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Oral Answers to Questions
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
1. What recent discussions she has had with the Scottish Government on broadband coverage in Scotland.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
My Department and the Scotland Office have had regular discussions with the Scottish Government on broadband coverage in Scotland, including on the delivery of two projects for the highlands and islands and for the rest of Scotland. These projects will make superfast broadband available to more than 670,000 homes and businesses.
Mr Reid
I thank the Minister for that answer, but approximately 17% of the homes in Argyll and Bute will not receive next generation broadband from the BT contract to lay fibre-optic cables. More innovative solutions are needed to deliver next generation broadband throughout the highlands and islands. Will my hon. Friend work with the Scottish Government to come up with innovative solutions, so that all the homes in Argyll and Bute can have access to next generation broadband?
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
2. What progress her Department has made in rolling out rural broadband.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
Forty two local broadband projects have now agreed contracts and are in implementation, and we are now passing approximately 10,000 premises every week. We have made a huge amount of progress.
John Glen
I thank the Minister for that answer, but what do I say to the local authority and residents in villages such as Pitton who believe they are in the percentage that will not qualify for the imminent roll-out through the BT deal? They want to be free to develop new community-based solutions with alternative providers, as they anticipate they will not get anything from BT for a long time.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
This is not just an issue for rural areas. Semi-rural areas often fall between two stools. It is difficult for people to get broadband to their home, either because they are too far from the final mile or because the bung that has been given to BT to roll this out across the country and make it almost impossible for anybody else to compete has made it difficult for other operators to get into areas such as the Rhondda.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
What will my hon. Friend say to the 5% of those living in the hills, particularly farmers, who will not have access to superfast broadband by 2016? Will he implement the Select Committee report recommendation that they be given advance warning, so they can make alternative arrangements to those on offer from BT?
Mr Vaizey
As I have said repeatedly, it is up to local authorities to publish their local broadband plans and I am delighted, particularly after the Secretary of State wrote to them, that many have now done so. People in Wiltshire and Yorkshire will know where the project is rolling out.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
It seems to me that BT is a big company that sometimes does not treat small communities very well. May I draw to the attention of the Minister the village of Rushden in my constituency, where residents are complaining that they are not getting the proper broadband access they deserve, despite their best efforts with BT?
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
3. What plans she has in place if newspaper proprietors do not sign up to the Privy Council’s royal charter for regulating the press.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)
All sides support self-regulation of the press. The royal charter sets out the principles for self-regulators if they wish to be recognised and take advantage of costs and damages incentives. The choice to sign up lies with the industry.
Sir Tony Baldry
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. We are here because Lord Justice Leveson said that he wanted a new voluntary code from the press that had statutory underpinning. The press have come forward with a new draft code that does not have statutory underpinning and the Privy Council has come forward with a code that appears not to have press support. Would it not be helpful if Lord Justice Leveson gave us all a steer on what he thinks should happen now?
Maria Miller
I will, of course, leave it to Lord Justice Leveson to speak for himself on whether he wants to contribute further to the debate, but I can say clearly to my hon. Friend that the essence of the Leveson report was self-regulation. I believe that we now have a way forward that will safeguard the freedom of the press and provide a good system of redress when errors are made. It is important to make the royal charter work; it is the best way to stave off the statutory regulation of the press that some are trying to impose.
Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)
Regarding the royal charter, one of the more belligerent newspapers is running a piece today under the headline, “Approved behind closed doors, curbs that end three centuries of Press freedom”. For the benefit of that newspaper’s poor readers, would the Secretary of State care to comment on the accuracy of that headline?
Maria Miller
We have had a great deal of debate on the self-regulation of the press, through the Leveson inquiry and through the 11 subsequent debates in this House and the other place. The important thing is that we make this work for the industry and for people who are seeking redress.
Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, the Prime Minister and all those involved in the difficult business of striking the right balance. Given the overwhelming public support for a system of independent regulation, does my right hon. Friend agree that the editors and press barons should now recognise that the will of Parliament has been declared, and that they should support the people, come to terms with this measure and negotiate with her?
Maria Miller
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I would add that the public overwhelmingly support a free press, so it is important that we strike the right balance. I am sure that everyone here today would agree that the new system has to have a free press at its heart, while giving individuals the right level of redress, as I believe it will.
Ms Harriet Harman (Camberwell and Peckham) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for the key role that she has played in finally getting the royal charter sealed by the Privy Council yesterday. Clear evidence was presented to Lord Justice Leveson of innocent people suffering as a result of press abuse, and it is almost a year since he produced his report, so a proper complaints system that does not infringe the freedom of the press and that is truly independent of the press and politicians is long overdue. Does the right hon. Lady agree that the press have nothing to fear from an independent complaints system? Will she join me in encouraging the industry to establish a genuinely independent self-regulator and put it forward for recognition?
Maria Miller
I thank the right hon. and learned Lady for her kind sentiments. It is also important to place on record the fact that the press are making good progress on setting up a self-regulator. They have already issued papers and are well into the necessary negotiations. Perhaps I could ask her a further question. Will she join me in staving off any form of pressure for statutory regulation of the press, because it is clear that some are still trying to use that as a threat?
Mr Speaker
We will treat that as a rhetorical question, because questions are put to Ministers, rather than asked by them.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
I endorse the view of my colleague on the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Paul Farrelly), that there is no serious justification for saying that the royal charter marks the end of press freedom. Will the Secretary of State accept, however, that the ability of Parliament to have a say on the rules under which the press regulator operates—even with a requirement for a two-thirds majority, which, as she knows, has no constitutional validity—allows that claim to be made? If it is that provision that is preventing some newspapers from joining, will she now, even at this late stage, consider alternative safeguards such as the one in the PressBoF charter?
Maria Miller
My hon. Friend is right to say that safeguarding that freedom and ensuring that there is no political interference in the system are absolutely critical. That is why I was keen to make the further change to ensure that any changes would require not only a two-thirds majority here and in the other place but the overwhelming support of the regulatory body.
Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)
4. What assessment she has made of the effect of fixed odds betting terminals on local communities.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)
The Government have conducted a review of stake and prize limits for all categories of gaming machine, including fixed odds betting terminals. We took advice from the Gambling Commission and the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board as part of our review, which was published earlier this month.
Lucy Powell
The Minister will be aware that last week, in answer to a question from my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson), the Prime Minister said he would look again at the damaging effects of fixed odds betting terminals. When will this review begin, and what form will it take?
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
The Minister will be aware that the Kent Messenger recently reported that gamblers across Kent and the Medway lost £33 million on FOBTs, including £1.6 million in my constituency and £1.9 million in her own constituency. Does she agree, therefore, that we need to look properly at the devastating impact that these high-risk, high-stake machines are having on our constituents?
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
13. The stakes taken by these machines are so great that they have become a magnet for money laundering gains. Coral, the bookmakers, has recently been exposed for taking £900,000 of laundered money. The Serious Organised Crime Agency thinks the problem so great that bookmakers should be included in money laundering directives from the EU, which are currently under review. What is the Minister’s view?
Mrs Grant
As I keep repeating, my view is that these machines raise serious issues, but we need to take a fair and decent approach to the issue of problem gambling, while not over-regulating bookmakers. We therefore need to do our research and look at the matter in detail so that we can come up with a balanced, sensible and fair way forward.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that one effect of allowing B2 gaming machines in bookmakers is that they help to maintain the viability of these offices, providing employment for local people and an environment where those with a gambling problem are more likely to be identified and pointed in the direction of the help they need than if they were to sit at home gambling on the internet, where, incidentally, they could gamble any amount they liked?
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)
5. What steps she is taking to collect evidence on links between gambling addiction and B2 gambling machines.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)
We are working with the Gambling Commission, the Responsible Gambling Strategy Board, the Responsible Gambling Trust and the industry itself to rapidly advance our understanding. Dealing with problem gambling and protecting the vulnerable are priorities for this Government.
Simon Wright
A recent study conducted in the London borough of Newham found that 87% of gamblers believed B2 machines to be addictive, and many described them as the crack cocaine of gambling. Will the Minister assure gamblers that the Government will listen to their personal evidence and experiences, and respond to them as a matter of urgency?
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
Has the Minister read the Association of British Bookmakers’ code for responsible gambling and player protection in licensed betting offices, which has been released recently? If so, does she think it goes any way to allaying the fears of many Members?
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
Is the Minister aware that virtually every new gambling product since the 1970s has been referred to as the crack cocaine of gambling and that to think that this is unique is ridiculous? Given that people can lose an unlimited amount of money within a minute on a five-furlong sprint at Epsom, does she agree that opposition to FOBTs is ridiculous, particularly given that they have a bigger rate of return for the punter—97%—than any other gambling product in any betting shop or casino, or anywhere else for that matter?
Mrs Grant
My hon. Friend raises some interesting issues, but work has begun and we will look at all the evidence and all the research. In addition, we will put pressure on the industry to develop its own harm mitigation measures. We must ensure that those measures work and that their success is evaluated.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
These wicked machines are destroying lives and families in some of the poorest areas of our country. Ireland has banned these machines; should we not simply follow that example?
Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)
6. When she expects the Privy Council to consider the political parties’ proposals for a Royal Charter on press regulation; and if she will make a statement
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)
As the right hon. Member will be aware, the royal charter was granted yesterday. A copy will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses shortly.
Mr Bradshaw
Given the endemic misreporting of this issue by the press itself—including, I am afraid, by the Financial Times, which claimed this week that the right hon. Lady was going to break the all-party consensus and support the non-Leveson-compliant PressBoF charter—will the Secretary of State now explain for all our benefits what she thinks will happen next?
Maria Miller
It is a complicated issue, which explains the difficulties in the reporting of it. The royal charter has been put in place. More importantly, as the House should recognise, the press is well down the road of setting up the self-regulatory mechanism that it needs to move forward. That should be applauded, and the whole House should welcome it.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
7. What steps she is taking to support tourism.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
10. What steps she is taking to support tourism.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)
The Government place great importance on tourism. It is an excellent part of our growth strategy, which is why we are investing over £130 million, matched between the public and private sectors, in the GREAT and other marketing campaigns, both at home and abroad.
Laura Sandys
Following a very successful summer in South Thanet, profiling some of my beautiful beaches, I was very much hoping that the Government might reopen the issue of daylight saving, which would deliver £3 billion extra to the economy and 700,000 jobs in the tourism sector.
Mrs Grant
I know that my hon. Friend is a passionate advocate of tourism in her area, and I have been fortunate in being able to visit her constituency. However, as the Prime Minister made clear quite recently, in the absence of consensus on this matter throughout the UK—including in Scotland and Northern Ireland—it would be inappropriate to consider making changes.
Harriett Baldwin
With 8,000 people in Worcestershire—the glorious county that gave birth to Edward Elgar—working in the tourism industry, will the Minister welcome the 13.5% increase in long-haul flights into Birmingham airport? Will she also welcome the news that, in 2014, the runway will be lengthened and even more markets will be able to access tourism in Worcestershire?
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
May I push the Minister on the arts as part of the tourism attraction? People come to this great country for our great artistic endeavours, but we have arts in the regions, and is it not about time that, through the Arts Council and other means, the regions got the support they deserve—rather than just, “London, London, London”?
David Wright (Telford) (Lab)
What specific proposals has the Minister for the promotion of world heritage sites? Ironbridge Gorge is an incredibly important world heritage site, and an engine for the regional economy in the west midlands. We are missing a trick as a nation by not promoting such sites more strongly.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Ind)
One iconic institution that attracts a lot of tourism into the United Kingdom—and, indeed, within the United Kingdom—is the great British pub, where people can enjoy tremendous real ales, tremendous food and a wonderful welcome, but far too many pubs are still closing every week. Will my hon. Friend discuss with fellow Ministers what more can be done to retain the vitality of this amazing industry, particularly in the realms of rate relief for rural pubs?
Mrs Grant
I am very fond of my own local pub, the Unicorn in Marden, and I do step in there now and again. I reassure my hon. Friend that we are doing a great deal to assist the business sector, and that includes helping pubs by reducing fuel and beer duties. We are also trying to simplify planning, and are continuing to cut red tape, regulation and bureaucracy.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
The Minister will, of course, have noticed that Scotland has been named the third best place to visit in 2014 by the “Lonely Planet” travel guide. The guide cites a
“jam-packed schedule of world class events”,
including the Ryder cup and the Commonwealth games, as well as our
“buzzing cities and stunning scenery”,
much of which is in my constituency. It also notes that the referendum gives Scotland an opportunity to
“shine on the world stage”.
Does the Minister agree that, without even a vote being cast, Scotland has already won?
Mrs Grant
Scotland is a wonderful place in which to live and work, and I am sure that it will put on an absolutely fantastic Commonwealth games event next year. I look forward to my next trip up there. I grew up in the borders and spent many a time in Dumfriesshire and Gretna Green, so I know what a beautiful place it is.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
8. What assessment she has made of support given to horse racing by the horserace betting levy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)
I am delighted that an agreement was reached last week on the 53rd levy scheme. The levy provides vital support for horse racing, a sport that is enjoyed by millions, supports thousands of jobs across Britain, and contributes to local economies.
Ian Swales
On Tuesday we have Second Reading of the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill, which proposes the introduction of a UK licence for offshore gambling providers but fails to deal with levy avoidance. Will the Minister urgently address that issue and get on with the job of producing a long-term, sustainable funding arrangement to support Redcar race course and the rest of our vital horse racing industry?
Mrs Grant
The Bill is actually about increasing protection for British customers, and allowing British-based operators to compete on an equal footing with remote operators. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman approves of that. We do not intend to use the Bill to reform the levy.
Jim Sheridan (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (Lab)
The Minister may be aware of the existence of remote channels. If British racing is to have any sustainable, long-term future, any betting activity must involve a legally binding contribution, including activity through remote channels.
Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for pointing out how many thousands of jobs the horse racing industry creates and sustains each and every year. The levy is largely collected from bookmakers’ shops, the number of which has halved in the last 20 years, falling from a peak of about 17,000 to 8,500. Does the Minister agree that it is important for us to see the debate about machines and gambling in proportion, and for it to be evidence-based, so that we do not lose any more shops and, as a result, jobs in the betting and horse racing industries?
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
The new agreement between the big four bookmakers and many of the race courses is an important breakthrough and it is important that the momentum is maintained, but, worryingly, some of the smaller courses and independent bookmakers may lose out, so may I encourage the Minister to have an early meeting with the all-party group on the racing and bloodstock industries to talk about these issues so that we can keep the pressure on?
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The horse racing industry is not just part of British culture; it is also essential to our rural economies. However, we have an offshore betting industry that largely does not contribute anything, through a levy, to the industry. It is therefore important that the Minister reviews the Government legal advice on the betting levy in the light of the European Commission ruling in July of this year that allows a levy to be imposed. Will she review that in time for amendments to be tabled to the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill?
Mrs Grant
I agree with the hon. Gentleman to a certain extent, because the levy was created 50 years ago and does not completely deal with modern betting and racing practices, so, as I have previously said, I will consult. We will take evidence and look at the situation very carefully indeed, and try to find a modern, sustainable and enforceable legal solution.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
11. What recent discussions she has had with the BBC Trust on reducing the use of golden goodbye clauses in BBC contracts.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)
It is right that licence fee payers expect their money to be spent responsibly, and a part of that is ensuring that these matters are subject to the right level of scrutiny. Under the leadership of Tony Hall, a cap on all future severance payments has already been implemented.
Mr Raab
I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Does she agree that the BBC must comply with the Public Accounts Committee order for disclosure of the 150 senior managers who received pay-offs at taxpayers’ expense? Has she made that clear to the director-general and the chairman of the trust?
Maria Miller
I, like my hon. Friend, believe transparency is incredibly important, and in particular for the BBC for the reasons I have just given regarding what licence fee payers expect. Detailed decisions about the disclosure of personnel information are squarely for the management of the BBC, but I understand the point my hon. Friend makes.
Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)
Does the Secretary of State agree that senior executives who have resigned rather than been sacked should get no compensation, and that if they were sacked it should not be covered up as though they had resigned?
Maria Miller
I think it is fair to say the judgment of senior management on some of these matters has been questionable. I am pleased to see that future deals in excess of £75,000 will need to be approved by the BBC senior management committee, and we should not see severance payments exceeding £150,000. I think that is absolutely right.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
12. What recent estimate she has made of the number of households in (a) Wiltshire and (b) the UK that will have superfast internet access on the 4G spectrum but not through fixed-line broadband by January 2015.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
The four mobile network operators are aiming to roll out 4G mobile broadband services to 98% of the population. EE is aiming to reach that by the end of 2014, and the others by the end of 2015.
Duncan Hames
I thank the Minister for his reply, but he has not been able to share with me the number of households that will not have access to fixed-line solutions by that time: in communities in a large part of my constituency, from Hilperton and Semington to Whitley, fixed-line fibre installations will not even have begun. Will he issue guidance to local authorities on how they can use mobile spectrum-based solutions in their broadband programme?
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
14. What recent discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on payment to artists by online music streaming services.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
My colleague the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and I are keen to ensure that artists are appropriately rewarded for their creative content, including in the online world. Where music-streaming sites are legitimate, the payment of royalties is a commercial arrangement between the rights-holder and the online service provider.
Kerry McCarthy
I thank the Minister for that response. A number of musicians have recently pulled their music from Spotify because the amounts that such online services pay is so minuscule that the emergence of new artists and the financial sustainability of new music are being threatened. Does he think that the larger labels should follow the example of some indie labels and give a 50:50 split to their artists?
Mr Vaizey
As we are talking about new or emerging artists, may I use this opportunity to congratulate James Blake on winning the Mercury award last night? He is a classically trained pianist who won for his album of ambient music. I would hesitate to interfere in the commercial arrangements of either the big labels or the indie labels, but I am sure that each can learn from the other.
Mr Speaker
I am grateful to the Minister for explaining the greatness of that particular James Blake, because I had in mind a very distinguished black American tennis player of the same name. I am obliged to the Minister for educating me.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
T1. Perhaps you should write a book on tennis, Mr Speaker. Numero uno: if she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Maria Miller)
I should also say happy Halloween, if that is indeed appropriate, Mr Speaker.
We recently announced a £10 million fund dedicated to celebrating some of our nation’s most important anniversaries. Visits to museums and galleries are at their highest ever levels. The merger of the Gambling Commission and the National Lottery Commission has now been completed, saving the taxpayer £1 million a year.
Chris Bryant
I was going to say that the Secretary of State is an absolutely wonderful woman, and then she went all American by referring to Halloween—I would prefer us to stick with a British institution. May I say to her that she did a wonderful thing yesterday, I am very proud of her and I hope she will stand firm on these issues? The hon. Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) was right earlier when he said that it is now for the industry to come to terms with what the public want in this country, which is a fair system of redress—nothing more, nothing less. Will the Secretary of State tell us when the body that will be able to regulate the body that is going to be doing the regulating will be set up?
Maria Miller
I will resist saying, “With friends like the hon. Gentleman, who needs enemies.” I thank him for his kind words and, I am sure, the sentiment in which they were meant. Obviously, he is right to say that we have made very good progress, and I hope he will join me in now resisting all calls for any form of statutory regulation of the press, which some others have been trying to impose. He asks me about the timing, and I can tell him that the panel will be set up in the next six to 12 months.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
T4. A small business in my constituency has had its telephone “slammed”: taken out of its hands and given to a local resident. We have been trying to get redress from Tesco, which has been reallocating these telephones lines. It is affecting the advertising and business costs of this small business; it is losing business and the resident is regularly receiving inquiries about tattoos.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
Slamming is against the Ofcom regulations, and I am appalled to hear about what my hon. Friend’s constituent has gone through. I will certainly do everything I can to assist her, as this is an appalling practice.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
Will Ministers join me in congratulating the National Theatre on 50 years at the very heart of our cultural and artistic life? It is a great reminder of the sheer quality of the excellence of our national arts institutions, many of which are based in the capital. Outside London, however, the picture is now very different. I pay tribute to those who have produced a report today showing the massive disparity in Government and lottery support for the arts. What the Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) said earlier is wholly wrong: whereas Londoners get £70 per head each year the rest of the country gets only £4.60 per head. So what are the Government going to do to rebalance our cultural economy?
Maria Miller
The hon. Lady raises a point that we are trying to address, after her Administration did so little to address it. We are trying to make sure that our great national institutions do work regionally and to throw a spotlight on the excellent work they do. Only a month ago, I was at an exhibition in my constituency that had been put on by the Victoria and Albert museum. We should be applauding the work that our national institutions are doing in the regions.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
T6. I am extremely grateful to the Minister for the detailed correspondence that he has had with me on the technical issue of radio spectrum use for DAB, but on my constituents’ advice I remain concerned that successive Governments may have wasted some radio spectrum. Would he please arrange a meeting between me and my constituents and the relevant technical staff to try to lay this issue to rest?
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
T2. I hesitate to make a party political point, but I must pick up the Secretary of State on what she has just said. There are real problems with arts funding outside London, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman). It is not the case that the previous Government did nothing. My own city, Liverpool, saw a renaissance in the cultural sector. Will the Government now play their part and commit to a report on proper cultural funding for cities that do not happen to be our capital?
Maria Miller
The hon. Lady is right to say that there is a problem. What I was saying is that we are trying to resolve a problem that we inherited. She will know that Liverpool receives £89 million a year, the highest funding outside London. I agree that we should try to make sure that the great regional culture that we have in this country receives the support it requires.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
T7. With reference to the growing rural economy, what reassurance can my hon. Friend give my constituents that we will have 90% rural broadband roll-out across Stroud by 2015?
Mr Vaizey
I am delighted to update the House on the significant progress we are making. We are connecting more than 10,000 homes a week. Half the projects that are under way are already ahead of schedule and we are bringing in 4G two years ahead of schedule. This is a triumphant programme.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
T3. On Monday I asked the Minister for Universities and Science why the UK is the only country in the EU that will introduce a private copying exception without a levy on copying devices to compensate UK artists, and he said that other countries had introduced far wider exceptions, which is not the case: only two of them have. Will the Minister talk to his counterpart in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to ensure that our artists are not left worse off than those in the rest of the EU?
Mike Crockart (Edinburgh West) (LD)
T8. Today has seen the launch of the all-party group report on nuisance calls. It contains 16 excellent recommendations which, if implemented, would significantly increase protection for vulnerable consumers, improve the effectiveness of the regulators, and renew confidence in the telecoms and direct marketing industries. Will my hon. Friend therefore support my private Member’s Bill tomorrow to implement some of those recommendations as soon as possible?
Mr Vaizey
As my hon. Friend knows, he and I have been discussing this issue for many months. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the fantastic work he has done to make progress on the issue. He knows that I support many of the points that he makes in his private Member’s Bill.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
T5. A change to the royal charter on the press requires a two-thirds majority, so some hon. Members’ votes will have twice the weight of those of other hon. Members. Will the Secretary of State put this constitutional innovation to a vote in this House?
Maria Miller
The hon. Gentleman must have missed the 11 debates we have had on that. There is all-party support for the way we are going forward. May I correct him slightly? It is not just a two thirds majority of both Houses, but unanimous agreement of the regulatory body that is required.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
T9. Does the Secretary of State agree that Britain, where many of the world’s sports originated, ought to have a national sports museum, including a permanent display for the London 2012 Olympic legacy?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mrs Helen Grant)
That is an interesting idea. There is no current plan for a national sports museum, but I know that the National Football Museum in Manchester is very popular. It is free and it receives about 100,000 visitors every year.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
MPs from both sides of the House had an excellent meeting with the FA last week on the future of women’s football. Unfortunately, the commission that the FA set up was initially all white and is still all male. What does the Minister think about that, and can we remind the FA that the future of women’s football is important, too?
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
The Minister will be aware that North Yorkshire has taken great strides in rolling out superfast broadband across the county. The project is near completion. Will the Minister consider early release of the phase 2 funding for areas such as North Yorkshire to help bridge the digital divide in those areas?
Mr Vaizey
May I use this opportunity to congratulate North Yorkshire on forging ahead with the superfast broadband programme, which has made astonishing progress? I hear what my hon. Friend says. We are working out the details of how to allocate the next tranche of funding to take superfast broadband to 95% and I will keep him informed.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
What progress has the Secretary of State made to prevent tickets for the 2015 rugby union world cup from being bought up and resold with a great mark-up on the secondary market? There is clearly a great desire that something should be done to crack down on that, so will she confirm that she will introduce the necessary legislation, as we had for the Olympics, and kick the touts into touch?
Maria Miller
The hon. Lady brings up an important issue about the supply of tickets. We have it well in hand and we are ensuring that the tickets are released in a way that means we will not fall into the problems she has outlined.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
1. What recent discussions she has had on increasing the number of successful prosecutions in cases of rape and sexual violence; and if she will make a statement.
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
The Home Office has chaired a meeting with the Director of Public Prosecutions and national policing leads to consider the fall-off in police referrals and prosecutions. That has led to a six-point plan to support successful outcomes for victims of rape and sexual violence.
Fiona Mactaggart
The number of women reporting rapes has increased by 4,000, but the percentage of such cases being referred to the Crown Prosecution Service has continued to fall from 50% when Labour was in government to about 30%. The Minister says that he has a six-point plan and the Secretary of State told me on Monday that there had been round-table meetings, but when will we see action for women, or will we continue to see cuts in services for victims of rape and domestic violence?
Norman Baker
We all take this issue very seriously in government. I am concerned about the fall in referrals and I think part of that is due to engagement between the police and the CPS, because the fall-off in referrals has not been matched to the same degree by a fall-off in convictions. This is nevertheless an important matter. I am taking a personal interest in it and I am also talking about it to all the chief constables, who are coming into the Home Office this afternoon.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
What percentage of convicted rapists serve their time in prison in full before they are released?
Norman Baker
I cannot give a specific answer, but we obviously do not release anyone who is a danger to the public. That remains our position.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
According to freedom of information requests compiled by Labour, there has been a 33.5% drop in the number of rape cases referred to the CPS for prosecution since 2010. That figure was rising under the previous Government. Given that police budgets have been cut by 20% over the same period, does the Minister accept that the hollowing out of police services has led to more perpetrators of rape and sexual violence getting away with it? What is he going to do about that disgraceful situation, which will inevitably lead to more perpetrators committing rapes, as they feel emboldened to do so with impunity?
Norman Baker
I welcome the hon. Lady to the Front Bench, as I understand that this is her first outing.
I do not believe that the issue of funding for the police is in any way connected with this matter, because otherwise—[Interruption.] Otherwise, we would have seen a drop in the number of investigations of murder, homicide or complex fraud, and we are not seeing that. Other factors are at play, I think, including the number of historic allegations that are quite rightly coming forward and the fact that there is more encouragement of people to come forward—[Interruption.] I know that this is the hon. Lady’s first outing, but if she let me answer the question rather than chuntering it would be helpful. This is a serious issue and I want to try to address it properly.
We are taking action on this matter. The figures from the Office for National Statistics show a 9% increase in the number of sexual offences being reported and a 9% increase in the number of rapes recorded by the police in the year to June 2013 compared with the previous year. The number of convictions has changed only marginally from earlier years, because prosecution cases that will not be successful are weeded out at an earlier stage. I have already said that we are concerned about this matter. I want to look into the precise reason referrals have gone down, and it is my intention to ensure that we get as many successful prosecutions as possible.
Mr Speaker
Order. We all enjoy hearing the Minister, but on the whole the abridged rather than the “War and Peace” version is to be preferred, so we will leave it there.
Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)
2. What progress has been made on increasing the number of women on boards of FTSE 100 companies.
The Minister for Women and Equalities (Maria Miller)
The Government support Lord Davies’s voluntary business-led strategy for increasing the number of women in UK boardrooms. Good progress is being made: women now account for 19% of board members in our FTSE 100 companies, up from 12.5% in February 2011.
Caroline Dinenage
I thank the Minister for that answer. Is she aware of the importance of the so-called mumpreneurs, who work from home and contribute approximately £7 billion a year to our economy? Will she join me in congratulating those inspirational women and pledge to support them?
Maria Miller
I absolutely join my hon. Friend in congratulating mumpreneurs and applauding their work. I know that she is a small business woman and knows a great deal about the sector. The figures speak for themselves: in the last quarter we saw a further 27,000 women taking up entrepreneurial roles in our economy, making 1.2 million in total. That is real progress indeed.
Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)
There is no board in this country more high-profile than the Cabinet, so what message is being sent to business when only four out of 23 of its members are women?
Maria Miller
I take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Lady to her first questions on the Front Bench. I am sure that she will make a good contribution to all our Question Times. She is right that the Government have a huge role to play in setting an example. In my Department we have a significant majority of women in leadership roles. We want to ensure that in future we have even more women not only in Parliament and as Ministers, but in the Cabinet—something on which the Prime Minister has made his thoughts very clear.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
3. What steps she is taking to increase awareness of and prevent violence against women and girls.
The Minister for Crime Prevention (Norman Baker)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will answer Questions 3 and 4 together.
Mr Speaker
I fear that the Minister cannot, because Question 4 has been withdrawn. He can confine himself to Question 3, which should facilitate a shorter answer, for which we are grateful.
Norman Baker
The answer is the same either way, Mr Speaker.
The coalition Government’s action plan to end violence against women and girls sets out a number of commitments to raise awareness and prevent violence against women and girls. We have extended the definition of domestic abuse to include 16 and 17-year-olds, and our national campaigns on teenage rape and relationship abuse challenge the attitudes underpinning violence against girls.
Stella Creasy
With research telling us that one in three young girls in this country report experiencing sexual harassment in school, why did every single Member on the Government Front Bench vote against making sex and relationships education compulsory for both boys and girls in all schools in Britain?
Norman Baker
May I first congratulate the hon. Lady on her involvement in the banknote campaign and say how sorry I was to hear about the abuse she received as a consequence?
The governing bodies of all maintained schools must have an up-to-date sex and relationships education policy. The guidance makes it clear that all young people should understand how to avoid exploitation and abuse and how the law applies to relationships. In addition, we have two hard-hitting campaigns, on teenage relationship abuse and teenage rape prevention, which have been very successful, as the number of website hits shows.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Essex has one of the highest incidences of domestic violence in the country, and two tragic murders have occurred in Harlow as a result of domestic violence. What help can the Government give to education and local charities to reduce domestic violence?
Norman Baker
I have already mentioned the websites we have introduced, which have had over 1 million hits since 2010. We are also taking clear action on online abuse and have published documents this year taking forward our strategy. I intend to make it a high priority during my time in office.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
Despite the commitment that the Prime Minister made in this House that police would be able to retain the DNA of individuals arrested but not charged with rape, we now know that over the summer the police have had to destroy the DNA records of thousands of suspected sex offenders before the appeals process is introduced at the beginning of next month. Has not that shocking incompetence by the Government put more women and girls at risk?
Norman Baker
I am not sure that I accept the version of events that has been given. The hon. Lady will of course understand, as will the whole House, that there is a balance to be struck between the unnecessary retention of DNA in terms of civil liberties and the need to prevent serious crime. Striking that balance is something that the Government are very keen to get right.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Is it the Government’s view that taking steps to increase awareness of and prevent violence against women and girls is more important than increasing awareness of and preventing violence against men and boys, or is it the Government’s view that it is equally important to increase awareness of and prevent violence against all of them?
Norman Baker
I certainly agree that it is important to act on violence against any individual. Of course, it is predominantly against women and girls and vulnerable adults, and they must come first in our consideration, but it is also true that the £40 million recently allocated to deal with these matters includes a strand to deal with violence against men and boys.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
5. What steps she is taking to support senior women in business.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Jo Swinson)
Under this Government, more women are in work than ever before, and we are determined to do more. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Women and Equalities has already mentioned the excellent work to increase the number of women on boards. We have also set up the Think, Act, Report initiative promoting gender equality in the workplace, and 131 companies have signed up, covering almost 2 million employees.
Luciana Berger
I understand what the Minister says, but we have some of the highest levels of female unemployment in a generation. Does she agree that mothers of school-age children need a guarantee of stable, wraparound care if they are to be able to pursue careers in business or elsewhere? If she does, will she back Labour’s primary child care guarantee and explain why her Government scrapped the previous Labour Government’s Extended Schools programme, which provided urgent and necessary breakfast clubs and after-school clubs to help parents, particularly mothers?
Jo Swinson
I certainly agree that child care is an absolutely key element for many women making their way in business and, indeed, in other careers, but I do not agree that making an uncosted proposal that all schools should suddenly provide such wraparound child care without providing the means to do it is a sensible way forward. Instead, the Government are making it easier for childminders to set up in business, breaking down the barriers, and introducing £1,200 per child per year of tax reliefs on the money that parents spend on child care.
Mr Speaker
We are on Question 5. Does the hon. Lady wish to intervene on that?
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Figures from Chwarae Teg indicate that 7% of employed women in Wales are in senior management compared with 11% of men. What discussions has the Minister had with the Welsh Government about action to close that gap?
Jo Swinson
Lots of discussions go on in government among officials on these issues, but I have not personally had any such discussions with Welsh Ministers. However, Governments have a role to play in leading by example with the civil service, in trying to make it easier for women to achieve parity with men on pay and progression, and in working with businesses to make the business case that diverse teams achieve better results.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
6. What steps she is taking to improve the position of disabled people in the workplace.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Mike Penning)
The Government have a number of programmes in place to enable disabled people and people with health conditions to get into and remain in work. We intend to publish proposals for those programmes in our employment strategy by the end of the year.
Mark Lazarowicz
One of those programmes is the Access to Work scheme, but since the election the number of disabled people it supports has dropped by over 15%—that is about 6,000 people. Will the Minister commit himself to taking steps to ensure that that worrying trend is reversed?
Mike Penning
I will commit myself to giving everybody who wants to get into work the opportunity to do so, whether they are disabled or have health difficulties or not, and to keep their jobs and continue in employment. I will look carefully at the figures. The Access to Work scheme is working very well, but nothing is perfect.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Only 3% of disabled people in the employment and support allowance group in the Work programme found a job after two years. Given the Government’s failure to help long-term disabled people into work, is it not a bit rich for Tory MPs to be lecturing disabled people to get a job?
Mike Penning
Nobody is lecturing anybody apart from Labour Members who have selective memory loss about the past 13 years. We will do everything we can. I am sure that the previous Administration did, but they did not do it very well.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
7. What steps she is taking to increase the representation of women on the boards of public bodies.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Jo Swinson)
The Government have an ambitious aim that 50% of new public appointees should be women by the end of this Parliament. We are modernising recruitment practices and this approach is working. Our figures show that 37% of public appointments during 2012-13were women.
Jo Swinson
My hon. Friend raises a very good point. The Government are working with 52 different firms that have signed up to the voluntary code of conduct. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary has appointed an experienced diversity champion, Charlotte Sweeney, to review the effectiveness of the code and report back to him in the new year. My hon. Friend is right to raise the issue of Departments that employ head-hunting firms for public appointments, but it is made absolutely clear that one of the key attributes that they need to look for is diversity.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Minister confirm whether Labour’s target that 50% of new appointments should be women has continued, and whether the Government have removed the targets to increase the number of ethnic minorities and people with disabilities in public appointments?
Jo Swinson
It is very important that we address diversity in all its forms. Sadly, the previous Government did not achieve the aim of women comprising 50% of all new appointments. We are working towards achieving that by the end of this Parliament, but I think we all agree that we need to do more. The hon. Lady is absolutely right to say that other areas of diversity, including background, ethnicity and disability—a whole range of different characteristics—are also important. To get truly high-functioning teams, we need diversity in all its forms.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
8. What recent assessment she has made of the number of cases of discrimination at work on the grounds of pregnancy.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Women and Equalities (Jo Swinson)
Discrimination against a woman because of pregnancy is totally unacceptable, rightly illegal and bad business sense.
The Equal Opportunities Commission’s 2005 report showed that, unfortunately, 30,000 women lost their jobs as a result of their pregnancy. As I outlined during the Children and Families Bill debates, we are now considering how we could best obtain a more up-to-date picture of the current extent of this problem.
Heidi Alexander
I thank the Minister for her forthright answer. Research by the law firm Slater & Gordon has found that only 3% of women who believe that they suffered discrimination because of being pregnant had actually sought legal advice. Does the Minister accept that charging women £1,200 to take a case to an employment tribunal will make it even less likely that such discrimination will be challenged?
Jo Swinson
I understand the hon. Lady’s concern and I think we should all be worried about the issue, but I do not think it helps to suggest that any woman who wants to take a case will be charged £1,200. That figure is only for cases that reach a hearing, which are a small proportion of the overall number. It costs much less—only £250—to lodge a case in the first place. There is also a significant fee remission and costs will often be awarded if there are problems. It is important that we do not scare off people from making claims, because we want to make sure that we crack down on rogue employers who discriminate against pregnant women.
Proposed closure of Skerton Community High School (Lancaster)
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
I am extremely proud to present this petition on behalf of nearly 3,500 members of staff, students and parents of Skerton community high school and the wider community of Skerton. I am also proud to be wearing the school tie. I am pleased that a group of students, led by a parent, Robyn Holtham, are in the Public Gallery to see the petition presented.
The petitioners started their campaign in September, when they were told that their school faced closure by the county council. Skerton community high school has fantastic pastoral care and all the students are immensely happy there. I therefore urge the House to support the community of Skerton and the children and parents of Skerton community high school in their fight to keep the school open.
The petition states:
The Petition of pupils, parents and staff of Skerton Community High School and others in the Skerton community,
Declares that the Petitioners believe that Skerton Community High School provides excellent pastoral care and caters for a high number of special needs students and thus the Petitioners do not believe that it should be closed.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to take steps to support the school in its bid to remain open.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001256]
Rural Fair Share Campaign
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I am proud, pleased and humbled to present a petition on behalf of more than 1,000 constituents in St Ives, in particular Peter Greenough of Bluebell cottage in Godolphin Cross. Some 200 people signed the petition in manuscript form and more than 850 did so through an online petition.
The petition is part of the Rural Fair Share campaign. I congratulate the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), who has spearheaded the campaign. He and a number of other hon. Members will be presenting petitions in support of the campaign on Monday. As I cannot be there, I am presenting this petition tonight. Cornwall is one of the poorest regions in the UK and it receives unfair levels of funding.
The petition states:
The Petition of the residents of St Ives,
Declares that the Petitioners believe that the Local Government Finance Settlement is unfair to rural communities; notes that the Rural Penalty sees urban areas receive 50% more support per head than rural areas despite higher costs in rural service delivery; and opposes the planned freezing of this inequity in the 2013–14 settlement for six years until 2020.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to reduce the Rural Penalty in staged steps by at least 10% by 2020.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001264]
Business of the House
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr Andrew Lansley)
The business for next week is as follows:
Monday 4 November—Second Reading of the National Insurance Contributions Bill.
Tuesday 5 November—Second Reading of the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill, followed by general debate on the reform and infrastructure of the water industry and consumer bills. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
Wednesday 6 November—Opposition day [10th allotted day]. There will be a debate entitled “Energy Price Freeze”. The debate will arise on an Opposition motion, followed by a motion relating to explanatory statements on amendments to Bills.
Thursday 7 November—A debate relating to standardised packaging of tobacco products. The subject for this debate was nominated by the Backbench Business Committee, followed by general debate relating to the commemoration of the first world war.
Friday 8 November—Private Members’ Bills.
The provisional business for the week commencing 11 November will include:
Monday 11 November—Second Reading of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill [Lords], followed by a debate on a reasoned opinion relating to the regulation of new psychoactive substances.
Tuesday 12 November—Opposition day [11th allotted day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for Thursday 7 November will be a debate on the fifth report of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, “Energy prices, profits and poverty”, followed by a debate on the fourth report of the Transport Committee, “Cost of motor insurance: whiplash”.
Ms Eagle
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. I also welcome him back to his place. I hope he has fully recuperated.
The Offender Rehabilitation Bill has finally reappeared after I raised its mysterious absence three times and after yesterday’s Opposition-day debate. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether the Government accept or intend to remove the Lords amendment to clause 1, which would require them to seek the approval of both Houses before they continue to push ahead with their reckless plans to privatise the probation service?
A report published by Age UK this week warned that 3 million elderly people are worried about whether they will be able to stay warm in their homes this winter. However, all the Government do is act as a mouthpiece for the big six energy companies, which are profiteering at everybody’s expense. It has been more than a month since we announced our plan to freeze energy prices until 2017 and all the Government do is dither. The Prime Minister says that he wants to roll back green levies, even though he introduced 60% of them. He cannot even tell us which ones he wants to cut. Will the Leader of the House tell the Prime Minister to stop standing up for the wrong people and vote with us next week to freeze energy prices and reset this failing market?
I note that the private Member’s Bill on the EU referendum returns to the House on 8 November. The Electoral Commission said this week that the question in the Bill risks causing a misunderstanding and it suggested a change of wording. The Leader of the House will be aware that, when the Electoral Commission recommended a change to the Scottish referendum question, the then Secretary of State for Scotland said:
“The UK Government has always acted on the advice of the Electoral Commission for every previous referendum.”
Given that the Bill was written in No. 10 and is supported by the Prime Minister, will the Leader of the House confirm that the Government will table the appropriate amendment to the referendum question in the Bill?
In January, the Prime Minister went to Davos and told the world that the UK would use its presidency of the G8 to tackle tax evasion. Last week, he could not tell my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) why he had refused to close the £500 million eurobond tax loophole. On Monday, we discovered that the flagship agreement to recoup tax from UK residents who hide money in Swiss bank accounts has brought in more than £2 billion less than the Chancellor scored in last year’s autumn statement. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee says that £35 billion is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the money that the Government have lost to tax scams. Why, then, have the Government appointed as head of tax policy a man who is on record as saying that “taxation is legalised extortion”? Is it any wonder that, despite the meaningless ministerial PR, the tax gap keeps on growing and Tory donors are laughing all the way to their kitchen suppers in Downing street?
The coalition agreement promised to
“put a limit on the number on Special Advisers.”
It has just emerged that there has been a 50% rise in the last three years, costing a record £7.2 million. The Deputy Prime Minister has 19 special advisers in his office alone, which is nearly 20% of the total. Does the Leader of the House agree that that is a complete waste of money? [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] It seems that there is agreement across the House on that.
The only thing that appears to be going up faster than energy prices under this Government is the cost of special advisers, which has gone up by a massive 16% this year. There are now 98 special advisers in the Government, but the more of them there are, the more incompetent the Government seem to become. This week, the Department for Work and Pensions lost its appeal in the Supreme Court on its flagship back to work scheme, the Health Secretary was humiliated in the Court of Appeal over Lewisham hospital and the Government had to slow down universal credit for the third time and apply the brakes to disability benefit changes. Yesterday, they could not even write an amendment to our Opposition motion on education that was in order. We then had the spectacle of the Minister for Schools winding up the debate on teaching robustly in support of the Government and then abstaining on the vote. Will the Leader of the House therefore make time for a debate on the mounting evidence that this Government have abandoned all notion of collective responsibility and are descending into chaos and incoherence?
Today is All Hallows’ eve and children across the country will be dressing up as the Deputy Prime Minister to scare their friends. I just hope that they do not do what he does—promise treats, but hand out tricks instead.
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House, not least for her kind words after my back operation. Indeed, even when I was not in the Chamber, she kindly said some nice things. I am quite pleased about this back operation; it has got me up and about and I have the picture to prove that my backbone is intact—a useful thing in this life. When I was away, the shadow Leader of the House said that she was pleased she would get to find out what the Deputy Leader of the House, who sits alongside me, was thinking. Of course, I always knew what he was thinking while I answered questions, and we now know the truth. He is thinking, “I know the answer to this one”. He demonstrated that when he did an admirable job in answering questions while I was away.
The shadow Leader of the House asked a number of times about the Offender Rehabilitation Bill, which will come before the House for Second Reading. In fact, I think three Bills came from the Lords at much the same time, and the Offender Rehabilitation Bill will be the first to be debated in this House. We will consider what we need to do but, as was made clear in the other place, our intention is to press ahead with a reform that will enable a large number of offenders with a sentence of less than 12 months to secure rehabilitation for the first time, and bring down the scandalous level of reoffending among those who have been prisoners. It is important to get on with that, which is what we are doing.
The shadow Leader of the House asked about energy prices, notwithstanding that my right hon. Friend the Energy Secretary will make a statement in a few minutes. The hon. Lady should reflect, however, on the apparent utter confusion on her own side during this week’s business in this House and the other place. The Leader of the Opposition stood here and said that he cares about trying to bring down energy bills, while Labour Members in the other place were voting for a decarbonisation target that would have added £125 to the bill of every household. Labour Members cannot have it both ways; they cannot complain about increases in bills when the Leader of the Opposition—as Energy Secretary before the last election—wanted to increase costs through the renewable heat incentive, including a £179 hit on gas bills.
Labour cannot have it both ways, and the so-called price freeze is not a price freeze but a price con. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will demonstrate that the Government are doing what needs to be done and introducing to the market competition that did not exist when we came to office. We are getting the lowest tariffs available for customers, and doing everything we can to ensure efficiency and low costs to people, while delivering on our energy security, environmental and carbon reduction targets.
The hon. Lady asked questions, perfectly reasonably, about the Bill for consideration on Friday 8 November, but that is a private Member’s Bill, not a Government Bill—[Interruption.] I will laugh if I like. I think at the end of the debate on 8 November, we will be smiling, not the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). That Bill is a matter for its promoter, my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton).
It was rather an own goal by the shadow Leader of the House to talk about tax avoidance. Not only are the Government taking measures that are delivering a substantial increase in tax revenue—when compared to our predecessors—from those who would otherwise seek to avoid or evade tax, but today my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will announce, as reflected in a written ministerial statement to the House by the Business Secretary, that we are going to proceed with a register of company beneficial ownership that will be accessible to the public. That is important not only in this country but across the world to establish who owns what, and who is therefore liable for taxation.
In the business that I announced, I was almost tempted to pre-empt the 12 November Opposition-day debate; no doubt it will be on energy price freezes again, but it ought to be on the economy, as that is the issue. I have not been here for the past two weeks, but it was fascinating listening to business questions and Prime Minister’s questions. Labour Members do not want to talk about employment because we have had record employment figures. They do not want to talk about the economy because figures last Friday demonstrated that the economy is growing at a faster rate than at any time since 2008. [Interruption.] The supposedly silent one—the Opposition Deputy Chief Whip, the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell)—talks about the cost of living. I would be happy to have a debate on the cost of living, because, under this Government, 25 million basic rate taxpayers will be £700 better off than they were under the Labour Government; 3 million people have been taken out of income tax altogether; fuel duty is 13p per litre lower than it would have been under Labour; and there is support from the Government so that councils can freeze their taxes through the life of this Parliament, when, under the previous Labour Government, council taxes doubled. We delivered the biggest ever cash increase in the state pension last year. Those are the things the Government are doing to support people with the cost of living. We will continue to do so.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will recall that, some time ago, he kindly agreed to ask the chief executive of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority to meet me. After three and a half years of waiting, I am still very much persona non grata. The disgraceful chairman and chief executive seem to believe that smearing and slandering an individual Member of the House as hysterical—among other vulgar and untrue insults—is an acceptable modus operandi. The situation has reached an impasse. If a Member of Parliament finds that there is no direct redress or recourse in an ongoing issue with IPSA, despite numerous correspondence, e-mails and phone calls, and despite interventions from both the Leader of the House and the party’s Chief Whip, please will my right hon. Friend advise what option is left open to that Back Bencher to secure a professional and equitable conclusion from that inept, discredited and wholly unfit-for-purpose organisation?
Mr Lansley
Although my hon. Friend will understand if I do not comment on the points he makes on his case with IPSA, I suggested directly to the chief executive that my job could be to facilitate a meeting on a without-prejudice basis between him and my hon. Friend. I continue to believe that that is the right way to proceed. IPSA has important responsibilities in relation to all hon. Members, and it should be prepared to discuss and account for the way in which it discharges those responsibilities to hon. Members. I reiterate my offer to my hon. Friend and the IPSA chief executive. I am happy to facilitate and be present at a meeting at which they discuss, on a without-prejudice basis, their concerns.
Natascha Engel (North East Derbyshire) (Lab)
Tuesday will mark another first for the Backbench Business Committee: for the first time, we will have representation from a member of the minority parties, in the form of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). Will the Leader of the House take the opportunity to welcome him to the Committee, but also pledge to review, as soon as possible, the status of minority parties on the Committee, so that they can have full voting rights, as every other member of the Committee has?
Mr Lansley
I join the hon. Lady in welcoming the prospect of the attendance of the hon. Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) at the Backbench Business Committee. I very much enjoy my opportunities to attend. I am a silent one in the Committee, but I listen carefully. It is a good way of understanding the views and interests of the House for debate. The Backbench Business Committee has admirably demonstrated that it is possible to schedule sittings on, effectively, a non-partisan and consensual basis, reflecting views of Members on both sides of the House. That is a very good basis on which to involve the minority parties and ensure that the views of the House as a whole are heard. The membership of the Committee is a matter not for me, but for the Procedure Committee. I would be happy to facilitate any review by that Committee to that effect.
Andrew Griffiths (Burton) (Con)
You will know, Mr Speaker, that Burton upon Trent is the home not only of British beer, but of the England football team at St George’s park. Football fans throughout England are looking forward to cheering on Roy’s boys in Brazil next year. There is no better way to do so than when enjoying a pint in the local pub, but, because of Britain’s licensing laws and the time difference, many people will be unable to watch the football and enjoy a pint at the same time. Therefore, may we have a debate on UK licensing laws and exemptions, to give some cheer to England football fans and put some money in the pockets of Britain’s publicans?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes an important point. Fortunately, he has done so in good time for his proposal to be considered before the World cup finals—while I was laid up, one of my pleasures was watching England play Poland. I will raise the matter with my hon. Friends at the Home Office, because there have been occasions in the past when it has been thought appropriate to have exemptions to licensing arrangements to recognise the time at which such major sporting events take place.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
May we have a debate about the membership of this House? We now have the incredible spectacle of the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), the former Prime Minister, describing himself as “an ex-politician”. How can someone be a Member of this House and an ex-politician at the same time?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot account for the views of the former Prime Minister. “Politician” is an interesting description, but as Members of Parliament we are all here with a responsibility to represent our constituents, both in the constituency and—in my view—here in Westminster.
Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)
The Bill to pardon Alan Turing completed its passage through the Lords yesterday. Can the Leader of the House assure me that, as in the Lords, the Government will leave the decision to Parliament and not seek to oppose the Bill?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is right that the Bill completed its progress in the other place yesterday and it will in due course come here. I would expect the view the Government took in the other place to be reflected here too.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)
I recently met a GP in my constituency who described how resources were being wasted on health tourists, but his concerns were ignored when he reported them to the immigration services. I know that the Immigration Bill is making progress, but does the Leader of the House agree that health tourism deserves a debate in its own right?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and it is why, when I was Secretary of State for Health, I instituted a review, which reported in the middle of last year. That review is the basis on which the Government are proceeding with the Immigration Bill, and there will be occasions to debate that issue during the progress of the legislation.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
May we have a debate on early-day motion 598?
[That this House notes that World Polio Day is on 24 October 2013; further notes that within five years polio, like smallpox, can be eradicated across the world; recognises that in the last 25 years cases are down 99 per cent with 2.5 billion vulnerable children reached through vaccination programmes which offer a blueprint for cost-effective, targeted and outcomes-driven international public health intervention; further notes that just three countries, from an original 125, now have endemic polio – Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan; understands that vaccination programmes must focus on these countries to eradicate the disease and prevent its return elsewhere; further recognises the contribution of more than 50,000 British Rotarians towards a polio-free world through their volunteering and £20 million fundraising contribution; realises that the funding gap for this final effort to eradicate polio is a tangible £620 million; appreciates that the Government has contributed a world-leading £600 million towards eradicating polio to date; and calls on the Government to help finish the job of creating a polio-free world by continuing to commit funding, maintaining the UK’s commitment to the World Health Organisation, Rotary International, CDC and Unicef’s Global Polio Eradication Initiative and associated Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategic Plan 2013-18 and ensuring the UK's continued global leadership role through seeking support from international bodies, governments, non-governmental organisations, corporations and the wider general public to help eradicate this disease once and for all.]
That would enable the House to reflect on the £600 million the Government have already given to eradicating polio; on the fact that we could eradicate it completely, as we have smallpox, within five years; and on the fact that Rotarians across the country have raised £20 million through voluntary efforts to eradicate polio. This is a once-in-a-civilisation opportunity to eradicate polio once and for all. May we have a debate in which we can commit to eradicating polio in our lifetime?
Mr Lansley
I have read early-day motion 598, which highlighted world polio day last week. I cannot promise time immediately, but it would be appropriate to discuss this issue either through the Backbench Business Committee or in an Adjournment debate. It is very important that we achieve this aim, but it is fraught with risk, because of the circumstances we have seen most recently in Syria, where the breakdown of the health infrastructure as a consequence of the conflict has led to an outbreak of polio. We have to achieve polio eradication alongside getting health services into places such as Syria that do not have them at the moment.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
This week Tata Steel announced 500 job losses nationally, of which 340 will be in my constituency. May we have a statement or a debate on what the Government are doing to support the steel industry and steel workers at this time?
Mr Lansley
I cannot immediately offer a debate, but I will discuss this with my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. They, along with Tata, recognise the strategic importance of that company to the United Kingdom and have together developed a joint Her Majesty’s Government-Tata Steel strategy to support the business and ensure that it is in the right position to support our growing economy in the future and to enable our competitiveness. Any redundancies are very regrettable, and we feel very much for the difficult time that the work force is experiencing. Jobcentre Plus and its rapid response service will be available and will do all it can to help to support those workers.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
I have never doubted my right hon. Friend’s backbone. When can we expect Second Reading of the Water Bill? It contains important provisions on competition and will have a big impact on customer bills and Flood Re insurance. There is enormous interest in the Backbench Business Committee debate next week, which unfortunately clashes with the meeting of the Select Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, but I am sure we would all like to know when Second Reading will take place.
Mr Lansley
I recognise the interest, which is reflected in the acceptance of the debate by the Backbench Business Committee. I cannot tell my hon. Friend when Second Reading will be. She will understand that we set out to publish draft measures on flood insurance, which are important to Members across the House, and that they will benefit from consultation before we proceed with Second Reading and consideration of the Bill.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
The sister of my constituent Gemma was murdered last year in Blackpool in the most horrific circumstances. During the court case, the murderer consistently referred to Gemma’s sister as “it”. May we have a statement or a debate on what the Government are doing to tackle the objectification of women and girls?
Mr Lansley
I am sure the House will want to join me in expressing sympathy with the hon. Lady’s constituent. I think I remember the case. If I may, I will ask my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to respond. We have published a strategy and taken a wide range of measures to tackle violence against women. I will ask her to respond to this particular point.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
When the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill returns to Parliament, will there be scope and time for a full and proper debate into the principles at stake and the circumstances that have emerged from Labour’s inquiry into the Falkirk selection process? [Interruption.]
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Opposition Members may shout, but the relationship between the Labour party and the trade unions could have been addressed in the Bill. I invited the Leader of the Opposition to do that and he did not even have the courtesy to reply. It is not too late. Measures could be introduced by the Opposition to regularise the relationship between trade unions and political parties on political funds. Frankly, all I have seen of the investigation at Falkirk suggests that, contrary to the right hon. Gentleman’s protestations, he did not investigate. He is not creating a new relationship and he is not dealing with the issues inside the Labour party and the trade unions. He still continues to dance to Unite’s tune.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
The Leader of the House will know that a general election is due in Bangladesh in a few months. May we have a statement from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on what we and our allies in the European Union are doing to assist the Government party and the main Opposition party, but not their Islamist allies, to ensure that free and fair elections take place again?
Mr Lansley
If my recollection is correct, I believe I heard Foreign Office Ministers refer to this matter during Foreign Office questions. I will check if that is the case. If it is not, I will talk to them and ensure that they write to the hon. Gentleman and consider at what point it might be appropriate to make a written statement to the House.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
We all enjoy the contribution from the shadow Leader of the House, but this week she made a good point about the number of special advisers in the Government. If she is right that there are 19 special advisers in the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, that, quite frankly, is a disgrace. May we have a statement on how many special advisers the Deputy Prime Minister has and when he plans to cut that number?
Mr Lansley
I apologise to the shadow Leader of the House for not answering that point. My recollection is that last week the limit on the number of special advisers was further reiterated by my colleagues at the Cabinet Office. If I may say so—this will not make me popular with my hon. Friend—it has to be understood that coalition Government creates special circumstances and a necessity for independent sources of advice to the two parties working together in coalition.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
It is extraordinary that in one week two decisions by Secretaries of State have been held by the courts to be legally flawed. May we have a statement on whether they acted against civil servants’ and legal advice, and could the legal costs be published?
Mr Lansley
The case of the back-to-work scheme demonstrated that the Government were operating on the basis of thoroughly sound principles, and it was important for that to be established. On Lewisham, I understand perfectly what my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary did and why he did it, and I think he was right to pursue the issue, because the relevant legislation, which we did not introduce, was not clear. The unsustainable providers regime was established in primary legislation under the previous Government, but unfortunately it was not clear, so it was important to get that clarity by taking the case further.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
I am delighted that the Prime Minister has announced today that companies must publish and make public details of who owns and controls them. In the interests of further transparency, will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on demolishing the firewall between the taxpayer and private companies holding Government and local authority contracts by requiring them to meet the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act for those parts of their business paid for by taxpayers’ money?
Mr Lansley
I entirely understand my hon. Friend’s point—I recall the issue of private companies providing health care services paid for by the NHS—but it would be intensely difficult simply to apply the Freedom of Information Act to private companies and to draw clear distinctions between those parts of their activities to which public money relates and those to which it does not. That is why the public sector, when procuring services, makes clear in contractual provisions the requirement for proper transparency and openness about the nature of the contracts and services being provided to the public.
Mr Tom Watson (West Bromwich East) (Lab)
On special advisers, the Leader of the House’s answers to the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) and to the shadow Leader of the House were complacent. All over central Government, Ministers are bearing down on spending Departments, yet when it comes to their own personal support, it appears there is one rule for them and one rule for everyone else taking the cuts. A debate would allow us to test whether the Deputy Prime Minister genuinely needs 19 special advisers and why we have a record number of special advisers, given that in opposition they were so opposed to the growth in their number.
Mr Lansley
The coalition agreement made it clear that we would set a limit on the number of special advisers, and we are doing that, but it is also important to recognise, as has been demonstrated properly in the civil service reform plan, the need not only for civil service advice, but for access to external and independent sources of advice. Excellent and necessary though its role is as part of the infrastructure of advice and delivery, the civil service does not have a monopoly of wisdom. We need further advice as well.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
I have said previously in the Chamber that the business of business is business and the business of government is creating an environment where business can thrive. Unemployment is now down to 2.8% in my constituency. May we have a debate about the heroic efforts of businesses in my constituency and across the country, which have created 1.4 million new private sector jobs since the last general election?
Mr Lansley
I congratulate my hon. Friend, and I am sure that his constituents share his pride in what they are achieving in employment creation and the wealth creation that goes with it. That is exactly what we are here to encourage. Throughout this Parliament, the extent of new job creation has been encouraging, but it is especially encouraging that we have now turned the corner and restored some of the growth lost in the recession created in Downing street under the last Government.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on police funding for our capital cities? I ask that in the light of some very odd answers I have received on policing funding for Cardiff, including one in which the Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims said he had had meetings with a wide range of international partners on the issue. I appreciate that we are rivals in rugby and football, but I would not have thought the Severn estuary too wide a gulf for him to cross.
Mr Lansley
If I may, I will ask the policing Minister to respond directly to the hon. Gentleman, because I cannot interpret that answer.
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)
A couple of days ago, as the Leader of the House is aware, we had an enormous conference between British and French chambers of commerce to show that we were working together on a lot of energy projects. Total was there; Arriva was there; EDF was obviously there. May we have a debate on the importance of cross-channel inward investment? We have just heard about unemployment in the UK. This is a chance for us to show that this country is serious about our infrastructure and welcomes foreign investment through our chambers of commerce.
Mr Lansley
I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Government Members are supporting investment in infrastructure, although we wonder about those on the Opposition Benches. This is not just a Government-to-Government thing; it is an area in which businesses can work together, and I am delighted that my old friends in the chambers of commerce are working with their counterparts in France in this way.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Last week, the Prime Minister failed to answer my question about why the Government had failed to close the £500 million eurobond tax loophole. Yesterday, the former Chancellor, Lord Lawson, accused the Government of “getting nowhere” on corporate tax avoidance and said that the UK should take the lead on the issue. Given the importance of the issue for Britain, may we have an urgent debate on the Government’s progress and on their unwillingness to explain why they choose to leave loopholes open?
Mr Lansley
I would have thought that our introduction of the general anti-abuse rule, the fact that our Second Reading debate on the National Insurance Contributions Bill next Monday will cover the extension of anti-abuse legislation into national insurance, and our announcement today of the registration of beneficial company ownership all demonstrated that we were taking further steps beyond the many already taken by the Treasury to deliver on the reduction of tax avoidance.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
This week, the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd), who is no longer in her place, published an important report on the need for transparency and genuinely independent powers of review in the NHS in England. Will the Leader of the House schedule a debate on her report, so as to enable Welsh MPs, many of whose constituents are treated in English hospitals, to make the case for the same approach to transparency and genuinely independent review in Wales?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is right to welcome, as I do, the right hon. Lady’s report on complaints. I hope that it will be taken up by the NHS not only in England but in Wales, not least because of the circumstances that gave rise to her serious concerns. I hope that the NHS in Wales will recognise that the NHS in England is making changes in regard to listening and responding to complaints, and that it will emulate the steps we are taking to deliver services on which patients can rely. Cutting the budget in Wales, which Labour is doing, is undermining the delivery of those services.
David Wright (Telford) (Lab)
The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust is increasing parking charges at the two main hospital sites in Shropshire. I am against parking charges at hospitals—they are a charge on the sick—and is not this the wrong time to introduce such increases anyway? May we have a debate on the cost of living, in that context?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will know that parking charges at hospitals in England are a matter for the individual trusts. In Wales, this is a devolved matter and the relevant bodies can make their own decisions. I personally find it astonishing that the Welsh Administration thought it appropriate to abolish parking charges—
Mr Lansley
I know. I am just making the contrast. If the hon. Gentleman thinks it appropriate to abolish those charges, he will have to find the money from somewhere else. In Wales, they have cut the money for patient services and care in order to subsidise car parking, and that cannot be the right decision.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
A recent report by the TaxPayers Alliance showed that one fifth of house purchases in my constituency last year were subject to stamp duty of more than £7,500, and that is projected to rise to more than 41% of purchases in the next five years. May we have a debate on the reform of stamp duty?
Mr Lansley
It will not surprise my hon. Friend to learn that stamp duty land tax is an important source of revenue; it raises several billion pounds each year. It is important to consider how best we can support the housing market, and we have taken action in relation to first-time buyers. There are also effective ways of doing this through Help to Buy and the NewBuy guarantee scheme, among others. This is of course something that we continue to look at.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I alert the Leader of the House to the fact that quite a rare creature is wandering around the parliamentary estate this morning in the form of Sir David Attenborough. He is here to launch the crowdfunding initiative on flora and fauna to save the gorillas. Did the right hon. Gentleman know that at a press conference this morning it will be announced that tomorrow is a national crowdfunding day? May we have an early debate on the importance of crowdfunding for the renaissance of the communities of this country?
Mr Lansley
I was not aware of that, and I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for alerting me and the House to this fact. The hon. Gentleman may like to raise the matter again in Treasury questions on Tuesday, as the Treasury will be interested. Members of all parties might find this interesting, too, so they could together ask the Backbench Business Committee whether time could be found in Westminster Hall for a debate on these issues.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
A report published yesterday by Invest Black Country in conjunction with the West Midlands Economic Forum showed that over the last two years exports by the west midlands have grown by 30%—a better performance than any other region of the UK. May we have a debate on the continuing need to support the encouraging signs of economic growth in areas such as the black country, part of which I represent?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend illustrates a very impressive record of export promotion in the black country and the west midlands generally. We have done very well in increasing exports to some of the emerging markets and key markets for the future—China, India, Brazil and Russia, for example. We need to do more, however, because exports have been depressed, not least because of difficulties in the eurozone. The Government will look continuously to try to emulate the success of the west midlands, to which my hon. Friend referred.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a national disgrace that more than 350,000 people have had to turn to a food bank over the past six months. The Prime Minister has said twice from the Dispatch Box that this is because, under his Government, jobcentres are referring people to food banks. According to the many written answers I have received from Work and Pensions Ministers on this subject, however, that is simply not happening. The DWP has not been able to confirm how many jobcentres are doing this in practice or how officials decide whether someone is in need of emergency food aid. May we please have an urgent debate on this matter, on the wider causes of food poverty and on what the Government are going to do to stop the scandal of our people going to bed hungry?
Mr Lansley
First, it is a fact that Jobcentre Plus is signposting people to food banks, whereas the previous Government decided before the election that they would not do that. That is a positive thing to do. More food banks are being established—locally and more widely. It is important to offer that help. If people are in hardship, resources and funds are available to support them, and it is important for them to access the discretionary hardship funds.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I have two immigration cases in my constituency, one relating to the Mashongamhende family and the other to the Tapela family. Both families have been in the UK for many years. Despite numerous letters, direct telephone calls to the UK Border Agency and a personal meeting with the Home Secretary in July, both these cases are still unresolved. May we have a statement from the Home Secretary on the cost, inefficiency and delays of the UK Border Agency? In particular, when can I expect my two cases to be resolved?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend has rightly and typically been diligent in support of his constituents, and I know they will appreciate that. As he knows, the Home Office is fully aware of those cases and is seeking to make progress on them. I will get the Home Office to respond further to my hon. Friend; it is seized of the importance of doing so. More generally, the House has heard very positive statements from the Home Secretary about how she has reshaped the Border Agency for the future, turning it around as compared with the past. It is still early days when it comes to the progress that we all want to see, but I know that my right hon. Friend is bending every effort to ensure that we make such progress.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
A number of charity shops in my constituency sell new goods in direct competition with other retailers, yet they pay a reduced business rate. May we have a debate on the need to create a level playing field between charity shops and other retailers, especially when new goods are sold and the charities are acting as full-blown retailers in their own right?
Mr Lansley
I will not venture too far into this subject, but many charities are, of course, retailers in a substantial way. Just the other day I was talking to representatives of the British Heart Foundation. It has 700 shops all over the country, which provide an important basis for much of its work. However, I will ask my colleagues at the Department for Communities and Local Government to reflect on what the hon. Gentleman has said, and to respond to it.
Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) (Con)
This week. the “Lonely Planet” guide ranked Yorkshire as the third best region in the world. Given the countryside of the Dales, the brand-new retail development in Leeds—with more to come—the Grand Départ and, apparently, the fact that it contains more Michelin-starred restaurants than anywhere else outside London, may we have a debate to prove that Yorkshire is not just the third but, indeed, God’s own county?
Mr Lansley
I think that the House will be staggered by the effrontery of suggesting that Yorkshire is the third best county. We all know that it must be the second best, after Cambridgeshire.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Mr Watson) and the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) are right: we do need a debate on the Government’s special adviser job creation scheme. It is not just about the quantity, but about the quality as well. For the last couple of years, the Education Secretary has maintained as his special adviser a semi-house-trained polecat who runs secret, private e-mail accounts to conduct Government business, and runs an anonymous Twitter account on which he abuses even members of his own party. Would not a debate bring the issue into the full sunshine of parliamentary scrutiny?
Mr Lansley
I am only staggering to my feet because I am astonished by the effrontery of the Labour party in suggesting that special advisers might be behaving in a semi-house-trained way. What is happening under this Government bears no comparison with what happened under the last Government.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
There has been a sharp increase in the fly-grazing of often badly malnourished horses, with a particular concentration in Alton, which is in my constituency. May we have a debate on this so that we can determine how local authorities can be given effective power to deal with fly-grazing quickly?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend may wish to apply to the Backbench Business Committee—along with colleagues—or to seek an Adjournment debate, because the issue is important. There is legislation that can be used, but there are unscrupulous owners who are fly-grazing horses and putting landowners at considerable risk as a consequence.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
May we have a debate in Government time on Government procrastination?
Chris Bryant
Yes, we got that joke.
Earlier today, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said that it would take up to 12 months to create the recognising body for the press regulatory organisation. That means that in the next eight to 10 weeks at least one body, and probably two, will be seeking recognition, and there will be no one to recognise them. Should we not get this up and running a little bit faster?
Mr Lansley
The answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question is no. We will not need a debate, because there is no necessity for it.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
On 4 October, The Guardian published in minute detail the techniques used by the intelligence services to apprehend those who use the Tor network—the so-called dark internet—to commit, anonymously, serious online crimes, including crimes involving child pornography. May we have a debate on the impact of those Guardian reports on the combating of serious crime in the United Kingdom?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend has been rightly assiduous in pursuing this issue. I entirely share the Prime Minister’s view that The Guardian not least, but others as well, should reflect on the damage that could have been done to the UK’s safety and security by the undermining of those whose job is to keep us safe.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) has secured a three-hour debate in Westminster Hall on oversight of the intelligence and security services. It will take place this afternoon, and will afford my hon. Friend an opportunity to make exactly those points.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
May we have a debate on the cold weather payment? It starts tomorrow, and will allow many of our constituents who are receiving certain benefits to receive £25 if the temperature falls below zero for seven consecutive days. Such a debate would also allow us to publicise the fact that it is this Government who have made the payment permanent, and the last Government who had budgeted to cut it.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is right. The last two winters have been relatively severe, and in each of them there have been substantial such payments. I cannot promise an immediate debate, but if she catches Mr Speaker’s eye she could further raise these points on the annual energy statement which follows. That payment, the warm home discount and support through the cold weather plan I instituted two years ago, with a warm homes healthy people fund, are all helping people to be energy-efficient and to meet some of their bills in the winter.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Earlier this week the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee met Dr Haass who is undertaking a review of politics in Northern Ireland, which I understand is set to report by the end of this year. Will the Leader of the House tell us when that report is likely to be published and whom it will be sent to, and may we have a debate on the matters Dr Haass raises and his recommendations?
Mr Lansley
We welcome the establishment of the all-party group in Northern Ireland considering these issues, and we are very glad that Dr Richard Haass is chairing the talks; he does so with great ability. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland met Dr Haass for the third time this week and gives that process her full support. As my hon. Friend knows, the process itself is owned by the Northern Ireland political parties, not the Government, so it will be for them to decide when and what to publish, but that will be of great interest to Members across the House and I know my right hon. Friend will ensure that my hon. Friend and others in the House are informed about the progress of the talks.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Ind)
May I add my voice to those who have asked for a debate on the national health service? Last year there were 5.3 million admissions to A and E, an increase of 47% over 15 years, which is totally unsustainable. Perhaps we can look at one of the reasons this is happening, which is to do with access to GP services in the evenings and at weekends—unbelievably, people do get ill at these times. We need to look at the whole of the national health service so people get the service they deserve.
Mr Lansley
I hope that before too long the House will have an opportunity to hear from my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary about the further measures he is taking that will have a positive impact this winter, both in relation to supporting general practitioners in looking after patients in the community, rather than admitting them to hospital, and in using the integration funds the Chancellor set out in his spending review— £3.8 billion to enable local authorities and the NHS to work together to ensure community services are there and are effective in minimising the number of emergency admissions to hospital.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
North East Lincolnshire council has just installed speed cameras to enforce a 30 miles-per-hour limit on one of the main roads between Cleethorpes and Grimsby, which is a pedestrian-free road with a wall either side of it. The council claims this is in line with Department for Transport guidelines, but a BBC reporter established the opposite. Will the Leader of the House arrange for a statement by a Transport Minister to clarify what the guidelines are?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend will know that the process of setting speed limits is a matter for local authorities, notwithstanding that the Department for Transport provides them with guidance. The Secretary of State for Transport and his colleagues will be here next Thursday, and my hon. Friend might like to raise that with them then. Meanwhile, I will alert them to the point he rightly raises.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend seen my early-day motion 652 regarding youth services in Harlow?
[That this House notes the remarkable work of youth organisations in Harlow and the value they give to the local community; further notes that they help young people in need, and provide a range of services in education, skills, mentoring, sexual health services, sport, music, culture and other related areas; thanks the Youth Council for the work it does promoting youth issues in Harlow; further notes the consultation announced by Essex Council about the future of youth services; and urges that youth services in Harlow are protected from any future budget reductions.]
Youth services in Harlow do remarkable work and their future is uncertain because of a consultation by Essex county council. Will my right hon. Friend do everything possible, working with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, to try to ensure youth services in Harlow are protected?
Mr Lansley
Once again my hon. Friend is taking up issues on behalf of his constituents in an admirable way. I completely understand the point he makes about the importance of youth services, and all of us want to ensure we maximise the support we give to young people because, as has been demonstrated, young people not being in employment, education or training presents a serious long-term risk to them and the country, so we need youth services to be effective. I will write to the Minister of State, Cabinet Office, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), who is the Minister for civil society; I know that, with his new responsibilities in relation to young people, he will want to respond positively.
Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con)
This week, we heard reports that the former head of Haringey children’s services, Sharon Shoesmith, has agreed a six-figure payout for unfair dismissal. May we have a debate about rewarding people for failure?
Mr Lansley
There should be no rewards for failure, in the public sector or in the private sector. We have made it clear that legal devices such as non-disclosure or compromise agreements should not be used to gag staff or brush under the carpet golden goodbyes to senior staff. In this context, it is hard to see how Haringey council’s secretive actions can be in the public interest, given the large sum of taxpayers’ money involved and the immense public concern arising from the baby P scandal. Bankrolling a state-sponsored cover-up must be a massive error of judgment on the part of Haringey council, following earlier mishandling of the affair.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate or a statement on the sentencing powers for magistrates, so that we can find out if and when the Government intend to allow magistrates to sentence people to 12 months in prison, as opposed to six months at the moment? The law is in place and it just needs activating. Such a debate or statement would help to tease out the Government’s response, and that of other hon. Members, to Frances Crook and the idiotic Howard League for Penal Reform, who believe that magistrates should not be allowed to send people to prison at all.
Mr Lansley
I recall precisely the point that my hon. Friend raises, and I will ask my right hon. Friend the Lord Chancellor to respond to him. I also gently point out to my hon. Friend that we will have questions to the Justice Secretary on 12 November, which may also provide him with an opportunity to push forward this important point.
Annual Energy Statement
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
Today, I am laying before the House the annual energy statement, alongside the statutory security of supply report. This coalition Government are putting in place the most coherent, sustainable energy policy the United Kingdom has ever had. We are creating one of the most competitive and attractive electricity investment markets in the world; improving our energy security and affordability; and boosting home-grown clean energy, and providing jobs and economic growth in the process.
This ambitious energy and climate change policy is vital so that Britain can meet our significant challenges. The coalition Government inherited from the previous Administration an energy future with a huge, multi-billion pound black hole at its heart, which was the result of years of underinvestment, dithering and delay. So this Government are having to take the tough decisions others ducked to make sure that Britain’s lights do stay on. Everything we are doing has to ensure that we drive investment into the system, not scare it off or freeze it out. But, as I will make clear in this statement, energy security must go hand in hand with affordability.
So let me set out the robust plans we have to deliver affordable energy security. To deal with the problem of tightening electricity margins up to 2018, the Government have been working with National Grid and Ofgem to develop existing safeguards, in order to have more electricity available for the grid at peak times, including, if needed, through the use of power plants currently mothballed. We are introducing to Britain a capacity market to ensure that we attract the investment we need in new power stations. The first capacity market auction will take place next year—for delivery from the winter of 2018. In addition to those measures to keep the lights on, Britain now has a long-term strategy encapsulated in the Energy Bill. Over the summer, we published draft strike prices for renewable electricity under contracts for difference. Detailed proposals for the implementation of electricity market reform were published this month.
The fruits of bringing this greater predictability and certainty to investment are already showing. Latest estimates suggest that at least £35 billion has been invested in new electricity infrastructure since 2010, and much more is in the pipeline. In the past 12 months alone, we have provided consent for seven major energy infrastructure applications worth about £20 billion, with the capacity to generate electricity for more than 6 million homes. That, of course, included last week’s announcement that we have reached key commercial terms with EDF for the first new nuclear power station in a generation at Hinkley Point C. And there is more: through the Energy Bill’s final investment decision enabling programme, 23 applications for 26 investment contracts are currently being evaluated by the Department of Energy and Climate Change for a broad range of renewable technologies, including onshore wind, offshore wind and biomass projects.
Even though British households pay some of the lowest prices for gas and electricity in Europe, such facts are scant comfort to those who have seen energy prices rise considerably over the past 10 years. The main driver of these energy price rises has been rising wholesale energy costs, not social and environmental policy. But apportioning blame is also scant comfort to people who are struggling to make ends meet. That is why we have been taking action to help people and businesses struggling with their energy bills.
We have already introduced some help that is immediate. Two million vulnerable households will get £135 off their energy bill this winter, thanks to the Government’s warm home discount. Around 12.5 million pensioners will get the winter fuel payment—£200 for the under-80s and £300 for those over 80. And of course there are cold weather payments if needed, which last year delivered over £146 million to help cut bills for the most vulnerable.
This year we have added to these policies with more direct action. Our new big energy saving network is training 500 volunteers to go out into communities to help people get better deals from energy suppliers and reduce their energy bills. These volunteers will be fully supported. We know how much people in communities across the country rely on the post office network, so we will be working with the Post Office to raise the profile of the big energy saving network so that it can make the links with the elderly, the vulnerable and other cost-conscious families trying to make their budgets go further.
We have also brought together in one place all the advice from across Government—from the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Work and Pensions—and from charities such as Age UK and Citizens Advice. Today, I am writing to all Members of this House with information about this new guide so that they can share it with their constituents, to make sure they are getting all the help to which they are entitled.
But while such immediate help for consumers and companies is important, we need more permanent change if we are to keep bills down not just for 20 months, but for 20 years and beyond. The energy company obligation is delivering such permanent change by modernising our housing stock and making it cheaper to heat our homes. Some 230,000 low income households will be warmer this winter, thanks to energy efficiency measures already installed through the ECO.
Energy efficiency remains a central part of our strategy both to help the fuel poor and to deliver permanent energy savings, but the permanent energy change that we seek also needs more competitive markets. This, however, is not something that the Opposition understand, for the previous Government created the big six, and their irresponsible policies would only help the big six. In contrast, from day one, this coalition Government have been determined to take on the big six for consumers—[Interruption.] The Opposition do not like it. We have been taking on the big six for consumers with the stick of competition. We have done a lot, but as I will set out, we need to do more.
Already our measures to deregulate have seen a major growth in the number and size of independent energy suppliers. In 2011 there was no independent supplier with a customer base greater than 50,000. Now we have three independents with more than 100,000 customers, and a further eight companies have entered the market since May 2010. We have delivered a doubling of the number of independent energy suppliers offering competition to Labour’s big six, and already hundreds of thousands of people are benefiting, but we are doing more. We are backing Ofgem’s reforms to help consumers get better deals—market reforms to make sure that customers are on the lowest tariffs for them, are moved off poor value dead tariffs, and no longer face the complex web of hundreds of tariffs designed more to confuse than to compete.
Our reforms are ensuring that people are given clearer, more personalised information on their energy bills so that they can compare tariffs and switch more easily to save money. We are also promoting collective switching, particularly aiming to ensure that the more vulnerable get to benefit from the best deals on the market. Today, however, I am challenging the industry to deliver faster switching. If someone can change their broadband provider with a few clicks of the mouse, why should they not be able to do the same with their gas or electric? It should not take five weeks for the change to take effect; 24-hour switching is my ambition.
First Utility has been out in front with its target of reaching 24-hour switching. Now E.ON, SSE and Scottish Power and a number of independent suppliers, including Good Energy, Ovo and Co-operative Energy, have accepted my invitation for urgent talks over the next month on how we can dramatically speed up switching.
I want five-week switching to come down to one-week switching, and then I want to go faster still. Let us be clear that it will not happen overnight. We could announce 24-hour switching and then suppliers would say, “Okay, we’ll put up our prices to cover the cost”. That cannot and will not happen. I want to talk to suppliers who can agree to and deliver a plan to speed up the process of switching down to 24 hours, without increasing bills.
Companies that are interested in making things easier for customers to switch are invited to come and see me, in addition to the others that have already agreed to do so. Our preference is to do that jointly with suppliers, building on the good work of Energy UK, which has raised ambition on the issue across the industry, but we are prepared to take action, if required, to compel those who drag their heels.
I have also written to energy companies about direct debits. I share concerns that they might be holding on to significant credit balances when customers have overpaid through direct debits. I expect all suppliers to make every effort to return money to customers with closed accounts. I accept that that sometimes will not be possible, but, when it is not, my view is that credits should be applied directly to help the fuel poor and other vulnerable customers. The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker), will meet energy suppliers next week to discuss that question and that of the level of credit balances that energy companies are holding on to.
In our debates on energy bills, many have understandably asked whether competition is working in our energy markets. Although the coalition has already done a great deal to promote competition, we are ready to do more. As the Prime Minister announced last week, we now propose to introduce annual reviews of the state of competition in the energy markets. The first of the new competition assessments will be delivered by spring next year. The assessment will be undertaken by Ofgem, working closely with the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition and Markets Authority when it comes into being.
The exact metrics for the review will be a matter for the regulators but I will ask them to look in depth and across the energy sector at profits and prices, barriers to entry and consumer engagement. The Government have equipped the regulators with strong powers to deal with unjustified barriers to competition. If abuses are found they must be addressed.
We also need to ensure that the energy suppliers are open and honest about the profits they are making, so I have also asked Ofgem to deliver, again by spring next year, a full report on the transparency of the financial accounts of the energy companies and ways in which that could be improved, building on the work already completed by accountancy firm BDO.
Ofgem will publish its consultation on financial transparency this afternoon, but the public need to know that our reforms will have teeth and that companies that play outside the rules will be penalised and fined. With our Energy Bill, Ofgem now has powers to require energy companies to make compensation payments directly to consumers who have lost out, but today I want to go further. That is why I intend to consult on the introduction of criminal sanctions for anyone found manipulating energy markets and harming the consumer interest.
Ours is a record of delivery and action. As set out in the annual energy statement—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The remainder of the statement must be heard. Matters are not greatly assisted by the fact that the statement is over-long. Frankly, a blue pencil should have been deployed, as statements should take no longer than 10 minutes, but we must let the Secretary of State trundle towards his conclusion.
Mr Davey
I am concluding, Mr Speaker.
As set out in the annual statement, the Government are acting to help those most in need to keep warm this winter and ensure that everybody gets a better deal from the energy companies. We are also acting to deal with Labour’s energy crunch, filling in its energy black hole with home-grown energy and bringing stability and certainty to drive investment. That is our strategy for affordable energy security, a strategy to power the country, protect the planet and help keep bills affordable. I commend the statement to the House.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
Oh, dearie me. A coherent energy policy? I must say that I feel for the Secretary of State, because he has to deal with the fact that the Government’s energy policy is increasingly being made at the Dispatch Box by a Prime Minister who has completely lost the plot. I would like to thank him for early notice of his statement and its contents—on Sky, on the BBC’s “Watchdog” last night and on the “Today” programme this morning.
The Secretary of State was meant to be making the annual energy statement, but what we heard today would be better described as the annual excuses statement—excuses for why people’s bills are going up, excuses for why Ministers are doing nothing about it, and excuses for why each and every time they give the companies what they want and leave consumers to foot the bill.
The energy companies blame social and environmental obligations for their price rises, so the Prime Minister promises to roll them back. Threatened by Labour’s price freeze and plans to reset the energy market, suddenly the companies are clamouring for another review to kick the issue into the long grass. On Tuesday the chief executive of E.ON told the Energy and Climate Change Committee:
“I believe that we need to have a thorough Competition Commission investigation, supported by Ofgem, because they are the experts—they have been in the industry for a decade.”
Lo and behold, today the Government have given the energy companies what they want: their review, led by the very same regulator that has let them get away with ripping people off in the past.
Then, today, we heard the big announcement: encouraging people to switch from one company to another. But the truth is that no amount of tinkering with tariffs, telling people to shop around or, as the Prime Minister suggested, wearing another jumper will solve the real problem with Britain’s energy market, because even the cheapest tariff in a rigged market will still not be a good deal.
The proof of how weak and spineless the Government are when it comes to standing up to the energy companies is that only three weeks ago the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) told the BBC that the idea that Government levies were responsible for bill rises was “nonsense”, but now, boxed in by a Prime Minister who is not willing to stand up to the energy companies and a Chancellor who is actively courting climate change deniers in his own party, the Government say that the levies are to blame.
It is interesting that the Secretary of State conspicuously did not talk about rolling back the green levies in his statement. The truth, of course, is that any obligation to support clean energy or improve energy efficiency must deliver value for money, but how is it possible that social and environmental obligations that, according to his Department’s own figures, make up only £113 of people’s bills can account for price rises of £400? Will he tell us which of the levies, 60% of which were introduced by his Government, he now wants to scrap? Is it the energy company obligation, at £47, the warm home discount, at £11, or the carbon price floor, at £5? Does he accept that, whether it is bill payers or taxpayers who pay, unless he deals with the way people have been overcharged, he is letting the companies off the hook?
As for the annual competition review, I remind the Secretary of State that there have been 17 investigations into the energy market since 2001. If he is today announcing the launch of a new annual review of competition in the energy market, what on earth has Ofgem been doing all this time, and what does he expect it to find out in the next 10 months that it has not discovered in the past 10 years? The last review by Ofgem, to which he gave his full backing, finished only in June. This is what he said at the time:
“I welcome the continued progress of Ofgem’s reform of the retail energy market…That’s why I am backing Ofgem’s reforms”.
The Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle, was even more effusive. He said:
“It’s encouraging that Ofgem is going full-speed ahead with these crucial reforms to the retail energy market.”
Today we hear the Secretary of State saying that the Government will build on the BDO recommendations on reform of the energy market, but the truth is that Ofgem ignored BDO’s recommendations and the Government stood by it.
We do not need another review: we need action. We need action to freeze people’s energy bills and fix this broken market; to break up the big six by ring-fencing their generation from supply; to put an end to secret deals and require all electricity to be bought and sold via an open exchange; and to create a tough new watchdog with the power to force these companies to cut their prices when wholesale costs fall—which, I am pleased to tell the House, is now supported by the hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Tim Farron), the president of the Secretary of State’s party. That is what real action looks like.
Today’s annual energy statement could not have come at a more important time. Energy prices are rising three times faster under this Government than the previous one, bills are up by £300, and the latest price rises will add another £100 this winter. For people in fuel poverty, the gap between their bills and what they can afford is at an all-time high, but for the companies, the mark-up between wholesale costs and the prices they charge grows ever wider. Fifty-seven households have had work done under the green deal and 7,000 workers in the insulation industry have lost their jobs. Investment in clean energy has halved, and the Government have legislated to stop any future Administration setting a decarbonisation target until 2016 at the earliest. Last year, the UK’s carbon emissions increased by more than any other country in the EU.
That is the Government’s record. As we learned from Age UK on Monday, what it means in reality is that 3 million elderly people will not be able to stay warm in their homes this winter. They want their bills frozen, not their homes. The question they want answered today is simple: why are this Government too weak to stand up to the energy companies?
Mr Davey
I thank the right hon. Lady for her response, in which there was clearly not a single apology to Britain for the black hole in energy security that the Labour party left from when it was in government.
The right hon. Lady talked a lot about Ofgem. Who created Ofgem? The Labour party. Who reformed Ofgem to make it stronger? The Leader of the Opposition. In attacking Ofgem, an independent regulator, she is attacking her own party leader’s record. We are reforming Ofgem; we have given it new, stronger powers. We have created a new regime in the Energy Bill, and there is new leadership. I believe that Ofgem can deliver on competition where the previous Government failed to deliver. We are not kicking competition into the long grass. I am determined that this first annual energy assessment on competition should deliver by next spring.
The right hon. Lady talked about levies. The question is whether levies should be on bills or on taxes, and we are looking at that issue. Interestingly, she referred to a figure of “only” £112. I hope that people noticed that, because her energy freeze will deliver only £120—we think. So she is admitting that her energy freeze is actually the con that we have been saying it is all along.
I end by thanking the right hon. Lady for tabling an Opposition day debate on energy bills for next Wednesday. I want to debate energy with her every day of the week, because I want to expose Labour’s appalling record on energy and its appalling policies, which would feed into the big six that it created. Labour’s big six need competition, and we are up for it—Labour is not.
Mr Speaker
Order. A very large number of right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. I would like to accommodate the level of interest, but I remind the House that we have very important business to follow, and it is heavily subscribed. There is therefore a premium on economy, in which we will be led by Sir Robert Smith.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)
I am delighted to welcome the fact that the Government support the Energy and Climate Change Committee’s call for a competition review and to press Ofgem on greater implementation of BDO’s recommendations on transparency. Will the Secretary of State confirm that the market reforms will end the exploitation of the inertia on the part of customers on existing tariffs, which leaves them languishing on uncompetitive tariffs?
Mr Davey
I thank my hon. Friend and the other members of the Committee, whose reports and their grilling of energy company executives have played a very important role and have showed the role that this House can play in holding those companies to account. Our competition reforms are aimed at helping people and preventing them from being stranded. That is what Ofgem’s reforms will do, but the Labour party does not support them, because it is so critical of Ofgem. I assure my hon. Friend that our aim is always to help the fuel-poor.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)
As the stick of competition, to which the Secretary of State referred, shattered at the first blow into less than matchwood, will he at least now attack the energy companies and dispel their canard that bills are rising so astronomically due to green taxes?
Mr Davey
I agree with the hon. Lady that the evidence that green taxes are pushing up bills is quite weak. They are a cost to bill payers—we should not deny that and we should look at it as we are looking at every single part of the bill.
I regret that the hon. Lady attacks competition, because that is the way we are going to deliver. People are benefiting from competition and making huge savings on their energy bills now, and the Labour party ought to support it.
Mr Tim Yeo (South Suffolk) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on an excellent statement. Will he now consider the introduction of rising block tariffs to protect the poorest consumers against future price rises without any cost to the taxpayer and without damage to the prospects of urgently needed investment in new capacity, which would be the inevitable consequence of a Government-imposed price freeze?
Mr Davey
I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman’s question, which he also asked me when I appeared before the Select Committee a few months ago. I am afraid that my answer is the same: although rising block tariffs are attractive on one level, the problem is that low-income, high-user households—basically, large families on low incomes—would be hit by their introduction, so I do not think they would be the right move. We need to insulate their homes—that is the real way to help them get their energy bills down.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I remind the House that Members who entered the Chamber after the start of the statement should not expect to be called?
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Surely the Secretary of State understands that the public believe that the energy companies are giving Ministers, civil servants and Ofgem the runaround. Would it not be better if the public and pressure groups had access to the figures that clearly mesmerise officialdom and we applied freedom of information to the energy companies?
Mr Davey
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman on transparency. That is what I announced in my statement and it is why Ofgem is publishing a consultation on greater financial transparency—so that the accounts of these big energy companies can be properly exposed and we can see from where the profits are made.
Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
VAT on household energy bills is now yielding the Government about £500 million a year. Why do the Government not abolish VAT on household bills? If they say that they cannot because the European Union will not allow it, is that not another good reason for leaving the EU?
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
If the Secretary of State was serious about helping the fuel-poor, surely he would be acting to make the UK housing stock far more energy efficient, which is the only permanent way to bring down bills, according to the Child Poverty Action Group, Age UK and many other charities that support proposals to recycle carbon tax revenue into energy efficiency. That would bring nine out of 10 homes out of fuel poverty, quadruple carbon savings and create up to 200,000 jobs, so why does the Secretary of State continue to ignore calls for such ambitious policies?
Charles Hendry (Wealden) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that some of the levies on energy bills are particularly regressive, such as the energy company obligation and feed-in tariffs? People on low incomes still pay the charges, but it is often people who have much higher incomes who get the benefits. Will the review ensure that these important policies are delivered in the fairest way possible?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend makes an important point. As we review the levies, and indeed the whole market, we must ensure that they work for the fuel-poor and the less well-off. I am particularly concerned, whether in the levy review or elsewhere, to ensure that we make competitive markets work for the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will know that yesterday one of his Ministers said that all green and energy efficiency levies would be included in the review and another Minister said that the renewables obligation, contracts for difference and feed-in tariffs would not be included. Which of his Ministers was right, and will he be writing to the Prime Minister to warn him of the perils of making up policy on the spot?
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
There has been an awful lot of talk about the six big energy companies. Will the Secretary of State explain how we ended up with six companies dominating the market, and what is being done to bring more suppliers into the market?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend asks a very good question. In 2000, we had 17 energy companies—three generators and 14 suppliers. After that lot on the Opposition Benches reformed the market, we were down to six. We are increasing the number of suppliers and generators because our competition policy is working. We are prepared to go even further. That lot would reduce competition.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Despite the Secretary of State’s unwillingness to take on the big six energy companies, will he commend the work of Labour-led Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan councils, which have launched a collective buying scheme to bring down the prices offered by the energy companies, with the support of the Welsh Labour Government?
Mr Davey
I am glad that those councils have caught up. It was this Secretary of State and this Government who introduced the idea of collective switching and purchasing through “Cheaper Energy Together”. In all their 13 years, the Labour Government did not use the principle of co-operative purchasing to help people. They betrayed their principles of collective action—what a shower!
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
When John Wakeham and I privatised the electricity industry in 1990, we left more than 20 distributors and suppliers of energy. How is it that we ended up with only six after the last Government? Is it not a bit rich for the Labour party, which opposed privatisation and competition at that time, to call for the breaking up of the big six that it created?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The reason I want to keep debating energy is that the more that people understand the history of what has happened, the more they will realise that it is the Opposition who are to blame for the problems. They left a black hole in our energy supplies and prevented competition. We are putting that right.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
The public will be appalled by the Secretary of State’s statement. He has announced a review that will report next spring and that will focus on switching. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) said, the best deal in a broken market is not a good deal. When is the Secretary of State going to help the millions of households and businesses that will be crippled by huge energy bills this winter?
Mr Davey
The hon. Lady and her hon. Friends are doing their constituents a huge disservice. The truth is that people can get much better deals by switching. I was on “Watchdog” last night with Anne Robinson. She used three viewers as examples. They might have been the constituents of Opposition Members. One had saved £240, another had saved £400 and one person had saved nearly £950. The Labour party wants to take that option away from people.
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
I was pleased to hear the Secretary of State mention credit balances. Is it not clear that many people who pay in instalments are overcharged as a matter of policy by the utility companies? It is bad enough banking with the banks, but I do not understand why we have to provide interest-free credit to electricity companies as well. When will the Secretary of State bring that to an end?
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
As stated yesterday, the recent uSwitch survey showed that on one or more occasion last winter 75% of people turned the heating off. As those over 75 are particularly vulnerable and least likely to switch supplier, will the Secretary of State back Labour’s plans to put all over-75s on the cheapest tariff automatically?
Mr Davey
We want to do more for those people, which is why we are pushing switching and collective switching. The hon. Lady has a distinguished record as a former chief executive of a citizens advice bureau, and I hope she would welcome our proposal for the big energy saving network. That is now operating, with the help of Citizens Advice, Age UK and National Energy Action, to help people in communities up and down the country get better deals.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
During her remarks, the shadow Secretary of State said that she believes “secret deals” were being done by the big six—those were her words. If she has that evidence, it is clearly a cartel, which would result in a fine equal to turnover. In the case of Centrica that would be £20 billion. Does the Secretary of State agree that the right hon. Lady should put that evidence to the House—if she has it—and get that £20 billion?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend makes a good point. If the right hon. Lady knows of secret information, I hope she will confirm that she has told the competition regulator so that it can be investigated. She is not very good at answering questions. I have asked her and her right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition questions about their policy, but we have not had a single answer.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
The Secretary of State made the point that much of the increase in bills has been due to increases in the wholesale price, particularly of gas, but many commentators, including Ofgem, have questioned whether that has been the case over the past year. What powers does the Secretary of State or Ofgem have to tackle the big six energy companies about their most recent rises, which do not appear to be driven by wholesale price increases?
Mr Davey
First, over a period it is absolutely clear that the wholesale price of gas has been pushing up bills, but there is a debate about whether in the past 12 months wholesale gas prices have gone up. If the hon. Gentleman looks at Ofgem’s clarification and the press release on its website, he will find that, depending on how it is measured, it admits that the wholesale price of gas has gone up by more than 8%.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State acknowledge that for too long his Department’s drive for expensive and intermittent renewable energy has driven thousands into fuel poverty? Indeed, a former Secretary of State—now the Leader of the Opposition—said in this place in January 2010 that
“yes, there are upward pressures on energy bills, and that makes life difficult for people, including those in fuel poverty, but it is right that we go down the low-carbon energy route.”—[Official Report, 7 January 2010; Vol. 503, c. 269.]
Surely now is the right time to examine the level of green taxes and how they adversely affect the fuel poor.
Mr Davey
I have to say that the hon. Gentleman is wrong about that. We are trying to ensure we help the fuel-poor with effective policies such as the energy company obligation and the warm home discount. The support in the Energy Bill for green energy is a small part of the Bill—as he knows—and it is helping the country prepare for the ever higher gas prices we are likely to see. If we do not go green, there is a real danger we will expose consumers and our economy to high, volatile fossil fuel prices in the future. We must have a more sensible and diverse energy mix.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
Not one measure in the Secretary of State’s statement will prevent the projected death of 24,000 people as a result of the hikes in the cost of energy. At the same there is emerging evidence, which has been mentioned, about a hidden, protected, secret sort of cartel trading scheme whereby companies are buying from each other at above the wholesale price, and knocking that cost on to consumers. Can the Secretary of State say, hand on heart, that he is not aware of anything like that happening and putting a huge burden on the consumer with huge prices from the energy companies?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. We must have very short questions in order to try to get everyone in. I understand how important this is.
Mr Davey
We are helping the fuel-poor and people who have problems with their bills through, for example, the warm home discount, which takes £135 off bills. We are publishing a guide. I hope that the hon. Gentleman and every right hon. and hon. Member will use it to help their constituents.
The hon. Gentleman talks about the wholesale market. The previous Government did nothing on competition in the wholesale market; they made it worse. This Government, with Ofgem, which Labour Members want to abolish, are taking measures to ensure there is far more competition in the wholesale markets. That is how to prevent the big six and their vertical integration models from pushing up prices. The Liberal Democrats are the party of competition; Labour is the party of the big six.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
Most observers agree that, thanks to the previous Government’s omissions, we must invest a great deal of money—£110 billion—very quickly in our energy infrastructure. We want much of that money to come from the private sector. Does my right hon. Friend agree that another consequence of a price freeze would be that such private investment dried up, leaving the poor old taxpayer to foot the bill?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are many problems with Labour’s energy price freeze. First, it is a con because it will not help consumers. Secondly, it undermines competition. However, worst of all in many ways, it will kill the investment that we need both for green energy and to keep the lights on. People in the energy industry are saying that. The Leader of the Opposition has done one of the most irresponsible things ever done by a Leader of the Opposition.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
The Secretary of State has nothing to say today about the Chancellor’s imposition of the carbon floor price, which undermines the competitiveness of our energy-intensive industries, which are crucial to the development of a low-carbon economy. When will the Secretary of State bring urgency to bear before more jobs are lost?
Mr Davey
My right hon. Friend the Chancellor produced, some time ago, a £250 million package to help energy-intensive industries—[Interruption.] The hon. Lady should wait. The first part of that package— £113 million—has state aid clearance, and £12.5 million has been paid out after 60 applications were received.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that Labour’s dishonest price con would help Labour’s big six by hitting smaller companies the hardest? It is not supported by the managing director of Ovo, and the chief executive of First Utility, which has just 195,000 customers, has said:
“Bluntly, it could put me under”.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
The utilities were privatised between 20 and 25 years ago. They have had all that time to prove that they really are in competition, but plenty of evidence, especially the price increases in the past few weeks, indicates that they are acting like a cartel. That is what the Secretary of State ought to examine. That is why the public want us to have a price freeze when Labour gets in. He should have adopted that today. Secondly—this will almost certainly happen—he should take those utilities back into public ownership.
Mr Davey
Hon. Members were waiting for the hon. Gentleman’s last statement. I do not understand where Labour Members are on competition. They complain about cartels, but do not want to promote competition. If they are worried about cartels, they should join us and support what the Government have announced today.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
The Government have done far more than the previous one for the people living in the greatest fuel poverty—those living off the mains gas grid. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, as the reviews continue, we will continue remorselessly to pursue the aim of helping people in the greatest fuel poverty, including those who live off the mains gas grid?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The previous Government failed to do anything for people who are off the gas grid. The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), has been taking action, talking to the companies and the people affected. There is a new code of conduct and there are regular working group meetings. That is action, unlike what Labour did.
Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)
May I take the Secretary of State back to the issue of older people, who we know do not switch suppliers? I met a constituent recently who was dreading his winter quarter bill of £300 for a bedsit. Labour plans to put all older people on to the cheapest tariff and to freeze prices. What will the Secretary of State do for those older people?
Mr Davey
The hon. Lady should catch up, because the Ofgem reforms and the retail market review will put those people on the lowest tariff, which was backed by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. But she does have a point: some people are not using switching—not using the markets and competition—and some of them are older people. I take that issue seriously, and it is one of the reasons we want to use co-operative principles for collective switching, and why I am using third sector voluntary groups such as Citizens Advice and Age UK to deliver face-to-face advice to help exactly the people she is talking about.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
The Secretary of State will agree that the best way to cut fuel bills is to improve the energy efficiency of households. Would he care to comment on the fact that two of the big six energy companies—npower and British Gas—blame the energy company obligation, a measure designed to help the fuel-poor to cut their bills, for the increase in prices next year?
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
When can we expect the full roll-out of the mitigation policies in relation to the Chancellor’s imposition of the carbon floor price? I say that because this week Tata has announced 500 job losses and Sembcorp, near my constituency in Teesside, has also announced redundancies. When can we expect those mitigation policies to be rolled out in full?
Mr Davey
We are having a lot of applications in for the £113 million package that we announced. Money is now going out of the door to help those companies. Another part of our package for energy-intensive industries is still subject to state aid clearance in Brussels. We are trying to secure that as quickly as possible so that we can get the money to those companies.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
The Secretary of State could become a national hero today if he announced the abolition of his Department so we would have no more silly green regulations and the savings could be passed on to the consumer.
Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse) (Lab)
While anything that the Secretary of State can do to rein in the energy companies is welcome, surely the only reason that we have this recent welcome flurry of activity is Labour’s energy freeze policy and the alternative suggestion from a former Prime Minister of a windfall tax.
Mr Davey
That is not correct. The energy statement is made every year, and we have been working on many of the proposals that have been announced today for many years. We are having to put right Labour’s failure. I am delighted that the Labour party has woken up to the fact that energy bills are hurting people, but Labour Members have not yet apologised for creating the big six, which have caused most of the problem.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
My constituents will welcome the Secretary of State’s determination to ensure rigorous competition in the marketplace. However, the biggest driver of price volatility will be the security of our energy market—or lack of it. Can he assure me that the proper investment is going into that area? The lack of investment by the Labour party over 13 years in power is a disgrace.
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend makes an important point. If we do not have sufficient capacity, not only will that threaten security, but it will cause spikes in prices. The underinvestment that we had under the last Government has caused this problem, and we are having to run to catch up. We have seen £35 billion of investment since 2010, and we have a lot more investment in the pipeline. We have announced Hinkley Point C as the first nuclear reactor in a generation, but we will have to do more to put right the mess that Labour left us.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Wholesale costs are up 1.7% but bills for households will go up by 9%. Does the Secretary of State think that is fair?
Mr Davey
We would not want more competition in the market if we were happy with what is going on, but the hon. Gentleman’s figures are not right. It depends on how wholesale costs are defined in any one year. Ofgem says that on one definition they have gone up by more than 8%.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State accept that Labour’s big six are an oligopoly that appears to operate as a price-fixing cartel? Is it not time to break them up?
Mr Davey
We would not be asking for an annual competition assessment if we were not concerned to ensure more competition. My hon. Friend is right: we have faced a market created by the last Government who created the big six. We have already taken many measures that are working to get independent suppliers and generators, and our liquidity reforms with Ofgem will make a big difference in the forward markets.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
A disabled pensioner couple summed up the views of many of my constituents when they told me that they pay more than £3,000 a year in electricity and gas, which will go up by another £300 after the price rises. My constituents would benefit from Labour’s plan to put all over-75s on the cheapest tariff. Why will the Secretary of State not do that?
Mr Davey
Again, the Labour party needs to understand that the retail market review in the Energy Bill will get people on the lowest tariff. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will read the new guide that we have published today because it is aimed at those who, like him, are talking to people like his constituents to ensure that they get the help that they need.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
My constituents will welcome the possible introduction of criminal sanctions if any company is found guilty of rigging the market. Although I note Ofgem’s powers of compensation, would it not be more appropriate if consumers were to benefit if price or market rigging were found? Can we take action to ensure that such money goes back into consumers’ bank accounts?
Mr Davey
The measures in the Energy Bill provide that, if an individual consumer has been done wrong by an energy company—mistreated or subjected to any other malpractice—the fine, thanks to this Government, will go to the consumer. The criminal sanctions I have referred to today would be applied for systemic anti-competitive practices or manipulation of the energy markets by an individual or company.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
One of my constituents took the Government’s advice and switched his supplier, but he found that after the initial attractive offer he was paying twice as much a month for his energy bills. He cannot switch back to his previous supplier because he is tied in to a minimum 12-month contract. He is now paying £60 a month more than he was previously. What will the Secretary of State’s proposals do for situations such as that?
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on finally making the decision on nuclear, something that we have not had for 13 years. We still have subsidies for wind and biomass, we are an island country, and there are practical schemes for tidal barrages on the Severn and on the Wyre at Fleetwood in my constituency, so is there any chance of a national policy on tidal energy?
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Wales is a net exporter of electricity—we are an electricity-generation-rich nation. Can the Secretary of State explain, therefore, why electricity prices in my country are among the highest in the British state?
Mr Davey
We are pleased that Wales is making such a contribution. That is good for the Welsh economy and Welsh jobs, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman supports the fact that our policies are ensuring that the energy industry is strong in Wales. He knows that distribution costs vary across the country, and it is not only Wales that has higher-than-average bills. Ofgem keeps the issue under review.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I am glad that the Secretary of State wants to make it easier for people to switch electricity suppliers. Will he also look at obstacles to switching suppliers of heating oil and LPG, which include tactics such as bills stating that tanks and cages outside homes do not belong to bill payers, which are designed to deter customers from switching? That would help those living off the gas grid.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Despite the Secretary of State’s answers to earlier questions, Tata Steel, which announced 340 job losses in my constituency this week, is still saying that the carbon floor tax, unilaterally introduced by the Chancellor, is putting its businesses in the UK at risk, compared with the rest of the European Union. Will the Secretary of Sate commit to working with the Business Secretary and the Chancellor to bring action forward rapidly to address that issue?
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
There are 10,000 off-grid homes in my constituency. What more can be done to help my constituents to access good deals, including the ability to buy at times of year when the kerosene price is at least a bit lower?
Mr Davey
There are two things that can help my hon. Friend’s constituents and others like them; first, collective purchase. There are heating oil clubs where people come together to get better deals, and that is helping some people. Secondly, I hope that he is aware of the campaign being pushed by the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks, to get people to buy early. If people buy early, they can get heating oil much cheaper than if they buy it later, in the winter months.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State consider legislating for the re-separation of electricity generation from electricity supply, and gas production from gas supply, so that consumers can get the transparency they need in their bills, something Ofgem is not able to achieve?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend should look at the Ofgem proposals, which have backing in the Energy Bill. They will make a big difference to those markets. I am keen to ensure that forward markets—not just the day-ahead market, but the six-month, 12-month and the two-year market—are far more liquid. We have an illiquid market and that is where the big six can exercise market power. The Government and Ofgem are tackling that. The Opposition are not.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
Will the Secretary of State explain how it can be fair that the most vulnerable people in my constituency in mid-Wales have to pay through their noses for their energy to provide massive subsidies to giant wealthy wind farm developers who, alongside National Grid, are intent on destroying the environment and landscape of mid-Wales where we live?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend knows that I cannot comment on the planning application that relates to a lot of what he has just said. If he has constituents who have problems with fuel poverty, we have introduced the warm home discount, which takes £135 off their bills, and there are other measures. He should look at the guide that we are publishing today.
Mr Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)
On fuel poverty, is it not the case that, in the five years between 2004 and 2009, an extra 2.8 million people fell into fuel poverty? What further measures can we take to deal with this scourge of modern society?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are keenly focused on tackling fuel poverty through the energy company obligation and the warm home discount. Within the energy company obligation, there is the affordable warmth scheme. I have some good news: it is working an awful lot better than the warm front policy the Labour party introduced. It is more cost-effective and it is rolling out more quickly.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
As well as high energy bills, motorists continue to face high petrol bills, on average paying £1,700 a year to fill up the family car. Will my right hon. Friend extend the principles of competition transparency and extend criminal sanctions for manipulating the market to the oil companies that are ripping off the consumer, despite the excellent Government freeze in petrol duty?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend invites me to trespass on to the responsibilities of another Secretary of State. I think that would be ill-advised, particularly as the Secretary of State for Transport has just taken his place on the Front Bench. My hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) may wish to ask him that question, but he is right to say that the Government have an excellent record on this.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
For 13 years, the Labour Government did little to deal with standing charges. Will my right hon. Friend tell me what impact standing charges have on pensioner fuel poverty, and will he ensure that they are included in the review?
Mr Davey
Ofgem’s retail market review looked at different approaches to standing charges, and there is a debate on them. However, there is a danger that taking them away will lead to a single unit price model—which some people think is better—that will hit low-income households that are high energy users. We therefore need to consider the full distributional consequences. We will keep these matters under review, as we should.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
Increasing capacity is definitely the key to this problem. Ensuring, through the Energy Bill, that we have more competition is part of the story, but would that not be reinforced by strengthening the role of a single energy market to attract more investment and drive even more competition into the system?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is right. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has been pushing the case for the single energy market at the European Council. Recently, I hosted a meeting of energy Ministers from northern European countries—the northern European energy dialogue—to consider ways to have better interconnections in the northern European grid, which will encourage downward pressure on prices.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Thank you for the exercise, Mr Deputy Speaker. In the next five years, many of our power stations will close, therefore reducing supply. Will my right hon. Friend confirm how many power stations were built under the previous Government, and how many he plans to build under this Government?
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Last, but certainly not least, I call Andrew Percy.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
I can only assume it is because I am from Yorkshire, Mr Deputy Speaker.
The Energy Secretary rightly pointed out how Labour’s non-freeze con would cost jobs and investment. I and my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) heard from a local business—a big employer. We were told, with specific reference to Labour’s price freeze con, that it has lost a major contract. This is costing jobs and investment. The uncertainty that has been created in our energy market will not do anything for bills, but it will cost jobs.
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, but I have to tell him that it is actually worse than he suggests. People from around the world who want to invest in the UK, and who welcome our strong policies to attract investment, are now worried because of the extra uncertainty created by the Leader of the Opposition and the Labour party. The Opposition’s policies are not just a con for consumers; they will undermine competition and are hitting investment and the economy. They should be ashamed.
High Speed Rail (Preparation) Bill
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
17:00 - The House divided: - Ayes: 350 / Noes: 34 - Question accordingly agreed to.
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 18, page 1, line 5, leave out ‘at least’.
Mr Speaker
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 12, page 1, line 10, leave out ‘and’.
Amendment 13, page 1, line 11, after ‘Manchester’, add
‘and one or more towns or cities in Scotland’.
Amendment 28 , page 1, line 11, at end insert ‘Scottish destinations’.
Amendment 14, page 1, line 12, at end insert
‘, and any newly constructed railway lines, roads, airports and light railways’.
Government amendment 17.
Amendment 19, page 1, line 12, at end insert—
‘(c) extends substantially no further than Phases One and Two of the High Speed 2 network connecting the places set out in section 1(2)(a).’.
Amendment 23, in clause 3, page 2, line 27, leave out
‘comes into force on the day on which it is passed’
and insert
‘shall not come into force until the Secretary of State has published detailed proposals for the Government’s preferred route directly connecting the network with Heathrow airport, has consulted with those residents, local authorities and businesses which may be affected by this connecting route and has published measures to mitigate and compensate for the social, economic and environmental impact, of the line.’.
Mrs Gillan
I welcome to the Front Bench the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill). This is his first outing and it is good to see him in his place. I welcome the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) to her place on the Opposition Front Bench. It is good to have some authentic northern voices speaking on this subject, albeit from the Front Bench, so we probably know exactly what they are going to say. May I also welcome my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) and, with your indulgence, Mr Deputy Speaker, thank him for the courtesy he showed towards me during his time in office? This is a difficult subject for me and, I think, it has proved a difficult subject, from time to time, for him.
Amendments 18, 12 and 13 relate to the Government’s commitment to Scotland. I tabled them in Committee, because I felt it was important to have something in the Bill that registered the verbal intentions, expressed by Ministers and others, eventually to take High Speed 2, if it is ever built, through to Scotland. It is ironic, and slightly odd, that clause 3(1) extends the scope of the Bill to England, Wales and Scotland, given that there is no mention of HS2 going to Scotland.
If we have time, we will get on to the Barnett formula. Undoubtedly, there is precedent for the Government ensuring that Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland get their fair share of the infrastructure spend that is being spent exclusively in England, and I believe there is already such a precedent regarding the money for HS2, but will the Minister confirm that?
Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)
In drafting her amendments, did my right hon. Friend consider how to deliver extra passenger capacity to the east and west coast lines, but without the vast costs?
Mrs Gillan
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I am afraid that I do not have the resources to table an extensive list of amendments, and although I considered that, I dismissed it fairly rapidly. I just do not have the back-up and resource, on a project this large and complex, to keep up with the machinations of the Government, as they bring out 400 or 500 pages of information a couple of days before any crucial stage of the Bill—I am expecting the £50,000 environmental statement to arrive on our desks shortly.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
Obviously, I am as concerned as the right hon. Lady apparently is about high-speed links to Scotland, but is she seriously telling the House that if the Government were to announce that HS2 was going to Scotland, she would drop her opposition to it completely?
Mrs Gillan
No, not at all. I am not arguing that, but I have always been of the principle that if it is to be done, it is to be done properly. I am quite clear about my position—I do not want HS2 at all, but I also do not want a Bill to go through the House that does not reflect what I think the project should encompass, and indeed what the Bill itself states it encompasses.
Mr Jack Straw (Blackburn) (Lab)
Would the right hon. Lady not accept that, on the current plans for phase 1 and 2, there will be a 45-minute reduction in journey times to Edinburgh?
Mrs Gillan
The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but the Government recently produced the new business case, and I believe that there is doubt over the timing used for Edinburgh to London. I have been informed by a commentator that they failed to take into account the new rolling stock and the existing time savings from improvements being made to the line. I stand to be corrected—perhaps the Minister can tell us—but I believe that there has been an error in the calculation.
I would like the Bill to refer to Scotland, because it is important that a definite intent be put in the Bill. It would send a good message to Scotland, at a time when we are trying to keep this United Kingdom together, in the teeth of opposition from the nationalist parties, and I think it should be in the Bill simply for that reason.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
I sympathise with the spirit of my right hon. Friend’s amendments, and obviously many of us who support HS2 hope it will go through to Glasgow and Edinburgh and cannot understand why we do not start building from there now. But be that as it may, I am a bit worried because her amendment 18 would remove the “at least”. I read “at least” to mean that HS2 could stop at more stations. Were we to accept her amendment 18 and then her amendment 13, which would add the words
“and one or more towns or cities in Scotland”,
it would leave out everything between Manchester and Glasgow as a potential stop on a high-speed line to Glasgow. That is my understanding of her amendments.
Mrs Gillan
My amendments are intended to probe the Government’s intention. I believe that they should have made provision to include more stops on the line. For example, I would have thought that between Manchester and elsewhere, there could have been other stops giving greater benefit to some of the areas that will be destroyed by the line.
I tabled an amendment in Committee, and it must have struck a chord, because the official Opposition have tabled something very similar, and I am delighted to say that the Government, in an attempt to hug the Opposition closer, have now signed up to it and it has become a Government amendment. I congratulate the shadow Secretary of State on her victory. One of the major problems is with the connectivity of HS2. If it is not fully connected and integrated into our transport system, it will be the white elephant that so many of us believe it will be.
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on tabling the amendment. It is not only the Opposition and the Government who need congratulating; she needs congratulating herself.
Mrs Gillan
That is most gratifying. I am glad that my hon. Friend has observed the first rule of politicians: one can never over-flatter another politician.
Connectivity is at the heart of some of the failures of this project. For example, it does not go to Heathrow; it does not connect properly with the channel tunnel rail link; indeed, it does not even go into the centres of the cities it is supposed to serve, whether Sheffield, Derby or Nottingham. All the time savings claimed by the Government come to nought if travellers have to make their way from outside the city centre, as I know will be the case for Sheffield. We need to ensure that if this is ever built, the connectivity is as good as it can be.
Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that HS1 has excellent connectivity with domestic services and that towns such as Folkestone and cities such as Canterbury have high-speed services even though they are not on the high-speed line?
Mrs Gillan
My hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale) is not in the Chamber, but I understand he feels that it is a work still in progress when it comes to bringing benefits to his constituency. I also gather, from studying the local economies around HS1, that there have been no additional benefits; indeed, there has possibly been some detraction from local economies.
Damian Collins
If my right hon. Friend looks at the unemployment statistics for east Kent, she will see that the rate is falling faster not only than the national average, but the average for the south-east of England, the most prosperous part of the country. The county council says it is impossible to talk of economic regeneration in east Kent without considering the benefits of HS1.
Mrs Gillan
I am very glad to hear that. I do not know how many years after the project this has become apparent. [Hon. Members: “Ten.”] Ten years; thank you.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I want to reinforce something the right hon. Lady said about connectivity. A lot of people think that those of us who oppose HS2 are against connectivity and high-speed transportation. We are not. We want the right connectivity that will help all the towns and cities in this country to grow, but we do not want more of our country’s lifeblood being sucked down into London and the south.
Mrs Gillan
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Of course, it echoed the words of Lord Mandelson, who really does know an awful lot about the genesis of this project. It certainly has that vampiric touch about it, as I think Members on both sides of the House can appreciate.
The Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Patrick McLoughlin)
If HS2 is going to suck the lifeblood of the northern cities, as the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) suggests, why are the leaders of those northern cities, such as Sir Richard Leese and Albert Bore, the loudest demanders of this service?
Mrs Gillan
Oh simple, simple question, Secretary of State! What leader of any council of any political colour or persuasion would turn down the millions and millions of pounds being thrown at their areas? It would be completely stupid of them to do anything other than support it.
Mr Sheerman
The Secretary of State has commented following my intervention. I have talked to people in the big cities, and many of them have not read the six critical evaluations of the impact of HS2, and they certainly have not looked at the impact of high-speed rail on the provincial cities in France. It is sucking the lifeblood out of them and into the metropolitan area around Paris. We have also not been told on what grounds the local people here, who have not been given a referendum—
Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)
Order. The hon. Gentleman should know better. This is his second or third intervention. Let us try to keep the debate calm and orderly, with short interventions.
David Mowat
If it were true that better infrastructure for the north would suck the lifeblood out of the region, would it not be right to close the M6? Perhaps that strategy would make the north really prosperous.
Dan Byles (North Warwickshire) (Con)
I would like to draw the House’s attention to the Transport Committee’s detailed report on high-speed rail. It stated that
“only time will tell whether or not HS2 will, for example, help to rebalance the economy and reduce the north-south divide.”
It is a £50 billion project, yet we are told that “only time will tell” whether it will achieve its main aim.
Mrs Gillan
I am not going to take any more interventions. I want to make sure that other colleagues are able to speak on this group of amendments, and as there are no knives, the longer we take on this group, the less time we will have for other important groups that deal with the economics of the railway line and with compensation.
Mrs Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Mrs Ellman
I thank the right hon. Lady for giving way. Will she point out to the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles) that the Select Committee was very clear that High Speed 2 was the only way in which the necessary increased capacity could be obtained, and that in discussing the economic benefits, we also stated that economic development strategies were required to go with the provision of that extra capacity?
Mrs Gillan
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention.
A lot of people are saying that there is no alternative to HS2 if we are to solve the capacity problems, when in fact a large number of alternatives are emerging from numerous sources. Suggestions have been made by economic think-tanks and transport economists, including a recent proposal to revive the old grand central line. I fought against an ill-conceived plan to run freight on that line in the early 1990s when I was first elected to the House. That plan did not stack up economically, and we saw it off.
Amendment 19 would narrow the scope of the Bill, which, as currently drafted, could extend to all railway operations. I do not know whether it was the intention to cover not only HS2 but all other railway operations, but the drafting seems to be a bit sloppy. If the provisions are not confined to HS2, it will make a mockery of any limits placed on the costs that the taxpayer will have to face. The amendment attempts to limit this money Bill, and to limit the expenditure to HS2, in line with what I believe the Government intended. If the provision were to include Scotland, that would round up the whole package.
Mrs Ellman
I rise to support amendment 17. I am a firm supporter of High Speed 2. The case for it is essentially one of capacity. It is entirely wrong to state, as some commentators have done recently, that the argument for capacity is something new that has been brought in only at this stage. That is simply not so. The report that the Transport Select Committee produced two years ago made it clear that the need for increased capacity formed the basis of the case for HS2.
Amendment 17 deals with linking HS2 to the rest of the transport network. It specifically mentions the need for it to link to roads and airports. It is important that it should not be seen as a development that is separate from the rest of the rail network or indeed from the rest of the transport network. I therefore welcome the amendment. It is unfortunate that, because no decision has been taken on the need for increased airport capacity in the south-east, no firm proposals on Heathrow have been finalised. That matter needs urgent attention. There is also an issue about freight. In Liverpool, for example, the expansion of the port is creating a need for more freight paths and better access for freight. That, too, needs attention. I welcome the amendment in that it draws attention to networks and connectivity.
Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
In speaking to amendment 17, the hon. Lady is, in essence, setting out an early case for design changes. Can she confirm that the existing contingency in the spending envelope does not include provision for any such changes?
Mrs Ellman
The hon. Gentleman needs to direct such questions to HS2 itself. It is extremely important that all the financial aspects are fully considered. This specific amendment is to do with networks. The question of access to the high-speed network is critical, and that involves roads as well as other rail tracks.
The case for HS2 is also based on increased economic benefit to the areas in which the railway stations are located, as well as the surrounding areas and the regions that they serve. The issue of freed capacity on the west coast main line as a result of phase 1, and on the east coast and midland main lines following phase 2, is critical. The strategic review states that there will be a £3 billion benefit from the use of freed capacity, and Network Rail has stated that more than 100 cities and towns could benefit.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
Those benefits will be crucial to areas such as Birmingham and the west midlands. One of the advantages of HS2 to the west midlands will be that it will free up capacity on the west coast main line and improve connectivity to regions such as the black country, part of which I represent.
Mrs Ellman
Indeed; the hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. We must not look simply at the HS2 line itself; we must also consider how its connectivity to other lines and other parts of the transport network can be developed.
Dan Byles
If the principal benefit is now capacity rather than speed—this seems very much how the argument has moved—why not slow it down? If it is slowed down, we will no longer have the engineers I sit down with every week telling me, “We can’t go around Water Orton primary school because speed means it must be a straight line; we can’t go around ancient bluebell woods because speed means it must be a straight line.” If we slow it down, we will be able to avoid going over many of the sensitive areas on the route and perhaps even put in more stations.
Mrs Ellman
The strategic review and other studies indicate that alternatives have been looked at and rejected. Network Rail states that more than 100 cities and towns could benefit from this development. Named in the various reports are places including Watford, Milton Keynes, Rugby and Northampton, but many more are possible. There is also a need to increase capacity for freight, which is as important as passengers. About 20 new freight paths can be developed, but I would view that as the absolute minimum.
Mrs Gillan
I hear what the hon. Lady says about freight. How does she react to what Lord Berkeley said? He heads up the Rail Freight group and said that HS2 will in fact constrain freight because it does not link up properly with the existing network on the west coast main line and its northern end in phases 1 and 2? He should know, should he not?
Mrs Ellman
Lord Berkeley was pointing out issues of practical difficulty, but they can be worked on. Indeed, the purpose of this debate and subsequent debates is to identify where the problems are and to do something about them. No plans are finalised. We are talking about principles and strategies. It is essential to look at critical detail and to make changes where they are necessary. Debates such as this one are an integral part of that important process.
Mr Sheerman
I have great admiration for my hon. Friend as Chair of the Select Committee, but she knows the Department for Transport better than most people, and we have had from it a catalogue of confusion and chaos over the west coast franchise and now over the planning for HS2, as it has changed the priorities, rules and bases of all the assumptions. Is she confident that this HS2 project has been thoroughly prepared and that the grounds for it are absolutely perfect?
Mrs Ellman
It is essential to apply the necessary commercial expertise to this scheme—whether it be directly in the Department for Transport or in HS2 itself. I am encouraged by the new appointment of Sir David Higgins to lead this process. I think that will give people increased confidence, which is indeed necessary.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
If the hon. Lady is so convinced of the business case, will she explain why the Government are now on the fifth revision of the business case for HS2? Does she think this will be the last revision, or will there be another 25 over the next 25 years to justify the case? I simply cannot believe it: it is amazing that the project has gone up by £10 billion and the Government have now managed to find £10 billion-worth of supposed benefits. I put it to the hon. Lady that this is the biggest work of fiction since Enid Blyton.
Mrs Ellman
It is for Ministers to say why the business case has been reviewed so many times, but when the Transport Select Committee looked at the issue two years ago, it approved a high-speed line, but pointed to a number of critical areas where it was felt more work should be done, which included looking again at the business case. One reason for that was the valuation put on the time people spent travelling, when it was alleged they could not work. We thought that that was not a correct valuation and that it should be looked at again. We raised issues of environmental concern and said they should be looked at again, as we did with issues relating to economic impact, particularly the need to have economic development strategies as well as the essential rail travel links.
The Select Committee called for a review of the case, looking at those specific factors and stressing the importance of relevant and up-to-date information. We thought it would be absolutely wrong to use information that was not up to date and that ignored the concerns we had raised. The report supported the project in principle, but raised real concerns, which we said must be addressed before any final decision could be taken. Not all of those concerns have yet been addressed, but some of them have been, as we have discussed today.
Mr Sheerman
On that very point, my hon. Friend’s very good report was two years ago and since then many people have used it to do the very thing she asked to be done. The subsequent reports built on her report, however, show a very different picture. Is that not the problem?
Mrs Ellman
I do not know to which reports my hon. Friend refers, but there have been no comprehensive reports looking at the whole scheme. Some have looked at some aspects of it, but not at the up-to-date information, which was published only this week. I am not aware of any reports that have looked at that. I am sure that the Transport Committee will look again at the information, as we have it.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the business case is not just about the financial case? Public transport is a public service, so we need to look at the need to run trains throughout the country. We should not be looking only at pound signs, but at the overall need for this service.
Mrs Ellman
I agree with my hon. Friend’s general point. It is important to assess individual aspects of the project, but we also need to look at the concept and what it is trying to achieve. It is about expanding essential infrastructure in this country. If we do not have vision and if we are not prepared to look ahead at the nation’s needs, we will lack the essential infrastructure needed for economic prosperity. It is essential, too, to look at the detail, which is why we called for a review of the cost-benefit ratio, for a review of the environmental and economic factors and for up-to-date information on the projections of capacity, for freight as well as passengers. The concept must not be lost in the vital necessity to look at the individual components and make an assessment of them.
Mr Roger Godsiff (Birmingham, Hall Green) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is surely aware of the National Audit Office report on this subject, which referred to
“fragile numbers, out-of-date data and assumptions that do not reflect real life.”
What does she say to that?
Mrs Ellman
The strategic review produced this week provides the up-to-date information. When the previous reports, including the NAO report, were produced, that information was not available. It is necessary to examine the new information that has come forward and look at it very carefully indeed—and that is the up-to-date information. As I say, previous reports did not look at it.
Andrew Bridgen
The hon. Lady talks about looking at the detail, so let us look at the facts. This project started out at £20 billion; it has hit £50 billion; the Treasury is working on £73 billion—and it was all priced in 2011 money, with indexation of 3% on top of it. Is it going to go the same way as HS1, which started at £1.5 billion and finished up at £11 billion?
Mrs Ellman
Again, I think it is for the Minister to answer those questions. This specific amendment deals with networks. The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue about the costs and the contingencies and how they will be put together, but that is a matter for the Minister and for broader debate than for discussion on this specific amendment.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Broughton) (Lab)
When the Transport Select Committee went to France to look at the economic impact of high-speed rail, we found that there was a huge economic benefit in Lille and most other cities. The fact is that the Department for Transport assessments do not capture that economic benefit. Talking about people working on trains really misses the point about the economic impact and the economic benefit that will come from high-speed rail. Does my hon. Friend agree?
Mrs Ellman
I do agree. When the members of the Select Committee went to France and elsewhere in Europe to look at high-speed rail there, we were struck by the success of the system and by the enthusiasm with which it was greeted by people living in the areas that it served. Indeed, what struck us was they wanted more: more stops, more stations, more access to high-speed rail. That made a considerable impact on us.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady think that the Spanish economy has benefited from Spain’s investment in high-speed rail?
Mrs Ellman
I am here to talk about the United Kingdom and an amendment concerning networks.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady agree with the comments of the hon. Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer), which appeared in the Evening Standard yesterday? He said:
“The leadership have completely misjudged the mood both of the Parliamentary Labour Party and the party in the whole of the country.”
Mrs Ellman
I am a firm supporter of High Speed 2. I believe that it will increase capacity and create the infrastructure that is essential for the future of the nation.
Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)
Rail infrastructure in Spain has been mentioned. Studies show that the economies of both Seville and Madrid have benefited from a high-speed line, although only Seville was expected to benefit.
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
I am sure that the Select Committee is aware of a contrasting example, namely the line between Le Mans and Tours. Le Mans invested in a local connection to the TGV route, and saw a tenfold increase in economic benefit compared with Tours, which had failed to do so. That underlines the importance of local connectivity.
Mrs Ellman
The right hon. Lady has drawn attention to the importance of connectivity and the importance of using the opportunities offered by high-speed rail to bring benefit to areas that are not on the line. That is an essential component. In the regions, a great deal of work has been done to assess what the benefit might be. Centro estimates that there will be an additional 22,000 jobs in the west midlands, while the Core Cities Group expects an additional 400,000.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
My hon. Friend speaks of the economic benefits for the midlands. Cities such as Coventry will certainly not benefit from this investment; indeed, the opposite will be the case.
Mrs Ellman
I think it essential for HS2 to think about how it can assist areas that do not look as though they will benefit, such as Coventry. The current process—not just today’s debate, but the consultations that are taking place and the progress of the hybrid Bill—enables important points to be raised, such as the one raised just now by my hon. Friend. I am fully sympathetic to that.
Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)
I am sure that my hon. Friend is aware of the tram-train pilot scheme which will begin in Sheffield in 2015, and which may lead to an excellent opportunity for trams to use under-utilised heavy rail track to connect wider city regions through high-speed rail stations. Will my hon. Friend encourage the Government to carry out a review? Indeed, the Select Committee itself might wish to look into the matter.
Mrs Ellman
That is an example of the kind of development that should be supported.
What concerns me is not that the principle of high-speed rail is not recognised—indeed, it is clear from what has been said by Members today that the importance of connectivity, in general and in relation to specific areas, is very well understood—but the possibility that it is not being pursued strongly enough at the national level to guarantee its consistent application throughout the country.
I referred earlier to initiatives taken in the west midlands and to statements made by the Core Cities Group, and I know that a great deal of work is being done in Manchester, but I am not sure that that is happening everywhere in the country, and I think it important for someone to take the lead. Of course work must be done in the regions. Elected Members and local businesses know their areas and are aware of the opportunities and the potential, but someone should be ensuring that the same is happening nationally, so that we do not miss out on the vital and perhaps unique opportunity to develop our network for the benefit of localities, regions, and indeed the country as a whole.
Mr Sheerman
When my hon. Friend’s Committee was considering HS2, she will have been made aware of the likely cost, which is estimated to be at least £80 billion. Should not the people who will be affected be allowed a vote? I agree with her about the northern hub, of which I am in favour, but if my local people had a vote, would they vote for all that money to be invested in this high-speed train? I do not think so.
Mrs Ellman
I do not accept the figure that my hon. Friend has given, but the people do, in fact, have a vote. They have a vote with which they can elect a Government by voting in Members of Parliament, and they have a vote with which they can elect members of local authorities—and I note that the leaders of the major local authorities in the north are speaking very loudly indeed in favour of this project.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
Does the hon. Lady agree that we should commend Labour-controlled and Conservative-controlled Worcestershire—my own authority —for their foresight in predicting the benefits of HS2?
Mrs Ellman
I do agree. I think that that is an excellent example of what could be done. However, I want to be sure that such examples are being followed up nationally.
Frank Dobson (Holborn and St Pancras) (Lab)
Let us assume that the Government’s £50 billion estimate is correct. That investment is expected to bring the greatest benefits to Birmingham, Nottingham, Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester: five cities. Does my hon. Friend think that if the £50 billion were broken up into nuggets of £10 billion, and if each city were offered that amount to promote its local economy, the five of them would decide to club together to pay for a high-speed rail link? [Laughter.]
Mrs Ellman
The whole point of major infrastructure is that it makes a major difference in connectivity across the country, which benefits all parts of the country. If that benefit is fragmented, it will not accrue.
I certainly support economic development in the regions, and I deplore the abolition of the regional development agencies, but I hope that the local enterprise partnerships—alone, working together, or working in transport cores—will ensure that economic benefit comes to their areas, and that the Government provide the support that will enable that effort to be private sector-led and succeed.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
Obviously we are talking about a lot of money, but if it is true that the rail capacity of the three main north-south lines will be exhausted within about 15 years, what impact does my hon. Friend expect that to have on the economies of the cities north of London?
Mrs Ellman
My hon. Friend has made a crucial point, which goes to the nub of the matter. If those lines run out of capacity—which, indeed, they are rapidly doing—a grave blow will be dealt to the economies in the northern regions, in terms of passengers and freight. One of the reasons more freight cannot travel by rail now is the fact that no freight lines are available. High Speed 2 will solve that problem.
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
A railway line is for many decades, not just for the immediate future. When considering the whole issue of connectivity and networks, did the Committee think about the implications of a longer time scale rather than some of the much shorter ones that people are currently discussing?
Mrs Ellman
The Committee was very clear about the fact that this is about the future, and about long-term thinking. I strongly believe that while it is always essential to scrutinise spending, it is also essential to have vision. If we do not have vision, we do not have a future. I note that the aim of Lord Deighton’s taskforce is to maximise the economic benefit that can result from High Speed 2, but I am not sure whether that includes expanding connectivity and making the maximum use of freed lines, as well as more economic development issues. I ask the Minister to give us a response at the relevant time as to who, if anybody, is in charge of expanding connectivity and the opportunities offered by HS2 so the maximum economic benefit can be realised. HS2 is needed for capacity reasons, and it produces major economic development opportunities for most parts of the country, but they must be grasped, and unless somebody is in charge of making sure that happens, they will be squandered.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
Of the amendments in this group, I was delighted to be able to add my name to amendment 17 tabled by the Labour Front-Bench team. That demonstrates the cross-party support and co-operation we will need to deliver this project, which is so vital to the future of our country. Indeed, when I offered to add my name, I was asked, “Would you like to go on first, Minister?” I said, “No, no; I wouldn’t want people to get the wrong idea.” Our intention has always been for this landmark project to be part of a truly connected and integrated transport system, and the amendment would ensure that any preparatory work needed to integrate HS2 with the rest of our transport infrastructure can be funded using the Bill’s expenditure powers.
Phases 1 and 2 of HS2 will directly link eight of Britain’s 10 largest cities, serving one in five of the UK population. HS2 will also connect to the existing rail network, so as soon as phase 1 is built, high-speed rail trains can start directly serving 28 cities in the UK.
I welcome the reference to “footpaths” and “cycleways” in amendment 17 tabled by the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh), and I should point out that as part of the Government’s wider commitments to boosting cycling in the UK, in August 2013 the Prime Minister announced the commissioning of a feasibility study to explore how we might create a new cycleway that broadly follows the proposed HS2 corridor. Such routes would also be open to pedestrians—presumably this is a case of great minds thinking alike. The cycleway could provide cycling and walking routes for the public to enjoy, linking local communities and stations to the countryside and tourist destinations along the way, and benefiting those living along the HS2 route.
HS2 will be at the centre of an unprecedented level of investment in the nation’s transport infrastructure. From 2015-16 to 2020-21 the Government have committed £56 billion-worth of investment in road and rail, on top of the £16.5 billion investment in HS2. We are investing more than £6 billion in this Parliament and £12 billion in the next on road maintenance, enough to resurface 80% of the national road network and fill 19 million potholes each year.
Mrs Gillan
I am grateful to the Minister for confirming the billions of pounds the Department for Transport is going to spend over the next five or six years, but how does he respond to the National Audit Office, which has highlighted serious doubts over the ability and capacity of both the Department for Transport and its subsidiary company, HS2 Ltd, to deliver the project successfully? He is now claiming to have one of the largest infrastructure budgets of any Government Department, but the NAO does not think the Department is fit to run it.
Mr Goodwill
The Department has gained a lot of experience in managing big projects from projects such as Crossrail. Following the appointment of Sir David Higgins to head HS2 from January onwards I feel very confident indeed that we can deliver this project on budget and on time. Indeed, the budget is about £50 billion. Therefore, if rolling stock were excluded and nothing else was done with the Department’s budget, this project would be the equivalent of about 10 months of the Department’s total budget. That puts it into context.
We are adding 400 miles of capacity to our busiest motorways thanks to work scheduled in this Parliament and the next, and between 2014 and 2019 Network Rail has put forward plans to spend £37.5 billion on improvements to the railways. We are clearly not putting all our eggs in the HS2 basket, therefore—far from it, in fact.
HS2 will be integrated with the nation’s airports, with direct services to Manchester and Birmingham airports and a short connection to East Midlands airport from the east midlands hub station.
Mr Sheerman
What the Minister has just said is rather confusing, because the Howard Davies inquiry has not yet reported. We can get very lovey-dovey about HS2 in some regards, but there has been no love lost on the London airports question. When are we going to make up our minds about London airports, let alone the rail service to feed them?
Mr Goodwill
The timetable for the Davies commission report is well known, and there will be an interim report in December. Whether or not we put the spur in from HS2 down to Heathrow, in the plans we have published there is already a connection through Old Oak common; there will be an 11-minute connection to Heathrow via the Crossrail service with up to eight services an hour. So Heathrow will have a connection whether or not we embark on the spur.
Karen Lumley
Does my hon. Friend agree, however, that a 38-minute journey time makes it easy to get from London to Birmingham international airport, which means that people in north London would not need to go to Heathrow?
Mr Goodwill
Indeed, that will increase choice for people who have the unfortunate experience in life of having to live in the south-east of England. It will give them more opportunities to visit the north and use airports up and down the country.
We need to ensure that we maximise the cumulative benefit of individual investments by ensuring they are all properly connected. I have to say that amendments 18 and 19 in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) slightly confuse me. Amendment 19 seeks to limit expenditure to projects under phases 1 and 2 of the Bill, which finishes in Leeds and Manchester, but amendment 18 says that there should be more connectivity in Scotland. There is a degree of contradiction in those two amendments.
David Mowat
My hon. Friend has just said that phase 2 finishes in Manchester, which indeed it does as far as the business case and the benefits statement KPMG produced are concerned, yet under phase 2 we are building a 40 km spur north of Manchester. I wonder about the logic of that, since there is a £1 billion cost with no benefit. Is that an under-run that the Minister could book at this point?
Mr Goodwill
The trains do not stop at Manchester and Leeds; they keep going. In terms of the connectivity of this new system, it is important that we take traffic away from the existing rail network and allow more freight and passenger services so as to address the problem of the 5,000 people every weekday morning who are standing as they arrive at New Street in Birmingham. To address that problem we need to ensure we have the connectivity.
Limiting this legislation to a particular phase, or to particular phases, would simply mean that a further Bill would be required to be placed before Parliament to prepare for any potential future phase.
On Scotland, I would simply say that officials from the Scottish Government made clear during this Bill’s Committee stage that they are content with the Bill as it is, and see no need for the naming of any locations in Scotland. The critical point is that the network is defined as “at least” including the named locations in the Bill. Therefore, not including locations in Scotland will not be a barrier to high-speed rail extending there at some point in the future. The locations named are limited to those which have been named in public consultation documents issued by the Department.
Again I must stress that while some rolling stock will run exclusively on the high-speed network, so-called classic compatible gauge trains will run through to Glasgow and Edinburgh. These new trains are part of the £7.5 billion rolling stock investment in the project and their arrival in Scottish cities will demonstrate how HS2 will benefit Scotland at an early stage.
Mr MacNeil
Can the Minister confirm that once this rolling stock reaches Edinburgh it can go further north up to Aberdeen and cities in between?
Mr Goodwill
That will be for the railway companies to decide; it will be up to them to decide how best to utilise this stock. Obviously, the rolling stock will be rolled out as it is produced, but having trains arriving in Glasgow and Edinburgh at that early stage of the project will make a major contribution to helping to keep our kingdom united.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
I wish to begin by welcoming the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill) to his place. I know that he has a strong personal interest in transport issues. Although I am sure we will disagree on many issues, I am glad that we have been able to reach agreement on a number of today’s amendments, and I look forward to our future debates.
Amendment 17 has its origins in the Bill’s Committee stage. Members on both sides of the House contributed to its development, after my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) moved an amendment requiring integration with other modes of transport. The Minister at the time, the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), who is in his place, said that he was minded to accept it. We want people to have a real choice about how to travel, be it by rail, by car, on a bicycle or by walking. We especially want to make sure that active travel is an attractive option, because it has many huge benefits, including for health and tackling congestion. We want that to be encouraged, so we welcomed the move to have better integration. We warned, however, that any amendment should pay regard to walking, cycling and light railways, so I am pleased that those concerns have been addressed by this sensibly worded addition to the Bill—of course I would say that, because it stands partly in my name.
Light rail will play an important role in linking stations in Birmingham, the east midlands and Sheffield to the high-speed network. The importance of making conventional rail accessible to pedestrians and cyclists is now recognised across the country; we have seen increasingly that railways stations have been adapted in that respect. It is right to enshrine that objective in the legislation for HS2. It is a real achievement that both cycling and walking will now be acknowledged in the Bill on the same basis as other modes of travel. We need to acknowledge that when people make a journey they regard it as starting when they close their front door. Making that whole journey as seamless as possible—not just the train bit, but how they get to the railway station and how they progress at the end—is vital. We therefore welcome the approach that has been taken.
Amendment 17 is a good example of a Bill being improved through parliamentary scrutiny. Integration between high-speed rail and the conventional rail network will benefit communities far beyond the areas directly served, and we want to make sure that HS2 is fully accessible to everyone, irrespective of their mode of travel. I am happy to commend the amendment to the House.
Mr Sheerman
Given some predictions of the level of fare that might be charged on HS2, many people think it will be exclusively for very well-off business people and that ordinary people will not be able to use it.
Lilian Greenwood
I thank my hon. Friend for that. He is right to say that we cannot afford the new high-speed rail line to become a “rich man’s toy”, as a former Secretary of State put it. Clearly the new network must be available to everyone, and I am sure the Minister will confirm the view that the fares will be no greater than they are on the current network.
Mr Jim Cunningham
Has my hon. Friend taken into consideration the frequency of the trains on the west coast main line and what effects this new project will have on that?
Lilian Greenwood
The whole point of the project is to provide extra capacity, including on the west coast main line. Obviously, the detail of what timetables will be in place needs to be worked out, but we would hope that they will be able to provide additional services to many cities, including my hon. Friend’s city, and we will call for that.
Mr Goodwill
There will certainly be very good news for people in Shrewsbury and Blackpool, where operators are keen to provide services but cannot currently do so because of congestion on the existing network.
Lilian Greenwood
The Minister rightly talks about the capacity constraints we already face on the west coast main line, and it is vital that everyone in the country is consulted on how the additional capacity is used when it is created by the high-speed line.
Mark Pawsey
The hon. Lady has moved on to the question of capacity on the west coast main line. Does she accept that the heavy growth that took place on that line occurred immediately after the upgrade in 2008, and that since that upgrade the rates of increase have slowed tremendously and that, therefore, there could be additional capacity on the existing line? Does she also accept that we can create more capacity by having longer carriages, and by changing the mix between first and second class?
Lilian Greenwood
It is well known that on the west coast main line the additional capacity created by the upgrade is already starting to run out and that the line will be full. Of course we can create additional capacity on a train by converting some carriages from first class to standard class, but that does not create extra space on the line for additional trains. As the Minister acknowledged, places such as Shrewsbury and Blackpool want to have an additional direct service but cannot because the capacity is just not available. I am sure that the hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) would like to have directed his question to the Minister.
Andrew Bridgen
Under freedom of information requests, we have discovered that the average spare capacity on the west coast main line is currently 40% and that demand at peak time actually increased by only 0.9% last year?
Lilian Greenwood
I am not sure why the hon. Gentleman did not address that to the Minister who is responsible for the railway. I feel like I have been given entire responsibility for it, although I would be happy if we swapped places. The point is that the capacity is not available at the times when people want to travel—at peak times—and that there is insufficient capacity for additional services and for freight, which is also vital.
Mrs Gillan
Some people who study this subject and take issue with the Government’s claims about capacity on the west coast main line say that much of that capacity could be improved by allowing Virgin Trains passengers in peak hours to get off at Milton Keynes—that currently does not happen. What is the hon. Lady’s opinion of that? What studies has she made of how that could relieve capacity problems in the future?
Lilian Greenwood
I am sure that many people who want to go to the north would not, for a minute, wish to get off at Milton Keynes. The fact is that there simply is not enough capacity. I am sure that people who live in Milton Keynes are looking forward to the extra capacity created by HS2 and the possibility of additional services, particularly for commuters, that that will free up on the west coast main line.
Let me now deal with the amendments relating to the links to Scotland. Labour has always supported the principle of bringing high-speed rail to Scotland, which is why the previous Labour Government set up HS2 Ltd to examine possible routes to Scotland. HS2 will bring real benefits, enabling faster journey times and adding to capacity on the main line routes to Scotland. We wanted to put those benefits in the Bill in Committee, but we were told by Transport Scotland that the Scottish Government opposed altering the Bill. It was therefore somewhat curious to see the Scottish National party tabling such amendments.
One purpose of the Bill is to provide a legal basis for future extensions of the high-speed network, providing that the economic case can be made for them. With the Government failing to keep the costs under control, we need to focus today on the HS2 network as planned. I would be interested to hear what work the Government are doing on the costs and benefits of extending the line. We have seen reports in the media that the Government are going to launch a feasibility study into extending the line to Scotland. I do not know whether the Minister would like to take this opportunity to intervene to confirm that and explain the timetable for the study.
Mr Goodwill
I always think it is a good idea not to try to run before we can walk; let us get to Birmingham and Manchester first. I am sure that we will be looking at extensions, but they are not at the top of my to-do list at the moment.
Lilian Greenwood
I thank the Minister for his response; clearly the media reports are wrong. It is ironic that the SNP should be proposing to take this line to Scotland, given that the one thing we can guarantee is that the SNP plans for separation would make the possibility of a high-speed line across the UK even less likely.
Mark Lazarowicz
One can excuse the Minister for not having this at the top of his to-do list only because he is new in his job. I have asked similar questions of previous Ministers over the past few months, so may I suggest to my hon. Friend that if it is not at the top of a Minister’s to-do list now, it should be pretty soon and that the Minister should be giving details of this study in the near future?
Lilian Greenwood
My hon. Friend is right. We will continue to press the Minister on the issue in the months ahead.
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Lady has made the same catastrophic mistake as the Minister in thinking that a transport project is the same as a political governance project. If that were true, High Speed 1 could have been construed by the Eurosceptics on the Government Benches as part of some major European integration project, and the high-speed line that is going through the Baltic countries up to Helsinki would be seen as some nation-unification project. It is not; it is a transport project. I encourage the hon. Lady not to make the same daft mistake as the Minister made earlier.
Lilian Greenwood
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we will not be making any of the same mistakes as the Minister.
Finally, I take the opportunity to comment on amendment 23 in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). He has rightly introduced this amendment to advance his constituency and the interests of the people living there, but I am concerned that we would be straying into territory that is covered by the Davies commission. The Labour Front-Bench team share the frustration of those who want to see from the commission an earlier resolution of the issue of airport capacity. It was we who called for those cross-party talks, to which the Government somewhat belatedly agreed. Nevertheless, we are bound into the process and there can be no justification for delaying preparation work on this important project until after the election, when that commission is due to report.
We want to see the new high-speed line built without further delay. The whole country can benefit from the improved capacity and connectivity that it will bring. I am happy to see it fully integrated into the wider network and to support amendment 17.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood). I confirm that I will support amendment 17. As she rightly said, it resulted from an idea put forward by the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman). If we are to have an integrated transport system, it is crucial that we do not link just high speed rail to the conventional lines, but take into account all the other forms of transportation to help people get from A to B.
It is particular pleasure to see the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), in his place and leading on the issue. It is an important issue and I know that he will do well on it, ably supported by officials at both the Department for Transport and High Speed 2.
I support amendment 17 and oppose amendment 18 and the amendments that flow from it. In many ways I have a feeling of déjà vu, because we had copious debates in Committee on the matter, and I never quite understood why so many people got certain parts of their apparel in such knots over the issue. It is clear from clause 1(2) that the Bill applies to
“railway lines connecting at least—
London,
Birmingham,
the East Midlands”
and so on. The whole point of the Bill and the purpose of getting it on to the statute book is to provide financing not of an actual project, but of the preparations for the project ad infinitum, because High Speed 2 need not necessarily stop at Leeds or Manchester. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport made that plain in October last year, when he announced that he was going to set up an inquiry into the feasibility of a third phase to Scotland.
The Bill will allow the expenditure of money for the preparation of not only phases 1 and 2, but potentially phase 3, if there is one, a spur to south Wales, if a business case were made that it was needed, to the south-west or—a possibility closer, I suspect, to the heart of the distinguished Chair of the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman)—all the way into Liverpool. The Bill grants the Government permission to spend the money on those preparations.
The thought that there will not be full and proper consideration of the continuation of the project to Scotland at some point is bizarre. It is an obvious part of a viable rail network along the spine of the country for it to continue in time to Glasgow, Edinburgh and potentially—depending on the wishes of Government and the business case at the time—beyond that. That is what the Bill does.
Mrs Gillan
I am sorry that my right hon. Friend observed members of the Committee getting parts of their apparel in a twist. As I was not a member of the Committee, it obviously was not mine. He has outlined what so many critics beyond this place say of the Bill—that it is a blank cheque. Can he confirm that it is an open-ended financial commitment to spend any sum of money on any part of any preparation for any railway network anywhere in the country—the blank cheque that everybody dreads?
Mr Burns
My right hon. Friend is right—she was not on the Committee. It seemed as though she was, because she was in the Public Gallery the whole time, assiduously following our deliberations. I think I am right in saying, from memory, that we discussed a number of amendments that she tabled for that Committee which were moved by members of the Committee.
My right hon. Friend advances an argument, but repeating it does not mean it becomes more accurate. That argument is that the project has a blank cheque. It does not have a blank cheque. It is not a machine for printing money. There are very tight financial procedures in place to ensure that it does not exceed budget.
Before anyone asks how that can be considered a viable proposition, one should look at Crossrail, the largest engineering project in Europe at present, a multi-billion pound project. Owing to tight financial controls, it is on time and on budget, and I have every confidence that, with the mechanisms that have been put in place, that will be the case with HS2. I see figures quoted about what the project will cost which are from Alice in Wonderland. The cost is £42.6 billion, but that sum includes £14.4 billion of contingency funding, of which the vast majority, I am confident, will not be spent.
Damian Collins
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. Does he agree that there is a myth in this country that we cannot do big projects? Look at the success of Crossrail and the High Speed 1 line and compare that with the west coast main line upgrade, the kind of incremental project that some Members are keen on, which was four years late and 240% over budget.
Mr Burns
My hon. Friend makes an extremely valid point. I was particularly interested to hear his views in the debate because he is a Kent MP. When I first came into the House 26 and a half years ago, in one of the first Adjournment debates I ever sat in and listened to—I confess that I have not listened to many since, except those that I have taken part in—two of my hon. Friends made a vigorous case that, if High Speed 1 went ahead, it would turn the garden of England into the garbage can of England, destroy house prices, ruin the economy of Kent and end the world as we knew it. High Speed 1 went ahead and Kent’s economy has been regenerated and improved. House prices have not gone through the floor; in fact, house prices along the line of route have kept pace with those in other areas. In some cases, they have increased beyond them because of the houses’ proximity to good commuter links. Capacity has increased, particularly for those commuters who are prepared to use High Speed 1 from Canterbury, for example, to London.
The supreme irony is that one town in Kent, Maidstone, successfully lobbied not to have a station—it was put at Ebbsfleet instead—and people are now begging for a station at Maidstone because they are missing out on the regeneration and improvements to the economy that are taking place in Ashford and Ebbsfleet. The other irony—my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) should listen carefully to this, because I know she is a lady with an open mind and strong views—is that Kent county council, along with hon. Members of this House, led the opposition to High Speed 1 in the late ’80s but is now a strong supporter of the high-speed railway because of the benefits it has brought to the community and the county. The leaders and officials of Kent county council have offered to go and talk to the leaders of Buckinghamshire county council, Warwickshire county council and Staffordshire county council to explain that in their experience the railway did not destroy their communities or environment but actually greatly enhanced them. Unfortunately, there is certainly one county council that does not seem to have the wish or the will to hear the facts or the benefits that high-speed rail could bring.
Mr Burns
I will not give way, for the simple reason that many of my hon. Friends and many Opposition Members want to take part in the debate—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) speaks from a sedentary position. I think it is fair to say that we have had many interventions from him today, so perhaps there might be a chance for someone else to have a turn.
The country needs this project because of all the important arguments: the greater connectivity; the fact that it is an engine for growth; the regeneration along the line of route; and, most importantly, the fact that it will deal with the capacity issue. I think that when High Speed 2 was announced in late 2008 and into 2009, little thought was given to its name. Those who took the decisions immediately called it High Speed 2, as they already had High Speed 1. Unfortunately, it is a misnomer that has, in some ways, led us up a cul-de-sac.
Of course, faster journey times are important, but they are not the most important thing. The most important thing is capacity. As I have said before, to echo what Tony Blair said in a different context, it is about capacity, capacity, capacity. The west coast main line will be full by 2024. We need capacity on the conventional railway for those who want to travel between London, Birmingham and Manchester but do not want to go along the whole route, and we need capacity to get even more freight off our congested roads and on to the railways.
Dan Byles
My right hon. Friend and I had many discussions on this issue during his time as a Transport Minister. Yet again, we have come back to the idea that it is about not speed but capacity. Would he therefore support redesigning the line to run at a slower speed so that it could go around places such as Water Orton primary school, ancient monuments and people’s houses?
Mr Burns
I heard my hon. Friend say that in an intervention on another of my colleagues. Let me tell him gently and in a spirit of friendship that, if one takes the line that he is suggesting, it will no longer be a high-speed train. In effect, it will be a parallel conventional rail line like the west coast main line. All the reports on having a conventional new rail line in parallel rather than a high-speed one show that it would cost about 90% of the cost of HS2 but without the benefits that high-speed railways bring.
Mr Burns
No, I will not.
Unfortunately, a project of this scale and size cannot meet the problems and objections of every part of the route while still keeping to the reason for and need behind the railway. It is rotten when one cannot deal with every problem, but we need to balance what is in the national interest against what can be done to minimise the impact. I believe that the Secretary of State for Transport, his Ministers, the Department for Transport and High Speed 2 Ltd have gone a considerable way—as far as they can—towards meeting and overcoming those problems without ruining the concept of high-speed rail and without it being disastrous for the taxpayer.
For those reasons, I am as confident as one can be that High Speed 2 will become High Speed 3 and go to Scotland, and that in years to come it will go to other parts of the United Kingdom as well. That can happen in an orderly way only if this Bill is passed to enable money to be spent on the preparations—not on building the railway, because the Bill does not deal with that. For those reasons, I will support the hon. Member for Nottingham South and my right hon. and hon. Friends on amendment 17; we gave a commitment to the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras that we would do so. I will certainly oppose amendment 18 and those that flow from it, however, because they are superfluous and, as my hon. Friend the Minister said, contradictory.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. A large number of Members wish to participate in the debate. May I ask people to keep their comments a little more clipped so that we can facilitate as many people as possible? I cannot impose a time limit as we are on Report, but Members can watch the clock and appreciate that five to 10 minutes would be a good proxy as regards the length of their speeches.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
I shall try to be brief. I have tabled amendment 23 on the link between the network and Heathrow. Some hon. Members will understand that I have raised the issue on behalf of my constituents, as is my right, in each debate we have had on High Speed 2.
Let me briefly give the context. My background is in supporting rail expansion and investment. I represent a constituency with a railway estate and a large number of railway workers and, in addition, I chair the RMT trade union group in Parliament. We have been strongly behind the development of increased capacity and investment, so when the idea of high-speed rail was first proposed it was welcomed in my constituency for a number of reasons. One was that if we could get railway journeys below four hours, that would take pressure off Heathrow airport and reduce the need for short-haul flights into Heathrow. That assisted in our campaign against the expansion of Heathrow.
When the route was published, every Member south of Birmingham could assess its impact on their constituency, except me, because the link to Heathrow was not included. The route of the link to Old Oak Common was published, but then we were told that there would be a direct link at some stage, the options would be published, there would be a consultation, a preferred option would be considered, compensation arrangements for those affected would be discussed and then this House would make a considered decision.
There are real concerns about the environmental impact where the network hits the north of my borough. The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) and the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) have valiantly argued the case for their constituents and achieved some tunnelling, but a lot more needs to be done. Other facilities that serve the whole borough will be affected, such as the Hillingdon outdoor activities centre, which will need to be relocated.
I am also concerned that my constituents now have no idea what impact the route will have on them because, following the introduction of the Davies commission, the whole timetable and consultation process for the link to Heathrow has been deferred until after the next general election, which means more years of blight for my constituents. That affects all of them, because nine different options for linking to Heathrow are being discussed, which means everyone’s home or business is under threat. That is no way to run a railway or consult on such a massive project. We were promised a logical process with a tight time scale. We were told that as the main network was decided, the routes would be published, there would be consultation on a preferred route, and a decision would be made relatively speedily, which would at least have given us some certainty. That has all gone now.
My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) said that we do not want to put off any decision on high-speed rail until after the Davies commission reports. The solution, then, is simply to ensure that the commission reports earlier. The fact that it is due to report after the next general election is a political fudge to get everybody off the hook. In the coming six weeks the commission will report on a range of options, but there will be no final report until after the general election. Why is that length of time needed? All the experts, and indeed a number of Government Members, have been clear that the deadline could be brought forward so that we can have certainty about the Government’s preferred option before the next general election.
Andrew Bridgen
I have great sympathy for the hon. Gentleman and his constituents facing the blight of uncertainty over possible routes for HS2 and the link to Heathrow. It is the same for my constituents in relation to the route for phase 2, which is out for consultation, and it could be changed, so huge swathes of my constituency and those of fellow Conservative Members are similarly blighted. To paraphrase, we are all in this together.
John McDonnell
I understand that, which is why I said that Members south of Birmingham know roughly what the route will be.
I was given promises and undertakings in this House about the process that would be followed to determine the route of the link to Heathrow. At least we thought we had some certainty on the time scale for the consultations. In fact, I was holding public meetings to go into some detail about the compensation arrangements for whatever option was to be proceeded with. Now it is all up in the air again and the route that the link will take is uncertain. The Government have opened discussions about a potential third runway at Heathrow. Sometimes Members can become paranoid in this House and think that they are coming for them.
John McDonnell
I will not take it too personally.
Frankly, my constituents have had enough of political fudge after political fudge. What they want to know, and they want to know it soon, is where the line will go, how they will be affected, how we can cope with the social, environmental and economic consequences, and how they will be fully compensated.
Steve McCabe
I have great sympathy with my hon. Friend’s predicament, but is not part of the problem that the Government are missing a trick? This uncertainty is allowing opposition to the whole project to develop. Were we to focus on reducing domestic air travel as part of the project’s value by tackling some of the uncertainty, that would help everybody.
John McDonnell
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), who chairs the Transport Committee, has made the point time and again, with regard to the overall matter of strategic planning—with regard to aviation, I think that she and her Committee are absolutely clueless—[Interruption.] She knows that she has my respect and affection. If we are planning for transport infrastructure in the long term, we must ensure that it is integrated. The way to have integration for this project is by ensuring that the timetable set out for HS2 is integrated with the Davies commission’s report, which means having the report sooner. That could be within six months of the initial report being published this month. The decision could then be taken before the next general election. It is also about being more honest with the electorate on rail and aviation, and not only in my constituency, but nationally.
Rehman Chishti
In relation to the hon. Gentleman’s comments on the Transport Committee, in an earlier debate on aviation he said that it keeps coming back with the proposed expansion of Heathrow, which he disagrees with. If it keeps coming back with that in different guises and compositions, clearly that shows that it must be right.
John McDonnell
It shows a consistent aberration of judgment, because time and again Governments eventually say no.
I appeal to the Secretary of State. There is a solution to my constituency problems and those of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip. First, we must address the environmental damage that is still being threatened in the north of my borough. The right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner have a series of requests that could readily be met to overcome some of the environmental and social damage.
Secondly, please give us certainty. That means having the Davies commission’s final report sooner, which could be done early next year, and integrating it with the final decision on the link to Heathrow, giving a properly planned process in which people can have confidence. Otherwise, I will take every opportunity I can to vote against high-speed rail until my constituents are satisfied that their views have been taken into account.
Karen Lumley
I rise to support amendment 17 and will speak extremely briefly. My views on HS2 are fairly widely known, but I want to place on the record that the project is needed now. The west coast main line is nearly full, and as a regular traveller on that service I know that it is essential for many commuters. HS2 is about capacity as well as speed, a fact that is sometimes lost in the argument. I totally understand where those of my colleagues who oppose it are coming from, as there are also strong views in my constituency, but I firmly believe that it is of huge national importance and must go ahead. In my region, the west midlands, we cannot ignore the facts: a £1.5 billion increase in economic output, thousands of additional jobs and increased wages.
Rehman Chishti
As a Kent MP who has benefited from High Speed 1 and over £10 billion of private sector investment coming into the south-east, including Kent and Medway, I think that the economic benefits my hon. Friend is talking about for her area are absolutely vital. People in Kent have seen those benefits, and people in the north should not be deprived of them. I fully support her in that respect.
Karen Lumley
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention.
As Members have heard already today, I am a big champion of Birmingham international airport. To be able to access it from Euston in just 38 minutes will make a huge difference to the people of north London. It will mean a choice between either Birmingham or Gatwick and Heathrow—I know which airport I would choose. Those Members who have travelled from Birmingham international airport know how excellent it is, and those who have not should try it, because they will not regret it.
HS2 is also about rebalancing our economy. We talk about that a lot, but this is proof that we are serious about getting on with it. I know that we will hear many arguments for and against HS2 today, but I am sure that they were heard when the House debated HS1. This is something that the country needs, so we should all be brave and stand up for the national interest. We owe it to our constituents and to our country. I hope that colleagues will join me in the Lobby tonight to vote for something north of Watford.
Mr MacNeil
I wish to speak to amendment 28 tabled in my name on behalf of my party.
The Scottish National party and the Scottish Government have been supportive of HS2 in principle. Of course, that is conditional on it being properly managed and, most importantly, it coming to Scotland, so that Scotland, which pays more tax per capita than the UK average, can benefit from it. We also look to help the rest of the UK. As I mentioned earlier, the line that links Seville to Madrid, which it was envisaged would help Seville alone, benefited both ends, as, on reflection, it should have done. We want this link because it would link us into the wider European high-speed rail project that will be found in many places in Europe. Scotland, as an economic powerhouse, deserves to be part of that, not just for Scotland but for the rest of Europe, which deserves to have Scotland linked with it. This will be happening in 25 or 30 years, by which time quite a few of us will not be in this Chamber, if on this earth; we are leaving a legacy for the future.
I am glad to hear that Baroness Kramer will be coming to Scotland tomorrow as part of seeing what benefits can be brought not just to Scotland but to the wider UK and wider Europe through increased links to the central belt of Scotland, which is an important market.
Robert Flello
The hon. Gentleman talks about the wider benefits to the UK. At the moment, my constituents have a service that gets them into Euston in one hour and 23 minutes. If HS2 goes ahead, the 30 trains a day we have now will be reduced to three and there will be an extra hour’s journey time to pick up the HS2 link, so my constituents will go from taking one hour and 23 minutes to get to London to taking two and a half hours. How is that an improvement for the rest of the country?
Mr MacNeil
The hon. Gentleman represents his constituents very well. He will of course forgive me if I am not au fait with the train timetable to Stoke-on-Trent. It has sadly been an oversight on my part not to visit Stoke-on-Trent.
Mr MacNeil
I am glad to hear from a Labour MP that I will be welcome. I will happily make a speech on the benefits of Scottish independence not just to Scotland but to other European countries and to the denizens of Stoke-on-Trent.
Mr MacNeil
It is great to hear that. The point for Stoke-on-Trent is probably to liaise better with the rail authorities and the authorities here to make sure that it is represented and gets a better deal. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman, as an assiduous MP—probably the finest Stoke-on-Trent has had—will indeed be doing that. I am sure that will now be very welcome in Stoke-on-Trent.
It is in Scotland’s interests to have the high-speed rail link. It is also in Scotland’s interests to make sure that the north of England is well connected, because we want to make sure that when we are independent we have on our borders a prosperous region of Europe. The north of England becoming a prosperous region of Europe is therefore exactly what Scotland wants. When Scotland is independent it will do everything it can to facilitate and help that.
Mr MacNeil
I give way to the hon. Gentleman, who is, let us say, a bit blinkered when it comes to Scottish independence.
Mr Reid
Of course I agree that it is important that the high-speed rail link is extended north to Glasgow and Edinburgh. The hon. Gentleman said that he was speaking to the amendment on behalf of his party. Let me draw his attention to the Scottish Government’s evidence to the Public Bill Committee. Question 174 was answered by a representative from Transport Scotland as follows:
“The view of the Scottish Government is that we are content with the Bill as it stands.”––[Official Report, High Speed Rail (Preparation) Public Bill Committee, 11 July 2013; c. 100, Q174.]
The hon. Gentleman’s party runs the Scottish Government, so if it is content with the Bill, why is he speaking to an amendment on its behalf?
Mr MacNeil
As the hon. Gentleman knows, thinking is always evolving. When a person is content, they can become happier as a result of improvements. The Liberal Democrats started from a position of being opposed to student tuition fees and seemed to be content with that, but the position evolved so that they wanted £9,000 tuition fees for students, and they seemed happier still. He will probably understand that I think that our evolution towards happiness is perhaps a bit more understanding of the needs of citizens, whereas the evolution of the Liberal Democrats’ thinking leaves many people in debt, unfortunately.
We want Scotland to be linked to a high-speed European network. The mistake made earlier, originally by the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), was to think that this is some sort of political project. It is not. There are high-speed rail links all over the place. They go to Helsinki through the Baltic states, and there is no movement for political unity between those states. They fiercely retain their independence while supporting and helping each other to get rail links, including high-speed links, through their countries to move into the main European markets. That is a natural and understandable thing to do. Many states in Europe are independent and co-operating together. In fact, Europe has not been as together as it is now, with its 50 independent states, since the empires declined.
Mrs Gillan
I am grateful to the Member for the former Western Isles constituency for giving way. I declare an interest because my father was a Scot. Does he think that if Scotland becomes independent the UK Government will be in a hurry to create the link through to the Scottish cities or will they take rather longer?
Mr MacNeil
I think that money talks far more than narrow political ideals as they are expressed at the moment. Absolutely yes: the Government will understand full well that it makes sense for the central belt of Scotland, one of 40 global mega-regions, to be linked to other mega-regions, and the political machinations or whatever political understanding the right hon. Lady has in her mind will vanish. The former BBC correspondent Stephanie Flanders put it very well when she said that people will play up the difficulties pre-independence but will play them down afterwards and work well and co-operate, as in the Baltic states and in Finland.
Mr MacNeil
I am afraid that that is the truth, and I am sure that the right hon. Lady knows it in her heart of hearts.
To achieve this link going into Scotland, we have to accept that it will go through England first. I hope to see the benefits in the north of England that Kent has seen. It is only right that our fellow Europeans, wherever they are, see their economies grow and prosper.
We are concerned about the KPMG report that arose from a freedom of information request. The report showed that part of Scotland could lose economically, but on further examination that proved to be only one part of the picture. It was the worst-case scenario, and the best-case scenario showed benefits. Rather than Scotland losing out, it was shown that HS2 would bring gains of £40 million-odd a year to Aberdeenshire and Morayshire.
Andrew Bridgen
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm that if Scotland is mentioned in the Bill, that will satisfy Scotland and it will not seek Barnettisation of this project, which would put the cost up even further?
Mr MacNeil
I am glad to hear Conservative Members speak against privatisation. That is very encouraging. Perhaps they should have thought about that with regard to Royal Mail, when they transferred loads of people’s money from the taxpayer to private pockets. [Interruption.] I think I misheard the hon. Gentleman and he said “Barnettisation”. It is the accent—I am sorry. If he is indeed talking about Barnettisation, I will come to that point. If he is patient, as I am sure he will be, he will get an understanding of exactly what our viewpoint is.
It is important that HS2 happens and that we work within Scotland to make sure that we have connectivity and can benefit by linking into the network. The Scottish Government do not agree with the assumptions that have been made by KPMG and the Department for Transport. We feel that there is an error in some of the modelling and that some of the assumptions are out of date. We are more pleased with what came out of the Department yesterday, which said:
“Scotland will benefit from high speed services from Edinburgh and Glasgow as soon as Phase One of HS2 opens. Phase Two is expected to reduce journey times by up to an hour without the need to change trains, benefiting the Scottish economy. The Government’s goal is for a network that brings the country closer together, so we are taking forward a study with the Scottish Government to consider how these benefits could be extended further. This is looking at how to boost capacity and cut journey times between Glasgow/Edinburgh and London to less than three hours”.
That journey time offers further access to an inter-European market, which is vital for Scotland.
I hope there will be Barnett consequentials, which are important, so that Scotland can prepare for the benefits of the extension of European high-speed rail. We could consider a link north of Edinburgh up towards Aberdeen. I often remark that the rail journey between Glasgow and Fort William takes about three hours, but the distance is only 100 miles. The average speed is 33 mph, so perhaps medium-speed rail would improve journey times.
The benefits of HS2 will be strong, but they will be stronger still when Scotland is included, as the example of Seville and Madrid shows. We shall work for assurances from the UK Government that they will consider a sensible extension that will benefit not just Scotland, but the south-east of England and the European markets. This is in everybody’s economic interest, as shown by the Baltic line running from Helsinki to the European markets.
High-speed rail will benefit everybody. As the hon. Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) flippantly said earlier, the counter-arguments suggest that, if connectivity is such a bad idea, closing the M6 would result in a boom in the north. Of course, that is nonsense. As Adam Smith said in “The Wealth of Nations”, the more markets and economies are linked, the better for all. There will be mutual benefits and we will all win.
Mike Thornton (Eastleigh) (LD)
I will maintain my habit of being brief.
The Liberal Democrats have long supported a fully integrated transport system, and thus we welcome amendment 17. We also believe that the only way to achieve that is by building a modern, 21st-century railway system, not by merely tweaking a bit of this and a bit of that, extending a platform here and adding a coach there.
The west coast main line will run out of space in the next 10 to 12 years. One option would be to improve the line by extending it, but that would subject passengers to 14 years of weekend bus journeys and chaos, and even when completed it would be completely insufficient.
Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)
My hon. Friend will probably be aware that we have already gone through the tortuous process of upgrading the west coast main line. It made a significant difference, but, despite billions of pounds having been spent, it is already full.
Mike Thornton
I agree with my hon. Friend and I think that extending the line would lead to exactly the same result.
I hope that the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) is sure, like me, that northern local government leaders have the best interests of all their residents at heart. I am puzzled that opponents of the scheme seem to think that a high-speed, modern railway system that is fit for the 21st century and that would increase economic activity throughout the whole of the United Kingdom would not benefit the country as a whole, but only those cities directly served by it. Surely it is clear that a line that would improve north-south links—I include Scotland in that—would at the same time improve and grow the economy of the whole of the United Kingdom, including my constituency of Eastleigh.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the evidence the Public Accounts Committee reviewed when we looked at High Speed 1, particularly on the received wisdom of its effect on regional economic regeneration? It showed that, notwithstanding that some places in Kent did improve, particularly Ashford, there were substantial pockets of poverty in places such as Dover, Folkestone and Thanet, which were not specifically affected by the regeneration effects of High Speed 1.
Mike Thornton
I am sure that building a railway line will not solve every economic problem in every part of the county. I happen to know that the improved economy of Kent also improved the economy of Sussex and its effect also reached all the way to Hampshire.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
It pains me to disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), whom I deeply respect, but the economic benefits to Dover and to Deal in my constituency have been immense. It has been transformational and made a massive difference to the whole of east Kent. I urge Members of all parties to back HS2.
Damian Collins
Following on from my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke), I have to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) is totally wrong. I would be happy to take him to Folkestone and show him the areas of the town that are benefiting from the better connection. Yes, there were areas of deprivation in east Kent, but the way to do something about that was better infrastructure and that is what we now have.
Stephen Barclay
I thank the hon. Gentleman for the generous spirit in which he is taking interventions. To support my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson), I point out to colleagues who take issue with his intervention that paragraph 15 of the National Audit Office report on HS1 concluded that
“the project is not value for money.”
Key finding 6 states that although passenger numbers grew, they were below expectations and estimates were inflated.
Robert Flello
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his generosity. Is he able to answer the question I asked the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) from the SNP? How will the people of Stoke-on-Trent benefit from a worsened service? They will have to spend an hour travelling to hook up to a line that will only be as good as the current one, and they will have to go from using 30 trains to three. How is that an improvement?
Mike Thornton
I am afraid it is beyond my capacity to decide what trains the relevant train company will run, but I doubt we can predict exactly what the train times will be in 10, 15, 20 or 30 years’ time.
Members will be glad to hear that I have nearly finished. The Liberal Democrats know that a modern, high-speed, national rail network is vital to the future of this country. Consequently, I fully support the Bill and amendment 17.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
I rise to support amendment 17 and I will support the Bill later, too.
I want to pick up on one particular point that the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) made at the beginning of the debate and with which I agree, namely the connectivity problem with HS2, particularly the lack of a proper link to High Speed 1. That is a serious problem and it needs to be addressed. I recognise that there has been some improvement in the view of how the two high-speed lines should be connected, but the current proposal—this is extraordinary—is for a single track, shared connection and a capacity of only three trains per hour going rather slowly.
The argument is that that is sufficient capacity for the international services likely to be coming to High Speed 2 from the channel tunnel. That may be correct, at least in the early years: three an hour may be enough. However, with that constraint in place, it would be impossible to run regular domestic services from High Speed 2 to High Speed 1, even though we need those regular connections. Research commissioned by my local authority, the London borough of Newham, suggests that there could be demand for seven trains per hour on the interconnection between HS2 and HS1 to meet the needs of domestic services.
I have found this discussion interesting. I agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) about the regeneration benefits of HS1, and they are largely due to domestic services. I think, therefore, that the new high-speed line has to be built with sufficient capacity for the domestic services we will need. We certainly want HS2 to connect to Kent, East Anglia and other destinations, and we need proper interconnection between the two high-speed lines in order to facilitate that.
Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
I am aware of the right hon. Gentleman’s interest in regeneration. Does he agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) that the Bill does not put a cap on the amount that will be spent? The figures that are quoted go from £14 billion upwards. I am sure he agrees that there are other infrastructure priorities in our constituencies, such as housing, and that there are areas in desperate need of regeneration. Does he not think that supporting this project will deprive those other valuable projects of finance?
Stephen Timms
I think that investment in this project will contribute to national wealth. My concern, however, is that it should be adequately designed and planned. To have a single track connecting High Speed 2 and High Speed 1, with a capacity of three trains an hour, is a mistake.
Stephen Timms
I will make one more point before I give way to my right hon. Friend because it relates to the concerns that he has raised.
If there were a proper link between High Speed 1 and High Speed 2, some of the trains coming towards London on High Speed 2 would not have to terminate at Euston. Some could run on to High Speed 1, some could terminate at Stratford International station, in which I have a particular interest, and some could run further along High Speed 1. As a result, significantly fewer platforms would be required at Euston than are proposed and there would be a reduction in the big problems in my right hon. Friend’s constituency, to which he has rightly drawn attention.
Frank Dobson
I am sure my right hon. Friend is right that the proposal to have a tunnel from Old Oak Common to Primrose Hill and to run the rest of the connection above ground across Camden Town will not provide an adequate service. It will certainly wreak destruction in Camden Town, which the people behind the project denied until recently. As an indication of their general incompetence, when the cost of that proposal went up from £170 million to £300 million, they said that it was because of unforeseen circumstances, including the need to widen the line.
Stephen Timms
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend. I am aware that the proposal for that interconnection is now rather more costly that it was initially. However, as far as I can see, the problem has not been solved. There is still a limit of three trains per hour, which is clearly insufficient. I warmly welcome amendment 17.
Mrs Spelman
Just to help the right hon. Gentleman on the question of whether the expenditure on High Speed 2 will come at the cost of investment in existing infrastructure, which might provide the kind of connection that he is seeking, “The Strategic Case for HS2”, which was published yesterday, states:
“Between 2014 and 2019, Network Rail will spend over £35bn allowing it to continue a substantial programme of expansion and renewal.”
That might allow him to seek the kind of amelioration that he wants.
Stephen Timms
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. However, I believe that an adequate connection should be part of the initial proposal.
Stephen Timms
No, I will not give way again.
I welcome amendment 17 and the Government’s support for it. I have raised this matter with Ministers before, but I ask the new Minister for the first time to pay particular attention to the connectivity problem between High Speed 1 and High Speed 2, which was highlighted by the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham.
Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), to the Front Bench. It is a pleasure to see him there.
Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, at least from this side of the Chamber—I must say what a great view one gets from the back of the stands—I am happy to speak in support of amendment 17.
I know that the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has had to go to Westminster Hall to check up on GCHQ, but, to use words that he would understand, I give him my fraternal solidarity and will support amendment 23. I know that it is rather impractical, but that does not always stop us supporting an amendment. The issues with Heathrow, which affect his constituents badly, also affect mine.
As the Heathrow loop is in the second phase of the project, we cannot have a decision on it. The Minister said that connectivity with Heathrow will be amply secured through Old Oak Common, so regardless of any decision on the expansion of Heathrow, which I hope will not happen, perhaps we can save a bit of money and scrap the Heathrow loop straight away. That would bring great benefits to the London borough of Hillingdon where we stand as one, although not to my constituency specifically because there will be tunnelling there. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd) and I face some severe problems. It would help immeasurably if there was no Heathrow loop, because the tunnelling could be extended past the houses in Ickenham. There is understandably a considerable amount of opposition to HS2 emerging just next to those properties.
I will not take long, because I want to get on to the proposals on compensation and mitigation. Perhaps I am being rather optimistic. It is a very important subject. I would like to have had the chance to mention the awful position of the Hillingdon outdoor activities centre. I want that to be looked at. My hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner has written to the Minister about various matters and I back him up entirely.
Unlike the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington, who will oppose the Bill tonight, I will support it in the hope and expectation that our gentle requests will be looked on more favourably if I am not too much of a pain during this early outing on this matter. However, I say to my right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench that after this rare outbreak of good-natured bonhomie, I will be going back to the default position of grumpy old man of Uxbridge.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
It behoves all of us who are sceptical about HS2 to suggest practical and realistic alternatives.
Some people say that the project is about capacity, not speed, and others say that it is about speed, not capacity, but most of the emphasis has been on capacity. The capacity problem is between London and Birmingham, not elsewhere in the country, where we could have more trains without any difficulty. It is that section of our railway network that I will address.
There is an alternative route from Birmingham Snow Hill to Paddington. The trains currently run to Marylebone, but they could easily run to Paddington, which would be quicker and would link up with Crossrail. InterCity 125s could run on that line from the centre of Birmingham to Paddington—a very convenient station—at very little expense. That would solve the capacity problem between London and Birmingham.
I will go further and say that that route should be electrified, which could be done at a modest cost. If it was electrified, electric trains could run directly from Birmingham Snow Hill—and, indeed, from Birmingham airport and elsewhere—into the City of London, Canary Wharf and beyond via a link to Crossrail at Old Oak Common.
Nadine Dorries
My constituency neighbour is a renowned expert on the railways. Would his proposal cost less than HS2? Does he have a figure for it?
Kelvin Hopkins
My railway expert friends tell me that the electrification of that line would cost about £500 million and that the track work that would be required at Old Oak Common to link it to Crossrail would cost about £10 million. We are talking about tiny amounts of money in comparison with HS2.
There could also be a direct link to Heathrow for the electric trains, which would go off at Greenford and on to the Great Western main line. That would link to Heathrow at one end and to Crossrail at the other. Trains would be able to go from Heathrow to Birmingham airport or the centre of Birmingham, as well as from Canary Wharf to the centre of Birmingham. That would double the capacity between London and Birmingham very easily. The line could even go on to Stratford and there could be a transfer—although perhaps not an easy one—to the channel tunnel rail link and to Eurostar. That would solve the only real capacity problem, because the others involve train frequencies. My railway engineer and signalling friends say it is easy to run more trains, but the problem is that franchisees of privatised railways like crowded trains. It is more profitable to run crowded trains than half-empty trains, so if as many people as possible are crammed on to fewer trains, more profit is made.
James Morris
The hon. Gentleman talks about capacity between London and Birmingham, but HS2 addresses capacity around Birmingham. Commuter traffic has increased by about 20% in and around Birmingham—a capacity issue that HS2 will address. It is not just about capacity between London and Birmingham.
Kelvin Hopkins
I would like to explore the hon. Gentleman’s argument further. I would have thought that was a local transport matter and that we need more investment in local transport, not HS2.
James Morris
The development of HS2 will free up capacity on the west coast main line and on the radial routes serving Birmingham. That is an important benefit of increasing capacity with HS2.
Kelvin Hopkins
I am convinced that elsewhere on the network train frequencies and train paths are the problem. We have far too few trains on the existing network, and we could run many more trains much more quickly. The only real tight capacity is between London and Birmingham. Beyond that it is not difficult.
I do not want to speak for too long, but I want to mention other routes. In 1990, British Rail ran a test train from London to Edinburgh on the east coast main line. They cleared the line of everything else, ran the train straight through with a two-minute stop at Newcastle, and did the journey in three and a half hours—two minutes faster than the original time proposed for HS2.
Mark Lazarowicz
Is not the answer to my hon. Friend’s objection the fact that, as he said, they cleared the line of everything else? The point is that we cannot just clear the line of everything else.
Kelvin Hopkins
Perhaps my hon. Friend will allow me to continue. Clearing the lines is obviously not possible all the time, but upgrading the line so that we can have through trains is not difficult. [Hon. Members: “It is!”] I have specifics. We need to double the viaduct north of Welwyn, and four-track the line between Huntingdon and Peterborough. We need flyovers at Peterborough and Newark, and we could then have non-stop trains straight through to Edinburgh if we wished. The train would have to slow down at Newcastle and York, but by and large the journey could be done in three and a half hours maximum. That is the east coast main line.
As we know, the midlands main line is going to be electrified, and we also want it to improve. With some track remodelling at Leicester and Derby we could make the trains run faster there. We need to straighten out the line at Market Harborough and restore the straighter line that used to exist, and we must take freight traffic off those three lines. That is the key to more train paths, because if we can take all the freight off those lines, we will not have a problem. To do that, however, we need an alternative. We have such an alternative: a GB freight route, which I have been promoting for some years with colleagues from the railway industry. We have a detailed scheme, carefully worked out and costed, to build a dedicated freight line from the channel tunnel to Glasgow, linking all the main conurbations of Britain, and capable of taking lorries on trains. We need to take freight off the road—and off the main lines, of course, but 80% of freight travels by lorry, not by container or other means. To get lorries on trains is crucial to modal shift, and to do that we need a gauge capacity that is capable of taking lorries on trains.
Nadine Dorries
The hon. Gentleman is incredibly generous in giving way a second time. Will he say why he feels that his proposal—which, knowing his interest in this subject over many years, I have no doubt is well thought out and accurate—has not been considered? Why is HS2 on the drawing board if the hon. Gentleman’s proposal is less invasive and more cost effective?
Kelvin Hopkins
I thank the hon. Lady—my close neighbour—for her question. We took a team of 15 people, including rail constructers, and representatives from Eurotunnel and the supermarkets, to meet Geoff Hoon when he was Secretary of State for Transport. It was clear they were worried that our scheme might conflict with HS2, not because it would take up the same track, but because it might remove freight from the railway lines and make the case for HS2 weaker. We argued that HS2 could go ahead if it was thought essential, but that a GB freight route is much more vital to Britain’s economy than HS2 has ever been. What is the total cost of the scheme? A generous figure, based on outturn costs for HS1, would, we think, be less than £6 billion—a tiny fraction of HS2.
Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)
The hon. Gentleman has mentioned various lines, links between the west coast and east coast main lines and so on, but he has not mentioned the Trent Valley spur on the west coast main line, on which Nuneaton station in my constituency sits. That is an extremely important junction, and the hon. Gentleman’s proposals will not do anything to help capacity there or improve fast services from Nuneaton, which HS2 would do.
Kelvin Hopkins
I think I mentioned that on other lines there is no problem with capacity, provided we are prepared to increase train frequencies. We do not do that, however, because it is not profitable to do so while private franchisees can make more profit by running fewer trains with more people on them—very simple. The rest of the railway network clearly needs heavy investment, and Network Rail is undertaking a lot of that. This specific scheme would solve many problems and be a fraction of the cost of HS2. Indeed, upgrading the other lines I have suggested would solve almost all the capacity problems that we are now facing.
I am a passionate believer in railways, but if we are serious about them we must invest in dedicated rail-freight capacity, as I have suggested. At the moment the continent of Europe is building large rail-freight capacity right across the continent; indeed, trains can go from China to Europe even now. We will miss out on that if we cannot transport lorries on trains. We must be able to put lorry trailers on trains, or we will not see a shift from road to rail and the rest of Europe will leave us behind. For the sake of our economy, we must invest heavily in dedicated rail freight that is capable of taking lorries on trains.
Eric Ollerenshaw
It is a pleasure to be called in this debate and to follow the hon. Member for Luton North (Kelvin Hopkins) who has obviously thought the issue through. Some of his proposals are quite interesting, but the fact of the matter is that the success of privatisation and competition means that we will need the capacity—we might need the hon. Gentleman’s suggestions on top of HS2.
I will support amendment 17, and I thank Ministers for finally including the Y route in the Bill. Two years ago when this scheme was first suggested, there was a great debate between Ministers and civil servants about whether we should build a line just to Birmingham, and a separate one to Manchester and Leeds. I am really grateful to Ministers that the Bill includes London to Birmingham, East Midlands, Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester. I would of course suggest that the left side of the Y could be built faster and quicker, and would be far better, and I agree with the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms) that we need to look seriously at the connection. International business men and foreign tourists will want to get on trains in Europe, bypass London and go straight beyond Manchester on to the spur to get to central, rural Lancashire and see the delights available. The sooner we can get that done, the better.
Mrs Gillan
If HS2 is going to be built, will my hon. Friend support my suggestion that it is started in the north? That would enable the Howard Davies commission to report, we could look at airport capacity in the south, and my hon. Friend would get his wish much quicker because connectivity among northern cities could be established.
Eric Ollerenshaw
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I always thought that was my suggestion, but never mind. I do not know how the engineering will be done—I assume it will start in many different points and I agree with my right hon. Friend. One of my earliest interventions in a debate on this issue—two years ago, I think—was to suggest that we start construction now in Glasgow and Edinburgh, while the southern counties make up their minds which back garden HS2 is going to go through.
Mr Brian Binley (Northampton South) (Con)
Is not the fact of the matter that the real bottleneck is Birmingham? If we follow the suggestion that we start the project from the north, Birmingham will become an absolute nonsense in terms of railway transport.
Eric Ollerenshaw
I thank my right hon. Friend for bringing us back to reality—[Interruption.] Sorry, he is my hon. Friend, soon to be right hon. Friend.
We must be serious on capacity. I and fellow Lancashire Members have been fighting for some time for a direct train service from London Euston to Blackpool. We had the agreement of Virgin, and a cross-party group was involved, including me, my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and the hon. Member for Blackpool South (Mr Marsden). We thought we were there, but only a month ago, Network Rail said, “We cannot put on two direct trains per day from Euston to Blackpool because the line cannot cope.”
Mr Straw
I confirm what the hon. Gentleman says, although I would much prefer all trains to turn right at Preston to go to Blackburn. The truth is we all have an interest in the prosperity of Lancashire as a whole. I would like the line to start from the north, but all the economic arguments say that it should start from the south. Does he accept that the benefit of the reduction in journey time to Preston is one of the best in the plans for the area? The journey time is improved by 44 minutes—it is cut to an hour and a half—which will have a dramatic impact not only on Preston and central Lancashire, but on the whole county.
Eric Ollerenshaw
Lancaster is not on the line yet—it might be eventually, and I might stand here in future asking for a stop there—but we will reap the benefit, as the right hon. Gentleman says. The spur line that will be built means that high-speed trains will enter the normal west coast main line just above Wigan. We will enjoy the benefits of that service, which will be fantastic for the economy of our area.
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), the previous Minister. I congratulate him on his incredible speech and I am grateful for the support he has provided all the way through the process to get the Bill right.
Another issue is the north-south balance. People in some areas of the north ask why we are spending that money. I am grateful for what appears to be an outbreak of political consensus. Some Government Members and some northern Members were worried that the consensus would break down, but from what right hon. and hon. Opposition Members have said today, it looks like the consensus is restored, for which I am grateful.
Charlie Elphicke
I, too, am pleased to hear of consensus. Does my hon. Friend share my concern at the comments of the shadow Chancellor, who says that the money would be better spent on roads, cross-country rail, affordable houses, hospitals and schools rather on important and essential infrastructure for our children and grandchildren?
Eric Ollerenshaw
I am tempted to go down that line, but, given the outbreak of consensus, I will stick with that. To be fair, northern MPs of every party have sat on the all-party parliamentary group on rail in the north, and fought together to get the northern hub from the Government—an £800 million completed deal. They have fought together for electrification of the connection between Liverpool, Manchester and Sheffield. Southern and London MPs should realise that, on the current system, I can get to London quicker than I can get to Birmingham, Sheffield or Leeds. That must be ridiculous in the 21st century. The Bill is part and parcel of such connectivity.
Mr Betts
I reassure the hon. Gentleman that, in parts of the north such as Sheffield, the consensus has never broken. We have always been firmly in favour in principle. The city’s MPs, the city council—unanimously —and the chamber of commerce, and the local enterprise partnership support high-speed rail as a matter of principle.
Eric Ollerenshaw
I would assume nothing less, having worked with the hon. Gentleman and fellow northern MPs to get that extra investment. To be fair, the Government have delivered in the non-high speed section across the piece. In my small patch, they have agreed to electrification from Blackpool to Preston. Only a few months ago, nearly £1 million was spent on Lancaster station to enable trains to turn round. All those improvements are happening as I speak. They are all part of the connectivity in the Bill, which provides preparatory expenditure for the
“network referred to in subsection (1)”
and expenditure on the network that
“connects with the existing railway transport network.”
For me, and for parts of the north where the high-speed rail will not reach, that is the key to our support for the Bill.
I am grateful for the cross-party support, but some hon. Members rightly have concerns in their constituencies. I ask them to look at the proposals in the context of the north-south situation. Currently, it seems to my constituents that, when London demands something, things suddenly happen. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, but Crossrail cost £16 billion, and nearly £6 billion has been spent on Thameslink—we will take its second-class trains, which will apparently be marvellous for us.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
If only it were so easy for London! It has taken 14 years to get investment on the Liverpool street east coast line. I am very grateful to Ministers for it, but it was not provided instantly.
Eric Ollerenshaw
That could be a benefit of having a Conservative London Mayor. From my perspective in Lancashire, I see that the Olympics cost £9 billion; there are continual tube upgrades; I do not know how much is spent on subsidising bus fares in London; HS1 into London cost £6 billion; we are immediately talking about Crossrail 2. I am not complaining—they are all marvellous things.
Mr MacNeil
I am enjoying the hon. Gentleman’s broadcast on behalf of the Lancashire national party. Perhaps there will be a letter to Scotland asking to come and join us. Do not the spend on high-speed rail and the debate it generates pale into insignificance compared with the money we spend in the blink of an eye on nuclear weapons? At the very least, the spend on high-speed rail will leave something tangible in the country. That cannot be said of some of our spending.
Eric Ollerenshaw
I assumed we were already joined to Scotland. That could be an exaggeration—[Laughter.] For some of my constituents, it is not an exaggeration.
For coalition Members, one key thing was to rebalance the economy of this country. For me, high-speed rail is a key part of that. I am grateful for Ministers’ work in getting us this far on the Y shape. I wish we were already into a third high-speed rail or whatever, but High Speed 2 is fundamental to our commitment to deliver a rebalanced economy between the regions and London. I will support the Bill tonight.
Mark Lazarowicz
A number of amendments in the group deal with the extension of HS2 to Scotland. Unsurprisingly, I shall concentrate my remarks on the case for the building of HS2 and the benefits it will bring to Scotland and my city of Edinburgh.
It is patently clear that the improvement to the railway system that HS2 will deliver will benefit Scotland. At the moment, we suffer from capacity problems further south on the rail network. Unless something is done to deal with them, as rail demand increases, journey times and railway services to Scotland will be affected. We will obviously benefit from the reduction of 45 minutes that will be brought about by HS2, and I hope that further reductions will be achieved in the fullness of time.
We will also benefit from the way in which HS2 will help to rebalance the economy towards the north of Britain. The development of HS2 will lead to a reduction in the pressure for growth in domestic air travel, which will have other advantages. Extending high-speed rail to the points proposed by HS2 and beyond will also improve the business case for high-speed. All the evidence suggests that the business case for the improvements further south will be strengthened by extending HS2 to the points currently provided for and beyond to Scotland as well.
Andrew Bridgen
The hon. Gentleman is obviously very keen on HS2, but can he explain why Lord Prescott has called the project “the great northern con”?
Mark Lazarowicz
I did not hear those comments. Front Benchers will put forward the Labour position on the matter, and I am pleased that this high-speed rail project was started under the Labour Government of which Lord Prescott was a member.
The case for HS2 is overwhelming, and that is why we have seen a wide degree of political consensus across the parties in Scotland and certainly in my city. It is a project that has the support of the business community, the local authority and practically all political parties in Edinburgh.
Mark Lazarowicz
Interestingly, in Scotland, it is not only those communities and councils that would directly benefit from the high-speed line that are in favour. Communities further north recognise that, although they might not get a direct benefit, it would still be beneficial overall to the Scottish economy. That is the kind of constructive approach that other communities not directly served by the line should note and use as the basis for their approach to the development of HS2.
One of my concerns was the possible temptation to extend the line as far as Birmingham and never any further north. I therefore welcome the commitment in the Bill to go further north in England and the possibility that the line will go even further than outlined in the HS2 documents. I will look for any commitment for high-speed rail to go beyond the current terminus points for HS2. I would also ask why we have to accept a 20-year programme for high-speed rail to go from London to York and somewhere near Wigan when other countries seem to manage to do it much faster than we do. I hope that that issue can be addressed in the preparations for the scheme over the next few months and years.
Mr Goodwill
I can confirm that our new Minister, Baroness Kramer, will be in Scotland tomorrow and we will no doubt hear more on that subject then.
Mark Lazarowicz
I am grateful for that update, which has been circulating over the last hour or so as the information has reached the public domain. I presume that Baroness Kramer will not announce that high-speed is coming to Scotland, but I am looking forward to some positive announcements tomorrow. There is an opportunity here for the Scottish Government—of whatever colour, as we are obviously talking about a long-term process—to work with the UK Government. It is recognised that it will be possible to do some work on high-speed rail in Scotland, perhaps to link Edinburgh and Glasgow but also to provide the basis for a route further south. Although we cannot immediately have a high-speed route all the way from Edinburgh and Glasgow to London, other sections of high-speed rail would certainly benefit the Scottish economy. Just as the business case for high-speed rail further south is strengthened by bringing into it business from Scotland, any high-speed rail in Scotland that would bring passengers into the GB-wide high-speed system would be beneficial for the rest of the country.
I understand why those communities that will not be served directly by the line, especially those that currently have a good rail service, will be concerned that they could lose out as a result of HS2 being constructed. The answer for those communities is to engage as actively as they can with central Government and neighbouring local authorities to try to ensure that they put the case to get the best benefits. It is also important that connectivity is examined, the point of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friends on the Opposition Front Bench.
It is important for the Government, and for Front Benchers of all colours, to use the opportunity of developing HS2 to rebuild the vision for rail in the country as a whole. HS2 is not just a question of trains running on the high-speed line and then going no further; they can serve other destinations in the way they will serve Edinburgh and Glasgow. On the continent, high-speed trains do not just run on high-speed lines; they serve other communities too. That is something we should aim for in Britain.
The case for high-speed developments beyond HS2 is powerful. I understand why a Government would not want to start putting down lines on a map to other parts of Britain, because that would set off scare stories about costs, but the points made by the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) on possible development should not be lost or forgotten—the lines to Scotland and routes to the north-east of England in particular. There are clear capacity problems between Yorkshire and the north-east of England and they will need to be on the agenda at some stage.
I started my comments by referring to the amendments on Scotland. The amendments tabled by the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan) and the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil) are superfluous. The Scottish Government have accepted the Bill in its current form. The Scottish Parliament has passed the relevant Sewel motion endorsing the proposals in the Bill. I do not always agree with the current Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament, but on this occasion if it is good enough for them, it should be good enough for this House. I will not support the amendments, as they do not take the debate any further. We have good proposals that have achieved broad consensus across the House. I hope we can continue to proceed in that fashion.
Stephen Barclay
I shall speak to amendment 17 and, in particular, to the costs associated with connectivity.
On Sunday, it was my daughter’s third birthday. As the list of presents she was hoping to receive grew ever longer, I had to remind her that we did not have a magic money tree in the garden. Her response, quick as a flash, was to say, “Why don’t you plant one?” When we look at amendment 17 and consider the remarks at the beginning of the debate from the Chair of the Transport Committee, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), we need to reflect on the reality of a budget set at £42.6 billion—this seems to be used interchangeably with the spending envelope, albeit that it appears to have now grown to a £50 billion cap—that does not include the changes in design referred to in the powerful speech from the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms).
I want to draw hon. Members’ attention to the remarks that David Prout made to the Public Accounts Committee. One might have expected the contingency to have anticipated changes in design costs. Of the £50 billion cap, £21 billion is currently unspecified. More than £14 billion includes dealing with optimism bias and risk inflation—the initial 10% on that £15 billion figure—and then on top of that there is a further contingency of more than £4 billion for phase 1. Nowhere do the figures address changes to design, yet many of hon. Members’ remarks have been based on exactly that premise. I predict there will be public campaigns in Camden where people will say, “If we are going to have High Speed 2, let us connect it to High Speed 1 in a far better way.” Dare I say it, but there may be one or two well-connected opinion-formers in north London who will help that campaign. Yet David Prout said:
“The contingency would not include major changes in scope, for example, that the Select Committee might require. If the Select Committee requires an additional station”—
as some in Sheffield are hoping for—
“that is not included in the contingency. If it required 20 more miles of tunnelling”—
as the people of east Cheshire are hoping to secure—
“that is not included in the contingency. What we would expect to include in the contingency are the more minor adjustments in Select Committee to mitigate environmental impact.”
Those are the very environmental issues on which we still do not have a report.
Damian Collins
Does my hon. Friend agree that local government could also consider some of these issues? Kent county council is thinking of using money from the regional growth fund to upgrade the railway connection from the high-speed rail point in Ashford through Canterbury to Manston airport. Contributions could come from other pots of public money besides those found centrally by the Department for Transport.
Stephen Barclay
Indeed. That brings me to the distorting effect at the heart of the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) and the paradox that the scheme will divert more funding to London.
Stephen Barclay
I will, but before doing so, may I thank my right hon. Friend, who, throughout his time as Minister, was most courteous and responsive? I take his intervention with pleasure.
Mr Burns
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I hope my intervention does not spoil that record. Is he taking into account the fact that some of the changes, particularly to phase 1, will actually save money? For example, the decision to tunnel around Hanger lane in west London will be cheaper than the original overground proposal, leaving us with money for swings and roundabouts.
Stephen Barclay
Of course, there will be some give and take. My hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) highlighted the issues involved, but let us consider, for example, the Heathrow spur, on which we have had interventions. If Howard Davies decides to go with a hub airport at Heathrow—and one would think it logical for HS2 to connect to it—the cost of that is not in this budget, and neither is the cost of the connection in Camden, so the cost of tunnelling and the additional work that is likely to flow are not in these figures either. I wish, then, to draw the House’s attention to the pressure that is likely to follow from what Donald Rumsfeld would probably refer to as the “known unknowns”, which we know are going to be huge.
Mrs Gillan
My hon. Friend is listing all the items that are not included but which will add to the price of this project. The Government have now indicated their intention to accept the official Opposition’s amendment. I have been looking at some paperwork, and I believe that the cycling lanes in Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds will add up to another £750,000; the light rail construction, if it goes ahead, in Liverpool and Birmingham will cost about £1.6 billion; and if there is a walking programme for the seven cities, that will cost about £750,000. Those projects are all in the infrastructure pipeline, so we are looking at adding between £3 billion and £4 billion just to provide the connectivity to which the Government have agreed.
Stephen Barclay
My right hon. Friend makes a valid point. Inevitably, when large sums are being spent, there will be pressure to leverage it, and already the Government have signalled some tipping towards schemes linked to HS2. For example, they have referred to making cities “HS2 ready”, so it is in the very lexicon they are using.
Mrs Spelman
On a point of clarification about connectivity, local authorities have to take some responsibility as part of their transport plans. The Greater Birmingham and Solihull local enterprise partnership’s top priority is to make a bid to the single regeneration pot for light rail connections to Birmingham airport and the interchange station. When Lord Adonis was promoting high-speed rail, and we were not sure about it in the west midlands, the deal was basically that we would find the funds to build the station. There is a balance between local authority spend and other pots; it should not all come from a single resource.
Stephen Barclay
My right hon. Friend makes a fair point, but it is not the point that I am seeking to make. The £35 billion that has been allocated for control period 5, between 2014 and 2019, referred to in paragraph 18 of the Department’s case, does not cover many of the items on the wish-lists that Members are compiling today.
Andrew Bridgen
I totally agree with my hon. Friend’s analysis: there will be increased pressure on the HS2 mitigation budget for the route, which will put costs up. I put it to him that the only way in which any Government will be able to keep a cap on the cost of HS2 will be drastically to cut back on the compensation scheme for householders who are unduly affected by the project. That would be devastating for my constituents.
Stephen Barclay
I will come to the direct costs in a moment, but my hon. Friend makes a valid point. The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has told me that land prices have gone up threefold in the past decade. Not many households have been compensated so far, but the House of Commons Library informs me that 32 homes have been compensated to date—a very modest sample—and that the average cost per home has been £500,000. I do not know what the cost will be in north London, but I suspect that London house prices are going up quite quickly.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
I would not wish to compete with my hon. Friend’s clear expertise in this matter, but has he considered reducing the budget for HS2 by using Old Oak Common as a terminus, thereby avoiding any of the activity in the Camden area that appears to be causing concern financially? That would fit with many European models, in which the terminus is situated outside the city centre and connected to the high-speed and cross-borough links. Has my hon. Friend considered that possibility as part of his investigation?
Stephen Barclay
My hon. Friend is a fellow Lancastrian, and he is a great champion for his constituents. Surely one of the difficulties with opting for out-of-town stations is that it would take people longer to get to where they needed to be. The clue is in the name: high-speed rail. If they travelled to an out-of-town station, they would still need to get into the city centre to complete their door-to-door journey.
Paul Maynard
This is a good opportunity to remind Members that the point of HS2 is to allow people to get to the areas of greatest economic activity, and those are not necessarily within five minutes of Euston station. The benefit of a terminus at Old Oak Common would be an ability to transfer quickly to the City, where the bulk of the economic activity takes place. This is the clear message from all high-speed rail networks around the world.
Stephen Barclay
Of course there is a debate around Old Oak Common, but I must point out the lack of clarity. Clearing a similar site for the Olympics cost £1 billion. Where is the figure for clearing and regenerating the site around Old Oak Common? Transport for London is putting in requests, stating that it is possible to leverage HS2 with better connectivity using Old Oak Common, and I think it is right to do so, but where is that proposal reflected in the figures?
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury made a clear statement on “The Andrew Marr Show” on Sunday. He did not say that the project would be delivered for £42 billion; he said that it would be delivered for less. That was the promise he made. Now we are talking about a cap of £50 billion, so an extra £7 billion has appeared in the space of a few days. In today’s debate, Members are adding their own wish-lists, which will add further to the costs.
Mr Simon Burns
The cost of HS2 is £42.6 billion, within which there is a contingency fund of £14.4 billion. The figure of £50 billion that my hon. Friend has referred to reflects the addition on top of that of £7.1 billion for rolling stock, of which £1.7 billion is the contingency fund. It is not for the building of the railway.
Stephen Barclay
The size and quantum of the contingency points to a lack of detail and of financial discipline in the cost estimates. That is why so much of it is vague.
I started my remarks believing that my time was unlimited, but having been made aware by one of my colleagues that my time is more finite than I originally expected, I shall dramatically shorten my speech and finish with reference to two issues.
First, on direct costs, reading the business case put forward this week, it is difficult to get a sense of the impact of energy prices on construction. We justified the high cost of our nuclear deal last week on the basis of rising energy prices, yet we seem to be quoting the same HS1 energy costs for steel construction for this project. Land prices seem vague. Network Rail still has a 23% efficiency gap. Is it to be a subcontractor? Are we going to fix the governance of Network Rail, which is still out of the scope of shareholders, of the National Audit Office and of freedom of information requests?
Secondly, there seem to be a number of contradictions with this project. If economic growth is as good as the passenger forecasts suggest, will it not put pressure on supplier costs for construction, particularly on a project that will deliver at its peak 40% of construction market work? We need far more transparency on costs.
Frank Dobson
It may interest the hon. Gentleman to know that about 220 households in my constituency will need to be re-housed at the expense of HS2. The authorities were rather shocked to discover that a one-bedroom flat in a block recently built in the locality is currently going for £482,000. Most of the people who need to be re-housed need a family-sized flat.
Stephen Barclay
The right hon. Gentleman brings great expertise to these issues. That takes me back to the reference to a blank cheque: my concern is that the House is being asked to exercise blind faith, which will have a hugely distorting effect on transport schemes elsewhere in the country—as pressure grows, for example, for Crossrail 2 to connect not at Tottenham Court Road, but at Euston. Other schemes in the system, such as the one in my area of Cambridgeshire, will be asset-stripped of what they rightly deserve.
Let me leave the House with the image that we look like someone coming down the platform with five business cases, while the train has already left the station and we are waiting for the announcement of whether we will hit our destination, which will be given next year not by the Government, but by the shadow Chancellor. I do not think that is the right way to proceed. We need to be far more careful with controlling the costs.
Andrew Bridgen
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Question accordingly negatived.
Amendment made: 17, page 1, line 12, at end insert
‘as well as with such other parts of the transport network (including roads, footpaths, cycleways, airports and light railways) as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.’.— (Mr Goodwill.)
Mrs Gillan
I beg to move amendment 20, page 1, line 12, at end insert—
‘(2A) Expenditure permitted under this Act and in connection with the network (including rolling stock to be used on it) is limited to £50 billion.’.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 30 , page 1, line 12 , at end insert—
‘(2A) Expenditure under this Act shall be limited to £5 billion.’.
Amendment 15, page 1, line 13, leave out ‘includes’ and insert ‘is restricted to’.
Amendment 21, page 2, line 1, at end insert—
‘(4) No payments in connection with expenditure under this Act shall be made to personal service companies, meaning any body set up for the purposes of allowing an individual or group of individuals to receive payments indirectly, including so as to reduce any part of their tax liability. The Secretary of State shall have power to make rules defining such companies, which shall be laid before and approved by resolution of both Houses of Parliament.’.
Amendment 22, page 2, line 1, at end insert—
‘(4) No bonuses shall be paid to any person working on the network or the preparatory work for it, and the expenditure authorised under this Act does not extend to the payment of any bonus. The Secretary of State shall have power to make rules defining such bonuses, which shall be laid before and approved by resolution of both Houses of Parliament.’.
Amendment 27, page 2, line 2, at end insert
‘For the purposes of Barnett formula spending, the network shall be designated an England-only project.’.
Government amendment 25.
Amendment 8, in clause 2, page 2, line 15, at end insert—
‘(d) the number and value of contracts placed with—
(i) UK companies with fewer than 500 employees,
(ii) UK companies with more than 500 employees, and
(iii) non-UK companies.’.
Amendment 16, page 2, line 15, at end insert—
‘(d) all expenditure in all departments across Government on matters related to the high speed railway transport network.’.
Government amendment 26.
Amendment 6, page 2, line 24, at end add—
‘(6) As soon as is reasonably practicable after preparatory spending ceases the Secretary of State will place before Parliament a final financial report, setting out all spending authorised by this legislation and including equivalent information to that required under subsection (2).’.
Amendment 31, page 2, line 24, at end add—
‘(6) Within six months of Royal Assent the Secretary of State shall present to Parliament an estimate of the expenditure to be incurred under section 1 during the period ending on 31 March 2015.
(7) On or before 30 September 2015 and on the anniversary thereof in each subsequent year the Secretary of State shall present to Parliament an estimate of the expenditure to be incurred under section 1 during the year ending 31 March following the date of such presentation.’.
Mrs Gillan
I am very glad that we managed to get through the preceding group of amendments without a vote. I think it is clear that the Government have not allowed enough time for proper scrutiny of the Bill, and it worries me considerably that a wider audience beyond the House will not understand that we reached that point. I shall therefore try to speak fairly briefly on this group of amendments, although it is one of the most important groups, apart from—if the Government press on with their proposals—the group relating to compensation, which is of great concern to everyone in the House.
HS2 is a huge financial risk. For some time, people—including, I believe, the Information Commissioner—have been pressing for the Government to release the Major Projects Authority report in full, but, as far as I am aware, neither that full report on the implications nor the amber-red report has yet been made available. Certainly neither has been made available to my office.
When I asked the Secretary of State
“if he will publish the report from the Audit and Risk Management Committee presented at the board meeting of HS2 Ltd on 18 July 2013”,
he replied:
“The update from the Audit and Risk Management Committee was given verbally at the meeting. HS2 Ltd does not hold a written report.”—[Official Report, 8 October 2013; Vol. 568, c. 193W.]
In the absence of the transparency that would enable us to read the risk analysis from the Major Projects Authority, and given the Secretary of State’s response to a request for a regular update on financial risk, it is difficult for us to assess whether the Government are sticking to their guns.
In amendment 20, I have sought to provide the cap that everyone is talking about. I had expected Labour Members to table such an amendment, and I am surprised that they did not, because they have made much of the fact that they will not give this project a blank cheque, and that the expenditure can go only so far and no further. Amendment 25—which I think the Government are minded to accept, as two Conservative Members have added their names to it—is limited to some financial reporting, and some crystal ball-gazing on the effect that an underspend or an overspend would have. It reminds me rather of “The Merchant of Venice” in many ways. I think that the Labour party has bottled out completely and remains sitting on the fence, and I do not think that people will forgive it for that.
Steve McCabe
I want the cost to be contained as well, but does it not worry the right hon. Lady that if she presses ahead with her amendment, she will effectively put a cap on transport links to northern cities, in which none of her side was interested when we were talking about London and south-east developments?
Mrs Gillan
I do not think that that is true at all. I think that what I am doing is giving Members—such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns)—who claim that the project will come in at bang on £42.6 billion, or indeed less, an opportunity to enshrine that in statute.
Mrs Gillan
I would like to make some progress.
What worries me particularly, even in the case of this project, is that it will run out of money. Infrastructure projects have a very unfortunate history, both in this country and abroad, and megaprojects—
Mrs Gillan
I have already said that I will not.
Mega-projects of this sort are subject to great risk, and almost never fulfil their promise. The passenger numbers never equal those that were predicted, and the costs always exceed those predicted. What will happen if this Government, or any Government of any complexion, start to run out of money and see the bills going up? The contingency reserve may not be enough, and what will suffer is what will come at the end of this project.
We make much of protecting our environment—Members in all parts of the House make much of our green credentials—but we should consider what the reinstatement of our countryside will cost. We should consider the ancient woodlands that have been destroyed, and the work that will be necessary for some time to maintain biodiversity, mitigate noise, and offset the loss of some of our amenities. I do not agree that compensation will suffer. The Government seem perfectly capable of paying compensation with or without this Bill. The sum of compensation paid to date is £52 million, so I think that that is irrelevant to whether this Bill goes through or not. I worry greatly about that, but the genesis of this project is the fact that in March 2010 the cost for the whole route was £30 billion; by February 2011 it had risen to £33 billion; by January 2012 it had risen to £33.4 billion; and we are now at £42.6 billion without the rolling stock being included.
Mrs Gillan
I want Members to make their own points, and I am just going to make the points I need to make on my amendments.
Mrs Spelman
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend, because I am worried that, given the time, we may not get to my amendments about biodiversity offsetting. I received a letter from the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on 20 October saying DEFRA and Natural England are currently working with HS2
“on a proposed methodology for accounting for habitats.”
That is for biodiversity offsetting, showing clearly the funds and methodology needed to offset the loss of green space. I am sure she and I very much want to see that.
Mrs Gillan
I am pleased I let my right hon. Friend make that intervention, because I, too, am worried.
Mrs Gillan
How could I resist my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford?
Mr Burns
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend. May I seek clarification from her because I am very concerned? This Bill is authorising the spending of money on the preparation work for building HS2. In one of her amendments, she is trying to limit that spending on the preparatory work to £50 billion, which seems far more, to the Nth degree, than the Government would ever want to spend on preparatory work. Surely there is something slightly wrong with this amendment.
Mrs Gillan
I do not think there is anything wrong with this amendment at all. It was a probing amendment, and just as the Government managed to slip their name under the official Opposition’s leading name on one amendment, I hoped that the Opposition might slip their name under mine as it contains the cap they wanted. Also, if we had had some adjustments to this Bill, it would have encompassed the spend. If we are going to have a money Bill, it should not just cover the open-ended preparatory work—now my right hon. Friend is wanting to have his cake and eat it—but should cover the money that is going to be spent on the project. After all, he has been arguing for—[Interruption.] Well, we know the hybrid Bill is coming. It will be a gargantuan monster of a Bill that will take up more time in this House than any other Bill has ever done.
Amendment 15 seeks to restrict the preparatory expenditure. I am sure my Front-Bench colleagues will say that these amendments are contradictory, but they are probing amendments. I did not serve on the Bill Committee so this is the opportunity for me to get these matters discussed. I think we need to restrict the expenditure to those items that are on the face of the Bill. Currently, the word “includes” in clause 1(3) means that the Bill is the blank cheque to which I referred earlier. I think that, in the Bill’s current form, there is no restriction. I am sure the Government will not accept any restriction, but they would have been in a much better place if they had done so.
I shall move on now, as I know many other Members want to speak. There are colleagues who are not in the House today but whom I have consulted in Buckinghamshire. The Attorney-General, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), knows his residents at Denham are wholly opposed to this proposal, and I know that the Minister for Europe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), is continuing to work tirelessly within Government to put to the most senior Ministers the arguments and interests of his constituency. He has asked me to point out today that there are serious mitigation issues both in Wendover and Aylesbury that are still not resolved, yet the Department’s current plans make no adequate provision either for the measures to reduce noise or for fair compensation. I am also concerned for Mr Speaker, whose constituents in Buckingham continue to express overwhelming opposition.
This money Bill writes a blank cheque for the Government, or it purports to write a blank cheque and give the Government a fig leaf to cover their embarrassment about the hundreds of millions they have already spent and the £1 billion they will spend by the time we reach the next election. I was, however, hoping that we could regularise some of the terms and conditions of the people working on this project, which is the aim of amendments 21 and 22.
Amendment 21 deals with payments made through service companies. I do not know how many people in this House pay close attention to this matter, but there has certainly been a lot of fuss about service companies, particularly in connection with the BBC and others. When I asked a fairly innocuous parliamentary question, I was surprised to find out that in the past 12 months HS2 Ltd has engaged 48 people paid through personal service companies. Apparently, eight of those people have either left the company or transferred to the payroll, and a further 12 will have left or transferred by 31 December. That means that there will still be many people who are paid through personal service companies. Apparently, the Department was carrying out an assurance process at the time to ensure that all those people were compliant with their tax and national insurance obligations, and the good news is that the response was that they were—none was not compliant. But on a Government project of this sort, being paid for from the public purse, people should be paid as civil servants and they should not be in receipt of bonuses.
Much has been made about bonuses in and around this House in connection with many other professions. MPs do not get a bonus, and neither would I be asking for one as an MP, but I was shocked to find that between 2011 and 2013 people in the Department for Transport, including people working on HS2 Ltd, have been paid bonuses of more than £3 million between them. I admit that many of those bonuses will be small, but we should still put our money where our mouth is and the practice should cease. I also understand that HS2 Ltd, which was operating bonus schemes, is no longer doing so for its employees. I am pleased about that, because I do not think we can say one thing in one area of government and practise a different set of procedures in another.
Stephen Barclay
When my right hon. Friend tabled that parliamentary question, did she get clarification of whether any of those on personal service contracts were ex-staff of the Department for Transport and whether they had received any pay-off from the Department?
Mrs Gillan
No, I did not, but that is the sort of fine detail of the finance that we will need to look at, as it should be examined. One thing I have been trying to have a look at is Mr Higgins’s new employment contract, which I understand does not start until January. I have been denied sight of that, but I wanted to see what performance bonuses, or any other inducement or performance-related measure, it contained.
Amendment 27, tabled by the—[Interruption.] Forgive me, a year is a long time, and I cannot recall the constituency.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
Carmarthen East and Dinefwr.
Mrs Gillan
As a former Secretary of State for Wales, I am particularly concerned—[Laughter.] You can’t know everything, can you, Madam Deputy Speaker? I do apologise.
As a former Welsh Secretary, I am concerned that this railway, currently planned only to be in England, needs also to make sure that it bears the costs of “Barnettising” that expenditure, particularly for Wales, but also for Scotland, if the railway does not go there, and for Northern Ireland. That is particularly the case in the light of the PLANET Long Distance model—PLD—zone information in the KPMG report, which showed that places like Neath, Port Talbot and Newport completely miss out. I am sure the hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr (Jonathan Edwards) shares my sadness that there are no Welsh Members on the Opposition Benches to plead the case for Wales. I am rather disappointed that they are not here because it shows that they are not interested in pressing the case for Wales.
Andrew Bridgen
Does my right hon. Friend have any estimate of the cost of Barnettisation on this project and what that would add to the total cost of HS2?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before the right hon. Lady resumes her comments, may I gently remind her that she has been speaking for some 16 minutes? The knife comes down at 4 o’clock and there are many other Members who would like to speak on this group of amendments, so I hope she might be coming to a conclusion.
Mrs Gillan
Indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am.
Finally, on my amendment 16, I say, “Mark my words”: the cost to the taxpayer, the council tax payer and other Departments will rise and rise. The costs in Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool just of promoting the project show that there is public money going into the project which is not being accounted for, particularly in the Bill.
Will the Minister include and publish the costs that have been incurred and will be incurred on a regular basis in other Departments, such as the Department for Communities and Local Government, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Treasury? If we do not get to see those costs, the Government will be concealing the real cost of HS2, which should be taken into consideration.
Mr Straw
I shall speak particularly to amendment 25, which has the support of my Front Bench and, I am pleased to say, of the Government as well. I was a member of the Cabinet in 2009 which first gave formal approval to HS2. That was endorsed in the run-up to the general election by all-party agreement. Although I have taken a close interest in the project ever since, I have seen nothing in the intervening period to persuade me to withdraw my support for it.
The case is clear. First, thanks to a dramatic increase in the usage of the railways in the past 15 years—I am very proud of Labour’s record—we face a situation where, for both freight and passengers, the existing lines cannot cope. As someone who for years has had to endure the west coast main line, I have to say that large sums of money were spent during that period—one of the reasons why there was so little electrification—on patch and mend to that line and on quadrupling the line in the Trent valley, with very little overall benefit. If folk in the House and outside think there is an alternative to HS2, they are right that there is, but it is a worse alternative, with more disruption and greater cost.
The second reason why I strongly support HS2 is that it will help to rebalance our economies. I have listened to some fancy arguments in the House, but among the fanciest are those that I have heard today and from colleagues in the Tea Room—that if we put in this investment, it will somehow suck more economic activity into London. It is worth turning that argument on its head or, as the Treasury likes to say, looking at the counterfactual. If that were the case, it would be overwhelmingly an argument for reducing the capacity of the railways north-south and for slowing up the lines. It is simple nonsense.
Mr Straw
I will in a moment, but I am conscious that others want to get in before the knife.
I come to the issue of the costs. No one is in favour of providing blank cheques for schemes, but I have seen no evidence that a blank cheque is being provided for this scheme. What we are talking about is £42 billion until 2033, which works out at just over £2 billion a year. That is a lot of money but, in the grand scheme of things, including infrastructure investment, it is not huge, particularly when compared with the massive amount of money that has rightly been put in by successive Governments to improve infrastructure in London and the south-east. I would be happy to support that, but it is time that the investment went elsewhere.
Frank Dobson
Does my right hon. Friend feel that some people might be a bit suspicious that a contingency sum of £14 billion closely resembles a blank cheque?
Andrew Bridgen
The right hon. Gentleman is obviously an advocate of HS2, and that can be his view, but will he explain the discrepancy between his view and that of the noble Lord Mandelson, who was also a member of the previous Labour Government?
Mr Straw
I have certainly never wished to speak for my right hon. and noble Friend Lord Mandelson. All I can report as a matter of fact is that my right hon. and noble Friend was in the same Cabinet Room in 2009 when the project was endorsed. If he has had some reverse damascene conversion, it is for him to explain that, not me.
Let me turn to the issue of costs. I was chairman of the Cabinet Committee on the Olympics for its first four years. The first bid was put in at about £2.5 billion and the ultimate cost came out at £9 billion. Let me explain why there is no direct comparison. The bid was not based on the contingency but on a prayer that we would win it. Not a huge amount of effort was put into costing it because, frankly, very few people ever thought we would win. It was only after we had won on 6 July 2005 that the serious work began and led, quite properly, by the Treasury, we considered the contingencies.
I say to my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) that a contingency of such a size is sensible, because there needs to be an optimism bias. That was what was put into the budget for the Olympics by the man who is now Sir David Higgins, who turned that project around. Contrary to what was said by the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), the Olympics as an infrastructure project came in not only on time, because it had to, but on budget. Those who are worried about a blank cheque—any Chancellor or shadow Chancellor needs to be—should be reassured that Sir David Higgins is now in charge. I have every confidence in him, not only from his time running this operation and the Olympics, but from his time at Network Rail. He got costs down and took a close interest in the detail of the projects.
Frank Dobson
Can my right hon. Friend confirm that Sir David Higgins spent all the contingency sum on the Olympics?
Mr Straw
Not quite, I think. There were reasons for that, however, and for the contingencies. These are very large projects. There were also contingencies for Crossrail, for Thameslink and for the expansion of Euston in 1968 and I do not recall Members who would have benefited directly from those projects raising issues about contingencies at the time.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman and I worked with David Higgins on the improvements to the Blackburn-Manchester rail line, which serves both our constituencies. Given the right hon. Gentleman’s experience with that project, does he regret the fact that a long-term view, which we found we needed, is not being taken by those on his own Front Bench, who seem to be holding a question mark over the future of HS2?
Mr Straw
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that he and I have had direct experience of dealing with Sir David Higgins on a micro-level as well as a macro-level, and very impressive he is too. I do not criticise anybody who either holds or might hold the purse strings for wanting to ensure that we bear down on costs, but those on my Front Bench and the whole of the parliamentary Labour party, as has been made clear, support the project and the Bill. That is why, if a Division is called at 5 o’clock, we will be in the Lobby with the Government in support of the Third Reading of the Bill. Let me make that clear. We started this project and I hope very much that the Labour party is in a position to ensure that we finish it.
Steve McCabe
Does my right hon. Friend agree that it might help those who want to support the project and perhaps make it easier for the softer opponents if the contingency figure was reduced? At a third of the projected total cost, it seems remarkably high, and it might risk inflating the project’s costs.
Mr Straw
I know about optimism bias contingency costs because I faced exactly the same situation when I chaired the Cabinet Committee for the Olympics. My initial reaction was the same as that of my hon. Friend and my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras: “Why on earth are we building in a contingency reserve on this scale?” I got the Treasury officials in and cross-examined them—I bumped into one the other day who remembers it—but in the end I was convinced that what was proposed was prudent, to use an adjective that used to be owned by the Labour party, and still is. Contingency reserves of that size are sensible and realistic. Yes, the cost is £42 billion, but that is over 20 years, so we are looking at a cost of about £2 billion a year, of which the optimism bias contingency reserve is about £700 million. In my judgment, such things are manageable.
Mr Straw
I must make some progress.
Of course I understand the concerns of Members on both sides of the House about their constituencies. Were I in their position, I would probably be voicing similar concerns. However, when the grand motorway schemes were being built across the country, including in the Chilterns—the M40 goes right through them—there was no parliamentary process of this kind at all. There were no private Bills; there were private inquiries and compulsory purchase orders, and on it went. Of course there was an argument about the exact route the M40 would take when it went through the escarpment out of the Chilterns and around Oxfordshire, but I do not recall any Member from Buckinghamshire standing up in the House recently to say that building it was a disaster, that the effect on biodiversity was terrible and that we should return the land to the way it was.
Had there been a parliamentary process for the M40, the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham can bet her life that such would have been the opposition in the Chilterns—I understand exactly why, because we are all concerned about our own back gardens, including me—that it would never have been built. However, that road, at far greater disruption to the area than any railway will ever cause, has brought benefits to her constituency and county. While she continues to pursue her constituency concerns, I hope that she also recognises that there is a national interest in rebalancing our economy and ensuring that people in the north can get to the south more quickly.
Mrs Gillan
My concern is not only about my constituency, but about how we use taxpayers’ money. I am as keen as the right hon. Gentleman to rebalance the economy between the north and the south; I just do not think that HS2 is the way to do it. The M40 has of course brought benefits, but that does not mean that the damage that will be done to the environment by yet another breach of the area of outstanding natural beauty can be brushed aside, although it is quite obvious that he thinks that the suffering of my constituents and their businesses is a price worth paying.
Mr Straw
My last point is this: far from being brushed aside, the environmental concerns are being taken into account in far greater measure than was ever the case with the motorway schemes. I hope that the Bill goes through this afternoon so that we can then see an all-party consensus behind the project and introduce the hybrid Bill, if possible before the general election.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Stephen Hammond)
It is a great pleasure to see you in your place, Madam Deputy Speaker, and a great pleasure and honour to follow the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw).
These amendments deal with expenditure, reporting and costs. The Government have set out in a strategic plan the spending plans for High Speed 2, which are £21.4 billion for phase 1 and £21.2 billion for phase 2 —a total cost of £42.6 billion, including £14.4 of contingency. I am convinced that, as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, that is likely to decline as the date of construction nears. HS2 Ltd has set out a target cost for phase one of £17.16 billion.
The original purpose of the reporting duty on the Government was to give Parliament an opportunity to scrutinise the manner in which we were spending the preparatory expenditure and to get a sense of how we were making progress on the project. Amendment 25 is very much in the spirit of that objective. I am happy to provide the commitment that the Government will ensure that the reporting duty makes information on underspends and overspends explicit.
Managing costs is at the heart of how the Government intend to manage this project.
Stephen Hammond
If I were to do that, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) has pointed out, I would be making a commitment of £50 billion on the preparatory expenditure. I do not intend that we spend anything like £50 billion on that. As my right hon. Friend said in response to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), this Bill is about the preparatory expenditure.
Mr Simon Burns
There seems to be utter confusion about this. The cost of the project is £42.6 billion, with £7.1 billion for the rolling stock, but the Bill is about the preparatory work. It is preposterous to grant, in legislation, the Government of the day £50 billion to spend on preparatory work.
Stephen Hammond
I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He is absolutely correct in his understanding; of course he would be, as he has so skilfully managed the Bill so far.
Stephen Hammond
I am going to make some progress because I think that my hon. Friend is going to refer to amendment 20. If he waits for a moment I will deal with that.
We have always made it clear that HS2 will provide a significant opportunity for vocational skills across the lifetime of the project, giving a real boost to British industry. This Government are committed to raising skill levels and creating an environment for small and medium-sized enterprises to succeed. Amendment 26 would place an obligation on the Government to report on their progress in delivering those opportunities and to demonstrate what we mean when we say that HS2 is an engine for growth. I have always been convinced, as have many Members across the House, that we will be able to do that. HS2 is a generational scheme, and as such we need to make sure we have the right home-grown talent that allows us to deliver it. I am delighted that there is cross-party support for amendments 25 and 26, and I hope that the whole House will be able to support them.
Mr Chope
Will my hon. Friend turn his mind to amendment 30, which seeks to limit the amount of expenditure on preparatory works to £5 billion—a pretty substantial sum, but obviously not as large as £50 billion? Will the Government undertake not to spend more than £5 billion on preparatory works?
Stephen Hammond
I might be prepared to consider that. However, my hon. Friend needs to be absolutely clear that this is about the preparatory works on phases 1 and 2 as opposed to preparatory works for the whole scheme were it to go further and create a network. His amendment does not cover that, and that is why it is unnecessary.
Mr Simon Burns
As I understand it, this Bill relates not only to phases 1 and 2 of current high-speed rail projects, but to phases 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of such projects at any time in the next 40 to 60 years. How could the Government of today restrict the amount of money available without knowing the value of money in 40 years’ time?
Stephen Hammond
My right hon. Friend is completely correct. This Bill is about the preparatory expenditure. It is also about not only phases 1 and 2, but the whole network as it may be conceived in the future. It would, therefore, be completely erroneous to restrict ourselves to a limit on preparatory costs, because we do not know the future extent of any network. That is also why I agreed with my right hon. Friend a moment ago that amendment 20 is unnecessary.
I know that the intention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham was to put a limit on expenditure and I understand why she wanted to do that, but the amendment does not explicitly address preparatory expenditure, which is what this Bill is about. I note that she said it was a probing amendment.
Mrs Gillan
The Minister knows exactly what my intention was with my amendments. I will not press any of them to a vote, but what is worrying about the Bill is that it is not restricted in any way, shape or form. It is totally open-ended, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns) has just admitted, and this House has no control or say over what moneys will be spent on the preparation, and on the HS2 project itself. That is what I object to and that is where I think the Government have failed.
Stephen Hammond
It is rare that I disagree with my right hon. Friend, but in this case I do. What this Bill does is explicitly place reporting obligations on the Government for the preparatory work. Moreover, it is the hybrid Bill, which my right hon. Friend has mentioned, that will provide the opportunity to scrutinise all stages and costs.
We have created the reporting duty precisely to ensure that Parliament can scrutinise the expenditure and see that we are spending it responsibly. Planned expenditure on design works for the financial year 2013-14 is about £2.5 million, and for 2014-15 it is about £9.2 million.
There are a number of other amendments in this group and I know that other Members want to get in. I sympathise with the spirit of amendment 8, but it does not clarify the exact level that most people recognise as the number of people employed by small and medium-sized enterprises. Moreover, it would restrict a small or medium-sized enterprise that had fewer employees, but that hoped to secure a high-value contract that would result in many UK jobs. The amendment goes beyond the direct nature of the contract.
Stephen Hammond
On amendment 31 and the transparency of the project, I do not believe it is necessary to produce six-monthly reports of spending estimates in addition to the annual reports to which we have already committed. Given what my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham has said, I am sure my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) would not want us to waste money or create bureaucracy just to produce six-monthly reports. Such a requirement would be onerous on the Government.
Stephen Hammond
The Government accept that we need to come to the House to explain our actions and report on our preparatory expenditure. As has been discussed extensively this afternoon, the initial target cost for phase 1 is £17.16 billion.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham has tabled amendments on the monitoring of tax avoidance and the payment of bonuses to those who work on High Speed 2. We must manage the costs, but we must balance that with ensuring that the staff reward arrangements attract the right talent. We need to ensure that those who work in the public sector demonstrate the highest standards of integrity and meet their tax obligations.
Following the review of the tax arrangements of public sector appointees last year by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, all Departments and agencies have a duty to seek assurances about the tax arrangements of their long-term specialists and contractors to ensure that they are paying the right amount of tax. The Government are committed to tackling all forms of tax avoidance and have taken a wide range of measures to close tax loopholes.
It is essential that we guard against the payment of bonuses that are not in line with the Government’s goal of reducing the public sector remuneration package. However, we must ensure that we have the right reward structure in place. We must not put provisions in legislation that would tie the hands of the whole supply chain. I am happy to confirm to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham that Sir David Higgins will move to High Speed 2 on the same salary that he received at Network Rail and that he has guaranteed that he will not accept any bonuses. I hope that that satisfies her.
I hope that the House will support amendments 25 and 26.
Lilian Greenwood
I am pleased to speak in support of amendment 25, which represents a significant strengthening of the financial reporting requirements in clause 2.
Taxpayers need to know that the costs are being controlled. Under this Government, the budget for HS2 has swelled from £773 million to at least £900 million in this Parliament. The botched design for Euston pushed the cost of that station from £1.2 billion to £1.6 billion, even though some of the features of the design were downgraded. The Government announced in June that, with a sizeable increase in contingency funding, the headline budget for the project had increased by £10 billion to £50.1 billion.
Lilian Greenwood
I am afraid that I am very short of time.
That headline budget includes the costs of construction and procuring rolling stock. That is reflected in amendment 25, which I believe is superior to amendment 20, which has been proposed by the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan).
In short, Ministers have failed to keep the costs under control. The rising budget for HS2 has damaged the public perception of the project. It is therefore vital that, under the incoming leadership of Sir David Higgins, financial discipline is imposed. The use of the project’s £14.4 billion contingency fund must be minimised wherever possible. Ministers must ensure that Sir David Higgins has their full backing in that task.
Amendment 25 is designed to ensure that that happens. It will introduce a powerful mechanism to ensure that there is financial responsibility. It will force the Government to announce any overspend of the yearly budget. It will also provide an incentive to identify areas in which costs can be reduced, as was successfully done on the Crossrail project.
Lilian Greenwood
I will not give way at the moment.
Given that the Government have produced annual budgets for the project up to 2020-21, it makes sense to measure progress against that yardstick.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
We will hear the point of order after 4 o’clock.
Lilian Greenwood
The Government’s hopelessly ambitious timetable to pass the hybrid Bill for phase 1 by the middle of 2015 makes it even more important that we introduce stringent reporting standards. Even Ministers acknowledge that that plan is challenging, and that is putting it mildly. It appears to be certain that spending will continue under the authority of the preparation Bill beyond the general election. If it does, there must be proper reporting requirements in place. In fact, we submitted a similar amendment in Committee, and I am sorry it was deemed unnecessary at the time. I am glad the Government have been persuaded to think again and have accepted our amendment. It will make for a tougher Bill that makes Ministers accountable for bearing down on costs, and it will deliver better value for public investment.
Mr Cash
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. We have not reached the last group of amendments, which are vital to all the people in my constituency and throughout the country who are affected by the Bill. This point of order is about the travesty of proceedings in relation to the programme motion and all that goes with it.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
The hon. Gentleman, as ever, makes his point, but as he and the House know, that is not a point of order. The timetabling of discussions on this Bill is a matter for the House.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
The hon. Gentleman indicates that he wishes to move an amendment that has not been spoken to, and I cannot take his amendment.
Third Reading
Mr McLoughlin
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Let me begin by thanking all Members who served on the Public Bill Committee. In particular I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), not only for his work on the Bill, but also for the hard work that he put into the Department for Transport during his time there. It was a great pleasure to work with him.
For a project as important as this, everyone should have their say—indeed, it sometimes feels as if they do. At the same time, however, we need to move the debate forward, which is what the Bill does. This is the point at which the debate starts moving from “if “ to “when”. The House has already voted overwhelmingly in favour of the principle of a new high-speed, high-capacity rail network. I hope it will do so again this evening because the decisions we take today will benefit our country for decades to come.
Just this week, with the storms that hit the south and east, we have seen how crucial our railways are to national life. When trains are crowded and disrupted, life for hard-working people gets more difficult. That is why the new north-south line is not some expensive luxury.
Mr McLoughlin
I will, but I do so reluctantly because of the number of hon. Members who want to take part in Third Reading.
Mr Cash
I understand why the Secretary of State is reluctant to give way. Throughout the whole of this land, people are deeply disturbed by the manner in which the Bill is being rammed through. Furthermore, as he well knows, the arrangements he has described as benefits are not accepted by my constituents and many other people, nor by the many reports emanating from the Public Accounts Committee and others that demonstrate that HS2 is not a straightforward benefit, and is in fact quite the opposite.
Mr McLoughlin
I know my hon. Friend is not in favour of the new line—he loses no time in telling me that. I dare say that similar comments were made in debates on railways in the House over the centuries. The truth is that the line will be the first line built north of London in 120 years. I understand the concerns of hon. Members whose constituencies the line goes through. I do not dismiss them and have never done so. I want to ensure that we have a fair compensation scheme in place. I believe that the scheme is, without any doubt, right for the future of the UK.
I find it rather ridiculous that I can go from London to Paris on a high-speed train, and that my hon. Friend can go from London to Brussels on a high-speed train—I know he keeps a close eye on what goes on there—but we cannot go from London to Birmingham, Manchester or Leeds on a high-speed train. The time has come for a steep uplift in our transport system.
I should tell my hon. Friend that there is still a long way to go. We must take the hybrid Bill through the Commons. There will be plenty of opportunities to debate it in detail. As the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) said, HS2 will be debated in far more detail than roads that now go through various constituencies when they probably caused greater environmental damage.
Mr McLoughlin
I do not want to take too long because I know many hon. Members want to speak. I will give way—for the last time—to my hon. Friend.
Andrew Bridgen
I thank my right hon. Friend for giving way. It is true that this is a high-speed debate. Does he agree that an hour is completely insufficient parliamentary time for a Third Reading debate on the largest infrastructure project the country has ever seen?
Mr McLoughlin
My hon. Friend has taken part in the Third Reading of many Bills—they have always been hour-long debates. In fact, it is only recently that we have had debates on Third Reading. Back in the days when the right hon. Member for Blackburn was Leader of the House, we sometimes did not have debates on Third Reading because we simply did not have the time. The Government are trying to help everybody we can—[Interruption.] I do not want to get any more partisan now that I have the right hon. Gentleman on side.
The Bill is about helping communities and businesses, and helping the cities of the north and the midlands to compete on equal terms with London. Nobody begrudges the money we are spending on Crossrail or Thameslink. They are huge investments in our capital city, but it is time we looked at what is happening in the rest of the country.
Three important words—room for growth—sum up why the project is so important. They are at the core of the strategic case we published on Tuesday. The responses to the report show the crucial message of growth. The British Chambers of Commerce states:
“This report bolsters the economic case for HS2…HS2 is the only scheme that can transform capacity on Britain’s overstretched railways.”
The CBI has thrown its considerable weight behind the project. It did so because the new line is part of the answer to the infrastructure deficit that faces our country. The leaders of our great cities back HS2. Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester city council, has said:
“It’s straightforward and simple. We need more capacity and the only way is through this new network.”
Since 2008, the country has learned some tough lessons, but we must make ourselves more resilient and competitive as an economy. That will not happen if we do not take the long-term decisions on investment and stick to them. Our society is changing, our population is growing, people are travelling more, and demand for inter-city rail travel has doubled in the past 15 years and will continue to increase.
As I have said all along, I welcome suggestions for creating more capacity, but the so-called alternative suggestions from the critics simply do not add up. We have looked at the case for building new motorways and dramatically expanding domestic aviation. Neither does the job. Some people believe we can carry on squeezing more room out of our current railways, patching up our problems. The work we published this week shows that, if we tried to create the capacity we needed by upgrading the three current main north-south lines, we would face 14 years of weekend closures. That is not an alternative to the new line, it is disruption on a nightmare scale.
We are already investing record sums in the existing railway. Network Rail will spend £38.3 billion in its next five-year control period, and the Government have a £73 billion budget for wider transport investment over the next Parliament. Despite all that, we will still need new rail capacity. If one accepts that—and that we need room to grow—there is no choice about how to provide it. As the strategic case makes clear, a new high-speed north-south line is not just the right way, it is the only way.
The new north-south line will be the backbone of Britain. It will have 18 trains an hour, each carrying up to 1,100 passengers, transforming the available space on inter-city lines. As long-distance services transfer to the new line, capacity will be released on the existing network. Of course, not every city across Britain will benefit in the same way, but Network Rail estimates that more than 100 cities and towns could benefit from released capacity. It would mean significantly more commuter services, better connectivity and more routes for rail freight, taking lorries off our most congested roads.
We know that HS2 is the best answer to our transport problems, but as with any large infrastructure scheme, we also know we will face opposition. I respect the fact that some people are concerned about the impact on the places they live, and I respect those with serious proposals for improvements. Already, the environmental impact of the new line has been vastly reduced thanks to such improvements. But I also respect what Sir John Armitt said in his recent report on infrastructure—that big schemes need “broad political consensus” as well as “resolution” from political leaders.
HS2 must be a national project with support across the parties, or in the end it will be nothing. Labour leaders in our great cities across the north and the midlands know that HS2 is right. To those who say that there is no blank cheque, I say that there never has been and there never will be. I know that hon. Members want costs controlled. Here are the facts. The target price for the first phase is £17.16 billion. That is the price for construction agreed with HS2 Ltd. For the whole Y-route, the agreed budget is £42.6 billion, including a contingency of £14.4 billion, which we are determined to bear down on. Sir David Higgins—the man who built the Olympics on time and on budget—will make sure that happens. As the new chairman of HS2, he will bring his penetrating eye and expertise to the task to get the best value for our country.
As the strategic case published this week shows, our updated benefit-cost ratio has fallen slightly from 2.5 to 2.3. We have been open about that, but it means that the business case for the new north-south line is still strong, with more than £2 returned for every £1 invested—about the same as Crossrail and Thameslink, and nobody seems to doubt those projects. In fact, the ratio for HS2 could increase to 4.5 if rail demand continues to rise until 2049.
It is still important to recognise that the benefit-cost ratio cannot take account of unpredictable factors. That was true of the Jubilee line extension in London, for instance, which did not include the 100,000 jobs it now supports at Canary Wharf. It was true for High Speed 1, which did not include benefits from redevelopment at King’s Cross and St Pancras. When I first became a Member of Parliament, King’s Cross and St Pancras were places where people did not want to spend any time if they could possibly get away with it. They would try to turn up just before their train was due to leave. Those stations are now destinations in their own right. People go there and look with amazement at what has happened to the UK’s railway system.
Frank Dobson
I represent not just St Pancras, but Euston and King’s Cross. Does the Secretary of State accept that virtually all the people in my constituency who are now opposed to HS2 were strongly in favour—indeed, the first advocates—of the transformation of St Pancras and the improvements at King’s Cross?
Mr McLoughlin
Of course I do. I am more than happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss the particular issue of Euston station, because the redevelopment will bring specific problems. But we must also ensure that we get the very best deal for his constituents in the redevelopment of Euston station. I am meeting the leader of Camden council next week, although I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman will be there. I do not discount the concerns of local residents about the work on major infrastructure projects, and we have to take them into account.
Jonathan Edwards
Last week it was disclosed that the Treasury had made a mistake and awarded Barnett consequentials to Wales in the 2015-16 spending round. Subsequently, the Treasury said it would claw the money back in the next spending review and that it did not set a precedent. Will the Secretary of State confirm that there will not be a clawback, that the precedent has now been set and that Wales will have the consequentials? Unless he does so, we will vote against him on Third Reading.
Mr McLoughlin
It would be a brave Secretary of State who started second-guessing the Treasury, and I will not do that now. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s representations and will bear them in mind.
I will briefly explain the next steps. We intend to submit the hybrid Bill before Christmas. In February, the growth taskforce reports. I know the challenges ahead, but also the opportunities. We are not here to patch up our railway once again, only to spend far more later when it turns out that we should have invested properly at the start. It will take determination to strengthen our country. I urge this House to support the Bill. It is our chance to get ahead and to invest in our long-term prosperity.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), to his new role, and I look forward to working with him. I pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle), for her work in holding no fewer than four Transport Secretaries to account, and for her tireless work to develop Labour’s transport policy. I pay tribute, too, to my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) for piloting the Bill through Committee in a co-operative manner. Following in her footsteps, I am proud to support High Speed 2, and I am proud to support getting good value for public money, too.
We support plans for a new north-south rail line, but we are clear that the Government must get a grip on the costs. High Speed 2 was the brainchild of Lord Adonis, the Labour Government’s last Transport Secretary. We understand that the railway is not needed just to tackle the rail capacity crunch that we face in the next ten years: managed properly, HS2 has the power to transform the economic geography of our country. It will build our great cities and bring them closer together. It will connect people to each other, to work and to leisure. It will help to rebalance the economy, creating and using our country’s manufacturing skills.
Charlie Elphicke
This is an important project requiring national consensus. It needs all parties to support HS2 if it is to go ahead—no ifs, no buts. Will the Labour party support this project properly: yes or no?
Mary Creagh
If the hon. Gentleman had listened, he would know that I just said we will support HS2. We shall be voting in favour of it this evening.
This is the first new north-south railway for more than 100 years, but Labour's brainchild has, sadly, been neglected by the Government. Instead of gestation, we have had stagnation. The project has been put at risk by delays, project mismanagement and, in July, by a huge increase to the budget.
First, on delays, Ministers looked at strategic alternatives to High Speed 2. That took until November 2011, which wasted 18 months and led to slippage in the project timetable, with Ministers now playing catch-up. Costs in this Parliament have risen from £700 million to £900 million. The National Audit Office has warned that this tighter time scale poses risks to the project:
“Faster preparation for the bill may increase the extent of petitions to Parliament which may make it less likely that royal assent is granted by the planned date of May 2015.”
Another delay is that the consultation on phase 2 of the route has only just been launched for the Y part of the network, despite the fact that it was being worked on when we were in power three years ago. Ministers have been trundling along; it is time for more urgency.
Secondly, on project mismanagement, the Government’s early cost-benefit reports were criticised in May this year by the National Audit Office for failing to make the strategic case for the new railway. I welcome that that has now been published in full. In September, the Public Accounts Committee warned that Ministers’ plans to present the hybrid Bill to Parliament before Christmas were “ambitious” and “unrealistic”. I would be interested to hear from the Secretary of State whether that is still his plan.
Andrew Bridgen
Will the hon. Lady confirm, as he has stated in the media, that the shadow Chancellor will have the final say over whether Labour supports HS2?
Mary Creagh
The shadow Chancellor has never said that in the media. In fact, he has told the media that it will be a collective decision, so I do not know where the hon. Gentleman has got that from.
Finally, this summer the contingency budget ballooned to £14.4 billion, now one third of the railway’s cost. Our concern is that putting in such a large contingency at such an early stage of the project could be a self-fulfilling prophecy, a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe). We are living in austere times. Our constituents are facing the largest cost of living crisis for a generation. Prices have risen faster than wages for 39 of the 40 months of this Government, and working people are, on average, more than £1,500 a year worse off. In these circumstances, and given the public finances, it was right for my right hon. Friend the shadow Chancellor to call the Government to account for their mismanagement of the project, which has led to this ballooning of costs. That is the right thing to do, because public consent for this great project depends on people like the shadow Chancellor having the courage to stand up against sloppy, incompetent and bureaucratic government. It is we, the Opposition, who are the true friends of HS2 and this Government who have put it at risk. We will continue our scrutiny of these costs and our discipline on the public finances.
Mr Betts
My hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the problem of delay. Certainly in Sheffield, we are particularly concerned about the delay between completing phases 1 and 2. Now that the welcome appointment of Sir David Higgins has been announced, should not one of his jobs be to consider how we can build the second phase more quickly? Perhaps we could start building in the north as we start building in the south.
Mary Creagh
Again, that is for Sir David Higgins to work out with Ministers, but undoubtedly that could keep costs down and allow further benefits to be realised.
Mr Godsiff
Is there a figure above which the Opposition Front-Bench team would not support this project, if the incompetence to which she refers is played out by the Government? Is there a figure at which the Labour party would pull out?
Mary Creagh
I do not know whether my hon. Friend was here when this was discussed, but we tabled an amendment on Report that was agreed by the Government and which makes it clear that any contingency spend must be reported to the House annually.
We will continue to hold up the weaknesses of the management of HS2 until every one of them has been addressed. We want to see swift progress with the hybrid Bill and we shall scrutinise the latest strategic case, published this week, to satisfy ourselves that it is based on sound assumptions. The Government must drive down those contingency costs and have a clear strategy for doing so. This fiscally disciplined scrutiny is what one would expect from any credible official Opposition seeing a Government desperately mismanaging a project. We will go ahead with the project, but the Government must bring down the costs, and the benefits to the nation must be clear. We say: get a grip on the project, get control of the budget and get it back on track.
The increase in rail usage during our time in government was a record to be proud of, but we now face serious challenges. We understand that current and future capacity constraints on the existing rail network place a brake on regional and city growth. We know that demand for rail travel continues to grow, despite the tough economic times, and our support for a north-south line rests on tackling that capacity problem and supporting 21st century transport infrastructure. This week’s strategic case shows the intense pressure our major mainline stations are under, and not just in the south. In four years, there will be 200 people for every 100 train seats arriving into Birmingham New Street at 5 o’clock. Rail freight is growing at 3% a year, and HS2 would free up space for more freight trains on the east coast, west coast and midland main lines, and take those lorries off our roads.
Kelvin Hopkins
As I said in my speech, if we want a serious transfer of freight on to rail, we must make it possible to transport lorries on trains, but we cannot do that on the existing network because the gauge is not big enough. We need a dedicated freight network for that to happen.
Mary Creagh
I am not sure whether my hon. Friend is proposing that we build an entirely new freight network—
Mary Creagh
Okay, well perhaps we will park that thought for another day, because many others want to come in. My hon. Friend is absolutely right, though, that we have to shift freight from the roads and on to the more environmentally friendly railways, and we want to ensure that this line can do that. We want HS2 to give people a real choice between short-haul aeroplanes and the more environmentally friendly trains. We want to see more inter-city services for cities that currently have a poor service to London. We want HS2 to free the west coast, east coast and midland main lines for new commuter services between the midlands and the north.
These are not just transport arguments. They are social and economic arguments about the sort of country we want to be: a country in which no town or city is left behind. We want to ensure that cities such as Wakefield, which currently enjoys a twice-hourly inter-city service to London, are not downgraded. I obviously have a particular interest in Wakefield’s twice-hourly service to London, which I am happy to declare.
The public consultation on compensation arrangements is important, and the Government need to ensure that they respond fully to specific local issues such as those raised by the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), and that proper compensation is given to residents who are affected or blighted, such as those in the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson). We will maintain pressure on the Government to work closely with the communities affected.
We will vote today in favour of this paving Bill to allow preparatory expenditure on the scheme. We believe that how we build something is as important as what we build. This is not just a transport project; it is also a social and economic project. I am glad that the cities are already looking at how they can invest in skills so that local people can benefit from the employment opportunities that HS2 will bring. We are pleased that the Government have agreed to our amendments on vocational training audits for the scheme. That will help us to realise our Labour vision of creating 35,000 high-quality apprenticeships over the lifetime of the project, representing a step change in vocational education for this country’s young people. HS2 is not just a transport project; it is also an employment project.
We are glad that the Government have accepted our amendments on annual reports to Parliament on contingency spending to ensure that the scheme is kept on budget, and on linking the railway with active travel such as cycling and walking. Having said that, I will not make any promises about cycling the new cycle path that will run alongside the track. After cycling from London to Brighton, I think I know my limits. We will also continue to scrutinise Ministers to ensure that they work closely with UK companies to use procurement to deliver the maximum jobs, growth and skills for UK companies, small and large.
High Speed 2 is a huge project which, if managed properly, will bring great social, economic and environmental benefits to this country. The project is about how we deliver capacity for more passengers and services, and connectivity to bring cities closer together, while ensuring that the trains run on time. We will serve our great cities by having HS2 come in with a budget that is under control and with benefits that are clear for all to see. The Secretary of State should do his job and I will do mine, and my job is to ensure that he does his job properly.
High Speed 2 is a project that is in the national interest. It has suffered from the fiscal and project management incompetence of this Government, and I hope that this Secretary of State will get it back on track. Britain deserves better than this. It will fall to the next Labour Government, a one-nation Government, to build HS2—on time, on budget and in the national interest.
Mrs Spelman
I should like to congratulate the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Mr Goodwill), on his new appointment and thank him for taking up the baton on the Bill on Report. That was not an easy task. He was preceded by an excellent Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr Burns), who did a very good job in Committee. I really enjoyed the spirit of co-operation between both sides in Committee, and the latitude that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) and I were given to table amendments that have genuinely improved the Bill.
Anyone who will have High Speed 2 going through their constituency is having a difficult time. Those who will have an interchange station will have what I have described as the pain and the gain. The quality of the local connectivity can tip the balance between pain and gain in those areas, and I am delighted that an amendment has been accepted on a cross-party basis to improve local connectivity. That will make a big difference to the constituencies that will have those stations. It will provide for local road, rail, cycle and pedestrian connections to the new interchange stations.
The Birmingham interchange station will offer a rare opportunity to improve the already integrated international airport and its main line station, through a connection with high-speed rail. Seeing the potential for that, the airport has proposed a second runway, even though it has plenty of spare capacity on its recently extended runway. It hopes, of course, to relieve some of the pressure on London and the south-east. With the interchange station being approximately 38 minutes from Euston, it is obviously competitive in terms of journey time with some of the London airports. This had led my local authority to see the potential of this transport hub, designating it as “UK Central”. HS2 is central to that vision.
To fulfil that vision, I hope that the Department will be able to look at the design stage of the new junctions required on the M42, as it serves Birmingham airport, the present station and the National Exhibition Centre. We need help with that. It would be worth giving consideration, too, to the development of the surface area and perhaps take another look at providing a tunnel—I would very much like to see that—where HS2 crosses over the existing west coast main line.
I believe that the extra time the Government have given for this Bill has allowed important improvements and mitigations. The draft environmental statement was indeed a draft—one on which we could consult our constituents and seek to secure improvements. I am sure that my constituents and those of many other Members appreciate the value of that.
Unfortunately, we did not reach my amendments today. They would have improved the terms of the compensation for all affected constituents and enshrined in statute a property bond. I am pleased that the Government are consulting on a property bond, and we have every hope that that will be brought to fruition.
Mrs Gillan
I support my right hon. Friend in her search for a property bond. As she knows, my constituent Hilary Wharf, the railway economist, has done a great deal of work on the property bond issue, and believes this will be a much fairer way of compensating all those people whose lives and properties will be damaged by this project.
Mrs Spelman
I agree with my right hon. Friend and I urge all Members whose constituencies are affected by HS2 to make sure that their constituents respond to the consultation that is under way; the Government remain open-minded about the eligibility criteria, which is important. I indicated in an intervention that there is an important need to offset the impact on biodiversity. I know that the present Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is working with HS2 to make sure that no net loss of biodiversity arises from the infrastructure.
For the west midlands, HS2 is a lifeline. We should not overlook the fact that, at a time when west midlands manufacturing is undergoing a renaissance for the first time in my generation, there is no capacity for transporting manufacturing products on our railways. Anyone driving down the M40 will see transporter load after transporter load of cars going for export. We export 82% of all the cars we produce, and 50% of them go to other EU countries. They should be able to be transported by rail. The freight aspect of HS2 is thus incredibly important.
Finally, in view of the completion date, this project is principally going to benefit our children and our children’s children. I would like us to be the generation with the foresight to provide for them.
Frank Dobson
I am going to be the original parochial MP. For many people in my constituency, this issue is not a question of “not in my back yard”, but one of “not through my front room”. A total of 220 homes will be destroyed and a further 1,000 homes will be blighted for the 10 years while the works go on at Euston. A large number of small businesses will be bankrupted because of what is going on there.
When it comes to getting compensation, both the qualifications and the quantum for compensation in Greater London, and most particularly at Euston and in Camden Town, are much worse and far inferior to what will apply in rural areas. I hope that some people in the House of Lords will see fit to help Ministers keep the promises they made about being fair to everybody in terms of compensation. There can be no justification for saying that the noise is less in Euston than in Great Missenden. Noise is noise, dirt is dirt, filth is filth. The main difference is that in Euston all that will go on for 10 years, whereas on most other parts of the line it will go on for only a short period.
HS2 Ltd, and the HS2 apologists, say “Oh, it will not be as bad as Frank Dobson says.” Well, if the trouble will not be as bad as Frank Dobson says, why cannot those at HS2 come up with full, decent compensation? The main reason is that they know that it is going to be terrible and that proper compensation would cost a lot of money, but why should people living in my area experience dreadful blight for a decade or more while a national project goes through? Why should they be sacrificed on the altar of that national project?
It has been suggested that buildings in the area will act as buffers against noise. The people who live in Mornington terrace, the people who live in Ampthill square, the people who live in Park Village East, the people who live in Eversholt street, the people who live in the Regent’s Park estate, the people who overlook the railway now and the people who will overlook the railway when the “buffer” blocks of flats have been demolished—all those people face 10 years of noise and filth and disruption, and we are proposing that they should not receive the same level of compensation as people living in Great Missenden. That cannot be fair, and it cannot be decent.
I think that nearly everyone in the House wants to support and help small businesses. Drummond street, in my constituency, is full of small businesses with very hard-working owners and staff, providing restaurants and cafés and shops. It is on the west side of Euston station. The shopkeepers and restaurateurs have conducted surveys, and have found that between 40% and 70% of their trade is passing trade—people who are going to or from Euston to catch a train, the tube or a bus.
It is currently proposed that about a third of Drummond street will be demolished—which does not include any of the shops—that a huge fence will be built around the construction site for 10 years, and that there will no longer be any access to the west side of Euston station from Drummond street. Anyone trying to get from the shops and restaurants into the station will have a quarter-of-a-mile wander around the boundaries of the site. That means bankruptcy for the small businesses there which will lose their trade. Those businesses are already being damaged and blighted. The kitchens of one of the restaurants are getting a bit past it, and the restaurant is thinking of replacing them, but there is no point in investing in that replacement. Let me say this to both Front Benches: do they seriously think it right to go ahead with this project and damage those little, ordinary citizens?
I raised this matter in the Committee, which took evidence from witnesses. When the problems in Drummond street were brought to the distinguished attention of the man who is the director general of the HS2 project at the Department for Transport, he gave his considered opinion of the Drummond street traders, saying
“Their business will develop. We hope that businesses in Drummond street will benefit from the construction workers on the HS2 site.” ––[Official Report, High Speed Rail (Preparation) Public Bill Committee, 11 July 2013; c. 154, Q292.]
Does he seriously think that some construction worker, knackered and stopping for his snack break, will walk a mile to and from Drummond street to get food? No is the answer to that, but what is worse, had this great person inquired of the traders in Drummond street, they would have confirmed to him that a major construction site nearby had supplied them with no single remembered user during their lunch breaks. This, I have to say, is someone who works for the outfit which has been promoting HS2 until now.
As I have said to the Secretary of State and his predecessors, if I was in favour of this hare-brained scheme, I would get rid of a lot of the people involved, because in my constituency alone their original estimate of the costs has proved to be £1 billion less than their revised costs. That is £800 million extra at Euston and £125 million for running the works across Camden town, where, apparently, the cost went up from £170-odd million to £300 million because they had not realised they would need to widen the track. If that reflects the quality of thought and advice, I say to those people who are in favour of this scheme, “Watch it, because it’s a mess, and even the great man who, at the Olympics, did manage to spend the contingency fund is going to have difficulty sorting it out.”
I therefore have to say that I believe it will be necessary for the House of Lords to try to look after and properly compensate the people I try to represent. At the last general election I made two promises. I promised I would try to stop HS2 happening and, failing that—this was a twin-track approach, if people will excuse the expression—I said I would try to make sure all their interests were looked after. I have great belief in the integrity of the current Secretary of State, and if he is going to discharge his promise to look after people properly and treat them fairly, he will have to deal properly with the people I have been trying to represent.
Sir John Randall
Madam Deputy Speaker, may I take this opportunity to welcome you to the Chair for the first time when I have been speaking?
I am very sorry that time on Report did not allow us to address all the various matters I hoped we were going to talk about, especially with regard to compensation and mitigation. I am equally sorry that I was otherwise occupied on Second Reading so I was not able to speak then. I would just say to my former captors, who held me hostage for the last 13 years, that I hope that when we come to the Second Reading of the hybrid Bill we will have plenty of time—several days—because this is a hugely important issue.
Many issues of huge concern to many of my constituents and to even more of my fellow residents in the London borough of Hillingdon have not been solved by what we have heard today. The right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) mentioned the property bond not being extended outside rural areas, and that is a matter of real concern to us. However, my constituents can rest assured that I will be raising those concerns inside the Chamber, outside the Chamber, and in any way I can. I and the other two Members of Parliament for Hillingdon—we like to be regarded as the three musketeers, “one for all, and all for one”—will be raising these issues.
Voting for this Bill tonight does not mean I will be giving a green light to the whole project. There is still some way to go for me to be persuaded that the pros outweigh the cons, and I shall be looking at things very seriously. But one thing I would say is that if there is one person in this Chamber who can persuade me of that, it is the Secretary of State.
Phil Wilson (Sedgefield) (Lab)
Sedgefield has a particular place in the history of railways, as it was in a place in Sedgefield, Heighington crossing, that Locomotion No.1 was assembled by George Stephenson in 1825, on its route to Darlington to open up the Darlington and Stockton railway. It was said at the time that such was the velocity that in some parts the speed was frequently 12 mph, but it still took 65 minutes to travel the eight and a half miles to Darlington from Heighington crossing. Obviously we have come on a long way since then, but there is still a long way to go, which is why I support the Bill.
I wish to talk a little about supply chains and how this project will have an impact on jobs. Hitachi is opening a factory in my constituency which is going to build the intercity express programme trains, and the Secretary of State is coming to the constituency tomorrow to celebrate the start of construction there. That is just one example of what impact this will have on factories in areas that, in the first instance, are not affected by high-speed rail, because the route will not be going through the north-east initially. We are talking about 730 jobs, with 3,000 to 5,000 jobs in the supply chain. We also have a new university technology college opening. Hitachi and other companies in Newton Aycliffe are in negotiations with Sunderland university to open the UTC. It will create a plethora of people who are interested in engineering, electronics and all the other kinds of apprenticeships that we require to continue the work and the factory going forward. In addition, the research and development facility for trains for Hitachi will be based in Newton Aycliffe.
We should not forget that Hitachi built the bullet train in Japan, so if Hitachi is lucky enough to win the contract, it will have the technology to build the trains in this country. These trains would not be imported; they could be built in this country. That would mean 3,200 permanent jobs, not necessarily at Newton Aycliffe, but around the country, and jobs to maintain the trains as well. The capacity for the supply chain is fantastic.
The system of high-speed rail in Japan—the Shinkansen —covers 1,500 miles. The first high-speed rail started there in 1964, and Japan is on its eighth generation of high-speed train. The average delay on these trains is 36 seconds. I want a bit of that for the UK.
Mrs Gillan
May I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, as this is the first time I have spoken with you in that position, and offer many congratulations? I will be brief, because I have spoken at length before. I still think that HS2 is an expensive toy. I remember that we once had something else that went fast—it was called Concorde, and we know what happened to that. [Interruption.] It is still not flying these days, and it lost out to the jumbo jet.
The Government have introduced this Bill, but it has not really moved this House or our knowledge of HS2 much further on. The Bill writes a blank cheque for the Government to spend as much as they want on the preparation of any of our railway works throughout the country, in perpetuity. The Government really introduced the Bill because they have lost control of the public relations on this project and they have lost control of the costs. I cannot even remember how many times we have read about the Department for Transport carrying out a “fightback” on this project.
No one is very impressed that four and a half years down the line a project that is supposed to be so worthy is still in the position it is in: the business case has worsened; the capacity claims have not been backed up in this Chamber today by any facts; the speed has now dropped away and is no longer the prime reason; and the connectivity is poor, as we have seen. Of course, all of us would agree with some of the aims and objectives, including mending the north-south divide, as has been discussed. We would all like those aims to be achieved, but I do not think that HS2 will do that.
I am sorry that we did not have more time to discuss compensation, but compensation consultation is still going on and I hope that the Government will have a property bond.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way on the point about compensation. Although it is important that the Bill be given a Third Reading tonight, because many of my constituents would otherwise be left in limbo, it must be placed on the record that the project cannot go ahead if a property bond is not put in place to defend people not just now, but in future. Even if the project is dropped, they still need that property bond.
Mrs Gillan
I hear that, and many people would agree with my hon. Friend.
I am sad that the Bill is coming up for Third Reading without our having had longer to debate it. I, sadly, will be going through the Lobby to vote against it. I do not think any help or support should be given to the project. Many people around the country share my view. Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors, said recently:
“We agree with the need for key infrastructure spending, but . . . It is time for the Government to look at a thousand smaller projects instead of . . . one grand folly.”
Richard Wellings of the Institute of Economic Affairs said:
“This lossmaking project fails the commercial test, while standard cost-benefit analysis shows it to be extremely poor value for money.”
I could go on. Even the Adam Smith Institute says that HS2 is a disaster.
Andrew Bridgen
Does my right hon. Friend agree that if there were a genuine business case for HS2 the Government would not have to put £50 billion-plus of taxpayers’ money into it, and the chief executive of Legal and General, which has announced a £15 billion fund for UK infrastructure, would not say that he does not want one penny of that money spent on HS2?
Mrs Gillan
I am grateful for the support for the quotes that I cited.
As the Secretary of State well knows, we have an outstanding meeting on compensation. I know he has tried to fulfil that and I hope we can get together on compensation, because my constituents are so badly affected.
I hope HS2 does not go ahead. The new love-in between those on the two Front Benches does not fool me much. I am pretty sure Labour will play politics with the project right up to the wire, but if it does go ahead, we must make sure that we have the best protection for our environment and our countryside, and the best compensation for people whose lives, businesses and communities will be rent asunder by the project. Nothing less will do.
Mr Godsiff
I spoke and voted against the Bill on Second Reading, and I regret to say that nothing I have heard subsequently has convinced me that I should not vote against it again today. After Second Reading, the argument put forward by the Government began to unravel and people came out stating different positions from those that they had taken before.
First, the Department for Transport upped the figures to £42 billion. Then a previous Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the cost could go to £80 billion and he was withdrawing his support. Then Lord Mandelson said that he attended the Cabinet meeting—presumably the same one as my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) attended—where the project was dreamed up as a big idea on the back of an envelope without proper analysis or costings. You pays your money and you takes your choice as to what you want to believe, but I do not think that is the way we should undertake such a project.
There are two points that I wish to make. First, the Government say, not unreasonably, that to go ahead with such a big infrastructure project, they need the support of the main Opposition party. That is perfectly reasonable, but I have been there before, as have many Members in the House. I remember when Michael Heseltine was making preparations for the millennium. He went to the Labour party and said, “Look, I can’t build a millennium dome unless you commit yourselves to it.” We committed ourselves to it, and what happened? Well, there was a good party for the great and the good on new year’s eve, then attendances at the dome dwindled, we could not give it away, and eventually we ended up with £600 million of taxpayers’ money being totally wasted because it had to be given away to AEG for nothing. That is what happens when we go in for a vanity project without proper costings.
Secondly, if this is a such a great bargain for the taxpayer and for this country, why is it not being financed by private capital or foreign sovereign wealth funds? The Government are no great lover of public enterprise. Indeed, they are doing their best to pass the very successful franchise on the east coast line back into private ownership. That is their position, fine, but why is private capital not coming into this project? Why are foreign sovereign wealth funds not coming in? The Government are quite happy to have a new generation of nuclear reactors built by a state-owned Chinese company that is answerable to the Chinese politburo, yet this project needs to be paid for with public money. I suspect the reason is quite simple: private capital will not touch it with a bargepole, because those involved know that it cannot be done within the figures that have been talked about. It will go massively over budget and they are not going to pick up the bill.
I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood) whether there was a pull-out figure for this project. She declined to give me a figure, and I understand that, but if there is no figure to all intents and purposes we are signing a blank cheque. If we go along with the Government and costs escalate—she made a very good point about degrees of incompetence—what will the pull-out figure be? What will happen if we get half the line built and all of a sudden the figure shoots up to nearly £100 billion? What will we do then? Just continue?
I have a great deal of time for the Secretary of State and in many ways he is in a hole. As an ex-miner, however, he ought to know perfectly well that when someone is in a hole, they should stop digging. My strong advice to him is that he should stop digging. He does not want to end up with a white elephant.
Alec Shelbrooke
HS2 is a very important project for the city of Leeds. The benefits it will bring to the north of England are immense, but they cannot be built on the back of hard-working people who have invested their livelihoods in their houses and so on. It is therefore vital that, before we sign the Bill off next spring, proper compensation is in place in the form of property bonds, and that the suggestions on rerouting, which are not about “not in my back yard” but propose sensible alternatives to ensure that the route follows existing transport corridors or goes through open countryside, are dealt with. With the best will in the world, we cannot mitigate the effects of such a development just 30 metres from the back of someone’s house.
I was a supporter of this project before I came to this House, but I cannot support it if the compensation package is not right. I urge the Secretary of State to ensure that it is right before the subject returns to the House in the spring.
Mrs Ellman
High Speed 2 is essential national infrastructure, and we are at a critical part of the process. The concerns raised in today’s debate are very important, and many of them were raised by the Transport Committee two years ago. Some of them have been addressed, but some need to be looked at further. It is now the responsibility of the Secretary of State, working with High Speed 2, to ensure that they are dealt with. The concerns relate to the environment, value for money and ensuring maximum economic benefit, including giving opportunities during construction for employment and apprenticeships across the country. The project is essential, but it must benefit the maximum number of people, and that is the Secretary of State’s responsibility as we reach this very important juncture.
Mark Pawsey
Being given the opportunity to speak now feels like winning the lottery, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I will make one quick point on the impact on my constituents in Rugby. We currently benefit from a fast and frequent service on the west coast main line, so with Virgin Trains we can be in London in 50 minutes and with London Midland we can be there in just under an hour. That is attractive to businesses coming to Rugby, which we can present as a great location. My fear is that, if the Bill goes ahead and the money is given to build High Speed 2, the legacy line will become a stopping line, with trains stopping at every station as the operator seeks to maximise revenues, because the city-to-city business will have been lost—
Business without Debate
Political and Constitutional Reform
Petitions
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
I am extremely proud to present this petition on behalf of nearly 3,500 members of staff, students and parents of Skerton community high school and the wider community of Skerton. I am also proud to be wearing the school tie. I am pleased that a group of students, led by a parent, Robyn Holtham, are in the Public Gallery to see the petition presented.
The petitioners started their campaign in September, when they were told that their school faced closure by the county council. Skerton community high school has fantastic pastoral care and all the students are immensely happy there. I therefore urge the House to support the community of Skerton and the children and parents of Skerton community high school in their fight to keep the school open.
The petition states:
The Petition of pupils, parents and staff of Skerton Community High School and others in the Skerton community,
Declares that the Petitioners believe that Skerton Community High School provides excellent pastoral care and caters for a high number of special needs students and thus the Petitioners do not believe that it should be closed.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to take steps to support the school in its bid to remain open.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001256]
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I am proud, pleased and humbled to present a petition on behalf of more than 1,000 constituents in St Ives, in particular Peter Greenough of Bluebell cottage in Godolphin Cross. Some 200 people signed the petition in manuscript form and more than 850 did so through an online petition.
The petition is part of the Rural Fair Share campaign. I congratulate the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), who has spearheaded the campaign. He and a number of other hon. Members will be presenting petitions in support of the campaign on Monday. As I cannot be there, I am presenting this petition tonight. Cornwall is one of the poorest regions in the UK and it receives unfair levels of funding.
The petition states:
The Petition of the residents of St Ives,
Declares that the Petitioners believe that the Local Government Finance Settlement is unfair to rural communities; notes that the Rural Penalty sees urban areas receive 50% more support per head than rural areas despite higher costs in rural service delivery; and opposes the planned freezing of this inequity in the 2013–14 settlement for six years until 2020.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to reduce the Rural Penalty in staged steps by at least 10% by 2020.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001264]
Academy Status
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
I applied for an Adjournment debate on academy schools because Snaresbrook primary school in my constituency was told some time ago that it was likely to become an academy. It is clear that the parents, governors, teachers, staff and surrounding community are opposed to that. The ward councillors, all three of whom are Conservatives, are also against it. The campaign is supported, impressively, by the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott) and by Redbridge council, which again is a Conservative local authority. By the way, Redbridge has invested a considerable amount in the school and has improved its fabric under very difficult circumstances over the past few months.
Snaresbrook has a very good history by any objective judgment and was always well regarded. Suddenly, in June, it received a bad Ofsted report and was put into special measures. That took everybody by surprise. Under a new head, Carel Buxton, the school has shown clear signs of improvement and it is clear to everybody in the community that, in the long term, it will re-establish its reputation as a good primary school.
I was therefore surprised to receive a letter a couple of weeks ago from Lord Nash, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education, saying that, regardless of anything else, the school was to become an academy. Only this week, the hon. Member for Ilford North received an e-mail from the Department for Education saying that the school would not become an academy, but would remain as a maintained school. That was extremely welcome news.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we must congratulate the parents and, as he rightly said, London borough of Redbridge council? We must also congratulate the hon. Gentleman himself, and everyone else involved—that probably includes me. We should thank the Department for Education, the Minister of State, and the Secretary of State for ensuring that Snaresbrook primary school is given the opportunity to continue the good work it has done in recent months.
John Cryer
I have no hesitation in agreeing with the hon. Gentleman about that, and I was about to praise him for his work in supporting the campaign for the school to remain a maintained school. A number of children from his constituency are at the school and we have worked together successfully on a number of issues in our area, of which this is the latest. I have no hesitation in praising Redbridge council for doing an excellent job. As I said, it has managed to invest £110,000 in the fabric of the school. That is pretty unusual given the scarcity of resources at the moment, yet the council managed it, and the local councillors deserve praise as well. I also thank the Department for Education.
There are, however, issues relating to the processes that lead to academisation—to use a fairly modern sort of phrase. Before I raise those with the Minister, let me make it clear that I am not making a party political argument. I was not a fan of academies when the Labour Government were in power—in fact, I was not a fan of quite a few things they did. I have not checked this, but a while ago I was reliably informed that I voted against my own side 84 times when we were in government. That must be some sort of record and it goes to show that I am not above having a crack at my own side if I think it necessary.
It is widely agreed that two things contribute to improvements in schools—good leadership and good teaching—but neither necessarily arises out of academy status. I am sure there are academies with good leadership and good teaching, but there are also state maintained schools that have both those things. Serious concerns have been highlighted in various media reports about the governance and accountability in academy schools and free schools, although we are focusing on academies.
We have seen stories in the press about chains of academies that are starting to form and which have been accused of moving investment from the schools to other things. Their chief executives are earning very high, perhaps inflated, salaries, and large sums are spent on hospitality and junkets. The Select Committee on Education is yet to look at the record of academies. I am sure it will find that there are good ones, but also that there are question marks over accountability and democratic processes, which are not in place.
The process by which schools become academies raises questions for the Department for Education. There are, for instance, conflicts of interest. On 20 December last year, the BBC revealed that at least four advisers contracted to work on the sponsored academies programme by the Department for Education are also Ofsted inspectors, which I would say was a conflict of interest. There are also a number who, according to the same report, have financial interests with academies and free schools but also work for the Department—again, there are questions to be answered.
On 13 February The Independent reported that the Department was busy offering money—in other words, inducements—to schools, which seems to have happened mainly in the north-west. It was reported that 32 schools in Lancashire were offered sums of £40,000, or slightly less, for that purpose. They were told, “If you become an academy, you will receive a cash injection of £40,000.”
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I am glad my hon. Friend has mentioned what is going on in the north-west, because there has been a lot of concern in schools in Lancashire, Merseyside and elsewhere about the approaches made by brokers—not just financial inducements, but a lot of pressure put on to a school to convert to academy status. Does my hon. Friend agree that one reason there is so much opposition to these conversions is the concern among parents, and others, about the use of unqualified teachers? That has been allowed in academies since July last year.
John Cryer
We had a debate earlier this week about the use of unqualified teachers. My view is that teachers should be appropriately qualified, and there is a question about that. Parents also have serious concerns about admissions. Once the local education authority is taken out of admissions, who co-ordinates that? Will there be an element of anarchy because no central body is controlling admissions? In other words, will it be a free-for-all?
On 11 February, The Guardian reported a claim by the National Association of Head Teachers that academy brokers—that phrase is new to me—are given targets by the Department for Education on the number of the schools they must convert. One question I wanted to ask the Minister is whether those targets exists. Are academy brokers told, “You have to convert so many schools by such a point in future”? The same story recorded one head who claimed she had gone to a meeting and been told she was not allowed to leave until she had made a decision on the future of her school. Clearly, that is an unacceptable way to treat anybody, including a head teacher.
There are also examples of head teachers and governors having to concentrate on demands placed on them by the Department rather than concentrating on improving the school. I am thinking of schools that have problems—failing schools in special measures or schools that are given an Ofsted verdict of requiring improvement. They might find that their time is taken up engaging with the Department in discussions on the future status of the school rather than engaging in improving the school.
I have seen a number of Ofsted reports that make it clear that that is happening. For example, one report—I cannot mention the local authority or the school because it is in another constituency, and mentioning it would be a contravention of parliamentary convention—states:
“Another significant barrier to improvement has been the amount of time the headteacher has been involved in the discussions about transferring to an academy…Lengthy and time-consuming meetings with parents, unions, staff and external agencies have taken leaders’ and governors’ focus away from school improvement”.
I have a feeling that, over the next few years, we will see in the media stories of financial mismanagement arising from a lack of accountability, checks and balances, and democracy in the governance of academies and free schools. A parallel can be drawn with the situation when the Government introduced co-operation for further education colleges in 1992. Some of the colleges were fine and worked perfectly well but, because of the lack of accountability, a series of scandals followed—they were documented pretty closely by a number of publications—in which some principals, because they were given a free hand, abused their position. They got up to all sorts of things, financial and otherwise, that were deeply questionable.
To conclude, I have a number of questions for the Minister. I should like him to answer them, but if he does not have answers to hand, I should like him to write to me with the information. Are any contractors who are paid by the Department also Ofsted inspectors? Is anybody working in any way for the Department who has a financial interest in academies and/or free schools? Are academy brokers required by law to abide by the civil service code of conduct? The answer to that last question was given some time ago in another Adjournment debate, and it seemed to be that they are required to abide by the code of conduct. However, in a later Question Time, the Secretary of State equivocated and did not say whether they must abide by the code of conduct or not.
I asked whether brokers are given targets for converting schools to academy status. Is it legitimate for schools to ask academy brokers to declare any conflicts of interest at the outset of their engagement? In other words, would it be legitimate, at the first meeting, for the schools to say, “Is there any conflict of interest you would like to bring to our attention or of which we should be aware?”
As I understand it, when the Academies Commission reported in January 2013, it found that there was no evidence that academies performed significantly better than maintained schools. Is that so? Will the Minister confirm that TUPE rights apply to all staff who are transferred from maintained schools to academies?
I thank the Minister for replying to the debate. He has drawn a bit of a short straw by getting the Adjournment debate on a Thursday afternoon. By the way, it appears that the massed ranks of Parliament have turned out for it, compared with previous Adjournment debates I have introduced. That shows what an important issue this is. I have been to Adjournment debates on Thursdays with the Minister and one Whip, and no one else. Today, there is a magnificent turnout on both sides of the House. I pay tribute to the hon. Members who are here and the Minister.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (John Cryer) on securing this important debate and raising these issues, in which he takes a close personal interest. I assure him that I have no problem being here this evening, and I am actually the duty Minister for tomorrow as well so I would be here anyway. I do not know why I am getting all these short straws.
I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott), who intervened. Although he is not the constituency MP for the school, I know that he has taken an interest on behalf of concerned parents and others in the area, and we have listened closely to both hon. Members on this issue.
The hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead asked several questions, including about the circumstances of the individual school, which I shall go into in detail; about general policy on academies, which I wish to cover; and some specific questions about the performance management of academy brokers and potential conflicts of interest between Ofsted inspectors and others. On those latter points, I shall write to him—as he anticipated —to ensure that I can supply detailed answers, because I do not have the answers to some of those specific questions to hand.
It is now three years since we expanded the academies programme to enable all schools to become academies, including the ability for primary schools to become academies in their own right for the first time. We did this because we believe that teachers and heads should have more freedom to run schools and more power to innovate in the best interests of their students. More than half of secondary schools and a significant proportion of primary schools are now academies, with more converting every month.
Schools across the country are taking advantage of the freedom that academy status gives them, including having more control over their funding. The decision whether a school should become an academy is, rightly, entirely voluntary for the overwhelming majority of schools, and will remain so. More than 2,500 schools have decided to convert and have become academies. These range from small rural primaries to large secondary schools. We expect these academies to work in partnership with other schools to share their knowledge, experience and expertise, with the highest performing institutions helping the weaker institutions to improve.
In addition to the converter academies, there are now almost 900 sponsored academies. We have made it clear that we want to turn around underperforming schools by finding new academy sponsors for them. As the hon. Gentleman said, this is about raising standards and getting better leadership and governance in weak schools. It is not good enough that some children are left to struggle in schools where a large proportion of the pupils are unable to achieve minimum standards year after year. We want to find lasting solutions to underperformance so that all children have the opportunities that they deserve. This is crucial because each child has only one real chance in life to secure a good education. That is why improving schools rapidly is really important.
Our priority now is to continue tackling poorly performing primary schools so that all pupils have the skills they need to succeed in secondary education. There are schools whose history of underperformance and inability to sustain improvements are causing us real concern. That is why we are working with local authorities across the country to secure better outcomes for their pupils, sometimes by transforming under- performing schools into sponsored academies. In several areas we can point to dramatic improvements in schools that have been failing for some years, but with a new sponsor they have seen significant improvements in performance over time.
In the case of Snaresbrook primary school in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, the school was judged by Ofsted in June to require special measures. It is worth saying that Ofsted found that the achievement of pupils, quality of teaching, behaviour and safety of pupils and leadership and management at the school were inadequate. As the hon. Gentleman will appreciate, that is a serious matter where prompt action is required. As a result of the inspection, we asked the governing body to consider the benefits of becoming an academy and we proposed an academy sponsor based on a nearby outstanding school. Our policy remains that becoming an academy with the support of a strong sponsor is often the best way to ensure rapid and sustained improvement. However, in this case we recognise that Snaresbrook primary school does not have a long history of underperformance and was previously judged good by Ofsted.
We also acknowledge that the school has made progress since being placed in special measures. The local authority acted swiftly in removing the head teacher and chair of governors, brokering a partnership arrangement with a nearby outstanding school, and providing specialist English and maths consultants, among other changes. We also recognise that in this year’s national tests—not all the data are checked and in the public domain yet—pupil performance appears to have improved significantly at key stage 2. We understand that the school’s results for reading, writing and maths are the best for five years, and among the highest in Redbridge. I understand that pupil progression has improved this year, and that the number of pupils making at least two levels of progress at the end of key stage 2 will be above the local authority and national average.
Those changes, complemented by representations from the hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for Ilford North, led us to conclude, after Ofsted had looked at the situation, that we needed to review the decision we were making. The changes led Ofsted to conclude at a monitoring inspection earlier this month that the school’s improvement plan is fit for purpose. Inspectors also commented on how leaders have made clear their expectations and ambitions for the school regaining and sustaining its former reputation as a high-achieving school. We will therefore continue to monitor the school’s progress in coming out of special measures, but, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we do not currently plan to intervene in Snaresbrook primary school to force academisation on the school.
However, we are not treating Snaresbrook differently from any other school judged inadequate by Ofsted. At all stages, we have been clear that our goal is school improvement. We will always seek to work with local authorities and schools to find solutions on which everyone can agree, as we have done successfully in many parts of the country.
Bill Esterson
I will not ask the Minister about qualified teachers today—we have done that a lot recently. On school improvement and whether academies do better than the state-maintained sector, does he accept that all the evidence—not just that from the Academies Commission —is inconclusive when comparing improvement in like-for-like schools?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. The hon. Gentleman must stick carefully to the narrow terms of the debate. I am sure the Minister will bear that in mind.
Mr Laws
I shall indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker, although I will say a word about some of the wider issues in a moment.
In all cases, a school can become an academy only after statutory consultation has taken place. That gives parents, governors and the local community the opportunity to put forward their views. These representations are always considered as part of the decision-making process.
On the point raised by the hon. Gentleman, academy status has made a big improvement in transforming underperforming schools, giving them the freedom to innovate by creating the right conditions for success. In recent years, the results of sponsored academies have gone up faster than those of other state-funded schools, and have turned around some of our worst schools. Their performance has continued to improve this year; in fact, the longer they are open, the better on average they do.
I make it clear that sponsored academies remain state schools funded by the state. All academies are run by non-profit-making charitable trusts, which sign funding agreements with the Secretary of State. They are also required by their funding agreements to follow the law and guidance on admissions, special educational needs and exclusions, as though they were maintained schools.
I hope I have made it clear today that our absolute priority is to see sustainable improvement in schools that have been underperforming for many years. Where underperformance is not being tackled effectively, the Secretary of State has the power to intervene to help ensure that standards are raised quickly, and these powers include replacing current governors with interim executive members, although this power has been used only sparingly.
I would like to reiterate my thanks to the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead for securing this debate, and I thank him and the hon. Member for Ilford North for their role in raising this issue. Many schools across the country are choosing to become academies, and we will continue to work with underperforming schools and their local authorities to transform the life chances of some of the most disadvantaged children in the country. I will write to the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead to address his detailed points.
Finally, along with all hon. Members I would like to wish Snaresbrook primary school, its leadership, teachers and pupils the very best for the future.
Question put and agreed to.