Westminster Hall

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Westminster Hall

Wednesday 16 October 2013

[Sir Edward Leigh in the Chair]

Psychological Therapies

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Westminster Hall

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the sitting be now adjourned.—(Mark Lancaster.)

09:30

[James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to open this very important debate under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. First, I want to talk about why this debate is important. Mental illness is one of the biggest health challenges that we face over the next 20 or 30 years. The NHS spends approximately £14 billion on support for people with mental health conditions, which amounts to about 13% of total health spending. However, mental ill health accounts for about 28% of morbidity and 23% of all GP appointments, and recent estimates show that the overall economic cost of mental illness in Britain is about £105 billion a year.

Those are the raw statistics, but behind them is a story of broken lives, isolation and mental suffering. Every week in my constituency, I see people suffering from a range of difficult mental health conditions as a result of personal circumstances, family breakdown and all kinds of different issues. I am sure that other hon. Members here today have had similar experiences in their constituencies. As a compassionate society, we have a duty to address the growing crisis of mental health in Britain, not only by seeking to control its symptoms, but by tackling its underlying causes.

Our approach to mental health has been dominated for too long by what I characterise as a medicalised model. A psychiatric approach has been dominant. I am not arguing that psychiatry does not have a role to play in mental health, but it has been a dominant model for the way in which we approach mental health care in Britain, and the national health service is very focused on drug-based solutions to mental health problems. The number of prescriptions for drugs to try to solve mental health problems has gone up exponentially over the past decade, and as a result, I believe that our approach to mental health in the national health service is very much focused on control, rather than on tackling the profound underlying causes of the growth of mental health problems in Britain.

That is why I want to discuss talking therapies today. It seems to me that talking therapies are a human and compassionate response to mental suffering, as our constituents, our fellow citizens, and we all come to terms with the pressures of modern life, the increase in family breakdown, and the sheer stresses of dealing with information overload and the complexity of living in the modern world. This issue is not confined to any one part of the population; it crosses the whole age range, from children and young people through to older people.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this very important debate. An alarming thing that I have discovered recently is that 80,000 young people across the United Kingdom suffer from severe depression, and 8,000 of those are under the age of 10. It is alarming, and it is running out of control. As the hon. Gentleman has said, personal counselling is an avenue that we can go down. An organisation in my area called Yellow Ribbon does exactly that, and it has had some fantastic results.

[James Morris]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point; there are major issues with children and young people’s mental health, and I will come on to that later in my speech.

I want to talk today about improving access to psychological therapies. That is a big area on which I have been focused on in my role as chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on mental health. The improving access to psychological therapies programme was established under the previous Government in 2006, following work by Lord Layard, who looked at the economic benefits of a widespread programme of access to psychological therapies across the country. IAPT was initially launched with small pilot areas and then was formally launched in 2008. I do not think anyone here would deny that the IAPT service has made progress. We have seen 1 million people entering treatment and 680,000 people completing treatment, and we have seen recovery rates of about 45%, with 65% significantly improved. The IAPT programme has led to 45,000 coming off sick pay and benefits, and we have seen 4,000 new practitioners trained in the national health service.

The programme was started by the previous Government, and in February 2011, the current Government published their “No health without mental health” strategy, which committed them to investing more than £400 million over four years into the IAPT programme. At the same time as the publication of that strategy, the Department of Health also published its “Talking therapies: A four-year plan of action”, which had the objective that by March 2015, 15% of the adult population would have access to evidence-based psychological therapies that are capable of delivering rates of recovery of 50% or more. Therefore, some progress has been made, but I want to raise serious questions today about how we should take the IAPT programme forward, about the scale of our ambition, and about the extent to which real choice is embedded in the system. I believe that those questions need to be addressed urgently.

The Department of Health, in its assessment of IAPT—its very comprehensive report was published in November 2012—was clear about challenges that the IAPT programme faced in the future. In particular, its report talked about the challenge of waiting times, stating that one of the challenges is

“building adequate service provision (including number of services, and size and efficiency of workforce) to ensure access for all who need treatment within 28 days of first contact.”

The report discusses the challenge of:

“Unmet need—addressing issues concerning equitable access to services where access is lower than expected among some population groups.”

It also refers to the challenge of “Patient choice”, which goes to the heart of the questions that I am raising today, and

“increasing information on treatment options and ensuring that treatment plans are agreed by both patient and therapist.”

Another challenge is the:

“Funding distribution process—ensuring that appropriate investments continue to be made in local IAPT services, to continue to expand capacity and assure quality in line with the overall financial expectations set out in the Spending Review.”

The Department of Health is clear, therefore, about the challenges faced by the further roll-out of the IAPT programme. In order to meet the challenges that come out of the Department’s assessment, we need radical thinking. We need to build on the strength of the existing IAPT programme, but we also need to address some of its fundamental weaknesses, which I believe are holding the programme back.

A central issue that we need to have an honest debate about is the fact that the IAPT programme is still dominated by the use of one therapy—cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines that were drawn up in 2005 made the recommendation that CBT should be the default treatment option for the NHS, because it had the most random-controlled-trial supporting evidence for its effectiveness. In 2010, the guidelines were modified slightly to allow five other therapies into the NICE recommended mix. The reality, however, is that IAPT is still dominated by CBT. Again, I am not arguing that, in many circumstances, for patients with particular forms of anxiety and depression, CBT is not an appropriate form of treatment. However, it is a short-term, highly manualised approach to mental health treatment.

There is an interesting quote from NICE’s recommendations on psychological therapies:

“In using guidelines, it is important to remember that the absence of empirical evidence for the effectiveness of a particular intervention is not the same as evidence for ineffectiveness.”

That is a wonderful little quote from NICE.

One of the consequences of our approach to research into the efficacy of particular forms of mental health treatment, and of NICE’s approach to the formulation of its guidelines, is that long-term therapies such as psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, to name just two, which require long-term commitment from the patient and from the analyst, have effectively been locked out of IAPT. In Britain, we have a mature and highly professionalised cohort of therapists in psychotherapy and psychoanalysis. They have, over the past five years, found themselves unable to provide the sort of capacity that we need in IAPT. One of the consequences of that, and of the dominance of CBT, with a focus on training up therapists to concentrate on CBT, is that we have a monolithic model.

Within IAPT, we have access, but no effective choice for the patient—choice that is focused on the individual needs of the patients and on an assessment of the patient’s particular requirements. We have a professional cohort of highly trained therapists in long-term therapies who are unable to assist the NHS in extending capacity for the provision of psychological therapies and who are unable to become part of the conversation to address the programme challenges identified by the Department of Health’s assessment of the three-year IAPT programme in 2012.

We need to recognise those weaknesses in the existing IAPT programme, because there are still 50% of people who have been through the programme who have not responded well to CBT. Some 85% of people who are currently suffering from severe mental anguish cannot gain access to any appropriate psychological therapy on the NHS. We urgently need a review of the existing NICE guidelines, and I know that Professor David Haslam, the chair of NICE, has recognised the issue and has agreed to initiate a review.

We also need to look again at how we formulate evidence on the efficacy of mental health treatment. For certain long-term therapies, it might not be appropriate for research to be totally focused on randomised control trials, which are also costly to undertake. We therefore need to look at new types of evidence base. We also need to think about developing a new commissioning model for psychological services to create real choice. I will come on to talk about how that might work.

We also need to consider other groups who may benefit from greater choice and access to psychological therapies. The hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) talked about children and young people. He is right to be concerned about them; it is a major issue that we face in Britain today. Some 850,000 children between the ages of five and 16 are known to have mental health problems. There is a children and young people’s IAPT, which provides a broad range of interventions —parenting therapy, interpersonal psychotherapy and family therapy.

I think we all know and agree that early intervention for children and young people is crucial to prevent problems from becoming more serious. Lots of evidence shows that early intervention at the onset of psychosis in children and young people and suitable psychological therapy treatment can prevent that from blowing up into something much more serious later on. Perhaps we can learn some lessons from the children and young people’s IAPT for adult services, while recognising that the children and young people’s IAPT needs to be developed further.

Also, we must not exclude or not think about the needs of people aged over 65. As we all know, we have an ageing population, meaning that mental health in older people is an increasing problem. The Department’s “Talking Therapies” action plan committed the Department to address the underrepresentation of older people using IAPT. A quarter of people over the age of 65 have symptoms of depression that require intervention, but only one in six will consult their general practitioner. Therefore, IAPT needs to be tailored to meet the needs of older people. Those needs are not just one, single need; the needs of a 65-year-old may be different from those of a 90-year-old.

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

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Earlier, he alluded, as my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), did, to the problems in the younger age group, and now he is talking about the older age group. Given the significant increase of referrals in the past couple of years, does he agree that one of the overarching principles is that we will need significant additional resources to deal with the problem right across the age groups, from the young to the old?

[James Morris]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The fundamental nature of my argument is that the current system, while it has made some progress, is not utilising the capacity that we should be able to develop in order to cope with the increasing problems that we face. IAPT needs to be tailored to older people and to be more flexible to meet their needs.

As I said, IAPT has made some progress, but we need to go further. Improving access is one thing; guaranteeing it is another. The NHS constitution provides a right to treatments recommended by NICE. The handbook to the constitution explains that that relates to any treatment that is

“recommended by a NICE technology appraisal.”

I am sorry to get a bit technical here, but I think the point is an important one. Technologies appraised by NICE include devices, medicines, diagnostic methodology, surgical procedures, health promotion activities and other therapeutic technologies. Regarding technologies, computerised CBT for depression and anxiety is the only NICE-approved psychological therapy, which, on the basis of the constitution, patients should have a right to. Psychological therapies have been excluded from the rights embedded in the NHS constitution, and we need to address that gap.

Also, there is no 28-week or any other waiting time target for psychological therapies. If I have a serious physical illness, for example cancer, I will be seen and treated within a particular time frame, and I will know my pathway of care, if that is the right way of describing it. However, if I have a mental illness, there is neither a guarantee nor a waiting time target.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that that is similar to what happens during the perinatal period? If a woman has a premature baby, thousands of pounds—if not hundreds of thousands—will be spent on neonatal intensive care; whereas if she has a full-term baby, but has a psychotic episode and requires in-patient mental health care, it is a complete postcode lottery as to whether she receives any help at all?

[James Morris]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. She has done a tremendous amount of work in that area. I totally agree with her point; we need to shift our emphasis towards much more early intervention and ensure that the issue she identifies is addressed.

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

The burden of the hon. Gentleman’s address today concerns the therapies necessary to deal with mental health difficulties, but surely, as my hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) identified a few moments ago, the problem for the under-10s age group is that more research is needed into how a person under 10 is taken down the dark path of mental illness. We must find out what the problem is, as well as identify some of the treatment.

[James Morris]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. The chief medical officer is producing recommendations about children and young people’s mental health care, which will specifically look at evidence on why the prevalence of such difficulties is increasing. She is becoming concerned about the growing problem.

A consequence of no guaranteed or set waiting time is that thousands of people are awaiting referral while suffering severe anguish. A constituent of mine who is suffering from a relatively severe mental health problem has received a referral, but is still waiting for treatment. That wait has been going on for a long time and he is in a state of severe anxiety and anguish. That is the direct human consequence of the situation. We need to move towards a waiting time target. I know people are wary of talking about targets, but such targets speak to a parity issue in the health service. If we have waiting time targets for severe physical illness, it is surely right that we move towards waiting time targets for access to appropriate psychological therapies. Appropriate access builds in choice, meets the needs of individual patients and moves us away from the monolithic approach I described earlier.

When responding to the debate, I ask the Minister to consider the following points. We urgently need further research into the efficacy of long-term psychological treatments. We need more holistic research combined with a more flexible NICE regime; as I said, Professor Haslam recently acknowledged that work is needed on the way that NICE approaches recommendations in that area. We need to give serious thought to a new commissioning model assisted by some of the reforms that have been brought into the NHS, such as commissioning groups, and building on the any qualified provider model, which brings choice and capacity into the NHS by allowing the highly professional cohort operating in the private sector to provide therapy on the NHS through IAPT.

Would the Minister seriously consider making or at least working towards a commitment to a 28-week waiting time target for access to psychological therapies? Too many people are in a state of anxiety about when they will get treatment and what that treatment will be. We need urgent action, as other hon. Members have said, to ensure that the IAPT programme is further developed for younger people and children and we need to commit to further research into what is causing the disturbing trend in mental illness among our young people. We also need urgent action to ensure that older people are not locked out of the IAPT programme. The debate is about more than the right policies; it is important because we must address the anguish and suffering of our fellow citizens whose voices desperately need to be heard and whose stories are often the key to their cure.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. In addition to the Opposition spokesperson and the Minister, three hon. Members have intimated that they wish to catch my eye. I am sure that they will keep an eye on the clock.

09:54

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to come here and support the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), who has brought this matter to Westminster Hall for consideration. As my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) said here yesterday, whenever we come to Westminster Hall, we congratulate the Member whose debate it is on bringing an important matter to the attention of the House. This is an important matter.

The hon. Gentleman clearly outlined the issues and their importance. My interest and that of my hon. Friends is in how such issues affect our young people. That will be the thrust of my speech. I also want to give a Northern Ireland perspective, which I believe is mirrored across the whole United Kingdom.

[Dr McCrea]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, for many years, mental ill health has been a taboo subject? Many of those suffering from mental health difficulties were pushed away or hidden from society. The value of such a debate is that it ensures openness in society, to deal with the important issue of mental ill health.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising that matter. That is exactly the problem; if I wanted to sum it up in one phrase, that is the phrase I would use. There was a taboo around mental ill health in the past, but hopefully we can discuss it now. I hate the word “mental”, because it almost puts the thought in one’s mind of someone to be kept at bay. We must be able to find another word in the English language that is more sympathetic. I am not sure what it would be, but we should give the matter consideration.

Psychological therapies are defined as an interpersonal process designed to bring about modification of feelings, cognitions, attitudes and behaviour—all issues the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis mentioned—that have proved troublesome to the person seeking help from a trained professional. That is what we want to achieve.

The psychological therapies in the NHS 2013 event marked the halfway point of the coalition Government’s mental health strategy. Psychological therapies generally fall into three categories: behavioural therapies, which focus on cognitions and behaviours; psychoanalytical and psychodynamic therapies, which focus on the unconscious relationship patterns that evolved from childhood, which are important; and humanistic therapies, which focus on self-development in the here and now. We need to focus on those three categories.

I presume that most Members catch up on the news on BBC or Sky before they come here. A story today covered the role of carers and what they do for elderly people, but it also mentioned their role for those with mental health issues and focused in particular on the time that carers have to deliver care to people in those two categories. It underlined where we are in the debate about those who suffer from psychological imbalance and emotional issues.

The improving access to psychological therapies programme was built on evidence, produced in 2004 by the then National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, on treating people with depression and anxiety disorders. It was created to offer patients a realistic and routine first-line treatment, combined, where appropriate, with medication, which traditionally had been the only treatment available.

Things have changed. The Minister, whom I respect greatly, will outline the issues when he responds. The IAPT programme was dedicated to spending more than £700 million on psychological therapies between 2008 and 2014. It was first targeted at people of working age, but in 2010 was opened to adults of all ages. There has been success—it would be wrong to say that there has not.

In the first three years, 900,000 people were treated for depression and anxiety; 450,000 patients are in recovery, with another 200,000 moving towards recovery; 25,000 fewer people with mental health problems are on benefits; and the average waiting time has reduced from 18 months to a few weeks. In terms of what has been done so far, that is good news, but it is fair to say that there is a lot more to do. There has been a significant increase in the number of people with such issues, and all statistics indicate that that number will continue to grow.

People require psychological therapy for many reasons. Members have spoken about the things that lead to the position we are in today and why society and Government must respond. Reasons for therapy can be to do with home life and bereavement. On many occasions in my constituency office, we deal with bereavement and how it affects not only the partner, but the young people in the house. The hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis referred to that in his introduction. I regularly see it in my office—the frailty of life, the suddenness of death and how that affects people.

Unemployment, when young people who cannot get the jobs they need or the discipline that a job brings, and trouble in the workplace are other reasons for therapy. Another reason is childhood trauma, as we can see from the sexual abuse cases of the past few years. Many people were not aware of such trauma, but it existed. Social deprivation is another one, and all those issues contribute to where we are.

[David Simpson]

My hon. Friend mentioned young people again. Surely our schools, whether primary or secondary, need to focus on our teachers being trained to identify when a child has difficulties—the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) mentioned early intervention—so that treatment can be introduced at an early stage, which could solve the problem for a lifetime.

[Jim Shannon]

As my hon. Friend and colleague mentioned, education is one of the areas in which Government can play a role, as can, I would say, Departments responsible for health, social services and welfare. They all need to come together.

Among many other factors, one comes to mind to do with young carers who look after their mum, dad, brothers or sisters. In my constituency, there are about 230 young carers, which is a massive number. They are making a contribution to society, but they are also the main carers for their adults or siblings. Again, that is a real issue.

In Northern Ireland, unemployment, too, causes problems because, among the regions of the United Kingdom, it has the highest percentage of working-age population not in paid employment—the figure is 30% higher than the UK average, which is 19% of individuals receiving a form of out-of-work benefit. The highest rates are recorded in Londonderry with 29%, Strabane with 29% and Belfast with 26%. Some 9% of the working-age population receive disability living allowance, including the 3% who receive DLA for mental health reasons. That proportion has risen by 25% since 1998, and is more than the UK average, while 70% of those registered with a disability are not in paid work.

Incidentally, am I the only elected representative to have had an increase in referrals for those who have served in the forces suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder? I know the answer: no, I am not. In all my years as an elected representative, I cannot recall having so many referrals of soldiers, male and female, for emotional, mental-health trauma suffered as a result of their service.

The Prince’s Trust, which many of us have knowledge of and great faith in, has found that one in four young people at work are down or depressed “always” or “often”—for people of that age to be downhearted or depressed is incredible. Unfortunately, that leads to an increase in the suicide rate among young people. In parts of our Province, suicide is at frightening levels. A few years ago in my constituency, there was a spate of suicides by young people, which was saddening for the people of our area, because we knew most of them—young people who did not feel that there was much for them in the future. We must address that issue.

The figure for young people who are down or depressed always or often, but are unemployed, is 50%. That is a massive figure. Clearly, a large section of people are at risk and, in my opinion, early intervention can and will make a difference. However, to establish it, there must be funding. My hon. Friend the Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) referred to those in education diagnosing cases early, and that is one thing we can do. Our own Health Minister in the Northern Ireland Assembly, Edwin Poots, has taken steps to address the issue, but a UK-wide strategy would be useful and must be considered. I am keen to hear what the Minister will say.

Improving access to psychological therapies in all areas such as health and employment for individuals, families and carers in Northern Ireland could relieve anxiety, depression and distress. The long-term benefits would be more than worth any initial cost. The funding has to be in order, but it has to be there to discharge effectively what has to be done.

In addition, improving mental and social well-being can help to prevent antisocial behaviour and family breakdown for children and young people—again, in my constituency, we regularly witness the effect on people of family breakdowns. It also might make a positive input into the rehabilitation of offenders and assist in the maintenance of independence, reducing reliance on residential and hospital care. The benefits are numerous and clear.

Due to the years of suffering through the troubles, many people in Northern Ireland have poor physical, emotional, behavioural and/or mental health conditions. Dr Nichola Rooney, chair of the division of clinical psychology in Northern Ireland, said that there is

“historical underinvestment in psychological therapy services for people suffering from mental health difficulties in Northern Ireland”.

I am sure that is replicated UK-wide.

Clearly, we must continue to invest and see the rewards of such therapy, not simply as a method of cutting the costs of help in the future, but because it changes the quality of people’s lives and—a knock-on effect— the lives of the people around them. Everyone benefits.

10:06

[Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)]

I am glad to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), whose points were particularly relevant. I shall try not to repeat them too often in my speech—that might mean reducing its length slightly, people will be pleased to hear.

When I was first elected, a new aspect of my life was the size and complexity of the casework that came my way. Much of it I expected and was familiar with, having been a councillor, but the one facet that surprised—no, shocked—me was the obvious failure in our duty to those with mental health issues. The next surprise was to discover that, in fact, the situation has improved over the past few years, and for that I pay tribute to the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), and his predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow).

Today, we have the news that Dr Martin Baggaley, commenting on the results of a BBC freedom of information request, said that we are in “a real crisis” regarding the provision of mental health beds in England. My hon. Friend the Member for North Norfolk, the Minister, is reported by the BBC to agree that that is unacceptable.

At least, however, the BBC was able to obtain figures for the number of beds that have been lost. What would the response have been had the local trusts said, “Sorry, we don’t keep such figures. We have no idea of the number of beds available”? In another possible scenario, one of us asks the Secretary of State for Health, “What is the waiting time for the treatment of breast cancer or leukaemia?”, but the answer is, “I don’t know and I can’t find out.” Would not the whole House erupt in outraged uproar? Would not the press ask how proper provision for those patients can be provided in such circumstances?

Without adequate data and reporting, the needs of millions of ill people cannot be addressed—people with mental health issues. Without decent information, resources cannot be allocated correctly, results properly analysed or effective treatment provided. Yet for much of mental health provision, there is insufficient knowledge of whom we are treating, how we are treating them and how long they are waiting for treatment. As my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis mentioned, we do not have minimum waiting times for much psychological therapy.

Few data are collated for the national policy framework. The data that we have focus on IAPT services and the rates for early mortality. My hon. Friend mentioned how early treatment of mental health problems can stop far worse developments, but without proper data we cannot understand that.

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point about early intervention in mental health conditions. Does he agree that early intervention does not just stop an individual from cascading to the point at which their life becomes dysfunctional, but has a tremendous economic impact in preventing time off work and the difficulties that that causes for employers?

[Mike Thornton]

I agree. There is no doubt that early intervention for all forms of illness usually produces good results, and saves large amounts of money both in relation to rates of people off work and the costs of treating them in the NHS. That can be seen for cancer and heart failure, as well as mental health issues, so I entirely agree with the hon. Lady.

In my constituency, I have been particularly impressed by Solent Mind’s talking therapy programme. That IAPT programme has been effective and easy to access, and figures show that it has provided access to a huge majority within 28 days of a referral. I am not sure whether that is replicated across the country; I have been told that probably it is not.

Such IAPT services are invaluable, but there are disturbing reports that funds are provided for them with money taken away from other mental health provision. My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis mentioned some examples, so I will not repeat them, but it is a bit like increasing funds for bowel cancer care by taking cash from ovarian cancer treatment. I wonder if this morning’s BBC report reflects what is happening in beds being lost to provide money for other therapies and services.

Public Health England and NHS England have announced the development of a mental health intelligence network, which has the potential to link all existing data and map data gaps. However, given the consistent failure to give mental health provision the same status as that for so-called physical health, there is a real risk that the network will not have the resources needed to provide the data and analysis that are so urgently required.

If we are to provide adequately for the one in four of us who suffers from some form of mental illness and for their families who suffer with them, I urge the Minister to ensure that all local commissioning groups and trusts treat information regarding all forms of mental illness with the same parity of esteem as that relating to physical illnesses. I again urge Members to remember that if someone is ill, they are ill. There would be no such lack of data if the absurd, anachronistic and artificial distinction between physical and mental illness did not exist.

10:09

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

Like my colleagues, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) on bringing this important debate before the House. We know from this morning’s radio bulletins that the discussion is topical and timely, and I am pleased to have the opportunity to contribute to it.

My focus will be on the need to broaden the scope of what is offered under IAPT, particularly in relation to couple relationships. I strongly believe that it is hugely in the interests of the NHS and the Department of Health to realise the significance of strong couple relationships to good health, which is essential to protecting the NHS budget. That point is really important—[Interruption].

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. Officials should not talk to a Member of Parliament while the debate is continuing.

[Andrew Selous]

As colleagues have already stated, data on the type of therapies available under IAPT show that couple therapy is available in less than a quarter of cases. The data came from the “National Audit of Psychological Therapies for Anxiety and Depression, National Report 2011”, so they are official. The figure for couple therapy is only 24.6%, while interpersonal therapy is available in under half, or 48.3%, of the settings in which provision is made. For psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy, the figure is under 40%, at 39.8%, whereas cognitive behavioural therapy is available in 94.9%—just under 95%—of cases.

Those figures demonstrate the significance of CBT, which for some people with mental health issues is absolutely the right treatment, but it is important to realise that CBT is clearly not the appropriate treatment for all those with mental health conditions. We should also remember that all those therapies are approved and recommended by NICE, and the evidence shows that all such treatments are effective for the right patients.

I am particularly concerned that the benefits of a relational approach to the treatment of depression are not being realised and that, in many cases, individual CBT counselling is given where it is not appropriate. I want to tell a true story of one young couple’s experience of interacting with the IAPT programme. Figures and sums of money give the broad picture—they are our stock in trade as Members of Parliament—but they are a bit high-level and do not capture the essence of mental health provision on the front line.

Let me tell the story of Polly and Mark—to protect their anonymity, those are not their real names—who experienced considerable challenges in having two children, with several miscarriages and a stillbirth. Polly became very low and left her successful career. The hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) has already pointed out the cost to the economy when people have mental health issues. Polly’s husband, Mark, had a very difficult childhood, and he was badly affected by his parents’ violent and stormy relationship.

When Polly and Mark’s youngest child was two, Polly confessed that she had had an affair seven years earlier, which left her feeling guilt and shame long after it ended. On learning that, Mark was utterly devastated by the revelation and fell into a deep depression, with unmanageable rages during which he threatened to kill the other man. Polly developed severe headaches, so she went to her GP and was sent for tests. On finding nothing wrong, the GP recommended that Polly have individual counselling focusing on the stillbirth four years previously. After being unable to work and having three weeks of sleepless nights, Mark also visited his GP. Mark was referred to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him as suffering from acute depression and prescribed him antidepressants.

The couple were acutely conscious that their relationship was about to break down. Not having been offered any form of couple therapy by IAPT, they approached a voluntary sector service, and for six months, they went to weekly couple therapy. At the same time, they were offered cognitive behavioural therapy through IAPT. They believed that the problem was their relationship, but health professionals clearly thought that the depression needed treatment. In couple therapy, Polly was able to share her anxieties about her parents’ divorce and about how she did not want her children to suffer as she had. As the couple therapy progressed, Mark and Polly became more open with each other and began to understand how their relationship problems were a product of both recent and past difficulties.

An important point is that that couple therapy—it was not provided through IAPT; Mark and Polly had to go to the voluntary sector for it, because IAPT had offered them CBT that they did not need—was voluntary help that lasted for six months. My concern is that IAPT provision, whether of CBT or other measures, is often given for only a short period, which is not always appropriate or likely to be successful in such cases.

That true story illustrates powerfully why we need to look again at the IAPT programme, excellent though much of it is, and to take a relational approach to many of the issues where appropriate. I hope that it has been helpful to Members to put that real-life case study on the record.

Academic studies show why what I have said is important and matters. Evidence reveals links between relationship quality, depression and re-employability. For example, a meta-analysis conducted by McKee in 2005 concluded that lack of social support by partners in a relationship has negative impacts on the physical and psychological health of the unemployed person and is especially associated with more frequent development of psychosomatic symptoms, stress and depression.

The all-party parliamentary group on strengthening couple relationships, which I chair, and the newly formed Relationships Alliance published only last week a report that said that relationships were the missing link in public health. That report showed that relationship quality is often a key determinant of health and well-being, and that it has strong links with the ability to deal well with cardiovascular disease, obesity, alcohol misuse and mental health issues. All those issues link up, and strengthening the health of couple relationships is often right at the heart of them.

If we look at what has happened since the IAPT programme began—I understand that it receives funding of about £400 million a year—we can see that the investment has been very much towards cognitive behavioural therapy, with interpersonal psychotherapy, counselling for depression, brief dynamic therapy and couple therapy the poor relations in the area.

In a written parliamentary question, answered on 8 January 2013 and printed in volume 556, column 258, of the Official Report, we learn that of 1,225 sessions in 2012-13 only 99 were for couple therapy, whereas 459 were for CBT low-intensity therapy and 322 for CBT high-intensity therapy. If we look at the period from 2008-09 all the way through to the projections for 2013-14, we will see that of nearly 8,000 different sessions—7,958 to be precise—only 297 were for couple therapy. The story that I have just given of Polly and Mark shows that such sessions are needed up and down are country and can indeed make a significant difference.

[Seema Malhotra]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech on the importance of having a relational base to services. In my own constituency of Feltham and Heston, I visited a service that was started a year ago by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. It works with children who have parents with drug and alcohol problems. I am struck by what the hon. Gentleman is saying. Is he able to talk a bit more about, or perhaps give a comment on, how having such a focus in a service can help children who are the victim of the illness of their parents?

[Andrew Selous]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her comments. May I extend to her a very warm invitation to come to the next meeting of the all-party parliamentary group on 6 November when we will consider such issues further? She is absolutely right that these issues are intergenerational. If she was following the example of Mark and Polly, she would have learned that it was their own parents’ stormy relationships that had affected them. Of course their children were suffering deeply from the problems that they were having in their own relationship or marriage. Such issues are deeply related, and she is completely right to say that the children suffer hugely when there are relationship problems between the parents. It is vital that we get this matter right for the children, and I would welcome her support on a cross-party basis on these important issues; they are just too important to be bipartisan about. I would love to have cross-party agreement on the importance of relational issues in public health, because I feel so passionately about the matter.

Another concern is the geographic differences in the ability to get couple therapy through IAPT at the moment. Ruth Sutherland, the chief executive officer of Relate, told me only yesterday that the programme is very geographically bound. Provision is better in the north of England—I note that there are not many colleagues from the north of England in the Chamber today—than in the south, so there is an inequality of access geographically, as well as there being fewer of these sessions available across the UK as a whole.

Let me make one further point to the Minister about why one part of IAPT provision is an incredibly serious matter for the whole NHS. As a clinician, he will know about the huge importance of long-term conditions, which are faced by so many of our constituents. He will be well aware of the significant demands that they will make on the NHS in years to come. I am talking about strokes and dementia and all sorts of other long-term ailments that many of our constituents will live with for a very long time.

I heard a moving story a couple of weeks ago from a gentleman who was visiting his elderly parents in Manchester. He said that between them as a couple they could function. Between the two of them, they had one pair of eyes, ears and legs that worked. They were both sick in different ways. They could cope and look after each other, but what would have happened if they had split in younger years? They might have been like Polly and Mark and had difficulties and not been able to receive the type of help that I have outlined. Let us say that they did sadly split up, like so many couples do today. They would be in two different flats in different parts of Manchester needing far more help from their GP and far more adult care, and that would fall on the clinicians for whom the Minister is responsible and on adult social services. Yes, it would have an impact on their families, and we would all be paying more through our taxes and there would greater burdens on business as well from having to look after that couple in two different settings. The importance of strong couple relationships in older age, in later life, is critical not least to deal with the increase in long-term conditions, which are becoming more and more prevalent and which many of our constituents will be coping with for many years to come. That is my final pitch to the Minister.

We are talking specifically about mental health and IAPT. I understand that a lot of good work is being done under IAPT and that it is an excellent programme, but I ask the Minister, when he goes back to his Department and talks to his colleagues and the Secretary of State, to take back with him the absolute centrality of strong relational health up and down are country as far as public health, the burdens on the NHS and his Department are concerned.

10:29

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

Sir Edward, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning.

This has been a thoughtful and important debate on a subject that is not talked about nearly enough. Every day in Britain, people of all ages and backgrounds, and from all communities, have their lives blighted by the spectre of mental illness. Theirs are some of the great untold stories of our society. As many hon. Members have already said, the issue of mental health has been swept under the carpet for too long. One in six people are afflicted by mental illness, but all too often they are scared into silence. That is why this discussion is so important.

I also congratulate the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) on securing this debate and on the campaigning that he has done on this issue. In addition, I thank him for giving me the opportunity to talk about mental health in my first debate as Labour’s newly appointed shadow Minister with responsibility for public health.

This debate is even more timely because of the news that we have heard on the BBC this morning, to which a number of hon. Members have already referred. Dr Baggaley, the director of medicine at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, has said that our mental health services are in “crisis”, following the news—after the BBC made freedom of information requests—that in a little more than two years we have seen the loss of 1,700 mental health beds. I note that the Minister of State, Department of Health, who is the Minister with responsibility for care, said this morning that the situation is “unacceptable” and that the provision must improve. I hope that the Minister who is here in Westminster Hall today will refer to that when he responds to the debate.

We have heard a number of valuable contributions this morning. In responding to the excellent points that have been made, I will cover three broad themes: first, I will reiterate the importance of early intervention; secondly, I will talk about the improving access to psychological therapies programme, including some specific issues about how IAPT needs to work better; and thirdly, I will talk about what we need to do beyond IAPT.

Let me begin with early intervention. As hon. Members have already said, the long-term consequences are clear if we do not tackle mental illness early; indeed, we can already see those consequences right across our society today. We can see them in the workplace, where mental illness is the largest single cause of long-term sick leave; we can see them in our criminal justice system, where 70% of those in our prisons have a mental illness; and we can see them in our economy, where mental ill health costs Britain’s businesses £26 billion every year, or £71 million every day. Also, in our health service, according to the London School of Economics the physical health care necessitated by mental illness costs the NHS an extra £10 billion each year. All those points show why the case for action could not be any clearer.

I am sure that, like myself, many hon. Members will have had experience of constituents coming to them for assistance; indeed, several hon. Members have referred to those experiences in their contributions to the debate. Constituents come to us in deep distress and dire circumstances. However, many of those situations could have been avoided if those people had received specialist treatment for mental illnesses at a much earlier stage. I echo the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, who said that it is absolutely crucial that we look at this issue of early intervention.

That was why in 2007 the last Labour Government launched the IAPT programme, which helped to make respected and evidence-based therapies available to more people than ever before. As we heard in the hon. Gentleman’s opening speech, thousands of people have been helped on that programme so far. Since then, the current Government have continued the programme and extended it to cover more people, which is a welcome step. However, as this debate has made clear, IAPT is still a developing scheme, with areas that are in need of much improvement. So, my second theme is to focus on those areas that require attention, and I would be grateful if the Minister could address them in his closing remarks.

There are three areas in particular that require attention. The first is funding. Spending on IAPT has increased from zero in 2008-09, when the programme was first launched, to £214 million in 2011-12. The Department of Health has also allocated £54 million to improve access to therapies for children and young people, which is a good step. However, it must be noted that Ministers always pledged that IAPT funding would be additional funding and would not replace existing psychotherapy services. Despite those assurances, non-IAPT therapy services have been cut by more than 5%. Funding has fallen from £185 million in 2009-09 to £172 million in 2011-12. What makes that even more worrying is that overall mental health spending has been cut in real terms for the second year in a row.

That real-terms cut has particular resonance when it comes to the second area that requires attention, which is waiting times; again, waiting times have already been mentioned by hon. Members during this debate. NICE’s aim is that patients receive access to evidence-based therapies within 28 days of referral. It is regrettable that this debate falls the day before the latest programme statistics are published. According to the latest figures, however, which are for 2012-13, more people are having to wait longer to start receiving treatment for anxiety or depression.

[Seema Malhotra]

My hon. Friend makes very important points about waiting times and how they have continued, and also about the cuts to services. Given that the number of university students seeking counselling has risen by a third in the last four years, does she agree that it is important to recognise the impact that the drop in funding could be having on vulnerable students, sometimes forcing them to leave university, which can affect the rest of their life? With the number of students in that situation increasing and without data for average waiting times, we must recognise the importance of early intervention and very fast response.

[Luciana Berger]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and she raises an important issue. There are lots of different groups of people who do not have access to these sorts of services or who have to wait a disproportionate amount of time to access them. We have already heard hon. Members talking about older people who might not be able to access the IAPT programme, and my hon. Friend refers to university students, who do not necessarily fall into the category of children and young people, but who, as young adults, are struggling with leaving home and with financial pressures.

I have not seen any direct research about what effect the current cost of living crisis is having on our population—I hope that there will be some research into that issue—but my experience from my case load as a constituency MP indicates that we have a problem in our society regarding the pressures of life. More people are having to access these services and therefore the services should be available, which makes the issues of waiting times even more relevant.

More than 115,000 people had to wait more than 28 days from referral until their first treatment or therapy session, which was a 19% increase from the previous year. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) made the point that this issue is not only about the statistics but the people behind the statistics, who have to go through the trauma of waiting for treatment and suffering the uncertainty of not knowing when it will come.

On Monday, someone contacted me to say that they had been waiting for a year and a half for cognitive behavioural therapy in the Wirral, on Merseyside, and just this morning on BBC “Breakfast”: there was a woman who was interviewed who had had to wait 17 months for talking therapies treatment. Eventually, she had to be sectioned as her condition deteriorated while she waited for treatment. These cases are not unusual— there are too many cases like them—and it pains me to learn of them. According to a report produced by the We Need to Talk coalition of mental health charities and royal colleges, one in five people have been waiting for more than a year to receive treatment. However, the same report found that people who receive treatment within three months are almost five times more likely to be helped back into work by therapy than others who have to wait for one or two years. As another person wrote to me this week, even a six-week wait can seem a whole lot longer if someone is clinically depressed. Just as we focus on waiting times for cancer treatment and other examples of physical care, we must do the same for mental health therapies.

I will repeat the commitment, which my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition made a year ago, that the next Labour Government will rewrite the NHS constitution; that we will strengthen the rights that it grants to patients; that we will create a genuine parity between mental and physical health care; and that we will set down a new right of access to the therapies that we have been talking about this morning. That will mean that mental health patients will be entitled not only to drugs and other medical treatments but to psychological therapies, and they will have the same guarantees on waiting times, professional advice and patient experience.

However, in addition to how long it takes to receive treatment, we need to examine the range of therapies that are available in the first place, which brings me to my third broad theme; again, it is a theme that has been already been referred to by other hon. Members, but it is important to reinforce it and to ask the Minister to respond to it. Different people are affected by different mental health conditions for all sorts of different reasons. That is why we need diverse mental health provision, with a range of therapies, to cater for people with different needs, preferences and personalities. As the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis said, only five types of therapy are currently available via IAPT. Moreover, 90% of IAPT funding has gone towards cognitive behaviour therapies, with limited support for other modes of therapy. The United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy has described this as an

“overwhelmingly manualised and brief approach to therapy that sits at odds with the professional practice of the majority of leading psychotherapists and counsellors.”

We need to look at going beyond basic therapies that help people go about their day-to-day lives more adequately. There needs to be appropriate room for more intense and longer term psychological treatments, so that the underlying causes do not go unaddressed.

The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire mentioned the need for couples therapies. The hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis also talked about older peoples’ problems with accessing treatment.

There is a patient choice issue, too. According to a survey of 500 service users by Mind, only 8% of people had a full choice about which therapy they received and just 13% had a choice about where they received therapy. The 8% who had full choice of therapies—a very small number—were, on average, three times happier with their treatment and five times more likely to say that therapy had helped them back into work. As the programme develops, we need to do all we can to ensure that it caters to people’s individual needs.

What needs to be done beyond IAPT? As welcome as IAPT is, we have to remember that the programme currently only aspires to be available to 15% of the population. The programme’s three-year report, published last November, shows that it is currently delivering 45% recovery rates and aims to reach 50% by March 2015. The big question this raises is, what about the other 50% to 55%—the 50% who continue to suffer from conditions, having gone through the IAPT process, but are not eligible for more intensive psychotherapy services under the stepped care model? That question, and this debate, requires an answer that goes far beyond the IAPT programme. It requires ending the artificial dividing lines in our NHS and pursuing a whole person, fully integrated approach to mental, physical, social and care issues, as Labour has indicated, and it demands a complete revaluation of how we, as a country, think about and approach mental health. That is what Labour’s mental health taskforce is looking at, under the expert leadership of Stephen O’Brien, the chair of Barts Health NHS Trust.

General mental health support should not start in hospital or the treatment room. It needs to start in our workplaces, our schools and our communities, even across our kitchen tables and in the conversations we have with one another. There is no reason why we should not be able to talk about mental health and psychological therapies in the same way we do about access to sexual health services, vaccinations or cancer treatment, but we have a long way to go.

I look forward to the Minister’s response. I hope that he will respond to my questions and issues raised by other hon. Members. Returning to my opening comments on today’s news about the crisis in mental health provision and the reduction in the number of beds, the point of our debate is access to services that would prevent people from going into those beds in the first place. However, we hear today that bed capacity is at 100%. I hope that the Minister will mention those issues as well, because they are interlinked.

10:44

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr Daniel Poulter)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) for securing this debate, for his tremendous work on the all-party group in highlighting the importance of mental health and the need to continue to raise mental health issues, and for his supporting the Government in seeking parity between physical and mental health, to which we have been committed since the coalition came to power in 2010. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) on her promotion to her new role and commend her largely bipartisan approach to the debate and on recognising that some of these issues are bigger than party politics.

Before I deal with some important issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, I want to touch on the contributions of other hon. Members and talk about the context in which we are operating. We recognise, as a Government—I think that all hon. Members in this debate have recognised—that for far too long we focused on crisis management in health care generally, particularly in mental health, rather than on upstream interventions, which is where IAPT plays such an important role to keep people well in their own homes and communities, instead of picking up the pieces when they become so unwell at the other end. There is a good economic argument for that, but it also provides much better care for the patients and the people we all care about as Members of Parliament, and whom I care about as a doctor.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) raised some important issues about veterans’ health. He knows that I have personally committed to improving the provision of physical and mental health care for our armed forces veterans. There are now 10 dedicated teams in England, focusing on supporting our veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health problems, post-discharge. A lot of work is going on—much more collaborative work—between the NHS and the armed forces, to ensure that general practitioners and health care professionals in England are much more aware of armed forces personnel coming back into their care, after serving in the armed forces, that a more holistic approach is taken, that people do not present too late in crisis and that GPs can be much more proactive in offering reassurance and support to veterans who may be running into the early signs of difficulties. My counterpart in Northern Ireland has been working hard on that and he should be commended for it.

My hon. Friends the Members for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) and for Eastleigh (Mike Thornton) made important contributions about the holistic approach to health care in general, about how mental health needs to be considered holistically and about the benefits to wider society of upstream interventions. Getting health care right can also provide additional benefits for the economy; for example, by supporting families to stay together and bring up their children. All these things are beneficial and at the heart of my work on early interventions projects. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson), who is no longer in this Chamber, and I are working closely on that.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I apologise for being late. I was at another meeting. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) on securing the debate. Has the Minister already secured a meeting with Welsh Government Ministers, or will he do so in future, to discuss the approach towards veterans that he outlined? That issue is close to my heart, because I am aware of emergency rescue situations in which things have gone too far, when services, including mental health services, have been stretched way beyond their means in dealing with them. There would be benefits from sharing best practice across all the regions and nations.

[Dr Poulter]

The hon. Gentleman is right. We UK Health Ministers work collaboratively on many issues. However, on veterans, we have to recognise that, although we have UK-wide armed forces, health is a devolved responsibility. We need to share different initiatives better between the devolved Administrations. Some remote areas of Wales, in particular, could learn from best practice in the NHS about how we are using, to good effect, specialist mental health teams for veterans. I should be happy to share that and meet my counterpart in Wales to talk that through in greater detail.

I will focus in particular on the important contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis. He addressed a number of issues that are central to the provision of good mental health care, and he threw down some challenges on how we could make things better. In particular, he praised the scale of the Government’s ambition to have genuine parity between physical and mental health, which has to be right; it is at the centre of everything that we are looking towards in the good commissioning of services locally.

I reassure the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree that, with the addition of IAPT, there has been a substantial increase in the NHS’s total investment in psychological therapies. As she will be aware, however, it is down to local commissioners to prioritise their resources to meet local need, based on the local population that they serve. In the past, the challenge has been that good commissioning has too often been seen purely through the framework of physical health. Through the NHS Commissioning Board’s mandate, we are now ensuring that there is parity between mental and physical health. That journey is already well under way to ensure that good commissioning is no longer just about commissioning for acute services, such as stroke and heart attack, but about looking at the whole patient and considering the importance of upstream interventions, which are central to IAPT’s role in looking after patients.

My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis also talked about the need to consider CBT and its evidence base. As he knows, it is not the role of Ministers to question the integrity of NICE, but NICE keeps its criteria under review, and there is a very strong evidence base to support CBT. The evidence base for IAPT is continually being developed and adapted, and a number of pilots are already in place to consider the potential to extend the scope of therapies, including to older people. I hope that that is reassuring. NICE will be listening to this debate, and it continues to evaluate the evidence. With mental health, there has always been controversy on how evidence is collated, because mental health is different from physical health, and NICE will keep that under review when it adapts and introduces future guidelines.

The debate has been called because all hon. Members in the room believe that, for too long, there has been too much focus on crisis management and acute response when patients with mental health conditions become very unwell. We would all like to see much more focus on upstream intervention, which is what IAPT is all about. We need to move the focus away from SSRIs—selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors—and drug-based therapy towards upstream, proactive intervention for what is sometimes a very vulnerable patient group.

The benefits of early intervention have been outlined by many hon. Members. There are clear health benefits, but there are also economic benefits, benefits to the family and benefits from getting people back to work, education and training, and from supporting people to have more productive and happier lives. That is why we will continue to ensure parity of esteem in commissioning for physical and mental health, and it is why we will continue to support upstream interventions in the early years—I will address early-years IAPT later. We will also ensure that we continually drive good commissioning to encompass mental health as well as physical health. That holistic approach to health care, by prioritising mental health, is good for people’s health care, good for families and good for the economy. That is why we will ensure that it remains a priority.

As hon. Members will be aware, the mandate set by the Government for NHS England last year establishes a holistic approach as a priority for the whole NHS for the first time. Improving access to psychological therapies is fundamental to the success of improving mental health. The mandate makes it clear that everyone who needs them should have timely access to evidence-based services. That is particularly important for mental health. By the end of March 2015, IAPT services will be available to at least 15% of those who could benefit—an estimated 900,000 people a year. We are also increasing the availability of services to cover children and young people with long-term physical health problems and those with severe mental illness to ensure that everyone can access therapies. There is an emphasis on those who are out of work, the black and minority ethnic populations and older people and their carers.

IAPT is being made available throughout the country. The programme was started by the previous Government in 2008, and we now have an IAPT service in every clinical commissioning group. There are more than 4,000 trained practitioners, and more than 1 million people are entering and completing treatment. Recovery rates have consistently been in excess of 45%, and they are much greater in many areas. The programme already has a clear track record of evidence-based success, and it is helping to reach some of the most disadvantaged and marginalised people in our society, which we would all say is a good thing.

[Andrew Selous]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the evidence. Although this is a little premature, he might be aware that the Department for Education has just commissioned evidence on the efficacy and cost-benefits of couple counselling. I have sometimes heard it said that there is no evidence for anything other than CBT, so will he say a little about the range of provision available under IAPT, specifically in relation to couple counselling?

[Dr Poulter]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will address children’s IAPT in a moment, because the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson) made an important point on that.

My hon. Friend is right that, through not only IAPT but other programmes that consider health care more holistically—particularly the family nurse programme, which is aimed at vulnerable teenage mums—upstream intervention supporting those vulnerable groups helps to keep couples together and helps reduce rates of domestic violence. The programmes also support a stronger bond between mum and baby, so the child does better at school and mum and dad are supported to get back into education, training and work. So it is a win-win situation for the economy, and it helps vulnerable younger parents to have a better start in their own lives and provides a better start in life for their children. That is not exclusive to family nurses; we are also considering how the approach may be developed with IAPT, so that we can have a more joined-up approach both to children’s health generally and to families.

Earlier this year, I launched a system-wide pledge across education, local authorities, the voluntary sector and the NHS to do everything we can to give each and every child the best start in life. Part of the pledge is to do exactly what my hon. Friend outlines, which is to focus on getting early and upstream interventions right to support children in having the best start in life. We are also seeing the benefits of supporting families and reducing rates of domestic violence. I hope that is reassuring, and we will continue to develop and press those policies.

Briefly, our children’s IAPT programme is no less ambitious in its aim to transform services. In 2011, we announced funding for children and young people’s IAPT of £8 million a year for four years, and in 2012, we agreed significant additional investment of up to £22 million over the next three years, which is a total of £54 million up to 2015. That additional funding will be used to extend the range of evidence-based therapies to include systematic family therapies and interpersonal psychotherapy, to extend the range, reach and number of collaborators within the project and to develop interactive e-learning programmes to extend the skills and knowledge of professionals such as teachers, social workers and counsellors. Again, there is a multi-agency approach to improving the support and care available to children, because this is not just about the NHS, but about local authorities and education working together to get it right for young people. Behind those facts and figures are the people whose lives and services have been transformed by IAPT.

To conclude, it might be worth outlining a recent conversation that I had with a GP. When talking about IAPTs in West Sussex, he said, “I hear from GP colleagues that this is the single most positive change to their medical practice in the last 20 years, and I echo this. Our local service reaches out to the community, and it is always looking at ways to improve. It is continually developing new evidence-based interventions for people with anxiety and depression, delivered one-on-one and in groups in a flexible way that means patients have real choice. They have filled a huge gap in need and are a force for good.” That is absolutely right, and it is why we will continue to develop parity between mental and physical health and continue to expand the IAPT programme.

A14 (Tolling Proposals)

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Westminster Hall

11:00

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

It is a great pleasure to have secured this debate. I welcome the Minister to his new role. If he is as adept in this role as he was when performing his former duties, we will have a terrific roads Minister. He has had a baptism of fire, having already done two 90-minute debates yesterday, but I am sure he is coping admirably.

The A14 is a strategic route for UK plc. It is heavily congested in certain areas, and upgrading it is a national priority. The Government and councils are planning to invest £1.5 billion in upgrading the A14 and also the A1. However, the Government have singled out through-users of the A14 for tolling even though no other major road improvement scheme planned for the next 10 years is to be tolled. There is a risk that that will effectively amount to a tax on businesses in East Anglia—bad news for one of UK plc’s leading growth areas.

The A14 is a key route for traffic between the UK’s largest container port, Felixstowe, and the midlands. Its importance is recognised in its status as a trans-European transport network, or TEN-T. It also serves commuters to the city of Cambridge, home to the world-famous science park, which is a fast-growing economic hub. In the infrastructure statement in June, the Government recognised the importance of the A14 and announced that the start date for the work would be brought forward two years, to 2016—a decision that I and many others greatly welcome.

The infrastructure statement included 24 other road upgrades, which the Government will fund in their entirety. I am proud that the coalition Government are investing so heavily in infrastructure, especially since the previous Government, frankly, did not do enough of that. However, none of those 24 other routes will be co-financed by tolling. Roads supporting other economic hubs and routes with significant increases in capacity will enjoy fully funded upgrades, including the M25 improvements at Tilbury, the A1 in Yorkshire and, indeed, the proposed A1 from Newcastle to Scotland. It was suggested that the £1 billion M4 relief road in Wales would be subject to tolls, but that was ruled out very quickly—almost within 24 hours. Singling out the A14 for tolling appears arbitrary and somewhat unfair.

I represent the constituency of Suffolk Coastal, which includes the port of Felixstowe. However, this is not simply an issue of the potential threat to that port, which competes against many others along the south and east coasts. Tolling the A14 will have a wider impact on many businesses in Suffolk, Norfolk, north Essex and Cambridgeshire. It is therefore no wonder that business organisations and local enterprise partnerships in those areas have come out against the toll.

Two toll-free alternative routes are being offered for all traffic, although each will add considerable distance and time to journeys. The existing trunked A14 is to be de-trunked and key infrastructure is to be removed, so capacity is being removed. That is in stark contrast to the only other tolled trunk road in the country, the M6 toll, which offered a genuine new road.

The proposals also do not reflect the fact that at the point of proposed enhancement, between Cambridge and Huntingdon, HGVs from the port of Felixstowe currently make up just 3% of traffic and are dwarfed in number by local commuters. I am afraid that the perception in Suffolk is that East Anglian businesses will end up paying for easing congestion for Cambridge commuters.

Considerable effort has been made to shift more freight on to rail. The Government are helping with that, and I welcome their investment in the Ipswich chord and the work to be done at Ely junction, which will really help efforts to increase the amount of freight moving from road to rail. European funding available to TEN-T projects has also been secured for those projects. However, I am not aware that any EU funding has yet been secured for the proposed A14 enhancement. I would like to hear from the Minister what plans there are to secure such funding.

I shall go through some of the key stages of the proposal. When we looked at the consultation, we were disappointed that the Highways Agency refused to hold a consultation meeting in Suffolk. All the meetings were held in Cambridgeshire, even though there is reference after reference in the consultation document about, in effect, forcing HGVs on to the trunked road by making sure that that was the easiest route to use and making other routes quite difficult to use so that businesses would end up using the tolled roads. The Highways Agency made a bad mistake there, which I hope it does not repeat.

The solution in the consultation removes the existing A14, including demolishing the A14 bridge, therefore reducing road capacity. I would like the Minister to explain why the parliamentary answer given to me by his predecessor, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Stephen Hammond), talks about increasing capacity when it feels as if capacity is being reduced.

I mentioned the issues for Suffolk Coastal and the port of Felixstowe. One issue for local haulage businesses relates to DP World, just up the road at Tilbury. Improvements are being planned to junction 30 of the M25, which is close to that port. It is planned that those improvements will be paid for entirely by the taxpayer. Although I am convinced that the magnificent port of Felixstowe will continue to invest and to compete with DP World, imposing tolling charges on one of its key routes adds additional costs for customers and hauliers. There is a real risk, which does not seem to have been taken into account, that container lorries will simply divert to the Al and the M25 at the expense of Felixstowe. That is certainly bad news for the port of Felixstowe and supporting businesses, but it is also bad news for UK plc.

It has been suggested that a tolling element is required to help to pay for all these infrastructure changes, but there has been no indication of how long the tolls will be imposed for. Will it simply be for the financing of the project? I received a written answer suggesting that the anticipated revenue is £30 million per year, but there has been no indication of how long tolling will last.

Tolling has been suggested for only one part of the road, the new A14 carriageway, which is the bypass around Huntingdon. The project has been designed specifically to force through traffic on to the tolled road. However, no charges are planned for the brand-new local roads that will be built or for the enhanced A1.

It seems contradictory to single out that one stretch of the A14, as the existing A14 is rerouted and de-trunked, when the A1, which will also be significantly improved, will not be tolled. The Highways Agency suggests that de-trunking the A14 addresses the Department for Transport’s ambition to place the right vehicles on the right roads, which suggests that the DFT is, in effect, forcing traffic on to the toll road.

The two non-tolled alternatives for HGVs in the consultation will push a lot of traffic on to the A428 and the A1M. Quite a number of hauliers are already starting to use the alternatives, as we know. There is a risk that the toll will have the unintended consequence that we see considerably more traffic using that route. We will end up in a situation in which people in St Neots are going nuts about how much traffic is going through their town. The situation could be even worse for St Ives, a pleasant little market town, as the other proposed alternative is to go through St Ives and then around the edge of Huntingdon. I hope the Department and the Minister are aware of those possible unintended consequences.

[Peter Aldous (Waveney) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. She is making a compelling case.

I was born in Suffolk. I have lived there my whole life and I have worked there for much of it. In that time, I have witnessed a dramatic growth in the logistics industry, based on the port of Felixstowe and mostly located along the A14 corridor. Does my hon. Friend agree that proposals such as this could have a significant negative impact on the logistics industry in Suffolk and on the Suffolk economy as a whole? Does she also agree that the Department for Transport needs to look again at this proposal and to consult properly with Suffolk businesses and Suffolk people, and that, if there is to be a toll road, there should also be a realistic alternative, although, ideally, the A14 should not be tolled at all?

[Dr Coffey]

I support my hon. Friend’s sentiments. The wider impact does not seem to have been assessed. In fact, there appears to be an assumption in the Government, which I think is wrong, that demand for using the A14 is completely inelastic to the toll. In fact, as the Department will know, there are basically two types of hauliers: first, those that definitely need to arrive on time; and secondly, those for whom cash flow is key. Adding to the cost of coming in and out of Suffolk and other parts of East Anglia creates a risk to our economy. This is an issue not just for Felixstowe, but for other parts of Ipswich, for Bury St Edmunds and for Haverhill, as well as for Lowestoft, which is in the constituency of my hon. Friend.

[Mr David Ruffley (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on a superb speech. She is saying everything that I would say.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman address the Chair and not turn his back?

[Mr Ruffley]

My hon. Friend asks why there was not greater consultation with Suffolk. Does she agree that now, because, as she mentioned, other A roads in our region and other regions are not being tolled, there is a risk that there will be an A road apartheid in Suffolk—discrimination against business users, and other travellers into the county? Could that be deleterious to logistics companies in Bury St Edmunds, Stowmarket and Needham Market, in my constituency, and, equally importantly, in the golden triangle of Norwich, Ipswich and Cambridge? That is one of the engine rooms of growth for the whole nation.

[Dr Coffey]

My hon. Friend is right. I hope that the Minister realises that we are united across the county in our concern about the economic impact on the county and region, particularly in the light of our growth industries. My hon. Friend put that well.

To go into a little more detail, there were various options with the original consultation and it seems that we have taken up option 3, which includes the Huntingdon southern bypass scheme and removal of the A14 bridge, and whose estimated cost is £687 million, with a benefit-cost ratio of 2.15 and 2.26 million vehicle hours saved; and option 5, which also includes the bypass and would retain the trunked A14 through Huntingdon, with the addition of local roads.

The estimated cost of option 5 is £1.2 billion, nearly double that of option 3, with a BCR of 3.49 and 2.98 million vehicle hours saved. In both cases the eastbound saving is 19 minutes and the westbound saving is 14. The document gave, as a reason for introducing local access roads, allowing tolling to be put in more easily; so it seems that the scheme has been designed to make tolling easier, although introducing those local roads would increase complexity and cost at the Girton junction. The combination of the two options is coming out at £1.5 billion, but that sum is also due to enhancements to the A1, which were never part of the original proposals.

There are several issues to consider. My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) wants to speak, so I shall draw my remarks to a close. The A14 needs to be improved. I thank the Government for investing so heavily in that key route for our region and for UK plc. However, users feel that they already pay their share; they do not want to be singled out to pay a toll while other parts of the road network continue to be fully financed.

I am proud to support the “No Toll Tax on Suffolk” campaign of the Suffolk chamber of commerce; it has gathered much momentum. I also welcome the backing of Suffolk county council, Suffolk Coastal district council, New Anglia local enterprise partnership and other business organisations. I am sure that the Minister will write to me if he cannot answer all the questions, but I ask him to listen to the concerns being put to him, because the issue is rousing Suffolk as we speak.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

The convention of the House is that if a Member wants to contribute after the initial speech, they must have the agreement of the person who secured the debate and the Minister. I remind the hon. Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) that we must leave adequate time for the Minister to sum up.

11:13

[Ben Gummer (Ipswich) (Con)]

Of course, Mr Leigh. Thank you; I intend to speak for only a minute or two. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) for giving me a little time, and the Minister for allowing me to speak. I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate.

Today there was another fall in the joblessness figures in Ipswich, which is a sign of a vibrant and important economy. Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire have a larger economy than Scotland’s. They are a vibrant part of the country, which has not fallen into recession and which is powering private sector-led innovative economic growth. That is a good thing, and the Government, for once, are investing in that success.

We are always bereft of infrastructure in the east of England. The A11 work that was promised many times by the previous Government is now delivered. The previous Government spoke at length about the A14. We are grateful for the Government’s consideration, and understand the financial pressure on the Treasury. We are also grateful for the fact that much has already been done to make the tolling proposals more reasonable than we feared.

Let us, however, be straight about the reason for what is happening: it is because Cambridge is such a remarkable success. We do not begrudge Cambridge that; it is part of the economic success story of the region. However, we in Ipswich, where many hauliers are based, are effectively being asked to pay a congestion charge for Cambridge, and that is wrong. It is wrong for economic success, which is more fragile in east Suffolk, to be impeded by Cambridge’s wild and ever growing success. We ask the Minister to reconsider alternative schemes that would put the cost on to the main users and the main reasons for the congestion, which do not include the hauliers of Ipswich, Felixstowe and east Suffolk.

Southampton will receive an electric spine under the Government’s bold infrastructure plans. The new Thamesport will receive road upgrades and an electrified link. However, Felixstowe, the largest container port in the country, does not, unlike Immingham, have an electric link by rail. In addition to our not having such a link, our principal route into the country will be tolled. That will be a double disadvantage for the country’s largest container port—the fourth largest in the world. It will have a significant impact on my constituents, many of whom are employed in the shipping industry. It may turn our joblessness figures in the other direction.

11:09

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)]

It is a joy to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) for giving me an early opportunity to examine the issue and make some comments.

The effectiveness of the United Kingdom’s strategic road network is vital to long-term economic growth, providing the means to move people and freight between our centres of industry and population. In June, the Government announced plans to increase the capital provision for critical transport infrastructure through an unprecedented programme of road investments worth more than £30 billion. Last year we announced proposals to upgrade one of the most congested sections of trunk road in England: the A14 between Huntingdon and Cambridge—a section that I know well. That 25-mile length of road carries up to 85,000 vehicles a day, which is significantly more than it was ever designed to accommodate, and is the reason why it has become such a frequent source of delay and frustration for motorists. Heavy goods vehicles make up an unusually high proportion of the traffic on the road, contributing to difficult and stressful driving conditions for other motorists and reducing average speeds still further. However, for commercial road users, congestion presents a cost to business efficiency, making journey times slow and unpredictable and increasing fuel consumption as vehicles are often forced to queue. I used to drive a road tanker and understand that problem all too well.

The A14 between Huntingdon and Cambridge is part of a strategic road corridor, which links the midlands to the east coast ports. In addition, it accommodates long-distance movements between the north of England and the south-east via the M11 motorway, as well as a growing volume of local and commuter traffic in what has become one of Britain’s most successful economic hot spots. That mix of local and long-distance traffic is expected to get significantly worse as the economy continues to recover, and one of the aims of the A14 scheme is therefore to separate those making local trips from those passing through the region.

I shall comment now on a couple of questions, so that I do not run out of time. My hon. Friend asked whether EU funding had been secured, and the answer is that it is too early in the development of the project to be able to say yes or no. As to traffic being forced on to other roads, it is interesting to note that the alternative route via the A428 and the A1 is 30 miles, as against 18 miles on the A14. That would be an additional 14 miles, and anyone driving a truck doing eight or nine miles to the gallon would—never mind the lost time—easily be able to work out that with the level of tolls we propose it would be a no-brainer to stay on the toll road and not increase pressure on other local infrastructure. Added to that, a shortage of residential property in Cambridge is fuelling house price inflation in the region, but new housing developments cannot proceed without better infrastructure. The A14 scheme provides the key to unlock a number of major housing developments along the trunk road corridor and is critical to the plans of the local authorities in the area.

The case for improving the A14 in the area is overwhelming. Other rail freight and public transport-based solutions have already been considered, and improvements, including the Cambridge guided busway, have already been made to help to take some of the load off the A14. Significant growth in traffic volumes on this section of the A14 is forecast, however, and without improvement the problem will only worsen. The Government therefore announced a funding commitment of £1.5 billion in June this year to support improvements to the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon, together with a challenging development programme that will see the proposed improvement scheme complete and open to traffic by the end of the decade.

The construction and maintenance of the United Kingdom’s trunk roads and motorway network is mostly funded by central Government. The introduction of tolls to fund or part-fund major capital investments in the road network is, however, a well established principle. Many of our estuarial bridge and tunnel crossings, including the Mersey tunnels, the River Severn crossings and the Dartford crossing, are tolled, but the M6 toll, which opened in December 2003 to bypass a heavily trafficked section of the M6 through Birmingham, is currently the only principal road in Britain to be tolled. Proposals to toll part of the A14 Cambridge-to-Huntingdon improvement were announced as part of the Government’s commitment in June.

The Government have previously stated that, although they have no intention to toll existing capacity on Britain’s trunk road and motorway network, where investment in new infrastructure constitutes a significant transformation of the existing route the option to introduce tolls on new sections of road is seen as a means of making the capital investment more affordable. Such a situation exists on the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon. The proposed scheme, at £1.5 billion, constitutes more than a 10th of the Highways Agency’s entire capital budget to the end of the decade and the transport and economic benefits of the improvement to the east of England, in particular the Cambridge sub-region, are significant.

The Government will still bear the brunt of the capital costs associated with the scheme, but it is fair that the road users who will benefit most should make a contribution to the construction costs. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal discussed the impact of the charge on the people and businesses in East Anglia, the current levels of congestion and delay on this section of road already result in a significant cost to those living and working in the region. The local authorities and the local enterprise partnership in the Cambridgeshire area are highly supportive of the scheme and have also been asked to make a contribution to its development. As a result, some £100 million has been pledged by those bodies to offset some of the costs to Government of the scheme.

Tolling therefore makes the A14 scheme more affordable. An important principle underpinning the tolling strategy for the A14 is that tolls, while making a meaningful contribution towards the cost of the scheme, should not deter motorists from using the new road, particularly when making long-distance trips through the region. Tariffs will therefore be kept as low as possible, with light vehicles being expected to pay around £1 or £1.50 at current-day prices and heavy vehicles paying around double that cost. It is anticipated that tolls will be charged seven days a week, but that overnight trips will be free. That may encourage some commercial operators to use the road at night when it is expected to be less busy.

A second principle that remains fundamental to the development of this scheme has been to channel the right traffic on to the right roads, separating long-distance through-traffic from local traffic. The proposed scheme makes provision for local and commuter traffic to use a new side-road network between Cambridge and Huntingdon, which is toll-free and which eliminates much of the conflict between local and strategic users.

Most toll roads in Britain and throughout Europe require road users to stop at toll plazas to pay, but if we are to eliminate congestion on this section of road, the introduction of physical barriers is not the solution. The Highways Agency is therefore proposing a free-flow tolling system, in which vehicles are identified using cameras or tag devices and payments are made electronically or by smartphone without delaying road users. I should point out that we do not expect drivers to use their smartphones while driving. The system works in a similar way to the London congestion charge, using technology that is now well proven and collection systems that have proved to be effective in practice.

The tolling proposals for the A14 Cambridge-to-Huntingdon scheme were set out in a public consultation exercise that ended last weekend, together with the Highways Agency’s proposed scheme alignment. More than 5,000 people attended a series of exhibitions staged in towns and villages along the route and nearly 1,000 people provided their views by completing the Highways Agency’s online questionnaire. Discussions took place between the Highways Agency and the various local authorities in the surrounding area and the consultation received a high level of publicity in the press and broadcast media in Cambridge, Huntingdon and throughout the east of England. That was the first in a series of consultation exercises that will take place before a development consent order application is submitted by the Highways Agency in the autumn of 2014. Although it is a little early to comment on the results of the recently closed first consultation, it is clear that aspects of the tolling proposals have been high on the agenda—not least because of the activities of my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal.

[Dr Coffey]

I just want to impress upon the Minister that businesses were genuinely angry that the Highways Agency refused point blank to hold a consultation meeting in Suffolk. It refused the request of MPs, which was not at all welcome.

[Mr Goodwill]

I asked my officials about that. The consultation was focused on the area where the road is to be built because of the effect on local communities. If anyone has had involvement in the High Speed 2 project, they will know that it is the communities near such projects that are likely to have the strongest views. Those further afield who will benefit from the scheme may well feed in their views but were not given the opportunity to contribute through road shows. I intend, however, to have regular meetings with representatives of the freight and logistics industry, as I am sure they will have views to voice.

Finding the right highway solution, which is both affordable and fair, remains a priority for the Government. The results of the consultation exercise, when they are published later in the year, should provide an important indication of public opinion and will help the Highways Agency as it develops the scheme proposals. It remains clear, however, that to do nothing to improve this overcrowded section of our trunk road network is really not an option and that traffic congestion in the Cambridge and Huntingdon area will worsen without improvement and will constrain economic growth in the wider east of England in decades to come.

11:26

Sitting suspended.

Blacklisting

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Sir Alan Meale in the Chair]

14:30

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

The next speaker is Glenda Jackson. Before you begin, Glenda, I need to advise Members that there is a court case in progress at the moment—the GMB trade union is claiming that 70 of its members have been denied work as a result of being named on a list of construction workers drawn up by an organisation.

The matter is sub judice, and Members should be aware of the rules of the House on such issues: I will not permit any direct reference to that particular case. The Member in charge of the debate has written separately, with the advice of the Principal Clerk of the Table Office. I hesitate to cause difficulty for the debate, but I will not allow direct reference to that particular case.

14:31

[Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir Alan; it is a pleasure to work under your chairmanship. I am one of the few Members to have absolutely no legal training whatever, so the possibility of my uttering anything that could be deemed to be sub judice is fairly remote. I do wish, however, that I had selected a rather less bland title for this afternoon’s debate, because we are looking not so much at the practice of blacklisting, but at the illegality and abhorrence of blacklisting.

In common with many of my colleagues over the years, I have had constituents at advice surgeries alleging that they have lost their jobs, or had their career prospects blighted, because of blacklisting. At one time, it was extremely difficult to prove such allegations. In light of your introductory remarks, Sir Alan, I hasten to add that my constituents were not laying the allegations at the door of the construction industry. In my memory, blacklisting could go throughout the employment world, but it was extremely difficult to prove any allegations. Silly me, I thought that when the regulations under the Employment Relations Act 1999 making blacklisting illegal came into effect in 2010, such visits from constituents would end.

One must, nevertheless, pay tribute to all those who, inside and outside the House, worked to bring about what we thought would be safeguards under the 1999 Act. I also pay tribute to those who—again, inside and outside the House—have consistently, and certainly for more than a year, raised the issue of allegations of blacklisting through debates, early-day motions and questions to Ministers. Most recently, some of those against whom the allegations have been most cogently presented have indicated some kind of acceptance—I would not go so far as to say “apology”—that something untoward had been going on.

In my previous work, many of my colleagues—most markedly in the United States of America, and rather less in the United Kingdom—suffered egregiously from someone we could call the godfather of blacklisting, the nefarious Senator McCarthy. His reasons for condemning people as scaremongers and a danger to the body politic and the life of all democratic societies were overtly political.

Blacklisting, however, can be compared to an infectious disease—it spreads much further than the initial target. Only this morning, I heard from someone who had blown the whistle. She was a care worker, and she blew the whistle on her place of employment, because she found the treatment of those in her care totally unacceptable. Her whistleblowing brought some results, and I believe that that particular care home closed down—this was a few years ago and is not a contemporary case; it is a scandal that we all know about. She said, categorically, that she became unemployable. That is the running theme of all blacklisting allegations—that those who have been blacklisted are deemed by someone in authority to be, in essence, troublemakers; it is a little like David and Goliath. They would be dangerous to employ, because they might cause any commercial project some kind of egregious, usually financial, damage. Nine times out of 10, however, such people are actually attempting to ensure greater safety in their work areas.

Looking back at my previous work experience, I see that the creative people named by Senator McCarthy were not the only ones affected; their creative lives were cut off at the knees, but, in addition, the benefits of their creative work were no longer available to the wider community. That is why blacklisting is like a particularly infectious disease, which can spread far wider than only among those who know themselves to have been blacklisted in those industries or professions in which we know that blacklisting has existed, or possibly still exists. That is why I pay tribute to everyone inside and outside the House who has brought the issue forward.

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

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. Last year, with the help of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, I tabled an early-day motion on this important issue. Does she agree not only that the practice is a disgrace and a stain on the country, but that the people who were blacklisted are the very ones who should have been praised for what they were doing to assist fellow workers? The companies that indulged in such dark practices should be held accountable and made to pay for ruining the lives of many thousands of construction workers.

[Glenda Jackson]

I strongly concur. The stain of being blacklisted and accused of being in some way not committed, whether to the job, the company or the venture, can even spread to members of an individual’s family. I have heard stories of small children being called names by their contemporaries, because their mother or father had been deemed to be working against the industry or profession.

I endorse what my hon. Friend said, but we should now be pushing, most markedly, for the Government to institute a full inquiry into such practices, as previously requested. We thought that we were safe and that blacklisting was illegal—it is there in an Act of Parliament—but now, given reports in this country’s major newspapers and hon. Members’ questions and early-day motions, the problem clearly needs to be re-examined.

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

On that important point of having an inquiry, one of the most terrible and serious things about blacklisting is that people do not know whether they are on a blacklist. Without an inquiry, which has been called for by unions such as UCATT and the GMB, some people will never know that they are on a blacklist. That is why I support my hon. Friend’s call. I would love it if she could develop that point a little more.

[Glenda Jackson]

My hon. Friend has developed the point very well indeed—she needs no help from me. As she so rightly says, and going back to my analogy with an infectious disease, people might not even know that they are suffering from such a disease. Only when we have a thoroughgoing inquiry, with all the evidence, and when the symptoms are brought into what we are told is the only effective disinfectant, sunlight—the light of day—can we begin to establish whether the work that has taken place in the past, on ensuring health and safety at work, for example, has gone astray.

[Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)]

I commend my hon. Friend on how she is opening the debate. I want to put on the record the fact that I am a member of both the GMB and UCATT. I do so not because I am required to declare that as an interest, but because I am damn proud of it.

On looking forward, will my hon. Friend join me in commending the vocal way in which the Welsh Government Minister, Jane Hutt, has made it clear that there will be no place in public procurement for companies who use blacklisting? She is devising policy and guidance for such companies to ensure that that is crystal clear and explicit.

[Glenda Jackson]

Being partly Welsh, I always find it easy to commend the Welsh on practically anything. That example should be taken on board by other authorities to ensure that the best of all possible disinfectants—sunlight—is brought to bear on this egregious illegality. Let us not forget what we are talking about. Blacklisting is illegal.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent and powerful speech. On an earlier point about McCarthyism, Sam Wanamaker was a victim. He came to Britain, and founded the Globe theatre and so on. It is to this country’s credit that we would not tolerate McCarthyism and we gave employment to people who were blacklisted in their own country. He could have made an enormous contribution to America, but fortunately he came to us.

[Glenda Jackson]

I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend said. Sam Wanamaker worked extremely hard and was absolutely fundamental in ensuring that we now have one of the most critically and dramatically acclaimed theatres in the world—the Globe. He was essential in creating for a whole generation that had not thought it would find anything interesting in Shakespeare the extraordinary illumination of what it is to be a human being that only Shakespeare and his plays bring to bear.

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend and pay tribute to what Sam Wanamaker did, but in no way was there equal treatment. America was denied what Sam could have done. He was not alone in being blacklisted. Wider society suffered desperately because of fear during the McCarthy era, when entirely innocent people, as has been the case in this country, were victimised because others were afraid to speak out against what was happening. As we all know, it was only when Senator McCarthy took the fatal final step of trying to bring down the army that the President of the day stepped in and said in no small way, “This has to stop.”

The damage was fundamental and we do not want that infectious disease to take root again in this country. We would delude ourselves if we thought it had not existed here. We would not have had to fight so hard to change the employment Bill if that had not been the case. Blacklisting must never, ever be allowed to flourish again in this country. I pay tribute to those in the Chamber today, those on the broader parliamentary estate, the trade unions and those employees—or, rather, those unemployed people—who were not prepared to stand idly by, but were prepared to take the brickbats, insults and allegations that it was all fantasy, and who fought their corner.

I am on the record as saying that if an hon. Member cannot say what they want to say in 10 minutes, they should not stand up, so I will now throw the floor open to eager colleagues.

14:39

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Sir Alan, for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) on securing it and on her wonderfully impassioned speech. I will speak for only 10 minutes because, as she said, if hon. Members cannot say what they want to say in 10 minutes, they should not stand up. I shall try to learn from her vast experience.

Blacklisting is completely wrong. Not only does it destroy individuals, their confidence and their personality and who they are, but it destroys their family and prevents them from earning, working, contributing to society and being part of a wider whole. It is wrong for a variety of reasons, and I could wax lyrical on that. I know from my upbringing in Liverpool that blacklisting is a terrible disease, as the hon. Lady said, and must not be allowed to take root. It is illegal and should not be allowed in this country. I am proud that, as the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) said, this country has always been good at welcoming people who have been blacklisted in other countries. I want to put it clearly on the record that blacklisting is completely wrong.

I shall focus my comments on the construction industry, but I will not refer to the case going through the courts at the moment, Sir Alan, as you asked us not to. There are 3,213 victims of blacklisting, and we are well aware that around 2,500 people on that database do not know that they are on it. Will the Minister impress on the Information Commissioner the need to contact them directly to make them aware of that?

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I found out that I was on the Economic League blacklist during the 1980s only when Ciba-Geigy Chemicals gave me a job but then withdrew it for no good reason. The list was published at an event at the university of London, and I found my name on it. How can there be any decency in society if people are on a blacklist, particularly if they have not found work? I was lucky because I was in work and kept work, but some people lose work or do not get it without knowing why because someone, for whatever reason, decided to put them on a list?

[Stephen McPartland]

The hon. Gentleman always makes powerful and impassioned points, and I agree with him. There can be no justice in society if people are on a blacklist without knowing. I urge the Minister to ask the Information Commissioner to contact those 2,500 people who do not know that they are on a blacklist and make them aware that they are.

I am not a member of any union, but with, I hope, the support of the GMB union and the hon. Member for Luton North, we will launch a cross-party campaign to contact the 44 construction companies that were involved in that blacklisting database, the idea being to ask them to apologise and to provide compensation. What we would ultimately like is for no one in the Government or local government to provide them with any public sector contracts or money until they have taken those actions.

[Steve Rotheram]

The hon. Gentleman is making really important points. There seems to be cross-party consensus on trying to contact everyone on the list, many of whom do not know they are on it. Would he support a call by UCATT and other unions for a public inquiry into the scandal?

[Stephen McPartland]

I often agree with the hon. Gentleman, but I reserve judgment on a public inquiry. We have had the result of the Leveson inquiry and no one is sure what the outcome is, and I am keen to get justice for the 3,213 individuals on the blacklist.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his speech. I am pleased to be working with him on the GMB campaign. He mentioned the possibility of compensation and apologies. Does he agree that what we really want is those people to be back working in the industry?

[Stephen McPartland]

I completely agree, and that is why it is important that the Information Commissioner contacts the 2,500 people who do not know that they are blacklisted to make them aware of that, so that they can get on with their lives. At the moment, those 2,500 people cannot get a job and do not know why. I do not want to stray too far into that area, so I will talk about the campaign.

We know that 44 companies are involved, but they are not all involved in the court case. The hon. Member for Luton North and I, supported by the GMB, will publish a website and write to the chief executives of construction companies asking them to come clean. We will publish the letters and the replies, and will then contact the larger shareholders to identify whether they believe that it is ethical to invest in those companies. The campaign will be long-running and is designed to provide justice for people who are currently blacklisted.

I genuinely believe that blacklisting is not about politics, or about one party or another. It is completely wrong; it is a disease; and it should be excluded. I know some Labour Members question it, but at the moment, there is cross-party consensus.

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

The hon. Gentleman will recall that the old Economic League was funded by the Conservative party.

[Stephen McPartland]

I do not recall that, but the hon. Gentleman might not be aware that I was the first Conservative Member of Parliament in history to write for the Morning Star newspaper. I am often asked whether I am on the left or right of the Conservative party. For me, the reality is about focusing on what is in front of me, and in this case, it is a database that was completely wrong. Those individuals require justice, and I am happy to be working with the hon. Member for Luton North on that.

[Natascha Engel]

I am sorry to press this point, but it is very important: the database can only be exposed if there is a public inquiry. The public inquiry on Leveson exposed the extent of phone hacking, so I think this is a good example of why we should have a public inquiry, to make sure that every name on the database is exposed and that the individuals are told.

[Stephen McPartland]

As I said, I want the Information Commissioner’s Office to contact all the individuals on the database who do not know that they have been blacklisted. It is up to the Minister to respond on whether there will be a public inquiry. I have made my position clear: I am reserving judgment, simply because I want to focus on getting justice for the individuals who have been blacklisted. I believe, like the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn, that although we are focusing on the construction industry, the reality is that blacklisting has no doubt gone across lots of other sectors, and there is probably a range of other databases that none of us is aware of. I shall focus on this specific issue, and if there is a public inquiry into the wider aspects of blacklisting, so be it, but at the end of the day, we need evidence to be able to create that inquiry. As I only have a minute left, I will not take any more interventions, as I want to finish within the 10 minutes.

I sum up by saying that I believe blacklisting is wrong. It destroys families and has a pervasive effect on British society and the values that we all hold dear. It should not be a political issue; the focus should on providing justice, so I am happy to work with the GMB union and the hon. Member for Luton North to do so.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Order. Before we proceed, I remind Members not to link into the case that is taking place for the GMB and its 70 members. That is sub judice, and we should not debate it.

Twelve Members have indicated that they want to speak, and there is about an hour to go; I would be grateful if Members worked it out together, so that everyone gets the opportunity.

14:52

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

I will be brief, as you have requested, Sir Alan. I shall concentrate on one exceedingly serious aspect that has recently come to light: the allegation of police involvement in the provision of this information. It comes from the Independent Police Complaints Commission’s revelation that a Scotland Yard inquiry into police collusion has found that it is—I quote the words that were used this weekend—

“likely that all special branches were involved in providing information”

that led to hundreds of workers being excluded from employment. If that is true, it is dynamite.

Let us put that into perspective. It has been known for four years that more than 3,200 workers, in the period from 1993 to 2009, were blacklisted by up to 44 construction companies. Many of the companies were household names, such as Balfour Beatty, McAlpine, Carillion and Costain, and people were consequently kept out of work, not only for years, but in some cases for decades. Across the nation, we have come to a view that phone hacking is a very serious intrusion into privacy and a massive breach of human rights. However, I put it to the Chamber—I am sure that there would be widespread agreement across the country—that it does not compare with being deprived of a job for years, or even decades on end.

It is known from statements made by the Information Commissioner’s Office to the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, which my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) chairs, that some information revealed on files on blacklisted workers, again, could only have come from the police or security service sources—those were the words used by the officer from the ICO. The firm belief of the IPCC, based on discussions with the Metropolitan Police—an irrefutable source, I think—is that all special branches were engaged in these illegal and highly damaging activities. If that is proven—I come back to the need for a public inquiry—it will expose a monumental scandal. To be fair, it is disputed at present.

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

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. He mentioned phone hacking; would he acknowledge that phone hacking is a criminal offence? It would make an enormous difference if blacklisting was a criminal offence. That was called for by UCATT and the other trade unions. Unfortunately, it was not in the regulations that were issued in 2010. I am not disputing the Labour Government’s intentions then, as I think they were perfectly good, but the problem was that the regulations did not go far enough and were therefore not effective.

[Mr Meacher]

I entirely accept that important distinction—what is or is not the law at the time—but I think that the judgment that the nation would make about the enormity of the offence and the consequences rather override that. It is not that those people were breaking the law, but that they were acting in a way that they knew would be intensely destructive to the livelihood of thousands of people, and that, in itself, is a matter for which they should be held to account.

What has been said is disputed by a senior investigating officer recently appointed to Operation Herne, which is the inquiry being undertaken into the activities of undercover police officers. He says that he has seen “no conclusive evidence” that Scotland Yard exchanged information with the blacklisting companies. That needs to be investigated further. However, it is difficult to deny, and in my view, not only is that a rather unconvincing denial, but it contradicts the fact that the Blacklist Support Group has now had it confirmed that a secret meeting took place in November 2008 between the Consulting Association, which ran the blacklist, and officers from the police national extremism tactical co-ordination unit, which runs undercover policing.

I have one more point to make. Significantly, this new and damning information comes from a freedom of information request to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which replied that it was holding notes about that meeting. That rather invites the question why it has been sitting on this information for four years and only had it revealed when it was extracted from the ICO by the freedom of information procedure. It also raises the further question, which has already come up in this debate why the ICO has so far declined to inform all 3,213 workers that they were subject to the blacklist. Who took the decision that they would only respond to requests to the ICO? That is a very important question. This is not a matter for the ICO; it is a political question. Who is told about this massive breach of their rights is a question for Ministers.

[Jim Sheridan]

Like my right hon. Friend, I have been in many marches and protests, promoting and trying to defend the rights of workers. He will recall police officers on roofs with cameras taking pictures of people on marches. I often wonder where those photographs ended up.

[Mr Meacher]

That is another very good question. I cannot give my hon. Friend the answer, but I see the force of his question, and I think it should be pursued.

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

This is a valid point. The Blacklist Support Group discovered that the information passed on to the files goes beyond just workplace activities to demonstrations and all the rest, and that could only have come from the police or security services.

[Mr Meacher]

That is absolutely correct. As my hon. Friends suggest, this is not necessarily about the passage of information; it could involve photographs, often taken covertly.

I think that I am right in saying that only some 800 of the 3,200 people have been informed, as a result of making an application themselves. Three quarters of all those people still have no idea what ruined their livelihood for so many years. I would like the Minister to respond to this question: why should the Government not instruct the ICO to inform all the other three quarters that they were blacklisted?

My final point relates to where the issue is leading. The 44 construction companies now face a High Court battle about their alleged involvement in blacklisting. I will not pursue that point. However, significantly, eight of them have now decided to compensate some of the 3,200 workers, which might suggest that they believe that the evidence being revealed is now sufficient to prove their involvement—

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Order. I am in a dilemma here. The sub judice rule applies because the case is still ongoing, so the right hon. Gentleman cannot refer to it. As I understand it, the companies have not yet accepted liability, even though they have agreed to pay some compensation; they are figuring out the amounts. They have not accepted liability, so the issue remains sub judice. Do not refer to the case, if possible.

[Mr Meacher]

I take your point entirely, Sir Alan. I was not intending to pursue the issue in that way. I am prepared to come to an end. I have made the point, which I think is a strong one, and I hope that the Minister will respond to it. The ICO has a role to play. I can think of at least 10 grounds for a public inquiry, which I do not have time to go into. An inquiry is crucial. Will the Government commit to a full public inquiry?

15:01

[Mr Graham Allen (Nottingham North) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to have helped, with 20 colleagues across the House, to secure today’s debate, and to have been involved with trade unions, including my own, Unite, with Tony Tinley helping out; the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, with Cheryl Pidgeon researching this debate; and the union that I used to work for before coming to this place, the GMB. If the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) is not yet in a trade union, I could put a number of offers to him to put that right. He should be careful; being anti-badger culling and pro-exposing blacklisting, he could be highly sought after, in these days of coalition, after the next general election.

It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson). I hope to be a supporting actor in what we have to do today. Blacklisting is, as my hon. Friend said, a disease. It is pernicious, and it spreads without people even knowing that it is there. It is vital, from the point of view of any civil or human rights stance that any party wishes to have, that we ensure that its days are definitely numbered.

What is blacklisting? It is the termination of workers’ employment for issues not related to performance. Such issues can, and have, included raising legitimate health and safety concerns; being a member of a trade union; and belonging to a political party whose ideals employers do not share. For those subject to the practice, as we have heard, the consequences can be incredibly devastating —discrimination, unemployment, poverty, family breakdown, mental breakdown and, in some extreme cases, even suicide.

The phenomenon is not new; it is not something of the past 20 or 30 years, or something, as my hon. Friend said, that concerns only the construction industry. It goes back a long way—way back to the beginning of the old Economic League in 1919. The league created a list of people whom it—not the courts of law or Parliament — regarded as subversive. Many individuals were listed and blighted.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann), who has had to leave the Chamber, said in his speech to the House on 23 January 2013 that the Economic League’s blacklist was used to create difficulties—he gave his own example—in getting work once someone was on that list. Another colleague of ours in this House who has had first-hand experience of blacklisting is my hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian (Mr Hamilton). He has already gone on record about his experiences of being blacklisted. I am sure that he will not mind me saying that, in a conversation this morning, he told me that the only way his wife ever got a job—not him, but his wife—was to use her maiden name; the blacklisting spread past the individual to influence the family.

[Steve Rotheram]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. The current blacklist from the 1990s is a slightly separate issue from blacklisting in general. Blacklisting has gone on for many decades, certainly in the construction industry. He will be aware of another person who was put on the blacklist—a member of the Shrewsbury 24—Ricky Tomlinson, who is now fighting a campaign to clear his name. He was denied the opportunity to make a livelihood for many years.

I do not think that many people fully understand the individual impact of being blacklisted. Those 3,200 people —not just the ones who know—have struggled for many years not only to clear their names but to earn a living. Does he agree that is the main reason why we are pushing the issue with the Government?

[Mr Allen]

I know that not everyone wants to make a speech: some colleagues may wish to make interventions instead. I will gladly take those interventions so that people can get their views on the record. My hon. Friend’s view is one that I strongly agree with.

Another colleague of ours, my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Jim McGovern), mentioned the story of a disabled war veteran who had one leg and one eye. He found himself on the blacklist. Why?

“Because he sent a letter to the local press commending them for awarding Nelson Mandela the freedom of the city.”—[Official Report, 23 January 2013; Vol. 557, c. 337.]

The problem with this intelligence-based stuff is that it is not verifiable or in the public domain. Things can be said about someone, often trivially, that get them on the list, resulting in all sorts of consequences that they cannot challenge.

The Economic League gave way to the Consulting Association, which purchased the list from the league. It sounds a little bit like one of those building companies that go bust and then suddenly rise again the next day with a different name. That is the blacklist that we have mainly been talking about today—the 3,200 individuals—which has been used by 40 contractors. It is not the street-corner jobbing company that uses the list, but some of the biggest companies, whose names my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) put on the record, and many others too. Looking out of the window at the construction going on around us, we will see their names.

The revelations also highlighted the inadequacy of legal protections. Since 1999, legislation has given UK Governments the power to pass regulations against blacklisting, but all of us have singularly failed to push the Government to do what they should have. Only a year before the blacklisting was uncovered, UCATT, as we heard earlier, began lobbying the Government to pass acceptable regulations, only to be told, “There is no need for them. It is all under control. There isn’t really a serious problem.”

In 1992, the TUC complained to the United Nations International Labour Organisation. What a shaming thing that is for our country: that we were reported alongside sweatshops in the far east to the ILO for having no effective protection for workers in our country against being put on a blacklist, which blights the lives of workers and their families. The ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association upheld the complaint, saying that UK law fell short of article 98 of the ILO convention. Again, Governments failed to act.

To bring the issue right up to date, in March 2012, The Observer published an article claiming that the police and/or security services had supplied information to the blacklist to be used by the nation’s major construction firms, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton said. That was reinforced when the Information Commissioner’s Office revealed that the records could have come only from the police or MI5— not from a Member of the House or from someone making a political point. A vast database on more than 3,000 victims, whom somebody else deemed troublesome, was being fed by the security services. David Clancy, investigations officer at the Information Commissioner’s Office, stated in The Observer:

“the information was so specific and it contained in effect operational information that wouldn’t have formed anything other than a police record.”

We have to do something about this: the job is not done.

As hon. Friends have said, some protection against blacklisting was introduced in the Employment Relations Act 1999, although unions warned at the time that it was wholly inadequate. However, the raid by the Information Commissioner’s Office triggered a new regulation, which led to Ian Kerr, the chief executive of the Consulting Association, being fined £5,000—not exactly a king’s ransom—for breaking data protection laws. That is the price we put on the destruction of the lives of individuals and their families, for causes unknown to them, by this individual and his pals at the Consulting Association. However, Ian Kerr could not be punished for blacklisting employees, because it was not illegal to do so.

As many colleagues have made clear, there is still no positive right not to be blacklisted. Additionally, the burden of proof is placed on workers who suspect they have fallen foul of this odious practice. It is unreasonable to expect workers to prove in law what is, by its very nature, a covert practice. How on earth do they know it is going on? How, then, can they prove beyond reasonable doubt that it is happening? That is unreasonable.

The Scottish Affairs Committee’s inquiry into blacklisting pointed out that blacklisters do apologise and do seem to be sorry, but only when they are caught, and only when it is revealed, in the light of the public gaze, that they have transgressed. My hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna) has pointed out that claims against blacklisting can be brought only through an employment tribunal or a county court, which can cause problems. For example, claims can be presented at a tribunal only within three months of the offence taking place, but it is often difficult, even years later, to find proof that an offence has taken place.

The professor of public law at King’s college, Keith Ewing, has been in touch with my office. He noted that there is still a tremendous gap in the new legislation that was put in place after the raid on the Consulting Association.

[John Cryer]

My hon. Friend mentions Keith Ewing, and it is his report “Ruined Lives”, which was commissioned by UCATT, that has been responsible for much of the attention, including the press coverage, that has been given to blacklisting over the past three or four years.

[Mr Allen]

My hon. Friend has been assiduous in investigating this issue, and I bow to his knowledge of it. He is absolutely right about Professor Ewing’s work.

Professor Ewing has written that there is no automatic compensation for being blacklisted and there are no criminal penalties for blacklisting. Protection from blacklisting applies only to trade union activities, which we might think is reasonable. However, given the way the law works, that protection does not apply to trade union-related activities—work that one out. That means the courts will decide whether unofficial action is caught.

On 30 October 2012, UCATT exposed the activities of two leading blacklisting firms—Sir Robert McAlpine and Skanska—while giving evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee. Both companies were undertaking high-profile projects, including motorway construction and work at the Olympics, while they were blacklisting workers. Giving evidence, UCATT’s general secretary, Steve Murphy, revealed how, in the Consulting Association’s final year of operation, Skanska had paid more than £28,000 for blacklisting checks, while Sir Robert McAlpine had paid £26,000. Skanska admitted it was using the Consulting Association to vet workers and supplying information to the list, yet it escaped without penalty or sanction.

The steps taken in Wales show how we can do something on this issue. The Assembly and the First Minister have made great efforts to move it forward. New procurement guidance issued to all Welsh public bodies has outlined the steps that can be taken through procurement to help end blacklisting and encourage redress and compensation for victims. It makes it clear that companies proved to be involved in blacklisting can be excluded from bidding for contracts. It also sets out the steps companies need to take to avoid being excluded, such as offering proper redress for victims and introducing personnel and organisational measures to ensure that blacklisting no longer takes place.

[Huw Irranca-Davies]

My hon. Friend makes some very salient points. Does he accept, as many unions have said, that the argument that procurement contracts cannot take account of blacklisting activities is a fallacy? In fact, there is a risk of litigation should we choose not to take account of blacklisting and award contracts to companies involved in it. That is why I think the Welsh Government are showing the way forward.

[Mr Allen]

The Assembly in Wales is less dominated by the Executive than we are in this place, but, even so, we should draw comfort from the fact that legislators can make a difference and take these things forward. If Wales can set an example, I very much hope that England can follow suit.

I ask the Minister and her shadow to make it clear that there should be a positive right not to be blacklisted and that workers who find themselves on blacklists should have an automatic right to compensation, without the burden of proof being placed on them. The retroactive compensation scheme that has been mentioned should also be established to compensate blacklisted workers. Furthermore, protection should be extended clearly to include trade union-related activities, as well as just trade union activities. Above all, blacklisting should be a criminal offence, and companies that use blacklists should be open to persecution.

I will skip over the issues you warned us about, Sir Alan; perhaps we will come back to them on another occasion. Suffice it to say that the scheme the industry is creating involves only eight of the 44 major construction firms that have been implicated in blacklisting. That is not good enough, and I hope the Minister will take up the suggestion that all those who have been on a blacklist should be written to and that all those who have blacklisted others should be written to and clearly asked to join the scheme. I doubt this will be the last debate on blacklisting, but the day grows closer when those who have blacklisted others and those who have been on blacklists will get the justice they deserve.

15:19

[Mr Iain McKenzie (Inverclyde) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) on securing this important debate. Frankly, it is shocking that we are having a debate in 2013 condemning the continuing practice of blacklisting. It is simply a disgrace that blacklisting is still going on in 21st century Britain. We might have been aware, perhaps, from rumour or experience in our own employment, that blacklisting existed. We might have had evidence: managers leaving notes about employees for other managers, and even human resources services that operated a two-file system—one accessible and the other for their eyes only—so it is not surprising to learn that blacklisting is practised by some large, well-known companies.

Blacklisting affects people’s livelihoods, security and well-being. It is a nasty, underhand and vicious practice. The most extreme example of blacklisting to have been made public is one that we can all recall, from the United States. I am of course speaking of the McCarthy era, which we have already heard mentioned—one of the most destructive, harmful and insidious episodes in that country’s history. Talented people fled the United States during the McCarthy witch hunts, to places such as Britain, where they must have thought that blacklisting did not exist, or at least not at the level that they had experienced.

Blacklists have a history of being built on rumour, inaccuracies and downright fabrication, and that still applies to the way they are compiled today. As many as 44 companies in the UK subscribed to the so-called Consulting Association, the successor of the Economic League—none of them questioning or caring how the lists were compiled. We need to take blacklisting extremely seriously, and I call on the Government to take decisive action to stop the blacklisting of workers and to prevent the blacklisting scandal from ever being repeated.

A full investigation of blacklisting allegations is essential, and it should include the allegations of blacklisting in major public projects. Blacklisting is a national scandal. People’s livelihoods were destroyed, their reputations were tarnished and, in some cases, their families were torn apart, just because, for example, they raised health and safety concerns or were an active member of a trade union.

Unbelievably, in this country there are secret files held on thousands of workers in the construction sector, with the result that those people are denied employment. That secret construction blacklist was used by more than 40 of the UK’s largest construction firms, and some construction firms confirmed that they had conducted blacklisting checks even on people seeking work at Olympic venues. It is unacceptable that public money was used on projects where such checks were carried out. It would seem that there was even blacklisting for the construction of Portcullis House. How many people and Members of Parliament knew that at the time?

The majority of the people who were blacklisted still have no idea that they were included in the secret construction blacklists uncovered by the Information Commissioner’s Office in a raid in 2009. It is vital that the ICO should make every effort to inform every individual victim of blacklisting, so that they can seek compensation. However, questions still remain to be put to the ICO, including why its officials did not seize a huge volume of other documents found at the scene of the original 2009 raid. As a former member of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs, I recall that evidence that it took included serious allegations about the origin of the intelligence used to compile the blacklists.

We need further tightening and extension of the civil regime against blacklisting set up by Labour in 2010. Blacklisting should be a criminal offence. Recent revelations have demonstrated that sanctions do not go far enough to protect workers. The Government cannot sit on the fence any longer. Blacklisting must be made a criminal offence punishable by imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine. The Government should ensure that no one is excluded from seeking redress because there is no direct employment relationship between the worker and the company who used blacklisting. They must also ensure that anyone found to be blacklisted in future has adequate support to bring a civil claim and that non-trade union members enjoy equal protections.

In additional evidence submitted as part of the Scottish Affairs Committee’s inquiry into blacklisting, there was confirmation of the existence of a separate blacklist on environmental activists—also operated by the Consulting Association. That separate list was said to include as many as 200 environmental activists. The Government should fully investigate that as well.

Given the hugely detrimental impact on those affected by blacklisting, we welcome the current proceedings to seek compensation from firms that have used the Consulting Association lists. I welcome the fact that the ICO has taken steps to work alongside trade unions by sending a list of names and dates of births to four trade unions—the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, Unite, GMB and the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers—so that they can check the names of blacklisted individuals against their membership lists.

I know that other Members want to speak, so I shall conclude by saying that blacklisting is a national disgrace. It ruins lives and devastates families. It is crucial that the Government should fully investigate blacklisting and prevent that cruel practice from ever happening again.

15:25

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

I shall be brief, as we want to hear the Front-Bench spokesmen.

It is somewhat ironic that on the same day that we are debating blacklisting in Westminster Hall, zero-hours contracts are being debated in the House. That gives some indication of the progress that workers have made over the years. People are kept out of work by blacklisting, and even when they get some work their wages are cut as much as possible. That is progress for you, in the modern United Kingdom.

Perhaps I can reflect on my own experience of blacklisting. As a young man, I never realised what it was. I did not really get involved in trade unions, either, but my family was involved. It was only because of that that I was blacklisted for three years—unemployed with a young family. It was very difficult to get benefits; it was difficult to exist.

I went for an interview as a porter at Erskine hospital—in Erskine, which is in my constituency. The matron told me, “No problem, Jim. You’ve got the job, but we’ll send you official notice in the post in the next couple of days.” I did get something in the next couple of days, telling me, “Unfortunately, Mr Sheridan, you have been unsuccessful on this occasion.” I still did not know that I was on the blacklist, but some time later I met the matron and she told me that I had got the job, but that a name check had been done with the Economic League, and it showed that my family were involved in trade union activities, which meant I could not have it. That is the kind of thing that we are talking about today.

That experience is what brought me into politics—to change that kind of thing. That is why we need people from a working-class background in this place, because they understand what people go through and what it means to be told, “You are inadequate; you are a danger; you are a threat from within”. It was Mrs Thatcher who used to call us the enemy within. Those things brought me into politics, and they are why I stay in politics.

My other passion is for health and safety in the workplace. I chair the all-party group on occupational safety and health and I come into contact with many members of the public. The issues include such things as asbestos-related mesothelioma. I recall, in the shipyards in Glasgow, seeing the white flakes of asbestos dust falling through the sunlight. It was a Tuesday afternoon and sunny in Glasgow, and that is how I remember it.

I could see the flakes floating through, and said to the gaffer, or supervisor, “That’s asbestos, and we’re swallowing it.” “Don’t be silly, son,” he told me. “Nothing wrong with it. It won’t do you any harm. Just go home. A pint of Guinness will wash it all away.” That was the kind of ignorance and arrogance that was around in those days. If anyone dared ever question the employer about safety statistics or safety measures, they were dealt with. The only way they could deal with me—they could not sack me, because my father was a yard convener—was by discriminating against me by not offering me overtime or jobs that were going around.

I am reminded that I sent a letter earlier this year to the Minister with responsibility for employment relations and consumer affairs—the very good Minister present today—who replied that

“there has been a lot of accusations, but we have not yet received any evidence”

about blacklisting.

I sincerely hope that the Minister heard today that there is clear evidence of blacklisting. We now need to know what the Government intend to do about it. I do not want to hear any more warm words, even from our previous Labour Government. I have been to far too many funerals of people who have died from mesothelioma and other industrial diseases. We now need to ensure that blacklisting stops, that it stops now and that people get compensation, and, more importantly, ensure that the companies are exposed and not given Government contracts, on which they depend.

15:30

[Mr Ian Davidson (Glasgow South West) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am possibly the only Member here who has had access to all the Consulting Association files and records. I had that access, on condition of confidentiality, in my capacity as Chair of the Select Committee on Scottish Affairs. I am glad that the coming out of the minutes has focused people’s attention on activities such as the involvement of the police.

There are two sides: one looking backwards and one looking forwards. Looking backwards, first, we need to be absolutely clear that there is a role for Government in ensuring that those on whom cards and information are held are identified. I refer Members to the correspondence that the Scottish Affairs Committee recently had from the Information Commissioner’s Office about the difficulty it is experiencing in taking matters forward.

Secondly, we want an apology from the firms involved. Thirdly, we want compensation. Fourthly, we want to know all the firms involved, not just a few. I welcome the apology from some of the firms involved, but we must recognise: first, that that does not include all the firms who participated in blacklisting; secondly, that the negotiations and settlement will be exceedingly complex; and, thirdly, that a solution cannot be imposed unilaterally by the companies, but must be the subject of negotiation with the unions involved and those representing people who have been blacklisted. There must a negotiated settlement, rather than imposition.

Looking forwards, we now recognise that there must be legal changes. It has been conceded that there was blacklisting on Crossrail, and yet the law on blacklisting was not broken. That leaves us in the position where something clearly must be done. I hope the Minister accepts that and takes the matter forward. We must find a way to ensure that when a new construction site is established and a work force taken on, there is a review after the event to identify whether there is evidence of blacklisting. We need wider acceptance that companies that have not apologised or compensated can be and should be kept off public and private sector contract shortlists. There must be a code of conduct for firms when dealing with employees in these matters.

My final point looks further forwards to the question of an inquiry. I hope that the actions that we in the Scottish Affairs Committee identified and I have commented on today do not have to wait until a full public inquiry. The nature of public inquiries is that they look backwards and take years. Many of the people involved are now elderly and, in my view, require compensation. Those who are not elderly require assistance in getting back into the industry, so that they can have adequate compensation and employment for the working time they have left. We need further inquiries into the role of the police and state security services. The Government have not been unhelpful in pursuing some of the issues, but, as they would expect, I do not believe that they have been helpful enough.

15:34

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I particularly thank my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson), who put forward her argument with her usual high levels of eloquence and passion. I share a birthday with my hon. Friend; I only wish she would share some of her skills and talents with me.

I also want to thank all right hon. and hon. Members who contributed in this important debate. They did so with genuine and heartfelt concern and shock that the secretive and insidious practice of blacklisting has been ongoing, and will still be ongoing, in modern Britain. More widely, the manner in which this important issue has been raised and campaigned on has been positive and welcome. I particularly pay tribute to Select Committee on Scottish Affairs and the unions—the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians, the GMB, of which I am a proud member, and Unite—for their tireless and professional work in exposing the shady, scandalous and disgraceful practices.

There are many things to be proud of in the UK construction industry, but blacklisting is not one of them. It shames the country and undermines the reputation of the industry. Today demonstrates that the House is fully united in its complete condemnation of such a practice, which, as we heard several times this afternoon, is more reminiscent of McCarthyite witch hunts than a modern and progressive construction industry that values its work force and considers health and safety to be not a bolt-on or troublesome and tiresome, but integral, as it should be.

Such practices are symptomatic of a race to the bottom, with lower employment rights, the undermining of health and safety and a general belief that cutting corners and getting rid of troublesome staff who dare to raise workplace safety are the best ways to raise profit margins. That is not how this country should earn its money in the 21st century.

Today, we heard that many thousands of people have been denied work that they were skilled in and qualified to undertake due to discrimination, and as a result they could not get jobs in their own industry or feed their families. As my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn and other hon. Friends said in the debate, the practice involved compiling information about individuals on a vast and systematic scale. It was done through a shadowy organisation called the Consulting Association, but has involved many other groups and companies. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) said, The Observer reported this Sunday that the Independent Police Complaints Commission has stated to those affected that the police colluded in the practice of blacklisting:

“it is likely that all special branches were involved in providing information”.

The degree to which the practice permeated through the construction industry is truly shameful and shocking. According to work from the Information Commissioner, 44 construction companies were members of the Consulting Association in 2009 and half of the 20 largest construction companies and all their subsidiaries in this country were involved. For £2.20—not 30 pieces of silver, but £2.20—a construction worker’s livelihood and chance of securing employment could be dashed by the company if they were on the blacklist. Many construction companies are trying to claim ignorance of the practice, but given the amounts of money involved—in a three-year period alone, companies paid the Consulting Association £500,000 for blacklist checks—it is inconceivable that senior management were not aware of it and its endemic nature.

The House is united in its shock and condemnation of blacklisting. I hope that it is equally united in its determination to ensure that the practice is never allowed to happen again. There are practical steps, and we heard some of them this afternoon, that can be put in place to ensure that the practice is ended for good and that those workers unfairly affected are provided with justice.

It is important that we know the full extent of blacklisting. That comment has been made many times and I fully agree. I have focused, as have other hon. Members, on the construction industry, but does it really happen only in construction? Given the endemic nature of the practice, it is probably implausible that it is confined solely to that industry. How does bogus self-employment in the construction industry impact on blacklisting? We can only know those answers and get evidence if we have a full inquiry into the practice.

Will the Minister pledge to put in place a full and thorough investigation of the disgraceful practice? If not, why not? The shadow Business Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Streatham (Mr Umunna), has pledged that a future Labour Government will, but to make progress now, will the Minister today pledge to? Following the completion of such an inquiry’s work, I hope that the House would be united and non-partisan in considering how the law could be tightened, employees protected and tough sanctions against unscrupulous companies deployed. Will the Minister give any indication of the Government’s thinking on how the law can be tightened? We have heard about blacklisting as a criminal offence, but there are other practical steps and means by which the law can be changed.

I was disappointed that the construction industrial strategy, published in the summer, did not contain a single reference to the practice of blacklisting and gave only scant mention—three paragraphs—of health and safety. I would have liked the strategy to have shown how the Government emphasise a skilled and safe work force as one of the industry’s comparative strengths. Why was that not mentioned?

One of the effective levers that the Government could pull to help eliminate blacklisting is the effective use of public procurement. The Government could exclude firms that use blacklisting from tendering for contracts. They could request information about the practice and find real evidence through the tendering process of how a particular company has used blacklisting. That could include seeking evidence that the practice has ended and that the workers affected have secured appropriate compensation and are back in the employment market. The Government could alter standard terms and conditions in contracts to make it explicit that any such contract would be immediately ended, without compensation to the firm, if it was found that blacklisting was used by the company and its subsidiaries.

The Welsh Government, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies), have been at the forefront of using procurement as an effective tool. They have provided a useful policy advice note to local authorities in Wales on the practical steps that can be taken on eliminating blacklisting through procurement. What is Whitehall doing to achieve the same thing? What discussions has the Minister had with other Departments, in particular the Department for Communities and Local Government, to ensure that the elimination of blacklisting is being actively encouraged—not only through central Government, but across local government?

Several hon. Friends have mentioned the development this week in which eight construction companies involved in blacklisting agreed to compensate some of the 3,200 workers affected. The setting up of the construction workers compensation scheme is welcome. We will scrutinise the progress and terms of the scheme to ensure that it provides proper redress to victims in a swift manner. What help and support are the Government giving to the scheme? I know that the Minister cannot provide a running commentary on negotiations, but can she give a time scale for the scheme to be finalised and provide compensation?

As we have heard, some of those affected by blacklisting are elderly. What level of proper compensation is the Minister pushing for from the companies, given that these people—these workers—have endured years of unemployment as a result of blacklisting? They have lost out on tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds of income. We have heard that only eight of the 44 companies have signed up to the compensation scheme, so what pressure is she putting on other companies who were part of the blacklisting scandal to be involved in the scheme? Finally, how does she intend to keep the House informed of progress, so that hon. Friends who have a passionate interest in this issue can scrutinise the proposals?

My hon. Friends have spoken passionately today and said that this is a national scandal, which shames the construction companies involved. It should never be allowed to happen again and those who were discriminated against, often for decades, should be provided with swift and appropriate justice and compensation. I hope that the Minister agrees with the tone of the debate and will set out in detail how the Government will ensure that the practice of blacklisting is ended and compensation provided.

15:43

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

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) on securing the debate and opening it in her typically powerful style, with a degree of conciseness, which other Members have managed to emulate. That has meant that we have heard from a good number of Members today, which is positive. I know that a range of Members from all parts of the House have been working on the issue. We discussed it in January, we are discussing it now, and, as the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) said, I am sure it will be not the last time we discuss it. It is important for the House to return to the issue, to be updated on it and to ask further questions on it. As the Minister, I am more than happy to be part of that.

The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn clearly set out at the beginning of the debate that “the practice of blacklisting” is an innocuous form of words, but that what we are talking about is abhorrent and illegal. All Members who have spoken have rightly echoed those sentiments in their various ways, talking about their experiences in their constituencies or, in some cases, such as that of the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan), their own lives.

The Government’s position is the same: this practice is not acceptable in any way. No responsible company should be involved in blacklisting, whether that is providing information for a blacklist, using a blacklist, consulting a blacklist or using information from a previous blacklist that was in operation before the regulations were introduced in 2010. That is not the behaviour of any responsible or law-abiding company or any moral individual. People should be appointed to roles based on their merits and whether they can do the job. If they are independent-minded and involved enough to be able to flag up issues, such as health and safety problems in the workplace, or if they want to give more to their workplace through involvement in trade union activities, that is to be commended. Any employer worth its salt will recognise the positive nature of having an engaged and involved work force that are actively interested in ensuring that their workplace is safe and effective for everyone. The experiences that we have heard about have been not only abhorrent, but hugely counter-productive, as many hon. Members have mentioned, on issues such as workplace safety records. We want to encourage an atmosphere where people can raise issues if there are problems without fearing that that will impact on their future employability.

As hon. Members know, there are significant powers in place to deal with blacklisting, but I entirely understand the frustration. I think it was the hon. Member for Nottingham North who mentioned the case of the Consulting Association and Ian Kerr, the £5,000 fine and the lack of ability to take any kind of serious action against the individuals responsible, because the framework was not in place at that time. That situation rightly needed addressing. The previous Government addressed that issue with the consultation on and implementation of the Employment Relations Act 1999 (Blacklists) Regulations 2010, which mean that someone is looking at a £500,000 fine instead of a £5,000 fine. That might not be the unlimited amount that some hon. Members have called for, but no one can deny that it is a serious amount. There is data protection, but there is also the ability to award maximum compensation of some £65,000—the minimum is £5,000—through the employment tribunals system. We are in a better position on the legal framework.

[Mr Davidson]

Does the Minister accept that the existing legislation must be flawed if someone can be blacklisted on Crossrail without the blacklisting legislation being broken?

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Gentleman and I have discussed the issue informally around the House on a few occasions, and I very much welcome the work that he and his Select Committee have been doing on it. I look forward to reading the Committee’s report. We are, of course, willing to look again at whether there are any gaps in the legislation as a result of any evidence that his investigation discovers.

On Crossrail, at the beginning of September the two parties involved—I think it was Unite and BFK—announced that blacklisting had not taken place. A further statement was issued by Unite some days later. I am happy to look at that and hear from the hon. Gentleman and Unite whether there are specific issues there, particularly with contracting, which may be partly why that issue arose. I am happy to liaise with him as his Committee continues its investigation with a view to producing a report.

[Mr Meacher]

Is it not clear that at the moment it is illegal to compile or maintain a blacklist, but not to use a blacklist, to supply information or to be supplied with information by someone else? Such matters need to be made illegal, so that all the problems we have heard about today are covered.

[Jo Swinson]

As I have said, I will happily look at the specific regulations, which include provisions on supplying information for blacklists. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will write to me if he has any further points, particularly if there are more details that I can study. It is clearly not appropriate for anyone to create a list or to supply information for such a list, or to blacklist workers, because that would quite rightly leave them open to employment tribunal claims or to possible action for breaches of data protection. The protections were put in place in 2009.

As I mentioned, we made a series of commitments about blacklisting in a debate in the House in January 2013. We promised to investigate any evidence provided about the continuation of blacklisting, to look carefully at the Scottish Affairs Committee’s findings about blacklisting that happened before 2010 and to review the legislation if the Committee identified evidence that the practice was continuing.

We are honouring those commitments, and I want to inform the House about our actions since that debate. In February, the Independent Police Complaints Commission began an investigation into allegations that the police may previously have provided information to the Consulting Association blacklist, a point that various Members have made. I suspect that you would not be happy, Sir Alan, if I commented on a live IPCC investigation, but we will of course be interested to see its outcome. If anyone has concerns about allegations that are not currently under investigation by the relevant authorities, I encourage them to take such allegations to the IPCC or, for data protection breaches, to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The Secretary of State met the Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, in April to make sure that he is ready and able to investigate any new evidence that comes to light. In July, the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Mr Davidson) and his Scottish Affairs Committee announced that there was new evidence and information about the continuation of blacklisting. Within 24 hours of that communication, we alerted the Information Commissioner’s Office, which began an investigation. I understand that the ICO is in touch with the Select Committee to ensure that the ICO is provided with the information it needs to further its investigation. I know that the Scottish Affairs Committee is very keen to work with the ICO, for which I thank the hon. Gentleman.

I should tell the House that despite the significant debate on the issue—I am glad that it is a high-profile one, because people will therefore be aware that we are open to new evidence—the Scottish Affairs Committee was the first body to get in touch with new information about the continuation of blacklisting. Significant amounts of evidence have been presented about blacklisting in the past, but the Committee’s evidence is the only piece we have received since the regulations came in and, therefore, the only information that we have been able to act on. We will of course carefully consider both the Scottish Affairs Committee’s report and the outcome of the Information Commissioner’s investigation into its evidence.

Some hon. Members have called for a public inquiry, but while those two investigations are ongoing, it makes perfect sense to await their outcome before jumping to an additional inquiry. The issue is currently being explored through those two avenues, and we should wait to see the reports.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) asked a question, which was echoed by other Members, about ensuring that the victims of this abhorrent practice are made aware of that fact. I very much enjoyed his comment that he was the first Conservative MP to write for the Morning Star, which I am sure its readers appreciated. That earned him a kind offer from the hon. Member for Nottingham North to give him information about how to join a trade union. Perhaps my hon. Friend should be careful, but I note that no Conservative Whips are in the Chamber, so perhaps we will not tell them.

My hon. Friend’s very fair question was about proactively contacting people on the database. It is important to say that there is a fast-track service, so anyone who suspects that they are on the list can find out whether that is the case and get a copy of the information. For anyone who is interested—hon. Members may wish to pass this on to constituents who are concerned about the issue—the helpline number is 0303 123 1113. So far, 3,919 people have contacted the helpline, of whom 446 have been identified on the Consulting Association blacklist.

The ICO is trying proactively to contact individuals on the list in other ways. It has made sure that union lawyers can access some of the information, so that they can write to any of their members they identify on the list, and invite them to get in touch with the ICO. The ICO has undertaken a project with Equifax to check whether address information in the files is up to date. As a result, it has written to 103 individuals, of whom 27 have contacted the ICO to make a subject access request. The ICO has also worked with the Department for Work and Pensions to determine whether up-to-date addresses can be identified from a national insurance number when that is included in the information held. The ICO hopes shortly to write to individuals for whom it has obtained up-to-date addresses.

I understand Members’ frustration, but I would say in the ICO’s defence that such processes are not straightforward. The information is not contained in a snazzy database; much of it is on paper or in card files, and some of it is very scant, with sometimes only a first name and surname. If the name is John Smith, that is almost meaningless, for someone trying to contact the person, without address details and other information. The range of actions that the ICO is taking to piece information together—working with unions, the DWP and credit reference agencies—is certainly very positive. I repeat that anyone who is concerned should contact the helpline.

[Mr Meacher]

The Minister is making a case for the ICO’s efforts to contact people. The obvious question that remains is whether the ICO is under instructions to correspond with or contact everyone for whom it has information that is adequate enough to enable it to do so. That is the key point. I understand that if the name is one like John Smith, that person cannot be traced, but when the ICO can contact someone because it has a name, a telephone number or anything else, is it under instructions to contact them?

[Jo Swinson]

The ICO is making every effort to contact people. It is not a body sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, but we have discussed the issue with the ICO, and that is exactly what is happening. We recognise that there are some cases in which the process is difficult, but the ICO is determined that when it can contact people, it absolutely is doing so.

[Mr Iain Wright]

The Minister is quite rightly focusing on the construction industry, but hon. Members have mentioned other sectors. What active steps are the Government taking to find out whether there is blacklisting in other parts of the economy?

[Jo Swinson]

I have outlined the investigations that are ongoing. We do need something to go on: there is much speculation about and many suggestions of blacklisting taking place, but the relevant authorities need somewhere to start to look for it. That is why in the debates earlier this year and today I have reiterated that if anyone has information, concerns or suspicions—they do not need to have firm evidence, because it is a challenge to produce bona fide evidence when, by definition, the activity is clandestine—we will of course happily look at such evidence, as the Select Committee has done.

[John McDonnell]

To make it clear to the ICO, will the Minister state that she expects it to contact everybody on the list?

[Jo Swinson]

I absolutely expect the ICO to contact everyone on that list, where that is possible, practical and feasible, but I also recognise that the information is incomplete in some cases, and that its attempts to do so may not therefore be successful. I hope that the House recognises those basic practicalities.

[Mr McKenzie]

Is the Minister aware of the TUC’s campaign to make blacklisting a criminal offence, and will she support it?

[Jo Swinson]

I am obviously aware of the campaign. A range of civil and criminal offences exist, including in employment or health and safety legislation. Criminal offences are much less common, but some breaches of data protection carry a criminal penalty, so blacklisting would be a crime in those cases. However, that does not apply to a wide range of offences, such as unfair dismissal, causing detriment to whistleblowers or discrimination.

15:59

Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.

On resuming—

16:13

[Jo Swinson]

My final point was about procurement. The Welsh guidance has been referred to, although that guidance just restates how existing legal provisions already apply, and we look forward to the procurement Bill in the Scottish Parliament, which I understand we may see more details of next week. Of course, the Cabinet Office has general guidance, covering a range of issues affecting procurement, which of course means checking that contractors are adhering to practices that comply with the law—

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Order.

Living Standards (North Wales)

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Westminster Hall

16:14

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

I rise today to discuss the living standards in north Wales—the dropping living standards in north Wales.

The TUC reckons that Wales has the lowest levels of disposable income in the UK and has experienced the highest falls in living standards in the UK. There has been a drop in living standards for 38 of the 39 months that this Tory-Lib Dem coalition has been in power. In constituencies in north Wales, the impact has been severe. Between 2007 and 2012, in Flintshire the average pay packet for a 40-hour week dropped by nearly £3,000 and in my own county of Denbighshire it dropped by more than £2,000.

The outward sign of the drop in living standards is, of course, the food banks—the food banks that many Conservative Ministers and MPs refuse to go to when they are repeatedly asked to do so in the main Chamber. I have been to food banks in my constituency and I praise the work of people who volunteer at them; they do a sterling job. I have visited the Wellspring centre in my constituency and shared soup with the people it provided food for. The citizens advice bureau in Denbigh set up a food bank; in fact, it is an award-winning food bank and I congratulate the CAB in Denbigh on it.

The Conservatives say, “Oh, food banks increased by tenfold under Labour.” They did, from 3,000 to about 34,000. Under the Conservatives, however, they have increased from about 40,000 to nearly 400,000—another tenfold increase. The food banks under Labour were peripheral; as I say, there were 34,000 of them, at most. Under the Conservatives, food banks are central. Since 2011, the Government have given instructions to jobcentres to refer people who have no money to food banks. Food banks are part of official Government policy—dare I say official Government philosophy? It is charity versus the state; charity taking the place of the state. It is the big society, or, as I call it, the “beg society”, where soup kitchens are here in the 21st century, having last been seen in the 1930s. As I say, I have shared soup with the people using them.

Will there be a return to the workhouse, the alms house, the deserving poor and the undeserving poor? The language coming from certain sections and certain MPs on the right—I do not include the Minister here today in that group—is disgraceful. I will give a case in point. The Education Secretary said that the people who visit these food banks

“are not…able to manage their finances.”—[Official Report, 9 September 2013; Vol. 567, c. 681.]

Could the Education Secretary himself “manage” his finances on £56 a week, if he was a young person, or on £71 a week, if he was over 25? I think not—that money would hardly cover the price of a bottle of Moët. The Government have the wrong priorities—while they are forcing people to use food banks, they are giving a £44,000 handout to people earning £1 million a year.

Of particular interest to people in my constituency and the other constituencies in north Wales is the issue of public sector workers, who are another group vilified by the Conservatives. There are huge numbers of public sector workers in certain constituencies in north Wales. The number of people who reside in my constituency, the Vale of Clwyd, and work in the public sector is 10,200—35% of the work force. In Ynys Môn, the figure is 10,100; in Clwyd West, where the Secretary of State for Wales resides, the figure is 9,000. Those public sector workers are not only vilified by the Conservatives but have had their wages frozen until 2015-16. There is no help to rebalance the economies that have been reliant on public sector jobs; there is no specific help or guidance from the UK Government for those constituencies.

Who are the losers from the drop in living standards? It is the young long-term unemployed. There are more than a million of them in the country. In an 18-month period from early 2009 to 2010, in my home town of Rhyl in my constituency we put 450 young people back to work through the future jobs fund, under a Labour Government. That scheme was abolished almost as soon as the Conservative Government entered office.

Children are big sufferers from the drop in living standards. An excellent Daily Post article from 18 July calculates that 24,400 children in north Wales are living in poverty and that the state will pay an extra £265 million a year in additional school costs, benefits and NHS costs. We are even seeing the disease of rickets creep back into the UK, for the first time since the 1950s. I have tabled questions about this—[Interruption.] I see the Minister huffing and puffing.

The disabled have also suffered because of a drop in living standards. This group has been vilified, as well. Disability is the only one of the five or six hate crime categories, which include sexual orientation, religion and ethnic origin, that has increased in the past year. The elderly are the other group to have suffered because of the drop in living standards. They are on fixed incomes. When their fuel bills increase by 8% or 7%, they have no way of paying them, except by cutting back on food or other necessities.

In north Wales, 8,178 people will suffer because of the bedroom tax, but there are not 8,178 single-person units in the whole of north Wales to look after them.

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

Last week I heard about a case of a man, in a couple, who was disabled and on whom the council spent a small fortune creating a wet room downstairs. This couple is to be moved to a one-bedroom place. The council will, no doubt, have to spend money converting that and ripping out the stuff from the previous place. It makes no sense.

[Chris Ruane]

It does not make social sense or economic sense. The state will be paying £60 a week rent for many people living in council houses. If such people are moved into houses of multiple occupation in my constituency, the state will be paying £85 a week. The conditions in HMOs are far worse than on council estates.

Some 420,000 households in Wales are living in fuel poverty, 84,000 of them in north Wales alone. Household fuel bills have increased by £300 since the Government have been in power. Those who suffer most are on pre-payment meters. I was brought up in a household with pre-payment meters; we put a pound in the “leccy” if the lights went out. Those people will be paying an extra £50 a year, because they are not on direct debit. Every which way, the poorest are hit the most.

Fuel bills went up by 7% last year. In this current season, the first energy company out of the blocks is going to increase its prices by 8%, at the same time as chief executive officers in energy companies are having golden handshakes of £15 million or £13.5 million.

Under Labour’s home energy efficiency scheme, the energy efficiency of 127,000 households in Wales was improved, cutting down people’s bills and their carbon footprint. The great green hope from the parties in Government was the green deal, What a failure that has been! At the top of the green deal figures for the whole of Wales is Alyn and Deeside, where 19 households have been checked; at number two is Delyn, with 16 households; third is Wrexham, with 13; and at number four is Clwyd West, with 13. In the Prime Minister’s constituency of Witney, six households were assessed for the green deal. This policy was going to rescue those living in fuel poverty, but it has done nothing for them.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will remember that the Arbed scheme—the insulation scheme that he mentioned—was part of a programme from the “One Wales” Government and was the responsibility of, and was launched by, Jocelyn Davies, the then Housing Minister. Does the hon. Gentleman share my disappointment that Labour’s energy price freeze does not extend to coal, liquid petroleum gas and oil? What can he do, in his party, to ensure that it does extend to those?

[Chris Ruane]

Fuel poverty is being looked at. It is on the political agenda because our Labour leader put it there during conference season. Labour is dictating the agenda on living standards. That aspect should be looked into.

I shall now talk about those in work. When Labour came into power, the proudest political moment in my 16 years in Parliament was the night, the day and the day after we introduced the minimum wage. The Conservatives kept us up for about 28 hours. They hated it and said that it would cost 3 million jobs and be devastating for the economy. It did not cost 3 million jobs; it created another 3 million jobs. Their prediction was 6 million jobs out. The minimum wage put a floor in for those who are paid poor wages.

The issue today is zero-hours contracts. I have tabled some 50 questions about those.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate. When talking about living standards in areas such as north Wales, the cost of travel, particularly in rural areas, should be considered in addition to food inflation and energy prices. The Government are considering areas in Wales that may benefit from a discount, but does my hon. Friend agree that hard-working families are suffering because of the great distances that they have to travel, to work and to take their children to leisure facilities?

[Chris Ruane]

Absolutely. That is a particular problem in rural areas. I represent the Vale of Clwyd, a rural seat. This is just one of many ways in which ordinary working families are being hit by the parties in government.

Earlier today, I attended the zero-hours contracts debate in the main Chamber. Statistics are scarce. The Office for National Statistics claims that 240,000 people are on zero-hours contracts, but some trade unions reckon that 5 million people are on them. Either way, those are huge numbers and they are having a devastating effect. It is costly to the state, because if companies do not pay the going rate for the job, the state has to step in and subsidise that; it is also a cost to taxpayers.

The issue is also costly for individuals, because they cannot plan their future. They cannot get a mortgage on a zero-hours contract, cannot save up and get Christmas presents and cannot plan for holidays. The working week, including taking children to and from school, cannot be planned for properly. These contracts have an impact on people’s well-being and mental health.

The issue is costly for the companies implementing the contracts, because they will not get loyalty, good will and commitment from a work force on zero-hours contracts—they are pinging and ponging back and forth to work and can be sacked at a moment’s notice. It is also costly for companies paying a proper wage, because they are undercut by those who use zero-hours contracts. Overall, it is a costly business. The Labour party in opposition has shone the light on these dark practices and got the political ball moving.

To combat the drop in living standards, we need a living wage. I congratulate Councillor Joan Butterfield, leader of the Labour group in Denbighshire, who is pushing for that. The local churches in my constituency—Catholic and other churches—led by Father Charles Ramsay, my parish priest, are also pushing for a living wage.

Living standards are crucial. Labour had a good record on that in government and looked after the poorest of the poor, with, for example, Bookstart, child care credits, nurseries for everybody, Sure Start, the education maintenance allowance, child trust funds and the future jobs fund. We dropped VAT from 20% to 15%. All that helped people’s living standards.

Let us look at what has happened to child poverty under the Conservative-Liberal Government. The latest figures on child poverty, on which there is a two-year delay, show that the trough peaked under Labour and that child poverty will rise again under the Conservatives. The Prime Minister is for ever vilifying the Welsh Government and saying, “Look at Labour in practice, look at their bad practice here and their bad practice there.” Let me give MPs a taste of what the Labour Government are doing in practice in Wales.

In England, the education maintenance allowance was scrapped—the allowance was an opportunity to keep 16 to 18-year-olds in school so that they could get their A-levels, go on to college and get a good job. In Wales, it was not scrapped. In England, tuition fees went from £3,000 to £9,000; in Wales, they were capped at £3,500. In England, there were cuts to council tax benefits; in Wales, the Welsh Government allocated £22 million to stop those cuts.

Last week, £17 million was announced by Alun Davies, a Minister in Wales, to combat fuel poverty over a two-year period, which is equivalent to a UK Government allocating £1.5 billion to address fuel poverty. The Welsh Government are doing an excellent job of helping to buffer the Conservative-Liberal coalition’s negative effects on living standards.

The Conservative party has tried to get rid of its nasty reputation. The Home Secretary described the party as the “nasty party,” and the Conservative leader went to the Arctic to hug a husky and to Manchester to hug a hoodie. As has been said today, instead of hugging a husky he is now gassing the badgers. The mask has slipped: Flashman is back in charge.

In the 1980s, the Conservatives atomised, alienated and broke up society. They were out for 13 years, and now they are back to their old tricks—look at the language being used. The Education Secretary says that people are not able to manage their own finances. The Conservatives have the wrong priority in giving money to millionaires. They are allowing £15 million golden handshakes to chief executive officers of energy companies. They are reintroducing soup kitchens. We have beggars in the street for the first time ever in Prestatyn. The number of homeless people in Rhyl has doubled, and we will see people from the inner cities of England driven out to the UK’s coastal towns, including in Wales.

All that does not bode well for the future, and I am pleased that my Labour party and my Labour leader have put living standards at the heart of political debate.

16:30

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I congratulate the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) on securing this debate.

Listening to the hon. Gentleman and some of his colleagues, I am struck by the negative picture they paint of life in north Wales. We are debating living standards and quality of life in north Wales. I am not from north Wales—many of the Opposition Members here today are—but let me be the first to say this afternoon that north Wales is, remains and will continue to be a great place to live, a great place to work and a great place for businesses to invest.

At this time, as the economic recovery starts to gather pace in Wales, what should be seizing all of us with an interest in north Wales, on both sides of the House, is how to maximise the opportunities that are coming for Wales, so that we ensure that the economic recovery is a recovery for the whole of Wales and that north Wales is front and centre of that recovery.

[Albert Owen]

Will the Minister give way?

[Stephen Crabb]

Forgive me, but I will not give way because I have not been left with much time.

This afternoon we have heard Opposition Members talking down north Wales and the Welsh economy and not recognising many of the great things that are happening in their own constituencies that we should be celebrating and promoting.

The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd, for whom I have a huge amount of time and respect, finished his contribution with a rather crude political attack on my party and my Government. Of course, it was his party that said it was “intensely relaxed” about people becoming filthy rich. His party was intensely relaxed about abolishing the 10p tax band, which hurt the lowest-paid workers the most. His party was intensely relaxed about soaring petrol prices and soaring council tax. The Government are not relaxed about such things, which is why we are doing everything that we can as the economic recovery gathers pace to ensure that people on the lowest incomes are the ones who benefit and are given incentives to move into work and be at the front and centre of maximising opportunities from the economic recovery.

It is a pleasure and a privilege to be a Minister in the Wales Office, and I have the opportunity to go around all parts of the Principality. I see many of the exciting things that are currently happening in the Welsh private sector, and I have to tell Opposition Members that much of that is happening in north Wales; it is happening in their own constituencies. Unemployment is falling in most north Wales constituencies. Unemployment is not falling everywhere, and we are not complacent about that. We want unemployment to fall in every parliamentary constituency, but the hon. Gentleman cannot stand there and say what he said without recognising that unemployment in his constituency is lower today than when his party left office. I remind him that, under the previous Labour Government, in the five years between 2005 and 2010, unemployment increased in his constituency by more than 100%.

[Chris Ruane]

The top-line unemployment statistics look okay, but the number of people on jobseeker’s allowance for 12 months or more was 215 in 2010, and it was 516 in 2012. The underlying trend is that the number of people who are long-term unemployed, who are the most difficult people to get back to work, is going massively upwards and there is no room for complacency.

[Stephen Crabb]

I am the last person to be complacent. I recognise that a huge amount of work still needs to be done, but the latest figures today confirm that the overall employment picture in Wales is positive. Unemployment is falling across Wales. Overall employment levels are increasing, which we should welcome and want to see more of.

At the start of the hon. Gentleman’s speech, he talked about the decline in real wages between 2007 and 2012 in Denbighshire and Flintshire. We can go through the figures later if he wants more detail, but the vast majority of the decline in real wages happened in the last three years of the previous Labour Government, when, as a result of the economic trauma that they visited upon this country, there was an enormous destruction of wealth and real wages fell. We are now seeing a recovery in wages, including in Wales, but there is a long way still to go before we are back to previous levels.

On income tax, I recognise that many families are facing difficult financial circumstances. That is why we are putting cash back into those families’ pockets by taking the lowest-paid workers out of income tax altogether. We have now cut income tax for more than 1.1 million working people in Wales by increasing the tax-free personal allowance. We are lifting 130,000 of the lowest-paid workers in Wales out of income tax altogether by increasing that allowance to £10,000. Some 324,000 taxpayers in north Wales will benefit from that increase in the personal allowance.

Employers in north Wales are also benefiting from the fact that we are implementing in full all the recommendations of the independent Low Pay Commission. The hon. Gentleman talked about Conservative opposition to the minimum wage, but I for one never opposed the minimum wage, which has benefited the lowest-paid workers. This year, we are able not only to implement all the Low Pay Commission’s recommendations but to go further: the commission recommended freezing the apprentice rate, but we are not freezing it; we are increasing it, and we can do so because we have taken difficult decisions to restore discipline and order to our national finances and to put our house in order, which has given us the capacity and the resources to do things such as increase minimum wages.

One thing that we are committed to freezing, however, is fuel duty, and we have now seen fuel duty frozen for nearly three and a half years. This year, the average motorist will save £7 each time they fill up their fuel tank. I remind Opposition Members that, had Labour been elected in 2010 and implemented its detailed financial plans in full, as it had intended, the price of petrol would be 13p a litre higher than today. That is an example of the Government putting cash back into the pockets of hard-working people and hard-working families. Again, we can do that only because we were able and willing, and had the strength of purpose, to take difficult decisions at the start of this Parliament to put our national finances in order and to restore some sanity to national budgeting.

[Albert Owen]

I wish to put on record that I very much admire the resilience of the people of north Wales. We were not talking down north Wales; we were giving an honest picture. On fuel duty, will the Minister tell us what negotiations the Wales Office has had with the Treasury and others on the rebate scheme and how it will be implemented in Wales? I am talking about not only asking businesses, but providing leadership from the Wales Office.

[Stephen Crabb]

I can write to the hon. Gentleman with further details, but we are in close discussion with the Treasury on the implementation of that scheme in Wales. I have personally written to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury about the scheme, and we want as much of rural Wales as possible to benefit.

We are also committed to freezing council tax in England. Let us remind ourselves that council tax more than doubled under the previous Labour Government. The council tax freeze, of course, does not apply to Wales, as it is a devolved matter. We have provided the Welsh Government in Cardiff with both the opportunity and the resources, but they have so far refused a freeze. If Opposition Members are genuinely concerned about standards of living and the financial pressures on families in Wales, they should be rapping hard on the doors of Welsh Ministers in Cardiff, wanting to know why they are not implementing a council tax freeze in the same way that we are doing in England.

There was some discussion of energy prices. Let me put it on the record that I have not heard one thing from an Opposition Member, or even from the Leader of the Opposition, about a commitment to freezing energy prices that has a shred of credibility. When the Leader of the Opposition was Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, energy prices in this country soared. [Hon. Members: “They went down!”] Opposition Members cannot seek continued investment in energy infrastructure to deliver lower prices in future and to keep our lights on, while making irresponsible and crude promises that they can somehow freeze energy prices.

Housing benefit reform and the overall programme of welfare reform have been mentioned on a day when we again see unemployment in Wales fall. Opposition Members cannot be on the side of falling unemployment, while opposing welfare reform. Welfare reform is a vital ingredient in tackling worklessness at source, which is what we are seeing in Wales.

[Hywel Williams]

Will the Minister tell the House what assessment the Government made of the elasticity of the housing market before ending the spare-room subsidy? Will the market be able to respond to the increased demand for one and two-bedroom properties?

[Stephen Crabb]

We have had many opportunities to discuss the availability of certain types of housing in Wales. The housing stock differs between different areas, and I do not deny that shortages exist in certain parts of Wales. That is why we are making more than £7 million available to Welsh local authorities through discretionary housing payments to ease the transition to the implementation of our housing benefit reforms. [Interruption.] Opposition Members may want to chunter and mumble as we discuss such matters, but I am yet to see one of them stand up and give me a credible plan for how they will bring order back to our housing benefit expenditure, while tackling the unfairness of tens of thousands of people in Wales living in overcrowded accommodation or waiting for access to social housing while many people—let me absolutely blunt about it—are able to live in houses with extra space and more rooms than they strictly need.

The hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd mentioned food banks and was absolutely incorrect to say that Conservatives have refused to visit them. I regularly visit my local food bank. In fact, I was a trustee of the charity that runs it, so I know exactly what food banks do. I know what they do well and what they do not do so well. From speaking to colleagues right across the House, I know that Conservatives have no fear at all about going to visit food banks. He made the point that Jobcentre Plus has been referring people to food banks since 2011, but what happened before 2011 under the previous Labour Government? They banned jobcentres from advertising the availability of food banks. They tried to cover up the fact that food banks were increasing in number on their watch. They did not want to acknowledge that food banks existed and were growing. We are not taking that approach. We see food banks as a vital part of the social economy at this difficult time, and we are working in close partnership with them.

In conclusion, I have the huge privilege of being able to get out and about around Wales. I see so many good things happening in north Wales. I will say it again for the record that north Wales remains a fantastic place to live, work and invest.

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Before we move on to the next debate, I want to remind hon. Members of the rules. If Members want to make a speech during a half-hour debate, they should seek the permission of the Member who secured the debate and the Minister. Members can, however, make interventions as long as the initiator or the Minister is willing to give way. I urge hon. Members to keep that in mind. Members are also supposed to write in before speaking in such debates, but so far only one Member has done so. I mention those rules because the attendance showed this topic to be extraordinarily popular, but the debates are only 30 minutes long, so please bear with us.

Badger Vaccines

Wednesday 16th October 2013 Westminster Hall

16:45

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

I am delighted to have secured a debate on the important subject of badger vaccinations to prevent bovine TB. I am also delighted that so many hon. Members are here today. I hope that the debate will be measured and grown up, because the subject is truly apolitical and everybody in the room will have an opinion on how best to proceed. Everybody wants to see TB being reduced while the badger population is preserved.

Before I start my speech, may I welcome the Minister to his new role? I have known him for some time and I am elated about his new position. I have always had the utmost respect for his abilities and he will do a huge amount for rural communities such as the Lune valley, which I represent.

We are all acutely aware of the controversy around the ongoing cull and the desire on both sides of the debate to control bovine TB with the minimum disturbance to wildlife. Both sides have offered compelling arguments and I voted in favour of the cull as an interim measure ahead of work on a viable, deliverable and safe vaccine. I hope that the Minister will update us on the progress of the research and development of the oral vaccine. I also want to ask him what steps are being taken with groups such as the Badger Trust towards bringing in volunteers to help with any future vaccination programme.

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

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. Does he agree that any vaccination proposals should be accompanied by improved measures relating to biosecurity on farms and more adequate controls on cattle movement?

[David Morris]

I totally agree. Later in my speech, I will explain some of the technicalities behind what the hon. Lady has just articulated.

I pay tribute at this point to the work of Team Badger in highlighting the need for vaccinations. The group is led by Dr Brian May, CBE, and I know how much time, effort and money he puts into humanitarian and wildlife issues.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. I spoke to him beforehand, Sir Alan, and asked his permission to speak.

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman not only on securing the debate, but on supporting the cull. I support the cull, as do many others in the House, but many others do not. Does he recognise that bovine TB costs dairy and beef farmers millions of pounds? Should that not be the first reason for trying to continue the cull and for ensuring that badgers are eradicated?

[David Morris]

There is a cost to the issue, as there is with anything of this nature, but as I will explain later in my speech, there is a funding situation that can be annexed to involve Team Badger and various other badger projects.

Today’s debate comes during the badger cull and following the Opposition day debate on 5 June, in which a wide range of hon. Members participated. I believe that 5 June was the start of the process of bringing both sides together, to which I hope today’s debate also contributes. It is pretty easy for all of us to understand the opposition to the cull, but we must not characterise those in favour of it as being cruel. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and farmers have the best interests of the countryside and the agricultural community at heart and want to help in the best way possible and protect badgers at the same time, but they believe, rightly or wrongly, that the spread of bovine TB will be significantly reduced if we cull 70% of badgers in the cull zones. That said, the last major cull from 1997 to 2007 was not deemed to have dealt with the problem to the extent that was hoped and cost £50 million.

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

Does my hon. Friend recognise that one of the benefits of vaccination versus a cull is that vaccinations have no perturbation effect?

[David Morris]

I agree totally. Vaccination increases herd immunity, while culling increases the spread of disease.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

For the record, I am a member of the British Veterinary Association. May I ask the hon. Gentleman two questions? Does he agree that a vaccine does not cure an infected beast and that, if a beast is infected, it must be culled?

[David Morris]

Despite a massive cull in southern Ireland, of 97,000 badgers, the rates of TB in the north, where there were no culls, are still the same. If a badger with TB is vaccinated, it will not be cured, but if it reproduces, its young will be immune.

[Ian Paisley]

It is important that people understand what the vaccine does. The beast is trapped and tested: if it has the disease, it is culled; but if the test is not positive and it is free of the disease, it is injected. However, it has to be injected for the next five years—caught every year and injected—and that costs about £3,000 per beast.

[David Morris]

I hear what the hon. Gentleman is saying and I understand his argument. In the culling at the moment, however, badgers are being trapped and shot—there is only one sentence for them, if caught, and that is to be killed.

[Mike Weatherley (Hove) (Con)]

On the points made by the previous two Members who intervened, the whole debate needs to be centred on the evidence base. Perturbation is of concern—the evidence is that perturbation exists when culling takes place.

[David Morris]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend.

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

On the potential for the Government’s policy to make the situation worse, that is likely to happen if the cull levels are as low as they are reported to be. I have to congratulate the Government, however, on their support for a proposed community-led badger vaccination programme on 200 sq km in my constituency, in the Land’s End peninsula, Penwith. The first year of vaccination on contiguous farms is going ahead with the support of Professor Rosie Woodroffe of the Zoological Society of London.

[David Morris]

I would like to see similar programmes rolled out nationally.

I must make some progress. The latest parliamentary report was published by the all-party group on dairy farmers, which was established by my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski). The group had 250 members, of whom 70 were Labour MPs, and the report recommended a badger cull. Research done under the previous Government suggested that the cull will reduce bovine TB by 16%. Obviously, that is a good thing, but we must work towards eradicating TB completely. From what I can see, a vaccination programme for both cattle and badgers is the only way to ensure that. I do not want to dwell on the need to vaccinate cattle and the problems that that would raise, but it is worth flagging up that, if we can do that in a cost-effective manner, we should.

A BCG is available for badgers, which is not unlike the injection most of us had at school. The concern about it is that the need to trap and tag badgers in order to deliver it effectively can make it expensive, as we have discussed. There seems to be widespread agreement, therefore, that we need an effective oral vaccination, and I again invite the Minister to comment on research and development and the progress in that field. It is worth pointing out that, this week, a National Farmers Union briefing was fully in favour of work on vaccines, while DEFRA is undertaking a survey of the number of badgers in the UK, which shows that there is common ground between both sides, even if that is not obvious at first.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

rose—

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

rose—

[David Morris]

I shall give way to the hon. Lady and then to my hon. Friend.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the hon. Gentleman join me in congratulating the Welsh Government on the work that they have done to date on introducing badger vaccines? Will he urge his colleagues in the Government to work closely with the Welsh Government in order to make such progress?

[David Morris]

That is a helpful intervention, and I shall do so at all opportunities given to me.

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend has been incredibly generous with all the interventions, so I shall be brief. He mentioned that cost is often cited as the a reason for vaccinations not taking place, but does he agree that, if the cost of policing a badger cull is included, the cost difference is almost negligible? Furthermore, if the good will of all the volunteers who have been campaigning on behalf of badgers were harnessed, and they were turned into vaccinators or those aiding vaccinators, much of the cost difference could be mitigated overnight.

[David Morris]

That is the spirit of the debate—how we proceed and eradicate a problem that has blighted our countryside.

As I said, the DEFRA survey of badger numbers shows that there is some common ground. On the subject of badger numbers, I have heard huge variations in the estimates, which range from 150,000 to 350,000. It is vital to understand how many badgers there are, and I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for their work on solving the problem. We cannot understand bovine TB and badgers’ effect on it until we can say for certain how many badgers there are.

The problem will not be solved by Government alone. We must have dialogue between DEFRA, the farmer and Team Badger and its affiliates. Together, they can work to ensure that we never need to consider a badger cull again. Vaccines are expensive, but most of the cost of the vaccination programme is in manpower. I dream of a world in which DEFRA trains volunteers from Team Badger to administer vaccines, while farmers play their part by facilitating the volunteers.

[Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Most people in the Chamber fully support the principle of vaccination, but when talking about funding, do we not have to be realistic? An oral vaccine is the only long-term solution to the problem, so is that not where all the money and funding need to be targeted by the Minister and his team, rather than on the injectable vaccine, which is not really a long-term solution?

[David Morris]

I am all for whichever means of administering a vaccine is found. Yes, its development will cost a lot of money, but, as I shall explain, the way ahead might be a measure that empowers members of the pro-badger community to go into match funding with DEFRA. I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention.

Funding streams for working on better vaccines for animals are available in DEFRA, and Team Badger has indicated that it would be willing to raise money to match what DEFRA puts in. In fact, ahead of any proposed scheme, Team Badger has already set up a website to raise funds and opened applications for volunteers. That represents real progress, but the stumbling block is the cull—it is hard to get people around the table as long as it is going on.

My plea to all sides today, across the political divides—we are all sensible and human—is for us to open genuine dialogue on bringing forward a viable and deliverable vaccination scheme. We are all agreed on our desire to create a viable vaccination programme in order to avoid future culls, so let us concentrate on doing that. People will still disagree about the rights or wrongs of the present cull, but for the purposes of this discussion I hope that we can put our differences aside. That is not to say that people will not vigorously argue and debate it, but ensuring that we are in a position to avoid culls in the future is the bigger issue and what must be fixed.

We are in an age of the big society, with Government determined to bring more volunteers and charities together with Departments. In the case of badgers, we have some amazingly well organised and professional charities and lobby groups. It is vital that DEFRA makes full use of those groups, which could be the magic wand that enables us to deliver a vaccination programme cost-effectively. Furthermore, if the lion’s share of research and development, and of delivery of the programme, is undertaken by groups such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Team Badger, the taxpayer will be in a much better position. When the Government do not have the budgets that they once had, this must be welcome.

To recap, here are the questions that I hope the Minister will answer. How far are we from a deliverable oral vaccine? Can we work on a cattle vaccine without falling foul of European Union rules? Will he commit to creating a dialogue around those things that we agree on? Will he support fundraising efforts by groups such as Team Badger and others? Is DEFRA open to the idea of a big society badger vaccination programme undertaken by volunteers?

I appreciate that the issues are easy to flag up, but much harder to address. I firmly believe, however, that with the right work, public will, dialogue and effort on all sides, we can do this. We must remember that the prize at stake is that none of us would have to go through the heartache and division of further badger culls again.

16:59

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (George Eustice)]

I welcome this debate, which my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (David Morris) called for. The number of people here today suggests that we could do with more than half an hour to debate some of the issues. I welcome the tone with which my hon. Friend approached the debate. He is right that some people take different views about whether we should pursue a cull strategy, but we all agree that there is a role for vaccination of both cattle and badgers.

I was pleased to have the opportunity to consider the matter in detail in my recent role as a member of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. The Government’s response to its report was published earlier today and shows that we share a significant amount of common ground on the issue.

Bovine TB is the biggest threat to the livestock industry in England—I was going to say Cornwall, where it is also a threat, as the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) knows. Having lived and worked in the farming industry in Cornwall, I know how difficult the problem is. My family run a herd of pedigree south Devon cattle and in the late 1960s, before my time, they had an incident of TB that wiped out more than half the herd and had a devastating impact on the family farm. My father still talks about it.

By the 1980s, we had almost eradicated the disease, but in the last 10 years there has been a severe deterioration. It has cost the country more than £5 million so far to fight the disease. Last year, we had to slaughter some 28,000 animals. Bovine control is not under control. In Lancashire, the county of my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale, we have seen an increase in the number of herds under restriction and the number of cattle slaughtered in the last year.

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

The Minister says that bovine TB is spreading more, and that is exactly why people are saying that culling is not the answer. Scientists involved in a randomised badger culling trial between 1998 and 2005 have shown that culling has not contributed meaningfully to a reduction in the disease and, if anything, has increased it because as the animals are shot, they run away and carry the disease with them.

[George Eustice]

It is generally accepted that, after the initial conclusions of the randomised badger culling trials, there was a significant reduction of some 16% in the cull area in the following years. On perturbation, which other hon. Members have also raised, there was an increase in TB in a ring immediately around the trial areas as a result of perturbation, but the incidence then dropped. Overall, there was a reduction. I point the hon. Lady to evidence in other countries, such as the Republic of Ireland, which has had a cull policy since 2000 with a reduction of around 45% in the incidence of the disease, and the number of cattle having to be slaughtered has halved.

There is no magic bullet and no single policy that can change the situation dramatically. Vaccination of badgers and cattle has a role; wildlife control has a role; dealing with the reservoir of TB in wildlife has a role; and routine testing, movement controls and better biosecurity all have a role. But none of them alone is the entire solution.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

Part of the trial is taking place in my constituency. My first ministerial meeting when I was elected 16 years ago was with Jeff Rooker on this very subject, and only now is any meaningful action taking place. The Minister is absolutely right to say that a whole range of measures is needed to counter the disease, but it has been increasing and farmers have been suffering. We must get a grip on it.

[George Eustice]

I agree with my hon. Friend. I have painted a picture of how bleak the matter is. The disease is spreading and we cannot ignore it any more; we must take action.

Returning to vaccination, which is the subject of the debate, I think it is worth noting that successive Governments have invested more than £43 million on vaccine research and development since 1994. The coalition Government will have spent at least a further £15 million. I say “at least” because the figure excludes what is likely to be sizeable expenditure on the necessary work on cattle vaccine field trials.

[Tracey Crouch]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the response to a recent freedom of information request on 22 September shows a significant reduction in the amount of departmental investment in the oral vaccine particularly, but also in all other research into injectable vaccine and cattle vaccines? Spending on the oral vaccine will fall from around £2.5 million to £312,000 in 2015. Should that not be dealt with “drekly”, as the Cornish might say?

[George Eustice]

It seems that the word “drekly” is catching on in the House. I will deal with oral vaccination later. Right now, only the injectable BCG is available to tackle bovine TB and it does not fully guarantee protection. Some animals will be fully protected, some will benefit from a reduction in the disease, but some will get no protection. That is a shortcoming of a vaccination policy, but it would be a useful addition to the toolkit and we will use it to tackle the disease when we can perfect it.

[Angela Smith]

I welcome the Minister to his new role. He has mentioned the words “toolkit” and “all the tools in the box” more than once. Will he rule out one tool that most hon. Members believe is unacceptable—the gassing of badgers in any future cull?

[George Eustice]

We have made it clear that we would never use gassing as a means of controlling the badger population if we thought it was inhumane, but it is in the consultation for research. That does not mean that we will use it, but we will consider further research in this area.

The research is not on animals. It involves laboratory situations and simulated setts to work out how to get gas to go through a sett. The concern is not the gas itself, but the ability to deploy it throughout a sett. I assure the hon. Lady that that is the sort of research that was alluded to in the strategy. There is nothing new about it; it was in our published strategy in July.

[Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[George Eustice]

I want to make some progress or I will not get to the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale.

Laboratory studies have demonstrated that vaccinating badgers with BCG can reduce the risk of infection and transmission of the disease. A four-year safety field study of wild badgers showed a statistically significant indirect protective effect in unvaccinated cubs born into vaccinated social groups, but vaccinating a large enough proportion of badgers to reduce transmission of disease and bring about a reduction of TB in cattle would take time to achieve and be costly to deliver, at between £2,000 and £4,000 per sq km per year.

In practice, it is inevitable that not all badgers in an area will be trapped and vaccinated. There is no evidence that vaccination protects already-infected badgers, and there is a risk that badgers from neighbouring unvaccinated areas may act as a constant source of infection. Nevertheless, computer modelling indicates that sustained badger vaccination campaigns could be beneficial in lowering TB incidence in cattle, but quantifying that contribution is likely to need a large-scale field trial, and it would take some years to collect the results.

[David Morris]

I would like to put it on the record that should what I am proposing come together, I would like my constituency to be its first trial area.

[George Eustice]

That has been noted, and we will take it on board—[Interruption.] I do not want all hon. Members asking for their constituencies to be a trial area. Vaccination is a potential additional tool to reduce geographical spread of the disease, particularly on the edge of areas. My hon. Friend’s constituency is in not an edge area, but a low-risk area.

Vaccination could complement badger culling by providing a buffer to limit the impact of perturbation. It may also form part of an exit strategy from culling—for example, by vaccinating remaining badgers with the aim of establishing herd immunity in previously culled areas.

[Albert Owen]

I welcome the Minister to his place on the Front Bench. Will he assure the Chamber that his Department is working with the Welsh Government so that we can have some data on their trials, share information and eradicate the problem in the whole United Kingdom? His responsibility covers only England, but such co-operation would help both England and Wales.

[George Eustice]

We are keen to learn lessons from around the country and around the world, so we are looking at the work going on in Wales. I have to say that it is not that encouraging at the moment; a vaccination-only strategy is not seen to be working particularly well, but we will study the results closely. I am also interested in following what is going on in Northern Ireland, where they are trapping and then vaccinating badgers that they believe are not infected and culling those that are. We are also keen to learn lessons from countries such as Australia, which has pursued policies similar to ours.

[Ian Paisley]

I welcome the Minister to his new role. With regards to the vaccine for cattle and cows, which he touched on at the beginning—the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale also asked about this issue—will the Minister take the opportunity to make it abundantly clear that if a vaccine is given to a cow, it makes the cow test positive? That makes it indistinguishable from an affected beast when it is tested, which leads to one conclusion: the cow is slaughtered. We have to get away from pursuing the idea that there is some sort of magic bullet, or magic pill, that can be used to vaccinate a cow and not lead to its being slaughtered.

[George Eustice]

I do not want to get drawn too far into cattle vaccination, but the hon. Gentleman is right that we need to perfect the so-called DIVA test that differentiates between the two. It is clear that it will take some time. The European Commission has put a time frame of 10 years on getting to that stage. I would like that to be quicker, but we have to be realistic—there is a lot to be done.

I come back to supporting badger vaccination. DEFRA operates a badger vaccination fund; in the current year, that has prioritised support for vaccination in the “edge area”. The fund offers start-up grants of 50% to fund the first year of vaccinations. Having said that, it is true to say that applications this year have been a bit disappointing. We are now looking to understand precisely why that is, so that we can get it right next year. Coming back to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale, we are keen to work with all those groups, including voluntary groups, who would like to participate, and to work out how we can get them engaged in that.

I also intend to discuss a plan that the hon. Member for St Ives has on the issue—I have promised to meet him and Rosie Woodroffe. The Department has made a modest commitment to support some vaccination in that regard and he has some ideas; we are keen to pursue that option and look at it.

[Andrew George]

I put on the record my gratitude to DEFRA for the initial funding of the pilot, which is proceeding this week. The intention is to cover the whole 200 square miles of the Land’s End peninsula, and we are increasingly gathering the co-operation of farmers in the area.

[George Eustice]

I know that, and I look forward to discussing the matter further when I meet the hon. Gentleman. The training scheme has become more popular since, as part of the DEFRA-funded badger vaccination fund, we have offered grants of 50% to voluntary and community sector volunteers to train as lay vaccinators. That is another area that we would like to look at.

Finally, I want to say a few words about our work on developing an oral badger vaccine. A badger vaccine could be administered orally through baits. It would be more practical and potentially cheaper, which is why DEFRA continues to fund that. It is not true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) said, that we have cut expenditure on that. We are, as I say, still spending about £4 million a year in total on developing cattle and badger vaccines.

There are things that we would need to resolve when it comes to the development of an oral vaccine. We would need to work on the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine formulation and make sure that we can deploy the bait to attract the maximum number of badgers. One of the problems is that badgers will not take the bait that is used, so it is important to have the right bait.

Another problem can be that one badger might eat all the bait and another badger might not get any, so there are challenges. We also have to deal with the potential impact and safety for other wildlife. There is still further work to do, but we are committed to taking it forward, and we are clear that that ongoing work will play a role in our strategy.

17:14

Sitting adjourned without Question put (Standing Order No.10(13)).