with that. Again, my constituents were let down.

Just before May 2005 we were told that we would have £80 million investment in our district general hospital. Sadly, that investment did not materialise, and shortly afterwards, in 2006, a programme of downgrade—reconfiguration, as it is known—was started, particularly in our maternity and A and E units. That was confirmed in 2008, but judicial review by the local council held it up. Hopes were just beginning to rise, and with the change of Government those hopes were raised again from the moratorium. I have said this before on the Floor of the House but I will repeat it for the avoidance of doubt: my constituents were utterly let down by the Secretary of State when we were again downgraded.

Hon. Members will therefore understand why my constituents—I am sure this resonates with hon. Members on both sides of the House and their constituents—and the public the acute hospitals serve are so sceptical when they are on the receiving end of advice and recommendations. It is a question of trust and transparency.

Like every hon. Member, I understand the full implications of the strategic drive for, and some of the benefits of, centralisation. However, I oppose the reconfiguration because of the inconsistency in what we have been told. There has been a clinical case for change, and a clinical and safety case for change, and yet in 2011, the Care Quality Commission said that Chase Farm hospital was running up to standards.

At that point, the PFI situation emerged. The PFI deal sealed for North Middlesex hospital—a neighbouring hospital in the south of the constituency—meant an investment of £129 million over 31 years, meaning a total repayment of £640 million. That £2 million a month comes off the operational budget. On 22 November, the then Secretary of State was quoted in the very reliable Daily Mail as saying that the recent downgrade was partly because of unsustainable PFI debt.

One reason often cited for the proposed downgrade of my hospital is that GPs support it. Three hospitals—Barnet, North Middlesex and Chase Farm—were part of the downgrade plan, and GPs from Haringey, Barnet and Enfield were asked about the proposals. The vote was organised like a communist meeting. If we ask people in Haringey or Barnet whether they have a problem with the downgrade in Chase Farm, I suspect they will say no if it benefits their hospital. The figures show that only 44% of Enfield GPs approved, but of 129 GPs asked, only 48 responded, so only a positive 16% recorded their support. I hope the Minister asks her officials to reflect on that point.

I oppose the reconfiguration but recognise that I need to fight for the best possible deal for Enfield. It is therefore important to examine the so-called pre-conditions of implementation of the strategy that we were promised —we were guaranteed that they would be put in place.

[Mr Burrowes]

I commend my hon. Friend for his continuous efforts, although perhaps he should take his seat since he has given way.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

That is my job, not the hon. Gentleman’s.

[Mr Burrowes]

My hon. Friend has continuously stood up, not just in the House but in his constituency, against the closure of the A and E in Chase Farm and for securing health improvement in Enfield. He has secured a cross-party delegation meeting with the Secretary of State, at which we want an assurance that the £10.6 million being invested in primary care in Enfield ensures we get effective primary care improvements before the reconfiguration.

[Nick de Bois]

That goes back to my point—it is a question of trust. It is vital that that promise is delivered, but it is already some four years since the change was envisaged, and very little has been put in. It is therefore right that we press the case for implementation and delivery on the ground if the strategic review goes ahead.

I welcome the opportunity to meet the Secretary of State—I hasten to add that a cross-party delegation will meet him—but I have some questions to put to the Minister on the Floor of the House. Is she aware of the growing health inequalities in the borough, which have increased since the original 2008 assessment? According to the latest census, the population is far removed from the original assessment—there are 40,000 more people.

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

I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s remarks. Does he feel at this stage that he is pushing at an open door or a closed door?

[Nick de Bois]

I am sitting next to my hon. Friend, who shares a great interest in this subject, and I think she has been reading my notes. With a new Secretary of State and with such interest across the country, Chase Farm does not feel as if it is alone any more. There is a momentum and an opportunity to examine new issues, so I hope I am pushing at an open door. On cost and on how we treat patients, we need to be bold and innovative. For example, we should be examining the impact of telehealth care on our acute centres. Such things will drive not just costs, but better health care. Can they have an impact on whether we retain more services at our acute centre in A and E, while more people are being treated in the primary sector?

I think that my constituents look at the Lewisham solution almost with envy. We should be able to at least guarantee to our constituents—[Interruption.] Bear with me here. As a minimum in Enfield, we would like to see 24/7 access to a doctor because the proposal for our urgent care centre is 12 hours. I think people need that comfort. I am not playing politics with Lewisham and I am not saying that the situation there is satisfactory—the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) knows well my position on that. However, I am saying how we look at it from Enfield. I hope the Minister will consider innovative ways, looking for providers be they from clinical commissioning groups or with direction from the centre, in which we can offer 24/7 doctor-led care to my constituents after years and years of frustration.

15:20

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois). He and I have something in common. He said that he had been let down by the Secretary of State after 2010. Sadly, I have to say that my constituents and I, and my neighbour, the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott)—unfortunately, he cannot be here today, but he asked me to mention the fact that he has been in Committee—also felt let down because of a decision that was taken. Eight Members of Parliament from north-east London campaigned together on a cross-party basis to save the A and E at King George hospital, yet in 2011 the Government announced that, after the previous decision, they were going to go ahead with a recommendation to close the A and E and the maternity unit at King George hospital in Ilford. There will be no more births there at the end of March. We will no longer have children born in Ilford, unless they are born in the back of taxis or cars that are trying to get through traffic jams to take them to Queen’s hospital Romford. However, I want to concentrate on the A and E.

This afternoon, a risk summit is being held between Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust and the commissioners to consider the implications of the absolutely damning Care Quality Commission inspection, one of a series of inspections of Queen’s hospital, which was published on 30 January, which is last Wednesday. Among other things, the report stated:

“The accident and emergency department…has not met most of the national quality indicators as a result of extensive delays in the care of patients. Five percent of patients who need to be admitted to the hospital are waiting for more than 11 hours in the department. The Trust should be aiming to transfer 95% of patients who are being admitted to wards within four hours of their arrival.”

Many patients are waiting much longer than four hours, and 5% are waiting for more than 11 hours. That was from an inspection in December. The report also says that there is

“poor care for patients in the ‘Majors’ area”

and that the

“environment is unsuitable for patients to be nursed in for long periods of time,”

because of a

“lack of privacy/dignity, no washing facilities, no storage space for personal belongings and no bedside tables.”

I could go on—there are complaints about other A and E services and facilities at Queen’s hospital.

Queen’s is a new, PFI-built hospital that was designed for 90,000 admissions. Last year it had 132,000, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) mentioned in an intervention. It is in a joint trust with the King George hospital in Ilford, which has fewer admissions, but there was a proposal—the then Secretary of State and his Health Minister said this was the intention—to close the A and E at King George hospital in about two years from October 2011. Patients would then have had to go to the A and E at the already over-pressed and stressed Queen’s hospital. Frankly, that policy was always insane and foolish. We fought against the first such proposals in 2006—the misnamed “Fit for the Future” proposals—right the way through, in cross-party unity with neighbouring MPs, under the last Government. We managed to get implementation halted for reconsideration and review, but sadly this Government have given the go-ahead to closure of the King George A and E unit.

[Nick de Bois]

I hope the hon. Gentleman will benefit from the time he gains by giving way to me. He is right about the documents—as he will recall, we had “Healthy hospitals”, which was the last thing being sought. Let me remind him that we have another thing in common: the merry-go-round of chief executives, from my former chief executive to his hospital’s chief executive. It worries me that the administrators are in control, not the people or the politicians.

[Mike Gapes]

I do not personally blame Averil Dongworth, the new chief executive at Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, for the current situation. She has not been there long enough. There are a number of predecessors who were party to the proposal. I also blame Ruth Carnall and the people in NHS London who were behind the original proposals. They and Heather Mullin, along with others in the NHS in London, have been determined for six or seven years to close the A and E unit at King George regardless of the petitions, the protests or the fact that the public overwhelmingly rejected their proposal, even in their rigged consultation.

[Jim Dowd]

On the malign influence of NHS London, let me tell my hon. Friend that its policy director—one Hannah Farrar—was appointed as number two and chief assistant to the special administrator of South London Healthcare NHS Trust, precisely to achieve what had always been wanted: the closures at Lewisham.

[Mike Gapes]

Where are we now? Last year saw a 22% increase from 2011, with 26,859 additional attendances in the A and E unit at Queen’s hospital. In addition, there were 73 patients a day more than in the previous year, with 23 days on which there were more than 470 compared with only three days in the previous year. The pressure on Queen’s hospital today is getting bigger and bigger, yet the plan is still to close the A and E unit at King George hospital. Where are all the patients supposed to go? Presumably not to Queen’s hospital, because it cannot cope. What is already happening? Although the figures are not being made public, I am told that on a number of occasions over recent weeks, in December and January, ambulances have been diverted to other hospitals from Queen’s hospital, including Whipps Cross hospital, which is part of the Barts Health NHS Trust—and it has its own problems. We are facing a real crisis.

I also understand that performance at Queen’s hospital has fallen off drastically. Only 65% of patients have been seen within four hours since the end of last year. The figure at King George hospital was much better, yet it is King George—the better-performing hospital in this trust—that is supposed to be run down. I spoke to the Care Quality Commission this afternoon, which is now proposing a potential cap on the numbers of patients in the “majors” area at Queen’s, because of the problems and lack of safety that will arise.

This is not just a question of resources. It is also, of course, a question of management, but ultimately it is not possible to get a gallon into a quart pot, which is what we face in north-east London. The trust’s board meeting on 9 January looked at these issues in detail. It has already got McKinsey in and it already has the so-called reset programme running. It also says that it has been making improvements for the past few months. Well, it made big improvements on maternity, but it has failed on A and E.

There is a real problem as long as the proposal to close A and E at King George is on the agenda. There is a problem of morale, motivation and, potentially, recruitment. The CQC report is absolutely damning about the shortage of consultants, the reliance on temporary locum staff and many other issues that are part of a fundamental problem in the trust’s culture that has been going on for a long time.

It is not very easy for my constituents to go to other hospitals. If the problems at Queen’s continue, it would be insane to go ahead with the proposals to close King George’s A and E. Last month I asked the new Secretary of State to reverse his predecessor’s decision; unfortunately he refused, but please will the Minister give me that commitment today?

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The limit on Back-Bench speeches will have now to be reduced to seven minutes, with immediate effect.

15:32

[Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Our lives are measured out in minutes, Mr Speaker.

In paragraph 1.25 of his report, which was published yesterday, Robert Francis said:

“MPs are accountable to their electorate, but they are not necessarily experts in healthcare and are certainly not regulators. They might wish to consider how to increase their sensitivity with regard to the detection of local problems in healthcare.”

I am not sure how many Members of Parliament Robert Francis QC spoke to before writing that particular paragraph, but I suspect that every MP seeks to be a champion for their local hospital and for the NHS in their own area.

I have left instructions for my body to be given to Oxford university’s anatomy department, for various reasons: there is quite a lot of it and I certainly think that the liver of anyone who has been an MP for more than 30 years is worthy of anatomical examination. Most important, however, I want to ensure that when they open me up they will find inscribed on my heart the words, “Keep the Horton General”. Throughout my 30 years as an MP for north Oxfordshire, the one thing that has been of greatest importance to me, practically above all else, is ensuring that the Horton hospital in Banbury remains a general hospital—that is, one with consultant-led maternity and children’s services, 24/7 A and E services, and a facility for people to see doctors on a 24/7 basis.

I also readily recognise, however, that certain specialist trauma services cannot be provided at hospitals such as the Horton, and that they are best provided at hospitals such as the John Radcliffe in Oxford. That was best demonstrated to me by a constituent, a friend of mine, whom I met the other day. He had suffered a ruptured aorta. My paternal grandmother died of a ruptured aorta, but this constituent survived. I said to him, “You were jolly unlucky to have a ruptured aorta, but you were fantastically lucky to live.” He told me that the only reason he had survived was that the ambulance had taken him from Banbury directly to the John Radcliffe in Oxford, where he received the specialist treatment that he needed.

I echo the point that has been made by several hon. Members that we need total clarity about what people can expect from major trauma units, and what is meant by the terms “accident and emergency department”, “urgent care centre” and “major injuries unit”. We need national standards so that we can all be confident that we are comparing like with like. We could then be confident about the protocols that the ambulance services use—when they are dealing with major road accidents on the M40, for example—and patients, GPs and people generally in my constituency would know what to expect from the accident and emergency services in Banbury, and when it would be more appropriate for them to be directed to the major trauma unit at the JR in Oxford. People would also be clearer about when they ought not to be bothering the accident and emergency department at the Horton at all but should really be going to see their GP. All too often people tend to treat the accident and emergency department as an out-of-hours GP service, but it was not intended for that purpose.

We must also recognise that medicine is constantly changing. The general hospital in Buckinghamshire at which my mother was a sister tutor, and whose accident and emergency department I visited as a child, has long since closed. The general hospital at which my father was a consultant has now merged with St Peter’s hospital in Chertsey. There has been evolution in health care for a long time. The Horton hospital is changing in that medical technology is improving the pace at which patients can be treated. In the past, women who had hysterectomies might have had to stay in hospital for 10 days, but that procedure can now be done as day surgery with an overnight stay.

Changes are also resulting from the fact that we have a much larger older population, many of whom have age-related dementia issues, who need to stay in hospital much longer. We have to reconcile those two growing areas of change within one general hospital. We have to recognise that medicine and service provision will not remain static. We cannot apply a single model throughout the system. We need integrity and honesty about what services are being provided and where, and an acknowledgement that it is not always in the best interest of patients to have a single stand-alone hospital providing every service to every patient. That is not necessarily in the best interests of patient safety.

As this debate has demonstrated, we will all fight tenaciously to ensure that the national health service continues to provide the very best service for patients. The Mid Staffordshire report yesterday was a wake-up call to us all. We all love our NHS and see it as a representative of our national integrity and of the cohesion of citizens and society, but we must also acknowledge that it faces real challenges and that we must all contribute to tackling them.

15:39

[Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)]

I join this debate as another Member whose A and E is targeted for closure. My local NHS says it needs to reconfigure services because it has to deliver £370 million of savings each year—a reduction of around 24%, or how much it costs each year to keep St Helier hospital going. A programme has been set up, laughingly called “Better Services, Better Value”, to decide which of four local hospitals—St Helier, St George’s, Kingston or Croydon—should lose its A and E department. That is despite the fact that, across south-west London, the number of people going to A and E is going up by 20%, and that the birth rate in our part of London continues to rise.

Last summer, the bad news came that it would be my local hospital, St Helier, that would lose its A and E, maternity, intensive care unit, children’s unit, renal unit and 390 in-patient beds. To be honest, it has all been a bit of a shambles. NHS South West London was due to rubber-stamp the proposals in July, but the decision was unexpectedly postponed. Then, in September, it proudly press released that a decision was imminent and that the public consultation would start on 1 October. One doctor was quoted as being

“excited by the huge potential of the BSBV programme.”

The decision was put off. I would love to say that it was because of what local residents had to say, but actually it was because of a scathing national clinical advisory team report on the plans, which mocked BSBV’s claim that an astonishing 60% of emergency patients would use primary care instead of A and E, saying:

“The Assumption that 60%...can be managed by clinicians from primary care demands…local analysis. Elsewhere in the UK a consistent finding is…far lower, usually…15-20%. Reconfiguration based on the higher figure may not achieve the anticipated benefits.”

What really put a block on the plans was the sudden collapse of another nearby hospital. Epsom hospital has long had financial troubles. In the 1990s, they were so bad that it was forced to merge with the more financially viable St Helier to form the Epsom and St Helier University Hospitals NHS Trust. The merger was never ideal, as Epsom has more in common with other Surrey hospitals than with St Helier. In 2011, it was finally decided that the Epsom and St Helier should de-merge and that Epsom should merge with a hospital in Surrey—Ashford and St Peter’s hospital.

All was going well until last year, when it was revealed that Epsom’s debts were far worse than originally thought. The merger deal with Ashford and St Peter’s collapsed, and Epsom was left out in the cold. This made Surrey panic about what BSBV was planning. After all, if St Helier lost its A and E and Epsom collapsed, there might be no hospital between Tooting and Guildford—so BSBV was put on hold again. In retrospect, that only made matters worse. Instead of closing one A and E out of four hospitals, the local NHS has just decided to close two out of five. That will be catastrophic.

We all know that Epsom, with its MP in the Cabinet and its wealthy population who can afford a judicial review, will put up a big fight, so the consequences for south-west London will be disastrous. There are parallels with what happened in Lewisham. Patients will suffer because of the financial problems of a hospital miles away. We thought things were bleak before; they are even bleaker now. With St Helier singled out for service closures even before this latest development, it is going to be even more difficult for our community than ever before. The argument remains the same, and my local community will not stop arguing. Closing services at St Helier is a false economy, as 200,000 people will have further to go in an emergency.

If things were bad enough even before Epsom’s problems were thrown into the mix, we will now find that an A and E will close, even though A and E visits are due to go up 20% in the next five years, and a maternity unit will close, with thousands of patients giving birth further from home, even though birth rates will go up 10%. Even when just St Helier was under threat, the National Clinical Advisory Team said:

“Successful implementation…depends on a multitude of supporting improvements”

and these

“are not well defined in the proposals.”

It concluded:

“The reconfigurations are based on an optimistic view of capacity”.

Next Monday, I will host a meeting for my local constituents to try to update them about what is going on. Obviously, the fight goes on.

The NHS admits it must save £370 million in my part of London alone. The UK Statistics Authority has made it clear that the Prime Minister has broken his electoral pledge to increase health spending. Demand for A and E is up, and the birth rate is up; but instead of focusing on improving the NHS, this Government have focused on top-down reorganisations. If St Helier goes the way of Lewisham or worse, and loses its A and E and countless other services, my constituents will know why. My constituents are very angry: they know this will not work, and they want to hear from the Minister today that it will be stopped.

15:44

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

I sympathise with the problems described by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh).

It seems a long time since NHS North West London presented its “Shaping a healthier future” proposals and Members from across west London first came together to debate them. On that occasion, I explained why I opposed the plans, and put on record my fear that they would have a serious and negative impact on my constituents. Downgrading the four nearest A and E departments—at Ealing, Central Middlesex, Charing Cross and Hammersmith hospitals—would be completely disproportionate, and would leave the people of Ealing and Acton slap bang in the middle of an emergency care black hole.

Since that debate, a cross-party coalition—including the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma), who opened the debate, and the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who is also present—embarked on fighting the plans. We have organised rallies, marches, petitions and leaflets, and pages and pages of coverage have appeared in the local as well as the national press. I am not a natural marcher, but I did attend the big rally on Ealing Common to oppose the plans, along with other local Conservatives.

We felt that the most constructive use of our time would be to encourage as many people as possible to fill in the consultation document provided by NHS North West London. We offered guidance on how best to navigate the bewildering and unnecessarily lengthy set of questions, and we helped about 600 people to register their views. That was a large contribution in a borough which returned the highest number of responses to the consultation, almost all of which opposed the plans, and it demonstrates the level of worry that exists in Ealing and Acton.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Despite the biased nature of the questionnaire, efforts were made to fill it in, and a few thousand people did so. However, 80,000 people signed petitions which were then studiously ignored. Only the responses to the questionnaire were taken into consideration. Perhaps the hon. Lady would like to comment on that.

[Angie Bray]

I certainly think that a petition of that size cannot be easily ignored. However, as we pointed out when we encouraged people to take part in what was a massive and time-consuming process, I suspect that, technically and legally, the authority is obliged to register only the responses to the consultation.

Beyond what I have described, my role has been to make my objections, and those of my constituents, fully known to and understood by as wide an audience as possible in Government. After doing the rounds of meetings with the previous team at the Department of Health, I held meetings with the new ministerial team and the Health Secretary after last autumn’s reshuffle. I followed that up with a meeting with the Prime Minister, whom I left in no doubt that this issue was of the utmost importance to my constituents.

We all believe that the closure plan must be reviewed. None of us can believe that it is anything other than reckless. We wonder how the A and E departments that are left standing will be able to cope with all the extra pressure that will result from the closure programme. I explained to the Prime Minister in detail why the extra travel time to A and E departments further afield would be unacceptable. He listened carefully, asked a number of detailed questions, and told me that he would certainly discuss the issue this with Health Ministers.

Much of our campaigning has focused on the baffling way in which NHS North West London has chosen to present the proposals as a virtual fait accompli, without adequately explaining quite how they will work in practice. We are told that new “urgent care centres” will cater for everyone’s needs, but we have also learnt that there is a lengthy list of conditions, and that there are a number of possible problems with which they will not actually deal.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

It is, in a sense, reassuring to hear that my hon. Friend is experiencing exactly the same problems as we are experiencing in Buckinghamshire. It is always made to sound so good, and then it is so awful. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain how things can change, so that instead of standing here complaining on behalf of our constituents we can actually make a difference.

[Angie Bray]

I entirely agree. The issue of trust is so important, but I suspect that we shall have to do a lot of work if we are to build that trust.

What I have just said about urgent care centres will not be at all reassuring for my many constituents who use the local A and Es. We must not forget that Ealing hospital’s A and E sees at least 100,000 people every year. Nobody is suggesting that we do not need to make long-term improvements to our health service and the way services are delivered, but we need better guarantees that the planned changes will provide an acceptable replacement for what we have at present.

It is unreasonable to expect my constituents to support the closure of their local much-cherished A and Es without any certainty that what they are told will be put in place will materialise. In the meantime, there is the practical question that everybody is asking: if the A and Es are closing at four hospitals, what will happen to the queues at the A and Es that are left open?

No one is under the impression that everything is rosy and that the way health care is delivered in north-west London is absolutely perfect. Clearly, in the longer term we will need to encourage more people to sign up to local GPs rather than depending on A and Es for all their health care needs, but that requires time and organisation. We cannot just close the A and E and expect people to cope. Looking forward, we clearly need to make sensible decisions on how we fund health care provision locally, to ensure money is available to meet all the rising costs associated with people living longer, new medicines coming on-stream and new costly treatments, but we have to take people with us as we approach change.

Understandably, people have an emotional attachment to their local hospitals and they need to be persuaded of the case for change. Given that the health reforms are about to put GPs in charge of local health provision, why are we not waiting to see what decisions they think would be appropriate, rather than pushing these decisions through now? The whole approach has been too rushed. Local GPs have hardly been queuing up, in public at least, to support these proposals. The impression my constituents have been left with is that the consultation was little more than an attempt to channel their views towards the preferred option, in what was a box-ticking exercise by NHS North West London.

There are too many questions left unanswered, and too much of the information provided in the consultation was too questionable. For all these reasons, I can only hope that if NHS North West London decides on 19 February to proceed as it currently intends, the Secretary of State will ensure that that is reviewed in its entirety. My constituents are deeply concerned.

15:52

[Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I greatly enjoyed the speech of the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) and share many of her sentiments, but I hope she will forgive me for saying that her contribution lacked a sense of regional and national context. Despite the pretence of a national review, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) alluded, closing substantial numbers of A and E units is clearly now Government policy. Professor Matthew Cooke has been advising the Department of Health on A and E issues—he did so last year, at least. He has spoken to NHS North West London, supporting its plans to close four of our nine A and E departments, and he was reported in the Daily Mail as saying that those plans were in line with national Government policy.

At the 2010 general election, the Conservative party manifesto promised to stop the closure of A and E departments. Indeed, I think the Prime Minister insisted there would be a moratorium to stop further A and E closures. If I remember rightly, during the election campaign the Prime Minister visited Chase Farm A and E department in London and Queen Mary’s A and E department in Sidcup, promising to stop their closure.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

And Kingston, too.

[Mr Thomas]

Yes, and Kingston, too. Both Chase Farm and Queen Mary’s A and E have either closed already or are earmarked for closure this autumn.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) referred to the planned closure of A and E services at King George hospital in Redbridge, and Epsom and St Helier hospital in Sutton, which has also been mentioned, is also set for closure.

We have all heard about the scandal of the events in Lewisham, where doctors do not support the closure of the A and E department, but it is still going to close. I thought the whole point of the recent NHS Act was to give doctors control over service delivery. That has clearly gone out of the window now.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend mentioned the hospitals the Prime Minister visited before the election whose A and Es he promised to retain. Of course, in 2007 he also said that he would get into a bare-knuckle fight over the future of Lewisham hospital. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s A and E policy seems somewhat hypocritical?

[Mr Thomas]

There certainly seems to be little obvious sign of any bare-knuckle fighting on the Prime Minister’s part to stop the closure of Lewisham A and E or, indeed, the other eight departments set for closure in London.

I want to concentrate the rest of my speech on the plans at North West London Hospitals NHS Trust. As the hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton said, there are plans to shut Ealing, Charing Cross, Hammersmith—it is good to see my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter) here—and Central Middlesex A and E departments. My constituency is served by Northwick Park hospital A and E department, and my constituents are worried about the pressure that the closure of the four other A and E departments in the area will put on Northwick Park when all the extra people turn up there needing treatment.

Clinical teams at the north-west London trust have noted that the strategy behind the proposed closure of the four A and E departments assumes that thousands of people can be persuaded not to go to A and E but instead to use their GPs and other community services. I am a little sceptical about the idea that that will work, not least because the numbers using Northwick Park A and E are already significantly greater than before the 2010 election.

One element of the strategy, to prevent the possibility of patients who shift to Northwick Park not getting the services they need, is, as I said, to use community services. The decision to downgrade the Alexandra Avenue polyclinic, a walk-in service open 8 am to 8 pm, 365 days a year in the south Harrow part of my constituency, to just Saturday and Sunday opening, 9 am to 3 pm, has led to greater use of Northwick Park hospital A and E, as a number of doctors have said. So the decision to close that polyclinic, supported, incidentally, by the Conservative party in Harrow, seems particularly surprising, given the appetite for community services to solve the problem of lots of people potentially going to Northwick Park A and E.

[Nick de Bois]

To put this in context, it is clear, having read Hansard, that both this Government and the previous Government supported reconfiguration on the basis of more people being served in the community, and that is probably not a bad thing. However, it is not just a question of having the infrastructure, the buildings and the clinical staff, but of imploring people to make a cultural change. One cannot do that easily and quickly, particularly between generations. So although both this and the previous Government agree that reconfiguration is important, my concern is that they have not taken the people with them.

[Mr Thomas]

On that very specific point, I agree with the hon. Gentleman. What feels different about the context in which we are having this debate is the sheer number of A and E departments whose closure is envisaged.

If the hon. Gentleman and others will forgive me, I will return to the issue of Alexandra Avenue polyclinic and how it helped to divert people from using the A and E department at Northwick Park. I urge the new Harrow clinical commissioning group to reopen Alexandra Avenue as a proper walk-in service, or to find an alternative site for such a facility in order to reduce the pressure on Northwick Park. The last figures that I saw showed that in fewer than 12 months, from April 2011 to February 2012, the number of people waiting more than four hours at Northwick Park and Central Middlesex hospitals’ A and E departments had risen to more than 9,000. A total of 9,137 people in that 10-month period had waited more than four hours for treatment. What is far from clear is whether there is a clear clinical strategy across London that has the confidence of doctors and of the public—that point was raised by the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois)—to really drive down the pressure on A and E departments in the future.

Already, too many people in London have had to wait in ambulances for longer than 30 minutes; that happened to 42,248 people in 2011-12, a rise of almost 50% on the previous year. Some 10,000 people had to wait more than 45 minutes to get into the A and E departments across London; they were sitting in the ambulance waiting. As my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) said, the UK Statistics Authority has pointed out that the Prime Minister has broken his promise to protect NHS spending. It is clear that the NHS in London is under unprecedented pressure, because of the Conservative party’s squeeze on NHS funding. A Prime Minister who once promised to stop A and E closures is allowing nine to go ahead across London. Once again, that old adage is being proved true, “Same old Conservatives. You can’t trust the Tories with the NHS.”

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. We are extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his contribution. The next speaker, to whom, unfortunately, a six-minute limit will have to apply, a fact of which I was about to notify him, is Mr Gavin Barwell.

16:01

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

For the second time this week I have reason to thank you, Mr Speaker. Six minutes seems like an eternity compared with four. A number of colleagues kindly commented positively about my speech on Tuesday, but this one is going to be much less popular, particularly with the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), and I apologise to her at the outset for that. I am going to strike a slightly different tone from that of many of the people who have spoken in the debate.

The hon. Lady mentioned the “Better Services, Better Value” review, which has been commissioned for health services across south-west London. In the final clinical report’s introduction, the clinicians involved in the review found that

“health services in south west London are not sustainable in their current configuration. In the opinion of the clinicians leading the review, no change is not an option.”

A number of points made in the review are specifically relevant to A and E departments and I wish to draw the House’s attention to them.

The review looked at the number of full-time equivalent emergency medicine consultants in each of the four A and E departments in the area and compared that with the recommended minimum number to achieve cover for 16 hours a day, seven days a week. Croydon Health Services NHS Trust should have 16 whole-time equivalent consultants, but it has 4.9. The figures for St Helier show that it should have 12 but actually has 4.5. Kingston Hospital NHS Trust should have 16 but it has 10. St George’s should have at least 16 but it has 21. So that provides clear evidence that the departments across south-west London, with the exception of the one at St George’s, do not have anything like the recommended minimum level of consultant cover.

The review says specifically:

“In London, data shows that the probability of dying as a result of many emergency conditions is significantly higher if the admission is at the weekend, compared to a weekday.”

That is because of that low level of consultant cover. It continues:

“Each year, there are around 25,000 deaths following emergency admission to London’s hospitals. If the weekend mortality rate in London was the same as the weekday rate there would be a minimum of 500 fewer deaths a year.”

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

How does the hon. Gentleman know that those different mortality rates that he cites are down to less consultant cover at weekends and are not, for example, the result of a sicker population entering A and E at weekends?

[Gavin Barwell]

The honest answer to the hon. Lady’s question is that I do not know. I am simply relying on the report, which is suggesting that that analysis points to 500 as the number of deaths that are purely due to the timing of the week. We could argue about the figure, but I hope that she would agree on the point of principle that having fewer consultants on at the weekend must impose some level of risk.

The report also says:

“The Royal College of Surgeons state that a critical population mass is required in order to provide an efficient and effective emergency service. This is supported by literature that suggests that surgeons who perform a high volume of procedures tend to have better outcomes. The preferred catchment population size for an acute general hospital providing the full range of facilities, specialist staff and expertise for both elective and emergency surgical cases would be 450,000-500,000.”

We have a problem. We have a large number of hospitals in London with accident and emergency departments and they do not have the recommended level of full-time equivalent consultant cover to provide the best medical outcomes. Every single Member of this House will defend their local hospital, as that is where their constituents go for treatment. If I was in the same position as the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden, I would be doing exactly the same.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

rose—

[Siobhain McDonagh]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

I shall give way to my hon. Friend, because I promised that I would.

[Mr Charles Walker]

The problem in north London—and in Broxbourne on the edge of north London—is that Chase Farm is serving a growing population. I do not want to keep Chase Farm A and E open because of any emotional attachment to it, but because we have a population that is due to grow by another 40,000 over the next few years.

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend has put the case for his local hospital firmly on the record. I do not know the detail and would not want to comment. I shall try to make time to allow the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden to intervene once I have advanced my argument a little. I referred to her, so it is only fair to give her that opportunity.

The point I am trying to make is that there is a need for balance. Constituents want to be able to access facilities at a local hospital, both from their own point of view and because if they have an extended stay they want friends and relatives to be able to come and visit them easily. There is a balance to be struck between convenience and quality of treatment. For example, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) referred to someone with a serious aortic problem who was able to go to a hospital with specialist expertise.

Let me make a couple of points about improving the quality of care, which was also touched on in the “Better Services, Better Value” review. One concerns the European working time directive’s impact on the NHS. The review states:

“The implementation of the EWTD has resulted in shorter sessions of work with complex rotas as well as more frequent handovers. Resulting difficulties in maintaining continuity of care can have implications for patient safety.”

The review also contained some powerful findings about the four-hour target, introduced by the previous Government for laudable reasons, which included wanting to monitor the level of care people received. The data for south-west London show that A and E admissions spike between 245 and 260 minutes in all south-west London acute trusts, suggesting that internal standards are aligned solely to the four hours rather than other quality issues.

There are a range of issues relating to A and E in south-west London. I want to say a brief word about Lewisham, but first I shall give the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden a chance to intervene.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

Last year, 90,000 people turned up at St Helier’s A and E, 26% of whom were admitted to a bed. The idea that we can condescend to 90,000 people and tell them that they turned up in the wrong place is untenable. They are making an entirely rational decision to go to A and E because there is nowhere else to go. The GP out-of-hours service is woeful, its standards are poor and as long as there are no alternatives, people will continue to go to A and E whatever the hon. Gentleman says or does.

[Gavin Barwell]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that point. She said earlier that “Better Services, Better Value” talked about a figure of 60%, but she was actually misleading the House—unintentionally, I am sure—as the report specifically rejects that. It states that

“there is no firm evidence”

to support the Healthcare for London figure. It conducted a local study across south-west London that found that 48% of all activity was coded as minor and that 40% of patients were discharged with no follow-up treatment required. The conclusion was that they could be dealt with in an urgent care centre, which could be attached to the A and E. That would mean we could ensure the provision was available to deal with such cases.

Let me comment briefly on Lewisham. I listened with great sympathy to the arguments made by the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) and the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd), who is no longer in the Chamber. I have constituents who work at Lewisham hospital and feel very angry, as the right hon. Lady does, about what has happened there. Let me make one point, which I tried to make to the hon. Gentleman in an intervention: we have a national health service and as a consequence when things go wrong in a neighbouring area it has a knock-on effect.

[Dame Joan Ruddock]

rose—

[Gavin Barwell]

I am afraid I cannot take any more interventions.

The hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge was wrong to state that that has only started to happen under this Government. In my part of London in the past things have gone wrong in neighbouring boroughs and Croydon PCT has had to help them out. In the past two years Croydon PCT has got into trouble and neighbouring boroughs have helped us out. That does not mean that what is happening is right. I am not making a judgment on it. I am just saying that it is not fair to suggest that the present situation is a wholly new departure.

Hon. Members have made powerful arguments for their local hospitals, but there is a balance to be struck between convenience of locality and ensuring sufficient acute cover. I completely understand the point made by the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) in relation to St Helier, but as a Croydon MP I have to say that there must a solution that gets us to the recommended minimum level of consultant cover in our hospital, and I will continue to fight for that.

16:10

[Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)]

Twelve years ago I sat where the Minister is sitting, when I was the Under-Secretary of State for Health. I had responsibility for accident and emergency services in particular, and I want to impress on her that she has power to respond to what is being said in the House today.

All Members will understand that the NHS does not stand still. Reconfigurations are necessary. Changes are necessary. I was born in a constituency that had a wonderful hospital called the Prince of Wales; it no longer exists. In the Roehampton part of London, there was a hospital; it no longer exists. Things change. In London we have seen changes to stroke services. It is possible that someone in an ambulance, having been unfortunate enough to have a stroke, will drive past a hospital to get to another hospital, a centre of excellence. That was a configuration that was carried out with great consensus across London. I pay tribute to Richard Sumray, who was chair of the primary care trust in Haringey and led the consultation on changing stroke services in London.

The Minister has heard deep concerns expressed about the changes proposed in every area of our capital city—deep concerns about King George hospital in the east and about the much loved hospital in Lewisham in the south. No one can understand why Lewisham should pay for problems in an adjoining area, as currently proposed. We raised concerns about the problems in the north. I will refer briefly to the Whittington, although my hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) is in his seat and will major on that. We have heard about Chase Farm and about pressures deep in the south, in St Helier and the Croydon area, which were described by my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). We have also heard about concerns in the west of London around Ealing. That is unprecedented.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend accept that one problem is that London’s population is rising, health inequalities are rising, and health demands are rising among poorer people? Although I understand all the arguments about putting services in the community, if hospitals are closed, many desperately poor and ill people will not be properly served.

[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend makes the point beautifully. Let us look at the demographics of London. The Mayor’s London plan estimated London’s population to be 7.8 million. The census later showed us that it was 8.17 million at least. The London plan assumed that the population would break 8.5 million in 2027. We now believe that it will exceed that figure in 2016. By 2031 there will be 9.5 million people living in our capital city. The areas marked for growth are the upper Lea valley—Chase Farm; the Metropolitan line corridor, with nine A and E units now turning into five; and the south-east of London, where Lewisham is based. There will be 9.5 million people using services that the Health Secretary is seeing shut down. There are huge concerns.

I sat in the Minister’s seat. That was after the terrible winter flu epidemics in the late 1990s. At that point the Whittington hospital in north London was at the epicentre of a public storm because of the bed waits and other long waits. My job, set by the former Member for Darlington who was then Secretary of State for Health, was to ensure that that four-hour wait was a reality across our country. I would sit with chief execs and we would go through the so-called sitreps to ensure that those hospitals were meeting the four-hour waiting target. That was the key element of my job.

I decided to look at the sitrep for the past four weeks across London. There is a target, and if hospitals are doing badly they are flagged as red, while if they are doing well and meeting the target, they are marked as green. I was startled. Ealing, Hillingdon, Imperial, North West London Hospitals, West Middlesex, Barnet and Chase, Whittington, Barking, Guy’s and St Thomas’, King’s College, Lewisham, South London, Epsom and St Helier, Kingston, Croydon and St George all currently fail. Yet it is proposed that we can lose many of our A and E departments—eight across London—at this time. It does not make sense.

This is a health service in London that we look to when a helicopter falls out of the sky or when bombs go off in Canary Wharf or on the underground. This is an A and E service that we look to following riots. I remember the A and E serving our police officers on the first night of riots in my constituency. Londoners will be very concerned indeed that this debate is being framed and structured in this way at this time, with the lack of consultation described so well by my right hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock).

I was staggered when I found out about the proposed changes to Whittington hospital in Camden New Journal. In November, I had a meeting with the chair and the chief executive, with other Members of Parliament, and we found out that a third of the hospital was to be sold off, that it was apparently to be totally reliant on community services, that it was to lose 500 jobs, and that the people of north London would again have to fight to retain the hospital that they loved—a hospital in my constituency in which my two sons and I were born, and which has been served particularly by nurses from the Caribbean.

Londoners are concerned and Londoners will fight. The Minister has the power to act to put an end to the disarray that we are now seeing across London, and I ask her to do so.

16:17

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

I want to speak about changes to the A and E department at Trafford General hospital in my constituency.

Over the years, Trafford General has experienced financial and management problems, and last year it was absorbed into Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. We all expected that there would be a reconfiguration of services following that acquisition, and that is what happened. Last month, following public consultation on the so-called new health deal for Trafford, NHS Greater Manchester announced its intention to proceed with a downgrade of the A and E at Trafford General, first to an urgent care centre open from 8 am until midnight, and in due course to a nurse-led minor injuries unit, alongside other changes to services. I expect those changes now to be referred to the Secretary of State for decision.

Nobody in Trafford is opposed to change that can improve clinical care. Already, major trauma cases are diverted away from Trafford General, while serious stroke and cardiac cases go not to Trafford but to centres of excellence at Salford Royal, University Hospital of South Manchester and Manchester Royal Infirmary. That approach is widely understood and accepted by the public. Equally, plans to develop a model of integrated care locally are popular, and it is recognised that they could help to keep people out of hospital for longer.

However, there are consequences to the reconfigurations that have already taken place and to what is now proposed. More than half of Trafford residents now attend an A and E other than Trafford General, partly because more specialist and complex cases are rightly diverted to other centres, partly because local people are choosing to attend other nearby hospitals that offer them greater convenience or the kind of care they want, partly because it is widely believed that ambulances will not take people to Trafford General unless they specifically instruct them to do so, and partly because the whole downward spiral in activity is reinforcing public behaviour so that they are increasingly even less likely to decide to go to Trafford General. In other words, reducing activity levels are, to a degree, a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There are concerns about the capacity at neighbouring hospitals. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Paul Goggins) has been raising concerns about capacity at the University hospital of South Manchester in Wythenshawe since we first knew about the proposals last summer. Its A and E is already coping with tens of thousands more admissions than the 70,000 for which it was designed. It simply cannot absorb more patients from Trafford without additional investment.

Commissioners assure me that there is progress in the development of integrated care, but that is pretty well invisible to local people. Recovering patients report long waits and great difficulty in getting rehabilitative care and support at home. In the meantime, many of the admissions to our A and E are elderly and frail patients, which is undoubtedly in part the result of the gulf between the ambition for integrated preventive services in the community and the reality.

There are concerns about the capacity of the North West ambulance service. If there is a reduction in hours and capacity at Trafford general, there will clearly be more patient journeys to other hospitals. There are also worries about what will happen if mental health patients present at Trafford general’s urgent care centre and it does not have the capacity to care for them.

All of that is taking place against the backdrop of a wider planned reconfiguration across Greater Manchester. Last year, in the middle of the consultation on the changes at Trafford, we learned about Healthier Together, a major redrawing of health care provision across Greater Manchester, including A and E provision. If, as is likely, that leads to further closures and reductions in A and E services across Manchester, there will be further capacity questions that will have a significant effect on Trafford. We are in an invidious position. It has been said that the new health deal for Trafford offers the best hope of a secure future for Trafford general, but we are planning in a vacuum. We know for sure that change is coming, but we have no idea what it will look like.

Late last year, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) wrote to the Secretary of State asking him to halt the reconfiguration at Trafford and to consider it within the wider Healthier Together review. The Secretary of State refused to do that, but he has offered no guarantees or reassurances regarding the impact of Healthier Together on Trafford general.

There is now a broader context still with Sir Bruce Keogh’s review of emergency services. I hope that the Minister will reassure me that decisions about the future of services at Trafford will not pre-empt Sir Bruce’s review. Sir Bruce has made it clear that it is vital that new services are in place before existing services are closed. In The Guardian on 24 January, he was quoted as saying:

“I don’t think we can change the system until we know we have a solution that is OK.”

He specifically highlighted concerns about

“the idea of some poor mum having to travel to A&E on two buses because we closed an A&E down and she doesn’t have confidence that what is left is good enough”.

That is precisely our fear in Trafford.

I have no doubt about the good intentions and efforts of local NHS managers and commissioners, but they are being constrained by financial pressures and limited, as has become clear this afternoon, by a lack of overall vision and strategy from the Government. Local people cannot be expected to sign up to changes that they do not know have been future-proofed against changes that we know are imminent.

Last month, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh set out a vision for the future of district general hospitals such as Trafford general, which offered a different kind of future and a secure one. I agree with the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) that it is important to strike the right balance between quality and convenience, but process and trust are also important. Today, I have to inform the Minister that people do not feel that trust in relation to the plans for Trafford.

16:23

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

The A and E department at the University hospital of Hartlepool closed in August 2011. I want to raise five points relating to the experience of the 18 months since.

First, clinical safety is paramount in all health reconfigurations. There was clear consensus among senior medical staff that there were significant safety issues with the A and E at Hartlepool. The number of medical staff was insufficient to cover two rotas at Stockton and Hartlepool, and the supervision of junior medical staff was inadequate and did not meet modern guidance criteria. When senior clinical staff say that lives will be saved if changes are made, it is irresponsible for anybody, whether elected representatives or others, not to listen to those expert voices.

Despite the paramount importance of clinical safety, however, it is clear that the people of Hartlepool did not and do not want the closure of their A and E department—no community does. More provision can be made outside the hospital setting and in the local community to make services closer and more convenient to where people live. A One Life centre—a minor injury unit—has been built in the heart of the town centre and should be more easily accessible to a greater number of the town’s population. That is a welcome step. During a debate on A and E in September 2010, I said:

“Moving more serious cases to North Tees is very unwelcome as it is detrimental to my constituents”.—[Official Report, 14 September 2010; Vol. 515, c. 202WH.]

I stand by that.

My area has seen bitter disputes about the reconfiguration of acute services for the best part of 20 years. There is real tension between the views of professionals, who are best placed to consider the safest and most clinically effective means of providing a service, including in specialist concentrated centres, and the general public who will be the recipients and beneficiaries of that service, and who will pay for it through general taxation, even though they may often disagree with the means and location of that service. Successive Governments over two or three decades have failed to reconcile that basic tension. The concept of “No decision about me, without me” and the four tests of reconfiguration that are often bandied about are a fallacy. It is an understatement to say that Hartlepool would have preferred to maintain a full A and E service. People do not feel as if they have had a proper say in the matter.

Safety, changing medical practices and, increasingly, financial considerations, will play the decisive role in where A and E and other health services are located, and invariably it will be against the general wishes of the local population. I would be interested in the Minister’s views about how that tension between clinicians and the public can best be resolved.

That was my second point. My third point concerns communication about where a patient should go. If a child bangs his or head in Hartlepool tonight, where should their parent take them? Previously, it was a relatively simple choice—they went to A and E. Now, a parent is confronted with going perhaps to the A and E at North Tees hospital, perhaps the One Life minor injuries unit and urgent care centre, or even the university hospital of Hartlepool. The new arrangement seems more complex and fragmented, and surely if the system contains greater complexity and fragmentation, there is greater risk.

Some 18 months after the A and E closure, the system is bedding down; it was not perfect from day one, although that is another matter. However, I am not convinced that the risk is being adequately managed. There is inadequate communication and subsequent misdiagnosis, leading to obvious and understandable alarm among my constituents. What will the Minister do about that?

My fourth point concerns the pressing and persistent need to link reconfiguration of health services with transport policy. Such a link is just not there at the moment. How on earth will my constituents be able to travel to North Tees hospital 13 miles away? The hospital is a long way from many of them and difficult to get to. Hartlepool has low rates of car ownership and poor public transport links, and bus services are virtually non-existent, certainly at weekends and evenings. I would not have thought that the Government or local NHS trust wanted the public to rely solely on ambulance services. The point I wish to stress, and which I hope the Minister will address, is that any reconfiguration of services requires transport and accessibility at its heart. At the moment, transport policy is merely being paid lip service. What will the Minister do about that?

My final point is about the wider reconfiguration of health services north of the Tees. Although, as I said earlier, much of the decision to close Hartlepool A and E was based on immediate clinical safety grounds, it is fair to see that decision in the context of the Momentum programme, which is designed to move health services out of the hospital setting and into the community. The Momentum programme culminates in the building and opening of a new hospital in Wynyard, which is designed to incorporate the most advanced equipment and medical and surgical practices and serve the acute health needs of the populations of Hartlepool, Stockton, Sedgefield and Easington. The original plan was for construction to start last year and for the first patients to be admitted by 2014-15. Soon after taking office, however, the Government withdrew public funding for that hospital, and despite warm words and a series of announcements from the Foundation Trust Network, no alternative source of private funding has been approved. We do not appear to be any further forward.

Two procedures are running dangerously out of parallel. We have the Momentum programme, with the reconfiguration of services, and the funding programme for the new hospital. That is now three years out of date and there is no concrete indication that private funding is on the table. Services have been moved without any clarification about the endgame. My big fear is that my constituents will have the worst of all possible worlds with services moving to North Tees and no new hospital. Something must be done.

16:29

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)]

I will try to be as brief as possible so that the debate can be properly concluded.

This debate goes to the heart of what the NHS is about. Many Members of Parliament are deeply frustrated about health plans being hatched in their constituencies, but they have very little power to influence events. The health service is being atomised by a large number of private interests through private finance initiatives, and by a large number of trusts with competing interests. We need a properly planned health service rather than the internal market and competition, which are at the heart of so many of our problems.

If the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois) were still in his place, I could tell him something that would make him even more depressed about the future of Chase Farm hospital. As a former member of the late Enfield and Haringey area health authority in the 1970s, I recall debates on whether Chase Farm should be closed. There are agendas—colleagues will recognise such agendas all over the country—that live on beyond past directors, trusts and reconfigurations: somebody always has an aspiration to close something and centralise something else. If hon. Members think politics in the House of Commons is robust, they should try NHS politics, which is far more robust and nastier than anything we experience here.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) on opening and securing this debate, and on the campaign he is running on behalf of the people of his constituency. Many Members are involved in that campaign in west London and the one in south London. What is going on in London is outrageous. I ask the House to consider what my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) said. London has a fast growing population, great health inequalities and poverty, and a fast growing number of people in the daytime: the population of central London goes up phenomenally during the day because of people commuting to work, going to cultural or sporting events, or simply passing through the capital city. If we start closing A and E departments and saying that everything should go out into the community, and thus that hospitals can be reduced and closed, we are making the future very dangerous for our communities.

As the House is well aware, I represent Islington North. The Whittington hospital is in my constituency. Anything I say about the hospital is not a criticism of it or its wonderful staff—I absolutely support them and their work. Some three years ago, we discovered that the A and E department was due to be closed. As ever, there were denials all over the place. I tell the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) to be ever so sceptical when told that an A and E department is not closing, because closure is probably in a plan somewhere.

We exposed the plan to close the Whittington A and E and eventually had the most bizarre general election rally ever in 2010, when the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), the hon. Members for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), my right hon. Friends the Members for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and for Tottenham, and my hon. Friend the Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry) and I were on a platform pledging to save the A and E department, which was duly saved. However, time moves on. The hospital wants to become a trust and has begun putting together a financial package, to which my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham referred. The package involves the sale of a quarter of the site—apparently, £17 million is to be made from that—the loss of 500 jobs and a reduction in the number of beds in the hospital to 177, which is about half what it was five years ago.

We asked whether an A and E department with a hospital of only 177 beds behind it was viable. Is that not a plan to remove the Whittington as an overall local district general hospital with an A and E department in future? The Camden New Journal and Islington Tribune reported on this with great alacrity last week. I congratulate Tom Foot and all those who put the story together, because I suspect the issue would not otherwise have reached the light of day. At a public meeting next Tuesday, friends, neighbouring MPs and many others from the local community will be questioning the chief executive and others from the hospital, and taking part in a big campaign to protect our hospital.

We all face issues of health care. I think there is a consensus that we all respect and value the principles of the national health service, but if we allow buildings to be sold off and A and E departments to close, we will end up with the health service becoming a service of last resort and with the promotion of private medicine at the expense of the NHS. We will end up with much poorer societies and much greater health inequalities, and that is in nobody’s interest. Let us get control of this in a democratic way, so that we can control what goes on in the health service in our name.

16:35

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

May I first thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) for picking up the baton and sponsoring the debate? It was first proposed to the Backbench Business Committee before Christmas by me and colleagues from other parties as a London debate, and it has had the feel of a London debate. However, colleagues from elsewhere in the country should not feel excluded, because a lot of what is being tried out in London will soon be spreading to the rest of the country if they are not careful.

I had to attend the Justice and Security Public Bill Committee, which meant that I was not here at the beginning of the debate, but I am grateful for the opportunity to speak. Balancing whether to oppose the Government’s attacks on civil liberties or the Government’s attack on the health service is difficult, so it is nice to be able to deal with both in one day.

I will not get involved in a hierarchy of misery. Many Members have spoken passionately about their own experiences, but I will say that both the A and E departments at the world-class hospitals—Hammersmith and Charing Cross—in my constituency are marked for closure. Charing Cross hospital, which in many ways has the best site and some of the best facilities in north-west London, is marked for almost complete closure. All 500 beds will go, the A and E will go and the specialist services will go, leaving an urgent care centre and other services high and dry, such as the Maggie’s cancer centre and the mental health services. To its shame, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust is supporting those closures because it will provide a very valuable piece of real estate for it to sell and thus improve other campuses.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) said, it is not the case that community services have been improved before these closures will take place. Indeed, the White City collaborative care centre, which should have been the first polyclinic in the country is, thanks to a Conservative council, six years late and with a fraction of the services it should have. It is still not open and will not adequately replace any of those services.

What is happening in north-west London flies in the face of the facts. Most hospitals in the area do not meet the four-hour target, owing to the demand on their services. Ambulances are less safe and effective than A and E care. For patients, it is clearly better to be in A and E than in an ambulance. Longer journeys and journey times need to be avoided. There is no evidence that when a good A and E closes most cases get dealt with better via centralisation. There are good data suggesting the opposite is true, as local A and Es have the capability to select patients who require more specialised care, easing the pressure on large units, and to stabilise those patients in the critical intermediate period.

In a nutshell, my constituents are being offered a second-class service. There is no clear demarcation. The health service itself cannot tell us which conditions should go to an urgent care centre and which should go to an A and E. The majority of my constituents will have a worse health service, and that particularly applies to poorer constituents who do not have access to private transport.

Let us look briefly at the process we have gone through, which has been utterly scandalous. As soon as the coalition Government came in they started preparing these closures. They gave millions of pounds to McKinsey to draw up the plans, yet when I asked it about those plans I was lied to about the fact that hospital closures were being prepared and was even told that I had been consulted when I had not. We have heard already about the phoney consultation, the 80,000 signatures that were ignored and the 3,000 or 4,000—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am sure the hon. Gentleman was not suggesting for one moment that he was lied to in the House of Commons.

[Mr Slaughter]

Absolutely not. As part of the consultation process that was undertaken, it is on the record in the documentation that I was consulted. I was not consulted on those matters.

[Stephen Lloyd]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Slaughter]

I am sorry; although I would love to give way, I have been asked not to.

That consultation was ignored. The body taking the decision has no stake in these matters whatever. The joint PCT council, NHS North West London, will not exist. The bodies that do have a stake, namely the clinical commissioning groups that are taking over—the puppet masters, as it were—have too much influence in my view and too much to gain personally. I wish I had time to go through the declarations of interest that members of the CCGs have made. They show that most hold shares in Harmoni, Care UK or other private interests that might benefit from the commissioning powers that the CCGs are about to get. I have not received proper answers from the health service about what those interests are or what they remain.

To conclude, the decision for north-west London will be taken on 19 February, so this debate is very apposite. I have no doubt that the decision will be taken to go ahead with most or all of the proposed closures, but the protests that have taken place—the demonstrations, marches and petitioning—will continue, because this now becomes a political decision for the Secretary of State. In the early-day motion that I tabled last June, I referred to the fact that the health service locally was saying it would run out of money if it did not make these cuts. Services are already being run down by sleight of hand. The buck stops with the Secretary of State and the Government. The ball is in their court. I hope the decision will be taken, first, by the independent panel and, secondly, by the Secretary of State. The Government cannot dodge this issue. This is about cuts, as it was in the 1990s, and the denigration of our local health service. The buck cannot be passed beyond this point. I call on the Minister in her reply to say how she intends to preserve the local health service in north-west London.

16:41

[Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)]

First, let me commend my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) and the hon. Members for Newark (Patrick Mercer) and for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) for initiating this debate and the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to it. As we have heard, given the geographical spread of concerns, this will clearly be the first of many such debates.

The recent events in south-east London have demonstrated just how timely this debate is. Members from all parts of the House have made compelling cases and shown the depth of feeling on this issue, which cannot be approached easily or without extremely strong emotion. I have always fought for the services provided by West Cumberland hospital in my constituency and I always will. I know just how Members feel about the issues facing their hospitals and I am sure the Minister does too. Indeed, I am sure we have all faced them.

The needs and best interests of patients were at the centre of the inspiration to create the national health service, almost 65 years ago, from the ashes of the second world war. The needs and best interests of the patient must remain at the centre of any discussion about health services today. This is the crux of the issue. With that in mind, the recent decision that the Secretary of State for Health took on the A and E department at Lewisham has set the NHS on a dangerous path whereby the core principle underpinning and shaping the design and delivery of hospital services—that which is in the best interests of patients—now looks set to be redefined. This Government have introduced a new basis on which to take decisions—namely, that financial considerations should take precedence over clinical considerations. Any A and E department in the country is vulnerable to change on that basis.

Those two fundamental points—financial considerations taking precedence over clinical considerations and the Government allowing the reorganisation of well functioning hospitals on that basis—create a toxic mix that could have consequences for patient care and well-being. As we have seen—today’s debate is testament to this—the new emerging principle has consequences for the legitimacy of the decision-making process for reconfiguration and the accountability of those behind such processes. We must return to the first principles of health care provision. The patient comes first. Their health care and well-being are paramount. The needs of the patient must always take priority over the needs of any other interest in the system. Services should reflect that, as should their design and delivery.

If a clinical case and clinical evidence suggest that services and, most importantly, patient care can be improved by reconfiguration, we have a duty to support those arguments in the interests of the patient. Where a reconfiguration is shown to improve patient care and ultimately save lives, we cannot and must not stand in the way. Where services can be better provided to those who use them, changes cannot and should not be opposed simply for the sake of opposition.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), the shadow Health Secretary, has made clear the massive challenges facing our health-care system. It is a 20th-century system struggling to answer the questions asked of it by a 21st-century society. There is a huge sustainability challenge characterised by an era of economic austerity, for which there is no line on the horizon, and rapidly rising demand. However, any community that is experiencing reconfiguration without clinical evidence should know that the Opposition will be by its side fighting with it every step of the way. The NHS is our greatest achievement and we guard it jealously.

There are important progressive principles at stake. First, every penny of taxpayers’ money should be spent to its maximum effect, even more so in austere times. As arguably the nation’s most valued public service, the first duty of the NHS is to the patients and public of our country, not to public servants.

Last week, we published a report on the state and condition of A and E services throughout the country. The scale of demand and the pressures on the system are frightening. In the financial year to date about 100,000 more patients are being left to wait for more than four hours in A and E waiting rooms before being seen. That does not show the full scale of the pressure, as an extra 23,000 patients were left waiting on trolleys for more than four hours after being seen and before being admitted to A and E. The pressure then backs up through the ambulance services and, because of the lack of capacity in A and E, patients are being left waiting in the back of ambulances for, in some cases, many hours. This is an issue of capacity or, to be more accurate, lack of capacity. It shows that the system is creaking under the pressure, so reconfigurations based purely on financial considerations are simply unacceptable.

The distinction between the different forms of reconfiguration is important. If a change in services is supported and motivated by clinical evidence, it can offer real improvements to patient satisfaction and to overall levels of care; but if a closure is motivated purely by financial reasons—and if it is taken in the absence of clinical evidence or consultation—that is simply a cut to services hidden beneath the label of reconfiguration, and that is not acceptable.

There are always genuinely hard choices to be made in the national health service, but I would never accept a reconfiguration of hospital services in my constituency based on non-clinical considerations. I am sure that the Minister would not either, and I am convinced that no Member of this House would accept reconfiguration on that basis.

Lewisham A and E was not downgraded because it performed badly or because the level of care for local residents could be improved by focusing services elsewhere; it was downgraded because of financial problems in neighbouring trusts, and that is wrong.

The figures that I have quoted show a system that is on the brink. Further increasing pressures by reducing capacity without clinical reasons has the potential for truly dangerous consequences. Closing without clinical evidence an A and E department that is relied upon can be damaging to local patients and a community, but it also has wider implications for the health care system as a whole. Performance in A and E departments is a barometer of how the wider NHS is performing. Patients on trolleys indicate lack of capacity on wards, and the increased number of delayed discharges shows that patients are being kept in hospitals when they could be receiving care in their communities, but there are clear gaps in primary care provision. A and E departments are under immense strain. Department of Health figures show as much and there is simply no justification for the financially driven closure of services or the downgrading of facilities.

At the heart of the health care service is patient need, and ensuring the right provision of health care services can only be done by speaking with patients and clinicians. That is why it is crucial that consultation is undertaken at every level in any process relating to reconfiguration. A and E services should first of all be about people and not pound signs. Those of us who care about the national health service must guarantee that people are engaged at every possible juncture in the decision-making process. That will ensure that they have a stake in the future design of services, that, crucially, they have the services they need and that they are not subject to back-door, cherry-picked reconfigurations, such as that in Lewisham.

Pressures in A and E departments are felt across the whole health economy of a local health service. Removing an A and E department without clinical support or evidence is hugely disruptive and will have a profound effect on the provision, level, quality and type of every associated service in any and every local health economy. A reconfiguration of emergency services without sound clinical guidance is not a reconfiguration— it is a cut. It is a cut in services and in provision that will be detrimental to the people who rely on those services. In real terms, national health service spending has been cut, and £3.5 billion has been wasted on a reconfiguration that was not voted for by anyone at the last general election. It is not wanted by anyone in this country, including medical professionals, and it has caused chaos in the NHS and in the delivery of its key services.

Opposition Members will never accept purely financially driven reconfigurations. I call on the Minister to commit unequivocally to that principle, and to intervene without delay on reconfigurations that are being driven not by clinical need but by financial pressures. I can only echo the powerful invitation made to the Minister by my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), and remind her that she has the power to intervene and stop this happening. I look forward to her doing so.

16:50

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma), my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer)—if he is not right hon., I am sure he will not complain at my saying that he is—and my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) on securing the debate. It has been a good debate, if rather heated at times. There has been a great deal of passion, and rightly so. Fighting to defend our NHS and our hospitals in whatever way we need to is something that all Members should do. It is one of the reasons that we come here—to be champions of our local causes and to advance the cause of our constituents.

I apologise to the hon. Member for Lewisham West and Penge (Jim Dowd) if my intervention exacerbated his rising blood pressure. As the Minister for public health, I get concerned about his blood pressure, but he made it clear that he spoke with passion.

[Jim Dowd]

Will the Minister give way?

[Anna Soubry]

I have only about nine minutes, and I hope he will forgive me if I do not take any interventions. I will answer any points that he wants to raise in a letter or in any other way.

Yesterday, many of us took the view that we had seen one of the best moments in Parliament, when the Prime Minister rose to talk about the Francis report. It has been noted not only by Members but in the press and elsewhere that his statement and the responses of Members on both sides of the House were made without any finger-pointing, any blame or any party political point scoring. Many people think that it was a refreshing moment. I want to remind the House of what the Prime Minister said in response to an hon. Member’s question to him. He said:

“Let me refer again, however, to one of the things that may need to change in our political debate. If we are really going to put quality and patient care upfront, we must sometimes look at the facts concerning the level of service in some hospitals and some care homes, and not always—as we have all done, me included—reach for the button that says ‘Oppose the local change’.”—[Official Report, 6 February 2013; Vol. 558, c. 288.]

In quoting the Prime Minister, I pay tribute to the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newark, my hon. Friends the Members for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) and for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) and the right hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy). These matters are not easy. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central explained how he sat on one side of the fence, regarding the reconfigurations in his area, and in direct contrast to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh). She is doing the right thing in talking about the needs of her constituents and fighting for them as she does, but that is an example of a reconfiguration in which two Members want to do their best but are effectively at odds. That is inherent in these sorts of changes, and in these concerns about the future of our accident and emergency services. Indeed, I have had meetings with my right hon. Friends the Members for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) and for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), because they too have views on the reconfigurations in their area, as we might imagine.

I want to set the record straight and make it clear that the reconfiguration of clinical services is essentially a matter for the local NHS, which must, in its considerations, put patients at the heart of any changes. As my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury said, the NHS has always had to respond to the changing needs of patients and to advances in medical technology. As lifestyles, society and medicine continue to change, the NHS needs to change too. The coalition Government’s overall policy on reconfiguration—if I have to repeat it, I will, to make it absolutely clear—is that any changes to health care services should be locally led and clinically driven. That is our policy, and those who seek to say otherwise do so in order to score cheap political points, which do them no favours whatever.

Let me turn, if I may, to the comments made in the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Newark, which was also touched on by the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright). It is absolutely right and it is the case that there is confusion about the terminology. What does “urgent care” mean; what does “A and E” mean; how does it all fit in; where do we go? The hon. Member for Hartlepool made a very good point when he talked about the need for good public transport services to be part of any reconfiguration. I accept that.

I am pleased to say that on 18 January 2013, the NHS Commissioning Board announced that it is to review the model of urgent and emergency services in England. The review, which will be led by the medical director Sir Bruce Keogh, will set out proposals for the best way of organising care to meet the needs of patients. The review will help the NHS to find the right balance between providing excellent clinical care in serious complex emergencies, and maintaining or improving local access to services for less serious problems. It will set out the different levels and definitions of emergency care. This will include top-level trauma centres at major hospitals such as my own, the Queen’s medical centre in Nottingham —and here I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Newark would accept that the journey to that centre down the A46 has added to provision for the great town of Newark. The definitions will be looked at and the review will take into account, as I say, the trauma centres at major hospitals, but also local accident and emergency departments and facilities providing access to expert nurses and GPs for the treatment of more routine but urgent health problems.

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

rose—

[Anna Soubry]

I am not giving way. I really, truly do not have the time, and I am trying to respond to all the points raised. I want to make reference, and indeed give credit, to all Members who have taken part in the debate.

As part of the review’s work, it needs to consider public understanding of the best place to go for care.

Let me refer to the important and valid speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray). She spoke about the fact that many of her constituents and others—full credit to a cross-party campaign—feel that this has been a fait accompli or a done deal. She spoke about the need to work with people—other hon. Members have talked about that, too—and the need for those conducting these configurations to work with the people and to explain things to the people. She put it very ably, if I may say so, when she emphasised the importance of “taking people with you”. I think everybody should remember that important point.

I pay tribute to the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois). He made a number of points, all of which, he will be pleased to know, I have written down. I know he is meeting the Secretary of State in just a couple of weeks’ time or it may be next week. Again, this is a cross-party meeting. I will not go through all my hon. Friend’s points, but I think they are important ones, which I know he will put with great force to the Secretary of State.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne talked about the four principles and four tests of any reconfiguration, and the importance of support from GP commissioners.

I see in their places the right hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Dame Joan Ruddock) and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) who raised points about the very difficult decision taken on Lewisham and other hospitals—a decision that I think was absolutely right. I know it has caused great concern, but Lewisham will not lose its A and E. It will see a reduction, but it will not lose it. Those Members and others have stressed the need for GPs to be part and parcel of what happens. My hon. Friend the hon. Member for Enfield North expressed concern about the possibility that the fact the clinical commissioning groups had yet to come into operation had not been taken into account.

I see that the clock is against me. I had many more things to say, but I cannot now say them. What I will say is that I thank all who have contributed to what has been a good debate, and that, if I have not replied to any points that have been made, I will write to the Members concerned.

16:59

[Mr Virendra Sharma]

How disappointed I am that the Minister failed—utterly failed—to address the issue—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order. Sadly, time has defeated us.

17:00

The debate stood adjourned.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).

Business without Debate

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

Sittings of the House

Motion made,

That this House shall sit on Friday 22 March.—(Greg Hands.)

[Hon. Members]

Object.

A47 (Upgrading and Dualling)

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Greg Hands.)

17:00

[George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)]

The A47 is a strategic route of national and regional importance to the East Anglian and the Norfolk economies. I am delighted to have an opportunity to raise the subject in the House, and to encourage and thank the Minister for his support for the work of all the Norfolk Members and others in the region; highlight the importance of the proposed works to our local economy and the national economy; and seek further reassurance from the Minister on some of the points on which he reassured me when we met before Christmas.

Let me first thank the Minister and his colleagues in the Department for Transport for their encouragement. Last summer we went to see the Minister’s predecessor as roads Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Mike Penning), who told us that historically the road had not been supported by the regional development agency and that we had our work cut out to make the case. The Government’s approach now is to invite local parties to set out a clear business plan for roads, and to make the case that Government investment will be more than matched by significant co-investment along the route.

I am delighted to say that the county council, New Anglia—the local enterprise partnership—and all the local Members of Parliament and business organisations came together to produce a report that set out exactly what the Government had asked for: a business plan for the route entitled “A47—Gateway to Growth”. I am delighted that that document was so well received by the Government, and grateful to the Minister and his officials for their support for it.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate, and I am delighted that he has supported the Minister, who has taken a great interest in the issue. We in west Norfolk were delighted by the Minister’s recent announcement that we would indeed be given the Middleton crossing for which we had been pushing for a long time. Does my hon. Friend agree that the A47 really does need more dualling to ensure that Norfolk fulfils its full potential? He may be aware that the White Paper “Roads for Prosperity”—published in 1988, before he was born—recommended that the entire road should be dualled. After all those years, we really must make more progress.

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend has made a powerful and important point, to which I am sure the Minister will want to respond.

I have initiated this debate in order to highlight the key strategic importance of this route to our economy, to raise its profile nationally and to build the momentum of the important campaign and the work that is taking place locally. The road is of key strategic importance to our region and our nation, but it is also a dangerous route for those who use and cross it. I believe, and I know that the other local Members believe, that it could act as a catalyst, enabling East Anglia to become a genuine centre for innovation and enterprise focused on the greater Norwich economy. I hope that the Minister will provide further reassurance this evening that the Government will make the route a priority in the next round of funding, will look kindly on my request for pinch-point funds, and will view sympathetically my concern about some of the bottlenecks that need particularly urgent attention because they have the greatest potential to unlock growth.

[Mr Richard Bacon (South Norfolk) (Con)]

My hon. Friend raised the issue of safety. My constituents are lucky, in that the section of the A47 that is immediately to the north of them, in both the east and the west, is the bit that is immediately south of Norwich, which is dualled. As my hon. Friend knows, however, the road stops being dualled very slightly to the west of that. People whom I have employed in my office for years knew people—often they were at school with them—who were killed in accidents on that extremely dangerous stretch just to the west of the point at which the dualling ceases. Does my hon. Friend agree that of all the various considerations, safety should be one of the foremost in the Minister’s mind?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. He is absolutely right that one of the most dangerous things about this road now is its intermittent dualling. In both of our constituencies, some of the most lethal sections are those where the road goes from dualled to undualled. Every month we hear of terrible injuries and deaths on the road.

This campaign has the full support not only of the county council and the local enterprise partnership, but of all my fellow Norfolk MPs, and I thank them for their leadership and support. On this, as on other infrastructure issues, we are “Norfolk united.” A number of colleagues are unable to speak in the debate. In particular, I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), who is now rightly on the Front Bench as Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. He has played a key role in highlighting the Acle straight and the Vauxhall roundabout, and in making our case powerfully to Ministers and helping to organise the two meetings we have had. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), who also holds a Front-Bench post, as Under-Secretary of State for Education, and is unable to be here tonight. She has made clear her support for the A47 as a major route.

Across Norfolk we have for many years waited in vain for infrastructure funding. It is well recognised that this coalition Government have done more in the last two or three years for infrastructure in Norfolk than have successive Governments over previous decades. We have finally had success on the A11. Those of us who use that road, which is still a bottleneck, can now see the bulldozers laying the foundations for the dualling that will be done by 2015.

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. I hope many of the important A47 junction improvements adjacent to my constituency, such as those on to the A11, the A140 and on to Longwater, will be made available through local developer contributions, freeing up land capacity to support thousands of new jobs in Norwich. Does he agree, however, that the city will become even more attractive to investors when harder-to-fund schemes between Great Yarmouth and Norwich out to King’s Lynn and the west become deliverable, too?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, which serves to remind me that the Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Miss Smith), who could not be present tonight and who is also muted by virtue of being on the Front Bench, has asked me to pass on this comment:

“The A47 is an important road for Norwich businesses and households. I support the campaign for its improvement because it will bring more jobs to the city and around the county.”

Norfolk has waited for infrastructure improvements for a long time, and now, like the No. 11 bus, many have come at once: the A11 is being dualled; there is substantial investment in our rail network as a result of our putting together our Anglian rail prospectus; and the Government are funding fast broadband. All of that comes not before time, because our county is ready to rise and meet the challenge of a rebalanced economy. With the necessary infrastructure in place, we will be able to do so.

The A47 is now the most pressing and urgent infrastructure issue in our county. It is the blocked artery that runs across it from east to west, linking our economy to the midlands and allowing goods to be moved in and out. We have major ports of international significance on our east coast, and in and around Great Yarmouth there is an increasingly significant energy cluster. It is lamentable that this road was not prioritised by the RDA, and many of us may wonder why on earth not.

My personal interest is obvious. The A47 runs right through the middle of my Mid Norfolk constituency and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) has highlighted, its intermittent dualling presents great dangers to all its users and to those in the rural economy who seek not to use the A47, but to cross it, whether on bicycle, horse or tractor. I know from my own experiences of cycling the route before the last election just how dangerous it is. At this point I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson), who recently drove the route in a union flag-bedecked Mini from east to west to highlight its importance.

My other interest in this issue is as the Government’s adviser on life sciences. I have talked before in this Chamber about the potential of the Norwich research park, an increasingly globally recognised centre of science and research in three of the most exciting global markets: food, medicine and energy. Its companies pioneer some of the most exciting science in the country, such as the blight-resistant potato and the Lotus car I recently saw that is fuelled by biofuels created from agricultural waste.

Norwich is a centre of life sciences, but it sits out deep in the last county not to be connected properly to the national trunk road system, and with no non-stop links through to the rail network. It is a county that desperately needs infrastructure if it is to be allowed to play its part in the Government’s mission to rebalance our economy.

The truth is that this is a trans-European route of economic significance that has been neglected for far too long. The lack of connectivity and poor development are holding back the whole Norfolk economy. With investment in our infrastructure, we can spread growth around and reduce the amount that we in government have to spend on welfare and on tackling the problems of social and economic exclusion that flow from poor infrastructure.

The opportunity is significant. As the business plan makes clear, with a programme of targeted improvements we can transform the 105 miles of the A47 into a truly strategic national and international link, linking our region to central and northern Europe and to the midlands and the north of England, and linking our regional clusters—Cambridge, Norwich, Yarmouth and Ipswich—of innovation and science and new business growth. As the business plan makes clear, over the 20 years for which it sets out the programme of work, we have the potential to generate 10,000 jobs, to increase the economic output of our county by £390 million a year, to attract private investment worth more than £800 million, to recruit an extra 500 investment-related jobs and to cut journey times by 30 minutes, delivering savings of £42 million to road users. These are significant numbers, and they are not, Mr Deputy Speaker, you will be pleased to know, plucked out of the air but put together by professional consultants and officials at the county council and the LEP who constructed the business case. Of course, these works will also dramatically improve safety for users and for those crossing the route.

Importantly, the document sets out a series of regional benefits across the route. In King’s Lynn, in the west, where the focus is on regeneration, the plan envisages 750 new jobs, £15 million of private investment and 400 new dwellings.

[Mr Bellingham]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning King’s Lynn. Obviously, Norwich has the most phenomenal potential and is going to move forward, and King’s Lynn wants to do the same. If King’s Lynn is connected to Norwich by an improved A47, it will really be a part of that economic regeneration. That is why this is so important not just for links to the rest of the country, but within Norfolk itself.

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend is a passionate and effective advocate for King’s Lynn and that area, and he has done extraordinary work in putting it on the map, both through rail and now through road. He makes an excellent point: by connecting these centres, we not only improve the national economy but help to tackle problems of exclusion and deprivation locally.

The business plan makes clear the economic benefits in Norwich: 5,000 jobs, £240 million in additional private investment and an extra 2,500 dwellings. For Great Yarmouth—represented admirably by the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth, who has to sit silent on the Front Bench and listen to me describe the benefits in his own constituency—the figures are 3,865 jobs, £227 million in private investment, and 200 dwellings.

It is not least for that reason that the business plan has had such support from the local business community. Richard Marks, managing director of John Lewis in Norwich, said:

“Norwich is growing its reputation as a retail destination…we support the proposals which will help improve communication across the county”.

Matthew Jones, chief operating officer of Norwich research park, said:

“The NRP fully supports the plans for improving the A47 which are essential to achieving the huge potential of the park to drive economic growth and development of the greater Norwich area”.

Phil Gadd, contracts director at Norwich airport, said:

“The world can fly to Norwich. However, it cannot access the region. We need to improve the A47”

as a strategic gateway. The chairman of the Mid Norfolk branch of the Federation of Small Businesses said:

“I regularly use the A47, if I could just save 15 minutes every day and everyone else using the A47 could do the same, that equates to thousands of hours every year.”

[Mr Bacon]

My hon. Friend mentioned the Norwich research park, which is in my constituency and has the largest concentration, as he will know, of plant and food scientists in Europe, and possibly the world. He will also know that the Government have put money into improvements at the research park, which is extremely welcome. However, does he agree that the value of that taxpayer investment will be deflated to some extent if the connection that we want to see between Norwich and the cluster of expertise there and elsewhere, in centres such as Cambridge, cannot be improved?

[George Freeman]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. It would be madness for the Government, having recognised the potential of our region—and the NRP as the jewel in the crown of the Norfolk innovation economy—in terms of making improvements to the A11, rail and broadband, and of creating and helping to support a cluster of new businesses and growth, to then hold that back by allowing the A47, the clogged artery of Norfolk, to constrict and constrain growth. We know that if we cannot get the goods in and out and if we cannot get the talent, the goods and the people we need in to the middle of Norwich quickly—to the Norwich research park, which sits on the edge of his constituency and mine—the investment that the Government have already made will not deliver its full potential. With this artery unclogged, we will be able to make that money work properly.

The Minister gave us huge reassurance when we met before Christmas. I was delighted, as we all were, to hear him say that the Government are funding three route-based strategies in the current financial year to upgrade key routes across the country: the A1 in Newcastle, the M62 and the A12. We were told that those three strategies being undertaken by the Highways Agency will inform funding decisions to be made in the next Government spending review period from 2015 onwards. He made it extremely clear to us that he was obviously not able, at that time, to give us any clear commitment or guarantees on funding, but he did acknowledge that the case we made was very powerful and said that he would look carefully at it. He said:

“I’m convinced this could be the 4th or 5th scheme to put into this route-based strategy process.”

I am hoping that he will now reassure us that his convictions have only been strengthened by what he has heard tonight.

I have talked to the county council and the New Anglia LEP, and they have highlighted that we have an excellent opportunity now to bring forward elements of the programme through the Government’s pinch-point programme for trunk roads. A number of the more modest schemes proposed along the route would seem to fit the criteria, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give a little reassurance that we are pushing at an open door here. In particular, I am thinking here of the A47 Acle straight ditch relocation scheme, the details of which I will spare the House, although I will happily provide them to him and his officials after the debate, if that would be helpful; the junctions of the James Paget hospital, Beacon park roundabout and Bridge road with the A12 at Great Yarmouth; the A149 Asda junction in Great Yarmouth; and the A47 and B1108 junction at Norwich.

Although support for those schemes would be hugely welcome, the criteria mean that the highest priority and most-needed measures to stimulate housing and jobs growth are not within the scope of the current funding, as they are too large. We wanted to take the opportunity to highlight a number of projects tonight, and they are as follows: a third river crossing in Great Yarmouth; improvements at the A47 Vauxhall roundabout in Great Yarmouth; the A47 Easton to North Tuddenham dualling; the Acle straight dualling to North Burlingham; the Thickthorn interchange; the A47 Longwater junction; and improvements to the A47 Hardwick junction.

As the business case shows, local partners have been active in seeking local contributions towards those schemes. However, the scale of investment is such that Government support will be essential for us to be able to secure an overall funding package. We would all welcome any advice from the Minister as to how best we might be able to access such support.

In response to the presentation of the business case before Christmas, the Minister was very clear, telling us:

“The A47 campaign had put together a very powerful and well constructed argument. They have moved substantially forward from where they were two years ago. They have the local authorities, MPs and the local enterprise partnership all working together. I certainly recognise that the A47 is a corridor of strategic importance, and I think I did give them hope there is going to be progress on this project.”

I want to close by thanking the Minister for his diligence, his commitment to this project and his encouragement for the work that we are doing. I ask him to take this opportunity tonight to reassure us that we are pushing at an open door and to give us as much hope as he can that this blocked artery will quickly be unblocked, for the benefit of the nation.

17:19

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman)on securing the debate. I know that the paucity of people in the Public Gallery has nothing to do with the power of his case; I am sure that it is more the thought of the Minister replying.

My hon. Friend raised with me, the Department and the Highways Agency the subject of future improvements to the A47 along with a number of other hon. Members, some of whom are in the Chamber tonight. They include my hon. Friends the Members for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), for Norwich North (Miss Smith), for Norwich South (Simon Wright), for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham) and for Broadland (Mr Simpson). Tonight we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk. I met him recently and was delighted to do what we could at Middleton, and I also heard what he had to say when he made the case for King’s Lynn. Of course, I also heard the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr Bacon) about the Norwich research park, and it will not be lost.

I recently met my hon. Friends to discuss future proposals to improve the A47 so they know I take a great interest in the subject. I appreciate that it is important for the constituents of my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk, those of my other hon. Friends and the economic growth of the whole region. Before I discuss the A47 specifically, it is probably worth making the point that the Government regard infrastructure as a top priority. We set out in the coalition agreement a commitment to a low-carbon transport infrastructure as an essential element of building a dynamic and entrepreneurial economy. We reiterated the importance of investment in economic growth, including in the strategic and local road networks.

The A47 is part of the strategic road network, which is worth about £100 billion and covers some 4,350 miles of motorway and all-purpose trunk roads. The fact that we recognise the importance of its maintenance and enhancement can be seen through the history of this Government’s spending. In the 2010 spending review, we announced the investment of £1.4 billion in starting 14 major road schemes. In the 2011 autumn statement we identified for accelerated delivery two Highways Agency major road schemes and introduced six more schemes, making eight in total, and we allocated £1 billion of new investment to tackle areas of congestion. In the 2012 autumn statement, the Chancellor announced additional capital investment in this Parliament that would enable four further new major Highways Agency schemes to be introduced as well as making moneys available for pinch-point schemes in the strategic and local road networks.

Within the current spending review period, we will spend £1.8 billion on local authority major schemes. They will deliver significant improvements to local road networks and public transport across the country. My hon. Friends will recognise that one of those is the Norwich northern distributor road, and I hope they acknowledge the money that will go into that project.

It is important to recognise that our investment commitment is not only in the major schemes. Importantly, the Chancellor announced in his 2012 autumn statement the provision of a further £100 million of capital expenditure to undertake pinch-point schemes on the strategic network. From my point of view and, I hope, that of my hon. Friends, the most important announcement was the £170 million for a new fund for the local authority network to allow the authorities to consider the possibilities for schemes that would unlock congestion and sponsor economic growth.

I am sure that my hon. Friends will acknowledge our announcement last October about two pinch-point schemes on the A47—at the Honingham roundabout and at the junction between the A1 and the A47 at Peterborough. The Highways Agency is involved in delivering those beneficial schemes and they will both be delivered by the end of the spending round, by which I mean March 2015. I hope that my hon. Friends will recognise and welcome that short-term investment.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk for setting out both the context and the need for future improvements to the A47. As he and other hon. Friends will know, and as he acknowledged, I met a number of them in December to discuss the proposals put forward by the A47 Alliance in its “Gateway to Growth” prospectus. I am happy to reiterate what an excellent document that was. It showed how local and regional interests had combined, in stark contrast to what we had seen under previous Governments. Members of Parliament and representatives from county and district councils had come together and worked closely together to set out the case for future investment. They make that case more powerfully if they do so in a joined-up, coherent fashion.

I recognise what that prospectus says. It is a targeted programme of improvements to the strategic road network. It details about 15 specific individual schemes, with five related to the Highways Agency network and a range of other proposals. I could, if my hon. Friends wish, detail all 15 schemes now, but I know that they will have read that document and have it close to them all the time. I will therefore not detail all those schemes, but they are exciting and they would generate growth, unlock housing and be good for road safety. They tick all the boxes.

The partners in the A47 Alliance have secured funding for some of these propositions already, and they are confident that they can go further and secure delivery locally. I recognise the case being made. The A47 is part of the strategic road network. Sections around Peterborough, Lynn and Norwich are all dual carriageway standard. Some elements of it are not. There have been previous and significant improvements to the A47, but it is fair to make the point that the previous Government curtailed a number of improvements that would have helped Norfolk: the Acle straight, the Blofield to North Burlingham dualling, the North Tuddenham to Easton and the East Wynch-Middleton bypasses all seemed to go the way of so many regional plans throughout the country—

[Mr Bacon]

The A140 was the same.

[Stephen Hammond]

Indeed—much talked about but seldom delivered. It is worth putting it on the record that the A47 Alliance rightly puts those proposals back into the package. They would be of great benefit.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Norfolk rightly recognises that we are developing route-based strategies as a way of analysis. Three are already being trialled. In considering major future enhancements to the network, we are looking to local authorities, local enterprise partnerships and other interested parties, including academic institutions and councils, to work together to assess the potential of their region by addressing not only the transport problems that they face, but the economic growth that would be unleashed if those transport problems and congestion were resolved.

It is right, as I stated in December and am happy to reaffirm this evening, that excellent work has been done by the A47 Alliance. That is ideally placed to be considered one of the earliest route-based strategies in the forthcoming programme, and I hope that it will be among the first one or two after the three that we are currently considering.

I conclude by thanking my hon. Friend for yet again making the case. I recognise absolutely the importance of the A47 and the economic improvements that it could bring. I am convinced that East Anglia is not a Cinderella region. I made that point when I was with my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk at the start of works for the A11 dualling. The interest from colleagues here on a Thursday evening shows how powerfully they are making the case for their constituencies, sometimes purposefully from the Back Benches and sometimes a little more mutedly by my hon. Friend the Member for Great Yarmouth.

[George Freeman]

He is not normally that quiet.

[Stephen Hammond]

He is this evening, but the force of his advocacy for his constituents is recognised.

I recognise the importance of the A47 and I am glad that we have yet again been able to air its importance this evening.

Question put and agreed to.

17:29

House adjourned.

Westminster Hall

Thursday 7th February 2013 Westminster Hall

Thursday 7 February 2013

[Jim Sheridan in the Chair]

Protecting the Arctic

Thursday 7th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Relevant documents: Protecting the Arctic, Second Report of the Environmental Audit Committee, HC 171, and the Government Response, HC 858.]

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

13:30

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan. I am pleased to see not only the Minister and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson, but valued members of the Environmental Audit Committee who have worked hard on the report that I have the pleasure to present.

This debate is important. I thank the Liaison Committee for selecting our Committee’s report for debate, because we want to keep pressure on the Government. To echo the words of the Liaison Committee, we have a real resolve to achieve change, and we cannot think of a more fitting way to achieve change than in our work to protect the Arctic. Committee members have done lots of work on the report, including the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), who has done a lot of work on the Antarctic as well. We are a group of Members of Parliament from various parties who take the agenda seriously.

The Arctic is one of the last pristine wildernesses left on earth, but it is changing rapidly due to climate change. Last year, the Arctic sea ice melted to an unprecedented all-time low. Satellite measurements of its extent and volume showed that between 2003 and 2011, the ice volume decreased by 50%—much more than previously estimated. At that rate of decline, we will completely lose summer sea ice in the Arctic within a decade. Much scientific work is still ongoing into the matter, and we heard during our inquiry from a range of scientists. I hope that our report can serve as a textbook for many people, including in schools and universities, who are trying to understand what is happening in the Arctic.

Why does it matter for us in the UK? As we reported, the effects of climate change are already being felt in the Arctic and are likely to continue to be felt more profoundly there than perhaps anywhere else on earth. Climate change in the Arctic may affect our weather, making colder winters in the UK and northern Europe possible in future. It is worth pointing out that, although climate change and environmental issues are not at the top of everyone’s agenda, the effects of severe weather change on food production and supply and the implications for health and safety, as well as access to food, make it clear that changing weather patterns and what is happening in the Arctic affect all of us in one way or another, so we should be concerned.

The Arctic is the last outpost for a number of species with global significance, and we share much of the Arctic’s migratory biodiversity. We have a strong and well-regarded scientific community working on Arctic issues, and I believe that that gives the UK great influence. As the ice melts, shipping routes will open up through the Arctic, cutting journey times between continents. Access from Europe to the northern sea route across the north of Russia will be through the North sea.

The melting is also encouraging oil and gas drilling in the region. The UK has a large oil and gas sector, and many UK companies will undoubtedly seek to exploit the Arctic’s predicted fossil fuel reserves. London is the global finance capital and a world centre for insurance, both of which will be needed for any future development in the Arctic, which also gives us influence.

The UK is an observer at the Arctic Council, the body set up to aid co-operation in the region, and the Committee has made copies of our report available to the Arctic Council. The Arctic Council is now seen as the primary international forum for co-operation on Arctic matters. While we wait to see whether the Arctic Council will give observer status to the EU and China later this year, the UK’s long-standing role in the council gives us the scope to help shape the future of the Arctic.

We believe that that all adds up to a strong UK interest in the Arctic that, sadly, the UK Government are not embracing to the extent that we think they should; that was one of the recommendations of our report, which was timely. When we started to examine the evidence last summer, Shell was due to start drilling in the Arctic and Cairn Energy had been drilling off the coast of Greenland for a couple of years. As more ice melts year on year, we can expect many other oil companies that have invested heavily in licences to seek to start operations. That is a desperate and perverse irony: climate change is opening up the region to oil and gas exploration, which is being driven by burning oil and gas. That inconsistency needs to be examined and acted on.

The world does not need more oil and gas. There are already more proven oil and gas reserves than we can burn, while still avoiding more than a 2ºC global temperature rise. I was interested by the comments made by Professor Nicholas Stern at the Davos conference last month. He basically said that if he had realised earlier what he knows now, he would have focused more on even greater climate change targets. The International Energy Agency says that no more than one third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed before 2050 if the world is to achieve the 2ºC goal. We sought clarity from the Government on how looking for new oil and gas in the Arctic can be reconciled with commitments to limit temperature rises to 2ºC. The Government responded that the world will still need some oil and gas in the low-carbon transition, that Arctic oil will fill that gap when proven reserves are used up and that we will still keep within the 2º rise.

We heard a few weeks ago from Greenpeace and others that the Government are cherry-picking statistics from the International Energy Agency’s 2011 world energy outlook to justify their position, not least because the 2012 edition assumes a minimal Arctic oil contribution to production in 2035. Rather than the IEA’s 2011 data, what does the Minister make of its 2012 data? It is important that we have up-to-date data on which to base our evidence and policy. What does he make of the 2012 data showing that already discovered oil and gas fields will meet future demand, and what does that mean for the Government’s position on oil and gas exploration in the Arctic? He must spell that out. Whatever the arguments, it is clear that the Government are not prepared to set a global example on climate change while profits are still to be had.

In our report, we called for a moratorium on further oil and gas operations in the Arctic. From the extensive evidence that we took, it was clear to us that drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic is simply too risky at present. The Arctic, as we know, is a harsh environment in which to operate. The short Arctic summer allows only a limited window for drilling before the ice re-forms. Last year, Shell had to stop operations a day after drilling began when an iceberg encroached on its drill site.

Each phase of oil and gas development will have unavoidable impacts on ecosystems. If there is an oil spill in the Arctic, little of the spilled oil is likely to be recovered. Only 6% to 7% of the oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez incident was collected, and toxic oil is still to be found on beaches more than 20 years later. The traditional spill response techniques used around the globe have not been proven to work in the cold and remoteness of the Arctic, and we received striking evidence on that.

There are different regulatory regimes across the Arctic for oil and gas drilling, and there is no region-wide requirement to use the best and safest available technology, which is important. Given the risks, oil and gas companies should be required to drill in the best and safest way possible, regardless of cost.

We believe that much more research is needed to understand the full consequences of such techniques. On balance, and applying the precaution principle, the Committee feels that it is too soon to use geo-engineering techniques, but further research should start now. However, action to address black carbon, or soot, particles would be a quick win. Soot from industrialised countries flows north and lands on the snow and ice, hastening its melting.

Many people have given scientific evidence to our Committee, and there is an ongoing debate within the scientific community on whether there could be a geo-engineering response to what is happening, but we are absolutely clear that more research is needed.

I am pleased that the Government have gone some way towards addressing our recommendations. A strategy is needed to bring together the UK’s diverse interests in the Arctic, environmental as well as economic and diplomatic, and to engage all stakeholders. Without a strategy, there is a risk that Departments might not work in a cross-cutting way. The Government, in their response to our report, were too nervous to use the word “strategy”, preferring to call it a “policy framework”, but I am pleased that it will be developed in a consultative fashion and seek to address some of the issues that we have raised.

I am conscious that other Members wish to speak. Overall, I am disappointed that the Government have not gone further by accepting our other recommendations. As our report demonstrates, it is in all our interest that the Arctic is developed sustainably. The Arctic is too important to be left to those states that have set their economic future on the development of fossil fuels in the region. We shall not be leaving the matter with our report; we intend to return again and again to consider issues such as the amount of time that it has taken the International Maritime Organisation to introduce proper shipping policies and our calls for a moratorium on drilling. We will certainly bring Shell back before our Committee as soon as possible to talk about what went wrong with its proposed drilling operations during the winter months. Our cross-cutting Select Committee is absolutely committed to doing all it can to protect the Arctic.

13:40

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

Thank you for calling me to speak in this important debate, Mr Sheridan, not least because I thoroughly enjoy being a member of the Environmental Audit Committee, particularly when producing our report, which is both inspiring and slightly alarming at times given our findings.

I thank virtually everyone in the room, because, in one way or another, they have contributed to my other great passion: the Antarctic. The Antarctic Bill is progressing through Parliament, and I have been greatly supported in that endeavour by a large number of my colleagues on the Environmental Audit Committee. I am grateful, too, to our Chairman for remarking on that work at the beginning of her speech.

There are some obvious differences between the Antarctic and the Arctic. One is location, and the other is that polar bears live in the Arctic and penguins live in the Antarctic. Another important difference is jurisdiction: we have jurisdiction in the Antarctic. We are part of a treaty structure, and we have taken a strong leadership role in promoting not only Britain’s interests, but those of the Antarctic through that mechanism, which, ironically, is what my Bill is all about and what the British Government’s work supports. The British Antarctic Survey does a huge amount of excellent work in logistics, science and maintaining British presence through its several bases. The recent opening of one base, Halley VI, was celebrated by a large number of people this week. We are doing a huge amount in the Antarctic, which is excellent and should be saluted and recognised.

However, jurisdiction in the Arctic is, of course, a different kettle of fish, because we are not an Arctic state. We are not on the Arctic Council, and, therefore, we are at a disadvantage when making policy statements about the Arctic. I can find nothing to disagree with in the report when it comes to the overall interest in protecting the Arctic and the danger that various measures might exacerbate the already serious threat of climate change.

The fundamental question is this: what can we do? The Government made that clear in their response to our report, which was published on 9 January. Essentially, the Government recognise the difference in jurisdiction between the Antarctic and the Arctic, and, as our Chairman mentioned, they go on to talk about a framework for the Arctic.

We must recognise our limitations, but also the challenges we need to meet to do something about them. There is another paradox, which is that Norway is an Arctic state. Many people talk about Norway’s non-membership of the European Union: Norway pays a lot of money to be involved with the European Union, and it salutes virtually all EU regulations, but it has no say. Perversely, that is the problem we have in the Arctic that, as an Arctic state, Norway does not.

I am making two points: one is about Europe and the importance of being a member of the European Union, and the second is about the Arctic and our relatively weak position in delivering some of the report’s promises and expectations.

Recognising all that, because they are statements of accepted fact, what can the Government really do? We must apply appropriate pressure. We can signal what we have already achieved in the Antarctic as an example. Do not forget that there is no exploitation in the Antarctic, which is a demilitarised zone. We agree on who owns what, and we are taking further steps to protect the Antarctic. That is British leadership at its best, and we will have to apply such leadership not directly, because of the jurisdiction problem, but collectively with others. That is the task before us. Basically, we must say to Arctic states, and to other states that have indicated their interest, that there is a problem we must work together to solve.

In summary, protecting the Antarctic is important. The problems are enormous, the threats are great and climate change must be tackled. In many ways, the report points to how that should be done. The difference between the Arctic and the Antarctic must be recognised, and we must respond in a slightly different way. I have set out my thinking along those lines, which the Minister may want to consider. I hope we can all agree that this is a working-together operation, and if British leadership can be exerted through the European Union and our other international relationships, that would be good.

13:49

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan, and to follow the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael). I agree with the general drift of what he said.

This is an important report. I will not congratulate the Members of the Committee on it because that would be somewhat self-congratulatory. However, I want to put on the record my thanks and a tribute to the Chair of the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), for the way in which she has led the Committee on this report and for the other work that she has done since 2010 to make the Committee’s work a success. The report highlights some important issues.

Evidence of the importance of the issues covered in the report can be seen in the fact that since the Committee first announced its inquiry, when it was regarded as an esoteric subject for investigation, it has risen a long way up the political and public policy list of concerns, both in the UK and internationally. The report combines a useful summary of the facts and issues with an outline of policy choices facing the UK, the wider world community, international networks and organisations.

Some might ask why a UK parliamentary Committee should be interested in Arctic policy, given that our country is not physically in the Arctic circle. That question was answered to some extent by the hon. Member for Stroud. Leaving aside the fact that when one represents and lives in a constituency 400 miles north of London on the east coast of Scotland, one can feel that one is in the Arctic circle, particularly at this time of the year, the UK does in many ways have a direct interest in what happens in the Arctic.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North pointed out, UK companies are increasingly involved in a big way—and potentially even more—in drilling for petroleum and gas in Arctic waters. That raises many issues about how they are controlled and managed, as they are UK-based companies. My hon. Friend also referred to migratory biodiversity. That includes birds, marine life and fish stocks. That is important to the UK’s commercial interests. There is some evidence that, as waters warm, fish stocks may move further north. There are also some suggestions that, if the thermohaline circulation were to change even in a minimal way, they might actually move south. That is an indication of how the scientific evidence is inconclusive on the effects of climate change on the Arctic. The point is that it is an area in which we have direct and immediate interests, both commercially and in our wider concerns about climate change.

I know that we are not within the Arctic circle. However, the UK is the nearest state to the Arctic of those that are not the Arctic nations. We are the furthest north, with Shetland only 400 miles from the Arctic circle, which is 1,000 miles from London. It is not that we are so far from the Arctic circle; as a state we have a direct interest in what happens in that area. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North pointed out, we in the UK have a long history of research and expertise in Arctic matters. The report showed that the Arctic community, including many of the Arctic nations, respects what UK research institutions and universities have been doing in the area over many years. We can certainly contribute to the research that is clearly needed by the expertise that we have in the UK.

As the Minister will know, the UK is a signatory to the 1920 Svalbard treaty. As such, the UK has equal right to participate in commercial activity in territories covered by that treaty within the Arctic circle. He will also know that there is an argument about whether that applies just to Svalbard and territorial waters, which is the Russian position, or to the entire exclusive economic zone, which would greatly extend the area in which the UK would have a legal right to participate, if that line were followed by the international community.

I believe the position we should support is the one taken by Norway, rather than Russia, but I am interested to know the UK position on the implications of the different interpretations of the Svalbard treaty. I make that point because it illustrates that we do have a legal and territorial interest, even within the Arctic circle itself. Above all, if we were to see the acceleration of sea ice melt, the Greenland ice cap, accelerated release of methane and other points made by my hon. Friend, the Chair, that would have major consequences for sea levels, to put it mildly, for the UK and the entire world.

These issues are, of course, linked to climate change and our report rightly underlines the importance of tackling climate change. Even if the most pessimistic forecasts for the Arctic were not to come true, there would still be major consequences, as our report points out. If the pessimistic forecasts are correct, the importance of taking action to mitigate the effects of climate change is underlined even more.

My hon. Friend, the Chair, has spoken on those points so I will not expand in any more detail. However, I do want to endorse the comments made by the hon. Member for Stroud. There is a need for international action on Arctic issues. I fully accept that it is not just a question of our not having a direct sovereign interest in the Arctic areas. There is also the fact that the Arctic nations would be rightly concerned if non-Arctic nations were seen to be interfering in their national interests. Indeed, it would be counter-productive if we were seen to attempt to do that.

On the other hand, we have various obligations under international treaties, and legitimate interests under the law of the sea and conventions such as the one on migratory species. We need to be actively involved in putting forward the correct position in the international arena. I would go further. I think we should be aiming to seek some type of international regime, similar to that of the Antarctic treaty, while taking into account the real differences between the Arctic and the Antarctic.

One way to move towards that would be to try to develop the idea of an Arctic sanctuary, which has been proposed by a number of environmental organisations. That would certainly extend the area in which there was international agreement among various nations with interests in Arctic issues.

Ideally, I would like to see a move towards an Arctic treaty. I accept that the UK Government do want to pursue what might seem an unlikely international agreement. However, there is some interest, not just among some Arctic nations, in having a wider international regime. There is also a growing move internationally among many environmental organisations, NGOs, civic organisations, to put the arrangements for the Arctic on a much wider international footing. That is something that should be welcomed by the Arctic nations as it would protect their interests against activities in the Arctic that might be less beneficial than those they carry out themselves.

I ask the Minister to indicate whether the UK would be prepared to start raising in the international arena the possibility of moving towards international arrangements, such as those I have mentioned, that might lead to an Arctic sanctuary or, ultimately, an Arctic treaty. It would be a long time before that could be achieved, I am sure, but now is a good time to put it on the agenda, particularly with our friends in the European Union, but also more widely in the international arenas in which the UK participates.

13:49

[Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan. I will give a very short speech, which I had not intended to make, but I want to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) who chairs the Environmental Audit Committee, oversaw the report and has commanded the respect of the entire Committee. She is a stellar Chair in my view.

I do not want to repeat the points that have already been made in the excellent opening remarks, other than to echo the importance of keeping in mind climate change. My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) made the point well, and we have just heard about the importance of preserving fish stocks. There are many reasons that ought to be obvious, so I will not go into them.

I want to make one point. Last year, in response to questions from the Environmental Audit Committee, Shell’s head of emergency response admitted that the company had not yet costed a clean-up operation in the Arctic, leaving shareholders effectively exposed to potentially huge financial losses. As we know, a similar attitude from BP before the Deepwater Horizon disaster ended up costing the company in the region of $40 billion.

Given the huge risks, there is already an emerging view from a wide variety of sources, both in the oil industry, for example, most recently the French oil company Total, and the financial industry that supports oil industry activity, including Crédit Agricole, that oil exploration in the Arctic is too risky—effectively, that it is not supportable.

I therefore urge the Minister to take up one particularly important recommendation—I would prefer him to take up all the recommendations—to use this country’s diplomatic clout to push for Arctic states to set a much higher and preferably unlimited financial liability regime for oil and gas exploration in their national jurisdictions. That is in line with the Government’s approach to the Antarctic region, and is the bare minimum position that this country should be taking.

14:00

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sheridan, for the second time this week.

I congratulate the Environmental Audit Committee on producing the report, which was not only fascinating reading but shocking. In parts, I found it enlightening, although I was already aware of some of the issues involved. The report highlights the importance of the Arctic region which is

“one of the least understood places”

on the planet, with its unique wildlife and ecosystems, and is also home to almost 10% of the world’s known conventional oil and gas resources.

Many of us have seen—I always have to get in a plug for the BBC’s natural history unit, which is based in Bristol—on the “Frozen Planet” series some of the wonders of the Arctic. Some years ago, I was fortunate enough to visit Svalbard as a guest of the Norwegian Government, which was incredibly eye-opening not only in understanding the geopolitics of the region and the way in which the Arctic states work together but in seeing first hand some of the effects of climate change.

Climate change is having more of an impact on the Arctic than anywhere else; the report highlights that the Arctic is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the planet and fast approaching several tipping points, which would have worldwide ramifications. As has already been mentioned, it is deeply ironic that the climate change that is damaging the Arctic is also opening up the area for the north-west shipping routes and greater exploitation of the Arctic’s oil and gas resources, fisheries and minerals, because global warming is causing the ice cap to melt. The consequence of allowing that opening up is to accelerate the climate change that caused the ice cap to melt in the first place. This is a difficult issue to resolve, but how do we balance the need to protect the Arctic environment with the desire of the Arctic states, the oil and gas companies and others to exploit the region’s natural resources—the fossil fuels, other minerals and fisheries—and to open up new shipping routes?

In his response, I hope that the Minister will also outline what he sees as the UK’s role in the Arctic and what contribution we should make. We are not a member of the Arctic Council, but we have observer status—one of only six states to have permanent observer status—and we are a close neighbour, as my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) mentioned. We have a long history and strong environmental, political, economic and scientific interests in the region, so what does the Minister see as our role in future? It is worth noting as a general point that climate change poses the biggest threat to the Arctic environment, yet we are the ones causing it. We have a responsibility to deal with the issues, because the consequences will be felt globally. Climate change is caused by global factors, it is not a matter for the Arctic states alone to resolve.

I want to say a little more about the impact of climate change. The Environmental Audit Committee heard evidence that the current situation met the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s definition of “dangerous change”, and an expert witness said:

“We are going to get into a ghastly situation for the planet at some point and whether it is happening next year or it is going to take a few decades is the only question”.

Not only is the ice cap retreating, but snow cover is decreasing and there is increased precipitation, rising temperatures in the permafrost, melting glaciers and more.

The report notes evidence that climate change is

“having a profound impact on many species”,

such as polar bears, reindeer and walruses, and much of the Arctic’s biodiversity is shared with other parts of the world, including the UK. For example, 15% of the world’s migratory bird species spend their breeding season in the Arctic. Although this has not been mentioned much so far in our debate, the effect of all the changes on indigenous people is also important.

The report details some key tipping points, which are points at which rapid changes take place out of all proportion to the climate change driving them. When those points are reached, the climate change effects on the Arctic might be massively accelerated. The tipping points include the Arctic becoming ice-free in the summer within a decade or even sooner. The retreat of the ice cap, in both extent and density, is accelerating. The Arctic Methane Emergency Group reported to the Committee that

“the rate of warming of the Arctic could double or even triple, once the Arctic Ocean is ice-free in September. And it could double again, once the ocean is ice-free for half the year”.

A particularly alarming potential tipping point identified by the Committee—I admit that I was not that familiar with it previously, and I found this section of the report quite shocking—is the thawing of permafrost, which would cause the release of methane, a greenhouse gas that does not get the attention that carbon dioxide emissions do, but has a warming effect 72 times more than CO₂ has over 20 years. The report acknowledges the lack of consensus on how close we are to those tipping points, but the direction of travel is not in doubt. As was noted by the Committee, geo-engineering for the Arctic does not currently offer a credible long-term solution for tackling climate change. A more realistic and lower risk intervention would be to tackle black carbon, and I hope that the Minister will say something about that in his response.

On drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic, I reiterate the Committee’s concern about what

“appears to be a lack of strategic thinking and policy coherence within Government on this issue, illustrated by its failure to demonstrate how future oil and gas extraction from the Arctic can be reconciled to commitments to limit temperature rises to 2°C.”

In their response, the Government argue that Arctic production is required to meet global demand and to provide domestic energy security. They use data from the International Energy Agency report, “World Energy Outlook 2011”, which forecasts world oil demand in 2035, which would be consistent with a 50% chance of meeting our goal of limiting the increase in average global temperature to 2°. The Government argue that the extent to which global demand outstrips supply could be met by new Arctic production capacity. We have already heard other speakers cast some doubt on whether that increased production is necessary.

In its “World Energy Outlook 2012” report, however, the IEA stated:

“In view of the technical and environmental challenges and high cost of operating in extreme weather conditions, including the problems of dealing with ice floes and shipping in water that remains frozen for much of the year, we do not expect the Arctic offshore to make a large contribution to global oil supply during the Outlook period.”

In addition, data in the same report suggest that projected oil demand in 2035 could be met entirely by currently producing, already discovered fields.

Will the Minister respond to those projections in the latest “World Energy Outlook” report? Will he also set out in more detail how the Government’s position is consistent with their decarbonisation targets and what the chances are of keeping global temperature rises below 2°C?

The Government stated in their response that they supported

“the use of the highest environmental and drilling standards in the Arctic”,

but that they were not in a position to determine what constitutes such standards, which was a matter for the countries of jurisdiction. The Government’s claim is undermined by a recent report in The Guardian, on Tuesday 15 January, which shows that they tried to water down planned EU regulations on deep-sea oil drilling. Leaked European Union documents given to The Guardian show that the Government tried to remove the proposal of several EU members to recognise an “oil spill response gap”—if adverse weather conditions make it impossible to clean up a spill, causing it to be left for weeks or months, and if this gap is too great, companies could be prevented from drilling.

There is further evidence that the UK, far from thinking that this was a matter for the countries of jurisdiction, has tried to water down EU proposals to force drilling operators to lodge their emergency response plans with Governments, which would provide greater transparency in seeing whether operators complied with Government regulations. I will be grateful if the Minister responds to that story in The Guardian and tells us whether he regards that as an accurate account of the UK’s position in the EU negotiations.

The Committee detailed key problems associated with oil and gas extraction in the Arctic that makes it particularly risky, from extreme weather conditions to lack of time to clear up an oil spill if it happens towards the end of summer drilling, or the distance and unavailability of infrastructure to manage accidents at remote Arctic drilling locations. Indeed, a review by Pew Environment Group of oil spill response in the US Arctic ocean concluded that companies were not adequately prepared for a spill in the Arctic, as has been mentioned by other speakers. Recent events suggest that the Committee is right to be concerned by the heightened risks attached to oil and gas extraction. Shell’s attempts at Arctic oil exploration, on which it has so far spent $4.5 billion, have been put on hold following a series of mishaps including its Arctic oil rig, the Kulluk, running aground off Alaska in gale-force winds on new year’s eve. On 8 January the Obama Administration launched a 60-day review into whether Shell should even be permitted to drill in the Arctic.

I turn to marine diversity in the Arctic. The other day, we debated the Antarctic Bill and the importance of establishing marine protected zones there. I very much welcome that, and we should press ahead with our efforts to establish such zones in our overseas territories around the world. I am pleased that the Government are committed to working towards a new global mechanism to regulate the conservation of marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction, and that they will press for a new implementing agreement under the United Nations convention on the law of the sea to deliver that. It will provide a means of establishing marine protected areas in the high seas, and presumably the future creation of offshore oil and gas no-go zones.

I led a Westminster Hall debate on preserving our marine ecosystems back in July, following an agreement at Rio+ that a decision should be taken by the UN General Assembly in 2014. It would be good to know what steps the Government have taken with others who were in favour of an agreement at Rio+, such as Brazil, Australia, the European Union, South Africa, India and the Pacific islands, to move this agenda forward, and what representations have been made to the UN General Assembly towards delivering a new implementing agreement under UNCLOS. In the meantime, will the Government revisit the Committee’s recommendation that there should be a moratorium on drilling in the Arctic until a number of reasonable conditions are met, first and foremost until the regulatory regimes of all Arctic states impose the highest available environmental standards, with the risk standard adopted as low as possible?

One of the positives that can be taken from the Government’s response is their agreement to the Committee’s recommendation to publish a policy framework for the Arctic in 2013. I appreciate their sensitivity in not describing it as a strategy, given that we have only observer status and are not an Arctic state. As part of that framework, the Committee suggested opportunities for “grand bargains” that might be explored with potential observer states, including China, on wider environmental issues. In his evidence to the Committee, the then Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), said that the Government would be pleased if more countries were granted observer status on the Arctic Council, and was not worried that this could dilute the UK’s influence. What is the Minister’s position on China’s request for observer status? Has his Department discussed with stakeholders on the council the potential for reaching “grand bargains”, if the granting of observer status could be linked to action on black carbon emissions from China?

Development of the policy framework will be overseen by the cross-Government Arctic network group. However, several concerns have been raised by non-governmental organisations working on Arctic policy about the transparency of the group, which is convened by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office bringing together key Departments to consider key Arctic issues. I urge the Minister to allow for greater public and parliamentary scrutiny of the group, to provide opportunities for NGOs to make representations to it, to require it to publish notes of its meetings, and so on.

I thank the Committee, particularly the Chair, for this debate. I hope that this is just the start of wider attention to Arctic issues. They are incredibly important not just for the UK, but for the future of our planet.

14:13

[The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr Hugo Swire)]

It is a great pleasure, Mr Sheridan, to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon. It is arctic out there in the real world, so it is topical to be discussing this matter. I thank the Environmental Audit Committee for its timely report on the Arctic, and all hon. Members who have taken part in this debate on an important, complex and emotive issue. I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) for orientating us to the part of the world in question by reminding us of the respective localities of polar bears and penguins.

I want to stress up front that the Government are absolutely committed to playing a constructive role in the Arctic. There is much debate, both here in Parliament and out in the wider world, on exactly what that role should be, and I want to take this opportunity to outline the Government’s views and approach before addressing the specific points raised by hon. Members.

The Arctic region has long been of strategic interest to the United Kingdom. The speed of climate change in the Arctic and the associated impacts and opportunities mean that developments in the region will increasingly affect key UK policy interests. As the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) said, those interests include energy security, shipping, fishing, trade, use of resources, and the environment, and many were touched on during the debate. The Government are committed to protecting and promoting them.

The Government’s approach to the Arctic, as outlined in our response to the Committee’s report, which is effectively what we are discussing, is based on respect: respect for the sovereign rights of Arctic states over their territory; respect for the rights and interests of the indigenous peoples who live in the Arctic; and respect for the environment. Sometimes it is difficult to balance all those, and some may say that we have it wrong, either generally or on specific policies. Adopting an approach to the Arctic that does not respect all three elements would be counter-productive to our influence and ultimately our interests.

Some criticism of the Government’s response has centred on lack of leadership or ambition. We must recognise that the UK is not an Arctic state or a full member of the Arctic Council, and we believe that, on the whole, leadership for the Arctic rests with the Arctic states. They are the countries with the most direct interest across the piece and the most experience of living, working and operating in the Arctic. It is they, first and foremost, whom we look to and rely on to ensure a peaceful, well-governed Arctic with a sustainable future.

The hon. Member for Bristol East asked about our vision for the Arctic, and what leadership we will provide. It is wrong to say that the UK should not, and does not show leadership on issues affecting the Arctic. No one can be in any doubt that climate change is the greatest threat facing the Arctic, and the consequences of climate change are driving the changes we are seeing there. The UK is a global leader on pressing for reduced emissions of greenhouse gases and understanding their impact. We are, therefore, leading the fight on tackling the underlying cause of the threats facing the Arctic.

Climate change is not the only issue. The UK can and does play a leading role in a wide range of international policies that could affect the Arctic. For example, we are pressing for global agreement on an implementing mechanism for designated marine protected areas in the high seas, and for reduced emissions from global shipping. The Government’s response to the Committee’s report outlines those in more detail.

It is wrong to say that we do not lead and that we have no role to play. A second central tenet of the Government’s approach to the Arctic is co-operation. The UK’s aim has always been to work closely and co-operatively with the Arctic states and others on the issues facing the Arctic. The Government are keen for the UK to continue to engage bilaterally and multilaterally with all Arctic states, supporting, politically and through the provision of science, policies that will help ensure a successful and sustainable future for the Arctic.

A point that was raised many times in the evidence to the Committee was the central role that science can play in influencing the policy of the Arctic states and the Arctic Council. The Government’s response to the Committee’s report makes it clear that the Government will continue to encourage, through the Natural Environment Research Council’s Arctic office and more broadly, scientific engagement with the work of the Arctic Council to this end.

The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), who chairs the Select Committee, was publicly lauded by my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) and clearly does a good job. She raised some important points, and I will address them in turn. The first point she wanted me to respond to was the International Energy Agency’s figures. Under the new policy scenario in its 2012 “World Energy Outlook” report, the world will consume 99.7 million barrels of oil a day in 2035, compared with 87.4 million barrels a day in 2011. Over the same period, production from existing sources of crude oil will have declined from around 65 million barrels a day to 26 million barrels a day, so new sources of oil will be needed to make up the difference. While seeking to limit emissions, we have to accept that major economic developments in parts of the world will result in greater energy use in the medium term. For example, while oil consumption is expected to fall significantly in the OECD, it will rise elsewhere, notably in India and China. What we can realistically seek to achieve is to limit the growth of emissions through international agreements, notably the United Nations framework convention on climate change, and by encouraging the increasing use of low-carbon technologies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud—I pay tribute to his work on the Antarctic Bill; I was privileged to take part in the proceedings—made valuable points about our legitimate jurisdiction in the Antarctic, in contrast to our lack of jurisdiction in the Arctic. However, he is right that we can, by using examples of best practice and leadership, show those who have a responsibility and a role in the Arctic what we are seeking to achieve in the Antarctic. That is a valuable lesson. I would say that, although the Committee’s response is critical on the whole of the Government’s response, others are not. Denmark’s Arctic ambassador, for example, thought it struck a very reasonable tone, balancing concerns against the plain facts of our status as an observer to the Council and a non-Arctic state.

My hon. Friend also asked me about the Arctic Council. The UK recognises the Arctic Council as the pre-eminent regional forum, which provides an opportunity to consider many key Arctic issues, especially those relating to the environment and sustainable development. We believe that the Arctic Council could benefit from greater participation and exchange of expertise from the UK and other state observers.

My hon. Friend also asked about science. I want to reinforce the points made by many this afternoon and particularly when evidence was given to the Committee, that science is an excellent lever for influencing the development of Arctic policies. Promoting UK science in forums such as the Arctic Council has been central to our strategy for influencing Arctic decision making and will continue to be so. That, again, reinforces my point about best practice in terms of what we are seeking to do in the Antarctic.

The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) asked about the Svalbard—or Spitsbergen—treaty. Just to remind hon. Members, the 1920 treaty of Paris set out the conditions under which Norwegian sovereignty over Svalbard was recognised. Those include non-discrimination between the parties to the treaty and a limit on the royalties chargeable on minerals extracted. The UK is a party to that treaty. No country disputes Norwegian sovereignty in the Svalbard archipelago, although there are different interpretations of the treaty’s applicability to maritime zones surrounding Svalbard. We consider that the treaty applies to the maritime zones generated by Svalbard, but Norway disagrees. However, we support the careful stewardship that Norway exercises in protecting the Svalbard environment. There is no hydrocarbon activity currently taking place on the Svalbard continental shelf.

The hon. Gentleman also asked whether the UK supports the negotiation of an Arctic treaty. That would depend on the scope and objectives of any proposed treaty. Comparisons are sometimes made with the Antarctic treaty, but that treaty deals with matters of territorial sovereignty, which are not relevant in the Arctic. The United Nations convention on the law of the sea provides the framework for the international governance of the areas of the Arctic ocean beyond national jurisdiction. The Arctic states have recently, through the Arctic Council, agreed a legally binding framework on search and rescue and are negotiating on an oil spill response agreement. We believe that the international governance arrangements in the Arctic are sound, and it is the rules and policies underneath those that require greatest attention.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park asked about—

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Swire]

Yes, I will.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

I am sorry for the delay; I was trying to find the appropriate section of the report. I want to be absolutely clear: on the Svalbard treaty, is it the UK’s position that we regard it as applying to the entire exclusive economic zone on Svalbard? I am surprised if that is the case.

[Mr Swire]

I repeat the salient point that I think the hon. Gentleman is trying to get at: we consider that the treaty applies to the maritime zones generated by Svalbard, but Norway disagrees.

My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park asked about oil spill falls. Of course, we all have sympathy; the idea of an oil spillage occurring in that part of the world—I think it has happened there—is absolutely abhorrent and has terrifying consequences for the environment. However, determining how to ensure that those liable in the case of oil spills meet their liabilities, as he will well know, is a matter for the relevant countries. It is a matter for those jurisdictions to determine both the scope of such liabilities and the levels of compensation and penalties payable in the event of a spill.

[Zac Goldsmith]

I recognise the limits of our international clout in respect of that issue, but it is nevertheless possible and reasonable to imagine the British Government adopting as their formal position the view that there should be, preferably, unlimited liability in the event of an accident. I am not suggesting that we can push a button and make it happen, but it could certainly be our position, formally and on the record.

[Mr Swire]

I do not think my hon. Friend would be arguing for that, seeing as the Government are limited in their jurisdiction in the area, and seeing as they do not own any oil companies exploring in the area. For the British Government to make a unilateral proclamation about unlimited liability in that area would be seen by some as somewhat condescending and interfering. However, clearly, environmental protection should be at the forefront. That is why a lot of British companies—in terms of deep sea drilling, and the kind of measures and safety measures that we have learnt over years in the North sea—could have a very real application to safe drilling in that sensitive part of the world.

The hon. Member for Bristol East asked a technical question about the threat of methane released from permafrost. Continued warming of Arctic land masses will lead to a large-scale melting of permafrost, which may well release large quantities of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Although the magnitude of any release is uncertain, it has potential to significantly accelerate global warming. While the amount of methane currently being released is small compared with other sources, that contained below permafrost and land ice is thought to be huge. The Arctic Council’s Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme is looking at methane release in the Arctic as part of its Task Force on Short-Lived Climate Forcers.

The hon. Lady also asked how serious black carbon is in the Arctic. It is definitely an issue for consideration. The United Nations Environment Programme report into black carbon produced last year concluded that emissions of black carbon particles into the atmosphere can have a significant impact on human health and both direct and indirect climate impacts. For example, some emissions can be transported long distances and deposited as soot on Arctic ice or snow, which decreases surface reflectivity—albedo—and increases ice melt because of the additional warming effect. The Arctic Council’s AMAP produced a report in November 2011 on the effects of black carbon and has a task force that is following up that work. It is currently drawing up its work programme.

The hon. Lady also asked about the report in The Guardian, the issue of higher standards for drilling in the Arctic, and the allegation in that report that we are in some way undermining the EU’s attempts to apply them in our own backyard. All I will say is that she should not believe everything she reads in the papers, let alone The Guardian. However, negotiations are continuing with the EU on the proposed directive to regulate offshore oil and gas activities, and the UK is working to ensure that the highest levels of safety and environmental protection are upheld in an effective manner. It is worth saying that the UK already has a robust regime in place to regulate offshore oil and gas. Environmental safety is paramount, and offshore operations are only permitted in the UK where there is a thorough and comprehensive oil spill response plan in place.

The hon. Lady asked what more we are doing to move forward marine protection issues at the United Nations. I will write to her on that point and provide an update. She also asked about the Arctic policy framework. We will produce the Arctic policy framework in the summer of 2013. That will be a dynamic process involving interested stakeholders, and it will outline the Government’s policy and approach in more detail.

The hon. Lady also asked how the UK’s influence in the Arctic Council would be affected if observer status is granted to applicant countries. We do not believe that the UK’s influence will be impacted. Most of our influence on the council comes through scientific engagement with the working groups. We will continue to provide that, regardless of the status of other countries with respect to the Arctic Council.

[Kerry McCarthy]

The Minister may be about to answer this question, but I specifically asked about the UK’s attitude towards China being given observer status and whether we would welcome that.

[Mr Swire]

The hon. Lady is right in saying that I am about to come to that. The Arctic Council has articulated a range of criteria against which state observers will be assessed. The UK considers that it fully meets all those criteria and has demonstrated its commitment to engaging with the Arctic Council since it was formed in 1996. The UK understands the Arctic Council’s desire to set such criteria, but encourages the Arctic Council to support applicant states to meet the requirements. In the view of the UK, there are likely to be benefits for the Arctic states in engaging constructively with all states that express an interest in Arctic affairs. That said, it is obviously a matter for the individual applicant countries and the members of the Arctic council as to whether they will achieve permanent observer status next year.

I think that I have now dealt with all the questions other than the one about which I shall write to the hon. Lady. The debate has been interesting and informative. I again thank the Select Committee for its report. I hope that, in the light of what I have said this afternoon, it will look again at the Government’s response and recognise the limits of what we can do, as opposed to what we are doing in the Antarctic. I fully agree that we are doing many good things in the Antarctic that have read-across to what other states are doing in the Arctic. Yet again, Britain is leading the way.

14:31

[Joan Walley]

I hope that this afternoon’s brief but important debate, with contributions from members of the Select Committee, who are clearly well informed and committed, will demonstrate, not least to the Minister, our determination to ensure that our report “Protecting the Arctic” is able to do just that. In the contribution of the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), it was very clear that he sees leadership as a way of making progress. I say to the Minister that the aim was to get this issue on to the Government’s radar this afternoon. Yes, we never do as much as we can do, and we can never achieve everything all the time, but we hope that this debate has demonstrated to the Government that we can go much further on protecting the Arctic, and that we can get the issue on to the agenda of many nation states.

I agree that it is not for us to say what should or should not be done, but we need to find collaborative ways of working—ways of working together, in partnership —and we all need to show leadership on this most complex issue to ensure that the challenges that we face on climate change and environmental protection are met. Keeping this pristine part of the world in that condition for the benefit of future generations is so important. I would therefore like to think that, when the Government come to produce the Arctic policy framework—whether a strategy or not—we will have contributed to that in some way.

The detailed points that my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) made about the importance of a sanctuary and the Government’s acting on that are very important. I also flag up the point that was made about insurance liability. It might well be that even if the Government will not at this stage make it clear to British companies wanting to operate in the Arctic that they would expect all kinds of commitments about liability and so on, investors out there, who will be investing in some of the work, will take the message in our report very seriously indeed.

[Mark Lazarowicz]

Although I can accept the Government’s point of view that clearly we cannot take all the decisions unilaterally, we should at least be discussing this matter. We are major participants, in terms of commercial activity, in drilling in the Arctic area. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that the Government should at least ensure that these discussions are on the table, so that we can protect this environment in the way that she points out?

[Joan Walley]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In conclusion, I simply say to the Minister that there will be opportunities as we follow up our report. We will return to some of the scientific issues, and to Shell’s position as soon as it is legally able to give evidence to the Select Committee. We shall be in correspondence with the Government on this issue and ensuring, in the light of the recent recommendations from the Liaison Committee, that we are not just producing a report and leaving it on a table to make no difference whatever. If there is anything we can do, we shall do it. We are going to take the whole debate forward. Thank you, Mr Sheridan, for the opportunity briefly to air this important report this afternoon in Parliament.

Maritime Surveillance

Thursday 7th February 2013 Westminster Hall

[Relevant documents: Future Maritime Surveillance, Fifth Report of the Defence Committee, HC 110, and the Government Response, HC 827.]

14:35

[Mr James Arbuthnot (North East Hampshire) (Con)]

We are an island. That makes what happens around our coasts of great importance to us. We are a member of the permanent five in the UN Security Council, of the Commonwealth, of the European Union, of NATO and of other organisations, which, added together, means that we are a world power, with global responsibilities and interests. That makes what happens in the seas of the world of great importance to us.

We are a trading nation. We are a nation that cannot, or at any rate does not, feed itself. We rely on food, as well as countless other goods, from abroad. Most of that comes by sea. That makes what happens at sea of great importance to us. We operate under the conditions of “just in time”. Those wonderful warehouses in London’s docklands have now been turned into rather chi-chi flats, and we no longer have the reserves to feed, fuel or supply the country for many weeks, let alone months. That makes us vulnerable.

It is because of all the crucial interests that I have outlined that the defence of our country is of such importance. Within that defence, maritime surveillance plays a central role. Therefore, the Defence Committee decided to conduct an inquiry into it. We called the inquiry “Future Maritime Surveillance”, because we wanted to focus not on the decision to cancel the Nimrod MRA4 programme, the successor to the MR2, in the strategic defence and security review, but on the future needs of the nation and how, given where we are now, we could address those needs. Obviously, however, the cancellation of Nimrod was a big matter, and I shall consider that first.

Let us be clear about Nimrod. It was late—very, very late. It was vastly over budget, at a time of deep financial stringency. It was an aeroplane that had serious aerodynamic problems. It was, in other words, a deeply troubled project—and no doubt one for which, in the usual way, I should take the blame as Minister for Defence Procurement between 1995 and 1997.

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

Quite right!

[Mr Arbuthnot]

No, that was a joke—at least, I think it was. But the cancellation of the project was the one change that troubled the Ministry of Defence most in the SDSR. The Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff told the Defence Committee:

“It would be fair to say that among the Chiefs of Staff and in the military advice, it was one of the most difficult decisions to come to terms with, because it has multiple uses.”

In the Government’s answer to the concerns that the Defence Committee expressed in our report on the SDSR of August 2011, they said:

“Like the Committee we regret that we had to cancel the Nimrod MRA4 programme. It was a capability that we would, in an ideal world, have preferred to acquire…we reluctantly concluded that cancellation was the least bad option.”

The reason for that unhappiness was described to us by Professor Julian Lindley-French. He told us that

“the point is that of the seven military tasks in the SDSR, the MRA4 could have played a very important role in all of them. It was the loss of the enablers, because the single services were forced back to defend their own core competencies by the process, which for me was the biggest failing of the SDSR process. Forget all the strategic stuff: there was a haggle at that last weekend, which was utterly unacceptable in terms of the national strategic requirements.”

The report that the Defence Committee produced earlier this week on defence acquisition contains a bit of an echo of that statement.

In our report on the strategic defence and security review, we expressed concern about the resultant capability gaps of cancelling MRA4. In their response, the Government acknowledged that there is currently no single asset or collection of assets that could fully mitigate the resultant capability gap. That is enough about Nimrod; let us look at the other assets and look to the future.

The Government said in 2011 that they continued

“to maximise the use of…assets”—

other than Nimrod—

“such as Type 23 Frigates, Merlin Helicopters, Sentry and C-130 to contribute to Anti-Submarine Warfare, Search and Rescue and Maritime Counter-Terrorism where possible. In the longer term, if the Government were to conclude that it needed to close the gaps completely because”

threats emerged that could no longer be managed in the same way as today,

“some additional funding or reprioritisation would be required.”

In our report, “Future Maritime Surveillance”, we concentrated on the strategic requirements for maritime surveillance, identifying current capability gaps and the future requirements for maritime surveillance and how they might be met. Given the wide range of maritime surveillance tasks and the number of Departments and agencies that require access to maritime surveillance capabilities, we also looked at cross-Government co-operation. We published our report in September 2012 and the Government’s response in December 2012. We have also placed on our website the Minister’s response to some follow-up issues that we raised following the Government’s response. I am grateful to him for that.

I pay tribute to the Committee’s staff and military advisers, who provide us with invaluable support and advice. We are all grateful to them. I would like to thank personally the Committee members themselves. They work extremely hard to very good effect, which is one of the reasons why chairing it is the best job that I have ever had.

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

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for giving way and I apologise for being slightly late. May I point out that the reason why it is such a good Committee is that its Chairman is so excellent?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

The hon. Gentleman might say that, but as a former Chief Whip, I couldn’t possibly comment.

The threats that require maritime surveillance are evolving and have become more non-military in nature. The Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008 rather illustrate that, in that they were launched from the sea. Our report concluded that it was a weakness that there was not a single individual within the Ministry of Defence who should be responsible for maritime surveillance. The Government did not agree.

We acknowledged that the new joint forces command could have a role in delivering, co-ordinating and strengthening maritime surveillance. We are nevertheless disappointed that the Government do not think that there is a requirement for an individual within the MOD to take responsibility for maritime surveillance. We accept that it is not the JFC’s role, but we are concerned that the left hand of the MOD may not know what its right hand is doing, let alone be able to co-ordinate the interests of the MOD with all the other Departments and agencies that require maritime surveillance capabilities.

Here I begin a number of requests to the Minister for information, which I will be grateful if he responds to, if not in today’s debate, perhaps in writing later, with whatever degree of classification he considers necessary. It will be helpful if he first outlines how the co-ordination that we are concerned about is being taken forward, particularly as the MOD starts work on the 2015 SDSR. Our concerns were highlighted when we were told that there was an “informal group of Ministers” who were responsible for taking forward maritime surveillance issues.

Although decisions may ultimately be taken in Cabinet or the National Security Council, we thought there should be greater ministerial involvement. This contains an echo of our report, “Defence and Cyber-Security”, published in January this year and our report, “Developing Threats: Electro-Magnetic Pulses”, published in February last year: we worry that Ministers faced with a threat or a vulnerability that crosses departmental responsibilities have inadequate structures and insufficient practice in getting together to work out responses, which may be needed very quickly indeed.

Against that, we welcome the establishment of the maritime security oversight group and the National Maritime Information Centre. The Government told us that the risk assessment was expected to be completed in December 2012. Will the Minister update us on progress? What threats, including new ones, have been identified? Such strategic analysis is important. Future threats are increasingly likely to be identified through intelligence gathering.

Maritime ISTAR—forgive the acronym, which stands for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance—of which maritime surveillance is a part, will be essential. Without effective surveillance, both maritime and elsewhere, the UK armed forces are operating at a much reduced effectiveness.

[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

As the Chair knows, we are holding an inquiry into the consequences to the UK of an independent Scotland. How would Scotland becoming an independent state impact on future maritime surveillance for England, Wales and Northern Ireland?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Maritime surveillance is carried out at the moment in a nationwide fashion. To my mind, it is difficult to see how smaller units or entities could have a separate capability not backed up by MOD resources. We as a Committee have not reached that conclusion however, as my hon. Friend knows, because we have not yet concluded our inquiry into the defence consequences of an independent Scotland. When making their decision on independence, the Scottish people will need to take that issue very seriously into account. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that important point.

The 2010 SDSR gave a commitment to enhancing ISTAR. In reply to the debate or later, will the Minister say what progress has been made in taking forward the development and strengthening of maritime ISTAR? What actual measures can he tell us about? What risk are the Government taking in delivering maritime ISTAR for the future?

Our report also looked at the future of maritime surveillance capabilities and what was required. We thought, frankly, that the MOD was sending out mixed messages. On the one hand, its studies identified a maritime patrol aircraft as the solution in the short to medium term, but on the other hand, a maritime patrol aircraft is not in the equipment programme. The MOD seems prepared to wait until the 2015 SDSR before making any decisions or assessing options. It seems to regard the risk as tolerable, on the basis that such equipment could be bought with unprecedented speed and efficiency. I have high hopes for the MOD’s acquisition process being reformed dramatically, but that might be the triumph of hope over experience.

[Penny Mordaunt (Portsmouth North) (Con)]

Does my right hon. Friend acknowledge that the report found that, though we had concerns over the situation in the short to medium term, the MOD has begun to explore options for future maritime surveillance in the much longer term, looking at unmanned systems and space technology in particular?

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I do acknowledge that. My hon. Friend, whose membership of the Select Committee is extremely helpful, anticipates a point that I was about to come on to—as I would expect her to.

Situations change rapidly: we have been deployed in Libya, and we are now involved in Mali. The question is whether the Ministry of Defence could rapidly regenerate a maritime surveillance requirement. Will the Minister set out what general contingencies are in place to deal with the unexpected? The problem is that he probably cannot, because they are unexpected, but we nevertheless need to have a general ability to deal with contingencies.

We also highlighted the potential for further capability gaps to emerge in maritime surveillance. For example, the Sea King will be taken out of service in 2016, to be replaced by Project Crowsnest, operating from Merlin mark 2 helicopters. The Minister has now confirmed that there will be a capability gap, as Crowsnest is not coming into service until 2020 and existing assets will be required to cover the gap. Will he tell us why that gap has occurred, and why it was not better anticipated?

In the longer term, as my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt) rightly points out, the Government have committed themselves to exploring all the alternatives for maritime surveillance provision, including unmanned aerial vehicles and hybrid air vehicles. We commend them on that approach and the work that they have already undertaken to facilitate it.

We are grateful to the Government for their commitment to keeping us updated on the issues and to including wider cross-Government issues in such updates. We look forward to the first update in summer 2013, and to the second in summer 2014. We expect the updates to be as full as possible and in a form that we can share as widely as possible. An important part of the work on future maritime surveillance will be specific work in the run-up to the next SDSR. Some might say that that will be the most important part of the next defence review.

14:49

[Sandra Osborne (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Lab)]

I, too, welcome the opportunity to take part in this debate. As our Chairman, the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) said, a great deal of hard work went into the production of the report. I add my thanks to the Clerks and special advisers to the Committee. The report makes a very positive contribution to the debate on the future of maritime surveillance.

As the Chairman also said, the Committee has previously expressed serious concerns about the decision in the 2010 strategic defence and security review to cancel the Nimrod MRA4 programme. Despite all the associated problems that the Chairman rightly mentioned, its cancellation involved a vast waste of public money; even so, as he also said, the MOD described that as the least worst option—I dread to think what the other options would have been. The cancellation has been analysed and re-analysed by the Public Accounts Committee and others, and in any case it is a fait accompli, so instead of dwelling on that, it seemed logical for the Committee to concentrate on its consequences, and those of other decisions in the SDSR, for maritime surveillance now and in the future.

[Mr Graham Brady in the Chair]

Given that the protection of the nuclear deterrent would have been one of Nimrod’s primary roles, one main concern about the cancellation is the capability gap in deterrent protection that might arise. I for one—I may be the only one here—would like the nuclear deterrent to be cancelled altogether. However, the former Defence Secretary Lord Browne has called into question the like-for-like renewal of Trident, suggesting that people who support it

“want to pour limited national resources into an increasingly ineffective nuclear system while being unwilling either to call for higher defence spending to meet conventional shortfalls or to scale back the UK’s level of international ambition. They want a gold-standard nuclear deterrent while under-investing in everything else.”

We all know that many within the military share that perspective. At the very least, that is worth considering and, for example, it would free resources to fill the capability gap in maritime surveillance in relation to new threats.

We do not have the luxury of a crystal ball and must look at circumstances as they are. We know that it is almost universally accepted, including by the MOD, that a replacement maritime patrol aircraft programme would, along with other assets, afford the optimum capability for the next 20 years, but that will not be seriously considered until at least 2015. Will the Minister update us on that situation, because that seems an awful long time?

I want to concentrate on the capability gap as it affects the nuclear deterrent. To understand the implications of cancelling the Nimrod programme, it is useful to look at the wider assets that, historically, have been involved in the protection of the nuclear deterrent. For understandable reasons, the MOD is cautious about providing too much information about that. In 2007, the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) received an answer to his parliamentary question on the conventional forces that had either a committed or a contingent role in the protection of the nuclear deterrent which stated:

“In addition to the four Vanguard-class submarines, all of which are dedicated to Military Task 1.2—Nuclear Deterrence—the current planned force elements assigned to support nuclear deterrence are”—

in a primary role, one mine warfare vessel and one survey vessel and, as contingent, two attack submarines, one destroyer, three mine warfare vessels, one Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel, five Merlin helicopters and eight maritime reconnaissance aircraft. The broad order estimate of the costs was £25 million to £30 million for committed and about £250 million to £300 million for contingent for a range of tasks, including

“in support of the deterrent.”—[Official Report, 8 March 2007; Vol. 457, c. 2130-31W.]

In evidence to our Committee in November 2010, General Sir David Richards also made the point that maritime surveillance aircraft provide one of five layers of defence for the SSBN fleet, although he would not go into detail about those layers of activity, again for understandable reasons.

The fact remains that a gap in capability in the protection of the deterrent exists, and we need answers about what is to be done to fill the gap in the medium to long term. The Royal Navy SDSR question and answer document states:

“The NSC judge that there is a sufficient balance of capabilities within the SSBN, SSN, Frigate, RW”—

rotary wing—

“and MCM fleets to maintain the required level of assurance for CASD”—

continuous at-sea deterrence, and that the—

“decision to delete MRA 4 was made after carefully considering the risks associated with this.”

In written evidence to the Committee in 2012, the MOD specifically flagged up the following assets as playing a role in the protection of the nuclear deterrent: the SSN fleet—Trafalgar and Astute class—although the MOD highlighted that the primary role of the SSN is anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, including protection of the deterrent; and the Merlin HM mark 1 helicopter, which, the MOD noted,

“has evolved organic Anti Submarine Surveillance to a Maritime Patrol Helicopter multirole capability deployed globally and in support of the strategic deterrent.”

The MOD also informed our Committee that several international agreements allow allies to contribute directly to UK surveillance tasks in support of deterrent protection.

Of the list of assets alluded to in the SDSR, the Merlin HM mark 1 is the only asset whose primary role involves maritime surveillance. There are 40 Merlin helicopters in service with the Fleet Air Arm, in both training and front-line squadrons. All four squadrons are based at Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose in Cornwall. The helicopters have a range of 450 miles, and I understand that they are being upgraded to mark 2 and will enter service as such this year. Will the Minister confirm that?

With the indulgence of the House, Mr Brady, I will raise a local issue. The HMS Gannet search and rescue service at Prestwick airport will close in the next few years. It straddles my constituency and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe). The airport is extremely important to our local area, and indeed to Scotland. It is suffering at the moment as a result of a number of factors, including the air passenger duty, and it is up for sale.

It seems daft on the surface that the Merlin helicopters, which protect the deterrent, are based hundreds of miles away in Cornwall when there is a site available on Faslane’s doorstep that has been used by helicopters for years. I urge the Minister to consider that matter, which may be small-scale in the grand scheme of things, but it is important to us locally, and I do not think that any Member will fault me for raising it.

To get back to the capability gap, several commentators gave evidence to the Committee, outlining their concerns about the potential shortcomings of helicopter maritime surveillance as a replacement for maritime patrol aircraft. The Coastal Command and Maritime Air Association said:

“The absence of the MPA together with a shortage of Towed Array fitted escorts, and the possible re-tasking of SSNs to land-strike targets (Tomahawk), results in a much reduced ASW capability. The helicopter is an effective ASW platform when operating relatively close to their base or battleship, but inevitably it has limited range and acoustic processing capability as well as restricted weapon-carrying capacity. Modern underwater detection systems using arrays fixed to the ocean bed and towed arrays on surface vessels—if one of those relatively few assets is available—can produce impressive results, but bad weather and noisy environments, both in the open sea and particularly at choke points, can totally disable these systems.”

Air Vice-Marshal A. L. Roberts, who is retired, also commented that

“while helicopter surveillance, in lieu of that by MPA, in support of the deterrent is entirely practicable in the approaches to Faslane, the range of the helicopter, if it is to remain on station for long, is limited. Adequate cover for the deterrent therefore becomes more difficult further out along transit routes and may be impracticable in SSBN patrol areas. The amount of noise generated in the water by a helicopter, which can be counter detected by any opposing submarine, is also a significant operational limitation.”

In March 2011, an article in Defence Management said:

“Mitigating the lack of Nimrods when it comes to clearing a path for Trident will be very asset-intensive in terms of Merlin ASW and towed-array frigates. But it is manageable. Just don’t expect those helicopters or frigates to be doing every task around the world that they currently undertake”.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) raised the matter in a debate in the Chamber on 26 January 2012. She is not here today because she has a constituency engagement. I am sorry about that because she really concentrates on this issue and is something of an expert on it.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

I entirely confirm what the hon. Lady has just said. The hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) was the first to demand this inquiry, and has led it throughout. We are grateful to her for her commitment, even though she is not here today.

[Sandra Osborne]

That is entirely true. In the debate in the main Chamber, my hon. Friend referred to a letter that the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox) sent to the Prime Minister in which he said:

“Deletion of the Nimrod MR4 will limit our ability to deploy maritime forces rapidly into high-threat areas, increase the risk to the Deterrent, compromise maritime CT (counter terrorism), remove long range search and rescue, and delete one element of our Falklands reinforcement plan.”—[Official Report, 26 January 2012; Vol. 539, c. 466.]

Will the Minister tell us the state of play of these matters as they stand today?

My hon. Friend also referred to an article in The Scotsman, which said that a Type 42 destroyer had to be detached from Portsmouth when a Russian navy battle group appeared off the coast of Scotland. A number of Russian submarines have also made a similar appearance. Previously, we would have swiftly and discreetly despatched a Nimrod to keep an eye on the situation, but, on this occasion, we sent out a Type 42 destroyer. Clearly, that illustrates a problem; we do not know what is going on in such areas without a maritime patrol aircraft.

It is also the case that the north of Scotland, which is referred to as the “high north”—that is not something that I can identify with, as I refer to it as the highlands and islands—needs close attention as it is an area of strategic and economic importance in a fast-changing environment. I hope that the fast change does not include Scotland becoming a separate country from the UK as opposed to being the north of the UK, but I will not go down that road now. The Chairman of the Select Committee has already stated that we are in the throes of an inquiry into the defence implications of an independent Scotland.

I welcome the Minister’s input into these matters, which have been brought to the Committee’s attention by people who are astronomically more expert than I am, and I look forward to his response.

15:05

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

It is a genuine pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady, and I thank our Chairman, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), for pressing for this debate. While I am in this congratulatory mood, may I also thank the Clerks of the Defence Committee who, with the advisers, have really done all the work?

I classify maritime surveillance as the ability to see and understand what is happening above, on and below the sea, as well as along the coastline. We need to do that not just around the United Kingdom, but throughout the NATO area of responsibility. We also need to support our deployed operations when they are outside the NATO area. Maritime surveillance involves a combination of platforms and sensors to provide a 3-D picture of what is happening, and it uses the combined work of satellites, aircraft, helicopters, ships and submarines. Our maritime surveillance capability has been eroded gradually since the end of the cold war, and significantly reduced since the 2010 strategic defence and security review.

What capabilities have we lost? Most importantly, as we all know in the Defence Committee, we have lost the Nimrod MRA4 maritime patrol aircraft programme. We all understand and accept the reasons for that, but it does not stop us worrying about it. The Nimrod would have been the lynchpin of our maritime surveillance capability if it had been brought into service. The Ministry of Defence says that the UK has a maritime surveillance capability gap; it acknowledges it a little grudgingly but accepts that that gap cannot be covered by the assets that we have in service at the moment. Getting a maritime patrol aircraft back in service is probably the key to solving the problem. A large maritime patrol aircraft fitted with modern sensors, weapons and systems is operationally very flexible. The old roles of the UK’s maritime patrol aircraft fleet included strategic tasks such as intelligence gathering and, as my friend the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) said, the protection of our continuous strategic nuclear deterrent at sea with the Royal Navy’s Trident submarines. What does that mean? It means that a maritime patrol aircraft would ensure that our one ballistic submarine at sea providing our deterrent was not tailed by an enemy submarine without its knowledge. The need for that has not diminished.

Our country is internationally responsible for search and rescue to about 1,200 nautical miles into the Atlantic. Right now, however, we can only really reach out to 240 nautical miles, which is the extreme range of the Sea King search and rescue helicopters. We are thus failing to meet our international Atlantic oversight obligations. Of course, the Ministry rightly maintains—I would say the same if I was in the Ministry of Defence—that we can turn to our allies, and the French, Portuguese and Spanish all have maritime patrol aircraft.

Close to shore, we rely on the excellent services provided by the our ageing military Sea King fleet, which will go out of service in 2016, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire said. Of course, we must not forget that the coastguards also have some search and rescue helicopters. In effect, short-range search and rescue operations—by short range, I mean out to 240 nautical miles—are conducted by a mix of military and contractor-operated helicopters, which do an excellent job. They are aided hugely by those incredible men and women of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, who regularly put their lives at risk when there is a need, regardless of the foul weather, to help people in distress. Everyone in the House will agree that they are fantastic.

Fixed-wing aircraft are just one part of the equation. Maritime patrol aircraft have historically been teamed with the Royal Navy’s frigates, destroyers and organic helicopters in a range of roles, including not just anti-submarine warfare, but search and rescue. Once again, the decisions in SDSR 2010 have had a cumulative impact.

[Penny Mordaunt]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as well as being able to take a more co-ordinated and strategic approach in the future, the maritime security and oversight group and the National Maritime Information Centre, which our Chairman mentioned, can help to mitigate some of the gaps my hon. Friend has correctly identified?

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my hon. Friend. I certainly do agree. It is good that we have those bodies, and I may speak about that a little at the end.

SDSR 2010 got rid of a number of frigates, including Type 22s and Type 23s, as well as their on-board helicopters. That has further reduced our maritime reach and capabilities. The good thing about such Royal Navy vessels is that they can travel great distances, remain at sea for considerable periods and, crucially, demonstrate intent and presence when that is needed, as part of a combined taskforce or individually.

Collectively, members of the Defence Committee are concerned about the loss of our sovereign long-range maritime surveillance capability. They are also concerned about the United Kingdom’s current dependency on its allies for operations out into the Atlantic and in terms of our wider military defence capability.

The Committee was advised that the anti-submarine warfare capability gap that resulted from the loss of the Nimrod MRA4 is covered by a mix of helicopters, ships at sea and support by our allies. I do not buy that argument. The external situation has not changed. Indeed, with a resurgent Russia and the proliferation of smaller submarines in many areas of the world, it has arguably got worse. To counter such threats, the UK has reduced its capability and capacity by removing maritime patrol aircraft completely, as well as by removing appropriate frigates and destroyers, including their organic helicopters.

As has been mentioned, the Ministry is considering a number of future options. In particular, a decision on maritime patrol aircraft may be considered as part of SDSR 2015. However, such a decision would result in delivery of the new operational capability closer to the 2020 time scale. I would prefer us not to wait until 2015 to make such a decision. I would like it to be considered as soon as possible.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Bob Stewart]

To my Chairman? With the greatest of pleasure.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Mr Brady, you are our Chairman, of course.

[Bob Stewart]

Forgive me, Mr Brady. Two Chairmen in one—I’ll buy it.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

My hon. Friend danced lightly over the possibility of regenerating the capacity and the skills to fly these aircraft. Such skills are difficult to maintain, let alone to regenerate. Is he coming to that important point, which needs to be covered?

[Bob Stewart]

I thank my other Chairman. The answer is that I was not, but I am glad that he has raised the matter. We also highlighted the difficulty of keeping these skills alive, and no one has mentioned it. Perhaps the Minister will tell us—you will, won’t you, Minister?

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

I will.

[Bob Stewart]

Good. The Minister will tell us how we are to keep those extremely specialised skills alive. I suspect it will be by using allies such as the Americans. I thank my other Chairman for raising what was an omission in my speech.

Of course, an effective and modern maritime patrol aircraft capability is available, without the need to wait to 2020. Even assuming that SDSR 2015 looks at it, however, there is no guarantee that a decision will be taken to return to this extremely vulnerable capability—[Interruption.] Goodness me. Forgive me, Mr Brady. That was probably the Prime Minister calling.

I very much welcome Ministry of Defence funding for investigative work on other potential options. We have had briefings about unmanned systems, lighter-than-air vehicles and space technology. Additionally, hybrid air vehicles, such as the AIRLANDER, which have long endurance and operating costs a fraction of those associated with aircraft, are being considered. Of course, all those options need to be studied, and when the results are analysed, we must ensure that delivery time scales and effectiveness are carefully assessed.

I endorse the establishment, which my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire has highlighted, of the maritime security oversight group and the National Maritime Information Centre. Those are superb moves. They are steps towards a more strategic and co-ordinated output and will help, as my right hon. Friend—I mean my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt); she will be right hon. in due course—has already highlighted, to mitigate some of our capability gaps, I hope, quickly.

We need a decent maritime surveillance capability for the United Kingdom as quickly and effectively as possible. We must of course consider a range of options, but a rejuvenated maritime patrol aircraft capability, with a truly multi-role capability, should probably remain a key element—if not the key element—of any proposed solution. I apologise for the Prime Minister interrupting my speech.

15:21

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. I commend the Committee for its excellent report; I too have had the pleasure of serving under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot). I would probably bow to no one in my respect for the knowledge that the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has of ageing military capabilities. [Laughter.]

[Bob Stewart]

I take that personally; I will get you later.

[Thomas Docherty]

I look forward to being shepherded out safely by the Doorkeepers later.

If the decision about the carrier was the largest financial decision, the break-up of the Nimrod aircraft is probably the most visually impressive one to come out of the 2010 SDSR. I do not think that there is anyone who did not watch those images of JCBs tearing up a multi-billion pound project with incredulity. I shall touch briefly on the lessons that the MOD must learn and things that the Committee has discussed in our subsequent report on defence acquisition.

Quite a lot has been said about the Nimrod model and its role, but other capabilities were deleted as a result of the SDSR. The most notable for maritime surveillance was, of course, the Type 22 frigate, which the hon. Member for Beckenham also mentioned. The Type 22 was, as the report says, originally designed and constructed purely as an anti-submarine warfare vessel during the cold war. In its latter years, it took on a broader role, and the Committee was, I think, unconvinced by some of the MOD’s arguments that that capability had been fully covered. Perhaps the new Minister for the Armed Forces will say something about how that matter is being addressed. I should probably take this opportunity to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his promotion to his new role.

[Mr Robathan]

You are kind. It was six months ago.

[Thomas Docherty]

It feels like yesterday, I am sure, to many in the MOD. I had the pleasure of serving with the Minister in the Armed Forces Bill Committee when he was merely an Under-Secretary, and I thank him for the letter that he kindly sent me this morning on another matter; I am most grateful that we could resolve the issue. Obviously, he is not directly responsible for many of the decisions, or the comments made by the MOD on the report; but of course he believes in collective responsibility, and I am sure that he will be happy to respond in relation to his predecessor’s comments and to our observations. I have a huge amount of time for the Minister’s predecessor, who was very able and sound, which is probably why the Deputy Prime Minister got rid of him in the Liberal Democrat reshuffle.

Without a doubt, as we said on the acquisition report earlier this week, many decisions in the lead-up to the SDSR were rushed and not fully thought through. Thinking was not done for the long term. With a little charity towards the Government, I must say that the programme is probably the finest example of how not to procure. Four parties each bear some responsibility. First, I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who played no part in the decision when he was at the Ministry of Defence, will accept that my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry North East (Mr Ainsworth) and other colleagues over the years perhaps did not provide enough scrutiny of the acquisition process.

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend must remember that the contract was procured under the previous Conservative Government. If I remember rightly, when I was on the Select Committee, we produced a report suggesting that it should have been cancelled back in the early 2000s. I think that I moved the amendment.

[Thomas Docherty]

As I said, I know that my hon. Friend played no part in the decision to proceed. I cannot quite remember who was the Minister responsible for acquisition in the previous Conservative Government, but perhaps it will come back to me later in the debate.

Not just Ministers need to take some responsibility for mistakes; Ministry of Defence officials and the Royal Air Force need to take some, too. There was an 86% change in the aircraft specification from the time of commissioning under that previous Minister and October 2010. Mr Brady, you worked in industry prior to coming to the House. You know that making that amount of change to a project means that costs will go up and it will be delayed.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Does 86% of the blame therefore need to lie with the Labour Government?

[Thomas Docherty]

I am sure that a previous Minister with responsibility for defence acquisition would always be happy to take responsibility for all the decisions that he made, even if he was not always fully aware of that at the time.

As our report on acquisition makes clear, the MOD must learn the lessons of past acquisition decisions. I think that I speak for the whole Committee when I say that, although we welcome the Government’s progress on acquisition, we are not convinced that they have learned all the lessons yet. There is still more work to be done. Perhaps the Minister will say more about what improvements can be made, in the light of those lessons.

The third responsible party is BAE Systems. It should not sit around and blame the MOD, the RAF and the two Governments, and try to get by without accepting some responsibility for its decisions. The Minister nods, and I welcome the fact that there is acceptance on both sides of the Chamber that BAE was not an exemplar: in much the same way as I have been critical of Lockheed Martin’s approach to the strike fighter, I consider that BAE Systems bears some blame.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman is being entirely fair. The fault on the programme rests wholly and entirely with BAE Systems. It was the design authority on the aircraft and should have understood its technical capabilities. No two wing sets were the same. My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot), the then Minister for Defence Procurement, was perfectly entitled to rely on the bid that was put in and on the advice of the civil servants. It is not fair to blame Ministers. I do not think that it is even fair to blame officials. I think that BAE Systems, as the design authority for that aircraft, is entirely responsible for what ended as a disaster.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am always grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s thoughtful comments. I respectfully disagree, in this sense: I was having a private dinner with members of the defence community last night, and we were talking about lack of intellectual curiosity. There were examples that I shall not go into today, but I think that far too often there is a lack of the intellectual curiosity to challenge defence procurement decisions, among those in uniform, politicians—both in the Committee and perhaps in Departments—and civil servants. Too often, Governments have simply gone along with what they are told. But I absolutely accept the hon. Gentleman’s point that BAE Systems is a major villain in this play. Nevertheless, the current Government need to take some responsibility, and I will explain why shortly.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne), who has had to step out briefly, talked about Nimrod and the deterrent. I was actually wondering at one point if I had wandered into a deterrent debate. She mentioned Lord Browne of Ladyton, who has been a friend of mine for more than 15 years. I typed up—I will not say that I wrote—his maiden speech for him, back in the days of 7 Millbank, Mr Brady, when you, too, first entered the House. You will remember—it is not so many years ago—Mr Browne, as he was then, as a new MP. I have a huge amount of respect for Lord Browne, but I respectfully disagree with his analysis yesterday in The Daily Telegraph. It was a thoughtful piece, but Lord Browne—who, as I say, I have known for many years and regard as a friend—has a habit of treating a conversation as a one- way talk, and I hope that what he has actually done is to help to stimulate a broader debate.

[Bob Stewart]

He was a friend of yours.

[Thomas Docherty]

Much in the same way that the hon. Gentleman is a friend of mine, probably.

As I was saying, my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock made a thoughtful contribution this afternoon, but again I must respectfully say that her logic is back to front. We need to make a decision about the deterrent and then decide, in effect, the relatively minor costs of providing maritime surveillance; maritime surveillance needs to come second. We do not say whether or not we will have a maritime surveillance capability and therefore whether or not we will have the deterrent, but I suspect that we will have that debate on more than one occasion in the next two to three years.

[Bob Stewart]

I respectfully disagree with the hon. Gentleman. We do not just need maritime patrol aircraft for the deterrent; we need maritime patrol aircraft because of our international responsibilities of oversight out to 1,200 nautical miles, and we cannot do that properly at the moment.

[Thomas Docherty]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I will come on to that very point shortly.

There has been some discussion already about the joint equipment programme and the whiteboard, and we have touched on the balanced budget. Without prejudging what the Minister might say in response to the debate, I suspect that that might be one of the arguments that he seeks to advance. He knows well my view—and, I think, that of the Defence Committee—and that is a healthy scepticism about the claims that have been made about the size of the so-called black hole and whether or not, in the space of eight months, it has been balanced.

One of the things that concerned us in producing our report was an issue that was touched on briefly by the hon. Member for Beckenham: the long-term replacement for the maritime surveillance capability is sitting on the whiteboard, without a funding line and without even a probable time line for moving off that whiteboard and into the joint equipment programme. I wonder whether the Minister, when he responds to the debate, will clarify for the House what the status is of the whiteboard. The Minister shakes his head. With the greatest of respect to him, it is difficult for the Defence Committee to believe that the Ministry of Defence has a fully funded JEP and a clear idea of what is on the whiteboard when they will not tell us what is on the whiteboard.

[Mr Robathan]

Until now, the hon. Gentleman has been making rather a lot of sense—it is unlike me to compliment him, as he knows—but the whole point of the whiteboard is that we look at things that we want to have and then we assess whether we can afford them, and if everything that we thought that we would like to have was revealed to everyone else, I am afraid that we probably would not be mentioning a whiteboard at all, because we would not want to have our internal thinking announced before we have got as far as making decisions. These are not decisions; these are things that we want to have.

[Thomas Docherty]

I am very conscious that the title of this debate is “Maritime Surveillance” rather than “Acquisition”; I suspect that we may well seek a broader debate on acquisition. Let me just say to the Minister—again, I thank him for his career-helpful advice and praise—that maritime surveillance, as the Committee has so clearly identified, is not a “like” or a “nice to have”. It is absolutely essential.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

I am intrigued by the Minister’s intervention on my hon. Friend. Is that not exactly what the Government did when they came into power in May 2010? They added up every piece of equipment in the future equipment programme, which covered 10 years and not one year, and somehow assumed that that is where we get to the figure of the black hole.

[Thomas Docherty]

That is entirely what happened. Let us just remind ourselves that the so-called black hole is a single line from a National Audit Office report from before the 2010 general election that said—

[Mr Jones]

It was in 2009.

[Thomas Docherty]

Indeed. I am most grateful to my hon. Friend. It said that if there was no increase in defence equipment spending during the next decade and all the current programmes went ahead, that would create a £38 billion black hole.

[Mr Jones]

I am sorry, but it did not actually say that. It said £36 billion. I do not know where the extra £2 billion came from.

[Thomas Docherty]

Well, I cannot possibly comment on the sums. However, that principle of not committing to a future increase in spending is exactly what this Government have done. We saw it again yesterday at Prime Minister’s questions, when the Prime Minister, in response to what was not the most difficult question from the right hon. Member for North East Hampshire, the Chairman of the Defence Committee—

[Mr Arbuthnot]

It was a very important question.

[Thomas Docherty]

Indeed, but in response to it the Prime Minister failed to give a clear commitment to increase spending.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be able to help us further? Has he heard Leader of the Opposition give a commitment to increase defence spending after 2015?

[Thomas Docherty]

I will say two things. First, I have heard my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition speak on many occasions of his great appreciation for the role of our armed forces. Secondly, however, I am also fairly conscious that I am not sitting on the Opposition Front Bench—

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Yet.

[Thomas Docherty]

It may not be happening any time soon after my earlier remarks, and I will perhaps leave it to other colleagues—including perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham, who is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench—to address the right hon. Gentleman’s point later in the debate.

The hon. Member for Beckenham made a point about seedcorn. On pages 41 and 42 of the Committee’s report, we very clearly tackled the point about seedcorn and future remuneration. We welcome seedcorn as a principle; we very much welcome the notion that we would use our international allies to provide training and personnel support. However, we are also very clear that we do not believe that that can continue beyond 2019, and we actually say that there is huge scepticism about it continuing until 2030. The more that we have examined the issue—again, the Minister can correct me if he wants to—the more that it looks as though 2030 is the realistic time line now, in light of both our inquiry and of course our recent correspondence with the Minister, before we will get back that full capability. I wonder whether the Minister has absolute confidence that our partners—particularly our Five Eye partners—will be able to continue to provide that support to us for effectively 17 years, or perhaps even longer?

On replacement platforms, I hope that one of the things that the Minister reflects on, particularly given the BAE Systems debacle, is that there are other ways to procure replacement platforms. Of course, he will be aware of the model of Saab aircraft. In effect, an existing, tried and proven airframe is taken and then the software is fitted on to that system. Obviously, that model needs to be considered in the light of our report on Tuesday about the need for a defence industrial strategy. Can the Minister confirm whether or not the MOD is actively considering that model as one of the options?

There has also been mention of what the MOD has now called remotely piloted aircraft, which we know as unmanned aerial vehicles, and their future role. Again, there was talk about joined-up government. When we had the debate before Christmas, with the Under-Secretary of State for Defence, the hon. Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), who is the Minister with responsibility for defence procurement, the point was made by a number of colleagues that, in relation to maritime surveillance and the role of RPAs, a number of Departments clearly have an interest in maritime surveillance. The Minister might be able to correct me if I miss any on the list, but my note would say that, as well as the MOD, other Departments that have an interest in maritime surveillance include the Department for Transport and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which has lead responsibility for fishing and ensuring that Icelandic boats or, indeed, those of our European partners do not break the law. The Home Office has a role for maritime surveillance, as has the Foreign Office, with its responsibilities for overseas territories.

I hope that the Minister takes this as genuinely helpful advice: the Committee believes that we need a much more joined-up Government. Perhaps the Minister can clarify, in a way that the Minister with responsibility for defence procurement could not, what proactive steps the Department is taking to bring other Departments together to discuss whether we can have a shared acquisition policy for RPA, rather than having four Departments acting differently.

I think that, up to now, this has been a genuinely consensual debate, but the final issue I want to raise, which we touched on in the report, is slightly contentious with the Department. It is about the wide area maritime underwater search project. My colleagues know more about it than I do, so I will not go into any great detail. The Committee feels that WAMUS is an exercise that should have been carried out before or during the SDSR and not afterwards, while we were undertaking an inquiry. It was only after extensive questioning by the Chairman of the Committee and my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) that we discovered that the RAF and the Ministry of Defence had failed to tell us that the WAMUS project had not only started but had been completed while we were carrying out our SDSR inquiry. Air Vice-Marshal Green and the Minister’s predecessor both accepted that the information should have been shared with the Committee.

I am not suggesting that the RAF, the MOD and the Minister were malicious in withholding information, but I do suggest that there was either arrogance on the part of the Department—not the Minister—or incompetence. I think that it is fair to say that the Chairman of the Committee expressed his disappointment with both the Royal Air Force and the Minister. Mr Brady, I am sure that when the Chairman of the Committee was Chief Whip you never gave him the opportunity to express his disappointment in you. As one of the members of the Committee to whom that has occasionally happened, I can assure you that the Chairman’s disappointment is something that one does not seek to invoke. I hope that, in his response, the Minister will set out how the MOD has learnt the lesson of that mistake and how it is ensuring that the Committee is not let down by the Department again.

I commend the report to the House. This has been an excellent debate, and I look forward to hearing from colleagues.

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

Before I call Sir Gerald Howarth, I want to say that I hope the wind-ups will start at or by 4 o’clock.

15:40

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am delighted to take part in this extended Defence Committee discussion in Westminster Hall, which is, of course, open to a wide audience. As a former member of the Select Committee, I take this opportunity to pay tribute not just to the Chairman, who is my next-door neighbour in Hampshire, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot)—distinguished neighbour and Select Committee Chairman though he is—but to the entire Committee and its advisers for their detailed analysis of important policy and project considerations. In so doing, the Committee provides an immense service to not just the House of Commons, but the wider public and the Ministry of Defence and its officials.

I confess that I had not realised that the debate would be happening today, but as soon as I heard that it would be I decided that I would like to take part. This is the first time I have taken part in a detailed debate on defence matters since I ceased to be the Minister with responsibility for international security strategy at the Ministry of Defence, and I participate because I feel so passionately about the issue.

Maritime surveillance is of fantastic importance to this country and as my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said in an intervention on the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty), it is not simply about the protection of the deterrent. I salute 201 Squadron and the other Nimrod squadrons that perform that fantastically important role. They provide a hugely important capability that is applicable all around the world; we face a much more dangerous and volatile world now than ever before. The capability also, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham pointed out, has a civil dimension. We have responsibilities under the international convention on maritime search and rescue. I think that is what it is called; I tried to establish the exact title, although I seem to remember from my days in the Department that it is called the Chicago convention. As my hon. Friend said, the United Kingdom has an obligation to provide search and rescue right out into the Atlantic, but currently we are not able to provide that capability. It is important to see this as part of a jigsaw. It is not just the United Kingdom providing support for the United Kingdom and the international waters for which we have responsibility, but part of an interlocking NATO capability.

A year ago, I had the great pleasure and privilege of visiting Norway, where the royal Norwegian air force was kind enough to entrust me with its P-3 Orion. [Interruption.] My right hon. Friend the Minister need not worry; I came back safe and sound. I had the Norwegian Defence Minister as a passenger. It was an interesting experience because it enabled me to see not only what the maritime patrol capability delivers, but the role played by our allies. I pay tribute to the royal Norwegian air force for its part in policing the sea lanes between the Russian port of Murmansk and these islands. At 2 o’clock in the afternoon, when one is in complete darkness there, 1,000 feet over black, black water with no horizon and just endless water stretching to the Arctic, it is interesting to realise that without those people the sea lanes would not be patrolled. Mention has been made of the activity that the Russians undertake, and which their forebears in the Soviet Union undertook: sending their submarines around to the north-west coast of the United Kingdom, in particular to Scotland and the constituency of the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne), to observe what we are up to.

The deterrent is a key part of Britain’s defence capability. I will not go into any more detail than has already been given, because we are in danger of trespassing on classified territory, but mention has been made of the importance of the deterrent and the maritime patrol capability in delivering its protection. It is terribly important, therefore, to understand the significance of the capability, and to understand too that it is part of a jigsaw with our neighbours and our NATO allies, and a key element of the defence of the free world.

I must, of course, respond to the charge that I was a member of the Department when we made the decision, as was my right hon. Friend the Minister. We were both there at the time, and it is fair to point out that although the Ministry of Defence was a key part of the whole strategic defence and security review process, there were also other players, not least the National Security Council. I have to say that I think this was the most serious capability gap that we created, but I, at least, did not create it without understanding its significance. I asked the National Security Adviser, Sir Peter Ricketts, “Does the National Security Council understand the significance of the loss of the capability?” I was given the wonderful mandarin response, “Oh, I don’t think you need to worry, Minister; I think they’re fully aware.” Frankly, I do not believe that people in the Government have been fully aware of the significance of the loss.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

To be fair to the National Security Council, describing it as a loss of a capability implies that the capability was in service, which it was not yet, due to aerodynamic and other difficulties with the aeroplane itself.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for providing me with my cue. It says in the few brief notes that I scribbled down, “Reasons for cancellation”. The first reason for cancellation was indeed that BAE Systems had persistently failed to deliver.

BAE Systems is headquartered in my constituency, and there are people who think that I am in BAE’s pay. Lady Thatcher once said to me, “I hope BAE is still paying you.” BAE Systems has never paid me a penny piece in my life. I think that it is a great company, but on this project, as successive major project reports and National Audit Office reports showed, it failed to deliver. For those who do not understand what I mean when I say that BAE was the design authority—I speak as an aviator—the company is responsible for the design of every bit of the aeroplane. BAE did not even know that the wingsets were about 4 inches different, so it had to more or less hand-make whole new wingsets for each aircraft. That is why I believe the company to be culpable. Yes, I take the point that perhaps more diligence should have been shown by technical officials in the Department, but Ministers cannot be expected to understand all the details of aerodynamics.

[Thomas Docherty]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I will not, if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, because I feel passionately about the issue, and I want to get my comments on the record and hear what my right hon. Friend and former esteemed ministerial colleague has to say.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire is right: the aircraft, which was already nine years late, had not been accepted into service by the Royal Air Force. I was told, for example, that it was porpoising through the air, and that BAE was going to deal with that by installing software to make the elevator go up and down. Forgive me, but that is metal against metal. I said to the then Chief of the Air Staff, Sir Glenn Torpy, “It’s going to wear out.” He said, “You don’t need to worry, Gerald,” but I do worry, and I did at the time. I was also told, although I do not know whether it is true, that at a certain high angle of attack, the air flow into the engine intakes was disrupted, which would lead the engine to stall. There were technical problems that were not overcome.

Secondly, as the report mentions, there was a question of finance. Again, I want to put this firmly on record. Leaving aside the £36 billion, £38 billion or whatever black hole it was, whatever chaos there was in the Department’s finances—there was chaos in the MOD’s accounts long before the last Government came into office—the fact is that this Government inherited a budget deficit of £156 billion, and we had to deal with that deficit.

I would not say this to my colleagues, but it might be true of other people listening to this debate: hands up, those who knew what the budget deficit was in 2010. I addressed a land warfare conference of 300 officers. Three put up their hands, and all three got it wrong. They were intelligent people. The country needs to understand. If people do not understand the magnitude of the deficit that we inherited—that £156 billion would have bought us three Type 45 destroyers every week of the year—nothing done in the Ministry of Defence can possibly make any sense whatever.

[Thomas Docherty]

What is it now?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The deficit is down, but not far enough, because of the magnitude of the challenge that faced us. Instead of pointing at me, the hon. Gentleman should get up and apologise for what his ghastly, contemptible friend the then Prime Minister did to this country—

[Thomas Docherty]

On a point of order, Mr Brady. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have great respect, is a little over-emotional and will want to withdraw his remarks about my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown).

[Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)]

It is always advisable to use temperate language, especially in the Chamber. I am sure that Sir Gerald will wish to do so.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I am most grateful, Mr Brady. I just feel nothing but contempt for him. That is a personal view, and if it is unparliamentary, I am sorry.

[Thomas Docherty]

Further to that point of order, Mr Brady. I have been gracious enough to say that I think the hon. Gentleman probably regrets it. Will he now withdraw what he said about my right hon. Friend?

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

No, I will not withdraw it, but I will move on, because the issue is important and the hon. Gentleman and I often find common cause on it. It is important that the public understand, and that we remind them, what the challenges are. I am coming to a point that he will like.

The second reason why we had to cancel was financial exigency. We had to make some pretty difficult decisions in the Ministry of Defence. My argument is that extra funds should have been made available to ensure the continuation of a maritime patrol aircraft capability, even if it was not the Nimrod. I agree with all those who said that capability must be regenerated as soon as possible, and I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister will say something about what our friends and allies are doing to help us regenerate it in due course.

There are, of course, lots of options. Extreme Global Solutions has been to see me about an option involving the BAE 146, which could be done on a contractor-provided basis, and mention has been made of Hybrid Air Vehicles, which is doing a fantastic job and has won a $500 million order through Northrop Grumman in the United States. There are numerous options. We do not need to rely on the Nimrod, although I was one of those who could not watch aircraft being cut up on television. As an aviator, I find it hard to take, even though, as I said, the aircraft had not delivered what the company promised to deliver.

If we agree that it is a key capability that should be regenerated as soon as possible, and that there are various options that could deliver that regeneration, what stands in our way? What stands in our way—the whiteboard has been mentioned—is that there is currently no funding. I said to the Prime Minister on the day I was relieved of my responsibilities—he was kind enough to recommend that Her Majesty confer a knighthood on me, for which I am most grateful to him—that I had not met a Conservative in the country who believed that it was right to ring-fence overseas aid and cut defence.

I hope that the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife can agree on this. I do not like disagreeing with him; I am just not a fan of his friend.

[Bob Stewart]

I think you made that clear.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Good. I am so pleased.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

He did stop us going into the euro.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

Yes, he did. I have been searching for something positive to say about the hon. Gentleman’s right hon. Friend, and I am happy to say that he was right about that.

I got the House of Commons Library to do some research for me last week. I pay tribute to the Library, which does a fantastic job for us. The Library found that this year, the overseas aid budget will increase by £2.65 billion. The Government are struggling to spend the money as it is. We have done our bit and shown an example to the rest of the world. It does not make sense for us to increase overseas aid when we lack such important capability.

Perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister will go back to our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister—I know that they are close friends—and say that this is what we should do. When I put to him the issue of ring-fencing overseas aid and not defence, the Prime Minister said, “I gave a commitment in 2009, as I did on the third runway.” I respect the Prime Minister for that principled view, but the world has changed. We have had the Arab spring and turmoil around the world. Our armed forces are one of this kingdom’s greatest assets, and our defence industry is one of the economy’s. There is a need, a requirement and an obligation, and we have a number of options to deliver that capability. I believe we should provide it now and that, quite legitimately, we should divert funds from overseas aid to provide a maritime patrol aircraft, which would contribute to stability around the world and greater prosperity among the countries we are trying to help.

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire and his colleagues on the Defence Committee on their report and on bringing the matter before the House. They have done a great service to Parliament and the country.

15:59

[Mr Kevan Jones (North Durham) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady.

I congratulate the Defence Committee on producing the report. I agree with the comments about the Committee. I was a member for seven and a half years, and it is a consensual Committee that does a lot of good work on a cross-party basis. I concur with the remarks about the Committee’s current Chairman, although I remember that, when I left the Committee to become a Minister, he said that my leaving was a bit like toothache—missed when it is gone.

The report covers an important issue that many Members have talked about today. As the Chairman and others have argued, the threats are wide. We are a maritime nation, and we depend on open sea lanes for trade and security. As a former Defence Minister, I am aware of the threats to our independent nuclear deterrent. The idea that, somehow, the end of the cold war means that Russia has gone away is incorrect. A maritime surveillance capability is vital to our defence needs, and not only because of the issues outlined by the Chairman of the Select Committee.

[Sandra Osborne]

What is my hon. Friend’s attitude to Lord Browne’s comments? Does he think we can afford a like-for-like replacement for Trident, or should we consider another system?

[Mr Jones]

I have read Lord Browne’s articles with great interest. I consider him a friend, but the weakness of his argument in The Daily Telegraph is that he makes a point about alternatives without giving one.

A maritime surveillance capability, as the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said, is vital to ensuring that we know the location of threats to our independent nuclear deterrent. From personal experience, I know the importance that the Ministry of Defence places on ensuring that any threats to our independent nuclear deterrent and our nation are taken very seriously.

Having read the report, I do not think there is disagreement between the Committee and the Government. Uniquely, there is agreement between the Government, the Committee and the National Audit Office that the decision in the 2010 strategic defence and security review was wrong. In a minute I will address why I think the decision was taken, because the contribution from the hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) is enlightening.

Yes, mistakes were made in the discussions on Nimrod. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman criticised BAE Systems because, as he said, he is referred to in many parlours as the “Member for BAE Systems.” On this occasion, he has been frank and clear in his criticism of the company.

The mistakes made in the early days were like trying to turn a 1962 Mini Cooper into today’s model with the same frame. That was highlighted by the reports on the project from when I was a member of the Defence Committee. Was there a time to pull out of the contract? Yes, I think there was. Our report from the early 2000s suggested that there should have been that option. When spending public money, we get to a point where people think, “A little bit more might get this done.” In hindsight, had there been some revision of the project in the early 2000s, Conservative Members would rightly have thrown criticism at us for wasting large amounts of public money. Making the decision earlier might have led to a capability being in place today.

There is no disagreement that there is a capability gap. The report states:

“The National Audit Office’s (NAO) Ministry of Defence Major Projects Report 2011 considered the capability gaps left by the…MRA4 decision. The NAO Report said that according to the MoD, the Nimrod contributed to eight out of the 15…priority risks set out in the National Security Strategy. It added that the Nimrod was uniquely able to rapidly search large maritime areas, a capability relevant to long range search and rescue, maritime counter-terrorism, gathering strategic intelligence and protecting the nuclear deterrent. The NAO Report further said that the MoD had carried out studies in the lead up to the SDSR to assess the capability gap from cancelling the Nimrod MRA4 and the MoD ‘assessed that cancelling Nimrod would have consequences for the military tasks that the aircraft was expected to undertake, some of them severe’. The Report also outlined the capability gaps”.

[Mr Robathan]

I was not involved in defence before the general election, but I understand that the MR2 was retired from service in March 2010, when the hon. Gentleman was a Minister. That is when the capability gap started, because there was no maritime reconnaissance aircraft from that day forwards. Is that correct?

[Mr Jones]

The important point is that the earlier decision on the MRA4 should have been reviewed. We would then have avoided the capability gap.

I remember that at the time we were facing an Opposition who were calling not only for larger armies, more ships and more aircraft, but for an increased defence budget. I am sure that if we had decided to cancel some of the things that they have subsequently cancelled, they and their allies at the time on The Sun would have given us a harder ride than they have had in recent years.

The NAO report sets out that

“limited analysis was carried out on how specific military tasks could be covered”

by a combination of the various options. The report continues:

“However, the Department noted that there would be ‘significant shortfalls without significant investment, and the co-ordination of such assets at the right place and the right time’”.

There is no disagreement that the Government have created that major capability gap. Worse, there is no solution to fill that gap. I agree with the hon. Member for Aldershot that we are relying heavily on our allies. I pay tribute not only to the Norwegians but to the US and others that are helping us with that capability.

The next question is why was the decision taken? Again, I am interesting in what the hon. Gentleman said: the decision had to be taken because of the mythical £38 billion black hole. I notice Ministers sometimes use that figure, but sometimes they do not. We must recognise that those decisions had to be taken because of the 9% cut in the defence budget introduced by the SDSR. The decisions were not strategic; they were budgetary. Knowing the defence budget as I do, there are only two simple ways to take out in-year cash. The first is to take out capability, as happened here, and, for example, with the Harriers. The second is to sack people, which has happened over the past few years.

I have never figured out where the £38 billion figure came from, even though my parliamentary colleagues, the Public Accounts Committee, the Defence Committee and I have asked for explanations. We have been promised explanations that we have never received. I suspect the figure came from the 2009 NAO report, but that was on the equipment budget.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Dunfermline and West Fife (Thomas Docherty) said, it gets to £36 billion only if everything in the programme is included, flat cash, for 10 years. Adding the inflation rise meant £6 billion. As the hon. Member for Aldershot knows, as he has admitted this afternoon, there might be aspirations in the equipment programme, but that does not mean it will all be delivered. Some things come out and others go in.

The weakness of the current situation is that the Secretary of State claims to have balanced the budget but, so far as I can see, that refers only to the equipment budget, rather than the remaining 55%. If he has been so good at plugging a £38 billion black hole within months, he and his predecessor, who made the same claim, should not be in the Ministry of Defence, but in the Treasury. We need some honesty.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

The hon. Gentleman is being slightly unfair. When I entered the Department, I said to the then Secretary of State that the first thing we had to do was regain the confidence of the Treasury. When the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues left, the Treasury had no confidence in the Ministry of Defence. By the time the current Secretary of State made a statement last July, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury was sitting next to him on the Front Bench, indicating that we had reached an accommodation with the Treasury. It is vital that the Ministry of Defence has that accommodation with the paymaster. The hon. Gentleman may not like, I may not like it, but it is a fact of life in this country.

[Mr Jones]

I am not surprised at that. I have dealt with the Treasury myself when in the Ministry of Defence. The current Secretary of State is doing the Treasury’s bidding, no doubt. What I am about to say might sound strange: at least the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), the former Secretary of State, actually argued for defence and got into disagreements. To be fair to him, he tried his best on that decision. The whole problem with the SDSR was that it put the Treasury in the driving seat. My experience of dealing with Treasury officials about our budget when I was a Minister was that they had limited knowledge and understanding of how defence works in practice. That is one of the weaknesses: letting the lion into the room, with very little understanding of how defence works.

[Thomas Docherty]

On the point of being Treasury-driven, we mentioned the deterrent several times. Is my hon. Friend as surprised as me that, in a written answer to me last year, the Treasury stated that, although leading the review of the deterrent, its representatives had not once set foot in the MOD building, and that not one single admiral or air marshal had gone across to the Cabinet Office to see them?

[Mr Jones]

That does not surprise me at all. If we had more time, I could bore Members with some of the ludicrous ideas that were presented to me when I was a Minister by the Treasury, showing a lack of understanding.

The Ministry of Defence claims to have balanced the budget, even though we do not know what is on the whiteboard. The Minister said again this afternoon that he is not prepared to tell us what is on the whiteboard. Is the replacement on there, yes or no? Is, for example, Sentinel, another very important piece of kit, on the whiteboard? Even though it has been deployed to Mali, the Secretary of State indicated in Defence questions the other day that it will somehow be reprieved. If so, what is coming off the budget? Last week’s NAO report said that the £8 billion put aside in reserve may not be enough even to cover the risk in the existing programme. The hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff) keeps asking at Defence questions for that whiteboard. Until we get to see that and what is actually in the equipment budget, there is no way of telling when the capability will be put forward.

When the hon. Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) came before the Committee, he was clear that there was no money or indication to replace this capability until 2015. There are unanswered questions. There is clearly a capability gap; the Government admit that. The Committee and the NAO report identified that. No solution has been put forward to resolve that.

[Mr Arbuthnot]

Would the shadow Minister tell us whether the Leader of the Opposition is committed to increasing defence spending year-on-year in real terms after 2015?

[Mr Jones]

I am surprised by the right hon. Gentleman. He is usually non-partisan in such matters. If we do not know what is on the whiteboard, what the budget is or the state of the remaining 55% of the budget, it is difficult to make that determination. The Government made claims last week when they got the figures mixed up and did not understand that the 1% applies only to the equipment budget, not the remaining 55%. Even the NAO report says that that might be swallowed up just by the risk in the existing programme. We need to know such things. Until we do, it is difficult to know what will be capable of replacing this piece of kit.

It has been a good debate, which shows the cross-party nature of the Defence Committee at its best. However, the Government, with the short-sighted decisions they took in the SDSR, among many others, have created a huge capability gap that I fear will have strategic implications for the nation for many years.

16:09

[The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Andrew Robathan)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady. Of course, the Conservative parliamentary party always serves under your chairmanship.

I begin by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire (Mr Arbuthnot) on the work he and his Committee have done in this area. Since we are all being nice to those who help us, I add my thanks to the huge number of serving personnel and civil servants who came to fill in one or two knowledge gaps in my portfolio. I have already made that point. They have come along to see whether they have repaired the gaps in my knowledge, and I think they did.

This is an important and wide-ranging subject and it is right to give it serious attention. As has already been pointed out, maritime security is vital to the defence of our nation and our interests around the world. The military and non-military dimensions of maritime surveillance are key elements. We highlighted our position as an open, outward-facing island nation in the national security strategy and placed an emphasis on surveillance and intelligence in the SDSR. Put simply, we cannot protect ourselves against existing and anticipated threats if we do not understand and cannot detect them. Doing so successfully requires a range of capable platforms and sensors, highly trained personnel and procedures to ensure effective action is taken on the information they provide.

The geography of the United Kingdom means that we are dependent on the sea for our economic prosperity. Maritime security and surveillance underpins our trade: the vast majority of our imports and exports are transported by sea. As much as 90% of world trade is carried by sea, so we not only need to secure our own territorial waters but to contribute to protecting key global sea lanes and our vital interests overseas.

I think everybody here would agree that we also wish to be able to project military power with our allies through the use of expeditionary forces. We rely again on maritime surveillance assets to protect those forces wherever they are deployed. Closer to home, the Government have responsibility to protect our people, our borders and our exclusive economic zone. I have always said that the first duty of Government is the defence of the realm. That requires that the different agencies charged with doing so—the police, borders, immigration, intelligence agencies, coastguard, Department for Transport, search and rescue providers and the armed forces—have the capabilities they need and work closely together.

None the less, hon. Members will be well aware that we did not start on firm financial ground in planning for the future. The parlous state of the defence budget inherited from the previous Government and the overheated and unrealistic equipment plan meant that hard decisions had to be taken. I am not going to engage again with the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), who is in denial, yet he was a Minister in the previous Government and knew what the situation was. He remains in denial and we have had this conversation before.

I understand that the Secretary of State has written to the shadow Secretary of State detailing exactly what the situation was.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

No.

[Mr Robathan]

If he has not, I will come back to the hon. Gentleman and ensure he gets a response. It is also the case that the parlous state of the nation’s finances is visible for all to see. Yet, instead of having any guilt about it, he sits and smiles and says it is not true and that everything was going swimmingly, as the previous Government in a profligate manner distributed money everywhere and left us in this ghastly situation that none of us enjoys.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Robathan]

I have told the hon. Gentleman that I will not engage with him again, because we have done it before and he is in denial. One cannot have military or economic security based on unsustainable defence spending. The Soviet Union found that out. That is why we took a number of difficult decisions during the SDSR, including the decision not to bring the Nimrod MRA4 into service.

At the beginning of the debate, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire said that he did not wish to concentrate on Nimrod, but I am afraid that it has been largely about Nimrod, which I will therefore have to deal with in some detail. I asked the officials present—this huge number of serving personnel and civil servants—at what date the original Nimrod decision was taken, so I knew before his confession that it was, sadly, taken under the previous Conservative Government.

We should not forget the background to the decision to cancel Nimrod. There were no maritime reconnaissance aircraft flying in the RAF when we came into government. We did not create the capability gap—the capability did not exist. Owing to cost growth in the programme, the original plan to convert 21 airframes for the MRA4 had by 2010 been scaled back to only nine. The in-service date had been delayed from 2003 to 2012, costs had none the less risen from £2.8 billion to £3.6 billion, there were still outstanding technical problems which would have taken further large sums of money to solve and we knew that it would cost about £2 billion to operate over the next decade. While the capability’s role in support of anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, strategic intelligence gathering, and search and rescue remained important, in a financially constrained environment dominated by the operations in Afghanistan among other threats, it made the most military and financial sense to discontinue the programme, however unhappy that made us.

I was particularly interested in the comments of the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife. I joined the armed forces in 1970 and, during my time in the Army and in Parliament since, I have seen a long list of poor procurement projects—[Interruption.] That is the Leader of the Opposition ringing. Out of a litany of procurement disasters, as the hon. Gentleman said, this has been one of the worst. It was more than nine years late, each aircraft was to cost three times the original amount and we still had not finished. We did not where the programme was going, there was no end in sight and we were not asked to throw good money after bad. I am afraid that that decision, much as it is regretted, was the right one.

[Dr Julian Lewis]

I apologise to the Minister and to other right hon. and hon. Members for coming late to the debate. I was serving on the Justice and Security Bill Committee, which has only just finished. Given that so much money was sunk into this project and that considerable technological advances were made for the equipment that was to be carried on the Nimrod, will we still get the benefit of that advanced technology development for possible use in future programmes?

[Mr Robathan]

My hon. Friend asks a good question, but I am afraid that I cannot answer at this moment. I will write to him and let him know but, certainly, technological advance does not go away—it has happened.

We have not been idle in dealing with the consequences of the decision. Revised plans and operating procedures are in place for other platforms to mitigate the absence of a maritime patrol aircraft capability. I will not go into too much detail, as some things are classified, but we can request support from allies and partners if necessary and we have established a seedcorn initiative to maintain the skills and knowledge necessary to operate maritime patrol aircraft in the future, should circumstances change. I was in New Zealand last year and saw some of our RAF personnel who were taking part in the seedcorn initiative. They said it was extremely valuable, and I thought it also sounded like a pretty good posting.

[Thomas Docherty]

The Committee said that we support seedcorn, which was a sensible move by the Government, but we were specifically concerned that the capability could not be maintained beyond 2019. Given the ongoing delays, what reassurances can the Minister offer to the Committee that that issue has been met?

[Mr Robathan]

That is a perfectly good question. We are coming up to another SDSR in two years’ time, when we will consider how to take this forward. I was going to cover the subject subsequently, but we are stretched for time. Hot off the press, I point out to my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) that some of the equipment destined for the MRA4 is now destined for the Merlin Mark 2 from 2015. Living within our means will continue to guide our decisions. Hard-headed realism and rigour will determine what we buy.

I have many things that I want to put on the record, but the sitting ends at 4.30 pm, so I must be circumspect in what I say. I turn to submarines, which have been much discussed. Submarines use their stealth and global reach to collect information, indications and warnings of threatening activity; where appropriate, they operate in support of naval taskforces. Bringing in the Astute submarine is a major step forward; it is a quieter submarine and gives us greater capabilities. Also, internationally we are not operating alone. Not only the French and Norwegians, but the Americans and Canadians can provide support through maritime patrol aircraft. We have existing agreements with some of those countries and have recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Norway to co-operate on maritime air surveillance. We are also supporting a NATO smart defence initiative to look at long-term solutions to challenges, which could involve buying maritime patrol aircraft.

We are not complacent. There is a great deal of agreement in the Chamber that this is something we wish to have: greater ability for maritime surveillance. We are looking at ways to have that in future. In order to answer the questions, however, I will not go through the rest of my speech, except to comment on the helicopters. We are looking at the Merlin Mark 2 coming into service this year—two are already in service—and we have SKASaC or Sea King airborne surveillance and control, which will operate until 2016, although the airframe is quite aged, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) said. We are not in any way suggesting that life is perfect at the moment.

When winding up, one should answer Members, so I will give some replies. My right hon. Friend the Member for North East Hampshire asked five questions. We see co-ordination of maritime surveillance as being done by the maritime security oversight group, up to the National Security Council. I agree that further development is needed, and I think that it will develop further. His second question was on the strategic analysis of maritime threats and the need for surveillance. I do not have a specific answer, because that is something we are doing the whole time. If he wants to ask a specific question later, I am happy to answer it. On progress on developing maritime ISTAR, some is classified, but optimisation study is going on as we speak. The air ISTAR optimisation study will consider the potential contribution to maritime surveillance of lighter-than-air vehicles, which were mentioned earlier; the initial report will appear in April this year, for consideration of options by April next year. His fourth question was the general ability to deal with contingency operations. Generally, contingency—a much overused word in the MOD—seems to rule everything at the moment. After Afghanistan, that is very much where we are looking. His fifth question was on updates, which we will continue to provide. If we do not, he can come back to me and ask for them, as I certainly will update him.

I did not entirely agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne) on the deterrent, although I entirely agreed with her point about Scottish separation. We have layers of defence for the deterrent, so I echo the CDS, and I have just mentioned the Merlin upgrade to Mark 2, going into service this year. They regularly deploy to Prestwick to rehearse anti-submarine warfare in support of deterrence protection. Therefore, what she said is something we are using, although not permanently.

[Sandra Osborne]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Robathan]

I do not think that I should; I have one minute left.

I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Dunfermline and West Fife that the procurement and acquisition process has been appalling in the past. I hope that he will have some confidence in the pronouncements by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and, indeed, by my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow (Mr Dunne), the Minister for Defence Equipment, Support and Technology. We are trying extraordinarily hard, with the assistance of Bernard Gray, the Chief of Defence Matériel, to get this right. The Select Committee will come back to me or the Ministry of Defence if we do not get it right. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the black hole, but I do not want to go there again.

May I say how much we miss my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) at the MOD? He was absolutely right about money, but I am afraid to say—

16:30

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

Written Ministerial Statements

Thursday 7th February 2013 Written Statements

Thursday 7 February 2013

Finance Bill 2013

Thursday 7th February 2013 Written Statements

[The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)]

The Finance Bill will be published on Thursday 28 March.

Explanatory notes on the Bill will be available in the Vote Office and the Printed Paper Office and placed in the Libraries of both Houses on that day. Copies of the explanatory notes will be available on the Treasury’s website.

International Defence Engagement Strategy

Thursday 7th February 2013 Written Statements

[The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)]

I am making a joint statement with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Together we wish to inform the House that the Government are today publishing the “International Defence Engagement Strategy”. Implementing this new strategy will maximise the contribution that defence can make towards the achievement of our foreign policy objectives.

The national security strategy and strategic defence and security review (SDSR) in 2010 set out our goal to bring together and use all the instruments of national power in a co-ordinated and coherent manner, ensuring that the sum of our efforts to safeguard our security, extend our influence, and build our prosperity is bigger than its component parts.

The international defence engagement strategy sets out how defence assets and activities fit within this goal, and how they can better contribute to wider Government objectives. It looks out over a horizon of 20 years to identify both the major risks that we will face and opportunities that we will have.

In implementing this strategy we will use our network of defence attachés and other defence representation overseas, together with our diplomatic network and the Defence and Security Organisation of UK Trade & Investment, to ensure that we are developing the right relationships and achieving the right influence for the challenges and opportunities of the future.

On occasion, we will cement these relationships in the form of a treaty, as we did with France in 2010. But the influence we can achieve through defence engagement goes far broader than this. This strategy therefore includes traditional defence diplomacy activity of senior-level visits and international defence training; Ministry of Defence contributions to regional stability, conflict prevention and stabilisation activities; security and non-combat operations; and MOD support for defence and security exports. The scope of this strategy is ambitious and it will be implemented in conjunction with other related Government initiatives, such as the building stability overseas strategy, the Gulf initiative and the emerging powers initiative. The implementation of the international defence engagement strategy will build on existing relationships and on work already under way, but we will also be making some significant advances in the development of our relationships with some states.

We have already taken steps to ensure that we use our defence engagement to promote our values through contributing to the institutional capability of other nations. We will have an accredited non-resident defence attaché for Burma next month and will establish a defence section in our Embassy in Rangoon later this year. The Burmese Government have taken some very positive and welcome steps towards reform which we should assist. The Burmese military continues to play an influential role in government, so we will use military to military dialogue where we can, complementing diplomatic and development efforts, to encourage reform and support democracy. During her meeting with the Prime Minister in June 2012, Aung San Suu Kyi specifically recommended the appointment of a defence attaché to Burma as a key channel for engagement with the Burmese military.

We are increasing our efforts to support security and justice sector reform and capacity building, which contribute to regional peace and security. We will be opening a defence section in our embassy in Libya this year. During the transition in Libya we established a defence advisory team to assist the national transitional council in developing their organisational and planning capacity. This team has remained in place post-conflict, to support the democratically elected General National Congress. The defence section will build on relationships established by them. Also, we have recently established a defence section in Juba in South Sudan. We are working alongside other Government Departments to assist this newly independent state to establish national institutions and implement security and justice reform, contributing to regional security in a relatively unstable region.

Similarly, when the British embassy is opened in Mogadishu this year we will be establishing a defence section there, enabling us to provide a greater focus for our support to the Government of Somalia and to AMISOM, the African Union force in Somalia, as they make progress in driving out al-Shabaab. Importantly, taking advantage of our transition from combat operations in Afghanistan and the resulting increase in available forces, we are exploring innovative ways of using some army capabilities on a wide range of defence engagement tasks and intend to pilot this as the army restructures its adaptable brigades. We will exploit our recent operational experience, develop our capabilities, our cultural understanding and language training, and demonstrate our commitment and support for our allies and partners including the UN, NATO and EU.

We recognise the importance of developing our bilateral relationships with emerging powers—nations we see as growing long-term partners in regional and global defence and security issues. The international defence engagement strategy allows us to focus our efforts, and as examples of this over the last two years we have signed defence co-operation and defence technical arrangements with Japan, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Turkey and Brazil. Supporting our Gulf initiative and security in the middle east region we have intensified defence co-operation across the region and we are increasing our training and exercise activity with Gulf nations throughout 2013.

We are continuing to develop our bilateral relationships more broadly, and have recently signed defence co-operation agreements or memoranda of understanding with Canada, Norway, Denmark and Mongolia. Since the SDSR in October 2010, the UK has signed no fewer than seven new defence treaties and over 50 new memoranda of understanding and other subordinate agreements which contribute to our network of international alliances and partnerships in line with the vision set out in the SDSR. The most recent new agreement is a defence co-operation treaty with Australia, signed in Perth on 18 January 2013. This will see our two nations co-operating on a range of defence-related topics such as cyber security, defence reform, personnel exchanges, equipment and science and technology.

We are deepening our relationships with long-standing allies.

The United States will remain our pre-eminent security partner, and our armed forces continue to work closely together operationally. The UK currently stations over 750 British defence personnel in the US, conducting a broad variety of activities. These include a wide range of senior personnel serving in advisory or command positions in US headquarters. Approximately 200 British officers are on exchange with all four of the US services, developing capability and increasing interoperability. As close allies the US and UK host each other’s forces in order to conduct training, be prepared to forward-deploy when necessary, and in many cases conduct current operations. In November 2012 alone over 500 UK military personnel visited the US to conduct a joint exercise with US counterparts.

We are pursuing a programme of enhanced bilateral defence co-operation, focusing on areas of mutual benefit such as carrier-strike, cyber, space, land forces interoperability, science and technology, defence education, intelligence and the nuclear deterrent. These will be progressed through regular strategic dialogue at the most senior levels, supported by a reorganised British defence staff, United States.

Following our signature of the UK-French defence co-operation treaty in 2010 we have been increasing our bilateral defence activity with France. In spring last year we established the British defence staff in France in Paris. We set up five new strategic exchange officer posts with France in September 2012 and will establish a further five posts by 2015. We are increasing our joint exercises. This was exemplified by the Corsican Lion exercise last October, building towards the final validation of the concept of the combined joint expeditionary force in 2016. Our ambassador in Paris, Sir Peter Ricketts, has been consulted during the preparation of the French livre blanc security review and has offered advice drawing on the UK experience during our 2010 strategic defence and security review (SDSR).

We have rewired the existing defence attaché presence in Europe to establish three “networks” covering the Nordic/Baltic, central Europe and the western Balkans which will enable us to have a more strategic approach. We will also work increasingly closely with our northern European neighbours through the Northern Group of 12 nations established at UK’s initiative in 2010 to improve understanding on common security issues and identify opportunities for enhanced co-operation.

Recognising the importance of international defence engagement to wider Government objectives, on current plans we have reprioritised our existing budgets to dedicate a further £2.5 million in 2012-13 for this purpose. From 2013-14 this reprioritisation will enable a further £3.5 million on top of existing resources to be available to pursue these activities, for the four years of the defence planning cycle.

In such a cross-cutting area of work it is important to ensure that we have clarity of governance. We have therefore established a new high-level defence engagement board which will consult with and take guidance from Foreign and Commonwealth Office and MOD Ministers, the National Security Council and the National Security Adviser, and provide updates to them. It is jointly chaired at director-general level by FCO and MOD, and includes membership from across Whitehall.

We have deposited a copy of the strategy in the Library of the House. It is also available on the FCO and MOD websites.

Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (England)

Thursday 7th February 2013 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon)]

I am today, in conjunction with the Environment Agency, announcing details of flood and coastal erosion risk management schemes going ahead in the next financial year in England.

A total of 93 new flood defence schemes are being funded to move into construction in 2013-14, which when completed will provide better protection from the devastating effects of flooding to 64,000 homes.

This Government are on course to spend £2.3 billion on flooding and coastal erosion risk management in England over this spending period (April 2011 to March 2015). This is being supplemented by up to £148 million, contributed by local councils, businesses and private investors under the new partnership funding system introduced in May 2011. This extra investment is helping to deliver better protection to more communities than previously thought possible. Risk management authorities are now on track to deliver better protection to 165,000 homes by March 2015, exceeding the target set at the start of the spending period by 20,000.

I can also announce that nine schemes, including Leeds, Sheffield, Ipswich, Exeter and Derby, will receive a share of the funding announced in the autumn statement last year. These schemes will unlock economic growth, create jobs and grow the economy. For example, Exeter’s new flood defences will create over 1,000 jobs and protect businesses which employ 4,700 people. The defences will provide better protection to land for business development as well as major rail and sewerage infrastructure and over 2,000 homes. In Ipswich, a tidal barrier will improve flood protection to 10 hectares of development land attracting more business to the area and creating 4,000 jobs.

Last year I announced that the new partnership funding system had brought forward £72 million of contributions over the three years to March 2015. During its second year the figure has now doubled to £148 million over the same period. This is enabling more schemes to proceed than would have been possible if the old all-or-nothing funding system had remained. Schemes with significant partner contributions include the £50.5 million growth scheme in Leeds that will protect 250 businesses and create over 18,000 jobs. To supplement Government’s investment, Leeds city council is contributing £10 million towards the cost of the scheme, with a further £5 million proposed to be raised from local businesses.

Other schemes made possible as a result of the new system include new sea defences at Anchorsholme in Lancashire, which will reduce the risk of flooding to 6,000 homes and highway, tramway and sewerage infrastructure. Blackpool borough council is contributing £4 million toward the total cost of £28.4 million. The combination of extra funding in the autumn statement, backed by partnership funding contributions, will allow a £9.7 million scheme to go ahead in Skipton, North Yorkshire. This will reduce flooding to over 350 residential and 165 business properties in the market town with £2 million coming from local authorities and businesses.

The full programme of schemes going ahead in 2013-14 alongside a provisional programme for future years will be published on the Environment Agency website later today.

Foreign Affairs Council/General Affairs Council

Thursday 7th February 2013 Written Statements

[The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington)]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs attended the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) on 31 January. The Foreign Affairs Council was chaired by the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Baroness Ashton of Upholland. Commissioners Damanaki (Maritime Affairs and Fisheries), Georgieva (International Co-operation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response) and Füle (Enlargement) were in attendance for some of the discussions. The President of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, attended lunch with the Foreign Ministers.

I attended the General Affairs Council on 4 February in Brussels. The General Affairs Council was chaired by the Irish Presidency, the Foreign Minister for Ireland, Eamon Gilmore.

Foreign Affairs Council (FAC)

A provisional report of the meeting and conclusions adopted can be found at: http://www.consilium.europa. eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/EN/foraff/135155.pdf.

EU-CELAC Summit

Baroness Ashton briefed the FAC on the EU-CELAC summit which took place on 26 and 27 January in Santiago, Chile. She said the summit had focused on the importance of trade and investment for growth and stability in the region, and the need to collaborate more closely on shared values such as human rights, including in multilateral fora. CELAC countries had welcomed the high level of EU engagement displayed throughout the summit.

EU-Russia Summit

Baroness Ashton reported back on the EU-Russia summit on 21 December. She said that the EU needed to work more closely with Russia on protracted conflicts in the common neighbourhood, and stressed the importance of the eastern neighbourhood remaining high on the EU-Russian agenda in the run up to the eastern partnership summit in Vilnius in November.

Mali

There was widespread support for France’s actions in Mali, and France was congratulated on its success so far. France stressed the need for African troops to work alongside French forces and to help hold the territorial gains. The Council adopted Council conclusions that welcomed recent military and political developments, reaffirmed the aim of launching the EU training mission (EUTM) Mali by mid-February, and noted that the adoption of the road map permitted the gradual resumption of EU development assistance.

Commissioner Georgieva said that a humanitarian crisis had existed in Mali prior to recent events, but that the French intervention had averted a worsening of the situation. But greater humanitarian access was needed. The donor conference in Addis Ababa had been very positive, with the African contribution particularly notable.

The Foreign Secretary said that the UK would provide up to 40 people for the EUTM Mali, and stressed the importance of providing training in human rights and protection of civilians. The UK would also provide up to 200 trainers for the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) troops in the Anglophone contributing countries.

Southern Neighbourhood

The FAC prepared the 7 and 8 February European Council discussion on EU support to the Southern Neighbourhood, and accepted the need for the EU to assess how successful its approach had been since the Arab spring.

The FAC also agreed conclusions endorsing the joint EEAS-Commission communication on EU support for regional integration in the Maghreb. The conclusions noted the communication’s emphasis on democratic reform and inclusive economic development, looked ahead to a high-level EU-Arab Maghreb Union dialogue and welcomed proposals on co-operation in the security sector, given recent Sahel-linked terrorism.

On Syria, Ministers discussed three areas: the lack of progress as set out in joint Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi’s latest report to the UN Security Council; the deteriorating humanitarian situation; and the EU sanctions package. The humanitarian and security situation remained dire. Ministers agreed on the need to support Brahimi’s efforts. Brahimi’s presence at the Foreign Affairs Council on February 18 would provide an opportunity for a more detailed discussion.

The Foreign Secretary set out the extraordinary scale of the humanitarian crisis, highlighted by the UN level 3 emergency status. UK humanitarian assistance now totalled £140 million, and, while assistance from the EU had been impressive, member states needed to give more: Europe had to set an example to the rest of the world.

Ministers discussed the issue of amending the EU sanctions regime, and agreed to return to it at the Foreign Affairs Council on 18 February.

Ministers expressed their concern at the political and economic turmoil in Egypt, and focused on the importance of conditionality in the EU’s approach.

EU-US

Ministers discussed the EU’s priorities with the US during President Obama’s second term, focusing on the strategic and political importance of an EU-US free trade agreement (FTA) and its growth-boosting potential. Other shared priorities were co-operation on Asia-Pacific, the Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood, and Africa, in particular the Sahel and the horn of Africa.

Middle East Peace Process

Ministers considered the middle east peace process within the broader discussion of EU-US relations. It was agreed that it was important to engage with the US Administration to encourage them to engage fully on the middle east peace process. High Representative Ashton said the European External Action Service was also focused on working with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, the Arab League, and Egypt in this context.

Somalia

The FAC adopted comprehensive conclusions, the first since the political transition ended, setting out a new EU relationship with Somalia. The conclusions welcomed the announcement of the London and EU conferences, and reaffirmed readiness to maintain significant EU support to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).

Over lunch, Foreign Ministers had an exchange with the President of Somalia, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. The president stressed the need for improved international and regional co-operation. He made a plea for continued EU financial support to AMISOM, noting that parallel support to the Somali National Security Forces was also required for them to be in a position to take over in due course. The Foreign Secretary set out his plans for the forthcoming London conference on Somalia, to be co-hosted with the Somalis, which will focus on immediate needs: security, justice, public financial management and continued political progress. Baroness Ashton outlined plans for an EU conference later in the year, which will address medium and long-term Somali needs.

The Arctic

High Representative Ashton and Commissioner Damanaki emphasised the importance of member state support for the Commission’s application for Arctic Council observer status. Ministers also focused on the impact of climate change on the Arctic, and the importance of protecting the rights of the Arctic’s indigenous peoples. High Representative Ashton concluded that whether or not the Commission secured observer status, the EU would continue to engage on the significant challenges and opportunities arising in the Arctic.

South Caucasus

Under AOB, the Bulgarian Foreign Minister Mladenov reported on his joint visit with his Polish and Swedish counterparts to the south Caucasus in December. The three Foreign Ministers urged partners to focus on two issues in particular: the risk of increased conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh; and the need to press Georgia’s President Saakashvili and Prime Minister Ivanishvili to achieve a constructive cohabitation.

Other business

Ministers agreed without discussion a number of others measures, including:

Amending restrictive measures on Iraq;

Extending the validity of national permits for the temporary reception of certain Palestinians in the EU;

Amending restrictive measures on Afghanistan;

Approving the six-monthly progress report on the implementation of the EU strategy against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;

Extending the sanctions against persons responsible for the misappropriation of Tunisia state funds;

Adopting conclusions on support for sustainable change in transition societies;

Approving the EU crisis management exercise programme for 2013-15; and

Approving the crisis management concept for a possible civilian common security defence policy (CSDP) border security mission in Libya.

General Affairs Council (GAC)

With the February European Council taking place on 7 and 8 January, the focus of the GAC was on preparing for this meeting. There was a short presentation on the Irish Presidency’s work programme and a first look at the agenda for the March European Council. After the Council, Ministers had lunch with the President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy.

Presentation of the Presidency Work Programme

Eamon Gilmore presented the programme for the Irish EU Presidency. He noted the emphasis on measures which would promote jobs and growth. The presidency would focus on the single market, and on regulatory measures—for instance the mutual recognition of professional qualifications. On enlargement, they hoped to open new chapters with Turkey, Montenegro and Iceland.

Preparation for the 7-8 February European Council

The plenary session of the General Affairs Council discussed trade and external relations. The Commission set out the link between trade, growth and jobs and presented the findings from their recent paper on trade. The Commission emphasised the importance of trade in delivering urgently needed growth and jobs.

Although the overall tone of the discussion was clearly oriented towards the need to promote further trade, there were differences on how this should be done. Many Europe Ministers pressed for an ambitious trade agenda based on sending positive messages to those with whom we wish to work. Some warned against mercantilist conditionality tied to access to the single market, which would send out the wrong signal and enable member states to pursue a protectionist agenda.

Conversely, other member states argued that the European Council conclusions should include stronger references to the trade defence instrument. They underlined the importance of reciprocity and the need for a strong industrial policy and called for Japan to dismantle its non-tariff barriers. Several member states called for a specific reference to the public procurement instrument in the European Council conclusions.

I argued that when the European Council conclusions were agreed, they would send a strong signal to those with whom we sought to do business. Did we want this signal to be a lukewarm welcome to trade, with caveats, exceptions and conditions, or should we send a clear signal that we were serious about doing business? I further emphasised that trade is not a zero-sum game. This applied to trade within the single market as well as trade between the EU and others.

When discussing the Southern Neighbourhood, I stressed that the European Council should call for progress in launching deep and comprehensive free trade agreements (DCFTAs). A differentiated approach to these DCFTAs was warranted, where some countries such as Tunisia and Morocco were more advanced than others.

Finally, Ministers discussed whether the Syrian arms embargo was achieving its humanitarian aims. I said that the UK would raise this at the European Council.

Presentation of the Annotated draft agenda for 14-15 March European Council

The presidency introduced the March European Council agenda, which would focus on the European semester. The Commission said they hoped the European Council could endorse a balanced set of conclusions that would give further impetus to the process. On the planned discussion of strategic partners, the Commission suggested that this could be used to discuss relations with Russia.

Lunch with President of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy

The focus of the February European Council will be on the multi-annual financial framework (MFF) at which the Prime Minister will be arguing for at most a real-terms freeze and to protect the UK rebate. Herman van Rompuy, President of the European Council, set out his plans for how the negotiations on the MFF would be handled on 7 and 8 February. The role of the European Parliament in agreeing the MFF was also discussed. Both the Irish Presidency and Herman van Rompuy touched on the consent of the European Parliament, which would be required for any MFF deal.

CCTV and other Surveillance Camera Technology

Thursday 7th February 2013 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)]

My hon. Friend the Minister for criminal information, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, has today made the following written ministerial statement:

On 13th September 2012, my hon. Friend the Minister of State for crime prevention (Jeremy Browne), issued a written statement to the House announcing arrangements for the implementation of provisions within the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 for the regulation of surveillance camera systems.

The Government favour the use of CCTV and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) systems as a crime-fighting and public protection tool. They support the use of overt surveillance in a public place wherever its deployment is in pursuit of a legitimate aim, necessary to meet a pressing need, proportionate and compliant with any relevant legislation. Like the public, the Government expect that where CCTV is deployed it is as effective as it can be in meeting its stated purpose and has appropriate privacy safeguards.

The public must, however, have confidence that such surveillance is appropriate and proportionate, and that those who operate the camera systems, or use the images and information they capture, demonstrate integrity in so doing and can be held to account.

This is why the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 now requires Government to put in place a regulatory framework for surveillance camera systems comprising a code of practice and a surveillance camera commissioner. The appointment of Mr Andrew Rennison as surveillance camera commissioner was announced in the previous written statement.

A period of statutory consultation in relation to the preparation of the code of practice will launch today, and close on 21 March 2013. The draft code is built upon 12 guiding principles, and for the first time introduces a philosophy of surveillance by consent. The Government see an important parallel with the well-established concept of policing by consent, which is based upon a presumption of transparency and accountability to assure the integrity of police officers and staff in exercising their powers on behalf of their fellow citizens. This Government will ensure that, for the first time, there is a robust framework in place to protect the public from any excessive or irresponsible use of CCTV or ANPR.

This consultation will seek views on the scope and clarity of the draft code and its likely impact, and also seeks to ensure that proper consideration is given to the position of the three non-territorial police forces and the Serious Organised Crime Agency in relation to the code. Namely whether they should be added to the existing list of relevant authorities who will be placed under a duty to have regard to the code when exercising any functions to which the code relates.

Copies of the consultation document, the draft code of practice and the impact assessment will be placed in the Library of the House. I will report to the House on the results of the consultation exercise after the Easter recess, and in anticipation of laying the necessary draft order which carries the affirmative resolution procedure seeking to bring the code into force.

Bus and Coach Passenger Rights

Thursday 7th February 2013 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Norman Baker)]

I have today laid before Parliament a statutory instrument applying exemptions to EU regulation 181/2011 on the rights of passengers in bus and coach travel. The exemptions are as follows:

with the exception of certain mandatory provisions in the EU regulation, member states may on a transparent and non-discriminatory basis, exempt domestic regular services from the application of the regulation for four years from 1 March 2013, which may be renewed once (article 2(4));

for a maximum period of four years from 1 March 2013, member states may, on a transparent and non-discriminatory basis, exempt from the application of the regulation particular regular services because a significant part of such regular services, including at least one scheduled stop, is operated outside of the EU. Such exemptions may be renewed once (article 2(5));

a member state may for a maximum of five years from 1 March 2013 grant an exemption in respect of drivers from the requirement for disability awareness training for personnel of carriers and terminal managing bodies (article 16(2)).

The statutory instrument will apply in Great Britain. In line with Government policy on European regulations, these exemptions will be applied in full. However, in response to concerns from the public about disability awareness training for bus and coach drivers, I will review the use of this exemption after one year to see whether drivers are receiving adequate training under the voluntary measure being undertaken by the bus and coach industry. I will be introducing further legislation to designate enforcement bodies later in the year.

Member states can also permanently exempt domestic regular services from the majority of chapter III on the “Rights of disabled persons and persons with restricted mobility” where their national rules provide the same or better level of protection. As I explained when we consulted on transposing this regulation, it cannot always be guaranteed that the level of protection will be the same as under the EU regulation, and therefore I do not believe we can make use of this exemption.

International Labour Conference

Thursday 7th February 2013 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)]

The 101st session of the International Labour Conference 2012 adopted recommendation 202 concerning national floors of social protection. International Labour Organisation (ILO) recommendations, adopted following negotiation among ILO member state Governments and business and union representatives, serve as non-binding guidelines. The Government welcome this recommendation and recognise its importance in its global context, as it acts as a guide for all countries in their work towards providing basic social protection for their populations. The recommendation is primarily aimed at those countries with less developed social security systems. It is not envisaged that this recommendation will have any impact on the UK as it is consistent with UK Government policies.

The constitution of the ILO requires that the Government bring the recommendation before Parliament. I will place an explanatory memorandum and the text of the recommendation in the House Libraries later today.