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Oral Answers to Questions
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
1. What steps she is taking to promote co-operation in the development of renewable energy between Northern Ireland, the rest of the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mike Penning)
Both the Government and the Northern Ireland Executive are committed to encouraging a clean and diverse portfolio of domestic energy supply which includes renewable energy sources to meet economic, social and environmental needs.
Mark Lazarowicz
As the Minister knows, the seas around the west coast of Scotland and the shores of Ireland have immense potential for renewable energy. What assessment has been made of how that potential can be maximised by new and upgraded interconnectors?
Mike Penning
A huge amount of work is going on. Indeed, I was at Belfast docks recently observing the fabrication of new types of offshore wind farm technology. I should add, however—wearing my former Shipping Minister’s hat—that while of course we need offshore technology and connectivity, we must ensure that, as we introduce it throughout the United Kingdom, we protect our shipping lanes.
Mr Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)
One of Northern Ireland’s attributes is its beautiful countryside and rural setting. As we pursue renewable energy sources, it is important for us not to end up with the blight of windmills throughout our countryside. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind as he co-operates with our neighbours in the Republic.
Mike Penning
Absolutely. The Northern Ireland Executive are committed to protecting the environment and countryside, although they want 40% of Northern Ireland’s electricity to come from renewable sources by 2020.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
I am curious to know—as, I am sure, is the whole House—whether the Northern Ireland Office has had any discussions with the Irish Government about the possibility of fracking in Northern Ireland, and the use of shale gas. Please do not tell me that this is a devolved issue; I want a response from the Northern Ireland Office.
Mike Penning
Neither the Secretary of State nor I have engaged in such discussions. I will find out whether our officials have done so, and will write to the hon. Lady if they have.
Mr David Anderson (Blaydon) (Lab)
2. What steps are being taken to tackle the rise of fuel fraud in Northern Ireland.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mike Penning)
There is no evidence that fuel fraud is rising in Northern Ireland. Published tax-gap figures show a long-term downward trend. Tackling fraud is a joint priority for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and the Northern Ireland Executive, along with tobacco smuggling.
Mr Anderson
I am surprised by the Minister’s response, because that is not the information that we are being given in the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. There is a huge issue involving not just the breaking of tax laws, but the criminal activities that lie behind it, and the potential support for terrorism. Will the Minister look into the situation? Does he accept that as long as two separate types of diesel are being sold the potential for fraud will continue, and will he consider an arrangement whereby those who use straightforward white diesel are given a rebate and those who do not are subject to sanctions?
Mike Penning
I hope that I did not mislead the House by suggesting that there was any complacency about fuel smuggling, which is a serious matter. However, the original question related specifically to whether it was increasing. We are very conscious—as are the Treasury and HMRC—of the need to establish where the profits from fuel smuggling go, but the taxation issue is clearly a matter for a different Department, and I shall ensure that the relevant Minister is made aware of the hon. Gentleman’s comments.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
It is well over a year since the Select Committee recommended that HMRC should, as a matter of urgency, introduce a new marker in order to prevent fuel smuggling and laundering. Will the Minister meet representatives of HMRC and demand why it is saying that the marker cannot be introduced for at least another 18 months, and will he make it very clear that such a time scale is unacceptable?
Mike Penning
I have had meetings about the matter, and I have been pushing for the introduction of such a marker. Believe it or not, criminals have technology that enables them to remove new markers very quickly, so we must ensure that whatever new marker replaces those that we have at present does the job that it is intended to do. However, I will press my colleagues in the Treasury to ensure that we introduce it as soon as possible.
Vernon Coaker (Gedling) (Lab)
I pay tribute to members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and their colleagues for the excellent co-operation that has taken place between police forces throughout the United Kingdom in relation to security arrangements for the G8 summit. Another issue that we need to tackle together is serious and organised crime—including, of course, fuel fraud—but, alarmingly, that cannot be done on a UK-wide basis, because the National Crime Agency will not operate in Northern Ireland. Can the Minister explain how we have arrived at this point, and what the consequences will be for Northern Ireland?
Mike Penning
I completely agree. I, too, pay tribute to the mutual aid that is coming into Northern Ireland for the first time in such quantities, with almost 3,800 British policemen volunteering to come to Northern Ireland to assist with G8 security. That sends an important message to the rest of the world about the normalisation of policing in Northern Ireland.
I completely agree not only that the National Crime Agency is an issue, but that the profits from crime must be dealt with. This is a matter for the devolved Assembly, however. The Government would like to see the same approach apply across these matters, but that has to be decided in the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive. We will continue to push them so that we can clamp down on the sorts of crime to which the hon. Gentleman referred.
Vernon Coaker
The point is that it is the Government’s responsibility to ensure that they reach an agreement on the NCA with the Northern Ireland Executive. Worryingly, the Serious Organised Crime Agency has been abolished, yet the Government have utterly failed to get agreement for the NCA to operate in Northern Ireland. What exactly are the Minister and Secretary of State doing to resolve this situation, so that we can tackle fuel fraud and serious and organised crime across the UK as a whole?
Mike Penning
I know the hon. Gentleman very well and he, like me, is very proud of the devolved Administration in Northern Ireland. We must do everything we can to help them, but at the end of the day these decisions have to be made by them. Fuel smuggling is a matter for HMRC and the police, but the NCA issue has to be agreed by all the political parties in the five-party coalition. We are pushing as hard as we can, but we cannot and will not take away the devolved Administration’s powers, because we want to move forward, not backwards.
Dr Alasdair McDonnell (Belfast South) (SDLP)
May I follow on from earlier questions and ask whether the Secretary of State is fully aware of the seriously high level of fuel fraud? There are some estimates that up to one third of diesel is laundered diesel. Is he aware that at least £70 million of illicit profit is being made from fuel laundering across Ireland? The estimate is that that is split half and half between north and south; it used to be nearly all northern. There is also £100 million-worth of tobacco fraud. Can the Secretary of State give us any words of comfort, because the level of corruption is frightening?
Mr Speaker
Order. Tobacco is another matter; we will stick to fuel for today.
Mike Penning
The Secretary of State and I are very aware of that, and we have regular ongoing discussions about it. This is, of course, a criminality issue for the police to address, but where the profits go is also an issue, and we all know that some of the profits go into terrorist organisations. We must do everything we possibly can to clamp down on this, to stop that money getting into those organisations.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
Further to the question from the Chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), the Minister will know that a decision with regard to HMRC has been delayed yet again. The Committee understands that there is a marker out there that can do the job, resolve the issue and save the general taxpayer millions of pounds. Someone somewhere is dragging their heels. We need the Minister to intervene and get this resolved quickly.
Mike Penning
I will again intervene on this matter and speak with my colleagues in HMRC. At the last meeting I had, which the Minister of Justice in Northern Ireland also attended, we understood that the marker was imminent. What those involved are worried about is introducing a marker that is not sufficiently robust. There are also dangers with regard not only to money getting into the wrong hands, but to the chemicals going into the environment after the markers are removed in the laundering process. That is very dangerous to both individuals and the environment in Northern Ireland.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
4. When she last met the Irish Foreign Minister; and if she will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)
I last met the Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore on 29 April in Belfast at an event to mark the progress made in Northern Ireland in the 15 years since the Belfast agreement. At that event we set out our views on the importance of addressing sectarian divisions in Northern Ireland and building a shared society.
David Rutley
Given the importance of cross-border co-operation for security, particularly in the light of the upcoming G8 summit at Lough Erne, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is vital for the people across the whole of the island, as well as for people in the United Kingdom, that we have closer relationships with Ireland?
Mrs Villiers
I entirely agree. The working relationships between the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Garda Siochana have never been closer. This highly effective co-operation has been saving lives in Northern Ireland and combating terrorism and organised crime, and it is also playing a significant part in our plans to deliver a safe and secure G8 summit.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Further to the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) made, is the Secretary of State able to give a date by which she can assure the Irish Foreign Minister that the National Crime Agency and the asset recovery scheme will operate in Northern Ireland, because this affects both sides of the border dramatically?
Mrs Villiers
As my hon. Friend the Minister of State has emphasised, a legislative consent motion on the NCA is a matter for the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Northern Ireland Executive. We are disappointed that they have not taken up our offer for the NCA to operate in devolved spheres. I can reassure the House that the NCA will be able to operate in relation to matters that are not devolved, including HMRC matters and fuel fraud.
Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)
Further to the supplementary question asked by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (David Rutley), can the Secretary of State tell us how many Army personnel, if any, are going to be deployed for the G8 summit, in addition to the 3,800 volunteers from other police services in the United Kingdom? How are the security costs being met, in terms of Westminster and the Northern Ireland Assembly?
Mrs Villiers
The vast majority of the costs of the G8 summit will be met by the Government, although a small amount may fall to the Executive to meet. We are doing our very best to ensure that that is kept as low as possible, and we believe that the G8 summit will have a very significant positive economic benefit for Northern Ireland. The military are providing a number of specialist services to support the security effort. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that I am unable to give details of operational matters of that nature, but these services are routine for events on this scale and previous G8-type events.
Mr Dodds
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer.
On her discussions with the Irish Foreign Minister more generally, she will be aware, as will the House, of the serious attacks mounted against Police Service of Northern Ireland officers recently in Dunmurry and in my constituency, where police officers came within inches of death at the hands of republicans. What is her assessment of the current strength of these republican groups now operating against the police? What numbers are involved? What steps will she take further to strengthen the PSNI in its battle against them?
Mrs Villiers
I fully agree with the right hon. Gentleman on the seriousness of the terrorist threat from dissident republicans. There have been eight national security attacks this year, but the better news is that there have also been 68 arrests and 32 charges for terrorist-related offences and DR-related crime. We are doing everything we can to support the PSNI with the £200 million we added to its settlement in this comprehensive spending review. We continue discussions with the Treasury on adding to that funding in the next CSR period. The threat continues to be severe, but the UK Government are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to counter terrorism, both domestic and international.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
5. What assessment she has made of the effect of likely tax and benefit changes on child poverty in Northern Ireland during this Parliament.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)
This Government are reforming the welfare system to ensure that work always pays, in order to help lift people out of poverty. About 2.8 million low-income to middle-income households will be better off through the introduction of universal credit.
Mr Bain
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the relative rate of child poverty, taking into account all of this Government’s tax and benefit changes, will be 6% higher in 2015 than the rate this Government inherited in 2010. Does that not demonstrate that the communities that suffered the most during the troubles are being the hardest hit by this Government’s indifference to poverty now?
Mrs Villiers
The whole scheme of our efforts to reform welfare is about lifting people out of poverty to get them into work and end a cycle of people spending a lifetime in dependency. We are fixing welfare to ensure that work always pays. Unbelievably, the Labour party chose to vote against our benefit cap; the Opposition think that non-working households should be able to get more than £26,000 a year on welfare benefits; someone would have to earn £35,000 to get that if they went out to work.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Northern Ireland’s Minister for Social Development has managed to get some flexibility to mitigate against the worst circumstances of welfare reform as it affects child poverty. Does the Secretary of State agree that what would help even more is if we could maximise inward investment as a result of the G8 summit, to ensure that children are lifted out of poverty across Northern Ireland because of private sector investment there?
Mrs Villiers
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that some very important flexibilities have been secured by Minister Nelson McCausland, and I know that some good discussions are continuing about further assistance that could be given to Northern Ireland. I absolutely agree that a key way to lift children out of poverty is economic prosperity, which is one reason why the G8 coming to Northern Ireland is very great news indeed. We are looking forward to the event.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
6. What assessment she has made of the contribution of the European Union to Northern Ireland’s peace process.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)
Many around the world, including in Europe, have played a valuable role in supporting peace and stability in Northern Ireland. Successive PEACE programmes, part-funded by the European Union, have directed funding to worthwhile projects aimed at community reconciliation.
Graeme Morrice
Almost €330 million in funding through the PEACE III programme helped more than 450 projects across Northern Ireland. Those projects help to build a shared future and break down barriers between communities. Will the Secretary of State assure the House that she and the Government are giving full support to the implementation of a PEACE IV programme so that such good work can continue?
Mrs Villiers
I can give the hon. Gentleman that assurance. We are very supportive of a PEACE IV programme and were delighted that funding for it was included in the multi-annual financial framework to the tune of €150 million. We hope that we might be able to provide a top-up for that fund from our territorial cohesion allocation and we hope that it will focus on those key shared society projects that are so important in Northern Ireland.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
That was rather a strange question and I would have hoped that the Secretary of State would have said very little in reply, as surely the people who have helped the peace process are the people of Northern Ireland themselves led by courageous politicians from Northern Ireland, many of whom are sitting in this Chamber today.
Mrs Villiers
My hon. Friend is right; the real credit for the huge achievements in the political settlement in Northern Ireland goes to the political leadership of Northern Ireland and the courage its members showed. They received welcome support from around the world, but it was their achievement and we should give them the credit for it.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Does the Secretary of State recognise that as well as the positive effects of EU funding programmes, including the PEACE programmes, the common experience of Britain and Ireland as members of the European Union brought British-Irish relations on to a new plain and created the context for the peace process? It has also delivered a situation in which the border is less intrusive in the economic and social life of the island, and those are positive factors that need to be weighed up in any consideration of the UK’s future in the EU.
Mrs Villiers
There are many reasons why the relationship between the UK and Ireland has improved so dramatically over recent years, but certainly the background of the European Union has provided some assistance. Of course, that matter will be weighed up carefully in the ongoing debate about the future of our relationship with Europe, but it is important for everyone to recognise that if people want a say on the future of Europe and a referendum on it, they need to elect a Conservative Government.
Paul Murphy (Torfaen) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has already said that the peace process in Northern Ireland was helped immensely by our membership of the European Union, through the PEACE money and in other ways as well. Does she not agree that our continued membership of the European Union, reformed as it would be, is vital for the people of Northern Ireland and in the continuation of the peace process?
Mrs Villiers
I believe that it is vital that we should seek to reform and renegotiate our relationship with Europe so that it is focused on the trade, investment and commerce that is good for the whole UK, including Northern Ireland. I believe it would then be right to put that new deal to the British people in a referendum.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
Sometimes the mention of Europe in this Chamber engenders the same reaction as occurred this morning at a magnificent Ulster fry breakfast when somebody asked for the vegetarian alternative. From the perspective of a former very distinguished Member of the European Parliament, the Secretary of State must recognise that Northern Ireland has benefited greatly from the UK’s membership of the EU. Will she outline briefly how she sees that relationship developing in coming years?
Mrs Villiers
As I have said, I think it is crucial that our relationship with Europe changes so that it is no longer focused on ever-closer political union, which is something that the people of this country never have wanted and never will want, but focuses on the commercial and trade opportunities that people thought they were voting for last time we had a referendum on the EU.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
7. What steps she is taking to ensure that recruitment for the Territorial Army in Northern Ireland meets recruitment targets.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mike Penning)
Naturally, this is a matter for the Ministry of Defence, but both my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I take a keen interest in the military across the board in Northern Ireland. We meet regularly our colleagues in the Ministry of Defence and with 38 Brigade, as well as talking to the reserve forces and the cadets.
Jim Shannon
They never had to conscript the people in Northern Ireland to join the Army; they were volunteers, in both the British Army and the Territorial Army. Numbers of recruits to the Territorial Army in Northern Ireland are at their highest ever. It is important that the numbers are maintained so that others continue to have the opportunity. What steps is the Minister taking to work with employers and employees to ensure that that happens?
Mike Penning
Encouraging employers and employees to join the Territorial Army in Northern Ireland has never been really difficult, to be fair, and individuals from Northern Ireland disproportionately represent themselves, proudly, across the United Kingdom armed forces. Nearly 20% of deployments come from Northern Ireland, and on Sunday I will be at the medals parade for 204 Royal Army Medical Corps Territorial Army, when they return from Northern Ireland.
I have done my bit in the past couple of weeks by becoming honorary colonel of 2nd Battalion the Royal Irish Cadets—something I was very proud to take on.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
8. What recent assessment she has made of the security situation in Northern Ireland.
Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
10. What recent assessment she has made of the security situation in Northern Ireland; and if she will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mrs Theresa Villiers)
While the threat level in Northern Ireland remains at severe, progress has been made. Excellent co-operation between the PSNI and other agencies has resulted in a number of arrests and charges over recent months.
Tom Greatrex
I thank the Secretary of State for her response. She has spoken about the security issues in her interview in The Independent this morning, and she knows that when the G8 comes to County Fermanagh later this month, there will be significant security implications. In response to the question from the right hon. Member for Belfast North (Mr Dodds), she said that the vast majority of those costs would be picked up by the UK Government. Will she reassure and confirm to the House that if there are any unforeseen additional costs at the end of the process, those will be picked up by the UK Government and not left for the PSNI? [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. There are far too many noisy conversations. Ministers on the Treasury Bench can scarcely hear the questions. I remind the House that we are discussing the security situation in Northern Ireland. Some basic manners and displays of respect would, I think, be appreciated, not least in Northern Ireland.
Mrs Villiers
I can confirm and reiterate that we will ensure that the PSNI is not disadvantaged in resource terms as a result of the G8 summit. We are committed to ensuring that it has the resources it needs, and that we minimise any potential burden on the Northern Ireland Executive.
The preparation for the G8 summit is going well. Around 3,600 police officers from England, Scotland and Wales are now in the course of arriving to assist with venue security and public order. G8 events inevitably come with certain security risks. We will be vigilant on the terrorist threat and we will, of course, make appropriate preparations to handle public order issues as they arise.
Mr Bellingham
As well as the G8 summit, Northern Ireland will be hosting the world police and fire games in August. Can my right hon. Friend say something about the extra policing for that event and the extra training that will have to take place? Will her office be involving the Garda Siochana in the policing of those two events?
Mrs Villiers
The relationship between the PSNI and An Garda Siochana is an important part of keeping both those events safe. Planning is at an advanced stage on the world police and fire games. It will not require a similar effort to the G8 in terms of mutual aid officers, but I can assure my hon. Friend that all mutual aid officers operating in Northern Ireland will have appropriate training in the special procedures and approaches used by the PSNI.
Dr William McCrea (South Antrim) (DUP)
The Secretary of State recently forecast that the dissident republican threat
“is severe and…likely to continue”
for some
“years to come.”
Such a bleak assessment is totally unacceptable to my constituents. Therefore, what urgent additional security measures can be taken to defeat this republican conspiracy and rid our Province of the curse of terrorism?
Mrs Villiers
We will continue to bear down on the terrorist threat. We are determined to defeat terrorism, whether domestic or international. We will be doing all we can to support the PSNI and its partner agencies in defeating these evil terrorists.
Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
9. What assessment she has made of the co-operation between the UK and Irish Governments on tackling organised crime.
The Minister of State, Northern Ireland Office (Mike Penning)
Organised crime in Northern Ireland is naturally devolved, but we work very closely with the Irish Government, and so do the devolved Assembly and the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Jim Sheridan
Organised criminals account for 10% of the cigarettes imported into the UK from the island of Ireland. What discussions has the Minister had with Departments here in the UK and with his counterparts in the island of Ireland, and what impact, if any, would plain packaging have on the illicit trade?
Mike Penning
Like fuel smuggling, cigarette smuggling is a serious problem, not least because of where the profits go—we know that some go into terrorist activities. I work closely and meet regularly with HMRC and we will meet again soon, but at the end of the day we must make sure that when we get the smugglers, they are prosecuted correctly and get the right sort of sentence.
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Is the Secretary of State telling the House today that she is content with the delay in the implementation of the invitations to make submissions procedure between Customs and Excise in the Republic and HMRC in Northern Ireland? The delay is frustrating the security services, putting billions of pounds into the hands of criminals and, importantly, assisting organised crime. What is she going to do about it?
Mike Penning
Speaking on behalf of the Secretary of State in answering this question, let me say that we are doing everything we possibly can. Are we frustrated? Yes, we are. Are the police frustrated? Yes, they are. But we have to make sure that the system is robust and legal, and we will get there.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 5 June.
The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)
This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
Rushanara Ali
Three years ago, the Prime Minister promised that borrowing would fall to £18 billion in 2015. Will he confirm that the failure to get growth going means that he will now borrow £96 billion instead—yes or no?
The Prime Minister
Three years ago, we said that we would cut the deficit and we have cut the deficit by a third—that is what has happened. On the subject of what people said a few years ago, the very first time the Leader of the Opposition came to that Dispatch Box, he attacked me for taking child benefit away from higher earners, yet today we learn it is now Labour’s official policy to take child benefit away from higher earners—total and utter confusion. Perhaps he can explain himself when he gets to his feet.
Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (Con)
I am thrilled and delighted that the Government have revived plans for a right of recall. Instead of a proposal that would mean politicians sitting in judgment on politicians, can my right hon. Friend make it clear that a recall mechanism will include a recall ballot—a yes/no chance for constituents to make the final decision before an MP is removed?
The Prime Minister
First, let me say that I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned long and hard on issues of direct democracy and has considerable expertise in such matters. I think that the right approach, and the one we put forward before, is to say yes, of course there should be a constituency mechanism, but before that, there ought to be an act of censure by a Committee of this House for wrongdoing. I think that is the right approach. I know we will not necessarily agree on this, but we will make our proposals.
On the subject of recall, I hope the Leader of the Opposition will recall his attack on child benefit when he gets to his feet.
Edward Miliband (Doncaster North) (Lab)
Two years ago, during the Prime Minister’s listening exercise on the health service, he said:
“I refuse to go back to the days when people had to wait for hours on end to be seen in A and E…so let me be absolutely clear—we won’t.”
What has gone wrong?
The Prime Minister
Not a word about what the right hon. Gentleman said two years ago, the very first time he stood at that Dispatch Box, totally condemning and attacking in the strongest possible terms what now turns out to be Labour policy. What complete confusion and weakness from the Leader of the Opposition.
The right hon. Gentleman asks about accident and emergency and I will deal with the question very directly. The fact that people need to know is that we are now meeting our targets for accident and emergency. There was a problem in the first quarter of this year, which is why Bruce Keogh, the medical director of the NHS, is to hold an investigation, but the crucial fact is this: 1 million more people are walking into our accident and emergency units every year than were doing so three years ago. We must work hard to get waiting times down and keep them down, but we will not do it by following Labour’s policy of cutting the NHS.
Edward Miliband
What a complacent answer from an out-of-touch Prime Minister. The independent King’s Fund says that the number of people waiting more than four hours in A and E is higher than at any time for nine years. Can he explain to the country why A and E waiting times fell under Labour and have gone up on his watch?
The Prime Minister
The fact is we are now meeting our targets on A and E, but the right hon. Gentleman has to answer this question. In England, where this Government are responsible, we are meeting our waiting times; in Wales, where Labour is responsible, it is not meeting its waiting times. Perhaps he can tell us, when he gets to his feet, the last year in which the Welsh met their waiting times under a Labour Government.
Edward Miliband
The Prime Minister may have had six weeks away, but he has got no better at answering the question. He has got to do better than this on the A and E crisis. The College of Emergency Medicine says there is “gridlock” in emergency departments, the Patients Association says that we are “reaching crisis point”, and we have a Prime Minister who says, “Crisis? What crisis?” It is not good enough. As well as the nine-year high, the number of people held in the back of ambulances has doubled since he took office. The number of people waiting on trolleys for more than four hours has doubled, and there are now more cancelled operations than for a decade. Does not the scale of those problems show that, on his watch, there is a crisis in A and E?
The Prime Minister
The answer to the question is that the last time Labour met its targets in Wales on accident and emergency was 2009. It has not met a target for four years, under Labour. Under this Government, we are meeting targets. The right hon. Gentleman asks what is happening in our national health service; let me tell him what is happening in our national health service. Under this Government, in-patient waiting times are lower than at the election, out-patient waiting times are lower than at the election, and the rate of hospital-acquired infections is at a record low. On the number of mixed-sex wards, they have almost been abolished under this Government. There are 400,000 more operations being carried out every year and, crucially, there are 5,700 more doctors. Let me tell him what would happen if we followed Labour’s spending plans on the NHS—there are new figures out today. There would be 43,000 fewer nurses and 11,000 fewer doctors. We decided, because we value the NHS, to spend more. That man there, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), said it was “irresponsible”; he is wrong.
Edward Miliband
There are people all round this country waiting for hours and hours in A and E, and all they see is a complacent, out-of-touch Prime Minister reading out a list of statistics not about A and E. People want to know about the crisis in A and E happening on his watch. Now let us talk about the causes of this. In the Government’s first two years in office, more than a quarter of NHS walk-in centres were closed. If you close NHS walk-in centres, you pile pressure on A and E departments. That is obvious to everyone else; why is it not obvious to him?
The Prime Minister
The right hon. Gentleman wants to talk about the causes of the problems in A and E; I accept that in the first quarter of the year, there were problems, and we need to get to grips with them. One of the problems is the GPs’ contract that was signed by the last Labour Government. They signed a contract that basically let GPs get out of out-of-hours. If he wants evidence of that, perhaps he will listen to the Labour Minister for the NHS at the time. Fortunately, he lost his seat in North Warwickshire to a Conservative, but this is what he says:
“In many ways, GPs got the best deal they ever had from that 2004 contract and since then we have, in a sense, been recovering.”
That is what happened. There are a million more people coming through our doors. There has been an excellent performance by doctors and nurses, but they were let down by the last Labour Government.
Edward Miliband
The Prime Minister has been peddling this line about the GP contract for some months now, but let us just understand this. What happened to A and E waits between 2004 and 2010? They fell dramatically. That was after the GP contract. Clare Gerada, the president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, is absolutely clear. She said:
“I think it’s lazy to blame the 2004 GP contract. They’re blaming a contract that’s nearly 10 years old for an issue that’s become a problem recently.”
That is the reality about the GP contract.
Now let us turn to a problem that even the Prime Minister cannot deny. The chief executive of the NHS Confederation recently said that these A and E
“pressures have been compounded by three years of…structural reforms”.
In other words, the top-down reorganisation that nobody wanted and nobody voted for. Why does the Prime Minister not admit what everyone in the health service knows—that that top-down reorganisation diverted resources away from patient care and betrayed the NHS?
The Prime Minister
What the right hon. Gentleman has to realise is that I am not peddling a line about the GP contract—I am quoting the Labour Minister responsible for this, who pointed out that this was part of the problem. If people want to know what went wrong with the NHS under Labour they have only to look at the Mid Staffordshire hospital. If they want to know what is going wrong with the NHS under Labour now they need only look at Wales, where they have not met any of their targets, and where they cut the NHS by 8%. That is the effect of Labour in Wales.
The right hon. Gentleman talks about reorganisation. The fact is, we have been scrapping bureaucracy and putting that money into the front line. That is why there are 18,000 fewer administrative staff, but there are almost 6,000 more doctors. That is what the Government have a record on—he would cut the NHS.
Edward Miliband
Everyone will see a Prime Minister who cannot defend what is happening on his watch—that is the reality. Patients waiting on trolleys; operations cancelled; a crisis in A and E; history repeating itself. Our NHS is not safe in their hands.
The Prime Minister
It is under this Government that the number of doctors has gone up; the number of operations is up; waiting times are down; waiting lists are down—that is what is happening under this Government. Is it not interesting that in the week that was meant to be all about Labour’s economic relaunch they cannot talk about their economic policy? They told us that they wanted to keep winter fuel payments; now they want to scrap winter fuel payments. They told us that they wanted to keep child benefit; now they want to scrap child benefit. They told us that they were going to be men of iron discipline, yet they said:
“Do I think the last Labour government was profligate, spent too much, had too much national debt? No, I don’t think there’s any evidence for that.”
On the economy, they are weak and divided, and they are the same old Labour.
Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)
Q15. The people of Epping Forest want to have a referendum on our relationship with the European Union. Does my right hon. Friend welcome the private Member’s Bill introduced by our hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton), which would require a referendum by 2017? Will he enthusiastically encourage members on both sides of the House to vote for it when it is debated on 5 July?
The Prime Minister
I certainly welcome the private Member’s Bill introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton). I think that it is absolutely right to hold that in/out referendum before the end of 2017. The interesting thing about today’s newspapers is that we read that half the members of the shadow Cabinet now want a referendum too. Hands up, who wants a referendum? Come on, don’t be shy—why do you not want to let the people choose? Ah, the people’s party does not trust the people.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Q2. Thatcher said that her greatest achievement was new Labour. Given the treacherous decision to commit to Tory spending plans, is the Prime Minister’s greatest achievement one-nation Labour?
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
Will the Prime Minister confirm that he will recall Parliament before any action is taken to arm the Syrian opposition during the recess?
The Prime Minister
I have never been someone who wants to stand against the House having a say on any of these issues, and I have always been early on making sure that Parliament is recalled to discuss important issues. Let me stress, as I did on Monday, that no decision has been taken to arm the rebels, so I do not think that this issue arises. However, as I said, I supported holding the vote on Iraq. In my premiership, on the issue of Libya, I recalled the House as soon as I possibly could and allowed the House to have a vote. As I said, this issue does not arise at present because we have made no decision to arm the rebels.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
Q3. Yet again we have no answers from the Prime Minister, who blames everyone but himself and denies that there is a crisis in A and E. Let me give him one more chance to try to give an answer. Why does he not admit what everyone in the health service knows—his £3 billion reorganisation has diverted attention and resources from patient care and he has betrayed his promises? May we now have an answer?
The Prime Minister
The abolition of the bureaucracy that this Government have brought about will put billions of pounds extra into the NHS, but the point that the hon. Gentleman has to take on is that this Government made a decision, which was not to cut the NHS. We are putting £12.7 billion extra into the NHS. That decision was described as irresponsible by his own shadow Secretary of State. If Labour were in power, it would be cutting the NHS. How do we know that? Because that is exactly what it is doing in Wales, where it cut the NHS by 8%. The hon. Gentleman may not like his own policy, but that is what it is.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Q4. Beyond those on child benefit, has the Prime Minister received any consistent representations on welfare reform from the Opposition?
The Prime Minister
I know that I have been the one on holiday in Ibiza, but the Opposition have been the ones taking—how can I put it?—policy-altering substances. Last week they were in favour of child benefit; now they are against child benefit. They were in favour of winter fuel allowance; now they want to abolish winter fuel allowance. Only this morning we find out that they may not go ahead with this policy of scrapping child benefit. I think the truth is that the Leader of the Opposition is allowed to make coffee for the shadow Chancellor, but he cannot tell him what the policy is.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
Q5. Will the Prime Minister assure the House that the prospective Bill on lobbying will include a ban on people paying £50,000 to dine in Downing street?
The Prime Minister
What the Bill on lobbying will do is introduce a register for lobbyists, which has been promised and should be delivered. What the Bill on lobbying will also do is make sure that we look at the impact of all third parties, including the trade unions, on our politics.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the actions of the European Court of Human Rights in seeking to frustrate the will of the British people to rid ourselves of terrorists illustrate the extent to which that Court has betrayed its original principles? Will he update the House on what actions he proposes the Government will take? Has he read the comments of the president of that Court, who said that if we were to secede, it would put our credibility in doubt? In fact, it is the credibility of the Court that is in doubt because of the way it is treating the British people and this Parliament.
The Prime Minister
I completely understand and share much of my hon. Friend’s frustration. We should remember that Britain helped to found the European Court of Human Rights and it has played an important role in making sure that Europe never again suffered the abuses that we saw in the first half of the 20th century, but 50 years on it is clear that that Court needs reform. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr Clarke), the former Justice Secretary and now Minister without Portfolio, led that process of reform and we have achieved some changes, but it is quite clear to me that we need further changes and we need the Court to focus on real human rights abuses, not on overruling Parliaments.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Q6. The north-east has renewable energy industries ready to invest, but they need certainty. Yesterday MPs from all parts of the House voted for a decarbonisation target. Given that the Prime Minister’s majority was slashed to just 23, will he show some leadership, think again and back British industry and green jobs?
The Prime Minister
I understand completely the point that the hon. Lady makes and I agree that businesses need certainty. That is why we have given them the certainty of a levy control framework of over £7 billion. That is why we have given them the certainty that if they sign contracts now, they get the renewables obligation for 20 years. We have given them the certainty of a green investment bank, but does it make sense to fix a decarbonisation target now, before we have agreed the carbon budget and before we even know whether carbon capture and storage works properly? It does not work and the businesses that I talk to say that it is not their priority.
Mr Adrian Sanders (Torbay) (LD)
People convicted of sex offences against children are supposed to face a prison sentence. Will the Prime Minister retire judges who fail to imprison convicted paedophiles?
The Prime Minister
There is obviously in our country a very important separation of powers, and politicians are not allowed to comment on individual judges, although sometimes we might like to. We should not—it would be a very dangerous road down which to go—but we have clear laws in this country about how serious Parliament thinks offences are, and judges should pay heed to those laws.
John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)
Q7. I am going to give the Prime Minister another chance to answer on recall. Does he seriously plan to give a parliamentary Committee the right to block the public’s chance to vote on recalling a convicted MP?
The Prime Minister
That is not the thinking. Of course we want a process whereby constituents, through a petition, can call for the recall of their MP. But because the main way that we throw MPs out of Parliament is at an election, there should be a cause for the recall to take place. That is why we have a Standards and Privileges Committee. That is why it now has outside members and why it has the power to suspend Members of Parliament and to expel them. I believe, but we can debate and discuss this across the House, that before we trigger a recall there should be some sort of censure by the House of Commons to avoid vexatious attempts to get rid of Members of Parliament who are doing a perfectly reasonable job.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
Q8. Some of us on the Government Benches believe that Government plans to replace 20,000 regulars, including the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, with 30,000 reservists will prove a false economy. The present Territorial Army mobilisation rate of 40% suggests instead that we need 50,000 reservists, and financial incentives will mean that an ex-regular reservist will be on a better scale of pay than a serving brigadier. Given that we have already raised this matter with the Secretary of State, and further to our letter to the Prime Minister on 9 April, will my right hon. Friend meet us to discuss this and other concerns, including the wisdom of this policy in this increasingly uncertain world?
The Prime Minister
I am always happy to meet my hon. Friend and discuss these and other issues. In the spending review, we produced £1.5 billion to provide the uplift for the Territorial Army that it requires. I am absolutely convinced that it is right to have a different balance between regulars and reserves, as other countries have done, but obviously it is absolutely vital that we get that new recruitment of our reserve forces. That is why the money is there.
On the wider issues of defence that I know my hon. Friend cares about, we will have some of the best equipped forces anywhere in the world. We will have the new aircraft carriers for our Navy, the hunter killer submarines, the joint strike fighter and the excellent Typhoon aircraft, and the A400M will soon be coming into service. Our troops in Afghanistan now say that they are better equipped, better protected and better provided for than they have ever been in our history.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)
Q9. The Prime Minister’s pledge to lead against hunger at the G8 and in the UN is welcome. Will it also extend to EU negotiations on the future of the misdirected 10% directive on biofuels, which basically burns as fuel for Europe what should be food for the poor? Does the Prime Minister recognise that that mandate is driving land grabs and rising food prices, compounding hunger and adding to carbon emissions?
The Prime Minister
I am delighted that we are bringing the G8 to Northern Ireland. I hope that it will provide a boost for the Northern Irish economy, and we can discuss some of these issues at that meeting. I agree that we should not allow the production of biofuels to undermine food security. We want to go further than the European Commission’s proposed cap of 5% on crop-based biofuels, so there is considerable merit in what the hon. Gentleman says.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
The weekend before last, there was a community swim off the coast of Southwold, which could have become a tragedy were it not for the brave efforts of our emergency services, and in particular the volunteer coastguards and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Will my right hon. Friend join me in thanking our volunteer coastguards, in particular helmsman Paul Callaghan and crewmen Paul Barker and Rob Kelvey, for pulling 56 people from the water and averting a tragedy?
The Prime Minister
I certainly join my hon. Friend in that. The Royal National Lifeboat Association does an extraordinary job for our country. It is really one of our emergency services and should be treated as such. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this case, and I join her in paying tribute to those brave people.
Ann McKechin (Glasgow North) (Lab)
Q10. I wonder whether the Prime Minister can assist me with a question that the Treasury has been unable to answer for the past two months. Will British taxpayers’ money be used to guarantee the mortgages of foreign citizens who buy property here?
The Prime Minister
The Chancellor will set out details of this in the announcements that he plans to make. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I want to hear Mr Davies, the voice of Shipley. Let us hear him.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Q11. I recently visited my brother in hospital in Doncaster only to find that using the television stationed above his bed would cost him £6 a day. Can the Prime Minister justify why it costs hospital patients £42 a week to watch the television when it costs prisoners only £1 a week to do so? If he cannot justify it, can he tell us what he is going to do about it?
The Prime Minister
As someone who has spent a lot of time in hospitals, I absolutely share my hon. Friend’s frustrations. It was the last Government who introduced these charges on televisions in hospital in the year 2000. I have spent many an hour battling with that very complicated telephone and credit card system that people have to try and make work. I am afraid, though, that these are devolved decisions that local hospitals can now make for themselves.
In terms of prisons, my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor is doing something. He is taking the unacceptable situation that he inherited from the Labour party, whereby people could take out a Sky subscription when they were in prison, and saying that they cannot do that any more. He is also making sure that prisoners pay if they use the television.
Mr Elfyn Llwyd (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)
The Justice Secretary’s slashing of the legal aid budget is inevitably going to lead to quality advice being the exclusive preserve of the rich and the privileged. Is this by design or accident?
The Prime Minister
First, everyone in the House has to recognise that we need to grapple with the legal aid bill. Even the Labour party, in its manifesto at the last election, said that it was going to look at the cost of legal aid. The fact is that we spend £39 per head of the population, whereas New Zealand, for instance, with its common law system, spends £8 per head.
The total cost to the taxpayer of the top three criminal cases in 2011-12 was £21 million. At a time when we are having to make difficult spending decisions, it is absolutely right to look at legal aid. We put out a consultation and the responses have now been received. We can consider those responses carefully, but we need to make reductions in legal aid.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Q12. A loan of £50,000 from the regional growth fund through the mutual Black Country Reinvestment Society, of which I am a member, has helped create 12 jobs in just six months in manufacturing start-up Lordswood Architectural in Stafford. With the manufacturing purchasing managers index at a 14-month high, can I encourage my right hon. Friend in his determination to restore the UK as a manufacturing powerhouse?
The Prime Minister
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s question. There has been some more welcome news about the economy continuing to heal. We saw the services figures out today, the construction figures out yesterday and the growth figures in the economy. We are making progress, but we have to stick to the plan and the difficult decisions that we are taking and avoid the complete chaos and confusion being offered by the Labour party.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
Q13. We know that before the election, the Prime Minister said that there would be no more top-down reorganisations in the NHS and that he later went on to say that he would not lose control of waiting times in A and E departments. Why does he keep making promises that he just cannot keep?
The Prime Minister
What we promised was that we would not cut the NHS—we would put extra money in. We are putting in £12.7 billion extra. Let me say it one more time: Labour’s official policy is to cut the NHS. They said that our policy—
The Prime Minister
Oh, it’s not? That has changed as well? We have got a new health policy! Honestly, there are so many U-turns, they should be having a grand prix.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
A and E staff shortages do not develop in just three years. Will the Prime Minister look into why the downgrade of Cheltenham A and E is going ahead without the outcome of the public consultation being considered in public by either the clinical commissioning group or the health and wellbeing board?
The Prime Minister
Of course, any reorganisation or reconfiguration of a hospital has to meet the tests that the Health Secretary very carefully set out, but the hon. Gentleman is right to say that there is no one, single cause of the difficulties that we faced in A and E. Clearly, 1 million extra patients is a huge amount over the past three years. We have increased the funds going into our NHS, but there are big challenges to meet. The questions are: will we meet them by cutting the NHS, which was Labour’s policy? Will we meet them by another reorganisation, which is Labour’s policy? No, we will not. We will deal with this problem by making sure that we manage the NHS effectively, and continuing to put the money in.
Mr Tom Harris (Glasgow South) (Lab)
Q14. Was it when a journalist, masquerading as a lobbyist, entrapped a Tory MP, that the Prime Minister decided it was time to launch an all-out attack on the trade unions?
The Prime Minister
The hon. Gentleman conveniently forgets to mention the Labour peers. We do have a problem in Parliament with the influence of third parties, and we need to deal with that. Clearly, all-party parliamentary groups, which are a matter for the House and for Mr Speaker, need to be looked at. As we promised in the coalition agreement, we will be bringing forward a lobbying register, and also some measures to make sure that the trade unions behave properly too.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
May I commend my right hon. Friend’s strong, unambiguous support for the continuation of the British nuclear deterrent? Now that the alternatives to Trident study has concluded that there are no alternatives cheaper or more effective than Trident, what are the reasons for delaying a maingate decision so that the matter can be settled in this Parliament?
The Prime Minister
We have set out clearly the steps that need to be taken before the maingate decision is made, but my hon. Friend knows that I am strongly committed to the renewal of our deterrent on a like-for-like basis. I think that that is right for Britain. Obviously, in the coalition a study has been carried out. My view is very clear, and I looked at the evidence again on becoming Prime Minister. I believe that if we want to have a credible deterrent, we need that continuous at-sea posture, and a submarine-based deterrent that is based not on cruise missiles but on intercontinental ballistic missiles. I believe that is the right answer, and I think all the evidence points in that direction.
Jim Dobbin (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab/Co-op)
The family of Drummer Lee Rigby live on the Langley estate in my constituency. I visited the parents last week, and they were very appreciative of everything that has been said in support of the family, particularly by the local estate residents. A memorial service was held in the town centre. It was greatly attended, and local Middleton people were able to pay their respects. Will the Prime Minister join me in commending the people of Middleton for their very strong but sensitive support for the family during this very sad time?
The Prime Minister
I certainly join the hon. Gentleman in what he says about the people of Middleton and the great respect, support and solidarity they have shown for the family of Lee Rigby. His death was an absolute tragedy and there are many lessons we must learn from it, as we discussed in the House on Monday. I think it is another moment for everyone in this House, and this country, to reflect again on the magnificent services that the men and women of our armed forces give to our country.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Today my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Stephen Williams) was awarded a World Health Organisation medal to mark World No Tobacco Day. Will the Prime Minister congratulate him on that great achievement and his work on that issue, and support his campaign for the plain packaging of cigarettes?
The Prime Minister
I am afraid I missed the beginning of the question, so I did not quite hear who got the medal—[Interruption.] Oh, the hon. Gentleman who gave a magnificent introduction to the Queen’s Speech, and I commend him for his medal. On the policy, we know that issue.
Opposition Day
Badger Cull
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
16:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 250 / Noes: 299 - Question accordingly negatived.
16:15 - The House divided: - Ayes: 298 / Noes: 237 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House believes the badger cull should not go ahead.
We begin with a question: is culling badgers the most effective way to stop the spread of bovine tuberculosis? Labour Members believe that it is not. The consensus among scientists who are not on the Government payroll is also that it is not. They call it a “costly distraction” and a “crazy scheme”, and they urge the Government to change course. Labour Members will be led by those scientists; we were in government and are now in opposition. This is a cull based on hope, not on science. We have warned the Government for two years that the cull will be bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife. In government, we were open to the idea. Having asked the question, “Will culling work?” we conducted a 10-year-long, £50 million randomised badger culling trial, which concluded that it will not work. If it will not work, the alternatives, however difficult, must be explored.
I want to begin by explaining why this cull is bad for farmers affected by bovine TB—the biggest animal disease challenge that this country faces. It is bad for farmers because the cull would cost them more than it saves them; bad for farmers because the science does not stack up; and bad for farmers as tourists holiday somewhere else having decided that the sound of gunfire and protest is not conducive to vacation relaxation. I know the toll that this terrible disease takes on farmers and their families personally, emotionally and financially. Controlling it is imperative to protecting farmers’ livelihoods. The European Union requires us to have a national strategy for eradication.
Badgers carry TB. They transmit it to cattle, but the infection also passes among cattle, from cattle to badgers, and among badgers. We know this because during the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic, when no testing was carried out on cattle, TB in badgers increased by 70%. The Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB and four scientists from the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency say that that was due to a substantial transmission of TB from cattle to badgers. The roots of infection and transmission of the disease are still poorly understood.
This cull is bad for farmers because of the large costs and the small benefits.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
The hon. Lady has said twice that the cull is bad for farmers. If that is the case, why have they gone to such considerable trouble, expense and risk of adverse publicity in carrying out these culls?
Mary Creagh
I understand the desperation that farmers are in. However, the Government have presented culling as the silver bullet—the thing that will stop this disease—and it is not. I will explain why it presents further risks later in my speech. This is not just about the cull; it is about what happens when the cull stops.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I hope the whole House would agree that in an ideal world we would want healthy badgers, a healthy countryside and healthy cattle. The hon. Lady and I have got on very well over many years on animal welfare issues, but I have to say that there is a sense of political opportunism in the Labour party’s position. If the previous Government had invested more in trying to find a vaccine, the difficult decision that is having to be taken in the House, and, more importantly, by those outside the House, would not need to be taken. Vaccination should have been the route, but it should have been undertaken years ago.
Mr Speaker
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is hoping to catch the eye of the Chair later in the debate to make his speech or whether he feels that he has just delivered it.
Mary Creagh
In government we spent £20 million on delivering a vaccine. That contrasts rather unhappily with this Government’s investment. In 2009-10, under Labour, investment in a cattle vaccine was £3.7 million and investment in a badger vaccine was £3.2 million. By 2014-15, that will fall to £2 million for a cattle vaccine and £1.6 million for a badger vaccine. I am not going to take any lessons from the hon. Gentleman about the investment needed in vaccines given that we spent that money. We have delivered the badger vaccine; his Government have cancelled five of our six badger vaccine trials. If they had not been cancelled, we would now be a lot further down the road of understanding how that badger vaccine works in the field.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mary Creagh
I want to make some progress.
The cull method—free shooting—is untested. The number of badgers removed may be lower than that in Labour’s RBCT. Nobody has shot a badger legally in the UK since 1973, so it is an untested method. If it happens, it risks making TB worse.
We do not know how much this cull is actually costing the farmers involved, so we rely on the Government’s cost-benefit analysis. Culling makes TB worse by spreading the disease in the first two years. The benefits across the whole culling area appear only after year 3, but in the ring area—the edge of where the cull is carried out—there are never any benefits. Do the farmers whose land lies alongside the cull zones realise that? I think not.
Labour’s culls showed that culling badgers is estimated to reduce the incidence of TB in cattle by 16% after nine years—84% of the problem is still there. Sixteen per cent. is the best-case scenario based on the TB rate being twice as high in the cull area as it is in the land outside. However, if background TB rates are constant across the whole area, that benefit reduces to just 12%. Moreover, this is not an absolute reduction; it is a 16% reduction from the trend increase. Therefore, after nine years there will still be more TB around than at the beginning. There is 16% less than there would have been without a cull.
I want to look at how that 16% reduction is achieved. The cull depends on killing at least 70% of badgers in the cull area, yet last year the Secretary of State was about to start the culls without knowing how many badgers needed to be shot. His officials started counting the badgers only in September, just weeks before the cull was due to start. They relied on farmers to count the setts, and that did not work.
Daniel Kawczynski
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. I remind her that, as a result of the destruction that the disease is causing in Shropshire, I set up the all-party group on dairy farmers during the previous Parliament. It became one of the largest all-party groups, with a membership of more than 250 MPs, 70 of whom were Labour Members. We all worked constructively on a report that stated the need for a cull. It will be very interesting to see how many of those Labour MPs change their minds this afternoon, but there was a consensus among them at that time that a cull was the only viable option.
Mary Creagh
I have not read that report, but today’s report from the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on a badger vaccination to control TB does not mention culling. [Interruption.] It is extraordinary that a report on bovine TB does not mention—
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)
It is about vaccines.
Mary Creagh
I know it is about vaccines, but it is extraordinary that it does not mention the Government’s main control strategy.
I want to return to the badger numbers. Last year, the farm industry estimated that there were 1,800 badgers in west Gloucestershire and 2,700 in west Somerset. The Government’s figures then rose: they estimated that there were between 3,000 and 4,000 badgers in west Gloucestershire and between 3,000 and 5,000 in west Somerset, and that is why the culls stopped.
This year we have a different set of figures: it is estimated that there are between 2,500 and 4,000 badgers in west Gloucestershire and roughly between 2,000 and 3,000 in west Somerset. If we are dealing with ranges of figures, that causes a problem. We are licensing people to kill 70% of the badgers, but if the numbers are at the lower end of the range, the licensed marksmen could kill 100% of the badger population and still not meet their licensing criteria. That is a really difficult position to put farmers in.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Is it not the case that free shooting is being adopted because it is simply the cheapest way to kill? If the Government are committed to a culling strategy, there are more effective alternatives. Free shooting is cheap—we are getting killing on the cheap.
Mary Creagh
That is right. The free shooting method is being adopted because cage trapping and shooting is much more expensive—it is 10 times more expensive. Of course, there is a risk to the taxpayer if anything goes wrong in the cull areas. A bond has been laid, but we do not know how much it is. We are completely in the dark about the risk to the taxpayer should the Government have to step in to conclude the culls.
Geraint Davies (Swansea West) (Lab/Co-op)
Will my hon. Friend comment on the impact of the partial genocide of badgers in England while vaccination is being carried out in Wales? Will English badgers be running across the border to seek refuge in Wales?
Mary Creagh
I commend the approach of the Welsh Assembly Government and I am glad that the preliminary results look very positive.
I want to return to the 16% or 12% reduction. The cull depends on killing 70% of badgers in the cull area. When I asked about badger numbers in July 2011, I received the answer that
“there is no precise knowledge of the size of the badger population”.—[Official Report, 17 July 2011; Vol. 531, c. 815.]
That was a year before the culls were stopped last year. Why did Ministers not ask that question? Will they say in their speeches how confident they are of the current numbers, given the risks of localised extinction in the cull areas?
Ministers state that reductions in TB will result from following the RBCT method, yet that method was totally different because it used caged trapping and shooting, not free shooting, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) mentioned. The Secretary of State used the 28% reduction figure in October last year when he announced that the culls would be delayed. That is another example of him cherry-picking the data and it ignores the perturbation effect.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) (Con)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
Mary Creagh
I am going to explain perturbation, so I will get that over with if the hon. Gentleman does not mind.
Perturbation is where badgers are displaced by the shooting and leave their setts, spreading TB to neighbouring areas. Labour’s trial culls revealed that culling increases TB in badgers by a factor of 1.9 because of perturbation—that is 90%. Ministers affirm that the cull will have hard boundaries to avoid perturbation, but they ignore the fact that the RBCT also had hard boundaries where possible.
Jesse Norman
The hon. Lady has skated over the reason why farmers, contrary to her assertion, are strongly in support of the policy: the number of reactors has increased by a factor of eight in 10 years. That is driving some farmers in my constituency close to suicide. Does she not understand those central, crucial human issues?
Mary Creagh
I understand the human issues very well, but the farming community is divided on this matter. I have received a letter from cattle farmers in Gloucestershire who say that they are
“opposed to the badger cull”.
Mary Creagh
I do not know whether there is just one. I am assuming that there are more than one.
The farmers have given me permission to read out the letter. It states that the consultation by DEFRA’s Animal Health and Welfare Board and
“the published reports from these events show no consensus for a badger cull. They also show that farmers are concerned about the indiscriminate shooting of large numbers of badgers”.
There is also a letter from the British Veterinary Association in The Independent today that criticises the support for the cull. I think that it is fair to say that the veterinary community is also divided on the issue. That is problematic, because it is never good to have a policy that divides the country so bitterly.
Mary Creagh
I will make progress, then I will take some interventions.
There is huge concern among scientists over the lack of rigour in the design, implementation, monitoring and efficacy of the culls. The proportion of badgers that are infected with bovine TB is not, as the Secretary of State claims, significant. In the RBCT, it was one in nine or about 12%.
I come now to another significant difference between the pilot culls and Labour’s RBCT.
Sir James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way and apologise for missing her opening remarks. She is right that perturbation is a key issue, but she is not right to say that the Independent Scientific Group trials were based on hard boundaries. The fact is that the areas had to be exactly 100 sq km, otherwise they would not have been comparable. The boundaries therefore had to be accepted largely as they were. The difference with the current culls is that they do not have a maximum size, so the zone can be chosen to meet whatever good hard boundaries can be found and steps can be taken to minimise perturbation. The net benefit should therefore be much higher than was achieved in the ISG trials.
Mr Speaker
Order. More than 20 right hon. and hon. Members want to contribute to the debate, so some self-discipline about the length of interventions from all Members, including knights of the realm, would be greatly appreciated. I call Mary Creagh.
Mr Sheerman
My hon. Friend knows that I am a great campaigner for the countryside, but following the points made by Conservative Members, let me say that there are many people in this country, as well as farmers, who love our countryside and care about our farm stock, but who care about the animals that have lived in the countryside for thousands of years. We do not have the evidence for this cull, and that is what those people resent. As Chair of a Select Committee, one’s watchword is, “If possible, build policies on the evidence.” This policy is not based on any evidence.
Mary Creagh
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.
Let me come back to the perturbation side of things. My understanding from the scientists who conducted the cull is that hard boundaries were used where it was possible. We all know that badgers can swim through rivers and cross roads, and we know that the biggest impact on the badger population is being run over on roads. Again, the efficacy of the hard boundaries has yet to be proven.
Labour’s culls took place over eight to 12 days; the proposed culls will take place over six weeks. That matters, because when Labour’s culls took place over more than 12 days, the level of TB in badgers increased by a factor of 1.7, showing that slow culls, which this Government are licensing, increase TB in badgers. If the methodology changes, so too do the predicted results. These culls risk making TB worse. Slow culling makes TB worse in badgers, and perturbation makes TB worse in cattle on neighbouring farms.
The Government say that the cull will work, but they have downplayed the risks of making things worse, and I think they have downplayed the risks to neighbouring farmers, too. If the culls are marred by protests, culling is likely to be driven under ground and become more localised, which will make bovine TB in cattle worse, as the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) mentioned. If it is driven underground and happens on a localised basis, the one thing we know is that it will drive the badgers away and increase the problem for the neighbouring farm. That is why illegal killing of badgers is so incredibly selfish of farmers, because it is effectively spreading the infection around the neighbourhood. Farmers are frustrated; I understand that. They believe that this cull is the solution, but they also want a science-led solution. This is not that solution. That is why the badger cull will be bad for farmers.
Let me deal now with why the badger cull will be bad for the taxpayer. What has been the cost to the taxpayer so far? It has been over £300,000 for licensing activities carried out by Natural England, while sett monitoring has cost £750,000. An independent expert panel to monitor the cull has cost £17,000, and surveying the reserve site in Dorset will add to the total. Since April 2012, six DEFRA staff have been working on the cull. This cull has already cost the taxpayer well over £1 million—before it has even started.
What will be the costs to the taxpayer if the cull proceeds? The estimated cost of humaneness monitoring is £700,000, and badger post-mortems another £250,000. The policing costs for each cull area are put at £500,000 a year. There is a strong steer from the police that they will need to send armed officers to police any night-time demonstrations, taking up scarce police resources.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady agree with me that the true cost to the taxpayer has nothing to do with these small costs that she mentions, but relates to the fact that 189,500 cows have been killed unnecessarily which costs the taxpayer up to £1 billion a year in compensation to farmers?
Mary Creagh
The Secretary of State said at the weekend that he wants to roll out a further 10 areas a year for the next two years. He, for one, has already made up his mind on the efficacy and humaneness of these so-called pilots. Assuming he gets his way, that is £5 million a year for the police alone. I think that the police costs are material—
Mary Creagh
No. Police costs are material, because at a time when the police face 20% cuts, asking armed response vehicles to go out into the countryside will take further resources away from the cities, where there tends to be more gun crime, for example, than there is in the countryside. Monitoring all this is very problematic for police forces. When I spoke to someone from the Devon and Cornwall police, I was told that they had only a tiny number of response vehicles to monitor the area from the end of Cornwall all the way up to Exeter, yet they are already facing a huge challenge.
Mary Creagh
I am going to make some progress.
If farmers pull out of the cull and the bond does not cover the cost of completing it for four years, the taxpayer will pay once more. The Government talk about the costs of TB, as did the hon. Member for North Wiltshire (Mr Gray), but in a parliamentary answer to me in September 2011 the then farming Minister, the right hon. Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Sir James Paice), who is in his place, said that the cull would lead to five fewer herd breakdowns a year in each cull area. In 2010, there were more than 2,000 confirmed herd breakdowns in England. If the cull were rolled out with 10 cull areas a year, it would prevent just 50 herd breakdowns a year. The taxpayer costs of culling will not be recouped by a reduction in the costs of bovine TB, so this cull will go on being bad for taxpayers until Ministers cancel it.
Jesse Norman
On the issue of police security, will the hon. Lady unhesitatingly condemn any illegal harassment of farmers who take part in any cull?
Mary Creagh
Absolutely; there is no place for illegal activity. It is interesting that the Government are ignoring the advice of the scientists—not animal rights extremists—who went out, faced down those animal rights extremists and stood in isolated fields across the country to deliver this cull. The scientists did that in the name and the cause of science—and they have said that this cull will not work. They are not in any way soft about this issue, and it is worth re-emphasising that point.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I understand that the Government are rightly insisting on vaccination on land adjoining the culling areas, but the hon. Lady has not mentioned the costs of that. To do that job properly, this will have to be rolled out over at least four years.
Mary Creagh
That is right. Vaccination has to take place every year because of the life cycle of the badger. The hon. Gentleman is right to raise that point. I know that a fund was made available for vaccination, but it is not clear how much of it has been spent. I think it was supposed to be match funded by farmers. Perhaps the Minister will enlighten us on that.
Mary Creagh
I want to make some more progress before giving way again.
Let me move on to deal with the effect on badgers. The so-called pilots were supposed simply to test the humaneness, safety and effectiveness of the free shooting of badgers. No information has been made public about how wounded animals that retreat underground to die can be included in the humaneness assessment. We do not know what proportion of badger carcases will be collected for post-mortems to see whether they were killed quickly. Observers will measure the animals’ vocalisations and the time between shooting and death to measure that humaneness. As we know, however, the Secretary of State has already made up his mind that culling is the way forward, so that is a purely academic exercise.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
If, as the hon. Lady suggests, culling is an inhumane approach to badgers, why does she believe that the British Veterinary Association and the British Cattle Veterinary Association are four-square behind the Government’s policy?
Mary Creagh
I have mentioned the letter in today’s edition of The Independent, and I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has seen it. I am not sure that those bodies are four-square behind the policy. The Government themselves do not know whether culling is humane. That is why the pilots are allegedly about humaneness. The hon. Gentleman’s Government do not know whether culling is humane.
If the Government’s numbers are wrong or marksmen kill more badgers than they are licensed for, badgers could be wiped out locally. If too few are killed—under 70%—TB will increase. I have talked about the range of badger population numbers; localised extinction could happen. The police’s national wildlife crime unit raised concerns back in 2010, as I know from freedom of information requests, that the publication of maps detailing badger setts could be used for “badger persecution”—their phrase, not mine—and that pesticides for poisoning badgers could be misused. There has already been one report of alleged pesticide misuse in Gloucestershire, which I understand the police are investigating. Will Ministers confirm whether the cull will proceed in Gloucestershire if wildlife crime is found to have been committed?
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I have the highest regard for the hon. Lady and we have worked well together in Yorkshire on a number of issues, but I am concerned about the Opposition’s negative argument. If the badger cull does not go ahead, we would like to know the alternatives. Our Select Committee report, published today, speaks for itself.
Mary Creagh
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. I am coming on to that point in my speech. Her report certainly talks about the need for a proper strategy and a coherent policy, and I am not sure that that is what we have got from this Government.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has correctly identified an issue about which hundreds of my constituents have written to me, namely animal cruelty. Given the lack of evidence and the absence of consensus on the matter, and in the light of the huge public concern, the cull surely cannot go ahead. It is extraordinary that Government Members have not reflected the concern felt by their own constituents.
Mary Creagh
I know that there is a great deal of public concern. Any policy must be socially, environmentally and politically deliverable, and the Minister’s decision to pursue the cull will test the limits of those requirements.
In Gloucestershire, the police and crime commissioner is against the cull and the county council has said that culling will not take place on its land. Serious practical difficulties are posed by free shooting near footpaths and camp sites with bullets that can travel up to two miles. If the cull goes ahead, it will not end well. It will be bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife.
Mary Creagh
Twenty Members wish to speak, so I want to make some progress.
If it is not the most effective way of stopping TB, why is the cull going ahead? There is a very simple answer: it is a simple solution to a complex problem. The alternatives—stricter controls on cattle, faster and more TB testing, and more restrictions on cattle movements—promise yet more hardship and expense for hard-pressed farmers, and for the Government. The Government believe that vaccinating badgers—the approach taken by my colleagues in the Welsh Assembly Government—is too expensive, but owing to the high cost of policing the expected protests against the shoots, the expense of the cull now exceeds that of vaccination.
The UK’s top badger expert. Professor Rosie Woodroffe, has analysed the numbers. The Government estimate that badger vaccination would cost £2,250 and that the cull will cost £1,000 per square kilometre per year, so at first sight the cull is cheaper than vaccinating. However, when the Government’s estimate of the cost of policing the cull—£1,429 per square kilometre per year—is added, vaccination becomes the cheaper option. What a pity for farmers that DEFRA Ministers cancelled five of Labour’s six badger vaccination trials. Early results from the remaining site near Stroud show a 79% reduction in TB transmission to unvaccinated badger cubs, which means that they are almost certainly less infectious to cattle and to other badgers. Two or three years of vaccination would give badgers full immunity as the old badgers died off.
Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
The hon. Lady has given us a tremendous number of statistics, for which I am grateful. Will she now tell us how many farmers she has consulted, and will she give us a few statistics relating to the number of cattle that have already been destroyed?
Mary Creagh
I am in touch with farmers all the time, and I have had a meeting with the National Farmers Union. I have met farmers in Derbyshire and, indeed, all over the country.
The wildlife trusts, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and the National Trust are all vaccinating badgers on their land. The Zoological Society of London and the wildlife trusts are pushing for volunteer involvement in badger vaccination, which would greatly reduce the costs. According to a report published today by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, for which I pay tribute to the Committee and its Chair, the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh):
“The vaccine has been available for 3 years but the government should now produce a clear strategy for using it.”
That is a pretty damning indictment of what the Government have been doing for the past three years. As a result of Labour’s investment, we now have a cattle TB vaccine and a DIVA test to differentiate infected and vaccinated cows.
The Select Committee report is critical of the Government’s approach to cattle vaccination. It says that the debate on cattle vaccination is unclear, and that
“the government must accept a great deal of the blame for this”.
It says:
“The quality and accuracy of the information that Defra has put into the public domain has been insufficient and inadequate.”
The Government have delayed field trials of the cattle vaccine after misinterpreting EU rules, and they must now undertake those trials as soon as possible.
I must make it clear, however, that neither a vaccine for badgers nor a vaccine for cattle will work on its own. We need a coherent policy framework to tackle all aspects of this complex disease. The Independent Scientific Group has suggested several key principles that could form the basis of such a framework. Page 175 of its report states that
“the movement of TB infected cattle...poses the greatest threat to the disease security of uninfected farms and particularly so in the case of farms in low disease risk areas”.
According to the report, cattle movements
“are also likely to make a significant contribution to the local spread of infection in high risk areas.”
Page after page of the report lists different control strategies for low-risk and high-risk areas, some of which were implemented by the last Government and some of which are now being adopted by the present Government.
We welcome, for instance, the risk-based trading strategy on which the Government have embarked. There must be transparency in the marketplace to prevent farmers from unknowingly importing infected cows into their herds. However, the Government have not investigated, for example, the 40% of farms in high-risk areas in the south-west that have consistently avoided bovine TB. What are those farmers doing to protect their farms? How are they trading, what is their biosecurity, and what are their husbandry practices? Can they be replicated? What can we learn? Until we get to the bottom of that, we will not find a solution.
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
As I think the hon. Lady is beginning to make clearer, it is not a case of either vaccinating or culling. The Government have introduced a package of measures, including security measures. At the heart of the vaccination question, however, is the challenge of how to persuade 26 other European Union member states to import the meat from vaccinated cattle when there are questions to be answered about the efficacy of the BCG vaccine and the efficacy of the skin test.
Mary Creagh
We now have the DIVA test, which enables us to differentiate vaccinated and infected cattle, and we know from the Select Committee’s report that its efficacy rate is 65%. Our priority must be to stop the spread of infected cattle into low-risk areas, and the spreading of the disease. The Government are about to embark on a risky and untested cull which, as I have said, will be bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife.
Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)
My hon. Friend has made the important point that even in infected areas there are farms that manage to remain disease-free. We need to learn lessons from that, but some Government Members have clearly made up their minds already. They are not interested in the facts; they just want a cull.
Mary Creagh
I agree with my hon. Friend. There is nothing more dangerous than an idea if it is the only idea you have.
This so-called science-led cull has been disowned by the scientists who faced down animal rights protesters to bring us the randomised badger culling trial and a world-class scientific result. The cull will cost more than doing nothing. If it works at all, its effect will be marginal. It carries a real risk of making TB worse in both cattle and badgers. The original Independent Scientific Group said:
“Concentrating solely on the badger dimension in what is clearly a multidimensional and dynamic system of disease spread would be to fail to learn the lessons of previous experience .”
Mary Creagh
No, I will not. I am about to end my speech.
Any solution will require us to work closely with farmers. It will need to be technically, environmentally, socially and economically acceptable, and it will require the consent of taxpayers. Complex problems require complex solutions, and this cull is not the solution.
The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
I beg to move an amendment, to leave out from “House” to the end of the Question and add:
“notes that bovine tuberculosis (TB) has, as a consequence of the lack of effective counter-measures, spread from a few isolated incidents to affect large parts of England and Wales, resulting in the slaughter of 28,000 cattle in England alone in 2012 at a cost of £100 million to the taxpayer; is concerned that 305,000 cattle have been slaughtered in Great Britain as a result of bovine TB in the last decade and that the cost is expected to rise to over £1 billion over the next 10 years; recognises that to deal effectively with the disease every available tool should be employed; accordingly welcomes the strengthening of bio-security measures and stringent controls on cattle movements; further welcomes the research and investment into both cattle and badger vaccines, and better diagnostic testing, but recognises that despite positive work with the European Commission the use of a viable and legal cattle vaccine has been confirmed to be still at least 10 years away; further notes that no country has successfully borne down on bovine TB without dealing with infection in the wildlife population, and that the Randomised Badger Control Trials demonstrated both the link between infection in badgers and in cattle and that culling significantly reduces incidence; looks forward to the successful conclusion of the current pilot culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset; and welcomes the Government’s development of a comprehensive strategy to reverse the spread of bovine TB and officially eradicate this disease.”.
Today’s debate is about getting to grips with Mycobacterium bovis, a bacterium that can affect all mammals including humans and has proved to be extremely resistant to all manner of attempts at eradication. It is a subject on which, over many years, there has been a great deal of agreement between the political parties. That was certainly the case in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when a combination of political consensus and concerted action meant that we had the disease effectively beaten. In 1972, tests revealed only 0.1% of cattle in the country to be infected. I very much regret that as the issue has become politicised our grip on the disease has weakened, with the result that more than 60% of herds in high-risk areas such as Gloucestershire have been infected. The number of new cases is doubling every 10 years. I hope we can all agree that bovine TB is the most pressing animal health problem facing this country. The significance of the epidemic for our cattle farmers, their families and their communities cannot be overstated.
Miss McIntosh
The statistics show that the spread and increase in the United Kingdom is almost unique. Does my right hon. Friend attribute anything to the fact that we were, for very good reasons, the only country to have given the badger protected status in the 1970s—no other EU member state did so—so its natural predator has not been able to control the increase in numbers and the potential spread of disease through the badger population?
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to the Chairman of the Select Committee for her question, and I thank her for her report published this morning. We are the only country that I know of with a significant problem with TB in cattle and a significant problem of TB in wildlife that does not bear down on the disease in wildlife. Section 10(2)(a) of the Protection of Badgers Act 1992 allows the removal of diseased badgers for protection and to prevent disease.
This disease was once isolated in small pockets of the country, but it has now spread extensively through the west of England and Wales. Last year TB led to the slaughter of more than 28,000 cattle in England, at a cost to the taxpayer of almost £100 million. In the last 10 years bovine TB has seen 305,000 cattle slaughtered across Great Britain, costing the taxpayer £500 million. It is estimated that that sum will rise to £1 billion over the next decade if the disease is left unchecked. We cannot afford to let that happen.
If we do not take tough, and sometimes unpopular, decisions, we will put at risk the success story that is the UK cattle industry. The UK’s beef and dairy exporters have worked hard to develop markets, which were valued at £1.7 billion in 2011. Our dairy exports alone grew by almost 20% in 2011. We cannot afford to put such important and impressive industry performance at risk.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
The NFU in north Yorkshire supports my right hon. Friend’s policy. It is desperate that this disease should not come north to Yorkshire, and it gives the policy its full support.
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I know that he is in close touch with the farming community, and we appreciate that it is under great pressure, which is why we are determined to introduce measures that will, we hope, reduce the disease in high-risk areas and, crucially, stop it going into low-risk areas.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
The Secretary of State has highlighted the costs to the individual farmer and the taxpayer, but does he recognise that having disease-free cattle is important to the agri-food industry—a multi-billion pound industry in the United Kingdom that is especially important to economies such as Northern Ireland’s?
Mr Paterson
The hon. Gentleman is right to mention the potentially very serious impact on the agri-food industry if we do not get a grip on this disease. We are determined to work on this policy, and to learn the lessons from the experience of the neighbouring state of the Republic of Ireland and other countries.
The task of managing bovine TB and bringing it under control is difficult and complex, but that is no excuse for further inaction. This Government are committed to using all the tools at our disposal and continuing to develop new ones, because we need a comprehensive package of measures to tackle the disease. International experience clearly shows that controlling wildlife species that harbour the disease and can pass it on to cattle must be part of that package.
Mrs Main
I have written to the Secretary of State on this matter. I asked about the impact of a cull in the context of the whole package of measures. I received a reply from one of his ministerial colleagues, which referred to the fall in badger TB rates in New Zealand, saying that was
“a result of rigorous biosecurity, strict cattle movement controls and proactive wildlife management.”
I have asked for clarification, however. How much of that success was attributed to the cull? The other two steps taken may well have contributed significantly. I hope the Secretary of State will expand on such details for the benefit of those of us who are torn over this matter.
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her question, in which she raises one of the most pertinent points: there is no single solution. Removing wildlife alone is not the solution. There has to be parallel, and equally rigorous, work on cattle. There must be a mixture of both measures. That is the lesson to be learned from the countries I have recently visited, as I was just about to go on to explain.
In recent months, I have been to Australia, New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland, and when I was in Opposition I went to the United States of America. All those countries have made great progress in dealing with very similar problems to ours by dealing with the wildlife reservoir and bearing down on the disease in cattle.
In Australia, a national eradication programme spanning almost three decades enabled official freedom from bovine TB—an infection rate of less than 0.2% under OIE rules—be achieved in 1997. Its comprehensive package of measures to tackle the disease in domestic cattle and wildlife included rigorous culling of feral water buffalo. Australia’s achievement is even more impressive when one considers the difficulty of the terrain and the size of the area over which such an extensive programme of testing and culling took place.
After my visit to Australia, I went to New Zealand. Its comprehensive and successful package of measures to eradicate the disease has focused on the primary wildlife reservoir of brush-tailed possums. As a result of its efforts, New Zealand is on the verge of achieving BTB-free status. The number of infected cattle and deer herds has reduced from more than 1,700 in the mid-1990s to just 66 in 2012.
The Republic of Ireland, too, has a comprehensive eradication programme, which includes the targeted culling of badgers in areas where the disease is attributed to wildlife. From massive problems in the 1960s—160,000 cattle were slaughtered in 1962 alone—the Irish authorities have turned things around to the extent that the number of reactor cattle has reduced to just 18,000 in 2012, a fall of 10,000 in the last 10 years. On their own figures, herd incidence has fallen to just 4.26%—a statistic we would dearly love to have here.
Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
My right hon. Friend is explaining the Government’s policy very well indeed. Does he have any idea what proportion of badgers culled in the Republic of Ireland were carriers of TB? No one wants to see badgers culled unless there is no alternative, but many of them are diseased and will in due course die and suffer great pain.
Mr Paterson
That is a very helpful question. On first analysis, the estimate was about 16%, but the Irish have done a huge amount of work on this, and I admire the scientific manner in which they have gone about it, and on detailed analysis and after careful autopsy the proportion can be seen to be three or four times higher than that. That shows why this disease is so difficult to deal with: it is difficult to identify in both wildlife and cattle.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
Section 4.5 of the Krebs report had some important things to say about the Department—then called the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food—and mathematical modelling, which is a hugely important tool that is not used as widely as it could be. What is the Secretary of State going to do to help drive forward that part of the work, which is clearly needed, so we get a better understanding of what is happening, with or without the cull?
Mr Paterson
That is an interesting question. We are following on from the Krebs trials—the RBCTs or randomised badger culling trials—and going to the next logical step, by learning the lessons from them and improving on them. One of the lessons was that 100 km is not a big enough area. We will extend it to nearly 300 km, so we have clear, definitive geographical boundaries. We will also be doing more analysis of the impact. These are two pilots, but the broad lesson to be learned from the countries I have mentioned is that we have to bear down both on disease in cattle in a very rigorous manner, as we are doing, and on disease in wildlife.
When I was in opposition, I went to Michigan and saw its stringent cattle and wildlife controls, which have enabled significant progress to be made, with a lowering of the prevalence of the disease in white-tailed deer in the endemic area by more than 60% and breakdowns in livestock averaging just three or four a year from 2005 to 2011. I could go on at great length, but I know we are short of time.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State is giving a lot of international examples, but I would like to know what lessons he is learning from the vaccination project in Wales, which shows that there clearly is an alternative. I have read the results of the project closely, and I would like to know what lessons he has learned.
Mr Paterson
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point, but I ask him to wait a few minutes because I am coming on to deal with it. Let me first finish off the international comparisons.
Mark Tami
The Secretary of State has talked about how he has been around the world to look at all these approaches, but the science we are looking at is the science in the UK. Clearly, as even those in favour of a cull would agree, the actual progress it will make is very small, even if progress is taken as a fact. We need a combination of measures. As some Government Members have said, culling will make only a small difference and it will not eradicate the disease.
Mr Paterson
I do not think that the hon. Gentleman quite listened to what I said. If he makes comparisons with the countries I have mentioned, he will see that where there are strict cattle controls, movement controls and biosecurity, and countries bear down on the disease, the disease is reduced. The experience of the Republic of Ireland is spectacular and we should be humble enough to learn from it.
Let us consider other European countries. Badger culling is undertaken in France; there have been reports in just the past week or so of problems in the Ardennes, with infected badgers being culled. Deer and wild boar are culled in the Baltic countries, Germany, Poland and Spain. So we cannot ignore the lessons from such countries, which are so clearly presented to us.
Mr Paterson
I will take one more intervention, but I do want to give other hon. Members the chance to speak.
Steve McCabe
The Secretary of State is drawing on these European comparisons, so why does his own amendment talk about “stringent” movement controls, given that we have the loosest movement controls in the European Union, with about 40% of our cattle being moved annually? Surely he should start by doing something about that. Is that not a comparison he should recognise?
Mr Paterson
I do not think that is a very accurate statement. We have very strict movement controls and our farmers find them difficult to adhere to; they put real pressure on farmers.
If we are to tackle bovine TB, we must not only maintain rigorous biosecurity and strict cattle movement controls, but bear down on the disease in wildlife.
Andrew George
My right hon. Friend will recollect that the randomised badger control trials studied not only the effects of culling on the badger population and the prevalence of TB, but the actions of homo sapiens, and their capacity to intervene and to disrupt trials. Such actions were a factor in the trials and are a factor particularly prevalent in the UK but not prevalent in many of the countries he has named.
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I know that you are an assiduous reader of Hansard, Mr Speaker, and you probably remember every one of my 600 parliamentary questions on this issue, one of which revealed that, as my hon. Friend suggested, 56% of the traps were tampered with during the Krebs trials and 14% were actually stolen. That is one of the lessons we are learning from the trials—there might be a more efficient and humane manner of removing badgers.
Anyone who has looked closely at this issue will see that a comprehensive cattle testing programme, combined with restrictions on cattle movements, remains the foundation of our policy. Restrictions have been further strengthened over the past year to reduce the chance of disease spreading from cattle. In January, we introduced a new surveillance testing regime and stricter cattle movement controls, which means that we will be testing more cattle annually and working hard to get in front of the disease, to protect those parts of the country where bovine TB is not a major problem. We will continue to maintain the significant effort we have put into enhancing cattle controls and combating cattle-to-cattle transmission.
Mr Paterson
Other Members want to get speak, so, if I may, I will push on a bit further.
Vaccination is another tool that we will continue to invest in—we are spending £15.5 million on research and development in this Parliament—one that I know many hon. Members would like to see deployed. Some £43 million has been invested since 1994 in this vital work, to which the shadow Secretary of State alluded. We, too, would like to deploy it more widely, but I am afraid that we are just not there yet in terms of either development or practicality, as has been clearly described in this morning’s Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report.
Oral cattle and badger vaccines will, I hope, prove viable, but they will not be ready to deploy for years, and we cannot wait while the disease puts more livestock farms out of business and threatens the sustainability of the industry. In January, the Minister of State and I met the EU Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner, Tonio Borg, to discuss our progress towards a cattle vaccine. He acknowledged that we have done more than any other country to take this work forward, but confirmed that the implementation of a legal and validated cattle vaccine is still at least 10 years away.
Huw Irranca-Davies
Will the Secretary of State clarify the comments he made a moment ago? If a viable badger vaccination, be it oral or injectable, were developed within the next few years, would he then have no intention to proceed with any cull? Would it be his preference to move forward with the vaccination of badgers instead?
Mr Paterson
I was going to come on to deal with that question but I will touch on it now. Clearly, an effective badger vaccine has a valuable role to play, once the disease is under control. I have discussed this at length in the Republic of Ireland, where they have got the disease well on the way down. Once it can be got to those really low levels—this answers the question from the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty)—there is a definitely a role for a badger vaccine. There is no question about that, but the vaccine has to work.
My worry—I am jumping ahead a bit in respect of Wales here—is that at the moment there is nothing to be gained by vaccinating a diseased animal. Such an animal can continue to be a super-excreter and can continue to spread disease. That is the problem I have with the Welsh experiment. We are very interested in it and we will watch it carefully, but from my travels—I was particularly struck by the Irish experience, and they have done a lot of work on this—I know that the lesson is, “You have to get the disease down to a certain level to get healthy badgers, and then you protect them.” We all want to see healthy badgers living alongside healthy cattle, and the real lesson from Ireland is that the average badger there is now 1 kg heavier than before the cull was begun there. So the Irish have achieved where we want to go; they are getting a healthy badger population, which is exactly what we want, but that is the point at which vaccinations can be deployed. I am not entirely convinced that the Welsh Government are on the right track—I think they are going in too early, because they have not got a grip on the disease—but we wish them well.
Sadly, vaccination is incredibly expensive. The cost of vaccination in Wales stands at £662 per badger or £3,900 per square kilometre per year. Even if the practical difficulties could be addressed, we know that a large-scale programme of badger vaccination would take longer to achieve disease control benefits compared with a programme of culling on a similar scale.
Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)
May I draw the Secretary of State’s attention to one area of healthy badgers, just to draw on his point about vaccination? Cheshire is on the frontier in terms of the disease spreading north. I am working closely with Cheshire Wildlife Trust and the National Farmers Union to see whether there is the possibility of having a vaccinated band of badgers across Cheshire to prevent that northern spread. Will he work with those two organisations and me to see what can be practically achieved?
Mr Paterson
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that useful question. I know that he is already talking to my hon. Friend the Minister of State about it. It is certainly worth examining the approach of creating rings, but the lesson from other countries is that we have really got to get the disease reservoir down first and then we can create a band. The problem is that with the level of disease we are talking about we cannot gain an advantage by vaccinating a diseased animal that is already a super-excreter—it can go on excreting disease in huge volumes. Another of my questions revealed that 1 ml of badger urine produces 300,000 colony forming units of disease, and it takes very few—a single number of those—to infect a cattle by aspiration. Such an approach will not have the effect, so what my right hon. Friend is talking about is well worth looking at, but in parallel with that we have to get the disease down.
Chi Onwurah
I thank the Secretary of State for so generously giving way. Does he recall comparing the search by scientists for a TB vaccine to Sisyphus—or Tantalus, as he later clarified it—because it was always out of reach? Does he understand how insulting many scientists found that comparison and how it undermines his scientific credibility? If he does not understand how science works, how we can trust his analysis of the evidence?
Mr Paterson
I think the hon. Lady is being a little hard. We have given credit to the previous Government, whom she supported, for their significant investment in vaccines. We will continue that investment, we had Commissioner Borg over and we had an incredibly constructive discussion. Sisyphus is trying to shove the rock uphill and Tantalus is reaching in the pool—it is incredibly frustrating for us all that a result is still 10 years away.
Let me get back to the badger vaccine and the important point raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hazel Grove (Andrew Stunell). Early small trials on calves in Ethiopia show that it is only 56% to 68% effective. There is a lot of work to be done to get a vaccine that really works and then a vaccine that can be identified. To pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson), one cannot have international trade under OIE rules if one cannot identify a diseased animal and a vaccinated animal. The last thing I would do is cast aspersions on any scientists working on this question, as we all have a massive interest in arriving at a solution, but every time we look, it is at least 10 years away. According to the timetable Commissioner Borg has set us, we will do well if we stick to that 10 years.
Mr Paterson
I am going to push on.
That is another reason we plan to consult on a new draft TB eradication strategy for England over the coming months, which is mentioned in the amendment and will set out in some detail how we plan to reach our long-term goal of achieving officially bovine TB-free status for England. That will involve better diagnostic tests such as PCR—polymerase chain reaction—and targeted controls to bear down on the disease where it is at its worst, stop the spread across new areas and protect the relative disease freedom that large parts of the country already enjoy.
All those who take the problem seriously now accept that research in this country over the past 15 years has demonstrated that cattle and badgers transmit the disease to each other. There are few now who choose to argue that culling badgers, done carefully and correctly, cannot lead to a reduction of the disease in cattle.
In 1997, Lord Krebs and the independent scientific review group concluded that:
“The sum of evidence strongly supports the view that, in Britain, badgers are a significant source of infection in cattle. Most of this evidence is indirect, consisting of correlations rather than demonstrations of cause and effect; but in total the available evidence, including the effects of completely removing badgers from certain areas, is compelling.”
Since then, ongoing analysis of the results of the randomised badger culling trial has shown beyond reasonable doubt the important role that culling can play in checking the progress of bovine TB, despite any initial disruption to badger populations on the edge of the culled area. Professor Christl Donnelly, a former member of the ISG, wrote:
“In the time period from one year after the last proactive cull to 28 August 2011, the incidence of confirmed breakdowns in the proactive culling trial areas was 28 per cent lower than in ‘survey only’ areas and on lands up to 2 km outside proactive trial areas was 4.1 per cent lower than outside ‘survey only’ areas.”
I firmly believe, based on the best available evidence, that culling badgers to control TB can make a significant contribution to getting on top of this terrible disease. I have no doubt that the benefits from badger control will prove worth while to the businesses, farmers and communities that have suffered for too long. That is why it is crucial that the pilots go ahead.
The National Farmers Union has taken the lead on behalf of the farming industry and has planned and organised the pilot culls. It has been working tirelessly over the last few months to make them a success, ensuring all involved carry out their functions to a very high, professional standard and in ways that take full account of the need to protect public safety. I have been immensely impressed by the effort, commitment and determination that have been demonstrated by farmers in the two pilot areas, despite the unacceptable intimidation and hostility that some have endured.
The professionalism of the police, with whom we continue to work, also deserves praise. It is possible that some additional policing will be needed to enable peaceful protest during the pilots, and that may add to their costs. I hope it is not necessary for the police to deal with people who are intent on unlawful and threatening behaviour towards law-abiding and hard-working people. Such obstructive action cannot be allowed to prevent us from tackling the disease.
Opponents of the policy will say that it is possible to rid the country of bovine TB without tackling the problem in wildlife. There is no evidence for that in any other country where there is or has been a significant reservoir of the disease in species of wildlife that can pass it to cattle, as is unfortunately the case here. My experiences in Australia, Michigan, New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland have absolutely reinforced that essential point.
Members might be told that we will fail because we do not have enough reliable estimates of badger numbers in the pilot areas. On the contrary, we have invested considerable time and effort in monitoring work to establish a reliable estimate of the number of badgers in the areas. Those figures were used by Natural England as part of the licensing process to set the minimum and maximum number of badgers to be culled. Members might also hear from some quarters that we are putting the badger population in those areas at risk of extinction. That too is untrue, as confirmed in the opinion of the Bern convention.
The two pilots will see the removal of about 5,000 badgers—a minimum of 2,081 in west Somerset and 2,856 in west Gloucestershire. That is about 10% of the 50,000 badgers killed on our roads each year or just over 1% of the estimated national population. The number of badgers culled and the culling method used in each case will be recorded by the operators and be part of the licence returns to Natural England. During the pilots, there will also be independent monitoring of the effectiveness, humaneness and safety of badger control.
I hope it is evident why the Government are committed to the policy. It is just one element of a comprehensive approach to the eradication of bovine TB, as our amendment to the motion makes clear, but it is an essential element and one that can help us start to win the war against a bacterium that has proved so damaging and resilient to other interventions.
We will not shy from tough decisions that we believe to be fully evidence-based and fundamentally the right thing to do. We will continue to work with all those who wish to see healthy cattle living alongside healthy badgers. I therefore hope that Opposition Members will reconsider their position and support our amendment, which sets out the broad, balanced and evidence-based approach we are taking to tackle this horrible disease.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I remind hon. Members that there is a six-minute limit on speeches—[Interruption.] It is not a shame; we just want to get everybody in.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
As a west country MP, I can tell the House that there is widespread opposition in the west country, in Gloucestershire and in Somerset to this badger cull going ahead. I have had a huge number of e-mails and I also know that there is a diverse, vocal and determined coalition of groups, ranging from non-governmental organisations and environmental charities to people involved in farming and ordinary members of the public.
Kerry McCarthy
I will not give way, because I only have six minutes and the hon. Gentleman will get his chance to speak.
There has been very vocal opposition and public meetings, and a lot of lobbying. I am sure that the Minister of State, who is the Farming Minister and is also a west country MP, is well aware of that. I invite the Secretary of State to come down to those areas and meet some of the people who have been involved in the campaign so far.
I want to focus on a few issues, the first of which concerns estimating badger populations. As has already been mentioned, the persistent difficulty of knowing how many badgers are in the cull areas has not been satisfactorily resolved and could still make the culls unworkable. We know from the randomised badger culling trial that the only circumstances in which the spread of the disease can be slowed slightly—and even that reduction was only by 16% over nine years—would be if more than 70% of the badgers in an area were eradicated. If the reduction were any less than that, the spread of TB to cattle could increase.
The difficulty of knowing how many badgers there are in an area has been raised many times, including by Lord Krebs and others. Last year, the Government delayed plans to cull badgers as they could not work out how many badgers there were in the cull areas. I understand that according to the Government’s own figures, farmers in Gloucestershire must kill between 2,856 and 2,932 badgers, but according to Professor Rosie Woodroffe at the Zoological Society of London, the estimate of the population ranges much more widely, from 2,657 to 4,079, and there is a 40% chance that the figure for the real population lies outside that range. Professor Woodroffe has concluded that if the real population is below the minimum cull target of 2,856, farmers could kill every badger in the area, breaking the strict condition of the licence that forbids local extinctions while simultaneously failing to kill enough badgers to satisfy the terms of the same licence. The situation is similar in Somerset.
I would be interested to know from the Minister whether the estimates of the number of badgers in the area factor in the number of badgers killed illegally by farmers. A study from the universities of Bangor, Kent and Kingston this year found that approximately one in 10 livestock farmers in Wales had illegally killed a badger within the previous 12 months. In Gloucestershire, there have been press reports of allegations that at the Forthampton estate, an area of 3,000 acres near Tewkesbury that will be one of the main staging points for the cull, badger setts have been illegally filled in. If those allegations prove to be true, the estate may have to withdraw from the cull, which would affect the number of badgers killed and therefore the effectiveness of the cull, as I have explained.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) mentioned the humaneness of the killing. The Humane Society International UK recently obtained from a freedom of information request the heavily redacted document that will be used to monitor the humaneness of the badger cull. I would like to take up the concerns voiced by the society. Will the Minister make public how wounded animals that retreat underground will be included in the humaneness assessment? That is not mentioned in the document. The document admits that no shooter will have prior experience of shooting badgers. My office spoke to Pauline Kidner from the Secret World wildlife rescue, which is based in Somerset and has worked with badgers for many years. She said that badgers are not an easy animal to shoot, and when injured will always go back to their sett. So free shooting is likely to result in a slower death as a result of secondary infections and starvation from reduced mobility, and that will prolong the pain and distress suffered by badgers.
As the Secretary of State will be well aware, Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust has been involved in looking at the bovine TB issue for over 30 years, and in 2011 was the first non-governmental organisation in England to launch a badger vaccination programme on seven of its nature reserves. I would be interested to know what assessment the Government have made of that vaccination programme so far.
The chief executive of the trust says:
“Bovine TB has had a devastating impact on farmers in Gloucestershire and unfortunately there is no single, cheap or effective fix.”
He goes on to say that the Government have “overlooked” the benefits of a sustained programme of vaccination, and that:
“Vaccinating badgers could play a much larger role in controlling bovine TB while a cattle vaccine is developed and licensed.”
Anas Sarwar
Scientific research done by Chambers et al in 2010 showed that adequate vaccination could reduce incidence by up to 73%, whereas a cull would only reduce incidence by between 12% and 16%. So I am not sure that the Government have got the balance right on this.
Kerry McCarthy
Yes. It is a huge difference, and there is a debate to be had about the cost of vaccination, which I think is the Government’s main objection to it. I do not think it is about effectiveness; I think they are cost-driven. In the vaccination programme that is operated in Somerset by Secret World wildlife rescue, the cost of vaccination is much lower because the programme is volunteer-led. I do not know whether the Minister has factored that into his calculations.
The chief executive of Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust says:
“We’re not taking part in the cull on any of our 60 nature reserves in Gloucestershire because we believe the science demonstrates it won’t be very effective in controlling the disease and could even make things worse.”
The Minister does not seem to be listening to what I am saying now, but I—[Interruption.] Well, the Farming Minister is listening; I thank him for his politeness. The Secretary of State does not seem to be paying much attention to me. He needs to come down to Somerset. He needs to come down to Gloucestershire. I would urge him to do it now that the cull has started—not the Farming Minister, the Secretary of State. [Interruption.] Well, I would urge him to come again, and talk to people about their concern that people will be roaming their areas with shotguns at night. They are not being told where those people are. They do not know whether they can go camping in areas where they used to go camping. There is real public concern, and real public opposition to the cull. I do not think that the Minister is taking that seriously.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). I congratulate the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) on calling this debate on behalf of the Opposition, but I think there will be genuine disappointment in the countryside that the terms of the motion before the House are:
“That this House believes the badger cull should not go ahead”,
and yet the Opposition did not suggest any alternatives. Those who genuinely believe that a badger cull should not go ahead must provide alternative ways to control the spread of TB in cattle. So I am very persuaded by what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in setting out his proposals for a package of measures to limit the movement of cattle and increase rigorous testing.
I shall focus my limited remarks on vaccination. I thank all those witnesses, including Ministers, who, in an incredibly short period, gave so generously of their time to respond to our Select Committee inquiry, and to colleagues for accommodating the very tight timetable. We concluded that vaccination is no magic bullet in the search for a solution to bovine TB. As the Secretary of State said, this is a bacterium that affects humans, and I have had family members just one generation ago who suffered from TB with lifelong consequences. In the report, we warn that vaccination is expensive, offers no guarantee of protection and will provide little benefit in the immediate future.
I shall cover some of the points linked to cattle vaccination. We commend the investment by successive Governments—the hon. Member for Wakefield referred to her own, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to current investment—but there are many hurdles to overcome. The European Commission evidence before the Committee, both in writing and orally, clearly set out that there is an indicative timetable of a 10-year period before vaccination will be operational.
There are other issues. We need to change the legislation. We need to negotiate with both the European Union and the World Organisation for Animal Health, which is known as the OIE, so that those cattle that have been injected, and their products, will be admitted in free circulation in other member states. That is the dilemma that many farmers will face. The hon. Member for Wakefield did not address the fact that when a vaccine becomes readily available, we will need to persuade farmers—cost issues aside—that it is in their interests to vaccinate. We need a cross-party approach to ensure that we use all lines of communication in those negotiations with the Commission.
It is important to factor in a cattle vaccine cost of £5 to £6 a dose. The DIVA test will cost an additional £25, which at least will show whether an animal is reacting to the vaccine or is infected. As regards badger vaccination, it is regrettable that there is no evidence to date to show that it reduces the incidence of TB in cattle. We are uncertain as yet of the implications for herd immunity. One of the Select Committee’s key recommendations, which I hope the Secretary of State will pursue, is that an advisory service be set up to help NGOs and charities plan and deploy vaccination. We also hope he will respond to our plea to allow farmers to become trained vaccinators and inject the vaccine. We worked out that only 25% of badgers would face a reduced risk of infection if vaccinated, so we emphasise that Government research is urgently needed to provide confidence in the level of efficacy to enable such a vaccine to be used strategically.
The development of an effective oral vaccine for badgers seems fraught with challenges. The cost is £6 million of research since 2005-06, with another £7.5 million allocated in the next five years, but we must be aware that no vaccine is ready for use yet. We urge the public to be aware that there is a mismatch between the public expectation of having a vaccine available and the current state of scientific evidence. A vaccine must be cost-effective and easy to deploy.
I should also refer to the importance and costs of testing—of the skin test, which costs £3, and the diagnostic blood test, which is £30—and some of the difficulties that we highlighted in our report. It is very difficult sometimes to ascertain, from the skin test alone, whether an animal is infected.
All of us are badger-lovers, but we want a healthy badger population. I repeat that we are the only country to have given the badger protected status, and we must now live with the consequences, mindful of the fact that a badger who suffers TB will be evicted from the sett and die a particularly grisly death.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
I rise to speak about a serious problem that I know causes great consternation in the farming community. We know how serious it is to be faced with having to slaughter cattle, so Labour Members are determined to continue to make progress toward eradicating bovine TB. We commissioned the randomised badger culling trial, the largest scientific project on the effects of culling, which reported in 2007. That trial, which provided the most extensive scientific evidence on the impacts of culling badgers and which lasted 10 years and cost £50 million, examined the effects of culling at 10 high-risk sites across England. The report of the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB stated:
“After careful consideration of all the RBCT and other data presented in this report, including an economic assessment, we conclude that badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the future control of cattle TB in Britain.”
Lord Krebs, the foremost expert on bovine TB in badgers has called for a twin-track approach of developing an effective vaccine in the long term and improving biosecurity and cattle management to prevent herds from coming into contact with badgers and passing on the disease. He was one of 30 scientists who stated in a letter to the press:
“As scientists with expertise in managing wildlife and wildlife diseases, we believe the complexities of TB transmission mean that licensed culling risks increasing cattle TB rather than reducing it.”
They added:
“We are concerned that badger culling risks becoming a costly distraction from nationwide TB control.”
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
The Government use evidence from other countries’ culling other animals, such as possums and deer. Does my hon. Friend agree they are wrong to say that the situation would be exactly the same here, when those animals do not leave the area of perturbation in the same way as badgers do?
Nia Griffith
It is indeed difficult to make comparisons with other countries, where ecological patterns are very different. Perturbation has been mentioned by other speakers, so I will not go into great detail on that; instead, I want to talk about cattle vaccination, because that is what will put the farmer in control, and we should put a lot of effort into it. I am therefore saddened that whereas we spent £3.5 million on this in 2009-10, this Government have cut the funding for that sort of research to £2 million for the next financial year—
Mr Paterson
That is because there is no money, because you messed up the economy. [Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We do not need enticement from the Front Bench. The Secretary of State does not need to get angry, as he will be coming back later, no doubt. Mr Wiggin, we do not need any extra help from you.
Nia Griffith
The European Commission has set out an indicative 10-year timetable for the cattle BCG vaccine and DIVA test to be available for use, but as the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said, the timetable is precisely that: indicative. I ask the Government to put every effort into further research into the steps necessary to make the vaccine and the test both effective and usable in the international context. That is the way to make sure the farmer is in control, which is the real way to deal with the problem.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
I know the hon. Lady is completely genuine in her views, but does she not agree that the vaccine will be effective only in 60% of a cattle herd, with 40% remaining susceptible to TB if infected badgers are present in their grazing area?
Nia Griffith
That highlights the need for further scientific research and development. Clearly there is still work to do if we are to produce a more effective vaccine.
The Welsh Government have taken a different approach from England: rather than cull badgers, Welsh Ministers have started a vaccination programme, which has successfully trapped and vaccinated 1,400 badgers in its first year of operation. In March 2012, the then Minister for Environment and Sustainable Development, John Griffiths, announced a new strategic framework for bovine TB eradication covering the next four years. The programme builds on existing cattle surveillance and control measures, biosecurity best practice—all those are of great importance—and input received from stakeholder engagement; it also includes vaccination of badgers within the intensive action area.
The vaccination project was undertaken in the TB intensive action area in west Wales, which is primarily in north Pembrokeshire and covers approximately 288 sq km. It is the first time that a project to trap, cage and vaccinate badgers on such a large scale has been carried out. Field operations began in March 2012, and last season the programme trapped and vaccinated 1,424 badgers. A further round of field work started this year, in May. A welfare assessment of every badger is undertaken at the time of capture: none was found to be seriously injured and no badger showed any sign of adverse reaction to the vaccination. Participation in the project is voluntary and the Welsh Government are grateful for the co-operation and assistance received from farmers and landowners, with a total of 472 landowners having allowed access to their land.
The Welsh Government have met the three regional TB eradication delivery boards and representatives of animal welfare and conservation organisations to take their views on expanding the use of badger vaccination to cover the rest of Wales. Government-led and cost-sharing options are being explored, including the possibility of a grant to attract new partners and funding. The Welsh Government have also focused on incorporating new technological developments as they become available. In December 2012, the chief veterinary officer, Christianne Glossop, organised a pioneering two-day cattle vaccination workshop to consider the contribution that might make. It was attended by some of the world’s leading experts in vaccination and disease eradication programmes and among the key observations that emerged was that there is a need to gain field experience with cattle BCG vaccine here in the UK.
On that note, I repeat to the Secretary of State and the Minister for Farming that the real way forward is vaccination for cattle. We need to get the best scientific evidence and the best collaboration with our partners in Europe to make that an effective approach.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
Continuing on the same note as the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith), in my speech I will encourage the Government to do as they say they will do, which is consider and keep available to them all the tools in the box, including vaccination. I, like the hon. Lady, believe that vaccination offers the most effective means of getting on top of this disease.
It is worth reminding ourselves of the impact that bovine tuberculosis has on farming communities. To see how it has affected farmers in west Cornwall over the past 30 years, people need to talk to farmers and understand the impact of getting TB reactors in their herds. The impact is not only financial, but emotional: there is an effect on confidence in the farming community, because many farmers live in fear whenever vets come round to undertake the tests. It is vital that people fully appreciate that.
We would all claim that we support a process of evidence-based policy making, but today’s debate demonstrates the constant risk among politicians of using policy-based evidence making, whatever one’s perspective. Having looked at the balance of evidence provided by the best-informed scientific expertise on this question, especially from those involved in the RBCT and others, it is clear to me that the Government are running a high risk of making the situation worse in those areas where they proceed with the cull. I simply point that out.
I strongly supported, as did all parties at the time, the previous Government’s approach and the randomised badger culling trial. In my area, I faced down strong opposition from animal rights activists and others to the proactive cull in particular, so I have been there, done that and run the gauntlet of strong and extremely vociferous protests. As I say, there is a high risk that we could end up making the situation worse.
The Ireland study has been referred to on several occasions. It is worth saying that the four areas selected were among the most isolated in the country, and had badger populations that were extremely small and disparate. The nature of those populations is quite different from the nature of the badger population in Great Britain; the likelihood of migration and perturbation was bound to be significantly lower in the Ireland populations. We cannot say that the situation in Ireland is representative of what we have in the UK.
On vaccination, Professor Rosie Woodroffe and I are working on a proposal. We have been to see the Minister with responsibility for farming, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr Heath), who has been supportive of us developing our proposal to roll out, using volunteers, a five-year vaccination programme across the whole Penwith peninsula—200 sq km—which clearly has the hard edges of the Atlantic around it. The Government’s estimated cost of about £2,200 per square kilometre would be significantly reduced by about 50% through the use of volunteers. We already have a large team of 50 or more volunteers who have come forward. We suspect that we can offer vaccination and wildlife holidays in the area for people who get involved in the programme. Clearly, only a very few people who are trained and licensed to undertake the actual injection of the vaccine are needed.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman have any idea of the complexities of dealing with the physical act of vaccinating a wild animal?
Andrew George
Absolutely; that is fully understood. Indeed, many people working on our wider advisory group are already doing this work. We have consulted the Killerton estate in Devon, which has been doing this for a couple of years. Professor Rosie Woodroffe is trapping badgers in that area at this very moment; she is working with farmers on her own programme, which is funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. There is a great deal of experience and knowledge going into this, as well as understanding of the challenges of rolling out such a programme. I have a great deal of experience of this, too. We believe that we can proceed with a very effective programme, with the proper support of landowners in the area, though taking on 200 sq km is a significant challenge.
Roger Williams
I congratulate my hon. Friend on his proactive stance, but we have heard how difficult it is to estimate the number of badgers in an area. How will his group be confident that it has vaccinated a percentage, if not 100%, of badgers in the area?
Andrew George
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. We have the involvement of a scientist who was very much involved in the randomised badger control trial, Rosie Woodroffe; she is supported by a team of scientists from other academic institutions and scientists who were involved in the RBCT. She is already undertaking a survey in the area, because there is field work going on there. Those scientists understand the science of undertaking a rigorous survey of the badger population in the area. Costed into the project’s overall business plan is not only the surveying, but scientific monitoring, because we need to get rigorous information on the scientific outcomes, so that lessons can be learned and the project can be rolled out further.
We have consulted widely; we have spoken to many of those who have experience of undertaking such work in the countryside, as well as farmers in the area, the major landowner—the National Trust, which is of course already on board—the wildlife trusts and others, and we are confident that the programme could be very effective. We are talking about an area where, in the RBCT, there was only 50% compliance with the trial, so a licence would never have been given, even if one were applied for. This programme could be rolled out very effectively, and could be very successful. It would also be less costly than a cull. We are hoping to introduce cattle measures as well. For that reason, and because we want to keep an open mind on the issue, although I believe that the pilot should not go ahead, I will abstain in the vote on the issue tonight, because I want to make sure that I get Government support for my vaccination programme.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who made a balanced speech. I will vote for the motion, as I think that the balance of science is clear, but I appreciated the way in which he approached the issue.
As the MP who last year proposed a Back-Bench motion, which won cross-party support, to stop the proposed badger culls and that favoured more sustainable and humane solutions, I am deeply disappointed that the Government remain so intransigent and determined to ignore public opinion, including the almost 250,000 people who have signed an e-petition calling for no badgers to be culled. The Government are essentially cherry-picking the scientific evidence and failing to heed the opinions of many experts.
I do not in any way underestimate the hardship and distress that bovine TB causes farmers. This really is not a debate between those who somehow understand farmers and those who do not. I think that all of us are united in wanting to get rid of this horrible disease. The question is what is the most effective way to do it. Other hon. Members have made a compelling case that the proposed cull is not based on science, and that the proposals—not least the free shooting measures—are hugely flawed. Also, as has come to light more recently, the proposals are likely to be extremely costly.
I want to look at the alternatives because, again, this is not a debate between those who want a cull and those who want to do nothing. There are plenty of things that those of us who do not want a cull would like done instead, and we would like them done much more quickly and with much greater political will. First, I shall deal with cattle control measures, which the Independent Scientific Group recommended:
“In contrast with the situation regarding badger culling, our data and modelling suggest that substantial reductions in cattle TB incidence could be achieved by improving cattle-based control measures.”
It makes specific reference to zoning or herd attestation, shorter testing intervals and whole-herd slaughter for chronically affected herds. Although the Government have introduced some new restrictions, the evidence suggests that much more priority should be given to restricting the movement of cattle.
It is highly likely that a significant proportion of cattle-to-cattle transmission of bovine TB may be going undetected, and that the role of badgers in the spread of the disease may have been overestimated. A recent scientific paper suggested that as many as two in 10 infected cattle might be missed by the test used to check whether cattle are infected with TB. Other research suggests that up to 21% of herds may still be harbouring infection after being cleared from movement restrictions, and that larger herds suffer not just a high incidence of the disease but a faster rate of spread between cattle. In EU evidence to the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs earlier this year, reduced cattle movement was flagged as the single biggest difference between the UK and the rest of Europe.
Improving biosecurity must also take priority, and it would cost farmers an average of £4,000, compared with £27,000 to deal with a TB herd breakdown. When applied correctly, barriers, gates, fencing and so forth can be 100% efficient, so perhaps some of the money being thrown at culling should instead be directed towards helping farmers to keep badgers out of their farm buildings. Steve Jones, a farmer deeply concerned about biosecurity, urges that something be done about water troughs, which act as a reservoir for TB, because they are rarely cleaned out. As he says:
“Making troughs badger-proof is not rocket science”,
and that needs to be part of a concerted effort to adopt better hygiene standards across the agricultural industry. Of course farmers already know the importance of immediately quarantining cows infected with TB, of isolation areas to separate those animals and prevent cross-infection, and of limiting contact between cattle and local wildlife. In all those respects, we need to help farmers to be proactive and follow the advice of, say, Natural England about on-farm biosecurity and badger exclusion zones. I fear that farmers are being given the impression that culling is the answer to all these problems, when that simply is not the case. The Government’s strategy has been reactive to the spread of bovine TB; it needs to be proactive, with increased biosecurity and rigorous cattle movement controls.
A former Government adviser, Lord Robert May, points to cattle vaccination as an important tool. He says:
“What is particularly irritating is that we have the vaccines in the pipeline, but the commitment to really go in and test them is really not there”.
DEFRA’s website acknowledges that experimental studies show that BCG vaccination reduces the progression, severity and excretion of TB in cattle, and field trials show that it can reduce the transmission of disease between animals. We need to press ahead with the DIVA test, which confirms whether a positive skin test result is caused by vaccination or TB infection. There is no evidence that DEFRA is doing nearly enough on the test, or on discussions with the European Commission. Commissioner Tonio Borg has set out a plan for a usable cattle vaccine in a letter to the Secretary of State, suggesting, for example, that substantial experimental research and large-scale, long-lasting—perhaps two to five years—field trials should begin this year. He also makes it clear that cattle vaccination need not be a barrier to EU trade in the longer term.
The report by the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which was published this morning, makes it clear that the Government have misinterpreted EU rules. The Committee recommends that details of field trials are published as soon as possible, and I could not agree more. I also agree that vaccination alone is not the solution but can play a part in an effective strategy, alongside other evidence-based measures. We should not go down the line of a cull, which is a costly distraction from a wide range of other measures, including cattle controls, biosecurity, and promoting vaccination of both badgers and cattle. That package is most likely to be effective from a scientific point of view and to secure public acceptance, and it is certainly a far more cost-effective way forward. I very much hope that the Government will step back from the position that they have taken, as they will face massive protests in all the proposed cull areas. People will not simply sit back and watch this happen. There is massive public concern, so I hope that the Government are listening.
Bill Wiggin (North Herefordshire) (Con)
An effective Opposition would debate early-day motion 189.
I must draw to the attention of the House the fact that I keep pedigree Hereford cows. I test them annually and I have 13 of them. Without getting misty-eyed, they all have names and I am as fond of them as any person is of their pets. I want to protect them from disease, so I vaccinate them against every illness that I am allowed to vaccinate against, and would vaccinate against TB if it were legal. I follow the movement restrictions and I try to do all I can to prevent my cattle from being exposed to TB. I do not believe that that makes me any different from any of my constituents who farm.
I also care about other animals, and I remember the excitement I felt the first time I saw a wild badger. These are magical creatures of the dusk and I want to make it clear that I want the highest standard of care for the badger, just as I do for my own animals. Many of my kind-hearted, caring constituents have written to me asking me to vote against the cull, but I fear that that would cover only half of this enormous and unpleasant decision, the other half being the need to put diseased badgers out of their misery.
When Labour was in office, I was asked by a constituent to table a parliamentary question on advice on how to put down humanely an injured badger found on the side of the road. I was told that people should consult a solicitor before taking any action to put the badger out of pain. I do not believe that we should stand by when badgers are dying in agony.
Sheryll Murray
Has my hon. Friend heard that bovine TB has spread to domestic animals such as cats and dogs?
Bill Wiggin
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: TB is found in hedgehogs, cats and dogs, and even sheep. It affects people, usually only those who drink unpasteurised milk. The disease can reach any species, because M. bovis is a species-jumping illness.
Daniel Kawczynski
Given the devastation caused by the disease in our region and the area neighbouring our county, will my hon. Friend work with me and other neighbouring MPs to convince the Secretary of State that when the trials are successful they should be brought to our region—Herefordshire and Shropshire—as soon as possible?
Bill Wiggin
I would make the point that these are pilots. The Opposition have made it clear that they believe they are untested. Well, pilots are by definition untested. Once we have evidence that the proposal is effective, of course we can take informed decisions. There are 300,000 to 500,000 badgers in the UK, and they do well in areas such as our counties, where cattle thrive in some of the most beautiful countryside in the country. Herefordshire is one of those counties. The number of badgers exceeds the number of foxes, and they are most likely to be killed by disease or in road traffic accidents—some 50,000 a year are killed on our roads.
There are valid and worrying arguments about perturbation. The perturbation effect was confirmed by trials that used cage trapping. It is not clear whether it was the trapping or the killing of the trapped badger which caused the perturbation effect. That is a worrying challenge to the argument on vaccination. If perturbation is caused by trapping, vaccinating badgers that may already be infected is likely to be as risky as culling. How can we prove that that is right or wrong without electronic tagging? Badgers have little ears, and would lose an ear tag. I do not think that trimming their fur, which is being done at the moment, will provide the sort of robust scientific evidence that we need.
Despite that concern, I still favour badger vaccination for populations confirmed as healthy, and I would draw the attention of the House to the success of the Dutch in using vaccination to combat foot and mouth disease. We must use vaccination to protect healthy badger populations, particularly those that border infected populations. We know where the disease is not present, as we use cattle as an indicator species. Perhaps that is something the Government can address when they look at the efficacy of culling.
Vaccination costs money, and we spent £90 million on TB control measures in 2010-11, including testing and compensation. Every time a farm breaks down, it costs £34,000. Over the past 10 years, bovine TB has cost the British taxpayer £500 million—the equivalent of Birmingham’s 1,200-bed Queen Elizabeth hospital. If we do nothing and maintain the status quo, allowing the disease to spread once again, over the next 10 years the cost will be £1 billion, which is two 1,200-bed hospitals. Given the financial situation, I think all Members would agree that spending £1 billion on the effects of bovine TB without even trying to cull sick animals would be hard to justify even in the most urban constituencies.
The extremely charming and erudite badger cull opponent, Dr Brian May, asked:
“What would we do if this were our children? We would vaccinate…them.”
EU Council Directive 78/52/EEC explicitly prohibits vaccination against bovine TB in cattle. I therefore urge the Secretary of State not to make us wait until after the referendum in 2017. Surely this is a good reason for leaving the EU, if nothing else. What would be the cost of defying the directive? How much money would be put at risk? What would be lost if the EU banned our cattle exports? What would the French do about our dairy products? [Interruption.] I heard the Minister say, “Quite a lot”—he should tell us how much. Only the Government can tell us so we can have an informed debate. In the meantime, we should go ahead with planning for cattle vaccination.
The Commissioner wrote to the Secretary of State saying that a new vaccine was 10 years away. Ten years would mean £1 billion, or another 1,200-bed hospital. The Secretary of State needs to use every weapon that he can to fight the disease. All cattle have passports, so if we chose to vaccinate we could stamp the passport, “Vaccinated— not for export”. We could use the DIVA test when DEFRA was satisfied that it was proven.
I favour better tests. I received two letters from constituents whose cattle were slaughtered. Those cattle passed the skin test, but they were found to have lesions in more than one organ and were condemned. If they had failed the test, the owners would have received compensation, but because lesions were found they were condemned, and my constituents lost the total value of those cattle. We therefore need better tests. Let us introduce the PCR test that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State championed in opposition, and let us make sure that farmers can choose gamma interferon tests if they want them.
I do not want to see badgers suffer. The Secretary of State used to keep them as pets, and he does not want to see them suffer either. The badger is a much-loved animal, including in Kenneth Grahame’s “The Wind in the Willows”, but unfortunately badgers are a reservoir for TB. Reducing the infected population is the principle that we use for cattle, but which we ignore in wildlife. An experimental pilot cull in the highest-risk areas, with barriers, will prove or disprove whether culling is worth rolling out in other high-risk areas. People should realise that it is a scare tactic even to suggest that the whole badger population is at risk from culling. It is not. Only badgers in the highest-risk areas, where it is thought that one in three badgers has TB, would be culled. The total number at risk would be 5,000—less than 10% of the number of badgers hit by cars every year.
Mr Badger in “The Wind in the Willows” said:
“People come—they stay for a while…they build—and they go. It is their way. But we remain.”
Let us do all that we can to ensure that healthy badgers do.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
I spent the weekend talking to farmers to find out their position on the issue and I was shocked by the stress, the trauma and the cost that this illness is causing. I am hugely supportive of farmers and I want us to do everything we can to fight and destroy the disease.
I want to say a few words about the implications of testing for farmers. They have to pay for a vet to come, normally on a yearly basis. They have to bring all their stock in to be tested. If there is a reactor, within a couple of days when the vet comes back that animal will be slaughtered. That locks down all movement on that farm for 60 days. Yes, farmers get compensation for slaughtered animals, but not for the lock-down. If they were taking animals to be covered or if they were taking animals to market, all that would stop. Some 28,000 cattle are slaughtered, costing the taxpayer £100 million in compensation and costs. From last January to this January the number of reactors has gone up by 24.2%. Bovine TB is a dreadful disease and we need to stamp it out. However, I am against the cull.
I am against the cull for all the reasons set out by my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) so I will not rehash the same argument. I want to make three quick points. First, badgers are a protected species under the Protection of Badgers Act 1992. That is an important and powerful fact to remember. Secondly, for the cull to be effective, 70% of all badgers need to be culled. We do not know how many badgers there are. DEFRA estimated the population in the pilot area to be 1,300 in every 300 km area, but the randomised badger culling trials estimated the figure to be 3,000, so will the licence to kill be to shoot 910 or 2,100 badgers? The difference will be dramatic. I do not understand how a 70% target can be set without knowing what the total figure is.
Thirdly, and most important to me, are the logistics of a cull. If there is a badger sett in my back garden, does that mean that people can come and shoot the badgers in it? I do not understand the logic of that. If a farmer does not want a cull on his land, does he have the right to stop the cull, or will the animals be culled if he is in a TB hot spot? As was mentioned earlier, the public will be incredibly anxious if they see people at night in balaclavas going round with shotguns. The thought of that freaks me out.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
The hon. Lady is summarising what is driving the enormous frustration in the countryside with some of the ignorant comments that she is making. No one is allowed to shoot a badger with a shotgun. It must be done by a trained person with a rifle. Badger setts very rarely appear in people’s gardens. Badgers like to live away from people. Some of these comments are so ignorant that they cause enormous frustration.
Sarah Champion
I find the hon. Gentleman’s use of language offensive and patronising. I do not like to be called ignorant. He has no basis for saying that.
Another thing that concerns me is that there is a budget of £500,000 for policing. Police often spend £500,000 to secure the safety of just one march, so that seems a tiny amount for the three culling areas. I believe the figure will be much higher. The Secretary of State mentioned that culls had been effective in other countries, but it is a lot easier to shoot a water buffalo with whatever gun it is than to shoot a badger. Badgers are by nature private, they are nocturnal and it is hard even to see them, let alone shoot them. My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) asked whether a clean shot could be guaranteed. I do not believe that it is possible in all cases. There is a risk, as was mentioned, of badgers going back into their sett and dying.
All these issues could be resolved, but even if they were and a cull went ahead, the estimate is that the reduction would be only 16% after nine years. That is a tiny amount, if all the objections could be overcome. Surely a better long-term solution is to put all our money and resources into a bovine vaccine. The Government cut the funding for research into and development of such a vaccine and the funding needs to be restored. The British Veterinary Association says that £1 billion will be wasted on TB over the next decade. Surely if a small percentage of that could be invested in research and getting the vaccine closer—[Interruption.] If so, that is brilliant, but let us chuck more money at research because in the long term it will save us.
The main argument against the vaccine is that the EU forbids it because it is not yet possible to distinguish between vaccinated and infected animals and the EU would ban all live exports. All the farmers I spoke to said that they were against live exports, so I do not think there is much strength in the argument. In the short term, I believe we should use a combination of vaccinating badgers, good husbandry and the existing controls, but we need to drive forward a bovine vaccine.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)
I begin by drawing attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests in that I am a farmer—an arable farmer. I have no stock, so I have no pecuniary interest in the problem of bovine TB, although I grew up on a pig and dairy farm and therefore have a great deal of knowledge of how those farmers operate.
The number of badgers has doubled in the past 10 years, as the Secretary of State said. The number of cattle slaughtered in the past 10 years is a staggering 190,000. The cost so far has been £500 million, to which another £500 million could be added in the next 10 years if we carry on as we are. The Secretary of State has already drawn attention to the fact that he had a meeting with the EU Commissioner. The simple fact is that if we do nothing, the TB-free status of this country could be put at risk. As we heard, whether we are members of the EU or not would make not a jot of difference if the European Union declared that we had TB and our meat could therefore not be exported to any countries that were members of the EU. That would cause catastrophic loss to our farmers.
In Gloucestershire, which is one of the hot spots and which I have the privilege to represent, one quarter of the farms are under movement restrictions. This causes a huge financial loss to the farmers. Each TB breakdown costs on average £34,000, of which the farmer picks up £12,000 because of all the consequential losses of replacing those cattle, the testing and so on. Currently, all the measures to prevent the spread of TB have been focused on cattle. As soon as a TB reactor is found in a herd, restrictions are placed on the entire herd and the reactor animal is isolated pending valuation and compulsory slaughter. The movement restrictions then remain in place until at least two clear tests have been completed. When one thinks that a quarter of my farmers in Gloucestershire are subjected to this number of tests, one realises just how many tests are involved and the cost and inconvenience of those tests.
As it is clear that badgers spread the disease, it would be foolish not to take action against this vector of the disease. There has been a pretty good-tempered debate today and Members have generally recognised that every tool in the box must be used to combat this dreadful and economically devastating disease. Surely one part of that must be the cull, but the other part must be vaccination. The problem with vaccination is that the only sensible way to vaccinate badgers is with an oral vaccine. In my 21 years as a Member of Parliament, I have always been told that an oral vaccine is just around the corner. Today we are still being told that an oral vaccine is just around the corner.
I commend the Government and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on his investment of another £15.5 million on top of the huge investment that has already been made in vaccines, but contrary to what the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) has just said, there is no guarantee that we would necessarily come up with an oral vaccine if we spent a huge amount of money. An oral vaccine would be a huge advantage. It was used on the continent to combat rabies in foxes, and rabies has now been eliminated from large areas of the continent, to the extent that we can now take our dogs to the continent with a pet passport, which was unthinkable 20 years ago.
Many of the arguments against the badger cull revolve around the use of vaccines, but vaccines alone will not eradicate the disease; nor will culling alone eradicate the disease. We must have strong action on the widespread control of TB, and these two pilot culls are the most effective way of achieving that. Effective vaccinations have been just around the corner for 21 years.
As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, there is a huge cost. Some Members today have underestimated not only the cost but the physical difficulty of giving a vaccine to a badger. I have witnessed at close hand how these creatures react once they are caged in a trap. They are vicious and people need to be carefully trained and have proper protective equipment when they administer the vaccine. I doubt whether the proposition of the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) to allow volunteers to carry out vaccination in such a large area is realistic.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has referred to the huge expense. The Welsh Assembly has estimated that the vaccine costs £662 per badger, or £3,900 per square kilometre. The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) was worried about the cost of policing in Gloucestershire, but that is minuscule compared with the compensation, which as I have said has been £500 million for the past five years, with another £500 million to come. It is also minuscule compared with the costs to the Welsh Assembly of vaccinating a relatively small area. The idea of vaccinating large areas in the hot spots throughout the country with an injectable vaccine is simply not a starter. The only way a vaccine will work is if it is an oral vaccine.
There has also been talk of a whole herd cull. That would not work either; it would take out large numbers of animals in the south-west and would leave large areas with no cattle at all.
I want briefly and finally to mention David Barton, a farmer in my constituency, who lost 34 cattle in one day.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I will have to drop the time limit on speeches to five minutes. [Interruption.] It is no use tutting. It is either that or I will have to knock someone off the list. With fewer interventions everyone might just have a chance to speak, so it is up to everybody to show some self-restraint.
Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)
I come to the debate as a trustee of the League Against Cruel Sports. Only this morning, I helped to launch the report by Team Badger, which has effectively exploded all of the myths that are being put forward by the Government to justify this unjustifiable cull of badgers in our country. Ministers seem to have come to this decision with a sense of predetermination. Since the election in 2010, the Government have been determined to institute a cull of badgers, and were not interested in alternatives.
The problem is that the scientific evidence does not back the Government’s stance on this matter. The hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) stole my thunder a little bit. The Secretary of State referred to a number of international comparisons in his contribution at the beginning of the debate, and I was going to refer to the rabies situation on the continent of Europe. It is clear that continual culling of the fox population was singularly unsuccessful, and it was only when vaccination was tried that rabies was all but eliminated there. We have had a licensed vaccine for badgers since 2010 in this country, and I simply do not understand why the Government are so reluctant to use it.
One reason for the spread of bovine TB is bad and lazy husbandry in certain circumstances. It is important to say that, because farmers need to step up to the plate. My hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) made the point that some farms in infected areas are TB-free. How do they manage to achieve that? Better standards of husbandry, improved biosecurity and reduced cattle movements would have a significant impact in reducing this scourge.
The hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) nearly had me in tears when he made the case that he was all worried about badgers dying in agony. One wonders whether he is a member of the ministry of truth. What does he think will happen to badgers who are shot by marksmen? We know from veterinary expert opinion that they will die in agony. I think that DEFRA itself has acknowledged that badgers will be dying in agony as a result of the cull. We will not take any lectures from the hon. Gentleman—who I do not think is in his place at the moment—who claimed that he was concerned about badger welfare. DEFRA has made the argument that, somehow, killing badgers is good for their welfare. What a ridiculous and ludicrous argument. It must think that the British public are absolutely bonkers.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
The Opposition have called Members to the House for this debate, and the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Front-Bench team have proposed the motion:
“That this House believes the badger cull should not go ahead.”
This is the biggest animal health crisis is Britain and it is costing £1 billion, with 28,000 cattle slaughtered last year—and the Opposition have no policy, no alternative. Do they have a feasible alternative that they would like to put forward?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I have suggested short interventions, and if Members want to pass judgment on others, it would be better if they had been here at the beginning.
Chris Williamson
If the hon. Gentleman had been in his place and listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield, he would have heard her set out the alternatives. There are alternatives, and that is the point that we are making. The Government are taking the wrong course of action. It is not just me saying that as a trustee of the League Against Cruel Sports; this is the scientific evidence. Let me quote some of the scientific evidence for the record.
Lord Krebs, who chaired a review team that originated the idea of the RBCT, said on 12 October 2012 on the “Today” programme:
“The scientific case is as clear as it can be: this cull is not the answer to TB in cattle. I have not found any scientists who are experts in population biology or the distribution of infectious disease in wildlife who think that culling is a good idea. People seem to have cherry-picked certain results to try and get the argument they want.”
Lord Robert May, a former Government chief scientist and president of the Royal Society, said:
“It’s very clear to me that the government’s policy does not make sense.”
He added:
“I have no sympathy with the decision. They are transmuting evidence-based policy into policy-based evidence.”
The recently retired Government chief scientist, Professor Sir John Beddington, has also refused to back the cull.
A letter published in The Observer on 14 October 2012 and signed by more than 30 scientists, including Professor John Bourne, former chairman of the ISG, Professor Sir Patrick Bateson, president of the Zoological Society of London, Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the Natural Environment Research Council, Dr Chris Cheeseman, formerly of the Food and Environment Research Agency, Professor Denis Mollison, former independent scientific auditor to the RBCT, and Professor Richard Kock of the Royal Veterinary College, states:
“the complexities of TB transmission mean that licensed culling risks increasing cattle TB rather than reducing it”.
The letter ends:
“culling badgers as planned is very unlikely to contribute to TB eradication.”
The Government are taking the wrong course of action. Government Members have spoken as though they were somehow the friends of the farmer, but they will make matters worse and cause incredible suffering to the badger population. They are enraging the vast majority of the British public and they are wasting police money. They have cut the police service to the bone and yet they want the police to waste resources policing the culls—estimated at about £2 million per cull. This is absolutely bonkers. It is criminal and it should stop.
I urge the Secretary of State, having heard the cogent argument put forward by my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State, to pause for a moment, to think what he is doing, to consider her words, to consider the scientific evidence, to think again and to take a different course of action.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
This debate has shown that the Secretary of State and the Minister have taken a brave decision to go for the cull, which is absolutely necessary. Farmers in my constituency and elsewhere in Devon feel that during 13 years of Labour Governments they were told that a vaccination was just over the hill. When Labour came to power, 6,000 cattle had TB, but when it left there were 30,000 with the disease. It is the duty of this Government to take action.
Farmers in my constituency are at their wits’ end. There is hardly a cattle farmer in Devon who has not been touched by TB—either it is affecting them at the moment, or during several tests they have not been able to sell cattle because TB is in the herd. All the time, we are removing cattle from herds with TB. We are cleansing those herds of TB. We then turn those cattle into the fields where there are infected badgers. The Secretary of State said clearly how infectious those badgers are—they are giving the cattle TB, so we have to take action.
A badger vaccine will not cure the infected badgers. Furthermore, the current vaccine has to be injected every year. That is not practical. The Opposition know that, but they will not face it. It is great shame that we cannot have cross-party support on the issue, because in the end the farmers cannot go on as they have been. Many of the cattle taken are heifers in the dairy herds, which provide much-needed good food and dairy products. They are being slaughtered. The world has a population of 7 billion and rising—we need more food, but the Opposition did nothing to cure the disease during their period in office.
We have said clearly that not only the badger cull is needed; there are strict provisions on cattle movements, and we will introduce even stricter ones. That is not popular with farmers, but they know that it is necessary provided the Government take the action to take out the infected wildlife.
Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is speaking with great knowledge. He mentioned the importance of cattle movement control. Does he accept that the shift of bovine TB to remote areas is a result of—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. It is up to Members speaking whether they give way or not, but those intervening, from whatever side of the House, should show self-restraint and make their interventions short. I call Neil Parish, who I presume has nearly ended.
Neil Parish
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I will not take any more interventions. I think that the hon. Lady was asking whether cattle spread disease to areas that were uninfected. Yes, they did to a degree. We have to tackle the disease in the hot-spot areas—where we have to cull—to make sure that cattle are not infected and that there is no chance of their being moved. We have to use every weapon available.
The key thing is what happened in the Republic of Ireland. While the number of cases of TB in Northern Ireland doubled, the number in the Republic halved over the same period. What did the Irish do? They culled their badgers. We have to be sure that we do all the relevant things.
Many of us are countrymen and countrywomen who would love to have the badger around. However, we want them to be healthy. We cannot leave diseased badgers in the field, to infect cattle and each other. Once we have reduced the number of badgers in those red-hot areas of TB, we will see a much healthier badger population. I also believe that we will not see as many badgers trying to mix with the cattle; there will not be the pressure on feed, which is paramount. We are not talking about a national cull of badgers. Our aim is not to exterminate badgers, but to cure cattle and badgers of TB and make sure that we have healthy food and livestock for our future.
The farming community feels despair because of the years of inaction from the previous Government. The community is not divided as the shadow Secretary of State tried to claim earlier; it is very much united by the fact that the disease has to be eradicated. That can be done by using all the methods, including a cull.
Finally, I go back to the Republic of Ireland, where statistics show that herds are half as likely to be reinfected with TB in areas where badgers have been culled. The beauty of the system there is that it involves badgers to cattle and cattle to badgers. Farming practices in the Republic are very much the same as those in Northern Ireland, which shows that a controlled cull of infected badgers will work. The farming community is behind the cull and I believe that, when it is explained, the public will also understand that the issue is about disease control and healthy cattle and wildlife.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), who is a respected and knowledgeable fellow member of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, although in this debate we will differ.
I speak as a member of the Select Committee and on behalf of the many constituents who have contacted me, having considered all the facts, and want the cull to stop. Some 28,000 cattle were slaughtered for TB control last year, so none of us can underestimate the effect of bovine TB on the farming community. I cannot begin to understand the emotional and financial devastation that losing a herd to that disease can bring to a farmer and his family. That is why I believe that the Government must find a permanent solution.
Like other hon. Members, I commend the last Government for their work in tackling the problem. However, it is lamentable that the badger vaccine deployment project that they set up in six trial areas has been reduced to one area by this Government.
Vaccination has to be a key to getting rid of bovine TB. The report published today by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee on vaccination against bovine TB concentrated on how vaccination can contribute to the control and eradication of the disease. The report highlights the fact that the injectable vaccine for badgers has been available for three years now and that the Government should produce a strategy for using that as soon as possible.
The report goes on to say that for too long the strategy for dealing with bovine TB has been reactive and that it should now be a strategy to get ahead of infection. A good vaccination programme also depends on increasing biosecurity and rigorous movement control. Furthermore, with a better testing regime, farmers could be assured that the livestock they bring on to their farms are TB-free.
The report makes a number of recommendations, many of which are mirrored and strengthened by the conclusions of the “Backing Badgers” report launched today by Team Badger. That report also supports improvement in biosecurity measures in cattle and the use of vaccination in both cattle and badgers as solutions to bovine TB.
The Government have ordered two initial culls, with more in the offing. Science has shown that the large-scale culling of badgers is estimated to reduce the increase of TB among cattle by only 16% after nine years and only if undertaken under the strict approach of a randomised badger culling trial. That is not what the Government are doing. They are not moving quickly enough with the science. The report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, and the “Backing Badgers” report, both state that the Government need to condense the 10-year time scale for developing a cattle vaccine, and work with the European Commission on that.
Everyone wants our cattle to be protected and TB free. Our badgers have been a protected wildlife species in this country since the ‘70s and must remain so. The Government must work harder on vaccine programmes, biosecurity, movement control and improved testing regimes, and that is where their resources must be concentrated, rather than on a cull that cannot guarantee to be humane or prove to be scientific, and which is simply a veil to cover the lack of progress that the Government have made on bovine TB.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
When I spoke in a previous debate on this issue, I was one of the few Conservative Members who stood up, spoke, and then voted against the culling of badgers. I was surrounded by colleagues who profoundly disagreed with me, some of whom have barely spoken to me since. It was one of the most daunting experiences in my short time here. Today feels like groundhog day, although this time it has come with added pressure for me to change my mind or abstain on the matter. I have been accused—rather patronisingly—of not understanding the science and, worse, of condemning farmers in individual constituencies to further incidences of disease. I have been told that I do not understand the horrific impact of bovine TB in cattle, or indeed in badgers, and that culling badgers is actually a way to be kind to them, rather than being cruel, and thus my fears about animal welfare should be allayed.
Let me be clear: I have enormous sympathy for farmers affected by bovine TB, not simply because of the clear financial cost to farms, but because of the way the disease impacts on farmers’ lives and livelihoods, and often, as colleagues have stated, their mental health. I have listened to colleagues recounting stories from their own constituencies, and it is dreadful—truly horrible. However, I do understand the science, and the indiscriminate culling of badgers will not, in my mind, stop bovine TB occurring in the future.
The eradication of bovine TB in badgers will not lead to the eradication of the disease in cattle, especially in a country with extremely high cattle movement. Cattle-to cattle transmission would continue, as already demonstrated in low-incidence areas such as Kent where evidence shows that that type of transmission accounts for 80% or more of cases. No other country in the world has yet eradicated bovine TB in cattle, and they certainly have not reduced it with culling alone. The Secretary of State was right earlier to refer to a package of measures, but he did not answer the question from my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) about the balance of success between those methods.
We must be realistic about what the badger cull, and these pilots in particular, will achieve. Our leading scientists note that a cull will reduce incidence of the disease by 16% at best, but even that figure is based on a long-term, large-scale cull. Therefore, the extensive, indiscriminate culling of badgers, three quarters of which will not have TB, will leave 84% of the problem. More worryingly, although bovine TB is relatively confined at the moment to certain areas of the country, a cull could lead to the problem spreading rather than being contained. To the colleague who told me yesterday that his farmers want a cull because they neighbour areas with the disease, let me say that I am against such a cull in order to protect those farmers, not condemn them. Badgers do not adhere to county borders and they disperse under the threat of extinction. The cull will not make any significant impact in the pilot areas, but it could in those areas close by. It is welcome to hear from the Secretary of State that DEFRA is using other preventive measures to control the spread of the disease in those areas, but will that be enough?
I had a quick opportunity to read the report by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee published today, and I congratulate the Committee Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh), on it. Severe criticism of departmental delays and publication of misleading information aside, it is clear that all sides wish to see a vast improvement in developing and providing a vaccine solution to the problem. As Kent Wildlife Trust put it to me, instead of culling badgers, the Government should further improve cattle movement controls and testing, and support farmers to implement simple biosecurity measures. They should prioritise the development of a cattle vaccine, and divert the estimated £6 million cost of licensing, monitoring and policing the pilot culls into a major programme of Government-funded badger vaccination. Only then will we get on top of this disease in an effective way.
I conclude by congratulating colleagues on this side of the House who will show their opposition to the cull by abstaining on the motion today. Within the Westminster village we know and understand why many feel uncomfortable about going into the Opposition Lobby on an Opposition motion that is, in effect, non-binding. It is a nuance often misunderstood outside Parliament, but I thank those colleagues for their support all the same. I, however, will not be abstaining, and although it will probably make little difference in the great scheme of things, I want my voting record to show that I am against this barbaric, indiscriminate and ill-thought-through cull. I would prefer a science-led, welfare-oriented response to the control and reduction of bovine TB that protects both cattle and badgers from this nasty disease.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
It is a great privilege to follow the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), for whom I have the greatest respect. She has spelt out with huge clarity and authority the compelling arguments for supporting the succinct motion before the House today.
One advantage of speaking towards the end of the debate is that I have had the opportunity to listen it as it unfurled, and I feel that those who have contributed have engaged with the complex issues. I compliment the Secretary of State on a clear and thoughtful exposition of the Government’s position, and the shadow Secretary of State on having spelled out issues on the other side of the equation. Listening to both speeches—indeed, many speeches today—I thought that there is actually a huge area of consensus in this debate. The Secretary of State spoke cogently about the need to bear down on the disease in cattle as well as in the wild animal population, and I hear no disagreement about that. The disagreement is about the means used, not their aim and purpose, and there is genuine concern across the House about whether culling will improve the situation for famers, or make it worse.
One problem is that this issue has an emotional essence at its heart, and there is emotion on both sides. The excellent speeches from the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), both captured in their own way the emotion on different sides of the equation, and that emotive response to this debate is what makes it difficult to resolve. I agree with the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton that we should seek a cross-party way forward on this issue because there is so much consensus and a need to progress in a sensible way.
In a crisp and clear contribution early in the debate, the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) weighed up the balance of the scientific evidence. One problem, however, is that the evidence is not always conclusive one way or another. After taking us through his weighing up and consideration, he said that in his opinion, the Government are, on balance, running a high risk of making matters worse. We must listen to those genuine, heartfelt concerns as we struggle with this difficult issue.
One certain thing is the distress that this disease causes, and the Secretary of State is right to remind us that it is paramount that we tackle this animal welfare disease in the UK. The distress that it causes, not only to animals—including those in the wild—but to farmers, their families and livelihoods, and the economy of those areas badly affected, is strong and heartfelt and must be addressed. We cannot shilly-shally about.
Although the hon. Member for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) argued for going ahead with the cull, he also, in a different strand of his argument, urged action on vaccination. Some people might feel a little uncomfortable with some of the actions that he was urging, but he was basically saying, “Look, we need to get on with this. We need to make sure we’ve got all the tools in the box to address the issue.”
This has been a good debate. I hope that we can somehow get out of it a collaborative way forward, recognising that there are different conclusions on the evidence, that the biggest-ever survey and scientific investigation into badger culling had an outcome that suggested that it is not a sensible way forward, and that we need to use all the tools in the box to address this terrible disease.
Simon Hart (Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire) (Con)
I think that we are at the stage of the afternoon when there is almost nothing left to say; anyway, that will not stop me.
This is, above all, a serious human tragedy. We have heard a lot about statistics and science. Some Members have not had the opportunity to do this, but for those who think that there is still time to reconsider their views on this whole saga, I urge them to talk, just for a few moments, to one or two of the people affected, and to look at the online videos that are available, to get a feel for what the impact really is. While we have been having this debate, five or six farm animals, in many cases perfectly healthy, will have been killed. That will have come at a cost to the taxpayer, but above all it will have come at a serious cost to the farms in question—not just a financial cost but a big emotional cost to people whose animals are their way of life. I urge all Members on both sides of the House who have not had that experience to find out about it before they finally make up their mind on the rights or wrongs of this proposal.
I want to stick to two matters—vaccination in Wales and animal welfare. Much has been made of the Welsh experiment in north Pembrokeshire, next door to where I live. In an area of 10 miles by 10 miles, 1,424 animals have been vaccinated at a cost of £662 each. Let us not forget that that cost comes not just once but every year. Forty per cent. of those animals will already be suffering from TB and will therefore be completely unaffected by the vaccination, so it will have been carried out at the taxpayer’s expense with no benefit whatsoever. Moreover, the population estimates are pretty inaccurate. The Welsh Assembly’s estimate of 1,200 to 2,500 has a pretty wide margin, and more animals than its minimum estimate have already been vaccinated. When the shadow Secretary of State talks about the benefits of the Welsh model, I urge her to bear in mind that it is a long way from being anything like definitive, and we will not have the results for some years yet.
On animal welfare, the contrast between cruelty and suffering has often been debated here. There is a claim, which I happen to disagree with, that aspects of the cull are cruel. They may be ethically questionable, and I respect anybody who takes that view, but badgers that are shot humanely—I am talking about instant death—do not suffer. Death is not a welfare issue but the means are a welfare issue.
I want to refer to comments that were made a few years ago by people who were opposed to these proposals, particularly those involved with the RSPCA, the League Against Cruel Sports, and the Burns inquiry into hunting with dogs. Their view on the method of shooting that is currently proposed is interesting. The RSPCA said:
“Shooting is widely held to be a humane method of control in skilled hands”.
The LACS said:
“Culling should be carried out by the most efficient and humane means available. In practice we believe this means the use of high-velocity rifles by users who have passed a competency test or by humane trapping.”
A few years later, we are suddenly told that those methods apparently do not apply to a badger cull. The RSPCA pre-empted this by suggesting that there is a huge difference between shooting a badger and shooting a fox. The guidelines given to the marksmen make it very clear that they must have the right weaponry and the right ammunition, and they must be at close range. These weapons are, by the RSPCA’s own admission, in the hands of very skilled people. One or two of the organisations that are now making a loud noise about the suffering element need to refer to their own files to see that these are the very methods they recommended for wildlife control not that many years ago. Apparently at that time they expressed no concerns about the possible danger that those methods of control might have caused to members of the public, farm animals or people in the areas where culling was, and still is, a perfectly routine activity.
We are looking at a pilot cull in two areas that will take out, at best, less than 1% of the UK badger population. It has been frustrating to hear Members say time and again that this is the only solution. Everybody who has been involved in this debate on either side of the House should recognise that it is part of a package of measures. It will not necessarily have an instant, or even very full, effect quite yet. I support the position of the British Veterinary Association and of the National Farmers Union. Above all, I support the bravery of the Government in eventually fulfilling their promise to the farming community to deal with this problem.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart). His comments were very much along the lines of those that I will make in opposing the motion tabled by the Opposition to stop the badger cull. I commend the Secretary of State for his introduction, which was very balanced and set the scene as regards the reasons why this has to go ahead. The hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and I agree on many things, but we have different views on this. However, he gave a balanced point of view that was very well put, and I commend him for that.
As Members will be aware, the proposal for a badger cull is not directly applicable to Northern Ireland. However, the Ulster Farmers Union, as an original part of the National Farmers Union, has asked me to put forward a viewpoint on its behalf in this Chamber. Some years ago, the research programme on badger culling and control was brought to Northern Ireland in two geographical areas of the Province. The Ulster Farmers Union supported that then, and it still does. It supports the pilot badger cull scheme here in England and wants to see it implemented in Northern Ireland as soon as possible.
My constituency, which takes in part of the mid-Down area, has the highest levels of TB in the whole of Northern Ireland, and it is transferred across other constituencies as well. Farmers come to me at least once a month with a TB-related problem, so it is clearly an issue for me on behalf of my constituents. There is a need for the cull and for the process that has been proposed. It is not about eradicating all the badgers, as some people have suggested, but about controlling them. I live on a family farm back home. I have two badger setts on my farm and the badgers are healthy, but farmers around me have all had experience of TB. We can therefore understand why farmers are concerned about the issue.
Nicholas Soames (Mid Sussex) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government ultimately have a duty of care to the farmers and to their stock?
Jim Shannon
I do accept that; it is a very key issue for us all. That is why I am speaking about the importance of looking after the farmers’ stock but also their families as well. The common key factor for all of us is the presence of badgers, which, if they carry TB, need to be controlled because the cost of farmers’ annual loss of cattle has topped £100 million. The loss of cattle has been tremendous on the UK mainland, but over in Northern Ireland as well. The right hon. Gentleman made an important point about the health of the animals, but there is also an impact on the families. Some farmers who have come to me over the years have had to have their whole herd destroyed because of TB. The impact on their financial, emotional and physical welfare is tremendous, and we cannot ignore that. Whenever we talk about the need to control badgers—not eradicate them—we must also put into the equation the impact on the farmers.
In a previous life, before I came here, I was a Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and a member of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Committee. About five years ago, we carried out an investigation and report into bovine TB in Northern Ireland. We spoke to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in Northern Ireland, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and representatives from the Republic of Ireland. We also spoke to bodies from across the world, including Australia and New Zealand, which the Secretary of State mentioned in his introductory comments. My hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), who cannot be here because he has constituency duties, chaired the Committee, on which we both served and which recommended controlling badgers. It is vital for that to be put on the record.
In the Republic of Ireland, badger control measures have resulted in a decrease of TB in cattle by almost a third, as has been mentioned. That is close to the Northern Ireland border. If the Republic can do it and it works, that is a prime example not far from the land mass of the British Isles.
In New Zealand, as the Secretary of State and others have mentioned, the most comprehensive control of badgers—not just through culling, but through other measures as well—has reduced the number of herds infected from 1,700 to 70, which is a dramatic decrease. Many methods can be used to achieve this.
Some raise the issue of scientific evidence, but such evidence exists in the Republic, New Zealand, Australia and many other countries across the world. It was clearly presented to the investigation undertaken by the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development in my previous job before I was elected here.
There has to be proactive control of badgers in heavily infected areas. That can reduce the level of TB in cattle. My constituents are very concerned about TB. Although there are incidences of TB in England and Wales, we want to see it eradicated in Northern Ireland as well. We want Northern Ireland and the Republic to be disease free. It will help us all, given the multi-million-pound industry: agri-food is worth £4 billion to Northern Ireland’s economy. It is important to us.
Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
I want to speak not only because this is an issue that I feel strongly about, but because it is a matter of great importance to the livelihoods of the vast number of farming communities in South East Cornwall. I will try to be brief. It is very disappointing to see the Opposition Benches so empty, given that this is an Opposition day debate.
Needless to say, my communities rely heavily on farming and tourism. It is not only cattle that have been affected by bovine TB. A constituent of mine, Senara Collings, has a herd of alpacas that she farms on her farm, which is also a tourism establishment. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) joined me at her farm, where we met many local alpaca owners. Senara suffers from the same restrictions that apply to dairy farmers and has suffered considerable distress. In particular, she saw her alpacas destroyed only to find at post mortem that they showed no signs of BTB.
Members who question the necessity of the pilots should speak to another constituent of mine, Dave Worley, who wrote to me saying that he has the unenviable task of dealing with the effects of TB on a daily basis; that, alongside the use of vaccines and trap and test cull methods of control, the numbers of badgers must be reduced; and that doing nothing is not an option. He said that if I was not convinced, I was free to accompany him on a mass reactor cull in order to understand why farmers want the pilot badger cull.
No farmer I have spoken to wants to eradicate badgers; they want the ability to manage then. When a farm goes down with TB, it seems sensible to trap and test the relevant setts and, if they are found to be infected, eradicate them. However, the numbers of badgers have grown so far and so fast that the cull is required to bring the numbers down to a sustainable level. Only then will a vaccine be effective.
Another of my constituents, Chris Wilton, who is also a farmer and local councillor, has told me about the situation in Ireland. He pointed out that, after the cull in southern Ireland, the incidence of BTB is dropping, while in Northern Ireland, where there has not been a cull, it is increasing. He told me that the badger population is out of control because the badger is a protected species.
Finally, Audrey Cole, another constituent of mine, has lived and worked for many years in the countryside among the farming community in South East Cornwall. She sums up why I will vote against the Opposition motion and support the Government:
“Cattle are a major food source for the ever growing population in this country and everything possible should be done to protect THEM! Farming skills have evolved down through 100s of years of experience and farmers know the countryside & how it works better than anyone. Ignore what the farmers are saying at your peril!”
I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House will not ignore the farming community and will support the Government’s amendment.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
I am very pleased that my Shropshire neighbour, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, is present. He will know that in 1997, 47 cows were slaughtered in Shropshire as a result of bovine tuberculosis, and that last year the figure was more than 2,000. That increase happened in Shropshire alone, and the misery and devastation it caused to the dairy and livestock industry of our county, which is so dependent on agriculture, cannot be overemphasised.
In 2006, I set up the all-party group on dairy farmers as a result of the crisis that the disease was causing in Shropshire. More than 250 Members of Parliament joined the group, and the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers did an excellent job as our secretariat. I pay tribute to it for all the work it did with farmers up and down the country to ensure that Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs joined the group. We worked together on the basis of cross-party consensus over 10 months. We interviewed experts not just from the United Kingdom but from all over Europe and overseas, and went on delegations to find out how bovine tuberculosis had been eradicated in France and other countries.
We made two recommendations after those 10 months of work. One was for a limited cull of badgers and the other was for a regulator for supermarkets. At the time, we were ridiculed for proposing two things that were deemed completely impossible to achieve. I remember going to see the relevant Labour Minister at the time and was very disappointed at the derision and incredulity with which the two proposals were greeted.
I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, who has acted with great courage. I am sure that a lot of civil servants and others will be saying, “This is a very courageous step, Minister.” Of course, there will be protests up and down the country—this is a highly controversial matter—but I pay tribute to him because he has been so courageous. I very much hope that those people who object passionately to this limited cull will conduct their protests in a peaceful way.
One of the most exciting things we have done in Shropshire this year is invite a delegation of cattle dealers, agronomists and farmers from the Bryansk region of Russia. I and my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) have worked together to help the Government make sure that Russia lifts the ban on cattle imports that it imposed after the BSE crisis. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who has done more than any other Member of Parliament to ensure that that happens. There is such excitement that we can and should be exporting more of our superb agricultural produce overseas. No country produces better dairy products than the United Kingdom, and, of course, the best of those are from Shropshire.
I have to say, in the limited time that I have, that the Minsterley creamery in my constituency and the Müller dairy in north Shropshire employ huge numbers of local constituents in the dairy industry. We must do everything that we can to protect the livelihoods of those constituents and the security of their families and children, because they have worked in the industry for generations. This policy is just one of the tools that the Secretary of State is using to do that.
Finally, the Secretary of State recently received a letter from Mr Lovegrove-Fielden from my constituency, whom I met recently. I very much hope that he reads the letter. It says that if the trials are successful, he should quickly consider implementing the policy in Shropshire because we must do everything possible to protect our Salopian dairy farmers.
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire) (LD)
I declare an interest as a farmer who owns cattle, albeit in Wales, which is not covered by the Government’s proposals. However, we have certainly been affected by bovine TB. People who are more directly involved are deciding to go out of cattle as a result of that.
I am disappointed that we are having this debate although I fully support the Government’s proposals. I am disappointed because in the 1980s, bovine TB was practically eliminated from the United Kingdom. That was achieved by using many of the processes that we are now using to try to eliminate it. The disease is out of control in terms of the number of farms and cattle affected. It is progressing northwards and eastwards away from the hot spots in the south-west.
As has been emphasised today, bovine TB is a complicated disease. Its epidemiology and the way in which it is spread are not well understood. One thing that we are certain about is that badgers infected with TB can pass it on to cattle, but there are other methods of infection. When there are diseased badgers in fields where cattle are grazing, there is the opportunity for the disease to be transmitted. Although we are cleaning up the disease in cattle, as long as there are infected badgers where they are grazing, the disease can spread. We have heard a lot about increased biosecurity, but the same people advocate natural forms of cattle production—in other words, grazing. As far as I know, there are no biosecurity measures that can keep badgers and cattle apart when cattle are grazing.
All farmers would say that if an effective vaccine were available, they would opt for it. However, as has been said, we are continually told that the vaccine is coming, but it never arrives. The injectable vaccine for badgers is a step forward and I am sure that it can be used in a package of measures to tackle the disease.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for allowing me to intervene. Does he share my disappointment that the Government in Wales are not going ahead with the cull that the Labour Government decided to carry out between 2007 and 2011? That cull would have taken place in Wales if they had not made a complete mess of the legalities.
Roger Williams
There is disappointment in Wales about that, but I want to continue to talk about the role that vaccines can play.
If cattle could be vaccinated, it would be a step forward that farmers would welcome. It has been said that that might cost £5 a head. Given the amount of medication that cattle receive in a year, £5 is of little consequence. Farmers would certainly leap at the opportunity.
The vaccine that is available now is the BCG vaccine, which a number of us of a certain age have been injected with. The Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine was developed in Paris between 1910 and 1920. For all the work that has gone on to improve the TB vaccine for human beings, that is the only vaccine that is available. It is only about 60% effective in human beings and in animals.
I accept that a cull has a part to play because infection levels are so severe and all the other methods of control have proved to be ineffective. Farmers have co-operated with DEFRA and the Welsh Assembly Government to increase the number of tests that take place. In Wales, every farm is currently tested every year. If a reactor is detected, tests must be carried out every two months until there are two consecutive clear tests. That is an incredible commitment in terms of labour and expense. Other forms of control have taken place. Pre-testing before movement has proved to be effective, but it is not effective enough to get to grips with this disease that is affecting rural areas.
I believe that the Government have taken a tough decision. The randomised badger culling trials were scientific trials and were never thought to be a practical method of reducing TB. Professor King, who was the Government’s chief scientific adviser at the time, looked at the tests, identified the weaknesses and decided that there were ways to reduce the problem of badgers moving across the cull area. The Government have taken on board all those recommendations and come forward with proposals that I believe will have an impact in reducing and, eventually, eliminating the disease.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
I wanted to speak in this debate because of the importance of balancing the well-being of our herd with public health concerns and the need to protect wildlife and our farming community. I will vote in favour of the amendment and, by extension, the trial cull, but I will do so through gritted teeth, because I strongly believe that it is circumstances that have put us in this position. I have faith in the Government to do the right thing.
Thankfully, TB is not a problem in my constituency, which is designated a TB-free zone. That means that the number of cases is very low. I hope that that continues. I am glad that the Government are taking the problem so seriously. It is a major problem across the country, so we must act.
Government vets say that there is no viable vaccine for cattle and talk about how seriously they take the problem, but what do they really mean? They mean that the European Commission has banned any meat that has been vaccinated from being sold in the EU. That is because it is hard accurately to test the difference between infected cattle and those that have been inoculated. Instead, the Commission favours mass culls of cattle as the solution and points to a number of countries that have cut TB in that way. It wants DEFRA to cull a whole herd when one case of TB is found within it. That would be a nightmare for farmers, as many of my colleagues have articulated much better than I ever could. It would risk ripping apart our rural community and its vital economic contribution to my Morecambe and Lunesdale constituency.
The Commission’s policy makes it impossible for DEFRA to consider vaccinating every cow and impossible for it to compensate farmers accurately—things that would protect our herds, assure human health and build confidence in the British meat market, which, incidentally, is the best in the world. The Commission has refused funding for the badger cull, and it is clear that it has a one-track mind on this subject, so we must force it to open up to new ideas. After all, the BCG vaccine has protected British people from TB for decades, and the idea that it is illegal even to consider a similar programme for cattle is a huge error.
Once again, then, we see the EU getting it badly wrong and causing problems for this country. As for the badgers themselves, we cannot ever cull enough to eradicate TB—because they are not the sole problem. DEFRA’s chief scientific officer says that this cull will cut cases of bovine TB by 16%, but that can never be anything more than a temporary fix in a crisis situation. As cases double every 10 years, I think we all must accept that this is a crisis.
We must work with groups such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the Badger Trust and interested members of the public such as Brian May. I have been in contact with him and I know that he does not share my views; he does, however, share the view that something must be done. Those organisations have mounted an admirable campaign and they deserve credit. The answer we all seek is out there, and we can achieve it if we bring together environmental groups, animal welfare charities and farmers to tag and monitor healthy badgers in the future. This must be done by mutual, voluntary, agricultural and governmental bodies to vaccinate and eradicate badgers as a carrier of bovine TB. I recognise that it is a costly option, but the more that TB spreads, the more we risk spill-over hosts—TB spreading to other breeds of animals.
Reluctantly, then, we must accept this six-week cull of 5,000 badgers, along with the Government’s assurances that they will redouble efforts to use strategies such as testing and containment. After the cull, however, we must take the following clear steps. First, we must tell the European Commission that one size does not fit all; secondly, we should work to develop a quick, clear and accurate genetic test for TB; thirdly, we should look into a mass vaccination programme for both cattle and badgers; and, fourthly, DEFRA and the National Farmers Union should work with groups such as the RSPCA and the Badger Trust to find better solutions—tagging and monitoring healthy badger populations, for example. This might sound to Members like a wish list, but it is a workable concept.
If the cull goes ahead, let us all agree that it must be for the last time. We already test 5.5 million animals a year. We work in slaughterhouses and we are using biosecurity measures to ensure that infected animals never get to other areas of the country. Protecting our food supply must be our top priority, and I applaud the Secretary of State for making it a top priority against personal decisions, but we must save our wildlife, too.
Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)
I rise to speak against the motion and in support of the many farmers in my constituency who have suffered most grievously over many years from the scourge of bovine TB. I would like to make an important point at the outset. I was rather surprised that the shadow Secretary of State appeared to imply that the farming community was heavily, or to some significant degree, divided on its opinion of the advisability of having a cull. I would advise those who have the courage to stand up and support the Government not to get too carried away with the notion that farmers or any other community, or indeed the British population, are substantially against these measures. The most recent YouGov poll on this topic did indeed illustrate that by a small margin there were more people against a cull than were in favour of it. In fact, the figure against the Government’s actions was 34%. That means, however, that some 66% were not prepared to say that they were against what the Government were doing. Indeed, some 29% were in favour of what the Government were doing; 22% expressed no opinion; and 15% did not mind one way or the other.
An important additional question was asked in that survey: of those not prepared to support the Government, how many would change their minds if they became convinced that these actions would prevent the further spread of the disease into other parts of the country? The figure was 27%. All Members should bear in mind that critical point. The Government are proposing a series of trials. They will not in and of themselves solve the problem, but they will help us along the road to understanding the approach we should take in future.
The reasons why it is important to take action have been well documented in this debate. We have heard speaker after speaker referring to the 28,000 cattle that were slaughtered last year and to the £1 billion cost that we are likely to face if no action is taken over the next decade. As the Member of Parliament who has the farm crisis network organisation based in my constituency, I know that spending some time with members of that organisation and listening to the harrowing, heartfelt stories about farmers who are suffering might of itself change a few minds.
Many Opposition Members have said that we suggest that this approach is a silver or magic bullet that will solve the problem. Of course it will not. It is one of a number of measures that need to be taken, as is recognised by the British Veterinary Association in its support for the action that we are taking. The Opposition have also argued that the results of the Krebs trials show that our approach is likely to make the position worse, but I do not believe that. I believe that the scientific evidence that emerged following those trials, as more information became available and more was understood about the mechanisms involved in transmission, showed that a different approach could lead to a different result.
I am pleased that the Government’s trials will take place in large areas, measuring 150 square miles, that the cull will be pursued over a lengthy period, and that natural barriers provided by motorways, the sea and rivers, along with vaccination at the periphery, will ensure that perturbation is minimised. That, I believe, will have some effect. I suspect that those who are currently saying, in response to a YouGov poll, that they do not support the Government’s action will start to turn towards us when they see what I expect to be the results further down the line.
Some Opposition Members dangle before farmers the prospect of vaccination, saying that no action should be taken now because it will soon be possible to get it going. Let me make two points about that. First, there is currently no oral vaccine for badgers, and until there is such a vaccine and until it has been proved to be effective, vaccination cannot possibly be a viable route for them. Secondly, as we have heard from many Members, there is no 100% effective vaccine for cattle. Tests cannot differentiate effectively between cattle with the disease and those that have been vaccinated, and the European Union does not expect a legal or viable vaccine to be available for at least 10 years. So vaccination will not be the answer.
As the Secretary of State has observed during his travels around the world, there is no country in which the problem has been tackled effectively without its being tackled in the reservoir of disease that is out there in the wildlife population, and this country will be no exception. I commend the Government for the stand that they have taken, and I urge Members to vote against the motion.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Mr Mark Spencer will be the last speaker, and he will have four minutes in which to speak. I ask him to resume his seat by 3.40 pm, when the winding-up speeches will begin.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
Let me first draw the House’s attention to my declaration of interest, not only as a former dairy farmer and a licensed holder of an exempt finishing unit, but as a landowner with badger setts on his farm—badger setts of which I am particularly proud. We in Nottinghamshire have the healthiest, smartest badgers that anyone could wish for, and I want to keep them that way. They are something of which I am very proud, a heritage of our country which should be protected and looked after. I want my badgers to remain healthy and TB-free for as long as possible.
As we heard from the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), this debate has prompted a fair amount of emotion. I have to say, as a former dairy farmer, that it is impossible to describe what it is like to be present at the birth of a calf, to be there when it takes its first breath, to be there when it drinks its first milk, and then to take it all the way through its life; to choose the animal with which it will breed, and to trace its family tree back through your father’s to your grandfather’s generation. It is impossible to quantify the importance of that experience, emotionally, to farmers, or to quantify the extent of their attachment to their animals.
To be told by Opposition Members that when our cattle are killed—when they are slaughtered—it is our fault, because we did not look after the biosecurity of our farms, is something very powerful which causes an enormous amount of emotion. I believe that farmers have the highest biosecurity that they could possibly have on their units, and it is physically impossible to keep a grass field where cattle are grazing badger-free. It is important for us to deal with the facts of the case rather than with alleged misdemeanours. The hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) talked of balaclava-clad gunmen with shotguns riding around the countryside, which is a complete fabrication. Some of what is said is quite shameful.
We must use every tool in the box to protect my badgers, to protect my cattle, and to protect people from a disease that is spreading across the countryside towards Nottinghamshire. We will use biosecurity measures, movement restrictions and vaccination when it is available, but we have to take out the infected badgers in other parts of the country, which will otherwise spread this terrible disease across the east midlands towards Nottinghamshire and destroy these cattle.
I urge Members to support the Government in this unfortunate but necessary act. I urge Members to support the cull and eradicate TB from this country.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
This has been a good debate, and I commend all Members who have spoken today for their contributions, not least those who focused on the science, the evidence and the facts. On an issue as important as this, we must have evidence-based policy. The hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) just made some remarks about our discussion of issues of animal husbandry, cattle movements and so forth. I say to him that he should look at DEFRA’s own pronouncements on that, which make the same points.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) raised the issue of chapter 4.5 of the original Independent Scientific Group report and the modelling of spatial patterns of transmission. He said this work is still to be done several years on. We need to get on with doing that. The Secretary of State describes himself on his own website as an expert on bovine TB. We should therefore agree to follow the science, and we need to do that modelling.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) talked about the opposition from farmers, the public and others in the west country and the pioneering work of her wildlife trust. My hon. Friend the Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) talked about the approach in Wales and the ISG remark in respect of the original trials that the cull cannot meaningfully contribute to the eradication of TB. She rightly praised the Labour Welsh Government’s approach in TB-intensive vaccination areas, with 472 landowners taking part.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) talked eloquently about the impact of testing and cattle slaughter on her farmers, and the meetings she has had with farmers, but she strongly advocated a different way forward than a cull. She also talked of the practical difficulties of shooting badgers at night.
Sarah Champion
The hon. Member for Sherwood (Mr Spencer) twice called me ignorant for using the term “shotguns” in respect of shooting badgers. I draw his attention to the DEFRA document of May this year, “Controlled shooting of badgers in the field under licence to prevent the spread of bovine TB in cattle”. It says on page 2 that the firearms that are authorised are rifles and shotguns.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. That is a point of clarification, not an intervention. The hon. Lady has made those remarks in the wrong place.
Huw Irranca-Davies
It is important to stick with the facts and what is said in the documents.
My hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) said the Government had come to their decision through a predetermined sense that a cull is the answer, and he made it clear that the scientific consensus is firmly against a cull as part of a BTB eradication programme. He made the point that a cull could be bad for farmers if it were to make the spread of BTB worse.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon) put a coherent alternative strategy with great knowledge and insight, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who noted areas of commonality between the two Front-Bench teams, although we are divided on the issue of the cull.
The hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) has expertise from her position as Chair of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee. She made a rational, cool-headed contribution, for which I thank her. I thank her, too, for the report, which we will study over the next few days.
The hon. Members for North Herefordshire (Bill Wiggin) and for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) spoke passionately on behalf of farmers, as did the hon. Members for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish), for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray), for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski), for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) and for Sherwood, as, too, did the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in speaking for the Ulster Farmers Union—and, as an aside, we note that the various farming unions around the UK are possibly the only unions not routinely denigrated by this Government.
The hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) described the Government as intransigent on this matter, and advocated an alternative approach. The hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) spoke with great knowledge and in great detail of a different approach that he hopes to pursue in his area and said the balance of best-informed scientific opinion indicates the Government are taking a high risk by having this cull. He made the point that we cannot draw a direct analogy with possums and deer—and not even with Ireland, either. He talked about the wider effect on the rural economy and his work with Professor Rosie Woodroffe on badger vaccinations.
The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) spoke bravely and with an independent mind, showing again that this is not a party issue. There are differences of opinion within parties. This should be a science-led issue, and she set out why a cull is wrong-headed and why it could make things worse.
What we have from this Government is not evidence-based policy, but policy-based evidence. As leading scientists have observed, the Government have decided on the policy then sought to cherry-pick the evidence to back it up. Bad science is worse than no science at all, so I will try to confine my words to the science and the evidence, strip out the politics and the polemics, and see where the science leads us. Our argument, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) has said, is that this cull is bad for the farmers, bad for badgers and bad for the taxpayer. A cull could actually worsen TB in badger and cattle populations. Field trials showed that although a structured cull could reduce the increase—I repeat, reduce the increase; take the top off the rise—in bovine TB by 16% after nine years, in the short term it could spread the disease further afield as badgers move from the shooting. Hard boundaries or not, there is a risk that the disease will spread through culling, a risk heightened by this untried and untested approach of licensed shooting.
A cull could cost more than an alternative, such as badger vaccination, not least because of the policing costs—the costs the Government were reluctant to reveal, yet which were completely foreseeable. Dr Rosie Woodroffe’s analysis takes the Government’s own cost estimates of badger vaccination at £2,250 per square kilometre per year, compared with the proposed culling costs at £l,000 per square kilometre per year, but adds the policing costs for the cull, which are £l,429 per square kilometre per year. So vaccination becomes the cheaper option. That analysis does not include the additional costs incurred by culling as a result of performing expensive surveys and carrying out monitoring, both before and after. The Government have tried to promote this cull as a cheap solution, but we are finding out again that cheap solutions often turn out to be very expensive indeed. It is the old adage of, “You buy cheap, you pay twice.”
Badger vaccination could be an effective alternative to the cull. We acknowledge the need to do more work on vaccination, but we already know from tests that vaccination reduces the transmission of M. bovis to other badgers and, combined with typical badger mortality of three to five years, there is good reason to expect the impacts on reducing transmission to cattle to be comparable to those from culling. Moreover, because vaccination does not lead to perturbation and is shown to reduce the proportion of infected badgers, rather than increasing it, as culling does and is proven to do, vaccination should have greater long-term prospects for TB eradication. In addition, because vaccination does not prompt protest and does not incur policing costs, it is cheaper to implement than culling. So was it not a great and capital error for the Government to cancel five of the six vaccination trials, instead of using them to test alternative ways forward? We should be fast-tracking the development of oral vaccines now. It is a bad decision, Ministers, and it is bad science.
We need to improve bovine TB testing, improve farm biosecurity, and strengthen cattle movement restrictions. The Government are considering strengthening cattle movements and biosecurity further, a recognition, I hope, that there is much, much more to be done—I hope that the hon. Member for Sherwood will note that the Government are saying that themselves. Professor John Bourne, the vet who led the 10-year, £50 million trial of badger culling under controlled conditions and who has first-hand knowledge of the existing regime, has stated:
“The cattle controls in operation at the moment are totally ineffective”,
with the inaccuracy of bovine TB tests meaning that herds testing negative are actually harbouring the disease—Ministers will know that. He states:
“It’s an absolute nonsense that farmers can move cattle willy-nilly after only two tests. Why won’t politicians implement proper cattle movement controls?”
In short, truly robust risk-based cattle movement control in the UK is not in place, and it is an imperative.
Professor Bourne’s data analysis on the deep and lasting infection in our cattle herds is comprehensive, utterly compelling and utterly stark. So what does the wider informed scientific community say about the cull? Eminent zoologist at Oxford university, president-elect of the British Science Association and, it is fair to say, expert on this subject, Lord Krebs, has criticised the Government for a misleading use of science in support of the cull. He has described the cull by shooting as a “crazy” idea. Thirty of Britain’s finest animal disease scientists wrote in opposition to the cull, describing it as “mindless”. Former Government chief scientific adviser Lord Robert May has said:
“It is very clear that the government’s policy does not make sense.”
Well, at least last October the Government were able to turn to their own chief scientist for support, and I urge hon. Members to listen carefully to what Professor Sir John Beddington said:
“I continue to engage with Defra on the evidence base concerning the development of bovine TB policy. I am content that the evidence base, including uncertainties and evidence gaps, has been communicated effectively to ministers.”
Yes, Minister, “Gaps and uncertainties. Continue to engage. Communicated to ministers”—it is hardly a ringing endorsement.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield has said already, DEFRA Ministers are pressing ahead with a cull based on the unproven shooting of badgers despite leading scientists warning against that “untested and risky approach”. A cull would be bad for badgers, bad for farmers and bad for taxpayers.
We have called this vote to appeal to all parliamentarians who believe in science-led policy, not policy-led science, and who truly want to turn this disease around and eradicate bovine TB. We need improvements to the testing regime, more transparency about herds that have had TB breakdown, a more stringent evidence-led, risk-based policy to manage cattle movements better, urgency from Ministers to develop cost-effective badger vaccination to tackle the disease in wildlife and determined efforts to develop a vaccine to tackle TB in cattle.
It is not too late to halt the cull, and to work with farmers, wildlife groups and others to put in place a strategy that will truly seek to eradicate bovine TB. I urge Members to join us tonight in the Lobby.
The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr David Heath)
This has been an extremely useful debate, not least because it has, I hope, reminded people that we are dealing with a disease with devastating consequences not just for animals, including cattle, and for wildlife, but for families and businesses across the country, and a disease that has an enormous impact on rural areas. All Government Members mentioned that and, creditably, some Opposition Members did, too, including the hon. Members for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) and for North Tyneside (Mrs Glindon), as well as the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who had clearly gone to the trouble of speaking to farmers in her constituency. I applaud that.
It is clear to me that we need a proper, comprehensive strategy to deal with this disease. If there is one marked contrast in the debate, it is that between the Opposition’s motion, which simply says no to one part of the strategy, and the Government’s amendment, which sets out a proper view of how we should be dealing with the problem.
Let me deal with some of the misconceptions and disinformation that sometimes make their way into such debates. The hon. Member for Swansea West (Geraint Davies), whom I cannot see in his place, talked about the “genocide” of badgers in an intervention, and I think the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) talked about “extermination”. Let us be absolutely clear that we are not talking about exterminating badgers. We are not talking about leaving this country without one of its iconic species across most of the countryside. In fact, in large parts of the countryside badgers and cattle are healthy; not a single thing will happen to badgers in those areas. We are talking about targeting areas where the badger has endemic disease and where we need to deal with it. It is right and proper that we should do so.
It has been suggested that other countries have managed to deal with TB effectively without dealing with the wildlife reservoir of infection. That is simply not true. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State very clearly provided those countries that have dealt with TB effectively and it is impossible to suggest a single country in which TB has been dealt with where there is a wildlife reservoir that has not been dealt with.
Let me scotch the myth about the research on vaccination, because several Members said that we had cut such research. It is simply not true. Let me give the figures. From 1994 to 2010, £43 million was spent on such research, or approximately £2.7 million a year. From 2010 to 2014, £15.5 million has been spent, or £3.8 million a year. That does not include the £1 million we have already spent on preparation for the field trials of the vaccine in this country for the purposes of the European Union and the many millions of pounds that would be spent on conducting those trials.
Then we have the nonsense about the Government cancelling six of the vaccination trials. Let me be clear that they were not vaccination trials but trials to see whether we could train lay people to vaccinate animals. We do not need six experiments to see whether it is possible to train a lay person to vaccinate animals; we need one successful trial of that technique. We need to engage with those people who want to use vaccination across the country, to see where we can deploy it properly. That is where we have put resource. That is why I have been talking to my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) about the proposals he has in Penwith. That is why we have worked with conservation groups in Gloucestershire and elsewhere—because we believe that vaccination is part of the answer, part of the comprehensive strategy, and we want to ensure that we use it effectively.
But there is one significant problem with using vaccine, which the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee report clearly lays out. At the moment we do not have a viable, injectable vaccine that is cost-effective and sensible to use. We do not have an oral vaccine; we hope that we will in the near future, so we are directing research into that area, because that would make a big difference. The one problem that cannot be avoided is that a vaccine cannot cure a sick animal. A sick animal continues to excrete, continues to spread infection; so it is necessary to remove the centre of infection from the population and then protect the rest with badger vaccine. I hope that we shall be able to do so.
The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) mentioned the trials in Wales with great approbation. I hope that those work, but they are an experiment. We talk about non- evidence-based work. She mentioned Dr Christianne Glossop, the chief vet in Wales. What did she say? She said:
“We don’t know whether vaccination will provide us with the appropriate way of dealing with the wildlife element of infection.”
She continued:
“There is no trial data to show that vaccinating badgers will make a difference on cattle herd breakdowns”.
I really hope it works; I would love it to work, but I cannot say that I know it will work because nobody knows that.
The hon. Members for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) said that we do not know the badger numbers so the whole basis of the cull is nonsense. Let me be clear about the methodology. I had hoped that the hon. Member for Wakefield would look at the methodology before coming to the House to speak on the issue. We have the DNA hair test; that is a constant feedback loop on the proportion of the badger population in an area that is being caught by the cull. We will know definitively what proportion we are dealing with and we can make adjustments accordingly. So there is not the slightest question of all badgers in the area being killed, or of taking out far too few to be effective.
On humaneness, the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) made the point far better than I could that the organisations that were arguing for shooting as the most humane method of disposal are now saying it is the least humane; they cannot have it both ways. Humaneness will be looked at as part of the trials. Independent observers will be watching and reporting back. The point of the trials is to check on humaneness, effectiveness and safety.
We are told that scientists have reached no consensus. That is not true either. On the science there is consensus. We had a very valuable meeting at the Royal Society recently, where there was clear scientific consensus on the validity of the evidence. But there is no consensus on the political conclusions drawn from that evidence. Scientists are entitled to have a political view, but they are not entitled to mistake that for evidence; that is my simple contention.
We are told that the costs will be prohibitive because, the Opposition believe, people will behave illegally in those areas and will have to be policed. The same could be said about anything, but I can tell the House that there are people shooting safely every night of the week across rural Britain, and large amounts of policing with extra costs are not required. The only reason for extra policing costs will be if there are people who are determined to break the law and put themselves and others in danger.
Like the hon. Members for Scunthorpe and for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), I hope that we can reach consensus on a comprehensive strategy, but no country has ever successfully borne down on TB without doing something about the reservoir of infection in the wildlife population. I believe that what we are proposing will achieve healthy cattle and healthy badgers. Our objective is clear: to remove this devastating disease from this country. We want to get back to having official TB-free status for this country. That will be good for farmers, good for wildlife and good for the taxpayers of this country, and I believe that the policy should commend itself to the House.
Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.
Accident and Emergency Waiting Times
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
18:59 - The House divided: - Ayes: 227 / Noes: 299 - Question accordingly negatived.
Andy Burnham (Leigh) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House is concerned about the growing pressure on Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments across the country over recent months; notes this week’s report from the King’s Fund which concludes that waiting times in A&E recently hit a nine-year high; further notes that in the Labour Government’s last year in office 98 per cent of patients were seen within four hours; believes that a combination of factors lies behind the extra pressure on hospitals but that severe cuts to social care budgets are one of the most significant causes; is further concerned that one in three hospitals in England say they do not have sufficient staffing levels to deal safely with demand on services; further notes that over 4,000 nursing posts have been lost from the NHS since May 2010 and that a recent survey by the Health Service Journal revealed that a further round of front-line clinical job losses are planned for the coming year; further believes that the Government has failed to show sufficient urgency in dealing with these problems; and calls on the Government to bring forward an urgent plan to ease pressure on hospitals by, amongst other things, re-allocating £1.2 billion of the 2012-13 Department of Health underspend to support social care in 2013-14 and 2014-15, and ensuring adequate staffing levels at every hospital in England.
Since the turn of the year, the Opposition have been warning the Government about building pressure in A and E departments, and yesterday there was confirmation of just how bad things have got. This year, waiting times in A and E hit a nine-year high, according to the King’s Fund. The pressure is not confined to A and E, however, and wherever we look we can see warning signs: hospitals operating with close to 100% bed occupancy, way beyond safe recommended levels; a treatment tent in a car park; long queues of ambulances outside A and E, double the number waiting longer than 30 minutes; a huge spike in the number of A and E diverts, where ambulances are turned away from units that cannot accept any more patients; reports of some hospitals issuing more black alerts in the past year than in the previous 10 years combined; more cancelled operations than for a decade; and a 30% increase in bed days lost to delayed discharges because care plans cannot be put in place, leaving older patients stranded on the ward and A and E unable to admit them.
The evidence is clear: this health and care system is showing serious signs of distress. In truth, A and E is the barometer of the system, and problems or blockages anywhere will soon show up in A and E as the pressure backs up. The situation requires decisive action and a comprehensive plan, both of which have been distinctly lacking in the Government’s response so far.
Today the Prime Minister complacently implied that the problems had been fixed, but for 34 of the 38 weeks this Secretary of State has been in post, major A and Es have missed the Government’s lowered A and E target. Today, six in 10 trusts are warning that next winter will be even worse. The Government’s response to date has been totally inadequate for the scale and urgency of the problems. First, they came to the House and denied there was a problem. On 15 January, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) stated that
“patients are being treated in a much more timely manner than under the previous Government.”—[Official Report, 15 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 720.]
An inaccurate statement without any basis in fact.
As the pressure built, it was clear that that line would not hold, so the Secretary of State’s spin operation began. He said that the root cause of the pressure was the 2004 GP contract and changes to out-of-hours care. One must ask how the Secretary of State pushed that line with such confidence, given that a freedom of information request from his Department revealed that the first time he went to an A and E as Secretary of State was on 3 April—a full six months after he was appointed. Even then, it was the A and E within walking distance of this building. Did he just repeat back on camera what the first person he met said to him?
Throughout the early months of 2013 the NHS was going through the worst winter for a decade, yet the Secretary of State did not bother to visit any A and E department to see for himself the ambulance queues, the patients held on trolleys, or the staff stretched to breaking point. Just weeks before his first visit to A and E, he told us that hospitals were “coasting”. What an unbelievable statement. Would he have dared to say that if he had actually visited an A and E beforehand?
Helen Jones (Warrington North) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the pressures on A and E comes from this Government’s cuts to adult social care? We all know that if old people are not given care in their own homes they are more likely to end up in hospital, yet the Government have cut more than £2.6 billion from adult social care, and more than 230,000 people are now not getting help, compared with four years ago.
Andy Burnham
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Two-thirds of NHS finance directors have identified social care and its collapse as the single biggest driver of the pressure on A and E. The Government do not like to talk about that because of the record my hon. Friend just outlined, and I will come to that later in my remarks.
The Secretary of State visited his first A and E in April, and NHS England requested action plans only on 9 May, when hospitals had already been battling with the problem for months. It is simply not good enough. The NHS needs leadership and he has not provided it; instead, he has stuck to the spin. He continued to blame the GP contract, even when experts queued up to tell him it was not the cause of the problem. The NHS Confederation, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the King’s Fund and the Foundation Trust Network all told him that the causes lay elsewhere, but he was not listening because it did not suit his argument. When the NHS needed a Secretary of State, it was left with a spin doctor-in-chief.
That brings us to the crux of this debate and the charge that I lay directly at the Secretary of State’s door. By persisting with spin and by diverting attention elsewhere, the real causes of this crisis have been left neglected.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
If the right hon. Gentleman looks at the graph of A and E attendances, he will see that the figure was pretty constant at 14 million until 2003-04, when it rose steadily to 21 million. Why does he think that there was that big rise in A and E attendances at the time of the change to the GP contract?
Andy Burnham
The spin continues, doesn’t it, Mr Deputy Speaker? Let me explain why that happened. [Interruption.] I will explain if the hon. Gentleman will listen. Perhaps he should look at the subject in more detail before he comes to this place and makes a comment like that. In 2003-04 the statistics changed, and visits to walk-in centres and minor injuries units were added to the figures. If he read the King’s Fund analysis of trends in A and E over the past decade, he would see that it says that very clearly. Perhaps the next time he comes to a debate like this he might do his homework.
In the vacuum that the Government have left, it has been left to Labour to show the leadership that the NHS desperately needs. Last week, Labour convened an A and E summit here in Parliament to refocus minds on the real underlying causes of this pressure. We wanted to give front-line staff from all over England the chance to tell us in their own words about the reality on the ground right now and to suggest practical ways in which the pressure might be relieved. Now, today, we bring this urgent debate to the House to shock the Government out of their complacency and to force them to act on what was said at the summit. There were two overriding messages that all politicians would do well to hear: first, the pressure in A and E is an issue for the whole health and care system; and secondly, there is no one simplistic, single cause but a range of complex underlying factors.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
Let me bring a note of conciliation to the debate. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that if the nation had more people who are knowledgeable about first aid, fewer people would make their way to A and Es in the first place?
Andy Burnham
That is a laudable aim. I do not think it is going to solve the A and E crisis right here, right now, but I do not disagree with it as an aim.
Drawing on what was said at the summit, I have developed an A and E rescue plan with five practical proposals. [Interruption.] Government Members do not want to hear it. Okay, later on they can give me their plan. I am putting forward a plan and calling this debate. They are not calling this debate. Why are they not doing something to take a grip on the situation? It is no good just sitting back and saying, “Oh”—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. I want to hear the right hon. Gentleman, as I am sure that people on both sides of the House do, and all the shouting is not going to allow any of us to do that.
Andy Burnham
It has been left to us to call this debate, and now Government Members sit there and groan. Well, it is not good enough. They are going to hear what I have to say because they need to do something about what is happening.
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Before my right hon. Friend gets on to his plan, may I ask him a question? Given the chaos that he has described throughout the whole country—in London, ambulance queues have doubled in the past couple of years—why does he think that the Secretary of State believes it is sensible to downgrade the A and E service at Lewisham and divert tens of thousands of people to other hospitals where the ambulances are queuing all down the road?
Andy Burnham
My right hon. Friend rightly identifies some of the contradictory chaos that now passes for Government health policy. I will deal directly with her point later in my speech.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
In the preceding debate, the Government tabled an amendment of great worth answering all the points with regard to badgers, but there is no amendment for this debate. They have no answer and are not prepared to put anything on paper about how to get over this current crisis in A and E. Does that not speak volumes?
Andy Burnham
The Government have more to say about badgers than about the current crisis that NHS staff up and down the country are dealing with. That says a lot about this Government.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that there are no simple answers. Does he agree that one of the pressures that is adding to the problems in A and E is that £3 billion has been taken out of the NHS to fund a reorganisation under the Health and Social Care Act 2012 that nobody needs and nobody wants?
Andy Burnham
I agree entirely. That decision was catastrophic for the NHS. Not only did it siphon £3 billion out of the front line to pay for back-office restructuring; it took people’s eyes of the ball. When they should have been focusing on the front line and patient care, they were worrying about their jobs and which organisations they would work in. The Government were warned about this reorganisation and I will come on to that. I have new evidence, which I will put before the House today, that says that this Government were explicitly warned about the risks to A and E of proceeding with their reorganisation at a time of financial stress. It is pretty damning and I will come on to it later.
What I want to do today is achieve something for NHS staff watching this debate. Let us try to reach some agreement about the causes and the practical steps that now should be taken. First, on social care, which my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) has mentioned, the survey of NHS financial directors says that this is the single biggest cause of the pressure. More than £1 billion has already been taken out of budgets already by this Government, and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services says that councils are planning further spending and services cuts this year. This is simply not sustainable. It is a false economy. Social care is the preventative part of the care system. If the Government continue to hammer councils, the problem will simply end up on the doorstep of the NHS and it will get bigger and bigger. The human cost will be huge.
We heard at last week’s summit that more and more people with dementia are presenting at A and E. That is intensely sad and it is the wrong place for them to be.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the most upsetting comment made at the summit was by the nurse at Kingston who told us of a lady with dementia who, when she is hungry or lonely, phones 999 for an ambulance and says that she has heart pain?
Andy Burnham
The room went quiet when the nurse spoke at the summit. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for being at the summit during the parliamentary recess to hear that nurse. It was a valuable event. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the loss of simple support in the home for people such as that woman means that they are left with no alternative but to go to A and E or the hospital as the last resort. That is the false economy that I am talking about. By ransacking council budgets to pay for their NHS spending plans, the Government have left this system with major problems that they urgently need to address. The worst thing of all is that they have left older people with no option but to end up in hospital.
Robert Flello (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way; he is being very generous with his time. He is absolutely right: areas such as Stoke-on-Trent have had their budgets slashed and destroyed year on year under this Government. In Stoke-on-Trent, which is the third hardest hit area, the local authority is expected to spread the money it does have even more thinly across a population that is not only deprived, but ageing. The sniping and comments from those of the Government Front Bench are totally inappropriate. Does my right hon. Friend know when the Government got the NHS to write to accident and emergency departments to ask for their plans?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. A lot of Members want to speak, so we need very short interventions.
Andy Burnham
That is part of my point. NHS England wrote to clinical commissioning groups on 9 May. What is going on here? They were all in the chaos of reorganisation until then—no one could have received a letter, because CCGs were not in place. In the crucial period between January and March, when the NHS was under intense pressure, primary care trusts were on the way out and CCGs were not in place. As a result, the NHS was in limbo; at the precise moment that it needed grip and leadership, it was drifting. That is absolutely shocking.
As I have said repeatedly, the Government must act to shore up social care in England, which is collapsing. Our solution is for the Secretary of State to use about half of last year’s underspend in the NHS, £1.2 billion, to provide emergency support to councils over the next two years to maintain integrated, home-based support. As he knows, the Budget revealed a £2.2 billion underspend in last year’s Department of Health budget. No use was made of the budget exchange scheme. In other words, he handed that money back to the Treasury. I call on him to reconsider his decision, reopen negotiations with the Treasury and act to prevent a social care emergency.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
Between 2005 and 2010, the population of over-65s grew by 730,000 and the population of over-80s—the very elderly—grew by 27%. Why did the previous Government increase the budget for adult social care by less than 1% a year to cope with that additional demand?
Andy Burnham
Oh dear, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is hard for this Government, who have decimated social care, to lecture us about it. Between 2005 and 2010, A and E waits fell. That was after the GP contract was signed. Let us have some facts. We did much to support social care and to deliver an NHS with the lowest ever waiting lists and the highest ever patient satisfaction.
The second point in our A and E rescue plan concerns safe staffing levels—another aspect that we have raised repeatedly with the Secretary of State.
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)
Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
Andy Burnham
I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment.
All over the country, NHS staff are saying that there are not enough people on the ward to deal safely with the pressure that they are under. The College of Emergency Medicine has warned of a “workforce crisis” in A and E and of
“a lack of sufficient numbers of middle grade doctors and Consultants in Emergency Medicine to deliver consistent quality care.”
More than 4,000 nursing posts have been lost since May 2010 and the Care Quality Commission says that one in 10 hospitals in England is understaffed. It emerged last week that the problem is set to get worse. A survey of NHS HR directors by the Health Service Journal found that 27% of trusts were planning to cut nursing jobs in the coming year, that 20% were planning to cut doctors and that one in three was not confident that they had enough staff to meet demand.
As I have said before, all parties in this House, including my own, need to learn the lessons of the failures in care at Mid Staffs and of the Francis report. The primary cause of those failures was dangerous cuts to front-line staffing. There is a clear risk that the NHS is repeating that mistake. I therefore call on the Secretary of State to intervene in the further round of job cuts and to ensure that all hospitals in England have safe staffing levels.
Mr Dorrell
May I bring the right hon. Gentleman back to the interface between social care and health care? He knows that I have a lot of sympathy for the points that he made about the importance of making that interface work more smoothly than it has done for a long time. Is the House to interpret his remark that an additional £1.2 billion ought to be made available for social care as a spending commitment that has the consent of the shadow Chancellor, on the day when the Labour party has said that it will not make good the child benefit changes that it opposed earlier in the Parliament?
Andy Burnham
It is important for me to answer the Chairman of the Health Committee. Those of us who are in the club of former Secretaries of State understand that the health and social care systems are interconnected and must be seen as one system, because the failure of social care lands on the doorstep of the NHS.
To answer the right hon. Gentleman’s point directly, the money that I was talking about would come from the underspend. It is part of the allocated budget that his Government gave to the Department of Health for 2012-13. The Department did not spend the whole budget so there was a £2.2 billion underspend. As he knows, the practice has been that Departments can take forward that resource to meet new pressures in later years. I am asking the Secretary of State please to ask for access to that money to relieve the pressure on social care. Simply handing it back to the Treasury when there is an A and E crisis and social care is collapsing is not good enough.
The third point I want to address is out-of-hours advice and the introduction of the 111 service. Last week’s summit heard worrying evidence that the problems of 111 are not just teething problems, as the Secretary of State has claimed. We were told that the problems were more structural and were a result of how 111 has been set up—a feature of the cost-driven contracts that have replaced the successful and trusted NHS Direct. Contracts have gone to the lowest bidder, and they are saving money by having inexperienced call handlers working to a computer algorithm that too often results in the advice “Go to A and E”. There has also been a huge reduction in nurse-led call back, which was the norm with NHS Direct.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
Does my right hon. Friend know that we had a useful debate on this subject in Westminster Hall this morning, when I made the point that the dropping back from clinician-led triage has caused a problem that the chief executive of my local hospital told me about—that falling back on computer and non-clinician advice has led to patients being brought into the emergency departments when they were actually on end-of-life pathways and should have community input?
Andy Burnham
That shows the human cost of the failure that we have seen in recent weeks; my hon. Friend has identified yet another aspect of it.
There has been a huge reduction in nurse-led call back, so inexpert advice is being to people who should probably have other options put to them. An internal graph produced by NHS Direct shows that under the old 0845 NHS Direct service, about 60% of calls received a nurse call back; under 111, that has now dropped to between 17% and 19%. What is happening to these people? They are getting poor advice, so they are frightened and are going to A and E. What is this Secretary of State doing about it? Absolutely nothing.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Public Accounts Committee recently heard evidence about out-of-hours services in Cornwall. The bad experiences there showed that a lot of cost shunting was going on. If there was even a risk of taking somebody on through the GPs on call, it was cheaper and easier for that service to shunt the costs to the NHS through for ambulance services. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is a complete waste of money and that it underlines the shambles that he has just described?
Andy Burnham
I agree that there is a false economy here. The picture is repeated. The Government go for these privatised contracts, such as with 111, at the lowest cost, resulting in a drop in standards and less clinical support. What happens? People then turn up at A and E. What happens when social care is cut? People turn up at A and E. What happens when NHS walk-in centres are closed? People end up at A and E. This has serious implications. Across England, 22 serious incidents, including three deaths, are being investigated in connection with NHS 111, and we know that one in five calls is abandoned. This service is failing; it needs urgent action to tackle these problems.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
With the Serco contract for out-of-hours GP services in Cornwall having been referred to the Care Quality Commission, the manipulation of the data, falsely representing the outcomes of the service, has been identified. It is worth reminding the right hon. Gentleman that this was set up under a contract that resulted from decisions made when he was in government.
Andy Burnham
I remember debating that with the hon. Gentleman when I was the Secretary of State. Those problems rightly needed to be addressed, and the particular issue he raises today should be investigated. I hope, however, that he will also understand the problem that I am describing to the House. If we go down the path of fragmenting services—if we take a successful national service such as NHS Direct, for example, which was trusted by the public, and then break it up into a patchwork of fragmented, some privatised, services—this sort of chaos will be the result.
A report has emerged this afternoon, showing that the viability of NHS Direct is in serious question. The headline states, “Leaked report casts doubt over NHS Direct’s ‘overall viability’ in the wake of NHS 111 failings”. This is a warning that NHS Direct may well go down altogether. What an indictment that would be of this Government’s mismanagement.
Andy Burnham
I entirely agree, and I shall say more about that issue shortly.
Let me return to the subject of the 111 service. Will the Secretary of State review the contracts with the aim of negotiating changes so that more calls can be handled by nurses? The use of the computer algorithm should be reviewed as a matter of urgency, and the full roll-out of 111 should be delayed until the problems have been solved.
There are more general questions to be asked about the scale and pace of NHS privatisation. NHS Direct offers an illustration of what happens when services are broken up. Those who attended last week’s summit heard that in some areas there had been a huge increase in the provision of 999 ambulances by private companies. It was said that on a single day in Yorkshire, 50% of 999 calls had been responded to by private operators. I think that the public would be surprised to know that. It shows that there is no part of our NHS that cannot be put up for sale by this Government.
Is the Secretary of State satisfied that those private crews are appropriately trained and have the right equipment? Is there not a danger that because contractors are operating in isolation from the rest of the system, they will all too often simply transport people to A and E? Does the Secretary of State envisage any limits to private 999 services? Given that the issue raises fundamental questions about emergency services, should there not be a debate about it before this goes any further?
Fourthly—I come now to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas)—there is good evidence to show that NHS walk-in centres have diverted pressure from A and E units. In 2010-11, there were about 2.5 million visits to such centres from people who might otherwise have gone to A and E. Analysis by the House of Commons Library shows that 26 of them closed in the last year alone, and that the number is down by a quarter. The Government have let that happen, but at least Monitor has intervened and set up a review of the loss of walk-in centres. Will the Secretary of State halt all further closures while the review is taking place?
That brings me to my fifth and final point, which concerns A and E closures and downgrades. At least 25 A and E units—one in 10—are under threat or have recently closed. The trouble with these plans is that they were drawn up in a different context, when A and E was not under the pressure that it is under today. Let me say this to the Secretary of State: if a clinical case can be made in support of closures—if there is evidence that lives can be saved—the Opposition will not oppose the plans. However, we cannot accept the pushing through of proposals that have not taken enough account of the latest evidence, and cannot show that extra pressure can be safely absorbed by neighbouring units. That is important, because the public will rightly ask this simple question: how can it make sense to close A and Es in the middle of an A and E crisis? To reassure people, will the Secretary of State personally review all the ongoing A and E closure or downgrade proposals on a case-by-case basis, in the light of the very latest evidence of pressure in the local health economy?
Andy Burnham
I will give way one last time to each of my hon. Friends, but then I must finish my speech.
Mr Slaughter
What my right hon. Friend has been saying will be music to the ears of people in west London, where four A and E units are slated for closure. All of them are coping with dreadful circumstances. Will my right hon. Friend—and perhaps also the hon. Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois), who seems to share his view—have a word with my local Conservatives, who are supporting all those closures?
Andy Burnham
I think that everyone needs to consider their position in the light of the evidence that is emerging about pressure on A and E, particularly in London. I pay tribute to the excellent and determined campaign run by my hon. Friend, and I noted what was said yesterday by the hon. Member for Enfield North. Perhaps one of the consequences of today’s debate will be agreement across the Floor of the House to delay any closures pending a personal review of the evidence by the Secretary of State.
Kate Green
As my right hon. Friend will know, my local A and E unit at Trafford general hospital is one of the 30-odd units that are scheduled for downgrading. Meanwhile, it is more than 30 weeks since the two nearest A and E units, at Central and South Manchester hospitals, failed to meet the 95% performance target last September. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Secretary of State should also publish advice that he has received from the Independent Reconfiguration Panel which will inform his decisions, so that we can determine whether the latest pressures have been taken into account?
Andy Burnham
I think that full openness about these decisions is essential in the current context. I know that the panel’s report is with the Secretary of State, and I think he owes it to local Members of Parliament to be open about its conclusions and the evidence on which they were based. That is why I ask him to review every proposed A and E closure personally, and to give a guarantee to communities such as that represented by my hon. Friend that no changes will be made unless he is personally satisfied that it is safe to make them.
In conclusion, this is a crisis that could have been avoided. For the last three years the NHS has been struggling with the toxic medicine of budget cuts and top-down reorganisation. All the focus should have been on the front line, but instead the Government siphoned £3 billion out of it to pay for a back-office reorganisation that no one wanted and no one voted for—a reorganisation that has placed the NHS on a fast track to fragmentation and privatisation.
But it is worse than that. The Government’s own risk registers, which they refused to publish during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, warned them of the consequences of pushing ahead with a reorganisation when the NHS was facing great financial stress:
“The consequences could be compromised clinical care and patient safety, the failure of the 95% operational standard for A&E wait and a concomitant impact on other trust services”.
So they knew the risks they were taking when they reorganised the NHS at a time of financial stress; they were warned about this A and E crisis, but ploughed on regardless. It is the height of irresponsibility. No wonder they wanted to keep the risk registers secret. But with the looming cuts to jobs and social care, the problems in A and E will get worse, not better, if no action is taken on the points I have outlined today.
We have given the Secretary of State a practical plan, and he either needs to accept it or put one forward of his own. Right now, his complacency is one of the biggest dangers facing the NHS. He has failed to act on warnings about the collapse of social care. He has sat on his hands while front-line jobs are cut in their thousands. He has presided over the disastrous 111 service. He has closed NHS walk-in centres and downgraded A and Es without a convincing clinical case. It is no good his standing up today and blaming everyone else: this is a mess of his making—his first real test as Secretary of State and he has been found badly wanting. People want answers and action, and he needs to start providing them right now.
The Secretary of State for Health (Mr Jeremy Hunt)
What we have heard today will rank as one of the poorest speeches ever given by an Opposition on the NHS. [Interruption.] I predict—[Interruption.]
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. [Interruption.] Mr Karl Turner, thank you for your advice, but we can manage without it today. I make this appeal to both sides: I want to hear what the Secretary of State has to say, just as I wanted to hear what the Opposition had to say.
Mr Hunt
Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I repeat: it was one of the poorest speeches ever given by an Opposition on the NHS, and I predict that the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) will bitterly regret choosing to make an issue of A and E pressures, because the root causes of the problem have Labour’s fingerprints all over them.
The right hon. Gentleman was right on one thing, however: there is complacency on this issue—not from the Government, who have been gripping it right from the start, but rather from Labour, which still does not understand why things went so badly wrong in the NHS on its watch.
Labour’s narrative has, I am afraid, a single political purpose at its heart: to undermine public confidence in one of our greatest institutions—an institution which, in challenging circumstances, is performing extremely well for the millions of vulnerable people who depend on it day in, day out.
Labour’s story today is a totally irresponsible misrepresentation of reality. One million more people are now going through A and Es every year than in 2010, which creates a lot of pressure, so how are A and E departments actually performing? The latest figures show performance, against the 95% target, of 96.7%. The week before it was 96.5%, then before that 96.3%, 96.6% and 95.6%. Yes, we had a difficult winter and a cold Easter, and I will come to the causes of the problems we had then, but, thanks to the hard work of NHS doctors and nurses, our A and E departments are performing extremely well.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
The Secretary of State is absolutely right to say that we should point to the record of the previous Government, who closed the A and E department in Crawley.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
My right hon. Friend should know that my constituents welcome his decision to refer to an independent review the plans to close the four A and Es closest to my constituency. Does he agree that the review will need to look carefully at whether due consideration was given to the impact of those four closures on the neighbouring hospitals and their A and E departments?
Mr Hunt
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that the impact on neighbouring A and Es in all reconfiguration decisions is extremely important, and I will not authorise any changes in service provision unless I am satisfied that they will be consistent with improved patient safety.
Mr Hunt
I will make some progress and then give way. I want to ask why the Opposition have chosen to call this debate. I am afraid it is nothing less than a smokescreen, because their objective is to try to dress up the pressures on A and E as a short-term crisis when, as every A and E department in the country will tell us, to deal with the pressures we need to address long-term structural problems that the previous Government either ignored or made worse.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
May we talk about one of the pressures on A and E, which is the pressure of social care? I hope that the Secretary of State will accept that significant cuts have been made in social care under this Government and that the role of social care is crucial in keeping people in their homes in the first place and in returning them to their homes after they have been in hospital. As a result of those cuts, it is very difficult for social care to perform that role. Will he examine the suggestion by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) to use the underspend from the Department of Health to support social care to perform its essential role?
Mr Hunt
I will come to that suggestion, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman. If we are going to deal with bed blocking, which is one of the root causes of the problems that many A and E departments talk about, we have to have better integration between the health and social care systems—that is essential. I say to him that the problem of the underfunding of social care did not start in 2010; as my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) said, it is a problem that goes back many years, and the failure to integrate health and social care was a failure that happened over 13 long Labour years.
Mr Hunt
I am going to make some progress and then I will give way.
There is something else that the Labour party does not want the public to notice and it is another elephant in the room: the NHS is actually doing better under the coalition than it ever did under Labour. Let no one forget the NHS we had in 2010: no cancer drugs fund for the 26,000 people who now benefit from it; 400,000 fewer operations every year; double the number of MRSA infections; and 18 times more people waiting for more than a year for their operation.
Mr Hunt
I am going to make some progress. The right hon. Member for Leigh talked about grip. There is one place where grip is badly lacking. Labour does not like to hear about this because it is Labour-run Wales, where, as the Prime Minister said this morning, the A and E target has not been met since 2009. It is where performance—[Interruption.] I know that Labour Members do not want to hear this, but I suggest they listen to it, because performance in Wales—[Interruption.] Let me finish making the point. Performance was worse in Wales than in England for every one of the weeks that we missed our A and E target this winter. If the right hon. Gentleman really cared about patients, he would be condemning what is happening in Wales.
Mr Hunt
I will make my point and then I will give way. Labour Members need to hear about what is happening in Wales, because Labour runs the NHS in Wales. One patient in Wales had a cardiac arrest—[Interruption.] I know that this is difficult for Labour Members, but they need to hear about what is happening in Labour-run Wales. One patient had a—
Mr Hunt
I will give way to the shadow Health Secretary in a minute. One patient there had a cardiac arrest in the eye-examination room as there was no room in the resuscitation bay, and 24 to 36-hour waits for beds are now common in Wales. One patient spent a full three days in a Welsh emergency department. So let me give him a chance finally to condemn what is happening in Wales.
Andy Burnham
People watching this debate will be wondering why the Secretary of State is talking about something that is not his responsibility; nor is it mine. He is not responsible for the NHS in Wales; nor am I. I have put to him today serious questions about the NHS in England right now. He is the Secretary of State for the NHS in England, so will he now address the questions I put to him?
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State give way to a Welsh MP?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We want a little more calm. Mr David, you are getting far too excited. It is not good for you and it is not good for the Chamber—[Interruption.] Order. I do not want you to repeat your point. I have just explained to you that I need you to be a little calmer. It is up to the Secretary of State whether he wishes to give way and at the moment he is not doing so. It is his choice and shouting will not make any difference whatsoever.
Mr Hunt
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, if he will just take his place for a moment while I make my point. I will also give way to my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Nick de Bois)—[Interruption.] I will reflect on whether I want to give way to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), but I will certainly give way to the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David).
What is happening in Wales is directly relevant to what is happening in England, because in England the NHS budget has increased in real terms and NHS spending has increased in real terms. If we did not increase them both, that would mean fewer doctors, fewer nurses and longer waits for operations—[Interruption.] The shadow Secretary of State shouts from a sedentary position that the NHS—
Andy Burnham
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State has just said at the Dispatch Box that the budget for the NHS has increased in real terms. In December, I referred the Secretary of State’s comments to the UK Statistics Authority and I received a letter back saying that they were incorrect. Will you ask the Secretary of State to correct the parliamentary record and ensure that when the statistics commissioner makes a ruling it is adhered to by the Secretary of State?
Mr Deputy Speaker
That is not a point of order, but the right hon. Gentleman has certainly made his clarification for the record.
Mr Hunt
I thought that the shadow Health Secretary might try to do that, so let me give him the figures. I have the figures provided by the Department of Health finance department, based on the latest GDP deflators, as published at the Budget. Spending in the NHS—not the budget—in 2009-10 was £99.7 billion and for 2012-13 it is forecast to be £106.6 billion. That is a cash increase of £6.9 billion and a real-terms increase of £0.6 billion, so there is a real-terms increase in the NHS budget. The shadow Secretary of State does not agree with the real-terms increase of £600 million in the NHS today; there would be a Labour cut in NHS spending and I suggest that he might want to correct the record, as I am afraid he has got this wrong.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
My right hon. Friend knows, as his predecessor does and as the Prime Minister does, of my consistent opposition to the downgrading of Chase Farm hospital. Does he agree with me that it is utterly inacceptable for the hon. Member for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter), who is no longer in his place, to suggest otherwise in this Chamber?
Wayne David
I thank the Secretary of State for eventually giving way. Does he not accept that, despite the fact that the block grant to the Welsh Government has been cut by £1.4 billion, Welsh spending on the health service has been maintained in real terms?
Mr Hunt
What Labour did in Wales was cut the NHS budget by 8% and that is why that Government have not met their A and E targets since 2009. Those on the Labour Front Bench in England want to cut the NHS budget here. That would not help pressures on A and E; it would make them a great deal worse.
Mr Hunt
I shall make some progress, because this gets even worse for Labour.
The shadow Secretary of State wrote to me at the weekend, asking me to relieve pressure on A and E by using the health underspend to put extra money into social care. There is a way of releasing resources into social care, but it is not that, because the underspend he talks of sits largely with NHS trusts and clinical commissioning groups, which are allowed to keep their underspends and roll them over to subsequent years. If we took away that money and put it into social care, we would therefore have to take it away from hospitals, where it is needed most to help tackle pressures in A and E and other places.
Let us look at some of the hospitals that would lose money under Labour’s plans. Wigan and Leigh NHS Foundation Trust, in the right hon. Gentleman’s own constituency, had a £4 million underspend in 2012-13. It would be prevented from using that money to reduce A and E pressures, as would the Royal Cornwall, the Royal United hospital Bath, Nottingham University hospitals—
Mr Hunt
I am going to make some progress. The Royal Wolverhampton, East Lancashire, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen, North Bristol, Coventry and many other hospitals would also be prevented from using the money. So Labour’s solution to the A and E crisis is to cut funding to hospitals—about as logical as wanting to reduce debt by increasing the deficit.
From a Labour party that wants to be a Government in waiting, this is not good enough. It is against a cut in NHS spending that did not happen, but when there is a real cut in Wales it says nothing. It is against hospital reconfigurations in England, where we are hitting the A and E target, yet says nothing about reconfigurations in Wales, where Labour is missing the A and E target. It says it is against reorganisations and it has just proposed its own huge structural reorganisation to merge the health and social care system. Why is that? It is because in the end it is more interested—we have seen this today—in party politics than the right policies. I think we can expect better from someone who used to be a Health Secretary.
Mr Hunt
I shall make some progress because I have some important points to make.
A and E pressures are not the only thing that happened to the NHS this winter; we also had the Francis report into Mid Staffs. That tragedy is also relevant to A and E pressures, because at the height of its failures in care, Mid Staffs, unbelievably, was actually hitting its A and E target. In fact, between 2004 and 2009, there were only three quarters in which Mid Staffs failed to see 95% of people within four hours—hitting the target and missing the point. But in Labour’s NHS, hitting the target was all that counted, because Ministers ignored three reports, 50 warning signs and 81 requests for a public inquiry into Mid Staffs and what was going on.
Things have changed in the NHS, and I say this plainly. It is harder now for hospitals to hit their A and E target, because we will not condone cutting corners to get there. Targets matter, but not at any cost, and we are determined to reach them by doing things properly, making sure that we always treat patients with dignity and respect.
Mr Hunt
I shall make some progress.
Labour’s complacency on that issue is revealed as even more shocking when we look at the root causes of pressures on A and E departments, because nearly all of them involve issues that Labour either failed to tackle in office or made a great deal worse—for example, the IT fiasco, so heavily criticised by the National Audit Office. It is completely unacceptable that A and E departments are not able to access, with their consent, people’s GP records. Last year, there were 30,000 wrong prescriptions in the NHS and 11 deaths—something we know would be significantly improved with e-prescribing in hospitals. The Government have addressed that, with a fund that I announced last month and an ambitious programme to make the NHS paperless by 2018, learning from that procurement debacle for which we are now paying the price.
Let us look at other causes. The working time directive, which Labour signed up to, makes the recruitment of A and E staff very much harder.
Mr Hunt
I think the hon. Gentleman should listen to this. Professor John Temple described that as having the biggest impact on the emergency and out-of-hours parts of the NHS, which is why the Government are now having to increase recruitment into A and E through the mandate that the Government have set Health Education England. Or there is the total failure—
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
In one week in April 2012, 75 people in Sherwood Forest trust waited longer than four hours at A and E. In the same week in April this year, 266 people waited longer than four hours at A and E. That is a 255% increase. How does the Secretary of State account for that?
Mr Hunt
I agree that A and E departments are under huge pressure, and that is why we are taking a lot of measures to deal with them, which is what I am talking about. But I am saying that we have to deal with the root causes, which were things that the shadow Secretary of State’s Government failed to deal with. [Interruption.] Labour Members need to listen. We listened to the shadow Secretary of State’s solutions, which were not really solutions; now I am telling them what we think needs to happen.
We welcome the fact that the Labour party has now seen the light and recognises the need for integration, but Labour Members need to show some humility, because it was the Labour Government who put in place many of the barriers—in particular payment by results mechanisms—that make that so hard to achieve. We are now trying to make integration a reality through the 10 pilots on removing barriers to integration announced by the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), as part of the vulnerable older people’s plan announced to the House last month. Without integration, we will not solve the problem of bed blocking, which is at the heart of the pressures on A and E.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
The Secretary of State is right to say that many of the present failures started in the Labour years, particularly the problems with integration. Does he share the concern that I and many of my constituents feel about the 50,000 beds that were lost under Labour Government? We lost the beds, but the intermediate care services and step up, step down facilities were never created to deal with the consequences. That is what is behind a lot of the A and E referrals today.
Mr Hunt
That is part of the problem with Labour’s approach to the NHS—a top-down approach of closing or downgrading A and E units and making the NHS sort out the problems. We are not doing that.
It is time that Labour took responsibility for the disastrous changes to the GP contract, which contributed to making it so much harder to get a GP appointment and piled further pressure on A and E departments—[Interruption.] No, they need to listen; this is important. The changes in 2004 handed responsibility for providing out-of-hours services to administrators in primary care trusts, at a stroke removing the 24/7 responsibility for patients that until then had always been a core part of being a family doctor. As we heard earlier today, even a former Labour Health Minister regretted those changes, saying before the last election:
“In many ways, GPs got the best deal they ever had from that 2004 contract and since then we have, in a sense, been recovering.”
It is important that Labour Members hear the list of independent voices all saying that we need fundamental change in primary care if we are to deal with pressures on A and E: the College of Emergency Medicine, the Royal College of Physicians, the NHS Alliance, the Family Doctor Association, the head of the Royal College of General Practitioners, who—surprisingly—said something in support of the Government in The Guardian this morning, the Foundation Trust Network and so on. All those voices were ignored by Labour as it put its head in the sand about that disastrous change to the GP contract.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
Does the Secretary of State share my horror that the out-of-hours contracts awarded by the previous Government to companies such as Serco give them a financial incentive to call an ambulance rather than deal with cases through GPs or in the community?
Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)
Today’s debate is about the increase in waiting times at accident and emergency departments. In 2010, when Labour left office, 98% of people were seen within four hours; three years later, after three years of Conservative Government, the number of people who have to wait more than four hours has trebled. What is the Secretary of State going to do about that?
Mr Hunt
Let me say very directly to the hon. Lady that since 2010 two things have happened that have contributed—[Interruption.] I am answering the question. First, 1 million more people are now going through A and E; secondly, the target has been reduced from 98% to 95% on the advice of the College of Emergency Medicine and the Royal College of Nursing. Labour has decided to do the same thing in Wales. Obviously, in that situation, the result is an increase in the absolute numbers; however, year on year since 2010, this Government have hit our A and E targets and we intend to continue to do so.
Sir Bob Russell
Mention has been made of an additional 1 million people going to accident and emergency. The derision I received earlier was an attack on organisations such as St John Ambulance, which trains first aiders, because the simple fact is, as I said when speaking to my ten-minute rule Bill 10 years ago, that first aiders will
“reduce visits to overstretched accident and emergency departments by people whose injuries did not warrant hospital attention”—[Official Report, 19 November 2003; Vol. 413, c. 809.]
We should be getting more first aiders out there. If the last Labour Government had listened to that, we would have 1 million more first aiders.
Mr Hunt
No, I will make my concluding remarks. We will address these fundamental issues in our vulnerable older people’s plan, which is being published later this year. I have asked Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS England’s medical director, to lead an urgent review of demands on our emergency care and how services should respond in future. In the short term, we have changed the tariff arrangements for A and E payment to give hospitals a say in the use of funds earmarked to prevent avoidable admissions. The result is that A and E targets are now being met, not missed; long-term challenges are being confronted, not avoided; and the NHS, with its extraordinary professionals, is facing up to the great challenges of an ageing population with resilience and determination, treating more people more quickly and more safely than ever before in its history, and rather than deriding that performance for party political purposes the House should be celebrating its success.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We have 19 speakers to get in, so we are introducing a four-minute limit.
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
That is the most extraordinary speech I have heard from a Secretary of State for Health in all my years in this House. As a former Secretary of State, I know that Secretaries of State cannot be responsible for everything, but this is the first speech in which a Secretary of State has claimed he is not responsible for anything. He quoted the Francis report. One of its most significant features was that it said that we should impose a statutory duty of candour on people working in the national health service; if anything goes wrong, they are supposed to come clean and admit responsibility. I hope that there will be a clause in a Bill introducing the duty that says that this Secretary of State should have a duty of candour and admit the things that have gone wrong.
What have Ministers been doing for the past three years? The main thing they have been doing is dismantling the national health service. Staff have been distracted from their jobs, and money—£3 billion—has been diverted into that reorganisation. Some of that has been spent on redundancy for nurses who work in accident and emergency. The Government have been proudly saying, “We have hit our new target.” Well, they reduced it and made it easier to hit. The 111 line has referred more cases to A and E than NHS Direct did. There have been cuts in social care, which have two effects on A and E. First, it means that more elderly people go to A and E for treatment because they are not getting the attention that they were from social services. Secondly, it means that there will be delays in patients going home, both from A and E and from ordinary hospital beds, and that causes delay, too. Walk-in centres have closed, and the Government have given the surplus money back to the Treasury, yet they deny that any single one of their policies has had any effect on A and E services. They have had three years in power, and they are still blaming other people.
The Government claim that the increase resulted from the change to the GP contract. They know full well that that is not true; they know that it was because walk-in centres and minor injuries units were counted in the figures for the first time. If the Secretary of State expects people in the national health service to respect him and take any notice of him, not just regard him as the Catherine wheel of spin, he has to come clean. He is telling people that if they get things wrong in the health service they must come clean and be honest with the public. If he does not apply that to himself he will be a bit like the dad who has told people not to give their kids a leg up, but who turns out to have employed both his daughters: he did not apply to himself what he said everybody else should do. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) was right: there was spare money, but under the new set-up can the Secretary of State get it into the hands of the health service, or did his predecessor throw away that power?
Mr Stephen Dorrell (Charnwood) (Con)
I welcome the fact that we are debating increased evidence of service pressures in the national health service. Having attended health debates in the House of Commons for quite a few years, I can say that there is a depressingly familiar tone to this debate. May I tell the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) that if we want to develop party points in the House and convince the electorate that there is something in it, it is not a bad idea to begin by establishing where the real differences exist between the Government and the Opposition? If we look at the evidence for why we have experienced increased service difficulty in the health service, we see that it is not the differences between the Government and the Opposition that are striking but the fact that there is a shared analysis. However, there is an apparent unwillingness to apply that analysis and work it through in the necessary large-scale service change that we require.
As for the roots of increased service pressures in the health service, I agree with quite of lot of what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said about the GP contract, but that is not why those pressures exist. Their true roots go back to the time in which the right hon. Member for Leigh was Secretary of State. In 2009, David Nicholson said that demand would go on rising in the health service, and that given the state of public finances we had to find ways of meeting that demand without continuing to make calls on the taxpayer on the scale that we had grown used to over the first 60 years in the history of the health service.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
In Wycombe, ever since our A and E was closed under the previous Government, people have wanted nothing more than to get it back. It is clear that medicine has changed and that they will not do so, but does my right hon. Friend agree that there has been a long-standing failure to explain those pressures to the public?
Mr Dorrell
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We cannot blame people in the country for not understanding the need for change in the health service if politicians never explain why that need has arisen. I quite often quote Enoch Powell—not someone who wins a consensus across the House—who as Health Minister went to the equivalent of the NHS Confederation conference, which is now under way in Liverpool, to explain the need for the change in the service model in mental health. He said in his speech that
“Hospitals are not like pyramids, built to impress some remote posterity”.
That is the case that we need to begin to explain.
Chris Bryant
I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s generosity. One of the ironies is that Enoch Powell recruited a lot of doctors overseas. He would have had absolutely nothing to do with the argument advanced yesterday by one of the right hon. Gentleman’s colleagues that all the problems in A and E are to do with the arrival of migrants. If anything, we need to change immigration policy in this country, so that more doctors can come here.
Mr Dorrell
I have four minutes, or with two interventions, six minutes, so if the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall not go off into a discussion about immigration policy.
I want to focus on the changing needs that the health service has to meet. I sometimes wonder whether people talking about rising demand on the health service and rising demand for emergency care have ever sat in a GP’s surgery. Have they noticed around them in a GP’s surgery the kind of people who present in a surgery and the conditions that bring them there—dementia, diabetes and drug and alcohol abuse? How can we expect a service that was designed to meet the needs of patients, inasmuch as it was designed at all, in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s to meet the needs of today’s increasingly elderly and dependent patients, without rethinking the way care is delivered?
This is—I come back to my core point—a shared analysis. It is not a subject of party political debate. It is a shared analysis between the two Front Benches, and what is even more surprising is that not only is the analysis shared, but the conclusions about the right policy response are shared.
Mr Dorrell
Forgive me. I have a minute and a half and I want to develop what I think is an important point.
When I make the case for greater urgency about integration between the different parts of the health and care system, I am often told that I am supporting Andy Burnham’s plan. I am quite happy to support Andy Burnham’s plan. Actually, I gently claim credit for the fact that the Health Committee on a cross-party basis has been advancing this analysis from the beginning of this Parliament, and with due deference to the right hon. Gentleman and to my colleagues on the Select Committee I will also point out that part of the answer that the right hon. Gentleman is—rightly, I think—advancing builds on health and wellbeing boards, which are the creation not of me or of him, but of my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), the former Secretary of State for Health and now the Leader of the House of Commons.
The right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) talked about a duty of candour. Could we not have a duty of candour about agreement in the House of Commons—agreement that what needs to happen is not to find artificial divisions, but to build on the need for urgent change to meet the needs of today’s patients?
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell).
The speech that we heard from the Health Secretary was pathetic. He spent 25 minutes making up excuses for not taking action but not telling us anything about what this Government plan to do.
When I stood for election three years ago, A and E services were not an issue on the doorsteps of Lewisham East but now, as a result of this Government’s determination to decimate services at Lewisham hospital, it is the most frequently cited concern. My constituents are at a loss to understand why, when there is such pressure upon A and E, this Government want to get rid of the full A and E service at their local hospital. This situation is not limited to Lewisham. It is happening all over the country.
Dame Joan Ruddock
My hon. Friend will know that on every occasion when she and I have had exchanges with the Secretary of State—it is a great pity that he has left the Chamber—he has justified the downgrade of Lewisham hospital on the basis that 100 lives across the south-east of London could be saved. We can find no evidence for that. Both my hon. Friend and I have written to Sir Bruce Keogh—I did so on 14 May—who the Secretary of State always says is the man who made this recommendation. The Secretary of State takes no responsibility.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Briefly. Interventions are supposed to be brief, not a speech in their own right. The right hon. Lady will have to resume her seat.
Heidi Alexander
I agree that the evidence on which that assertion was based is deeply spurious and a meeting with Sir Bruce Keogh, which I requested, would be very helpful to the three Lewisham Members.
The situation, as I said, is repeated all over the country. There are more people stuck on ambulances waiting to get into A and E, more people waiting longer for treatment when they get there, and this Government’s answer is to close the A and E, ask people to travel further, and tell them to go to a bigger hospital, where the queue will probably be longer. If this is not the politics of the lunatic asylum, I do not know what is.
My constituents in Lewisham have been told that their full A and E service has to close in order to bail out the hospitals down the road. The whole decision-making process has been opaque and, in my view, deceitful. It is now rightly being challenged in the courts by Lewisham council and the save Lewisham hospital campaign. But for now, my constituents still face the prospect of seriously downgraded services at their local hospital. Not only are my constituents being told that they will have to travel further in future to get to an A and E, but to add injury to insult, they are being told to go to departments where performance is generally below that at Lewisham. In 29 of the 35 weeks between the end of September last year and the end of May this year, people were seen more quickly at the A and E in Lewisham than they were at the hospitals within the South London Healthcare NHS Trust where they are now being told to go.
In the first four months of this year, ambulances were placed on divert 25 times to Lewisham hospital. They were diverted away from the very hospitals where my constituents are now being told to go. It does not take a brain surgeon to work out why 25,000 people chose to march against these proposals in January. Under no circumstances should any changes at Lewisham hospital be made unless ambulance diverts have stopped and waiting time targets in neighbouring hospitals have been met. I do not want the changes to happen at all, but surely this is the least that the Government should commit to.
The Government seem intent on blaming everyone but themselves for the crisis in A and E. They seem oblivious to the fact that the things they are doing now, such as destabilising reorganisations and the devastating cuts to adult social care, are making the situation worse. They are shutting their eyes to the problem and ploughing on regardless with a programme of A and E closures. I accept that in some places reconfiguration of hospital services will be necessary, but this process must be driven by what is in the best interests of patients. That is not what is happening in Lewisham.
The Government want to blame everyone but themselves for the crisis in the NHS. The sooner we ditch the blame game and have a grown-up debate with thought-out solutions, the better our NHS will be for it.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
This is an enormously complex issue and we must not look at A and E in isolation. We also have to be very careful about the way we use data. I recommend that all Members look at the King’s Fund blog on this to see how the way in which the codings were changed and the data recorded to include walk-in centres and minor injuries units between 2003-04 gives a different perspective to the debate.
Given that complexity, we need to look at the solutions, which need to come by ensuring that people can see the right professional at the right time in the right place. That is key to this. But as my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) said, we must also recognise that the key driver for demand in this is our ageing population. If we look at the impact within general practice, we see a 75% increase in the number of consultations during a 13-year period. This is not just within general practice. The patients who are arriving are much sicker and have much greater complexity, and that is the root of the problem. It is a cause for celebration that we are all living longer, but dealing with that needs detailed planning.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way, given her expertise in these areas. Does she recognise the work of Sir George Alberti a few years ago and the establishment of emergency care collaboratives that were very engaged with social care and local councils, and that the further cuts expected in local authorities will make this worse for elderly communities throughout the country?
Dr Wollaston
The reality that we face is that there is a limited amount of public funding. We can spend that pot of public money only once, so we must spend it in the right place, and that often means that we need to spend more of it within social care. That is why I welcome the fact that some of the health budget has been shifted to social care, and that is very important. I also commend Torbay. My constituency covers Brixham and Paignton, and Torbay has been nationally and internationally recognised for its work on integrating health and social care. It is no coincidence that it does so well on A and E waiting times, and we should be looking at what it has achieved.
But how will we keep people out of our A and E centres? In the Health Committee, we heard evidence about the effect that paramedic crews have. If the paramedic crew in an ambulance are highly skilled, the person they treat is less likely to need to go to casualty in the first place because the expertise is there to keep them at home. There needs to be better access to records. We need to consider how we can improve IT so that the patient owns their record and every part of the system can safely access their drug and medical history—with their consent, of course.
Mr Bradshaw
Given the hon. Lady’s previous distinguished career as a Devon GP, does she, like me, deplore the comments made today by a Government Minister, who sought to blame the current crisis in the NHS on the growth in the number of women doctors?
Dr Wollaston
I commented on that on Twitter. The remark was unfortunate; I think women GPs contribute enormously, but there we are. I would say that, wouldn’t I?
Dr Wollaston
I am short of time, I am afraid.
I go back to how we get people directed to the right place. We need NHS 111 to do the job it is intended to do—direct and signpost people to the right place. Some 42% of people do not know how to access their out-of-hours service; they will go to where the lights are on. We need to make sure that there is good-quality information about how to see the right professional in the right place at the right time and about communication in all parts of the system.
We also need to consider how commissioners can be supported to keep people at home, which is the right place for frail elderly people, by using community resources. There are some wonderful organisations in my area—Brixham Does Care, Totnes Caring, Saltstone Caring and Dartmouth Caring. Having the flexibility to commission small local units is vital, rather than there being a push to commission larger units that do not have that local focus. The issue is about local focus helping to have local solutions. What works in Lewisham will not work in rural Devon, so let us get the solutions right and have flexibility.
Let us make sure that we address the delays within casualty departments and the pressures that cause that. Very often the issue is to do with diagnostics. Let us look at the groups of people who constantly re-attend. I do not want to bore the House too much with my views on minimum pricing, but anybody who wants to spend a Friday or Saturday night in an inner-city casualty department will see what the delays are due to. I hope to win my bet eventually with the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw).
Let us have a sensible policy that considers mental health, for example. A huge number of readmissions in casualty departments involve people with mental illness. In the west midlands, liaison psychiatry is being used to help reduce readmissions among those with mental illness—again, it is about getting people the right support at the right time in the right place. Some 5.6% of bed days in the NHS are taken up by people who have been readmitted within a week of discharge. That is simply not acceptable.
There is also the issue of designing the tariffs. I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State refer to tariff reform. If the financial drivers are in the wrong place, we will not solve the problem. Let us try to take the party politics out of this debate and focus entirely on how we can support NHS England and our clinical commissioning groups to get the right care in the right place at the right time.
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
I associate myself absolutely with the remarks made by the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) about tariff reform, but given the time constraints, I will restrict my remarks to one particular issue that is putting pressure on the A and E crisis. I am talking about access to GPs.
I want to share testimony that I have recently received from people in Exeter. The first comes from a young teacher:
“Again and again, whenever I want to see a doctor there are no appointments available for as long as a week away, in addition to appointments not being made available at accessible times. Being a teacher, I am unable to easily pop out for a doctor’s appointment.”
Another constituent wrote to me last month about the A and E crisis:
“I believe one of the main reasons for this is that it has become very difficult to see your own GP unless you are prepared to wait three weeks for an appointment. I have personal experience of this, as do many of my friends and colleagues, and this is making people with minor ailments attend A and E in order to be seen.”
You will remember, Madam Deputy Speaker, that when Labour was in government, we introduced a requirement on GPs to grant appointments to their patients within 48 hours. We also introduced incentives in the GP contract for GPs to open at weekends and in the evenings, and we established GP walk-in centres in every primary care trust in England—in some areas, we established more than that. It worked. By the end of our Government, complaints from the public about GP access had declined significantly, as had pressure on A and Es that resulted from people not being able to see a GP.
By May 2010 more than 75% of GP practices in England were opening in the evenings and at weekends. Under this Government, however, 500 of those practices have reduced their opening times again. By May 2010, there were walk-in centres in every area offering quick, easy access to a GP, seven days a week and 12 hours a day. Since 2011, 25% of those centres have closed, and scrapping the requirement for GPs to offer an appointment within 48 hours has led to a return of the bad old days of people waiting days or weeks to see a GP, and therefore going to A and E instead.
Mr Bradshaw
I regret I will not do so because I have so little time.
When I wrote to the Health Secretary with the cases from Exeter that I referred to earlier, his colleague, Earl Howe, replied:
“It is our view that 48-hour access did not focus on outcomes, and specifying a particular model to deliver better services for patients misses the point about local needs, local services and local accountability.”
That, I am afraid, is gobbledegook. My hard-working constituents, who pay for the NHS, want to be able to see a GP when they need to and at a time convenient for them. Earl Howe’s letter went on to say that as this was a local issue, I should raise my concerns with the clinical commissioning group, which I promptly did. It replied stating:
“As this relates to GP services, the letter should be sent to NHS England.”
I await its response with interest.
Will the Minister help the House by making clear in her response who is responsible for ensuring that the public can see a GP quickly and conveniently? I was encouraged to hear the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter) tell the “World at One” yesterday that he wanted to improved GP access, including opening times, in response to the A and E crisis. Hallelujah! May I suggest, however, that he and he colleagues start by stopping the closure of walk-in centres, and reintroduce Labour’s requirements and incentives for GPs to give appointments within 48 hours and to open their surgeries at weekends and in the evenings? Without such measures, I am afraid that current pressures on A and Es will simply get worse.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
The last time I was in A and E I had hit myself on the head with a 300 lb iron bar—don’t ask why. I had a lump the size of an egg, but no lasting damage, apparently. The time before I was involved in an accident on the M1. I was not driving the car, but I ended up in North Hampshire A and E. My latest visit was with my mother-in-law who had had a suspected heart attack. I use those cases to illustrate that although nobody wants to go to A and E, people end up there for a whole range of reasons. Either they have a genuine accident and emergency, or they fear that they have had an accident or emergency and need informed triage, or they have a problem and simply do not have anywhere else to go. I suspect that we are looking not at increased pressure because of a huge number of accidents and emergencies—although there are many elderly people, which will increase the number—but at a big increase in cases to triage and in the number of people with nowhere else to go.
I note that the situation is not inferior to that before 2004, but in relative terms I am prepared to admit that it is a crisis. So far the debate has been about whose fault that crisis is. We cannot say that the situation is entirely due to the GP contract and the extraction from out-of-hours service, but we could say that that will not help. We cannot say it is down to the strange decision to replace midstream NHS Direct with the 111 service, but that will not help. We cannot say it is all down to a massive reorganisation of the NHS and the siphoning off of millions into redundancy payments, but clearly that will not help. We cannot say it is due to the closure of walk-in centres. They were often paid for by the PCTs of the past and are not necessarily popular with GPs, but their closure will certainly not help. We cannot say that the situation is due to the absence of strategic health authorities, although in the past those authorities often forced ambulance trusts and hospitals to work seamlessly together, not just gaming their own targets and looking at performance indicators. They helped to stamp out trolley waits, parking up and needless diverts, but the absence of a strategic oversight is clearly not going to help. We cannot say that the failure of our system to deal with chronic alcohol abuse is the sole reason, but as the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) pointed out, it is not helping. The fact that we do not link treatment to successful rehab certainly does not help.
What would help, as we all agree, is rapid progress towards the integration of health and social care, proper community budgeting, stopping unnecessary admissions, increasing co-operation and resource efficiency, and making better use of hard-pressed social services budgets. This was the big-ticket item in the in-tray in 2010—the holy grail. There was also the instability of the acute sector. It is a genuine pity that well-intentioned people in this place spent the first two years of the Parliament wrangling about a largely pointless, if not positively unhelpful, reorganisation. Never mind missing A and E targets because of the stupid, adversarial, arrogant and hubristic culture of this place, where each successive Government feel obliged to do everything in a new way: it is not just A and E that missed the target; we missed the target.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
As colleagues will know, over the past few months I have read from the direct experiences of the 2,500 people who have written to me about their treatment in the health service. This time, I am going to speak about my husband, who died in October last year. That is because I have had the 117-page report from the hospital, which I asked a GP friend to have a look at because a lot of it is gobbledegook to any ordinary person.
My husband died from hospital-acquired pneumonia. One of the concerns that I have talked about is upheld by University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. The report says:
“A delay in review by medical staff did occur in AU. Mr Y”—
it is anonymised, ridiculously—
“remained in EU for 6 hours longer than the target timescale of 4 hours. Mr Y then remained in EU for approximately 21 hours, significantly longer than the target time of 8 hours for this type of area.
Mr Y should not have been nursed in the EU/AU for the length of time he remained there. The length of time Mr Y spent in EU and AU fell significantly below the standard expected, and this is unacceptable.
The distress this poor experience caused is acknowledged and the Health Board apologises that the standard experienced by Mr and Mrs Y was below that expected.
This concern is upheld.”
There are many other things I would have liked to talk about, but there is not enough time. I asked my GP friend to look at the hospital’s record, and she said:
“I don’t think that the notes you were given are supposed to be a complete record that Owen was properly investigated or treated.”
She goes on to say:
“Of course Owen spent too long in Casualty. The analogy with a ‘battery hen’ is apt: cooped up on a too small trolley for 27 hours, pressed against the bars…no record of adequate food or water and unclothed.”
She goes on to ask:
“Why ever not? In 27 hours Owen is recorded as drinking 150 ml and eating one ice-cream—and he was dehydrated when he came in.”
There was apparently a “Do not resuscitate” notice. She goes on:
“The DNR notice and records are lamentable, and reinforce my impression that because Owen’s care plan on 11 October could not be fulfilled, there was no other clear care plan in place for him…But I am not surprised you did not fully comprehend what they were not going to do. The enquiry papers state UHW does not follow the Liverpool Care Pathway; this is a pity as they wrote Owen up for the LCP recommended medication after antibiotics were stopped yet failed to attend to the spiritual needs of the patient in this critical juncture.”
Ann Clwyd
No, I am sorry, I cannot.
Finally, my GP friend said:
“These matters and the ways you expressed your concerns are so similar to the events described in the many many letters you have received from others who have described similar misgivings. It must be very difficult to have to ‘use’ your own very personal experience as a prompt to drive the response and search for answers that so many want from you. But that is your job as Member of Parliament, to identify what, if anything—”
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
This debate has improved as the Back-Bench contributions have gone on. It started off fairly gracelessly, with an attempt to lay all the blame for the pressures in A and E on this Government. That was pretty shameful. I like and respect the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), but it was graceless of him to suggest that this is entirely of this Government’s making.
As a number of hon. Members have said, there is a broad range of issues behind the pressures on A and E services. Long before I was elected, I campaigned against some of the changes that made a difference in my own constituency and increased pressure on the NHS. We have heard about bed reductions and the lack of joined-up social and health services. I think there is an issue with GPs and I respect the view of the Health Committee Chairman on that. A lot of residents were confused—this was touched on by the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw)—about where GPs’ services were and how they could access them after the change in 2004 in particular. I think that that has contributed to people choosing to access other services. I confess that I have absolutely no idea how the out-of-hours service in my area works. I am lucky that I have never had to use it, but a lot of people were incredibly confused by their out-of-hours service after 2004. The right hon. Gentleman also mentioned walk-in centres, but my area did not get one. If we are expected to use the one in Scunthorpe, that is not a sufficient local alternative.
We have also heard about a demographic shift, which is clearly a huge issue, as is population growth. After the failure of health services and all Governments to deal properly with palliative care and end-of-life plans, one of my hospitals in Goole experienced massive reductions in services, largely on the previous Government’s watch. Our mental health ward went and all the town’s mental health beds disappeared, as did medical beds in general. Service after service disappeared. When those mental health services were lost and replaced by apparently intensive home support, we ended up with people in crisis and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) has said, presenting to A and E and other services.
The failure of social care is a problem, but I remember one of my local authorities—East Riding of Yorkshire—changing the criteria for access to its services many years ago as a result of funding pressures from the previous Government. I wish that Labour councillors at my other council, North Lincolnshire council, had listened to the Secretary of State before they tabled their budget for this year, which proposed removing social care from thousands of my constituents and changing the required criterion from “moderate” to “substantial”. If it had not been for Conservative councillors voting down the Labour budget and instead voting to protect social care, there would have been massive social care cuts in my area. I hope that the right hon. Member for Leigh will relay that to his colleagues in my area.
The failure to have proper intermediate care services has also been mentioned. My local authority is trying to address this through a £3.2 million scheme in my constituency to create a 30-bed unit. Bed blocking has been a massive problem in recent years and we all know about it. Plenty of people come in, but not enough go out the other side. The Labour party has to take some responsibility for that problem, because it has not appeared overnight. The issue has been affected by population growth and a demographic shift.
In the brief time remaining, I concur with the Health Committee Chairman that it would be much better to take the politics out of this debate.
Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab)
I think that most people who have heard this debate would agree that we have generated more heat than light. That is a shame, because when one hears the words of my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), one realises that this is way beyond a party political issue. This is not about game playing or seeking political advantage for one side of the Chamber or the other. I have sufficient respect for the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State to know that neither of them wishes to go down that road. This matter is simply far too serious.
We have heard tonight that A and E services are often the indicator or signifier—like the canary in the coal mine—that warns about the condition of the rest of the national health service. We have heard about a number of factors. One accusation is that there is a lack of knowledge about A and E.
I spent 10 years working in the A and E department of the Middlesex hospital and University College hospital. I must say that I worked in an ancillary capacity, rather than as a qualified medic, although I did wear a white jacket and would occasionally bluff. There is a huge difference between A and E then and now. Like a lot of MPs, I mystery shop in my local A and E once a month, just to sit and listen to what is being said. The difference between then and now is that virtually everybody who came into the Middlesex was brought in by ambulance and there were very few walk-in patients. I am not saying that it was not in a residential area, because it was. We had an excellent Member of Parliament in my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson). Plenty of people did the right thing and voted for him. There is a difference of attitude now. That is exemplified by what we saw last week, when a mother took her daughter to a north London A and E department to ask that a doctor remove canine faeces from her daughter’s shoe in the safest possible way. There is no question but that there is a problem. People’s expectations have changed.
There have been some suggestions today. The prescription of the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) was risible. The idea that we should lie back with a scalpel in one hand, biting on a bullet and perform our own abdominal surgery was fairly ludicrous. At least, that is how I heard his proposal.
I agree that we should make more use of community pharmacists, but above all we must recognise that we are now in a different world. People do not come to A and E in the middle of the night because they want to; they come to A and E because there is not a walk-in centre they can access during the day and there is no out-of-hours GP service because most of the GPs in London are elderly, single-handed GPs. People go to A and E out of sheer desperation. Yes, there is always a fool who comes in with a headache or something, but if Members go to their local A and E, as many of us do, they will see people who are on the edge of absolute seriousness.
We have to address the totality of the issue. The hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh), in one of the best argued speeches that I have ever heard, pulled the whole thing together. He did not refer to a mosaic of misery, but to all the competing factors. That is what we have to consider.
I do not see the Secretary of State as some Gargantua or Godzilla, crashing through Nye Bevan’s glorious creation and seeking to destroy it at every opportunity; I see him as a man who might be overwhelmed by the scale of the problem facing him. Let us step back from party political advantage and think about the people out there—the exhausted staff in the A and E departments and the patients in pain and agony.
Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound). I agreed with some of the points that he made, but I did not agree with all his conclusions and he may not agree with mine.
It is striking that nobody has mentioned the report that was published today by the NHS Confederation and the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. That report calls for the closure of hospitals and indicates that the funding model for health care in this country is not sustainable in the medium to long term. It is significant that so many organisations that should be respected by this Chamber have come to such difficult and politically unpalatable conclusions.
I have been encouraged by some of the contributions from the Back Benches in the past hour or so. There has been mention of the drivers of demand in this country and across western society, such as ageing, obesity and increased drug and technology costs. As was mentioned by the hon. Member for Ealing North, there has also been a significant change in attitude, which is difficult politically. Essentially, the population is becoming a bit softer. The generation that survived the war, a more stoic generation, would not think or dream of calling their GP in the middle of the night unless their arms were dropping off, but they are passing away and are being replaced by people who think it appropriate to call their GP at midnight because they have had a sore throat for a couple of hours. Clearly, that is not sustainable.
The challenge of the A and E crisis, which is the reason for this debate, is I suspect a first manifestation of evidence that the system is not fit for purpose. It is not fit for purpose before the baby boomer generation hit their 70s, and we should mull on that. We should also recognise the fact that change is inevitable and that hospital closures and reconfigurations will have to take place. My conclusion on how to deal with that is not party political.
An ideological legacy is in play here. We have a system that was designed for a stoic post-war generation—taxpayer funded and copied only by Cuba. We need to recognise that it is not fit for purpose and we need to have some tough debates with the public about how to fund it going forward. A financial legacy is also relevant. A recent one is the PFI scandal of the last few years, but let us be realistic: this country has significant debts and liabilities five times the size of our economy, so it means we need to be realistic about what we can afford in the future.
In conclusion, I agree with Members who said that we should take the party politics out of this debate. I would like to see a plan of where hospitals should be in the future. We need a hub-and-spoke model for acute hospitals; there has to be a national plan, so that we do not see some hospitals unfairly closed and others retained for various legacy reasons. The plan needs to be cross party; otherwise it will not pass. We need to reflect, too, on GP out-of-hours provision. I think GP surgeries should be open for longer and more appointments should be available for about 12 hours a day. I am not so sure that the current out-of-hours service is sustainable or, indeed, advisable in the longer term. Above all, we need a proper informed and rational debate with the British public about what is affordable, what is do-able and what is in all our best interests.
Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
I am grateful for the opportunity to follow the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee). Given the views he articulated, I hope he will come and canvass for my opponent at the next general election; we would be very happy to have him there. I say that in the context of the situation in the North West London Hospitals NHS Trust, which in 2010-11 was well within the waiting times targets for A and E. Just 2.9% of patients waited more than four hours, but by 2011-12, that figure had risen to some 10.8% at the end of the year, while for the whole of the last financial year the figure is 12.2%—the second worst set of statistics in London, surpassed only by the Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust, where almost 16% of patients had to wait over four hours.
Stephen Pound
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and neighbour for giving way. In view of what he has just said, does he think that the best possible prescription is that currently recommended by the Government whereby the existing A and E departments at Ealing, Park Royal, Hammersmith and Charing Cross all close? Does he think that will improve waiting times in A and E departments?
Mr Thomas
My hon. Friend, as ever, is ahead of me. He makes the perfectly reasonable point that if the Northwick Park and Central Middlesex A and E departments are not achieving the 95% target now, how can our constituents have any more confidence about reaching that target should the Central Middlesex and Ealing hospitals close?
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
As my hon. Friend knows, Northwick Park is just in my constituency and we share that border. Does he agree that whatever the future configuration of hospitals in north-west London, it is absolutely essential that the A and E unit at Northwick Park is expanded to cope and that that should happen before any reconfiguration?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I remind the House that there are nine speakers still to be called, and that the winding-up speeches will begin at 6.40 pm. That means that some Members who have been sitting in the Chamber will not be able to contribute. I therefore ask Members to be sparing with interventions, and to make them only when they are absolutely crucial. I also remind them that interventions must be short, and must relate to the point that the speaker was making at the time rather than be an extra debating point.
Mr Thomas
I share the view of my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner). We need that expansion to go ahead, and to go ahead soon.
In an intervention during the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), I raised the plight of many of my constituents who formerly used Alexandra Avenue polyclinic, an extremely popular walk-in centre which used to be open from 8 am until 8 pm, 365 days a year, to people who were genuinely concerned about their health and did not feel that they could wait to see their GPs. It was opened by Ara Darzi some five years ago. Amazingly, its opening was opposed by my political opponents in Harrow, but it quickly came to be greatly appreciated by, in particular, people living in the south Harrow and Rayners Lane area. Those people have noted with considerable regret that, after the last general election, the primary care trust decided to restrict the opening hours of their walk-in centre, but not those of the walk-in centre in Pinner, in the constituency of my other neighbour, the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd).
As a result of the cuts that the primary care trust decided to make, the walk-in service now operates only between 9 am and 3pm on Saturdays and Sundays. The fact that it remains open at all is entirely due to the scale and strength of feeling about the loss of what was an excellent service, and the campaign that we were able to run in order to save it. Perhaps some of the £3 billion that the Prime Minister spent on what was—as others have already pointed out—a completely unnecessary reorganisation of the NHS could have been invested in keeping Alexandra Avenue polyclinic open, and some of the pressure that my constituents are imposing on Northwick Park hospital’s accident and emergency unit could have been alleviated.
Staff at the excellent Pinner ambulance station in Rayners Lane do an extremely good job, generally spending all their shifts out on the road. It is clear that they, like the rest of the staff of the London Ambulance Service, are under extremely heavy pressure. On occasion, ambulances have been used as temporary reception or holding areas at Northwick Park when patients cannot be admitted to A and E as they arrive because of the pressure on that department.
There is also concern about the district nursing service in Harrow. My personal experience of that service has been mixed. An elderly relative and, more important, that person’s carer have found it difficult to gain access to it by telephone when problems have developed. It has been slow to respond, and has demonstrated poor co-ordination with other parts of the local health care system. Again, funding was cut by the primary care trust.
The new clinical commissioning group has given notice to the local trust which runs the service that it may outsource the contract, but I am not convinced that that is the answer. Investment in staff—trained staff—and, crucially, investment in management time by the local trust seems to be the immediate requirement if the problems in the service are to be sorted out. Meanwhile, to those who are aware—as many of my constituents are—that the district nursing service is far from brilliant, it is hardly surprising that family members should want to delay the discharge of elderly patients from Northwick Park.
It is telling that the number of cancelled operations is rising fast at Northwick Park. So far, it has risen by some 13%. That is a further symptom of the crisis in the national health service, as evidenced by others—
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
I have only a brief amount of time, so I will not repeat what other Members have said about demographics. I would also have liked to have talked about the NHS funding formula and the fact that Lancaster and Fleetwood is a rural area and there is no accounting for geography or the numbers of old people.
I agree with the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) and others who said we need a non-political debate. I shall focus on the question of staffing in A and E. People talk about crisis and chaos, but the majority of my electorate get a very good service from highly qualified professionals, who are working extremely hard. There is a staffing issue, however: we need to ensure there are enough properly qualified emergency specialist consultants working in A and Es both now and in the future and that they are not stretched to breaking point.
All this information comes from the doctors working in my A and E at the Royal Lancaster. This issue was also flagged up in a College of Emergency Medicine report, “The drive for quality”. The problem, which has been building over many years, is that ever fewer doctors want to move into the A and E specialty. That is largely because of the pressures of the work and the long and unsociable hours, including high-pressure weekend shifts that do not arise in other specialties. In turn, that leads to even more pressure on the few qualified consultants that remain, who have to work longer shifts and take on ever more responsibilities, and many of whom therefore eventually choose to go into other specialties as well. As a result, there is always a shortage of specialists.
To see how bad the problem was, I submitted a series of freedom of information requests last year, asking hospitals how many consultant emergency physician vacancies they had and how many people had applied for posts when they were last advertised. There seemed to be some regional variations—and my area, the north-west, seemed to be having particular difficulties—but there were some worrying general trends. Without naming individual hospitals, here are some examples: one hospital advertised for a senior clinical fellow on three separate occasions over the course of nine months, but there were no suitable applicants; another hospital advertised for three consultant emergency physicians, but no one applied; elsewhere, seven consultant vacancies were reported in one hospital, representing some 33% of its planned consultant staffing rate.
Even when there are applicants, competition is fierce. One hospital advertised for six vacancies and received four applications, but three of them withdrew prior to interview, presumably because they had been poached by employers elsewhere. Worryingly, sometimes the quality of applicants is not up to standard, as in the case of the hospital which advertised for five consultant emergency physician vacancies, only to conclude that none of the applicants was appropriately qualified.
I again stress that, according to the College of Emergency Medicine, this issue has been worsening over many years. We need to work constructively to ensure that emergency physician status is better recognised and rewarded within the NHS, so it can recruit and retain the required quality staff. This might not all be about money, by the way, but we definitely need to do more to tackle the issue and to give due credit and due status to the physicians who maintain the existing A and E service—which, as I have said, for the majority of my constituents is a good service.
Siobhain McDonagh (Mitcham and Morden) (Lab)
I will be very brief, as I want all Members who wish to contribute to the debate to be able to do so.
It feels as though we are telling the public that somehow they are being irrational by attending A and E. They are being entirely rational, however, if they live in urban London. They are being rational because they cannot get access to their GP services. Their GPs have contracted-in times and their walk-in clinics have been closed, so their only alternative is A and E. The 111 service is also, in effect, A and E, because it is so risk-averse. Our current system is not based on what is best for the patient; it is based on what is going to cause the least legal damage to the NHS if things go wrong.
My local hospital, St Helier, is up for closure despite the fact that its A and E is the only one in south-west London that meets the targets. Its maternity unit is also to close, even though it is the most clinically safe unit in the country. It is very difficult to explain that that is a rational decision to any member of the public, including me.
On issues to do with the NHS and how consultations are carried out, we are told and implored to see things differently. How can we see things differently when consultations do not include the public and when consultations are held over the school summer holidays rather than at a time when people and halls are available, and those of us who rely on voluntary assistance in making our arguments can get people to provide it? Better Services Better Value in my constituency intends to start its consultation at the end of the month and run it over July and August, dismissive of the arguments of the public that they cannot meet that timetable. Better Services Better Value has meetings without announcing where they are or what time they are at, and it does not even use microphones. I have been a publicly elected politician for more than 30 years and some of these NHS meetings I have attended have been the worst I have ever encountered during that time. If we wish to bring the public with us in difficult decisions, we have to be reasonable, fair and straightforward in our proposals. Nobody in my constituency understands why the solution to longer A and E waits is the closure of A and Es that are effective and actually work.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
I am proud of the NHS and of the staff who work for it daily in my constituency; they are part of a huge team that saves lives every day.
The issue of A and E waiting times has shot up the political agenda, but I am concerned that many of the staff working in those departments will fear that their deeply held commitment to the job will not be getting the recognition it deserves. Across the country, 22 million people have visited A and E, with 96% being seen within four hours—that is nearly 1 million more people than a year ago, which is positive news.
I have great respect for the shadow Secretary of State, but I do not think the A and E crisis is as acute as the Opposition like to suggest. The reality is that in some areas A and E is going incredibly well. Let me talk about my constituency and the Lister hospital, where our team sees about 135,000 patients a year, about 25% of whom are children, with 21% of the patients seen by our A and E department being admitted to hospital.
I shall read a couple of quick reviews from the past few months. One said:
“I Twice needed help in last 2 months, in each case response on phone was excellent and doc phones back within 20 min. Ambulance was there quickly and I was in A&E within the hour. Excellent treatment there and can’t recommend the service highly enough. Could not have done better anywhere. Everyone involved needs to have a big thank you and how lucky we are to have such a great service. I am 83 and still going strong because of this great care. Again thank you all very much.”
Another said:
“I was recently admitted to Lister via A&E and can only praise every member of staff who dealt with me from that point until I left.”
A third said:
“My son quickly became very ill with strep A and toxic shock syndrome and from the immediate ambulance response to being put in the Short Stay Unit after A&E, he received the most wonderful care and compassion. All of the staff were lovely and we can’t thank them enough.”
So A and E across the country is not as bad as people like to make out. I visited the A and E in Stevenage, spending two and a half hours sitting in the waiting room and then being dealt with very courteously and professionally. It was a very positive experience. I have also been out with the ambulance service in Stevenage and gone around the constituency. I dealt with a number of 999 calls, one of which involved a nine-year-old boy being rushed to A and E. He was dealt with incredibly efficiently by the teams there, who were waiting for him upon his arrival and helped to save his life. They had to put him into an induced coma because of the severity of the condition he was admitted with.
I know that there are issues to address in some parts of the country, but in Stevenage we are benefiting from a £150 million redevelopment of our hospital, which will make it one of the most modern and advanced facilities in the UK. As part of that, a new £20 million A and E unit is being built at the moment. It will be fully open in autumn 2014. I visited the building about a month ago and I can tell hon. Members that it is almost twice the size of the current one. It will have a range of fantastic facilities and services; we have doubled the equipment and doubled the number of people. The staff have been involved every step of the way in designing the new facility with the builders, even pushing the carts around the building to understand the best way in which they can achieve what they want. It will also have a dedicated adult section and a dedicated child section. The Lister hospital and its A and E are doing a great job in my constituency for people every day. A legion of doctors, nurses and clinical staff are doing this fantastic job, and I am proud of them and I am proud of the A and E in my constituency.
Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)
I was beginning to think that the debate was about A and E services in London, so I am pleased to be able to say a few words from these Back Benches. The views of people from the north on the London-centric debates we have in this country have been pretty consistent—so let me move on very quickly.
I have been active in health in Parliament over the many years I have been a Member, particularly during the previous Parliament when I chaired the Select Committee on Health. Until a few weeks ago, I had never heard anyone put the case that any problems we had in primary care, or even in secondary care, were to do with the 2004 contract agreed with GPs by the then Government.
On 21 May, I came in to hear the urgent question and listened to the Secretary of State talk about the concept that as
“a result of those disastrous changes to the GP contract, we have seen a significant rise in attendances at A and E”
and the
“direct consequence of those disastrous 2004 changes to the contract”
even though my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) had said that on that very day
“the chief executive of the NHS Confederation told the Select Committee on Health that there is no link between today’s pressures on A and E and the 2004 contract”.—[Official Report, 21 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 1055-57.]
Yet today we have heard that argument again. I never heard it when I was on the Health Committee; I never heard it until this year, and I do not believe it. That is my fundamental position.
I am pleased to see that the Secretary of State has come back into the Chamber. On 21 May, my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) asked the Secretary of State how many walk-in centres had been shut since May 2010. The right hon. Gentleman said:
“I can assure the hon. Gentleman that many more walk-in centres would be shut if we had to cut the NHS budget, which is what the Labour party wants to do.”—[Official Report, 21 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 1065.]
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) asked the Secretary of State
“how many walk-in centres have closed since May 2010? Will he accept that those closures are linked to the rise in A and E attendance?”
He replied
“that if we followed her party’s Front-Bench policy of cutting the NHS budget from its current levels, many more urgent and walk-in centres would have to be closed.”—[Official Report, 21 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 1069.]
The walk-in centre in Rotherham stops people going to the A and E. It is open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, unlike doctors’ surgeries. During that urgent question, we heard talk about lights going out at 5 pm. When did GPs’ lights not go out at 6 pm at any point in my lifetime? They would start at 4 and go on to 6 pm. The lights were never on in primary care and it is such centres that are really helping.
Today, we have eventually found out that 25% of walk-in centres—that is, 26 of them—have closed. When the one in Rotherham opened, there was opposition from one of the doctors in my constituency who publicly campaigned against it, but that was all about the money that went into his private individual business. That is wrong. The Secretary of State should get off the political fence and start making decisions about what is happening to health care and our people, rather than about what will happen in 2015 at the next general election.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I am grateful to previous speakers, particularly the hon. Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) and for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), who made some of the comments I would have made and therefore saved me a good minute.
The crisis in emergency departments is multifaceted and we are facing a downgrade of the emergency department in Cheltenham general hospital. The rationale has not been funding pressures or extra admissions but, as the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood said, the shortage of emergency doctors. The College of Emergency Medicine recommends that we should have 20 emergency medical posts over the two A and Es in Cheltenham and Gloucester. The trust has only just managed to fill the 12th, so we are at not much better than half strength. That has obvious safety implications and has driven the trust’s recommendations for downgrading A and E at Cheltenham.
The staff shortages have their root in work force planning issues that date back many years. They must date back to the Secretary of State’s predecessor’s time and, clearly, to that of the previous Government, too. The hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound) was quite right, however, and we should not be playing a party political blame game. We should simply admit that we have a really serious problem and work out what to do about it.
The College of Emergency Medicine suggests that the initial recruitment to the discipline is quite respectable and that retention is the problem. Emergency medicine involves long hours, with a 24-hour cycle of shifts, and is an intense and stressful form of medical practice. I hate to accuse anyone of mercenary motivation, but of course those who work in emergency medicine cannot moonlight in private practice, either, which makes it less attractive from that point of view. So we do need a rethink nationally. I welcome the urgency with which the Government are now addressing that. It should have been done years ago.
In the meantime, changes inevitably are being proposed by local hospital trusts. I do not think we can blame them for that, but, as the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden said, the process must be open, accountable and transparent. That was, after all, the idea of the new structures that the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), the previous Secretary of State, foisted on us in the new system.
The consultation in Gloucestershire has raised real questions. Why has not the trust even tried to pay more for emergency medical posts, as it has the freedom to do so as a foundation trust? Could it have looked more seriously at overseas recruitment? Why has it not been prepared to wait for the Keogh review, or the Secretary of State’s urgent review of recruitment, before making the changes permanent? Why was it not prepared to trial changes just for a year, as Liberal Democrat members of the health overview and scrutiny committee requested yesterday? I deeply regret the fact that Conservative councillors on that committee from all over Gloucestershire voted down that very modest compromise proposal and backed the downgrading of A and E in Cheltenham.
In my detailed evidence I raised issues of increased mortality, and of possible increases in health inequalities resulting from these changes, but I have no evidence that my submission, or the thousands of petition signatures that we gathered locally, have been properly considered at all. The primary care trust consultation website actually disappeared halfway through the consultation process because, of course, the primary care trust ceased to exist and handed over to the new clinical commissioning group. The obvious suspicion locally is that this was a foregone conclusion, and that it is only a matter of time before the trust proposes the outright closure of the A and E at Cheltenham.
That suspicion was strongly reinforced yesterday. Within hours of the health overview and scrutiny committee meeting, the trust issued a joint statement with the new clinical commissioning group, instantly announcing that the changes would now be going ahead on a permanent basis, despite the fact that the trust has not actually considered the outcome of the consultation exercise at either its board or the CCG’s board. That is not open, accountable and transparent, and it must be in future.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
We have a crisis in A and E; that is clear from this afternoon’s debate. The King’s Fund report this week detailed the worst performance in nine years, with 5.9% of patients waiting more than four hours. It has been suggested that patients are just going where the lights are on. Is that the case?
I got information on A and E from the chief executive of Salford Royal NHS Trust, comparing the third and fourth quarters of 2011-12 with those in 2012-13. He found that there are 10% more ambulance arrivals every day. We actually have sicker patients, with more arriving by ambulance. There has been a 13% increase in admissions of people staying longer than 72 hours, and fewer are staying for shorter periods. There are 25% more triages into the hospital’s resuscitation area, and there has been a significant increase in risk and co-morbidity among patients and increased admissions into critical care. There is something going on there.
We know that the rising demand for A and E is particularly concentrated in those aged over 85, and cuts in social care budgets are now widely acknowledged as contributing factors. My local authority of Salford must make £24 million of cuts this year. It is the third year of cuts, and now the authority, having held on to services meeting a moderate level of eligibility, is moving to meeting only substantial levels of eligibility, taking £3.5 million out of adult social care this year and £3.5 million next year. Our former Salford primary care trust had already cut the two walk-in centres that we had, and axed the pilot of active case management for people with long-term conditions.
How is that affecting people? What do carers say? Carers UK has carried out a survey of 3,500 carers, 55% of whom are caring for a person who has been admitted to emergency hospital services in the past three years. A significant percentage of those carers referred to areas where additional support could have prevented those emergency admissions. What types of care were needed? Six per cent. said that they, the carer, needed replacement care because they were ill themselves; 21% per cent. needed a higher quality of care and support for the cared-for person; 10% needed adaptations in the home, and 7% would have been helped by telecare and telehealth. Those findings tie in with some of my casework in recent weeks, when I have heard some very similar cases.
The King’s Fund report tells us that the prospects for adult social care are bleak. Councils are planning to reduce their budgets by another £800 million a year. That is a cumulative cut since 2010 of 20% in adult social care. My local hospital tells me that patients are coming in sicker, they are admitted for longer stays, they require more time and attention and they are now heavy resource-users. It is time that Ministers stopped making excuses and started dealing with this crisis.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
I call Andy Slaughter. You have one minute.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
I am most grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker.
A report in the Evening Standard last Thursday revealed that a spot inspection of Charing Cross hospital in my constituency showed that it was
“so overcrowded that operating theatres were turned into makeshift wards”.
The hospital
“used the theatres when it ran out of critical care beds—with doctors caring for seriously ill patients because there were no nurses available.”
Charing Cross is one of the four hospitals that are to lose their A and E department—indeed, in the case of Charing Cross hospital, it is to be demolished, with 97% slated to go. I plead with the Secretary of State to accept the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) and to review all these closures. The services are in crisis. Please, do not go ahead with any closures of vital A and E services, particularly in north-west London, until a proper review has been carried out and the crisis has been seen for what it is.
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
We have had a full and thorough debate, with some 18—or perhaps 17 and a half—Back-Bench speeches. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson), my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander), my right hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who made a very personal contribution to the debate, as well as my hon. Friends the Members for Ealing North (Stephen Pound), for Harrow West (Mr Thomas) and for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), and my hon. Friends the Members for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) and for Hammersmith (Mr Slaughter). I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell) and the hon. Members for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) and for Southport (John Pugh), and other Members, too many to mention individually, who contributed to the debate.
I start by paying tribute to the thousands of doctors, nurses and health care assistants who provide extraordinary and professional care in our A and E departments. They are there for us when we need them most and we owe them a huge debt of gratitude. It was apparent from the Secretary of State’s speech that he has absolutely no plans to deal with the disastrous situation in A and E that is entirely of this Government’s own creation. We know that, since this Government came to power, there are 4,000 fewer nurses, the disastrous NHS 111 service is in meltdown, walk-in centres are being closed and social care is in crisis. All those factors contribute to the current crisis in our A and E. We have all seen the news reports of ambulances queuing outside hospitals, with unacceptably long waits and some people even having to be treated in tents in car parks. It is time for Ministers to stop blaming others and to get a grip on the crisis in A and E.
Bluntly, what we are seeing today in A and E is the culmination of three full years of mismanagement of the NHS, with a needless top-down reorganisation and the waste of billions of pounds that could and should have been spent on front-line care. The truth is that there is no grip on the NHS in England. No wonder things are going so wrong so quickly.
When Labour left office, A and E was performing well, with 98% of patients seen within the four-hour target time. Since the election, the number of patients waiting more than four hours has nearly trebled and ambulance queues have doubled. Only yesterday, in a report by the King’s Fund, we saw that A and E waits are at their worst for nine years, with more than 313,000 patients waiting more than four hours between January and April this year. Simply put, under this Government more people are waiting longer. The proportion of patients attending A and E who have to wait longer than four hours is at its highest for 10 years. What more proof do Ministers need to understand that A and E departments are under real pressure and that action is needed, and needed now?
Many patients cannot even get through the doors of our hospitals. We have a shameful situation in which growing numbers of patients are waiting in ambulances to get into A and E because those departments are full. Equally shameful is the number of patients experiencing the indignity of waiting for hours on trolleys in A and E before they can be found a bed on the main hospital wards. It is almost as though we are back to the future—back to the bad old Tory days of the 1980s and ’90s.
There are many other factors that have pushed A and E into the danger zone. Indeed, A and E is a bellwether for the overall state of the NHS and social care. The Government’s cuts to local authority budgets have seen £2.6 billion taken out of adult social care since the election alone. As a result, many older and vulnerable people are having services withdrawn that could have helped them to stay healthy and independent in their own homes, and many others face rising charges for the care that they need. That is a major cause of the A and E crisis, as fewer older people get the care that they need at home, and ever more have to be admitted to hospital. It also means that there are delays in ensuring that appropriate support is available at home, or in the community, which delays a patient’s discharge. That has a knock-on effect right through the hospital: with no free beds on the wards, A and E staff cannot admit patients to the hospital wards, and with A and E full, ambulance staff cannot hand over patients.
As we have heard, under-staffing is also causing huge problems in the health service. Since the election, more than 4,000 nursing posts have been lost from the NHS, and the Care Quality Commission has warned that one in 10 hospitals is failing to meet the standard for adequate staffing levels. Hospitals are continuing to make severe cuts to front-line staffing, with many operating below recommended levels. Under this Government, right across England, we are seeing the closure of well-used NHS walk-in centres, meaning that more people are having to go to major A and E departments when they could be helped elsewhere.
Lastly, there is the meltdown of the 111 helpline; NHS England identified the poor roll-out of 111 services as one of the main reasons for the deterioration in A and E department performance. As the 111 service uses staff who do not always have clinical training, they are more likely to play it safe, meaning that more people are being directed towards A and E departments. Over Easter, callers in 30 areas waited for more than an hour for a call back, and in some regions more than 40% of calls were abandoned by patients. One patient waited 11 hours and 29 minutes.
It is no good Ministers arguing that there has been a large increase in the number of people attending A and E, driven by changes to out-of-hours care that were caused by Labour’s renegotiation of the GP contract in 2004; that was nine years ago. The Secretary of State’s spin was blown out of the water by the Chair of the Select Committee on Health, the right hon. Member for Charnwood—and by the chief clinical officer at Stockport clinical commissioning group, who said:
“The focus on the 2004 GP Contract as a main cause is not only a incorrect assumption but also serves to distract the public from the urgent debate that’s needed about the choices the NHS, the public, media and politicians now need to make”—
his words, not mine.
The Government parties should and must do more to protect the NHS from the immediate crisis, so will they now implement our A and E rescue plan? The Secretary of State derided our initiative to use underspends in the NHS budget to put an extra £1.2 billion into social care over the next two years, but that investment would not only relieve pressure on A and E, but help tackle the scandal of care services being withdrawn from older people who need them.
Will the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), review all 111 contracts? Early indications are that the number of cases referred to nurses has fallen from 60% through NHS Direct to just 17% with 111. What will she do about that? Will she also ensure that all hospitals have safe staffing levels, and intervene to prevent further job losses? Will she halt the closure of NHS walk-in centres and await the review that is being conducted by Monitor to see what the impact is on the local community and the NHS? Will she immediately and personally review all planned A and E closures and downgrades, and use the very latest evidence of local pressures to ensure that plans are based on robust clinical evidence?
Instead of accepting responsibility for the mess that they have created, the Government have spent recent weeks casting around for scapegoats. We have seen them blame the winter weather; influenza; bank holidays; immigrants; GPs; and today’s latest from the public health Minister, female doctors, because they get married, have children and work part time. [Interruption.] She protests, and I notice she had to put out a statement this afternoon to
“clarify discussion on female GPs” .
She said:
“I fully support women GPs, my comments were not intended to be derogatory.”
The truth is that this Government do not even know who to blame any more. It is just not good enough. While the components of the A and E crisis might be complex, the real cause is simple: you just cannot trust the Tories with the NHS.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)
Oh dear, what a pity. Until the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Andrew Gwynne) rose to speak, it was going rather well. There was almost an outbreak of consensus after a number of thoughtful contributions from Members on both sides of the House. Unfortunately, as ever, the hon. Gentleman had to fall back into the old ways of cheap party political points and cheap partisan comments. I agree with him on one point. [Interruption.] Hon. Members may want to calm down and chill out a little. The hon. Gentleman rightly paid tribute to all the doctors, consultants, nurses, receptionists and everyone who works in our accident and emergency departments.
Anna Soubry
That sort of cheap comment does the hon. Lady no justice whatsoever or credit. Let me explain to her—I was here for the debate, and she was not—that I did not in any way blame women doctors. As someone who has worked as a woman professional all my life, I really do not want to hear any lessons from Opposition Members. What I did was echo the comments of the president of the Royal College of General Practitioners, and I paid tribute to all our GPs for their hard work and dedication to our NHS, and to their patients.
There are immense pressures on the NHS as a whole, and on A and E in particular. Our A and E departments are dealing with 1 million more people than they did when the previous Government were in power. The causes of that increase in demand are complex: a long, cold winter; an ageing population; and more people with long-term conditions. The system itself, let us be honest, has not helped, from poor integration between health and social care to the lack of public confidence in out-of-hours primary care services. We can have an argument about the 2004 GP contract, but as the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) rightly said, it has not helped. Today, we have a situation in which, if people do not know where to go, or they are not sure that they will get a good service, they go to A and E. In a recent hearing by the Select Committee on Health, Dr Patrick Cadigan, a registrar from the Royal College of Physicians, set out the position perfectly:
“Patients will go where the lights are on. In many of these alternatives, the lights are not on after five o’clock in the evening or at weekends.”
That presents a set of challenges that the Government are determined to address. First, it is important that we deal with the current situation, and we are.
Anna Soubry
No.
Already, emergency departments have recovered from the dip in performance over the winter. [Interruption.] The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish did not give way, and I am adopting his admirable approach in this debate.
For each of the past five weeks, the four-hour waiting time target has been either reached or exceeded. The average wait in A and E is currently 50 minutes. More importantly, we are making the NHS fit for the future: a future where care is designed and delivered around the specific needs of an individual patient; where care is integrated across primary and secondary care and across health and social care; and where local clinicians, not national politicians, decide what is best for their communities. The Government have taken tough decisions that will create a strong and sustainable NHS, now and for generations to come. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 has finally brought local health and social care communities together to design integrated services around the needs of their patients, building in strength for the future. So if more services are needed outside hospitals, local clinicians working with community partners can make those decisions, without having to wait for a Minister to tell them what to do.
We have not stopped there. We have provided £7.2 billion to local authorities for social care. We have given hospitals the ability to carry over underspends—free to pool their budgets locally to improve care for patients. We have new urgent care boards which will use the savings from the marginal rate emergency tariff to reduce pressure on A and E. The NHS Medical Director, Sir Bruce Keogh, is currently reviewing the provision of urgent and emergency care. This autumn the vulnerable older people’s plan will set out how we will improve primary and out-of-hours services for the frail and the elderly and how we can remove barriers to integrated care. At every step of the way we are putting local doctors and nurses in charge and designing care around the patient.
I shall deal briefly with some of the very good speeches that were made on both sides of the House. We heard first from two former Secretaries of State for Health, the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Charnwood (Mr Dorrell). Both were eloquent and informed. I have to say that the speech and the comments of my right hon. Friend found more favour with me. The hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) asked for a grown-up debate, and we had a good contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). I have addressed the unfortunate remarks that she made, perhaps not having read Hansard, if I may say so.
I turn to other valuable contributions. The right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) made a contribution, as we would expect. Then we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who spoke briefly about his local experience in his constituency and brought those experiences, rightly, into the debate. He touched on walk-in centres, an issue that was raised by—I nearly said my hon. Friend; I beg his pardon if that is in any way disparaging to him—the right hon. Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), who beautifully forgot that any decision about the future of any walk-in centre is a local decision. It is for local people—[Interruption.] I am not knocking anybody; I am explaining the facts. I appreciate that the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) has a problem with the facts, but the facts are that these are local decisions made by local communities and local clinicians.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) gave a thoughtful and challenging speech, and I hope that many will take that away and listen to what he said. I shall deal briefly with the comments of my hon. Friends the Members for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) and for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) and the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood), who spoke about some of the difficulties that we have with the recruitment of doctors. Departmental officials have met. We know that it is a problem. We have worked with the College of Emergency Medicine and we know that we need to tackle the problem. We did that in 2011 and those issues will in due course be considered. I hope we will see some changes.
The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh), as ever, championed her local hospital, as I expect her always to do, but she spoke about a lack of public consultation and many of us will take away her wise observations on that. It is important to remind the House of the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood. He, like others in the debate, reported that his constituents get a good service from good staff. All of us should remember that.
To conclude, in challenging circumstances, and with this Government’s support, the people of our NHS are performing admirably. There are over 400,000 more operations now than under Labour. The proportion of cancellations remains unchanged. Fewer than 300 people—276—are waiting more than a year for an operation, compared with 18,000 under the Labour Government. Some 8,500 more clinical staff are working in our NHS, including 5,700 more doctors. MSRA rates have halved. Mixed-sex wards have been practically abolished. We are finally moving towards a paperless NHS by 2018. In addition, in stark contrast to the Labour party’s plans, we now have a protected NHS budget, with real terms—
Ms Rosie Winterton (Doncaster Central) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question accordingly put.
Business without Debate
2011 Public Disorder (Compensation)
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
I am grateful for this opportunity to raise an issue that is of great interest to my residents in Croydon North and to many other people across London and in other parts of the country that were affected by the riots in the summer of 2011.
It is almost two years now since the riots hit Croydon. Businesses were burned to the ground, shops were looted, and homes were destroyed. The Prime Minister and the Mayor of London walked along the devastated London road in the central part of Croydon and promised people that they would not be forgotten and that, while the state had failed to protect them during the riots, it would stand by them as they tried to rebuild their lives. Since becoming the Member of Parliament for Croydon North last November, I have met business owners and residents whose lives were damaged by the riots. They feel completely abandoned by a Government who promised to help them when the TV cameras were on but walked away when the media glare died down.
It is instructive to know how much has actually been paid out compared with the amount that has been claimed. I put in a freedom of information request to the Metropolitan police and found out that that now, nearly two years after the riots took place, only one seventh of the £250 million that was claimed had been paid out—that is, £35.8 million. The Metropolitan police rejected outright half of all claims that were filed, yet the Government continue to claim, and I fear may claim again tonight, that the majority of cases have been settled. The Government might have closed the files, but the cases have not been settled to the satisfaction of the people who were affected. They feel very strongly that the Government have given up on them and walked away. It is no wonder that the chair of The High Street Fund, Sir William Castell, has described the Government’s compensation schemes as a “disgrace” because of how slow they have been at paying out to people who need and deserve that additional money.
I have here some quotes from the Prime Minister during the debate in this Chamber on 11 August 2011. He said:
“I confirm that any individual, home owner or business that has suffered damage to or loss of their buildings or property as a result of rioting can seek compensation under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886, even if uninsured.”
In response to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, he said of the money that would be made available that
“the Riot (Damages) Act has no cap at all…people will be able to apply to the police and the Government will stand behind the police.”—[Official Report, 11 August 2011; Vol. 531, c. 1054-59.]
The Government’s promises were good. What the Prime Minister offered to do was exactly what they should have been doing; the tragedy is that the reality has not matched the rhetoric.
What I hope to demonstrate, and hope the Minister will respond to, is my fear, and the fear of many people who have suffered as a result of the Government’s failure to intervene, that the Government are hiding behind definitions to avoid paying up. For instance, they are refusing to replace damaged, old business equipment with new business equipment, even though in many cases businesses are unable to buy like for like, and therefore cannot replace them, get their businesses going again and get their livelihoods back.
The Government, and the Metropolitan police, have also failed to define the riots properly in some parts of London. My right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) has been in correspondence with the Home Secretary about Chalk Farm, where the riots were defined as “public disorder”, which means that the Riot (Damages) Act does not apply to businesses and individuals in that part of London who were affected.
Statistics do not give the full scale of what happened. They fail to tell us the human side of the Government’s failure. Individual stories tell us much more than statistics. I would therefore like to refer to two specific cases involving constituents of mine whose lives remain blighted by riots that happened nearly two years ago.
First, a gentleman called Mr Mumtaz Hassan and his wife ran a dry cleaning business on the London road in west Croydon. Their business was burned down by a mob and as a result their livelihood has been destroyed. Two years later, they have not been paid a single penny in compensation. All they have been offered is like for like. It was an old business that they had taken over. They cannot afford, with what is on offer to them, to pay for new dry cleaning equipment. As a result, that family risk losing their home, because they have no livelihood or income to maintain their mortgage payments. Two years later, the riots are still creating new victims and it is time that the Government stepped up and helped people as they promised in the immediate aftermath of those events.
Secondly, Miss Charlene Munro is a single mother who at the time lived in a flat above a business on the London road with her three-year-old son. When they saw rioters rushing down the London road, smashing and looting their way through the shops, they fled their home. They returned the next day to find the shop and the flat where they lived burned down and all their possessions destroyed. Absolutely everything they owned was gone. She put in a not unreasonable claim of just £6,000 for all her possessions. She received a paltry £2,500 in payment, which is absolutely inadequate to replace all the possessions, clothes and electronic goods that the family owned. She is unable to replace them. In her attempt to build a new home for her three-year-old son, she had to go into debt and is now so burdened with debt she has been forced to file for bankruptcy. The Government say that her case has been settled. It is not settled in any meaningful way other than that the Government have simply closed the file and are refusing to provide her with the support she deserves and was promised.
Some businesses are still being held liable for rent or mortgage payments on properties that have been burned down. Many insurers are going far too slowly in dealing with claims for damaged property and goods.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the manner in which he has brought this issue back to the House. Is he also concerned about premiums rising in riot areas such as his and mine, and does he agree that the absence of engagement with the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 means that areas are being abandoned and that that could lead to a Detroit-type scenario in this country, with completely barren areas without any insurance presence?
Mr Reed
I thank my right hon. Friend for his intervention. I compliment him on his work as the Member for Tottenham in standing up for riot victims not just in his constituency, but elsewhere in London. That has been of great reassurance to my constituents as well as his. I absolutely agree with him. The issue is not just that premiums have gone up in areas hit by the riots; businesses have even told me that they cannot get insurance at all.
If we hollow out whole areas of London, we will further blight the lives of people who, through no fault of their own, were victims of hooligan mobs trashing and looting their way through London. We need the Government to step up to the mark, take on the issues that confront these areas and work with insurance companies to ensure that whole areas do not get blighted because of incidents two years ago that were nothing to do with the people who were living their lives peacefully and running businesses there.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I spoke to him beforehand about wanting to make a helpful intervention. The Northern Ireland Compensation Agency has been in place for many years and has helped victims of public disorder and, indeed, terrorist attacks get redress and financial assistance quicker and more efficiently. Does the hon. Gentleman think it would be helpful for the Government to contact the agency to ask it about its processes in order to enable victims in London to get redress quicker and more efficiently and not find themselves in a morass of bureaucracy?
Mr Reed
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that helpful intervention. I hope that the Government will look at other parts of the United Kingdom that have more experience of disorder and that therefore have more agile and nimble ways of responding to it. It would be foolish not to consider such experience and I hope that the Minister will take the hon. Gentleman up on his generous offer and speak to him about experiences in Northern Ireland.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
May I compliment my hon. Friend on the way in which he has brought his communities together? I and the Home Affairs Committee visited Croydon just after the riots and I visited it again just before his election. Local people tell me that he has played an important leadership role in ensuring that their cause is brought to Parliament and is prosecuted properly.
Mr Reed
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention, which, typically, was extremely generous and kind.
In many cases, compensation under the Riot (Damages) Act cannot kick in until the insurance process has been completed. Too many insurers have taken too long to complete the process, leaving businesses unable to claim under the Government schemes. As a result of all the factors I have mentioned, the compensation is falling desperately short of the claims.
In the light of the two examples I have given of people from Croydon who have suffered, I want to give a further quotation from the Prime Minister. He was asked by the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe):
“Will the Prime Minister assure me that no business will be lost and no livelihood subsequently lost because of the actions of those thugs and hooligans, and that the £20 million support fund, if deemed not big enough, will be increased to make sure that those things do not happen?”
The Prime Minister replied:
“Of course we will keep the issue under review, and there is the Riot (Damages) Act as well as the £20 million scheme. I believe that should be enough, but my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills will be on the case.”—[Official Report, 11 August 2011; Vol. 531, c. 1083.]
Those were the warm words, but where are the help, the compensation and the action that were promised? These people are victims, not perpetrators. The riots are still creating new victims, but the Government are not doing enough to help them. I am afraid that the Government’s promises have been shown to be hollow. By failing to act, the Government are complicit in the suffering that people continue to endure in my constituency and elsewhere.
I ask the Minister to look at three things. First, please will he look again at the claims that are disputed? He may consider them to be settled, but too many people whose lives face ruin do not. Secondly, he must consider allowing old business equipment that was destroyed during the riots to be replaced by new equipment where there is no reasonable possibility of the business owner acquiring like-for-like replacements at the value of the property that was lost. Thirdly, please will he consider funding the businesses and individuals who are still being forced to pay mortgages on property that was destroyed? If the property does not exist, it is impossible for the business person to make an income to pay the mortgage. If they are forced to dip into their own finite resources, they will end up being bankrupted and will again be victimised, having already suffered loss during the riots.
Frankly, it is scandalous that people in Croydon who lost so much are still waiting for compensation nearly two years later. People in Croydon, across London and in all affected areas of the country looked to the Prime Minister and believed that the failure of the police to protect them, their homes and their livelihoods during the riots would be made good. That has not happened and it must be put right.
The Minister for Policing and Criminal Justice (Damian Green)
I thank the hon. Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed) for raising this important subject. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to his predecessor, Malcolm Wicks, who was extremely assiduous, as all those who knew him would expect, in representing the victims of the riots in his constituency before his very sad death.
I am, of course, aware that the Croydon North constituency was one of the areas most severely affected by the riots of August 2011. I, like everyone in the House, sympathise with the individuals and businesses in that area, across London and across the country that experienced losses because of the riots.
Given the tone adopted by the hon. Gentleman, it is important to make sure that we have the facts and figures on the record. I note, for example, from local media coverage in March 2013, that it was claimed that as many as 40 claims for compensation under the Riot (Damages) Act 1886 appeared to be outstanding in Croydon alone. It is simply not the case that there are 40 outstanding uninsured cases in Croydon, as only 11 uninsured cases remain unresolved nationally, nine of which are in the Metropolitan police area.
The hon. Gentleman quite reasonably brought up some figures, so I am sure it will help him and the House if I quickly run through the latest statistics on compensation payments. They show that 577 uninsured claims were originally made, of which five remain outstanding—about 1% of the original total. A further 716 uninsured claims were later received by the Metropolitan police. These were largely made after insurance companies had repudiated claims. Only six of that latter group of claims are unresolved, which is again around 1% of the original total.
The largest category of outstanding claims represent insurance companies seeking compensation from police and crime commissioners for reimbursement of settlements paid to policyholders. This does not affect individuals or businesses who have received some form of payment from their insurance company: 3,935 of these types of claim were made and 270—about 7%—are outstanding. So far, PCCs, and in London the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, have paid out just over £30 million in claims.
The hon. Gentleman brought up the Government’s initial response to the riots. Indeed, through the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Government quickly set up funds to help individuals and businesses to get back on their feet, and these schemes paid out £10.8 million.
With specific reference to compensation payments under the Riot (Damages) Act, the Government took swift action by extending the application period from 14 to 42 days, by replacing the antiquated prescribed form with a simple claims form and by setting up a Home Office bureau to act as a single point of contact to advise claimants and take in applications.
From recent correspondence with Members, I am aware of a few individuals—the hon. Gentleman mentioned them—who have had to continue making mortgage payments on properties left uninhabitable by the riots. I should say that this type of loss is not covered by the Riot (Damages) Act, and I shall come on later in my speech to the inadequacies we have identified in a what is a rather old Act. I have recently written to the Council of Mortgage Lenders, which has agreed to liaise with lenders to see whether a more sympathetic approach can be taken. I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman and other Members that my officials are working closely with them. In the end, this is a commercial decision for mortgage lenders, but as I say, we are taking action on this.
Mr Lammy
My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon North (Mr Reed), other Members and me have pressed this case for years with the Association of British Insurers. It must be unacceptable that people still find themselves in receipt of insufficient funds to get back on their feet.
Damian Green
As I say, particularly in the case of the mortgages, it is for the mortgage lenders to decide in the end, but I have explained that I am doing what I can to persuade them to take a sympathetic attitude to individuals who deserve help.
As the House will know, all those who made claims under the Riot (Damages) Act were offered sums in settlement. In case they were unhappy with their offers, the PCCs—and MOPAC in London—established a right of appeal, which a number of people have exercised. At the outset of the riots, the Government made a commitment to back the costs incurred by police forces in meeting Riot (Damages) Act costs, because that was another potential problem. We have provided that backing, and will continue to do so until the few remaining claims have been settled. So far the Government have paid some £30 million to forces to meet Riot (Damages) Act costs, as well as meeting the operational costs of policing the riots, which totalled £97 million.
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
As the Minister knows, I think well of him. Last time I inquired, however, officialdom did not know how many claims had been met in full and how many had been met partially. Do we know yet?
Damian Green
I do not have the figures to hand, but if the Department has them, I will write to the right hon. Gentleman and place a copy in the Library. I assume that he is referring to insurance claims rather than to Riot (Damages) Act claims. When it comes to insurance, there are three distinct classes. First, there are the people who are fully insured and who may over-claim, As we know, there are people who always over-claim. Secondly, there are the people who have insurance but subsequently find that they are underinsured. I consider many of those cases to be among the most complex and difficult. Thirdly, there are those with no insurance. It is the second and third groups who are eligible for compensation under the Riot (Damages) Act.
It may well be that the claims of some of those people will not be met in full. No doubt the hon. Member for Croydon North will be aware that some people in Croydon have withdrawn parts of their claims. It would obviously be inappropriate for me to comment on individual cases, so I shall not do so, but I am happy to discuss the matter with the hon. Gentleman privately.
Mr Reed
I agree with the Minister that it is wrong to refer to individual cases, but let me draw his attention to the overall statistics. The total amount claimed was £250.1 million, and nearly two years later only £35.8 million has been paid. Is the Minister not concerned about the fact that that is a far lower proportion than would normally apply to claims for damages, even if allowance is made for normal loss adjustment?
Damian Green
It would concern me more if part, or all, of the claims of a large number of people had still not been met. The figures that I have given, however, show that the number of such claims is very small. Ideally, of course, we would have resolved all the claims by now, but I think that that is the key statistic. One of our main aims is to secure a complete resolution of the remaining few cases, but when there is a large batch of claims, some of those claims will always be more complex than others, and will take longer to resolve.
As I have said, many of the outstanding cases relate to claimants who were underinsured. It took time for the insurance element of those claims to be settled before the underinsurance element was submitted to PCCs or to MOPAC for consideration under the Riot (Damages) Act¸ which is why 5% of the insurance claims from small and medium-sized businesses remain outstanding after the 2011 riots.
Let me now focus specifically on what I take to be the hon. Gentleman’s central point, which is that some people have received smaller amounts of compensation. It is important to bear in mind the fact that such compensation is ultimately paid for by the taxpayer, and that claims therefore need to be properly substantiated. All uninsured claims were reviewed by loss adjusters using standards applied in the insurance industry. All victims were dealt with sympathetically. Where documents such as receipts for goods purchased were destroyed, secondary evidence was requested, such as bank statements, to substantiate lifestyle.
In addition to losses that cannot be substantiated, there are other reasons for individuals and businesses receiving less compensation than they sought. A number of claimants sought compensation for things not covered by the Act, such as personal injury, vehicle damage and business interruption. Excluding the costs associated with the reinstatement of buildings, adjustments were made downwards because claims made under the Act were assessed on an indemnity, rather than a new-for-old, basis. I take on board the point that that causes much of the disappointment, but that is the way the law is framed. In some ways this issue directly links to the purpose of the Act.
Mr Reed
It is more than a matter of disappointment for people who are unable to re-establish their livelihood and are therefore facing the loss of the family home because they can no longer meet the mortgage payments. The Government stood up after the riots and said nobody would lose their business or their home, so they did not intend for this to happen. Surely the Minister should act.
Damian Green
I was about to come on to that point. The Act is a safety net, which exists to provide some level of compensation. It should not be seen as a direct replacement for an insurance policy. The aim now is to encourage as many people as possible to obtain insurance, and we will need to look at any difficulties in that regard.
Turning specifically to Croydon, I am aware of the claims relating to the terrace on London road. The situation there is complex because of the number of people who were underinsured and because of the sums of the losses involved. Before rebuilding work can commence, it is important that most, or all, of these claims are resolved.
In recent months, the Home Office, Croydon council, the Metropolitan police, MOPAC, the insurers and the loss adjusters have been working together to finalise settlements on these claims. At the local level, Croydon council has been working with the landowners on London road to try to bring forward a suitable and appropriate development. They have already engaged with an architect to assist in this process. Meetings have also taken place between officials and MOPAC and the insurers, and the offer of a further meeting chaired by the deputy mayor for policing and crime has been proposed if it is thought that that will help speed things up. MOPAC and Croydon council, as well as the Home Office, are therefore doing their best to speed things up.
Frank Dobson
Surely the principle should be that if anyone lost their property or business as a result of this criminal activity, which we all deplore, the Government should say that the minutiae of the law should not be used as a way of weaselling out of compensating people, so no one loses out.
Damian Green
That is part of the principle of the Act, but it is not the whole point of it. The right hon. Gentleman has been a Minister and he knows that Ministers have to obey the law like everybody else.
I take the point about money, and MOPAC has been making some interim payments. I understand that about £10 million has been paid out, including some to residents of London road.
Underlying all this is the unsatisfactory nature of what is 19th century legislation. As I set out in a written ministerial statement last month, we have appointed Neil Kinghan to conduct an independent review of the Act. That has already begun and is expected to be completed by the end of September.
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Westminster Hall
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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111 Telephone Service
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
May I welcome you to the Chair, Mr Robertson, and say what a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship? I also welcome the Minister and her shadow, the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed), to their places, as well as other colleagues. I am delighted to have secured this debate on the operation of the 111 telephone service and its effects on emergency services. The service is still in its early days of operation. It has yet to be introduced in my own area of North Yorkshire, although the roll-out is expected to commence in early July.
My starting point is that I believe that the 111 telephone service could be a useful tool for out-of-hours services and patient treatment, but that some alarm bells have already been set ringing in areas where it has been rolled out. It is not my intention to go through all aspects of the general practitioner contract and out-of-hours services; I want to look at the narrower point of the potential impact where the 111 telephone service is not working.
In my view, the service might offload problems on to accident and emergency and, indeed, the ambulance service. A lot depends on the content of the script that is used and who sets the script, because the time taken should be as short as possible to allow the swiftest access to nurses and medical advice for those in palliative care, terminal care and other regular patient care, such as catheter patients. The length of time before a patient, or someone acting on their behalf, is passed to a medically qualified adviser—a nurse or doctor—is absolutely crucial.
I want to refer to my family history to illustrate the very real problems being experienced. It relates to one of the pilot areas, County Durham, where my father was a GP, but had long been retired. The carers looking after him in his home, or occasionally me, had had consistent recourse to the 111 service. The last occasion when we used the service in relation to my father was on Sunday 4 November last year. I had reason to call the number, and I explained that my father showed worrying signs of a urinary tract infection. Being a doctor’s daughter, I was well qualified to talk about such infections, which my father had had, on and off, for some two or three years.
When I called 111, I got the ritual reply of sticking very closely to a script, which I found completely inappropriate at times. I explained my father’s condition, but the responder insisted on sticking religiously to the script—asking whether the patient was breathing, whether they were bleeding—and I kept saying that I was not reporting an accident but a regular condition, the symptoms of which were extremely plain, and asking whether I could, please, just be passed to a nurse or doctor. I said that we probably needed a doctor to attend to confirm that there was an infection and to administer the relevant antibiotics.
I have to say that in the end I hung up in sheer frustration, 10 or 15 minutes into the call, because I could tell that I was not getting anywhere quickly. I had previous experience of using the 111 service, and I like to think that I am not prone to flap unnecessarily, but I found that the system failed. I then called 999, and an ambulance was dispatched immediately and attended to my father within half an hour. The paramedics confirmed my suspicion that the condition was an infection, and said that the patient was too ill and frail to travel some 25 miles on country roads in an ambulance, so that was not an option. They used their direct line to call a doctor, but even then, it took three hours for one to attend. In that case, from first calling 111 to the doctor’s arrival, about three and a half to four hours had passed.
My father subsequently died on the Thursday of that week, 8 November, and I believe that the infection had obviously taken such a grip that his death would have been very difficult to prevent. He had lived to a very grand age, and we were just grateful for the treatment he did receive. However, that example shows the pressure points that need to be addressed and which, I regret to say, have not been addressed, even though I have raised the issue, in relation to my family experience, on two or three occasions.
For the 111 service to work effectively a degree of flexibility has to be built into the system and the script. It would be helpful if the Minister told us who is responsible for setting the script. I would argue that doctors, working with community or district nurses—those medically qualified—must work out the script, so that it diverts regular patients who can be taken off it at the earliest possible stage.
What is particularly poignant for me and my family is that my father had been a local GP in that area for some 30 years. He retired as a senior partner, ironically through ill health. He attended patients in all weathers and at all hours. My father was from a generation of GPs who worked all hours: he worked every other night on call and every other weekend on duty, and he always put his patients first. It is obviously a source of some regret that he did not have similar access to a GP in his own hour of need.
The 111 service was piloted in several areas, and I am drawing on my experience of the one in County Durham before the service was rolled out nationally. I want to make some suggestions and pose some questions. It would clearly make sense for regular patients—such as those in palliative care, terminal care and catheter care—to be diverted to nursing or other medically qualified staff as early as possible in the process. In North Yorkshire, the intention is that that will happen when the service is rolled out, but I want confirmation that, now the problem has been identified, it is being addressed in all areas, including pilot areas and ones opting for early roll-out. That would save more time for those who were in urgent need of care, short of the 999 service.
We must all be aware that if a patient or someone on behalf of a loved one phones, they tend to be quite distressed and distraught, and they do not want an automatic responder to stick blindly to some script that does not fit their or their loved one’s condition. If calls are not responded to quickly, those calling will simply divert to other emergency services, such as the ambulance service and accident and emergency—I am the first to admit that that is what I did in those circumstances—because people are just desperate to get medical care.
The key to the success of the 111 service is the speed and efficiency with which one’s calls are responded to and with which access is given to medical advice from doctors or nurses, so I want to take this opportunity to ask some questions. What is the average ratio of call responders—those reading out the script—to GPs and nurses on duty? It would be helpful to know that average ratio in each area where the 111 service is in use. What is the average response time to the initial call? What is the worst response time and what is the best? What is the average time before a caller is transferred to a medically qualified person? Is it normal to expect a delay of up to two hours before a medically qualified person or even the initial responder returns the call? Is it normal to face a delay of three and a half to four hours, which is what we experienced, before a doctor is dispatched, even if it truly is an emergency?
What has been the knock-on effect on the ambulance and the accident and emergency services in those areas where 111 is operating? Is my reaction typical of those who feel they are being let down by 111? If someone dials 111 in North Yorkshire, they get through to the out-of-hours service, so it would be helpful to know how, in areas where 111 is being introduced, the roll-out will be operated smoothly.
In areas where 111 has not been seen to work effectively, what have been the implications for the local hospital, ambulance service and GP practices?
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
We are often at our best when we are sharing personal experiences, and I pay tribute to the hon. Lady’s father for his many years of service. The questions she is asking seem to be the right ones. I know from the clinical commissioning group in my area that GPs themselves have expressed frustration at the operation of this service. Does she therefore agree that, from each locality, we need to get their input and listen to their answers to those questions?
Miss McIntosh
I entirely agree, and I welcome the hon. Lady’s intervention. One reason why the 111 service has not yet been rolled out in North Yorkshire is that GPs have expressed their concerns, which leads me to my next question, on the involvement of GPs in areas where the service is being rolled out. How are the legitimate concerns of GPs, such as those in her area and in mine, being addressed and met?
Concerns have been raised in North Yorkshire about the governance framework. How are those are being addressed? A key issue in my area is funding, and I would like to know how 111 is being funded and from whose budget the funding has come. The service is replacing NHS Direct, which caused similar concerns when it was rolled out, so this is not unknown territory for us as parliamentarians or for the Department. It is a little depressing that we are seeing the same problems being played out now, because they were clearly not addressed when NHS Direct was rolled out.
Let me express a very personal view—it is not a view I have picked up locally. As a GP’s daughter, a GP’s sister and the niece of a late surgeon, I believe that people just want to see their GP. They want to walk in to the surgery or phone up and speak to their own GP. Sometimes 111 can be seen as a barrier, as NHS Direct was, to seeing one’s own GP.
We have an historic debt of £12 million built up by North Yorkshire’s primary care trust. There is real concern locally that that debt will affect the funding of GP practices, and especially of the new 111 service. The funding issues are absolutely the key to 111 going forward.
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the questions is at what level the 111 service should be sorted out? Is it something, for example, for Hampshire and Isle of Wight or for the south-east, or should it be sorted out nationally? There has been very little concern over this matter on my island, but that is perhaps because it is dealt with more locally.
Miss McIntosh
I believe a local solution should be found. A question I will come to is whether there is a difference in the roll-out of the service in rural and urban areas—in my hon. Friend’s case, an island. Local solutions must be found. To me, the best solution will always be for someone to see their own GP on the day they are ill.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister will put our minds at rest and say that the story in the newspapers about rationing our visits to GPs is a myth. We cannot dictate how often we will be ill. If an elderly person has a chronic condition, they cannot limit the number of times they might have to call on a medical service in one year.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Miss McIntosh
If I may, I will give way first to the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley).
Barbara Keeley
I thank the hon. Lady; she is being very generous with her time. Dr Clare Gerada of the Royal College of General Practitioners told the Health Committee yesterday that many GPs’ books are now full at 8.30 in the morning, and that if they have open slots there are often queues down the street, which she said she had not seen for years. I agree with the hon. Lady that we need more GPs, because that is what most patients want.
Miss McIntosh
I know what I am going to say is controversial but perhaps I, as a woman, can say it. Some 70% of medical students are women and they are well educated and well qualified, but when they go into practice, many marry and have children—it is the normal course of events—and they then often want to work part time. Training what effectively might be two GPs working part time obviously puts a tremendous burden on the health service. I will now give way to my hon. Friend the Minister.
Anna Soubry
On the point my hon. Friend made about any rationing of or charging for GP appointments, let me assure her that that was an idea floated on a website and is not Government policy. It is reasonable for people who have an interest in such issues to be able to debate whatever they wish to debate, but it is certainly not Government policy, and I know of no good reason why it ever should be. She makes a very important point when talks about, rightly, the good number of women who are training to be doctors, but the unintended consequences.
Miss McIntosh
The problem is similar in other professions, such as my original profession of law. The Chamber will welcome the Minister’s confirmation that it is not Government policy to ration or to charge for GP appointments, as we have heard under successive Governments. We are very reassured to hear that it is not their policy to ration GP visits.
How is the interface with GP out-of-hours providers being addressed? In the rural area of North Yorkshire, three and a half clinical commissioning groups cover one constituency, which poses some real practical problems. Where there are multiple GP out-of-hours providers, what regard has the Department had to the potential difficulties of rolling out the 111 service? Furthermore, are there any issues relating to delivery in rural as opposed to urban areas? I am talking in particular about the distances that GPs or nurses might have to travel to respond to calls under the 111 system.
Most worryingly, there seems to be a political vacuum here. Will my hon. Friend the Minister reassure us that there will be political accountability? Where does the political responsibility and accountability lie for any potential failings or successes of the 111 service? Does the Department plan to review the system further? I ask that because my own experience in the pilot area of County Durham has not convinced me that the review has borne any fruit. Does the Department plan to review the system after three or six months?
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing what is a very important debate and thank her for sharing with us her genuine and very sad experiences. Does she agree that, while everybody would accept that 111 is the way ahead in reducing the burden on A and E, it is all about integration—be it urban areas or deeply rural areas such as those that she and I represent—and that there will be future improvements in GP, 111, A and E, and other services?
Miss McIntosh
The 111 service is a tool and should never be a substitute for the ability visit a GP. I accept that we cannot expect GPs and their families to put up with the antisocial hours of GPs of my father’s generation, who were leaving the profession in droves. I see 111 as a useful tool—an appendage, not a substitute. There are issues that must be addressed in that regard.
Will the system be reviewed, and if so will it be within three or six months? I repeat: is 111 really geared up to deal with sparsely populated rural areas such as those that a number of us here today represent? North Yorkshire has a sparsely populated rural area—one of the largest in the country—and a high number of older patients with complex medical needs, which the GPs are very cognisant of.
I welcome the Health Committee’s inquiry into 111 and NHS emergency care. We will all doubtless follow the proceedings, and look forward to its conclusions and recommendations with some interest.
This debate has been a wonderful opportunity to get a number of issues off my chest; to pay tribute, I hope, to my father; and to note my disappointment at how he and others were treated in the pilot scheme. I hope the issues I have raised can be addressed. The 111 service may be a useful tool—an appendage—but we need to look closely at what more needs to be done, and I invite the Government to do so. I am fearful of delegating the operation of all emergency services outwith political control, and I return to the point about where the political accountability for 111 lies. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s considered response to the debate.
John Robertson (in the Chair)
I thank the hon. Lady for her speech and I offer her my condolences on the loss of her father, which I am sure applies to every colleague here.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing this debate and on the way that she has opened it, which has been really helpful.
The British Medical Association has consistently expressed serious concerns about the transition from NHS Direct to NHS 111. I understand that the BMA wrote to the then Health Secretary—the Leader of the House of Commons, the right hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley)—in February and April 2012, to warn
“of the dangers of rushing implementation of NHS 111.”
It also wrote to Earl Howe, the Health Minister, and to the chief executive of NHS England, David Nicholson, urging them
“to delay the launch of NHS 111 beyond April 2013, due to concerns that many areas were not ready for the transition.”
Those concerns were borne out when the service was launched in Greater Manchester on 21 March, prior to the national launch one week later. I have collected information on the launch in Greater Manchester from the chief executive of Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust. He told me:
“Significant operational problems were experienced when 111 first launched at the end of March and these problems persisted for the first two weeks of operation. 111 did not equip their call centre with the required levels of trained staff and were therefore unable to deal with the volume of calls received; some patients were left waiting up to an hour to get through on the phone lines and as a result patients just turned up at A&E/GP Out Of Hours Service causing significant capacity and demand issues.”
That is just the point that the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton made about what people would do if they could not get through to 111.
Senior staff of the Salford clinical commissioning group told me that NHS Direct had given assurances that it had the capacity to handle calls, but after the failures that we experienced in Greater Manchester, NHS Direct admitted that it had insufficient call handlers in place. Apparently, when these problems occurred, 111 asked all GP out-of-hours providers to return to their pre-launch call-handling service. However, that was not an option for us in Salford, as our previous call handlers had transferred all their staff over to 111 under TUPE arrangements. So the problems with NHS 111 continued. Salford CCG staff also told me that the out-of-hours service in Salford came under pressure owing to this NHS 111 failure, and that pressure had to be met with increased staff capacity.
Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust has commented that further improvement to the service is still required. It feels that
“the care pathways still need further modification to reflect local services”
and that
“there are currently gaps in alternative routes of care”,
which the 111 service is showing up. If there are issues with social care, the community team, the district nurse or self-care, that becomes apparent. The trust also said—this is important for our debate this morning—that
“there are also concerns that what we have done with this service is to replace clinician triage in Out of Hours service with computer or non-clinician advice.”
To give an example of the problems that this change has caused in Salford, I will quote the trust again:
“This has led to patients being brought to the emergency department when they are actually on end-of-life pathways”
and should have “community input”. That is just the problem that the hon. Lady talked about—that situation has happened in Salford. It is distressing to think of people who are in their last few days of life being dragged into hospital, when they should really receive care in their own community and in their own home, which is the care that they probably desire.
Salford CCG has reported that feedback forms on NHS 111 have been received from clinicians and that two “significant events” were recorded, which are under formal investigation. The feedback tends to relate to delays in treatment. The CCG also says that its
“immediate priority has been to stabilise the service after a disappointing start. Some positive improvement has occurred but long term there are serious doubts, with NHS Direct identifying the need for extra investment about the contract level to make the service effective.”
I was also told by staff at Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust that they felt that expectations were set too high about the outcomes that 111 would deliver. They commented that NHS 111 was operating at a level and in a role that an “experienced grandmother” might historically have achieved. That is an important point; my local NHS trust thinks that is what it is getting from the service. That advice—that of an “experienced grandmother”—could be seen as helpful, but staff told me that their preference was for
“an alternative service which had at its core clinically trained primary care staff available over an extended working day, 7 days per week.”
They also believe
“that this service would be better if it was included within a single integrated urgent care service, incorporating responsibility for GP out-of-hours triage.”
Guy Opperman
I am listening to the hon. Lady’s contribution, and given her background, it is clear that she is a specialist in this area. Like her, I met staff from my local CCG and local ambulance service last week to discuss the development of this system. I note that she talks about integration. Does she agree that the integration of those various parts of the NHS system is the absolutely crucial thing going forward?
Barbara Keeley
Indeed. We talk a lot about integration, but the feedback that I have received from both my local CCG and my local NHS trust is that we have just taken a backward step. We had a nurse-led service that was working fairly well, although it was not as integrated with other services as it should have been. We now have a system that is led by computer scripts and non-clinicians, in which the patients calling the service—if they get through to it—do not have confidence, and as a result, they are falling back on visiting their GPs or going straight to A and E. My point was that that single, integrated urgent care service—the single service that the hon. Gentleman just talked about—should include responsibility for GP out-of-hours triage, and at the moment it does not. The system could have been set up that way, but it was not. Does the Minister believe that the alternative that I have just put forward is the right direction for an improved NHS 111?
Beyond our experience in Greater Manchester, there have been many criticisms of the NHS 111 service and the shambolic transition to it from NHS Direct. Dr John Hughes, a GP from Manchester, said the service had been withdrawn in his area hours before the launch, owing to problems. He told the BBC that it was “an omnishambles” and
“a waste of public money.”
Dr Hughes has called for a full public inquiry into the procurement of that service, because he feels that it was
“forced forward to meet a political objective.”
Janet Davies of the Royal College of Nursing has argued that nurses from NHS Direct have been running NHS 111. She told the BBC for a report:
“Staff from NHS Direct, the service being abandoned, are supplementing the work of 111—staff that were being made redundant and still are at the end of this month… Specialist nurses that can talk to patients have not left and they are propping up that service.”
She felt that, unlike the nationally run NHS Direct, NHS 111 was a
“fragmented service with local contracts”,
which in her view was “very, very chaotic”. She also said that NHS 111 was an attempt to cut the cost per call, by using non-clinical staff to handle the majority of call time, and that it was
“not using qualified nurses, people with the skills to talk to people and make a sensible decision”.
She felt that the Government had thought about costs but not value. As we have seen, NHS 111 is offering poor value if patients turn away from that service, because it is far more expensive to go to A and E or a GP than to have a conversation with a trained nurse.
In Salford, patients were left waiting on phone lines for up to an hour and then turned to the more expensive options of a GP visit or A and E. Our out-of-hours service came under pressure and extra staff capacity had to be brought in. The opinion of staff at Salford Royal NHS Trust is that NHS 111 operates at a level and in a role that an “experienced grandmother” might achieve. Surely, we can and should do better.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I had not expected to be called quite so early. First, I should like to put on the record that health in Northern Ireland is a devolved matter—I understand that—but I am observing the 111 system from my position as a parliamentarian. I congratulate the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing this debate. She has encapsulated many people’s concerns. I appreciate the Minister’s efforts on health issues. I am sure that she will, in her response, deal with some people’s issues.
I support the idea behind this phone call triage, as it is called, and its being free to contact, bearing in mind that many GP surgeries have an 0844 number, which costs a great deal from mobiles—we have discussed that in Westminster Hall previously on many occasions, and will continue to do so—but there are clearly major issues with it. Although I accept that sometimes the girls in my office have to stay on the phone for an hour or more to fix some computer glitch with the printer or scanner, we are talking about lives in respect of this service. There have been too many difficulties to ignore.
We have background information on many areas, including those the hon. Lady touched on. Yorkshire and Humber provide examples of the figures and information, which state that there were three deaths and 19 potentially serious incidents coming through the system, clearly underlining the problems.
Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that NHS 111 should immediately answer the phone to all those who contact it—that is obvious—offer direct, accurate communication and provide people with reassurance that they are getting an accurate diagnosis? Those things will be the judgmental touchstones upon which people will base the success, or otherwise, of 111.
Jim Shannon
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, which clearly outlines exactly what the 111 system should be trying to achieve. Sometimes, when hon. Members ask if I will take an intervention, they are looking over my shoulder to see what I am going to say next. My hon. Friend made exactly the point that I was going to make.
There have been lots of complaints about calls going unanswered and poor advice being given, which reiterates the point made by my hon. Friend. That follows concerns prior to the national roll-out, after pilot schemes showed disastrous results, with tales of patients waiting hours for advice and others being asked to call back later. That situation is quite unsatisfactory and must be addressed. NHS England stated:
“The safety of patients must be our paramount concern”.
So it should be, and if it is not, we want to ask why. It also said:
“NHS England will keep a careful eye on the situation to ensure NHS 111 provides not only a good service to the public, but one which is also safe.”
Examples mentioned by all hon. Members—we have them in front of us—provide information that contradicts that. In Greater Manchester, the 111 service was started and then abandoned. Dr Mary Gibbs, a GP providing out-of-hours cover when the system crashed there, said:
“Calls just weren’t coming through.”
Quite clearly, that is the issue. She stated:
“It was totally inadequate. Patients’ health was put at risk.”
The 111 service tends to be busiest when local surgeries are closed. Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the British Medical Association GPs committee, stated:
“We are still receiving reports that patients are facing unacceptably long waits to get through to an NHS 111 operator and suffering from further delays when waiting for calls back with medical advice should they manage to have their call answered… The quality of some of the information being given out appears, from anecdotal sources, to be questionable in some instances.”
The advice that people are being given does not always seem to have been up to scratch and is not of the quality that it should be. He added:
“If any area of the country is failing to meet high standards of care, then its NHS 111 service needs to be suspended.”
This is what the experts in the field are saying. NHS England needs to be more transparent about how the system is functioning across the country.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I met one of my local ambulance service chief executives just last Friday, who told me that, in his experience, the implementation of NHS 111 was going well and was helping to reduce demand on the ambulance service locally—and they were quite happy with the service. Although there have been problems, which the hon. Gentleman is right to highlight, plenty of people have been treated well and professionally by this service, and some health service professionals think that the service is working okay.
Jim Shannon
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I have stated that the focus of the new system was on trying to make it better. Every hon. Member accepts that. The idea behind it is great, if it works. We elected representatives will always get the complaints. Not often do we get the wee card saying, “Thank you very much for what you’ve done for us,” but we always get the ones saying, “It’s not working well.” The hon. Gentleman is right. I accept that there will be many examples throughout the United Kingdom where the system has, perhaps, worked, but equally there are a lot of examples of where it has not worked. That is the point that I am trying to make.
We highlight such issues for a purpose, not to be dogmatic, angry or always to be negative in our comments, but to try to look towards improvement. I always try to think that my comments will be constructive criticism, which can be taken on board to make things better. My idea as an elected representative over the years, as a councillor and a Member of the Legislative Assembly in a previous life, has always been to try make comments in that way.
I am conscious of my position as a Northern Ireland Member of Parliament, because health is a devolved matter and I am ever mindful of the cuts in funding faced by all Departments in an effort to reduce the deficit—every pound spent must be well spent—but, from my perspective, I urge that the Northern Ireland Direct system continue until the kinks are ironed out here. On health, we will follow, as we often do, what happens here on the UK mainland, so, from a Northern Ireland perspective, I want to make sure that the system’s fall downs and problems are ironed out and sorted out before we take on the system—if we take it on.
I have been looking at the system with great interest, because one of my jobs here as MP for Strangford and my party’s health spokesman is to consider the systems across on the mainland. Many of my queries to Ministers here in questions on health and to my Health Minister back in Northern Ireland come from what colleagues say to me and from what these debates bring out. I am interested in seeing how this system works or will work, or does not work. If it does not work, I will convey that to my Minister in Northern Ireland, to ensure that when making a decision there we will look at how it can happen. I will certainly not be urging our Health Minister in Northern Ireland to use his precious funding to implement this scheme as it stands.
Mr Jamie Reed (Copeland) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to be called to speak under your chairmanship for what I think is the first time, Mr Robertson. I extend my most sincere thanks to the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) for securing this important debate. We have worked closely on a number of issues during my time in Parliament, and she is rightly respected across the House as an independently minded Member. I must express my most sincere sympathies to her, but also my profound thanks for the real courage she has shown in sharing her family’s experiences with us.
It is a mark of the severity of the crisis our A and Es are experiencing that Members of all shades of political persuasion have spoken at some length about their constituents’ experiences. It is no exaggeration to state that members of the public are very concerned about the situation regarding NHS 111. A and E is arguably the most visible part of our NHS, and what happens there is felt throughout the system. From the patient waiting at home for an ambulance to the person waiting on a trolley for a bed, what happens in A and E touches every patient in the NHS.
The crisis in A and E has happened on this Government’s watch. When Labour left office, A and E was performing well, with 98% of patients seen within four hours. However, the number of patients waiting for more than four hours has now doubled, and ambulance queues have doubled too. Let us not forget that the target for the number of patients seen within four hours in A and E has been reduced under this Government, from 98% to 95%. Today’s debate is therefore extremely important, and the Government must finally offer some real solutions to address the crisis they have caused.
Andrew Percy
I find it incredible that the shadow Minister states that the issue was caused by this Government. A lot of my constituents are having to ring 999 because 50,000 beds were taken out of our hospitals nationally on his party’s watch; wards were closed in my local hospital on his party’s watch. Elderly, vulnerable patients who do not have local hospital beds to go to are now forced to ring 999 to get access to emergency services, so it is pretty shameless of the hon. Gentleman to attempt to politicise the issue.
Mr Reed
I have to say I am staggered by the hon. Gentleman’s manufactured indignation. I do not know how long he has been a Member of the House, but he will recall that, between 1997 and 2010, the Labour party took the NHS budget from about £30 billion to £110 billion. However, on every occasion the budget was put before the House of Commons, the Conservative party voted against an increase. He should think again about his manufactured indignation.
Mr Reed
I am going to make some progress, because I want to get on to the substantive issues in play.
When Labour first suggested a new NHS 111 service, we were clear—the hon. Gentleman should listen—that it would not replace NHS Direct. Our manifesto in 2010 said:
“A new national 111 telephone number will make nonemergency services far easier for people to access and book.”
The 111 service was planned to help people find an emergency dentist, a late-night pharmacy or an out-of-hours primary care GP. This Government scrapped that and instead pressed ahead with the botched implementation of a system that just could not cope with what it was expected to do. They were warned, but, as usual, they did not listen.
There is no doubt that the 111 service is not fit for purpose. The statistics show it, the examples given by Members today show it and, most importantly, patient testimonies show it. Indeed, the Minister herself acknowledged it in response to the right hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Nicholas Soames) in late May, when she stated:
“We recognise that the service has not been good enough and we are working closely with NHS England to ensure improvement in performance. NHS England have put a number of measures in place already.”—[Official Report, 21 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 740W.]
I hope the Minister will outline what those measures are and what their effects have been, because the contributions we have heard today suggest they are having a negligible effect.
The implementation of the system has undoubtedly caused serious problems; indeed, in my area, NHS Direct is having to be maintained alongside the 111 service to cope with demand. The Minister must explain in detail how a botched, fragmented implementation was allowed to happen despite there being a significant pilot scheme.
Barbara Keeley
On the issue of propping up NHS 111, I wonder whether this is the point at which to give credit to the NHS Direct nurses whom Janet Davies of the Royal College of Nursing cited. Even though some of them are being made redundant, they were prepared to prop up the service during its few weeks in places such as Greater Manchester. We really should give those nurses credit. What a dreadful experience, just before they were made redundant, to have to prop up the service that was replacing them.
Mr Reed
I could not agree more. We must give credit to all the people in the NHS coping and labouring under a creaking system right now. The case of the NHS Direct nurses my hon. Friend draws our attention to, who are about to be made redundant but are propping up the system, speaks volumes about their commitment to the ethos underpinning the NHS. I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution.
The 111 service data for March published by NHS England show that only 122 patients responded to the NHS 111 patient experience survey. When the Minister responds in a few minutes, I hope she will not try to justify the implementation of a system that needs to serve millions of people on the basis of the experiences of just 122 patients.
The main purpose of the debate is to look at the implementation of NHS 111 and its impact on A and E attendances. There is no better place to look than the Isle of Wight—the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) was present earlier. The 111 service there went live on 25 October 2011. The area has had a long time to address teething problems and to ensure that the service operates properly. What has A and E performance looked like over the past few months? Since the end of September, almost 2,000 patients have waited more than four hours, and the trust has missed its target for 23 out of 35 weeks. That is hardly a ringing endorsement of the system, even when it has had a chance to bed in.
Consultants on the Isle of Wight have even said that although patient numbers would be falling and the pressure would be easing if NHS 111 was working as intended, that is not happening—patient numbers are rising, and the pressure on the NHS is increasing. Indeed, Chris Smith, the director of NHS 111 on the Isle of Wight told the BBC that the service is fragmented and that that has led to problems. In response to the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), the Minister said that every NHS 111 provider is able to handle inquiries from any part of the UK, but I would challenge her to repeat that assertion today, given Mr Smith’s comments. If a system is fragmented, and CCGs are commissioning different providers, it will be almost impossible for those trained to handle calls to work within different systems. For example, the process for referring people through the system in an area with which they are unfamiliar will be totally alien to them, which is bound to cause further problems.
That brings me to my final point about the system. Following Labour’s A and E summit in Westminster last week, it was revealed to us that 111 call handlers do not necessarily have clinical backgrounds, as my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley) said. Even more shockingly, it was revealed that some areas have an enforced threshold on how many calls nurses can answer, and that that was as low as one in five. The fragmentation of the system means that the figure varies from area to area, because it would have been negotiated in local contracts. Therefore, the service provided is not universal. That is in stark contrast to NHS Direct, under which 60% of calls were directed to nurses. Under 111, however, the figure stands at less than 20%. Does the Minister believe that the low level of engagement between trained medical practitioners and patients in the service is contributing to A and E pressures?
The chaotic reorganisation of the NHS is clearly producing a deteriorating experience for patients. In the last week of March, one patient in the south-east waited for 11 hours and 29 minutes for a call back. In the area covered by NHS Gloucestershire and NHS Swindon, 43% of calls lasting longer than 30 seconds were abandoned by the patient before they were answered. Will the Minister outline the lessons that have been learned from that experience and explain what measures will be put in place to ensure it is not repeated on a national scale?
In four weeks, the 111 service will be live across the country, and the Government need to be more honest about how the service is performing before wider implementation. Royal colleges, patient groups and other stakeholders have long warned the Government that the health and social care reforms brought about by the Health and Social Care Act 2012 would be distracting and cause chaos, and that such top-down reforms would stop the clinically driven reforms needed to help address the crisis in A and E.
That there is now a crisis engulfing accident and emergency services is beyond doubt. It was caused by the Government. We have heard today of a political vacuum and we have heard legitimate fears about the lack of accountability. Patients deserve better; we all do. If the hon. Member for Thirsk and Malton will allow me to say so, her family and her father deserve better. I hope that the Minister will take the time to address all the issues, and to outline the Government’s plan to deal with the current A and E crisis that they have caused.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Anna Soubry)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, for what I believe is the first time.
My hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) made an admirable speech, raising many points and asking many questions—some of which, I will say bluntly, I will not be able to answer in my speech. I assure her that she will receive an answer to those by way of a letter. Before I discuss her speech, I want to deal with the points raised by the hon. Member for Copeland (Mr Reed). It does neither him nor his party any credit to use the serious problem in A and E as a political device to attack the coalition Government. It is not as simple as that. To suggest that the problem has been caused by the Government is plain, simple rubbish. It is accepted that there are many complex reasons for the situation, although I am reliably informed that the number of people being seen within the four-hour target is improving and that many accident and emergency departments are achieving the target, and have been doing so for some weeks. Some, indeed, are exceeding it.
There is much evidence emerging that a firm grip is being taken on the situation, but things are complex. There is no magic bullet. It does not matter which party is in power, the Government would face the problem that we have, because there are many causes. One of them, which people on all sides of the argument have identified, is the fact that we do not have the out-of-hours service we want.
Barbara Keeley
The Minister says that the issue is complex and accuses the shadow Health Minister of making political points. It is about time that Health Ministers stopped making excuses. They have been in office three years and it is time they started to take responsibility for what they are doing.
I have gathered evidence, and the causes of what has happened clearly include insufficient call handlers, which is not complex—it is just a shortage of staff. Another factor is the replacement of trained nurses and trained clinician input for phone triage with computer-led or non-clinician advice. Those things are not complex. They are just wrong.
Anna Soubry
I am not for a moment saying that there are not difficulties and problems in 111. We know there are, but if only the issue were as simple as solving the 111 problems. The out-of-hours service is just one of many factors. [Interruption.] I want to make some progress on this point: 111 is one factor among the failings in relation to the sort of out-of-hours service that people want. We have also had the difficulty of a long, cold winter, which has added pressures—that is something that often happens. Also, there are 1 million more people attending A and E. That is not the fault of the Government. We have not suddenly caused it. It is because of changes—
Anna Soubry
I will take interventions, but I want to make these points first.
The population is also living considerably longer. That is good and welcome, but there are many frail elderly people with complex illnesses and diseases, so they attend A and E in a way they did not previously. In addition, we suffered under the previous Government from a lack of integration between health and social care. That was one of the things that the Health and Social Care Act 2012 addressed, and will solve. It is about better integration. The hon. Member for Copeland sneers at that.
Anna Soubry
He laughs at it, Hansard will record. It is not a laughing matter at all. What I was describing is one of the achievements of the Act. I am confident it will deliver.
Andrew Percy
The Minister is making sensible points. As to manufactured indignation, if that is what it is, mine comes from the fact that I spend 30 to 40 hours a week volunteering in the NHS as a first responder, and I spent 30 hours doing so last weekend.
A big issue that creates pressure in the NHS is the lack of integration between social care and health services, and a lack of proper intermediate care facilities. We do not have the step-up, step-down facilities that we need to deal with the ageing population. That is one of the biggest problems in my area and a reason for increased pressure.
Anna Soubry
I, too, know that it does no one any favours to make out that someone forcefully and passionately giving a view based on their experience is manufacturing it. I know that that is not true of my hon. Friend, and I thank him for his valuable contribution. He is right.
Mr Jamie Reed
I think casual outside observers will struggle with the concept that politicians from different political parties should seek to have different political opinions about the services and Department for which the Minister is responsible. She makes an almost Kafkaesque defence of the Government’s NHS record, but will she accept that the awful implementation of the 111 scheme, the collapse of adult social care, the closure of walk-in centres and the huge pressures on the NHS elsewhere in the system have resulted in the crisis in A and E?
Anna Soubry
I will not accept any of what the hon. Gentleman says, because he does his cause no service when he makes cheap political points. The matter is hugely complex, but it is wrong to say that the Government caused the problems in A and E. He is wrong in that. It is difficult and complex.
Anna Soubry
No, I will not. The responsibility, if we are honest—would not it be refreshing if we could for once have an honest debate about the national health service?—probably goes back 10 or 20 years, a period encompassing Governments of different political colours. I am happy to say that—by which I do not mean I am happy that those Governments have failed, but people may think the honesty is refreshing.
I want to deal now with the excellent speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton. I pay tribute to her and her work in this place, but also to the considerable efforts and work of her late father. I am sure that if he could have heard his daughter’s speech he would have been very proud. I remember my own father saying that out of all evil comes some good, and perhaps some good may come from her late father’s terrible experience of 111 and the fact that he died shortly thereafter.
I pay tribute to all GPs. There are huge difficulties with the GP contract, which was introduced in, I think, 2004. The consequences have included the loss of the out-of-hours service that I enjoyed as a child, teenager and young woman. With few exceptions, we have wonderful general practitioners, and many whom I know, including my own, and others who are friends of mine, work long, difficult hours. It is important to make that point.
As you know, Mr Robertson, during the recess, far from enjoying holidays, as the popular press makes out, we go back to our constituencies and use the time to make or renew contact with, for example, our local clinical commissioning group or ambulance trust. Alternatively we just go out and about, as I have done, knocking on doors and talking to people. One of the things I did during my recess was meet the head of the A and E department of the Queen’s medical centre, which is the local hospital in my constituency of Broxtowe in Nottingham. The head happens to be one of my constituents, and they tell me that there is much improvement at the Queen’s medical centre, as I know from the stats and so on. I also talked to GPs, and the CCG in my constituency now opens its doors for Saturday morning surgeries, which do not replace any other surgeries; they are extra facilities. The CCG has done that for two simple reasons: first, to improve the service it gives to its patients, and, secondly, in recognition of the need to reduce the pressure on the A and E department of the Queen’s medical centre.
It is right and fair to say that many GPs look with concern at what is happening in many of our A and Es, and with 111, which is commissioned in some areas by CCGs and in other parts of England by clusters of GPs. They are by no means fools. What motivates anyone to enter the medical profession, in my experience, is a real desire to serve people. They want to help and treat people. They are motivated by the very best of motives, so of course our GPs are concerned about the situation.
There is much work to be done with the GP contract to improve out-of-hours service, but we also have to be honest in this debate. There are often urban myths and anecdotes, but it is a fact that many GPs have already said that, far too often, people who come to see them in their surgeries, who attend A and E or who dial 999 or 111, are calling when they do not need to make that call or that appointment. They might be better off making their pharmacist their first port of call.
Miss McIntosh
I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene and for recognising not only the work my father did, but the work that all GPs do in very trying circumstances. May I bring her back to the Government’s framework, to which I referred, and the very real issues that GPs have raised in North Yorkshire about different GP out-of-hours providers suddenly working with one 111 provider? How will those issues be resolved?
Anna Soubry
Indeed. I will answer as many of my hon. Friend’s questions as I can. There are some questions I will not be able to answer, but I will certainly write to her.
One of the reasons we introduced pilot schemes was to learn from them, and I can tell my hon. Friend a few things as a result. The university of Sheffield did an evaluation report, which said that there was “no statistically significant” impact on services in most of the pilot areas. Importantly, NHS England is collecting data on 111 and its impact on other services, especially, as one would imagine, on A and E. NHS England is in a position to monitor that, and it will report in due course. I am told that the April data will be published this Friday.
I am reliably informed that the A and E performance of York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, which serves my hon. Friend’s constituency, is that in 2013-14 so far, 96.1% of people have been seen within the four-hour target. That is above target. I think the average across England for people being seen in A and E is some 55 minutes.
Mr Jamie Reed
This question is not a trap in any way, shape or form. The Minister just said that NHS England is assessing data on the performance of 111 thus far, which will be made available in due course. This is an empirical question: will the system be rolled out across the country without the data on the effect of the 111 service on the rest of the system being fully understood?
Anna Soubry
I do not know the answer, and I will not start speculating because it invariably gets one into terrible trouble.
Anna Soubry
I am more than happy to write to the hon. Gentleman with some sort of answer from either NHS England or the Department.
I should say, of course, that we know that 111 has not been successful in the way it should have been in many parts of the country, and we know that there were particular problems over the bank holiday and Easter periods, but we also know that it has now been rolled out to 90% of England. NHS England is monitoring, overseeing and collecting the data, as we would all hope.
I will do my very best to respond to the content of today’s debate and the questions that have been raised, with apologies for those questions that I do not answer.
The ratio of call handlers to professionals, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton asked, is 4:1. That ratio is not specified, however. There is no prescription that it must be 4:1. As 111 is locally commissioned in the way that I have explained, it is for local commissioners to decide whether to change that ratio, depending on the particular needs of the people in their area. One of the great benefits of the 2012 Act is that we have enabled local commissioners, either as a CCG or as a cluster, to commission services to meet the specific needs of their patients. I hope that will mean that a cluster or CCG in a rural area, obviously knowing that its patients live in a rural area, will ensure that its service is tailor-made to suit the needs of those patients, which may be different from the needs of patients in, say, a city and its surrounding suburbs. That is one of the joys of local commissioning.
My hon. Friend asked whether the three to three-and-a-half hours—in truth, I think it was really four hours—before her father was seen is normal, and the unequivocal answer is no. Is it acceptable? In my view, it is certainly not acceptable.
My hon. Friend then asked who pays. She is concerned about whether the debt in which her primary care trust found itself will have an impact. The 111 service is paid for by CCGs, which is one reason why CCGs are involved in the local commissioning of the service.
How are the concerns of GPs being addressed? The NHS is having a review in the way that I described. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy), who must be a member of the Select Committee on Health—that shows my profound ignorance, and I apologise to him—has helpfully reminded me that Dr Gerada, who is the chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said in her evidence yesterday that she has not seen such queues since the flu epidemic of two to three years ago. She said that the reasons for the high demand are mixed and complex, including the nasty flu virus that went around earlier this year and at the end of last year. I reiterate my point: if only it were so simple to cure the problems in A and E.
Barbara Keeley
The Minister talked earlier about the issue being about out-of-hours service. The NHS 111 problems in Greater Manchester put greater pressure on our out-of-hours service. She said there was a long winter, but 111 was rolled out at the end of March. Does she think that was a sensible time? It was not even the end of a very hard and long winter. Finally, she said that we have had more A and E attendances, but the problems have caused further pressure on A and E. The point many hon. Members have made, which I hope she accepts, is that the chaotic launch of NHS 111 in the end part of winter caused more problems than it solved.
Anna Soubry
Again, I do not think it is as simple as that. Of course we have not been happy with the roll-out of 111, which is accepted. The service has not been the success that we had hoped. We agree on that.
Anna Soubry
No; forgive me. The most important thing, though, is that things are improving.
Andrew Percy
We on the Health Committee were provided with figures yesterday showing that referrals to A and E from NHS 111 were about half the amount of those from NHS Direct, but that there had been an increase in referrals to out-of-hours and GP services. The link between NHS 111 and pressures on A and E is perhaps not proven.
Anna Soubry
I am grateful for that intervention. I know that the university of Sheffield specifically examined the pilot and found that in most pilot areas, there was no impact. However, we also know that NHS England is monitoring the situation, reviewing the data and analysing all the different, complex problems causing pressure on A and E to ensure that we make the improvements that we want.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton—[Interruption.] Well, I am going to make her right hon. for the moment. It will not be put into Hansard, so no one will know; it is just between us. She made an important point about providing for people receiving palliative care, catheter treatment and so on. She said that perhaps they needed a different script. There is much merit in that. Again, I would hope that the commissioning services would put that aspect in the script. She asked specifically about the script. I am reliably informed that it has been written by clinicians at the highest levels, but I also know that there is concern at a senior level about the fact that it takes an average of 20 minutes to go through a prescriptive script.
There is a wider problem here. We live in an age in which it is increasingly difficult to rely on common sense. When somebody rings up and says, “My father is a retired GP. We’ve been here before, and he has all the symptoms of a urinary tract infection,” they should not be asked whether he is still breathing. A large dose of common sense would mean that that question would not be asked, nor would “Is he bleeding?” and so forth. That is the stuff of nonsense.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
I apologise for not being here at the beginning of this excellent debate, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton (Miss McIntosh) on securing it. I have been in regular correspondence with the 111 service in the west midlands region, and with the other related services. I am satisfied that some of the teething problems will be resolved, but my local hospital asked me to raise one question with the Minister. Will she look into the treatment algorithms used by 111? There is a belief in the hospital that they are more likely to result in a referral to A and E than those used by the previous service.
Anna Soubry
I am grateful for that intervention, because I have heard that anecdotally as well. It is an important question. I cannot give my hon. Friend a full answer, but I will do all that I can to provide it in a letter if she will allow me. That concern has been raised with me on a constituency basis.
As I said from the outset, 111, which is a good service in theory and should be of considerable benefit to health professionals and, most importantly, to patients and all others concerned in the national health service, has not gone as smoothly as we had hoped. That is conceded, and one should not make party political points from it. However, the service has improved, it continues to improve and it is being monitored. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Thirsk and Malton for bringing this matter to the attention of the House, and I apologise to her for any questions that remain unanswered. I will reply to her and will address all the other points raised by hon. Members in this debate.
UK Manufacturing Sector
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson.
I want to talk about strengthening the UK manufacturing sector through innovation. UK manufacturing is going from strength to strength. We have a rich heritage of advanced manufacturing, companies in a range of sectors that are competing with the very best internationally and a world-class reputation for quality innovation. There is certainly widespread recognition by business and Government that research and innovation are essential to global competitiveness and future economic growth. Despite the obvious global economic challenges, the Government stepped up to the plate and invested in science, research and development, infrastructure and skills—all the things that innovation needs to flourish. I also hope to expand on how the Government could use their enormous purchasing power to help draw the most economic benefit from such investment.
Most manufacturers understand that their future success depends on the ability to be innovative in their thinking, ways of working and approach to business, as well as in their new product development. It is all about changing, adapting and anticipating the demands of their marketplace and their customers. Huhtamaki is one of the biggest employers in my constituency. It has a dynamic attitude towards innovation—which it has to, because its industry makes paper and plastic cups, loads of them: a staggering 2 billion a year for many well-known coffee houses and fast-food establishments. Its business motto is to “lead change before you have to”, and the company is continually innovating to maintain its position as a market leader, which means embracing new print technology, experimenting with colours and textures and introducing products that are recyclable, renewable and even compostable. The managing director told me that that philosophy gives the company the edge in such a changing industry.
Innovation can be the key to a virtuous circle: investment leads to growth and efficiency, which generates revenue that can be used to achieve change and to support further innovation. The difficulty is that innovation not only requires long-term investment, but introduces a certain element of risk that some manufacturers find difficult to justify, particularly in a tough economic environment. In fact, forward-thinking innovators might even put themselves at a disadvantage in the short term compared with their competitors, who let others take the lead and then hang on to their coat tails.
For the UK to remain a world-class manufacturing hub, it is essential for the Government to do all they can to support the innovators. Where that works best is where Government and business work together in the development of and support for new technologies, and that has made a big difference in some sectors. Thus, since 2007 successive Governments have invested support in the space sector, helping British companies to become the world-leading innovators in the field. For example, Astrium, a major employer in the Portsmouth area, specialises in the mind-blowing satellite technology that has made it No. 1 in Europe and No. 3 in the world.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
Astrium is a huge employer in my constituency, and Stevenage is now the capital of the UK space industry. Will my hon. Friend join me in celebrating Astrium’s success a couple of days ago, when it launched into space a satellite that in a few months will be responsible for beaming broadcast and communications signals back to the UK?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Astrium does real James Bond stuff of the future, which is incredibly impressive. In fact, the UK space industry turns over £9 billion a year and is predicted to grow by 7.5% each year in an increasingly demanding global marketplace.
Another British success story is the aerospace sector, which is the largest in Europe and the second largest in the world, after the USA. It is worth more than £23 billion to the UK economy, and 70% of its output is exported worldwide. The sector employs directly nearly 100,000 people in the UK. Its biggest challenge is that the long-term returns from research and development make it an unattractive capital market investment.
Chris White (Warwick and Leamington) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. During the recess, I was pleased to be present at the opening of Bosch’s new technology centre at Warwick university’s science park. I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) present; he was also at that opening.
The centre will support around 30 engineers and is a perfect example of bringing together our universities and businesses to help spur innovation in our manufacturing sector. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government must look closely at such centres, how they are formed and how we can put in place more incentives for business to commit to the long-term cost of supporting innovation?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is imperative that the Government work to facilitate business development and innovation as much as is humanly possible.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. In addition to what the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) said about Bosch, Jaguar Land Rover has been a success story, creating not only direct but indirect jobs in the west midlands. Anyone who knows anything about industry knows that for every direct job, there are probably two or three indirect jobs, so there is a multiplying factor. Does the hon. Lady agree that in the west midlands, and particularly in Coventry, slowly but surely, manufacturing is beginning to come back? The process under successive Governments has been slow, but it is encouraging to see companies such as Bosch and Jaguar Land Rover. Not so long ago, the Minister helped out with the London Taxi Company, and that maintained an anchorage for manufacturing in the midlands and nationally.
Caroline Dinenage
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. Manufacturing is growing apace, and Government intervention is key to continuing that progress. That is why their recent funding commitments through the aerospace growth partnership have been so widely welcomed.
I have given some examples of how the Government have overseen initiatives to help what might be called the push or supply side of business innovation.
Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
Will the hon. Lady give way?
John Robertson (in the Chair)
Order. I point out that interventions should be short.
Jim Sheridan
I welcome this debate, which is long overdue. The hon. Lady may be aware of the National Audit Office report on the contract that Bombardier lost to Siemens and the resulting loss of jobs. There is still time to retrieve that contract, so can she do anything to convince her Government that it should stay in the UK?
Caroline Dinenage
The perfect Minister is in the Chamber, and I hope he will speak about that when he has the chance to respond.
Businesses I have spoken to are really positive about some of the incentives the Government are introducing to help with innovation, including R and D tax credits and the financial incentives to innovate. Will the Minister assure me that his Department will continue to push for such incentives to be high on the Government’s priority list?
Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)
The hon. Lady is being most generous with her time. I congratulate her on securing this important debate, but I just wish it had been longer than half an hour. I am sure she will agree that innovation in British manufacturing is nothing new. An example is an illustrious son of Inverclyde, James Watt, who innovated and dominated the market for 10 years. He is a prime example showing that innovation is nothing new for British industry.
Caroline Dinenage
Absolutely. We have a proud history of innovation and manufacturing going back centuries, and it is important that it be allowed to continue.
Caroline Dinenage
May I make a little progress? I will then be more than happy to give way.
The other catalyst for business innovation is the pull effect, and I want to say a little more about how public procurement could be used better to drive the demand side of the innovation equation. This is an area where the strategic spend of public money on goods and services has the potential to drive innovation and to create more efficient, cost-effective, high-quality public services, as well as to unleash economic benefits. The Associate Parliamentary Manufacturing Group recently held a seminar on this issue, where it listened to the manufacturing sector’s concerns about how the Government buy products, as well as hearing about current academic work on procurement as a tool to drive innovation. Many bodies, from the CBI to the foresight team at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, see public procurement as one of the most powerful policy levers at the Government’s disposal.
Globally, the UK is second only to the US in its scientific knowledge base, but both the US and Germany outstrip the UK in turning that knowledge into economic profit. Is that because the Americans and Germans have a greater desire to be cutting edge, or are they simply less risk averse? Either way, it seems highly inefficient to invest heavily in a knowledge base at the start of an innovation process and not capitalise on the potential economic benefits. With that in mind, will the Minister tell me what efforts we are making to learn from other nations about maximising the economic fruits of our innovation? That is something the US invests heavily in—the virtuous circle again. Demand for a product creates more jobs; more science, technology, engineering and maths-based graduates; more high-value-added companies; greater economic prosperity; and, in theory, more tax returns.
The Treasury clearly recognises that, which is why, in the 2013 Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that all Departments must engage in the small business research initiative process and vastly increased the amount of money available through it. The Technology Strategy Board’s SBRI encourages the private sector to develop solutions to problems identified by the public sector. So far, it has had great success: 120 competitions have awarded 1,200 contracts to a value of £100 million. Those have involved 40 public sector bodies. SBRI therefore shows that in identifying new problems, the public sector has a mechanism through which it can procure innovative solutions.
However, despite its great success and even greater potential, the programme has not fully solved the procurement puzzle. It appears to be asking for solutions to new problems that are identified, but not looking for new and innovative solutions to age-old problems that cost the country so much money. Will the Minister say to what extent the SBRI encourages Departments to look again at problems that may already have a stove-pipe solution?
Let me give an example: QinetiQ has a subsidiary company called OptaSense, which has developed a way to use fibre-sensing technology to deliver real-time information to monitor assets such as pipelines or railways. In layman’s terms, that means turning fibre-optic cables into thousands of highly sensitive microphone devices capable of distinguishing between human footsteps and animal tracks. They are capable, in fact, of hearing someone walking alongside a railway track and then sawing through the railway cable, enabling the transport police to catch them red-handed before the damage has been done. That seems a good solution to all those wasted commuter hours resulting from rail cable theft.
The German railways and the north American oil and gas industry seem to think so. The technology has secured significant export contracts, and the number of employees has grown from three to 160 in the past few years. In fact, 99% of the company’s revenue comes from overseas. The problem is that, given that those countries are spending the money that is effectively sponsoring most of the ongoing research and development, OptaSense is under increasing pressure to move both that and the manufacturing overseas. The UK’s competitive tax regime for R and D is one of the main things keeping it here. Despite that world-leading solution being developed and manufactured here, Britain is in danger of being left behind by its own technology. Other companies would be tempted to move their ideas and their most brilliant scientists to where the market was, meaning that if we decided to buy back the product at some point in the future, we would effectively be buying back our own ideas, without all the economic benefits to the UK economy.
Realising the power of procurement to effect change in industrial competitiveness is a big challenge. It represents a step change in the way public bodies and Departments think about their budgets, and I think it is fair to say that risk taking—and, as a result, innovation—is not encouraged in public procurement. Public procurement still has a tendency to opt for low-risk solutions and mature technology, and innovation is not routinely welcomed or rewarded. In part, that is due to the competing objectives and bureaucratic barriers that public procurers face, which discourage risk-taking.
As we have seen, the fear of failure from doing nothing drives innovation in the private sector. My next question for the Minister is, what lessons can be learned from business to try to encourage that mentality in public sector procurement?
Caroline Dinenage
I will make a little more progress first. Some Departments, such as the Ministry of Defence, are more culturally competitive, more innovative in their approach to innovation, happy to manage technological risk, and have a more open architectural approach to procurement.
We should not be surprised that the procurement system produces the results that it does. If the discussions around procurement remain too closely linked to buying, without being linked to interaction with the private sector and horizon-scanning, procurers will simply keep buying as they always have. That behaviour has been compounded by the positioning of austerity policies against procurement; in the mission to try to cut costs, procurers should include in their calculations how, through the pursuit of innovation, money may be saved long-term, taking whole-life costs into account. Will the Minister tell me what more he thinks the Department can do to encourage Government bodies to be early adopters of innovation?
Jason McCartney
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for securing this fantastic debate. The contributions so far show that we could have had a good hour and a half on the topic. Last night, Huddersfield and Colne Valley featured on the BBC 2 TV programme, “Town”, which showcased some of the innovative engineering and textile work going on in my historic part of the world. The Enterprise and Innovation Centre has opened at Huddersfield university. Does my hon. Friend agree that skills and education blending with innovative companies is a fantastic way forward for our innovative organisations in this country?
Caroline Dinenage
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. One of the key issues seems to be communication between Government and business. The Manchester Institute of Innovation Research reported that, following a survey of 800 businesses, two thirds believe that engaging with the public procurement process had a positive effect on their innovation, with a quarter saying that an innovation had come about directly as a result of engaging with the public body.
With that in mind, a commissioning academy has been set up by the Cabinet Office that will bring commissioners from different parts of the public sector together to learn from best practice. In recognition of the fact that we need capable, confident and courageous people in the public sector to deliver more efficient and effective public services, it says that success will mean commissioners embracing new and innovative forms of delivery. It is interesting to note that, of the supporting Departments for the commissioning academy, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is not mentioned. Will the Minister tell me why, and to what extent BIS is liaising with the Cabinet Office work on procurement?
If we are to maximise the economic potential of the Government’s enormous purchasing power, there should be pressure on suppliers to come up with new ideas and innovative solutions to problems, while still meeting the requirement to show value for money.
Mr McKenzie
I thank the hon. Lady for again taking an intervention. Does she share my frustration that public procurement has not embraced, and moved as quickly as it should into, e-procurement, which the private sector has been using for 10 or 12 years?
Caroline Dinenage
That is an example of how we are a little slow to adapt to new technologies and innovative ideas, which is one of the problems we are trying to address today. There should be more opportunity for unsolicited, novel approaches to meeting public sector needs, particularly where new technology is involved.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
I thank my hon. Friend for giving way; she is being characteristically generous. Does she agree that many innovators and entrepreneurs, including in my constituency, lament the level of paperwork and bureaucracy in public sector performance, and that that is what prevents them from offering fantastic products to the public sector that can save money and increase the quality of services?
Caroline Dinenage
The Government are doing excellent work on addressing the problem. Some of the pre-qualifying questionnaires that companies used to have to undertake were horrific. The Cabinet Office now has a mystery shopper service to which small and medium-sized enterprises can feed examples of bad practice in Government commissioning.
It is important to conclude by saying that if central and local government encourage innovation through their procurement processes, more UK suppliers will invest in innovation, which will help the British economy and open up UK export opportunities, so that we can play our full part in this global race.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
On behalf of us all, I welcome you to the Chair this morning, Mr Robertson, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Caroline Dinenage) on securing this brief debate on an extremely important subject.
It was good to hear my hon. Friend’s support for manufacturing and her recognition that the Government are doing what we can to support it. I know that a number of my colleagues are doing so in their constituencies. She might like to know that QinetiQ is based in my constituency, too, as well as down on the Solent, and I was very privileged to promote the OptaSense technology that she referred to on a recent ministerial visit to Kazakhstan. We are backing that technology and ensuring that our posts overseas are doing what they can to support QinetiQ.
Innovation is a key driver of economic growth. It improves business competitiveness, GDP growth and wider welfare. We are fully committed to improving our innovation performance as an essential component of our growth plan. We encourage research and development in businesses across the country to enable that growth to happen.
At a local level, my hon. Friend’s constituency is home to the Solent local enterprise partnership, which is a dynamic, well-led, business-involved organisation that has already secured three successful regional growth fund bids and is fully involved in the Daedalus enterprise zone and in the round 2 Southampton and Portsmouth city deal. I had the pleasure of talking to Doug Morrison again on my most recent visit to the Solent.
What else are we doing? We are working with manufacturers and their supply chains and taking the steps that we can in government to strengthen and grow modern manufacturing by encouraging innovation, business investment, technology, more commercialisation, skills and exports.
Manufacturing now generates more than half the UK’s export of goods and almost three quarters of our business R and D and thus the innovation that drives growth. It also, of course, benefits other sectors through demand for raw materials, energy and services such as research, design and finance.
We have implemented the 2011 advanced manufacturing growth review and announced further measures to support the sector, including the advanced manufacturing supply chain initiative—two more rounds were announced for this year—the talent retention solution, the See Inside Manufacturing programme, a package of support for energy-intensive industries and a further £2.6 billion of investment in the regional growth fund to spend on projects such as capital investment, R and D or training.
We obviously want to keep as many jobs as we can in the UK and we do that by maintaining the science base, by providing support for technology commercialisation through the Technology Strategy Board—my hon. Friend referred to that—through investment in skills and through action to reform credit markets and to get bank lending moving again, as well as through very specific support through the industrial strategy for some of the sectors that she mentioned, such as the aerospace and automotive sectors, where we can do more to strengthen UK supply chains.
The Technology Strategy Board is the Government’s prime channel for supporting business-led technology innovation. It provides opportunities for innovative businesses through the growing network of Catapult centres. The High Value Manufacturing Catapult opened for business in October 2011. It will receive £155 million for the period up to 2016-17. It supports businesses to bridge the gap between early innovation, where the UK has traditionally been quite strong, and industrial-scale manufacturing to take the projects forward. Building on the capacity of its seven partner centres, that Catapult can cut across sectors, giving its customers access to world-class expertise, equipment and processes invested in and supported by the UK Government. I was also privileged to break ground at the expansion of the National Composites Centre in Bristol recently. My hon. Friend might like to know that since April 2010 the Technology Strategy Board has provided almost £1 billion in support for businesses across the UK, ranging from pre-start-up businesses to large multinationals.
My hon. Friend posed at least three specific questions; there may have been more than three. I hope that if I do not cover them all, she will allow me to write to her with a fuller reply.
Jim Sheridan
Will the Minister clarify whether he will indeed refer to the National Audit Office report regarding Bombardier versus Siemens?
Michael Fallon
I have not yet seen that report, which I think has only just emerged. What I can do is undertake to look at it immediately this debate concludes, but I cannot refer to it today, for the very basic reason that I have not yet read it. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me for that.
The first question that my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport asked was about tax credits. Research and development tax credits are providing the single biggest Government financial incentive for business investment in R and D, and take-up has increased steadily during the 12 years of the scheme. In the last financial year for which I have figures—2010-11—tax relief claims of £1.1 billion supported approximately 72% or £10.9 billion of all R and D revenue expenditure by business. Additionally, the patent box allows companies to claim a reduced corporation tax rate of 10% on profits from qualifying patents and certain other innovations.
My hon. Friend’s precise question, as I recall it, was whether we will guarantee to go on doing that. Nothing in this life is certain, but I am determined to go on supporting research and development tax credits. We have made some of the qualifying rules easier. What I think is more important now about R and D, in addition to committing to the funding, is ensuring that those credits work further down the company sizes, so that small businesses realise that they are just as eligible for them as much larger businesses. I do not think that tax reliefs naturally are things that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs would market, but certainly we need to spread the word that all kinds of business can qualify for help with research and development.
My hon. Friend’s second question was a really good one: how much are we learning from other countries about translating some of the innovation into commercially applicable projects? We do learn from other countries. For example, the German Fraunhofer centres provided much of the model for the Catapult centres that we have now established. We are not too proud to learn from or to pick up on what is happening in other countries, particularly Germany, which has always had a much higher proportion of its GDP in manufacturing. There are things that we can learn from other countries, and I assure my hon. Friend that we continue to do so. Ministers continue to visit other countries and to pick up on ideas, although of course those other countries have picked up on some of our more imaginative ways of funding as well.
The third question posed by my hon. Friend was on the small business research initiative. I am glad that she asked about that. It provides 100% R and D funding for technology-based companies that develop potential solutions to specific problems faced by the public sector where there is no readily available solution on the market. That is done on a much larger scale in the United States; it is fully supported through federal funds. That is another good example of where we can learn from the success of a scheme in another country and apply the lessons here.
My hon. Friend will recall that in the most recent Budget—Budget 2013—we announced that we will substantially expand the SBRI among key Departments, so that the value of contracts through this route increases from £40 million in 2012-13 to more than £100 million in the current year and more than £200 million by 2014-15. I hope that she will welcome that, but I fully accept that we have more to do to spread knowledge and use of the SBRI right across the Whitehall landscape to ensure that those Departments that have not yet thought of it as a potential route to solving some of the problems that they face do so. A number of Departments are already making good use of the SBRI, but I would like all Departments to consider it automatically as a source of particular strength.
I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I have not answered all the other questions that she posed, but I want to conclude by saying a word or two about what is happening on skills. She suggests that we should learn from other countries. There is no doubt that countries such as Germany have been able to draw on a much wider pool of school leavers, apprentices and college leavers with the engineering, mathematical and technical skills that we still lack in this country.
Mr McKenzie
On skills and innovation not only in products but into new markets, Promedics in my constituency has taken the existing skills of sewing machine technicians and moved them into a totally new market, supplying the NHS and others across Europe with surgical supports. It has taken that skill and applied it to a new market. What recognition or support can the Minister give such businesses?
Michael Fallon
I am delighted to hear that and would certainly like to hear more details and to see whether there are ways in which Government can recognise that kind of development more officially.
A skilled work force is the key to providing the innovation that business needs. Apprenticeship starts in engineering and manufacturing have increased from 26,000 10 years ago to more than 49,000 last year. There were more than 2,000 apprenticeship starts in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport last year. The number was up by 18% on 2010-11. She will be interested to know that nearly 900 of those apprenticeship starts were in the engineering and manufacturing sector—an increase of 32% on 2010-11, so we are making changes.
The Daedalus enterprise zone members group, which I think my hon. Friend chairs, includes the provision of a new skills training centre that is due to be built on the site from 2013. The first students are due through the doors in September 2015. That is a major achievement in my hon. Friend’s area and shows that the enterprise zone there is open for business.
I thank all hon. Members who have attended the debate and those who have contributed to it through their questions. I thank again my hon. Friend for raising this subject for debate. Let me assure her and you, Mr Robertson, that this Government are fully committed to realising the growth of manufacturing through innovation, which we see as essential to building a better balanced, more resilient economy for the future.
East Coast Main Line
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
It is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea, in this vital debate on the future of the east coast main line. I am sure you will keep us on track and on time. Debates between hon. Members on nationalisation and democratic control of industry often stall due to an obstinate adherence to our political prejudices. All of us, on both sides of the House, have political prejudices about the relative merits of private and national ownership of basic industries. At the outset, I invite Members to disregard all preconceived theories and consider the future of the east coast main line objectively, as a technical problem with hard facts.
According to a written answer from the then Minister of State for Transport in 1996, the total gross proceeds to the taxpayer from selling off our rail infrastructure were £5.28 billion. Adjusted for inflation, that would be slightly more than £8 billion today—equivalent to only the past two years of taxpayer subsidy. According to the Office of Rail Regulation, the east coast main line is the only line in the country that comes close to paying for itself. Government subsidy makes up only 1% of East Coast’s income, against an industry average of 32%. The total cost to the Exchequer of the east coast main line was only £9 million in 2011-12; by comparison, Northern Rail, jointly owned by Serco and the Dutch Government, cost the taxpayer £685 million. Since the UK Government put the franchise under the publicly owned Directly Operated Railways, financial stability has been restored. The total premium, plus operating profit, amounted to £647.6 million in the four years to 31 March 2013; that is more in both cash and real terms than any previous franchise on the line, and all that money is available for reinvestment in our railway network.
East Coast has seen revenue growth of 9% over three full years, with 4.3% growth in 2012-13. The Minister of State described that growth to the Select Committee on Transport as a “plateau”. One wonders what word he would use to describe the Chancellor’s performance over the same period.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr Simon Burns)
Very good.
Andy McDonald
Thank you very much.
Journey numbers have grown from 18.1 million in 2009-10 to 19.1 million in 2012-13. An estimated £800 million will have been generated by the franchise for the taxpayer by April 2014. All that has resulted in a £40 million surplus: money that would otherwise be providing the profit to shareholders, if the line were privatised, and which East Coast has reinvested in its greatest asset, its staff. The fruits of that investment are clear to see: employee engagement is now at an all-time high of 71%—up from 66% in 2011 and 62% in 2010—which is the highest score of the eight train operators that is currently available. The average number of sick days has fallen from 14 to nine. Investors in People accreditation has risen from “standard” in 2009 to “silver” in 2012. Impressively, East Coast was the only train company to have achieved “Britain’s top employer” status in 2012 and 2013. Most importantly, on-board passenger-attributed accidents have reduced by 20% and staff accidents by 23% in the past year.
East Coast has also introduced a new timetable—the biggest change on the east coast main line in 20 years—seamlessly launched in May 2011. It introduced 117 extra services a week; a four-hour Flying Scotsman express from Edinburgh to London, calling only at Newcastle; and new direct services between London and Lincoln and Harrogate, and I hope that it will soon restore the link to Middlesbrough, the largest conurbation in the country without a direct link to the capital.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman not see that it is a shame that the seven daily services that Lincoln was promised ended up being only one service?
Andy McDonald
I am not sure that I have picked up on that seven turning into one, but I will mention the performance issues, so an answer may emerge as we proceed.
Mr Stephen Hepburn (Jarrow) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a persuasive case. The east coast main line has flourished since it came back into public ownership. This is an example of privatisation for privatisation’s sake. The only people who will benefit from it are that small number of Tory pals—those profiteers who will bung their pockets with taxpayers’ money.
Andy McDonald
I thank my hon. Friend. He makes a valid point, and I hope to return to it.
Andy McDonald
If I can make some progress, I will come back to the hon. and learned Gentleman.
I have laid out reforms that it might be thought would cause disruption. In oral evidence to members of the Transport Committee on 24 April this year, the Minister made the following comment about punctuality on the east coast main line:
“If you look at the latest monthly figures for reliability and punctuality, it is the worst of the 19 franchises.”
Were that the whole story, it would be extremely concerning, but East Coast during the latter half of 2012 achieved the best train punctuality on the east coast franchise since records began in 1999. In recent months, some challenging external circumstances, such as the weather and overhead wire problems on the southern part of the route, affected performance, and East Coast is implementing a joint action plan with Network Rail to ensure that operational performance on the line returns to the record levels achieved in the autumn. The results the Minister cited are completely atypical. One has only to look at Network Rail’s moving annual average for punctuality, which puts the east coast main line in the top three of the seven long-distance franchises, to see that. The encouraging performance improvements in period 1 and to date in period 2 of this year are an early reflection of that collaboration with Network Rail. The latest available figures show that nine out of every 10 East Coast trains were on time, according to the industry’s public performance measure—up considerably on the previous quarter and up year on year.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and near neighbour on Teesside for giving way and I congratulate him on securing the debate. Does he have any idea why the new managers who were put in by the state to run the east coast main line have done so well? They are using the same people, the same equipment and the same everything else as the private company, National Express, which failed miserably, reneged on its contract and walked away.
Andy McDonald
I wish I could put my finger on it. My hon. Friend highlights a key issue, but it is useful to note that the way East Coast operates is a good comparator for the other services operating in this country.
The improvements are reflected in two key metrics. First, under public ownership East Coast achieved a record-breaking 92% overall customer satisfaction rating in the autumn 2012 national passenger survey conducted by the independent transport watchdog, Passenger Focus. That is the highest score on the franchise since the survey was launched in autumn 1999. It is 5% ahead of the score achieved in 2011 and three percentage points higher than the 89% average for all long-distance train operators. Indeed, in 2012, East Coast received the highest customer satisfaction score of any long-distance franchise operator.
Secondly, complaints stand at a rate of 150 per 100,000 journeys according to the Office of Rail Regulation’s latest available figures—down considerably on the previous quarter and back to the level prior to the disruption from the end of last year. Although that figure is relatively high compared with those of other train operating companies, it is just one third of where it stood when the east coast main line was in private ownership in 2007-08. A higher-than-average complainant rate might be due, in part, to the nature of the line regardless of its ownership, but since it is the publicly owned and publicly operated London Overground that has the lowest rate, at just two complaints per 100,000 journeys, it is difficult to claim a direct relationship between public ownership and complaints.
In addition, perhaps because of the unprecedented investment in staff that I have mentioned, there has been a 78% reduction in threats to staff in the past year. The apparent contradiction between a rise in customer satisfaction and a relatively high complaint rate dissolves entirely when we look at the Office of Rail Regulation’s breakdown of the reasons behind the grievances. Complaints about train service performance are down, year on year, from 38% to 29%, but what are on the increase and make up more than a fifth of all complaints are criticisms of the quality of the trains themselves. That comes directly from the fact that the rolling stock, which East Coast inherited from National Express, is eight years older than the industry average, at 27 years as opposed to 19.
That East Coast has achieved better customer satisfaction than any of its long-distance rivals, while running the oldest rolling stock of any franchise bar Merseyrail Electrics, is a testament to the workers and the management, and that the trains are still running at all after 30 years or more of continuous use is a testament to the brilliance of the engineers of British Rail Engineering Ltd who designed them and the factory workers of the north of England who built them.
Some elements of on-train comfort have also seen a marked increase. Of particular interest to certain hon. Members will be the new first-class complimentary at-seat food and drinks service, which has reversed historical losses of £20 million per annum and which contributed to a 21% rise in the number of first-class journeys in 2011-12, compared with the preceding 12 months. East Coast now serves a million meals per annum, which is a tenfold increase on the previous service, and its first class has certainly looked very nice on the occasions when I have walked through it.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
I am very pleased that my hon. Friend succeeded in securing this debate. The first-class service, which, as MPs, we do not of course use, is important because of the environment. For many business travellers, it can make a considerable difference to their choice between flying—certainly from Scotland—and travelling by train. If we want to make the modal shift that we need for our environment, we need a service that will attract that kind of business traveller.
Andy McDonald
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The carbon footprint that we all imprint upon this planet is a vital issue, and she makes that point eloquently.
Ministers have admitted in the House of Commons that new investment in both rail infrastructure and new rolling stock on the east coast will come through taxpayer-funded support and not from franchisees. Funding for the 2014-19 upgrade of the east coast main line will be delivered through the Office of Rail Regulation approving a £240 million increase in the value of Network Rail’s regulatory access base. Regardless of whether the refranchising of the east coast main line goes ahead, the public, through Network Rail, will still be paying for the track. We will still be paying for the rolling stock, and we will still be paying for any upgrades, extensions or electrification that might ensue. None of the upgrades is dependent on whether the trains going along the track are painted Virgin red or Stagecoach orange. There is no deadline by which the franchise must take place, except, of course, the next election.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this matter forward. The Labour Government set a deadline for re-privatising the line, and even when they were unable to meet it, they continued to have it as their policy that the line should be re-privatised. Has the Labour party changed that policy?
Andy McDonald
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We are where we are, and we have to look at the matter on the facts of this specific franchise, examining it carefully to see whether it is working, right at this moment. Comments have been made in the context of reports that had only half the story, so when we have better information we should read it, consider it and judge accordingly, but I hear what the right hon. Gentleman says.
It is absurd for the Government to be pressing ahead with another franchise proposal when the previous franchise offering, of the west coast main line, was such a debacle and will have cost the taxpayer £100 million by the time it is resolved.
Karl MᶜCartney
I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way to me once again, and I take this opportunity to congratulate him on securing the debate and on the fact that so many of his colleagues—from both sides of the House—who have an interest in the franchise are present. Thank you, Dr McCrea, for chairing—I forgot to say that the first time I intervened.
The Labour Government before 2010—in fact, before 2005—acted perhaps with undue haste, in desperately getting back into the private sector the southern franchise that had been taken off Connex. They made many mistakes at that time. Does the hon. Gentleman not feel that this Government should be credited with ensuring that such mistakes are not made in re-awarding this franchise to the private sector?
Andy McDonald
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for highlighting the weaknesses of the entire structure of these private franchises. He does so eloquently.
A serious overhaul of the franchise process is necessary. The Minister may well claim that, following the Brown review, a new process is indeed in place. In that case, one has to wonder why existing private sector franchises, which would be the ideal testing ground for the process, are instead receiving extensions of up to 50 months. The Government’s haste to extricate themselves from running trains is all the more baffling when more than half the rail franchises in Britain are to some extent state-controlled already; it is just not the British state that is in control.
Andy McDonald
I will in a moment.
Putting aside East Coast and London Overground, there are 17 franchises in the UK, of which 10 are operated, to a greater or lesser extent, by the Governments of our European neighbours. Chiltern, CrossCountry and Wales & Borders franchises are operated by Arriva—a wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, the majority shareholder of which is the German Government. Greater Anglia is run by Abellio, the international arm of the Dutch Government’s rail operator Nederlandse Spoorwegen, which also runs Merseyrail Electrics and the aforementioned Northern franchise in partnership with Serco. The South Eastern, Southern and West Midlands franchises appear at first sight to be privately run and are operated by Govia—a joint venture between Go-Ahead Group and Keolis. Keolis, the largest private sector French transport group, is, however, majority owned by SNCF, the French state rail operator. Keolis also runs TransPennine Express, in collaboration with First Group. Are hon. Members, particularly those of a Eurosceptic bent, content that when they pay an extortionate sum for a ticket on Southern, South Eastern, TransPennine or West Midlands trains, their money is on the TGV to Monsieur Hollande? Why does this Government believe that other countries can run our rail services, but that Britain cannot?
The remaining seven franchises are hardly a model of laissez-faire, split as they are between three and a half private companies: Stagecoach, National Express, FirstGroup, and Virgin Trains, which is half-owned by its alleged competitor Stagecoach. New entrants cannot possibly afford to take on these mammoth projects and the risks that may accrue. The original 25 franchises offered in 1995 have shrunk to just 17 today, following mergers, making the barriers even higher.
The previous Conservative Government themselves recognised the barriers to new entrants when they banned British Rail from bidding for franchises in the wake of privatisation. The then Minister for Public Transport, now Baron Freeman, said:
“I am concerned that it would be very difficult to have a fair and equal competition if British Rail was a bidder.”—[Official Report, 26 July 1993; Vol. 229, c. 578W.]
The current debate is about not a free market versus a state monopoly, but whether a public asset, for which the taxpayer will remain liable, should be managed by the British Government, a foreign Government or one of a handful of private companies that are large enough to meet the criteria of the bid.
Such companies will always underestimate costs and overestimate revenue when they bid for contracts, because they know that, if they do not, their competitors will win the bid. They are looking to their next set of quarterly reports and their next shareholder annual general meeting; Governments are looking to the next century. The truth is that no Government can afford to let the rail network go to rack and ruin. The state will always have to intervene to protect that vital national asset and the lives of its citizens. As the saying goes, it is too big to fail.
Train operating companies know that, and they also know that if it all goes wrong, the taxpayer will be left holding the line. Christopher Garnett, the former chief executive of the train operator Great North Eastern Railway—the first franchise operators of the east coast main line—said during the failure of that company:
“The market will self-destruct as bidders bid to win on ever-tighter margins. When it goes wrong, it’s going to come right back to the Department for Transport.”
Since privatisation in 1996, both companies that have run inter-city services on the east coast have failed or walked away from the franchise mid-contract. Passengers will rightly be worried that history might repeat itself under a re-privatised service.
Many of those who are now Government Members once supported keeping the east coast main line in public hands. Before he held his current office, the Deputy Prime Minister said in 2009:
“Our railways should not be a plaything for private companies and we think giving it the stability of public ownership during the next franchise period would be much better”.
He added that
“it’s not an industry, it’s a public service. Our rail services are public services.”
If you will forgive the phrase, Dr McCrea, “I agree with Nick,” but as is ever the case nowadays, we are unsure whether the Deputy Prime Minister agrees with himself.
As many hon. Members whose constituents have lobbied against High Speed 2 know, railways do not affect just those whom the Government call “customers”. Stan Higgins, the chief executive of the North East of England Process Industry Cluster—the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) knows that confederation of the leading process businesses in our region well—told me the view of his members:
“We’re running railways for profit, as opposed to as a service to our industries and our communities.”
By the franchising process, the public are being disfranchised.
I want to quote the Conservative Secretary of State for Transport who moved the Second Reading of the Railways Bill that carved up and sold off British Rail. He said that that company had
“too little responsiveness to customers’ needs, whether passenger or freight; no real competition; and too little diversity and innovation…; an insufficiently sharp awareness on the part of employees that their success depends on satisfying the customer—indeed, on attracting more customers; and an instinctive tendency to ask for more taxpayers’ subsidy and to feel that public subsidy will always be there as a crutch whenever things look difficult.”—[Official Report, 2 February 1993; Vol. 218, c. 156.]
Those were the reasons for privatisation, and I will look at them one by one. East Coast has increased services in response to customer demand. It has successfully increased revenue in the face of competition from not only road transport, but domestic flights that are far cheaper than anything faced by British Rail. It has innovated with new services for first-class carriages and sold more than 1 million e-tickets. It has the highest rates of customer satisfaction of any long-distance franchise, and staff who are engaged with the company and with passengers. A million more journeys take place on East Coast now than when the franchise became public. Far from crying for subsidy, it makes the lowest demands on the public purse of any rail franchise.
Mr George Strauss, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport at the time of nationalisation in 1946, said:
“I am sure that Parliament would not tolerate paying a permanent subsidy to a particular section of privately owned industry when, plainly, that industry as a whole, if properly organised, could be self-supporting.”—[Official Report, 18 December 1946; Vol. 431, c. 1975.]
The choice before us is between an unending subsidy to private interests and continued public ownership of a line that, in public hands, is 99% self-supporting. The question that I must ask the Government, and Members who oppose keeping the line in the hands of those who have managed it so well, is whether any evidence would get them to drop their prejudice that private is always better than public.
Dr William McCrea (in the Chair)
Order. I am endeavouring to be helpful, given that well over 20 Back Benchers are in the Chamber. Ten Members have put down their names to speak and we have only a short period, so with the authority that has been given me, I must impose a time limit of four minutes, which I hope will allow them all to speak.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I congratulate the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on securing this useful debate. We can sing the praises of East Coast—I am happy to do so as someone who uses its services every week; it does not provide a bad service at all—but the idea that this is some way towards being a golden age compared with GNER, which first took over the line and provided an excellent service, is a myth.
As I have said, I am happy to congratulate East Coast, which gets us here every week, usually on time. Passengers want a clean, reliable, safe and reasonably priced service. When they sit back in their seat, they do not care whether the track is operated by Railtrack, Network Rail or a private operator, or whether their seat is in a private coach or a publicly owned one.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
To set the record straight, is it not the case that both GNER and National Express had to hand back the franchise, but this nationalised, directly operated rail service has handed £602 million back to the Treasury?
Martin Vickers
The fact that there is one failure—whether in the private sector, the public sector or wherever—does not automatically indicate a flaw in the system. The hon. Member for Jarrow (Mr Hepburn) said that the change would be privatisation for privatisation’s sake, but the opposite is equally true: do we want nationalisation for nationalisation’s sake? That is certainly what Opposition Members seem to want.
In his opening remarks, the hon. Member for Middlesbrough referred to Northern Rail, but to compare it with East Coast is to compare apples with oranges—a regional operator with an inter-city one. Northern Rail provides a perfectly adequate service in my constituency, between Cleethorpes and Barton-on-Humber, but it does not serve such great metropolises as York, Darlington and Doncaster. The station at Thornton Abbey—in a beautiful, idyllic setting—actually serves two farms and an ancient ruin, and I think it had 13 passengers during 2009. East Coast is fine; it provides a perfectly adequate service, but it does not dash up and down between Newcastle and King’s Cross, so there is no comparison whatever.
I am happy to criticise East Coast when it makes mistakes, which it did when it redesigned its timetable last year.
Stephen Phillips
On the timetable, does my hon. Friend agree that although the increased frequency and number of trains is welcome, the lack of joined-up thinking between those trains and local ones has caused constituents real problems that East Coast needs to deal with? If the line is retendered, the Minister must ensure that that factor is included in the tendering process, as I hope my hon. Friend agrees.
Martin Vickers
I welcome that intervention by my hon. and learned Friend, who highlights a particular problem. My point is that the station in my home town of Cleethorpes has been removed from the timetable—because there is no through train to it, it is no longer shown as having a connecting service. I think that Middlesbrough was another destination that was removed from the timetable. Regrettably, despite my protests, East Coast did not correct that in its new summer timetable.
The Government show every sign of moving ahead with the new franchise to a good timetable, which I welcome. I hope that the company will put in place services that British Rail removed in 1991, namely the direct services from King’s Cross to Cleethorpes, which I know the Minister is keen to restore in the new timetable.
Karl MᶜCartney
Does my hon. Friend agree that spending some money on electrifying the line between Newark and Cleethorpes might well give the east coast an option for diverted trains? The west coast has a multitude of such options whereas the east coast does not.
Martin Vickers
My hon. Friend raises a valid point. The important thing for the Cleethorpes constituency in relation to electrifying the line is that 25% of the country’s rail freight, when measured by tonnage, starts or ends at Immingham dock. The line must therefore be a potential candidate for electrification.
The hon. Member for Middlesbrough used, as I suspect all politicians do occasionally, selective statistics, especially ones that were critical of private operations. For example, he omitted the statistic that showed that the west coast main line, in private operation, generates more passenger income than the east coast main line— £820 million in 2011-12 compared with £587 million on the east coast main line.
I hope that the Minister will confirm that we are going ahead with the new franchise, that we are on course to deliver it and that the new franchise will deliver a better service than the existing east coast main line, which is, to be honest, just treading water at the moment. I know that the Minister will also want to ensure that there is a service to Cleethorpes.
Mr Frank Doran (Aberdeen North) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on securing this important debate. The east coast main line is a vital artery for all of us, running between London and Aberdeen. My principal interest is of course Aberdeen. In the debates that we have had on this issue, it is clear that the east coast main line is generally thought to run simply from London to Edinburgh, but it runs another 130 miles further north. When the line was completed in the 1880s, it was part of the Victorian engineering miracle, producing both the Tay bridge and the Forth bridge. It allowed royalty to get away for their summer holidays, brought to London the fish and the textiles that were produced in Aberdeen and opened up the whole country to tourism in the highlands. It was an important line then, but it is even more important now, which is not always recognised.
Aberdeen is now the hub of the oil and gas industry in Europe. Over the past few decades, it has poured billions of pounds into the Exchequer, but we have a railway line, certainly the last past of it from Edinburgh to Aberdeen, that has been forgotten about. I have raised that issue in the House many times. There has been a failure to construct proper infrastructure to support the oil and gas industry. The same can be said, I think, of Norfolk, which has difficult contacts as well, but perhaps not to the same extent.
I have done a little bit of arithmetic for the debate. The journey time from London to Edinburgh, which is about 400 miles, is four hours and 20 minutes at an average speed of 92 miles an hour. Edinburgh to Aberdeen is only 130 miles, and it takes two hours and 39 minutes at 45 miles an hour. When I have raised those issues in the past, they were usually coupled with problems on the road network and with air transport. I used to be able to say that someone could travel from Aberdeen to Rome by car and find only 70 miles of single track, which was on the road between Aberdeen and Dundee. That has now been sorted. Air transport has improved dramatically as well, but we still have the same problem on the rails. One part of the east coast main line, just north of Montrose, is single track. The Minister will rightly point out that the responsibility for that lies with the Scottish Government, but for a couple of centuries it was the responsibility of Westminster, and nothing was done about it.
I also want to raise a specific issue with the Minister because it relates not just to this particular line, but to High Speed 2. In the economic evaluation for HS2, there is a suggestion on page 9 that the Government are retaining an option for removing through-trains from stations north of Edinburgh to London once phase 2 of the new high-speed rail is built post-2033. That has caused some consternation. The Minister is looking slightly bemused; he has probably not read the evaluation thoroughly.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on securing this debate and on his excellent speech, which fully covered many of the issues. I have been a regular traveller on the east coast main line for more than 25 years for business purposes. It seems hard to believe that it is the most successful and profitable line in the country, because the bungled franchises under both Governments and under-investment have left us with old trains, poor punctuality and high fares.
Arriving at Darlington station to come to Parliament, I have a choice: buy a standard return ticket, or get back in my car, drive to London and do the return trip that way. At 45p a mile, I save the taxpayer £60 if I drive. Is there anywhere else in the world where a mass transit system is so much more expensive than each passenger recovering in full the cost of driving a car?
In the year to March 2012, East Coast made a profit before tax and payments to the Department for Transport of £196 million on a £666 million turnover; that is more than 29%. It is high time that some of that money was used both to reduce the fares and to upgrade the rolling stock. Until then, users of the line are bound to feel that they are being ripped off and, in effect, used to subsidise the rest of the network.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes an important point about the quality of the rolling stock, but is he not aware that the inter-city express programme, which will be built in the north-east, will introduce new trains on the east coast main line?
Ian Swales
Indeed, and I hope they will be built in the north-east at the new Hitachi factory. Let us hope the public procurement produces the right answer.
I note the Opposition’s position. They had the chance to make the franchise public in 2007; they did not, and they went into the last election promising a refranchising in 2011. The Public Accounts Committee, of which I am a member, reviewed the east coast fiasco in mid-2011. It mainly considered the National Express failure, which was a familiar story of unrealistic bidding, poor due diligence, poor contracting and wasted taxpayers’ money. Since then, the Department’s franchising team has caused the west coast train disaster with another huge loss of taxpayers’ money. Will the Minister give us confidence that a proper job will be done this time?
Although I understand the commercial sensitivity, I feel that the whole bidding review process should be as transparent as possible. Independent experts should be involved from the start to provide scrutiny to avoid unrealistic assumptions producing the wrong answer. Taxpayers should not have to wait for the National Audit Office to pick over the entrails again. Furthermore, if the offers are not good value for travellers and the taxpayer, continuing public ownership must be a realistic alternative. As the hon. Member for Middlesbrough said, we should not start with the answer and allow political dogma to decide.
I hope that the bid review process will also be stress-tested. For example, there should be no assumptions about tax recovery from companies, which then avoid tax, as we constantly see in the world of the private finance initiative.
With its inherent profitability, and given that the 250-mile journey from Darlington to London takes as little as two and a quarter hours, the east coast line should be the jewel in the crown of the UK rail network. However, with two bungled franchise deals behind us, the Minister has a lot to do to convince us and the public that this will be third time lucky.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on securing this important debate.
I also congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) and for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) on leading a campaign that has widespread backing inside and outside Parliament. It is not surprising that it is so well supported; as we have heard, the facts speak clearly for themselves. By the end of this financial year, East Coast estimates that it will have returned about £800 million to the Exchequer since the line was nationalised. The net public subsidy in the past financial year was just 1% of turnover, compared with an industry average of 32%.
A recent report commissioned by the TUC reveals that the firms receiving the largest state subsidies spend more than 90% of their profits on average on shareholder dividends. Of those firms, the top five recipients received almost £3 billion in taxpayer support between 2007 and 2011, which allowed them to make operating profits of £504 million. However, more than 90% of that money—£466 million—was paid straight to shareholders.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
It is also worth while pointing out that the taxpayer has been getting this money back from Directly Operated Railways in a context where the company has been able to operate only on a fairly short-term basis, because there is no certainty for the long term about the franchise. Is it not highly possible that, if the current operators had the security of knowing they were going to operate the railway system for a considerable number of years to come, they might make even better returns for the taxpayer and run the system even more efficiently?
Mrs Hodgson
I agree. That was a good point, and it was well made.
I am a regular user of the service, as are many Members, constituents and people across the north-east, and the improvements in service and punctuality have been plain to see. That is not to say that there are not occasional causes for complaint; of course there are, and we all know what they are—often, it is the toilets. However, the service has improved, without the need for the private sector ethos that we often hear about from advocates of privatisation.
In a written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), the Minister said:
“The Government remains committed to benefitting from private sector innovation and operational experience in its railways.”—[Official Report, 22 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 590W.]
Given the improvements since the line was nationalised and the low reliance on subsidy, which is 1% of turnover, as well as East Coast’s returns of £800 million to the national coffers, the private sector organisations running other franchises could learn a thing or two from Directly Operated Railways.
The east coast line is getting increasingly busy, and it needs constant investment in maintenance and capacity improvement. Incidentally, one way that we could improve capacity—I and other north-east Members recently met the Minister to make this case—would be to bring the Leamside line back into use in the north-east to take some of the freight off the main east coast line. The Minister and I have discussed that at length. The proposal would have the added bonus of providing the means to extend the Tyne and Wear Metro to Washington, in my constituency, which would bring great benefits to the town and its residents.
However those improvements are made, they do need to be made, and that will require money. The benefit of keeping the franchise in public ownership is that that investment can be made by ploughing the generous profits generated—£800 million so far—back into the service, instead of giving them to overseas shareholders. Our network sees hundreds of millions of pounds disbursed to shareholders of private companies every year, despite the fact that those companies receive state subsidies to keep going. East Coast’s performance over the past three years has shown us the folly of that model. Why send profits generated from British passengers to foreign owners abroad, when some of those owners are subsidising rail fares in their own countries? We could and should use those profits here to improve our services and to help keep our fares down.
The East Coast arrangement is not hurting my constituents; it is working. It is not broken, so it does not need fixing—apart from the toilets, of course. If anything, based on the performance of East Coast, it would be desirable to see more of our key lines under public control. What the service needed was the stability to carry on planning for the future and improving performance and service standards further, while maintaining the return to the taxpayer. What it has, however, is the uncertainty caused by being put out to the market once again, where it may even be the subject of a tender by the company that failed to run it properly last time. That would cost taxpayers millions.
Given the shambles over the west coast line, I would have thought that the Government would at least leave a successfully operating line well alone—
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on securing such an important debate.
Every franchise is operationally different. East Coast runs 155 services per day, with six trains per hour from London in the peak. It essentially serves two main destinations from London: Leeds and Edinburgh. The west coast operator runs 321 services per day, with 11 trains per hour from London in the peak. It serves five main destinations: Birmingham, Manchester, Chester, Glasgow and Liverpool. I have used both services; I use East Coast and First Capital Connect daily, and both work quite well.
It is impossible to argue that the private is sector is bad and the public sector is good. Many speakers so far have focused on an ideological debate, but I want to focus on what will lead to improvements in passenger satisfaction. The east coast operator could remain public, it could become a mutual-type organisation run by its own staff and members or it could be moved into the private sector, but passenger satisfaction should be the main reason for any change and the main driver of any innovation.
Stevenage is on the east coast main line. It is a category C station, with more than 4 million passenger movements a year. It is an important hub for Hertfordshire, with Stansted on one side and Luton airport on the other. That will be the subject for a separate debate between me and the Minister, because there is a proposal to expand Luton airport, with the result that a plane would fly over Stevenage every minute or so.
East Coast is used by many commuters—20,000 to 30,000—to go from Stevenage into London every day. It is a different type of service for us than it is for many Members in this room, who want it to be a long-distance operator. One of our concerns is that as it opens up more services in the north and more direct lines, it will shave minutes off the journey to London by cutting services to places such as Stevenage.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to pass through my hon. Friend’s constituency on my way up and down to Yorkshire every week. Will he join me in congratulating the Government on their record of investment in our railways? In my patch, there is the northern hub rail investment and the electrification of the trans-Pennine route. Does he agree that franchising is about where our railways—our east coast main line—will be in five, 10 or 15 years, not the adequacy of the service at the moment?
Stephen McPartland
I was disappointed to hear my hon. Friend say that he passes through Stevenage without stopping—I would prefer him to stop an awful lot more. However, I, too, congratulate the Government. This Government and the previous Government have done a lot of good work on the rail industry, and we could look at the way in which King’s Cross is being changed.
Grahame M. Morris
Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the privatised rail operators are costing the public purse—the taxpayer—£4 billion a year in subsidy? Since the east coast service has been nationalised, it has cost only £1 billion a year.
Stephen McPartland
I would not be able to acknowledge that, because I do not know the figures, but I can take the hon. Gentleman’s word for it.
Many people have said that the private sector ethos is not something we want to introduce to East Coast. In May 2011, I was fortunate enough to persuade East Coast to increase the number of services stopping in Stevenage by 18 per day. The number of services rose from 40 to 58 a day, which means an extra 9,000 seats a year. That all sounds great. It was the biggest rise in services to any location on the east coast main line. I did an awful lot of work on that. The individual I spoke to, who was the chairman of East Coast at the time, was previously the chief executive of First Capital Connect, and she took the private sector ethos that she received and learned at First Capital Connect and introduced it to the east coast main line. The reason First Capital Connect is important is that it shares the Stevenage station, effectively, with East Coast, and one of the main problems on a franchise that is 960-odd miles long is that it deals with so many other local operators. The point has been made that an interaction with local services would be hugely important and beneficial to many of our constituents. Fortunately for us, it works well in Stevenage.
Stevenage is only 30 miles from London, and the debate seems focused very much on services between London and the constituencies of some Opposition Members, and London and my constituency. A couple of years ago there were almost 40,000 journeys a year from Stevenage to Newcastle; a year ago there were nearly 50,000 journeys from Stevenage to Leeds; there are 11 services a day from Leeds to Stevenage and back. Stevenage is the capital of the UK space industry. We employ more than 10,000 scientists and engineers and build 25% of the world’s telecommunications satellites. A couple of days ago a satellite built in Stevenage went up, which will be responsible for broadcasting everything back to the UK. Interacting with a high-technology area such as Stevenage is important. People who engage in debate about this issue always seem to focus on the idea of a long-distance operator running the service, with Peterborough as the closest place people could get to—where they would have to change. As my hon. Friends have explained, that gives rise to the question whether it is cheaper to do that, or just to go on a plane or drive. Many of my constituents will drive to Heathrow airport and fly to Scotland, because that is cheaper than going by East Coast train. That is ridiculous. Sadly, it is faster. That is another problem. The debate and our efforts should focus on passenger satisfaction. Whether the service remains private or becomes public, or a mutual, that should be the whole idea.
In my final 30 seconds I have something to put to the Minister. Wherever the future of east coast ownership lies, it should include a mechanism for the removal—or, in today’s language, the recall—of the rail franchises, if any rail passengers are dissatisfied.
Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on securing an important debate.
The headquarters of the east coast main line has been in York ever since the line was built in the 19th century, and hundreds of skilled jobs in my constituency depend on its staying there—jobs at the headquarters and in the Network Rail management of the east coast main line, and hundreds of jobs in private civil, structural, signalling and electrical engineering firms that work for the railways. There have been two private sector-created hiatuses, caused by franchise collapses, on the east coast main line. Now there is a Government-created hiatus—a refranchising. I urge the Minister to make sure that there is stability and that those jobs stay in York.
In February, I asked my right hon. Friend the Minister—I call him my friend because we sat next to each other at the Democratic convention, cheering Obama to the hilt; he is one of us—at Transport questions:
“Before the Government announce their franchising schedule will they look at the feasibility of running a public sector franchise on the east coast for a period to compare like for like with a private franchise on the west coast to resolve the issue”
of whether privatisation works?
He said:
“I am afraid that he is not going to tease out of me in advance what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will announce”.—[Official Report, 28 February 2013; Vol. 559, c. 463-4.]
I wish that the Government had given the idea consideration before they announced that they intended to go ahead with franchising, but since they deliberately did not, and told the House they were not going to do so, I ask them to consider the proposition now.
There are three fundamental questions for the Minister. Do the Government want lower fares on the railway, so that the railways become more affordable and passengers get out of their cars and on to trains? Does he want a high return on the public investment that there has been in railways for decades? Does he want ever-improving quality and safety? I am sure that his answer to all three questions would be yes. Has privatisation delivered on those dimensions? On fares: no, it clearly has not. On the return on investment, track charges now being obtained by Network Rail are lower than they were 20 years ago. The East Coast train company is giving the Government a higher return than its predecessor private companies. In round terms, it turns over £650 million a year and gives the Government a profit of £200 million. In the middle of a downturn, for East Coast to provide the Government with a 30% return is doing pretty well, and I do not think the Government should put that in jeopardy.
Ian Murray
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on a wonderful speech. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) is getting to the crux of the matter. I travel on the east coast line—400 miles, for four hours 20 minutes—about twice a week. Does he agree that if a private operator returned that amount of money to the Government, they would champion it as a great way for the private industry to run the railways?
Hugh Bayley
They would, and rightly so but they should also do so for a public sector operator.
I was on the Public Bill Committee—they were called Standing Committees in those days—that considered the Railways Act 1993. We were told that the railways had to be privatised because there would then be masses of new private sector investment in the railways. Sadly, that has not happened. I totted up the investment for the first two years in which the Government were in power: 2010 and 2011. Network Rail invested more than 10 times as much as all the private rail companies put together. It invested £9,739 million and the private sector invested £780 million. In truth, the jury is still out on whether rail privatisation works.
Hugh Bayley
No; I think I will make progress, because I have only a few minutes.
I ask the Minister to consider whether it makes sense to run a private franchise on the west coast main line, which he is obliged to do—Richard Branson will sue him if he does not—and continue, for a full franchise period of 15 years, a public sector operation on the east coast main line, and to compare like for like. Which delivers better value for money to the Government, gives a better service to the public, and does better at reducing fares? I put a final challenge to him: let the Government follow what the passengers want—put out a leaflet on East Coast trains and ask the public whether they want refranchising or to stick with East Coast. If they go for East Coast, give East Coast a whirl.
Several hon. Members rose—
Dr William McCrea (in the Chair)
Order. I intend to start the winding-up speeches no later than 3.40 and there are still four hon. Members who have said they want to speak. To allow that to happen I impose a three-minute limit, and hope to get everyone in.
Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on the fantastic speech he made in opening the debate.
Like many of my colleagues, given the recent history of the east coast main line—not to mention the Government’s failure on the west coast franchise—I am deeply concerned about their plans for the impending privatisation of the east coast main line. The announcement by the Secretary of State for Transport about the start of a tendering process for the east coast main line and nine further franchises pays no regard to the public interest, and a profitable rail service will return to private hands within the next two years. The plans will no doubt be a recipe for disaster.
My hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough established in his speech that Government Members support state ownership of the UK rail network, but importantly, that does not mean UK state ownership. Instead, they support German, French and Dutch Government ownership of the UK rail network. It has been interesting to hear about the lack of understanding of the complex interrelationships in the way our rail franchising system works, such as the relationship between Network Rail, the train operating companies and the rolling stock leasing companies, and about the failed diffuse franchising model established by the Tory Government from 1979 to 1997.
We are promised new rolling stock on the east coast main line, but initially only the diesel trains will be replaced, and that will not happen until 2018. No one denies that the line suffers from chronic underinvestment, particularly as there is now very tired rolling stock. However, let us not forget the burden that East Coast inherited from the privately owned rail firms, GNER and then National Express. Those problems were exacerbated, given the limited amount of rolling stock available on the line, by the Hatfield and Selby rail crashes. When full train sets are taken out of a service of that nature, it means that the operator is operating on very tight margins indeed.
The only way to run an effective rail service is to ensure that infrastructure is up to scratch through continued investment, yet from a private sector perspective the overriding objective seems to be not investing in maintenance and providing customer satisfaction, but retaining funds for shareholders.
Like the travelling public, I am deeply concerned about what is being proposed for us. If we acted on the proposal that my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) has suggested and asked the travelling public on the east cost main line what they want for the future, we would get proof of the undoubted fact that the vast majority of them want the franchise to stay exactly where it is—in public ownership.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
The ideology in this debate is clearly not on the Labour side, as is shown by the speeches we have heard. What is puzzling many of my constituents is why it is somehow so urgent to put the east coast line out to franchise now, when East Coast is working well and when the franchise process for the west coast main line was such a disaster so recently. It sounds like the answer is ideology.
A couple of misconceptions have arisen in the debate so far. One of the previous speakers suggested that refranchising would fund improvements such as electrification, but during the past few years Network Rail has made infrastructure investment from public money. It is clear that refranchising will not bring about that kind of investment. I also say to the hon. Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) that, instead of perpetuating the notion that somehow East Coast is uniquely expensive, if he took his Government’s advice to benefit claimants and became “digital by default” he could considerably reduce fares by booking in advance. That is no different from the situation with any of the other rail operators.
There is now a good argument for looking at the situation. I am sure the Minister will say, as some Government Members have already said, “Oh, but the Labour Government were going to refranchise.” We learn from experience, and we have learned that there is no inherent reason why a publicly operated railway company cannot make a success of things. One reason for that is that such a company will be operated not by some anonymous Department, but by rail professionals; it will not be run from the Department for Transport. Those rail professionals are clearly motivated to make things work, which is why we are seeing the improvements that we feel are happening on the east coast line.
The time has now come for us to look again at some of the assumptions that were made at the time of privatisation.
Sheila Gilmore
I am sorry; I do not think I have time to give way.
There was a view that the track should be separated from the trains and that the network should all be split up. However, we know from the McNulty report that the unit cost of railways in this country is 40% higher than in countries in Europe where there are publicly owned, integrated rail services. The time has come not to be ideological about this issue, nor even defensive about what anybody’s Government did in the past, but to look at what is actually happening out there.
In the first instance, we should say of the east coast line, “No, we will not put this out to franchise again at this stage. There is no need to do so.” Secondly, we should look at the whole process and analyse what is happening. Thirdly, we should perhaps look again at having an integrated rail system—
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
As ever, Dr McCrea, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on making an excellent contribution to the debate.
I have only three minutes to speak, which does not give me much time to consider the privatisation or nationalisation of the east coast main line; I would need a lot of time to do that. Quite simply, I will focus on saying that the privatisation of the railways—some might even say the theft of the railway infrastructure—is totally unacceptable. It has been an unmitigated disaster, and franchise after franchise on the east coast main line has been a shining example of that.
I have looked at the results of the east coast main line. Since it has been in public ownership, it has been absolutely outstanding and there have been some things that private companies would be absolutely delighted with: increased passenger numbers, profits, premium payments and passenger satisfaction, and better turnover and punctuality. Also, passenger fare revenue has increased by 34% to £820 million. In 2012, turnover was £665.8 million, which was an increase of £20 million, leaving a profit before tax and service payments to the Department for Transport of £195.7 million, which was an increase of £13 million. Passenger journeys with East Coast, which runs trains from London to Yorkshire and from the north-east of England to Scotland, increased by 2.1% in 2012.
In addition, there is another important point, which I think has been agreed on by Members of all parties today. Customer satisfaction with East Coast has risen by 2%. Also, the company’s latest punctuality figures are the best since records began in 1999. What a credit to East Coast that is, and why on earth the Government are hoping to privatise the east coast main line quite frankly beggars belief. Again, it is about absolute ideology and absolute dogma, and who will benefit from this privatisation? It will not be the passengers and it will not be the work force; the financial bonanza will be distributed between shareholders.
I ask the Minister why on earth National Express—a company that threw the keys back at the Government because it could not cope with privatisation last time—will be allowed to bid for the east coast main line for a second time. If it could not cope the first time, why is it even being allowed to put itself forward a second time?
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea, and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on the timely and comprehensive speech that he gave on this very important subject.
Government Members have accused Labour Members of making this an issue of ideology. Well, in Westminster Hall today we have a Minister who oversaw the architecture to privatise the NHS and who is now overseeing the privatisation of a successful publicly owned rail franchise in the north-east. Indeed, this process is an experiment. Under the previous Conservative Government, the rail network was broken up and a new model devised in a way that any objective commentator must acknowledge was a failure.
We have seen a decline in the quality of service, a lack of investment, higher public subsidies and inflation-busting fare increases since privatisation. In fact, a report by Just Economics showed that UK rail services were less affordable, less comfortable, slower and more inefficient than publicly owned rail services in Germany, France, Italy and Spain. British train tickets are now the most expensive in Europe. A typical season ticket in the UK now costs 14p per kilometre, compared with just 8p per kilometre in Germany, Holland and France, which are the next most expensive countries in Europe. So, if we are making comparisons on price or value for money, the privatised franchise model that we have here just does not stack up.
I do not wish to go off the rails in terms of time, Dr McCrea, but I am under a bit of pressure and we have had some first-class contributions from Members. I do not want to repeat what has been said. However, I am perplexed about why, after four years of stability, rising passenger satisfaction and significant returns to the Treasury, the Government are rushing through the privatisation of the east coast main line, if not for reasons of ideology and dogma, ignoring the evidence. Conservative Members ask, “Would you nationalise the industry?” Well, in public polling, not just of Labour voters, but generally, those in favour of nationalisation poll in excess of 70%, by MSN and NOP and 93% in The Guardian. There is nothing more ideological than privatisation for privatisation’s sake. This is a privatisation too far, and it is not fit for purpose.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on securing this important debate. We have heard about the many improvements that have been made on the east coast since 2009. My hon. Friend set out the hard facts. East Coast has made real progress since Directly Operated Railways stepped in. Yes, there is more progress to be made, but I struggle to recognise the picture of East Coast treading water. A number of puns have made, but I am not sure that the metaphor of a railway treading water, used by the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), is one that I would use. However, hon. Members have provided examples of hard facts that support the call for the east coast main line to remain as a not-for-private-profit operator.
My hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson) noted the improvements to punctuality that she and her constituents have benefited from. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh East (Sheila Gilmore) noted the improvements in targeting business travellers, who might otherwise travel by plane, with worrying environmental consequences. There has been a 19% increase in those using the first-class service.
The hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) described a huge improvement in services to his constituency. He also said that passenger satisfaction should be a key measure. Of course, East Coast is getting better and better. Passenger Focus, the independent watchdog, recently recorded 92% satisfaction with East Coast—the best score found in its survey on that line since it was launched in 1999, better than under GNER or National Express.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris) suggested, the hard facts point to this being a dogmatic, ideological privatisation, rather than one based on the service.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
I take it that the hon. Lady would want completely to dissociate herself from the comments made by the former Labour Transport Secretary, Lord Adonis, who said:
“I do not believe that it would be in the public interest for us to have a nationalised train operating company indefinitely.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 1 July 2009; Vol. 712, c. 232.]
Lilian Greenwood
I do not know when the hon. Gentleman last spoke to Lord Adonis, but sensibly, like the rest of us, he responds to a change in circumstances. Over the past four years, we have seen East Coast perform well under Directly Operated Railways. Therefore, now is the time to keep it as a publicly operated service.
Mr Simon Burns
The hon. Lady has said something important. I do not know when she last spoke to her noble Friend Lord Adonis, but when she did, did he tell her that he had changed his mind?
Lilian Greenwood
I last spoke to my colleague probably two weeks ago. Certainly, he has changed his mind.
Andy McDonald
Does my hon. Friend recognise that Lord Adonis made his remarks some years ago on the basis of a National Audit Office report that looked at only eight franchises? That report underestimated the 2011-12 subsidy necessary from the taxpayer to those eight franchises by £224 million. We cannot rely on those comments, which were made in good faith at that time on false information.
Lilian Greenwood
The noble Lord is not here to set out his position, but I am sure that we will hear from him in due course.
Lilian Greenwood
I agree that we should be paying tribute to the work of East Coast staff. They stepped into the breach at a difficult time. The two previous franchise holders failed, with one operator walking away from its obligations entirely. Yet East Coast, run as a not-for-dividend operator, has achieved what its predecessors could not: stability and constantly improving services. This Government’s actions are putting that progress at risk.
It is worth briefly highlighting how strong East Coast’s performance has been. Passenger satisfaction is up by 12% over the last year; 3 million more seats per year have been provided; punctuality has improved and a new timetable has been established; and the service has more than held its own financially. As a not-for-dividend operator, East Coast has already returned £640 million in premium payments to the taxpayer, while recording a £40 million profit.
Fiona O'Donnell (East Lothian) (Lab)
I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware that the east coast main line passes through my constituency. It not only gives passengers a beautiful view of East Lothian, but is an essential part of the community of Dunbar. The instability is worrying people who use that service both to commute to London and into Edinburgh.
Lilian Greenwood
My hon. Friend is right. That instability is causing concern. Another thing causing concern is the fact that that £40 million profit, which has been reinvested in the service, would, under this Government’s plans, be split with shareholders instead.
I know from my own region how better services have made a real difference to passengers. In the east midlands, more services now stop at Newark; direct trains have been established daily between Lincoln and London; and two weeks ago a new commuter service was launched from Grantham. Bearing all this in mind, it is difficult to recognise the Government’s description of East Coast’s performance. Indeed, the Minister has said that punctuality on the east coast has plateaued. He even said that East Coast was the worst operator for punctuality when he appeared before the Transport Committee in April. He was then quoting from a very narrow, four-week window. Will he acknowledge today that this picture is not representative? According to Network Rail’s most recent punctuality figures, East Coast outperformed Virgin in both the last quarter and over the whole year, without the benefits of a £9 billion upgrade of its infrastructure. So this privatisation cannot be about punctuality, given that the Government have announced an extension to the operator’s contract on the west coast main line, where delays are more common.
It has been said that the Government are seeking a commercial partner to deliver investment, but will the Minister confirm today that the cost of upgrading the east coast main line and procuring new rolling stock will be met through public spending? In April, the Minister said that franchises should be measured
“by the premiums that are paid to the Government”,
as well as by reliability and overcrowding. But East Coast has made improvements in all those areas and grown the business, on a route that was last upgraded in the 1980s. The operator has developed a five-year plan and could deliver further success, if only the Government took the sensible step of backing it. Instead, we have seen an ideological decision to re-privatise the service. This is a damning indictment of this Government’s priorities at a time when the franchising system has collapsed and the National Audit Office has questioned the Department’s ability to deliver major projects.
The collapse of franchising has cast a long shadow over the rail industry. The fiasco has cost the taxpayer at least £55 million. Orders for rolling stock are on hold and the supply chain has been hit, threatening jobs and skills. The Government should be putting their house in order, so it is worrying to see Ministers instead, devoting their time to this unnecessary and unwanted privatisation, which suggests that they have not learnt the lessons from the recent past.
East Coast is working. The Office of Rail Regulation recently confirmed that East Coast receives virtually no subsidy and makes the second highest contribution back to the Treasury. We should not be undermining a successful service that has delivered real benefits for passengers. There has been enough instability on the line and the network as a whole benefits from having a public sector comparator, as my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) suggested. I hope that the Government will now do the right thing and cancel this costly and unnecessary privatisation.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Mr Simon Burns)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship yet again, Dr McCrea.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Middlesbrough (Andy McDonald) on securing the debate. The east coast franchise competition has become a subject of keen interest to many, not only in this room but beyond. The presence of so many hon. Members in the Chamber today to take part in and listen to this debate is a reflection of that keen interest.
The east coast main line serves a huge number of communities and businesses, as a number of hon. Members have made clear, and it connects industries in the north with commerce in the south, provides cross-border services to Scotland and helps to drive the development of tourism and the success of Edinburgh and Leeds as key financial centres outside London. That is why it is at the forefront of our new rail franchising programme, which was announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in March.
The programme that we announced is the right one. We want to secure the best possible rail services for both passengers and taxpayers, and the programme confirms our belief that franchising is the right way to do so. By publishing the programme, we have provided the whole rail industry with a long-term plan covering every rail franchise for the next eight years. That gives certainty to the market and supports the Government’s major investments in the country’s vital rail network. It is also exactly the same policy that the last Labour Government operated for 13 years when running our railways.
I think it was the hon. Member for Middlesbrough who seemed to be a little confused as to when the noble Lord Adonis made his comments on franchising being the right way, which have been quoted during this debate, so I will help him by saying that they were made in another place and repeated by the right hon. Member for Tooting (Sadiq Khan), who was the senior Transport Minister in the House of Commons at the time, during the debates on having to take the east coast main line into DOR.
Hugh Bayley
I am grateful to the Minister. Lord Adonis was saying that we would not want to run the east coast as a public operation indefinitely. No Opposition Member is asking for the east coast to be run as a public sector operation indefinitely; we are asking that it remain with the public sector for a franchise period so that we can compare like with like—public performance against private performance. We will then not have to rely on ideology because we will have some facts.
Mr Burns
I will return the compliment the hon. Gentleman gave me earlier by saying that he is on the reasonable wing of the parliamentary Labour party. I have to tell him, though, that Members from the more exotic wing of the Labour party were not saying that in their speeches; they want the east coast main line to be permanently in the public sector, not the private sector.
Lilian Greenwood
In 2009, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) said that if a franchise holder walks away, a public sector comparator should be maintained. Is the Minister in agreement with his departmental colleague?
Mr Burns
The hon. Lady anticipates the very point I am about to make, which is that, under the Railways Act 1993, the Secretary of State has a statutory duty to ensure the continuous, seamless provision of rail services. That is why the Department for Transport has Directly Operated Railways. It is a body of last resort when there is a problem; it is not a permanent company, for want of a better term, to run a rail franchise indefinitely. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary was correct in 2009, and the noble Lord Adonis was also correct.
Mr Burns
I am going to make progress, because I have only six minutes.
We have ensured that the delivery of the key inter-city franchises, both on the east coast and the west coast, is staggered so that they are not let at the same time in the economic cycle. The east coast is the first of those franchises to be let, and it is being returned to the private sector, as hon. Members know, after an extended and successful period of public ownership through force of necessity because of the fiasco with National Express. No one doubts that.
Mr Burns
No, I do not have time. I am not giving way.
When my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced the new franchise programme, he set out three key principles that we want rail franchising to follow: first, that passengers gain; secondly, that the rail industry thrives, with growing companies and new competitors coming into the market; and thirdly, that the taxpayer gains through more efficient use of public money and less waste in the industry. We believe that letting the east coast main line back to the private sector in line with those three principles will deliver the best possible long-term outcome for passengers and taxpayers.
I am aware of a number of concerns raised by hon. Members, including the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Mr Doran), on services to Scotland. Mindful of that, officials from the DFT who are developing the proposition for the future inter-city east coast franchise are meeting a number of interested parties along the route, including Transport Scotland, as I am sure he would expect, and other transport bodies in Scotland, as well as local authorities, to understand their concerns. The specification for the new franchise will address both current and potential markets along the franchise route, including those between London and Scotland and up to Aberdeen.
East Coast has delivered a great deal in the past three-and-a-half years of public ownership, which provides the foundations for more to be done by a private sector company that has certainty of ownership, longer planning horizons and an innovative and entrepreneurial approach to doing more for passengers and taxpayers. The operation of the east coast by the public sector was never intended to be a permanent arrangement.
Lord Adonis himself, when he was Secretary of State, said that he did not believe it was in the public interest for us to have a nationalised train operating company indefinitely, and I believe he still believes that. I would be fascinated if the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) intervened to tell me exactly what he said when he told her that he had changed his mind, because I have great difficulty believing that someone as intellectually astute and consistent as the noble Lord Adonis has changed his mind now.
The announcement that we will return the franchise to the private sector in February 2015 provides the certainty that is needed so that longer-term plans for the business can be made. We now need a strong private sector partner.
Mr Burns
If the hon. Gentleman listens, I will tell him.
A strong private sector partner is needed to build on what has been done and take forward our exciting plans for the route as part of the next franchise. The Government are making a significant investment in the route over the coming years, as a number of hon. Members mentioned, with new trains provided by the substantial inter-city express programme and new capacity provided by infrastructure projects. To ensure that that is managed and delivered so that those investments are put to best use, with minimal disruption for passengers, the inter-city east coast franchise needs a long-term partner that is able to deal effectively with the risks and challenges that come with such huge investment and change. That is best provided by the private sector.
Much of the debate has centred on the idea of privatised railways versus nationalised railways. The implication is that the running of the east coast by the public sector through DOR represents an alternative model to normal franchised services. That is not the case. The operation of train services by DOR is an essential part of the privatised franchising model. The Secretary of State has a statutory duty to maintain and ensure continuous provision of service, which is why DOR exists, but it is a short-term mechanism to meet immediate problems. Once those problems have been sorted, the intention is always to return to franchising.
Time is running out. Hon. Members have mentioned a number of issues, and I will write to them with answers to their questions, but I have to conclude by saying that it is almost Alice in Wonderland to believe in the so-called halcyon days of British Rail. I do not remember them; I believe things have improved under the franchise system.
Welfare Benefits (EU Citizens)
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea, and to know that my hon. Friend the Minister will respond to the debate. I hope he will answer all the questions I ask.
The topic of this afternoon’s debate is very important to people not only in my constituency, but in many others. Almost all the British public are concerned, because too many British citizens are out of work, and taxpayers resent their money being used to fund welfare for foreigners. That is why my constituents wish to restrict access to out-of-work benefits that are currently being paid to non-UK nationals from other EU countries. I think that is the wish of the vast majority of the British people, and also, I hope, of our Government. Whatever the gravity of the situation now, it is nothing like as bad as it will be after 1 January next year, when the group of non-UK nationals from other EU countries will include Romanians and Bulgarians, who hitherto have been prevented from getting full access to welfare benefits and the employment market.
Does the Minister agree with the basic proposition that if someone from another European country decides to move to the United Kingdom, they should not expect to receive taxpayer-funded assistance for their housing, health care, education or living expenses? Does he accept that freedom of movement under the EU treaties should be defined as being a freedom to leave, as well as to arrive? If a person who is a non-British EU national cannot afford to live in the United Kingdom without recourse to taxpayer-funded services, should not that person return to his own EU country, rather than rely on UK taxpayer handouts?
How much money is being spent on those handouts? Unfortunately, the Government cannot tell us, because, as the Minister told the House in a written answer,
“the UK’s benefit payment systems do not currently record details of a claimant’s nationality. Looking forward, the Government is considering ways of recording nationality and immigration status of migrants who make a claim to universal credit”.—[Official Report, 14 January 2013; Vol. 556, c. 466W.]
I think it will come as a shock to many that after three years of a Government led by a Prime Minister who says that he is determined to take action on this subject, we have not even begun to collect the most basic information necessary to inform public debate. When are we going to start? Why can we not start right now and record the nationality of people when they claim benefits?
Only two months ago, the Prime Minister assured us that he was going to get tough on benefits being claimed by foreigners in the United Kingdom. A month ago, the Home Secretary, along with her counterparts from Germany, Austria and Holland, wrote to Alan Shatter, president of the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council, demanding tighter restrictions on immigrants’ access to welfare handouts and other state-funded services.
We are told that the Prime Minister is actively engaged in negotiating a new relationship between the British people and the European Union. I asked him a written question for answer on Monday this week about his top priorities for reforming the UK’s relationship with the EU. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister transferred the question to the Foreign Office, and the Minister for Europe’s reply makes no mention whatsoever of either welfare or immigration as being among the top priorities for reforming our relationship with the EU. That is despite a recent ComRes/Open Europe poll showing that 55% of voters regard those issues as a top priority, and despite the Prime Minister’s recent speeches in which he has indicated that he also sees them as a top priority.
I shall be grateful if the Minister can explain in detail which aspects of access to British taxpayer-funded welfare are currently being negotiated in the EU. What is the state of those negotiations, their time scale, their prospects for success and why, at the moment, are they not a top priority for our Prime Minister?
Please can the Minister also explain how confident he is that we can resolve the issue to our satisfaction, when the European Union Commission is saying that the UK, far from being too generous in welfare payouts to foreigners, is not being generous enough? That was the effect of the decision six days ago, on Thursday 30 May, by the EU Commission, when it announced that it is launching a prosecution against the United Kingdom in the European Court of Justice, because we have different and less favourable rules for access to out-of-work benefits for EU nationals, compared with British citizens. Even the EU-loving Financial Times described, in its leader on 31 May, the EU Commission as having
“lobbed a hand grenade into the political discussion about Britain’s membership of the EU”.
Does that episode not illustrate perfectly the utter contempt in which the EU Commission holds Ministers in our elected Government? In the 20 months since the EU Commission first threatened such action, there has been much huffing and puffing by our Government, but all apparently to no avail. If it has taken 20 months to make zero progress with the Commission on that issue, what hope is there that other issues we wish to renegotiate will be dealt with any quicker or with any greater success?
The background to the debate is the question I asked the Minister on 20 May, which was, what steps are the Government taking to reduce the eligibility to United Kingdom benefits of nationals of other European Union states? In his careful response, he told me:
“We are strengthening the habitual residence test; the Home Office is creating a statutory presumption that European economic area jobseekers and workers who are involuntarily unemployed will not have a right to reside here after six months unless they can demonstrate they are actively seeking work and have a genuine chance of finding a job; and we will prevent those with no entitlement to work in the UK from claiming contributory benefits.”
Analysing each element of the Minister’s response in turn, one can see the credibility gap between his precise words and the overall impression of toughness, which I am sure he was seeking to give. The habitual residence test was introduced on 1 August 1994. I recall my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden (Mr Lilley), as Secretary of State for Social Security, telling the Conservative party conference in 1993 that he wanted to curb spending on benefit tourists. It is almost 20 years later, and have we succeeded in doing so? No. The situation has got worse rather than better. This coming weekend, it will be 30 years since I was first elected to the House, and it is a pity that all I have to report over those 30 years is a continuing decline in UK sovereignty, and ever more powers and decisions over our lives being taken away from us by the EU, despite the brave words of successive Ministers.
In 2004, the habitual residence test was supplemented with the requirement that a person has to satisfy a preliminary test of a right to reside in the UK, but that does not apply to EU and European economic area nationals who are classed as workers or self-employed persons under EC directive 2004/38 and the family members of such persons. On analysis, therefore, how is the Minister proposing to strengthen the habitual residence test, and how will it do anything to reduce the eligibility of nationals of other EU member states to access UK benefits? It does not seem to me as though it will achieve anything.
The second point that the Minister made in his answer, about jobseekers and workers who are involuntarily unemployed having to leave after six months, invites the question as to what is meant by “involuntarily unemployed”. How will one assess whether they have a genuine chance of finding a job? Are we going to introduce a language test? If so, how would that be compatible with current EU legislation? What about those who are self-employed, such as Romanian Big Issue sellers?
The third part of the Minister’s answer is perhaps the most disingenuous. He says that
“we will prevent those with no entitlement to work in the UK from claiming contributory benefits.”—[Official Report, 20 May 2013; Vol. 563, c. 890.]
How many people fall into that category? Every EU national who moves to the United Kingdom has the same entitlement to benefits as a UK national, regardless of their previous tax or national insurance contributions. That principle applies, without qualification, to all those who are “workers” or self-employed, while the qualification of “worker” is so broad as to include those not working but purportedly seeking work. Would it be unfair and going too far to summarise the Minister’s position as tantamount to an admission of impotence in the face of this crucial issue?
Let me emphasise that I do not blame the Minister at all, but do not his answers and the concerns of the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions amount to little more than spitting against the wind and grandstanding? What prospect is there of being able to change the European Union treaties to enable us to discriminate on the grounds of nationality in the way in which we distribute our welfare payments? Indeed, what is parliamentary sovereign democracy if it is not about the ability to treat our own citizens differently from the citizens of other countries?
One of the fundamental freedoms that lie at the heart of the EU treaties is “freedom of movement”. That was sold to the British people on the basis that we would be able to move to another country in the EU without impediment. We would be able to work there and live there and, through reciprocity, citizens of other EU countries could do the same in the United Kingdom. But what has happened is that, as with so many other aspects of the United Kingdom’s relationship with the European Union, freedom of movement has been applied as if to a federal superstate where there is no distinction between a British citizen and a Romanian or Bulgarian. The European Union Commission has continued to apply its ratchet of integration—ever closer union—systematically undermining our ability even to decide to whom we give British taxpayer-funded services.
Does this issue not illustrate the fundamental chasm between the European Union and us? The European Union sees itself as one country, with all its citizens sharing the same European nationality. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom sees itself as one of 27 separate countries within a free trade area, but with control over its own destiny and, in the context of this debate, control over those to whom it does and does not pay taxpayer-funded benefits. Does this not illustrate perfectly why my noble Friends Lords Lawson and Forsyth and Michael Portillo, all former Cabinet Ministers with a wealth of experience in negotiating with the European Union, are spot-on in pointing out the utter futility of the renegotiation exercise on which the Prime Minister has embarked? Does this saga not illustrate graphically the extent to which this Parliament has lost control over the most basic elements of national policy?
The starting point for the right to vote in a UK parliamentary election is being a British citizen. Citizenship confers privileges for citizens over non-citizens. Why cannot the same basic principles apply to the allocation of taxpayer-funded welfare benefits? Please can the Minister tell me how we will be able to restore control over our own affairs and give preference to our own citizens over foreigners without leaving the European Union? It seems to me that actions such as we have seen from the European Commission in recent days are driving more and more people to the conclusion that there is no alternative but to leave the European Union and that we would be much better off out, and in control of our own destiny.
There is a big issue about the fact that the European Union originally started off with a whole lot of countries that each had relatively similar standards of living, but now there are countries that are new entrants, particularly Bulgaria and Romania, where the standard of living is infinitesimal compared with that which we are lucky enough to enjoy in this country.
Figures I have obtained from the Library show that the annual household net income of a single-earner couple on the average wage with two children in 2011 was, using purchasing power parity exchange rates, €31,616 in the United Kingdom but only €7,750 in Bulgaria and even less—€7,514—in Romania. That means we have an average annual household net income of more than four times that of citizens in Bulgaria and Romania, so why will the Bulgarians and the Romanians not come to the United Kingdom in large numbers from next January? Apparently, there are already about 1 million of them in Spain, so it will not be very expensive for them to get here from Spain if they want to do so, and once they get here, unless something is done to the existing rules, they will basically have free access to as many benefits as they choose to apply for. They can come. They can try to get work. Even if they are unsuccessful at getting work, they can say that they are trying to get work and then access our benefits system. That can include other benefits that they can then export back to their families in their own countries. Is this not a state of complete farce? Have the Government grasped the political significance and importance of it?
Answering questions in the careful way that the Minister has answered them is absolutely right, because he wants to be intellectually honest in answering them, but could he also ensure that much fuller answers are given and that the areas where we obviously do not have any control at the moment are highlighted? I hope that as a result of this debate, he will assure us that the Prime Minister is serious about trying to do something about all this and that it is not just huffing and puffing, because we cannot carry on like this. There was 20 months between the European Commission saying that it was going to start taking infraction proceedings against us, and the matter now being referred to the Court. Will it take two years—three years?—before the Court decides? Many of us hope that we will have an in/out referendum long before then, but in any event, does this not show that the whole renegotiation process is a complete charade?
One example can be worth a thousand generalities, and the example highlighted in this short Adjournment debate is one the Government need to take really seriously.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mr Mark Hoban)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on securing the debate and trying to highlight some of the challenging issues we have to deal with. The Government are rightly concerned that our rules on migrants’ access to benefits should be robust. We already have strong rules to protect the taxpayer and the public purse from abuse and fraud. Those rules are fair and just, and I think they are entirely consistent with the freedom of EU citizens to work and to look for work here—I will come back to the issue of those who come here with no intention of working and the controls that are in place in that regard. The rules rightly ensure that migrants cannot get benefits if they have never worked here and have no intention of doing so.
Let me set out a bit of the background to assist my hon. Friend. European law says that an EU citizen can move to another member state if they are a worker, self-employed or a student, if they are seeking work or if they are self-sufficient. When EU nationals come to work in the hotels and guest houses of Bournemouth and Christchurch, it is that right that they are exercising, in the same way that UK nationals exercise their right when they go and work in other European Union countries.
European law also says that we must treat EU nationals who come here to work in the same way as we treat British nationals. We comply with that principle. EU nationals who work here and then lose their job can claim jobseeker’s allowance and housing benefit and, if they are temporarily unwell and unable to work, they can claim employment and support allowance.
EU nationals who come here to seek work are expected under EU law to be actively seeking work and to have a genuine chance of getting a job, and if they do, we say that they can claim jobseeker’s allowance. When people try to claim JSA, we apply a fair test to assess whether they are genuinely here to seek work—the habitual residence test. That test is applied to jobseekers whether they are EU nationals or UK nationals.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that no member state can afford to support migrants who have no intention of working and contributing economically to the community in which they choose to live. There is no requirement under EU law to provide such support, nor should there be. EU law has not sought to harmonise benefit regimes, nor should it. As he rightly points out, those are matters for national Governments. Member states have their own benefit regimes, some of which are more or less generous to their citizens than ours. It is easy to see why some people feel that they can move, not to work, but to take advantage of what they think is more generous welfare support in another country.
EU law sets out rules for co-ordination between member states to ensure that people who are genuinely exercising their free movement rights are not disadvantaged. There is no free movement right for those who are economically inactive and have no intention of working but want to be supported by state funds. We cannot be expected to support those who move just to take advantage of different benefit regimes, and the public are rightly concerned that that is what would happen if we were not allowed to check the legal basis for someone’s residence in this country, which is the basis of the infraction proceedings against us.
Mr Chope
My hon. Friend the Minister uses the expression “no intention of working”, but all they need to do is show that they are applying for jobs and that they hope to be able to work. It is very hard to prove that they are not intending to work, particularly when his Department does not even have the information on whether they are British nationals.
Mr Hoban
I just say to my hon. Friend that when someone seeks to claim jobseeker’s allowance, they go through vigorous tests to identify whether they are looking for work. The only basis on which people receive benefit is by demonstrating that they are looking for work, which is why we have the habitual residence test. It tests not whether someone has popped across on holiday and decided to sign on while they are here, but whether they have any real intention to be here and work. That is why we ask a range of questions and why we are trying to strengthen the test, which I shall come on to in a moment. It was one of the commitments the Prime Minister made. I want to say more about the habitual residence test and the infraction process.
The Commission says that we discriminate against EU citizens when we apply the habitual residence test. We believe that we are following EU law correctly when we apply those rules. Rules in the residence directive explicitly allow us to protect our national finances and prevent migrants from becoming an unreasonable burden on our welfare system. When we ask people to satisfy the habitual residence test, we do so not on the basis of their nationality but on the basis that they have moved to the UK from abroad, even if they have previously lived here. We do so to protect our system from abuse. Why would a member state not want to protect its benefit system from abuse by checking that someone is legally resident before they make a claim? The advocate-general of the European Court, in giving his opinion on an Austrian case called Brey, said that
“the Court has held in various circumstances that Member States may require lawful residence before granting social assistance benefits, providing that such a requirement complies with EU law.”
That is exactly what we do when we assess someone’s right to reside as part of our habitual residence test. We treat each case on its own merits and consider the individual circumstances of the claimant. Our test is fair; it legitimately requires that a benefit claimant has a reasonable right of residence here and a degree of interconnection with and integration into UK society.
This is not the first time that someone has sought to challenge the habitual residence test. We have already successfully defended challenges to our test in our Supreme Court and the domestic courts. They found that the habitual residence test does not discriminate on the grounds of nationality and that its use is justified because it protects the public finances of the UK and prevents benefit claims by people who have no intention of working here at all. My concern and that of the Government, and the reason why we are fighting the case, is that if the Commission is successful in arguing its interpretation of the rules, it will open a new door that will mean that member states can no longer check that migrants meet national residence laws, thus extending free movement to inactive migrants who believe they can move to any member state and get social assistance benefits soon after arriving. That cannot be right, which is why the Government, the Secretary of State and I are determined to defend the test. We believe that we have strong grounds to win the argument in the Court.
My hon. Friend mentioned the measures that the Prime Minister announced to strengthen our position. I shall highlight two announcements, the first of which was on time-limited access to benefits. Under EU law, someone has a right to reside as a worker or a jobseeker only if they are “continuing to seek employment” and have a
“genuine chance of being engaged”.
It is not unreasonable to take the view that if someone has not found a job within six months, that right should terminate. At the moment, we expect that most jobseekers will find a job within six months. The Home Office will amend the regulations to create a statutory presumption that EEA nationals who are coming to look for work in the UK or who have lost their job will no longer be exercising their free movement right of residence as a jobseeker after six months, unless, in line with EU law, they demonstrate that they are actively seeking work and have a genuine chance of getting a job. Most jobseekers will find work quite quickly—within six months. It is hard to demonstrate after six months that they have a genuine chance of getting a job.
The other announcement was on strengthening the habitual residence test. We will continue our work to ensure that our decision making when assessing whether someone satisfies the test is consistent and fair. We are improving the test, as the Prime Minister said, by increasing the range and depth of evidence that advisers collect from claimants and making it easier for advisers to tailor the questions to someone’s circumstances. Those improvements will support our argument that our test is robust and that our decisions are fair and comply with EU law.
My hon. Friend asked about language skills and the assessment of the genuine chance of finding a job. We will assess whether language skills are a barrier to work, as part of the habitual residence test—it is built into the test. He also commented on the fact that we are in discussions with our European neighbours. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has been in Germany to meet his opposite number, the Deputy Interior Minister. The Home Secretary will raise these issues with other Interior Ministers at the Justice and Home Affairs Council over the next week. I am going to the Netherlands this evening to talk to my opposite number about how we can work together more closely. There are clear concerns in a number of member states that the Commission is seeking to extend its influence in this area and subvert the right of free movement, which is widely supported in member states. We need to continue to work with our allies, demonstrate a need for change and recognise the concerns expressed across a wide number of member states about the Commission’s role.
My hon. Friend started his speech by talking about the broader issues of access. I am sure that he will welcome the immigration Bill announced in the Queen’s Speech, which will tighten access to the NHS and controls on private landlords letting property to tenants from overseas. The Government are taking steps to tighten access to not only welfare benefits but other public services, which is an important part of our approach.
Mr Chope
Does my hon. Friend not agree that it would be much better if we could do all that under our own control? If we were outside the European Union, we would be able to make such decisions ourselves, instead of being beholden to the European Commission, which, from the way he has described the infraction proceedings, is wholly intransigent. I sympathise with him. For all the effort he is making, he is banging his head against a brick wall; there is no give on the part of the European Commission. Does there not come a time when the British people have to say, “Enough’s enough. If you do not concede anything, we will leave”?
Mr Hoban
My hon. Friend is being uncharacteristically defeatist. We can make progress, which is why we are engaging with other member states. The support among other member states—we were party to the Brey case—demonstrates to the Commission how much concern there is. Member states can take the initiative to change the regulations, and we need to demonstrate to the Commission that there is support for that. I fully support the Prime Minster’s policy. We need to have the renegotiation and put the outcome of that renegotiation to the people in a referendum when we win the next general election. That is the right approach. We need to build alliances with other member states; we are not alone in our concerns. My hon. Friend will be relieved to know that other member states share his concerns exactly.
I hope that from my remarks this afternoon my hon. Friend sees that the Government are actively taking steps to protect our position not only in domestic law, by strengthening the habitual residence test through the new rules and the presumption about someone being out of work for six months, but by defending the matter strongly in the Court and building alliances with other EU countries. Our approach is right.
Written Ministerial Statements
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Victim's Right to Review
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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The Attorney-General (Mr Dominic Grieve)
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has today published interim guidance to Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) staff on handling cases that give rise to a victim’s right to review (VRR). The VRR guidance, which takes immediate effect, follows a judgment by the Court of Appeal (Thomas LJ, Dobbs J, and the Recorder of Redbridge) in R v Christopher Killick [2011] EWCA Crim 1608 that a victim of crime has a right, derived from the ordinary principles of English law, to seek a review of a CPS decision not to prosecute; meaning a clear procedure for the exercise of this right is required.
The guidance sets out when the victims’ right to review arises, the process for victims to request a review and how the review will be conducted by the CPS. Victims will be notified of their right to review when a CPS prosecutor decides not to charge or to terminate criminal proceedings involving that person as a victim. If the victim requests a review of the decision, a different prosecutor will consider the decision afresh and determine whether or not the decision of the original prosecutor was wrong. The decision on whether to reinstitute proceedings as a result of that review will be made at the level of deputy chief Crown Prosecutor or above.
The guidance has been issued on an interim basis and is the subject of a consultation exercise that will last for three months. The DPP will publish his final guidance later this year, once he has considered the responses to the consultation. Copies of the interim guidance have been placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
A meeting of the Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council was held in Brussels on 16 and 17 May. I represented the UK at the culture and audiovisual sections of the Council, together with Fiona Hyslop, the Scottish Minister for Culture and External Affairs. Shan Morgan, the UK’s Deputy Permanent Representative, represented the UK for the sport section of the Council.
Culture and audiovisual
The Council adopted a general approach on the proposal for a decision establishing the action for the European capitals of culture 2020-33. This action will follow on from the existing European capitals of culture action which ends in 2019. It envisages that the UK will host a European capital of culture in 2023. The UK supported the adoption of the general approach.
The Council also adopted a decision designating Aarhus (Denmark) and Paphos (Cyprus) as the European capitals of culture for 2017 and Valletta (Malta) as one of the two European capitals of culture for 2018.
The Council held an exchange of views on the transatlantic trade and investment partnership. The Commission highlighted the need to secure an ambitious negotiating mandate, while acknowledging that it is essential to protect European culture, particularly in relation to the audiovisual industry. The Commission was clear that it believes the current text of the mandate is consistent with this approach in seeking to protect the audiovisual industry by maintaining existing EU measures, protecting existing national regulations and financial support, and reserving future policy space for new technologies. France argued strongly for audiovisual services to be excluded entirely from the trade agreement. This position was supported by Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. For the UK, I welcomed the Commission’s commitment to securing these vital cultural protections, but argued that this trade agreement presents a historic growth opportunity for the European economy and it would be wrong to risk damaging our overall level of ambition by excluding a particular sector completely before negotiations have started. This position was supported by Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden.
The Council debated the role of culture in the EU’s external relations. Speaking for the UK, the Scottish Minister noted that the UK was recognised as a world leader in soft power and gave some examples of how Scotland is fostering strong bilateral relations, particularly with China. The Minister emphasised that any EU initiatives must bring added value and not dilute the work which is already going on in member states. Other member states were positive about establishing a third-country co-operation framework for the EU.
Sport
The Council adopted conclusions on dual careers for athletes. These conclusions are based on the “EU guidelines on dual careers for athletes” produced by the EU expert group on education and training in sport, which is chaired by the UK.
They recognise that young people should be supported as they seek to continue their education while aspiring to be high performance athletes. This will offer them further opportunities to contribute to society following the end of their athletics careers. The UK supported the adoption of these conclusions.
The presidency reported on the meetings of the World Anti-Doping Agency which were held in Montreal last week. These meetings had focused on the amendments to the code review and the budget.
The Council also held a policy debate on the role of public authorities in combating increased sophistication of doping in sport. The debate opened with a presentation from Travis Tygart, chief executive of the United States’ Anti-Doping Agency, who identified four key areas in which public authorities need to take action: legislation, independence, funding and engagement. Member states described some of the solutions they have adopted to tackle doping, including awareness-raising, co-operation and improved methods to uncover doping. The UK noted that the national Anti-Doping Agency had adopted an intelligence-based approach to tackling doping, which had been used as the basis for conducting tests on athletes before the Olympic games, and emphasised the importance of education, such as through the “Win Clean” campaign, developed during the Olympics, to inform athletes of their rights and responsibilities.
Any Other Business
Germany introduced an item on the revised draft Commission communication on state aid for films and other audiovisual work, arguing that it place limitations on member states in relation to territoriality. Belgium, France and Portugal supported this concern and France also questioned the threshold for the amount of aid. For the UK, I welcomed confirmation that our film tax relief remains in line with the communication, but I expressed our concerns about the publication of information about aid beneficiaries which could influence the price for which films are sold. I called for a speedy conclusion to the revision of the communication. In response, the Commission emphasised that it had incorporated into the communication almost all the demands from member states.
Germany also introduced an item on the proposed exemption clause for state aid for culture. Germany argued that there should be a complete exemption without the requirement of a maximum amount of aid, and that there should be timely notification procedures which did not interrupt the aid from public sources. France expressed concern about the extent of the exemption and where the boundary lay. I intervened to support the Commission, noting that the proposed changes would provide more flexibility for member states and remove the need for burdensome processes. In response, the Commission accepted that the scope for non-notification needed to be made clear.
The presidency updated member states on the negotiations on the creative Europe and Europe for citizens programmes, and Portugal introduced a paper on “Better connections for a better Europe” which set out two proposals designed to improved communications between EU Culture Ministers and between European cities.
Finally, Lithuania outlined the priorities for its forthcoming presidency of the Council. In the culture and audiovisual fields, these would focus on the role of culture in addressing social challenges, negotiations on a revised directive on the return of cultural goods unlawfully removed from a member state, decisions on international co-operation agreements with Colombia and Peru, and a recommendation on European film in the digital age. For sport, the priorities were conclusions on financial aspects in sport, a recommendation on health-enhancing physical activity and a ministerial debate on good governance principles in sport.
Afghanistan (Monthly Progress Report)
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
I wish to inform the House that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, together with the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development, is today publishing the 27th progress report on developments in Afghanistan since November 2010.
On 30 April, three UK military personnel were killed and six seriously injured when their Mastiff armoured vehicle struck an improvised explosive device while conducting routine vulnerable area checks in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand province.
The insurgency launched its 2013 “Khaled Bin Walid” fighting season on 28 April to coincide with Mujaheddin victory day. Reminiscent of previous years, there was a general increase in attacks across Afghanistan to mark the start of their new fighting season but these were largely ineffective. Our message to the Taliban remains that entering a peace process is a chance for Afghans to sit down together and help shape their country’s future.
The UK agreed to provide funding of up to £4.5 million to help strengthen women’s political participation ahead of and during the 2014 presidential/provincial and 2015 parliamentary elections. Support will be provided for female candidates, including workshops and direct training, so that they can reach out to voters and improve their prospects in the 2014/15 elections.
Tensions along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border continued throughout April. Afghanistan accused Pakistan of building up a border post on the Afghan side of the Durrand line. In a military-to-military meeting on 15 April, the two sides agreed that new construction would halt and be dismantled.
NATO Foreign Ministers met in Brussels on 23 April to discuss progress in planning for the post-2014 mission, the international community’s commitment to a stable, secure and sovereign Afghanistan, and the pledge made at Chicago to fund the Afghan National Security Forces. Following the Foreign Ministers’ meeting, US Secretary of State Kerry, Afghan President Karzai and Pakistani chief of army staff Kayani held a trilateral meeting in Brussels on 24 April.
I am placing the report in the Library of the House. It will also be published on the gov.uk website (www.gov. uk/government/publications/afghanistan-progress-reports).
Justice and Home Affairs Council (Pre-Council Statement)
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)
The Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council is due to be held on 6 and 7 June in Luxembourg. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice and I will attend on behalf of the United Kingdom. As the provisional agenda stands, the following items will be discussed.
The Council will begin in mixed committee with Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland (non-EU Schengen states) where the presidency is expected to report significant progress on the Schengen evaluation mechanism and make a statement on the latest compromise package. The UK’s priority has been to ensure the UK’s participation in the mechanism, and retention of a peer- to-peer process as the basis for the mechanism, as agreed by the Council in June 2012. The presidency will also present the latest Commission report on the functioning of the Schengen area.
Next, Greece will update the Council on progress in implementing the Greek action plan on asylum and migration management. The UK supports Greece’s efforts to reform its asylum and migration system, and notes the significant progress made in reducing illegal immigration at the Greece-Turkey land border. However, more rapid and effective action is needed to address issues around the availability and use of EU funding, access to asylum procedures, and Greek operational capacity on the Aegean islands.
Over a working lunch there will be a discussion of free movement, which the presidency intends to report back to the Council plenary. This follows a request for a substantive discussion from the UK in a joint letter co-signed by Interior Ministers from Germany, Austria and the Netherlands. The UK will voice its concerns about the impacts of abuse of free movement and benefit tourism by EU and third-country nationals and will urge the Council to work together to tackle these issues.
During the main Council there will be an update on the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The UK has opted in to the Dublin (III) regulation and the new Eurodac (II) proposal, but not the recast directives on asylum reception conditions, procedures and qualifications. Dublin (III) will be put forward for adoption at the Council. Eurodac (II) will be put forward for “political agreement” with adoption likely later in June. We are content with both.
The Council will be updated on progress in reaching agreement on the proposed legal migration directives on conditions of entry and stay for third-country national intra-corporate transferees and on seasonal workers. The UK has not opted in to these measures. The Council will also be provided with an update on initial discussions on the recently published proposal for a new directive on the entry and stay of third-country national students and researchers. The Government will be making a decision on whether it will opt in to this measure in due course.
There will be an orientation debate on the proposal for a new Europol legal base, also encompassing CEPOL, where the UK will highlight the risk of mandatory obligations to share information with Europol, to seek clarity that Europol cannot order investigations and reiterate the UK’s objection to the Europol/CEPOL merger.
There will be a discussion on foreign fighters and the threat they pose if and when they return to Europe. While not a new issue, the situation in Syria is attracting significant numbers of EU citizens who have various reasons for engaging in the conflict. The UK welcomes the opportunity to discuss with member states how individuals are engaging with extremists while overseas, the extent to which they may develop the intent and capability to conduct an attack against the UK/Europe as well as the risk of radicalising others upon their return. The UK supports the work that the EU CT co-ordinator has been doing to understand the scale of the problem, and agrees that there is value in enhancing our understanding of how others are addressing the problem and how we can work collectively in mitigating this potential threat.
There will also be a discussion on the protection of refugees from Syria during which the UK will reiterate its interest in joining the Regional Protection Programme (RPP) steering committee.
There will be a presentation by the Commission on their communication “Maximising the Development Impact of Migration: the EU contribution for the UN High-level Dialogue and next steps towards broadening the development-migration nexus”.
Under AOB there will be a presentation by Lithuania of the incoming presidency programme and a presentation by Sweden on the Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD). Hungary will update on recent developments with the Budapest process (an intergovernmental forum on migration) and the presidency will use this opportunity to update on the recent fifth ministerial conference that took place on 19 April in Istanbul, launching the new Silk Routes Partnership on migration, on which the Budapest process will now focus. The UK is committed to its participation in the Silk Routes Partnership. The UK is leading a “bridging project”, ahead of the commencement of EU funding, to ensure the momentum generated by the ministerial conference is maintained, and that the new partnership is focused on concrete practical co-operation initiatives.
The justice day will begin with a discussion on key issues on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and the free movement of such data. The presidency has issued a “key issues” paper with seven draft conclusions as well as a further redraft of the whole of chapters I-IV of the text. The presidency will also look to gain political agreement on some elements of the text.
The Council will be aiming for a general approach on a directive of the European Parliament and the Council on the fight against fraud to the Union’s financial interests by means of criminal law.
This will be followed by an orientation debate on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council creating a European account preservation order to facilitate cross-border debt recovery in civil and commercial matters. The UK has not opted in to this proposal due to a number of concerns, the main concern being the lack of protection for debtors in what can be a draconian procedure.
There will also be an orientation debate on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council regulation on insolvency proceedings. The UK is in support of this proposal.
The Commission will present the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on promoting the free movement of citizens and businesses by simplifying the acceptance of certain public documents in the European Union and the introduction of common format, multi-lingual public documents. The document seeks to promote the free movement of citizens and businesses by simplifying the acceptance of certain public documents in the EU.
On non-legislative activities, there will be a discussion of the Council conclusions on how to support fundamental rights and the rule of law, where it is likely that adoption of the conclusions will be sought in the member states. The UK has long been a champion of rule of law values throughout the world but would want to be satisfied that any action at EU level genuinely added value to existing mechanisms, for example in the Council of Europe, and is not persuaded that there is any need for new EU competences in this area.
There will be a presentation by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drugs Addiction (EMCDDA) on the EU Drugs Strategy Action Plan 2013-2017, which is scheduled for adoption.
The presidency will give a state of play update on the accession of the European Union to the European convention on human rights.
The presidency will also provide an update on work achieved during its term on e-Justice, a project which seeks to improve access to justice across borders through the use of IT.
Under AOB the presidency will provide an update on current legislative proposals, including the progress of the proposed regulations on matrimonial property regimes and the property consequences of registered partnerships. Given that the UK does not have similar property regimes for married couples or civil partners, we have not opted in to either proposal.
The Lithuanian delegation will then provide the Council with a presentation on their programme for the presidency, which is due to start in July.
Legal Services Review
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mrs Helen Grant)
The complexities of the current legal services regulatory landscape have been raised with Ministers by a number of different stakeholders and through the red tape challenge, and Ministers have decided to undertake a review of the legal services statutory framework. The purpose of this review is to consider what could be done to simplify the regulatory framework and reduce unnecessary burdens on the legal sector while retaining appropriate regulatory oversight. This review will encompass the full breadth of the legislative framework, covering at least 10 pieces of primary legislation and over 30 statutory instruments. We are also open to comments on the interaction between the legislative framework and the detailed rules and regulations of the approved regulators, licensing authorities and of the Legal Services Board and Office for Legal Complaints; although we recognise that these are not owned by the Ministry of Justice.
We are starting the review with a “call for evidence” from stakeholders. At this initial stage, we are interested in hearing about concerns with, and ideas for reducing, regulatory burdens and simplifying the legal services regulatory framework. We would be interested in ideas covering the overall legislative framework, and any specific provisions or aspects within it. The evidence provided will be analysed to identify potential ways in which the framework might be simplified while retaining appropriate regulatory oversight. Following the analysis, Ministers will decide on next steps.
We are seeking views from a range of stakeholders across the legal services sector including the representative and regulatory arms of each of the approved regulators and licensing authorities, and those applying to be approved regulators/licensing authorities, the Legal Services Board, Office for Legal Complaints, Legal Services Consumer Panel, Office of Fair Trading, consumer bodies, legal academics and the judiciary. We will also be seeking views from persons providing legal services.
Motoring Offences (Fixed Penalty Levels)
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)
In June 2012 the Government consulted on increasing the fixed penalty levels for most motoring offences and making careless driving a fixed penalty offence. The Government have today published their response to this consultation.
The changes will give the police the power to issue fixed penalty notices for careless driving and allow them greater flexibility when dealing with less serious careless driving offences—such as tailgating or middle lane hogging—as well as freeing them from resource-intensive court processes. The police will also be able to offer educational training as an alternative to licence endorsement. Drivers will still be able to appeal any decision in court.
Careless drivers put lives at risk and are also a major source of concern and irritation for law-abiding motorists.
Fixed penalty levels for most motoring offences—including using a mobile phone at the wheel and not wearing a seatbelt—will rise to £100 to bring them into line with the penalties for similar non-motoring fixed penalties. Fixed penalty levels for most of these motoring offences have not increased since 2000 and these changes are intended to ensure that penalties for motoring offences reflect the seriousness of the offence and are consistent with similar penalty offences—such as disorder.
The fixed penalty for careless driving will be £100 with three points on the driver’s licence. The most serious examples will continue to go through court, where offenders may face higher penalties.
The changes, which we aim to bring into force in July this year, are being introduced following extensive public consultation with road safety groups and police forces.
We are also increasing penalties for a range of other driving offences to a level which reflects their seriousness and which will ensure that they are consistent with other similar penalty offences:
A non-endorsable £30 fixed penalty notice will rise to £50;
An endorsable £60 and non-endorsable fixed penalty notice will rise to £100;
An endorsable £120 fixed penalty notice will rise to £200;
The fixed penalty notice for driving with no insurance will rise from £200 to £300.
Graduated fixed penalties (mainly for commercial goods and passenger-carrying vehicles and includes offences like drivers’ hours and overloading) and financial deposits (for drivers without a satisfactory UK address) will also increase:
A £30 non-endorsable fine will rise to £50;
A £60 endorsable and non-endorsable fine will rise to £100;
A £120 endorsable and non-endorsable fine will rise to £200;
A £200 endorsable and non-endorsable fine will rise to £300.
Endorsable road traffic offences contribute to a significant number of casualties. For example, in 2011, excess speed contributed to 213 deaths and using a mobile phone while driving contributed to 374 road casualties.
Though penalty levels will increase, penalty points will not change. Fixed penalty notices for parking, waiting and obstruction offences will also remain unchanged.
Grand Committee
Mesothelioma Bill [HL]
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Faulkner of Worcester)
My Lords, I apologise for being late. If there is a Division in the Chamber while we are sitting, the Committee will adjourn as soon as the Division Bells are rung and resume after 10 minutes.
Clause 1 : Power to establish the scheme
Amendment 1
Lord Avebury
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I am glad that these things happen to other people as well as to me. The Deputy Chairman need not apologise because everyone, however careful they are with their diaries, makes these mistakes from time to time. I missed an appointment myself this morning and I am still smarting from it.
On Second Reading, the Minister said that the Bill would establish a payment scheme to make lump sum payments to eligible sufferers from mesothelioma and their eligible dependants but he later amended that and said that it was a means to create such a scheme. Clause 1 gives the Secretary of State power to create, amend, replace or abolish the scheme within the certain broad parameters referred to in Clauses 4, 5, 6 and 10. Parliament has no say in the details of the scheme or in any variations made to the scheme, although of course it does on the regulations that are made under the Bill.
My noble friend Lord German and I both commented on this at Second Reading but the Minister evidently did not consider it important enough to pick the matter up in his winding-up speech, nor is there any explanation of the drafting in the Explanatory Memorandum. We are merely told that the clause confers these wide-ranging powers on the Secretary of State without saying why Parliament is excluded from all these processes.
If the Government consider it necessary to make changes in the system of employer’s liability insurance under the 1969 Act, obviously they have to come before Parliament and seek approval, as they did for the Act itself. Under this Bill the amount of any payment is determined by regulations, but in Clause 4 there is provision for the payments to be made subject to conditions, or for the payments to be repaid in whole or in part in specified circumstances. Again, these decisions are the sole prerogative of the Secretary of State. Similarly under Clause 5, the procedure for the making and deciding of applications is part of the scheme issued by the Secretary of State without having to obtain parliamentary approval.
There are further provisions relating to the scheme in Clauses 6 and 10 which are left to the unfettered discretion of the Secretary of State. These may not be in the best interests of claimants—we simply do not know—and it would be helpful if my noble friend could say whether, before any of these decisions, drafts will be published for consultation with the stakeholders. In the period leading up to the publication of the Bill, the Minister told us at Second Reading, there were 15 meetings with the insurance industry and 11 with representatives of victims’ groups, lawyers and members of the APPG. If the Government had to come back to Parliament they would have some incentive to continue with these consultations on the scheme and on the amendments to it which may be made in the future.
I hope that my noble friend can assure us that there will be no private consultation with the insurance industry excluding organisations representing the victims of mesothelioma. According to the Guardian, firms with insurance interests have given the Tories nearly £5 million since Mr Cameron became leader of the party. I am sure that the Government would not like it to be suspected that the industry’s largesse entitled it to any special favours. Your Lordships will bear in mind that all firms providing employer’s liability insurance have a vested interest in ensuring that, as far as possible, the details of the scheme create as light a burden for them as they can achieve. If, however, the industry passes on the costs to customers, as the Data Monitor survey quoted in paragraph 97 of the 2013 impact assessment suggests, it might be more impartial if it is asked to comment on a draft before the scheme is published.
The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee says that this scheme is comparable in structure and content with the one governing a discrete, targeted social security benefit. It concludes that,
“only a most compelling explanation could justify the establishment of a scheme that is to determine rights to statutory payments, yet is not to be subject to any form of Parliamentary scrutiny”.
That says it all. I beg to move.
Lord Freud
My Lords, before there are any other contributions on this topic, it might save time if I respond rapidly to the last point mentioned by the noble Lord, around Amendments 1, 2, 4 and 5, about establishing the scheme on a statutory basis. Clearly that is the recommendation of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. We acknowledge the concerns behind it. In the time between the recess and the Committee stage it has not been possible to do more than consider the proposed changes to the Bill. I am sure that noble Lords understand exactly what I am saying. I understand their concerns about the means by which the scheme is established and we are giving the matter due attention. I hope that those remarks might save a little time today.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I hope the Committee will allow me to speak. I apologise for arriving late. My excuse is that the document issued by the government Whips’ Office informed us that business was to begin at 3.45. I am obviously lagging behind everyone else. I apologise particularly to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for missing the beginning of his remarks.
Obviously what the Minister has told us is strongly encouraging. It points us in the direction we all want to go—and certainly in the direction that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee wants the Government to go—and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, was quite right to quote from that paragraph. As he says, it is very powerful on this point.
I am sure that Parliament will welcome it if the Government decide that this scheme is after all to be introduced under a statutory instrument. We received this morning the draft rules of the new scheme and while I congratulate the Minister on enabling us to have them, as he undertook to do, by the time we reached Committee, at the same time I grumble a little that we only had them during the course of this morning. We will want time to study them and no doubt revert to the issues contained within the draft proposals.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we have added our Front Bench names to Amendments 1 and 4 and concur with the two amendments of my noble friend Lord Howarth. I think that the arguments have been fully and effectively made and I do not think that I need to add anything. I take the Minister’s reply to be, “Yes, but not quite yet”, and that is comforting. It is a good way to start our deliberations today.
We are all grateful that we have now seen a draft of the scheme. It arrived this morning at 11.55 am, according to my machine. I wish to make the point that should there arise, after we have had a chance to study it, issues that we might otherwise have parsed today as these amendments go through, we could perhaps use our next opportunity to revisit them. This is not to slow up the overall process but to ensure that we make best use of the draft that we have.
We have also added our names to Amendment 6, about the annual report to Parliament. I concur with my noble friend’s list of issues to be covered. I would add that later in our deliberations we will consider our broader amendment which refers to the possibility of an oversight committee to oversee very much the same type of issues as my noble friend raised, in particular to deal with the issue that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, raised. One of the concerns that we have throughout the Bill is the extensive engagement and powers that the insurance industry has—the administrator, the technical committee, ELTO setting up the portal. The oversight committee would be one way of at least addressing that scope in the interests of the sufferers. I think that that is for debate on Monday.
My noble friend’s Amendment 3 requires the Secretary of State to publish proposals and make a Statement to Parliament before establishing the scheme. Clause 1(3) currently requires the Secretary of State to,
“publish the scheme as amended from time to time”.
Does the Minister take this requirement as covering my noble friend’s aspiration in Amendment 3? If so, will he put that on the record?
Lord Freud
Ah, I might say a few words. I hope that in my earlier intervention in the interests of saving a little time I effectively dealt with our approach on Amendments 1, 2, 4 and 5. I will turn to Amendments 3 and 6 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth.
Amendment 3 requires that before the scheme is established,
“the Secretary of State shall publish his proposals and make a statement to Parliament about them”.
This falls into the area of the recommendations from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee to make the scheme rules subject to negative resolution. The result of those considerations may serve to enhance in practice the level of parliamentary scrutiny, which would make this amendment unnecessary.
One or two questions were raised. I apologise for the late arrival of the scheme rules—everything seems to be just in time today—but I was keen to get them to Committee Members before we started. Of course, we will have another day of Committee, and further stages. They are a draft at this stage and a work in progress and we will be continuing to refine them during the passage of the Bill and indeed afterwards.
I ought to deal with the question from my noble friend Lord Avebury on the meeting with the insurance industry. Bluntly, this was a negotiation with the insurance industry and you have to meet people to negotiate with them. To get a working scheme going, that was an essential job. I would have liked to have done it with rather fewer meetings, but that is what it took.
Amendment 6 requires that:
“The Secretary of State must report annually to Parliament on the performance and progress of the scheme”.
I argue that it is not necessary to include this in the Bill. Scrutiny and reviews are already planned for the scheme without the need to include those in legislation. Indeed, we cannot know at this stage whether it is necessary or appropriate to report annually. We are aiming to determine the details of the reviews at a later stage. I am happy to commit to making a Statement to the House on the scheme’s performance. We will keep this under review as, over time, we expect the volume of scheme cases to reduce and for further information on the schemes to be readily available. The kind of information that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, was talking about may become transparent effectively on a daily basis. I urge the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
Before the Minister sits down, perhaps he could put on the record a bit more about the imbalance of the meetings that he held with the industry and the victim support groups. He may recall that I raised this issue at Second Reading. I heard from the victim support groups afterwards and they said, quite categorically:
“We met the Minister three times, however at no time were we involved in any discussions about the scheme which was unveiled on 25 July 2012. The detail and architecture of the scheme was devised by the insurers and DWP”.
That has been a source of some discontent among those who represent the victims of this awful disease.
Lord Freud
My Lords, the difficulty in doing such a negotiation is that this was pretty price-sensitive stuff in the marketplace. We had to keep it tight. I did, however, explore the angles without being specific or laying it out by saying, “Here is the architecture”. I explored the elements of what we were aiming to do with, as I say, not just the victims’ groups but the lawyers and the APPG. Keeping a balance between a commercially complicated deal and ensuring that the other side is well informed is always difficult, but that is the balance that I tried to strike.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I certainly was not objecting to the meetings that were held with the insurance industry in the lead-up to the Bill. I mentioned that at Second Reading the Minister told us how many meetings there had been not just with the victims support group but with various other stakeholders, such as the lawyers representing the victims. I had hoped that those consultations would have been extended into the period when the details of the scheme are being formulated. We would hope that there would be equality of arms between the insurance industry and the representatives of the victims in designing the details of the scheme and in looking at any amendments that may be necessary later on. However, we have to be content with what the Minister has said this afternoon and hope that, at least by Report, we will be looking at something a little more concrete than the Minister was able to say to us. In the meanwhile, I withdraw the amendment.
Lord Howarth of Newport
“( ) the person was self-employed at the time of exposure to asbestos,”
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, the two amendments in this group, Amendments 7 and 8, would extend eligibility under the scheme to two classes of people who, as I understand it, are not eligible under the Bill as drafted and the scheme as proposed. The two classes of people are those who are self-employed and were exposed to asbestos and in the course of time contracted mesothelioma, and family members who have contracted this appalling and fatal disease as a result of doing the laundry of an employed person who came back home with asbestos fibres on his workwear. There will have been many people who were self-employed in the building trades and the construction industry over the years. I do not know whether the department has any information as to the numbers. It would be helpful to the Committee if the Minister were in due course able to give us an idea of the scale of this problem.
The Minister may take a severe view of the case of a self-employed person who did not insure. He may argue that it is unfair to insurers that they should pay a levy into a scheme to compensate someone who failed to insure when it was his own responsibility as a self-employed person to do so. To that, I would say that the whole Bill is based on rough justice; competent, respectable insurers are required to pay for the dereliction of their colleagues in the insurance industry who lost or even wilfully destroyed documents. There is also rough justice for the recipients, who are invited to be content with 70% of the amount that they might receive in an award from a court. On the other hand, the self-employed and their dependants suffer exactly the same as employed people and their dependants. There seems to me to be a strong moral case for treating them alike.
The Minister may pleasantly surprise me, but if he does take that severe view of the case of those who did not insure on their own behalf, what of self-employed people who died insured but whose documents have gone missing? The insurance company no longer has them and, although there is tentative evidence that a self-employed person was insured, it is not substantial and the case cannot be proved. Why should not a person in that predicament be covered by the scheme? They and their dependants are in exactly the same boat in terms of suffering and loss as employed people.
Let us also consider the predicament of wives, partners, daughters—family members, people in the same household—who contracted the disease because they were doing the washing. I am personally aware of the cases of three people where that has occurred. It is entirely possible that someone could catch mesothelioma through washing the workwear of their partner or parent where the employed person has not, although they may contract it later. The dependant, the family member, the person caught in that situation, is equally the victim of an employer’s neglect. It seems morally wrong not to include such people in the scheme on the technicality that the person who was the employee has himself not been diagnosed. Insurers ought to be willing to embrace those people within the scheme.
People in that predicament are eligible for compensation under the 2008 statutory scheme, I believe, but the difficulty is that payments under the scheme are very small by comparison with payments that would be made under the scheme that we are now considering. Again, it would be helpful if the Minister or his officials could give us any idea of the number of people in that second category to which Amendment 8 is addressed.
If the Minister says that the insurers should not be obliged to extend the scheme to support people in either of those groups, I should be grateful if he will tell us what the Government will do to create justice for them. I beg to move.
Lord James of Blackheath
My Lords, before I comment on what the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, said, I declare my interests. I was an elected member of the council of Lloyd’s throughout its entire rescue period; I was chairman of the audit committee of Lloyd’s of London; and I was chairman of the committee that created Equitas, which effectively brought about a solution. I am afraid that I have lived and slept with this thing for rather too long in my life.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, is quite correct, but he opens up a much bigger issue, which I do not think that he has spotted. That is that in the realm of self-employed people, the Navy did not necessarily re-equip its own boiler rooms on the three vessels which have had the biggest ever death rates: HMS “Britannia”, HMS “Albion” and HMS “Furious”. Therefore, all those people who were self-employed and contracted in would come entirely within the compass of the noble Lord’s concern, and I support that.
I pre-warned the Minister that I have now set the Admiralty on the issue of the effects of the Bill for it and its former members. The noble Lord, Lord West, who was here just now, asked me to pass on the message that he is going to be very upset if he is allowed to die without being given his handout. He was one of only two commanding officers ever to be given a permit to sit in the boiler room during a major reconstruction, so he is almost certainly at high risk. The other one, who was the commander of the “Britannia”, has already died.
There is a very serious concern here regarding the naval forces. As the Minister knows as a result of our meeting the other day, there was a discussion in the House on 24 November 2008 led by the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, on behalf of the armed services at that time. She responded to my concern about the repeal of Section 10 of the Crown Proceedings Act 1947 and its replacement by the Crown Proceedings (Armed Forces) Act 1987, which had the effect of precluding any claim for asbestosis against any single person of the Armed Forces from anyone who had failed to put in a claim for an identifiable disease at that time. There were only 10 years in which such a disease could be identified, but we are talking here of a 30-year incubation period. In the region of 200 members of the Armed Forces are currently still at huge risk—it is virtually an inevitability—of suffering from this terrible disease and absolutely nil provision or obligation rests on the armed services to look after them or their dependants. I think that somewhere down the line we need to alter this Bill to allow a once-and-for-all, final opportunity for justice on their behalf. I shall return with an amendment to this effect once I have had my discussions with the Admiralty, but for the moment I just want to put down a marker.
Lord Wills
My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendments on this issue. I first became aware of this terrible disease shortly after I was elected as the Member of Parliament for Swindon North. A man came to my surgery in the exact circumstances that my noble friend has described. He was absolutely distraught because his wife had just died from this terrible disease, which she had contracted from washing his clothes. Every day, he came back from the railway works in Swindon and gave his work clothes to his wife. She washed them and, as a result, she died from this disease. It seems completely wrong, as a matter of natural justice, that people in these circumstances should be denied any access to justice under the terms of this Bill.
Like my noble friend, I hope that the Minister will surprise us pleasantly by accepting these amendments, although I fear that we may be disappointed. If we are disappointed and the Minister relies—as I understand he may well be advised to do—on the dangers of creating a precedent by accepting these amendments, I hope that he will be able to say in exactly what circumstances he thinks such a precedent will be created. Given the very particular nature of this disease, its particular virulence and the very particular way in which it is contracted, can he say precisely what precedents he thinks will be created by accepting my noble friend’s amendments?
In the mean time, I hope that the Minister will at least agree to look again at these amendments, which seem to be absolutely consistent with the basic principles of natural justice, and I very much hope that they will find their way into this Bill in one way or another.
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 8. I spent the greater part of my professional life practising medicine in the north-east of England. Even though I practised largely as a neurologist, I saw many patients with mesothelioma, many of whom had worked in the shipyards on the Tyne and the Wear, and who had been exposed to asbestos. However, I also saw, not under my direct care but under the care of colleagues, some women who developed mesothelioma because they had been involved in washing the clothes of their husbands, who had been exposed to asbestos—clothes which were deeply impregnated with asbestos fibre. For that reason, I would say that this issue does not rest just on the balance of probabilities; in my view, it is beyond all reasonable doubt that they developed mesothelioma because of that activity.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, like my noble friend Lord Walton of Detchant, in my time as a Liverpool Member of Parliament I also came across shipyard workers from the River Mersey who, sadly, had contracted mesothelioma. I also saw tunnellers, masons and others who had come to surgeries to talk about what compensation schemes might be available.
I vividly recall meeting a man and his wife, and she came back to see me just weeks later when she was a widow, he having died. The rapidity with which people can die after prognosis is alarming, and of course it is a fatal disease. It is suspected that another 56,000 people will die of mesothelioma before this terrible curse is ended.
Lord Martin of Springburn
My Lords, I am very interested in the question of families being exposed to asbestos. I draw on my own experience as an apprentice metalworker in the mid-1960s. Sometimes there would be a rush job to manufacture electric heaters. Asbestos board was used to hold the elements in those heaters. It was therefore required to drill dozens of holes in that board. As young apprentices, we were not trained in the dangers of asbestos. Strangely enough we quite liked it when there was a rush job, as we got some overtime. The metal was covered in oil and it used to go on our clothes. Meanwhile, you just blew the dust off the nice white board and you did not realise that any harm was being done.
The point that I am raising is that in the factory where I worked there were dozens of young ladies, in the same age group as myself, who assembled the electric heaters. They were usually given the same job to do every day. Two of my female colleagues, two sisters, spent all day drilling the asbestos board, regardless of whether there was overtime. There was what was called stack drilling: there were maybe five or six boards packed together in what was known as a jig, and 24 or 25 holes were drilled. When the drill went through, the asbestos went all over.
It was those sisters’ mum who did the washing in their household. In the communities that I lived in, in the mid-1960s, washing machines were a luxury; they were not in every home. Later, I had the good fortune to represent the constituency where I had served my apprenticeship. At that time I spoke to one of these young ladies and asked her how she was getting on and how her mum was keeping. She never mentioned asbestos but she said, “Mum’s getting breathless”. I did not have the heart to say directly, “Have you checked out whether it’s asbestos-related?”, but I said that she had best make sure that her mum got to the doctor. It was a worry of mine that her mum may well have contracted a condition because she had two hard-working daughters who worked every day with white asbestos boards.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I rise to speak very briefly in support of the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, and particularly to address the question of the self-employed which is covered by Amendment 7.
Many people working as jobbers in industries who may undertake patching work in schools or in other buildings where asbestos was involved—perhaps electricians who need to drill into the walls—will have had this exposure. As a consequence, many of them will have suffered, and many will have died. Their need for recognition and for help by way of compensation is as great as that of those who are not self-employed. I understand from where the Government have come on this—this is an agreement with the insurance industry, of course—but that in no way lessens the need and the suffering of those who are self-employed, who might not be the people who the insurance industry would choose to recompense in this way. If that is the case, does it not behove the Government to step in to fill the breach for those who cannot be covered by such a scheme? I simply ask the Government and the Minister to think about that between now and Report.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I rise briefly to support both of my noble friend Lord Howarth’s amendments, and I do so—relatively unusually, I think—by referring the Minister to the briefing from the Association of British Insurers which I received about one of my noble friend’s amendments, but not about the other. It is the omission of the other amendment that interests me. However, let me deal with the first one first.
The briefing contains an argument against Amendment 7 which is summarised essentially in one sentence of this short briefing:
“As employers’ liability insurers will be funding the untraced scheme, payments from the scheme will only be made to those who would have been covered by employers’ liability insurance”.
That is the argument that the insurers make and I understand why they make it. The association then goes on to imagine that most people who worked in this industry may have been employed at one time and self-employed at others, and that is probably right—there will have been people who were exposed to these fibres both in an employed and in a self-employed capacity. Because of the way in which these cases are dealt with in the courts, that will not disqualify these people from being included in the payment scheme. However, the association goes on to make a point which I think it believes is crucial to its argument but which actually grossly undermines it. In the last sentence it says:
“There will only be a very small category of people who have been solely self-employed and therefore not eligible for a payment from the untraced scheme”.
Let us assume that the phrase “very small category” is the equivalent of “a very small number”. I am not quite sure why the association used the word category; I think that it means a very small number of people. If indeed that is right, and if indeed we are doing an injustice by excluding a very small number of people from this scheme, that is an argument for extending the scheme to that very small number of people, because it would be grossly—disproportionately—unfair to exclude them.
The second point relates to Amendment 8, which essentially proposes extending the scheme to those who have been exposed in a secondary way to asbestos but through exactly the same route as those who are employed and covered by compulsory employer’s liability insurance, or who would have been covered had it been in existence prior to 1972. That is the way in which the payment scheme is constructed. It strikes me as very odd that the Association of British Insurers does not deal with this issue at all in the brief. As I have listened to the debate unfold in the Grand Committee this afternoon, I have wondered why that was the case. I can certainly figure a set of circumstances where there is a traceable employer and where there is a secondary infection. If a man comes home from the shipyard with fibres on his clothes it does not matter whether they are washed—if the fibres get into the air of the environment in which his children or other relatives live and they breathe them in, they are at risk of developing mesothelioma eventually if these fibres are trapped in the fibres of their lungs.
There must be cases where that negligent act has caused secondary infection and mesothelioma and there has been a successful litigation against the employer of the person who carried the fibres. So there is a chain—a direct link—and the person who would be sued would be the employer.
I do not know the answer to this, because I do not know the details of the employer’s liability compulsory insurance scheme well enough. However, I ask the Minister, if he can tell us at some stage during the course of our deliberations, whether the insurers pick up the payment for the successful litigation because they were the insurers in the employer’s liability policy, or because of public liability insurance, which is a separate and different but compulsory insurance for people who are in workplaces. Either way, this is likely to be the same group of insurers. I suspect that it may be through the route of the employer’s liability compulsory insurance, and if that is correct, may it be the case that this payment scheme already applies to their efforts? I am not sure whether it does or not, but if it definitely does not, it definitely ought to. Since these general insurers, who carried or presently carry the risk of employer’s liability compulsory insurance, are likely to be the same people who are carrying the risk of public liability insurance, I am sure that the Minister can persuade them that it should.
Baroness Golding
My Lords, I have been discussing this Bill with a number of people in my former constituency. I was told by a former employer that, 10 years ago, his firm was employed to do some work in the boiler house of a prison. He was told that there was no asbestos on the site and the men started work. On visiting the site himself, he was not convinced that this was correct, so he got samples and paid for a scientific analysis of the work on the site. The site was dangerous and contained asbestos. The Health and Safety Executive was called in and immediately closed down the site. The employer was told that he could not prosecute the Crown but that he may be able to prosecute the governor of the prison. Needless to say, he did not bother to do that. He did, however, keep a file of all the details of what had happened in the firm’s papers. He sold the firm on, and it has been sold again since. I hope that the papers are still there. What will happen in a case like that, where the liable employer was the Crown, which the contracted employer was told could not be sued? The contracting employer was not to blame but the Crown certainly was. Will this section of the Bill cover this?
Lord Moonie
I am sure that the Minister will be grateful to know that I shall be brief. Unlike the many lawyers that I see round about, my background is in medicine. I trained in the 1960s, and I further trained in epidemiology in the early 1980s. I had friends who died from this disease.
I want to make a very brief point. The first formal recognition of this disease in Britain came in 1932, when the first regulations were introduced. Since then, it has been very clearly established that this is an occupational disease—that it is virtually impossible to acquire the disease other than in a situation where the fibres are present. Therefore I am speaking specifically in support of the wives and families who may have been affected. There must surely be a case for accepting, after 80 years, that the bringing home of clothes with asbestos fibres upon them was a negligence on the part of the employer.
Lord Empey
My Lords, like many Members, I have the honour to have represented a shipyards constituency for over 25 years. I have seen this disease at relatively close quarters over that time.
There is one category of person that we have not yet mentioned in discussing these amendments. We have discussed people who perhaps washed clothes, but we have not discussed the children. When I was Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Investment in Belfast 11 years ago, we set aside £180 million, if my memory serves me correctly. I saw a graph which showed that we had put money aside up to 2050 to take care of the victims that we anticipated would still be emerging because they were young children when the material was imported into their homes.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I would like to add a few points to the very extensive and knowledgeable debate that has taken place. It seems that some very telling points have been made and pressed upon the Minister about the scope of the scheme before us, which it seems reasonable to address. I would just say that we would want to be doing so in a way which does not hold up the core of this scheme. I hope that we have common ground on that issue.
In relation to the self-employed, can the Minister clarify quite what definitions we are using here? Over the years in various circumstances, the differentiation between somebody who is employed and somebody who is self-employed is quite narrow. We know that in some industries—the construction industry in particular—self-employment arrangements were, in a sense, manufactured when the reality was that there was an employment. That might have been done for tax reasons or for other reasons, so clarification of the definition of “employee” and “employer” for the purposes of the Bill would be helpful.
The issues raised by my noble friend Lord Browne are of particular interest in relation to those who were not necessarily formally employed but for whom the negligence of an employer might have caused them to contract mesothelioma. That is important because through the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008—it was the other payments that related to mesothelioma—the last Government introduced a support scheme for those who contracted mesothelioma but not directly because of employment. If those employers or their insurers can now or could in the future be reached, it seems that the Government themselves have an interest in recouping some of the compensation paid, which I hope can be redeployed to improve those schemes for others.
In relation to Northern Ireland, as I understand it this provision in the Act does apply there. I also understand that the two statutory schemes which we have, in the 1979 Act and the 2008 Act, are in fact replicated by legislation in Northern Ireland. Certainly, that was negotiated at the time. There have been some very important issues raised, which I know will create some challenges for the Minister. In doing so, I hope that we will keep our eye on ensuring that we make progress on the scheme that is before us.
Lord Freud
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, for these amendments. Clearly, their intention is to make the payments under this scheme available to a wider group. The two groups, specifically, are the self-employed and those who caught it on a secondary basis by living in the same household as a person exposed to asbestos.
The way in which Clause 2(1)(a) works is that it requires the person with diffuse mesothelioma to have been an employee of an employer who was required, at the time of the person’s exposure to asbestos, by the compulsory insurance legislation to maintain insurance covering any liability arising because of exposure to asbestos, or who would have been had that legislation been in force at the time. I hear my noble friend Lord Empey saying, “Solve the whole thing once and for all”, but this Bill is, regrettably, designed to fix a market failure. There is a failure of insurers and employers to retain adequate records of the employer’s liability insurance, and to make sure that those employees who cannot trace through in order to bring a civil claim actually get a payment. So, widening the list of people who receive payments beyond the legal position would impose a disproportionate burden on the employer liability insurers who will fund the scheme through a levy.
Lord Wills
When the Minister talks about a disproportionate burden, does he accept that for years and years, those insurers—quite properly, because of judicial decisions—avoided making payments which we all now agree that they should have been making and which the Bill is designed to ensure that they will make in future? When he talks about a disproportionate burden, has his department made any estimate of how much money those insurers saved for all those years?
Lord Freud
My Lords, there is a deep and difficult history to this of which, I suspect, everyone in this room is aware. We are trying to ensure that we can get money to that group who have missed out. I am as dismayed as many of your Lordships that that has not happened earlier, but we are where we are. We are doing it now in a way to ensure that we can get those payments flowing rapidly. I apologise if I seem to be making a Second Reading speech. The problem is that this is such an emotive issue—the disease is so horrible—that it is very hard not to do so.
We have to come back to what is a specific deliverable. It is awful to sound so legally defensive, as I know that I am sounding here, but I am trying to get a deliverable, to get as much money as possible to people. I shall answer the specific questions. I know that I will not have the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, resounding with pleasure, as he wanted to be, but that is the underlying reason. My motivation is to get as much money as I possibly can safely, without risk—legal risk, in particular—to people.
Lord Avebury
I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but was it always clear whether a person was covered by the employer’s liability insurance? In the industries which have been mentioned, such as the construction industry, where the boundaries between the employed and the self-employed were not always clear, and a person comes forward and claims that he worked for such and such a firm and was employed at the time, but the employer’s liability insurance has been lost, how can the scheme be satisfied that he was qualified within the terms of the Bill?
Lord Freud
That is a very important point. As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, was querying, some people will appear to be self-employed where the reality is that that was an artificial, tax-driven construct. In that case, if they can demonstrate that in practice they were acting like an employee, they would be eligible for a payment under the scheme. That is specifically allowed for.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, asked about estimates of exposure to people who have been washing laundry—secondary exposure in the household. We do not have those data, I fear. We have data on general environmental exposure, which would include that, and I can give that information to the noble Lord. Clearly, people who catch asbestos outside the employer liability framework can get payments under the 2008 Act. Various noble Lords thought that they were inadequate, but they are state payments established since then.
My noble friend Lord James asked about the MoD and the Admiralty in particular. The state does not have employer’s liability—
Lord James of Blackheath
If the noble Lord will forgive me, the state does not have a liability because it pulled the dirtiest trick of all time when it repealed the 1947 Act and effectively put people in a Catch-22 situation where they could only claim if they had already been identified with the disease at that time. It was only 10 years into the period. It was ridiculous.
Lord Freud
My Lords, clearly I speak for the whole Government generally. The specifics of this are really for the MoD to pursue. There will be lots of issues around this but we need to get this Bill through. If we start going into these areas within this Bill, we risk endangering the start times and the processes. But I hear my noble friend and I know the depth of his feeling on this.
Lord Wigley
Before we move on, perhaps I can pick the Minister up on the words that he used a moment ago, that the Government do not have a liability. Is there not a plethora of cases where no liability exists? In most of the cases under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979, despite the fact that there was not a liability, the Government accepted their responsibility to help these people. The Minister may not be able to do it in the context of this Bill, but can he give me an assurance that he will look at this again in the future?
Lord Freud
I am sorry; if I said that, I truncated some words. What I meant to say is that the Government do not take out employer’s liability insurance, so effectively they self-insure, and different departments have different arrangements to pay compensation. Clearly, my noble friend Lord James feels that the ones at the Admiralty are not adequate.
The noble Lord, Lord Howarth, asked about the self-employed. We do not have any data on that area. Again, the core reason that we are not including the self-employed here is that, for obvious reasons, they were not required to have employer’s liability insurance.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
On that point, has the Minister seen the ABI briefing, where it says:
“There will only be a very small category of people who have been solely self-employed and therefore not eligible for a payment from the untraced scheme”?
Clearly the ABI has the data. Before we come back to this issue on Report, perhaps the Minister will discuss with the ABI what it based that statement on and what the numbers are.
Lord Freud
Well, my Lords, if I am cleared to speak to the insurance industry again by this Committee, I will ask it for those data, and supply them to your Lordships.
The noble Lord, Lord Moonie, made the point about those who had washed the clothes. Again, that is not covered by employer’s liability. It could be a case of public liability, so there may be something to pursue. I will look into that before the next Committee day to see if I can get a little bit more information. I do not have very much information on the legal differentiation and what actually happens there. The same question was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Browne.
On the Northern Ireland question asked by my noble friend Lord Empey, the Northern Ireland legislation mirrors the legislation in the rest of the UK, with the 1979-2008 legislation prevailing, and the plan is to run this there as well.
I think that I have dealt with all the questions, but possibly not to everyone’s satisfaction.
Baroness Golding
Before the Minister sits down, I ask him to define what the present circumstances are.
Lord Freud
I really will have to come back on that. It sounds to me like quite a complicated legal position. The whole point of this scheme is to try to drive through a very rapid response. In this case, of course, these things are known. There should not be a problem of not knowing who is liable for what. That is what the Bill is trying to do. I will try to get an answer to the noble Baroness’s question, but it is by way of academic interest rather than core to what we are trying to do here. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to what we knew would be an important debate but has also turned out to be a very impressive one. The debate has revealed complexities as well as possibilities that I hope we can all reflect on and look for ways to explore constructively.
No fewer than 11 noble Lords apart from the Minister contributed, and they came from all around the United Kingdom. My noble friends Lord Wills and Lady Golding gave us case studies from their own constituency experience that were significant and revealing. The noble Lord, Lord Martin of Springburn, told us about his own industrial experience, which was illuminating; the case of the mum who did the washing was particularly poignant. My noble friend Lord Wigley from Wales and the noble Lord, Lord Empey—whom I shall also call my noble friend, if I may—from Northern Ireland illustrated the range of this issue, as of course did my noble friends Lord Moonie and Lord Browne of Ladyton. The debate benefited very much from the medical experience and expertise of the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, and my noble friend Lord Moonie.
We have had a very valuable debate, with many issues raised. My noble friend Lord Browne of Ladyton probed most determinedly and effectively as to who exactly is covered. It may be that the Minister is fortified with legal advice that enables him to declare confidently, definitively and with the utmost clarity who is covered and who is not, but we suggest that there is more to look at here, particularly in the case of family members. It seems to contravene common sense to suppose that there is no liability where someone contracts the disease as a direct consequence of the predicament of the person who was employed and was, or should have been, covered by employer’s liability insurance. It is hard to believe that such people are not covered.
My noble friend Lord McKenzie raised a question that has become increasingly pertinent over the decades in which this whole problem has been gestating: the shifting nature of self-employment. With the increase not only in contracting-out by public departments but in subcontracting by major firms, and with the rise of such practices as zero-hours employment, it becomes very difficult to say with confidence who is employed and who is not, although no doubt there is case law on this. I hope that the Minister will want to satisfy himself that the definition of self-employment sufficiently overlaps with the definition of employment in a great range of relevant situations, such that we can appropriately bring self-employed people within the compass of this scheme. I think that it is worth investigating further.
Issues arose as to public liability. My noble friend Lady Golding’s case study raised it, and the noble Lord, Lord James, talked about what the responsibility of the Lords of the Admiralty may be. I was encouraged to a degree that the Minister seemed to be saying to us that the question of the liability of the Crown and of public departments does warrant further investigation. It may be that, in the interests of getting this scheme up and running as quickly as possible—which we all want—it may not be appropriate to try to redefine the scope of the scheme or the compass of this particular Bill to take account of everyone who was in a situation of being employed by the Crown or by some other public agency when they were exposed to asbestos negligently. However, if a parallel scheme can be created, I think that that would only be right and proper.
While I would never suggest that the Minister is meagre or defensive and I completely respect and applaud his motivation in bringing this Bill before us, I hope that he will not stand pat on the deal that he has negotiated. However, we can come back to that. It seems to me that, as legislators, it is our responsibility to take a view as to what the public interest is and to amend the scheme that he is proposing to us, which he has negotiated with the industry, so that it better satisfies justice and the requirements of the public interest. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, we need alternates. I am looking forward to an imminent group where I shall have nothing to say. I am sure that the Committee is looking forward to it even more.
This is one amendment in a group that deals with the start date or, as it might also be described, the cut-off date. Amendment 9 is the most radical amendment in the group. It would simply abolish the start date of 25 July 2012, which is written into the Bill, so that the scheme would then encompass anyone who is still alive and contracts mesothelioma in consequence of employer’s negligence, and their dependants, as well as the dependants of people who have already died.
The noble Lord, Lord Freud, explained to us at Second Reading that the case for disqualifying anybody who was diagnosed with the disease before 25 July 2012 was that it was only at that moment, when he made a Statement to Parliament in which he declared the Government’s intention to introduce this scheme, that the insurers could start to reserve to meet the costs of the scheme. I would certainly take the view that at the very least, we should go back to the date at which my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, the Minister’s predecessor, announced his consultation with a view to introducing the scheme on 10 February 2010. From that moment onwards, the contingency was clearly foreseeable by the employer’s liability insurers. I would go further even than my noble friend Lord McKenzie goes in his amendment. I would simply say that the insurers should always have reserved. That is what insurance is about.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, with his characteristic courtesy, earlier this week the Minister gave Members of the Committee the opportunity to meet him to raise concerns about issues that arise out of the Bill. I went to see him and raised two questions, one of which was the issue of eligibility. Therefore, I am very happy to support the remarks that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, has made and to support this group of amendments.
The additional cost of back-dating eligibility to February 2010 pales, as the noble Lord said, into insignificance compared with the hundreds of millions that the insurers received from the taxpayer prior to the Government recovering lump-sum payments under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979.
Because it was an issue that he raised during our discussion on Monday, the Minister may also say that the insurers may be concerned about their right to property—that is, to compensation—under the Human Rights Act. However, asbestos victims lost not only their compensation, or right to property, but their right to life, and two years’ back-dating seems a very small concession to make in that context. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, is right: surely there would be a case for some of those affected by the Bill to challenge the Government in the courts. I should be grateful if the Minister would tell us what legal advice he has received on that issue.
The Committee should perhaps especially consider that the commencement of the consultation in February 2010 is a seminal date. For those affected, it represented a promise waiting to be fulfilled. At the very least, the eligibility date for a payment should be the commencement of the consultation—a point that I shall return to in a moment.
I also want to refer to a point that the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned concerning reserves. The Minister says that he cannot set an earlier date because only at the date of the announcement could insurers have begun to reserve against making payments. However, for two years the ABI discussed the detail of a payment scheme with the Minister, and it can hardly have woken up on 25 July 2012, shocked that it would have to reserve against making scheme payments. Just as importantly, surely it should have been reserving against asbestos claims 50 or more years ago, as the noble Lord, Lord Freud, himself implied when prefacing his speech at Second Reading. He did so with a reference to the Newhouse Thompson report, to which I have already alluded and which was published in 1965.
First, I think that the Government should be held to account for this date of February 2010 rather than July of last year, because that is when they issued their consultation paper, Accessing Compensation: Supporting People who Need to Trace Employers’ Liability Insurance. I have a quotation from that report which underlines why it is not unreasonable for mesothelioma victims to reference that date as a day when they think this scheme should commence. The Government said that they,
“are also persuaded that an Employers’ Liability Insurance Bureau (ELIB) should form part of the package of measures to improve the lives of those who are unable to trace an old employer or their insurer. An ELIB would be a compensation fund of last resort and would ensure that some individuals who are unable to trace EL insurance records would receive compensation”.
Commenting in the consultation paper on the low success rate of the employer’s liability code of practice in tracing insurers, the Government said:
“The Government are keen to support everyone who needs to trace EL Insurance and cannot accept that 40% of the people who need to use the ELCOP should be left without compensation. The Government are determined to do more. To achieve this, the Government propose the actions considered in the next chapter”.
Those two clear statements of intent left no one in any doubt of the Government’s intention to act to provide protection for those who could not trace an insurer. Mesothelioma sufferers diagnosed on 10 February or later would have had every expectation that the Government’s commitment to set up a fund of last resort would be honoured at least from the date of the publication of the consultation. The date of the publication of the consultation set alight that expectation and it has flamed ever since that time. It took more than two years for Ministers to respond to the consultation on 25 July 2012, on the last day before the Recess last year. Surely it is unacceptable now to throw a bucket of cold water in the face of mesothelioma sufferers and their families and to douse the hopes that they have rightly had at least since February 2010.
In law, a mesothelioma sufferer has three years from diagnosis to claim compensation. It would therefore be reasonable and consistent with current legal practice to take into account that limitation period. Applying the date 10 February is consistent with legal rules on the time allowed to make a claim and provides a more credible reason than the arbitrary date of 25 July 2012.
The Asbestos Victims Support Groups Forum responded to the questions concerning the date of eligibility. Question 15 asks:
“How should an ELIB start to meet claims to ensure fairness to claimants and funding at the start of the scheme?”.
The forum said:
“Claimants should present their claims and they should be dealt with in accordance with the civil law, including issues such as limitation. Sufficient funding should be made available to meet any successful claims”.
It is therefore imperative that the few cases where judgment has already been obtained and compensation awarded, but not satisfied because the insurer could not be traced, are paid under a newly established ELIB.
Whatever eligibility date is applied, many mesothelioma sufferers and their families will be bitterly disappointed and feel that the door has been closed in their face. Applying the date of 10 February 2010 will inevitably disappoint many, but it will at least apply a date that has credibility and which also allows for the long period between commencement of the consultation and the Government’s response. It would be just to capture all those who in the past were unable to trace their insurer and who could prove negligent exposure to asbestos. That is, regrettably, not possible. The very least we can do is to go back to the date of the consultation. I do not think that that is asking too much.
Lord Wills
My Lords, I support these amendments. I am particularly attracted by the one tabled by my noble friend Lord Howarth. At the very least the Committee needs to know the figures that he has asked for and I hope that in his reply the Minister will undertake to provide them.
Equally, if the insurers are claiming that they might have a case of action under the Human Rights Act were an earlier date to be instituted, I would be grateful if the Government could make available their legal advice on the likelihood of such a claim succeeding. I know that the Government usually hate making legal advice available but there are precedents for it in exceptional circumstances. I am sure the Minister will agree that this is an exceptional circumstance and I hope that he will at least look at making such advice available. It bears very much on these amendments.
I am sure that the Committee understands the constraints under which the Minister is operating. Quite rightly, he is trying to get a deal agreed with the insurers and to get it through as soon as possible so that those who are suffering from this disease can get some support as quickly as possible. We all have great sympathy with the efforts that he has put in to achieve that.
At the very least we should be looking at the earlier date. My reasons for saying that are exactly those put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. If nothing else, we should be doing so because that was the wholly reasonable expectation that those suffering from this disease and their families had when the previous Government brought forward their measures. I hope that the Minister will agree to look at this again and to think about bringing forward the date in the way proposed in the amendments.
Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, are people with mesothelioma covered by the Disability Discrimination Act? If not, they should be.
Baroness Sherlock
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 11 and 14 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton, and to the other amendment in this group. Since we are in Grand Committee, I think that we may take all these amendments that have the same purpose to probe whether—and, if so, to what extent and why—it is reasonable to limit access to the scheme from the date of diagnosis.
I had intended to spend a bit of time trying to understand what the first point of diagnosis meant but, just before we came in, I glanced at the draft scheme rules and realise that this question is covered there in some detail. Where will we have the opportunity to discuss that in more detail? I would be happy to return to it at that point.
On the main issue underpinning these amendments, I, too, have had representations from those supporting people with mesothelioma concerned about their exclusion or potential exclusion from the scope of the scheme. Imposing a limitation to people diagnosed on or after 25 July 2012, which of course is more than two years after the close of the consultation, means that, as my noble friend Lord McKenzie noted at Second Reading, probably some 600 people will have died from mesothelioma during that time. As those representations have said, it seems very unfair that they should be excluded from the scheme. This is a point very well made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others: the date of consultation would be a natural point. It falls to the Minister to persuade the Committee and then the House of any other date, which so far I do not think we have had.
The Minister said at Second Reading that the reason for not keeping the scheme totally open-ended is that the costs would be prohibitive. The reason for picking the particular date of 25 July, we learnt from a subsequent briefing, was that that was the point at which there would be a reasonable expectation that sufferers could get a payment and therefore relevant insurance companies could provide in their accounts for the liability that would ensue.
I wonder if the Minister could help me to understand this a bit more. What is the regulatory or legal framework under which insurers either may or may not provide for a liability at a particular date? I would also be grateful if he could explain whether he actually means reserving for a liability. If so, how is this a liability? Unlike for people who claim under the courts in the normal way, for which there clearly is a liability for which an insurer will provide in the normal way, based on the premiums and the exposure that they have had for business written, is the payment that will be made in the levy not simply in fact an annual payment rather than a liability? If so, how is it in any way covered by rules on provisioning or reserving in the accounts? I would be grateful if the Minister could explain that to me. If not, maybe he could explain where it comes from.
Whether or not the industry has to reserve, it clearly would have to plan to face a change in its cost base as a result of any decision taken at the end of the Bill, so it is worth revisiting how we got here. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, has made reference to the Accessing Compensation document issued in February 2010. He quoted the most apposite point, where the Government of the day, in the person of my noble friend Lord McKenzie, made clear that their intention was to take some action in this area. In terms of funding for the ELIB to which he referred, though, the document was brief. It said:
“One option would be for the insurance industry to provide the funding. The argument for this is that the industry has, in most cases, taken the premiums for policies that are now not being traced. The industry should therefore fund the full costs of an ELIB, including the set up and running costs”.
Well put. No other funding source, at least that I have found, was proposed in that document. In other words, if I am right, there was no option two. An impact assessment produced with that document showed that there was an assumption of an implementation date of April 2011. The document also looked at the scope of the fund and therefore the potential scale of the cost that insurers could reasonably expect to have to face, having read that document.
The impact assessment assessed costs along two axes: whether or not to include all relevant diseases or just mesothelioma, and whether simply to take people from the start of the scheme or all claims brought in the past three years. It is clear that, whether or not the extent of the liability was certain, the Government’s intention was clear at the point of going out to consultation. Furthermore, the proposals in the Bill are very much at the modest end of the spectrum of options explored within that consultation document, so it does not seem unreasonable that the insurers might well have foreseen the liability, or the cost, that they are now going to face.
Given the speeches today from my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport, who made a very persuasive case, as did the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and the questions from the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, and my noble friend Lord Wills, not to mention the widespread concern about this point right across the House at Second Reading, if the noble Lord wishes to persuade the Committee and ultimately the House that he is to have a cut-off date for people coming in, I think that he has his work cut out to make that anything later than 10 February.
Perhaps the Minister can try to clear up a few other questions for me. First, in letting us know the source of this constraint or requirement to reserve or not reserve, can he explain how that affects the date at which an insurer could reserve and, if so, whose decision is it? Secondly, do the Government have any evidence that insurers have in fact been reserving since July 2012, the point at which the Minister is confident they were clear as to the liabilities? Finally, if the Minister is not willing to share legal advice—and I may yet be surprised on that front—can he tell us if the Government have a concern that they could be exposed to legal action were they to impose a requirement other than a July 2012 date? That would be helpful.
I remain pleased that the Government are acting on this matter and I appreciate the Minister’s commitment to it. However, as my noble friend Lord Howarth of Newport said clearly, that does not take away our responsibility in this House to ensure that the legislation is the best it possibly can be.
Lord James of Blackheath
Perhaps the Minister will allow me to make one last entry into this debate. I believe that I can answer part of the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. I am probably the only person in this Room who has ever made a financial provision for asbestosis. I did so on the last day of December in 1998 when I signed off the creation of Equitas; £12.8 billion of assets were locked in an investment fund put together by Warburg’s, with the countersignature of the Bank of England on it, so it was pretty good. The £12.8 billion has been sitting there and can be used only for each category of settlement of claim. One category is labelled asbestosis. I left £6 billion in there, but it is £6 billion with an annual growth rate of 6%.
When Equitas was sold for a knock-down price to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 2009—I hasten to add, not with my approval—he took over all the asset reserves that were left. So even after Equitas had traded for 13 years, he got a residual balance of £8 billion of my original £12.8 billion—still growing at 6% per annum. My calculation at that time was that he was left with £5 billion for asbestosis. But the £5 billion effectively included a great deal of unidentified claims, because it was largely rolling up the reinsurance claims around the world. It is very incestuous, this claiming business: everybody insures each other and they come up with these collective figures.
At the moment, my estimate is that the global reserves for asbestosis of all the insurance companies in the world are £65 billion, including all the reinsurance markets around the world as well. But they do not expect that that £65 billion will be paid out. Let us suppose that you settled Turner & Newall for £1 billion—you will not, but let us suppose you did. You would take £1 billion out of the Lloyd’s of London reserve of £5 billion and you would have £4 billion left. But immediately you would have wiped out the consequential reinsurance demands down the chain, so the whole industry would write back as profit something in the region of £15 billion to £20 billion of released reserves.
We have a huge potential gift to the insurance industry here and we must not give it away too cheaply. We can screw this insurance industry into paying what it long since has deserved to pay. Why has it not settled so far? Right through the six years of the collapse and rescue of Lloyd’s of London, the great myth was that there was a massive amount of claims arising in the USA that we had insured and that those claims were largely spurious because they had used television advertising to get people to join up. You did not have to have any illness or even to have been in an asbestos building; you were just told, “Sign up, join in, it is a free lottery ticket”—that was the advertising in America.
We were expecting, having worked at government level and failed, to get the American President to impose strict standards on the American industry to force it to have only legitimate claims. If that had happened, we would have taken billions out of our liability and saved Lloyd’s of London without the need of Equitas. It never happened, but then up comes Warren Buffett and buys it for a knockdown couple of billion. I would put a very substantial sum of money on him having a letter in his back pocket from the President, agreeing to write off those claims or to curtail them. He is going to rip out the whole of that profit. We should not sell cheap on this; there is a huge amount out there, which we can get, and we need very much to play hardball.
Lord Howarth of Newport
Given the noble Lord’s deep knowledge of this, since Equitas was set up to rescue Lloyd’s from the chaos caused by its exposure to asbestosis claims, Equitas must presumably have a great deal of documentation in its files. The missing documents that would enable claimants to validate their claims before the courts might conceivably, in some cases, be within those files. Are they now in the custody of the “Sage of Omaha”?
Lord James of Blackheath
In the main, they are in the custody of what was the Department of Trade and Industry, because it oversaw and supervised this. It should be the port of first call for that.
Your Lordships must understand that, on Lloyd’s of London and its reserves, it still has not closed the file on the “Titanic” because it was not the “Titanic” that sank. Perhaps you know that story. It was the “Olympic”, which was substituted at the last minute because it was not finished and ready to sail. On those grounds alone, Lloyd’s of London has refused to settle most of the claims on the “Titanic” ever since, because the claims were all on the wrong ship.
Lord James of Blackheath
I am sorry, but that is a true story.
We are worrying about whether we have the files on these, but Turner & Newall, which is the great case—the biggest of them all in this country—did not keep the records. We just had a general claim from Turner & Newall for everything. It was a blanket cover, which ensured that we would take any claims that came against them and sort them out according to their own merit at that time. The records that the DTI had are the best that still exist and should be taken on as part of this review. Some of them will have gone to Warren Buffett and he will be using them as part of his negotiations, probably against us. The records are not as bad as your Lordships think. They are meticulous in going back, but they are mostly blanket covers, not specific to individuals. That is the problem.
Lord Freud
My Lords, we could spend a lot of time on this. I was at Warburg when it helped to sort out Equitas, although I was not on that particular transaction—and I am grateful for that.
Amendment 9 would have the effect of ensuring that the scheme paid not only everyone with diffuse mesothelioma but any living dependant of a person who had died with diffuse mesothelioma at any time. Amendments 11 and 14 would have the effect that, once the scheme came into force, all living people who were diagnosed with diffuse mesothelioma on or after 10 February 2010 would be eligible for a payment from the scheme. They also provide that any living dependant of a person with diffuse mesothelioma who had died on or after that date would be eligible.
I think that the February 2010 date mentioned in these amendments is meant to be closely linked to the date when the last Government published their consultation paper Accessing Compensation: Supporting People Who Need to Trace Employers’ Liability Insurance. That was 11 February 2010, as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, will vividly remember. I remind noble Lords that on that date the Government were consulting on the best way forward. They were not proposing a specific course of action, so no one had any expectation that they would be likely to get any sort of payment over and above those that the Government provide for people with diffuse mesothelioma.
I would have liked to have announced the Government’s intention on paying people with the disease much sooner than 25 July 2012, when we did announce it, but the issues involved were complex. To ensure that we have got it right, we have been working intensively with stakeholders, including the insurance industry, claimant groups and solicitors, since that consultation closed to get to this solution. This took longer than I had hoped. However, when we announced on 25 July of last year that a scheme would be set up, from that date people have had a reasonable expectation that, if they are diagnosed with the disease after that date, they will receive a payment.
In addition to creating an expectation among people with mesothelioma, the announcement put insurers on notice that we intended to bring forward the scheme, giving them legal certainty and allowing them to start to reserve against the liabilities that are created by the scheme and its associative levy that they will be responsible for paying.
Baroness Sherlock
The Minister is again speaking of reserving for the liabilities. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord James, both for sharing his considerable expertise and experience and for helping me to understand that I clearly phrased my previous question poorly. I was trying to ask the Minister whether, when he refers to insurance companies reserving for the liabilities, he makes any distinction between the fact that an insurance company would in the ordinary run of things reserve against a future liability that would crystallise if and when somebody whose employer had been insured by that insurer were to develop mesothelioma, and the fact that what an insurance company will have now is arguably not a liability but a requirement to pay something that is more like a tax. Here, I declare an interest as a member of the board of the Financial Ombudsman Service. Is this situation not more like some aspects of the levy applied by the FCA on relevant financial services companies, which requires them to contribute, for example, to the cost of the Financial Services Compensation Scheme? In other words, it is an annual cost that is fixed by the body imposing the levy and not a liability that arises directly from activities of the company. Therefore, does the question of reserving not apply at all?
Lord Freud
What happens is that insurers have to provide that they have sufficient funds to meet their liabilities. The levy is a hypothecated tax that they have to pay so that their ability to meet their liabilities is monitored by the Financial Conduct Authority, the FCA—or the FSA, to those of us using old money. The insurer could not pre-empt the outcome of the consultation. That was something that they could not do and did not do, as I understand it.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Can the Minister expand on that point? I understand the need to provide for liabilities, but is that not separate from the scheme payment? We only get a scheme payment if in fact the insurer is not liable, or only liable in respect of paying the levy. I do not understand the analysis that he has just made.
Lord Freud
What the insurer has to do, as I understand it, is to provide for future liabilities. Through an elaborate process with its accountants and the FCA, it has to provide the appropriate amount on reasonable assumptions. It is quite a formalised process. That is the process that we are looking at here.
Lord Wills
I am sure that shortly the Minister will give us an assurance that he will provide the figures that my noble friend Lord Howarth asked for in proposing his amendments. I also ask, in relation to this particular point, whether he can provide the Committee with any assessment that his department has made of the effect on insurers’ balance sheets of either of these two amendments—in other words, the one that has the start date in February 2010 and my noble friend Lord Howarth’s amendment, which would not set a date at all.
Baroness Sherlock
I would like to offer the Minister a way of reassuring us on this because we may be talking at cross-purposes.
Obviously, if an insurance company finds that its annual costs of doing business by staying in the market and providing active employer’s liability insurance are going to be higher, it will need to make sure in its usual planning that it has the resources available to enable it to pay the annual costs of doing business to stay in that market. That is not the same thing as saying it must reserve formally against liabilities that it has. That, as I understand it, is the Minister’s main argument as to why they could not have begun this process earlier. If it were about reserving for liabilities, there are clear regulatory requirements and negotiations with auditors that would constrain the point at which the insurance company could start doing this.
However, if we are simply looking at a higher annual cost—and I am not suggesting that that is not a relevant or material consideration to the company—of remaining in the market which is unrelated to the nature of the specific policies that were written, there is presumably no reason why the insurance company could not have planned for that by reading carefully, as I am sure it did, the document published by my noble friend Lord McKenzie. This showed clearly that the Government wished to intervene in this area and the options on which they were consulting, all of which would clearly have required the industry to pay out. It was clear that that was coming down the track.
A way for the Minister to solve this would be to answer my other question. Could he provide—either now or by the next sitting—some evidence of an insurance company that has reserved since the announcement was made in 2012? There must be companies that have a 2012 financial-year end date. If the Minister is right, insurance companies will presumably have reserved. Perhaps he could share that with us.
Lord Freud
I will double-check, my Lords, but my understanding is that a reserve from an insurance company is not specified out. There would be a general sum overall and we would not be able to extract those elements. I have made clear that we are not talking about a general level of doing business but about a specific reserve created because of this particular liability. That is what we are talking about.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
If I understand correctly the background papers to this scheme, particularly the impact assessment, the Government have agreed effectively to fund this scheme from the period July 2012 until February 2015 by a process of using what will be paid to them in recovered benefits. The wording in the impact assessment is that the Government have agreed to do this. However, is not all of this argument utterly irrelevant if the insurers pass this on in the premium? Paragraph 97 of the impact assessment comes to the wrong conclusion. The argument clearly comes to the conclusion that that is what they intend to do.
Lord Freud
That is one of the central issues with imposing a levy based on the existing market share. There is a risk that that will happen if we push up the levy too much, particularly if there is a sharp increase. As noble Lords are aware, the way in which these matters normally work is through a sharing of the levy. The likelihood is that some of the levy may be passed on in the marketplace. However, the levels at which we have established the levy—and the smoothing mechanism to which the noble Lord, Lord Browne, referred was part of it—were achieved by taking some of those other payments and circulating them in the first year to give us the best possible chance that the insurance industry will absorb the bulk of the levy.
I shall now provide the figures that noble Lords have been waiting for so incredibly patiently. If this scheme started on 20 or 21 February 2010, the extra costs would be £119 million. As to the undated amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, our best estimate is that if we went back to 1968, the figure would be £747 million. Clearly, a large number of assumptions were made in reaching that figure.
I would just like to finish off the figures. I am not going to spend too much time going over the noble Lord’s “cornucopia” argument. I just want to make this simple point: one of the things that the insurance industry does, at least when it is in a competitive position, is look to build in what the returns on its reserves and its income may be when it sets rates. It is not just a kind of a surprise—“We got all this extra money out of those returns!”—but is built into the marketplace. Otherwise, everyone in the whole world would become an insurance operator, and we would all have been wasting our time because it would have been a free lunch. There is some competition in the market. Clearly it is a very interesting and complicated market, and it depends on how much capital goes in and out of it. Let us not go into that. We have had a lot of debate about the more general issues, but I just thought that I would touch on that.
As insurers were able to start the reserve only from 25 July last year, any attempt to back-date eligibility further could jeopardise the scheme and bog it down in legal challenges from insurers on the costs. I know that noble Lords would like to do more, as indeed would the Government, but we need to consider the effect of an open-ended scheme against one that can be afforded whose costs can be absorbed as much as possible by the insurance industry without putting pressure on it to increase insurance premiums and transfer the extra costs on to current employers.
Clearly, any date will mean that some people miss out. Choosing the dates in the amendments would mean that more people received the payment, but there would still be people who did not. On balance, I believe that pinning eligibility to a date when people with diffuse mesothelioma had a reasonable expectation of payment and insurers knew when they needed to start to reserve the levy, represents the best that we can do. I am not in a position to provide or mention anything on legal advice that we may or may not have received by convention, which noble Lords will be fully aware of.
I need to make the point that social security benefits and existing lump-sum schemes will continue to provide early support for people with the disease who were diagnosed from before the 25 July date. I therefore urge the noble Lord—
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Will the Minister confirm whether the £119 million is gross or net of benefit recovery?
Lord Freud
I think that it is net, but I will have to write with the right answer to that. I urge the noble Lords and the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, this has been a valuable opportunity for us to begin to explore one of the most important issues arising from the Bill, as well as one of the most technically complex. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, made the important point, in addition to the observations that I had made, that for many years insurers pocketed the state payments of lump-sum compensation. Again, that needs to be taken into account in evaluating where justice lies.
I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Wills for supporting my amendment, but the majority of noble Lords who have participated in the debate have preferred to focus on whether the start date for the scheme should be February 2010. I do not doubt that that is where the focus will remain when we revert to this matter.
My noble friend Lady Sherlock asked the most beautifully expressed and forensic questions, about which she was too modest, but there is no question but that the interventions of the noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, were like flashes of sheet lightning across the proceedings of the Committee. He gave us some remarkable figures about the sheer scale of mismanagement, before he came to the rescue through Equitas, but also the sheer scale of loss, I fear, to the interests of this country in many important respects, because of the sale of the assets of Equitas at a huge discount to Berkshire Hathaway.
I was, however, particularly struck by what the noble Lord had to say about the documentation. If the DTI has somewhere in its vaults great crates of documentation dating back decades concerning employers’ liability insurance, the Minister may well have to go back to the drawing board to start again. We do not want him to do that, because we want the scheme, in a significantly improved version, to hasten to the statute book.
Lord Freud
I remind the noble Lord that Equitas and Lloyd’s were dealing with reinsurance, not primary insurance. There may be some information there, and it may be of great interest to the insurance industry—I am sure that it is looking at that—but, regrettably, I can assure him that there is no reason to pause the Bill because of that information.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I certainly accept that point, but I also noted what the noble Lord, Lord James of Blackheath, said about the incestuous character of the industry, how involuted it is and how they all insure and reinsure with each other. If we are to unravel what has happened—a later amendment to the Bill points us towards a further effort to unravel the past, the most deeply regrettable and scandalous past—in this area, the DTI archives may be an early port of call. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, will not dismiss the possibility that the documentation associated with Equitas which reposes in the DTI archives may enable more people to be able to make a claim for employer’s liability if they have access to those files.
The Minister told us that he fought to get his Statement out by 25 July 2012, and I can well believe that. We praise him and thank him for getting it out even at the last moment before Parliament rose for the Summer Recess.
On the question of reserving, I venture the observation that, whatever the rules and regulations may be, they do not prevent insurers from reserving prudently against liabilities that they can reasonably foresee. I am not impressed by the Minister’s argument that the scheme’s eligibility should run only for people diagnosed after the date on which he made the formal announcement that the Government would bring in a scheme, and that it is only from then that insurers could begin to reserve against that liability. I just do not accept that. We will need to think much more carefully about the obligations on reserving, but there was never anything to prevent insurers from reserving against something which they could and should have foreseen, not just from February 2010 but from the very first date at which they began to provide employer’s liability insurance.
As for the noble Lord’s fears that if the levy were increased to pay for a more expensive scheme, the insurers would simply pass on the extra costs to employers—well, they will pass on whatever they can to employers just as soon as they can. As I understand it, that is how insurers operate. They pitch their premiums at a level that they believe the market can afford. There is some downward pressure because of their need to compete with fellow insurers but collectively they will all rejoice in market conditions that make it possible to raise their premiums. Of course, they will use any excuse they can to raise their premiums because they want to maximise their profits. I do not see that holding down the levy is going to stop employer’s liability insurers raising their premiums just as soon as they can. Any additional costs from extending eligibility for this scheme to different categories of people or people who were diagnosed at an earlier date are not likely to make a material difference to the premiums that are sought in the market because there is a host of factors in the market that shape the level of premiums that insurers seek to be able to sell. This is only one and far from the most substantial among them.
We will return to these issues. In the mean time, I withdraw the amendment.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, Amendment 10 has already been dealt with in the debate we have just had, so my remarks will concentrate entirely on Amendment 31, which is grouped with it.
Earlier in our proceedings, I recalled that in 1965 the Sunday Times reported on how an epidemiological investigation by Newhouse and Thompson, undertaken for the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, had shed light on the origins and nature of this terrible disease, finally laying to rest the scepticism of some pathologists who had until that time disputed its existence and its long period of hibernation.
More than three decades earlier in 1930, the Merewether report had warned of a latency for asbestosis of some 25 years. No one can reasonably claim, therefore, that the industry, Government or employers did not understand the risks that workers faced. Yet, staggeringly, this vicious disease has had Cinderella status when it comes to research spending. It is not hyperbole or overstatement to assert that it is nothing short of a national scandal that a disease predicted to kill a further 56,000 British citizens between 2014 and 2044 receives not a penny of state funding for medical and scientific research into understanding its nature and identifying cures. What other disease that kills 2,400 British people every year has to rely entirely on what money can be scraped together from voluntary organisations such as the admirable British Lung Foundation?
In 2011, the British Lung Foundation invested £1 million in research. Here I must pay tribute to those four insurance companies that voluntarily supported that scheme and provided that money. The rest of the voluntary sector invested £400,000. By contrast, the Government invested nothing at all. This is scandalous when we are dealing with a disease that kills so many people and when we compare it with the fabulous sums of money that the noble Lord, Lord James, referred to in the previous group of amendments—billions of pounds being invested compared with £1.4 million given voluntarily, without a penny piece of state funding, for research into this shocking disease.
Back in 1965, the Sunday Times also reported, on the back of stories emerging from London, Belfast, Newcastle, Leeds and Liverpool, some of which have been referred to in our earlier debates, that research would be conducted to examine causes and find cures. That was 50 years ago and we are still waiting for a research base that matches the scale of the problem. Fifty years later there is still no cure, and most people die within two years of diagnosis. The UK mesothelioma mortality rate is the highest in the world. The number of deaths is roughly double the number due to cervical cancer, for example.
My amendment seeks simply to open a debate about the lack of funding for mesothelioma research. Paradoxically, if we could find a cure, it would not only eliminate horrendous human suffering, it would also eliminate the need for the millions of pounds of compensation that we are debating during these Committee proceedings. So there are humane and altruistic reasons for supporting funding of mesothelioma research, but for the Government and the insurance industry there are straightforward financial considerations too. As well as adequate compensation, we should be prioritising much more of our time and money to finding a cure to prevent the ravages of this fatal disease. Of course it would be impossible to eradicate all asbestos from our homes, schools, hospitals, factories and offices, and it is welcome that there is a general desire to act justly to those who have been afflicted with mesothelioma. But the one certain way to prevent deaths from mesothelioma will be to find a cure. That will not happen without adequate resources and that, in turn, requires political will.
I said that mesothelioma has a Cinderella status. Let me illustrate what I mean. Contrast £1.4 million spent on mesothelioma research with the £22 million for bowel cancer, the £41 million for breast cancer, the £11.5 million for lung cancer, the £32 million for leukaemia. Indeed, there are 17 other forms of cancer for which far more research resources are reserved than for mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is quite literally at the bottom of that list.
In 2011 the voluntary sector invested £5 million in myeloma research and £5.6 million on malignant melanoma, the cancers immediately above and below mesothelioma in the table of mortality figures. Yet, even with such limited funds, there have been some exciting developments. I think that some of my noble friends will refer to these. They include the creation of the world’s first mesothelioma tissue bank for researchers, a transatlantic collaborative study of the genetic make-up of mesothelioma and work on overcoming resistance to drugs used to treat the disease. It shows what can be done with the right investment. We have an opportunity in the course of the proceedings of this Committee to create a sustainable fund for mesothelioma research to help ensure that future generations do not have to suffer in the same way that so many have in the past.
At Second Reading, I gave the Minister a letter, which was then circulated in your Lordships’ House, and has been signed by 20 noble Lords and Baronesses from right across your Lordships’ House. Subsequently a letter supporting the same points was published in the Times. This letter underlines the breadth of support throughout the House for the principles that underpin this amendment. Not necessarily the detail—I fully accept that this could be rewritten between now and Report stage, that it can be modified and changed. It is the principle that I am primarily interested in at this Committee stage and that is the point that I will be most pressing the Minister on.
This proposal enjoys the support of many Members of your Lordships’ House, the British Lung Foundation and the victim support groups. The proposal involves a small administrative or membership fee to those companies in the scheme and would raise £1.5 million a year. It would have no implications for the public purse, although I hope that the Government will consider providing at least match funding—it is, after all, receiving millions of pounds from the new scheme. I hope that the Minister, when he comes to reply, will tell us what money his Government will pledge for research and what progress he is making with the Department of Health, the Medical Research Council and the Treasury in putting together a scheme that will address this issue. Such an initiative will bring justice and hope to those who are blighted by a disease that was none of their making.
The Minister met with me on Monday, as I said earlier, and again I am grateful to him for the patience and courtesy that he always shows in dealing with this and the proceedings of the Committee. We discussed the detail of this amendment. One aspect that I know that the Minister does not like is the £10,000 levy that would be paid by all insurance companies. The Minister feels that if there were such a scheme it would better if it were tied to market share or turnover, rather as the levy for compensation is, in the context of the Bill as a whole. I accept that this approach would be in line with the way in which the compensation clauses of the Bill work and I would be very happy to modify the amendment to accommodate that point. A proportionate levy would be equitable and wholly acceptable to me. When the Minister comes to reply, will he indicate whether he would like to bring forward a modified amendment on Report to reflect that kind of change on that kind of basis?
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Alton, particularly in the light of the lucid and forceful way in which he has proposed this amendment. I have added my name to the amendment because I believe very strongly that, as he has pointed out, the amount of funding in this country that has been devoted to research into mesothelioma, its causation, its development and its treatment has been miniscule. I join him in paying tribute to the contribution over the years made by the voluntary organisation, the British Lung Foundation, in examining ways in which research into this wretched disease can be conducted. However, the Government’s contribution to this research—for instance, through the Medical Research Council, of which I was once a member—has been minimal. Therefore, I am very much in favour of the principle underlying this amendment.
I used to teach my medical students that while there are plenty of incurable diseases in medicine, there are none that may not have their effects modified by pharmacological, physical or psychological means. Mesothelioma is almost an exception to that rule, although it is clear that in the early stages of the disease certain physical mechanisms can alleviate some of its worst effects. The tragedy of mesothelioma is that the deposits of this cancerous process are laid down in the pleural cavity, between the surface of the lung and the internal surface of the chest wall. Gradually, as those deposits increase, the actual flexibility of the movement of the chest wall—in the muscular contractions which are responsible for our involuntary taking in and expiring of air—is slowly but progressively lessened, so that in the end the patient is almost subject to the feeling of having a straitjacket around their chest that prevents them from respiring. Eventually, it is fatal. Happily, there are mechanisms with drugs, sedatives and many other things that can help to ease the terminal phases. Nevertheless, the end result is tragic and appalling for anyone who has witnessed it.
A colleague of mine who was a consultant neurologist developed mesothelioma—the result, it appears, of being as a youth a keen club cricketer in villages in County Durham. It turned out that the changing room in which he regularly changed before appearing on the cricket field was lined with asbestos. That was eventually thought to have been the source from which he acquired this disease. It is a tragic condition and it deserves close and careful attention.
I also used to teach my medical students that today’s discovery in basic medical science brings tomorrow’s practical development in patient care. As yet, there has been no such basic discovery in the science underlying the causation and development of mesothelioma and, as yet, no drug has been discovered that is capable of reducing that progressive, cancerous deposit and the progressive process of strangulation. That is not to say that there have not been some limited discoveries that have benefited individual patients, but much more is needed.
I know what the Minister will say: that an amendment such as this has no place in a Bill or a statutory instrument because it is, in a sense, permissive. I can understand fully the view that he is going to take in that regard. However, I do not believe that it is beyond the wit of man, and certainly not beyond the wit of the Minister, to achieve some kind of Machiavellian political intervention or manipulation enabling the principles underlying this amendment to be fulfilled in law.
Although I have given my name to Amendment 31, I must say that I disagree with its last phrase. It says that,
“the funds raised through this charge shall be remitted to a competent research institution to fund research to find new treatments for mesothelioma”.
It should say “a competent research-granting organisation”. What could be better than the Government’s own research arm, the National Institute for Health Research, which is chaired by the Government’s Chief Medical Officer, Sally Davies? It could be the perfect example. I hope very much that the Government will find the means to fulfil the principle underlying this crucial amendment in managing to persuade these insurance companies— perhaps “persuasion” is not exactly the right word; it might need something a bit firmer to get the money out of those bodies—to enable the National Institute for Health Research to fund crucial research on this devastating disease. It deserves everything that we can put into it and a great more than we are already doing.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
My Lords, I, too, have put my name to Amendment 31. It is with some hesitation that I rise to speak after the two formidable speeches that we have just heard. Having put my name to the amendment, though, I want to say something to support it. It is indeed a modest amendment but it has enormous potential advantages for important research seeking new treatment and a possible cure. We have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, what he thinks could be done and why it needs to be done. Of course, I defer to him.
As one of three judges in the Court of Appeal, I heard a number of these cases, and each story was tragic. Although I was a judge for 35 years, these stories have remained with me. We know that currently there is no cure. We know that currently the treatment is poor compared with that for other forms of cancer. It is crucial and urgent that we have proper research. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, has said, it is a scandal that this is so poorly supported, when it is a killer but other forms of cancer can be treated and people can live for a long time. Sufferers die two years after the diagnosis—it is like motor neurone disease, and even that, as I understand it, gets more research funding than this does. It is extraordinary that the people who suffer from it are not properly regarded by the state or indeed by insurers. It is high time that the lack of financial support should be remedied with this Bill, at least to some extent.
I very much support the principle of the amendment. Like the noble Lord, Lord Walton of Detchant, I do not entirely support the wording. I do not think that matters because we are not going to vote on it today, and if the Government can come up with better wording and be supportive, that is exactly as it should be. The amount of money that would be raised under the present scheme is a modest £1.5 million. It would be much better if the Government felt able to match it; that would be valuable.
I was entertained by the reference by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, to the Gambling Act, which shows a very useful precedent. It is just possible that if some law were passed in this Bill, we could then to go the insurers on a voluntary basis and say, “If you don’t, it will be backed up by primary legislation”. So we want it there as a spur. If that can be done in gambling, I really do not see why it cannot be done in mesothelioma.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, I, too, have added my name to Amendment 31. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for the diligent commitment that he has shown to these issues, which I know is appreciated by all concerned. He deserves to succeed with this amendment. Following on from what the noble and learned Baroness said a moment ago with regard to the potential leverage that an amendment such as this could carry, it reminded me of the term used in chess that the threat is always more dangerous than the execution. Having this in the armoury, I suspect, would be very useful indeed.
Under the proposed new clause, the scheme administrators would be permitted to charge an additional annual administration fee of some £10,000 from each insurer. One can argue, certainly, that there could be a sliding scale there. That is detail; it is the principle that we are after here. The clause sets out that all funds raised from this fee would be invested into research for treatments for this awful disease. Listening to the noble Lord, Lord Walton, speak from his own experience of the medical world, we see the pressing need for these funds to be made available. They should be available already. They should be coming from the normal course of research funding. But as they are not, we need to do something and there is an opportunity to do so here.
Lord Kakkar
My Lords, I support Amendment 31. In doing so, I declare my interest as professor of surgery at University College London, an institution that is actively involved in cancer research. We have heard about the importance of mesothelioma and the impact that it is going to have in the next 30 years with regard to the deaths of many tens of thousands of our fellow citizens. However, I wish to build on the comments of my noble friend Lord Walton of Detchant, who has spoken with considerable eloquence about the importance of research. This is a disease that is going to afflict many of our fellow citizens but there is no strategic defined national research initiative for it. That is quite striking, and it is a serious deficiency in the otherwise hugely successful and important approach that successive Governments have taken towards having a national research effort, conducted either through the work of the Medical Research Council or through the National Institute for Health Research.
We have heard about the important role that four insurance companies have played to date, providing some £1 million a year between them to support research in this area, supplemented by important charitable contributions. We cannot underestimate the importance of even this small contribution to having kick-started research and academic interest in this area. The meso-bank that we have heard of is a very important national initiative that will have global significance, because collecting tissue from patients afflicted with mesothelioma provides the opportunity for fundamental and translational research on those tissue samples to ensure that there is better understanding of the disease.
As we have heard, there is no opportunity at all to develop either better diagnostics or indeed treatments and cures for this particular form of malignant disease unless we understand fundamentally its biology. Collecting tissue using tissue banks and bio-banks is the basis of modern medical research, and it would not have been possible without the contribution of insurance companies and the work of the British Lung Foundation in having facilitated that. However, this work—these bio-banks, the meso-bank—needs to continue in future.
On that basis, large academic groups have started to focus on the question of mesothelioma. That would not have happened without the funds currently available. Scientists, academics and clinicians have come together, now in reasonable numbers, to focus on the question of mesothelioma as a result of recognising that funds to support their research would be available. If the signal cannot be sent in future that funding for research in this area will be available, regrettably, no research will be undertaken. That is the simple truth: without funding, research cannot be promoted and completed.
Interesting work is being undertaken at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge as a result of the limited funding currently available, which has allowed the first molecular characterisation of mesothelioma, providing a better understanding of genetic mutation and signalling pathway defects which could offer targets for future drug development. A disease in a similar situation to mesothelioma some years ago was melanoma, the malignant skin cancer. As a result of research focus and a better understanding of the molecular biology of melanoma, we can now offer patients biological therapies targeted specifically at the genetic and signalling defects that characterise their cancers, improving the outlook for certain patients with certain types of melanoma. It is surely possible to conceive that, with appropriate research funding, the same might be achieved for mesothelioma.
In addition to those two important areas—the meso-bank and genetic and molecular research into the nature of mesothelioma—the limited funds available for only a three-year period have also stimulated important research into better palliative care for patients with mesothelioma. Again, that is vital, because the median survival for that disease is only 12 months. Those few who respond to current chemotherapy have only an additional two months—eight weeks—of added median survival. For the vast majority, the reality of modern care is palliation of their disease, so research into appropriate palliation is vital, again supported by those limited funds.
I had some hesitation about the implications of the amendment more broadly but, having listened to the important contributions so far in Committee, it is clear that there is a potential route forward to pass an amendment that would stimulate the national research effort in this area. It would ensure that we are able to provide important funds either through having available in statute but not using—as, we have heard, is the case with the Gambling Act 2005—or having a tool available to apply to members of the compensation scheme. There is an important discussion to be had about how those funds would then be distributed to research-active organisations to ensure appropriate peer review, and that mechanisms from the National Institute for Health Research or one of the research charities could be used to facilitate it.
Without the emphasis in the Bill, it is likely that the early progress being made towards better understanding of the disease and, ultimately, providing treatment for it will be lost. That would be a great shame for the tens of thousands of our fellow citizens who will suffer from that terrible condition.
Lord Pannick
My Lords, I, too, support Amendment 31, for all the reasons powerfully advanced by the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, and other noble Lords this afternoon. I should be very surprised if the Minister were to suggest that there is something inappropriate about a statutory levy on an industry to promote a valuable public purpose. It is not only in the Gambling Act 2005, there are other statutory examples that one could refer to. As long ago as 1963, Parliament decided that, under Section 24 of the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act, the levy board has a power to charge on all bookmakers involved in horserace betting, the levy to be spent for the purposes of improving the breeds of horses, the advancement or encouragement of veterinary science or education and the improvement of horseracing. So there is nothing novel about a statutory levy on a particular industry for a particular valuable purpose.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned the Human Rights Act. The Minister has told us today that he cannot comment on whether he has had legal advice, but I would be astonished if his advice were that the Human Rights Act somehow stands in the way of a statutory levy on industry in this context. Parliament has a very broad discretion in the context of property rights, because that is what we are talking about, on the proper balance between individual interests and the public interest. It would be quite fanciful to suggest that there is a legal reason not to support an amendment such as Amendment 31, although I entirely accept that there may well be room for improvement in its drafting.
Lord Empey
Does the noble Lord also recall the statutory ability to charge levies through organisations such as the Construction Industry Training Board, where skills were provided to a number of industries? This used to apply not only to construction but to the textile and a range of other industries. The industrial training boards were a statutory levy on employers in particular sectors.
Lord Pannick
The noble Lord is right. As I mentioned, there are other examples. Parliament imposes levies when it thinks it is appropriate to do so in order to promote a valuable public purpose. There are many examples. I am grateful to the noble Lord.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I add my thanks and congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, on tabling this amendment. He has been a consistent, determined, passionate and highly effective advocate for sufferers of mesothelioma and this is one more instance of his very good work. I was happy to sign the letter that he initiated to the Times but there was no room left for me to add my name to the amendment.
It is profoundly desirable that more funds should be invested in research in this field. It is good that the industry, spurred by the British Lung Foundation, has already contributed £3 million and even better that it has stated its willingness to contribute more, provided that the state provides what the industry would regard as an acceptable contribution, which I guess means more than match funding.
I would be grateful if the Minister or the noble Lord, Lord Alton, could cast some light on why we have not yet seen a greater volume of state-funded research in this field. The Department of Health and the NHS have very large budgets for research; the business department has a substantial budget enabling it to fund the Medical Research Council; and there is no lack of public funding available to be applied in this area.
The normal principle is that those to whom decisions on the use of state-provided funds for research are entrusted look to receive high quality research applications. Surely such high quality research applications must have been forthcoming. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, spoke, in some sense, on behalf of University College London, where there is an important programme of research in the field of cancer. He also alluded to the Sanger Institute at Cambridge. If we are talking about academic institutions of the highest quality willing to commit themselves to work in this field, it is a puzzle to me why they have not been able to obtain more of the funds that the state provides for research. It may be that not enough appropriate proposals for research have yet been formulated, but I am puzzled about that and I would be grateful if the Minister would cast some light on it.
Perhaps he is going to say that the DWP, which itself has a substantial research budget, will be willing to find additional money to earmark in this direction. However, even the DWP probably insists on quite high quality in its research, so the same constraints might apply. However, those constraints should not be meaningful in this area. We are talking about a subset of the broad field of cancer research. There is an abundant willingness to fund it. I really want to know why it has not happened. Of course, I hope that it will and I hope that this amendment, whether or not it is modified as the Bill proceeds, will be the means to opening up a greater flow of funding towards mesothelioma from the state as well as the industry and perhaps also the charitable sector.
Baroness Masham of Ilton
My Lords, I, too, put my name to the letter and I, too, support my noble friend’s amendment—at least, the spirit of it. Mesothelioma is an awful condition, as has been so well explained by my noble friend Lord Walton. It needs research. Many more people will be developing this terrible disease. Research is advancing in many ways. One only has to think of stem cells and transplants. One never knows what will happen. However, this condition needs continuing expert research to find a way of alleviating the suffering, as well as a cure to stop this condition developing. I am sure there will be a way to stop it developing. It is there in the body but it needs the experts. Research means hope for these unfortunate people. Surely the Minister can find a way of accepting this amendment.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I, too, was one of the signatories of the letter that was drafted by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. I join in the congratulations that have been expressed to him on his assiduous work over very many years on behalf of the sufferers of mesothelioma. I am delighted to support him in this amendment, particularly now that the arguments that might have been advanced against a statutory levy have been so comprehensively demolished by none other than the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, and several other noble Lords who have spoken.
If we get this amendment into the Bill, it may not be perfect but, as several of your Lordships have said, it will act as a stimulus to the provision of more funding from a number of different sources, which we may not all have known. The noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, mentioned the DWP. We should look beyond the boundaries of the United Kingdom. Surely we are not concerned only with what has been called the national research effort. Mesothelioma is not confined within the boundaries of the United Kingdom. We might also look to the EU’s International Rare Diseases Research Consortium, which has a responsibility for looking at the 6,000 rare diseases that account for a surprisingly high proportion of the deaths and serious morbidity from cancerous diseases. I do not know whether mesothelioma is already on the consortium’s list but, if not, it certainly should be.
I wholeheartedly support the spirit of the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and I hope that the department might consider widening the scope of the research that is conducted on the disease by looking to Europe, particularly this rare diseases research consortium.
Lord Empey
My Lords, I hope that the Minister did not think that I was being flippant in my earlier intervention when I said that I hoped we could finish off all the related issues. I understand what the Minister is confronted with. It is a serious business. He has put a lot of work into it and there is no doubt that there is advancement here. With so many people here supporting this amendment and talking in favour of it, he might also feel that it is not necessarily for him alone, in that there are other departmental interests to be taken into account. Perhaps between now and Report he could consult with some of his colleagues, because the contributions that have been made by people who really know what they are talking about have been very impressive.
It is amazing that as a nation we have not taken this issue sufficiently seriously, but at least we have an opportunity to spark a change. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, with his track record on this, has been trying to achieve this for a long time. Perhaps we have a confluence of events here that might actually bring this about. The levy issue is not an issue. It can be dealt with. I am unclear whether this is the right mechanism, or even the right Bill, but there is something here to be achieved and I think it can be done without a huge drain on public resources. I accept that the Minister is trying hard. Perhaps this is not the moment for him to respond to us, but perhaps he will discuss it with his colleagues in the Government.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, we support the concept of insurers contributing to fund research to find new treatments for mesothelioma. Indeed, three years ago we were involved in encouraging the industry in what was originally a £3 million commitment over three years. However, we do that principally because of the passionate, compelling and authoritative case that we have heard over the past hour, led by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and stimulated by the comparison between the stark number that this dreadful disease kills and the funding that has gone to address and ameliorate it. The issue of stimulating a national research effort is hugely important.
Like other noble Lords, I do not know whether this is the appropriate mechanism and I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s comments, but the noble Lord, Lord Alton, seems to have covered all the issues on hypothecation, the Human Rights Act and a fee rather than a levy. That is a pretty impressive effort. Like the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, I support a variable approach rather than a fixed amount, but those are points of detail.
Will the Minister share with us his discussions with the Department of Health, which he has referred to before? In particular, have any of his extensive negotiations with the insurance industry about the payment scheme focused on ongoing contributions to research? What is the current attitude of the industry?
Lord Freud
Well, my Lords, I feel like adding my name to the amendment.
I have spent an enormous amount of time on this issue, for exactly the reason that noble Lords have all focused on. Something very odd is happening here when so little money has gone into research in this area. Bluntly, I was pursuing the concept of a one-for-one match, where the insurance industry and the state would come in. I will go into why I have hit a brick wall at every turn on that, which is why it is not in the Bill.
However, rather than being negative, I have talked to everyone but, in particular, tried to understand why we have not had state research on this. I have talked to Dame Sally Davies and the Department of Health, trying to work a way through. There is currently a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation as, before the Medical Research Council will accept research, it has to be of what the council calls “high-quality propositions”. I buy the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, on some of the quality research that is now on offer, so there is an opportunity to go forward there. The odd thing is that this is a Bill about the insurance industry and its contribution to that particular levy, when it is actually the insurance industry that has ponied up £3 million of its money and got this research going. What seems odd to me is the way that this is not happening on the other side.
I will now do what I do not want to do, which is to go into why that is so difficult with this Bill and why I have not been able to incorporate something like this. I was going to have a strap on the levy that we could just throw in and match up, but the limitation is that my department is allowed to raise funds only within its own remit, and medical research lies within the auspices of the Department of Health. We do not have the freedom to raise funds for research within a DWP-sponsored Bill. One of the issues with hypothecated research like this is that, from the point of view of the Department of Health, that cuts across its strategy of directing funds at quality research. This is how we have ended up in this odd chicken-and-egg position. I have simply not been able to find a way, in terms of the levy, to get this into the Bill.
So what is to be done? I have discussed this with my noble friend Lord Howe at considerable length. There needs to be a kick-start process to get research going here. We are proposing to get a conference going, which we will jointly host—and I would welcome as much support as possible from noble Lords—to try to get this on the agenda so that it gets the kind of support that it should.
Lord Pannick
To clarify, is the noble Lord saying that the only impediment to including a provision of this sort in this Bill is that this is a DWP Bill and research is a Department of Health matter? If that is the point, I think it will come as a great surprise to this Committee that it is not possible for two departments to liaise and come up with an agreed position to place within a Bill—not least because, as he will well know, as a matter of constitutional propriety, when a Bill talks about a Secretary of State, it covers all Secretaries of State. There is no division of responsibilities between Secretaries of State. Can the Minister think about whether it is really not possible to talk to his colleagues on these matters?
Lord Freud
I have done quite a lot of work on this, as I have said, and talked to the department. I am saying that this would have to be a Department of Health levy, but the Department of Health is not minded to legislate in this way on this matter because that is not how the structure of research provision in this country works. That is the position. I can get further clarification on this ready for Report.
Baroness Sherlock
The question of whether the Department of Health wishes to do this is a separate matter but, on whether the DWP can do this in its Bill, is the Minister saying that it cannot do it because it is not government policy that the DWP should create a levy that would be to the benefit of something that belongs to DoH, or is he saying that it is illegal for it to do so?
Lord Freud
I am not sure of the definition of illegality, but our powers are such that we cannot raise money for things that are not within our vote. Whether or not that makes it illegal, I am not sure. However, that is the position and we are held to it.
Baroness Butler-Sloss
I hope that the Minister will forgive me for interrupting him again but is he saying that the department cannot raise money for itself, or that the department cannot approve of a levy that is being taken from the insurers? Is the Bill not broader than the department? Can Parliament not put it into the Bill even if the DWP says that it is not part of its remit? The two points are, first, whether you can support a levy even if you cannot raise the money yourselves, and, secondly, why can the Bill not go forward with it while we discuss whether another government department will be helpful? At the end of the day, if a government department is going to say that it will not help to raise money for mesothelioma, what on earth is the public going to think about the coalition?
Baroness Masham of Ilton
Is it not about time that we changed the policy, if it is policy, because surely now one wants to work together? Health and social care are trying to work together, so why not work together with pensions and health?
Lord Kakkar
My Lords, the national research effort has been a great success in our country because it is strategic and, as the Minister has said, rightly targets areas to drive excellence and research. However, there are very good examples of collaborative research efforts between industry and Her Majesty’s Government in certain targeted areas to ensure that the volume of funds is available to address specific research questions. Would it not be possible for the Department of Health to consider, as a result of the discussions in this Committee and the passage of this Bill, whether there should be a move towards a strategic research effort in the area of mesothelioma? This could go through the normal processes identified within the Department of Health, the National Institute for Health Research, the Medical Research Council, and the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research in the Cabinet Office. Having gone through those normal processes, funds could then be generated through this particular levy. Funds defined and voted on through the national research funds available in the Department of Health could then be combined in a strategic way and focused on institutions that were prepared to make a commitment in this area.
Lord Moonie
Perhaps I may add a small point from my own field in medicine. One of the problems with mesothelioma is that it is diagnosed so late that it is generally considered a hopeless condition. That was certainly the case with friends of mine who died of it some years ago. Gradually things are beginning to look a little brighter. It is important to get treatment early. We know largely who the potential case bodies are likely to comprise—those who have historically been exposed to asbestos—and the numbers should not really be added to at this stage. Therefore it ought to be possible to devise research, either through markers or through surveillance of the case load, to establish diagnosis of mesothelioma earlier and provide more hope to the patients who suffer from it. That might be a fruitful argument for the Minister to make to his colleagues in the Department of Health.
Lord Freud
I take from this a weight of feeling and, bluntly, the best thing that I can do is to take it back in to Government; my department is almost not relevant in this area. In a sense, I do not think that that is the issue. The irony is that those in the insurance industry are the only ones who have been paying anything of any substance in this area. This is, if you like, directed at the wrong area. As the noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, said, why is this not of some strategic importance?
My feedback from the Department of Health and Sally Davies is that they are aware that it is odd that so little is spent on this disease. However, I think that that is where the problem lies and that it is a kind of chicken-and-egg situation. In a way, the insurance industry is in the position of the gambling industry, which has a voluntary scheme and has been spending money voluntarily. It does not need this pressure. What we need to worry about is: how much, as a country, are we spending on this disease?
I hope that noble Lords can hear that I am enormously sympathetic to what lies behind the amendment, and I am not only sympathetic because I have had a hard time this afternoon; I have been spending six months of the year running around on this issue, a bit like a mad mouse in a wheel, trying to find a way through.
This debate has been valuable. The next stage is to have a major event—my noble friend Lord Howe and I even have a date in the diary—where we start to do something about this and get something going. That is really what we are looking for, rather than something more mechanistic, such as what is proposed here, which I cannot do.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I think that we all recognise the Minister’s commitment to this issue. However, has any thought been given to whether this could be channelled through the HSE, which falls within the purview of the DWP?
Lord Freud
To be honest, I do not think that we have looked at that as an option. I will have another look around the wheel to see what there is, but where I have come out is that we need a mainstream effort with the people who are interested in this matter to push it up the agenda of the country. We need to say, “This needs research and it will take a decent share of the budget that is available for cancers in this country”.
Lord Howarth of Newport
When the Minister goes round the wheel again and has conversations with the Minister in the Cabinet Office responsible for the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research, and when he meets Professor Dame Sally Davies again, will he try to find out why the money has not been forthcoming so far? Is it political, because the view is taken that there are not terribly many sufferers from mesothelioma as a proportion of the population as a whole and therefore they are not a priority, or is it because this field is unfashionable among academics? We need an explanation because it is very puzzling. Given the existing structures, conventions and procedures, I cannot see any reason why the money should not already have been made available.
Lord Freud
I have actually got round to asking that question already, so I can answer it now. The reason is that it is an unfashionable area because it was believed that there was no hope. We caught it late, it was happening over a very short period and it was fatal. It was an unfashionable area to go into and therefore the people who wanted to make their careers in research turned to other cancers. As a result, good-quality research proposals were not coming in and therefore the research council did not feel that it could supply funds. That is the reason and it has been the reason for decades. With regard to breaking that cycle, the insurance industry and the voluntary groups working with the BLF have started rolling the stone down the hill, and I think that we are now in a position to get something moving. However, it is a bigger issue than just getting a little bit of money through this device.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, the Minister said that he feels like a mad mouse going round in a wheel. Fortunately, we have some good medics on hand this evening, who, I am sure, will be happy to diagnose the problem. Whether they can come up with a cure, I am not sure, but it is the job of parliamentarians to come up with a cure to help Ministers who are clearly committed to the underlying principles enunciated in the amendment actually to achieve them. He said that he has been banging his head against a brick wall and that he has been dismayed at the failure to provide adequate resources to deal with these things. The one thing we can do for a Minister in that situation is to provide him with an amendment to the Bill, which he can then take back to the other departments involved, to the Treasury and to everybody else, saying, “In Committee, they gave me a hard time over this. We need to find some way forward”.
Although I am of course not pressing this to a Division today, the fact that 10 noble Lords participated in this debate and have spoken with such experience and conviction, all being in favour of the principles underlying the amendment, means that surely the Minister now has some ammunition in the locker to take away and use to try and promote this case.
I am indebted to everyone who has spoken in the debate. My noble friend Lord Walton of Detchant said that the amendment could be strengthened and suggested two ways of doing that. I particularly liked what he said about the National Institute for Health Research and the role that it might play. I will certainly consult him in redrafting this amendment between now and Report.
My noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss said that if we could do it for gambling, why on earth can we not do it for this? The noble Lord, Lord Pannick, reminded us, as did the noble Lord, Lord Empey, that many other precedents can be invoked in such circumstances. Perhaps the Minister could ask his officials to look at the whole battery of precedents when going away to persuade those who, somewhere in the system, are clearly opposed to us putting these powers into the Bill.
My noble friend Lord Wigley reminded us of the scale and number of people affected by this horrible disease. He recognised, as did others, that a variable approach might be the right one to adopt as we recast the amendment.
My noble friend Lord Kakkar said there had there had been no strategic approach. He is right. He reminded us about the role of the meso-bank, which, as he says, will have global significance. He also referred to the possibilities that genetic research produces, but said that research has to be kick-started. In other words, there has to be some kind of seed funding—in the absence of state funding. Of course, austerity will inevitably be one of the reasons given when the Minister goes back to the Treasury or elsewhere. Other people will have their own priorities and projects, which they say that the money should be spent on. Again, we need to provide the Minister with something that overcomes those objections. The approach adopted in this amendment of a levy is one way of doing that. My noble friend Lord Kakkar also reminded us about something that I had not thought about previously: the importance of research into appropriate palliative medicines and palliative care, and the way in which we care for people during the last months of their lives. That was an important point for us to consider.
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, reminded us of the stark numbers, and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, who, along with others, signed a letter sent to the Times, told us about the importance of leverage and asked why a greater volume of resources was not made available for research. I was prompted to think about this issue by two Questions asked in another place by a Member of Parliament, Mr Bob Blackman. I was surprised when I saw on one of his Questions just three dotted lines where figures should have been, detailing the resources available for research into mesothelioma. When he tabled a further Question, the column simply showed three sets of zeros. I was absolutely staggered that that could be the case, given that 56,000 British people will die of this disease before it is over.
My noble friend Lady Masham said that research means hope, and she is absolutely right about that. Without research, we can offer no hope. My noble friend Lord Pannick said that there is nothing novel about this approach and that it would be quite fanciful to suggest that the Human Rights Act could in some way be invoked. That Act ought to be invoked against the state authorities in this country for not having done something about this problem for so long.
My noble friend Lord Avebury was very generous in his remarks, but in fact I am just an apprentice compared to my noble friend. He and I have been friends for a very long time. He published a pamphlet on the subject of mesothelioma in the 1970s and has campaigned on this issue throughout the whole of his parliamentary life. I stand in awe of him on this and many other matters.
The purpose of my amendment was to start the debate. There are moments when Parliament, rather than the Government, can shape policy, and this is one of them. The Minister said that there is a chicken-and-egg cycle. In that case, let us break that cycle. Although I beg leave to withdraw this amendment now, I am sure that noble Lords would expect me to bring it back on Report.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, this is, I hope, a brief and probing amendment. To be eligible for a payment under the scheme, Clause 2(1)(c) requires that a person has not brought an action against an employer or insurer and is unable to do so. The amendment requires that action to be successful. The implication is that an unsuccessful action would not preclude access to the payment scheme.
I have had some contact with the Bill team on this, and I think that the government response will be that if an action cannot be successful, it would necessarily preclude access to the payment scheme, because the conditions could not be met. I wonder whether that is necessarily so. What if an action were against an employer found not to be the right one but when the right one had gone out of business and the insurer could not be identified? Similarly, if an insurer were pursued by an action but proved to be the wrong one, why should that then preclude access to the scheme? I beg to move.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment, although I think that there is a more elegant way of dealing with the issue. Frankly, and I hope that the Committee—particularly the Minister—will agree, I do not understand why Clause 2(1)(c) is there at all. It does not seem to make any sense.
The clause has two parts to it. The second part is that the person who is diagnosed with diffuse mesothelioma will be eligible for the payment only if he or she is unable to bring an action against an employer or insurer because the relevant employer or insurer cannot be found or no longer exists. I cannot envisage any circumstances in which anyone could have brought an action against some person who cannot be found or did not exist. I do not understand why that conditionality is there at all. I can envisage the sort of circumstances that my noble friend suggests, which are that an action was brought wrongfully against the wrong employer or the wrong insurer, but why should that disqualify someone from making a claim and receiving a payment from the scheme because they made a mistake in the past and thought that they had the right employer or insurer?
I urge the Minister to take that away and perhaps rephrase the clause to provide that a person who has been unable to bring an action against the relevant employer or any relevant insurer for damages in respect of the disease because the employer and insurer cannot be found or no longer exist, or for any other reason. That seems to be the answer. I do not understand why that part of the clause is there at all.
Lord Freud
My Lords, as I understand it, the purpose of the amendment is that a person may be eligible for a payment from the scheme if they have not brought a successful action against their relevant employer or insurer for damages. However, there is another condition attached: they must also not be able to bring an action for some reason, perhaps because the employer or insurer cannot be found or no longer exists.
A person should be eligible for a payment from the scheme if they have not brought an action against a relevant employer or insurer through the courts and there are very good reasons why they are unable to do so. It is a scheme of last resort. If a person can bring proceedings, they should do so. But a person should not be eligible for a payment from the scheme if they have brought an action against a relevant employer or insurer through the courts and they have not been successful in that action because they have not been awarded civil damages. This may happen for a number of reasons. For example, the courts may consider that the employer did not expose the person to asbestos as a result of negligence or breach of statutory duty, or that the person was not an employee. It is not right in these circumstances that the person should be able to make an application to the scheme. It is a scheme of last resort, not a no-fault scheme. The scheme is correcting a market failure where employer’s liability insurers failed to keep thorough records; it is not replacing the civil system.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
My Lords, I am reluctant to intervene on the Minister when he is reading a very carefully constructed argument but, with all due respect, what he has just read defies logic. Bearing in mind that the person must have been diagnosed with mesothelioma after July 2012 and, if the draft rules become the rules of the scheme, must have brought any claim within three years of that diagnosis. It is envisaged that in that period the person would have sued somebody despite the fact that they were unable to find the relevant employer or the relevant insurer. It cannot possibly have been the relevant employer or the relevant insurer that they sued so the determination of the case is an irrelevance. I do not understand how people can sue somebody they cannot find.
I am not sure that I understand the concern. This may be because of the way in which one reads the legal language. I think the best thing I can do is write a letter spelling out exactly how the language works.
Lord Browne of Ladyton
The reason we are able to deal with these cases in this way is because of the history of the way in which mesothelioma litigation has developed. In mesothelioma cases, one can sue any employer. So if one finds a relevant employer or insurer, one can sue that person—I think that is agreed. That is part of the reason why this group of people are able to have access to this payment scheme whereas people suffering from other asbestos-related diseases cannot so easily do so. We agree on that.
Any person who has found a relevant employer or insurer to sue is disqualified from the payment scheme—full stop. It is not a question of finding one and then saying, “I cannot find the other, therefore I want to claim through the scheme”, anybody who finds one and has somebody to sue is disqualified by the second half of the clause. The first half of the clause is unnecessary.
Lord Freud
As I said, let me write to noble Lords about the necessity or otherwise of the first half of the clause, because I suspect that we are in deep legal territory.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Browne for his intervention and for challenging the subsection more substantially than my probing amendment. Given that the Minister has promised to write, the best thing that I can do in the circumstances is to beg leave to withdraw the amendment and look forward to reading the correspondence in due course. It seems that we may return to this.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, Amendment 13 is another probing amendment which addresses another aspect of eligibility. Under Clause 2(1)(d), it is a requirement that a person has not received damages or a specified payment in respect of diffuse mesothelioma, specified payments to be defined in regulations. This probing amendment is to clarify that any payments receivable under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979 and Section 47 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 are not to be treated as specified payments. Such payments may be recoverable under benefit recovery provisions, but their receipt would not deny access to the scheme.
From a discussion with the Bill team a few days ago, I understand that that is the case, but it would be very helpful if the Minister could put that on the record and say something about what other types of arrangement—I think that term of renewal has been mentioned—will be included in specified payments.
Amendment 41 is grouped and is another probing amendment. Clause 13(2)(b) enables the Secretary of State in setting the levy to deduct the amount of any recovery of benefits. That would therefore reduce the amount borne by insurers. Clearly, the principle which should apply generally is that any benefit recovery accrues to the Government, not to insurers. However, it is understood that this provision is to apply only to the initial period of the scheme, where benefit recovery in respect of cases diagnosed from July 2012 to March 2015 will be used to fund the scheme. If that is the case, again, perhaps we can have that on the record. In any event, perhaps the Minister can explain the analysis behind the government contribution and why in the scheme of things any contribution should be made. I beg to move.
Lord Freud
I thank the noble Lord for the amendments. The intention of Amendment 13 is to ensure that a person who receives a state lump sum payment under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers’ Compensation) Act 1979 or the Section 47 of the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 would not be excluded from receiving a scheme payment.
One of the conditions for entitlement for a payment under the scheme was that a person has not received damages or a specified payment in respect of diffuse mesothelioma and is not eligible to receive a specified payment. The meaning of “a specified payment” will be given by regulation. Broadly speaking, specified payments are those which are not compensation but are paid in respect of the person’s mesothelioma. That does not include government lump-sum payments. Therefore, the amendment has no effect on our intentions.
The amendment does not cover the equivalent Northern Ireland legislation, so it creates an imbalance between how applications in Northern Ireland will be dealt with compared to applications made elsewhere in the United Kingdom. To go through which payments will be specified, as the noble Lord requested—it may be easier for me to supply a letter—they are the naval, military and air forces, the Armed Forces and Reserve Forces, the UK Asbestos Trust and the EL Scheme Trust established in 2006. I will write to him to get that on the record.
Lord Wigley
I believe I am right in interpreting that there are cases that could get compensation for diffuse mesothelioma under the 1979 Act who might equally get compensation under this Act if they had not got it under the 1979 Act. That being so, I raised the question at Second Reading as to how the scales of compensation compared between the two. Is there any information that the Minister can give on that? If he has already included it in today’s letter, which I believe has been sent to my home, I apologise as I have not yet seen it.
Lord Freud
The noble Lord is raising a slightly different question. What we are looking at here is the question of whether one can claim on the scheme even if one has received the 1979 payment. We will be dealing in later amendments with the offsetting issue. It may be easier to leave this question until those amendments.
I ask the noble Lord to withdraw these amendments.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his explanation. It has confirmed the position, which was the reason for the probe. Could he say a little more about the imbalance with Northern Ireland? I am not sure that I altogether follow the point that he was making.
Lord Freud
We do not have the legislation to match. I am not sure that, off the top of my head, I can be precise about what the practical implications of that are. Let me come back in writing on that. Northern Ireland has its own schemes. I must be precise on how they interrelate in responding to the noble Lord.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I am grateful to the noble Lord and happy to receive a letter in due course. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, as the Minister will be aware, while I am supportive of the scheme that he brings forward, there is a need for key improvements. Foremost among these is the proposed level of scheme payments. We have seen nothing definitive, but the impact assessment suggests that it could be pitched at 70% of the tariff. The tariff will be set in age bands of one year and it is understood that it will be based on average compensation awards of claimants and dependants, in respect of those diagnosed with diffuse mesothelioma. The impact assessment also states that by linking payments to age, the overall cost of the scheme will be reduced because of the rise in age of those diagnosed.
The suggested likely level of payout of 70% is the component of the scheme which most noble Lords at Second Reading considered unacceptable. An increase in this level of payment is the most important change we can make to the Bill. It is difficult to pin this down in the primary legislation but we need to have something clear in the Bill. What levels of payment are actually made depends upon the computation of average compensation claims as well as the percentage award.
As to average compensation claims, we need to be assured that this is a fair basis for constructing the tariff and that it does not unfairly depress the amount of compensation claims which would have been payable to scheme beneficiaries had they been able to access compensation on an individual basis. There is no inherent reason why the cohort of scheme claimants should not reflect the average of those accessing compensation in the usual way.
We have seen the national institute’s statistical note, which merits more detailed scrutiny. However, we have not seen that translated into a tariff schedule which supports the impact assessment levy calculations. When might this be available? The national institute note sets out various measures of average compensation, including the arithmetic mean, the median and a variety of trimmed means. Which average is to be used?
Table 3.4 of the paper sets down some average compensation tabulations but it is unclear whether either of model 2 or model 4 will be adopted. Further, it would appear that in Scotland, for example, actual awards are on average some £60,000 higher than in the rest of the UK. Is this right and are there any other large regional disparities of which we should be aware?
At Second Reading the Minister referred to setting payment figures at 70% as a “real juggling act”. The argument runs that if the levy is small, in a reasonably competitive market providers will absorb it and not seek to pass the cost on to British industry. The impact assessment points to research both ways on this matter, although it also suggests that it is worth noting that even if insurers did pass the costs on to employers the impact on employer customers is likely to be relatively low.
The argument being used to significantly depress payments to sufferers of mesothelioma is thin to say the least. Where is the evidence that at a 3% level they will absorb the costs but above that they will not? Is it not the case that there is a variety of issues and costs which will feature in employer’s liability insurance pricing and that these policies might anyway be bundled with other insurance products? Even taking the Government’s argument at face value, their position cannot be justified.
Taking into account the government contribution in year one, the levy on insurers is, on average, estimated to be 2.24% of a 70% level of payment. This would imply an average level of some 3.2% if the payment were set at a 100% level, an extra 1% of gross written premiums, or £15 million per year over the 10-year period. From the point of view of the insurance industry, this would not appear to be an unmanageable additional amount.
It should be borne in mind that the industry is still not bearing the costs of other asbestos-related and long-term diseases where employer’s liability policies cannot be traced. The Minister has suggested that the diffuse mesothelioma scheme covers 70% of the payment amount that would fall due if there were full coverage, so there is benefit still accruing to the sector just because old policies have been lost or destroyed.
However, this aside, we should not be looking at this only from the point of view of the insurance sector. We need to give full consideration to those affected by this terrible disease. If their condition is a result of negligent workplace practices, why should support for them be discounted by 30%? Indeed, on a matter that we have to pursue in the future, we remain to be convinced that the scheme payment could not be subject to greater benefit recovery than a composite level of compensation payment. However, we will return to that issue.
If it is right—and it is—that payments should be made, they should be the full compensation equivalent. It has taken a long time for a scheme to be developed and we continue to pay tribute to the Minister for advancing this, but there is no excuse for now short-changing those who, we all agree, should get justice. I beg to move.
Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, my Amendment 18 is grouped with Amendment 15, just moved by my noble friend Lord McKenzie, and it drives at very much the same purpose. Both of us seek to ensure that the scheme payments will match the average of court awards for people in comparable circumstances, thereby lifting the figure from 70% of the tariff to 100%.
I have not been able to discern any principled basis for this figure of 70%. I think that it was the best deal that the Minister could secure. I do not underestimate his achievement in securing that deal against an insurance industry that for decades fought a rearguard action to try to escape from its proper liabilities. At Second Reading, the Minister told the House of the press investigations into the mesothelioma scandal in its various dimensions from 1965 onwards. As time went by, we understand that policies went missing wholesale. As the Minister also told us at Second Reading, it was not until 1999 that the industry created a code of practice for the better tracing of employer’s liability policies.
As I said in an earlier debate, I do not think that Parliament needs to feel that it is bound by the deal that the Minister has secured with the industry. We respect the Minister’s efforts in securing that deal but it is our duty to take a view on where the public interest lies, and I do not believe that it lies in palpable injustice or in the convenience of the insurance industry at the expense of mesothelioma victims. It is surely unacceptable that mesothelioma victims should be penalised because, through no fault of theirs, documents have gone missing, and it is unacceptable that the insurers, whose duty it was to keep proper files, should benefit to the tune of 30% in precisely those cases where they failed in their responsibilities.
The Minister will argue to us again, I think, that there needs to be a discount in order to incentivise claimants to go to the courts first. However, I am not persuaded by that argument because it seems to me that the procedures of the scheme—the portal and the remit of the technical committee—will all ensure that they do go to the courts first if they can and that they pursue that avenue until they find that they cannot proceed satisfactorily or successfully along it. Be that as it may, in any case a 30% discount is simply too large. The Financial Services Compensation Scheme provides cover for 90% of the liabilities of insolvent insurers where insurance is compulsory. That 90% should be the very minimum and 100% would be right.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, I certainly agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, about the incentive argument. I thought that that was comprehensively demolished at Second Reading and I hope that we are not going to hear it again from the Minister this afternoon.
I also think that my noble friend should pay attention to the fact that this was one of the subjects on which all the speakers at Second Reading were unanimous in saying that 70% was simply unacceptable. Whether it should be 100%, 90% or some other figure much higher than 70% could be a matter of argument between us. However, there are certainly very strong reasons for saying that the 30% deduction is totally unfair and unacceptable to the majority of your Lordships.
My noble friend said at Second Reading that he was keen to avoid the insurers passing all, or virtually all, of the levy on to existing insurers. As the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said, this would not require a very large increase in the premiums to be imposed. It is logical to assume that insurers would also be constrained by the effects of competition. Some might be inclined to pass the whole burden on to other insurers, but would be constrained from doing so by the thought that if others did not then they would obtain all the business. The threat of the insurers passing on the burden is a very slight one.
If there were an increase from 70% to some higher figure, that would not happen suddenly. Presumably, a proportion of the insurers might pass on some of the burden as we approach 100%. I do not think that the Minister has any objective evidence to show to what extent this would happen. I would be very glad to hear from him if he thinks that there is evidence of something that must be hypothetical and cannot intrinsically be tested without actually trying it.
Lord Wigley
My Lords, the fact that we are at a late stage of the debate today should not stop us from speaking and pressing this most important of the amendments to the Bill that we are considering. If we get nowhere on it today, I suspect that we may need to come back to it on Report. As was rightly said a moment ago, this is something that was referred to by almost all the speakers at Second Reading, and it should not go by default at this point in time.
It strikes me that if someone is entitled to 100% of the compensation because of their condition, their suffering and what they have gone through, but they have not had that compensation because at some time in the past some insurer failed to deliver it, that does not in any shape or form justify a 30% abatement of what they will get. Their suffering should justify the 100% level. There may be an argument about 10% here or there, although I do not like even that, but I certainly do not like the idea of it being abated by 30%.
No doubt there has been some horse-trading on this. It would be interesting to know where the Minister started his argument. If 70% was the first offer made by the insurers, then I suspect that there is room to move up from that figure. If there is not, then this is something that Parliament should be addressing further. I do not recall with the 1979 Act that there was a reduction in the compensation on the basis that it was going to be easy. The argument put forward at the time was that it was fair compensation for the suffering. If that is the case with other legislation, why on earth should there be less for people who have suffered so much? This really is something that should be pressed.
Lord Wills
My Lords, I, too, support the amendments. I very much agree with my noble friend on the Front Bench and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, that these amendments go to perhaps the most important issue in the Bill. I agree with everything that has been said so far although, given the hour, I do not intend to rehearse all the arguments.
I assume that this particular issue must lie very near the heart of the deal that the Minister has done with insurers. I am confident, from everything that he has said today in Committee, that he has done the very best deal that he thinks possible, particularly given the need to get a resolution quickly so that those who are suffering from this terrible illness get the support that they deserve as quickly as possible. I am sure that that has been at the forefront of his mind. He has said already in Committee that he is going to return to his discussions with insurers, and I hope that he can assure the Committee that he will convey to those insurers the strength of feeling that he has heard, at this late hour in our proceedings, about this issue. He knows it already. He has heard it at Second Reading and this has been a consistent concern throughout.
I hope he will remind his interlocutors that there is a real risk that if they do not agree what is widely conceived of as being a just settlement—and this is not a just settlement, in my view and that of every other speaker so far this evening—and, worse still, if they threaten delays or legal action as a result of anything that the Minister goes back to them with, this Bill is most unlikely to be the last word on these issues, given the strength of feeling in both Houses of Parliament on this issue, which we have seen time and again in recent years and which is responsible for this Bill coming before us. I hope that he will remind them of the risk that any future legislation may well be tougher than this Bill.
Baroness Donaghy
My Lords, briefly, we are being presented with the alternatives of finding the paperwork, in which case the process is dealt with in one way, or not finding the paperwork, in which case this new levy will apply. As a fully paid-up administrator, I think there is a range in between about the effort that is put in to find the paperwork. If we are talking about incentivisation, I would argue for 130% instead of 70% because that might make some people try a little harder to find the paperwork. I really should have put an amendment in to make it 130%. I believe that there should be some incentivisation but I would turn the argument on its head: we should try to persuade the insurance companies to try a bit harder to find the paperwork.
Lord Freud
My Lords, the amendment seeks to set the rate of payment at 100% of the average civil award amounts. Many noble Lords expressed opinions about this at Second Reading as well as today. I know that I have the support of all present today in wanting to guarantee the maximum payment possible for those people who, through no fault of their own, cannot bring a case against a specific employer or that employer’s insurer.
To tidy up some of the questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, on the tariff tables, I think he caught that they were published in an ad hoc statistical report only today. I apologise that it is so late; we will circulate all of that to Peers tomorrow. It is based on a survey of civil compensation undertaken between 2007 and 2012 registered with the Compensation Recovery Unit, so it is a broad mix of cases. That is what the figures are based on.
To make a point that is really at the heart of this, and as many noble Lords have pointed out, if we were going after the people who should pay the money, it would be a very different proposition in terms of justice as opposed to our asking for money from a group of insurers that may or may not have been doing this business during the time. We are actually asking a group of active insurers to carry a particular burden when we know that of the industry as a whole, 40% are in run-off, including many of the biggest ones involved in mesothelomia. If one looks at insurance as one industry, all in one category, that is one way of thinking; if one starts to individualise what different insurers are doing, it becomes a different debate.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I understand that argument, but can I put two other considerations to the noble Lord? When the Lloyd’s insurance market ran into very severe difficulty on account of asbestosis claims—I forget when that was—it had to act collectively to rescue the reputation of the London insurance market. I think we are in a similar situation here. I also put it to the Minister that the active insurers are advantaged by the fact that other run-off insurers have either failed or given up the business. They are the insurers who are now in the market and dominate it. Considering that they benefit from the absence of those erstwhile competitors, they are in a perfectly strong position to shoulder the moral and indeed the practical responsibilities left behind by those who have abandoned the field.
Lord Freud
It is always a dangerous thing to base it on a moral argument, particularly in this area. It is a differentiated industry. There is a group which we are now looking at to shoulder this. There was an enormous amount of negotiation in getting to this level of levy. That then feeds into the amount that we can pay eligible people. You could have an infinite amount of levy but if we went too high, the risk would be very clear. The genuine danger is that it would just go straight to British industry. Many of the insurers who will be paying it were not in business at the time or may have kept good records, so there is a differentiation within the industry.
If we could pay people more, of course we would. This is a balancing act and 70% is the compromise that we have arrived at after long negotiations. I hope that noble Lords can appreciate that there is a real achievement here in getting very substantial payments to people who are eligible, if they are afflicted by this terrible disease. I urge the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply, none of which comes as a surprise. I thank all noble Lords who have participated in this debate and supported the amendment. My noble friend Lord Wills urged the Minister to convey the strength of opinion about the level of payment. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, referred to the fact that this sort of horse-trading did not go on when the 1979 Act scheme was being put in place. I think that my noble friend Lord Howarth dealt with the point about why it is not unreasonable for the insurers still in the market to bear the full costs of compensation. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, reminded us that everybody who spoke at Second Reading opposed this 70% level. I was rather attracted to my noble friend Lady Donaghy’s proposition of 130%; perhaps we might try that.
The Minister says that it is wrong to deal with this as a moral issue. I am not sure that that is right or something that I would agree with. I took it from what he said that the negotiation was around the rate of the levy, which then drove the compensation levels, rather than the rest. In that case, I am interested in a negotiation that would end up with a levy of 2.24%. How on earth was that arrived at? Why was it not 2.25% or 2.26%, or 3%? To have that driving the outcome seems a little strange, but in any event it is unacceptable.
I am grateful for the fact that it looks as though we will get the tariff tables tomorrow. That is obviously a key part of this. The percentage is key, but it depends what it is a percentage of. We will have to see how that all works out and which of those averages have been taken in compiling that schedule.
Lord Freud
Perhaps I may quickly clear up that matter. When you look at the totals, you have to take into account the effect of the extra two years, because we are starting with two years in hand. So the first year counts as three years, which we are going to smooth over the first four years. Therefore, in practice we start off with a much bigger amount of money. The 2.24% is a raw figure, if you like; it is not going to affect how much the levy will be when it is smoothed.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I accept that point, but is not part of the smoothing in the early years being done by government contribution?
Lord Freud
It is a very small amount. We will actually do the smoothing over the years. Turning round the recoveries is only one year’s work, so that is a small amount of it.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I think that £17 million is the cost of the government contribution. I still do not think that we have had a definitive answer to the question of the impact on all this, if any, of what is happening in the pre-action protocol and all the negotiations that are going on there. From submissions that we have had from the ABI, it is clear that it sees that as part of a wider integrated package. I do not know whether the Minister can say anything about the extent, if any, to which the negotiations took account of what was happening there or was likely to happen and how that impacted on the negotiations.
However, ultimately we have heard nothing that convinces us that the 2.24% is where we stop in this calculation. We will continue to press for an increase. We will help the Minister in taking this back to the industry and making it understand how strongly we feel about it, and how it must not, and cannot, rest where it does.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Colwyn)
Does the noble Lord wish to withdraw the amendment?
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I do not know whether the Minister has anything further to say.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Before I do, is the Minister going to say anything about the MoJ consultation?
Lord Freud
There is not much that I can add to what I said at Second Reading. Clearly, there is a consultation on the level of costs, on the pre-action protocol and on the portal, but I cannot pre-judge what that might come out with. It is clearly an extensive consultation and it will be starting in a matter of months.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
Can the Minister just say whether any of that featured in the discussions and negotiations that he had around the levy?
Lord Freud
Yes. It was important to the industry that the MoJ undertook to look at those issues. That was reinforced by the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, to the LASPO Bill, which was predicated on there being a consultation ahead of pulling the mesothelioma cases inside the LASPO framework.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
I shall read the record on that and I may return to the point in due course. However, given the hour, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
House of Lords
Health: Degenerative Brain Diseases
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Soley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to encourage brain donation to assist scientific research, including into degenerative brain diseases.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, as a nation we are deeply indebted to the many individuals who donate brain tissue. This donation enables vital research leading to new treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. The Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health Research and research charities are all supporting work to encourage brain donation. The MRC network of brain banks is developing a strategy to encourage new donors and plans to hold a workshop in September this year.
Lord Soley
I am grateful for that Answer. I remind the Minister that when we talked originally of heart donation many people found that quite emotionally difficult, but now it is much more common. There is something very similar with brain donation yet it is profoundly important, not only for general research but particularly for degenerative brain disease. The research bodies are very concerned to get people to donate where they do not have a family history of brain degeneration because they need comparative samples. Can the Minister do all he can to promote this? I donated my brain some time ago and so far it has not been returned marked “not fit for purpose”. [Laughter.] In all seriousness, this is a very important issue. It can bring great improvement to people’s lives and to scientific knowledge generally and I ask the Minister and his department to do all they can to promote it.
Earl Howe
I endorse entirely the noble Lord’s ambition in this area. It is an extremely important area of tissue donation and contributes enormously to our understanding, particularly of neurodegenerative diseases. The network of brain banks I referred to has already begun work on its donation strategy, encouraging new donors to sign up for brain donation. Its plan is to target well characterised individuals, for example those in clinical cohorts, as, once donated, the tissue has lots of associated clinical information from life, which is highly useful to researchers. I know that a lot of the major charities are involved in promoting brain donation.
Lord Walton of Detchant
My Lords, does the Minister recognise that, partly as a result of such donations but also as a result of major developments in genomic medicine, the individual genes responsible for a substantial number of degenerative brain diseases have now been identified; the missing or abnormal gene product has been found and, as a result, new treatments are coming on stream? Does he therefore agree that the rare disease advisory group now established under NHS England should be in a position to recommend, in collaboration with NICE, the prescription under the NHS of these so-called orphan or ultra-orphan drugs which are proving to be so effective in some of these conditions and which are now coming on stream in an increasing number?
Earl Howe
My Lords, we are clear that there needs to be a mechanism to assess the clinical and cost-effectiveness of new drugs, particularly those designed to treat rare and very rare conditions. NICE will indeed be the body charged with doing that. It is devising a process by which it can do so that is quite distinct from its normal technology assessment methodology. As the noble Lord will appreciate, the drugs concerned here are of a different kind and order of cost from those which NICE normally assesses. The noble Lord is quite right that that is the broad process which will be adopted.
Baroness Seccombe
My Lords, my husband did not have some rare disease but, following two strokes, he became involved with a research project called OPTIMA. He was then monitored. It gave my family—and me particularly—great satisfaction to know that he left his brain for research, which they found extremely useful.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am glad to know that. It provides a telling and important example of how this can be done in a sensitive way, and in a way that best meets the requirements of researchers. If there is a possibility of planning in advance the donation of a brain—or, indeed, any organ—it is much easier for the family and gives the patients themselves much satisfaction.
Lord Naseby
Is my noble friend aware that a great deal of work is being done through the EMEA and, through that organisation, by a number of countries in Europe? As one who has raised the issue of orphan drugs before, can we, on this occasion, make sure that NICE co-operates with these other bodies and we do not start duplicating work across the whole of Europe?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am aware that NICE co-operates with its counterpart bodies not only in Europe but in other parts of the world; its work has an international dimension. As the same time, I say to my noble friend that NICE is seen as a world leader in its field. Many other countries look to NICE for the methodology that it adopts.
Lord Turnberg
I am sure that the noble Earl is aware that Alzheimer’s disease is increasing in frequency as we all age, and is becoming a severe health problem. The Alzheimer’s disease association is certainly anxious for brains to be put into its bank, because it seems that there is the potential for a cure for this disease in a few years’ time. I suspect that the noble Earl is aware that the research that is done on these brains will be extremely helpful in that respect.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I absolutely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Turnberg. Dementia is of course a particular focus for research using brain tissue. Also, there are many other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s, which could potentially benefit from this kind of research.
Burma
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of ethnic tensions and progress towards democracy in Burma.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi)
My Lords, we have seen positive steps to end ethnic conflict and strengthen democracy. We welcome the agreement in Kachin to work to end hostilities and to establish political dialogue. However, concerns remain, including recent attacks against minority religions, especially in Rakhine state, where we support humanitarian work, and have called for accountability for the violence there and for citizenship for the Rohingya.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, having seen for myself quite recently the spread of violence against the Rohingya to other parts of Burma and following last week’s violence in Lashio, in Shan state, and this week’s reports of the escalating exodus of people from the Rakhine state into neighbouring countries, what pressure is being put on the authorities in Burma to prevent such violence, to bring the perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice, to ensure the rule of law and to resolve the Rohingya’s demands for full citizenship and constitutional rights, which after all lie at the heart of the problem?
Baroness Warsi
The noble Lord always comes to these matters hugely informed, usually having just travelled back from the place that we are speaking about, and I am grateful for that. I think the noble Lord is aware that the United Kingdom has been one of the most front-footed and vocal critics of the violence within Rakhine state. Concerns have been raised by the Prime Minister to the President and by the Foreign Secretary to the Foreign Minister; and Huge Swire, the Minister with responsibility for Burma, and I raised these issues specifically with two Ministers, the Minister responsible for ethnic reconciliation in the President’s office and the Minister with specific responsibility for Rakhine state. We discussed, among other issues, the long-term settlement of citizenship. There has been some progress, but I completely share my noble friend’s concerns about the violence that is spreading beyond Rakhine state.
Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the recent human rights report on Burma concluded that ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity have taken place against the Rohingya? In view of those views, does she agree with the conclusions? A simple yes or no answer will suffice and will tell us all we need to know.
Baroness Warsi
I think the noble Baroness will be aware from her own experience as a Minister at the Foreign Office that it would be inappropriate for me to give a simple yes or no answer to a report that clearly needs to be supported by further independent investigative work. I am, of course, hugely concerned about the concerns raised in that report, and our ambassador has already raised them with the Burmese.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
My Lords, does my noble friend accept that the broader problem in the transition to democracy in Burma is that the legal, security and police forces have not come to terms with the idea that Burma is now a multilingual, multireligious and multiethnic state? In advance of the 2015 elections, what are the British Government doing to assist in bringing about reforms in those areas, particularly if that involves training and practical assistance?
Baroness Warsi
I can inform my noble friend that we are doing specific work on police reform. There have been a number of visits both ways to try to progress that work. We are also working on reconciliation after conflict. Burmese Ministers have visited Northern Ireland, colleagues from Northern Ireland have visited Burma, and officials on both sides have been in touch. We are clearly focused on this area.
Baroness Cox
My Lords, is the Minister aware that, as a result of the Burmese army’s continuing offensives and violations of human rights in Rakhine and Shan states and still in Kachin state, hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced and are living in destitution? I have visited many of them and witnessed their suffering. What representations are being made by Her Majesty’s Government to the Burmese Government to allow access by international aid organisations to all people in need in Burma?
Baroness Warsi
Noble Lords may be aware that there will be a full debate on Burma during the dinner hour later today, so this is very much an opener; we will have the full course later on. I will be able to give the noble Baroness a lot of detail later about that issue, and about the work that the human rights and refugee commissioner is doing.
Lord Triesman
My Lords, the discussion in the European Union has focused in recent weeks on whether sanctions were lifted too early. I want to be clear that I have not formed a view as to whether that is the case. What have the United Kingdom Government said in EU foreign service circles about that matter, and what course do they plan to take?
Baroness Warsi
The noble Lord will be aware that the sanctions were first suspended, and that every member state had to agree to those sanctions remaining in that suspended state. If a single member state had agreed to those sanctions not remaining, the whole regime would have failed. We felt that we needed to put our energies into getting agreement across member states to make sure that the arms embargo remained in place.
Baroness Nye
After President Obama’s visit to Burma last year, the Burmese Government agreed to allow the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights to open an office. What representations have the British Government made on this matter to try to speed things along?
Baroness Warsi
We continue to make representations on this matter. We, too, felt hopeful when President Thein Sein said that he would allow this office to be opened. He reiterated that commitment when he met President Obama, and we continue to press him to make real that commitment.
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, all these concerns about Burma/Myanmar are very welcome and reflect very well on noble Lords and Members of this House who are concerned about these things. However, could we also add the thought that it is something of a miracle that the country of Burma/Myanmar is now moving towards rejoining the comity of nations? In the longer term, if we work positively and closely with the authorities and face their terrific and very difficult concerns, we will bring them to the democratic pattern that we all admire and maybe even to being members of the Commonwealth. Will the Minister recognise this positive side of our work with Burma for the future?
Baroness Warsi
I absolutely recognise the comments made by my noble friend, whether those concerns relate to prisoner release, freedom of the press or political participation. Of course, we must recognise and congratulate the Burmese for moving in the right direction.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Empey and I had the privilege of being invited to speak with representatives of the Government of Myanmar and, subsequently, with the opposition caucus. They wanted to look at lessons to be learnt from Northern Ireland, although the sizes of those countries have very little in common: 1.8 million against 57 million. The one thing missing is a Senator George Mitchell, someone who can be picked, I suggest, from Australia, New Zealand or somewhere in that region and who will act as the honourable broker in resolution. That is something that we as a Government should be committed to.
Baroness Warsi
Clearly, the noble Lord comes to this matter with expertise and experience. We can take heart from the fact that out of the 11 disputes in Burma, 10 ceasefires have been signed and a reconciliation process has started. The challenge is now whether the Burmese Government have the political will to see through into real action the commitments that they have made in these reconciliation agreements, but I take the noble Lord’s points.
Health and Social Care
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Tyler of Enfield
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will consider linking the separate outcomes frameworks for health and social care.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)
My Lords, we will improve outcomes only if all parts of the system work together with a common purpose. The three outcomes frameworks have been and continue to be increasingly aligned, reflecting the joint contribution of health, public health and adult social care to improving outcomes. The frameworks form the basis for integrated working locally. They support local partners across the health and care system to identify shared responsibilities, pursue shared goals and improve outcomes for their communities.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield
I thank the Minister for that helpful reply. I certainly welcome the efforts that have been made to align more closely the various outcome frameworks, in particular the sharing of particular outcome indicators on premature mortality. Given the new duties that are now on the Secretary of State, the NHS Commissioning Board and clinical commissioning groups to reduce health inequalities, and indeed the current inequalities in the incidence of conditions such as cancer and survival rates among deprived groups, what evidence is there that using these common outcome indicators will result in more integrated services such as smoking cessation, leading to real reductions in health inequalities?
Earl Howe
The essence of the answer to that is that improved outcomes will be achieved only when all parts of the system work together. If you have shared measures within the outcomes frameworks and measures that are complementary to each other, you will shine a light on areas of inequality and inform local and national action to advance equality. This focus on outcomes rather than processes enables an innovative approach to health and care services that is driven essentially by the needs of the local population. I will just add that local Healthwatch has a role to play in working with partners to make sure that the views of vulnerable and seldom heard groups in the population are heard.
Baroness Pitkeathley
My Lords, is any work being done on the outcomes of preventive work? I speak, for example, of installing a handrail to prevent a fall that results in an unnecessary and expensive hospital admission. These are often overlooked in terms of outcomes. Will the Minister tell the House if any work is being done on preventive work?
Earl Howe
There are a number of indicators in the NHS Outcomes Framework and, indeed, in the public health outcomes framework and the adult social care outcomes framework relating to the vulnerable elderly groups in our population. I shall need to write to the noble Lady with a specific answer to her question. However, her question is extremely pertinent to the issues that have been very high profile recently, the resolution of which depend, in part, on ensuring that we can avoid unplanned admissions to hospital and keep people securely in their own homes.
Lord Laming
My Lords, will the Minister assure the House that when the separate inspectorates are established they will reinforce integrated working rather than operate in separate identities?
Earl Howe
I can indeed, and I can do so with confidence because the three chief inspectors that we propose to create—one of whom, the Chief Inspector of Hospitals, has already been appointed—will be working as part of the Care Quality Commission. They will be senior employees of the CQC and their job will certainly be to align the methodology that they use to assess good and poor care.
Lord Kakkar
My Lords, I declare my interest as professor of surgery and consultant surgery at University College London Hospital. During the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, there was a discussion about the need to ensure that there was an ongoing focus on integrated care between community hospitals and tertiary services. This needed to be attended by a focus on the development of metrics that would describe whole pathways of care outcomes for patients. What progress has been made with regard to the development of those whole pathway metrics?
Earl Howe
The noble Lord hits upon a point of central importance. The outcomes framework clearly sets out where the different parts of the health and care system share responsibility for outcomes and support joint working in the way that I have described. However, we are committed to developing a measure of people’s experience of integrated care for use in the outcomes frameworks. That is a work in progress. Meanwhile, a place holder was included within both the NHS and adult social care outcomes frameworks when they were refreshed in November last year. We have highlighted the development of this measure in the public health outcomes framework, so I hope to give the noble Lord further news in a few months’ time.
Baroness Jolly
My Lords, within local authorities, public health is responsible for reducing local health inequalities, particularly in areas of non-communicable disease. For those, the solutions are often long term, so would my noble friend explain how success can be measured and incentivised in the short term?
Earl Howe
Again, my noble friend asks an extremely good question. The year-on-year success of public health interventions to address non-communicable diseases, for example, will be measured through the public health outcomes framework. The department will incentivise some of the indicators in the public health outcomes framework through the health premium incentive scheme. Some of the indicators that will be selected may contribute to prevention of non-communicable diseases.
Baroness Wheeler
My Lords, on social care, the charity Mind has pointed out that many people with mental health problems are never properly assessed to see if they need social services, such as having somebody to help with admin or household tasks, or with washing, dressing or something meaningful to do during the day. Is the Minister confident that the outcomes framework is robust enough to measure this problem, and how does he think that local councils will be able to address this issue in the light of the £2.7 billion cuts that they will have had to their adult social care budgets by the end of this spending round?
Earl Howe
My Lords, the adult social care outcomes framework was put together with a great deal of help and support from local authorities, so we hope that there will be a great deal of buy-in to it. It has as its focus high-quality care and promoting people’s independence and well-being, and it enables councils to make comparisons, assess scope for improvement and measure progress against their own local priorities in adult social care. Therefore, the virtue of the outcomes frameworks is, above all, transparency and accountability, leading to improved quality of care as defined locally by councils.
Railways: Crossrail
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Earl of Courtown
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made to date on their plans for Crossrail.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the Crossrail project is progressing well. The six tunnel-boring machines active under London have completed around 12 kilometres of tunnels. Several milestones have already been reached, including the tunnel breakthrough at Canary Wharf attended by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and the Mayor of London last Friday. While maintaining focus on the delivery of infrastructure, work is now well under way on the operational phases of the project: in other words, making Crossrail a fully operational railway.
The Earl of Courtown
I thank the Minister for that helpful reply. Will my noble friend join me in congratulating the many small and medium-sized enterprises that have been part of this very important infrastructure project? It would also be very useful if he would tell the House whether any decision has been made on who the future operator of Crossrail will be.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, I am grateful for the support of my noble friend for the SMEs and other businesses supporting the Crossrail project. A lot of them are involved, and, in addition, many of them are based far outside London and the south-east. Transport for London will be responsible for Crossrail services. It is procuring a private sector Crossrail train operator concession, using a model similar to London Overground. Operations will start in May 2015.
The current opening strategy is split into five phases, beginning with Liverpool Street to Shenfield in May 2015. In December 2018, services will start through the main Crossrail tunnel between Paddington and Abbey Wood. Full services will open in December 2019.
Lord Berkeley
Will the Minister explain whether there are still plans to have two different signalling systems on this tunnel, one in the tunnel and one on Network Rail on either side? What assurances can he give that the trains will not have to stop at the changeover point? That would not be very good when a two-minute headway frequency is planned for the trains. Is the matter resolved yet?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, it is not resolved yet. The noble Lord is quite right that there are two signalling systems. One is needed in the central portion in order to meet the productivity requirements. Engineers are working through the issues of transitioning from one system to another, but the trains will not need to stop in order to transition the system.
Lord Lea of Crondall
My Lords, the Minister referred to the six tunnel-boring machines. Is he aware not only that all six machines were imported but that the reason they were imported is not that in a competitive tender they were more competitive than British tunnel-boring machines but that there is no such thing as a British tunnel-boring machine? Would it not be useful to ask the Department for Business to do a study of why, in this potentially hugely growing market world wide, we have no capacity in this country?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord is right that the tunnel-boring machines were not made in the UK. Each one costs about £10 million, which is a relatively small proportion of the overall project. UK businesses have benefited from the award of 97% of the contracts in the Crossrail supply chain, with 58% of contracts awarded to SMEs and 43% awarded beyond London and the south-east.
Lord Palmer
My Lords, has the noble Earl’s department given any thought to whether Crossrail ought to be renamed, perhaps in honour of Her Majesty the Queen after 60 years of loyal service on the Throne?
Earl Attlee
My Lords, this is an issue for the Mayor, but it is a very interesting idea and something that we will consider. There are a number of examples of railway infrastructure being named after the monarch or royal events, such as the Victoria line, Victoria station and the Jubilee line.
Lord Bradshaw
My Lords, Crossrail 1 is very expensive and there is a now a possibility of Crossrail 2 which will be much more so. Have the Government given any thought to ways in which contributions from businesses which benefit from these schemes can be efficiently tapped into the scheme? For example, while at Ealing huge rises in property prices have benefited several private sector investors, the taxpayer gets nothing.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the noble Lord is right that we will need to see a full business case for the revised scheme, and we hope to receive this from Transport for London in the next few weeks. We also need to see a convincing proposition for how the scheme could be funded and DfT officials are exploring options with TfL. I agree with the noble Lord about property benefits but it is difficult to capture them.
Lord Davies of Oldham
My Lords, the House will appreciate the progress which has been made on Crossrail and the Minister will know this has been met through a publicly funded system. Why on earth did the Government not follow this process on Thameslink? The severely critical report published today by the National Audit Office states that reliance on a complex mix of public and private finance means that the trains for this project may not be delivered on time.
Earl Attlee
My Lords, the NAO report, due to be published today, has been agreed by the department. The report is broadly positive. We welcome the scrutiny of the NAO and are pleased that it has recognised the good progress we have made in delivering the first stage of the infrastructure part of the programme on time and under budget.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon
My Lords, are the Government now considering extending Crossrail to Reading? Would it not be sensible to do so, as Reading is the second largest rail junction in the country and is being redesigned and reworked on a very expensive basis? It could well accommodate much better use of the Crossrail project.
Earl Attlee
It would be possible for Crossrail services to be extended to Reading in the future and the new Reading station has been designed to keep that option open. The route from Maidenhead to Reading remains safeguarded. Some of the works at Maidenhead are necessary for sidings in any case.
Energy Bill
Licensing Act 2003 (Descriptions of Entertainment) (Amendment) Order 2013
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
That the draft order laid before the House on 22 April be approved.
Relevant document: 1st Report from the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments, considered in Grand Committee on 3 June.
Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on the Bill.
Amendment to the Motion
Lord Ramsbotham
Leave from “House” to the end and insert “declines to consider the Bill in Committee until Her Majesty’s Government have produced a revised impact assessment on the Bill which includes the supporting evidence for the cost estimate given of around £25 million per year associated with breach of licence and supervision conditions for short sentenced offenders and an explanation for the decision to regard key assumptions, sensitivities and risks as not applicable.”
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I beg to move the amendment standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
My Lords, I wonder whether noble Lords might leave the Chamber quietly and whether those passing in front of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, which is something we do not normally do, might do so even more inconspicuously. I have given the noble Lord the opportunity to hesitate for a moment as he has some important matters to set out in explaining the purpose of tabling the Motion and what he seeks from the Minister in response.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness the Chief Whip for that intervention.
I suspect that I am not alone in being in something of a quandary about the Bill. I entirely support the main intent behind it, which is to reduce the appalling reconviction rate that is an indictment of our offender management system, particularly as regards those awarded short prison sentences who have the highest reconviction rate and are responsible for so many crimes on release. For many years, I have campaigned for many of the measures that it contains, so why should I be calling on the Government to slow down their headlong rush towards a goal that I share? I do so for two reasons, both based on personal experience. I spent 41 years in the Army before I became Chief Inspector of Prisons, a number of them in Whitehall. My memories of those days were revived today when I read the obituary in the Times of Sir Patrick Nairne, who was a most distinguished civil servant as well as a hugely cultured and civilised man. From him, and others like him, I learnt that when a paper or proposal was intended to be moved towards the Secretary of State, it should be put first to the Army board, but only after it has been properly researched and costed, which research included careful examination of all the consequences, intended or otherwise, that could be identified. Only after such proposals had gone through the Army board, the Chiefs of Staff and then Ministers, would they reach the Secretary of State, and certainly not the outside world.
When I heard about this Bill in the gracious Speech on 8 May, I little thought that it would be published the next day at the same time as the long-awaited response to the consultation document, Transforming Rehabilitation, to which it relates. However, what was even more worrying was that, having been subjected in recent years to a very low standard of impact assessments accompanying Bills, this one was also dated 9 May, which suggested to me that far from being a document which had informed Ministers and officials throughout their deliberations on the Bill, it had been added as an afterthought. Far too many of the impact assessments that I have seen recently seem to have only two options—take it or leave it; or, I, the Secretary of State, have decided that this is what I am going to do. That is one option and the other is to do nothing, which is not acceptable. When you are launching untried theories that affect the lives of literally millions of people, I suggest that this is bad government.
My second experience has been over the past 18 years, when I have been associated with the offender management system itself. When you get down to the guts of offender management, you find that it is all about enabling someone or some people to influence someone else to live a useful and law-abiding, as opposed to a useless and law-breaking, life—nothing more and nothing less. I have observed with considerable dismay the relentless advance of political and bureaucratic interference, and the time and ability of those concerned to do that, with the inevitable result that the reconviction rate has increased. The old Prison Commission, before it was abolished in 1962, was run from a house in Eccleston Square, with a staff of 128 people without computers. Now, admittedly with double the number of prisoners, the computer-assisted National Offender Management Service has a cast of more than 2,000.
Throughout the time that I have watched the system at work, I have been deeply humbled and impressed by the incredible dedication and drive of countless thousands of people working in and for the Prison Service and probation service, who have come up with successful innovation after successful innovation only to see them killed rather than exploited by the bureaucratic system. If only the management system had the wit to monitor what was best and bring it into common practice, I believe that it could introduce cost-effective treatment of offenders in every possible condition.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I strongly sympathise with the noble Lord’s observations and share his strictures on the substance of the proposals that we are to debate. I must, however, thank the Minister for arranging a meeting yesterday, and I thank the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary of State in the House of Commons for attending that meeting. However, in the nature of things, it lasted only an hour and we were able to get through only three clauses of the Bill. That underlines the difficulties that your Lordships will face in debating adequately the complex proposals before us.
The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to the inadequacies of the impact analysis, which, I have to say, was exceptionally flimsy, even by the standards of this Government. A huge area of public policy, the future of the probation service, on which much of the Bill depends, is not actually included in the Bill. Amendments in my name and in the names of other noble Lords will raise that issue, but it is not in the Bill at all.
It is only two weeks since Second Reading and your Lordships’ House has been in session for only six days since then. Given the recess, it has been difficult enough for Members of the House to consider and draft amendments without the benefit of the kind of information to which the noble Lord referred. He has itemised many of the relevant questions. I, too, raised questions, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, and the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. I do not expect the Minister to occupy his Whitsun Recess by replying personally to all these matters but the department should surely have taken steps to respond to those questions and allow the debates that will take place today and next week to be better informed. It is unfortunate that that has not been the case and I hope that the Minister will feel able to assure the noble Lord that answers will be given. It is not good enough for them merely to arise in the context of today’s Committee debate. We ought to have the answers laid in the Library in a consolidated form and available for consideration before we reach Report in some three weeks’ time. I hope that the Minister can build on the good work he did yesterday, rather than the omissions of the department, in dealing with these requests.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, a lot of what the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said was very familiar, because of course it was also his Second Reading speech. I make no complaint, but I say to the Opposition that they may be on this side of the Box one day. If using this kind of amendment to prevent a Committee stage proceeding were to become too much of a habit, it would be very easy to gum up government business.
I associate myself with the noble Lord’s words about Sir Patrick Nairne, because I was also a Whitehall warrior for quite a long time. I worked with Sir Patrick in the 1970s. My experience of both Whitehall and Westminster makes me less than apologetic about our approach. Governments are always faced with attacks for having no policy and being too slow, or for having too many ideas and rushing Parliament. I would rather we had too many ideas.
The truth is that successive Governments have tried to tackle the challenge of rehabilitating offenders. We have put forward our proposals for scrutiny and I am old fashioned enough to believe that that is exactly what the Committee stage of a Bill is for. I look forward to the next eight hours or so today and to the next Committee day for the House to do its proper job of scrutiny and questioning, and I will do my best to give answers.
On the specifics of the impact assessment, I agree to take another look at it and see where we can update it for the benefit of the House. I will bring that impact assessment back before the Bill completes its stages in this House. I hope that will be in time for Report. However, as noble Lords on the other Benches who went through similar exercises will know, we have to hold back certain things for commercial reasons. We are about to enter negotiations to get the best deal for the taxpayer and therefore do not wish to reveal our entire hand in advance. I will update the impact assessment as much as I can but I suggest that we now get on with the work of the day and the work of this House, which is the detailed scrutiny of the Bill.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister and to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for what they have said. I am particularly grateful for the Minister’s reassurance that he will look at the impact assessment. That is hugely important not only for us but for the officials and members of the services who will carry out the work. Can the Minister say anything about the unanswered questions which I and the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, mentioned?
Lord McNally
My Lords, that is what a Committee stage is for. I will try to answer as many of those questions as I can, but after the noble Lord’s experiences in the military, in Whitehall, in Parliament and in the various services, he will know that not all the questions he poses have an instant answer available. I have never hidden the fact that we are being innovative in what we are doing, and because of that, there is no track record to refer to. However, that does not resile from the fact that these are worthwhile proposals to be considered, and I am very willing, during the course of the examination of the Bill, to try to be as full in my answers as I can.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that because it was precisely what I was hoping he would say. As I said, my quandary about the Bill is that while one approves entirely of its intent, one is concerned about the lack of detail. If we can elicit that detail during the Committee stage, we will be able to achieve our purpose. I personally am very keen to get on with the debate as quickly as possible. I apologise for taking some time but it was important to raise the issues of the lack of pre-legislative scrutiny and the speed. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
My Lords, in moving Amendment 1, I shall also address Amendments 3, 5 and, in passing, Amendment 3A. Amendments 1 and 3 are designed to give greater flexibility to a sentencing court. As the Bill stands, everyone sentenced to a period of custody of one year or less will be given a period of 12 months’ supervision from their day of release. This, of course, is something that we welcome as a useful addition to the armoury of the probation service. However, there will be cases where this period of supervision is excessive, disproportionate and unnecessary. A court imposing a short custodial sentence of, say, 29 days or fewer will be well aware of the alternatives available—namely, a community order, which could itself have been more punitive and more rehabilitative. If, nevertheless, the court decides on a short custodial sentence, I would argue that it can be safely assumed that no rehabilitative action was required and therefore it should not be unnecessarily imposed on the offender.
Amendment 5 addresses the same point and is also designed to reduce the burden on the probation service. It provides that a court can direct, on advice from the probation service, that there need be no period of supervision. I should say that this would be in exceptional cases. The sort of cases that I am thinking about relate to the one-off nature of an offence where the offender is of previous good character, there were physical or mental health issues, or the offender is extremely old. Another factor might be the length of time that has elapsed between the date of the offence and the date of conviction where there had been no offending during the interim period.
The purpose of the amendments is to give the courts greater flexibility and prevent disproportionate and unnecessary supervision. As we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, in the previous debate, yesterday we were fortunate enough to meet the Justice Secretary. The argument he advanced in response to these amendments was that there needs to be a stable cohort of offenders who are to be managed by the private probation providers. He went on to say that the new group of offenders who are to receive this new supervision need to be a stable group so that a proper assessment of reoffending among this group can be done on a year-on-year basis. The purpose is to make an accurate calculation of the payment by results of the private contractors and, most importantly, to assess the success or otherwise of the additional supervision to be provided.
I completely understand that argument. In my professional life I have done many similar calculations and I know it is very useful to have a stable cohort when making those calculations. But I would argue through these amendments that that simplicity and clarity of calculation should not be set above the interests of justice of the offenders themselves and, however low the level of supervision which will be imposed on these people, there will still be an additional cost. In the interests of justice for the offenders and a reduction in costs, I have tabled these amendments.
I turn briefly to Amendment 3A in the name of my noble friend Lord Beecham. A number of amendments address the transition of offenders from under 18 to over 18. The object of all these amendments is to try to maximise the input of the YOT service and to work flexibly with the probation service. This issue may be addressed in Clause 6(4), which will introduce new Section 106B(4)(b), and may well cover the points raised in this amendment. Nevertheless, I hope the noble Lord will address this point about maximising flexibility for the YOT service and enhancing its ability to work constructively with the private probation providers. I beg to move.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, for the way in which he moved that amendment. During Second Reading, the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, told us about his experiences as a sitting magistrate and the frustration that magistrates often feel when they see offenders with long histories of offending coming before the court time and again. The noble Lord told us how magistrates genuinely feel that they use custody as a last resort. In all the discussions that I have had with anybody who has had an experience of the magistracy, that emphasis has been made. The Government share the frustration of the magistracy. They seem to be almost forced into successive custodial terms because of the cycle of repeat offending. That is exactly why we have brought forward the Bill. It is why Clause 1 extends release on licence and why Clause 2 tops up that licence with additional supervision.
The Government believe that the only way we can break the high level of reoffending among this group of offenders is to end the current position whereby they walk out of prison after half of their sentence with no support and no incentives to seek support to change. That is why Clause 1 applies licensing conditions to all custodial sentences of more than one day. I will explain why in Clause 1 licences apply to a sentence of more than one day, before I turn to the Amendment 1 of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. First, there is a practical consideration. The headline sentence imposed by the court is, as the House knows, halved. It is not possible, nor practical, to halve a half day of custody. It is also the case, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, will be aware, that there are some minor cases in which the court decides that an offender could serve their sentence by spending a day sitting in the court. So, for practical purposes and to retain the power of the court to sentence to a day in court, we applied the licence and the new top-ups of this supervision to sentences of more than one day.
Amendment 1 would raise that minimum period to sentences of 29 days or more. In other words, a sentence of 28 days or less would result in unconditional release with no licence conditions, no top-up supervision, no power to recall the offender and no way to rehabilitate the offender other than the hope that they volunteer for support. A significant number of offenders who the noble Lord and his fellow magistrates sentence to custody receive a sentence of 28 days or less. The latest statistics from 2012 suggest that around 13,300 adult offenders received such a sentence. The reason why many of those offenders receive sentences of 28 days or less is that their history of offending makes the offence more serious, therefore justifying a custodial sentence. It is exactly because these offenders have failed to break their cycle of offending that they received the short custodial sentence in the first place, and it is because they have been released from short sentences with no support that they continue to offend and receive yet more short prison sentences. This is exactly the group that we should be targeting for supervision. It is a group of offenders for whom we should do everything possible to help them face up to the issues that have caused them to offend. Some of them will reoffend when under supervision and some will not comply with the licensed conditions, but that has to be better than the current position, where they are simply imprisoned and released, only to reoffend and be imprisoned again.
I understand why the noble Lord tabled this amendment but, given that it will not provide the courts with more discretion and will leave a significant number of offenders without support, I hope that he will consider withdrawing it. As the Secretary of State explained at our meeting last night, the intention is to have flexibility and common sense in terms of the treatment that is applied during that period of supervision. By the way, that was not a secret meeting—all noble Lords were invited and I was very grateful to those who did come along to hear him. At the very beginning of this debate, I would also make the point that we must not think of the period of supervision as punishment; it is a period of help and support, which we hope will help people to avoid reoffending.
I now turn to Amendments 3 and 5, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby. These relate to the top-up supervision covered by Clause 2, which will introduce a new Section 256AA, applying supervision to all offenders with a sentence of,
“more than 1 day but less than 2 years”.
That means that the period of licence will be topped up with additional supervision so that the two, taken together, amount to 12 months. Amendment 3 essentially follows from Amendment 1. If Amendment 1 was adopted, those serving 28 days or fewer would have no licence, and Amendment 3 would mean they would have no top-up supervision either. I have already said why the Government disagree with Amendment 1, and it follows that we would not support Amendment 3 for the same reason. It is a small point, and I do not want to labour it, but I assume that the noble Lord, in Amendment 3, meant to refer to more than 28 rather than 27 days, since his Amendment 1 related to sentences of less than 29 days—that is, 28 days or fewer. In other words, a sentence of 28 days would fall between the two.
Amendment 3A, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, seeks to amend the categories of offenders who receive top-up supervision under Clause 2. Amendment 3A would exempt offenders sentenced in the youth court when they were under 18 from receiving top-up supervision, even if they were 18 when released from custody. I note that the amendment does not seek to extend this exemption to those sentenced when under 18 in the Crown Court. I understand the concerns, which my noble friend Lady Linklater has also raised, and we will return in later amendments to the question of supervision for those released from custody who have reached 18. However, I would say now that the Government believe that our commitment to provide 12-month supervision should apply to all those aged 18 and over, when they reach the point when they would be released from custody. We of course recognise that young offenders who have just turned 18 can have different needs from older, adult offenders, and we will expect providers also to recognise this difference and to tailor their supervision to the particular needs of this group.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
I thank the noble Lord for those answers. He said in addressing Amendments 1, 3 and 5 that the supervision period is not a punishment; it is a support for the offender to help them get back and stay on the straight and narrow. That is true but it is nevertheless a court order and there will still be the scope of breaching the supervision period, which is a very important factor.
Amendment 5, in particular, sought to exempt certain individuals, and that decision would be the decision of the court but with the advice of the probation service. Surely the probation service, which is very well experienced in these matters, together with a bench of magistrates or justices or district judges would be in a position to see the exceptional case where it was not necessary to have a period of supervision.
Nevertheless, I will reflect on what the noble Lord has said and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Provision of services for voluntary rehabilitation of prisoners
The Secretary of State may make contractual or other arrangements with any other person for the provision of services for the voluntary rehabilitation of prisoners serving sentences which are for terms of less than 12 months.”
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
My amendment is for a proposed new clause to the Bill. The Minister will be aware of the generally very warm welcome expressed for the Government’s move to include rehabilitative support for offenders in the community who have served short sentences. This group of prisoners has hitherto had no supervision. These sentences may range from a few days to less than 12 months, for which no support has been available. Support is desirable and very necessary, as this group of ex-offenders has, as the Minister said, the highest reoffending rates: rates that are greater than for almost any other group in the prison system.
The issue is how the support is best to be delivered. What is practical, desirable and most likely to succeed with this particular group of offenders is what matters. The typical profile of such people is that they have chaotic lives, often have drug, alcohol or mental health issues, have poor or virtually no education after the age of 14 and were probably jobless before coming into prison. Everything else being equal, they would probably have been better served with a community sentence, although I accept that is for another debate. They will not be a danger to society and are in need of basic support to help turn their lives around. Their prison experience will have done nothing to prepare them for a law-abiding life because it is not required to do so. Typically, these people will sleep their way through their sentence.
It is important that what is offered to them on release is relevant, proportionate and, above all, flexible if it is to succeed. It requires skill on the part of the mentor or deliverer of probation services, and flexibility is the key. If it is tailored to the individual needs of the ex-prisoner, it will have a chance of success. However, if there is an additional statutory fixed period of one year’s supervision as well as the licence period, it will be perceived as disproportionate and unfair, and the risk of breach and recall to custody becomes very real. It would be a terrible irony if a provision that is intended to turn people’s lives around were to produce a rise in the prison population, which is something we want to avoid and completely negates the power and potential that the supervisory period offers. An extreme example to prove—in the sense of “to demonstrate”—this rule could be that someone given a few days in custody for, say, a road traffic offence could then find himself with an additional statutory 12 months’ supervision in the community, which is way out of kilter with the nature of the offence. If he defaults and is recalled to prison for 14 days, that would be much longer than the original sentence.
Instead, the Government should follow the example of successful mentoring schemes that already exist around the country, such as the pilot in Peterborough that I have visited, where the scheme is voluntary and service providers can exercise their own discretion in the management of the offender. Custody is a very last resort. These mentoring schemes are delivering very promising results, and I hope that the Government will look closely at what they are doing because I believe they show the way forward, which is an improvement on the rigid year’s supervision currently proposed. Rigid rules of one year’s supervision might have a simple appeal, but what matters is what works, given the nature of the offences and the needs of the offenders, and here we have an example of what works. This means that we do not have to try to reinvent the wheel.
Desistence—a favourite word of criminologists, which just means stopping reoffending, which is the subject of a great deal of research, debate and everything else—will occur only if the individual wants to stop offending, and the risk of breach is always high with this group. Already, 6% are in prison for breach following the lengthening of licence periods. A voluntary relationship based on trust is what will succeed with this very low-level group rather than long, fixed periods of supervision, however well intentioned.
My second, probing, amendment relates to juvenile and young adult offenders and their post-release supervision. The Minister will be aware that there is real concern among the key agencies that work with this group of offenders, notably the Youth Justice Board, that those who are under 18 when they start a sentence set by the youth court should continue to be managed under the auspices of the YJB until they have completed their sentence. This means that the YOTs—youth offending teams—continue with the management of the young offenders rather than transferring them to different, adult supervision by the new probation providers.
Adolescence and the transition to adulthood is well known for being testing both for young people and those responsible for their management. We have all been through it, and I for one am grateful that I will never have to go through being a teenager again. Life can be particularly difficult for young people who are in trouble with the law, and it is not rocket science to understand that it requires people with particular skills and experience to deal with those issues. The YJB is the pre-eminent body to oversee their arrangements. Many noble Lords will remember the battle that we had to explain the YJB’s role exactly and to protect it from going on to the bonfire of the quangos, precisely because its work is so valuable and of such a high quality.
While the YJB is the pre-eminent body to oversee the arrangements, the youth offending teams are the professionals on the ground to manage them. I therefore seek assurance from the Minister that the YOTs will be able to continue working with these young offenders until they are 21 if necessary, thereby not breaking off the crucial work that is being done with them. Account has to be taken of different levels of maturity, and it is a well-established principle in our justice system that people sentenced for offences committed as juveniles should not be subject to the same expectations and demands as adult offenders. The evidence of the excellent work of the T2A—transition to adulthood—programmes has shown that a young adult’s developmental maturity is at least as important as chronological age and that variations might be directly related to offending and the ability to comply with statutory requirements such as community sentences or licence conditions. This is supported by work commissioned by the Barrow Cadbury Trust at Birmingham University.
Impressively, the Sentencing Council and the CPS have produced some guidelines on the relevance of maturity in sentencing young people, and this has recently been extended to adults. The best practice in the area has been developed by the CPS, the Sentencing Council, HM Inspectorate of Probation, the probation service, the Riots Communities and Victims Panel and the YJB. This is surely a very powerful background to the approach of working with young people in this position. It is important, therefore, that the Government clarify that the probation service’s responsibilities under the Crime and Disorder Act will indeed continue for the management of this group, who can rightly be regarded as high risk.
I am pressing these questions because there is concern that children who turn 18 while in custody may still be treated as adults in terms of the length and type of support on release. Hence my secondary amendments, which I hope I can include at this moment because they are relevant, to delete Clauses 4 and 6, which come a little later on in the list. I would welcome clarity on this from the Minister. It is not clear whether this group will indeed still be regarded as young people for the purposes of their management. If not, how will it work? Will any discretion exist as to who will continue the supervision? If so, who will make that decision? This is very important, as it is well known that the levels of support and supervision drop dramatically in the adult system, so transitional arrangements and communication between agencies will always be critical.
Ultimately, we all want the best appropriate management of this challenging group. I am sure that all of us share in this wholeheartedly. This means that if they are able to desist, which means taking personal responsibility, their offending will drop. I look forward to the Minister’s reply and beg to move.
Lord Ramsbotham
I support Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, with the suggestion that “18” should be substituted by “21” in order to bring in this vital group. I thoroughly agree with her about the work being done by the Transition to Adulthood Alliance. Further than that, the probation service was the first to admit that it has not been very good at dealing with the 18-to-21 age group in the recent past, with the exception of three very good programmes: the intensive alternative custody programmes in Manchester, South Yorkshire and London, which have been mentioned before in this House. I am not sure that the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales, which was very happy to take on the responsibility for 18-to-21s in custody is quite so happy having them under the youth offending teams, which are very much geared to the under-18s. On the other hand, I know that the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales is more than happy to work closely with the probation service in developing these adult services. I therefore hope that, in considering the rehabilitation of this vulnerable and impressionable group, the Minister will agree that the probation service experience in Manchester should be exploited and spread further. I know that it is poised to make an advance on where it had already reached.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, may I add one thing to what my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham has said, as well as supporting both the amendments? Very many of the young people who will be in custody or will have gone through this process will also have been in care with the local authorities. It is therefore even more important that special attention is given to them above the age of 18. I particularly support that aspect of the proposals.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I join the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in supporting the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater. She has a strong point in Amendment 2 on the need to avoid rigidity in the system, to look at particular individuals’ needs and to ensure that supervision is proportionate and flexible according to the circumstances of the case. There is some danger, under the Bill’s present formulation, that that will be rather more difficult than it should be.
I am also particularly enthusiastic about Amendment 4. It seems that continuity is critical here, particularly as the people we are looking at are themselves in a state of transition. It does not seem helpful that those who supervise and assist such people should change in the course of that transition. Of course, there has to be some cut-off point, and the age of 21 is reasonable. I hope that the Minister will look sympathetically at that. It also strikes me that it may be a more cost-effective way of dealing with offenders in that category, because you do not have the process of handing over and entering into separate contractual arrangements with a different organisation and all the rest of it when you have already got a provider with a budget and contract which should be capable of being extended if required under the circumstances of the case.
I hope that the noble Lord will undertake to have a look at this and come back on Report. It seems sensible and quite consistent with the approach that the Government seek to pursue.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am grateful for the debate that my noble friend has stimulated. She is absolutely right that this group of people is the most challenging in terms of the prolific number of offences for which they are responsible. In many ways, this can be a key period in their lives and can determine whether they live a life of crime or become constructive members of society. I also take the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. For me, there is a sense of shame that so many who have been in our care end up in our criminal justice system. We must go into that more deeply and we shall try to do so, in part, through the Children and Families Bill and other legislation.
What gives me some optimism that we shall be able to make this new legislation work is that there are good examples: the Manchester scheme that the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, referred to and the mentoring in Peterborough. This was raised in our discussion yesterday and I want to explore further the mentoring by those who have committed earlier misdemeanours but now play a positive role in life. I remember going to Stafford and meeting a mentor who had been heavily drug dependent, but he had cleaned himself up and was now having a really good effect on young people through the advice that he was giving them.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, expressed the dilemma at Second Reading that persistent offenders end up being given short sentences that send them into a prison environment. I fully accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, that that puts them into a completely ill-suited environment in terms of rehabilitation. That is one reason why part of what we are trying to develop is to start rehabilitation in prison, so that they get used to the world of work and address various failings such as literacy or drug or alcohol dependency. One of the first things I was told when I started visiting prisons and youth offending centres was, “We just start to have some effect and then we lose them”. I repeat that the period of 12 months’ supervision is not punishment but the continuation of help.
My noble friend said that this amendment is designed to provide a power for the Secretary of State to contract the rehabilitation services when an offender volunteers for such programmes. I have already said why we think that both licence and top-up supervision should be applied to all offenders. I understand the point that often the most effective rehabilitation occurs when the offender decides that they want to change. However, the simple fact is that many offenders will not volunteer for rehabilitation programmes. Those who initially volunteer may change their mind when more challenging questions are asked of them, or when they simply become bored of what they may decide is undue hassle. Offenders who fail to comply with the programmes will simply withdraw their consent to avoid any consequences of failing to undertake the programme they initially signed up for.
In the Bill we are ensuring that all offenders have the opportunity to receive help and assistance on release from custody. We are saying to offenders, “Here is your chance to rehabilitate yourself and turn your life around, but you cannot walk away from this and expect no consequence if you do”. That is why the licence and top-up supervision is mandatory, but also flexible, so that providers can tailor the type of support and intensity that is needed for each offender.
I have taken time to explain that we think licence and supervision should be mandatory, but let me deal very quickly with the powers of the Secretary of State to contract for voluntary-based rehabilitation services. The fact is that the Secretary of State already has the power, and nothing in the Bill restricts that power, even though our intention, in the vast majority of cases, is to make licences and top-up supervision mandatory. In short, therefore, the Secretary of State does not need this power, and I ask my noble friend to withdraw her amendment.
Amendment 4, on the top-up to 21 year-olds, also takes my noble friend’s application of top-up supervision. I understand that the intention of Amendment 2 is to ensure that offenders aged under 21 on release from custody will serve a period on licence but not be subject to top-up supervision. I understand my noble friend’s argument, but I disagree with it. The Government believe that all those aged 18 when released from custody should get the same level of supervision and support. The amendment would mean that an offender sentenced to two months’ imprisonment when aged 20 would serve only half their sentence in custody and have only a month of licensed supervision. Yet, as I said at the beginning, these young offenders have some of the highest reoffending rate of any group.
Our proposals in the Bill will ensure that offenders who are 18 when released from custody get 12 months of supervision in the community. I stress again that the type and level of supervision can be tailored to the young person’s needs. I expect that providers will develop specific programmes for this age group, offering a real chance to make a difference to the needs of young offenders. The Government see this as an opportunity for real support for young offenders, not as something that they should be excluded from.
I will clarify the point that my noble friend Lord Ramsbotham made about the crossover from YOT supervision to probation supervision. The Bill makes it clear that this will be a matter of judgment at that time, and of consultation to make sure that what is done is most effective. If the most effective course is to retain the YOT supervision, that supervision will continue. It fits in with what I keep on emphasising: this is not, to take the criticism of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, an exercise in rigidity. It is quite the opposite. It builds in the most flexible of approaches to try to tailor to the needs of the individual the kind of help and support they are going to get. However, I disagree with my noble friend, although, goodness knows, I am in awe of his experience and expertise in this area. If saying to offenders in this age group, “For the next 12 months you are going to try to mend your ways” is somehow an unfair burden on them by society, I am willing to take that risk.
I suspect that if we can put this into place, we will start having an impact on this age group. As I have said, one of the lessons that we have to learn from the experience of this age group is that without this help, they get out of our control, become repeat offenders, going into the adult criminal justice system and the prison system with disastrous results for both themselves and their society. Therefore, I do not think that this long period of 12 months’ supervision ahead of them is somehow a terrible burden on these young people. For a significant number of them, it may be the best thing that ever happens in their lives.
I hope that my noble friend will consider withdrawing her amendment. However, I will carefully read Hansard and look at our proposals for this age group. I agree with much of what noble Lords have said about offenders in this age group; if we get it right for them, there will be enormous benefits in terms of the impact on future criminal behaviour.
As I said, I am willing to look at the arguments and think about this further, but I think we have got the balance right. I hope that the noble Baroness will consider the arguments that I have deployed. In the mean time, I hope that she will be willing to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
Accepting for a moment, for the purposes of argument, the noble Lord’s assurance—and of course I do accept his assurance—that there is the option of transition not being automatic, who decides in the end what should happen? Does this have to be agreed between the YOT and the probation service, or does it go back to the court? Where would a decision be made if there is a disagreement between the existing provider and the future providers?
Lord McNally
That is one of the things that I want to think about. I hope that the two bodies concerned would make a practical decision about the needs of the individual, but as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said, if that was not available, who would be the judge? Would that have to go back to court? I will think about that, and if there is a gap we will fill it.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
I thank my noble friend the Minister for his very thoughtful and detailed response. I am particularly grateful to hear him say, as I understand it, that there will be real flexibility based on the needs of the young people and on whether they can actually continue with the YJB, YOTs and others while they serve out their time, as it were. That is a very welcome thing to have heard.
However, I must also say that while the Minister talks about flexibility within it, the year’s supervision is a fixed time. I have heard him say it. To have the long arm of the law wound around you for a year is a very long time for a minor offence. I was arguing essentially for flexibility there, not rigidity.
I also thank the other noble Lords who contributed. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for asking my question again, which is a very important question to hear the answer to, and the noble Lords, Lord Ponsonby and Lord Ramsbotham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for their very helpful remarks.
I will, of course, now think about everything that I have heard and everything that has been said before we come to Report. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Lord Bradley
“(7A) The supervisor must explain to the offender in language appropriate to his individual intellectual ability and understanding—
(a) the effect of the supervision requirements, and(b) the effects of non-compliance with any requirement with which the offender is required to comply.”
Lord Bradley
Amendment 6 is in my name and that of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. It requires the supervising officer to explain the implications of licence conditions and the effects of non-compliance in language that is appropriate to the offender’s intellectual ability. As the Minister explained, Clauses 1 and 2 extend statutory monitoring and supervision to offenders serving short sentences for a mandatory period of up to 12 months. The introduction of a new period of statutory supervision with its own requirements, in addition to those of the licence period, adds an extra element of complexity to a person’s custodial sentence. The amendment will ensure that people with poor communication and comprehension skills, such as people with learning disabilities, will be able fully to understand the terms of their supervision requirements, and what might happen if they do not follow them.
It is generally accepted that between 5% and 10% of adult offenders have learning disabilities, and that a significant number of juveniles reaching 18 have speech, language and communication difficulties. However, in the absence of routine screening, the support needs of this group are often left unrecognised and unmet. Research undertaken by the Prison Reform Trust—I declare an interest as a trustee of the trust, and pay tribute to the brilliant work it does on behalf of people with learning disabilities who find themselves in the criminal justice system—showed that more than two-thirds of prisoners with learning disabilities and difficulties experienced problems with verbal comprehension, including problems understanding certain words, and with expressing themselves.
Research by various academics has shown that many people with communication difficulties lack the language skills to understand what is happening to them, and the implications of what is being asked of them. For example, many have problems understanding vocabulary that is commonly used in the criminal justice system, including words such as “victim” and “breach”. Many people with learning disabilities have limited language, comprehension and communication skills, which mean that they may have difficulty understanding and responding to questions and recalling information, and may take longer to process that information. They may also be acquiescent and suggestible, and, under pressure, may try to appease other people. Many also have memory problems, which may mean that they need regular reminders of what is expected of them over their licence and supervisory period.
I found that all these factors came into effect when I undertook my independent review of mental health learning disabilities in the criminal justice system, and I am grateful that the Government are supporting many of the recommendations in the report as we move towards a national rollout of liaison and diversion schemes—including, crucially, early identification and assessment of people with complex needs, including learning disabilities. To ensure that adults understand what is expected of them during their licence and supervision period, the language used must be appropriate to the intellectual ability and understanding of the individual offender. To do otherwise will place the individual at risk of non-compliance, possible breach and a return to court. It will also fail to take into account the need for reasonable adjustments, as required by the Equality Act 2010.
It is worth pointing out that a similar debate during the passage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill highlighted concerns over the use of language by courts in explaining their sentences. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, said that the inclusion of the term “ordinary language” was not precise enough to ensure that offenders with learning disabilities and communication difficulties would be able fully to understand and comply with the requirements placed upon them. I am pleased to quote what he said:
“Ordinary language, however simplified, may not be sufficient to explain complex concepts or terminologies which could elude the comprehension of some individuals. For example, people with a learning disability may require easy-read formats, which include pictorial aids … different forms of communication above and beyond ordinary language must be employed, determined by what is most appropriate for the recipient”.—[Official Report, 1/2/12; col. 1652.]
In response, the Minister agreed that guidance would be passed on to the relevant judicial training bodies for consideration. I understand that this was the Criminal Procedure Rule Committee. He said:
“I very much appreciate the advice that Mencap provided on the various techniques that could be used to explain a sentence to people with learning difficulties. That will be used in the training of judges and magistrates, and I intend to pass that on to the bodies responsible for that training”.—[Official Report, 1/2/12; col. 1660.]
I would be grateful therefore if the Minister could update us on progress in that regard.
Let me now turn briefly to supervision requirements. Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Bill outlines the requirements which may be imposed upon a person under supervision. I am concerned about the impact that some of these requirements may have on people with communication and comprehension difficulties, such as people with learning disabilities. In setting the licence and supervision requirements, the particular care and support needs of the individual should be both assessed and taken into account. One example is good behaviour. In Schedule 1, proposed new subsection (1)(a) to the Criminal Justice Act 2003 requires a person,
“to be of good behaviour and not to behave in a way which undermines the purpose of the supervision period”.
I, together with organisations such as the Prison Reform Trust, am concerned at the extent to which this requirement is open to interpretation. The Explanatory Notes to the Bill explicitly recognise this, stating:
“In relation to the requirement to be of good behaviour etc, there is a certain degree of imprecision in the requirement, but it is considered that it would be clear to offenders and the court what conduct would be prohibited under the requirement”.
The Government provide some clarity in referring to conditions outlined in Prison Service Instruction 2012/20 (licence conditions and temporary travelling abroad), stating that,
“clear policy guidance will be issued in relation to this topic”.
Good behaviour is highly subjective and can be used to describe many different types of behaviour. What may appear to be common sense to many people is unlikely to be explicit enough for certain vulnerable adults, such as people with learning disabilities or difficulties. It will therefore be important to ensure that any guidance recognises the intellectual ability and understanding of the individual under supervision and explicitly states and restates where necessary what would constitute a breach.
I would therefore be grateful if the Minister, when he responds, would give the House some assurances about the proposed guidance, including when it will be issued, who will issue it, how it will be disseminated and to whom, and what additional training will be provided.
Secondly, I turn to receiving visits. Proposed new subsection (1)(d) in Schedule 1 specifies that a person must,
“receive visits from the supervisor in accordance with instructions given by the supervisor”.
Again, it will be important for safeguarding issues to be fully taken into account when supervisors visit vulnerable people under their supervision, especially—for example—women and people with learning disabilities. Will the Minister give the House assurances that supervisors will be required to undertake appropriate safeguarding training work with vulnerable people?
Lord Northbourne
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, said that the language which is used must be understandable. However, it seems to me that a word in the Bill is very confusing. It states that the relevant period is for “rehabilitation”. I am not awfully good at the English language but rehabilitation suggests to me going back to a golden age before the offence was committed. In fact, the life of probably the vast majority of these offenders was hell before the offence was committed. We should be looking for something better than rehabilitation—something more like habilitation.
Lord Ramsbotham
I support the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, and, in so doing, declare two interests, one as chairman of the All-Party Group on Speech and Language Difficulties and, secondly, as a vice-president of the Centre for Mental Health, which has the privilege of hosting the follow-up work being done by the noble Lord on his excellent report, which he mentioned.
My concern over this issue was heightened by a paragraph I read on page 9 of the White Paper, which describes how the Ministry of Justice will put in place a system which will give providers sufficient grip to make sure offenders engage with the rehabilitative services. I am not certain that “grip” is the right word to use in connection with these people.
The noble Lord rightly mentioned his concern about the training and education of the supervisors who do not, of course, come from the probation service but from a whole host of providers yet to be realised. He mentioned the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, during the passage of which my noble friend Lord Rix and I met with the chairman of the Queen’s Bench Division to discuss how offenders could be made aware of these issues during the judicial process. We were most particularly concerned about the increasing incidence of police taking action without going to court, and making certain that offenders have the necessary representation on the part of responsible adults who can interpret matters for them. This issue needs to be looked at.
That allows me to make another observation about the White Paper. Although it is acknowledged that many of these offenders have mental health problems, including learning disabilities, there is no mention of commissioning mental health services for them, which gives the probation service a problem. With the emergence of a new commissioning process under NHS England and of health and well-being boards, it will be important for the probation service to be associated with those boards to make certain that the proper support is available, not just in relation to the subject raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, but in relation to all aspects of mental health problems experienced by offenders.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
My noble friend Lord Northbourne’s comments on the word “rehabilitation” have stimulated my thoughts on this matter. He is absolutely right: rehabilitation can only mean a return to a condition which once existed. I am not enough of a linguist to say exactly how the word is constructed, but that is clearly what it means. I wonder, however, whether the word “reform” might be appropriate in the circumstances. I well remember one of the very first days that I attended this House, in 1981. A speech by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, a most distinguished gentleman, was given very great publicity and attention by the House. Its theme was that in the whole of his experience, both as counsel and as judge, he did not think that prison had reformed a single person. I remember asking myself how that could be, side by side with Rule 1 of the Prison Rules of the time, which said that the chief purpose of imprisonment was the reform of the offender. Both could not possibly be right. Putting aside that irrelevance for the moment, it may very well be that the word “reform” would be a more appropriate description of the situation than “rehabilitation”.
The noble Lord, Lord Bradley, raised the question of the condition of supervision that a person should be of good behaviour. It may well be that Parliament should define that situation more closely and specifically. There are two aspects here. The first is the boundary that it is Parliament’s duty to place and the second is the communication of the exact location of that boundary to the defendant in appropriate circumstances. It is part and parcel of the duty of the sentencer in any aspect of sentencing to make it clear to a defendant exactly what the court means. Over and above that, it is also their duty of the interview solicitor and counsel before leaving the matter, to make quite certain that the defendant knows exactly what is meant and what is expected of him or her.
Lord Lloyd of Berwick
Before my noble friend sits down, surely “rehabilitation” is the correct word because it relates, not to the period before he went to prison, but to the period while he has been in prison.
Lord Woolf
My Lords, this is an important amendment, apart from the fact that we have to consider whether the Title of the Bill needs amending. I strongly support the very wise words of the noble Lords, Lord Bradley and Lord Ramsbotham, in support of the amendment. One of the most important tasks of a court is giving explanations to offenders to make sure that those who are subject to the orders of the state understand the requirements that are placed on them. If that is the responsibility of a court and of judges, it must surely also be the responsibility of a supervisor under this Bill. I like to think that we have all had a stage in life when, until it could proved that we had done something wrong, we were innocent of having done so. If that is right, “rehabilitation” is a pretty good word to cover what is being sought to be done. I rejoiced when I saw the Title of the Bill and knew that focus was, at last, being placed on an extremely important task of the criminal justice system: to protect the public by preventing people offending again. I emphasise the word “again”.
I hope that in due course the Minister will, following the powerful arguments advanced by others, look on this proposal with considerable sympathy. I should, like the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, disclose an interest: I am also involved with the Prison Reform Trust—not as a valuable member, as is true of the noble Lord, but as its chairman. I make that disclosure in relation to subsequent amendments that shall be advanced today.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone
Perhaps I may add to the debate that the clutch of noble and noble and learned Lords started. Rehabilitation may indeed be one objective, but it may also be of interest that Rule 1 of the Prison Rules states that the people who are in such care should lead “good and useful” lives.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I shall resist the temptation to reach for my copy of Roget’s Thesaurus but simply confine myself to commending my noble friend Lord Bradley on the amendment and to paying tribute to his long record of very effective concern for this issue. His point about the desirability of having some knowledge of the proposed guidance on good behaviour is a matter on which the Minister should reflect. I hope, even if a final version is not available, that at least an outline of what is intended by that definition can be provided before Report. I hope that he will accept the amendment, which seems to make a great deal of sense.
I have just one further observation. It seems important that the communication and explanation recommended in the amendment should be given at the prison gate, as it were, before the prisoner leaves, not at some point afterwards. That would obviously make sense and I hope that the Minister will take that on board as well as the question of defining what would have been meant by “good behaviour” for the purposes of communication with a group who may struggle with that concept without adequate explanation being proffered.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, as always, I have listened with great interest. I am for ever learning when I hear such wisdom from across the House, although, when listening to the debate on rehabilitation and good behaviour, I was reminded of my childhood. I perhaps disagree with one noble and learned Lord who suggested that we are all innocent. We were all guilty in front of mother, and “rehabilitation” was not a word that she used when putting us right.
Nevertheless, I join the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in commending and acknowledging the terrific work of the noble Lord, Lord Bradley, in this area. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for raising this issue, and acknowledge the incredible work of the work of the Prison Reform Trust. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, said that perhaps his worth in the Prison Reform Trust was not quite recognised because he was merely the chairman. However, his worth is well recognised in your Lordships’ House, as it is in this debate.
All noble Lords who contributed referred to the importance of communication. I firmly believe that that is important in ensuring that the people we are seeking to assist understand what is being resolved for them in their lives and what is ultimately the goal—that they become productive citizens for the benefit of them, their families and society as a whole. The noble Lord, Lord Bradley, asked whether I would acknowledge the importance of the requirements of those who have learning difficulties or problems in understanding. I do so from the outset—absolutely.
Lord Bradley
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for that detailed response. When you move an amendment you do not expect a debate around the wording of the Bill; that was an unforeseen consequence, but I am grateful to noble Lords for enlightening us with their contributions. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for his support for this amendment.
It is clear that the Government recognise the importance of ensuring that people with communication and learning disabilities are fully informed and understand the requirements, and that the supervisors should be properly trained in this respect. I am pleased that the guidance which we have identified is to be issued as soon as possible; indeed, it is hoped before the Report stage so that we can be confident that that part of the process will be properly administered.
I am grateful for the assurances that the Minister has given and I am sure that he will look at Hansard to check whether there are any other points that have not been picked up. That will give him an opportunity to respond, perhaps in writing, to me and to other noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. We will then have a clear understanding of how we are to ensure absolutely that people with learning disabilities are able to complete their rehabilitation successfully.
Finally, I thank the Minister and other noble Lords for their kind words about my report on mental health, learning disabilities and the criminal justice system. With those comments, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Woolf
“(7A) The Secretary of State when specifying requirements under this section in respect of female offenders must have regard to the particular needs of women.”
Lord Woolf
My Lords, there are not many matters concerned with sentencing and dealing with offenders on which there is common agreement. However, it is clear that there is consensus among all those concerned about the particular needs of female offenders. I am very conscious that the Secretary of State and Ministers are aware of this issue, and I am confident that they will say that there is no need to make any mention of it in this legislation because they accept it and are seeking to give effect to it. However, I am bound to say that one of the difficulties with relying on the good sense, judgment and experience of particular Ministers is that you can never be sure that they are going to continue to fulfil the office which they hold at present, no matter how advantageous that would be. Of course, legislation, once passed, is going to last for a substantial period of time. I am firmly of the view that we must hope that the Bill does not bite the dust but, as a result of the scrutiny by this House, becomes worthy of its objects and proves to be a Bill which those involved in the criminal justice system in the future look at as a turning point.
It may appear arrogant for someone such as myself to suggest that a Secretary of State should need to have the reminder in the amendment, which requires the Secretary of State, when specifying requirements under this section in respect of female offenders, to have regard to the particular needs of women. However, while it may be arrogant of me, it is not arrogant of this House to take the view that that is a sensible and desirable safeguard, because history has indicated that, sadly, all too often, the criminal justice system, particularly when concerned with sentencing female offenders has not recognised their needs as they should. I know the Minister in his present role has been visiting assiduously criminal justice institutions up and down the land and has accumulated a great deal of knowledge. Unfortunately, Ministers eventually have to go and new Ministers come in their place, and they may not have the same knowledge that I know the Ministers in this Committee have of the special and particular needs of women.
I hope that this carefully drafted amendment—I emphasise that I was not responsible for the precise drafting—will in no way curtail the Secretary of State’s powers, but merely indicate what he must have regard to. That surely is a safeguard that could be properly included in the Bill. I hope that the Minister, because he understands the special problems of women in the criminal justice system, will take away this proposal and feel that it is one to which he can give effect in due course.
As other noble Lords who are engaged in this Committee are well aware, Amendment 7 is linked to very similar requirements contained in Amendments 25, 27, 28 and 29, for which I am also responsible. It is not always possible to find a way of happily bringing together all the points, but what I have said now applies to the other persons who are referred to in those specific amendments, who should also have regard to the special needs of female offenders. I beg to move.
Baroness Hamwee
My noble friends Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames and Lord Dholakia and I have Amendments 10, 11 and 12 in this group. The three amendments are on the same subject, the needs of female offenders, but are a little more specific. I very warmly support the amendment moved by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf.
According to Section 217 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, the court, in certain circumstances, has to avoid “as far as practicable” imposing a requirement where there might be,
“conflict with the offender’s religious beliefs”,
or with the times when,
“he normally works or attends any educational establishment”.
I use the term “he” to mean any offender, of course. To take the issue of female offenders’ concerns a little further, it seemed to me that those include family circumstances and the need to act as a carer, not just to children but perhaps to a spouse, an infirm elderly parent or to other family members. Building on what we have in the 2003 Act, I suggest that the supervisor shall “have regard to”—using the same words as the noble and learned Lord in that respect—“the compatibility” of the supervision requirements with “the offender’s family circumstances”. Caring is something particularly in my mind. The requirements might include one to attend at a particular place, such as one of the various centres which provide services and activities of a rehabilitative nature. When the offender, generally the mother, is responsible for a child and it is desirable that the child goes with her, that should be taken into account. My noble friend, I think on the first amendment, referred to both “flexibility and common sense”. These seem to me to be common-sense points but it does no harm to spell them out. Although the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, said that there should be no need to be specific, Section 217 is quite specific.
On the second amendment, although we will of course be told that this is the case, I would, again, like the reassurance that a requirement specified under new Section 256AA must be “reasonable and proportionate”. It seems to me that those words are themselves reasonable and proportionate. I hope that the Minister who is answering—it looks as if it is going to be the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad—can give me that reassurance. New Section 256AA(6) provides that the Secretary of State has to “have regard”, as we have said, to the purpose of rehabilitation. However, it seems important to apply these restrictions and to require the compatibility to which I have referred.
Section 217 of the 2003 Act applies to relevant orders which are defined in Section 196 of that Act. I was persuaded by my noble friend that it would be going over the top to check out the drafting of the Bill by tabling an amendment to that section, but I would be glad to know, if not today then before Report stage, whether Section 196 is being amended, and if it is not, whether it does not need to be amended. It refers to community orders, custody plus—which, of course, has gone—suspended sentences and intermittent custody orders.
Finally, I come to Amendment 12. We have referred to flexibility. I am unclear how supervision requirements can be varied during the fixed one-year term of supervision and my Amendment 12 is directed to the ability for the supervisor to deal with variation. I am particularly pleased to be able to support the lead amendment in this group tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf.
Lord Judd
I hope noble Lords will forgive me but, to make a clean breast of it, I came in when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, was in mid-stream. I just feel I cannot sit here without saying that I think this group of amendments is crucial. It puts into perspective what we are doing. Are we primarily about finding alternative means of punishment or are we primarily about rehabilitation? If we are about rehabilitation, it must be tailored to the individual concerned. If this in any way makes the rehabilitation to full, productive membership of society more difficult—and we all know that in many cases it is because people’s lives are in chaos that they end up in these situations—then we are not helping at all. These amendments are there to strengthen the intention of the Bill, if it really is about rehabilitation.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
I added my name to one of the amendments tabled by my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf, rather thinking that they would be grouped together. That was perhaps the result of not being allowed the time to get our act together, but I suppose I must apologise. I hope my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf will be happy if I speak to this amendment and associate it with the other amendment. As well as supporting everything that has been said by the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and by my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf on this issue, my particular concern is for the effect on the families of female offenders. I am concerned about their special needs because, as we all know, these women often have mental health problems and, I am sad to say, they have often been abused as young women. There is a lot of history of that. Drink and drugs also figure quite highly. But above all, the actual offences committed are often of a very minor nature. I can remember a visit to a women’s prison on one occasion and being asked by the women concerned why they had such harsh sentences compared with what a man would get for a similar offence.
Going back to the effect on the family, we need to know how many homes are broken up as a result of women being given a prison sentence, because that is a huge cost. If we are thinking, as we must, of financial costs as well as emotional and family costs, and of the long-term effect on the children of that family and their need to be taken into care, this should rate very highly on the list of considerations when sentences are being passed. I back what has been said by other Members, and I hope the Minister will be able to address these points and reassure us that by the time we come to Report there will be a much more satisfactory framework for what is intended for women offenders.
Lord Ramsbotham
My Lords, I support my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf on Amendment 7. I understand that at this moment the Justice Select Committee in the other place is conducting an inquiry into women offenders. One of the areas on which it has had a lot of evidence of concern is payment by results. With reference to what we were told yesterday about cohorts, I presume that women offenders will be separate cohorts as far as payment by results is concerned and that the results that have to be achieved will be tailored to women and very carefully considered.
Lord Elystan-Morgan
I do not think that my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf need apologise in any way for the amendment. There is no suggestion of arrogance in spelling out duties such as these. In the past 30 years, we have had about 30 criminal justice Acts, whether they carried that name or not, and I would be very surprised if one were not able to find in each and every one of them some structure not unlike that proposed by my noble and learned friend. If one thinks of the very basis of a prison sentence, at least 25 years ago that structure was spelled out in a way that some might think embarrassing to a sentencer, because it seems to me that no sentencer would ever conceive of approaching the problem in any other way. The statute states that the sentencer has to consider whether the offence that has been committed is serious enough to justify imprisonment in the circumstances and that he must then go back to see, in the light of all the circumstances, including the personal circumstances of the defendant, whether it is necessary for there to be a sentence of immediate imprisonment. In one respect, one could say that that is utterly insulting. Could there ever have been a sentencer so lacking in understanding and conscience not to approach his or her duty in that way? Yet, as a circuit judge, I had to look at that section day in, day out, and I found it utterly reassuring. I plead the point that there is nothing wrong in spelling out a duty, even though that duty might be obvious to everybody looking at the situation.
Like so many others who have been involved with the criminal courts, I have taken the view that men commit offences on account of all possible features in the range of human wickedness. In the case of women, it is very different. The splendid report on women in prison written some years by the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, reinforced the point that many of them are not criminals at all and should not be in prison. I am not saying that some of them have not committed truly horrendous offences, but that must be a very small proportion, and a very high proportion of women in prison should not be there. Including these principles in legislation, obvious though they are, would do no harm whatever.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede
My Lords, Amendment 9, which is part of this group, would add a mental health assessment as a supervision requirement in Schedule 1. As noble Lords will be aware, a high percentage of prisoners suffer from mental health difficulties, and the purpose of the amendment is that the sentencing court should be able to add a mental health assessment as a requirement that would benefit offenders when they came out of prison. Of course, it is far more desirable that this is picked up far earlier upstream, but there may be occasions where it has not been picked up, and it is obviously an issue. Sentencers should be able to add this as a requirement, so if it is not going to be picked up in prison it will be when the supervision period starts. That is the purpose of Amendment 9.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, first, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. Again, many valid contributions have been made. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Judd, right from the beginning that of course it is the Government’s intention, as has just been acknowledged, to ensure that people in unfortunate circumstances, which they sometimes do not have control of, are actually rehabilitated and become productive citizens, as I said in our debate on the previous group of amendments, for themselves, their families and for society as whole.
I also was a bit concerned—and I must confess something here—when the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, not once but twice and perhaps even thrice referred to Ministers not remaining in their place. I looked with great concern at my noble friend Lord McNally. I thought that he was indeed my friend, but perhaps that is a discussion that we shall have privately. Nevertheless, I take on board the more serious point which the noble and learned Lord made in that respect. However, it is important, as discussions thus far have demonstrated, that the principle behind this Bill and the importance that underlies it are not just respected but that every Member of your Lordships’ House, no matter where they sit in the Chamber, is committed to ensuring that this Bill, as my noble friend Lord McNally has said on a number of occasions, reflects the great expertise in your Lordships’ Chamber when it leaves this House.
This group of amendments all relate to the conditions that can be imposed as part of top-up supervision and to what the Secretary of State should have regard to when specifying the conditions that can be included or what providers of services should have regard to when directing offender activities. In short, they are all about tailoring top-up supervision to the particular needs of offenders.
Amendment 7 relates to women offenders, about whom many sentiments and points have been raised, many of which, if not all, I agree with. The amendment, in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, would, as he explained very eloquently, place a duty on the Secretary of State when imposing supervision requirements to have regard to the particular needs of women. The Government fully share the noble and learned Lord’s intention and view it as essential that the justice system is properly responsive to the needs of female offenders. We know that we will rehabilitate these women who have fallen into this area and enable them to lead positive and productive lives only if we truly take account of their experiences and, more importantly, their needs.
Noble Lords will be aware that the probation service already takes a women-focused approach to female offenders. All probation trusts are required by the National Offender Management Service commissioning intentions document to make appropriate provision for women in the community to address factors associated with their reoffending, and to use third sector and private sector services where appropriate. Similarly, we expect providers to recognise and respond to the particular needs of female offenders. Therefore, in employing the new supervision requirements introduced by the Bill to female offenders, it will likewise be essential to take account of the particular needs of the case in question, including, importantly, any childcare responsibilities.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee raised the fact that stable family relationships are important in supporting rehabilitation. A failure to take childcare responsibilities into account could put at risk the very purpose of the supervision period itself. However, the Government’s view is that we do not need a statutory provision to ensure that the needs of female offenders are taken into account. The key difference is that in future all offenders, both women and men, who are serving a custodial sentence of less than 12 months will have an assessment of risks and needs. This assessment will be undertaken by prison or probation staff and will cover the key areas of need. These include accommodation, mental health needs, skills and employment, children, families and, something which many women often sadly endure, issues of domestic violence.
The Government recognise that a significant number of female prisoners are vulnerable and have complex needs. The process allows for additional time to complete the assessment in such cases, so as to ensure that all their needs are not just identified but fully understood. The information gathered by this assessment will be used to draw up a bespoke plan for the sentence in custody and in the community that takes account of and will address the particular needs of that individual. This information will also be shared with service providers in the community, so that they, too, fully understand the individual offender’s needs and can then, importantly, tailor their services to help address these needs. We are therefore confident that the needs of female offenders will be identified and taken into account when setting the new supervision requirements. Therefore, we do not believe that the noble and learned Lord’s amendment is necessary.
Amendment 9 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, on mental health assessments, relates to Schedule 1, which sets out the conditions that can be applied to the top-up supervision and adds a mental health assessment requirement. I welcome the noble Lord’s focus on mental health. Addressing the mental health needs of offenders is a priority for the Government. We know that we need to do more to make sure that offenders with mental health issues do not fall through the net. We all share that sentiment; indeed, that was discussed during consideration of the previous group of amendments. However, this should be done at the earliest possible opportunity—indeed, the noble Lord himself identified that—and not at the end of the process with top-up supervision. When my noble friend and I discussed this matter with officials, we impressed upon them the need to ensure that wherever in the process this issue is raised, we seek to address it according to the individual needs of that person. Providing appropriate intervention and treatment at the right time and in the right place is vital to improving outcomes for people with mental illness.
For some offenders with severe issues, in-patient treatment under the Mental Health Act will be appropriate. For others with less serious problems, there are already many opportunities for intervention and treatment. These include mental health treatment as a requirement of the community sentence and the comprehensive screening of every offender as they arrive in prison. I will share my own experience with noble Lords, since I have been involved in this area. When I visited Peterborough prison, I saw that as prisoners entered through the prison gate, their health, training, development, language, family and cultural issues were identified. That is the kind of model that we need to be working to. As soon a prisoner enters through the prison gate, we should be looking to help to reform—a word that has been used—and rehabilitate them from that point on so that by the time they come to the end of their sentence and go out into society, and I have no qualms about repeating what I said earlier, they become productive citizens for the benefit of themselves and of society as a whole.
I understand, of course, what the noble Lord has said about mental health also being a key element of tackling reoffending. It is of course crucial that the mental health status of the offender is ascertained before any trial or sentence, which is why pre-sentence reports will continue to give assistance to the court.
We also need to ensure that more people are assessed effectively and early enough to make sure that all those with mental health issues get referred to treatment. That is why the Government are developing liaison and diversion services to be introduced into every police station and criminal court. Liaison and diversion services will enable all those who come into contact with the criminal justice system to be assessed at the outset for a range of health issues, including mental health. Where people are identified as having health needs, a referral to a treatment or appropriate services is made. That means, of course, that health needs can be taken into account at all stages of the process, including charging and sentencing decisions. Information will be shared that will support the continuity of treatment for as long as it is needed by the individual. This should mean that more people are identified and that those with responsibility for the management and care of the offender as they move through the system and come out of prison will be aware of any treatment needs.
What is needed post-release is to ensure the continuity of treatment, rather than to reassess offenders. I am sure all noble Lords agree with that objective. Our proposals include a through-the-gate service where providers will engage with offenders before release and then help them to resettle into their communities. This service will support better continuity of treatment and access. Providers will be able to support the offender to access the services they need as they return to their communities.
I also expect any mental health treatment to be addressed as a priority. Engaging with the offender before release means that the providers can seek to arrange provision immediately upon release on licence for the offender to be supported into treatment in the community. I therefore welcome this amendment, but I believe that assessments at an earlier stage, as the noble Lord has acknowledged, are likely to achieve the desired objectives.
Moving on to Amendments 10, 11 and 12 in this group, in the names of my noble friends Lady Hamwee, Lord Marks and Lord Dholakia, Amendment 10 would add a new requirement to Schedule 1, which places a duty on the supervisor giving instructions to offenders on activities as part of top-up supervision to have regard to the compatibility of the activities with the offender’s family circumstances or, indeed, importantly, childcare responsibilities. Amendment 11 would add a new provision that every requirement imposed as part of top-up supervision must be reasonable and proportionate to the purpose of top-up supervision. Amendment 12 would add to the Secretary of State’s order-making power an ability to make provision about the requirements of top-up supervision and how they may be varied by supervisors.
I of course understand why it is important that activities do not interfere with family circumstances or childcare responsibilities, and why the requirements and activities under top-up supervision should be proportionate. I say to my noble friends that the Bill already includes a number of provisions that are particularly designed to focus the top-up supervision on rehabilitation. Clause 2 explicitly states that the purpose of the top-up supervision is for the rehabilitation of the offender, and the supervisor of the offender must have regard to that purpose when supervising the offender. Schedule 1 also provides a power for the Secretary of State to make a provision about the requirements of top-up supervision and the circumstances in which they are imposed.
For many years, prison governors acting on behalf of the Secretary of State have set licence conditions for those serving custodial sentences of over 12 months. The Secretary of State and his representatives will continue to set licence and, now, top-up supervision conditions. The experienced staff who set these conditions are aware of the need to make them proportionate and relevant to the individual offender. They are aware of the need to make these requirements practical and, indeed, achievable. They will be able to amend or vary the conditions if circumstances change. Providers supervising offenders will have to refer any breach action that is to be taken to court to the public sector probation service, which will also act as a second pair of eyes in regard to the appropriateness of conditions and the circumstances of any failure to comply. In short, there are already safeguards designed to ensure that the top-up supervision is focused on rehabilitation and that the conditions are sensitive to the particular circumstances of the offender.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee raised the issue of Section 196 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. Currently, we have no plans to amend that section, but I will look at the specific concern that she raised and if need be I will write to her in that regard. Based on the assurances that I have given, I hope that the noble and learned Lord will be minded to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Hamwee
Before the noble and learned Lord withdraws the amendment, as I assume he will, I wish to refer to that last point. Perhaps the Minister could ask his officials to let me know how Section 217—the one that I quoted about compatibility with religion and so on—can be brought to apply in the circumstances under this Bill if Section 196 is not amended. It is a matter of how it all knits together.
I wish to make one point. As the noble and learned Lord implied, rehabilitation can be the objective, but there are people who do not take into consideration the appropriate matters to move towards rehabilitation in a way that most people would think they should. It could be that some people in the criminal justice system think that one can achieve rehabilitation without putting the individual into his, or in this case her own, circumstances and context.
Perhaps we can pursue this after today but, bearing that in mind, as the supervision requirements are spelled out in detail in Schedule 1, are we in danger of them being construed so as to exclude the types of matters which I think all noble Lords who have spoken have referred to? Might they override those considerations because they are there in the statute? Anyone looking at it would say, “The only requirements that the Secretary of State may specify as being an executive action are the ones that are listed in paragraphs (a) to (j), so the other considerations do not have the same status or weight and I can disregard them, or at any rate have less regard to them”. Perhaps I can leave that thought with the Minister.
Lord Woolf
My Lords, I hope that the Minister, for whose response I am grateful, will reconsider what he has said today. With great respect, I do not think that he has met the points that we are making. In the future, we hope that the special position of women will be considered properly. For a very long period, the criminal justice system has failed in that respect. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Judd, for timing his entry into the Chamber so admirably. He picked up the great importance of the issue.
The problem is that the present Administration may not take this seriously if there are no clear signposts in the Bill. The Bill is meant to deal with particular problems that exist. The Minister recognised that in his remarks in relation to female offenders. Therefore, we have to break away from a clearly established pattern. It is very important that this constructive legislation shows clearly that it intends to tackle this issue. I hope that the Minister will think about what has been said during the course of the debate. I am extremely grateful for what other noble Lords have said and I am glad of their support. Their words deserve very careful consideration, which I hope they will receive. On Report, I hope that the Minister will have some good news for those who see this as a situation that needs to be addressed in a positive way. In those circumstances, I am happy to withdraw the amendment, and I thank those who took part in the debate.
Lord Beecham
Lord Beecham
My Lords, this amendment seeks to amend subsection (2) of Clause 2, which, in turn, seeks to insert new Section 256AA into the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The amendment seeks to amend new subsection (8) of the new section in relation to the definition of a supervisor of persons subject to the supervision which will, when the Bill is passed, take effect for prisoners serving less than two years.
The purpose of the amendment is to be clear that the provider of the supervision should be a public sector organisation. At the moment, presumably it would normally be a probation trust or an organisation commissioned by such an organisation. It seems to me and to my noble friend important that there should be a clear public line of accountability for the provision of this service, which does not necessarily seem to be the case according to the wording of the proposed subsection as it now appears. It is a fairly basic point. Given that we are looking at a significant responsibility, some of which at the moment is not exercised at all by the probation service—that is to say, supervision of people serving less than 12 months—an important line of public accountability should be established. That in no way precludes, of course, the engagement of the third sector in relation to supervision of offenders, as long as they have been contracted by a public authority.
Of course, there are many examples of probation trusts working with voluntary organisations at the moment. I know that in my own area, Northumbria, a probation trust has very good working relationships and in Newcastle there is a successful scheme that has been commissioned in that way. There is no intention at all to ensure that all the supervision is actually carried out by the probation service but, if that is not the case, there should at least be that line of public accountability. I beg to move.
Lord McNally
My Lords, the noble Lord will be quick to tell me if I am wrong but, as I read it, Amendment 7A has a very clear effect. It is to ensure that all top supervision of offenders should be carried out by the public sector providers or those bodies commissioned by the public sector. I have never hidden from this House that we believe, particularly in the present economic conditions, that we will be able to find the resources to carry through our rehabilitation revolution only by employing payment by results and involving the skills and initiatives of the private and voluntary sectors.
We are breaking new ground in our approach. We are committed to providing, for the first time in decades, supervision for those released from short custodial sentences. One of our key objectives is finally to tackle the unacceptably high level of reoffending among this group. That prize is worth striving for. However, to achieve that aim we have to be able to afford this additional supervision. To do that, we need to reduce our current costs of dealing with offenders. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, does not think that we can do this. I say to him that we cannot do so by only going down old ways and old costs. Competing the majority of probation services will improve value and efficiency throughout the system, making taxpayers’ money go further. For example, competing the community payback contracts in London saw a £25 million saving over four years. We will also look at efficiencies within the public sector by consolidating back-office functions and creating one national public sector probation service. That is another real plus for the Bill. I remember the debates nearly a decade ago, and I was never happy that the probation service was a kind of junior partner to the Prison Service. One of the effects of the Bill will be to create a national probation service with real status and a real voice in these matters. We also want to encourage innovation among providers of probation services to ensure that we make a real change in reoffending rates. By paying providers in full only when they are successful at reducing reoffending we will not only make savings but will drive down reoffending rates.
We want to avoid what the last Government did. We do not want to create a sentencing regime that is overly prescriptive, complex and unaffordable. In other words, we do not want to create another custody plus sentence, the flagship policy of the 2003 Act, which ended up never being implemented. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, will be reassured that we have learnt those lessons from the past, and that in the light of my explanation he will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Beecham
If I do, it will not be because of the noble Lord’s explanation. However, of course I will not press this matter to a vote.
We will come later to the question of payment by results and the considerable doubts that many of us on these Benches and in other parts of your Lordships’ House have about that as an appropriate way of dealing with the sensitive area of supervision. I stress again, as my noble friend Lord Ponsonby made clear earlier, that we strongly support the drive for reducing reoffending and that we are engaged with a question of the practicalities.
I come back to the position that in our view that line of accountability at the level of the provision of service should ultimately rest with a public sector body and not simply be hived off completely, even if the work is subcontracted—and there is no particular reason why that should not be the case. I mention specifically third sector organisations because they have a particularly valuable role to play. My amendment would not exclude contracting with private sector organisations, for that matter. However, they would be contracted by the public sector body with the legitimate experience. However, as I indicated, I will not press this tonight, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
“Duty for all providers of probation services to attend community safety partnership meetings and co-operate with crime and disorder reduction partnerships
(1) Section 6 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 (formulation and implementation of strategies) is amended as follows.
(2) In subsection (1) after “responsible authorities” insert “including all future providers of probation services”.
(3) In subsection (1)(a)(i) after “disorder in the area” insert “to include attendance at local community safety partnership meetings and co-operation with crime and disorder reduction partnerships”.”
Lord Beecham
My Lords, it is common ground between all Members of your Lordships’ House, and reflected in some of the amendments that we have already debated, that the problems suffered by and indeed occasioned by offenders are complex and often multiple, and that in dealing with them no single agency is likely to be able to resolve all those problems or help people entirely overcome the difficult issues that they face. On the contrary, it is quite clear that in a number of areas, collaboration between various agencies will be required if we are to achieve the shared objective of reducing reoffending, from the perspective both of the advantage to society and of the individuals concerned. Therefore, looking at what is most likely to avoid reoffending, we know—and it has been rehearsed many times in your Lordships’ House—that the principal steps that can be taken to diminish reoffending relate to employment and in particular to housing, but also to issues such as health.
A number of different agencies could and should be involved in all these aspects, both in the direct provision of services and in the case of commissioning services, so that, for example, local authorities clearly have a role. I suggest that in shire county areas that is at both levels—of adult services which are county level responsibility, and housing, which is a district level responsibility. However, of course, in unitary authorities they are located within the same authority. Obviously the police have a role, but also in terms of employment one has to look at the Department for Work and Pensions. In terms of health, in the new organisation of the health service, I suggest that one has to look at two levels: the clinical commissioning groups and the national Commissioning Board, because they have responsibility over areas of mental health.
All these need to be involved, and many of them are already involved, in local arrangements, such as community safety partnerships and crime and disorder reduction partnerships. Some of them are involved in the health and well-being boards, which prepare strategic needs assessments. I would hope that the needs of offenders are reflected in those bodies. However, the purpose of this amendment is to ensure that all providers of the services which the Bill seeks to introduce, or at any rate ensure are available, come together with the other relevant agencies so that a genuine cross-sectoral partnership is dealing with these issues. Of course, that puts a responsibility on the other partners, as well as on the direct providers of probation services or supervisory services.
I hope that the noble Lord will accept that, at least on this occasion, this is meant to be a friendly amendment, designed to achieve some progress on a commonly shared objective, and I look forward to hearing his response.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I always assume that the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is working in the most constructive manner. I was a little brusque with him in my previous reply. I thought that perhaps buried away in his innocent amendment was an effect that might have undermined the purpose of our Bill. However, in respect of Amendment 7B, I would not even entertain such an unworthy thought. I understand where he is coming from; let me try to explain our approach.
This amendment would provide that all future providers of probation services would be responsible authorities for the purposes of formulating and implementing crime reduction strategies. It would also mean that all responsible authorities, not just probation providers, would be obliged to attend community safety partnership meetings and co-operate with crime and disorder reduction partnerships.
The Government fully share the sentiment in this amendment but nothing that we do will work unless it is rooted in local partnerships. The Transforming Rehabilitation strategy made clear that the Government expect new providers to engage with statutory and non-statutory local strategic and delivery partnerships. These will, of course, include community safety partnerships, but also others such as integrated offender management, safeguarding boards and youth offending teams. It will be in providers’ interests to work with other partners to achieve the best results, and our payment mechanism, which will reward reductions in reoffending, will incentivise them to do so.
However, we also set out in the strategy our clear expectation that providers will need to demonstrate how they will work in and strengthen local partnerships to deliver the results that they are incentivised to achieve. As part of the formal evaluation of this, we will include a requirement that providers’ evidence how they will sustain and develop networks and partnerships. Once the system is up and running, we will monitor local partnership working as part of obtaining assurances of the delivery of services. We will liaise with police and crime commissioners, local authorities and other relevant partners as appropriate.
I have set out our commitment and the steps that we are taking to ensure that our reforms are rooted in local partnerships so that offenders can access the broad package of support that they need to get their lives back on track. Incentivising providers to focus relentlessly on reducing reoffending means that it is in their interests to work with other partners and in local partnerships. However, we must ensure that providers have the flexibility to do what works. Integration at local level works best when it is not mandated centrally.
Sections 5 and 6 of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 already specify that where contractual arrangements so provide, providers of probation services will be responsible to authorities for the purpose of crime reduction strategies. We have no plans to change the legislation in this respect. We are doing further detailed work on the contractual requirements on providers, and will look at how we address issues such as lack of engagement with partners locally. However, as I have already touched on, it will be in the provider’s interest to work with other partners to achieve the best result under our system, and we will incentivise them to do so. We will monitor local partnership working as part of obtaining assurance of the delivery service. As I have said, we will liaise with the police and crime commissioners, local authorities and others in this task. We are doing further detailed work on the contractual requirements on providers and will look at how we address issues such as lack of engagement.
However, it will be in the provider’s interest to do this work. For this reason, although I think it is an important issue, I hope that my reply convinces the noble Lord that it is one that we are keeping in mind as we draw up the contracts. We will try to get the balance right between flexibility in operation, which we have continually emphasised, and an important emphasis on local engagement, commitment and monitoring, which the noble Lord has rightly raised in this amendment. Having given such a warm and constructive reply, I hope that he will agree to withdraw it.
Lord Beecham
Out of sheer surprise, I certainly will. I welcome the thrust of the Minister’s reply. From the way that the amendment is framed, it looks as though responsibility is intended to fall only on the provider of the supervision but, of course, a wide range of other organisations—some statutory—need to be involved. While the Minister and the department will keep an eye on these matters, it is important that other departments are also engaged, including departments at a national level, particularly the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department of Health and the Department for Communities and Local Government. Then, at local level, there are various bodies such as local authorities, clinical commissioning groups and the like.
I wonder whether a cross-governmental approach on this would be sensible, although not necessarily at this point, rather than simply leaving it to the Ministry of Justice to adumbrate the desiderata of co-operation, but ensuring that there is buy-in from other government departments. Equally, we might approach, for example, the Local Government Association—I declare an interest as an honorary vice-president thereof—to encourage local authorities to recognise the importance of their role in this new programme.
There is nothing between us on this. I hope that spirit of joint approach, which has been evident in the Chamber tonight, will be communicated to those who will be taking the important decisions at the local and, indeed, the national level. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I expect this will be another brief debate. There are two matters to which I want to draw attention in this amendment, and they relate to Schedule 1, which seeks to introduce a new provision, again into the Criminal Justice Act 2003. One relates to the requirements that the Secretary of State may specify must be adhered to by an offender on supervision. That is in relation to the,
“requirement to reside permanently at an address approved by the supervisor and to obtain the prior permission of the supervisor for any stay of one or more nights at a different address”.
While one can well see the importance of residence, particularly in cases where it is undesirable for an offender to reside in a particular location—for example, if there has been an incident of domestic violence and that is the subject of his or her conviction. Equally, however, there are very vulnerable people in the system. If they were, for example, to return to the family home—particularly in the case of a young person, but not necessarily in only those cases—where there are already problems, one can envisage circumstances in which they may be unable to continue to reside there and it may be almost an emergency situation.
I hope it would be clear that, in those circumstances, as long as the offender takes the first opportunity to notify that he or she has not been able to return to that place of residence, that would not lead to a breach. I assume that would be the case, but some words on the record from the noble Lord would perhaps be helpful.
My other question is a simple one in relation to new Clause 256AB(4), which relates to the fact that the Secretary of State may, by order, specify additional requirements, or “remove or amend” the requirements that have already been set out in new subsection (1). The order will presumably have to take the form of something laid before the House. The question is whether that would be an order subject to negative or affirmative resolution. It is as simple as that. I beg to move.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Haskel)
I have to inform your Lordships that if this amendment is agreed, I cannot call Amendments 9 to 12 because of pre-emption.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I hope I am answering the amendment that the noble Lord has moved, because I am just wondering what Amendment 8 would actually do. It would remove paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Bill, which amends the 2003 Act and sets out the conditions under which the Secretary of State may top up supervision. I have already said that top-up supervision is a useful device to ensure that there is a reasonable period of supervision to enable a change to be made to the offending behaviour. Therefore, the amendment has the unusual and perhaps unintended effect of not removing the provision for top-up supervision that is contained in Clause 2.
Lord Beecham
It is purely a probing amendment. There is no intention to remove the provision.
Lord McNally
Instead, it would simply remove any statutory controls on the conditions that can be imposed during the supervision period. When sentencing offenders to custody, courts will be unaware of the limits to the conditions that may be imposed by the Secretary of State. This could affect their sentencing behaviour if they decide that they need to compensate for the risk of punitive supervision conditions being imposed. It also, strangely, retains the detail of drug testing and drug appointments under the top-up supervision, which are in paragraph 2 of the schedule, along with the process for dealing with the breach of supervision. However, it removes the reference to them as conditions of the supervision.
The noble Lord said that this was a probing amendment. I will look again and reflect on what exactly he was probing. If I need to clarify this, I will. On his question about a resident who for unforeseen circumstances was in breach, again, I hope that what we are doing is not setting up circumstances for individuals to fail; these are meant to be supportive, sensible, intelligent ways of dealing with individuals whom we know—as has been emphasised—often have very complex problems. The noble Lord has probed, I have responded, and if the matter requires further clarification, I will certainly provide it.
Lord Beecham
I am grateful for the second—unscripted—part of the noble Lord’s speech. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, I will speak also to Amendments 16 and 17 in this group. All the amendments are in my name and in the names of my noble friends Lady Hamwee and Lord Dholakia. Our amendments concern sanctions for the breach of supervision requirements. Clause 3 deals with such sanctions. Noble Lords will have seen that failure to comply with supervision requirements may lead to information being laid before a justice and to the issue of a summons, with or without an arrest warrant, as appropriate. On proof of a breach of supervision requirements without reasonable excuse, it is proposed by new Section 256AC(4) that the court may do one of four things. First, it may impose a sentence of 14 days in prison or in a young offender institution, as appropriate. Secondly, it may impose a fine. Thirdly, it may impose an unpaid work requirement. Fourthly, it may impose a curfew requirement. The clause is permissive, so it would be open to a court also to take no action. However, as drafted, the clause establishes no test for when action is or is not appropriate.
As has been pointed out, the Secretary of State very helpfully attended a meeting of all Peers yesterday and explained the purposes of new Section 256AC(4). The first purpose was, effectively, punishment. He explained that because this section is concerned with offenders who have been sentenced to prison and who then on release are subject to supervision requirements, it should be made clear that if the offender does not comply with those requirements, there will be a penal sanction. That effectively is why the four sanctions that I listed—imprisonment, a fine, unpaid work or a curfew requirement—are penal in nature.
The second purpose he outlined was personal deterrence. He explained that offenders should not think that the supervision requirements are in any sense voluntary, and that if they choose to ignore them or fail to comply with them, nothing will happen. He might have added that there should also be an element of public deterrence, so that the world will know that if offenders disobey supervision requirements, they will be liable to penal sanctions.
Those propositions may be sound; I do not dissent from them. However, they do not advance rehabilitation, which is the purpose of the Bill. Furthermore, offenders on release from short sentences are, as the Government and many noble Lords have pointed out, particularly fallible. It may be that in many cases a court would take the view that instead of imposing one of the four penal sanctions, it would be better in the interests of rehabilitation for the supervision requirements previously imposed by the Secretary of State to be varied. It may be that they should be varied to stronger requirements or to requirements that are better targeted to the particular needs of the offender, which may have been revealed by the breach of the requirements that had been imposed earlier—or by the proceedings taken after the breach and the investigation before the magistrates in court when the breach was looked at.
The possible requirements that can be imposed are to be found in Schedule 1. They cover a broad range and are very flexible. It is right that an offender may start with a very relaxed regime but a court may take the view on investigation that although the breach of those requirements justifies the imposition of a much tighter regime, it does not require one of the four penal sanctions. Amendment 16 would allow the court to recommend to the Secretary of State that the requirements be varied. Why should they be varied on the Secretary of State’s recommendation? It is because the notice imposing requirements comes from the Secretary of State by virtue of new Section 256AA. I accept that it is therefore right that the court’s power should be to make a recommendation for the Secretary of State to vary the requirements rather than to make an order imposing such a variation. The proposed scheme allows the court much more flexibility than it has under the Bill as drafted. That flexibility would both be useful and advance the cause of rehabilitation.
Amendments 13 and 17 are designed to ensure that the courts have some guidance about the proper response to a breach. Noble Lords will remember that at Second Reading, concerns were rightly expressed by a number of Peers, including the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle, that the purpose of the Bill, which is rehabilitation, might be frustrated by the excessive imposition of sanctions for breach. As the Bill is presently drafted, the court has no indication as to when it ought or ought not to impose a sanction. Amendment 13 would give a clear direction as to what should be the court’s approach to a breach of supervision requirements. It would impose a threshold test so that the power to impose sanctions would be exercisable where the court was satisfied that the interests of justice require a sanction to be imposed. While I accept that it may be said that that can be inferred from the permissive nature of the power, it seems to me that the purpose and the test should be expressed on the face of the Bill. Amendment 17 would help to secure some policy consistency and uniformity in the imposition of sanctions by requiring that the Sentencing Council should publish guidelines in respect of the imposition of sanctions for breach of supervision requirements.
These amendments introduce flexibility to allow for the appropriate treatment of individual offenders and individual cases of breach. They are in the interests of rehabilitation which the Bill is designed to promote. They do not undermine the policies which the Secretary of State outlined yesterday and which he rightly wishes to implement in pursuit of that policy. I therefore invite my noble friend the Minister and his department to consider them on that basis. I beg to move.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, my Amendment 14, which is very similar in many ways to the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, would help to ensure that the purpose of the new supervision period is primarily rehabilitative by removing custody as a sanction for technical breach of requirements. It would retain the sanctions available to the courts of imposing a fine or a supervision default order imposing either an unpaid work requirement or a curfew requirement. The option of recall to custody for breach of conditions during the licence period is unaffected.
The Prison Reform Trust—it is good to see the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, in his place—has had many tributes paid to it to which I add my own for the invaluable work it does in the whole of this area. It is particularly concerned that, without additional safeguards, the proposals will result in an increase in breach and recall to custody, which will drive up the short sentenced prison population. As the Transforming Rehabilitation consultation acknowledges, many people serving short prison sentences have complex and multiple problems, including homelessness, unemployment, drug and alcohol addictions, mental health needs and learning disabilities. This in turn increases the likelihood of breach and recall to custody if sanctions imposed for non-compliance are too onerous or the period of licence or supervision is too long.
By limiting custody as an option for breach, the amendment should help to reduce the costs of extending statutory supervision to short sentenced prisoners. The risk of breach and recall to custody is acknowledged but not quantified in the impact assessment. It states:
“There will be court costs associated with breaches of this provision and costs of providing sanctions for these breaches. These will include additional pressure on the prison population arising out of offenders being recalled to custody and further electronic monitoring starts. Initial estimates of these costs are of the order of £25 million per year”.
In addition, the impact assessment states:
“There may be an additional burden to the police from extending supervision in the community to offenders released from custodial sentences of less than 12 months, as police time will be needed to deal with offenders who fail to comply with the conditions of supervision. Our initial estimate is that this could cost up to £5 million per year”.
The rise in the number of recalls has been identified by the Ministry of Justice as a key driver of the growth in the prison population over the past two decades. The recall population has grown rapidly since 1993, increasing by more than 55 times. The recall population increased by 5,300 between 1993 and 2012. Growth in the recall population began in 1999, reflecting the change to the law in 1998 which extended executive recall to medium-term sentences—12 months to less than four years.
Lord Woolf
My Lords, as regards the practicalities of this issue, as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, it is important to provide greater flexibility to deal with breaches. Many of the offenders whom the Bill is intended to help to go straight have deep problems which are often associated with drugs. It would be a huge achievement if these offenders were able to keep out of trouble for part of the 12-month period. Sending them into custody would be most unfortunate and would fail to give them the further opportunity they may need. Support can be much more helpful in these circumstances than something that is more in the nature of a sanction. Sanctions are important in appropriate cases, but other approaches are sometimes more constructive.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I join the noble and learned Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in supporting the amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, which would help considerably. The noble Baroness’s amendment would remove the capacity to order a person in breach to be committed to prison. She said that there was no provision in the Bill for this measure to be used as a last resort. That is the substance of my amendments in the next group. It may be convenient for me to speak to those amendments now as I am advised that that is possible. It makes sense to do so, as my Amendments 15 and 18 would qualify the provision in new Section 256AC(4)(a) within Clause 3 by providing that a sentence for breach not exceeding 14 days is to be treated as a last resort. I hope that meets the point raised by the noble Baroness. Concerns were expressed about this provision in the consultation document, which the Government acknowledged in their response. However, as yet, their response has not been reflected in the Bill. In my submission, it would make sense to add that qualification, so that, in addition to the provisions in the amendments spoken to by the noble Lord, Lord Marks, the right of the court to impose a custodial sentence of up to 14 days would be preserved but it would be stated explicitly in the Bill that it is to be used only as a last resort. That is the sort of declaratory statement to which the noble Lord has referred in earlier debates.
Is the Minister in a position to indicate the anticipated number as regards the recall provision? I could not find it in the impact assessment. He may not be in a position to do that. However, the noble Baroness rightly referred to the very large increase in this regard—the 55-fold increase—in the past 20 years, most of which, as she rightly says, occurred over the past 14 years. Many of the custodial sentences for breach are imposed on young offenders. Indeed, the Prison Reform Trust has reported substantially on that problem.
I suspect that there is no great distance between the Minister’s position and that set out in the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Marks, and in my Amendments 15 and 18. I would welcome the Minister indicating tonight or on Report that those measures will be included in the Bill, with the appropriate wording. The noble Baroness rightly referred to concerns about there being an increased readiness to impose custodial sentences for breach and the cost of this in material terms and, potentially, for offenders and the rehabilitative process. This is not a clear-cut issue and there are clearly arguments on both sides but I have heard concerns expressed by a senior member of the Magistrates’ Association as well as by the noble Baroness and other organisations. Accepting these amendments would go a long way to relieve those concerns while still leaving the court with the ultimate power to impose a custodial sanction as a last resort.
Lord McNally
I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. Perhaps I could cover numbers and costs in the revised impact assessment that I will bring back to the House.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, and the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that I certainly do not want to see any benefits gained from a successful rehabilitation programme being dribbled away in the costs incurred through dealing with breach. That would be very self-defeating indeed and we must look carefully at that. However, although this is a wonderful Chamber in which to discuss these problems, I sometimes think that we try too hard to be understanding on these issues. In trying to understand all these terribly complex problems with which these people are faced, we do not face up to the fact that they have a choice. As I have said in previous debates, I remember from my childhood young people who experienced in their upbringing many of the problems we talk about in this House but who nevertheless grew up to be honest, decent, honourable members of society. It is a choice.
In our efforts to understand, I sometimes think that we leave some of these offenders with the belief that the gun is never loaded and that they will never have to face the consequences. As the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, has said in earlier debates, some offenders who have been given every chance, shown every understanding and been offered every opportunity still appear before the courts and the magistrates have no alternative. I am as willing to be as woolly a liberal as the next man, but we must also send a very clear message that as a society we do not intend to tolerate anti-social and criminal behaviour without a firm response. If we do not do that, some of the characters we are trying to deal with will never apply themselves to the offers we are making them that we hope will help them put their lives together again.
Baroness Hamwee
My Lords, before my noble friend responds, I should deal with the terrible slur from the Front Bench about the narrowness of my bedtime reading. In fact, my bedtime reading at the moment consists of Caroline Shenton’s book, The Day Parliament Burned Down—a wonderful book that the Minister himself recommended to me.
Lord Marks of Henley-on-Thames
My Lords, first, I am grateful to my noble friend for indicating that he will consider Amendment 16 and come back to the House on it at a later stage. I am also grateful for his assurance that he has great confidence that the Sentencing Council will indeed publish the guidelines, and I quite understand his reason for not wishing that to be included in the statute because of the danger of compromising that body’s independence.
As to the lead amendment in the group, while I completely appreciate the Minister’s position that “may” is discretionary—I have no doubt that my noble friend Lady Hamwee, notwithstanding her additional bedside reading, will confirm my view when she has considered the response—I still feel that setting a test for the use of discretion might be helpful. Perhaps the Minister will consider that also. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I have to reassure the Committee that my bedtime reading does not consist of “50 Shades of McNally”.
I regret the dismissal of the purpose of my amendment, even if the wording might be improved, because it is important, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Woolf, said in another context and as I reminded your Lordships, that a declaratory phrase be used to clearly indicate that the court should not be quick to impose even a 14-day sentence. It should be implemented only after full consideration of such a measure. The experience of committal for breach for young offenders, to which I have alluded, lends some force to the suggestion that a clear message be sent that such a provision ought not to be lightly adopted. Not all benches would do that in any case, and obviously the court on which my noble friend Lord Ponsonby sits is not cavalier in its approach, and I doubt whether many courts would be. Nevertheless, a declaration of the sort suggested would have been helpful. However, in the circumstances, I shall not move the amendment.
Lord Beecham
“(1A) An offender subject to a supervision order under section 199 (unpaid work requirement) shall not be required to work unpaid for a private sector employer.”
Lord Beecham
My Lords, the amendment relates to new Schedule 19A, which deals with supervision default orders and incorporates new provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The amendment addresses the issue of the unpaid work requirement embodied in new sub-paragraph (2)(a).
It is a straightforward amendment that might not be necessary. To be frank, I do not know the Government’s current thinking or, for that matter, the present state of the law. However, if unpaid work is to be required it should not be to the profit of a private sector organisation that is in the business of, perfectly legitimately, generating profits. If unpaid work is to be done, it should be for a public body or a social purpose. Obviously it is important that people have the opportunity to develop skills. It is also good that the discipline of work should apply. That is very much part of the rehabilitation process, which is not always easy to achieve. Unpaid work might be very helpful in that respect. However, I repeat that it would be wrong if that work were to the financial advantage of a profit-making organisation. One could well envisage placements with voluntary organisations, local authorities or whatever, which would be perfectly reasonable and satisfactory.
I hope the Minister can assure us about that. Otherwise, we might have to return to this issue on Report because it is an important point. We hear too much of what can only be described as bogus apprenticeships, shelf-stacking and the rest of it under the Work Programme. One does not want to see that kind of work, particularly if it is unpaid, being imported into this agenda. It is desirable that the range of activities that might be encompassed within such a programme benefits the offender and perhaps society. It would be wrong if financial benefit was thereby given to a private business. I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord and I can from the outset assure him, as is clear in all these matters, that the objective is not for any operator to make profit from such work. My understanding of the purpose of the amendment is that it would prevent any offender who is carrying out unpaid work as a sanction for breach of a supervision requirement from doing that unpaid work for any private sector organisation. I would make a number of points in response to the noble Lord.
First, as noble Lords will know, we intend to open up the delivery of unpaid work, along with other services for offenders in the community, to a wide variety of organisations. This will include the private sector. However, the model for private sector organisations’ delivery of unpaid work would, I should make absolutely clear, not involve the offender working directly for them. The private provider would be responsible for organising the community work and supervising the offender’s progress. Unpaid work is intended to be of benefit to local communities. The private provider would make arrangements with a local authority, community group or charity for the actual work to be carried out. The private provider may also subcontract another organisation to deliver the unpaid work. This may be particularly important for women offenders or offenders with particular needs, such as learning disability. In these cases a smaller organisation within the community with the relevant expertise is much better placed to arrange the unpaid work.
However, the amendment might prevent private providers even from making arrangements with other bodies to deliver unpaid work. Consider the case of a private provider with responsibility for supervising offenders carrying out unpaid work and that wants to make arrangements for placements with a local charity or community group. The amendment could prevent the private provider from doing so, although I am sure that this was not the intention of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, in tabling the amendment.
Unpaid work can fulfil a number of purposes. As part of a community order or suspended sentence it provides a credible punishment, but it can also help offenders to learn new skills or disciplines of work. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, raised this important issue. Too often offenders are looked at in a particular way, but some lack the basic ability to turn up at a given time to serve a particular number of hours. We need to help develop these basic skills and mindsets.
Unpaid work is also reparative, allowing offenders to pay back the harm done by their crimes to the wider community. This is equally true of unpaid work carried out under supervision default orders. It is a sanction for the breach, but this is not to say that it cannot also support the offender’s rehabilitation, or allow them to put something back into the community they have harmed.
My point here is that unpaid work needs to be meaningful, whether it is carried out as part of a community order or as a sanction for the breach of supervision requirements. Even if it is imposed as a sanction for a breach, the work needs to be of sufficient quality. This remains true whether the provider is a private sector organisation, a charity or the public sector. For this reason I do not believe this amendment’s singling out of private sector organisations to be the right approach. The key issue is ensuring that whoever delivers unpaid work does so to the appropriate standard. We will ensure that our new arrangements deliver this. For these reasons I hope the noble Lord will see fit to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I cannot say that I am terribly happy with the noble Lord’s response. It seems to me that there is almost a moral issue here about what is in effect the exploitation of unpaid labour. There is already some concern about the degree to which this now forms part of the process of imprisonment. Bringing in unpaid work has a potential impact on competitor organisations that do not have the advantage of cheap labour, or as in this case unpaid labour. If private sector employers are to be engaged in the process of assisting rehabilitation by providing work—and there is no reason why they should not be—it is incumbent on them to pay for that labour. There is no reason why they should not pay at least the minimum wage. It seems wrong that they should benefit from this process.
I regret the Minister’s response. I invite him to think again about this, as it is not satisfactory. Otherwise we might have to return to it on Report, because it strikes me as a wholly inappropriate response. There are many opportunities outside unpaid work in the private sector that would encourage the rehabilitation that we all want to see. The Government should rethink their position on this issue.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, perhaps I may clarify this. The noble Lord’s point about paying someone who is caught up in one of these arrangements or rehabilitation schemes is a slightly separate one. I emphasise that the amendment as tabled would prevent the private sector from providing any kind of service as part of the rehabilitation process. I have made the point, which I wish to underline, that the private sector organisation is there not to make any profit. As I have said, the person actually performing this particular arrangement within the community would be doing so as part of their rehabilitation. The issue about whether that person should be paid or unpaid is a slightly separate matter.
As the noble Lord has said, we will come back to this. For the benefit of the Committee I would like to clarify that many offenders are currently subject to unpaid work. Currently, around 60,000 offenders have successfully completed community payback sentences, for example. That is 7 million hours of work on projects that directly benefit local communities. To be clear, the intention is that any unpaid work is of benefit to the community and to the individual as part of their rehabilitation process. The underlying objective is not for any provider, whether private or otherwise, to make a profit from that arrangement.
Lord Beecham
I am grateful for the noble Lord’s most recent remarks, although the points that he made did not really come across when he previously addressed the matter. There is perhaps not the great difference between us that I had perceived. However, it would be better, if the noble Lord agrees, to go back and look at how the Bill might be worded to deal with this situation, which I now apprehend does not really divide us.
I am well aware of community payback schemes, and I see them in my own ward. They are very valuable and seem to me to be the right approach, although not necessarily in exactly the same form. I sense that really we agree about the notion of people carrying out work for a profit-making organisation on a profit-making project, in which case perhaps the noble Lord would look again at the amendment and see whether we can come up with something on which we can agree. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Burma
(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the progress being made in Burma to end ethnic tensions and to secure democracy.
Lord Alton of Liverpool
My Lords, just over a year ago on 21 June, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi addressed both Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall. There was an understandable sense of euphoria and a sense of “problem solved”. Daw Suu now sits in the Burmese Parliament rather than under house arrest. Hundreds of political prisoners have been released and ceasefires have been agreed with most of the country’s ethnic groups. Space for media, civil society and political actors has increased significantly, and in two years’ time Burma will have elections. Sanctions have been lifted, and Burma’s President, Thein Sein, is travelling the world, feted by world leaders. Only this week the BBC World Service became the first international media organisation to deliver news on a mobile platform in Burma, where it has some 8.4 million listeners. Does this not imply that the problem is solved? Is it not time to move on and focus on the world’s other problems?
During a recent visit to Burma it became clear to me that the euphoria is premature, misplaced and profoundly dangerous, a point I made at Question Time earlier today. During that visit, Daw Suu told me—I shall quote her exact words—that some countries are,
“going overboard with optimism, making the government think that it is getting everything right”.
She said that we must be less euphoric and more realistic, and that nations such as ours must get their response right. This should include a rather better and sympathetic understanding of the constraints which are still being placed upon Daw Suu herself.
To explore those issues, I tabled today’s Oral Question and this Question for Short Debate, and I am grateful to all noble Lords who are participating tonight. The focus is on ethnic tensions and the limitations of recent developments. The immediacy of those challenges was underlined by the anti-Muslim violence last week in Lashio in Shan state, which also involved attacks on journalists trying to document what occurred. Mosques, schools and shops had been burnt down, and violence took place in more than 18 townships hundreds of kilometres apart from one another.
As I saw during my visit, partly facilitated by Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and from its reports and those of Human Rights Watch, if the challenges posed by ethnic violence are not addressed, they have the capacity to derail Burma’s evolution from military dictatorship into a plural, federal democracy. I met representatives of the Rohingya and the Kachin, whose home states are the two of the bloodiest theatres of ethnic violence. Over the past year, some 192 people have been killed and 140,000 displaced in Arakan state.
The plight of the Muslim Rohingya people is well documented, most recently by Human Rights Watch in its chilling 150-page report, All You Can Do is Pray. It details mass graves from violence that swept Arakan state in June and October last year. At a meeting on 21 May, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Burma considered that report, along with the first-hand account of Rushanara Ali, the Member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow, who had recently been in Arakan state.
The Rohingya are among the most persecuted and marginalised people in the world, and they are now facing an intensified campaign of ethnic cleansing. This week, Channel 4 highlighted the plight of thousands of displaced Rohingya who have been forced to flee to Thailand, where they are held in deplorable conditions in detention centres. When the Minister comes to reply, I would be grateful if she could tell us what representations have been made specifically arising out of that report by Channel 4.
I first raised the plight of the Rohingya in your Lordships’ House on 17 July 2006, when I urged the Government to co-ordinate an approach to the United Nations, and I asked that that should be done particularly with Islamic countries to raise the plight of the Rohingya and the deplorable conditions in the refugee camps. They are the perfect breeding ground for nurturing a generation of alienated and hostile jihadists. I have repeatedly urged the Government to take action: five parliamentary interventions in 2010, twice more in 2011, again in 2012—and on 28 February this year, I asked the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, whether she would,
“confirm that since 2012, around 5,000 Rohingya Muslim people have been murdered and that many thousands have disappeared”.—[Official Report, 28/2/13; col. 1157.]
I also urged her to mediate a visit by the United Nations special rapporteur on religious liberty to Arakan state. She and I agreed that the Rohingya are living in a system of 21st century apartheid with their citizenship rights having been formally stripped from the constitution. The years, the months and the weeks have passed by, but there has been very little sense of urgency among or a coherent, determined response from the international community.
Six weeks ago, through five further Parliamentary Questions, I again raised the conditions in the camps. I asked about the core issue, the question of the Rohingya claim to citizenship. The Government of Burma need to repeal the 1982 citizenship laws which stripped the Rohingya of their citizenship, rendering them stateless. They need to introduce a new citizenship law in line with international norms. They should also be challenged for trying to impose a two-child policy on the Rohingya, which in the past seven days Daw Suu has described as, “illegal and against human rights”. Perhaps the Minister can tell us whether the Government would be willing to encourage the establishment of two independent inquiries: one through the United Nations to investigate the violence in Arakan state last year and to assess whether crimes against humanity have been committed, a phrase that was used in your Lordships’ Chamber earlier today by the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock; and the other perhaps consisting of independent academics and other experts to assess the historical basis for the claims of the Rohingya in order fully and conclusively to address the claims of the Government of Burma and many in Burmese society that the Rohingya are, as they put it, illegal Bengali immigrants. Years of misinformation about the Rohingya in Burma need to be countered with a full, comprehensive and independent assessment of the history and the facts, if the suffering of the Rohingya is ever to end.
Similarly, as part of a serious peace process, Thein Sein’s Government must end the Burmese army’s offensive against the Kachin people. While it is to be welcomed that the Government of Burma have agreed ceasefires with many of the ethnic armed groups, over the past two years they have inflicted a very serious offensive against the Kachin people in north Burma. Last week, Ban Ki-Moon welcomed the agreement reached between the Government of Myanmar and the Kachin Independence Organisation, calling it a first step towards reconciliation in the country. Perhaps the Minister can share with us the details of the seven-point agreement and her assessment of its durability.
Over the past 18 months, a number of fragile preliminary ceasefires have been agreed. However, there is a need not only for a ceasefire, but for a peace process. As one Karen put it, “A ceasefire is simply pressing the pause button, and we need to find a way to press the stop button”. That can be achieved only through a peace process that involves a meaningful political dialogue with the ethnic nationalities to find a political solution to decades of war.
The military campaign which began two years ago has led to the displacement of 100,000 Kachin civilians, at least 200 villages being burnt to the ground, and 66 churches destroyed. Grave human rights violations have included rape, torture and killings. A recent report by Christian Solidarity Worldwide detailed the story of one Kachin who had been jailed for a year. During his interrogation, he was hung upside down for a day and a night, beaten severely, mutilated with hot knives, and a grenade was shoved into his mouth, his torturers threatening to pull the pin. One Kachin has said that, “The impact of the war this time has been enormous. Many have lost land, plantations, livelihoods ... people are living in the middle of nowhere, hopeless, desperate, suffering”. What are the Government doing to encourage the Government of Burma to develop a serious political dialogue with the ethnic minorities? Those nationalities comprise 40% of the population, inhabit 60% of the land, and live predominantly along the country’s borders in some of the most resource-rich areas that lie along the major trade routes. It is therefore in Burma’s own interests, and those of the international community, to see decades of war end and peace and stability established. That can be achieved only through real political dialogue. So far, the changes on the ground in Burma, welcome though they are, amount primarily to a change of atmosphere rather than a change of system.
I want to end by returning to the recent and shocking rise in religious intolerance, hatred and violence. During my recent visit, I visited a Muslim community in a village called Ayela, two miles from Naypyidaw, which is the new capital. I arrived just three days after a large mob of Buddhists from another area had attacked the village. In this particular case no one was injured or killed, but only because they were able to escape. In many other places, notably Meiktila and Oakkan, there has been appalling loss of life. The tragedy is that, previously, the Buddhists and Muslims had lived together for 200 years. However, someone said to me, “We don’t even dare greet each other in the street”. There are various theories about why this wave of anti-Muslim violence has erupted. I would be interested to know what role the Minister thinks that the militant group known as “969” has played.
I end by saying this. I have made three earlier visits to Burma, the first 15 years ago, illegally into Karen state. I am honorary president of the charity, Karenaid. That I can now visit legally and meet ethnic leaders and democracy activists is a small but welcome harbinger of change. However, the international community has a responsibility to do all it can to help in the effort to bring about fundamental change.
Lord Patten
My Lords, Burma is at grave risk of joining the list of permanent world trouble spots as a failing state. On present trends, it is sinking fast into a terrible cesspit of racial violence and ethnic cleansing, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has just portrayed so graphically; he knows much more about it than I do. I believe that Burma desperately needs three things. First, it needs enlightened and outspoken healing democratic leadership; secondly, it needs a miraculous outbreak—I believe in miracles—of religious understanding and human decency between Buddhist, Muslim and Christian alike; and, thirdly, its people need to recognise that unless they bring about stability, they will fail to hoist themselves out of poverty through economic development, something that is achievable within a generation.
On the first point, with hindsight it seems much easier in Burma, as elsewhere, to foment change out of a repressive regime than to embed the further necessary changes thereafter. Remember the soundbite delights of the so-called Arab spring a couple of years back. Tell that to the Copts in Egypt or the Christians in Iraq or Iran alike. Where are the outright and immediate appeals to human decency from the heroines and heroes of recent political change in Burma? They are sadly but understandably muted so far.
Secondly, there is no evidence at all of an outbreak of religious understanding in the face of Burmese, Burman and Buddhist persecution of Muslims and Christians, increasingly led—surprisingly, as they are religious—by some gung-ho Saffron Revolutionary Monks, such as the Venerable Wirathu, who said after last week’s burnings and killings, which spread on 29 and 30 May to the north-eastern town of Lashio, to which the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has already referred:
“The Rohingya there burned down their own houses so that they could live easily in the refugee camps”.
He then went on to say that the burnings and killings by Buddhist mobs in Meiktila was “forgivable”. The story is similar for the poor Baptists and others in Kachin, who look as though they will face the fate of the Kurds in ever more repressive Turkey, as we have seen in recent days in that country. To an outsider like me, it looks as if the lessons of these recent changes in Burma simply express that it is best not to be a minority of any kind at all. The world community and the Minister need to show a lead in this.
Thirdly, one can only hope that economic change can ride to the rescue as the majority of hard-working, decent Burmese of all religions realise that this increasing endemic violence will prevent their experiencing the rapid advances out of poverty that an Indonesia or a Thailand managed so quickly in a couple of decades. The Burmese could grow their economy by four or five times over the next 25 years with all the inward investment that is needed to build a new deep-water port at Dawei or roads into Thailand. It is a country that I read may soon experience the delights of having a Coca-Cola bottling plant, but it will be among pitiful poverty, with hardly an ATM in sight and hardly any mobile phones or the other things that increasingly power democracy through the messages that they send.
Maybe, in the end, the realisation that they can lift themselves out of poverty will produce that national miracle where there is, as yet, neither much uplifting political leadership or an outbreak of human decency among majority and minority groups. It could well be the engine of social cohesion and national salvation for Burma—something I never thought I would say of economic growth.
Baroness Nye
My Lords, I declare an interest as a board member of the Burma Campaign UK and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for arranging this timely debate and for his tour de force on the situation in Burma now.
As the recent McKinsey Global Institute report says, Burma is an unusual country in that it,
“remains an underdeveloped agrarian economy in the heart of the world’s fastest growing regional economy ... one of the few remaining largely untapped markets in the world”.
It has many potential drivers of growth and areas that foreign investors can target, but foreign investment will succeed only if there is a politically stable environment in which to do business. That means that human rights cannot be ignored in the rush to be in at the beginning of an expanding economy.
Following some initial positive steps by the Burmese Government in April 2012, the EU decided to suspend economic sanctions, which had gradually been introduced over the past 20 years. However, the EU specified four human rights benchmarks that would need to be met as a way of marking progress before it would consider lifting sanctions entirely. But two months ago the EU did lift sanctions entirely, seemingly without any regard to those benchmarks at all, as most human rights organisations report that the situation has deteriorated. I hope the Minister will agree tonight to publish any review of the benchmarks the Government have conducted which showed that they had been met, and explain why the Government did not support proportionality or a gradual suspension as and when those criteria had been met.
Take the issue of political prisoners, which is being kept under constant review by the Burma Campaign UK. The release of political prisoners has been used repeatedly by President Thein Sein to coincide with a foreign visit to show that reform is ongoing. None of those released prisoners has received any kind of medical care, compensation or acknowledgement that they should not have been in jail in the first place. They still have criminal records with their sentences suspended and no full pardons, not the unconditional release referred to in the EU benchmark statement. Those released are still subject to restrictions on their freedom, including on travel and future political activity. The repressive laws that sent them to jail in the first place are still in place so, as the already incarcerated are released, more are arrested. The UN special rapporteur, after his visit in February, highlighted not only the ongoing detention of political prisoners but the increasing reports of the use of torture.
The Burmese Government have set up a review committee but questions remain about its composition, mandate, timing and lack of independent international experts. Will the Minister update us on whether the Government have confidence that this committee will finally resolve the issue of political prisoners in Burma? I fear the families of the remaining and the newly arrested political prisoners would beg to differ.
The second benchmark was to end conflict but throughout last year, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, said, the conflict in Kachin deteriorated, with the Burmese army using air strikes on civilians and rape and sexual violence as weapons of terror. With the signing of the seven-point agreement in recent days, there appears to be the basis of a genuine process of reconciliation in Kachin, which is to be welcomed. However, those 75,000 displaced people in Kachin still urgently need humanitarian assistance, which brings us to the third benchmark.
Agencies are still reporting difficulties in gaining access to the IDP camps in Rakhine, and to Kachin and Shan. The situation will get worse for the people in those camps in the low-lying areas during the approaching rainy season. However, as noble Lords have said, the most disturbing development last year was the violence against the Muslim and Rohingya communities. Indeed, on the very day that sanctions were lifted due to the satisfactory progress that the EU decided had been made, Human Rights Watch issued a damning report which documented crimes against humanity and the ethnic cleansing of Rohingya Muslims.
After the violence in Rahkine, the President called for the “illegal Rohingya” to be sent to third countries and transferred civilian power to the military in a state of emergency that was extended last month. The recent news that the 1994 ban on Rohingya having more than two children is being enforced again is a clear violation of their human rights. Does the Minister accept the evidence of the Human Rights Watch report that ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity are happening in Burma?
Concentrating on the economic opportunities that Burma offers, without parallel regard to human rights issues, means that progress on reform can stall. The exit of Vodafone from bidding to become Burma’s first foreign mobile phone company after seeing the final licence conditions shows the perils of companies trying to do business before the country relaxes its controls on access to information and freedom of expression.
In a recent debate on Europe in this House the Minister applauded,
“the intelligent use of sanctions, which in the case of Burma have been attributed as one of the most effective levers in encouraging the regime to implement democratic change”.—[Official Report, 31/1/13; col. 1695.]
I therefore look forward to hearing from the Minister about what changed her and the Government’s mind about the effectiveness of those levers. As an editorial in the Daily Telegraph—not a newspaper I usually agree with—said, on the day that sanctions were lifted:
“Mr Hague and his EU colleagues have now cast aside all their sticks, leaving themselves with no option but to rely on the regime’s goodwill”.
In the absence of those sanctions, what is the policy of the British Government towards the achievement of human rights in Burma?
Lord Williams of Baglan
My Lords, I, too, welcome this debate and commend the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for initiating it and also for his long-standing interest in human rights in Burma. I first visited Burma in 1988, a few months after the suppression of the student revolt, which left many thousands of students killed. Brave students—braver than me—whom I met faced subsequent harassment and in many cases imprisonment. I worked then for Amnesty International.
I have visited Burma many times since, most recently in 2008, following Cyclone Nargis, which ravished the country and claimed more than 140,000 lives. Terrible though that tragedy was, it may well have been a turning point in modern Burmese history, forcing a reluctant and harsh regime to recognise that it could not cope with the scale of the disaster.
When I last visited, 12 months ago, I found a county much changed, despite the continuing human rights violations that the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and others have addressed this evening. That transformation is, I believe, the most significant in South East Asia since the ousting of President Suharto of Indonesia in 1998. Over the past 18 months, we have seen significant progress, although it remains one of the poorest countries in the region and one with a human rights record which, to say the least, needs to be addressed and improved greatly. There has been dialogue between Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein. The sweeping victories of the opposition National League for Democracy in by-elections last April were described by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as,
“a dramatic demonstration of popular will”.
Two weeks ago, in the White House, President Obama received President Thein Sein. As President Obama recognised, the scale of the challenge facing Burma, in a difficult transition to more representative governance, is enormous. The country and its Government need all the international assistance, as well as pressure, that they can receive.
I commend our Government for the support that they have given to Myanmar and its people. In that regard, I believe that Prime Minister Cameron’s visit in 2012 was critically important and I wonder whether the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, has any news of a return visit by President Thein Sein, when many of the issues that have been brought up here this evening could be addressed. I commend the Government for what they are doing; in particular, DfID’s support in assisting the process of ethnic reconciliation. Can the noble Baroness also say more in that regard? I believe that the UK can, and should, play an important role and am especially pleased by the current visit of the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir David Richards. I hope that that visit will lead soon to the appointment of a British military attaché in Yangon. Any news on that would be welcome. The Burmese Government have agreed to many ceasefires—or, more appropriately, cessation of hostilities—over the years but they lack the will and the capability to transform those tenuous agreements into lasting political accords.
Several days ago, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, mentioned, the Government and the Kachin Independence Organisation agreed a seven-point peace pact. For the first time, in a striking development, the UN Secretary-General’s special envoy, Mr Vijay Nambiar, was present during that meeting. I hope that that is perhaps an indication of a greater involvement by the UN in helping Burma in this difficult task of ethnic reconciliation. The most difficult aspect of that at the moment, as has been rightly addressed, is the situation affecting the Muslim population of Rakhine state. The UK must follow that situation closely, and guard against further substantial breaches of human rights, but I believe that, equally and at the same time, we must tread a difficult path and support Burma’s leadership —Aung San Suu Kyi and President Thein Sein—in the very difficult path along which they are trying to advance their country.
Baroness Jenkin of Kennington
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Alton, on securing this important debate and pay tribute to his active interest in, and commitment to, the cause of freedom and human rights around the world, including in Burma.
I make no claim to any expertise on this specific subject, but I declare an interest for four reasons. First, I hope to visit Burma next month with the All-Party Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health—unless of course my visa is refused as a result of my contribution to this debate. Secondly, I co-chaired the Conservative Friends of International Development. I recognise that Burma is a major recipient of British aid but it is in need of even more humanitarian assistance. Thirdly, I am contributing to this debate having met and talked to Benedict Rogers, deputy chair of the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission and a well known Burma specialist, who has visited Burma many times, most recently with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in March. Fourthly, last summer I put my name to a letter to the Daily Telegraph, along with noble Lords from across the Chamber, expressing concern about the desperate plight of the Rohingya people. We called for emergency aid to all the victims of violence in Rakhine state, pressure on Bangladesh to allow refugees fleeing persecution across its borders, pressure on the Government of Burma to stop the violence, a serious effort to revise, or repeal, the 1982 citizenship law, which stripped the Rohingyas of citizenship, and a new citizenship law in line with international human rights norms. I repeat those calls today.
I echo many of the points already raised in this debate. Although it is indeed absolutely right to recognise the extraordinary and welcome changes taking place in Burma, to encourage further reform and to open a hand of friendship to the people of Burma as the country opens up and moves towards freedom, it is also essential that we recognise that Burma is just at the very beginning of change, that the early signs of increasing freedom are fragile and that there are many grave challenges still to be addressed.
In the time available, I wish to focus my remarks on a couple of these challenges. First, as others have already noted in depth, the recent anti-Muslim violence is of serious concern. Clearly, there are attitudes within parts of Burmese society that are deeply troubling and need to be addressed through public education and inter-religious dialogue. Such efforts must be encouraged at grass-roots levels, as well as at a national level. However, more urgently, it must be a priority for the international community to urge the President and his Government to end the climate of impunity and to ensure that the security forces act swiftly, effectively and fairly to prevent violence, stop violence when it is occurring, protect vulnerable communities and bring the perpetrators of hatred and violence to justice. Can my noble friend give her assessment of the Burmese Government’s response to these crises and say what concrete steps Her Majesty’s Government are taking to address these serious concerns with the Burmese Government?
Secondly, I am very pleased that Britain has continued to increase aid to Burma and has been the largest single donor to the country. That is a record to be proud of. I am also pleased that, as part of our aid to Burma, Britain has provided humanitarian assistance to displaced people within the country and along the borders. However, as my noble friend will know, there are two areas which are in particular need of further and urgent assistance: Kachin state and Rakhine state. The war in Kachin state has displaced at least 100,000 people and left more than 200 villages destroyed. In Rakhine state, more than 130,000 people, mainly Rohingyas, have been displaced and are living in camps which the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, described six months ago as “dire”. Will my noble friend tell the House what efforts Her Majesty’s Government are making to secure unrestricted access for international humanitarian aid to all displaced peoples in Kachin and Rakhine states, including those outside government-controlled territory, and what contribution Britain is making to the needs of displaced people in these areas?
I wish to end with one of the most serious challenges in Burma and an issue that should be at the centre of Her Majesty’s Government’s focus on the country, given that it is a personal priority of the Foreign Secretary: sexual violence and rape as a weapon of war. Over the past decade, hundreds of cases of rape and sexual violence have been documented by women’s organisations in six different states. Of the cases of rape that have been documented, almost half are women who were raped and also killed. In Kachin state, many women have been raped during the conflict over the past two years. According to an article in the Guardian in February, Muslim Rohingya women, including teenagers, were raped. Will my noble friend tell the House what plans the Government have to ensure that Burma is included in the Foreign Secretary’s preventing sexual violence initiative?
Baroness Cox
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Alton on his tireless work for oppressed people and his commitment to obtain first-hand evidence, enabling him to introduce this debate with characteristic authority, knowledge and concern. I will focus on my experience of recent visits to the Shan and Kachin peoples and meetings with representatives of the Rohingya, Karen and Karenni ethnic nationals. Of course I also welcome reforms, including the freedom of the iconic democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and the release of several hundred political prisoners, although hundreds more remain in prison. But all ethnic national peoples share fears that reforms may be used by the Burmese Government to further their own agenda, including more exploitation of their resource-rich lands. When I was in Shan state with my NGO, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, or HART, one of the Shan leaders said:
“When the lights went on in Rangoon, all the world rushed to Rangoon; no-one stopped to see us in the darkness”.
The UN Human Rights Council resolution on Burma passed in March highlighted many aspects of the darkness, including,
“arbitrary detention, forced displacement, land confiscations, rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as well as violations of international humanitarian law”.
These violations of human rights and military offensives against civilians have forced hundreds of thousands of ethnic nationals to flee their homes to live in destitution as IDPs or into exile in neighbouring lands. I appreciate the visit by Minister Hugo Swire to the Rohingya people in Rakhine state but, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Alton and other noble Lords, their plight remains dire with an increase in anti-Muslim propaganda, attacks on communities and the destruction of mosques, homes and businesses. The condition of those who have had to flee into camps is desperate, with many dying from lack of medical care or other essentials.
In Kachin state in June 2011 the Burmese Army broke a 17-year-long ceasefire with military offensives, including aerial bombardment of civilians and widespread violations of human rights such as extra-judicial killings, rape and torture. We in HART visited Kachin state in February and we saw the suffering of the people, 100,000 of whom have had to flee from aerial bombardment and ground defences. We visited some of them living in destitution in makeshift camps along the border with China and we heard gruesome accounts of brutality inflicted on civilians. In Shan state fighting continues in the north and the Burmese Government continue exploitation of this resource-rich land. During our last visit to Shan state we met civilians who had to flee their lands because of military offensives by the Burmese army or expropriation of their land by deals made by the Burmese Government with foreign investors, such as the pipeline being built from India to China which has driven countless Shan civilians off their lands with derisory or no compensation. We met one lady in a camp for Shan IDPs who had lost absolutely everything. All she had left were the ragged clothes she was wearing, and she was one of many.
Given the gravity of the suffering of these ethnic national peoples, there is widespread concern over the Burmese Government’s refusal to allow access to international aid organisations, a point that has been raised by other noble Lords. Other ethnic national peoples who have signed cease-fire agreements, such as the Karen, emphasise that those ceasefires are used by the Burmese Government to extend roads into their lands, for possible future hostile military activities or to increase the expropriation of their natural resources, such as teak and other forms of timber. Although the Kachin leadership and the Government have resumed talks, as has been mentioned by other noble Lords, this is also simply seen as a precursor to a ceasefire and not real peace. The Burmese Government have a sorry record of brokering and breaking ceasefires.
Following the lifting of EU sanctions, what specific tools, mechanisms and leverage do the EU and the UK have to encourage and pressure the Government of Burma to address these grave concerns of the ethnic national peoples and to establish a genuine lasting peace process leading to a political agreement enshrining justice and equality for all peoples of Burma? Finally, what progress is there in encouraging the Government of Burma to sign and ratify the international covenant on civil and political rights, and will the UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief visit Burma with an assurance of unhindered access to all parts?
I conclude by referring back to the words of the Shan leader:
“When the lights went on in Rangoon, all the world rushed to Rangoon; no-one stopped to see us in the darkness”.
I hope the Minister’s replies tonight will prove that the UK Government have stopped to visit them in the darkness and will do all in their power to prevail on the Burmese Government to bring them into the light of genuine peace, freedom, justice and equality as citizens of Burma.
Baroness Berridge
My Lords, when faced with such expert eye witnesses to the tragic facts on the ground in Burma as those of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, it is hard to know what to add. But for outside observers I suspect the abiding image is the satellite photo from late last year that so clearly showed the destruction in Rakhine state. A picture does indeed speak more than 1,000 words. I will concentrate on the proposed international and domestic actions which could assist in bringing to an end the ethnic and religious intolerance against the Rohingya people. I declare an interest as the chair of the All-Party Group on International Religious Freedom.
At international institutional level in the UN and the OIC there has been much debate around international religious freedom as outlined in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Unfortunately, the events in Burma bring sharply into focus the distinction between protecting individuals’ human rights, which is what Article 18 enshrines, and protecting religions—in this case Buddhism—which is not what Article 18 protects. The UN and member states need to show in this situation that they can use soft power, institutional mechanisms and financial pressure to protect the Rohingya Muslim population. I had the privilege of accompanying the Minister on a trip to Srebrenica in 2009. Of course there is a different dynamic for the UN when you are actually physically present as an atrocity such as Srebrenica occurs. But bearing in mind the situation in Syria, I sense that there is a particular need for the international institutions, especially the UN, to show that they can effectively protect a Muslim population like the Rohingyas. Can the Minister tell this House whether there is a danger of extremists influencing Burma’s Muslims from neighbouring nations if the UN fails to act to protect the Rohingya people? Also, could she outline, due to her role in the Department for Communities and Local Government, whether she has received representations from British Muslims on this issue? Nowadays there are very few international issues that do not have a potential domestic dimension.
Although ethnic and religious issues are not always separable, it is clear from the propaganda of the Buddhist monk Wirathu and the 969 campaign that there is a religious dimension to these atrocities. It is sad to note that with the Rohingya people there is almost certainly a racial dimension as well. There is mention made in news reports such as in the Guardian in April 2013 that Wirathu’s teachings have large followings on YouTube and Facebook, but does the Minister know if these followings are in Burma as well? I join with the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in congratulating the BBC World Service for being the first international news service to broadcast from a mobile platform in Burma where there are now estimated to be 4 million mobile phone subscribers. But highly developed states struggle with the issue of the boundaries of freedom of expression on new technology. How are the Burmese Government coping with this issue and might some simple assistance with monitoring and removing footage have a huge effect and assist long-term peaceful co-existence between Burma’s religious communities?
I would particularly value my noble friend’s assurance that Her Majesty’s Government will request an urgent visit by the UN special rapporteur on international religious freedom, not just to report on the current violations but to look at how a long-term strategy can be developed so that all Burmese people are respected as equal human beings, enjoy citizenship and live under the rule of law. Perhaps also the UN special rapporteur could be asked to look at the use of new technology in promoting religious hatred. There is much that can be done by the UK Government. Between 2011 and 2015 £187 million of UK taxpayers’ money will be spent on aid, according to DfID’s operational plan for Burma. In that plan there is a section entitled “Alignment to DfID and wider UK Government priorities” and the Minister has been prioritising the work on international religious freedom and Article 18. This alignment section does not mention her priorities and as it is clear that there are violations of Article 18 on the ground in Burma, should this not be reflected in DfID’s plan? DfID support is given not to the Burmese Government but only through United Nations organisations and trusted international and local NGOs. Is Her Majesty’s Government ensuring that the UN and these NGOs which are spending UK aid are funding work that assists the understanding of religious freedom at community level with Burmese citizens?
No one expects overnight transformation in Burma. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is not a miracle worker and mature institutions of a democratic state take decades, even centuries, to form. But I do not believe with all the plaudits the world has given to the Burmese leaders and the aid and the investment that is now flowing in that asking them not to oversee or even assist in the annihilation of certain religious and racial communities is too much to ask.
Lord Triesman
My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Alton. This debate takes place at a point where it is hard to make completely clear judgments because the evidence has not, as yet, pointed conclusively in any one direction. I found the latest report by the special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar particularly helpful. I know it is unedited, but it was published on 6 March and is therefore very recent. It is an attempt at a balanced review, occasioned, it appears to me, by a wish to give encouragement to former prisoners of conscience and to sustain, and even increase, their remarkable and brave efforts.
When Aung San Suu Kyi visited our Parliament, the admiration felt for her was evident. The facts that she was no longer a prisoner, she was active in political life in Burma and that she was able to speak and publish very widely were all powerful signs of progress. Her measured optimism was an encouragement and from what I heard of what she said, I conclude that she was not overoptimistic. She is plainly wholly seized of the massive issues in democratic life, the continued violence against opponents of the Government, their military leadership’s actions, the deadly assaults that still continue and the cultural subjugation of minority peoples. In part because of what she had to say and in part because of the changes that we can observe, we have also tended to add qualified encouragement. Earlier today the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, invited the Government to recognise the progress that has been made, and in a way, he is right, as is the noble Lord, Lord Williams, tonight. I know they are both far too wise to believe that things are now okay or may not go into reverse. None the less, as the noble Lord, Lord Williams, said this evening, ceasefires, prisoner releases and so on are welcome.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, invites us to ask whether it is reasonable enough for us to look at both sides of this balance sheet rather more acutely and without any euphoria. Uncritical optimism is not a policy. Last September, the President of Burma said that changes are irreversible. Is that true? Eight amnesties have freed about 850 prisoners of conscience, but there are certainly in excess of 250 still in prison, and it is unclear to me why any kind of special committee is needed to oversee the process of their release. Does the Minister know the rationale? How have representations made by the Government about medical help for current and past prisoners or those who are in the revolving door of repeated arrests been received? Do the Government think that the Burmese authorities will ratify CAT and OPCAT and, if so, when? Do the Government regard this, as I would, as a benchmark test for eradicating the torture of detainees and others? How have the Burmese Government reacted to representations that we have made on the impropriety of imprisoning peaceful demonstrators? I know there have been improvements in this area, but there have also been significant lurches backwards.
Have the Government made representations on illegal land seizures and, if so, with what response? How much progress does the Minister believe has been made by the national planning authority on the pledge that has been made to halve the rate of poverty? My noble friend Lady Nye and the noble Lord, Lord Patten, have illustrated the economic potential, if it were to be grasped. Does the Minister have an estimate, which has been recommended several times in the past by the UN Commission on Human Rights, of when universal education for younger children—their human right, if I can put it that way—might be achieved?
I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, this evening for her report on her recent visit and also to the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for her proposals. The noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, made a very powerful statement on this. I, too, note with deep apprehension the reports of every kind of vile atrocity suffered by ethnic minorities in Burma. The announcement in the joint statement of work on de-escalation between the authorities and the KIO on 6 February is an important step, and China is to be thanked for the constructive hosting of the talks on Kachin state.
The crisis in Rakhine state raises the same deep apprehensions. Blame is attributed by both sides to each other. The offer by the UN of an independent investigation is welcome, but removal of the violent assaults and killings in the wider Rohingya community is surely the starting point before there is any prospect of a serious discussion on a federal outcome. I am with the noble Lord, Lord Patten, and my noble friend Lady Nye in asking this question—I hope I am not putting words in their mouth. Does the Minister agree that we are witnessing, in the words that they carefully chose to use, ethnic cleansing?
I appreciate the typically thoughtful statement by Hugo Swire MP, the Minister responsible for Burma. He is right to emphasise that our Government’s action must go beyond lobbying. The noble Lord, Lord Williams, called for a much wider and more active UK role. Policy will, as Mr Swire said, evolve, but I urge a process somewhat faster than evolution, which is a slow process. Let us include active sponsorship of ethnic reconciliation, no impunity and closer co-operation with China on these matters. Their roles, alongside the bravery of the opposition, should be at the forefront of all our involvement. Finally, if progress stalls, will we press for the reinstatement of sanctions?
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for once again calling a timely and important debate. Burma is going through a complex political and economic reform process. It will take time and requires scrutiny, support and guidance from the UK and like-minded partners in the international community to realise the full benefits of what Burma can become. It is not simply a matter of relying on evolution, which the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, referred to; it is about going further and using every opportunity to make sure that Burma is heading in the right direction.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, who has visited the country, described horrific incidents, but he noted the progress that is being made. Perhaps the most visible is the growth in freedom of expression, including for NGOs and civil society. People are now able to buy a wide selection of newspapers, and civil society is active. We provide funding to support this, which includes a number of initiatives that strengthen civil society. For example, later this month, we will be hosting prominent former political prisoners from the 88 Generation who are coming to the United Kingdom.
Moves have been made to bring about an end to the internal conflict that has blighted the country since independence. The Burmese Government have signed ceasefires with eight of the 11 ethnic armed groups. We welcome last week’s potentially significant agreement with the Kachin Independence Organisation to begin political dialogue and work to cease hostilities. We continue to support the Government and the representatives of the ethnic groups to reach robust and sustainable peace agreements through a political process. Recently we hosted visits from ethnic leaders and the Burmese Government to share our experiences of peacemaking in Northern Ireland, but I take noble Lords’ points when they say that this has to move beyond peace agreements into real reconciliation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, and the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, asked specifically about political prisoners. There have been releases of large numbers of political prisoners, the establishment of a mechanism to review political prisoner cases and, for the first time in many years, the International Committee of the Red Cross now has access to Burma’s jails. The Foreign Secretary pressed the Burmese Foreign Minister in February to release all political prisoners. We note President Thein Sein’s statement on 4 June that all prisoners of conscience will be released soon. This is an optimistic statement and one that we will continue to monitor closely to ensure that progress is made. We particularly welcome his clear commitment not to enforce Section 401, under which released political prisoners can be returned to jail to serve the remainder of their original sentence. We have always emphasised that releases of political prisoners should be unconditional and we are pleased that the Burmese Government have publicly confirmed that they share that view. We will also continue to follow up on cases of reported abuse in Burma’s jails and we raise individual cases of political prisoners when we have the opportunity.
The noble Baroness, Lady Nye, also raised the two-child policy. Aung San Suu Kyi has said that any enforcement of a two-child policy would be discriminatory and not in line with the upholding of human rights in Burma. The British embassy in Rangoon is raising our serious concerns with Burmese Government Ministers citing the human rights obligations to which the Burmese Government have signed up. A presidential spokesman said earlier this week that the central government did not announce the Rohingya two-child policy—this was something that was being done on a local level and they would be looking into it.
In relation to political reform, Aung San Suu Kyi has, of course, now taken a seat in Burma’s Parliament. It was an amazing moment when we all welcomed her at the Houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall. She is now building alliances across the political spectrum to drive reform forward. We welcome the announcement on 20 March that the Burmese Parliament will establish a committee to review the constitution. This is a crucial next phase in underpinning the wider political reforms. We are funding work to strengthen the capacity of the Burmese Parliament, an institution vital for deepening democratic politics. Over the past six months we have hosted Burmese parliamentarians from the Public Accounts Committee and the Bills Committee.
The issue of sanctions was raised by a number of noble Lords. I think I raised this matter in some detail in an Answer to noble Lords at Oral Questions earlier today. In the context of the ongoing political transition, on 22 April the EU lifted all sanctions on Burma except for the arms embargo which remains in place. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary made clear at the time that our work in Burma is not remotely finished. The judgment of the UK and of all EU member states supported by Aung San Suu Kyi is that Burma’s remaining challenges are now best dealt with not through sanctions but through deeper engagement.
We will continue to be a constructive, supportive and critical partner to Burma, committed to supporting the reform efforts that have started. Our vision is for Burma to become a prosperous, stable, peaceful and more democratic country with respect for human rights and the dignity of all people. Without that respect for all people, this vision of Burma will not become a reality. Guided by these principles we remain concerned by a number of issues that the Government of Burma must address in order to sustain the momentum of the reform process.
Most specifically there is the issue of Rakhine state and the human rights abuses there, which were referred to by a number of noble Lords. We are extremely concerned by allegations of these abuses during the violence last year which was documented by Human Rights Watch and the UN special rapporteur. The Rakhine commission set up to investigate the causes of last year’s violence emphasised the importance of ensuring accountability and the president has endorsed this but these commitments now need to be translated into action. We continue to press the Burmese Government to bring to justice all those accused of having instigated, incited or carried out violence in Rakhine state. This accountability needs to be delivered in a way that is transparent, credible and in line with international standards. The EU-sponsored resolution at the March 2013 UN Human Rights Council mandated the special rapporteur to continue to report on human rights in Burma for another year. It drew specific attention to the need for accountability. OHCHR staff are currently on the ground in Rakhine state monitoring the human rights situation and we are lobbying the Burmese Government to open a country office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights with a strong mandate which allows it to monitor the human rights situation in all parts of the country.
On the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Nye, on whether ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity took place in Rakhine in 2012, further independent investigative work would be required for an informed assessment as to whether ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity have been committed.
My noble friend Lady Jenkin raised the issue of humanitarian aid and assistance. On humanitarian assistance, we have continued to call for unhindered access to conflict-affected areas at every opportunity. I raised this with Aung Min, the Minister for the President’s Office, when he visited the UK on 15 April. The Minister of State for Asia, Hugo Swire, raised with the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, when they met last week the need for improved humanitarian aid co-ordination. Ministers announced a further £4.4 million in aid to Rakhine on 15 May and we are giving £3.5 million to Kachin and have given £600,000 to support the Shan Women’s Action Network in Shan state. Our total commitment over the four years up to 2015 will amount to £187 million.
The issue of Rohingya citizenship was raised by a number of noble Lords. This remains fundamental to resolving their statelessness. We have consistently said that there needs to be a sustainable solution to citizenship for the Rohingya community, consistent with ensuring their human rights. I pressed senior Burmese Ministers on this in April and will continue to make the point. The Rohingya community, most of whom have lived in Burma for many generations, should be entitled to citizenship in line with Burma’s current legal framework. Any further independent work into the origins of the Rohingya community could have value on the question of their citizenship. We are in close contact with the UN which is reviewing the 1982 citizenship law to assess whether it is consistent with international treaties to which Burma is a signatory. Noble Lords will be familiar with the arguments that are made against the granting of citizenship in relation to the length of stay in a country, the look apparently of the people and the minority religious background. The irony of that argument was lost in light of the fact that they were discussing the matter with me.
The wider violence against religious minorities, which has affected other parts of Burma, is also a serious concern. Attacks against the Muslim community in Meiktila and other areas have led to deaths and the destruction of mosques, madrassahs, businesses and homes. The violence in Shan state last week has shown that there is still much more to do to prevent further outbreaks. As is the case with the violence in Rakhine state, the Burmese Government must ensure, in line with statements made by the president, that those guilty of acts of violence are held accountable. We are this week sending out a mission to assess what help is needed to improve the capacity of the police force so that it can sensitively and effectively deal with civil unrest and better protect minority communities.
The noble Lord, Lord Alton, raised the issue of an impartial investigation. An international inquiry would be most effective if it had the support of all parties. The issue of Rakhine is under discussion at the moment at the current Human Rights Council and we are engaging with other countries as to whether this is something we could take forward. The noble Lord also raised the issue of the two-child policy. I think I dealt with that matter earlier. He also raised the issue of the militant group 969. There is evidence to show that the violence was organised. I do not have the information to attribute it to one group at this stage. The noble Lord referred to the Channel 4 report asking what representations we had made, I think, to the Thai Government. We have lobbied them and asked them to ensure that they adhere to international protocols governing the treatment of refugees. We have also asked them to ensure that full access to detained Rohingya refugees is given to international migration organisations and the UN. I am more familiar with the Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh who I visited on my last visit.
My noble friend Lord Patten raised the issue of trade. I agree with him. We have put responsible investment at the heart of our future commercial relationship with Burma. We want to encourage investment that will benefit local communities and respect the local environment. He is right that if we give some people a stake in what could be a more prosperous future for all, it could help with some of these tensions.
The noble Lord, Lord Williams, raised the question of whether the president could visit the United Kingdom. We have asked President Thein Sein to visit the UK and we hope that it will be soon. That could be an opportunity again to raise these matters. The noble Lord also raised the issue of the visit by General Richards. I can tell the noble Lord that the UK now has a non-resident defence attaché who was appointed in February this year. A resident defence attaché will be in place, we hope, by November this year if it is agreed by the Burmese Government. That again could help with that relationship building.
My noble friend Lady Jenkin asked about PSVI. Over the summer the British embassy in Rangoon will be scoping options for increasing UK engagement and embedding PSVI approaches to tackle sexual violence in Burma.
My noble friend Lady Berridge specifically spoke of freedom of religion and belief. She asked a number of questions about which I will write to her in detail. To address the issue of radicalisation, we are concerned, both in relation to issues of radicalisation of the Burmese Muslim community, where the narrative has been fed in that they are a group that has been left to suffer in this way while other people stand by, and in relation to concerns among British Muslims, given how the issue of the Rohingyas could be used as a recruiting sergeant by radicals and extremists in this country. It is something we are acutely aware of and in discussions with the Home Office about.
In conclusion, after almost half a century of repression, the past two years have seen Burma make rapid progress towards the goal of a freer and more democratic nation but there is still much more to do. In order to achieve greater democracy Burma must deal with the ethnic conflicts it faces and tackle discrimination against its minority groups. We will continue to engage with the Burmese Government to shape the process of this reform and we want the UK to contribute with meaningful and targeted assistance. Above all, we will ensure that human rights, preventing further violence and ethnic reconciliation remain high on the agenda and, to respond directly to the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, we will not stop looking for, speaking of, or supporting those who are still left in the dark.
Offender Rehabilitation Bill [HL]
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Beecham
“Probation service reform: Parliamentary approval
No alteration or reform may be made to the structure of the probation service unless the proposals have been laid before Parliament, and approved by resolution of, both Houses of Parliament.”
Lord Beecham
My Lords, we now come to the black hole in this legislation. Astonishingly, given the scale of the changes proposed for a major national public service, the Bill does not deal with the proposed restructuring of probation. It is quite remarkable that this should be the case.
I have complained from time to time about the Government’s habit of engaging in pre-legislative implementation. What they are doing to probation is, in fact, worse: they appear to be about to implement their proposals without any legislation at all. What we see in the Bill is a series of consequences of their proposals rather than a proposal. This is in connection with a service which has met and exceeded all its targets, which won the British Quality Foundation gold medal for excellence for its achievements over many years and which has very high ratings from those with whom it has to deal: 98% of victims approve of the work of the probation service in the feedback that they have supplied and 82% of supervisions were completed satisfactorily. The record on the timeliness of reports to courts was as high as 99%. Only just under 50%—49%—of what is by any standards a difficult client group were placed in employment after serving their probation order.
Yet the Government now propose a massive change which will effectively exclude around half the work of the probation service from its future deployment. Some 70,000 cases will be effectively privatised. The probation service will be unable, in its present form, to bid to carry out the work which the Government have determined will be subjected to competitive tendering.
The service has done well in reducing reoffending. The Secretary of State has drawn attention to the reoffending rates. He has noted that, for those serving sentences of less than 12 months, reoffending rates have been rising. We have heard today about the scale of the problem of that group. Of course, that is a group for which the probation service has no responsibility. Where it has responsibility, for those with longer sentences, it has done extremely well in reducing reoffending. The Government propose effectively first to nationalise and then virtually to privatise most of the probation service. They will centralise control. Probation trusts will disappear. There will be 21 areas in which the work will now be carried out by tendering. This will mean that much of the work currently carried out by the probation service, and all the work on short-sentence offenders which has not been carried out by the probation service but which the Bill seeks to address—I repeat that we welcome that—will now be carried out on a contractual basis.
There are many concerns about that. Certainly, one of the effects is likely to be a reduction in the degree to which justice is local along with greater difficulties for voluntary organisations wanting to be involved in the work. There would effectively be a binary system of risk, with categories of low and medium risk to be dealt with by organisations other than the probation service, but with the probation service being responsible for high-risk cases. Of course, this appears to ignore the fact that there is movement between the categories. Around 25% of offenders will change from one category to another, many of them becoming higher-risk.
The proposals will clearly lead to confusion. There is a risk, to which I shall return in greater detail when we discuss an amendment specifically dealing with the issue of risk, of the public lacking the protection that a properly administered probation service can afford in the 15,000 or so cases a year that move into the higher risk category. As we shall explore later, it is very difficult to see how those cases will be effectively managed.
We need a proper legislative framework for this exercise of transferring responsibility into the private sector. The Government display, as usual, a touching faith in the competence of the private sector but their record in this area of justice is not very convincing. There have been the huge profits made in relation to an inefficient and inadequate system of tagging, with many failures of the system and a great cost to the public purse. The Minister will no doubt say that that has been changed, that there will be new equipment, and so on. Be that as it may, the original providers certainly did very well for themselves but not very well in relation to the purposes for which they were contracted. Just yesterday we heard the appalling news about the young offender institution run by Serco, one of those massive organisations that purport to be able to do everything anywhere. It was a terrible report on the mistreatment of offenders in a young offender institution.
The unwavering determination of the Government to move from public provision to private provision potentially poses a risk to the interests of the community in matters of safety. We need a proper legislative framework if there is to be any change in the probation service. We need reassurances about a whole range of issues and we need parliamentary approval for a scheme which may bring changes to the probation service, a service that is highly successful.
The purpose of Amendment 20 in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and myself is to seek to ensure that any change in the probation service will take place only after the full details have been discussed and approved by Parliament, rather than by executive order or, as it may be, by statutory instrument. This is so important that it deserves to be dealt with by primary legislation. That would certainly be my preference. At the moment we do not have the details and I do not think that the Government have worked them out. They are rushing to implement this programme. Mr Grayling wants things in place in time for the general election. This is too important an issue to be rushed in this way, especially when they are doing so behind the curtain.
We have seen many changes to major public services under the present Government. The health service is in turmoil, despite all the warnings and a very long legislative process. There is a grave risk that we shall see something similar in terms of the impact on the service if the Government press ahead with untested, undebated and unapproved legislation to change what has been a very successful service. I hope that the Government will think again about this. I hope they will see the force of having their proposals properly scrutinised, debated and approved, if that is what Parliament wishes. At the moment, it does not look as though Parliament will have that opportunity, and that simply is not good enough. I beg to move.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, I need the guidance of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, on the correct pronunciation of the word “chutzpah”.
Lord McNally
Glottal or not, that is an extraordinary piece of chutzpah. He knows full well that the powers that we are taking to reorganise the probation service were embedded in his Government’s 2007 Act. It is interesting to recall that during the passage of that Bill through the House of Lords, the issue of parliamentary scrutiny of orders creating, abolishing or amending probation trusts was highly controversial. Originally the Bill did not include any parliamentary scrutiny but the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee identified it as an issue for further investigation. My noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns tabled an amendment successfully introducing the affirmative resolution procedure to this clause in the Lords. The then Government overturned the amendment during ping-pong by tabling their own concessionary amendment providing for the negative resolution procedure on the basis that that would provide sufficient scrutiny without unduly taking up parliamentary time.
That is the background. Nothing was done behind the curtain or anywhere else. No one has ever heard me, from this Dispatch Box or anywhere else, attack the record of the probation service. The probation service does an excellent job, and I hope it has a very clear future ahead of it with a national role. However, we have to ask whether these things could be done better and more efficiently. As well as the successes of the probation service, we have had as a background to this debate the very disturbing levels of reoffending. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beecham; the private sector will be very much on trial during this period. We in government who have been preparing the contracts and guidelines for this new partnership will have to work very hard to make sure that they are watertight in terms of delivering value for the taxpayer.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, we are in Committee and it is 9 pm, so I certainly will not press an amendment on this occasion. However, I must say that I am not persuaded by the arguments, such as they were, put forward by the noble Lord. At a fairly early stage in his reply he spoke of the savings that would be generated by the experience of the private sector. However, the private sector does not have experience of running probation. Serco, Group 4 and all these huge outfits which purport to be able to run all kinds of things, from the Olympic Games to prisons and many other services besides, do not have experience of running probation.
It is far from clear from the impact analysis, about which we heard earlier, what the financial implications will be. The noble Lord says that there will be a good relationship with the voluntary sector. That was part of the message that the Secretary of State used to sell the Work Programme in his previous job. So successful was that scheme that some 3.5% of people on unemployment benefit have actually been found a job. The voluntary sector, which was at first quite enthusiastic about the prospects, found itself effectively treated as bid candy and largely excluded from any of the major programmes that were advanced. It is rightly fearful that that will be the case if the Government’s proposals are implemented.
The noble Lord says that there is a need for a National Probation Service. That is questionable. I certainly was not party to the discussions of the legislation to which the noble Lord referred, but it is quite conceivable that changes to the probation service as envisaged, to be approved by the negative procedure, related to changes in the structure of 35 probation trusts. What is being proposed here is something much more radical. It is effectively the abolition of a probation service—certainly the abolition of all the probation trusts—and a centralisation that will be crucial to ensure that the Government’s intentions in this Bill are carried out.
Of course, however, the probation service, national or otherwise, is not going to be involved in the short-sentence provisions. The probation service will be excluded from providing for medium and low-risk offenders. As I have said, the estimate is that 70,000 cases a year will be run by the new private providers. There is no question about that, unless the Government accept a later amendment of mine—I am not very optimistic about that—which will allow the probation service to tender for such work. The Government are so keen on competition that they will not allow the probation service to tender for that work at all. Therefore, I cannot see the argument that the noble Lord is trying to make as being at all plausible.
In my view, we are seeing an ideological determination to limit the role of a major public service. In so far as there is a national service, I do not think that that is conducive to what is needed on the ground, which is, as we have heard and as the noble Lord accepted when discussing an earlier amendment, the need for close working relationships between all the organisations involved in the rehabilitation programme at local level. I cannot see how that can be driven by a national body without any local organisational manifestations. I have to say that it is arguable that 35 trusts is too few anyway, but it is certainly better than none at all. It is certainly better, whatever contracting system is being proposed, than the 21 areas to which the Government will be reducing the tendering process.
This is a deeply flawed proposal and, whatever happened in the past, it ought now to be the subject of proper parliamentary consideration, if not in primary legislation—as was the opportunity with this Bill—then certainly by the affirmative procedure. If the noble Lord is unrelenting, as he appears to be or as he is compelled to be, then on Report we will have to take this issue further and at that stage seek to test the opinion of the House. However, as I indicated at the outset, tonight is clearly not the occasion to do so and I therefore beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
“Proposed reform of probation services
(1) Subject to subsection (2), before instituting a system of payment by results for the provision of services to supervise offenders, the Secretary of State shall prescribe by statutory instrument a scheme for such a system, which shall be laid before and approved by resolution of both Houses of Parliament.
(2) Before such system may come into existence, the Secretary of State shall undertake a pilot scheme lasting three years in duration, which shall be independently evaluated, with the evaluation report laid before Parliament and approved by resolution of both Houses of Parliament.
(3) Any payment by results pilot shall be based upon existing probation trust areas.”
Lord Beecham
My Lords, another aspect of the Government’s proposals is the development of payment-by-results programmes. I will begin by quoting the report of the Justice Select Committee in August 2012. The committee said, of contracting out on a payment-by-results basis, that,
“we are not convinced that the Department has the necessary commissioning and contracting capability to achieve its objective. Currently its commissioning processes are often poorly designed, the stages involved do not whittle down contenders appropriately and bidders do not receive sufficient feedback at the end of the process. Furthermore, the potential benefits of payment by results programmes may not be realised because of structural problems in the Department and the National Offender Management Service”.
That was as recently as August last year. Will the Minister say to what extent these matters have been considered by the department, to what extent the situation has now improved and in what respects it has improved? It was a fairly damning indictment by the Justice Select Committee.
There was some discussion of this issue at Second Reading, and many questions were asked. The Minister—I think it was the noble Lord but it may have been his colleague—said then that discussions were taking place with potential providers. It would be interesting to know at what stage those discussions now are. What is the basis on which a payment-by-results scheme will be made? We have heard various suggestions that there will be a flat fee, which will be topped up by some kind of bonus. However, that is likely to be modest in relation to the total cost of the service. If it is not modest, will contractors take the risk? Who knows on what basis this will happen? There is very little about this—of course—in the infamous impact assessment. Will the noble Lord indicate what percentage of the total cost the Government consider will be paid by way of bonuses?
There are more questions to be asked. Will the scheme be the same for all offenders? We heard yesterday—I think for the first time—about the concept of cohorts, to which reference has already been made. The idea is to not look at individual cases but to take a whole group and study the reoffending rates—or rather, as we heard earlier by way of clarification, the reconviction rates. However, we do not know for what period that will apply. Will results be judged on a year’s basis, or will any offences taking place over a period of, say, two or three years—which one might have thought would be a more reasonable approach—be taken into account? If so, how will they be taken into account? It will not do for the Government to say that they do not yet know because they have not reached a conclusion with the contractors. They ought to know the basis on which they are advancing the new policy, and they ought to be able to tell your Lordships’ House—and, indeed, the world at large—about what they are doing.
Serious criticisms of this process have come from a variety of sources. The director general for public services at the Treasury said:
“We have now got a situation at the Ministry of Justice where Chris Grayling … is going to take a payment by results approach to almost the whole of probation. But some of us who have been around a long time get very nervous about panaceas … It is quite hard to get a firm handle on the numbers”.
I suspect that she is not a paid-up member of the Labour Party, or even of the National Association of Probation Officers.
The National Audit Office commented on the aim of getting smaller organisations involved—which is, as ever, one of the more attractive features that the Government wish to promote, although it turns out that they are doing so more in theory than in substance. The National Audit Office said:
“It is likely to require significant efforts by the Ministry for it to achieve its aim of creating a diverse and sustainable market, at least in terms of prime providers”.
At the risk of cherry picking, it said,
“the use of a binary measure could encourage providers to concentrate their efforts on the offenders least likely to offend and prevent them from working with the most prolific offenders”.
It is not clear how the cohorts are going to be made up. The noble Lord will no doubt say the matter will be resolved. Can he give any indication of how the cohorts are to be composed?
Lord McNally
My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, bandied statistics around from authoritative organisations, I should add that the National Audit Office estimated that reoffending by ex-prisoners cost the economy between £9.5 billion and £13 billion in 2007-08, and I doubt that the figure has gone down since then.
It is all very well to talk about pilots and taking the time to conduct them. However, as I said, we are dealing with a section of reoffending which the previous Government thought they would deal with, tried to do so and then backed off. A lot of what we are dealing with here is a long-standing problem that is still costing the economy a great deal of money. Therefore, I think we are entitled to look at what works best in the present system and then bring forward positive ideas to tackle this very difficult problem.
As I approached my third year in my present office, I began to get slightly embarrassed about pilot schemes because all we seemed to do was go round and round in circles conducting pilots. Pilot schemes can be valuable but I suspect that we abandoned certain pilots because there was nothing significant to be gained from continuing with them, and we already had the feedback from the pilots started by the previous Government in Doncaster and Peterborough. I hear what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, is saying about our following a high-risk policy. It is certainly a radical policy and delivering it will, no doubt, demand significant effort by my department. What we have learnt from the pilot schemes that have taken place, from the experience of payment by results in other parts of Whitehall and from the existing involvement of the voluntary sector in rehabilitation gives us confidence that if we apply ourselves, taking some of the warnings that he has rightly made, our solutions to the matters before us will work.
Our experience with initial payment-by-results pilots has increased our confidence about designing robust contracts that drive the required behaviour and help generate improved value for money. We have drawn lessons from pilots about establishing performance targets that will allow us to measure, with confidence, the impact of providers on reoffending rates; of designing payment mechanisms that reward providers only for achieving genuine success. We have looked at the benefits of co-design with the market; early provision of data, where possible; the importance of engaging with a wide range of voluntary sector providers in building diverse supply chains; the new complexities in managing PBR contracts and how we can best meet them within the department.
We have not been static on this: we are working on the kind of contracts. The consultation response set out our phased approach to implementation over the summer. We can complete the final details of our design and test robustly some of the details of our plan. The Secretary of State has committed to transparency in this process and we are publishing information on our website as soon as it is ready. We recently published information on our proposed payment mechanisms for the market to consider.
It is all right. I must not cause tensions between departments but when the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, quoted somebody from the Treasury saying that he did not think the Ministry of Justice had a handle on the numbers, the terms “kettle” and “black” came to mind. I had better not go further down that road but before that Bench starts nodding too much about having a grasp of the numbers I would remind them of recent history. I am, nevertheless, pretty confident. I see the teams at work who are going to deal with this in a very businesslike way.
I do not resile from what I am saying. We are doing something extremely exciting, challenging and radical which is opening up the real opportunity—which escaped the Opposition during 13 years in Government—of dealing with this particularly difficult, complex area of reoffending. I will therefore resist Amendment 21 which would require the details of any system of payment by results to be laid before and approved by resolution of both Houses before being implemented. It would also require the piloting of payment by results for a three-year period, subject to independent evaluation and based on existing probation trust areas.
As noble Lords will, no doubt, be aware, we are currently piloting a number of different approaches to payment by results across government and have gained valuable learning data. The lessons we have drawn from implementing our pilots and from the experience of other departments give us confidence that we can design and commission robust contracts that drive the right behaviours and generate value for money. It is, of course, extremely easy to get quotes from various organisations about this but we are moving this forward. The Government have consulted carefully on the principle behind our intended payment mechanisms. In the recent response to our consultation, we explained how we had taken on board comments that the payment mechanism must incentivise providers to work with all offenders, not cherry pick them, including the most prolific, and how we had developed the payment mechanisms accordingly. We have now published a draft payment mechanism for discussion and will continue to engage closely with potential providers to make sure that we get this right.
As I have explained, given the current financial constraints and the importance of delivering effective rehabilitation services to all those who need them, maintaining the current trust structure and piloting payment by results within the existing area are not options open to us. In the light of these arguments, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, of course I will withdraw the amendment at this stage but it is certainly a matter to which we will wish to return on Report. The Government have consulted widely but have not consulted Parliament. If it were not for the amendment, there would be no debate during our consideration of the Bill on the question of payment by results; the provisions would simply be implemented. I do not even know whether that would be done by regulation or executive order. I do not know what the current framework is but, whatever it is, it would not be the subject of debate in this Chamber before decisions were made. Again there has been no consultation on a major change.
The Minister refers to there being experience of payment by results in other areas, but this is a unique area. To begin with, it relates ultimately in its potential impact to public safety, and we will shortly discuss issues of risk. People’s lives and livelihood are at risk in this area and that makes this a different case from less dramatic eventualities, whatever the normal process of payment by results might mean. The Government no doubt piloted the Work Programme; that experience has been pretty much a disaster. What have the Government learnt from that in terms of payment by results, whether on the supply side, which turned out to be pretty exclusive when it came to voluntary third-sector organisation, or in terms of the outcomes? It would be interesting to know what areas the Government have tested and with what results. I could table a Parliamentary Question but perhaps the noble Lord can give an undertaking that either he or whatever part of Government is responsible—perhaps the Cabinet Office—will write instead and explain more fully the basis on which the comparisons have been made. That would be an interesting exercise.
Fundamentally, we are in territory where it seems that decisions have been taken pretty much on the hoof. Although I do not blame the noble Lord, we still have not received an explanation for the withdrawal of the two pilots in this area—the ones that we know took place. We are not allowed to know why they were stopped or what the evaluation was. I repeat now for the third time—that makes four questions in all—why were the pilots stopped, why have the Government refused the FOI request for the evaluation and will they now release it? If they are not prepared to do so, they must have something to hide or something which at least they wish to ignore. That is not a satisfactory basis for a change of the magnitude envisaged without discussion, other than by virtue of the amendment. However, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
“Provision of probation services
In any scheme (including pilots) for the supervision of offenders under sections 2 to 6, probation trusts and local authorities shall not be precluded from tendering for contracts.”
Lord Beecham
Well, my Lords, I return to the dance floor to gavotte once again with the Minister. The issue of risk is serious because it illustrates the potential dangers of this binary system of provision, to which I referred earlier. The definition of the categories of risk is somewhat controversial, to put it mildly, but we leave that aside for the moment. The probation service will not be responsible for low and medium-risk offenders, as defined, and is not even allowed to tender for these offenders. Yet high-risk offenders will be consigned exclusively to the probation service.
As I indicated earlier, there is a movement between categories of some 25%, suggesting that something like 15,000 people were moved from the medium to the high-risk category. How will that be dealt with under the contracts? At what stage will the contractor who was looking after offenders on the basis that they were medium and low risk be required to notify a change of risk? Will they indeed be required to do so? Will they be able to make that assessment? Will they be required to advise the probation service about it? These seem to me to be important questions.
The National Association of Probation Officers has produced some very interesting examples of people who were not regarded as high risk for the purpose of their current treatment. In recent documentation, NAPO actually gives 52 examples of so-called medium-risk cases. These include an offender previously convicted of Section 20 wounding, of a recent assault, who was regarded as medium risk. Another was convicted of wounding and had previous convictions for the possession of cocaine. Another was convicted of manslaughter and also had a previous conviction for manslaughter, but he was regarded as only medium risk. A current offender convicted of grievous bodily harm, with previous convictions for criminal damage and possession of a knife, was also regarded as medium risk. There was an offender with a Section 20 wounding conviction who had previously been involved in a Section 18 wounding, a knife possession, burglary and criminal damage; again, it was a medium-risk case.
One might ask what kind of assessment this is. Why are these people not regarded as cases which should properly be dealt with by the probation service? The Government acknowledge that the probation service has the qualifications and skills to deal with these offenders. Why is it that under the new arrangement these so-called medium-risk offenders, with all their past convictions, will be beyond the reach of the probation service? That is no good for them, and potentially dangerous for the rest of us. There are clearly very real risks in this course. My next quote is not from a Treasury civil servant and not from the National Audit Office, which the Minister affects to discount. It is from the Chief Inspector of Probation’s submission to the consultation document. She states:
“The interface between the dynamic management of risk of harm and PbR model, with its focus on reducing reoffending, in our view creates an inherent tension. We do not believe that this tension can be successfully managed within the framework proposed. Any lack of contractual or operational clarity between the public and private sector providers will, in our view, lead to systemic failure and an increased risk to the public”.
Of course, one might say that she has an interest because she is the Chief Inspector of Probation; but she is an inspector, not the probation service as such. It is even noted that the Police and Crime Commissioner for Devon and Cornwall, who I think is a member of the Conservative Party, has said that:
“I feel the risks are very high here. Probation do a very, very good job and I am concerned about the future”.
I suspect that many noble Lords—there are not too many of us in the Chamber—will share those concerns. We are talking about serious risks and a system which, on the face of it, seems unlikely to be able to cope properly with them. That is something which this amendment seeks to address. Although I will not press it to a vote tonight, it is certainly something to which we will want to return on Report. I beg to move.
Lord McNally
My Lords, I am not sure how this has come about—I have been advised not to gloat because it might be our fault rather than that of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham—but the risk amendment is Amendment 23; he has just moved Amendment 22. To save him having to speak to Amendment 22 later, it may help if I say that we understand the need to bring a wide range of providers in. We are helping a number of staff within probation trusts who have already expressed an interest in being part of a mutual. On 20 May, the Government announced a package of measures to support the voluntary sector and public service mutuals, in particular through the Cabinet Office mutual support programme, which is providing intensive one-to-one support to prepare the first cohort of seven fledging probation mutuals for the competition. Although we do not believe that a probation trust should itself be able to compete, we will be bringing forward this solution—of mutuals—and of course we can explore that later.
I turn to Amendment 23, to which the noble Lord has just spoken. The amendment will require the definition of risk of harm to be prescribed by statutory instrument and subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. While I do not agree that there is a need to prescribe the definition of risk of harm by statutory instrument, I welcome the opportunity to explain how risk of harm is assessed and to reassure noble Lords that the assessment of risk is not simply a tick-box exercise.
The Offender Assessment System provides a structure for National Offender Management Service staff to assess an offender’s static and dynamic risk factors and risk of serious harm. It is a nationally recognised and understood tool that is supported by national guidance for probation and prison staff. The OASys combines actuarial factors, such as age at first conviction and gender, and dynamic factors such as substance misuse or anti-social attitudes, as well as clinical judgment. Following a structured assessment process, offenders are allocated to a risk of serious harm category that ranges from high to medium to low. A range of potential future harms are considered, including harm to self, to staff, to known victims and to members of the public. Within the current assessment process, there are already agreed definitions for what constitutes high to low risk of serious harm. “Serious harm” is defined as an event which is life threatening and/or traumatic, and from which recovery, whether physical or psychological, can be expected to be difficult or impossible. The risk of serious harm is the likelihood of this event happening.
It should be recognised that the risk of serious harm that an offender poses is dynamic and should be kept under regular review. There are numerous behavioural changes that could indicate an increase in the level of risk of serious harm. It would be difficult to enshrine that range of behavioural change in law which could apply meaningfully to individual cases. The current assessment process enables a practitioner to use all the available information to assess whether an offender is at risk of causing serious harm and give differential weight to the information as it relates to that individual. Under the rehabilitation programme, the National Probation Service will decide on allocation, in each case using a set of clear rules. They will retain management of every offender who poses a high risk of serious harm and every young offender who falls under multi-agency public protection arrangements—MAPPA. This includes offenders who are convicted of serious sexual and violent offences. We are consistently updating and improving the validity of the tools that are used to assess an offender’s likelihood of offending and risk of serious harm.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, it is just as well that I am not being paid by results. I apologise for skipping, as it were, Amendment 22. I heard what the Minister said, but the reality is that the probation service will not be allowed to tender for the short-term prisoner contracts. Whether there are probation trusts or not, that is a mistake. If we are going to have a mixed economy, let it be a mixed economy, and let at least the probation service be allowed to tender. But even if it is not allowed to tender, perhaps the noble Lord would consider whether other agencies—for example, local authorities as they are involved in crime and disorder reduction partnerships—might be allowed to tender. The Minister may be able to respond to that. I do not know.
In relation to the risk issues, the problem will potentially arise out of the change of risk. Perhaps the Minister will not be able to reply to this immediately, but if a proportion are deemed to have changed their risk profile, what impact would that have on the contracts? I know we are talking about cohorts not individuals, but we are talking about potentially 15,000 cases. Even with 35 contract areas, that is several hundred people per contract area. Presumably, it will have some significance. We are not talking about a minuscule proportion of cases. How will that impact on the contractual arrangements? What provision will there be in the contract regarding that particular outcome? Again, this is not something that I necessarily expect the Minister to be able to respond to tonight, but I should be grateful if he would confirm that he will write to me and place the letter in the Library of the House. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
“Requirement on Secretary of State to request probation and supervision providers to report on breaches and handling of services contracts
(1) The Secretary of State shall require all providers of probation and supervision services to provide information, report numbers of breaches, and to provide a comprehensive assessment of their management of the contract to provide probation services.
(2) The provider of probation and supervision services shall be required to produce an annual report, which shall be laid before Parliament.
(3) Where appropriate, the report should include deemed outcomes of supervision orders, including a breakdown of supervision order requirements, and the explanation for breaches and the failure of offenders to comply.”
Lord Beecham
My Lords, this is a very straightforward matter. The amendment simply seeks the collation of information from providers, whether of probation services or otherwise, so that it can be collated in an annual report and received in Parliament. I think that is certainly necessary in the early years, although maybe when the system settles down, in whatever form it ultimately takes, it will be a different matter. However, given the sensitivity around the proposals and, as the Minister himself puts it, the “radical” nature of the proposals—and bearing in mind our shared objective here, which is to reduce reoffending and to afford as much support as we can to people who have offended but need to reintegrate into society—it seems to me that the request that the information should be available to us is a fairly basic one. I hope the Minister can accept the spirit, if not necessarily the precise wording, of the amendment. I beg to move.
Lord McNally
My Lords, the noble Lord is always reasonable in his requests, but the implications are less reasonable. The impact of the amendment would be that all providers, regardless of size or place within the supply chain, would be required by law to produce an annual report for Parliament, as it does not distinguish between prime providers and smaller providers within the providers’ supply chain. This would provide a disproportionate level of scrutiny on a single aspect of service delivery.
I assure noble Lords that there will be a defined data set within the providers’ contract. This will detail what performance information providers have to produce and who is responsible for producing it. We envisage that this would include information such as the number of offenders supervised under top-up supervision and breach rates. We will ensure that reporting requirements strike a balance between providing enough information effectively to hold providers to account for their service delivery and minimising the bureaucracy required to collect and report the data. The Government will publish data and statistics relating to probation service delivery in line with our current practices. I hope the noble Lord, in the light of this, will agree to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
I take the Minister’s point and beg leave to withdraw the amendment. I indicated that the wording might possibly be capable of being refined. If we can achieve that one way or the other, that would be satisfactory.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, this is simply a probing debate, to explore the rationale behind Clause 8, in particular the length of the extension period contained in it. The extension period is one year, and I would just like the Minister to elucidate the thinking behind that and why that particular period has been chosen in respect of these matters.
Lord McNally
An extended determinate sentence or EDS is the sentence that is given to dangerous offenders. This is the sentence that replaced the IPP sentence in December 2012 as a result of the changes made in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act. An EDS is made up of a custodial term whereby offenders serve at least two-thirds of the sentence, after which the most serious offenders are considered for release by the parole board. After release, offenders are subject to extended-licence supervision. Clause 8 essentially closes a loophole whereby offenders serving an EDS could, although only in wholly exceptional circumstances, spend less than 12 months under supervision on release. Clause 8, by requiring the extension period of licence for these sentences to be at least a year, ensures that in every case offenders released from custody will serve 12 months under supervision. It is highly unlikely that an extended sentence would be imposed that resulted in less than 12 months of supervision. For this to happen, the sentence imposed by the court would have to relate to a dangerous offender who had received a surprisingly short custodial period where the court had chosen not to extend the licence period. I should stress that this is extremely unlikely to occur and there is no example of it having happened but we are taking the opportunity of this Bill to ensure that it does not happen in the future.
Lord Beecham
“(4A) After section 76(5) (subordinate legislation) insert—
“(5A) An order making any provision by virtue of section 63 or 70 regarding Class B drugs may only be made if the statutory instrument has been laid before and approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.””
Lord Beecham
This is a fairly simple amendment. It requires the Government to seek approval for changes to the list of class B drugs for the purposes of the Bill as set out under the heading,
“Drugs and offenders released during custodial sentence”.
If it is thought sufficiently significant for class B drugs to be involved and for the list to be changed, then, following the effective precedent of the Bill in dealing with drugs issues, it seems to me that the Government should proceed by way of an order to be debated here. It is presumably not likely to be a frequent occurrence but one would hope that some element of parliamentary oversight would be involved. It may be that the Government intend that anyway but it is not clear from the Bill. Perhaps the Minister could clarify the position. I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
I am thankful to the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for summarising his thinking behind this amendment. Clause 10 amends Section 64 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, which allows for the Secretary of State to impose a drug testing requirement on offenders aged 18 or over released from prison on licence. The Bill deals with efforts to improve the rehabilitation of offenders and to cut reoffending. Many noble Lords will agree that tackling offending behaviour will often mean tackling an offender’s problem with drugs. Drug use is common among offenders serving custodial sentences. One study reported 64% of people surveyed as having used class A drugs and 74% as having used class B or class C drugs.
Research has also shown that drug use among prisoners is strongly associated with reconviction on release, with the rate of reconviction more than doubling for prisoners who reported using drugs in the four weeks before custody, compared with prisoners who had never used drugs. And it is not just class A drugs that are associated with higher reconviction rates. Offenders who use class B or class C drugs in the four weeks before imprisonment had a reconviction rate of 48%, compared to 30% for those who had never used drugs. What drives this association will vary from offender to offender. For some offenders who are dependent on, say, cannabis or amphetamines, their crime may be linked to the need to fund their drug habit. For others, a propensity to misuse such drugs may expose them to other offenders, risky environments or situations that encourage further reoffending. That can make the process of rehabilitation that much harder. If a connection, direct or indirect, with class B drugs, such as cannabis or amphetamines, is a factor in a significant number of offenders ending up in custody or reoffending, we should do what we can to support offenders to break that connection. Testing for class B drugs is designed to complement those activities.
Turning to the substance of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, Section 70 of the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000 currently provides a power for the Secretary of State to specify via statutory instrument the class A drugs for which an offender released on licence can be tested. This power is subject to the negative resolution procedure. In extending this order-making power to cover class B drugs, we have proposed to keep the negative resolution procedure. It is important that if changes need to be made to the list—for example, if drugs are reclassified or renamed or new drugs appear—that can be done quickly. When initially specifying what class B drugs are within scope, we will, of course, want to look in detail at the evidence for their usage by offenders, their links to reoffending and the availability of testing equipment. I should also point out to noble Lords that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee did not raise any issues with this extended power remaining subject to the negative resolution procedure. I hope the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Beecham
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply. I am satisfied with it as it clarifies the situation. I rather thought that that would be the case, and I am grateful for his confirmation that that is correct. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Beecham
“Resettlement prisons
Before the Secretary of State may institute the proposed system for resettlement prisons, whereby an offender is held in a prison designated to the area to which he will be released, for a period of months before release, such system must be set out in regulations and laid before both Houses of Parliament for debate.”
Lord Beecham
My Lords, this is yet another proposal from the Government that is not included in the Bill and about which there again seems to be no real opportunity for parliamentary oversight. The notion of resettlement prisons is attractive, but there are a number of questions to be asked about it, in particular, about how the system is going to work and the potential costs. There are also questions in relation to women prisoners especially because at the moment there are only 13 prisons for women and there is concern that, since they are not evenly geographically distributed, women may be housed in one place and then moved to what is, effectively, an all-male institution close to their home because there is no women’s prison in that area. There is concern that that would be potentially very difficult. I do not know whether the Government have in mind locations for the resettlement prisons. The figure was about 70, if I remember correctly. Have they given any thought to the position of women in that context, given the relatively small number of women’s prisons dedicated for that purpose?
By sheer coincidence, the Minister has kindly replied to a Written Question today giving me information about the home locations—he is looking puzzled; I assure him he has—of prisoners held in the north-east. The figures are quite interesting and reinforce some of the concern that I and other noble Lords have or might have about the situation. They show that 59% of young offenders have home addresses outside the north-east region and 39% inside it. So 39% of young offenders are in prison in the area where resettlement would occur but 59% are not. The 2% difference is because the data are not clear. The figures are pretty much reversed in respect of adult prisoners.
I repeat that 59% of young offenders are from outside the north-east region but are imprisoned there, while only 41% of those in the north-east are from the region. Some 39% of adults, those 21 years and over, come from outside the region, while 61% from inside. These are substantial percentages and the numbers are quite significant—289 young offenders and 2,048 adult offenders are currently in prisons other than in regions to which they would presumably be returning.
The Minister’s letter, which he may or not have read before he signed it—
Lord Beecham
I am glad the Minister is prepared to do that. The letter says that the vast majority of prisoners transferred to NOMS North East Region are from adjacent areas. An adjacent area could be the north-west of England. I know that there are significant numbers of prisoners from the north-west of England in prisons in Northumberland. The north-west region runs from Cumbria to Cheshire. To say that is an adjacent region does not take us very far, especially as I suspect most of the offenders will come perhaps from the Merseyside and Manchester conurbations. That would be a reasonable inference. This is a significant number of people to be resettled somewhere nearer home and that is just from one region. How much have the Government thought through the implications of dealing with this? Have the Government given consideration not only to the numbers but the length of time during which the resettlement will take place? I raise this point because it has been raised by organisations concerned with women prisoners especially. Has it been looked at from their perspective?
Incidentally, the letter says, in a point which rather echoes the point about women prisoners and which may account for the figures for young offenders, that there are fewer establishments holding young offenders and they are on average likely to be further from their home area. How realistic is this resettlement process likely to be? It looks to me as though the north-east region is accommodating considerably more than its “fair share” of prisoners. It would be interesting to know how many north-east prisoners are housed elsewhere but I suspect that we have a surplus of accommodation in the north-east and that is not going to assist in the resettlement process. How developed are the Government’s plans? The amendment therefore seeks details and for a scheme to be set out in regulations and laid before both Houses for debate. That would be ideal but at any rate some oversight of the detail and the implications of this scheme are needed, which as I say is welcome in principle but it is difficult to see quite how it is going to work. It may be that the Government are going to take some time over this and that may be necessary, but any indications at this stage would be gratefully received. I beg to move.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, I first thank the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, for tabling his amendment and for then detailing specific issues in relation to women, young adults and a region with which he is far more familiar than is any other noble Lord currently in the Chamber. Nevertheless, he raises some important issues specifically about women prisoners. Indeed, we heard earlier during the debate about the importance of this issue.
From a general perspective, the main purpose behind this proposal is to co-ordinate better the delivery of rehabilitation through an offender’s time both in prison and then in the community. Most offenders will spend the final part of their sentence in one of their home area’s designated resettlement prisons, which may involve prisoner movement, but it is also unlikely to result in any significant increase to the number of transfers carried out.
On the issue of women prisoners and young adult offenders, it is very important that we make the best use of the existing provision for women offenders in the prison estate, both taking account of its size and the geographical spread. We will be consulting with both providers and stakeholders to design the most suitable resettlement arrangements for women offenders, ensuring that, wherever possible, women offenders are held as close to home as possible and with strong links with providers of rehabilitative services. In an earlier debate this evening, we discussed the importance that the Government lay on family issues, particularly in relation to women offenders.
Young adults have some of the highest reoffending rates, and it is crucial that these reforms are delivered to this group of offenders. Again, we are planning to consult providers to ensure that they design the most suitable model for young adult offenders, taking account of existing provision in the prison estate for this group.
The amendment itself would restrict the ability of the Secretary of State to set up a system for sending prisoners to resettlement prisons prior to their release by requiring this to be done in regulations. Such a restriction would be unprecedented intervention by Parliament in the operational management of prisons. The role is conferred by the Prison Act 1952 on the Secretary of State, although, in practice, the Prison Service is run by the National Offender Management Service, as noble Lords are aware. The power is a broad one for a very good reason: NOMS needs operational flexibility to respond swiftly to fluctuations in prison numbers and to move prisoners around the prison estate for a number of reasons, including access to appropriate interventions as a result of security information or, indeed, for the prisoner’s own protection. Policies for the allocation of prisoners are set out in the Prison Service instructions, which are published; accordingly, such policies are both accessible and transparent. I therefore hope, with the explanation I have given, that the noble Lord will find it appropriate to withdraw his amendment and agree that operational arrangements are matters more appropriately left to the Secretary of State.
Lord Beecham
I am not sure that I would leave very much to the present Secretary of State, but that is by the way. The question is surely that this is a welcome, novel scheme which ought to be at least discussed. I cannot see why there should be any inhibition on the part of the Government to laying out their proposals for discussion. It may be that seeking to deal with the matter by regulation may be regarded as a step too far but, at the very least, it should be subject to some parliamentary debate. There are people in your Lordships’ House who can contribute to that kind of debate very effectively, I should have thought. I do not necessarily include myself in that group, but there are people like the noble Lords, Lord Ramsbotham and Lord Bradley, and the noble Baroness, Lady Corston, with a record of involvement. These are the very people who should be contributing to a solution to a problem which the Government rightly identify and want to do something about; there is no difference between us on that. Why be so defensive about it? Why not be open about it, have the discussion and let us try to improve the situation with the contribution that Members, particularly of this House, are in a position to afford?
I do not see why the Government should stonewall on this issue. However, it is two minutes to 10 pm. The Chief Whip is with us; I tremble before her, as ever, and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.