House of Commons
Prayers
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Oral Answers to Questions
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
1. If he will set a target to decarbonise the power sector by 2030.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
9. If he will set a target to decarbonise the power sector by 2030. [R]
Karl Turner (Kingston upon Hull East) (Lab)
11. If he will set a target to decarbonise the power sector by 2030.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
I agree that there should be a power sector decarbonisation target for 2030. That is why the Government are legislating so that a decarbonisation target range can be set in 2016, once the fifth carbon budget has been set. When that target has been set, we believe it will be the world’s first such legally binding decarbonisation target.
Joan Walley
I am interested to hear that the Secretary of State agrees with me. We have all-party support for the Climate Change Act 2008, a recommendation from the Committee on Climate Change that the target for clean power should be set now, rather than later, and a Bill going through Parliament that could get rid of all the uncertainty. By delaying this decision until 2016, is he not simply creating greater investor uncertainty, risking green jobs and kowtowing to the Chancellor?
Mr Davey
I should like to pay tribute to the hon. Lady, now that she has told people that she will not be standing at the next election. She has been a doughty champion of green issues in the House. However, I do not believe that this short delay of two years will have the impact that she describes. She should remember that we have the EU 2020 targets for energy efficiency, renewables and emissions; the Climate Change Act, with the carbon budgets running up to 2027; and the Energy Bill which provides the most secure framework, the levy control framework going up to 2020, and industrial strategies. This country is arguing for the most ambitious 2030 greenhouse gas emissions target of any EU member state. It is just not true that investors think that this Government are not committed to this issue.
Chi Onwurah
This Government talk loudly, and at times obscenely, about the costs of decarbonisation, but they say little about the benefits, such as the potential for green jobs on Tyneside, which leads the world in clean power. If the delay is not causing the lack of investment, why has investment in clean energy fallen by billions of pounds since this Government came to power? And what is the Secretary of State going to do to bring more green jobs to Tyneside?
Mr Davey
The hon. Lady should not talk down the sector or her own area. She ought to know, because we have debated the matter at the Dispatch Box, that £31 billion has been invested in renewable electricity since 2010. We have doubled the amount of renewable electricity generation since we came to power.
Karl Turner
Does the Secretary of State agree that setting a decarbonisation target for 2030 would greatly assist the much needed investment in Hull by Siemens? Or does he agree with the Prime Minister that this is all just “green crap”?
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
The Secretary of State will be aware that the UK now has among the lowest emissions per capita and per unit of GDP in Europe. For example, they are 25% lower than those of Germany, which has just embarked on a programme of building coal power stations. Is there anything more we can do to help our European partners have any kind of meaningful targets?
Mr Davey
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. We are working with all our EU partners to raise ambition in the EU. This Government have proposed that we should have an EU target of a 40% reduction in domestic greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, and be prepared to go up to 50% if we can get a global deal in 2015. We are leading the way in Europe on ambition.
Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)
My right hon. Friend will have noted that progress towards the decarbonisation goal was interrupted this week by the withdrawal of the Atlantic Array offshore wind project off the north Devon coast. Is he concerned that if that were to be followed by other decisions by utility companies to withdraw from such schemes, we could lose control of those critical national infrastructure decisions? Is he content with a situation in which the big six and foreign utilities effectively have a veto over those critical investment decisions?
Mr Davey
I do not see it quite as my hon. Friend does. We were initially disappointed when the decision on the Atlantic array was announced, but when we learned that it was for technical reasons and that the further analysis of the seabed that was needed would have increased the cost, we understood why it had been taken. My hon. Friend should be reassured, because the number of applications that we have received for final investment decision-enabling contracts for difference—the “go early” CFDs—has far exceeded our expectations. I believe that there will be some good news on offshore wind shortly.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
As has been said, RWE pulled the plug on the 240 turbine, 1.2 GW wind farm in the Bristol channel this week, saying that it was not the right time to invest, although I accept that it also cited some technical reasons. That is the pattern with this Government: investment has gone down from £7.2 billion in 2009 to a point where it is expected to be £1.9 billion this year. Nearly four of the five projects coming on line since 2010 were started under Labour. Does the Secretary of State accept that his refusal to adopt a 2030 power generation decarbonisation target now is scaring away investment, damaging green jobs and jeopardising our future energy security?
Mr Davey
That, of course, is absolutely not the case. If anything is damaging green jobs, it is the Leader of the Opposition and his irresponsible position on freezing energy prices. That has had a damaging effect on investment, and the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) knows it. We have a very good record in this area, and I am looking forward to making more announcements of more investment.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
2. What assessment he has made of the process involved when a Scottish and Southern Energy customer on its “Total Heating, Total Control” tariff tries to switch to another electricity supplier.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)
The ability to switch supplier is a key driver of a competitive market, and it is important that we address areas where this is difficult. I therefore welcome the opportunity to discuss with my hon. Friend the particular difficulties faced by customers on the “Total Heating, Total Control” tariff.
Mr Reid
The Government are right to encourage people to switch their supplier to get a better deal. However, consumers on SSE’s “Total Heating, Total Control” tariff find in practice that they cannot switch because wiring and meters need to be changed and other suppliers simply do not want to know. What can my right hon. Friend do to make it easier for these consumers to switch?
Michael Fallon
My hon. Friend is right to say that customers who have dynamic teleswitched meters inevitably have a narrower choice of supplier. It is therefore all the more important that Ofgem ensures that the tariffs they are on are kept reasonable. I would like to discuss further with him how we might help those particular customers to switch more easily.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
Following on from what the Minister just said, one reason why people want to switch from this tariff is that they are finding that although the headline increase announced by the company is high enough, they are being quoted sometimes twice that increase in their electricity prices. Is there anything he can do to press Ofgem on why there is such a huge increase in this tariff?
Michael Fallon
I shall certainly do that. When Ofgem last looked at this tariff, it thought that the price was reasonable compared with some other time-of-use tariffs offered by other suppliers, such as Economy 7. However, I am very happy to take the matter up again with Ofgem.
Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD)
In taking the issue up with Ofgem, the Minister needs to emphasise just how trapped these people feel. They feel that they cannot shop around and they want to be completely reassured that they are getting the fairest deal possible. In the long run, will he examine whether it would be worth accelerating and prioritising the roll-out of smart meters for these customers to make it easier for them to switch?
Michael Fallon
As I have said, it is not satisfactory that dynamic teleswitched meter customers have a choice of fewer suppliers than other customers, although there are technical reasons for that. I am happy to take this matter up again with Ofgem to see what we can do to make it easier for such customers to switch.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
A number of my constituents who have switched recently have been hit by significant charges—in one case, thousands of pounds. Given that switching is the Government’s main policy on energy, what can they do to ensure that mistakes are not being made by energy companies and that there is a fair deal for all customers who switch?
Michael Fallon
If the charges are at that level, it is clearly unacceptable. We will look at this with Ofgem to make sure that everybody is entitled to a choice— everybody is entitled to switch—and if there are particular difficulties with dynamic teleswitched meters, they need to be looked at.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
3. What representations he has received on the level of green levies; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
I have had a number of representations on the level of green levies, and the Government expect to make a statement on the conclusions of our current review shortly.
Miss McIntosh
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that reply. There is concern not only about the increase of the green levies, but about a lack of choice in where the green levies go. Is it feasible that on a household energy bill there could be a box for people to tick to show their preferred renewable to support?
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Secretary of State stand up to the Conservatives on this? There is no doubt that the Conservatives are using the green levy as a fig leaf. The fact is that we need an intelligent policy that delivers great environmental change in our country; he should not let the Tories defer that.
Mr Davey
My colleagues and I will stand together. On the green levy review, we need to do all we can to help consumers with energy bills and I should have thought that the Opposition supported that, but I have made it clear that we will not do that on the backs of the fuel poor—we will keep our support for them in the levy—and that we will ensure that there is investment in renewable energy.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
Will the Secretary of State ensure that in any review of the green levies measures are taken to protect the fuel poor, particularly those in rural Somerset?
Mr Davey
The House will be pleased to know that the social and green levies protect everybody, whether they are in rural Somerset or anywhere else in the country. On a number of occasions, I have made clear in this House and elsewhere my commitment to maintain the support for the fuel poor.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Why is the Secretary of State persisting with the carbon price floor tax, which is unilaterally damaging core foundation industries such as steel and chemicals, when even his predecessor says it has no green benefit and is simply about lining the Chancellor’s pocket?
Mr Davey
The Chancellor introduced the carbon price floor at the beginning of this Parliament and confirmed the rates in the Budget this year. The purpose is to send a clear incentive message to people investing in low carbon, which I believe the hon. Gentleman supports. I also hope that he supports the compensation package this Government have put together to help energy-intensive industries, to support them and to help them defray those costs.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
One element of the levies applied to consumer bills funds the renewables obligation certificate payments, as the Secretary of State knows. He will also be aware that a third of those payments go to generators in Scotland, but, with 8.4% of the consumer base, they are funded by bill payers across Britain. When Infinis, a Scottish-based renewables generator, published its flotation prospectus a couple of weeks ago, it cited the outcome of separation as one of its key risks. On Monday, the nationalists in Edinburgh published their plan for Scotland to separate from the rest of the UK, asserting that
“shared support for renewables and capital costs of transmission among consumers in Scotland and the rest of the UK”
would continue. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that that will definitively be the case?
Mr Davey
I cannot, of course, guarantee that. Should Scotland decide to vote for independence, there would have to be a negotiation. We cannot prejudge that negotiation, not least because despite the publication by the Scottish Executive this week, there was a lack of detail on some key elements. The hon. Gentleman is right to point out to the House and the country that if Scotland votes for independence and there can be no guarantee of support for renewables in Scotland from English, Welsh and Northern Irish consumers, Scottish consumers and industry could see price rises.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
4. What recent assessment he has made of the contribution of energy efficiency to reducing energy costs.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
Since 2010, more than 4.8 million insulation measures have been installed through Government schemes. For the average home, installing such measures can typically save between £25 and £270 on an annual energy bill.
Caroline Lucas
This week, we have heard that excess winter deaths are up 29% on last year, with up to 31,000 excess winter deaths. That should be a national scandal. Why, in that context, have the Government abolished the duty to eliminate fuel poverty, why will he not agree to amend the Energy Bill to include mandatory minimum energy efficiency standards for the homes of low-income households, and will they reverse their opposition to a binding EU 2030 energy efficiency target?
Gregory Barker
I share the hon. Lady’s concerns about the winter deaths, but one has to say, being very objective about it, that there was a clear link between influenza and those deaths in the last period looked at.
We cannot be complacent about the impact of cold homes. That is why we have a national energy efficiency strategy—we are the first Government ever to have such a strategy—and why we have an ambitious public and market-based programme to roll out energy efficiency across the housing stock.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
If we really want to target help with energy bills on those who need it most, why do we not insist through building standards that all new build social housing has solar panels on the roof?
Gregory Barker
I am not unsympathetic to that idea, but the responsibility for building standards rests with the Department for Communities and Local Government. We have zero-carbon homes, but the key challenge for this country is the existing housing stock in which the vast majority of people live now and in which they will live for decades to come. The real challenge for us is not to build relatively few great homes but to retrofit the entire housing stock, to the benefit of everyone.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
Following that answer and speculation in the press today, does the Minister accept that cutting the energy company obligation by extending the deadline for companies to meet it would punish the companies that have so far sought to meet the obligation, cause serious job losses in the insulation industry and, most important, leave vulnerable people who have been promised that they will have that work done sitting in the cold this Christmas?
Gregory Barker
I cannot prejudge any announcement that will be coming shortly, but it is clear to all of us that Labour stands for what is effectively a green poll tax. It is right behind regressive levies on bills; it has no interest in driving value for money. The coalition is standing up not just for green values but for green value for money. Unlike the shadow Secretary of State, we recognise that £112 on bills matters to hard-working families, and if we can get better value from green measures we will extract it. Only the coalition will ensure that we get good value as well as meeting our green targets.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
With permission, I will answer this question and questions 5, 9, 13, 18, 20, and 21 together.
Mr Speaker
Order. The Minister is a little confused. I will try to rescue him. We have been advised of the desire of the Government to link questions 5, 6, 12, 13 and 14, and I am sure that that is what the right hon. Gentleman really has in mind. I should say for the benefit of the House that the reason why we cannot group questions 18, 20 and 21 is that they do not exist.
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
5. What steps he is taking to ensure the UK leads the way in energy efficiency. [R]
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
6. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
12. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.
Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)
13. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
14. What steps he is taking to help households improve their energy efficiency.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
Driving household energy efficiency take-up to help consumers control their energy bills is at the heart of our approach, and with policies such as the green deal we have established the conditions to grow energy efficiency markets in Great Britain. Thousands of innovative businesses are investing in this new market, and more than 100,000 consumers have begun the green deal improvement journey to make their homes more efficient.
Gregory Barker
I certainly commend the NEA. I was delighted to attend its annual reception on Tuesday. I also commend my hon. Friend, whose record on fighting fuel poverty is second to none in the House. He has long been a champion of the fuel poor. We continue to work hand in hand with the NEA, developing the energy saving network. The Department has provided £900,000 to fund the creation of the network and the NEA is developing and delivering training to 500 energy advisers, and that is in addition to the community action awards on which we are also working with the NEA.
Wayne David
Earlier in the year the Minister said that he would have sleepless nights if his target of 10,000 people signing up to the green deal before the end of the year was not met. We are almost at the end of the year; is he preparing for a period of prolonged insomnia?
Gregory Barker
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; I did anticipate around 10,000. The number of people taking up finance so far has been significantly lower—about 1,200 as of last month. However, the extraordinary thing is that over 100,000 homes have had green deal assessments, and the compelling response has been that over 80% of the people who have had a green deal assessment are installing measures. If consumers like the green deal and the products and if they are installing the measures, the fact that they are not yet using the finance does not worry me. I am delighted that over 100,000 green deal measures are being installed in people’s homes. It is fantastic news.
Chris Evans (Islwyn) (Lab/Co-op)
Joyner PA in my constituency has been providing wall insulation to people in Islwyn for over 30 years, making homes energy-efficient. When I visited the company last Friday, I was told that applying for Government green schemes is slow and bureaucratic. What are the Government doing to address that?
Gregory Barker
I am not sure which particular schemes the hon. Gentleman is referring to, but if he would like to write to me, I would be happy to address his queries or concerns in detail. I take on board what he says about bureaucracy. That is why we have got rid of the community energy saving programme, which we inherited from the previous Government and which was incredibly bureaucratic. That is why we are looking to make the energy company obligation and the green deal less bureaucratic and as easy to understand for the consumer as possible. We will continue to iterate both schemes to make them as consumer-friendly as possible.
Grahame M. Morris
May I draw the Minister’s attention to a Lords amendment to the Energy Bill, which we will consider next Wednesday, regarding measures to tackle fuel poverty and using the energy efficiency certificates as a means of targeting help at the poorest households? Will he give some consideration to accepting that, or a form of it, as a way of targeting help at the poorest?
Gregory Barker
The Energy Bill is on course for Royal Assent and it is very important that it does not get held up. It has been considered in both Houses. It is absolutely imperative for unlocking investment that we proceed with passing the Bill as a matter of urgency, so we remain committed to that. I am always looking for new ideas on energy efficiency, but I think that we have in place the most robust framework and the most ambitious strategy that any Government have had, but we continue to look to improve that.
Ian Murray
Despite the Minister having slight problems with the question numbers, we know that he is exceptionally numerate, so can he tell the House how many households have actually had work done, according to his Department, under the green deal?
Gregory Barker
There were 1,173 plans in the system, as of October, and 594 are having measures installed and 219 at the end of October—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Afford the Minister a courteous hearing. Let us hear the rest of his answer.
Gregory Barker
Opposition Members might have had a bit too much Red Bull this morning.
The figure was 219 at the end of October, but that is the number of measures installed using finance. The really exciting thing is that tens of thousands of green deal measures have been installed, with people using the cash-back or their own money. So compelling is the green deal that people want all the savings now. If people want to take all the savings now by recognising that green deal measures are a great investment, that is a good thing. We will continue to improve the finance offer, but the green deal is up and running and it is a long-term programme.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Earlier this month I was fortunate to hear a presentation to the Transcoco—Transition Community Corsham—group in Corsham by an early adopter of the green deal. Although he was satisfied with the payback period on his green deal loan, what was striking from his presentation was that the assessment revealed some pretty fundamental flaws in his home’s energy insulation, despite the fact that it was built less than 10 years ago. Will the Minister speak with colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government about the enforcement of the existing building standards on new housing developments, because the failure to do that is costing ordinary people a lot in their bills?
Gregory Barker
The hon. Gentleman is right. For 13 years, under the previous Government, there was lamentable enforcement of building standards. In fact, none of us can think of a single case that was prosecuted. He makes a very valid point. I will talk with my right hon. and hon. Friends in DCLG to see what more we can do to ensure that standards are adhered to.
Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
7. What steps he is taking to help consumers reduce energy bills.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
The Government are providing help to consumers with energy bills in three basic ways: through direct financial support, with energy efficiency initiatives, and by boosting competition. In 2012-13, with the winter fuel payment, with the warm home discount, and with cold weather payments, the Government spent over £2.5 billion on direct subsidies to reduce bills. With the energy company obligation and the green deal, we are helping consumers to reduce bills permanently. Along with Ofgem, our policies in the retail and wholesale markets are intensifying competition to help consumers reduce their bills this winter and every winter.
Karen Lumley
Does my right hon. Friend agree that what the people of Redditch want are fair and firm energy policies, in the realisation that no Government can fix international oil and gas prices, despite what they are being told locally by the Opposition?
Mr Davey
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is a complete con to pretend that fixing prices is going to help with bills, because no Government proposing or implementing that could fix the prices before or after the freeze period. The price freeze offered by the Opposition is not just a con but would not work.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
Small businesses are important customers, and many have had huge energy price rises. They do not have the opportunity to switch easily; they do not even have a comparison website in order to look at what at other companies are offering. What are the Government going to do about this? Will they look seriously at helping small businesses with very poor margins, many of which are going under because they cannot afford energy costs?
Mr Davey
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We have been working very hard on this with No. 10 and with small business organisations and looking at the real issues—for example, the automatic roll-overs that cause so many problems. We are gaining agreements with the industry to stamp out these bad practices and to help small businesses.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
A quarter of our energy needs were once met by nuclear power, but that is no longer the case because six of the reactors that closed down under Labour Governments were not replaced. Does the Secretary of State agree that it would be fair to say that energy bills are tougher to control because we are now over-reliant on imported fuel sources in order to make sure that our generators are fuelled?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The main reason people’s fuel bills have gone up over the past few years is that there has been a huge increase in wholesale gas prices, which accounts for 60% of the increase in people’s bills. We are becoming more dependent on imports of gas, and that is partly to do with the fact that the previous Government failed to make the essential investments that this country needs.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
I know that the Secretary of State will share the whole House’s concern about the number of excess winter deaths last year, and it is revealing that 80% were among the over-75s. On 12 January 2012, Labour tabled a motion calling for the energy companies to put all those over 75 on the cheapest tariff, but sadly the Government opposed it. Given that the evidence clearly shows that the over-75s are least likely to be on the lowest tariff, most likely to live in poorly insulated properties and most vulnerable to the cold weather, will he reconsider and make the energy companies put all those over 75 on the cheapest tariff in time for winter?
Mr Davey
Of course the excess winter deaths figures are disturbing. I think that every Member and every party in this House is committed to tackling this, not least because it is a problem that every Government have faced. The solution lies in a combination of policies—health policies, social care policies, housing policies and energy policies. That is why our fuel poverty strategy, which we will publish early in the new year, is a cross-Government attempt to make sure that we are tackling the real problem. I am afraid that once again the right hon. Lady is offering a simplistic solution, and she forgets that this Government have already acted with Ofgem to make sure that everyone is put on the lowest available tariff.
Caroline Flint
To be very clear, our policy is about putting all those over 75 on to the cheapest tariff regardless of how they pay and regardless of whether they are online, which is one of the factors preventing them from getting the cheapest tariff. The Secretary of State’s policy does not affect 90% of people and will still leave those over 75 who are not online and do not pay by direct debit paying more than other people. I remind him that in his own constituency nearly 8,000 people over 75 would save up to £200 as a result of our policy. For those people, and for 4 million like them around the country, why will he not make the energy companies put them on the cheapest tariff and refocus the ECO budget on those living in fuel poverty?
Mr Davey
Because we are doing more for the elderly. This Government brought in the warm home discount, which is taking £135 off the bills of the poorest pensioners. That is real action, taking money directly off their bills. We will certainly take no lectures from the right hon. Lady.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware that consumers pay £60 extra on their energy bills because of VAT rates. Will he seek to renegotiate our VAT with the European Union so that we can get control over it and cut our energy bills?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend gives me too much credit, because I am not in charge of VAT. I am sure my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will listen to what my hon. Friend says, but he sets even the Chancellor a tall order by wanting him to renegotiate the sixth VAT directive.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
8. What recent assessment he has made of the Government’s progress on implementing green policies.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
There has been huge progress in this area. In the Energy Bill, we are building the world’s first ever low-carbon electricity market and have already seen renewable electricity generation double. To date, the UK Green Investment Bank has committed £740 million of public money to projects in a range of green sectors, including waste, offshore wind and energy efficiency, helping to mobilise an additional £1.9 billion of finance from the private sector. From the largest investment in the railways since Victorian times to our leadership on climate change in Europe and the world, our record in this area is a vast improvement on the past.
Kevin Brennan
According to EUROSTAT, we were one of only four countries in the EU 27 whose carbon emissions went up in 2012. They went up by 3.9%. That cannot be right, can it, if this is the greenest Government ever? Is the Secretary of State’s new slogan, “Vote yellow, go blue”?
Mr Davey
If the hon. Gentleman looks at our work over this Parliament, he will see that we have been reducing carbon emissions. It is true that last year there was a small increase, because we have been burning more coal than anyone expected. As a result of shale gas, the United States has been exporting its coal. That is why this Government are working so hard to reform the EU emissions trading scheme, to make sure that we send signals so that the same amount of coal is not burned in future.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
In order to be able to both maintain the hundreds of thousands of green jobs in this country and to secure hundreds of thousands more, the Government need to reassure the renewables sector and major investors through consistent messaging and certainty. Is my right hon. Friend able to reassure me that such messaging is certain and secure not only in his Department, but across all levels of other Government Departments, including the Prime Minister?
Mr Davey
It is interesting that when the Energy Bill received its Third Reading in this House, only eight Members voted against it. All the Front Benchers of all parties bar one—and that party has only one Member—voted for the Bill. I think that sent a sign, not just from the Government, but from this whole House and across the British political system that this country supports investment in renewables.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) talked earlier about good value for green money, but the green deal has been a complete failure. What is the Secretary of State’s assessment of the enormous amount of money spent on this complex, bureaucratic project that has delivered no results?
Mr Davey
A scheme that has already led to 100,000 assessments and a huge number of very good satisfaction ratings from people acting on those surveys is a success. When the Labour party talks down the green deal, let us remember what it is doing: it is talking down reductions in carbon emissions and action on fuel poverty. It should be ashamed.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
Does the Secretary of State agree that one of this Government’s many achievements has been to create an economic framework for innovative firms to start developing new ways in technology to improve our green performance so that our green economy is alive and well, generating jobs and producing good results on CO2 reduction?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not just my Department that has been involved in investing in research and development and technological innovation, vital though that is in our area. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills has ensured investment in ultra-low emission vehicles. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is investing in the railways in a way that has not happened since the Victorians. We have a very proud record of investment, both in infrastructure and in innovation and technical development.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
RenewableUK published a report today on offshore wind. It recognises what the Government have done, but it also warns:
“Industry is facing a hiatus in confidence that the large scale economic rewards associated with sustained high delivery levels will be achieved.”
We have heard warnings about the Atlantic array and there are signs elsewhere that offshore wind might not get the increase in deployment that was hoped for and expected. May I ask the Secretary of State not to be complacent about the issue and recognise the real problem faced by the industry?
Mr Davey
I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am certainly not complacent, but I am aware of major investments that we believe will go forward, and that will reassure the industry and the supply chain. We already have the world’s largest deployment of offshore wind, and we are already recognised by Ernst and Young as the top place in the world in which to invest in offshore wind. With the Energy Bill going through the House with cross-party support, that gives a real signal to investors in offshore wind.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
10. What recent assessment he has made of the UK’s energy security.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)
We published the annual “Statutory Security of Supply” report last month. National Grid is preparing stronger balancing measures for the short term. We plan to run a capacity market auction next year for the medium term. Beyond that, we are incentivising new infrastructure, including new nuclear, through the Energy Bill.
David Rutley
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on agreeing terms for the first new nuclear power station since 1995, which is in marked contrast to the previous Government’s failure to replace ageing power stations. Will he tell the House what other steps the Government are taking to find additional sites further to secure and improve UK energy security?
Michael Fallon
It is very telling that in the year that Hinkley Point will come on stream—2023—eight of the nine existing plants will be off the system, unless their lives are extended, which shows the legacy of under-investment that we have to face. There are now proposals for 12 reactors in total, spread over five different sites.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
A quarter of our power supply will go off line in the next decade, so why is investment in new, clean energy infrastructure on course for a new low?
Michael Fallon
Since this Government came to office, five new gas plants have come on to the system and another is being built at Manchester, while two large wind farms opened this year and four more are under construction, and we have agreed terms, as we have heard, for the first new nuclear station in a generation. All that investment would be put at risk by the threat of price controls from a future socialist Government.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
15. Whether the Government overruled the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority on the decision to extend the contract with Nuclear Management Partners to run Sellafield; and if he will publish all the relevant documents.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)
The contract review process and the decision to renew were the responsibility of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. Given the importance of Sellafield, Ministers were kept fully informed, and we endorsed the decision to extend the contract, which gives Sellafield the opportunity to build on the progress made so far.
Katy Clark
I thank the Minister for that answer. Will he publish the documents in relation to this decision? Will he agree to meet me and any other interested MPs to discuss the Government’s relationship with the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, given some of the decisions that will be taken over the coming period?
Michael Fallon
I am always happy to meet any colleagues from the House, and I am certainly happy to meet the hon. Lady and other hon. Members to discuss the performance of the company at Sellafield. I think that she is referring to the KPMG report, which was commissioned by the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, and its use and disclosure—whether or not it should be published—is the responsibility of the authority.
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
16. What steps he is taking to reduce energy costs for residents in rural areas.
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Michael Fallon)
The Government have worked with industry to co-ordinate the “Buy oil early” campaign, which I launched in September, and to provide guidance on setting up or joining oil-buying groups. We also provide assistance to the most vulnerable consumers via the warm home discount, winter fuel payments and cold weather payments.
Mr Heath
Will the Minister bear in mind that those of us who live in the countryside very often live in old houses with solid or rubble-built walls, and very often in areas of water incursion? We cannot benefit from dual fuel tariffs, and we often rely on liquefied petroleum gas or fuel oil, which is cripplingly expensive. May I just remind him that people in rural areas have no ambition to be cold, damp and forgotten?
Michael Fallon
I assure my hon. Friend that those people have certainly not been forgotten. We have particularly addressed the issue of off-grid customers through publicising the adoption of a code of conduct so that petroleum suppliers treat their customers fairly. Ofgem is considering whether heating oil is properly covered by its consumer protection measures. We are working with the Fuel Poverty Advisory Group to improve the information available on vulnerable customers so that all the different agencies better understand where those customers live.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I thank the Minister for his comments. Is he aware that there are constituencies such as mine that are regarded as urban areas, but that contain substantial rural areas? The people in those rural areas are sometimes overlooked in this regard.
Michael Fallon
I understand that. My hon. Friend is a great champion of his constituents, whether urban or rural. There are off-grid consumers in suburban and more urban areas. We treat all consumers equally. I encourage him to look at the guide to keeping warm this winter that the Secretary of State has sent to all Members on how we can best promote such matters in our constituency.
Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
I recently published the annual energy statement, which focuses on security of supply and on competition in energy markets. Since then, I have focused on driving forward our ambitious agenda for more competition. For example, I held a recent round table with industry leaders and consumer groups to consider the practical steps that we need to take to deliver faster and easier switching for consumers. There have been significant new investments in renewable energy and I expect to make further announcements on that shortly.
Finally, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker) and I recently attended the global climate change talks in Warsaw, where a good agreement was reached that put in place the foundations for the critical talks in Paris in 2015 and established a work programme to prepare for them.
Paul Maynard
The Secretary of State will be aware that we will shortly lose more than 12 GW of generating capacity at oil and gas-fired power stations due to EU directives. What consideration has he given to placing those power stations in our strategic national energy reserve, in order that we can retain them for when we most need them in the coming years?
Mr Davey
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. However, power stations that have opted out under the large combustion plant directive must close by the end of 2015. The directive provides no derogation from that requirement. As a safeguard against the risk of low capacity, National Grid has consulted on a new system of balancing services to procure additional capacity in the winters of 2014-15 and 2015-16 if it is needed.
Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)
My hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) asked an important question about the impact of the carbon price floor on energy-intensive industries. Those industries are concerned that they are not getting the compensation that the Secretary of States suggests they are getting. May I ask the Secretary of State about the carbon price floor again? Who does he agree with—his deputy, the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), who said that it was an “absurd” waste of money and “assisted suicide” for British manufacturers, or his Liberal Democrat predecessor Chris Huhne, who said,
“We do not need it to drive decarbonisation… It was a straightforward revenue-raising measure by the Tories”?
Mr Davey
The idea that energy-intensive industries are not getting some of the support is not true. Payments under the scheme of compensation for the indirect costs of the EU emissions trading system are being made. It is true that the proposals for compensation for the carbon price floor are still going through the state aid process. However, we have a scheme that will come out and people will get those payments.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
T2. Will the Secretary of State reassure the House that neither he nor his Department would seek to block the production of any Government report on the impact of energy infrastructure and specifically the planned Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs report on the correlation between onshore wind and residential property values?
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
T3. Does the Secretary of State accept that the recent comments on rolling back green levies have caused serious concerns to companies such as Siemens? Exactly what will he do to ensure that the investment in Hull is not jeopardised by the mixed messages from Government?
Mr Davey
I reassure the hon. Lady that I have made it clear that the review of green levies does not cover renewables obligation certificates, feed-in tariffs or contracts for difference. That should be a great reassurance to Siemens. I hope that she will take that message back to her constituency. I look forward to meeting her and her colleagues shortly to discuss the important investment in Hull by Siemens.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
T4. A great deal of information is available to help our constituents save money on their energy bills by switching, fixing or insulating their homes, but it can be a challenge to ensure that the right information reaches those who need it most. Will the Minister commend local business Worcester Bosch for sponsoring a free information pack for my constituents in Worcester?
The Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Gregory Barker)
I certainly commend not only Worcester Bosch but the work my hon. Friend does in his constituency with the public and the fuel-poor, and particularly in getting that information to them. Last month, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wrote to all Members of the House and asked them to share with their constituents a guide developed by our Department, in conjunction with charities such as Age UK and National Energy Action, which explains how householders can cut their energy bills and where they can go for help this winter. There is help on offer.
Mr Mike Weir (Angus) (SNP)
T7. This morning it has been reported that in looking at the costs of energy, the Government are considering changing the cost of transmission. Will they take the opportunity finally to get rid of the discriminatory locational system for transmission and distribution costs that raises prices in the north of Scotland?
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
National Grid has been looking at the balance in cost between north and south, but a lot of energy is generated in Scotland, not least in renewables, and Scotland has an interest in ensuring that that energy is transmitted to England.
Mr David Amess (Southend West) (Con)
T5. Will the Government continue to encourage people to switch energy suppliers if they feel they are being ripped off, as I was by British Gas and E.ON UK? I have switched to M&S Energy, and saved two thirds on my bill.
Gregory Barker
I commend my hon. Friend; he is clearly one of the biggest switchers in town—but I think we always knew that. I would encourage everyone to follow his example, check their bills, and see whether they can move to a better deal. That is why we are giving statutory backing in the Energy Bill to Ofgem’s retail market reforms which will make it easier for all consumers to follow my hon. Friend’s example, compare tariffs, and get a much better deal.
Katy Clark (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)
T8. The number of excess winter deaths more than doubled in Ayrshire and Arran last year. Earlier the Minister referred to influenza, but my constituents are increasingly coming to tell me that they have to choose between eating and heating, particularly those in receipt of benefit cuts, sanctions and other difficult financial circumstances. Does the Minister accept that the cost of energy is a major factor in people turning off their heating and in that increase in deaths?
Gregory Barker
We absolutely get the importance of ensuring that people are able to afford the energy they need. Nobody should have to make a choice between heating and eating, and anybody concerned about that should call the energy saving advice service on 0300 123 1234. As we are so concerned about the cost of energy, the Government are determined to do their part to ensure that bills are kept as low as possible. That is why we are looking at the regressive levies that Labour put on energy bills.
Mr Aidan Burley (Cannock Chase) (Con)
T6. Nine out of 10 consumers agree they could get a better deal on their gas and electricity supply if switching could be speeded up, and a third of people would be more likely to change providers if the process were quicker and simpler. What is the Minister doing to force energy companies to reduce the time it takes to switch providers, and when can my constituents in Cannock Chase expect to see the new rules in place?
Mr Davey
My hon. Friend will know that in the annual energy statement I challenged the industry to come forward with proposals on how the process could be speeded up without compromising quality of services or consumer rights, or putting up consumer bills. The industry has started to put forward proposals. I met industry representatives early in November and was encouraged by the discussion, and I hope to make some announcements in the new year.
Ian Lavery (Wansbeck) (Lab)
Coal generates up to 50% of electricity in the UK, but sadly most of that coal is imported—there has been a 37% increase in the past year. What are the Government prepared to do to secure the future of the British deep-mining coal industry?
Michael Fallon
My Department played a role in ensuring that UK Coal Operations survived this year, following the serious fire at the Daw Mill colliery, and helped preserve 2,000 jobs at Killingworth and Thoresby. We continue to work with the UK Coal Forum and other bodies to ensure that the place of coal is properly recognised in our energy mix.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
T9. What assessment has my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made of the implications for fuel poverty if the suggestion by the Free Enterprise Group of Conservative MPs to upgrade VAT on fuel to 15% is implemented?
Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Lab)
At 9 o’clock this morning, npower announced that 1,460 jobs are to be outsourced to India, and in addition that there will be 550 job losses in Stoke-on-Trent. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is the last straw, given the totally irresponsible behaviour of the energy companies? What will he and his colleagues consider doing in order to provide jobs in Stoke-on-Trent, which the Government have so far failed to do? We do not have a local enterprise zone. We need a joined-up approach from this Government.
Mr Davey
The hon. Lady is right to raise that matter. The announcement is obviously very worrying for all the people involved, not just in her constituency, but in other parts of the country. We will work across the Government to see what we can do to help the people affected.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
Following the publication of the Atkins report, will the Secretary of State publish a plan to implement its recommendations? The local enterprise partnership and I would like the deep geothermal demonstrator site in Cornwall to be expedited.
Mr Davey
The hon. Lady knows that we are considering the Atkins report and that we must make choices on which renewable electricity supplies we can back. I hope she will be pleased that, through the renewable heat incentive, we are supporting geothermal heat, which will be a big boost for the industry. That might not be as welcome to her constituents in the case she raises, but we want to back geothermal heat.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), 560 workers at the npower call centre in Thornaby, where many of my constituents work, will be affected by npower’s announcement to remove 1,400 jobs from the UK and send them to India—that is what it has informed the public. What communications have the Secretary of State and the Department had with npower since April? The Government will be aware that its review of call centres has been going on since then.
Mr Davey
We have not had specific discussions on the proposal announced today, so I am afraid I cannot give the hon. Gentleman any background detail. However, as I have told the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley), we will work across the Government, particularly with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to do what we can to help the people affected by the announcement.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Work starts this week on the installation of nine super-efficient General Electric wind turbines at the Burton Wold wind farm extension, which will generate 14 MW of green electricity and power 11,000 homes. Will the Secretary of State congratulate First Renewable on its £45 million investment in the Kettering economy?
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
History was made at the UN climate talks last week—not, unfortunately, by an unprecedented breakthrough in negotiations, but by the unprecedented walk-out by 800 civil society groups and trade unions. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of their concerns that the talks are being unduly influenced by the fossil fuel industry? Does he agree that, if that is the case, it is unfortunate, because it does not give the talks a fighting chance of delivering what science and equity demand?
Mr Davey
I met the NGOs before they walked out. I explained the progress we were making in the talks, and after they walked out, we made further progress. No one expected the Warsaw climate change talks to be a breakthrough. They were an important building block— a foundation—for Lima next year and for Paris and the critical talks in 2015. I have laid a written statement on the Warsaw talks.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Parish councillors near Melksham in my constituency are looking forward to the community dividend on offer from developers who propose new solar power farms in the area. When will we have more clarity on such arrangements and when will the Government publish their community energy strategy?
Gregory Barker
My hon. Friend will not have long to wait before we publish the community energy strategy. This Government are gripping the potential of community strategy. No previous Government have recognised the potential of communities to take control of energy. Thanks to innovation and new technologies, and the financial support we are putting in place, community energy has an exciting future, solar included.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
Distribution and grid transmission costs account for between 20% and 25% of energy bills. Areas such as mine, which produce an awful lot of electricity, pay even more for their electricity. When will the Government review the transmission system so that we can have a level playing field across the country and National Grid can act in the national interest?
Michael Fallon
Ofgem and National Grid have been looking at transmission costs between north, south and different parts of the country. They are looking specifically at the distribution costs of local distribution operators to ensure that they are kept as low as is reasonably possible.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
What does the Secretary of State say to my constituents in the rural part of Wellingborough who duly elect councillors, but when planning applications for wind farms come forward, councillors and my constituents are against those plans yet they are overturned by a planning inspector? My constituents think that democracy is not working.
Mr Davey
We understand people’s concerns not just about onshore wind but about other forms of energy production, such as shale and so on. We need to ensure that the planning system is responsive. The hon. Gentleman knows that what he has said could be applied to many other developments outside energy. It is often the case that the unpopular development of housing or a supermarket gets overturned by the Planning Inspectorate.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The Secretary of State admitted, in answer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint), that due to Government incompetence no money has been paid to energy-intensive industries in mitigation for the carbon floor tax. However, he did say that money is being spent on the European Union emissions trading scheme. In answer to a parliamentary question, the Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon) told me:
“£16 million has been paid to 17 companies.”—[Official Report, 5 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 142W.]
When I asked him to name those companies, he wrote:
“We are still assessing applications.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 663W.]
How can money have been paid out when applications are still being assessed?
Michael Fallon
More than 60 applications have been received and we have paid out on more than 20 of them. We have done that in the past few weeks. We are processing the others as quickly as possible. The scheme that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State referred to was the carbon price floor compensation scheme, for which we are still awaiting approval under state aid rules from Brussels.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
I know the Secretary of State will want to commend the work of the Somerset Community Foundation. Under its “Surviving Winter” appeal, people can redistribute their winter fuel allowance, if they do not need some or all of it, to those who need money to heat their homes. Will the Secretary of State—[Interruption.] Will the Secretary of State have further discussions with the Department for Work and Pensions to ensure that notice of that is included in the letter that goes out to everybody?
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Why has the UK fallen to seventh in the world for investment in clean energy since the Government came to power?
Tobacco Packaging
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the Government’s policy on standardised packaging of tobacco products.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
In accordance with the notice I gave the House yesterday afternoon, this morning I made a written statement announcing that Sir Cyril Chantler will carry out an independent review of the evidence on the impact of standardised tobacco packaging on public health.
Tobacco use, especially among children, remains one of our most significant public health challenges. Each year in England more than 300,000 children under the age of 16 try smoking for the first time. Most adults who smoke started before they were 18 years of age. As a result, we must do all we can to stop young people from taking up smoking in the first place, if we are to reduce smoking rates.
We have listened to the strong views expressed on both sides of the House, including when we debated standardised packaging in a Back-Bench business debate earlier this month, to which I responded. Many Members then told me that the evidence base for standardised packaging continued to grow and urged the Government to take action. Similarly strong views have been expressed in the other place. As a result, I believe the time is right to seek an independent view on whether the introduction of standardised packaging would be likely to have an effect on public health. In particular, I want to know the likely impact on young people.
I have asked Sir Cyril to undertake a focused review, reporting in March next year. It will be entirely independent, with an independent secretariat, and he is free to draw evidence from whatever sources he considers necessary and appropriate. It will be up to him to determine how he undertakes the review, and he will set that out in more detail in due course. As the House will know, Sir Cyril has confirmed that he has no links with the tobacco industry. The review is not a public consultation. The Government ran a full public consultation in 2012 and the responses will be available in full for the review. To maximise transparency, the Department will also publish the substantive responses received as soon as possible.
The Government will also take advantage of the opportunity offered in another place by tabling an amendment to the Children and Families Bill to provide for a regulation-making power. If, on receiving Sir Cyril’s review, the Government decide to proceed, that will allow standardised tobacco packaging to be introduced without delay. The Government have been consistent in their desire to take an evidence-based approach to public health, and we will introduce standardised tobacco packaging if, following the review and consideration of the wider issues raised, we are satisfied that there are sufficient grounds to proceed.
Luciana Berger
We have seen plenty of U-turns over the past three years, but only a Government as shambolic as this one could U-turn on a U-turn. It is not so much that they have lost their way on public health—they are running around in circles.
Will the Minister answer a straight question: does she support standardised packaging for cigarettes—yes or no? In the week running up to this being debated in the other place, does she honestly expect us to believe that this has nothing to do with the fact that the Government are on the brink of a humiliating defeat?
The Minister says that we need another review, but the Government have already had a review and the evidence is clear for all to see. Did that not already find that standardised packaging made cigarettes less attractive to young people and health warnings more effective, and did it not refute the utter falsehood that some brands are safer than others? All the royal colleges and health experts are united behind the case for standardised packaging—I commend everyone who has campaigned for this measure—but is it not the case that if the lobbying Bill goes through in its current form, it will prevent charities such as Cancer Research UK from ever raising such issues in an election year?
Is not the Prime Minister more interested in listening to Lynton Crosby and the vested interests of big tobacco than cancer charities and health experts? What further evidence does the Minister need? What do Ministers know now that they did not already know when they U-turned on this before the summer recess? Why are the Government delaying this still further? Some 79,230 children will have taken up smoking in the 139 days since the Government U-turned on standardised packaging in July, and about 70,000 more will have had their first cigarette by the time the review reports next March. We should be legislating now, not delaying.
Jane Ellison
I thought that was a rather disappointing and naive response. This is a complex area of public health policy, and it is important to follow a clear process and to follow the evidence. The hon. Lady might not believe me, but perhaps she will believe the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who in November 2009, when he was Health Secretary, wrote:
“we would need…convincing evidence showing the health benefits of this policy before it would be acceptable”.
Mr Speaker
Order. I gently say to the House that the Minister is among the most courteous of Ministers, and in fairness she deserves also to be treated with courtesy. There are strong views, but let us hear the Minister.
Jane Ellison
The Government have held a consultation, but we have not had a review before. We said in July that we would pause to consider the emerging evidence base, and that is exactly what we have done. I am happy to account for my actions, but it appears that I am being asked to account for the cynicism of the Opposition, too. This weekend sees the anniversary of the passing of the legislation in Australia, and new evidence is emerging rapidly, as was pointed out in the very good Back-Bench business debate to which I responded earlier this month, as well as in the other place, so this is the right time to do this.
Of course we have listened to what Members of the other place have said. They rightly take extremely seriously such an important public health issue as stopping children from smoking, but we have to proceed in a measured, step-by-step way to ensure that, if and when a decision is made, it will be robust and will deal with all the inevitable challenges that might come its way.
Mr Speaker
Order. We are dealing with an extremely important matter, which I judge as urgent, but we have business questions and two ministerial statements to follow, so the model is what might be called “the Gibraltar model” of Mr Nigel Evans, whereby a good exchange was had, but it was a brief one. I will not be able to accommodate everybody who wants to speak.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Idiotic, nanny state proposals such as the plain packaging of tobacco are what we expect from the Labour party. What we expect from Conservative Ministers is for them to believe in individual freedom and individual responsibility, and to stand up to the health zealots and nanny state brigade who, if they could, would ban everything and have everything in plain packaging. Will the Minister commit to sticking to those Conservative principles and to ignoring the nanny state brigade of Labour Members?
Jane Ellison
I know my hon. Friend feels strongly about this issue, but nobody is banning anything. Were the Government to proceed following receipt of the review, the proposal would be about packaging, not the ability to purchase tobacco. All the sorts of points that my hon. Friend has often articulated were well made during the consultation, which, as he knows, received an enormous response, and all the responses will be made available to Sir Cyril.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Some 190 health organisations recognise that plain packaging will cut smoking, particularly among the young, and have urged action. Is this not just a further delay while the Government get their house in order so that they know how and when to introduce the legislation that is so urgently needed?
Jane Ellison
The hon. Lady is right to say that many charities feel strongly about this issue and I was pleased that the chief executive for Action on Smoking and Health said this morning:
“This decision is a victory for public health, for common sense and for future generations”.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
Smoking is a childhood addiction, not an adult choice. The announcement is welcome, in that it moves us in the right direction, but if the review should recommend what is, in my judgment, a much-needed change when it is published in March, just how quickly would the Government be able to bring in the necessary regulations?
Jane Ellison
My right hon. Friend is right that we would need to be able to act quickly if, following the recommendation, we decided to proceed. The power to make regulations is being proposed in the other place exactly so that we may move quickly at the point we receive Sir Cyril’s review. I have looked at the draft schedule, and if the Government were minded to go forward with this policy, I see no reason why it could not be put through before the end of this Parliament.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
As chair of the all-party group on heart disease, I pay tribute to the work of the British Heart Foundation, Cancer UK, ASH and other campaigning organisations that have helped to bring about this U-turn. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) specifically mentioned the impact on such charities if the lobbying Bill goes through—they will be neutered and silenced in the run-up to the general election. What lessons should be learned from this?
Jane Ellison
The hon. Gentleman refers to another Bill, rather than the issue we are discussing now. I have heard none of those concerns from the charities he mentioned, which I understand have warmly welcomed today’s announcement.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I, for one, very much congratulate the Minister on this welcome news. As she well knows, the all-party group on cancer has been one of many that have argued for added urgency on this issue. The Government have listened and responded, which is a sign of strength, not weakness. To follow up a previous question, will the Minister give an assurance that the regulations will be in place before the end of this Parliament, because if the recommendations are in favour of introducing standardised packaging, they will need to be implemented quickly?
Jane Ellison
That is certainly the objective of the timetable that has been drafted, once the Government have received the review and made a decision. I see no reason why what my hon. Friend suggests could not be the case.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
The Minister said that she had not held a review, but had carried out a consultation. Is that not just a pathetic excuse for inaction, and does she not accept that for every day she delays this policy, another 570 children start smoking?
Jane Ellison
We have had a consultation and now we are having a short review of the emerging evidence base. I think that that is sensible. We want to make good policy that is robust, and this is the right way to do it.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I congratulate the Minister on listening to the arguments and acting far more quickly than any Opposition Member did in 13 years. Will she assure us that the House will have the opportunity to vote in favour of standardised packaging so that we can demonstrate our cross-party support for this much-needed health measure?
Jane Ellison
At present, we are strongly minded to introduce regulations under the affirmative procedure.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
I, too, welcome the Government’s U-turn. I am sure that the Minister has been following attentively the progress made on this issue by the Scottish National party Government, who have been able to make that progress because Lynton Crosby’s remit does not extend north of the border. Will she commend the SNP Government for taking the lead and work closely with Scottish Ministers to secure the best possible outcome for everyone on these islands?
Jane Ellison
I repeat that the Government are proceeding along the track that they laid out in the summer. We know that the Scottish Government have expressed clear views, and we will be working closely with all the devolved Administrations.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I welcome the statement and trust that we will see a Conservative-led Government introduce standardised packaging. When that happens, will the Minister take the opportunity to step up health education on this subject?
Jane Ellison
My hon. Friend is right to remind us all that, even if the Government decide to implement the policy at the end of the review, there will still be many other things to be done in relation to this important issue. Major public health campaigns will proceed as they have been doing under Governments of all colours.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) pointed out that 190 health organisations were in favour of standardised packaging. While I appreciate that there may be tensions within the Government, the hon. Lady is Minister for public health. Will she tell us whether any health organisation is opposed to plain packaging?
Jane Ellison
We have asked Sir Cyril to conduct an independent review and to weigh all the different evidence. I do not wish to seem to pre-empt the review, because it is important that it is independent, but I will say that I am not aware of any health organisations that are not in favour of plain packaging. Indeed, as the hon. Lady can imagine, such organisations have expressed the opposite view to me with considerable strength.
Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
Will the Minister remind the House of all the investment that the Government have already made in anti-smoking strategies so that no one smokes out of ignorance? Does she agree that the main responsibility for children’s smoking habits lies with their parents?
Jane Ellison
Of course we want parents to set a good example to their children and to try to prevent them from starting to smoke. The important public health measures to which my hon. Friend has referred are proceeding but, sadly, a great many children start smoking at a very young age.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
This is just a cynical ploy to get beyond the humiliating defeat that the Government face in the House of Lords. Notwithstanding what has been said by the Minister’s hon. Friends, no decision has been made to introduce plain packaging. Who does she think will win this war of attrition for the ear of the Prime Minister: Lynton Crosby, or both Houses of Parliament?
Jane Ellison
I could not have made myself plainer during my first session of Health questions and when I responded to the Back-Bench debate. The policy is under active consideration, and it was under active consideration before—this is evidence of that.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend confirm that Sir Cyril is not only independent of big tobacco, but independent of the health lobby?
Jane Ellison
One of the reasons we asked a distinguished paediatrician to conduct the review, rather than someone from a public health background, was that he would be able to bring a fresh mind to it. Sir Cyril will set his own terms, which he will announce in the next few weeks.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Does the Minister appreciate that one of the reasons for the scepticism among Opposition Members is that in the summer last year, either there was a U-turn or the policy was still under review. Why was an independent review not requested then? If that had happened, it would have been completed by now, and we could have gone ahead.
Jane Ellison
As Members on both sides of the House reminded me forcefully during the Back-Bench debate earlier this month, new evidence has recently emerged, and we are also coming up to the anniversary of the legislation being passed in Australia, so this is the right time to do this.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Will the Minister reassure me that this will not be the thin end of the wedge, and that the Government will not look for evidence to support the contention that selling children sweets in brightly coloured packets contributes to childhood obesity and, as a result, seek to ban such packaging?
Jane Ellison
That is a slightly different topic. I know that my hon. Friend feels strongly about these issues, and he will know that, through the Government’s responsibility deal, we are working in voluntary partnership with business to make good progress on public health issues relating to obesity.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Now that the Government have started to make this U-turn on standard packaging, will they also back the amendment in the other place that would ban smoking in cars when children are present?
Jane Ellison
We are not persuaded that legislation is the right way forward on that matter. There is still a lot of room for education, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would like to believe, as I do, that when parents are made aware of the dangers of smoking in cars when children are present, they will wish to desist from doing so.
Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s statement. In September, I visited the Cancer Research UK centre in Southampton to meet my constituent, Tim Underwood, who leads the oesophageal cancer team there. I suspect that the team will be pleased to hear today’s announcement. Will she assure us that, whatever happens at the end of this process, it will remain the Government’s intention resolutely to prevent young people from picking up this habit that kills in the first place?
Jane Ellison
Preventing children from smoking is a major priority for the Department of Health and for the Government, and my hon. Friend is absolutely right to suggest that, irrespective of this piece of policy—important though it has the potential to be—the Government are committed to spending significant amounts on public health campaigns and all the other mechanisms available to us to prevent children from smoking.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The Minister keeps mentioning the evidence, but the evidence from Australia is overwhelmingly in favour of plain packaging for cigarettes, so why on earth is she waiting? She should bring in plain packaging now to save children from taking up smoking in the first place.
Jane Ellison
The hon. Gentleman refers to the evidence, as have other Members. That is exactly why we have asked someone who, with all due respect, is far more expert than he is or I am to look at the evidence and report to the Government swiftly. That will be a productive way forward. It will ensure that, however the Government decide to proceed, we do so in a way that is robust.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
Does my hon. Friend agree with the EU majority decision that e-cigarettes should not come under the same regulations as medicines? Does she agree that they should be subject to the same marketing controls as cigarettes, whether that involves plain packaging or not?
Jane Ellison
The hon. Lady will know that that is the subject of negotiations, so I hope that she will forgive me if I do not comment on it further at this point.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
Far from doing nothing in 13 years, the Labour Government legislated to ban smoking in public places. We said that we would need convincing evidence on plain packaging, and this Government’s own consultation has now provided that convincing evidence. What further evidence does the Minister think the review will uncover?
Jane Ellison
As I have said, I am not going to pre-empt the findings of the independent review, and I am sure that Members understand why it is important not to do so. It will be good to have a review of the evidence, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will share my confidence that the review will be extremely worth while and useful.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I confess that I enjoyed a Henri Wintermans Café Crème after breakfast this morning on the way to work. Does my hon. Friend agree that there are many lawful smokers who want to be sure what they are buying? Has she made any assessment of the effect that plain packaging could have on the black market by making it easier to smuggle counterfeit cigarettes?
Jane Ellison
That point came up during the consultation. To be clear, the review that we have asked Sir Cyril to undertake will cover the public health aspects of the policy. It will then be for Ministers to decide how to take forward the findings of the review and to make policy. The points that my hon. Friend and others have made will be borne in mind at that time.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
The Minister says that this is a complex matter, but I am a bit puzzled. What exactly is the downside of plain packaging, apart from fewer fags being sold?
Philip Davies
A left-wing, nanny state wallah like you would not understand.
Jane Ellison
The hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) may be aware that there has been a challenge to the policy in Australia, so it is important to proceed in a measured and evidence-based way.
Mr Speaker
The sedentary remarks of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) are almost as entertaining as those he makes when he is on his feet.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I sometimes feel sorry for the Government. We have an excellent Minister at the Dispatch Box who is listening to Parliament and asking for an independent report, yet she gets Members of Parliament complaining about that. That is ridiculous. I think I understood her to say that if regulation is to be introduced, it will be done by statutory instrument. I hope that the Government are not going to proceed in that way, because we can only reject or approve a statutory instrument—we cannot amend it. Will she think again on that point?
Jane Ellison
I thank my hon. Friend for his support. The exact technicalities are still under review. As I said, we are strongly minded to use the affirmative procedure, but that matter is not completely resolved. Of course, we do have a little time, because we expect the review to report in March 2014.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
What steps are being undertaken with other Departments to enforce against the illegal sale of tobacco products to young people?
Jane Ellison
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the issue. He may or may not know that when I responded to a recent Adjournment debate that was secured by the hon. Member for Solihull (Lorely Burt), we discussed that point, and I invited trading standards officers to submit evidence on the enforceability of just those sorts of measures. I will be interested to hear from Members and others about how they think those might work.
Mr Speaker
I thank the Minister, in particular, and colleagues for being so succinct.
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 will be as follows:
Monday 2 December—Second Reading of the Mesothelioma Bill [Lords], followed by a debate on motions relating to Backbench Business (Amendment of Standing Orders) and Select Committee statements.
Tuesday 3 December—Opposition day [14th allotted day]. There will be a debate on “Cyber Bullying”, followed by a debate entitled “Persecution of Christians in the 21st Century”. Both debates will arise on a motion in the name of the Democratic Unionist party.
Wednesday 4 December—Consideration of Lords amendments to the Energy Bill, followed by Opposition day [unallotted half day]. There will be a debate on business rates. The debate will arise on a motion in the name of the official Opposition.
Thursday 5 December—My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will deliver his autumn statement, which will be followed by a general debate on modern-day slavery. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 6 December—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 9 December will include:
Monday 9 December—Second Reading of the Intellectual Property Bill [Lords], followed by business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
Tuesday 10 December—Remaining stages of the National Insurance Contributions Bill.
Wednesday 11 December—Motion to approve a Ways and Means resolution relating to the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill, followed by a motion to approve a money resolution relating to the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill, followed by consideration of Lords amendments to the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill.
Thursday 12 December—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 13 December—The House will not be sitting.
Ms Eagle
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business. May I also take the opportunity to congratulate colleagues who have participated in Movember this month? I applaud their efforts and labours for an important cause, although I must admit that I find some of them a bit disconcerting. Some of them even remind me that this Government are trying to take us back to Victorian times.
Yesterday, the Government proposed some very sensible measures to toughen rules for European Union migrants, including banning out-of-work benefits and quadrupling fines for bosses not paying the minimum wage. Given that Labour proposed some of these changes eight months ago, will the Leader of the House tell us why it has taken the Government so long to announce any action? Will he confirm that none of the Government’s proposed changes will be in place by 1 January, when work restrictions for Romanians and Bulgarians will end? Much of the Government’s plan could be implemented using secondary legislation. Given that we have 13 days of parliamentary time remaining before the Christmas recess, it is clear that we could work together to get some of these sensible changes in place. So will he agree to work with us to get this done in time?
Despite stuffing the other place with 158 new coalition peers since the election, on Tuesday the Government lost yet another key vote on the licensing of bankers. Will the Leader of the House tell us whether the Government will now accept that important amendment and keep it in the Bill? The Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill has provided yet another lesson in how not to legislate. After ignoring our request to delay the Bill until after the publication of the report of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, the Government presented this place with a shell of a Bill, which has now grown fivefold in the other place. That makes it a very different piece of legislation from the one that we scrutinised in this place, and it is a disgrace that the Government have developed a Bill of such importance in the unelected Chamber while treating this place with contempt. Will the Leader of the House give his assurance that when the Bill returns, we will have more than sufficient time to debate properly the vast amounts of it that are new?
In a week of spectacular U-turns, perhaps the Chancellor’s damascene conversion on payday loans was the most surprising. After all, the Government had voted three times against a cap. Will the Leader of the House confirm that it was the prospect of yet another defeat on the banking Bill that changed the Chancellor’s mind? It seems that the Chancellor is developing a proclivity for ideological flexibility. Perhaps it is just a public relations strategy to say one thing and then do another. After all, he said he would stop tax evasion but he refused to close the giant eurobond loophole. He attacked unacceptable City bonuses and then went to Brussels to fight for them. He promised to cut borrowing, but he has borrowed more in three years than Labour did in 13. He said that we are all in it together, but prices have risen faster than wages in 40 of the 41 months since he has been Chancellor. Will the Leader of the House now give us a debate in Government time on the widening gap between this Government’s rhetoric and the reality?
We are all eagerly awaiting next Thursday when two parliamentary Titans can tussle over the key issues of the day—and that is just the business statement. I know that colleagues will be keen to ensure that they are in the Chamber to hear the unfailingly witty ripostes of the Leader of the House. Will he confirm which will come first next Thursday, the autumn statement or the business statement?
This week has revealed that we have a Chancellor who thinks it is Marxist to intervene in energy prices, but positively Thatcherite to intervene in the payday lending market. We have a sports Minister who appears to know nothing about sport, and a Health Minister who did not know how to access a walk-in centre.
It is no wonder that coalition tensions have been rising, and that is only in the Tory party. Apparently 25 Conservative modernisers have been to visit the Prime Minister to warn him of a split if he abandons green levies. The Leader of the House must be wondering where it all went wrong for the Prime Minister and his modernisation project. The Prime Minister promised a big society and delivered the politics of division and fear, and now his self-styled successor, the Mayor of London, thinks greed is good and that some people are too stupid to be equal.
Today’s news that the Prime Minister is U-turning on his U-turn on plain packaging for cigarettes says it all. He is a Prime Minister running round and round in circles.
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her response, and I join her in congratulating Members who have been participants in Movember. We shall, in some cases, regret the passing of their facial adornments. I suspect that not many of them will be persuaded to keep them on a permanent basis, but it is all in an important cause. I am sure that, across the House, we feel very strongly about the importance of supporting them in their endeavours to promote research into prostate and testicular cancers. We have made considerable progress, but there is much more to be done. I know that prostate cancer is the most common cancer affecting men and if we can secure investment in research and treatment such as that characterised by successful breast cancer campaigns, men—and, I suspect, women—in this country and beyond will attach considerable importance to that.
The hon. Lady asked about migration and I heard the Home Secretary answer her questions yesterday in the course of a rather comprehensive statement of what the Government are doing. Considering that that statement was the answer to an urgent question asked by the shadow Home Secretary, it turned out to be an own goal. The Home Secretary made it very clear that we will put a bar on migrants claiming out-of-work benefits for the first three months, stop welfare payments after six months unless a claimant has a genuine chance of a job, stop migrant jobseekers claiming housing benefit to subsidise accommodation costs, and introduce further measures on the minimum wage. She also made clear—I heard her do it—those measures which would be in place by January.
The shadow Leader of the House asked for a debate on banking reform. I announced that the House would consider Lords amendments to the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill. We did not send a shell of a Bill to the other place—far from it. It was an important measure that ring-fenced everyday banking from investment banking, ensuring that banks are never again too big to fail. It reformed the failed tripartite system that we inherited from the Opposition. It is staggering that they are now trying to engage in procedural politics on the Bill. We, as a Government, are having to put in place a banking regulatory system that will not allow the appalling mess we inherited from the previous Government to occur again as that failed this country and beyond in a major way.
We quite rightly established the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards and the Bill responded directly to it. We gave the commission an opportunity to consider the measures in the Bill as part of the scrutiny of it before its introduction and the commission produced a second report. It was never in anybody’s interest for the Bill not to be completed during this Session and so we used a mechanism whereby the second report was reflected in measures incorporated into the Bill in the House of Lords. That is perfectly reasonable and as the hon. Lady and the House will have gathered, we anticipate a full day’s debate on Lords amendments when the Bill returns to the House.
The hon. Lady also asked for a debate on the rhetoric and reality of the Chancellor’s policies. I would welcome such a debate as it would give us an opportunity to contrast not just rhetoric and reality but the rhetoric of the Labour party and the reality of Labour in office. Yesterday, Labour tried to talk about the economic policy of this Government but throughout the debate Labour Members failed to recognise or acknowledge the mistakes their party had made. The facts are simple and straightforward; for example, under a Labour Government there was a 7.2% reduction in the GDP of this country during the deepest recession we have seen in the past 100 years, which led to unprecedented deficits in this country. That was the consequence of a Labour Government. As for the rhetoric and reality of the Chancellor’s policies, I look forward to hearing him make the autumn statement next Thursday and set out how this coalition Government are making tremendous progress—not least by assisting people in this country through more jobs, reduced taxation, controls on fuel duties, a council tax freeze available to councils through the whole of this Parliament, and the largest increases in the state pension we have ever seen—in helping families with the cost of living, which the Opposition would signally have been unable to do had they continued to borrow and spend in the way that they did in the past. It has always been the same old Labour: spend, borrow and see the economy of this country collapse.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
May we have an urgent debate on the variability in the diesel and petrol prices that our constituents are often forced to pay? Prices in Leighton Buzzard are often 5p to 6p a litre more than those in surrounding areas. Tesco, for example, charges considerably less in Milton Keynes and Dunstable than in Leighton Buzzard. Does the Leader of the House think there is an onus on companies such as Tesco and Morrisons to treat all their customers fairly?
Mr Lansley
I understand the point that my hon. Friend makes because his constituency and mine are not far apart. I quite often note the difference in prices as I go around the country. Of course, that is happening for a simple reason—there are different markets in different parts of the country. So I have noticed in the past that if one is buying petrol in the Wirral close to where it is refined it might be a little cheaper than in Cambridgeshire. But the truth is that, wherever people are buying petrol or diesel, they are buying it 13p a litre cheaper than would have been the case if the fuel duty escalator introduced by the Labour party was still in place. That is £7 for an average fill-up.
Mr Dave Watts (St Helens North) (Lab)
May we have a debate on the appalling employment practices of Amazon, which were demonstrated on “Panorama”, so that the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills can set out what action he intends to take to stop those practices and stop Britain slipping into some form of sweatshop economy?
Mr Lansley
I cannot promise a debate, but if the hon. Gentleman is in his place he will have an opportunity to raise those issues with my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills next Thursday when they respond to questions. None of us in the House believes that we have or should have a sweatshop economy. That is why over many years we have instituted employment protection measures, including a minimum wage. It is important that it is enforced. It is also important that we create jobs, and in this economy since the general election we have created 1.4 million private sector jobs. That should never be forgotten.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
May we have a debate about Somerset county council’s rush to axe children’s centres when it has done a skewed consultation, questions were loaded, and the staff have been gagged? Its report shows that it does not even know how many children are affected, and the only failings in the Ofsted report for the two children’s centres that I have seen were caused by the council’s failings to resource them. Last week the council agreed that it would have a four to six-week period of further consultation with parents and children, and yesterday it suddenly announced that it would make the decision today. It is absolutely not fair on the children or parents.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend will recall that there are statutory requirements about the character of a consultation relating to local authority proposals to reconfigure children’s services. I am not in a position to comment directly on the circumstances that my hon. Friend describes, but I will ask my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department for Education to respond to what she has said.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
Across the House, we all believe in supporting social impact enterprises and social innovation. May we have a quick debate—I know that it would have to be very urgent—about the barriers to crowdfunding that are coming through from the Financial Conduct Authority? Can we do something quickly to keep alive the ability of people to invest in local enterprises in their community?
Mr Lansley
I am interested in the point that the hon. Gentleman makes. I will ask my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Treasury or perhaps my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General, who has responsibility as the Minister for civil society, to respond to that point. The hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members across the House who share enthusiasm for social enterprises may wish to bring the subject before the Backbench Business Committee, which has opportunities for debates not only here but in Westminster Hall.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
May we have a debate on equal pay for women? Does the Leader of the House agree that in the 21st century it is unacceptable that far too many women in the private sector are paid less than men despite doing the same job?
Mr Lansley
I cannot promise an immediate debate, but I know that my hon. Friend and other hon. Members might seek to have a debate in due course. My recollection—I may be incorrect—is that the Office for National Statistics, for technical reasons, has not published the latest data on the gender pay gap, but will do so in December. We share the view that, while the gap may have reduced, we have not achieved what we need to achieve. It may be something on which he and others, in the light of the latest data, may wish to seek a debate from the Backbench Business Committee.
Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Lab)
May we have a debate in Government time on the situation facing people living in the private rented sector, many of whom have six-month tenancies, great difficulty getting repairs done and the danger that the tenancy will be ended if they complain to the landlord? In particular, those living in central London, where benefit levels do not meet the excessive rent levels, can then be forced to move out, leading to a social cleansing of whole swathes of our communities. It is a serious issue facing a lot of people, so it should be dealt with by the Government, not on a Back-Bench business day.
Mr Lansley
I agree that those are important issues, and I know that we will continue to have opportunities to debate them. Many issues that are for the Government to respond to are debated in time granted by the Backbench Business Committee. I do not subscribe to the view, and neither does the House, that Government time is allocated to discuss things that are the Government’s responsibility and Back-Bench business time is allocated to discuss things that are not. On the contrary, Back-Bench business time is available, as indeed is Opposition time, so that Members can raise issues that are predominantly for the Government to respond to.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
On Wednesday that well-known press organ the Plymouth Herald reported that the Secretary of State for Transport had said that he would look closely at improving the rail and road links to Plymouth following the closure of Plymouth airport a couple of years ago. Specifically to deliver growth, I have been campaigning for the A303 to be dualled, for trains to get into Plymouth by 9 am, rather than 11.17 am, and for more train journeys to and from London. After repeated failed requests for a debate, will my right hon. Friend support my calls for a debate on this important matter, or at the very least may we have a statement from the Secretary of State?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who raises an issue that is important not only to his constituents, but to those of other Members in that travel corridor in the south-west. Given that wider interest, he might find that there is a wider constituency of Members who might be able to seek a debate. I certainly encourage him in that regard. He knows that our right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport was with him in his constituency over the summer to discuss those issues. I will of course ask him to respond further, but it is very much in the minds of Ministers, not least because they have a feasibility study looking at some of the most notorious hot spots on roads across the country, including the A303, the A30 and the A358 in that travel corridor.
Ian Lucas (Wrexham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is presiding over increasing chaos in his Department, with a black hole existing where the independent living fund used to be, and there are still questions about interference with the Public Accounts Committee. Will the Leader of the House arrange for him to come here and speak for himself?
Mr Lansley
I seem to remember that the Secretary of State was here last week—on Monday, I think—to answer questions and speak for himself and for the Government, and I am delighted to say that when he does so he contrasts the situation in which we are creating jobs with the one under Labour in which jobs were not being created. He contrasts the situation in which every time people move off benefits and into work, work pays, which was not the case under Labour, ensuring that there is serious benefit associated with working. He also talks about the fact that we have effective systems, including under the Work programme, that are delivering effective routes back into work for the long-term unemployed.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Has my hon. Friend seen my early-day motion 784 on fuel duty?
[That this House welcomes the Government's actions cutting fuel duty in 2011 and the freeze in fuel duty until the end of the present Parliament announced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and urges the Government, if the economic conditions allow, to continue to cut costs for hard-pressed motorists and to consider a further fuel duty cut.]
May we have a debate on fuel duty, given that in yesterday’s debate on the cost of living the Opposition forgot to mention that they increased fuel duty 12 times and that our Government have frozen it in the lifetime of this Parliament? Will my right hon. Friend urge the Chancellor to go even further and cut fuel duty in the forthcoming Budget?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and have seen his early-day motion. I thoroughly endorse the congratulations that the Financial Secretary offered him in yesterday’s debate in recognition of his campaigning. Of course, matters relating to the future of fuel duty are for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he has made it clear that by the end of this Parliament, as a consequence of the decisions he has already announced, motorists will be paying 20p per litre less on petrol and diesel duty than would have been the case under Labour’s fuel duty escalator.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)
Last week people in Rochdale commemorated the Holodomor famine that occurred in Ukraine, killing 7 million people in one of the most horrifying episodes in European history. Does the Leader of the House agree that it would be fitting on this 80th anniversary to debate recognition of the Holodomor as genocide?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman and the House will know that the Holodomor was an horrific man-made disaster of unimaginable scale. We recognise the appalling human tragedy that occurred and its importance in the history of Ukraine and Europe. The Government pay tribute to the people who continue to work to keep alive the memory of all those who perished in the Holodomor. There is a complex debate about this, as the hon. Gentleman will recall. For an explanation of that, I would, if I may, direct Members to the speech by my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe in reply to a debate initiated by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) on 11 June.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
The most recently published unemployment data show that the Harrogate and Knaresborough constituency is among the top 1% in the country for falling long-term unemployment. May we have a debate about the progress that has been made in getting people back to work, particularly the long-term unemployed?
Mr Lansley
The more we can show, particularly to those who are long-term unemployed, the benefits of the Work programme, the better it is. We have record numbers of vacancies. While we have seen a modest reduction in the number of long-term unemployed, we want that number to come down further, and the Work programme has been increasingly successful in achieving that. According to industry figures, 383,000 people have started work, and we have reached the point where 168,000 have found lasting work for more than six months. That represents tremendous progress so far, but we want to achieve more.
Mr Speaker
Order. May I remind colleagues about the pressure of time? If people could avoid preamble and launch straight into their question, and I know we will have pithy replies from the Leader of the House, then we will make good progress, but we must move on.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Given that £1.5 million-worth of donations from private health care companies resulted in £1.5 billion-worth of NHS contracts for those companies, and that the private supper arrangements with the Tory party have resulted in donations of £1.5 million to the Conservatives, may we have a statement from the Leader of the House on who these anonymous donors are and what exactly has been paid for?
Mr Lansley
I am afraid that the hon. Lady is completely wrong in all her assertions. For 20 years in the Conservative party it has been clear that we do not take anonymous donations and we do not take donations to which strings are attached. It is absolutely not true to say that donations lead to contracts in the NHS. Those contracts are administered independently and fairly, and relationships with Ministers before they came into office and while they are in office have absolutely no bearing on that. Indeed, the number of private sector contracts in the NHS has not increased overall since the election.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
On a recent visit to the Jobcentre Plus that serves my constituency, I was told that the long-term unemployed are now finding jobs and, equally importantly, keeping them. May we therefore have a debate on the success of the Work programme in getting the long-term unemployed—a group abandoned by Labour—into long-term, sustainable employment?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is right. The Work programme is the largest welfare-to-work programme since the 1930s. What he describes in his constituency is very important; it replaced a patchwork of poorly performing and expensive schemes under the Labour Government. We expect 2.5 million people to be supported over five years. What we saw under Labour, as we have seen under every Labour Government, is an increase in unemployment. Under this coalition Government we are seeing a substantial reduction in unemployment and, even more importantly, a record level of employment.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
On Monday the Government accepted the position of Labour Front Benchers on capping high-cost credit, ahead of certain defeat in the other place. Yesterday the Government accepted many of the proposals of the shadow Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), in order to take the wind out of a Government Back-Bench rebellion. Today the Government seem to have U-turned on tobacco plain packaging, again ahead of certain defeat in the other place. Will the Leader of the House arrange a debate in this House on why the Government seem to have run out of ideas?
Mr Lansley
All the hon. Gentleman is asserting is that what the Government are doing is supported by the Opposition. Frankly, I am pleased about that.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
May we have a debate on the future of independent petrol retailers and the important role they play in our local infrastructure and in delivering security of supply, especially in our rural areas?
Mr Lansley
I cannot promise a debate, but I think one would be useful, because what my hon. Friend says is true, especially in more rural areas. There has, of course, been some notable erosion of the number of independent petrol retailers. The situation is very difficult and I hope they will hear what my hon. Friend has said as some encouragement to them that we recognise the contribution they make in rural communities.
Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)
The Leader of the House will recall the tragic deaths of baby Daniel in Coventry and of baby P. Would it not be fitting to have some form of national memorial or new proposals for dealing with child abuse, given the cutbacks to local authority budgets?
Mr Lansley
I do remember, as will other Members, those tragic events and others like them. Personally, I think that the most important memorial we can achieve is to ensure that our child protection and safeguarding arrangements are as effective as we can possibly make them. We know we are not there yet. We have made progress, but we have much more to do to make that happen. I hope we can achieve that so that children can be genuinely safe wherever they are in the country.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Following on from the urgent question, may we have a debate on Government inquiries into decision making? Surely it cannot be right to farm out important decisions to unelected and unaccountable people. If Ministers are not capable of working out the evidence for themselves and coming to a conclusion, or do not have the guts to take responsibility for the decision they want to take, perhaps they should not be Ministers.
Mr Lansley
In the context of the urgent question, which I thought the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison) answered superbly, what was announced was a review, but, as she made clear, the decision that will be made in the spring will be made by Ministers.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
When I made a plea yesterday for disabled people to be exempt from the bedroom tax, the Prime Minister said:
“Obviously, what we have done is to exempt disabled people who need an extra room.”—[Official Report, 27 November 2013; Vol. 571, c. 254.]
That is not only a direct contradiction of previously stated policy, it is at complete odds with what is happening in the real world. Can we have a statement from a Minister from the Department for Work and Pensions either to correct the Prime Minister’s erroneous statement or, alternatively, to confirm that disabled people will indeed be exempt from this vicious and nasty bedroom tax that they should never have suffered in the first place?
Mr Lansley
The Prime Minister was absolutely right to say yesterday that those disabled people who need an additional room for overnight carers will not have the spare room subsidy removed in respect of that room. That has always been the case and the Prime Minister has made that clear on a number of occasions.
Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
Will the Leader of the House make time for a debate on the Standards Committee report on my hon. Friend the Member for South Suffolk (Mr Yeo), so that we can seek an apology from The Sunday Times?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. Indeed, I think the House will be grateful to the Standards Committee and the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for an exceptionally thorough report. Having read it, I looked last weekend for any recognition in The Sunday Times of its findings, but found none. I rather regret that. If the press is rightly quick to criticise, it should equally be ready to admit when it has got it wrong.
Pete Wishart (Perth and North Perthshire) (SNP)
May we have a debate about the cost of Government hospitality, particularly when this week Scottish celebrities are tripping over themselves to snub the Prime Minister’s lavish St Andrew’s day Union bash? We learned this morning that even the Prime Minister has decided to snub his own event. Does the Leader of the House have any idea who is actually going to attend?
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
My Prime Minister (Replacement) Bill is due to have its Second Reading tomorrow. It provides for a line of succession if the Prime Minister is killed or incapacitated. My apologies to you, Mr Speaker: I had listed you as third in line to succeed the Prime Minister, but unfortunately the powers that be have said that the House could not contemplate that. Will the Leader of the House ensure that the first item of business tomorrow is concluded very early and that no filibustering prevents my Bill from being debated? Before he answers, I can let him know that, for his information, he is 20th on the list to succeed.
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, because I was not aware of that possibility under the Bill. It ever so slightly changes my perception of it, but I fear that I am still not entirely in favour of it, not least because it impinges on Her Majesty’s prerogatives under the constitution.
I am sure I am right in telling my hon. Friend that there is no prospect of filibustering in this House. It is a term of usage, but it is not in order to filibuster, and the Chair would not contemplate anything disorderly happening in the House.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport to explain why the Government have refused to designate the rugby union world cup in 2015 as an event of national significance, as was done by the previous Government for the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012, so that tickets cannot be sold on the secondary ticketing market and hoovered up by touts, many of whom are involved in organised criminal gangs and in exploiting genuine rugby fans?
Mr Lansley
If I may, I will talk to my hon. Friends at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It might be simpler for them not to make a statement, but to respond to the hon. Gentleman in his capacity as a shadow Minister—
Mr Lansley
Those Ministers may even want to put a copy of that reply in the Library of the House.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
In April, the amount that someone can earn before paying income tax—the personal allowance—will rise to £10,000. Together with cumulative changes made since the coalition Government came to office, that will cut an individual’s income tax bill by £700 on average and take 3 million of our poorest people out of income tax altogether, including 4,025 people in the Kettering constituency. May we have a debate in Government time on personal income tax liability and the changes made since this Government came to power?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes an important point, of which people in his constituency will take positive note. Other constituencies have similar figures, and those changes in taxation are one reason why household disposable incomes are rising, which is important for people in tough times. On the opportunity to consider that further, I can say that it may well arise during questions following the Chancellor’s autumn statement next Thursday.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
To follow on from the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Eltham (Clive Efford), may we have a debate on the sale of rugby union world cup tickets? The protection of Olympic tickets from resale helped to prevent ticket touting. Can we make the rugby world cup a party for ordinary people, not just for the rich who can afford tickets?
Mr Lansley
As I have said, I am happy to consult my hon. Friends at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport about their response on that issue.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
The Leader of the House will be aware of the great concern about lifting restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians coming here after 1 January. Will he bring back the Immigration Bill on Report so that the House has a chance to consider my new clause to extend those restrictions?
Mr Lansley
The House will be aware that I of course announce future business every week, and the Immigration Bill will be part of a future business statement. My hon. Friend was in his place yesterday to listen to the Home Secretary, and he and Members from across the House will have heard about a substantial package of robust measures that should make a significant difference. In the light of figures on migration from within the European Union, it is terrifically important to make it clear that although we value the brightest and best coming here to study and work, as is absolutely right, we and other countries—Germany, France and the like—do not want that to turn into an ability for people to come to this country or other countries across the European Union for the purpose of accessing benefits.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Will the Leader of the House ask the Chancellor to come here and make a statement on intervention in failing markets, because he seems to be all over the shop? He has rightly given in to a cap on the cost of credit, but he will not listen on a freeze on energy bills.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Across London and the south-east, we have the scandal of accommodation being erected in gardens and landlords charging exorbitant rents from people who are not paying council tax but are receiving benefits. May we have an urgent debate in Government time on beds in sheds, so that we can examine that problem in detail and get some action?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend raises an interesting point. Not least because I would like to hear more about the matter, I will ask my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department for Communities and Local Government to reply to him and to allow me to see that reply. My hon. Friend and other hon. Members may want to take further steps to secure a debate on the matter, for instance on the Adjournment.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr and Mrs Lloyd live in Little Addington in my constituency. They have been flooded twice because of a burst water main. Anglian Water accepts that the water main needs to be replaced, but it will not do the work until late in 2014. In the meantime, it has reduced the water pressure and people in the village cannot even have a proper shower. What advice can the Leader of the House give me on how we can hold Anglian Water to account and get it to change its mind and fix the problem?
Mr Lansley
Two things can be done. I will take it on myself to raise the issue with my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to secure a response from the Government. Separately, the hon. Gentleman can speak to Anglian Water, as I have done myself. I have made it clear that I have supported its bids to the water regulator for a price control, which incorporates a commitment to investment, but equally that I will hold it to its commitment to make that investment, for instance to tackle the impact of sewerage issues on households. He may have similar measures that he wants to raise with the company in that way.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
Tomorrow, the all-party group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases, which I chair, will publish its report on the neglected tropical diseases that affect 1.4 billion of the poorest people on earth. May we have a debate about the excellent research that is carried out into those diseases in UK institutions such as the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Imperial college and many others? The UK is a world leader in such research.
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is right that we are a leader in research into tropical diseases and into treatments for and responses to them. Increasingly, with this Government’s commitment to dedicating 0.7% of our gross national income to overseas aid, we are also a leader in combating those diseases across the world.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Before the last election, the Prime Minister promised to lead the “greenest government ever”. Now, he is ordering his officials to get rid of the “green crap”. May we have a debate on what the Prime Minister means by “green crap”?
Mr Lansley
I suspect that the hon. Gentleman was in his place for Energy and Climate Change questions, so he will have had an opportunity to hear from the Secretary of State that, through our policies, this Government are achieving greater energy efficiency and carbon reduction than any of our predecessors.
Mr Speaker
I think that the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) was quoting. In those circumstances, the use of such a word is perfectly orderly, but I would not want colleagues to think that it is to be encouraged ordinarily, for it is not.
Wayne David (Caerphilly) (Lab)
Given the Spanish Prime Minister’s comment that a separate Scotland would be outside the European Union as well as outside the United Kingdom, may we have a debate on the possibility of a Scotland that is in not-so-splendid isolation?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will be aware that Members of this House may well seek a debate on Scotland’s future in the United Kingdom. It is perfectly proper for them to go to the Backbench Business Committee to seek such a debate. It is instructive that in the space of two days, one of the central points in the document that the Scottish Government supposed would be the answer to all the questions has turned out to be based on false assumptions.
Sexual Violence in Conflict
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I will update the House on the Government’s initiative on preventing sexual violence in conflict. This issue is not about politics but about our common humanity; it is not enough to be united in condemnation of it, unless we are united in action against it.
It was only when the true horror of slavery came to light in the 18th century that our nation acted against it. In our time we have come to understand the true horror of war zone sexual violence in Bosnia, Rwanda, Colombia, Somalia and many other nations, including Syria. I will never forget meeting young women in a hospital in Goma who were so damaged by rape that they required surgery; the women in a refugee camp who said they were being “raped like animals”; male survivors in Sarajevo, who 20 years on still live lives shattered by trauma; or women in refugee camps in Darfur who were raped collecting firewood. What they all had in common was that, unjustly, they bore the stigma, shame and loneliness, while their attackers walked free and unpunished.
This is rape used as a tactic or weapon of war, to terrorise, humiliate and ethnically cleanse. It destroys lives, fuels conflict, creates refugees, and is often a tragic link in a chain of human rights abuses from sexual slavery to forced marriage and human trafficking. Sexual violence affects men and boys as well as women and girls. It undermines reconciliation, and traps survivors in conflict, poverty and insecurity. Preventing it is a moral cause for our generation.
Our goal must be to end the use of rape as a weapon of war, no longer treating it as an inevitable consequence of conflict but as a crime that can be stopped. We need to put perpetrators behind bars and restore dignity to the survivors, who are often rejected by their families, suffer illness, lack proper housing, are not employed, have no access to education, and struggle to survive. Ending war zone rape is the aim of the initiative I launched 18 months ago with Angelina Jolie, the special envoy of the High Commissioner for Refugees. I pay tribute to her for helping us galvanise world opinion.
In April, during our presidency, the G8 adopted an historic declaration that promised to eradicate sexual violence in conflict. In June, I chaired a meeting of the United Nations Security Council that unanimously adopted resolution 2106—its first resolution on sexual violence in three years. It was co-sponsored by an unprecedented 46 nations and strengthened the UN’s capabilities. In September, during and after the UN General Assembly, we put forward a new declaration of commitment to end sexual violence in conflict. That has been endorsed by 137 countries—more than two thirds of all members of the United Nations.
At our behest, those countries have promised not to enter into or support peace agreements that give amnesty for rape. Suspects can be arrested in any of those countries, all of which have now recognised rape and serious sexual violence as grave breaches of the Geneva conventions, so that the principle of universal jurisdiction applies. They will support new global efforts to give aid and justice to survivors, and for the first time every UN peacekeeping mission will automatically include the protection of civilians against sexual violence in conflict. Furthermore, all 137 countries have agreed to support the development of a new international protocol on the investigation and documentation of sexual violence in conflict that we have proposed. Those are groundbreaking commitments to erode impunity and support victims. This month, our attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Sri Lanka ensured that the final communiqué contained the first ever commitment by all 53 member states to prevent and respond to sexual violence.
We are underpinning that diplomatic campaign with practical action. Over the past six months we have worked with leaders in 14 countries who are champions of this initiative in their regions: the Presidents of Liberia, Malawi, Senegal and Tanzania, the Prime Minister of East Timor, and the Foreign Ministers of Australia, Croatia, Denmark, Guatemala, Jordan, Mexico, South Korea, the UAE and Indonesia. I thank them all for their leadership.
We have drawn up the new draft protocol with experts from all over the world, and it sets out ideal international standards for documenting and investigating sexual violence in conflict zones. Its purpose is to increase the number of prosecutions worldwide, by ensuring that the strongest evidence and information are collected, and that survivors receive proper support. Since April we have deployed our team of experts to the Syrian borders, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, where they have trained health professionals and human rights defenders in documenting crimes, investigating standards, and collecting and storing forensic evidence.
In Mali, we are deploying experts with the EU training mission. They have trained two battalions of soldiers so far in international humanitarian and human rights law, in a country where men in uniform have often been accused of carrying out some of the worst rapes. We are giving new support to the UN, and have provided £1 million to support the work of the special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Zainab Bangura, to whom I pay tribute for her inspiring work. We will second an expert to her team in 2014.
The Department for International Development is playing a vital part. It has agreed a new approach to protecting women and girls in emergency situations with the UN and civil society, and launched a new £25 million research and innovation fund to help address violence against women in conflict settings.
All that represents significant progress—action begun by eight nations has become global; we have driven the need to end war zone sexual violence up the world’s agenda; and we have generated a new willingness from Governments around the world to take a stand on the issue—but it is only a beginning. We will not succeed until we shatter the culture of impunity, make a real difference to the lives of survivors and stop such crimes happening. Therefore, while we continue our diplomacy and practical work, lobbying more countries to join us and urging those who have done so to fulfil their promises, we want to achieve another step change in global awareness and readiness to act. We need to bring together in one place all the people who are driving forward the initiative, to open the eyes of many others and to ensure that commitments to practical actions are fulfilled.
As the next stage in the campaign, I have decided to convene a global summit in London from 11 to 13 June next year, co-chaired by me and UNHCR Special Envoy Jolie. We will invite the states that have endorsed the declaration, and legal, military, civil society and humanitarian representatives from around the world. We will open up the summit to civil society and members of the public. There will be a large fringe throughout the summit, enabling events on conflict prevention, women’s rights, international justice, and business and human rights. We will run simultaneous events in our embassies and high commissions on every continent, so that this is not only a summit in London, but an international global event that continues around the clock throughout the duration of the summit. We intend it to be the largest summit ever staged on sexual violence in conflict.
We want to bring the world to a point of no return, creating irreversible momentum towards ending war zone rape and sexual violence worldwide. We will ask all the countries present to make real practical commitments. We will ask them to revise their military doctrines and training, and their training and operations on peacekeeping missions. We will ask them to commit new support for local and grassroots organisations and human rights defenders. We will encourage groups of nations to form new partnerships to support conflict-affected countries, to make the matter a priority in their Foreign Ministries, and to set up teams of experts, as we have done. In addition, we will launch the new international protocol and ask all countries to ensure its implementation. We will work ahead of the summit to secure even wider endorsement of the UN declaration and the participation of all the world’s major powers, and we will seek ideas from civil society, other Governments, UN agencies, and regional and multilateral organisations, to build the momentum.
The campaign aims to ensure that sexual violence can no longer be a feature of conflict in the 21st century, but our ultimate objective must be to eradicate all forms of violence against women and girls, in all societies. There is no greater strategic prize for this century than the attainment of full social, economic and political rights for all women everywhere, and their full participation in their societies. We will not secure that unless we change global attitudes to women, root out discrimination and violence against them wherever it is found, including in our own countries, and show the political will to make women’s participation in peace building and conflict resolution world wide a reality, including at the Geneva peace conference on Syria.
Our work on the initiative stretches across the Government. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has asked immigration officials to look at how to improve guidance and training on gender-based asylum claims, and she is introducing a modem slavery Bill to give authorities the powers to investigate and prosecute human traffickers. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has made the protection and empowerment of girls and women a priority. By 2015, the UK will have helped millions more girls and women to get access to education, financial services, jobs and land rights, and our new £35 million programme aims to reduce the practice of female genital mutilation by 30% in at least 10 countries in the next five years.
Our country is putting new effort, new single-minded focus, new resources and new political will into advancing the rights of women and girls, and ending war zone rape worldwide. In 2014, we will intensify that work in every respect, drawing on the united support of this House of Commons, the work of Members from all parties, the excellence of our diplomats and aid workers, and the strength of our alliances. Working to end sexual violence in conflict is part of the attainment of full rights for all women everywhere, and in the strong tradition of this country’s championing of human rights and freedom.
Mr Douglas Alexander (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for advance sight of it.
The Foreign Secretary is right to say that condemnation is simply not enough and that action is required against these abhorrent and heinous crimes. When this matter was last debated in this House, I put on record the Opposition’s support for the Government’s preventing sexual violence initiative, and I paid tribute to the Foreign Secretary’s considerable and personal efforts in this area. I am happy to do so again today. Indeed, I welcome the steps that have been taken since that debate in March, including by the Foreign Secretary himself, to help maintain and to raise the profile of this issue on the international stage. In particular, I welcome the decision to host a global summit in London next year, co-chaired by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Special Envoy Jolie.
The Foreign Secretary did not make reference to the work of campaigning organisations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Saferworld and others. I hope and trust that that was an inadvertent oversight, but I am sure he will join me in welcoming their vital contribution to help advance this cause in recent months and over many years. Their work has been indispensible in placing this issue firmly on the international agenda, so will he assure the House of their active and engaged participation in the summit to be held in London next year?
Sexual violence in conflict is today all too prevalent across the world. The perpetrators are rarely held to account for their crimes, as we have just heard. Indeed, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described the issue as
“the most pervasive violation of human rights across the globe”.
The Foreign Secretary is therefore right when he says that this is the time for the international community to step up its efforts to respond to these continuing and pervasive crimes.
When the Foreign Secretary last addressed this House on the matter back in March, he set out a number of measures that the Government were introducing to try to tackle this issue globally. I would like to ask a series of questions about their subsequent implementation. First, sexual violence as a tool of war remains one of the least prosecuted crimes, and I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s focus on that work today. Will he set out for the House how many UK personnel have been deployed in post-conflict areas, as part of the UK team of experts, to help improve local accountability structures since the initiative was first launched? Will he set out what discussions he has had with international partners on contributing their skilled and experienced staff to an international team of experts that can be deployed more widely? I welcomed the UK’s commitment to increase funding to the UN Secretary-General’s special representative on sexual violence in conflict. Will the Foreign Secretary update the House on whether other countries have followed the UK’s lead in increasing funding for this office?
The Foreign Secretary covered some specific countries of concern. Despite our well rehearsed disagreement with the Government on the Prime Minister’s attendance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government summit last month, I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s efforts to raise the issue of preventing sexual violence on the agenda while he was there. During his visit, he emphasised that the UK was ready to offer more assistance and co-operation to the Sri Lankan Government to tackle this issue. What response has he received from the Sri Lankan Government since the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting to those offers and how he plans to take this work forward?
In response to a written question in October, the Government confirmed that Burma has now been added to the list of countries, despite being omitted from the original list. Will the Foreign Secretary explain the reason for not including Burma as part of the initiative when it was first launched?
The Foreign Secretary spoke about the work that is being done today by the UK’s team of experts on the Syrian borders. Can he provide any more details about the nature of the work, and whether there are plans for support to be given to those in need in Syria itself? Will he also say whether he raised this issue with the Syrian National Coalition when it was in London last month?
The Government have taken important steps to help to raise this issue on the international stage and we pay generous tribute to their efforts to do so. Where they continue to pursue steps to help tackle this pervasive and deplorable abuse of human rights, they can rest assured that they will have the Opposition’s support in their endeavours.
Mr Hague
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support for this initiative and our work on it in recent months. It is one of those subjects on which cross-party support, pursued consistently by all of us, is very important and helps to make a big impact on the rest of the world. I know that feelings on this will be appropriately strong among all political parties in the House.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the campaigning organisations. I mentioned that I envisaged the summit giving a big role to civil society, and that certainly includes all the organisations he mentioned. I have often stressed how our efforts build on the good work done at the UN and by non-governmental organisations around the world. I am pleased to say that many of those NGOs sit on the PSVI steering board that I have established, so they advise me directly on the development of this initiative. This afternoon, I will also be meeting organisations like Amnesty—it sits on our human rights advisory group, which also discusses these subjects. NGOs and other campaigning groups are thus fully involved in this initiative, and I value their support enormously.
The right hon. Gentleman is right that this is the least-prosecuted crime. That, of course, is what we are trying to change: shattering the culture of impunity is our central objective. We want to break into that and show that prosecutions can take place. We have more than 70 people—doctors, lawyers, forensic experts, experts in gender-based violence—in our very impressive team of experts. They have deployed in much smaller numbers—they have other jobs in their areas of expertise—to various countries, some of which I listed in my statement. For example, we have deployed a team to Libya to assess how best to engage with civil society and women’s organisations there, while the basic infantry training we provide to Libyan troops will incorporate a sexual violence element. As I mentioned, we are doing the same in Mali.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about Burma. We are providing support to legal assistance centres in Burmese refugee camps in Thailand and to trauma care camps in Kachin state, both of which deal with rape cases. Our embassy in Rangoon is currently considering how we can do more in Burma, and we are also promoting legal reforms that address and deter sexual violence.
We have done a lot of work on the Syrian borders, supporting the collection of evidence of human rights violations and abuses, including of sexual violence. We have trained more than 300 Syrian journalists and activists in documenting and exposing human rights abuses, including crimes of sexual violence. These are examples of the support our team of experts are providing.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about funds for the special representative. We have been the most generous of countries in recent years, but other countries have given additional funding—not many of them on the same scale as us, but I continue to encourage them to do more.
On Sri Lanka, yes we secured the commitment in the Commonwealth communiqué, which I have to point out we could not have done had we not been there. While I was in Sri Lanka, I also gave a public speech on preventing sexual violence in conflict that was widely reported in the Sri Lankan media—on the television and across the newspapers—so I think we drew the attention of a far wider audience in Sri Lanka to this subject. I discussed with the Foreign Minister of Sri Lanka specific support for our initiative, and we await their reply on whether they will support it. Of course, there are aspects that the Sri Lankan Government will find difficult to sign up to, which is why it is important to put it to them and to continue putting it to them. We can only do that, however, if we meet them, which we would not have done had we followed the right hon. Gentleman’s advice.
That, however, is our one disagreement. Otherwise, of course, there is strong cross-party unity on this issue, and I look forward to Opposition Members as well as Government Members playing a big role at next June’s global summit.
Mr Speaker
Order. Although, untypically, few Members are seeking to catch my eye on this statement, I remind the House that there is a statement by the Secretary of State for International Development to follow, and thereafter, under the auspices of the Backbench Business Committee, two debates, the first of which, in particular, is heavily subscribed. As a consequence, there is a premium upon brevity from Back Benchers and Front Benchers alike, first to be exemplified by Mr Alistair Burt.
Alistair Burt (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is the second time you have caught me like this; I will do my best.
Yesterday I had the privilege of chairing a meeting at Portcullis House, which was attended by a number of Members. It was organised by the National Alliance of Women’s Organisations and the Centre for Global Justice to discuss the issues raised by today’s statement. People were full of praise for what has been a quite extraordinary and exceptional personal effort by my right hon. Friend to bring this matter forward. I do not think anyone should minimise that. The same groups will be very interested in next year’s meeting.
I would like to raise the difficult subject of abortion. Is my right hon. Friend convinced that there is now a complete international consensus and that, although there are different attitudes to abortion, there is no restriction on providing aid and support for full medical access to all treatment, including the right to abortion services, needed by women who have been the victims of rape in conflict, or is it still the case that some countries hang back on their aid and support or make them conditional? Will my right hon. Friend raise this issue with the countries where that might be the case?
Mr Hague
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for the support he has consistently given to this initiative. We will make sure that the organisations he mentioned will be fully involved in the global summit and in all our continuing work next year.
The position of the UK Government on the issue he raises is that safe abortion reduces recourse to unsafe abortion and thus saves lives, although we do not consider that there is any general right to abortion under international humanitarian or human rights law. Women and adolescent girls, however, must have the right to make their own decisions about their sexual and reproductive health and well-being. The July practice paper from the Department for International Development clearly outlines the UK policy position on safe and unsafe abortion in developing countries. There are, of course, some countries holding back on this issue, but we will continue to encourage them to adopt the same approach as us.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
I spoke to some Afghanistan MPs this week and was quite concerned when they said that, because of the Afghan culture, women there could not achieve equal opportunities. What training is being given to the Afghan army so that, particularly post-2014, it sees it as part of its role to protect women from sexual and other forms of violence?
Mr Hague
As the hon. Lady knows, this is part of an immense subject. We regularly raise with the Afghan Government the issue of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan in the future. We certainly try to build this into our mentoring of the Afghan national security forces. Given that we will contribute substantially to those security forces financially after the end of the 2014, we will continue to pursue this issue; it should be in their training.
Sir Nick Harvey (North Devon) (LD)
May I commend the Foreign Secretary on his personal commitment to this important work and welcome the international response to the Government’s initiative? It is certainly a good start. The Foreign Secretary rightly described a comprehensive approach to this subject and spoke about the work of the Home Office and DFID. Will he confirm that the Ministry of Defence is also completely committed to this—both in principle and in practice? Our military personnel do good work in training foreign troops in various parts of the world. Is this agenda now firmly embedded in their programmes?
Mr Hague
My right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary is very supportive of this work. I will ask the Ministry of Defence to play its part—along with other Government Departments, which I know will be keen to do so—in the global summit next year. One of our objectives is to build into the work of militaries around the world the importance of this issue. That is what we are trying to do with the various training missions I mentioned. Our MOD has a lot to offer—it can contribute a lot in that regard—and we will discuss further how it can best continue to do so.
Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)
As chair of the all-party group on human rights, I know it has done a considerable amount of work over the years in hosting women who are the victims of rape. The Foreign Secretary should add this one to his list. I have encountered victims of rape in many countries of the world, including in Rwanda, Iraq and East Timor, and in East Timor, in particular, there has been no follow-up to the rapes that were committed by Indonesian forces against many of its citizens.
May I also ask the Foreign Office itself to be more sensitive towards victims of rape who approach the consular services? Such victims have been treated with considerable insensitivity in the past. I think that the Foreign Secretary will know of the specific case to which I am alluding.
Mr Hague
The right hon. Lady is well aware of the importance of this issue because of all the work that she does. I hope that she will be heavily involved in all the work that we do next year, both personally and through the all-party parliamentary group. There are difficult issues for many countries to face in this regard, and we are trying to ensure that they face those issues by involving their leaders in what we are doing. That is continuing work.
It is very important for the Foreign Office to be sensitive to these issues in its consular work. The right hon. Lady will have seen the publicity about one particular case this week. The Foreign Office has apologised unreservedly for what happened, and, having looked into the case, I am satisfied that it is not representative of the normal work of the consular service, including its work in Cairo, where the incident took place. Our consular staff have been dealing with an average of five rapes and up to 25 sexual assaults a year, and the problems that arose in that case have not been apparent in others. Nevertheless, we will hold ourselves to high standards.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his leadership and progress on preventing sexual violence in conflict. It was excellent to hear about the global summit that will take place next June, which I think will give hope to women throughout the world. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the Government have a cross-departmental taskforce to deal with this issue? I note that both the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development are present, and I know that they consider it to be a top priority. It would be good for all Departments to work together, and to make it clear once and for all that sexual violence should not be tolerated.
Mr Hague
There is a living, breathing demonstration of the cross-Government work that is being done, in the form of not only Foreign Office Ministers but the Secretaries of State for the Home Department and the Department for International Development. Their work on the wider agenda is crucial. The Foreign Office leads the work on the initiative to deal with sexual violence in conflict, but I have already told the House how helpful the work of the other Departments is. There is also an inter-ministerial group on violence against women and girls, which is overseen by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. So the broad answer to my hon. Friend’s question is yes.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s statement, but may I press him on just one aspect of it? I think that we can be a little complacent about much of this violence, whether it takes place in conflict zones or here in our own communities—and disturbing evidence emerged this week about rapes of girls in London gangs. Is not the real problem the fact that people in our own communities as well as in foreign communities do not believe in equal rights for women, and do not think that women are equal? We must stop avoiding that problem and deal with it here, as well as dealing with it in other countries.
Mr Hague
I agree, and I hope that none of us will be complacent. What is happening in some societies—not necessarily in conflict—is going backwards at the moment. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right about what lies at the root of the problem, and that is why, in my statement, I set this initiative in the context of a broader effort. We are seeking to prevent sexual violence in conflict, but changing the entire global attitude to that—which is what we are setting out to do—would have a beneficial effect on attitudes to women in many other situations and in many societies. I must emphasise again the importance of ensuring that all our own domestic conduct and policies also push in that direction.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on his announcement, and congratulate Ministers on all the work that they are doing. I should also draw attention to my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.
I have visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Jordan, where I was able to speak to women in refugee camps. May I remind the Foreign Secretary of the point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) about the need for women to have access to full reproductive rights, and to be able to look after their bodies in the way that they feel that they should be looking after them? That issue really needs to be raised at the conference in June.
Mr Hague
Absolutely. My hon. Friend knows from her work that the DRC is one of the countries most affected by these issues in the world, but I am pleased to say that its Government are supportive of this initiative. They are involved in it, and I have met some of their Ministers on my own visits to the DRC. She is right to suggest that, because the conference will involve a considerable fringe that will address a wide range of issues as well as agreeing our protocol on sexual violence in conflict, there will be scope for addressing fully the issues that she has raised.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s announcement on the summit next year, but we need to get our own house in order as well, given that two women die each week as a result of domestic violence here. It is good to see the Home Secretary sitting next to the Foreign Secretary in the Chamber today. May I press the Foreign Secretary further on the answer that he gave to my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) on protection for women in Afghanistan? Will he tell us what protection is being given to women human rights defenders there?
Mr Hague
There is already training in human rights for the Afghan forces, but no one should disguise the fact that this is going to be an immense challenge over the next few years. That is why the hon. Lady and others are raising these issues. We raise the matter regularly with Afghan Ministries and I have said that we need to build it into the support that we give to the Afghan national security forces. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has also allocated a substantial amount of development aid for Afghanistan after 2014. We will ensure that the importance of these issues runs through all of that, but this will be one of the biggest challenges in the world, and the hon. Lady is right to raise it.
Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
The cultural attitude towards rape victims in some countries, and the rejection of them, means that their suffering can be lifelong. In the Foreign Secretary’s discussions with the countries participating in the international protocol, has he detected any real understanding of that fact, or any real determination to address those cultural attitudes?
Mr Hague
My hon. Friend is quite right. One of the most haunting and disturbing aspects of this whole thing is the fact that the people affected go on to be lifelong victims as a result of the stigma, the shame and the isolation from their families. We have to turn that around by changing the global attitudes to these subjects, so that it is the perpetrators who suffer the shame and stigma. That is our objective. I have seen a recognition of the need to do that among the leadership in many of the countries that have experienced these terrible crimes. We need to see the full implementation of the protocol that we will arrive at together, and the fulfilment of the commitments in the declaration that those countries have signed. Our main objective over the next few years will be to change the situation on the ground.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
I have listened carefully to the Foreign Secretary’s remarks on Burma. He will know of the reports of sexual violence against the Rohingya minority in Rakhine and against other minorities in Kachin state. In the light of those reports, there is scepticism about the depth of the regime’s commitment to the initiative. What assurances has he sought from the regime, and what role does he envisage it playing at the summit next year?
Mr Hague
That scepticism is understandable. This will require a big change in attitudes and increased priority to be given to this issue in Burma. We have raised the matter with the Burmese Government, but we will need to go on doing so, because the scale of the problem is substantial, including in the areas that the hon. Gentleman mentions. I cannot give any categorical assurances that the Burmese Government will do the right thing, but I can assure him that they will receive very strong encouragement from Her Majesty’s Government to do so.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
The whole House has rightly paid tribute to the Foreign Secretary’s remarkable personal leadership in this area. I want to ask him about prosecutions. It is hard enough to get convictions for rape in peacetime in the UK, let alone elsewhere after the fog of war. Have there been any successful prosecutions? What would the Foreign Secretary consider to be a good result in this context?
Mr Hague
There have been very few. For instance, there have been just a handful of convictions in Bosnia following the many thousands of rape cases. In any of the conflicts in recent times, only a tiny percentage of rape cases have resulted in a conviction—too few to make any difference to the culture of impunity. There are one or two important international prosecutions proceeding at the moment, but we will be able to judge their impact only when they have been concluded.
My hon. Friend asked what would constitute success. Success would be a sufficient number of prosecutions to change attitudes. Of course, that will take a long time to build up, but we will be making progress once military commanders know that when they issue such orders, justice will have a long reach and a long memory and there is a high chance that it will catch up with them.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
In order to secure prosecutions, there must be proper investigation. We have a lot of experience in our police forces in this country, where huge strides have been made in treating victims properly and in running investigations. Is that experience being drawn on by the expert panel?
Mr Hague
Yes, that expertise is present in our team of experts. They are focusing on advising organisations and Governments in other countries on the documentation of these crimes, and on the use of forensics. The protocol that we want to agree next year will set out international standards on the investigation and documentation of such crimes, so that evidence can more easily be used across the world. Setting such standards will raise the standard of documentation and records, and the ability to investigate these crimes, in many countries. So, yes—the hon. Lady’s point is absolutely taken on board.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I praise the personal commitment, energy and dedication of the Foreign Secretary in pursuing this really important issue. I also applaud the cross-departmental working between the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Department for International Development; it shows this Government working at their very best. In which countries and regions does my right hon. Friend expect to see the most progress over the next five to 10 years?
Mr Hague
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his remarks. We hope that the biggest progress will be seen in those countries that have experienced the most serious problems over the past few decades. We have seen those problems in Europe, in Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as in Africa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Liberia and Rwanda. We have also seen them in south America, in Colombia. Hon. Members have also referred to the problems in Burma. Most of the continents of the world contain countries in which we want to see big progress being made on tackling these issues. As I have said, it is encouraging that, in most cases, the Governments of those countries are now signed up to our declaration and our initiative. That means that there is a possibility of making real progress.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)
A lot of sexual violence is occurring in Sri Lanka, and it has been going on for some time. Is the Foreign Secretary really comfortable with President Rajapaksa playing such a leading role in the Commonwealth at the moment?
Mr Hague
I am comfortable that it was right to raise all these issues in Sri Lanka. As I mentioned as gently as I could earlier, we could not have done that had we not been there. [Interruption.] It is apparently now the policy of the Opposition that we should have been there.
Mr Hague
So there is a little redefinition, but that is allowed. So we have made an impact on this issue in Sri Lanka that we could not have made otherwise, particularly in the speech—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says that I am misrepresenting the position, but we understood the Opposition to be saying that we should not go to Sri Lanka. If we had not been to Sri Lanka, we would not have been able to do anything of this: to secure the communiqué; to make a speech on sexual violence to raise the issue with the Sri Lankan Government and to have coverage all over the Sri Lankan media. So Opposition Members can shake their heads or stick them in the sand, but the effect is the same. The answer is that I am comfortable that we did the right thing to raise this issue in a big way in Sri Lanka.
Typhoon Haiyan
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the United Kingdom’s response to Typhoon Haiyan. Three weeks after Typhoon Haiyan made landfall in the Philippines, its full effect is becoming clear. The impact has been devastating. As of today, the UN reports that more than 14 million people have been affected, with 3.5 million displaced. The official death toll stands at 5,500.
I visited the Philippines last weekend. The devastation the typhoon has wreaked was clearly evident as I arrived in Tacloban in a RAF C-130 that was carrying a cargo of UK supplies. Many of the outer parts of the town have been flattened and debris from the typhoon litters the streets, but aid is now getting through at scale. In Tacloban, clearance work is well under way and reconstruction efforts were evident throughout the town, with small businesses getting going again and activity on the streets. The Philippines Health Secretary told me that 90% of health facilities in the affected areas are now operational, although many had suffered damage, but there is still huge need, particularly in the outlying islands and more remote areas. I heard from non-governmental organisations that only 20% to 30% of those people in need of shelter kits had so far received them.
Through our rapid response facility, the UK was one of the first donors to get relief to the worst-affected areas. The UK has so far committed more than £50 million of support, which is helping to get shelter, clean water and emergency supplies to up to 800,000 people. Our logistical support has helped to transform the relief effort. Aircraft handling equipment provided by the UK to unload supplies from planes has doubled the airport capacity at Cebu. The UK has also extended the reach of our overall humanitarian response through the deployment of the Royal Air Force, HMS Daring and now HMS Illustrious. That military support has been crucial in delivering relief to more remote islands, including the provision of emergency medical assistance through the UK international emergency trauma team. I pay tribute to the outstanding servicemen and women of the RAF and Royal Navy for their tireless efforts to help those hit by Typhoon Haiyan, and to the NHS personnel who are working to take care of those injured and in need of medical assistance.
I believe that the cross-Government nature of our effort, involving the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and a range of home Departments, has hugely enhanced our effectiveness, allowing us to combine a range of assets that is greater than any other country’s response. The British public have shown, and continue to show, overwhelming generosity in response to this crisis, with contributions to the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal now standing at £65 million. It is an incredible display of support to help to maintain the momentum of the relief effort, getting lifesaving supplies to those who need them most.
It is clear that the people of the Philippines face a long road to recovery in the wake of this disaster. During my visit to the Philippines, I met Foreign Minister del Rosario and other members of the Philippines Government, and I gave our commitment that the UK would continue to support their Government as they begin reconstruction and seek further to improve preparedness against future disasters. There is much that the international community can do in support of that goal, and I have already agreed to dedicate £5 million from a regional programme to strengthening the resilience of four Filipino cities to natural disasters.
While in Manila, I met the United Nations, the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank, other donors and NGOs. I heard about their experience of the response so far and discussed with them plans for the longer-term recovery and reconstruction effort. The Government of the Philippines have been clear that they will be leading the reconstruction effort, and the UK will support that work. I raised my serious concerns about the particular vulnerability of women and girls suffering deprivation, a lack of protection and the threat of abuse and trafficking. I hosted a high-level meeting on this issue with many heads of UN agencies in London on 13 November, when a commitment was made to ensure that protection was a core element of the response. We are working with the Philippines Government, the UN and NGO partners to ensure that this important issue is prioritised, and I have deployed UK specialists in this field to the Philippines to help to ensure that the risks that women and girls face are fully addressed.
The Government of the Philippines expressed their heartfelt thanks to the UK Government and the British public for their response to the typhoon. We should be proud of the generosity of the public, including that of the Filipino community living in the UK, and of our medics and military personnel, and Department for International Development and consular staff, who have worked tirelessly over recent days in the humanitarian effort. In addition, we should be proud of the efforts of UK NGOs in delivering so much so quickly. This response—the public’s response—truly represents the best of Great Britain. Our thoughts continue to be with the people of the Philippines, particularly those who have lost loved ones. The dire humanitarian situation and the ongoing recovery effort deserve the continued attention and support of this Government, and I commit my Department to leading that effort. I commend the statement to the House.
Mr Jim Murphy (East Renfrewshire) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and for advance sight of it. It is three weeks since Typhoon Haiyan, and our thoughts remain with those who have lost loved ones, those still searching for bodies and those seeking to rebuild their homes, lives and businesses. I will be travelling to the area this weekend. The situation on the ground remains desperate, but it is now clear that this was one of the strongest typhoons ever to make landfall and that many of the communities closest to the shore were ill-equipped and too poorly constructed to deal with the brute force of the barrage. Typhoon Haiyan has obliterated whole towns, destroyed communities and shattered lives. Although many will rightly ask questions about climate change, this is also a story about poverty. The poorest and most vulnerable were hit hardest, the worst quality homes were those most likely to collapse, and families living in some of the poorest provinces in the Philippines are now left with no homes, no assets and no savings to fall back on. I would also like to join in the praise of our aid charities operating there, of DFID staff and Ministers, and of the members of our armed forces who will now, unexpectedly, be separated from their families over Christmas.
Another thing is clear regarding this tragedy: the British public should never be underestimated. Their generosity, through their emotional concern and financial contribution, is a further brilliant reminder that we are not and never will be a nation that looks the other way. The Disasters Emergency Committee public appeal has now topped £65 million. Let us think about that. It is £1 for every person in our country, or an astonishing average of more than £3 million every day since the disaster struck, and all that at a time when many at home are struggling. The appeal started on the same weekend as the separate Children in Need appeal to support families in the UK which, too, broke new records.
So absolute was the destruction that the UN compared the scene on the ground in Leyte island to the devastation of the Boxing day tsunami of 2004. Although the destruction was similar in nature, we can at least be thankful that it was different in scale. Yet lessons, of course, must be learned by the international community about its response to that previous tsunami.
Let me now deal with some specific questions. The Department has not yet briefed the Opposition and, because of that, the time available today does not allow me to ask the full list of questions that I still have. As a former Secretary of State, I have always held the view that the political relationship between the two Front Benches is largely set from the Government Dispatch Box. I hope that I am not going to have to adjust, on this or any other issue, to the fact that even my request for a telephone conversation with the Secretary of State was refused—[Interruption.] It is not weak; it is a fact.
Will the Secretary of State say what assessment she has made of how the response to Typhoon Haiyan has been informed by the experience of the relief efforts following the tsunami? How much UK aid has been delivered and what materials have been sent? What is the plan to help the Philippines Government to ensure that all donations that arrive in the country are of use in that country? The previous Government published plans to ensure that 10% of all disaster relief was directed towards work designed to ensure better preparedness for future disasters. Will the Secretary of State update the House on the progress and delivery of that approach?
The United Nations has said that rehabilitation costs will be more expensive for Haiyan than was the case following the tsunami. With officials on the ground warning that it may take as long as 10 years to rebuild, it is vital that we get this right. What assessment has the Secretary of State made of the Philippines’ capacity to return to growth in the coming years and of the impact of this disaster on the regional economy? I want to conclude on climate change. It is neither wise nor accurate to attribute any specific weather event to climate change, but we do know that climate change is real. Due to the nature of what we are discussing today, I shall make this observation gently: there are worrying noises from parts of the Government regarding renewed scepticism about taking action on climate change. Will the Secretary of State put it on record that she is determined to take renewed action on climate change, which is one of the most pressing developmental and poverty reduction priorities for the Government, I am sure, and certainly for the Opposition?
Typhoon Haiyan is not just a disaster today, but an echo of our future tomorrow. The Philippines will continue to need our support long after our shock has subdued. As the Government set out their plans in the coming months, we will rightly scrutinise them, but we will instinctively support them.
Justine Greening
Disappointingly, the right hon. Gentleman has shown that the tone of the relationship can be set by his side as well as by ours.
The right hon. Gentleman asked what we have delivered. The UK has delivered support to around 800,000 victims of Typhoon Haiyan, which has included 12 flights. Two RAF C-17s have landed in Cebu so far, with a third rotation planned. We have also delivered more than 17,000 shelter kits, 38,000 tarpaulins, 16,000 hygiene kits and 1,500 tents, as well as water and sanitary equipment, buckets, jerry cans, 4x4 vehicles and JCBs. We have provided heavy-lifting equipment at the request of the World Food Programme to help to load and unload aid at Cebu airport, and also debris and road-clearing equipment to unblock roads so that we can get aid through. As everyone is aware, we also sent over HMS Daring, which has now been relieved by HMS Illustrious, which enabled medics and supplies to get to isolated and devastated communities. We have also had an RAF C-130 plane in the region shuttling supplies between Cebu airport and the people who need them in Tacloban, for example.
The Government have carried out significant work on disaster preparedness. Through the UN, we are involved in the work of Political Champions for Disaster Resilience, which works with the Government in Haiti. I have invited the Philippines Government to become involved so that they can be better prepared for disasters and better able to respond to them.
The right hon. Gentleman asked what we were specifically doing in the Philippines. As I said in my statement, we have earmarked £5 million for four main cities in the Philippines that can benefit from better disaster preparedness. In 2010, the Philippines Government passed a law setting out a framework for them better to respond to disasters. As I am sure the House is aware, that part of the world is particularly prone to natural disasters. The challenge they faced was simply the scale of the typhoon, which was possibly the largest ever to make landfall. We will work to help them to improve their ability to withstand such disasters. Part of that will involve looking at how buildings are constructed and helping local government to improve its capacity to work with communities and evacuate people.
The right hon. Gentleman asked me about my assessment of the Philippines Government’s capacity to deliver the reconstruction effort that is needed. They are today and tomorrow looking at the initial needs assessment on infrastructure. I have spoken to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, which are likely to mobilise some of the financing that is needed for the reconstruction effort. There is a general willingness on the part of the Philippines Government to drive forward the work and on the part of the international community to support that effort over the coming months and years. Indeed, it is already projected that UN work will take place over the next 12 months as a minimum.
The Government have always made it clear that we want an international agreement on climate change—it is vital that that is tackled. The right hon. Gentleman should remember that it was the Conservative party in opposition that proposed a climate change Act and his Government ultimately took the idea on board. I assure him that we remain resolute in prioritising tackling climate change, as he will see over the coming months.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
We are increasingly seeing disasters occurring around the coast and in island states. We have also seen the enormous role that HMS Illustrious has played. Will my right hon. Friend consider whether, when Illustrious retires, we might convert it into Her Majesty’s relief ship, which could be based somewhere such as Gibraltar?
Justine Greening
That is an interesting suggestion. It might prove to be an expensive way of ensuring that we can reach people quickly, but we are always open to ideas. I should say that the medical team on Illustrious has already treated two children with infected wounds who unfortunately needed to have limbs amputated. That saved their lives, so we can see how our Royal Navy provides support to people who are in desperate need, and we should be proud of the work that it is doing.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for East Renfrewshire (Mr Murphy) will be going to the Philippines this weekend to see the situation for himself. Perhaps he will find out how far the Secretary of State’s £5 million will stretch in helping those four cities to prepare to defend themselves in the future. The most shocking fact in the Secretary of State’s statement was that, three weeks on, three quarters of the people who need shelter do not yet have it. Will she tell the House what she is doing to overcome that disastrous situation?
Justine Greening
I mentioned that fact in my statement because it is shocking and sets out the scale of the challenge facing us. The typhoon hit a country that has a lot of disparate communities on outlying islands. One of the reasons why we sent out Daring and Illustrious was to get to those western islands in the Philippines that would otherwise not be reached. Obviously, there has been significant focus on Tacloban, but less focus on the area to the west of Tacloban. A lot of work is under way. I flagged up the issue of shelter because it is one of the main things on which we are working with the UN. We have sent significant numbers of shelter kits and six flights will be going out to the region this week. The very generous response of the UK public to the DEC appeal will mean that our leading NGOs will also have the resources to provide the critical shelter about which the right hon. Gentleman talks.
Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)
I congratulate the Secretary of State on her announcement and the hard work that is being undertaken. On behalf of the people of South Derbyshire who have written to me—this is reflected in what has been said by Government and Opposition Members—may I say that the great contributions made by the public have been astonishing? I put it on record that it is not just a matter of the Government doing something, because the people are doing something, too.
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend is right. People’s generosity is staggering. Some £65 million—that amount is rising—has been delivered to the Philippines appeal. We can be really proud of the way in which our country has responded to the crisis. When I met the Philippines Government over the weekend, their thanks to us were heartfelt. They were really staggered by the response from our country, which they will remember for a long time. In the meantime, we will continue to play our role as one of the leading nations providing humanitarian support in their time of need.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
What discussions has the Secretary of State had with her colleagues in the Home Office about trafficked people, particularly women and children, who might try to get entry into the UK? What measures are being put in place to deal with that?
Justine Greening
I am interested in working more closely with the Home Office on trafficking. It is a key area with an international aspect in which we can up our game as part of the solution. We were concerned by what we came across in the Philippines. One fact that has been less discussed is the significant displacement of people. Many of them turn up in Manila and although they might perhaps get initial support for the first few days they are there, it is easy for them to become lost after that. They are at serious risk, particularly women, girls and children, of becoming involved in all sorts of situations, including trafficking, over the coming weeks and months. That was why I issued my call to action a couple of weeks ago to raise international awareness of the issue, at an event attended by the former Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. On the practical side of things, I sent over two of our experts from DFID to work across the UN effort and ensure that we are doing all we can to co-ordinate and prioritise the protection of women and girls through the crisis.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for her statement. I am proud of the contribution we are making both as a Government and as a people to the Philippines. Will my right hon. Friend pay tribute to the Harlow Filipino community, who held a special fundraiser last Thursday night following the tragic death of the Harlow Princess Alexandra hospital nurse, Jeffrey Ducusin, and his son Jairo? Will she express condolences to the family and visit the Filipino community in Harlow sometime in the future to give them support at this difficult time?
Justine Greening
I express my deep condolences to the family and to all those people who have lost loved ones in the crisis. I would be happy to meet the Filipino community and I had the chance to meet some of them a couple of Fridays ago when we had a special mass at Westminster cathedral. I have been in close contact with the Philippine ambassador to London since the crisis hit and I saw him this weekend in the Philippines. I would be happy to meet my hon. Friend’s local community.
Nick Smith (Blaenau Gwent) (Lab)
Others on both sides of the House have emphasised how the UK and the British people have shown great generosity to help out in the Philippines, but what discussions has she had with her international counterparts to ensure that all nations pull their weight and help out?
Justine Greening
Those discussions are now well under way. I spoke yesterday with Baroness Valerie Amos, who leads the UN humanitarian effort. It is clear to me that although the UK can play and is playing a leading role in responding to the crisis, it is important that other countries continue to play their role. We have seen massive generosity from across the international community, but there will be a further UN flash appeal in December. I encourage the whole international community to respond to that flash appeal positively so that we can ensure that we keep the humanitarian effort going.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
Mountainside mobile signal enabled my constituents Marcus and Ellen to determine that a family of seven of their relations survived the storm on the island of Samar, but none of the homes in the community of Bakhaw withstood the storm. They report that today still no aid workers or representatives of the Philippine Government have been to the island to bring help and assistance. Is the Secretary of State satisfied that there is no unnecessary delay in the distribution of aid by the Philippine Government?
Justine Greening
The nature of the storm and the part of the Philippines it hit—the middle third of the country—have made it incredibly challenging to get to all the communities people have wanted to reach. I know that when the UN first arrived at Tacloban airport immediately after the storm had hit, it was initially impossible even to get into Tacloban, just 10 km down the road, because of the debris. Even on the mainland, reaching people was challenging. One reason we have sent our Royal Navy vessels is to reach such communities and the Illustrious significantly steps up the capacity beyond that which the Daring was able to provide to reach more of those islands. As the hon. Gentleman sets out, it is a continued challenge to reach those communities and to ensure that the supply lines that will support them over the coming weeks remain open and are established in the first place.
Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)
There has been much rightful praise for the work of the British public in donating to the appeal, but it has involved a younger generation of donors, some perhaps donating for the first time, most of whom will have donated by text. Is the Secretary of State satisfied that we are doing enough to ensure that donations made by text receive gift aid so that more can go towards this important appeal?
Justine Greening
I take the hon. Lady’s point on board. There are established processes to ensure that gift aid happens when it is meant to happen and that people have the choice—and are pressed when they are given the option—to sign up for gift aid. In my former role in the Treasury, I did a lot of work to ensure that it became easier for people to get gift aid, whether in the workplace or elsewhere, and I am very happy to follow up her point with the Treasury.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
As we have heard, there has been a tremendous amount of support from the British people for those affected by the typhoon in the Philippines and the UK Government have also given £50 million. How confident is the Secretary of State that that money will reach the 800,000 people who need it as quickly and effectively as possible?
Justine Greening
We launched the rapid response facility, which meant that over that weekend we were able to start working with huge NGOs as well as smaller ones to get aid out to the people who needed it. We are using trusted NGOs, we have due diligence and I am satisfied and confident that we will ensure that the investment that goes in, whether from the British public or the Government, reaches the people it is intended to reach.
Gemma Doyle (West Dunbartonshire) (Lab/Co-op)
Has the Secretary of State had the opportunity to review our immediate response to the disaster to ensure that the right sort of support was prioritised, given the unfortunate reports of aid sitting on the tarmac?
Justine Greening
Lessons can be learned from every single humanitarian or disaster response. For example, this was the first time we had used our NHS emergency trauma list of NHS professionals, so we will absolutely ensure that we learn the lessons. One reason we sent the loaders and rubble and debris clearing equipment was that we found that planes could land in the nearby airport, whether that was Cebu or Tacloban, but there were then two problems. Either they could get supplies off the plane but not down roads as they were not clear, or the supplies were so huge that there was no equipment to get them off the planes as that had been damaged by the typhoon. My Department sourced from the Netherlands a massive piece of equipment that could clear the biggest loads off planes. We got it from the Netherlands to Tacloban and Cebu airports to double the capacity of what we could offload from planes. The hon. Lady is absolutely right: this was a big logistical effort and as we encountered various bottlenecks they had to be removed.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
I, too, thank the Secretary of State for her statement. She highlighted that NHS personnel and staff are doing quite a lot of work in the Philippines. Will she elaborate on the expertise that they are bringing and the good work they are doing on the ground?
Justine Greening
I had the chance to meet some of those fantastic people and one was from my local hospital, St George’s in Tooting. There were surgeons, anaesthetists and doctors who were working alongside other international medics, such as those from AusAID, to provide support. Some of the stories of what they have done are phenomenal, particularly those about dealing with the initial casualties who came in following the typhoon. They have latterly been dealing with some of the broader issues, such as the fact that shelter is limited, which means that we are starting to see challenges with pneumonia in children. The work those people are doing is evolving over time. Our support is now principally being delivered through HMS Illustrious and health care is being provided by the NHS people on board.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
Following on from the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) about the measures being taken by DFID to protect vulnerable women and girls from being exploited and trafficked, can the Secretary of State tell us which NGOs she is working with in the Philippines so that the great British public, who have already been so generous and who may want to donate directly to those NGOs or even offer time and expertise to help those women, girls and families rebuild their lives, can do so?
Justine Greening
We are working with so many that it is difficult to give a complete list. Save the Children, Plan International, Christian Aid—a range of fantastic NGOs are now involved in the effort. One of the things that we are rapidly setting up is women-friendly and child-friendly spaces so that women and children at risk have safe spaces to go to. I heard reports today when I spoke with our DFID team on the ground of children being offered for sex trade sale to aid workers in Tacloban, which of course is absolutely disgusting and unacceptable. It is why we are right and working so hard to minimise the risks to vulnerable people.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for co-ordinating so successfully the fast and wide-ranging response of our Government to this enormous disaster, which is especially sad for those of us who have lived in the Philippines and travelled in this part of the Visayas. I also share the feelings expressed by several hon. Members about the generosity of the British people to the tragedy. I highlight the response in my constituency led by Raymond Padilla in the Gloucestershire Filipino Association, the headmaster and staff of St Peter’s high school, including Dan Hudson, who has organised a 24-hour basketball session this weekend, both the Anglican and Catholic Churches, Gloucester Rotary and many others, including the Philippine Community Fund, which was founded by my constituent Jane Walker. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as the emphasis in due course moves from saving lives to rebuilding communities, there will be an opportunity for DFID to highlight specific needs for goods or equipment to which our wide-ranging civic society organisations could respond?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. Although the focus has initially been on providing life-saving support, going forward that will gradually evolve into the reconstruction effort, including people’s longer and medium-term needs. The Government of the Philippines are working on shaping what that response needs to be, and the UN is there to support them. I shall be interested to hear from my hon. Friend what he thinks his local community could do. I pay tribute to them for all the work they have already done. It is outstanding, and it is a tribute to the generosity and selflessness of people in this country that they respond so generously.
Tom Greatrex (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Lab/Co-op)
How much of the initial £30 million that she announced in response to the UN’s $300 million appeal has gone through the UN and how much has been allocated through other routes, and which routes?
Justine Greening
About £23 million of the £30 million went to the UN flash appeal. A further £6 million or so went to the Red Cross movement in one form or another. In addition, we had set aside £8 million for the initial response through the rapid response facility. We spent £2 million on getting equipment and supplies out there. So we are now at just over £50 million. A UN flash appeal will be coming out in the next couple of weeks, once the latest needs assessment has been done.
The Prime Minister made it clear to the president of the Philippines the weekend the storm hit that we would continue to look at what more we can do as a country to help his country respond to this crisis.
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)
I pay tribute to the Secretary of State and her Department. She has responded outstandingly to this crisis. Like many colleagues, I pay tribute to the British public. In Eastbourne alone the response has literally bowled me over. More than £5,000 has been raised on an Eastbourne typhoon appeal JustGiving site. Ocklynge school raised £1,600. The Rotary raised £1,500. The list goes on. It is absolutely fantastic.
I grew up in Africa and I know that after very heavy floods, or in this case a typhoon, waterborne diseases are a real threat. I would appreciate it if the Secretary of State gave some detail about what vaccines have been provided. Is there a recognition that this could be a real issue?
Justine Greening
Picking up on my hon. Friend’s first point, I pay tribute to the officials in my Department, who have been working around the clock since the crisis began both in the Philippines—we had people who went out there that very weekend—and the whole team back in Whitehall, who have been co-ordinating with the Philippine team. These are people who literally drop everything and head over to a place to be part of the humanitarian support at the drop of a hat. We should pay tribute to their creativity, their effort and their relentless good humour in dealing with a challenging situation. They are flying the flag for our country and working alongside our fantastic MOD and NHS colleagues to deliver a cross-government response.
My hon. Friend is right to raise the generosity of the British public and I am delighted to hear that his own community have been so generous.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
The hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) rightly raised the importance of the reconstruction phase. I know from previous disasters that, whereas the international community has responded generously and quickly to the immediate disaster, it is sometimes difficult to get a full response to international appeals such as that from the UN. What is the Secretary of State doing to focus attention within the UN and EU on preparing for the fundraising for the reconstruction phase?
Justine Greening
It is one of the reasons why I met with the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank when I was in Manila over the weekend. The effort on setting out the infrastructure and longer-term reconstruction need is rightly being led by the Government of the Philippines. It will cover a number of areas, including housing, building and building standards, water and drainage and community resilience. Over the coming days and weeks we will have a clearer sense of the Philippine Government’s assessment of future need. That will feed into a World Bank or Asian Development Bank trust fund of some sort, and the UK stands ready to be supportive of that approach.
Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on her personal energy and commitment in co-ordinating the UK aid effort, alongside her excellent Minister of State. Does she recognise the welcome but late response of the Chinese Government in increasing its aid and sending a hospital ship. Will she put it on record that the Chinese Government should not ruin that by politicising its aid and relief effort?
Justine Greening
I agree. I do not think that humanitarian effort should be politicised. It is about helping the people who have been put in so much need by the typhoon that hit, and getting support to them. That surely has to be the most important thing. I hope that all countries, including China, will respond positively and generously to the next UN flash appeal.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
People in Kettering and across the country have been incredibly generous in contributing £65 million to the financial appeal. It shows that this is the sort of international aid that everyone can support. The United Kingdom was already one of the world’s most generous donor nations, and the contributions from the NHS, the Royal Navy and other parts of Her Majesty’s armed forces will not have come cheap. How are those contributions counted against DFID’s aid target, and how are those costs reimbursed to both the Ministry of Defence and the national health service?
Justine Greening
I hope that I can provide my hon. Friend with some assurance. Where International Development spend and effort takes place in other Departments, it is classified as official development assistance and is part of the UK’s 0.7% commitment, which this year for the first time this Government are reaching. Part of our just over £50 million response is the money that we have spent sending HMS Daring and HMS Illustrious. We will fund the marginal costs that the MOD has incurred to get those vessels into the area and do the work that they have done, which I think is quite right.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
My question builds on that asked by my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), while the British public have been responding generously to the appeals for the victims of Typhoon Haiyan, China has been seeking to extend its air right, raising concerns in the Philippines about its claim over the Spratly Islands. As the Prime Minister is shortly to visit China, will my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State put a note in his bag outlining the United Kingdom’s outstanding and selfless response to the tragedy as an example of how China should respond in future?
Justine Greening
My hon. Friend makes his point clearly. I am sure that is something the Prime Minister will take on board when he visits China shortly.
Point of Order
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance and advice on an exchange that took place earlier today on the spare room subsidy/bedroom tax. I mentioned the need for clarification, given that the Prime Minister told me yesterday:
“Obviously, what we have done is to exempt disabled people who need an extra room.”—[Official Report, 27 November 2013; Vol. 571, c. 254.]
When I raised the matter with the Leader of the House earlier, he said, “The Prime Minister yesterday was absolutely right to say that those disabled people who need an additional room for overnight carers will not have the spare room subsidy removed in respect to that room.” My concern is that additional words have been attributed to the Prime Minister. Words have been added that he simply did not say. I am not suggesting that the Leader of the House would deliberately misrepresent what was said or mislead the House in any way, but I think that inadvertently that is the outcome of the words he attributed to the Prime Minister. I seek your advice on how that might be reconciled—
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I think that I have the gist of it. Every individual Member is responsible for what they say in the House. If a Member feels that they need to correct the record in any way whatsoever, there is a route open to them, but it is not currently a matter for the Chair. If there are no further points of order, we will move on. [Interruption.] It would be handy if any private conversations about the record took place outside the Chamber, not across the Dispatch Box from a sedentary position.
Backbench Business
European Scrutiny Committee Report
Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the publication of the Twenty-fourth Report from the European Scrutiny Committee, on Reforming the European Scrutiny System in the House of Commons, HC 109-I.
The European Scrutiny Committee’s unanimous report is the most radical since the passing of the European Communities Act 1972. It raises fundamental questions about the operation of the Act, which are of great significance to the public and the electors, who have to obey the laws made under and by virtue of it, and the scrutiny of the European legislation that flows from it. I propose to make a short statement without interventions in order to set out the basic issues. I will then give way on specific questions as they arise.
Emphasising the supremacy of the Westminster Parliament on behalf of the electors, the Committee makes proposals relating to a veto to be deployed at national level and asks the Government to respond to our conclusion that parallel provision should be made to enable the House of Commons to disapply existing European legislation. We specifically state that
“there should be a mechanism whereby the House of Commons can decide that a particular EU legislative proposal should not apply to the United Kingdom”
and that
“if such a Motion was passed the UK Government would be expected to express opposition to the proposal in the strongest possible terms, including voting against it.”
A further conclusion of the Committee is that parallel provision should be made to enable a decision of the House of Commons to disapply parts of the existing acquis communautaire, the body of European law that exists under the treaties.
The Committee proposes greater involvement in European legislation by departmental Select Committees, as a whole and individually, including the appointment of a Member of Parliament as a specialist reporter on each and every Committee as a means of focusing the Committees on the enormous body of law constantly arising in relation to policy making and law making within their individual purview. We state that there should be permanent chairs and members of newly created European document debate committees that replace the European Standing Committees. We also propose the reintroduction of EU oral questions on the Floor of the House.
We propose that there should be greater accountability of Ministers, specifically in relation to the problems that arise concerning the activities of United Kingdom representatives in Brussels, including their interaction with the Committee of Permanent Representatives who represent the European Union institutions as a whole, because we believe that there is a significant gap in accountability in that context. We also propose measures to improve debates on the Floor of the House.
There is another concern and it relates to the treatment of European matters in the media, particularly television and broadcasting. We note the importance of providing balanced and informed media coverage on the EU in general, and the scrutiny process in particular, and criticise the chairman of the BBC Trust for refusing to give oral evidence to the Committee. For example, this morning the “Today” programme dealt with a whole range of matters of enormous immediate interest, including tobacco packaging and green levies. There is a stack of stuff that comes up continuously, but there was no mention whatsoever of the EU basis on which those matters are dealt with.
With regard to what is going on in the European Union as a whole—the report refers to this—the body under the treaties that represents the national Chairmen of each of the 28 member states with responsibility for European scrutiny meets about once every eight weeks. There has been increasing awareness over the past year, in the light of increasing European integration, demands for political union and so on, of the need for democratic legitimacy in national Parliaments. When the Prime Minister said in his Bloomberg speech, in relation to his fourth principle, that the national Parliaments are the root of our democracy, I am sure that he spoke for the whole of this House. It is vital that our Parliament gives effect to that principle.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful statement. Will he confirm that this was a unanimous and cross-party report? I note that the Leader of the House, the Deputy Leader of the House, the Minister for Europe and the Chief Whip are all here. Can we take that as an indication that they are keen to implement these recommendations at the earliest moment?
Mr Cash
I would be extremely interested to know why they would not be interested in supporting the Committee’s proposals, particularly the basis on which they are derived, which is that we are putting our national Parliament at the heart of the process, because that is the basis on which Members of this House are elected by the people we have the honour of representing.
Mr Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
It is remarkable that this is a unanimous report. Indeed, it is supported by the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), the previous Chairman of the Committee. It comes up with a radical but soundly based proposal
“whereby the House of Commons can decide that a particular EU legislative proposal should not apply to the United Kingdom”
even it is voted through by the Council of Ministers under qualified majority voting. It also suggests that
“parallel provision…to disapply…the acquis”
communautaire should be made available to the House of Commons. That is based on Professor Damian Chalmers’ analysis regarding the creation of a form of unilateral red card of national Parliaments that is, in turn, based on the EU treaties themselves, which
“shall respect the essential State functions”
of member states. I commend the report and congratulate my hon. Friend on it. He highlights something of a scandal in this House in that we do not scrutinise European legislation in this way already.
Mr Cash
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s contribution to this discussion. In our report we reject the proposals from the Minister for Europe and the Foreign Secretary regarding a collective red card with a threshold. We believe that if the principle of veto is to be accepted, because it does not apply in the national interest, that should be a unilateral decision taken by an individual Parliament. The 1972 Act is based on the White Paper of 1971. That document, which created all the consequences that flowed from the Act, specifically stated that the veto must be retained in the national interest, not only for the sake of the individual nation states—the United Kingdom, in particular—but because to do otherwise would endanger the very fabric of the Community. It recognised that imposing a compression chamber on the whole of the European Union would lead to the kinds of problems that have recently emerged with the charter of fundamental rights, immigration questions and the rest.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on this report and on the work of his Committee. Apart from what was suggested in the treaties in the early ’70s, we need better scrutiny not only because the organisation now called the EU has fundamentally changed since we first joined it, or because there has been a salami-slicing of our sovereignty under Governments of all parties in the past, but because the British electorate expect us to be scrutinising EU legislation in this place, as the proposals suggest?
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The British public not only expect us to scrutinise EU legislation in this place but want to see us doing it. Does my hon. Friend find it extraordinary that the chairman of the BBC Trust should refuse to appear before his Committee? Does that not send a very bad signal to all the other Select Committees of this House, and what can we, as the House of Commons, do about it?
Mr Cash
This is all covered in the report—we make extensive reference to it and include the correspondence that was exchanged between the chairman of the BBC Trust and me, as Chairman of the Committee. I think that most people would conclude that his not appearing voluntarily before the Committee to give evidence was really quite disgraceful.
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)
I congratulate the Committee on achieving such cross-party consensus on many of its proposals, including better scrutiny by departmental Select Committees. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that improved media coverage of European politics by all public service broadcasters, not just the BBC, would help to inform the European debate whichever side one takes?
Mr Cash
I entirely agree—that is absolutely the case. It does not follow that anyone has a complete monopoly of wisdom in relation to these issues; what matters is that we have a proper and informed debate based on central principles. The principle of the supremacy of this Parliament is so fundamental that there cannot be any dispute about it. A central element of that principle and of our decision making is that the United Kingdom electorate should not have imposed on them legislation that is not in the national interest and that they do not want.
Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)
I certainly welcome some of these findings. My hon. Friend is aware that I conducted my own study into this and became very conscious of the fact that we do not scrutinise EU legislation as well as other European countries. We are good at complaining about it but we are not engaging upstream in implementing this legislation or even preventing some of it. Will he expand on his proposed so-called European document debate committees? I would be pleased if European Committees A, B and C were replaced, because they have not done a good job. I also agree that there should be more time for us to question the Minister for Europe on the Floor of the House.
Mr Cash
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. There was a time when membership of these Committees was permanent, which meant that they had people who really knew and understood the context in which these matters were being debated. They were not just shoved on them by the Whips at short notice to sit there writing correspondence, or whatever; they took an enormously coherent interest in those matters. The idea of having permanent Chairs and permanent members of the Committee, in parallel with the arrangements for specialist MP rapporteurs—or reporters, as we call them—to serve on the departmental Select Committees, is to create an integrated approach so that the whole House is properly informed at every policy level and can therefore ask the right questions of departmental Ministers on the Floor of the House and in public Committee sittings.
Mr Jenkin
At the risk of testing the patience of the House, I note that, as my hon. Friend will be aware, my hon. Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills) has tabled a new clause to the Immigration Bill that touches on these matters in relation to the lifting of restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants coming into this country under the EU free movement of people provisions. Is it appropriate on this occasion for me to draw my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) into any thoughts about how these principles might apply to a new clause to the Bill that would be effective in upholding the sovereignty of this House?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Given that the time limit on this debate is 20 minutes, of which there is only about one minute to go, I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will not want to be drawn off his subject and into the wider debate.
Mr Cash
I am certainly prepared to say that important questions of principle arise about the existence of European legislation, as it stands, and what changes would need to be made in order to amend it. This is part of what could be a disapplication provision or a “notwithstanding” arrangement to ensure that legislation fitted in with what the British people wanted.
Kelvin Hopkins
I think we are personal friends but perhaps not friends in the political sense.
I am most grateful for this opportunity to say a few words. I strongly support the report and endorse everything that the Chairman of the Committee has said. It is an excellent report that goes a long way towards satisfying what I think Members across the House have wanted for a long time. Does he agree that one component of our system that really does work is the European Scrutiny Committee itself, with the Clerk, the legal advisers and the Clerk advisers doing an absolutely first-class job? That kind of scrutiny, which we undertake every week, is a fundamental part of what we do.
Mr Cash
The hon. Gentleman—as he prefers to be called in this context—is completely right that we are extremely well served by the Clerks of and advisers and legal advisers to our Committee and, through that service, so is the House. I simply cannot believe that we could have a better service.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that in order for the Committee to do its job it needs to be told what is going on, and that the Government should pay heed to the distinguished academic opinion we received, which said that limité documents should be made available to the Committee—apparently that happens in other European Parliaments—so that it can report on them to the House?
Mr Cash
As my hon. Friend knows, we deal with that issue in the report. A limité document is one that is heavily restricted as a matter of confidentiality. We believe very strongly that, given that other member states appear to get these documents and can make them public, so should we. It is monstrous that Committees should be gagged on matters of great public interest and importance by imposing a limité tag on them.
On the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood)—this is my very last point—there is at the back of the report a complete analysis of all the scrutiny systems of all 28 member states in comparison with ours, so that people can form a judgment about the effectiveness of European Union scrutiny as a whole. Obviously, if the scrutiny system of some member states is wanting, one might have reasonable grounds to worry, when it goes through the majority voting system, that not all the arguments have been taken into account.
I am glad to have had this opportunity to speak and I am deeply grateful to all the members of my Committee for all the hard work they have put in. They agreed unanimously and I look forward to the Government’s response.
Question put and agreed to.
Small Businesses
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Before I call the mover of the motion, a large number of Members want to speak in this afternoon’s debates, so in this first debate there will be a six-minute limit on all contributions after the mover has spoken. I am sure that Anne Marie Morris will bear that in mind as she opens the debate.
Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House encourages the Government to consider what further measures can be taken to encourage small business to flourish and prosper, including reducing the burden of red tape, addressing the complex tax structure, improving access to finance and gaining support from local government.
May I open by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate in the first place? I am delighted to see here so many Members who want to contribute on this very important issue.
Small businesses drive our economy. They are what create growth. Two thirds of new employment this year has been driven by the small and medium-sized enterprise community, not by the big boys. I believe we need a strategy across all Government Departments that supports that and recognises the importance of small businesses and vaunts them. We need a strategy and a culture change. We need to show national pride—writ large—and to say that small businesses are key and matter and that we as a Government support them.
The Government have a good record, but their proposals and measures tend to look at the SME community as a whole. Given that that can refer to businesses with 250 employees and a turnover of £50 million, the Government would be advised to look at segmenting the market and prioritising some of their support and funding for some of our very smallest businesses.
The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has a great record. It introduced the micro moratorium on new legislation for three years. It also introduced the red tape challenge. Indeed, 6,000 regulations are up for review, with 3,000 of them to be cut or significantly amended. The Department has changed employment legislation so that, when there is a problem and there needs to be a parting of the ways between employers and employee, the situation is now much easier and effective for both sides. The Department has also sensibly challenged health and safety. A non-high-risk business now has to be shown to have been negligent, rather than face a strict liability test, before it can be taken to court. The burdensome reporting and assessment that used to take place have also been removed from those low-risk businesses.
On access to finance—something that so many of our businesses call for—the Government have introduced the funding for lending scheme, which has gone well. StartUp loans have also been extended and the enterprise finance guarantee scheme has been very helpful.
We cannot, however, rest on our laurels. The Department needs to address some key issues. First, on late payment, I know that the Government are reviewing the prompt payment code, but I think that something needs to be included in the accounts so that company auditors can report on, and make clear, businesses’ record on them.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
On the issue of late payment, my hon. Friend may be aware that the court system can make judgments on small business interest rates whereby a punitive rate of interest is paid by a large business to a smaller one if it fails to pay. Would she welcome the introduction of such a provision to other small business contracts?
Anne Marie Morris
I would indeed. That is a very sensible suggestion and I am sure the current review will look at it.
When people start up a small business, they are concerned about mortgaging their house and having to give personal guarantees. Can we not separate the liability of the business from the home and secure it instead on the business asset? We could do that if we introduced limited liability for sole traders and reintroduced the potential for banks to take a fixed charge over book debts.
The Government have welcomed the plethora of new so-called challenger banks and new alternative lenders, but let us be clear that they need more support. We need to look at the right sort of light-touch regulation in order to make them safe funding institutions in the fabric of our society. More importantly, the Government need to ensure better communication, because businesses do not know what is out there or how to assess it.
We also need to address the issues of European Union regulation, because the micro moratorium addressed only domestic regulation. The EU red tape taskforce has identified 30 areas to be addressed, which is welcome, but more needs to be done. I would ask the UK better regulation taskforce to look not just at what we can do to encourage EU initiatives, but at how we make regulations in this country. My understanding is that most of the review looks at whether a piece of legislation will be burdensome for the SME community as a whole, without really addressing the issue of very small start-up businesses.
The Treasury has been good. It has introduced small business rate relief and extended it, and I hope it will be extended further in the Budget. It has reduced corporation tax: we are ever closer to 20% all around. Perhaps most valuable is the national insurance employers’ allowance, meaning £2,000 off the employer’s contribution. That is good news.
Again, however, more needs to be done. Business rates are one of the biggest challenges. They need to be seen as fair and transparent. A firm with a business on the high street that is not the main footfall area of the town still pays high rates, and yet the rates for an out-of-town retailer covering the same amount of square feet seems disproportionately low.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent and powerful speech. On business rate reform, I am sure she has heard, as I have, from local businesses that feel they would struggle without the extension of the small business rate relief that the Government have already given them. My hon. Friend has already said that she wants it to be extended, but does she agree that there needs to be more fundamental reform of the business rate system to support our small businesses?
Anne Marie Morris
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that there needs to be root-and-branch reform. The whole way in which rateable value is calculated is a mystery. The rulebook has got a bit like the tax code. Why are some pubs assessed on turnover, while others are assessed on freehold or rental value? That is arcane and requires a thorough overhaul.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that in London, where my constituency is, small businesses are penalised because the higher rateable values there mean that rates are extortionate?
Anne Marie Morris
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point.
The next area that should be addressed is the VAT cliff: if a business’s turnover reaches £79,000, it is suddenly hit by having to find VAT. It will hardly want to increase prices to its customers by 20% overnight. We could have a ratchet mechanism or go to the EU, which would be perfectly possible. I urge the Government to do so, because we need a derogation.
The Government, but particularly the Treasury, should consider the removal of class 2 national insurance contributions. The self-employed have to pay two classes of contributions, and they find that incredibly confusing. We have a great record on corporation tax, but could we not do more, including by looking at a new, simplified flat tax for the smallest businesses?
We should talk not only about BIS and the Treasury, but the Department for Education, because education is critical to our having a true and sustainable supply of new small businesses. The Government’s introduction of financial education is a fantastic first step, but that is only one piece of the enterprise skill set that an entrepreneur needs.
It is great that apprenticeship schemes have grown under this Government, with 858,000 individuals participating in those schemes this year, but we need more. We need enterprise education for six to 60-year-olds. The World Economic Forum has recommended that there should be enterprise education in every country throughout the period of education. I suggest that we ask Ofsted, which looks at community engagement to measure what schools do, to consider not only that point but business engagement as well.
In relation to funding in the tertiary sector, we should also look at whether institutions are offering enterprise education, which I believe should be available whatever discipline students are reading. Although I applaud Lord Young’s comments about business schools taking a lead, we should remember that they are not the only such place. There is a role for universities to work much more closely with local enterprise partnerships, a point to which I shall return.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that in many cases it would be beneficial for universities to be represented on LEP boards?
Anne Marie Morris
That is an excellent idea.
The Department for Work and Pensions also has a role to play. It has done some good things—it has delayed auto-enrolment for pensions, and we heard this morning that there may be a cap on pension charges—but the Work programme needs to offer the potential for proper self-employment. Research undertaken by the all-party group on micro-businesses has found that almost half of the businesses offering the Work programme did not have an adequate skill base to enable people to go back into work as self-employed individuals. The DWP could consider what it might do to help late returners. Organisations such as PRIME—the Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise—help them to return to work, but there is very little else, although that matter is important.
Let us not forget the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. It has done some great things for businesses. High-speed broadband is absolutely critical, and the fact that there are now broadband connection vouchers for small businesses in 22 cities is very welcome. However, more is needed, because rural areas are really suffering.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
My hon. Friend is setting out measures that will enable small businesses to grow. Let us not forget that every big business was once a small business, and, taken together, such measures should provide an incentive for businesses to get bigger.
Anne Marie Morris
That is absolutely right.
We need to spread the broadband initiative and encourage Ministers—sooner rather than later—to look at the 4G market. One of biggest concerns of small businesses is that they cannot get mobile reception, which is critical to them.
I ask the Department for Communities and Local Government to work with the LEPs and get them to engage better with the smallest of businesses. Please could it also look at procurement? Although central Government have done a good job in trying to meet their obligation of giving 25% of contracts to SMEs, the picture in local government is rather less rosy.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change also has a part to play. The £90 million scheme for clean-tech entrepreneurs is a very good step. There is a green deal specifically for small businesses, with a pay-as-you-save scheme. However, more needs to be done, including help with switching suppliers. Businesses currently find themselves moved automatically on to new contracts on disadvantageous terms.
What more could UK Trade & Investment and the Foreign Office do? UKTI has done a really good job, but it needs to do more to help the smallest businesses, and there is a call for greater support at embassy level.
Let us not forget the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which after all represents a fifth of our economy in the form of rural businesses.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that, with the emphasis that the Government, driven by the Treasury, have placed on our embassies in the past three and a half years, UKTI is doing a fantastic job around the world through taking delegations, aided by Ministers, to push British exports? It is meeting with considerable success, because it has beefed up the quality and quantity of the people representing British industry and the Government around the world.
Anne Marie Morris
I agree entirely.
To return to DEFRA’s key role, a grant of £60 million has been set aside for the rural economy to enable businesses to look at opportunities in tourism and micro-enterprise. However, the Commission for Rural Communities has said that the Government need to consider future-proofing such businesses, particularly in relation to their peculiar needs for access to finance.
Finally, because I am conscious that many hon. Members want to speak, I call on the Cabinet Office to come up with a good definition of a small business. There has been a review in Europe, in relation to the Small Business Act for Europe, on how businesses are defined. It seems to me that European definitions have not been adopted across the UK. I am far from convinced that those definitions are right, but the term “SME” means very little to the average householder. Let us get a definition that is meaningful and relevant to the UK economy.
David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)
The hon. Lady is certainly giving a very fiery and passionate speech, which is very welcome in this House. She mentioned personal guarantees. We have seen reports in the press of the antics of banks in forcing companies into liquidation so that they can avail themselves of their assets. When someone gives personal guarantees and then goes out of business through no fault of their own, a stigma is attached to them in this country, though not in other countries, and we need to get round that stigma. It would be an excellent idea for the banks to look at that.
Anne Marie Morris
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, which we should certainly consider.
The Cabinet Office and BIS can lead the charge to celebrate small businesses and to get behind a joined-up strategy across all Departments, including by being clear what we mean by small businesses. In particular, let us all get behind small business Saturday on 7 December, to say, “We in this House support small businesses. We are there for you.”
Mr Bain
Indeed; it is a great pleasure to follow the tremendous speech by the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris). I thank her and the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling the debate.
I represent a constituency that has one of the largest problems of family poverty and long-term unemployment in this country, but it also has some rapidly expanding SMEs. I have been in contact this week with Gaia-Wind, which is the fastest growing private company in Scotland and the eighth fastest growing SME anywhere in the UK, to hear its exciting plans for expansion. It also, however, shows us some of the particular needs of participants in the green economy and the problems that they face.
There is a lack of investment in our economy. We discovered yesterday that investment by businesses has been largely flat over the past year. In fact, business investment contributed only 0.1 percentage points to the 0.8% of GDP growth in the third quarter. We also know that access to finance is a huge problem for the SME sector. Although the small regional banks in Germany, the Sparkassen, were able to keep lending to support SMEs during the recession, lending by institutions in this country, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, shamefully fell to spectacularly low levels, which had a huge and disproportionate impact on the SME sector.
In the coming weeks, we will celebrate the contribution that small business makes to our local economies and the national economy. We will celebrate the fact that there are 4.9 million businesses in this country employing 24.3 million people. However, we must be aware of the need to take firm action on business rates, the need to expand the range of financial institutions that are able to lend to SMEs, and the need to do much more on skills, and research and development.
Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
Will the hon. Gentleman also celebrate the excellent, detailed, cross-departmental work that the Government have done to support British businesses—big, small and medium—and to get the economy in a position to turn a corner and move into accelerated growth?
Mr Bain
I certainly will not celebrate the three years in which we have had very little growth, which had a huge impact on SMEs. With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I want to speak about the positive issues on which we might find more cross-party agreement in this debate.
I refer hon. Members to the excellent report that Santander and Dods published recently in the House. It contains key recommendations that the Government should attend to quickly. It shows that 285 separate schemes are available to SMEs which, in the view of the report’s writers, is far too many. It sets out the good recommendation, which the Government could implement straight away, of developing a single portal through which SMEs can have contact with central Government. The report found that only 29% of SMEs were aware of the existence of the funding for lending scheme and that 28% of businesses thought that access to finance would be the biggest impediment to growth in the next few years.
Shockingly, the report revealed that only 12% of students in our colleges and universities would make working for an SME their first choice on graduation. That is a real concern, given that the vast majority of job creation in the coming years is likely to come from the SME sector, and it shows that there is much more that the Government, SMEs, colleges, universities and schools need to do to promote founding and working in small businesses as good career paths.
As a country, we need to do far more work on skills. Only yesterday, the Minister illustrated in a written answer to me the growing gap in early rates of pay between those who have level 4 skills and those without any qualifications at all. That hourly pay gap of £8.84 has widened by a tenth in the past six years alone. SMEs, the Government and local authorities need to do a huge amount to improve in-work training so that people can see wage progression in a job, and so that a job in a small or medium-sized enterprise can become a career with long-term prospects.
We need to improve the shockingly low rates of research and development in this country. In public and private sector research and development, we lag way behind our main competitors in the EU and many of the emerging markets. The Government must do much more to boost the innovation that comes from the many millions of small businesses throughout the country, such as Gaia-Wind in my constituency.
As a matter of urgency, we need to improve access to capital. When I speak to SMEs in my constituency, they make it clear that they are willing and able to take on more staff, and that they want to create more demand across our country. However, the banking system is simply not working for SMEs. We need new players to come into the banking system and regional banks that focus on the needs of the economies in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the different regions of England.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that if that is to work, the regional banks in all parts of the UK, including Wales, need to be driven by entrepreneurial zeal, rather than a civil service ethos?
Mr Bain
My hon. Friend raises the important point that we need a culture of long-term investment, as has happened over the past few decades in Germany, where there has been strong support for SMEs from the Government and the financial institutions. We need to see more of that in this country and it would be best delivered through a system of regional banks that provide support to business on a dedicated, local basis.
Finally, in this most significant of weeks for Scotland, I must say that it is critical that the SME community speaks out on the question of Scotland’s continued membership of the United Kingdom. It would be disastrous for Scotland’s trade with the rest of the UK and disastrous for exporters if Scotland were forced out of the United Kingdom. It is important that all of us in the House encourage business to speak out on the need to keep the Union together.
I am incredibly supportive of small businesses in my constituency, and I look forward to hearing a positive debate among Members on both sides of the House.
Chloe Smith (Norwich North) (Con)
I think that this is my first opportunity to congratulate you on taking the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing the debate and all those who supported her at the Backbench Business Committee. To pick up on just one of the points that she made, I agree about the difficulties that are presented by the VAT threshold, which I saw recently in the case of a meals on wheels business that serves my constituents. It is just about to hit the threshold, but its customers are ill-equipped to deal with a hike in prices.
Like my hon. Friend, I look forward to celebrating small business Saturday in my constituency. I also look forward to a discussion that will take place shortly at Norwich business school, whose advisory board I sit on, about how such business schools can be anchor institutions for the small firms in their surrounding area.
In the report, “Growing Your Business”, Lord Young of Graffham drew out just how much more there is to do to open up public procurement to small and medium-sized firms. My hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot mentioned the Cabinet Office at the end of her comprehensive list, and I am sure that she would join me in congratulating the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General on his work to give 25% of Government business to small and medium-sized enterprises. Surprisingly, it is often forgotten that the Government buy large quantities of goods and services on behalf of taxpayers, and there is no reason why small and medium-sized businesses should not take pride of place in that marketplace.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend agree that small businesses find it difficult to deal with Government agencies because they are presented with a bewildering array of things such as pre-qualification questionnaires? Small and micro-businesses do not have a huge army of staff to deal with such nonsense, which increases costs not only for business, but for the Government, because they could have bought what they needed cheaper from a small business in the first place.
Chloe Smith
My hon. Friend could not have made a better intervention because I was pleased to be able to contribute to solving that exact problem when I was a Cabinet Office Minister.
Given a few tools, we can all do much more in our constituencies, and Lord Young is continuing to work on that issue in association with my hon. Friend the Minister for Skills and Enterprise. We must encourage small and medium-sized firms to use Contracts Finder, on which they will find a clear record of all available Government contracts. We should urge local authorities and others to put their contracts on that portal to allow the operation of a comprehensive marketplace.
We should also encourage constituency businesses to use the mystery shopper scheme that the Cabinet Office has introduced, which will help to solve the problem raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot. When small businesses that seek simply to get on and do business encounter poor practice or communication from the public sector, they need a way to solve the problem. The mystery shopper scheme does exactly that, and also gives us a chance to do more to encourage public authorities—whether local government, health, police or fire services, or any similar service—to do more to make their procurement SME-friendly.
Small firms can encounter many problems such as the prevalence of pre-qualification questionnaires and late payment. A care company in my constituency deals with customers who are particularly vulnerable, and tragic havoc can be wrought if a health body makes a late payment to such a company. The motion rightly calls on local government to do its part, and I suggest that better procurement forms an important part of that.
Mark Pawsey
My hon. Friend mentioned pre-qualification questionnaires. Once a small business has managed to jump through the hoops demanded by one authority, should not that be good enough for another authority? Perhaps we should have some form of qualification certificate.
Chloe Smith
That is my view. To the best of my knowledge, the Government are bringing forward proposals to put in place exactly that, which I support wholeheartedly, having started that work some months ago.
The motion refers to red tape, but again there is no way to solve that problem except through a methodical approach. I applaud the opening provided by the mystery shopper service to which I referred as it allows us to be methodical by making a list of things that have gone wrong and solving them one by one. That is the only approach that will work for regulatory problems. We must hear from small firms that regulations have served ill, and then we can go about solving the problems. I always say as a constituency MP that I cannot attempt to help a constituent to solve something if I do not know the detail of what the problem is.
Like many others, I am sure, I encourage firms to use the red tape challenge that the Government have rightly set up, and I welcome the results of the initiative so far. To date, more than 3,500 regulations have been identified for reform, saving businesses more than £215 million per year. That is worth doing, and I am sure that the Minister will update the House about how we can extend that approach to European regulatory burdens. On behalf of my constituency businesses, I care very much about that issue.
In the remaining two minutes available, I will conclude by talking about recruitment, which is crucial for small and medium-sized firms. Of course we all want such businesses to become larger firms, if that is their ambition, but to do so they need great people to become their employees. I run a large campaign in my constituency called Norwich for Jobs, which does what it says on the tin. It seeks to create more jobs in Norwich, especially for those aged 18 to 24, and we aim to halve youth unemployment in Norwich in two years. I am pleased that local firms have responded to the call and that more than 800 jobs and apprenticeships have been pledged to the campaign. Although the campaign has been going for only 10 months, 400 young people have been helped into work so far. I want to ensure that small firms have pride of place in that campaign. I will soon run an event with the Federation of Small Businesses and a sister campaign called Swarm. We will consider how to encourage small businesses into such operations, and help them to find the talent they need among local young people. That not only helps the community and young people, but places small businesses in control of their recruitment.
I hail the £2,000 reduction in national insurance that is coming forward in the shape of the enterprise allowance, which will be important for cutting small firms’ jobs tax from Easter next year. I also note the success of start-up loans. So far there have been about 30 of them in Norwich, and 10,000 nationally, which is to be welcomed as it is all to the good of small businesses.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) and to co-sponsor this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing it. I am pleased to speak in this debate, which considers how we can overcome the issues facing small businesses. Small businesses, which in my definition are those with fewer than 50 employees, are the powerhouse of the economy. They contribute 46% of the UK’s income in the private sector—a massive £l,558 billion—and constitute more than 99% of all businesses. Ultimately, a sustained recovery will be built on their backs, as has been said, and that must be recognised.
A whole range of different factors affect the success and even the viability of small businesses, including access to finance, the high costs of business rates and energy bills, but I will focus my remarks specifically on late payments. Hon. Members may know that for the past two and a half years I have run a campaign on late payments. It started as a small, local issue after a haulier came to one of my surgeries and said that he was going to go out of business because of late payments. The average term he was being given was 30 days, but he was often not being paid for 90 days. That is a common story that I wanted to look into in more detail.
I tried to discover the scale of the problem and it was striking that so few businesses would come forward and describe what they were experiencing. That was until one brave local couple, who started a plumbing business 35 years ago, came to me and said that their business was going under—as indeed it did with debts of more than £150,000 due specifically to late payment.
Mark Pawsey
Is the hon. Lady confusing late payments with customers who refuse or do not have the means to pay? Those are totally separate issues and if a business wants to avoid the problem of late payment, it can refuse to supply goods to the customer until the account has been paid.
Debbie Abrahams
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, if slightly patronising. I have gone into the issue in quite a bit of detail, and it was a specific point about late payments.
Let me give a bit of background to this case. As I said, the story of Ann and Harry Long is far from unique and is a particular problem for small and micro-businesses that do not have the cash-flow buffers of larger companies. I have a particularly a high level of micro-companies in my constituency—more than 85% of companies have fewer than 10 employees—and a number have gone into administration, primarily as a result of late payments.
Nationally, we know from Bacs that more than £31 billion is owed to small businesses, and more than half—58%—of the country’s 1.7 million SMEs say that large companies choose when they pay. In 2011, only £24 billion was owed, so the problem is increasing. If we compare what is owed in late payments to the amounts being lent by high street banks, which last year was £56 billion, we sense the scale of the problem.
According to Bacs data, the average SME is owed £31,000 at any one time and waits an average of eight working weeks for payment, which is nearly double the contract terms. I am particularly concerned about the gaping north-south divide. Small businesses in the north say that they are owed an average of £39,000, which is almost double the £23,000 owed to the average southern business.
The 2012 small business survey reported that 55% of SMEs, 53% of small businesses and 46% of micro-businesses say that large companies are not paying their bills on time. The most recent Federation of Small Businesses survey suggests an even worse picture. Seventy-three per cent. of businesses say that they were paid late in the past 12 months, and one in five say that half of all invoices are paid late. Interestingly, 70% say that the problem has got worse in the past 12 months and that the private sector is the biggest culprit.
Research by the Forum of Private Business last year indicated that late payment is having a significant impact on businesses development, productivity and growth. Access to, and the cost of, finance, and credit trade insurance, were cited as problems linked to late payment. Late payments have a knock-on effect, leaving many small businesses in a vicious cycle of late payment. The FPB’s economy watch panel indicates that 42% of SMEs believe that late payments were not seen as important.
As we have heard, the impact of late payment can be disastrous. It is estimated that, during the 2008 recession, 4,000 businesses failed as a direct result of late payments. No official data have been collected, but the situation needs to be monitored. There is growing evidence that late payments to SMEs are hurting our economic recovery. Office for National Statistics data show that SMEs make up to 98% of the total number of organisations, providing 59% of all private sector jobs and 45% of all employment, and generating 46% of the UK’s income.
What is being done to tackle the problem of late payments? The previous Government introduced the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998, but it was not used, because companies feared being blacklisted. The prompt payment code, a tool introduced by the Institute of Credit Management, committed signatories to pay suppliers on time under the terms agreed without attempting to change payment terms retrospectively, enabling every level of the supply chain to meet the terms. However, the code has had mixed effects. First, there is a very poor take-up by FTSE 100 companies.
Mr Bain
My hon. Friend makes a powerful argument. What does she make of the National Audit Office recommendation that Government Departments need to work more closely together, and that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Treasury need to work harder to support small businesses in the way she indicates?
Debbie Abrahams
My hon. Friend makes a good point. We need to encourage that.
People are abusing the prompt payment code. They are either signing up and changing their terms, or changing their terms prior to signing. Most recently, the EU late payment directive stipulated that public authority-to-business invoices must be paid in 30 days, and that business-to-business invoices should be paid in 60 days. However, there have been problems with the transposition into UK law. Section 7 of the directive has not been taken up and independent organisations will be unable to use it to help small businesses.
Another development last year was the introduction of the small chain finance scheme. That is another difficult problem.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on introducing this extremely important debate on small businesses. Some of the facts and ideas that have been discussed are important. Those ideas could make a difference. We heard the numbers from the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams)—of the 4.9 million private sector businesses in the UK, 99% are SMEs, which employ more than 14.4 million people. The debate matters to all hon. Members’ constituencies and every sector.
We should recognise that, in the past three years, 400,000 more businesses were created. I congratulate the Government and the Minister on the work he has done in enabling that to happen. In my constituency in the past two years, 825 new businesses were set up. It is one of the top 10 places in the UK to set up a new business. The Government’s initiatives to help small businesses have made a difference.
Locally in my constituency, whether in Chiswick, Brentford, Isleworth, Osterley or Hounslow, I meet my businesses, large and small, regularly, because I believe it is important to hear of their success and of the challenges they face. I have worked with them and the local council to enable 30-minute free parking in the local town centres across my borough—the businesses have asked for it.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
May I offer my hon. Friend a practical example from North Lincolnshire council of the success of exactly that free parking policy? When we scrapped Labour’s parking charges and introduced two hours’ free parking for businesses, local businesses reported a big increase in trade in our town centres, even at a time of difficult economic circumstances. We are extending that support further by providing free wi-fi in our town centres, which she might want to consider.
Mary Macleod
That is an absolutely brilliant example—that is something I would like to do to support my local businesses in west London.
I meet my Chiswick traders regularly. Last time, we met in Club Workspace, which I recommend to hon. Members. It is a much more creative and innovative way of allowing entrepreneurs to have the space to work. It is not as rigid and long-term as things used to be, but more flexible and modern. It is very effective.
I have also done apprenticeships seminars to encourage small businesses to take on apprentices. I met Mumpreneur, Athena and other groups that support small businesses.
Naturally, we are supporting small business Saturday. We will be doing lots of things during the day for it. It has galvanised my local businesses to work together. Between them, they came up with all sorts of things to do, which was brilliant to see. I have also run workshops on women and enterprise, because I believe we do not have enough female entrepreneurs, which I will address in a moment.
I wanted to mention to the Minister some of the issues that have been raised with me locally, including business rates, to which I will return, access to funding, legislation, red tape and parking. Where do businesses go to find help? More clarity and simplicity on helping small businesses would be useful.
I have a role in helping the Minister as a small business ambassador for London. Only yesterday, I went to the meeting of the London enterprise panel’s SME working group. It had four key priorities—finance and equity; the availability of work space; trade and exports; and business support—but added another at the meeting: the skills shortage. The suggestions that hon. Members have made to do more in schools, colleges and universities are important. Strangely enough, in Prime Minister’s questions this week, I asked him how we can create enterprise and business champions in each of our secondary schools—we could arguably do so before that, but perhaps we should start with secondary schools—to foster and inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs. We want young people to think of entrepreneurship as an option when they finish school, college or university. There are special financial packages for them.
Last week, I asked the Prime Minister about business rates—I was fortunate enough to have questions at Prime Minister’s questions two weeks in a row. I am glad to say that he has agreed to meet me next week to discuss reform of business rates.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)
I support the hon. Lady in her concerns about business rates. Does she support the Labour leader’s proposals to freeze and then reduce business rates for smaller businesses?
Mary Macleod
I want reform of business rates and for them to be looked at very differently. In London, businesses are treated unfairly and we want fair taxation. The turnover of many small independent shops in my constituency is not as high as one might expect in London, so they are penalised by the high business rates in London. They also question what they get in return for business rates. That could be clearer—police, fire or other services. All they know is that the £27 billion raised from business rates is spread across the country. I favour a localised approach, so that we are able to reinvest in our local areas.
The Government have done a lot for local businesses. One of the big measures, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith), was to remove £2,000 from national insurance bills. Other measures include: business mentors, £50 million- worth of £10,000 start-up loans and cutting red tape. The Prime Minister visited my constituency three years ago to meet Octink, another great local business in my patch, to consider how we can simplify employment legislation—another important issue for small businesses.
There are three key points in particular that I would like the Minister to consider. First, there should be enterprise education in schools. Businesses and entrepreneurs should be encouraged to allow students and pupils to do work experience in their businesses, and perhaps all hon. Members can help to facilitate that with their local schools. Secondly, we have already discussed business rates and I will be talking to the Prime Minister about that next week. Thirdly, returning to women and enterprise, if women were setting up businesses at the same rate as women in the US, we would have 600,000 more businesses. That would add £42 billion to the economy—a huge amount. I run workshops in my constituency, with the support of StartUp Britain and the chamber of commerce, to encourage women to think about setting up businesses. We have fabulous businesses, such as Shavata and My Plumber from Chiswick, and inspiring women who have done it for themselves and are successful.
The Government have done much and there is probably more that all of us as hon. Members can do to support the small business community. I look forward to encouraging more and more businesses in the months and years to come.
Simon Danczuk (Rochdale) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod). I share many of her concerns about business rates and agree with some of the solutions she proposes. I thank the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris), who has done an excellent job in securing the debate. It is important that it is taking place before the autumn statement, so I thank the Backbench Business Committee for helping to make that happen. Before I begin my comments proper, let me declare an interest. On small business Saturday, my wife and I will be opening a small business of our own: Danczuk’s Delicatessen in Rochdale. I encourage all hon. Members to visit and spend their hard-earned money.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I am aware of the opening of this fantastic new deli. I am sure my hon. Friend will be stocking exotic produce, but will he be making an effort to stock local produce—the food that makes his area special?
Simon Danczuk
We will stock a variety of local produce. There will be some continental produce, but there will be traditional Lancashire produce too. It will be well worth a visit and opens a week on Saturday.
The first thing to say in a debate about small businesses is what a great contribution they make not just to our economy, but to our culture, our communities and the way we live our lives. As the hon. Member for Newton Abbot said, we need to spend more time celebrating the work of smaller businesses and the people who run them. It is these business people who are the backbone of our economy. They create the vast majority of jobs, and export their goods and products across the world. They are at the heart of innovation, which is often copied by larger businesses, and drive growth throughout the United Kingdom. They also carry the burden of worry and stress of managing risk every day of the week. We need to do more to celebrate what they do.
Small businesses are vital to our economy, but they are also vital to our society: they are one of the most powerful forces for social mobility. Academics and politicians often talk about the importance of education with regard to social mobility. That is important, but by starting and growing businesses people can thrive and prosper. They are vital in encouraging and establishing social mobility.
Mark Pawsey
Was the hon. Gentleman as struck as I was by the assertion at a recent breakfast meeting that the top entrepreneurs were those people who had not been to university, did not have degrees and had had to work from the bottom up?
Simon Danczuk
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment, because that is exactly the point I am making about social mobility and supporting entrepreneurialism and the growth of small businesses.
Let me tell hon. Members about one of my constituents. Ian lives on the Falinge estate in Rochdale, which has achieved notoriety for having the highest number of benefit claimants in the country. Like others there, Ian was unemployed. He was determined to get out of that situation, so he decided to start his own business. He cashed in his pension and set up his own fish and chip shop. He learned the ropes by working for free in another nearby chippy and then set up his own shop in the town centre. I used to pop in and have a chat with him every now and again. He was making a good fist of it and there were always plenty of customers coming through the door. In his first year, he won an award at the town’s annual business awards. Despite all that success, Ian was forced recently to close his shop simply— I do not exaggerate—because of business rates. He was paying double in business rates what he was paying in rent, and that was not sustainable.
Ian’s case is a tragedy for him and for social mobility. It demonstrates that unrealistic business rates are damaging our economy and our society. The Government need to do more on business rates and should have gone ahead with the revaluation. Hon. Members will not be surprised to hear that I support the Labour leader’s proposals to freeze and then reduce business rates for smaller businesses in particular. Business rates are not the only issue, however. Let me provide another example: banking.
Hanson Springs, a very successful family business in my constituency, was in 2009 dragged by RBS into what we now know to be the Global Restructuring Group scandal. Let me briefly explain. RBS in my opinion deliberately undervalued a property it had a loan against and used that as an opportunity to push Hanson Springs into its Global Restructuring Group. At the first meeting with GRG, Hanson Springs was introduced to a solicitor who had been brought along to discuss taking an equity stake in this family business. GRG then forced a business review with Zolfo Cooper on to it at a cost of £20,000. Its GRG manager had previously worked for Zolfo Cooper—I am sure that was a coincidence. Hanson Springs was then given three options, none of which was acceptable. As the family pointed out to me, if the business had not been cash-flow rich and if they had not had the personal resolve, the company would have been forced to close.
Hanson Springs is now 50 years old—we have moved on four years. It turns over £20 million each year, employs 180 people, exports 85% of what it produces, and since the problems with RBS, has paid in excess of £l million in corporation tax. If RBS had had its way, we would have lost hundreds of jobs and the money from taxation, and we would have had people claiming benefits and yet more manufacturing moving abroad. Hanson Springs is a perfect example of business at its best. It is a great example of a family pulling together to create something great and is probably a perfect example of social mobility, but look how it nearly all went badly wrong because of RBS’s behaviour. Ultimately, it is down to us politicians to intervene and set up the right regulatory process to ensure that banks treat our businesses better.
Smaller businesses are exceptionally fragile entities. It is our responsibility not to take them for granted and our duty to remember that these businesses are the lifeblood of our country.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
The motion is entitled, “Issues facing small businesses”, and talks about
“addressing the complex tax structure”.
I will follow the last two speakers and confine my contribution to business rates. Indeed, what I am about to say could easily have been said in the Westminster Hall debate under way at this very moment on retail and the high street.
I note the pledge from the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) that Labour would freeze and then reduce business rates, but for 13 years it went nowhere near it. In fact, it went in the opposite direction, as I will make clear in a minute. We now know, however, that Rochdale is the home not only of the Co-op, but of Danczuk’s Delicatessen. We await the growth of that organisation in the same way as the co-op movement has grown over the past 160 years or so.
I want to suggest something that I first proposed long before I became a Member of this House: the abolition of business rates for neighbourhood community and village shops, post offices, community stores, pubs and things like that. The way to make that fiscally neutral, which the Treasury would require, would be to put a charge on out-of-town car parks. That is exactly what the Labour Government proposed in 1997-98, before they were clobbered by the Tescos of this world, which in those days had the sort of power over the Labour Government that the trade unions today have over Her Majesty’s Opposition.
Generally speaking, business rates are assessed under two headings: the net internal area or the gross internal area. The NIA is used for small and medium-sized shops and businesses in town centres and neighbourhood communities, while the GIA is used for industrial properties, such as warehouses, factories and distribution centres, but now also supermarkets and large stores, mostly out of town. In that respect, the same principle should apply to the treatment of supermarkets as applies to neighbourhood stores.
What makes it even worse, as I am advised, is that the valuation office instructs surveyors when evaluating rates not to make an addition for customer car parking. The average rateable value for small and medium-sized shops in Colchester town centre is about £225 per square metre, whereas the average rateable value for supermarkets and other large out-of-town store premises is about £40 per square metre, so we are nowhere near a level playing field. The NIA system is assessed, in part, on benefits—shop windows, for example. To make it fair, supermarkets should be assessed on their benefits, which include free customer car parking and the other bits and pieces that go with it.
The two systems are obviously extremely unfair and biased against shopkeepers in town centres, neighbourhood communities and villages. I am grateful to Mr Ian Berry, a retired gentleman with an interest in the unfairness of rating values for small businesses. On behalf of him and just about every small shopkeeper in the country, I wish to put the following questions to the Government. Is it fair that shops in Colchester and other town centres have a rateable value five and a half times that of the out-of-town giants? Is it fair that shops with parking spaces in Colchester town centre are assessed at £500 per parking space, when those out of town are not? I am advised that one shop on Colchester high street is rated at £213 per square metre, whereas Amazon, which is in direct competition and which, incidentally, pays very little corporation tax, is rated at only £39 per square metre on its premises in Peterborough.
Let us have a level playing field. The last Government rightly referred to sustainable communities, and the coalition Government have rightly referred to localism, so let us have some fairness. One way of having fairness would be to put a levy on out-of-town car parks and abolish business rates for small shops, community stores and public houses.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
I welcome this debate and compliment the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) and the other Members who secured it through the Backbench Business Committee.
I want to begin by putting a human face on this debate. Several people have talked about the definition of small businesses. For me, that definition could include Worgan’s in Llanharry, a small, family-run enterprise that started as a small gift shop selling various things for the local community, but which extended by opening a café in the next-door premises and then a mobile chip shop. The definition could also include the former Sony site in Bridgend. Sony went through a difficult time when the market for cathode ray tube televisions completely fell apart—when flat-screen televisions came in, those jobs quickly went abroad—but the management retained the skilled work force and rebuilt the business on the basis of high-end engineering and their massive expertise in design, engineering and manufacturing. Working alongside other companies, it has built itself back up and now has 500 employees onsite, 150 of whom work in 28 incubation companies—small companies, built up with the assistance of Sony expertise, working in digital media, graphics, television and many areas, and supported as they grow from micro-businesses into small businesses and, we hope, into the giants of tomorrow.
The definition of small business could also include Ferrier’s, a local estate agent on Commercial street, in Maesteg, where my office is based. It was established in 1918—by coincidence, that was the same year Labour first won the seat of Ogmore, so I hope we will both shortly be celebrating our 100th anniversary—and it has extended to open other outlets in Kenfig Hill and elsewhere. There is a wide range of businesses. I think of Cwm Tawel Yurts, a tourism enterprise in a beautiful little valley around Betws, and of the Food Box. Then there are two brothers on the Maesteg industrial estate who left my state comprehensive school, one going on to study applied sciences, the other, following a different path, management. They came back together and established a 3D engineering company that did all the things expected from 3D engineering, but which has also now extended into life sciences. It applies 3D engineering to the life sciences, uses 3D modelling in the development of things such as heart valves that grow organically within the body and it supplies tiny parts that help the space station run.
In talking about the 99% of small and medium-sized businesses, we recognise that they are diverse, which gives them some resilience; that they are fragile, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) said; and that they need the right support structures in place to assist them to thrive and grow.
Mr Bain
We have a burgeoning life sciences sector in Glasgow, too. Does my hon. Friend agree that the National Audit Office made a powerful point when it said that there is a potential funding gap of some £22 billion in the finance available to small businesses between now and 2017. Would it not help small businesses in his constituency and mine if the Government did something with the banks to help plug that gap?
Huw Irranca-Davies
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. There has to be cross-party agreement to take this forward and to ensure that finance is available.
Let me mention one stark figure. Even though there are signs of optimism in some parts and some sectors of the Welsh economy, a recent survey of members of the Federation of Small Businesses in Wales showed 55% of them reporting that credit was unaffordable, while 65% said it was not only unaffordable but completely inaccessible. The idea that these businesses can grow by getting affordable and accessible lending is simply not happening, which is a tragedy.
Simon Danczuk
Is my hon. Friend aware that some small businesses are afraid of approaching their banks about credit or getting an extension of their overdraft because they fear that the banks will rein things in and make it even more difficult for them?
Huw Irranca-Davies
Yes, indeed. There is a big argument not only for more localisation of the traditional banks, but for the regional bank model that Labour Members support. When I made the point earlier that that model should not be bureaucratic and civil service-driven, I was speaking from experience based not only within this country but in other European countries. That model works best where it is very locally focused and entrepreneurial, with managers of the account streams fully understanding the businesses with which they deal. Access to finance is indeed a big issue.
I will not go over business rates again, as others have done so, but it is a real issue. I believe that the proposal from Opposition Front Benchers to freeze and then reduce them is a good one. As to Ministers saying we never did it, I simply say that the proposal is there on the table for them to support if they want to do so.
I turn my attention to one area about which I have particular knowledge and concerns. I refer to supporting small businesses where the potential for employment growth is the biggest—namely, through the application of green technologies, such as solar power or insulation for greater energy efficiency in homes, and so forth. I was intimately involved in the incubation phase of the Energy Bill that the Government brought forward, and I pointed out some of its potential pitfalls. If it had succeeded, however, particularly the green deal with the associated energy company obligation, it could have provided massive incentives for tens of thousands of small businesses. I am talking about all those people who have been installing loft insulation for years and those who have switched to installing solar panels with the feed-in tariffs. They could have had a new opportunity to take on apprentices, perhaps young people in my area who cannot find jobs. The green deal work could have produced a massive expansion of the sector.
We had to highlight the problems, however. We noted that the finances did not seem to work and that it might not be possible to sell the green deal to people. Consumers are pretty intelligent people who, as they look at it, will run a mile. We said, too, that there were rogues out there who would blacken the reputation of the green deal before it even took off and, with deep regret, I have to say that that has now come true. The Minister put forward an aspirational target of 10,000 installations linked to the green deal. That would have provided one of the biggest employment boosts in the small business sector right across the country and in every single community—rural, urban or whatever. Out of that 10,000, we now know that there have been just over 200 installations. It does not matter how many installations were in the plans; they have not taken place.
We are looking to find agreement on areas that require better support—through access to finance, for example. We might have different solutions—how best to enhance access to finance, to reform business rates and so forth—but a proposal that would make a material difference tomorrow, if we got it right, is dealing with cold homes and businesses that have runaway energy costs. That means getting energy-efficiency right and getting the energy installations right. We are failing—miserably—and companies are shutting their doors on the scheme. It is a tragedy. I am sure that the Government have all the best will in the world to turn this around, but we see no sign of them putting measures in place to achieve that.
There has been considerable agreement in today’s debate about the importance of small businesses. Some will choose to stay small, but many will grow and grow, and they will thrive. Tata Steel and Ford in south Wales have a huge impact on the local economy, but they are dwarfed by the impact of all the small and medium-sized businesses that need our support.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing this important debate. Before I go on to talk about the challenges that businesses face—I am sure we would all recognise them from our constituencies—I would like to celebrate some of the successes of small businesses, particularly those in east Lancashire.
Moving from having a salary paid by someone else to going into a business where individuals are responsible for paying their own salary every month is a huge risk. I pay tribute to all the people throughout the country who have set up new businesses, often risking their home, their savings and everything they own to realise the dream of owning their own small business.
I would like to celebrate the success of some businesses in my own constituency. Riley’s the Butchers is one of them. We often say that butchers cannot succeed in the current environment when they have to compete against supermarkets. This is a small, family-run butchers that is beating the supermarkets at their own game with a fantastic product and a personal bespoke service to everyone who shops there. We also have businesses such as Parrock Lumb Cottages, which develops local tourism, but not at the expense of our environment. Environmental concern lies at the heart of this firm’s economic growth, showing that economic growth and environmental concern do not necessarily have to come at the expense of each other. Each of these firms is a small business; each is unique; and each is succeeding in the Rossendale valley, the home of enterprise. If anyone is tempted to visit either of those businesses, I would recommend it, but not without stopping at Love Umbrellas, which makes bespoke, hand-made, high-fashion umbrellas, showing how small businesses can succeed by using social media to market their enterprises.
If it rains all the time in Wales, it does in Darwen, too, where there is business called Minerva Craft, which has moved from Blackburn market into a large industrial unit, with both retail and internet sales based in the same site. DHJ Weisters is a weaving firm in my constituency making ties and bridal fabrics, showing that small businesses that invest in their work force, their machinery and their premises can keep manufacturing onshore, rather than having to send it offshore.
The business community in my area has grown during the last three years, and this has been the real driver of the transformative change that we have seen in unemployment. Rossendale and Darwen has the lowest unemployment rate since 2010. It is half the national average, despite it arguably being in a deprived part of east Lancashire. Our unemployment rate has come down by 20% in the last year alone, showing that small businesses growing and succeeding can transform the local labour market.
Small businesses continue to face challenges. In Rossendale and Darwen, the biggest one relates to the skills gap. Since 2010, we have seen over 4,000 people start apprenticeships in my constituency, while we have run two “100 in 100” campaigns this year. Working with local business, we recruited 200 new apprentices in 100 days. We are an area predominantly concerned with manufacturing, so many of these apprenticeships were highly technical and skilled engineering apprenticeships. Many were also in the high-level service sector, with apprentices taken on in accountancy and hairdressing. One apprenticeship was even based in my office with a training caseworker. That shows how important small businesses are to our economy. Small accountancy firms such as Hindle and Jepson have opened to support the new, expanded business community.
Business rates remain a threat to the future prosperity of businesses, but its important to say how much I welcome what the Government have already done. The automatic exemption of small firms from business rates has helped 330,000 businesses, which not only pay no rates, but no longer have to engage in the time-consuming task of filling in highly complex forms. I welcome all that has been done to support small businesses through business rate relief, but I urge my hon. Friend the Minister to think about what more could be done in that regard.
I should like the Government to consider introducing a fractional payment option, enabling businesses to pay their rates weekly or monthly. I should also like the Minister to tell us what information he has about the use by local authorities of the business rate flexibility that enables them to give businesses in their areas a 25% discount. If he had still been in the Chamber, I would have asked the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) whether his local council had offered that discount to the business that he mentioned. In April, there will be a further big boost for businesses when the employment allowance is introduced. We are reducing every business’s jobs tax by £2,000, which means that a third of employers will pay no jobs tax at all.
Small business Saturday is hugely important, and it is great to see the television advertisements supporting it. I shall be working at Gilly’s sandwich stall in Darwen market, so if any Members want to come and do their Christmas shopping early, I should like to see them.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) and her colleagues on persuading the Backbench Business Committee to grant the debate.
Small businesses play a major role in all our constituencies —mine is certainly no exception. They are important to the economy not just in their own right, but because they provide vital underpinning for many larger businesses in other economic sectors. They also play a vital role in maintaining healthy local communities through, for instance, their presence in shopping centres.
It is understandable that Members want to be positive in such a debate. Most of what I say will certainly be positive, and Government Members will obviously want to highlight what they see as the Government’s achievements. However, we should not forget the mixed experience that many small businesses have had over the past few years. Many have survived, and are surviving now, only with great difficulty. According to the Forum of Private Business—we will all have received its briefing yesterday—94% of small businesses are reporting increases in cost pressures, and many small business proprietors have managed to survive only by cutting their own wages and those of their staff. Small businesses are not in any way exempt from the cost of living crisis that is affecting so many of our communities and constituents.
As I have said, however, I want to be positive and to focus on what can be done to strengthen and support small businesses, which I have discussed with representatives of various small businesses in my area. Several hon. Members have talked about the need for more sympathetic treatment by the banks. I do not have time to repeat the horror stories that we have all heard, but some of my constituents have reported awful experiences with RBS’s global restructuring group. I hope that the Minister will be able to update the House on what his Department is doing in response to the allegations about that organisation. Even if we leave aside some of the more dramatic examples, it is clear that businesses need more sympathetic treatment by banks. The banks should recognise the difficulties that have been caused by branch closures, and, of course, there needs to be more competition and choice in banking. Labour has made some important proposals in that context.
Other organisations, and indeed areas of government, can also provide funds and other support for small business, and Edinburgh city council has taken a number of important steps in that regard. It has provided the Creative Exchange, an incubator space that opened recently in Leith to provide affordable work space for up to 80 staff. A further example is the council’s procurement policy, which covers a £20 million information technology tender. The council wants at least 25% of the work to go to small businesses; the present contract is held by a single large company.
Small business lending is also important. I was pleased to learn about discussions between the council and Capital Credit Union about the possibility of the union contributing an extra £1.3 million to the East of Scotland Investment Fund, which could provide loans for small businesses. The credit union is able to do that because of changes to corporate lending rules that allow community-based mutuals to offer loans to businesses. As someone who has a very small investment in Capital Credit Union, I am glad that it is at the forefront of that project. It is important to point out that the European regional development fund is also providing support, given the rather negative comments about Europe that we hear from certain Members in the House.
Mr Bain
In Edinburgh, as in Glasgow, there are many small exporting companies. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should be doing much more to establish a more proactive relationship with such companies through UK Trade & Investment? I had to draw the attention of a company I visited recently to the services provided by UKTI. Would not such action by the Government benefit small exporters in Edinburgh as well as those in my constituency?
Mark Lazarowicz
It would obviously benefit businesses in constituencies throughout the United Kingdom.
Another initiative undertaken by the city council is the Edinburgh guarantee, which brings together local government, businesses, colleges, the voluntary sector and national programmes at Scottish, UK and European levels to create opportunities for our young people. Since its establishment just over two years ago, it has generated more than 1,000 job, apprenticeship and internship opportunities for school leavers. Many small businesses have been closely involved in the project, and I congratulate the council on what it has achieved.
However, if councils are to provide all the support for small businesses that they ought to be able to provide, they need to have the powers that would enable them to do that to the full. Local government powers in Scotland are obviously the responsibility of the Scottish rather than the United Kingdom Government, but the fact remains that local authorities can perform an important task in supporting small business. Those that are already doing a good job should be congratulated, while those that are not should learn from them.
Although I want to be positive, I should add that we must not ignore the real pressures on small businesses. Cost pressure is an important factor that needs to be addressed. During Energy and Climate Change questions, the Government once again refused to accept the merits of Labour’s proposal for an energy price freeze, which would be of real benefit to small businesses as well as householders. It is disappointing that the Government still refuse to accept the strength of our argument, but in a world of Government U-turns, who knows what their policy may be next week?
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
It is a real pleasure to have the opportunity to speak now, which is in no small part because I am due in Westminster Hall at 3 o’clock to lead a debate on retail and the high street. I shall therefore be relatively brief. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) not only for securing this debate, but for delivering a speech in which she was characteristically passionate about business. It is a credit to her campaign that so many Members on both sides of the House have come to support today’s important debate.
I am passionate about this subject. At school, I was for ever wheeling and dealing. If anyone needed anything, I was the man to speak to. Shortly after graduating, I set up my own printing and marketing company, which employed local people in my constituency. I sold it as soon as I got elected, however; it is a busy lark being an MP. I was incredibly proud to be given the opportunity to be a small business ambassador and, obviously, to work with the fantastic Minister for Skills and Enterprise, as well as the inspirational Karren Brady, which certainly impressed my wife, who very much liked her book.
I want to talk about some of the positive things the Government have done. We can all celebrate the fact that there are more than 400,000 new businesses, which have helped to create 1.4 million new jobs. The new employment allowance, which comes in on 1 January, is a welcome measure from the Government that will help to push that even further forward. We can celebrate the fact that we now have an extra 500,000 apprenticeships. The start-up loans scheme has celebrated its 10,000th loan, with its loans totalling £50 million. Crucially, that scheme has allowed those 10,000 firms to take on a further 10,000 people, so for each new firm, an additional job has been created, which is fantastic. The red tape challenge is also brilliant, not least because we have asked businesses to suggest which pieces of red tape need to be removed.
Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making very good points, and I would also like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing the debate. Many small businesses and micro-businesses believe that they get by despite the actions of the Government, rather than because of them, so all the things that we are doing to roll back red tape are absolutely right. Small businesses are creating jobs, but they want to be loved, especially by the Government. Over the years they have not felt loved, and that is what I am looking to the Minister and the Government to deliver.
Justin Tomlinson
I very much love businesses, so I will send some love to my hon. Friend’s constituency.
It is great that businesses are suggesting the areas of red tape that need to be looked at, because they are very much at the coal face. Removing two regulations for every one introduced is a real challenge, but the initiative has certainly been welcomed by businesses in my constituency.
Several Members have talked about opening up local authority procurement, which is worth about £4.4 billion a year, and the Government have the commendable aim of getting SME participation in that to about 25%. My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham), who has had to leave the Chamber, has got hold of some of the forms that small businesses have to fill in when bidding for such contracts. I know that, when I ran a business, it simply was not worth the hassle.
I also very much welcome the increase in the annual investment allowance from £25,000 to £250,000. One problem that we identified was the fact that, for the first time in living memory, businesses had more money in their current accounts than they were choosing to borrow, because they were worried about uncertainty in the market. Increasing the allowance is a brilliant way to encourage businesses to start unlocking some of that money, which will drive forward growth.
Cutting corporation tax always brings a cheer from Conservative Members. Although Labour says that it supports business, it is telling that that support seems to vanish as soon as a business makes a profit. I also welcome the extension of small business rate relief.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman talks about corporation tax. Will he tell the House the rate of corporation tax when Labour came to power in 1997, and what it was when we left office in 2010?
Justin Tomlinson
I can tell the hon. Gentleman that, by 2015, we will have the lowest corporation tax market in the G8. That is what businesses are talking about, and I very much hope that the hon. Gentleman will join us in supporting that aim.
Many Members have highlighted the need to look at business rates. Greater minds than mine will solve the dilemma, but it is important to recognise that the world is changing. My hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) mentioned Amazon’s advantages over a traditional high street retailer because of the business rates that it pays. We must recognise that the world is changing and take that into account if we are to achieve a fair business rates system. The 27,000 business mentors are also crucial—I will come back to that subject in a moment—and the enterprise zones and the regional growth fund are kick-starting growth in key areas, which is most welcome.
Staying with the good things, I know that the Minister is particularly excited about the request that I am about to make—it is one that I make repeatedly—and that he is absolutely going to deliver on it. We as a Government are doing many good things, but business people are by their nature extremely busy and, all too often, these good schemes simply pass them by. However, the one thing that they cannot avoid is their bills, and every year they are sent a business rates bill. Even if they have nothing to pay, they are sent a bill telling them how much they would have had to pay but for the fact that the Government are allowing them not to do so. We should be communicating all the Government’s schemes through that mailer. The taxpayer has already paid for the mail, so let us include with it information on all the things that we are encouraging businesses to sign up for, and particularly on the advantages of taking on apprentices and of working with UKTI to develop exports.
I want briefly to focus on championing young entrepreneurs. I was the only one of the 350 students on my business degree course who went on to set up their own business. We all arrived at university keen to do just that, but we had entrepreneurial flair and risk-taking talked out of us. I obviously was not paying enough attention, because I ended up running my own business. The Government help to fund an organisation called the National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs, which encourages young people to take up practical, real-life opportunities for running a business. I have met a number of the young people who have taken advantage of those opportunities and who are now going on to be part of the next generation of wealth generators.
We need to look at what happens in business degrees. Along with all my fellow students, I was given a placement job in the corporate environment, rather than having the opportunity to test running my own business. We could use spare space at a university to run a retail business—that is very apt, given my forthcoming Westminster Hall debate. We could also consider whether part of a placement year could be spent running a business, as that might allow us to encourage a few more of those potential young entrepreneurs to take the step towards that.
We can also do a lot more for people before they go to university. For people who want to go to university, the UCAS system is in place—the conveyor belt is there. People choose their course and, if they get their grades, they head off to university. If people want to be an apprentice, they can look at the fantastic websites available, see what type of thing they would like to be an apprentice in, and go forward to the interviews. However, if someone wants to start their own business, it is pretty much up to them to work out how to do that, so we need to do a lot more to get those 20,000 business mentors to young people.
We have to celebrate schemes such as the Young Enterprise challenge, but we need to ensure that they are not just a one-off opportunity for enjoyment. I took part when I was at school—we worked for a week, made quite a bit of money and really enjoyed it. I recently did something with Swindon college students whereby we got stalls in the local market—a tough trading environment. Seven teams were each given £10 of seed money, and all the money raised on the day went to charity. We raised about £800 for the Prospect hospice, but the crucial bit was that we did not have mentors just at the beginning; we had them at the end.
One lady called Jessica ran a cake stall. Millions of people think about running such a stall, but she realised that the market had an older customer base, so she set up a 1950s-themed cake stall. She made more than £100 on the day. She realised that she had the customer service ability, the skills and the innovation to set up her own business, and now that she has finished at college, she has set up the Little Lemon & Poppy Bakery. We made sure that mentors were in place to help to guide her after she used her initial burst of enthusiasm and went on to do that. I ask the Minister to do all that he can to encourage young people. They have the energy and the enthusiasm, so let us make sure they are a key part of that next generation of wealth generators.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. I have to inform the House that we have another debate this afternoon and we are running out of time. The Minister and the shadow Minister need to be on their feet by 25 past 3. I am going to set a time limit of five minutes and I ask the remaining Members to make sure they share that fairly among themselves. If they do not do so, somebody will not get to speak. In other words, if there are lots of interventions, somebody will fall off the end of today’s speaking list.
Alok Sharma (Reading West) (Con)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing this debate. She is a huge champion of small and micro-businesses, and more power to her elbow.
Before the last election many of us were going around meeting small businesses in our constituencies, and businesses in Reading were telling me three things. The first was that they were drowning in red tape and regulation. The second was that they had to deal with an excessive burden of taxation. The third was that they faced issues relating to access to finance. Many Government Members have already pointed out areas where the Government have made a real effort to address all three issues: the red tape challenge; the one-in, two-out policy; cutting back on the regulations that micro-businesses have to deal with; the upcoming deregulation Bill—perhaps the Minister will give us an update on that; the reduction in the headline corporation tax rate; extended small business rate relief; the funding for lending scheme; the enterprise finance guarantee scheme; and a plethora of schemes to get debt and equity provision for start-ups and growing businesses, which are on the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills website and are now starting to be delivered through the British Business Bank. Of course the one scheme that the Government have not been responsible for, which perhaps the shadow Minister could tell us about, is the Co-op bank soft loans scheme, which has been available to only a restricted number of people.
A friend of mine who works in business and is not particularly partisan politically has acknowledged that the Government have made a huge effort in cutting red tape. However, as he says, perhaps the time has come not just to take an axe to red tape, but to take a chainsaw to unnecessary red tape and regulation. I am pleased that we have gone from one-in, one-out to one-in, two-out, but why not one-in, three-out or none-in, four-out? One reason for not doing that is that the Government are constrained by EU regulation. I welcome what the Prime Minister said following the proposals made by his business taskforce on cutting back EU regulation. I understand that yesterday the Leader of the Opposition referred to a tweet containing “#greencrap”. I have just started tweeting, and am thinking about tweeting after this debate with #EUredtapecrap, because of the enormous amount of EU regulation that is holding back our businesses. The issue of increasing competitiveness is felt not just in the UK but by Governments in Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam and perhaps even Paris.
If Opposition Members really care about business, they should back the European Union (Referendum) Bill. I hope they will turn up tomorrow to support it, because that is the best way of delivering change in the EU and ensuring that we get rid of some of this regulation.
In the remaining two minutes, I have two quick points. One relates to simplifying the tax system overall through the merger or the simplification of income tax and national insurance, and the second is about closing the equity funding gap.
In the 2011 Budget, the Chancellor talked about merging national insurance and income tax. A consultation was held, and the decision was made not to take the idea forward. None the less, the idea is totemic. I know that it is difficult and that there are anomalies, but we should consider merging those two taxes. The reality is that national insurance is just another tax. People should understand that the tax they are paying is not 20% as a basic rate taxpayer but 32%. If they saw that on their pay slips and in their annual tax statements, they would realise that we are all paying a bit too much tax. They would end up preferring parties that propose cutting taxes rather than raising them. Perhaps we will hear something on that from the Minister.
My final point is to do with equity finance. The start-up loan scheme is brilliant. It is a flagship scheme that has worked really well; it is simple and is able to get lending out very quickly. It would be great to see a British equity funding scheme, which would also help to deploy capital quickly across many areas of business.
I am running out of time, so I shall stop at that point. I acknowledge that the Government do a huge amount, but there is still some way for them to go. I am sure that the Minister will tell us of his plans.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing this debate. She was absolutely right to highlight the importance of small businesses to the success not just of our national economy but of local economies up and down the country. Clearly, we all support small businesses and we all want to see them succeed. Indeed all large businesses were once small ones, and the big businesses of tomorrow are the start-ups and small businesses of today.
However, it is all very well to talk about support, but there needs to be practical advice and policies in place that give start-ups, sole traders and small businesses the full support that they need to prosper and succeed. Most businesses in this country are small. The vast majority of those people employed in the private sector work for small businesses. In many respects it is the owners and workers in those enterprises who are the unsung heroes of our economy.
Let me take, for example, a small business in my constituency of Carlisle, with, say, five employees. That business pays business rates, which helps the local and national economy, employer’s national insurance and corporation tax. It will collect VAT, and it may well pay VAT itself. It makes a huge contribution to the national economy. It also conducts business with other local enterprises, helping to create a more economically active local economy. In addition, it provides employment to five families, providing them with a standard of living and supporting their lifestyles. There is also often a wider benefit to the community. The business owner may well live in the area, contributing socially to the community through membership of other organisations. They are often on school boards, local charities and sports clubs.
My principal contribution to this debate relates to the role that local government should play in supporting small businesses. We should remember that the vast majority of business people will have absolutely nothing to do with central Government or Government Departments such as BIS and, with the greatest respect to the Minister, will probably never come in contact with a Minister. The most important people in government with whom business people are likely to come into contact will probably be from the local council, a local councillor or perhaps an MP.
I accept that much is made of the contribution, involvement and policy decisions of central Government. Central Government clearly have a significant if not central role to play. They set the general environment in which business can or should flourish and create a framework within which business will function. Nevertheless, we should not and must not underestimate the role that local government must play in supporting and encouraging small businesses to flourish and succeed in their area.
Local councils, local councillors and officers can make a substantial difference in a number of key areas. The obvious one is planning, where the local plan can be made as business-friendly as possible. The administration process should be as efficient as it can be and issues for small businesses should be highlighted early so that they do not incur unnecessary costs. The second such area is property ownership. Local councils are often property owners; for example Carlisle city council, believe it or not, has about £100 million worth of commercial property. It can make a difference by using that to good effect. The third area, as has been highlighted, is procurement. It is not necessarily the big contracts that matter; the small ones can make a real difference to small businesses. Local enterprise partnerships are also important. Councils have a role and are often on the boards, and LEPs need to be pro-business and to help develop policies that support small businesses in flourishing.
There are two other key points. We need small business support and engagement with those local professionals who can help businesses: surveyors, accountants, bankers and lawyers. Indeed, we should encourage relationships with the local chamber of commerce or the Federation of Small Businesses, with encouragement on business plans, finance, employment and other such matters that will help businesses to succeed.
Most importantly, local government can provide leadership. It can give local small businesses a sense that the council supports and will support them and that there is a vision and a sense of direction for the area of which the businesses are a part.
I want to highlight that the responsibility to engage with and support small business from a government point of view does not lie merely with central Government; it is important that local government plays its part.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on introducing the debate. I particularly appreciate her work on the definition of “small business”. The Government’s definition of small business is one that employs 250 employees or turns over £50 million. That is a pretty substantial business and I applaud how she has raised the profile of what we would probably call micro-businesses. I suspect that most of the debate has been about micro-businesses rather than small businesses.
I ran a micro-business, a business I started from scratch in 1982, so I know about the pressure of ensuring that there is enough money in the bank account to meet the monthly salary bill. I am therefore delighted that the Government have recognised the importance of small businesses and the number of such businesses that have been created. Along with other Members, I champion the small businesses in my constituency that are raising their profile through small business Saturday. I shall visit four new businesses that have been formed in the past year and opened in the past four months. I am looking forward to seeing what they are doing.
I made the point in an intervention that every big business started out as a small business. Big businesses are often large employers, but if we want to provide employment for all our citizens, we need to consider how to encourage small businesses to grow. In my constituency, there are more small businesses than people looking for work and I suspect that that applies across the country. If every small business was encouraged to take on one additional member of staff, there would be no one looking for work. That hit me quite hard when I met a successful one-man band who was telling me how busy he was and that he was running around like a nutcase trying to keep all his customers happy. I said, “That’s great isn’t it? No doubt you’ll be expanding and taking on somebody else in the business.” He said, “No, I don’t want any of that trouble headache and hassle. I would much rather stick as I am.” We need to change that perception, so it is important for us to consider some of the obstacles that hold people back.
One of that small business man’s biggest concerns was employment legislation. I understand the concerns of Opposition Members that there should be a fair relationship between employer and employee, but in a micro-business the employer and employee get to know each other pretty well. They often work side by side in manufacturing the goods or delivering the service. I would argue that many smaller businesses may not need the employment protection measures that larger companies in need of more formal arrangements require.
The move from one year to two before an employee can bring a case in an employment tribunal is a step in the right direction, but we could look at one or two other areas such as parental leave rules. Transferable parental leave disproportionately disadvantages small businesses, which may lose a key member of staff, often at pretty short notice. We could consider making some exemptions for micro-businesses or those with a turnover of less than £5 million or fewer than 25 staff.
I am also concerned about access to suitable business premises as we move out of the recession. Jones Lang LaSalle reported in March that there was little speculative industrial property development taking place. I am worried that accommodation will not be available. My business started in very low-cost old buildings. Such buildings have now in many cases been demolished to avoid vacant business rates. I am bothered that access to the internet has encouraged lots of fledgling small businesses to start, often in niche markets, operating from home, perhaps in a residential area, and as they grow they will need small units, which we do not have. Developers have not been providing small units. It is much easier for a developer to provide one unit of 50,000 square feet than 10 units of 5,000 square feet, and we need to address that problem.
Lastly, I would like to deal with an issue that is not for Government but is about a culture change. As a salesmen in my business, I would like to see more appreciation for salesmen. They are the people who end the manufacturing process; the services would not get delivered were it not for the salesman persuading the customer to buy them. Salesmen have an unfortunate reputation, and I would like to see some credit given to the profession, with proper recognition and status. Their skills are invaluable, especially in export markets where not only our small businesses but the country as a whole prosper if the salesmen do well.
Chris Heaton-Harris (Daventry) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) and other hon. Members on securing the debate.
Before I came into politics, I used to wholesale fruit and veg. It was a family firm, which my father started and grew to a decent size. Then I had all the disputes that every son taking over a family firm has with their father, when they tell their sons that they are not doing it right, but we managed to sneak up the turnover of this fruit and veg business, working nights in New Covent Garden, to £7 million a year employing 17 people. We did it in spite of rather than because of the Government. Some of my points will be based on those old experiences, which small businesses in my constituency tell me they still face.
One of the best parts of our jobs as Members of Parliament is going to see small businesses and people taking risks to do good things and start employment in our constituencies. My constituency, like that of every other Member who has spoken, is full of amazing and surprising small businesses. I have a company called Bambino Mio, one of the largest companies dealing in reusable nappies. It started 15 years ago and now exports to almost 70 countries across the world. Another company is Daisy Roots. Many Members with children and grandchildren will have bought a pair of Daisy Roots shoes without knowing about it. EllaPure is a company direct selling all-natural skincare products. It was started by an 18-year-old lad two or three years ago, whom the shadow Minister met at a lunch with me not so long ago. He is a very impressive individual. Those three businesses all come from one small village, Brixworth.
I know that the Government have done lots of good stuff. I am delighted to be behind a Government who have created 1.4 million new private sector jobs since 2010, who are cutting national insurance, benefiting every firm by £2,000 next year, and who have allowed people to start 400,000 new British businesses. One of the things we do really well in this country is enable companies to set up quickly. It is a very simple process, which takes away a lot of the confusion. We have a very good scheme for enterprise zones. Neighbouring my constituency is Northampton, where the Northampton Waterside enterprise zone’s plans to change the face of the town for the better can already been seen.
However, there are many issues that affect micro and small businesses. My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) talked about employing people. Businesses take a massive risk when they start employing people. Perhaps some Members had never done that before taking people on in their offices here. Any Member who has had a dispute with an employee will understand how difficult it must be for a small business, which might have only one or two employees, when a relationship with an employee does not work and the risk that such employment involves.
Many small businesses complain about bureaucracy. I think we are doing reasonably well on that. Perhaps we could do more, but the thing that I think we could do better is to open up procurement in the public sector. I am sure that the Minister will tell me that we have got rid of a whole tranche of things and that businesses no longer need to provide three years’ worth of audited accounts before being able to bid for Government work. That might have been the policy change and what we are trying to implement, but a small business in my constituency called Mapcite, based in my village, was told that only a couple of weeks ago by the Department with which it was trying to deal. Then there are issues relating to rural broadband, which we are sorting out but which we need to get right. Rural broadband is ultra-important.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, not least because it allows me to wish him all the best of luck for his special day. He said that he started working in his family business. Will he also herald the value that family businesses provide in our economy and, in particular, the work of the Institute for Family Business?
Chris Heaton-Harris
Yes is the simple answer to my hon. Friend. I have noted the time, Madam Deputy Speaker, and promise to finish on time.
We need to be positive about entrepreneurship in this country. We have a very good reputation across the globe. Amway, one of the biggest direct sellers in the United Kingdom, has 40,000 small businesses working for it. It did a big survey of people’s attitudes to becoming entrepreneurs, and we did not have a bad rate, because 77% of people thought that we have a positive atmosphere in which to build entrepreneurship. However, factors that worked against coming into business included fear of failure, which is a big deal. It is a psychological barrier that a person has to get over when they start a small business. Public funding and start-up loans are pretty indispensible in helping to get over the fear of failure, because people know they have something behind them when they start in addition to their brilliant idea.
I will be celebrating small business Saturday at the iCon centre in Daventry, where there will be a huge networking event for small businesses in my constituency. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot once again on securing the debate.
Sir Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove) (LD)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for finding time to fit me in. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing the debate. We have heard some very good contributions indeed. In the short time available, I want to focus on the part of the motion that refers to encouraging the Government to improve access to finance. The Government have certainly done some very good things in the past three years. They have worked nationally and locally, and I refer in particular to the work UK Trade & Investment has done in my constituency, the work of GrowthAccelerator and the success of the apprenticeship scheme.
I will focus briefly on access to finance from banks for my local businesses. Twelve months ago I secured an Adjournment debate on that topic, bringing to the House the cases of four businesses in my constituency and the difficulty they have had in gaining access to finance from four different banks. As a consequence, I took a deputation of local businesses to see the banking Minister. We met the British Bankers Association and had a representative of the Federation of Small Businesses with us. That discussion produced an assurance from the BBA that it would increase its publicity on access to the appeals system, because if a business is refused a loan there is an appeals system.
The BBA announced with some pride that in the first two years of the appeals process run by the banks, a satisfactory lending agreement was found in 40% of cases where the decline of a loan to a business was appealed against. This was said to be a cause for congratulations. Let me point out that in any appeals system, an approval rating of 40% suggests that there is a problem with that system. Will Treasury Ministers inform me of the distribution of that 40% appeal rate between different banks? Which banks succeeded in getting it right and which failed to do so? Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer consider requiring banks to notify in writing all small businesses whose loan application is declined that they have a right of appeal, because this was not known to many of the businesses in my constituency that had had such a refusal?
I have to say to the Minister that the answer I received on 30 October was rather bland and unhelpful. It was, in essence, a reprint of the BBA’s press release, and it added no further information. I want to see whether he can improve on that, either in what he says today or by reference to his Treasury colleagues as to what they might supply to the House subsequently. The answer did not explain or offer any view on whether a 40% overturning rate for the appeals system was a sign of success or failure. It was also entirely silent about whether there was to be any requirement on banks to follow through refusals of loans with better information for companies on how to appeal.
In the past three years, we have done excellent work that has paid real dividends, but local businesses in my constituency still have a fundamental problem in getting the access to finance to which they are entitled. One of the ironies is that one of those companies, which was refused a loan of £12,000 for business development, was subsequently offered—by the same bank—an unsecured loan of £16,000 to purchase a car. That emphasises the problems that the system still faces.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
It is a tremendous pleasure to speak in what has been an excellent debate. I congratulate the hon. Member for Newton Abbot (Anne Marie Morris) on securing it. She speaks about small businesses with passion, dedication, enthusiasm and considerable vim, which I can inform the House, having been at the National Association of Commercial Finance Brokers dinner with her on Tuesday, is also the way she dances.
We have heard a tremendous amount about the importance of small businesses. As the challengers of tired orthodoxies and the drivers of social mobility, small businesses share one nation Labour’s values completely. It is a path that several of us have followed, as reflected in the debate. I worked in the private sector for my entire life and was running a small business when I became a Member of Parliament. From my perspective and, clearly, that of hon. Members across the House, there are few more important questions for us to consider than how we support small firms, which we all know are the engines of growth, the biggest employers of the long-term unemployed, and key drivers of economic recovery.
It is important that we listen to what the voices of business are saying. On Monday, I was in Harlow in Essex with the local chamber of commerce, meeting small businesses there and listening to their priorities. Another organisation right at the forefront of the fight to support small firms is the Federation of Small Businesses, which does a tremendous job. A report in the Leicester Mercury this week highlighted how a delegation from the east midlands, led by David Nicholls, chairman of the Leicestershire branch of the FSB, got the chance to lobby the Chancellor on the issues that he should address in his forthcoming autumn statement. What did the delegation choose to highlight? Interestingly, the Leicester Mercury tells us that they demanded action on energy prices, a reduction in businesses rates, and the Government taking responsibility for setting up a business bank—very wise indeed.
I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for securing the debate, but think she may have done so with a slightly heavy heart, because when it comes to the main issues being raised by small businesses, it is Labour that is leading the way. I want to reflect on some of the contributions to this balanced debate that have demonstrated that.
In her excellent speech, the hon. Lady talked about the need for a culture change that recognises the importance of small business across Government. We could not agree more. My right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) made making Labour the party of small business a priority in his first conference speech and he has talked about it many times since. There are some good Government schemes out there but, as the hon. Lady said, many businesses do not know about them. The signposting is weak, and she was right to say that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain) discussed the lessons we can learn from the Sparkassen in Germany. He was right to say that, under the German system and at the height of the banking crisis, they lent more to small businesses, not fewer, as happened here. He was also right to focus on the important issue of the number of businesses claiming that access to finance is still their No. 1 priority, a theme that the right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell) returned to a few moments ago.
The hon. Members for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) and for High Peak (Andrew Bingham) were right to focus on the difficulty faced by small and medium-sized enterprises in getting on to Government procurement lists. It has been an issue for many years and clearly there is a long way to go.
My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) also spoke.
Debbie Abrahams
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. He will be aware that earlier this year I chaired an all-party inquiry into late payments. The key finding was that late payment is a cultural issue that needs to be seen as just as toxic as tax evasion. Does he agree that we need to push the Government to make progress towards ensuring there is a cultural change so that late payment is unacceptable?
Toby Perkins
I certainly do. I was in the process of paying tribute to the work my hon. Friend has done on that issue. She is absolutely right.
The hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey), whom I usually regard as a sound voice on the issue of small business, said that if someone is paid late they should refuse to supply the company, but that does not recognise the difference in the relationship between a powerful customer and a struggling supplier. Every year, 2,000 businesses go under simply because they are not paid money that is owed to them, so I think he was wrong about that. My hon. Friend is right to say that we need the Government to be at the forefront of not just encouraging people to pay on time, but ensuring that that culture change passes right down the public sector procurement chain to second and third-tier suppliers.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) made a lengthy advertisement—I sense it was somewhat to his embarrassment—for Danczuk’s deli. Numerous Members wanted to know about the excellent wares he will be providing. He has been in business before and it is great that he and his wife are opening a delicatessen in the centre of Rochdale and that he is putting his money where his mouth is.
The hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod), my hon. Friend the Member for Rochdale and the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) spoke, among many others, about the tremendous difficulties caused by the increase in business rates, which I shall return to.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) promoted the value of local innovative firms and also focused on access to finance. The hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) is not in his place. [Interruption.] I see that he has moved—I do not know how I managed to miss that moustache. He encapsulated the bravery and pioneering spirit required to set up a business and he was right to say that it doesn’t half set the pulses racing. At such moments, people realise what colour adrenaline is.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) was entirely right to say that small businesses are undergoing a cost of living crisis, which I will reflect on in a moment.
The hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) said that Labour always liked to increase corporation tax. If he was still here, he would be surprised to discover that corporation tax was actually 3% less after 13 years of Labour Government. Perhaps he should talk to the former Prime Minister about that.
The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
Will the hon. Gentleman confirm whether it is still Labour’s policy to increase corporation tax?
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Before the shadow Minister answers the Minister, will they please remember that I will stop the debate at 3.45 pm? If the Minister is still on his feet at that point, he will lose the time, because we will have to start the next debate.
Toby Perkins
Our policy is well known, but I will go through it at length in a moment.
The hon. Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma) spoke for only five minutes, but he was wrong about just about everything he said. I will give two examples. He said that businesses want an EU referendum, but very few businesses are telling me that. He extolled the virtues of the arbitrary one-in, two-out red tape challenge and seemed to think that the Government have a good record on red tape, but he was unable to name any of their innovations that have made a difference.
The hon. Member for Rugby made an incredibly significant point about the importance of sales skills. I am sure he will be delighted to know that the Labour party is undertaking a large programme—headed by Kate Walsh, formerly of “The Apprentice”—on the importance of sales skills, and we will report on its work shortly.
The hon. Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson) focused broadly on the importance of small firms. The hon. Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) was absolutely correct to say that the UK is right at the forefront of those places where it is easiest to set up a small business. The World Bank said that Britain was the fourth easiest place to set up a business in 2010.
I do not want to focus on the Government’s failures, but on the successful moves that a future Labour Government will make. We are considering the future of vital small firms, and Labour has the answers to their questions. The cost of living crisis for small firms is taking many of them to the brink, but Labour’s pledge to freeze energy prices until 2017 would save the average British small business £5,000. Hon. Members will be shocked to learn that business rates have risen by £1,500 a year on average under this Government, and that they face a further hike in April 2014.
To answer the Minister’s question, Labour proposes not to take forward the Government’s planned 1% corporation tax cut for 80,000 large firms, but instead to use all the money to cut the business rate bills of 1.5 million small firms. In a week of U-turns, it would be incredibly—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. I am sorry, but the hon. Gentleman has now had 10 minutes. This is a Back-Bench debate, and it will be followed by another Back-Bench debate. I want him to conclude in his current sentence, so that I can call the Minister, who will also have 10 minutes.
Toby Perkins
I will, Madam Deputy Speaker. On a range of issues from micro-business support to the need for Government to provide the necessary skills, small businesses are saying that the Government have more work to do. Labour is responding to that call from small businesses, and our message to them is, “We know how vital you are, and we are right behind you.”
The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
This Government are passionate, as am I, about supporting small business. I grew up in one, and I hope that I not only listen to and speak for small business across Government, but understand what life is like in one, as do so many hon. Members who have spoken. The debate has reflected the strength of feeling across the House in support of small businesses, which we should do more to encourage and for which we should do more to make life easier. Why are we so passionate? Because, at root, small businesses are the ultimate fount of prosperity and jobs in our country.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister agree that one great virtue of small businesses is that they are embedded in their local communities and are often loyal to them, unlike npower in my constituency, which has just offshored 400 jobs? Will he use the power of his Department to work with local authorities, the LEP and the chamber of commerce to do its best to mitigate that loss?
Matthew Hancock
The Department is of course doing what it can to mitigate the impact of that decision. The hon. Gentleman is quite right, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson), who spoke passionately about the impact of small businesses, which are embedded in their local communities through jobs and their contributions to local and national life, as well as the role of local authorities in planning, property and procurement.
There have been some fantastic contributions to the debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod), as well as recounting the various questions that she has asked at Prime Minister’s questions in the recent past, spoke about drilling enterprise through our education system, which I strongly support. My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) also made that argument. Every time I speak to him, he seems to have another idea about how we can get more content about enterprise into the education system.
Many Members raised the issue of red tape, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Alok Sharma), who spoke about the impact of EU red tape. Members across this House must recognise that problem. It is wrongly dismissed by some, but it is an important issue that we need to address. We are doing so through the Prime Minister’s challenge to the EU. The taskforce of six business leaders who are looking at reforming EU regulations is putting the voice of business at the heart of the debate. It has made 30 recommendations on how to remove or improve the most burdensome EU rules. We are working with business to encourage the EU to take up those recommendations over the next year.
My hon. Friends the Members for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) and for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris) raised the issue of regulations on employers, especially with regard to micro-businesses. We have made progress by ensuring that employees cannot go to a tribunal until they have been employed for two years and by introducing fees for tribunals. We need to keep this area under constant review because, fundamentally, what we must do is make it easier to employ people and create jobs. That is what growing small businesses is all about.
It is a great pleasure to see you take the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is the first time that I have been in a debate that you have chaired.
My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Chloe Smith) was here earlier, but apologised that she had an engagement with some small businesses. I pay tribute to the work that she did to open up procurement to small businesses. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry said, what we are doing in that area is not complete. There is much more to do to improve the formal rules and to ensure that they are seen, exercised and stuck to not only across central Government, but throughout the public sector, including in local authorities. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has just reached the target of sending 25% of its invoices to small businesses. That target applies to the whole of central Government and all other Departments are working towards it.
Many hon. Members raised the issues of access to finance and late payment, not least the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams). The Government pay more than 85% of undisputed invoices within five days. That is a big change and an impressive feat.
Debbie Abrahams
Will the Minister confirm whether that includes suppliers in all tiers? I think that he is referring just to tier 1 suppliers.
Matthew Hancock
I was coming on to exactly that point. That figure refers to tier 1 and there is much more to do to drill prompt payments through the supply chain. We must spread that culture across the private sector as well. I will reflect on the hon. Lady’s point that we should make late payment just as culturally negative as tax avoidance and evasion. We will be launching a consultation on late payment shortly.
The right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell) raised the issue of the banking appeals system. I do not want to pre-empt what my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will say in the autumn statement in a week’s time, so I recommend that the right hon. Gentleman attends the House on that day.
Opposition Members raised various issues and spoke from different perspectives. The important issue of GRG and the treatment of small companies that have got into difficulties with the banks was raised. The Financial Conduct Authority is looking into the report that was published this week and RBS has appointed Clifford Chance to go through the cases that were raised in detail.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain), in typically ebullient fashion, called for firm action and better communication of what we are doing. I certainly agree with him about firm action. That is what I hope to achieve.
On better communication, we have launched the Business is Great campaign, which Members may see on billboards and social media across the country, and the Great Business website brings together in one place the different things the Government and private sector are doing to support small businesses. It is a single portal—greatbusiness.gov.uk—and worth exploring.
The hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) mentioned access to finance, and particularly green measures. Although the Government have reduced the subsidy from energy bill payers and taxpayers to sponsor solar, by ensuring that the scheme was proportionate but still affordable, more than 1 million people are now living with solar panels on their roofs. The hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk) spoke passionately about starting his own business with his wife. I hope he gets the chance to have a word with the Leader of the Opposition, who says he wants to ban Members from engaging in any outside employment, including a small business. I strongly hope that the idea that someone can run a small business and be an MP at the same time will continue because of the wealth of insight it brings to people in this place.
There were good speeches from Opposition Members, and it was a pity there were so few of them, given that support from the Government Benches was very powerful. The hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry) raised the important issue of business rates. I am glad that one of the first things this Government did was stop the extension of business rates proposed by the previous Government because that would have been a great mistake. In fact, we have extended business rate relief every year, but I have no doubt that had the previous Government remained in office, they would have put up and extended business rates because that is what they were planning.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that one of the key things for helping small businesses is encouraging them to reinvest? The Government have done a lot in extending the capital allowance scheme, but will he consider extending it beyond 1 January 2015?
Matthew Hancock
Yes, I will, and I conclude by saying that Members across the House—especially Government Members—argued passionately in favour of small businesses, the values they bring, the hard work but the payback, and the benefits in terms of jobs and prosperity for their communities. None more so than my hon. Friend the Member for Newton Abbot who initiated the debate, and I pay tribute to all her work. If I have not addressed any point on the long list of issues she raised, I will write to her with a detailed response on each and every one. She is a great credit to herself and to small businesses that need such passionate support, and I know they are thrilled to have her at their side.
Anne Marie Morris
This has been an incredible, energetic debate and I pay tribute to and thank my fellow sponsors and all those who have contributed with great knowledge, passion and understanding. Let the nation be in no doubt: this House supports small businesses in all their different guises, and they are key to growth and social mobility. I hope the Minister realises that more than 100 ideas have been raised today, so if he takes them all up it will be quite a long letter. I hope that the Minister and the Chancellor will demonstrate that they are listening in the autumn statement and indeed the Budget, but let us conclude this debate by celebrating small businesses and telling them, “We love you, and we will show that on small business Saturday on 7 December.”
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House encourages the Government to consider what further measures can be taken to encourage small business to flourish and prosper, including reducing the burden of red tape, addressing the complex tax structure, improving access to finance and gaining support from local government.
G8 Summit on Dementia
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the G8 summit on dementia.
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker; this is the first opportunity I have had to give you my warm congratulations on your election.
I am incredibly grateful for the support of the right hon. Members for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), and others, for helping to secure this debate. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing Members time to contribute—albeit briefly—to a debate on what many believe is one of the most important issues facing our health and social care system in the future. I shall keep my opening comments as brief as possible, as I know that others wish to speak, but it is important to congratulate the Prime Minister on using the opportunity of hosting the G8 summit on 11 December to focus on international efforts to prevent, delay and effectively treat dementia. The debate will allow parliamentarians an opportunity to shape discussions at the summit, following on from wider and commendable consultation with the public. Collaboration, which is at the heart of the conference, is the basis of my contribution to the debate.
Before addressing the specifics, it is important to set out the global perspective. Dementia affects more than 35 million people worldwide and is now considered to be one of the greatest global health challenges of our time. It is estimated that, by 2050, more than 150 million people will suffer from dementia.
Hon. Members will have seen the devastating human cost of dementia if not in their families, then in their constituencies. We know of the suffering of those with the condition and those who become carers for their loved ones. However, we perhaps do not so obviously see the huge economic effects of dementia, the worldwide cost of which is estimated to be about £400 billion, which is the equivalent of 1% of world gross domestic product. Without urgent action, that figure will increase in line with the number of people who are anticipated to get dementia, which is why global collaboration is essential. The more we can do together globally, the better the outcomes we can secure nationally.
Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point. Does she accept, however, that it is equally important to do more on seeking diagnoses? About 350,000 people in this country are undiagnosed and go without the help and support that those who have been diagnosed receive.
Tracey Crouch
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The all-party group on dementia recently produced a report on diagnosis. Shockingly, only about 42% of people get diagnosed, which leaves a massive diagnosis gap. The earlier people are diagnosed, the better their treatment and pathways.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Lady on introducing the debate. I hope she will hear later some of the evidence that the Science and Technology Committee has taken on variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and of the important work of the Medical Research Council prion unit, which could lead to exciting new possibilities for the treatment and diagnosis of people with all sorts of dementia. Does she agree that it is important to maintain such research programmes?
Tracey Crouch
I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman, and I will hear more later of the initiatives his Committee is examining. The importance of research is very much the basis of my speech.
Hon. Members may talk about many aspects of dementia, but I shall address four, the first of which is investment. The statistics are gloomy, but there is a good-news story underlying the negative numbers: people are living longer and people can live well with dementia. We need to capitalise on best practice and ensure that we maximise people’s ability to maintain long-term well-being, despite their debilitating condition. Although we do not have a cure for dementia, we have come on leaps and bounds in recent years. A cure is hopefully no longer a lifetime away, but to ensure that we make that cure happen, we need to take action.
Dementia costs the UK economy £23 billion a year, which is more than cancer, stroke or heart disease, but the annual research spend on dementia is about £51 million. The research spend on cancer is £521 million —10 times more—yet dementia costs society much more than cancer annually. I therefore welcome the increase in investment in dementia research through the Government’s themed initiatives, which has resulted in Government investment more than doubling over four years. However, the investment comes from a low base and represents less than 1% of the overall science budget.
Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. It is widely believed—it has recently been widely reported in scientific journals, including by scientists who will take part in the G8 meeting—that up to half of all Alzheimer’s cases can be attributed to modifiable and therefore preventable risk factors. If that is the case, and there seems to a general consensus along those lines, does she share my disappointment that, as far as I can see, none of the additional £22 million allocated for dementia research has been spent on prevention research?
Tracey Crouch
I am sure that the Minister will have heard the good point that my hon. Friend makes. I would like to concentrate on the fact that there has been an increase in investment for research. There are various reasons why we need research, and I am sure the Minister will address my hon. Friend’s comments in his response.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
The hon. Lady rightly talks about the low investment base from which we are starting on dementia research and prevention. One way to make limited resources go further is to co-ordinate properly and better across the regions and nations of the UK. There is good work going on in Wales, but that is also from a low base.
Tracey Crouch
I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. We need greater co-operation and collaboration across the world, and if that is needed across the world, we certainly need it at home.
We should recognise that the USA is committed to spending $550 million on dementia research, which is a reflection of the importance of the condition to its society. To be frank, however, the combined investment by the USA and the UK is small fry compared with the investment in research by the pharmaceutical industry. Any collaboration needs to include the global pharma leaders to ensure that they are financing research, bringing together their world-leading scientists and helping to achieve the breakthrough in the prevention and treatment of dementia that we all want. One of the most important outcomes I would like from the G8 summit is a long-term commitment to double investment in research to provide stable and predictable funding so that we can get closer to finding a cure and improved care.
Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
Does the hon. Lady agree that part of the problem is the fact that we use the term “dementia” as if it is just one thing? There are many dementias and we must not focus just on Alzheimer’s. We must be aware of frontotemporal dementias, which affect younger people in particular, and ensure there is funding for research into that.
Tracey Crouch
I agree entirely. This is something that blights many conditions, including cancer. We talk about cancer investment, but there is little or no research funding for some cancers. Mesothelioma is a classic example, about which there is a debate on Monday.
It is essential that research focuses on investment in infrastructure. Training and development for researchers is also crucial if we are to see swifter progress towards treatments and cures for dementia. However, it remains hard for an academic with a good idea to spin that off to a company, especially compared with the situation in America. The Government must do more to promote the commercialisation of research as these companies become a vital part of the ecosystem. Large companies and academia can then be partnered in the innovative collaborations that the Government seek.
Research on the provision of care is equally important. Four out of five people with dementia live at home. We want to keep it that way and to ensure that they can live there safely for as long as possible. Research comes in many different forms, including the identification of what works. We know that dementia costs the UK £23 billion, but arguably that money is not being spent properly or efficiently. Prevention is key. Avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions is vital to ensuring that funding is used effectively and, more importantly, makes a huge improvement in quality of life. Researching best practice in care is essential. An economic case developed by the Alzheimer’s Society estimated that if just 5% of admissions to residential care were delayed for one year as a result of dementia-friendly communities, there would be a net saving of £55 million a year across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
There needs to be a change in the language we use when we talk about care. If we talk about weekly art lessons that are provided to help to improve cognitive function as therapy, rather than an activity, we could hope to see a change in attitude towards research and investment in this area. Many good ideas are having a positive impact in local communities. For example, Medway council, which covers part of my constituency, is promoting telecare as a means of supporting people with dementia, and there are lots of non-clinical treatments that could be further researched, such as the benefits of pets and petting animals for people with dementia, memory rooms and memory boxes. I have even heard of amazing innovative products such as wristbands that monitor someone’s usual actions so that they will detect if they have a fall. We need to consider all those things in the whole pod of research.
We should not forget to consider support for carers. Family carers of people with dementia save the economy £7 billion a year, but evidence shows that they struggle to do that, which can lead to avoidable crises in care, hospital admissions or early entry into care homes, all of which are very costly. The Dementia Action Alliance’s “Carers Call to Action” campaign, which I support, is calling for timely and tailored support for carers, whom I am sure we all agree are an important cog in the wheel of treating and providing for those with dementia.
On best practice, it is important that international collaboration includes the beneficial sharing of successes and failures. In utilising our resources, it is important that we do not duplicate unsuccessful investments and that we champion successful and effective progress. The summit should therefore ensure that all publicly funded dementia research data and results are made available, thereby allowing common factors in national research responses to be shared.
Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)
Before my hon. Friend moves deeply into the main subject of the debate, which is the G8 summit, does she agree that we need much greater public understanding of, and support for, those who are caring for people with dementia and those with the condition, which can strike not just elderly people, but younger people? Some of us remember a former and much-loved Member of this House who, while still an MP, suffered from the disease. This is something that we have to ram home to people.
Tracey Crouch
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. It is important to note that society has made much progress in the past 20 years and that dementia is not the taboo subject it perhaps used to be. We have changed how we think about it and now treat people with dementia much better, but we still need to get away from the idea of saying, “Nan’s gone a bit dotty.” We have to understand that something can be done about dementia and that proper care pathways exist to ensure that people can live well with it, and we have to support carers as best we can.
On the G8 summit, I turn to my final but no less important point: long-term strategies. The Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia for England has provided a welcome focus on the treatment and care of people living with dementia and the search for a cure, but there is a danger that the focus will be lost, especially as the initiative is not UK-wide but covers only England. Many countries have dementia strategies or brain bank initiatives, and the UK needs a new long-term strategy, because the current one is due to expire in 2014. I would be grateful if—not today but soon—the Minister could outline his plans to evaluate the national dementia strategy for England and tell the House when he will commit to a new strategy following the current strategy’s expiration next year. Notably, the US has a dementia strategy in place until 2025, which means that we could be left in the embarrassing situation of the UK Government leading the G8 in a discussion on dementia without a national long-term commitment comparable with that of many of their international partners.
In conclusion, it is fantastic that the UK Government, under the Prime Minister’s personal commitment, are using the G8 summit to champion a more collaborative approach to preventing, treating and curing dementia, but it is essential that the legacy of this summit goes further than the G8 and that the declaration and communiqué of the summit makes firm long-term commitments to the doubling of research funding, to sharing best practice, and to delivering an international ongoing collaboration on defeating this devastating disease, which affects so many people and their families.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Several hon. Members have indicated that they wish to speak, but we have only one hour remaining, so I shall impose a limit of six minutes on Back-Bench speeches.
Hazel Blears (Salford and Eccles) (Lab)
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), my colleague on the all-party group. It is also a great pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is my first opportunity to contribute to a debate under your chairmanship, and I would like to congratulate you on your election.
While I am handing out congratulations, I would like to congratulate the Prime Minister, too, on the personal commitment he has shown on dementia. [Interruption.] Credit where it is due. Those who have the presidency of the G8 have an opportunity to name a subject around which they would like to mobilise the international community. In playing his card at the G8, the Prime Minister has chosen dementia. I commend him for taking that action. I believe that international collaboration will be the way to achieve the next big leap forward, particularly on the research agenda. I support what the Prime Minister said at Prime Minister’s questions yesterday—that this issue is not a matter only for world leaders, important though they are; it is a matter for every single person in the community, whether they be a world leader, a health Minister or an ordinary citizen. Everybody has a role to play.
I shall start with the people who have dementia, along with their families and their carers. When we promote policy, do collaboration or talk about international research, we must constantly remind ourselves that the people with the disease and their carers and families are usually the most expert people in the system. Therefore, the services that we provide, the quality of care and the innovations we develop have to be shaped and guided by those people. We must empower them to make their voices heard in this debate. When we bring together our creativity, our imagination and the huge brain power in the research community, we must always bring to this issue, too, our own humanity. We must remember that people with dementia are valuable and loved human beings. If we can keep that at the forefront of our minds, we will make progress and be doing absolutely the right thing.
During Question Time yesterday I mentioned a lady called Joy Watson. I met her a little while ago. She is only 55, but she has early-onset dementia. Her family was devastated. When she went into shops, she might be a little confused over her change or what she needed to order, and the shops—and sometimes the customers—would be irritated with her, tutting and asking her to hurry up. She took to wearing a badge, which she designed herself, saying “I have got Alzheimer’s; please be patient with me”. She should not need to do that. Nowadays there is a scheme—I think it is called the purple angel scheme, and Joy is promoting it—so that people can wear a purple angel on their T-shirts as a means of raising awareness in every single part of our community.
In Salford, we have worked on this agenda for a number of years. We have just formed our dementia action alliance, with 30 organisations now committed to action plans to make us, I hope, the first dementia-friendly community in Greater Manchester. As well as health, education and housing bodies, we have the Lowry arts centre and our shopping centres included in the scheme. I think we have the first private-hire taxi firm in the country to be involved in this, Mainline Sevens taxis. It has trained 400 drivers and has an account system so that people with dementia do not have to fiddle with their money when they get in a taxi. All those groups are now dementia aware. That shows the really practical things that can be done.
On the research side, I am delighted to say that tomorrow, Salford university will launch the Salford Institute for Dementia, bringing together the faculty of health and social care with departments dealing with the built environment, computers, IT, arts and media—showing the multidisciplinary approach that will apply. That group will draw together and disseminate research on living well with dementia. I think this is a fabulous academic development.
Mrs Moon
I cannot say how much I admire my right hon. Friend’s championing of this cause. When it comes to universities, there are examples of research that have focused on ideas for prevention. We heard yesterday from Professor A. David Smith from Oxford about the vitamin B6 and B12 levels as a means of achieving this. Currently, it is not possible within the health service to have a test of homocysteine levels that would help to identify the problem. Could we not put that prevention in place; should we not be doing that now?
Hazel Blears
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I was horrified to learn yesterday that only 0.1% of research on dementia is spent on prevention. In every other area of public policy, such as education and social mobility, we are aware of the importance of investing in prevention, but in this area there is virtually no grant support, and that must change. I understand that in Norway and Sweden, tests for dementia are the norm. They are cheap once the investment has been made in the equipment, and the vitamin B12 research looks extremely promising. I hope that when the Minister responds he will say that that is something that our own national health service should take up.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Is the right hon. Lady aware of the excellent work that is being done in Plymouth, not just at the university but, much more important, by the local authority and the Royal Navy at Devonport? They are taking a lead by ensuring that all their employees are aware of the dementia issue, and that, if they need time off, they can have it in order to look after their relatives.
Hazel Blears
I am delighted that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned Plymouth, because it is one of the pioneers in this area. Plymouth, Torquay, Bradford and other towns all over the country want to ensure that dementia is not something shocking that we do not know how to deal with, and that everyone is dementia-friendly and aware. They are tackling the stigma, which is a huge issue. People do not like to talk about the fact that their families and friends are afflicted with this disease.
The search for a cure is essential. No one wants to have dementia, and everyone wants to be able to cure it. However, at the G8 I want just as much importance to be ascribed to research on the quality of care. The Evington initiative, which is backed by a number of business leaders including Terry Leahy—who used to chair Tesco—and Sir Marc Bolland are putting their weight behind that initiative. They are asking two questions. First, how can we change the system so that it is driven by users and carers rather than simply by clinicians and producers? Secondly, how can we establish a good, rigorous evidence base in relation to therapeutic interventions, quality and consistency of care and tackling stigma, so that clinical commissioning groups can be confident that the services they are commissioning actually work?
I think that the research is very exciting, but we are not likely to find a cure for 10, 15 or 20 years, and in the meantime 800,000 people are living with dementia. At present, there is virtually no evidence base relating to the quality of care. “Singing for the brain” is fantastic, but does it work, and if so, why does it work? Then there are the arts, the drama, and all the memory work that goes on. We need that rigorous evidence base, so that the commissioners can take the right packages off the shelf.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
Will my hon. Friend give way?
Hazel Blears
I am afraid that I do not have enough time.
We also need research on prevention. The Alzheimer’s Society is working on a system that helps care home staff to reduce the use of anti-psychotic drugs by intervening in other ways to deal with people’s behaviour. That system is being rolled out in 150 care homes, and has reduced the use of anti-psychotic drugs by 50%. It is saving money, and it is making a huge difference. The G8 presents us with a fabulous opportunity to press for further research. I do not want it to be a one-off: I hope that there will be another summit of this kind next year. I also hope that work will continue between now and the next summit. This issue is not going away—it will be with us for a long, long time—and it would be fabulous if we could secure that international collaboration.
I invite the Minister to visit our university institute after we have launched it tomorrow, so that he can observe the fabulous work that is being done there and, perhaps, meet some of the people in Salford who are taking a whole systems approach that I think will prove helpful.
Let me end by saying that we owe a duty to every single one of the people who have dementia or are caring for people with the condition. It is the worst thing in the world to lose the person with whom you once had a connection. We have an absolute duty to do whatever we can, here in the House and in our communities, to give those people support and help.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), who has spoken so well and done so much work on this subject along with her colleagues, my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow). All three major parties now have at least one significant dementia champion to raise this important issue. I know that the Minister will enjoy responding to the debate, because he has covered a number of debates on the subject before. Much has been said on dementia, and much action has been taken. The right hon. Lady was right to mention the Prime Minister’s initiative and his championing of this issue. Many people are suffering as a result of dementia, not only those suffering directly from the disease, and there is still no cure, so it remains a significant challenge for science and society.
I have just a few points to add to what has already been said. The Minister will recall that I led a debate recently in Westminster Hall on what was being done about dementia in Gloucestershire and on the ways in which I believed we had adopted best practice. However, a critical question is: do we really know what best practice is? How do we measure the quality of what is being done in our local hospitals and care services? How do we measure the contribution of organisations such as the Barnwood Trust, a mental health charity specialising in these conditions which we are lucky enough to have in our area?
As the right hon. Lady said, it would be useful if the Minister could share his thoughts on a guide to best practice, not only for commissioners—although I agree that that is important—but for MPs. Representatives of the Gloucestershire family of NHS services recently told me in a meeting that they had received an award for the care and services they provided for old people in general and for dementia sufferers in particular. That was terrific news—I am always delighted when people win an award—but it would be useful to know what we are doing best, and what is being done better in different areas, so that we can have a nice, easy frame of reference. People could then see whether their area offered a four-star or a five-star dementia service, for example, and we could assess how we might attain a higher standard if we did certain things differently.
Debbie Abrahams
Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that, in addition to building up the evidence base through randomised controlled trials that establish a causal relationship between therapies and outcomes, some kind of action-based research would be appropriate? Such research could be carried out and interventions could be offered and evaluated while providing the service at the same time. It would be a case of learning as we went along. Does he agree that we need different approaches because of the scale of the issue that we are facing?
Richard Graham
I think I agree with the hon. Lady. Different things need to be tried. Singing and music were mentioned earlier. In my mother’s case, they were the last things she was able to relate to and enjoy before Alzheimer’s closed over her. So I agree that different things are always worth trying, and that is where the charities can play a role as well.
My first question to the Minister is: could we have star ratings for dementia services and, if so, how would we identify and measure best practice? My second point relates to how we are using the Prime Minister’s initiative to get dementia on to the G8 summit agenda for the first time. We should work with other countries on this. A number of us have received briefings suggesting that the United States and France, among others, are also doing great things in dementia research. Should we not all be able to share our findings? Perhaps we could have what is known as a global inter-operative data sharing base, so that all the work being done by organisations such as Alzheimer’s Research UK could be shared, rather than being duplicated. Effort could then be spent on taking research forward, rather than replicating it.
The aim of trying to join up what organisations around the world are doing is a key reason for the Prime Minister getting this topic on to the G8 summit agenda, and I hope that the result will be an international plan involving more pooling of thinking, research and ideas. I sense that science is beginning to feel more confident about finding solutions to this ghastly disease, and if the G8 summit can give an enormous turbo-boost to pooling research and getting closer to finding solutions, the actions of the Prime Minister and the Government will have been worth while, not only for the 800,000 people in this country who have dementia today but for the many millions who will suffer in the future.
Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)
In my first speech in this House this year—I believe it was on 10 January when we debated dementia and mental health—I discussed my mother’s case. The debate was filled with passionate contributions from Members across the House, although I was particularly moved by the personal accounts from my hon. Friends the Members for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams).
I also spoke of my pride that a decade after my mother’s passing the city of Liverpool earmarked 2013 as the year in which it would focus efforts on dementia awareness and promote innovative approaches initiated by organisations in our city. Our work complements the findings of the report from the G8 summit on dementia. Right across the Liverpool city region, our health care providers, arts organisations and academic institutions have embraced a collaborative approach to increase awareness of dementia, early diagnosis and patient-friendly treatment, with the mission being to make dementia everybody’s business. I stand in this House proud and confident that Liverpool is well on its way towards creating dementia-friendly environments in workplaces, public areas and communities.
One of the most high-profile projects—the Prime Minister might like to bring it to the attention of G8 colleagues—is the National Museums Liverpool House of Memories project, which now has a staggering 1,000 participants. Since I spoke on the issue earlier in the year, the team, led by David Fleming, has developed its innovative approach even further, branching out into the housing sector, in partnership with local registered social landlords. In total, four north-west housing providers have joined together to fund a re-modelled initiative which has taken the House of Memories project—using art, dance, music and creativity—to 600 homes. That is set to be further expanded next year. I am pleased to report that the ambition of the House of Memories team knows no bounds. Despite our year of dementia finishing in just a few short weeks, the team already has an even more ambitious plan for 2014 to help dementia patients.
I made it clear in January that I did not see any reason why the project running in Liverpool could not be extended across every region of the UK, so it is particularly pleasing to be informed that the Minister’s Department has confirmed that £135,000 will be awarded to take the House of Memories project to the midlands region in March next year, and I thank him for that. As if that were not enough, the team are even developing an app for iPhones and iPads on behalf of, and working with, dementia sufferers, which will also be launched next spring.
The House of Memories is by no means the only successful project operational in Liverpool, so I make no apologies for bringing a number of other local initiatives to the attention of the House. The unique Sedgemoor specialist dementia support centre was opened in Norris Green, on the border of my constituency, in May, at a cost of £1.2 million. The centre features a high-tech, interactive 4D theatre, where people can immerse themselves in the sights, sounds and even the smells of the past, through old videos, cinema footage, photographs, music and even relevant scents, which trigger reaction and stimulate conversation.
There have been more highlights of Liverpool’s year of dementia. Everton in the Community, the community arm of Everton football club, is performing reminiscence work with Mersey Care. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) mentioned universities, and Liverpool Hope university is providing a dementia centre of excellence, which is a physical location where members of the public, clinical services, charities, businesses and third sector organisations get the chance to meet and share expertise.
I pay particular tribute to the React service in Liverpool, the personal care services, community support service and external day services. I also praise Age UK Liverpool, Telecare, Livability and CEDAS for the work they do. Discussions are at an advanced stage to refresh the city’s joint strategy for dementia and ensure that the dementia alliance is developed and fully operational for 2014.
I urge the Minister to spend time with me, if he is going to Salford, to see first hand the differences that we are making on Merseyside. The G8 summit on dementia gives us the opportunity to push for more research into a whole host of dementias, and highlights the innovative approaches to tackle the condition—and in that Liverpool leads the way.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
It is a great privilege to take part in this debate and to be presided over by you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the first time. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) on their tenacious pursuit of these issues and on ensuring that we have had two Back-Bench business debates on the subject in less than a year. That gives notice of the fact that this is an issue about which the House and its Members feel passionately and to which they want more attention paid.
Last Thursday, I took part in a local dementia forum in my constituency, which was organised by the Sutton Alzheimer’s Society. It brought together a range of organisations to listen to and engage with people who are experiencing dementia—either as carers or as sufferers who have the diagnosis and are living with its consequences. That was an incredibly powerful experience. At the heart of this issue is how we ensure that people have a good life and maintain good relationships, because dementia can rob them of that. We need to think about how we can ensure that people, whether they be a professional, a carer or someone who is working in another part of the public or private services, understand and are aware of the issues about dementia. We need to build a community that is more friendly towards those who suffer from dementia. Good communication is at the heart of that. The one message that all of us who were speakers at the event got from both the carers and the people with dementia was to slow down. We were gabbling and talking at great pace, because we were trying to get across too much in too little time. With just over three minutes left, I will not manage to achieve that requirement now.
I want to take a slightly different tack from the contributions we have heard so far and argue that the G8 summit on dementia needs to address the impact dementia will have on the development of low and middle-income nations across the planet. As Dr Margaret Chan, the director-general of the World Health Organisation, says:
“The need for long-term care for people with dementia strains health and social care systems, and budgets. The catastrophic cost of care drives millions of households below the poverty line. The overwhelming number of people whose lives are altered by dementia, combined with the staggering economic burden on families and nations, makes dementia a public health priority.”
That is why having a G8 summit on it is correct.
We are living through an extraordinary time in human history. A revolution is taking place on this planet, which is remaking societies, the state and so much that we have taken for granted. It is really a revolution in terms of human survival. We are living longer, which is something that we should celebrate. It is a triumph of human ingenuity that is all too often portrayed as some sort of disaster. It is not a disaster, but something that we should celebrate.
Let me put some numbers into my argument. In 2010 it was estimated that, across the world, 35.6 million people had Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. That number will increase to 66 million by 2015 and to 115 million by 2050. The majority of that increase will not fall in the developed world; it will be in low and middle-income countries where more than 70% of people with dementia will be living by 2050.
As I have said, the number of people with dementia in 2050 will rise to 115 million, but the number of people who will develop dementia worldwide between now and then is estimated to be 600 million, which is roughly one new case every four seconds. In the UK, the national dementia strategy, which, as we have heard, runs out next year, and the Prime Minister’s dementia challenge, on which I had the privilege of working when I was care Minister, recognise the challenge posed by dementia, that dementia is not a normal part of ageing and that concerted action is required.
The G8 summit requires a focus that is not just about the developed world’s research spend; it must also understand the impact of dementia elsewhere in the world.
Oliver Colvile
Is my right hon. Friend aware of the stigma of dementia in black and ethnic minority communities? I recently took part in an inquiry in which it became apparent that that is an issue.
Paul Burstow
The hon. Gentleman’s point is spot on and leads me on to my next point about an example of research in India. It is estimated that in 2010 there were 3.7 million people with dementia in India, which will rise to more than 14 million by 2050. Approximately half those people will be over 75 and almost 2 million will be over 90. There is a serious lack of awareness about the issues in low and middle-income countries, especially those in Africa. Almost three quarters of people with dementia will live in those countries and that is why I want to ensure that the Minister, as he feeds back into the process of preparing for the summit, will make sure that such issues are on the table.
Hazel Blears
The hon. Gentleman is bringing a new perspective to the debate and he has made me think about the commitments made on AIDS and HIV. We need only think how ambitious the world was in tackling HIV at a time when many of us thought that it was an irresolvable problem. The promises on antiretroviral drugs were hugely ambitious and the progress we have made has been tremendous. Will he join me in urging the Minister and Prime Minister to be just as ambitious on this agenda as we were on HIV/AIDS?
Paul Burstow
As a number of us have made clear, the global scale of the challenge is such that it requires the galvanisation of a global response. The summit is a unique opportunity to do that, but it must have the reach and ambition that the right hon. Lady is talking about. It could take as its model the successful work that has been done so far on HIV.
Although epidemiologists often say that the figures I am citing are undercounted, the disease is none the less regarded as the second-most burdensome chronic disease and, among all those with chronic non-communicable diseases, accounts for almost 12% of years lived with disability.
In most developing countries, the problem with dementia is hidden. I have mentioned India, and the “Dementia India Report 2010” was published by the Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India, helped partly by funding from the UK Alzheimer’s Society. It has provided invaluable insight into the prevalence of the disease and ways in which India can respond to the challenge.
Let me ask the Minister a couple of questions. The first is about the research spend. The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford asked about the ambition of doubling that spend every five years, but it is not good enough for just our Government to do that. We need other Governments to agree to the same thing at the G8 summit. We need to know how much is being spent in the G8 on such things. There is no published figure—that is extraordinary—and when I tried to find a figure for the debate, I could not. We need a baseline to know whether we are making progress.
This country’s leadership on such issues will be in doubt if we do not hear soon that the Government intend to have a new dementia strategy. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some indication of when that will take place. Finally, in having such an ambition on research, we need to learn from the journey that cancer has gone on. Cancer research has for many years had ambition, reach and strategy. We have an Institute of Cancer Research and it is time this country had the same for dementia. That could deliver such a big prize for all our citizens.
Huw Irranca-Davies (Ogmore) (Lab)
I am delighted to speak in this debate on behalf of many of my constituents from all areas who have asked me to attend, listen and contribute. I will focus in particular on Wales and Wales and the G8, as well as on the importance of collaboration, but I want to thank the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears), the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) and others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram), not only for securing the debate but for championing the cause continually over a number of years. I also join them in praising the Prime Minister for putting this front and centre of the G8 summit. It is a worthy ambition, but as the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam set out, doing so has raised aspirations over what will be delivered. I sometimes feel for the Minister because he repeatedly faces people saying that we must do more on treatment, care, prevention and research on many conditions, but putting dementia four square at the head of the Government’s ambitions for the G8 summit shows that there is a level of desire for some real outcomes, not least of which should be long-term strategy and the co-ordination of spending internationally to make the most of it and see what more can be put into the pot. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned the ambition. My right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles spoke about turning the spotlight on to AIDS and HIV in the 1980s and 1990s, which really did make an unprecedented step change because there was an international focus on treatment and care. Massive interventions were made in previous decades on cancer treatment, and they had the same effect. There is a desire across the international community, especially given the opportunity provided by the G8, to have that same impetus. It is not simply an issue of spending; it is an issue of real focus and relentless drive on everything from prevention to treatment, care and research.
In Wales more than 45,000 people now have dementia, and that figure is forecast to increase to almost 60,000 by 2021. Hon. Members may be interested to know that in Wales only 38.5% have received formal diagnosis of their condition. That is lower than in other parts of the UK, which is interesting. There is good work going on within Wales. The Welsh Government published back in 2011 the national dementia vision for Wales, setting out their commitment to supporting research. The Welsh Government have also pledged to support research in dementia cause, cure and care. They offer funding opportunities to researchers who want to undertake research into dementia.
In the light of my intervention on the Minister’s speech, what is he doing to ensure that knowledge is disseminated well not only internationally but in Wales and England and other regions of the UK, that best practice is shared, and that research collaboration is streamlined properly? What is being done to co-ordinate at a government level in different parts of the UK work on dementia priorities? It would be a tragedy in times of stretched spending if there was duplication and a waste of effort all the way from social care through to research and so on. Let us make sure that it is all lined up in the right way. That is what the G8 summit can do on the international agenda as well.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
I understand that around the world some $40 billion has been spent on dementia research, but all the drug trials have failed. The emphasis surely should be far more on prevention. Professor Smith, who was mentioned earlier, maintains that Alzheimer’s could be cut by a quarter. If he is right on that subject, that would mean massive savings on health care costs in Wales and across the rest of the country.
Huw Irranca-Davies
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, which was also touched on by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles. It is a startling fact that 0.1% of funding goes into prevention. Surely there has to be greater emphasis on that, because the outcomes of prevention are so beneficial.
I am sure that the Minister is aware of what is going on in Wales. The Welsh Government’s National Institute for Social Care and Health Research funds and manages the research activity in Wales. The total spend last year was £75.7 million, of which £3.54 million was spent on biomedical research project funding. Just over 15% of the budget was awarded to researchers working on projects directly relevant to neurology research, including mental health. The same organisation awarded the Wales dementias and neurodegenerative diseases research network £743,000 over five years for its research. It is about knowing what is going on not only in Wales and different parts of the UK, but internationally so that we can co-ordinate and make the optimum use of regional, national and international spend on prevention, care, treatment and research.
My final point—it is probably one for another debate—is that we cannot divorce the strategic matters from the operational ones, and that means looking at the huge stretch in social care. There are real and intense pressures on social care, and not just on resourcing, but on staffing, staffing expertise and the necessary reform of long-term social care funding. That is probably a subject for another day, but the reality is that there are pressures on the ground affecting many people with different types of dementia and their families. There is real anxiety.
Hazel Blears
I appreciate that the debate is about the G8, but does my hon. Friend share my concern that the integrated transformation fund, the £3.8 billion that is supposed to relieve some of those pressures, brings together resources that are already being spent by local government and the NHS, so it is not actually new funding? Perhaps the Minister will address that when he responds to the debate.
Huw Irranca-Davies
I share that concern and hope that the Minister will turn his attention to it briefly. It is a major concern for the organisations and individuals out there.
In conclusion, I commend the Prime Minister for taking this initiative forward with the G8. It is a golden opportunity. Let us not miss it. Let us reach our ambition and our aspiration.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I, too, congratulate the hon. Members who secured the debate on their relentless tenacity, because they always provide us with opportunities to talk about this incredibly important issue. I do not think that it is an exaggeration to say that it is one of the largest public health challenges facing the world in the 21st century.
Although I would love to take a few minutes to celebrate the work I have seen in my constituency, with constituents responding so positively to the Prime Minister’s challenge to come together as a community of health professionals, voluntary sector organisations and businesses to make it a very friendly place to live in, and to celebrate many of the improvements in the local NHS and care sector, I want to draw us back, because I will probably be the last Back-Bench Member to speak, to the particular challenges and opportunities that the G8 summit presents. I will recap on the aims of the summit, because it is very much about the research. They are to identify and agree new international approaches to dementia research; to help break down barriers within and between companies, researchers and clinicians; and to secure the type of collaboration and co-operation that he been mentioned so far.
I will focus on what more we can do on the science. The Government have committed to spending a lot more money, and we have heard about other countries committing considerable sums of money to research, but, as in so many other areas, it is about more than just the money. It will be vital at the summit to listen to the expert evidence that will be considered from clinicians, the pharmaceutical industry and researchers and to look at what the barriers are to better and more effective use of the funds available for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of dementia.
Steve Rotheram
The hon. Lady is of course absolutely right that the science is the most important part of this, but, as I mentioned, there are also non-pharmaceutical interventions that are equally important to people who are suffering until, I hope, we can find the cure that we would all like to see.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
Order. Hon. Members ought to note that if they wish to hear what the Minister and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman have to say about the debate, they should not take any further interventions.
Sarah Newton
I am a member of the Science and Technology Committee, and I am delighted that my Chairman, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller), is here and has intervened. I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to some excellent work that our Committee has been doing this year. I think that some of the reports we have published will help him to prepare for the summit. We undertook a very good investigation into clinical trials and also produced a report called “Bridging the valley of death”. Both reports highlighted a very significant issue facing research, not only in the UK but globally.
As Members will know, we have an absolutely world-class science base in our country. The main challenge facing it is to overcome regulatory environments, many of which are international, to enable it to take its first-class research across the valley of death and into the development of ways of diagnosing dementia and therapies for treating it. It is very important to learn the lessons from our very extensive inquiries to enable more of this research to be commercially developed in order to find its way into the marketplace.
Andrew Miller
Does the hon. Lady agree that it would be helpful if the Minister could revisit the Government’s response to our inquiry on clinical trials, because we could then be a world leader and show real leadership at the summit?
Sarah Newton
Only yesterday, we took evidence from Professor Collinge from University College London and Professor Ironside from Edinburgh, who are leaders in the field of degenerative brain disease. They provided us with even more compelling evidence of the increasing difficulties of getting from the research stage to being able to secure enough commitment from the pharmaceutical industry and other bodies that fund research into developing the science into diagnostic and therapeutic techniques. They reported that the pharmaceutical industry, which is a massive investor in research and its outcomes, is getting far more risk-averse and, as a result, is putting many more burdens on to the research of scientists in universities—burdens that they are not really capable of taking on board. The G8’s focus on getting the companies and clinicians, as well as researchers, around the table to look at the pathways from the science into scaleable, commercialised solutions is vital.
It is important that we do this not only in our own country but internationally, because most of the regulations are international. Where there is not international agreement, that in itself becomes a barrier to research and its commercialisation. The work done at the G8 will enable there to be much larger markets, meaning that very many more people will be helped and that money will flow into the research and make it more widely available.
The transcripts from our findings yesterday will be available in a couple of days’ time. That should give the Minister a good opportunity to look at the evidence we were given by those very eminent researchers, who are undertaking research into prions, as well as looking into developments on variant CJD, which is a form of dementia, and how that links to other types of dementia such as Alzheimer’s. We need that sort of joining up across the process to enable diagnostic and preventive procedures, and therapies, to be developed. All the various scientists—
Madam Deputy Speaker
Order. The hon. Lady heard me say that if Members wished to hear the Minister and the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman there should be no further interventions. She took a further intervention and she will have to conclude very quickly.
Sarah Newton
My last point is to urge the Minister to look to ensure at the G8 that the various scientists and the various disciplines work together.
Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)
I welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, as this is the first time I have spoken since you were elected. I also warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) on securing this really important debate. I am sorry that some Members have not had more of a chance to speak, because I know that they feel passionately about the subject.
Like other hon. Members, I welcome the G8 summit on dementia. It is important to be hosting the first summit dedicated to dementia when countries are facing so many other issues. It is also right because the ageing population, which includes an increasing number of people with dementia, is one of the biggest immediate and long-term challenges facing both this country and the world. Dementia already affects more than 800,000 people in the UK and that figure is set to rise to 2 million by 2050. It is estimated that more than 115 million people worldwide will be living with dementia in 40 years’ time.
Anyone whose family has experience of dementia will know how devastating the condition can be. It is therefore right that the G8 summit and the Prime Minister’s dementia challenge seek to boost national and international efforts on clinical research. Developing effective drugs and treatments is essential if we are to offer hope to people that something can be done about this terrible disease.
If we are going to address the challenge of dementia, we must face up to the equally important challenge of improving the quality of dementia care. We need to ensure that we do not neglect research into the support and services that aim to prevent the onset of dementia in the first place, which was something that many hon. Members spoke about. Although there is no certain way to prevent dementia, we know that a healthy lifestyle can lower people’s risk of getting not only dementia, but lots of other diseases, when they get older. Eating well, exercising regularly and stopping smoking may not grab the headlines in the same way as discovering a new job, nor attract research funding from institutions and companies, but ultimately they will be key to meeting the dementia challenge in the future. I hope that we will one day have a G8 summit on precisely those issues.
I want to focus my brief comments on the crucial matter of the quality of dementia care because, for my constituents and for people in my family and my friends’ families, the quality of care they receive, and the problems they have with it, represent the biggest challenge. People with dementia and their family carers are clear about what makes good dementia care. They want joined-up services and support so that they do not have to battle different parts of the system. They want care that is personalised to their individual needs. The vast majority of people with dementia want to stay living independently in their own homes for as long as possible, and families want to help to look after their loved ones as long as they get the right help and support.
Like many hon. Members, I have seen lots of inspiring examples of people working to improve care for people with dementia: day centres that provide stimulating activities such as gardening, cooking, singing and music; care homes that understand that they have to ask the families of people with severe dementia what kind of care and support they need, because those people’s memory has been taken from them; hospitals that involve families by asking them what food and activities their relative wants and needs; and, crucially, higher education institutions such as the university of Worcester, which I recently visited and is transforming staff training by getting patients to interview people who want to be student nurses, and then to develop and actually give the course, because how can NHS and social care staff know what dementia patients really need if they have not been trained in the first place?
Our loved ones will not get the quality of care we all want for them within a malnourished and depleted social care system. In fact, I think that the growing crisis in social care is the biggest threat to people suffering from dementia and the largest challenge we face. Council budgets have been under pressure for many years, but almost £2 billion has been cut from local authority budgets for older people’s social care since the Government came to power. Fewer people are getting the up-front care that they need to stay living at home. Home care visits have been shortened to barely 15 minutes, which is not enough time to get a vulnerable person with dementia up, washed, dressed and fed.
Care workers do an incredibly important job, but they are struggling. They are not paid even the minimum wage, let alone the living wage, and they are employed on zero-hours contracts. That is bad not just for people with dementia, but for taxpayers, because if those with dementia do not get the help and care they need so that they can live at home, they end up in residential or hospital care, which costs taxpayers more.
I want to ask about the Government’s plans because it is important that we are clear about them. I am sure that the Minister will talk about their plan to integrate services, but I want to echo a point made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Salford and Eccles. The integration transformation fund is not new money, but existing resources of £1.9 billion from clinical commission groups, with the rest coming from existing local council budgets. I think that £3.8 billion is a really unambitious amount of funding in the context of a total NHS and social care budget of £120 billion. We need the far bigger and bolder response of the full integration of NHS and social care budgets if we are to meet the challenge of our ageing population and dementia.
The G8 summit and the Prime Minister’s dementia challenge are welcome—they build on the previous Government’s approach—but the challenge needs to focus on improving the quality of care and research into prevention. I echo the important point made by hon. Members about the need for a commitment to renew the previous Government’s national dementia challenge, which expires at the end of next year, and the Prime Minister’s dementia challenge, which ends in 2015. I hope that the Minister will give such a commitment so that we can have the long-term strategy across all areas that we desperately need.
The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I offer you my congratulations on your election, as other hon. Members have.
I find myself in a bit of an invidious situation, because it will be impossible for me to do justice to this very impressive debate in which hon. Members on both sides of the House made impassioned and effective speeches. However, I undertake to write to them to ensure that I pick up all their points. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) on her excellent introduction to the debate, as well as on securing it in the first place.
I have a few scatter-gun points. I would be absolutely delighted to go to Salford. I think that I am already committed to going to see the fantastic House of Memories in Liverpool, so it would be good to spend time in Salford with the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and in Liverpool with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram). I was interested to hear about the Science and Technology Committee’s impressive work and conclusions, which I clearly need to look at in more detail.
It is good to have real consensus in the House about the challenge that we face and what we need to do. There has rightly been praise from both sides for the Prime Minister’s identification of dementia as something that deserves his particular attention and as a matter for a summit this December during our presidency of the G8. The summit will elevate the whole issue to the global stage in just the right way.
The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles was absolutely right to say that, in everything we do, people with dementia and their families ought to be absolutely first and foremost in our minds. It is critical to listen to them and to ensure that we act on their needs.
Someone around the world is diagnosed with dementia every four seconds. More than 35 million people have it, and as people live longer than ever, that number is set to double every 20 years. Some 58% of those people live in low and middle-income countries, and the proportion is projected to rise to 71% by 2050. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) was absolutely right to identify the challenge in the developing world. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles was right that dementia needs to be seen as something that requires real ambition on the same scale as that on HIV/AIDS.
Especially during the later stages of dementia, when people’s behaviour can be challenging and extraordinarily distressing for their loved ones, families face a huge emotional and practical burden. We cannot ignore the pressure on our health and care system. Incidentally, the £3.8 billion fund that has been mentioned comes from both the health system and care systems. The intention is to consolidate resources as effectively as possible. Our approach represents a clear shift from repair to prevention, and all hon. Members who spoke recognised the importance of focusing on prevention.
The shadow Minister says that she wants more ambition. When I met adult social care directors, I was struck by how many were considering pooling the whole of their budgets—[Interruption.] I do not know whether the shadow Minister can hear what I am saying with the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) sitting by her side, but my point is that there is a great deal of ambition out there.
Dementia is a major priority for the Government. The Prime Minister launched his challenge last year and he is now getting the G8 to focus on the condition. As part of our G8 presidency, the UK is hosting a summit on 11 December that will bring together health and science Ministers, the OECD, the World Health Organisation, expert researchers, pharmaceutical leaders and representatives of civil society.
There are short, medium and long-term priorities for dealing with dementia, and the first priority is to prevent it, as hon. Members have said. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) intervened to make a point about the importance of understanding risk factors. There is much more that we can do to prevent dementia in the first place, so gaining that understanding is critical.
The second priority is to delay the onset of symptoms and to maintain cognitive function. The third is to improve care and support for people who are affected by dementia and their carers. The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford made that point strongly and spoke about the value of telecare in helping people to remain independent. With first-class care and medical treatment, someone with dementia can still find purpose and pleasure in life, as can their loved ones, which is very important.
Research and innovation are critical, so I am pleased that biopharmaceuticals and other industries will be represented at the G8 summit. We need to explore how we can align our research priorities and stimulate innovation in all sectors. By the end of the summit, I hope that we will have reached two agreements: a declaration that demonstrates the extent of our shared commitment and a communiqué that outlines a plan for global action. We want to ensure that there is a legacy and that work continues beyond the summit. This must be the start, not the end. We are working with the WHO, the OECD and other partners to develop the plan.
The summit is an enormous opportunity to pool global resources and bring them to bear on the extraordinary challenge that we face. Together, I think that we can make a real difference.
Tracey Crouch
We have had a fantastic debate, but I would expect nothing less, given that this is the second debate that we have had on dementia in the Chamber. Members’ contributions on the subject, which is important to our constituents, are always incredibly passionate and varied.
The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) put it much better than I could by saying that we must always remember that there is a person at the centre of the debate. When we talk about global economic figures, we are talking about how we can best help somebody who is suffering from this debilitating, devastating disease and their family who are there to support them.
The Minister has heard the passion of the Members who spoke today. They have demonstrated how important this issue is to our constituents, communities and society. They have also set out the economic factors. He should go back to his Department and think carefully about how the UK should take forward its dementia strategy, which is still not forthcoming beyond 2014. We must be clear that being a global leader on this issue is about not only holding a G8 summit, but practising what we are saying back at home. The Prime Minister has the support of the House in taking this matter to the G8 summit and we all wish him well as he does so.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the G8 summit on dementia.
Mix 96 (Digital Radio Switchover)
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)
I am grateful, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to raise the subject of what is in fact our local radio station, Mix 96, and the digital switchover. As a Bucks Member of Parliament it is good to have the opportunity to raise with a colleague such as you an issue that is not HS2, but concerns a successful local business that provides news and information, supports local charities, promotes local businesses, advertises job vacancies, and even lists school closures during the winter—oh, and before I forget, it also plays great music.
Mix 96 approached me because it is concerned about the switchover. We all know that small local stations, whether licensed by Ofcom as commercial or community stations, lie at the heart of communities up and down the country and hold a special place in the hearts of millions of consumers. However, local radio cannot stand apart from consumer trends. It is worth remembering that, although levels of music listening have never been greater, a large proportion of the listening done by those consumers who are most attractive to advertisers is not done through radio—whether BBC, commercial, analogue or digital— but is instead selected from thousands of people’s own MP3 tracks, or from an even bigger library ready to stream courtesy of programmes such as Spotify.
There is no doubt that the market is changing, and although radio still plays a central role in that, and indeed remains the most personal of media, in some cases people are moving from analogue to digital—whether or not to digital audio broadcasting—to listening online or through smartphone apps. Understandably, that has left small local stations such as Mix 96 feeling worried.
Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
I am delighted that my right hon. Friend has secured this debate. Is she aware of the local radio station, KLFM, in my constituency that has been doing a phenomenal job? It is the local radio station to listen to across my constituency in factories and places of work. Does she agree that these changes should be consumer-led, and that there should be an independent analysis of the cost?
Mrs Gillan
My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point, and I will come to that later in my speech. I am glad to welcome the Minister for Europe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington) to the Front Bench. His constituency is within the footprint of Mix 96 and he is keen to support this debate.
For a national station, the cost of broadcasting in DAB need not be very different from broadcasting in analogue. For a small local station, however, with a single FM transmitter, the cost of broadcasting on a local DAB multiplex with half a dozen transmitters could well be unaffordable, especially while it is still also paying to broadcast on FM. If small stations made that leap to DAB, they would invariably find that they were paying for coverage far greater than they had on FM, whether they wanted it or not. DAB is fundamentally the wrong platform for genuinely local radio stations such as Mix 96, which is a hugely popular and commercially successful station. The geographical areas that DAB multiplexes cover are significantly greater—often two to 10 times greater—than those areas covered by many local FM-operated stations.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
I would be grateful if I could join the queue to plug a local radio station. Splash FM serves the Worthing part of the coastal area, and the point my right hon. Friend has made about increasing geographical coverage would mean that it would pay a lot of money to broadcast to the sea, or perhaps to France. That is of no benefit to my constituents or local people who want the excellent local news and entertainment that local radio stations such as Splash FM provide.
Mrs Gillan
I am glad my hon. Friend had the opportunity to intervene, and I hope that several other colleagues will do so because they feel so passionately about the issue. Sadly, I am old enough to remember Radio Caroline, when broadcasting to the sea was an important part of building the culture of listening to the radio. We take my hon. Friend’s point, however, because from the perspective of Splash FM, that money would effectively be wasted.
As hon. Members know, the role played by local radio stations is a considerable one. As things stand, the Government are forcing many of them to change their editorial areas out of all recognition. It strikes me that forcing a breaking of that editorial link between the local community and its radio station flies in the face of the Government’s localism and big society agenda.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing this important debate. As she rightly says, independent radio stations such as Minster FM play an important role in our local communities. We need that platform to allow local community radio stations to continue, because it must be about listener choice.
Mrs Gillan
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. That an Adjournment debate at 5 o’clock on a Thursday afternoon has attracted so many hon. Members, when, to be fair, most of our colleagues will be in their cars listening to their radio stations, is a measure of how popular such stations are.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. She is right that many of our colleagues would like to be here to contribute but cannot because they are driving to their constituencies. Does she agree that it would be great if the Minister could agree to meet a wider group of colleagues who would like to stick up for stations such as—
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
Name your station!
Mrs Gillan
The Minister’s sedentary intervention to challenge my hon. Friend to name her station means that he is not entirely unaware of the commercial opportunities presented by the debate. It is a shame that more of our colleagues cannot take advantage of it, but, sadly, such debates come at the end of the day in the House. The fact that it is taking place at drive time because we finish so early on a Thursday is a happy occurrence.
Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)
The right hon. Lady mentions drive time. Sun FM in Sunderland, my local radio station, gives out the best traffic and travel news. Local stations provide another service during bad weather: they let us know whether our schools will be open or closed. That information will be unavailable from national radio stations.
Mrs Gillan
I agree entirely with the hon. Lady. We are coming up to the winter months. That service is invaluable. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury will attest, for parents taking children to schools in Buckinghamshire, knowing when schools are open or closed is an essential service.
Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con)
I do not wish to buck the trend. My local radio station, High Peak Radio, is vital for such information, particularly as winter approaches. We do not have a digital signal in the High Peak—I could go on at great length about that to the Minister. If people move to DAB, FM will be forgotten. It will still be there, but people will have their radios on DAB and not flick back to FM to listen to their local station, and local stations will be starved out, because radios do not have remote controls for channel flicking like televisions do.
Mrs Gillan
My hon. Friend makes a good point. The Minister should take on board the fact that, so far, DAB has not been designed with small stations and their communities in mind.
Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con)
I am not sure whether my right hon. Friend can pick up MKFM in her part of Buckinghamshire. Despite its name, it broadcasts on DAB. It is an excellent local community station that aspires to broadcast on FM. I hope that the Minister is able to give some clarity on the timetable for digital switchover, so that stations such as MKFM can plan for the future with certainty.
Mrs Gillan
I was pleased that, early this year, the Minister provided certainty to some small stations by listing those that would be permitted to stay on FM. That removes any requirement for those stations to pay to broadcast on FM and DAB, but a cost-effective digital solution for small stations still needs to be identified. Otherwise, the stations hon. Members have mentioned could face extinction, because advertisers might, at some point, believe that it is not worth paying to reach those who continue to listen to FM stations.
Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing the debate. Given the size of my constituency, I have two local radio stations to plug: The Bay covers Morecambe bay and Radio Wave in Fleetwood covers the Fylde coast. What happened to the Conservative principle of gradualism? Why this sudden move when, as I understand it, only 15% of radios are digital and the market has gone down recently?
Mrs Gillan
We can always prove everything with statistics, but that statistic—that the rate of purchase of digital radios has decreased—was certainly put to me and there is no doubt about that. At the same time, I want to acknowledge how advanced the good companies are that provide digital technology services: I think that there are British components in 45% of digital broadcasting devices around the world. However, the hon. Gentleman is right.
Even while FM remains commercially viable, there is a worrying lack of certainty from Ofcom on how long those stations’ analogue licences would last. It is widely expected that the Minister will soon confirm—I have no idea whether he will—the switchover to digital radio, but he needs to address seriously the concerns of our local stations. Although they will not be required to upgrade from FM to DAB, they need a cost-effective option to do so when the time is right for them.
A private company, with the blessing of Ofcom, ran a recent trial on a proposed DAB solution for small stations, but that did not provide a proven solution for local broadcasters such as Mix 96. I hope, therefore, that the Minister is not going to rely on that example to bolster his case. Perhaps he could encourage Ofcom to fund further trials as soon as possible, as I understand that there are frequency, software, regulatory and signal delivery issues that make the solution from that trial a poor and inadequate replacement.
The Minister should ask Ofcom to provide small stations with greater certainty regarding the duration of their FM licences. If the Minister can assuage the concerns of small stations such as Mix 96 and say that there will be a cost-effective place for them in radio’s digital future, he can provide the certainty on digital radio switchover that the industry as a whole is looking for. It is important that the transition to digital is, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said, consumer-led and carefully managed. If it is mishandled by his Department, he will incur the anger of consumers who will suddenly find that they will have to find hundreds of pounds to upgrade their car radios and household sets simply to listen to the radio.
Two out of three radios purchased in the UK today are not DAB and less than 10% of vehicles have a DAB radio. As 21% of radio listening happens in cars, and, as it stands, DAB is not available even on smartphones or mobile phones in the UK, a lot of people would be affected by the plans as presently proposed. As it is, I understand that the Minister receives more complaints about DAB radio than anything else, while the existing FM radio transmission system achieves 99% UK population coverage and is both robust and cost effective. I understand that there is no proposed alternative use for the FM radio spectrum. There is, therefore, no digital dividend to be gained by the Government. I hope the Minister will address that point.
I want to make it clear that this is not about cancelling the digital programme for radio; it is about finding a solution that protects and accommodates our small local radio stations. Many more points could be made, but I hope that the Minister now has the flavour of a widespread problem and will respond with positive news for Splash FM, Minster FM, KLFM, Sun FM, Pirate FM, High Peak Radio, MKFM, The Bay, Radio Wave—I hope I have not missed anybody’s radio station—and our very own Mix 96 and all their loyal listeners, our constituents and all my colleagues who have come here today to represent similar views from around the country. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
I am grateful for the chance to respond to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan). It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Speaker, given your strong interest in Mix 96, and as we are debating a digital subject, I hope you will not take it amiss if I say how brilliant your speech was yesterday to the Hansard Society in your approach to digital politics in the 21st century. I also welcome to the Front Bench the Minister for Europe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), who also represents Mix 96. Sadly, he must remain silent, but I suspect, were he able to speak, he would echo many of the views of my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham.
I thank others who have contributed: my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy),representing Minster FM; my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Mr Bellingham), representing KLFM; my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), representing Splash FM; my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), representing Pirate FM; the hon. Member for Washington and Sunderland West (Mrs Hodgson), representing Sun FM; my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham), representing High Peak radio; my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart), representing MKFM; and my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw), representing The Bay and Radio Wave; and me, representing Jack FM.
I am delighted to be here talking about this subject. Whenever we debate local newspapers, hon. Members get a chance to plug theirs, and I suspect that this debate will be played on local radio stations up and down the land. I think, however, that my right hon. Friend slightly missed a trick. I thought she was going to suggest that we scrap High Speed 2 and spend all the money on rolling out digital radio, but I am pleased—
Mrs Gillan
I encourage the Minister for Europe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), not to remain silent on the subject of HS2, but to inform the Minister of our views in Buckinghamshire about that particular project. Nevertheless, I thank my hon. Friend for his courtesy and for taking this matter very seriously, because these radio stations are close to all our hearts.
Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)
The Minister briefly mentioned local newspapers, and I would like to add that KMFM, run by the Kent Messenger Group, is incredibly concerned about these proposals, not least with its relationships with advertisers and commercial interests being as difficult as they are.
Mr Vaizey
The point is taken.
I take this issue very seriously, being a passionate radio listener myself. We have 1 billion hours of radio listening a week, and it was clear to me when I became Minister that people took their radio listening very seriously; they are passionate about it. The last Government left us with an intent to get to radio switchover, but no plan to reach it. The key criterion was that digital radio’s share of the listening figures should be at least 50% before we set out the timetable for switchover. I made it clear in my first speech on this subject as Minister that I would be led by the consumer, and that is what I mean when I say I agree with the critique of digital radio by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham. I will do nothing on switchover unless I am bringing radio listeners with me.
To get to a stage where we can consider switchover, we have put together a digital radio action plan, ably led by Digital Radio UK and its superb chief executive, Ford Ennals, and his team, including, in particular, Jane Ostler and Laurence Harrison. Substantial progress has been made. I note what my right hon. Friend said about wanting not to scrap digital radio, but to support its roll-out, while also securing a future for local radio stations. I will come to local radio in a moment, but first I will update her on our progress.
We have taken local radio coverage, be it for local BBC stations or commercial stations, to about 72% and national coverage—effectively BBC radio stations 1 to 5—up to 94%, and this year we launched commercial radio digital services in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, roughly half of all new cars, which are vital to this, have digital installed as standard, and in the last year almost 900,000 cars sold had digital radio in them.
This is a good news story for the UK economy, too. We account for about 50% of the global digital radio market. That means real opportunities for British businesses such as Roberts, Revo and Pure—in Kings Langley, not far from my right hon. Friend’s constituency.
It is worth pointing out that we are not alone, and the Minister for Europe will take an interest in what I have to say. Norway and Denmark have already set dates for switchover—2017 and 2019 respectively—and there has been more progress following the launch of national digital services in Germany in 2011 and the Netherlands this year, which has a target switchover date of 2023. Other European markets, including Italy, France, Poland, Sweden, Austria and the Czech Republic are also looking into it. Digital radio is now reaching the Asia Pacific region, where Australia is taking a lead and DAB penetration has already reached 16%.
Andrew Bingham
As chairman of the all-party group on commercial radio, I am greatly interested in this debate and to hear about digital radio being extended to all the good burghers of Europe, but I would like to make a plea to have it in High Peak, which has very little in the way of a digital radio signal at all.
Mr Vaizey
That brings me neatly on to my next point. I am due to make a major speech about the future of digital radio in the middle of December, when I hope to address particular concerns about coverage. Let me repeat, however, that when it comes to the timetable and the setting of dates, we have always been clear that these will be led by the radio listener. There will be no switchover until the majority of listening is digital. It is clear that we are not there yet, and it will certainly not happen within the time frame that concerns my right hon. Friend. While good progress has been made, with the number of adults with access to a DAB digital radio up 10% year on year and places like London reaching 40%, we need to make more progress.
Let me deal with what my right hon. Friend said about Mix 96 and what other hon. Members have said about their own local commercial and community stations. I am a huge fan of local commercial and community radio. In fact, community radio was brought into being by the last Government; I think it has been a massive success story, as are independent local radio stations. Ofcom’s research shows that local radio still holds value for listeners: it is important and valued. Although some measures have allowed greater networking between local radio stations, we still require local programming both at peak time and outside it. Mix 96 is part of the larger radio group. In fact, it is listed as one of the100 best companies to work for by The Sunday Times. Its concerns are well known to us, and they come not just from UKRD, but from UTV and others.
As for securing a digital future for local commercial and community stations, let me first make it clear that we have never said that we require small stations to go over to digital. We have always said that if and when there is a switchover, we would maintain their presence on FM. It is also true that FM can work in tandem with DAB, as AM has with FM for many years. Many of the manufacturers of DAB radios have agreed a minimum specification, which includes FM. However, I take on board the point—I think it was made by my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Andrew Bingham), who talked about remote-controlled radios—that even where we have an FM-DAB station, switching between FM and DAB can be complicated. We are going to see more sets that switch seamlessly as the FM and DAB buttons are pressed, but that does not mean that we do not have to look for a potential solution for local commercial radio to get on to DAB at a cost it can afford.
Mrs Hodgson
The Minister mentioned that about 50% of new cars have DAB digital radios fitted as standard. Is he aware, however, that the figure for cars currently on the road is only about 5%? Irrespective of whether the facility for switching between DAB and FM happens, it would not help any of the cars currently on the road.
Mr Vaizey
I totally understand the hon. Lady’s point. First, as the timetable moves towards full coverage of digital radio, we will see what is known as the car park being refreshed over a number of years. It is also the case that the ability to convert an FM radio in a car with a digital converter is becoming much easier and cheaper. Technology will have a solution, but I take her point.
Let me say something about the business of transferring community and local commercial radio to DAB. I said to my officials, and to Ofcom, that I wanted to find a cost-effective route to digital broadcasting for our local stations. Ofcom has made progress—to which my right hon. Friend alluded, although she rightly pointed out that this was an early initiative and that more work needed to be done. It has developed a new approach to small-scale, low-power digital transmission, using open-source software which makes it possible to get on to the local multiplex using an existing FM antenna. That approach was developed initially by Rashid Mustapha, an engineer working at Ofcom, and it must be a brilliant solution, because I do not normally have an opportunity to name people who work at Ofcom during a debate. It has been tested in Brighton with the support of Daniel Nathan of Juice FM. The initial results are promising, and I hope that smaller stations that are enthusiastic about digital will get behind the work.
Mrs Gillan
As the Minister knows, we now use new technology even in the Chamber. I have just received a tweet which says:
“Please mention community radio who have no chance of affording digital transmission costs…never mind the listener.”
Perhaps the Minister could take up that point.
Mr Vaizey
This is almost unheard of, but I have left my mobile phone in my office, so I have not been able to keep up with those who have been tweeting on the debate. However, I advise the tweeter who tweeted to use a piece of old technology called the ear to listen to what I have to say.
I have already mentioned community radio about eight times today. I have said again and again that I am a fan of both community and local independent commercial radio. It is incredibly difficult to run a successful local independent radio station. The people who run them are not rolling in money, or printing money; even those who run local commercial stations are almost running a community service. I met a man who runs one of those stations in Manchester, and he said that he found it tough going. I recently visited a community radio station in Swindon, which is supported by hundreds of volunteers and which makes a huge and vital contribution to the community there. I give equal weight to community radio and local commercial radio in my search for a solution.The key is the FM antenna, which those radio stations will have because they broadcast on FM, along with the ability to use software to convert it to a digital antenna.
I have taken the debate at a gallop because I was not sure whether I would have enough time both to get my jokes in and to respond to the points made by my right hon. Friend. Let me now take up the offer from my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth. If the meeting that she proposes will be as good-natured and well informed as this debate, I relish the prospect. We might even find time to meet—along with Members in all parts of the House, I should add—on a Friday, when the House is debating European matters.
I am a fan of digital radio, and I think that it is the future, but my criteria have always been about coverage. We want digital radio to have the same coverage as FM. This is about the consumer, otherwise known as the radio listener. I want to bring the listeners with us, so that they will effectively have converted themselves to digital radio. That means cheap digital radios, which are now on the market. It means cheap car conversions, which are becoming cheaper all the time. It means digital radios being fitted as standard in new cars. It means good content, like that of Radio 6 Music, the first digital radio station to reach more than 1 million listeners. Those are our criteria.
We will not be pushed into a switchover date; we will not get ahead of the radio listener; and we will continue to listen to well-informed, passionate colleagues such as my right hon. Friend, to whom I am grateful for calling this excellent debate.
Question put and agreed to.
Trafficking in the Sinai Desert
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Mental Health (Police Procedures)
(11 years ago)
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Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Mrs Madeleine Moon (Bridgend) (Lab)
I look forward to this debate under your excellent chairmanship, Mr Brady. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for finding the time for this debate on a most important subject and I am pleased to see the interest, that the turnout here today shows.
The poor quality of life and of the services available to people struggling to live with mental ill health has been the subject of previous debates in the House. This debate relates to police involvement with people with mental ill health, particularly during times of mental health crisis. Mental health crisis, as defined by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, is
“when the mind is at melting point”.
It may involve an immediate risk of self-harm or suicide, extreme anxiety, panic attacks or a psychotic episode. How we treat the most vulnerable in society lies at the heart of our values. We made a decision not to hide away the sick and disabled, as we had hidden them away in the past in asylums and institutions, but we still have a long way to go in granting them equal status in society and equal access to justice.
The Mind report “At risk, yet dismissed” shows that those who suffer from mental ill health are three times more likely to be victims of crime. Shockingly, 50% of people with some form of mental ill health have experienced a crime in the past year, and severely ill women with mental ill health are 10 times more likely to have been assaulted. Crimes are less likely to be reported and prosecuted, because people with mental ill health fear being dismissed or disbelieved. Sadly, the evidence shows that more often than not they are. How does the Minister plan to improve police understanding of mental ill health and ensure more accurate recording of such crimes, and will he give a commitment to greater investigation and prosecution for such offences?
Another reason for not reporting is fear of police powers in relation to mental ill health. Too often, between 5 pm and 9 am during the week, at weekends and on bank holidays, police officers are the only first responders available in a mental health crisis, despite the fact that they lack the medical knowledge, skills and training to resolve and manage the crisis. They respond not because there is a real and immediate threat to members of the public, but because mental health services are understaffed, under-resourced and overstretched, and lack facilities.
For example, Miss P, who is 23 and a size 8, is a sweet, loving young girl who has suffered mental ill health for most of her life. She finds it difficult to build relationships and she is lousy at keeping appointments. She does not drink alcohol, except when she is in mental health crisis, and when she does, she turns into a violent and abusive person. Local mental health services concede that she needs a specialist placement, but they cannot find one. In the past five years, police have been called to 130 incidents and attended court to give evidence for 81 offences, resulting in 18 terms of imprisonment. The gaps between her prison sentences are becoming briefer—days, not weeks—and her self-harming and suicide attempts are escalating. The cost to that young girl, her family, the police, the courts, the probation service and the Prison Service is huge. I am told that it approaches £1 million, all for one young girl.
When the Minister sums up, I hope he will address this critical question: how much longer will we expect our police services to process vulnerable people through the criminal justice system due to mental health, underfunding and failures?
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) and the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) on securing this debate. My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that, as a result of the work done by her and others, the Select Committee on Home Affairs will be looking into this issue, with a possible report next summer.
Will my hon. Friend comment on the study by Nottingham university, published in May this year, which shows that 56% of custody officers suffer from depression and anxiety? It is not just the victims of crime, but the officers themselves. Is it not right that the new College of Policing should carefully consider the issue of training?
Mrs Moon
As always, my right hon. Friend makes excellent information available to the House. I am delighted to hear of the study to be made next year by his Committee, which is highly regarded across the House. He is right to focus on mental ill health among police. It is little surprise, given the amount and range of incidents with which we require them to deal. That is why we must ensure that the police are called to attend only incidents that they can deal with and that they have the skills and capability to manage, so they do not go home at the end of their shift feeling guilty and bereft about an incident that they may perceive they dealt with badly. My right hon. Friend made a most helpful intervention, and I thank him.
The Centre for Mental Health states that police are the first point of contact for a person in mental health crisis and that up to 15% of police incidents have a mental health dimension. Other people have told me that mental health interventions occupy up to 30% of police time. The Royal College of Psychiatrists recognises that in some areas police cells are the routine place of safety, under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, when a mental health crisis requires urgent assessment and management. Many of those detained come from socially deprived backgrounds, and some black and minority ethnic groups are over-represented.
The Royal College reports considerable geographic variation in the use of police cells. During 2012-13, five police areas recorded more than 500 uses of police-based section 136 places of safety, while four areas recorded 10 or fewer uses, and one had zero. The difference was that the latter areas had better health-based services and facilities. Will the Minister undertake to talk with the Department of Health about the urgent need for commissioning boards to provide an adequate number of staffed health-based places of safety in every part of the country? At present, 36% of all places of safety under section 136 are thought to involve police custody. In 2011-12, an estimated 8,000 to 11,000 orders were made, with 347 involving under-18s. Will the Minister ensure that accurate figures on how often and in what circumstances police officers are called to deal with mental health crises are available, so that we can get a clear picture of the problem?
People held by police under section 136 are, as I have said, the most acutely vulnerable. One study found that in 81% of cases involving police-based places of safety, the person was self-harming or suicidal. The Independent Police Complaints Commission found that 35% of deaths in police custody involve people with mental ill health. Alarming reports from Inquest show that a number of those deaths are linked to police restraint techniques, and that 65 people took their lives within two days of leaving a police place of safety. Between 20% and 30% of people held on section 136 detentions in police cells were subsequently sectioned.
The impact on time and costs associated with police engagement in mental ill health has never been calculated accurately, but it is clear that, in a variety of ways, health service costs are being passed to the police services. It is common for police officers taking people in mental health crisis to accident and emergency or medical-based places of safety for an assessment to be told, “There’s no bed available”, “The person is too drunk”, “They are under the influence of drugs”, “They are aggressive”, “They are a child”, or, “They have a learning disability”, all of which condemn that person in crisis to a night in police custody. How much longer can we allow these informal exclusion criteria around drugs, alcohol, aggression, children and learning disabilities to continue?
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making all the points that are in my notes—although I was intending not to speak in the debate, but merely to intervene. That is exactly what local police officers have said to me. They feel uncomfortable about the police having to perform that role and becoming the place of safety of last resort. Several parents of adult sons who can be difficult and dangerous have come to me. They are reluctant to call for help when they feel that they are under threat or that their son may threaten other people, because they do not want them to be in the police system—they do not want to criminalise them— but they know that there is nowhere else they can refer them to.
Mrs Moon
I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She makes an excellent case for ensuring that crisis intervention teams are available with the skills and capability to understand and manage mental health problems. These are not the skills that we provide our police officers with; this is the skills base that we provide our mental health nursing professionals with, which is why specialist crisis teams in mental health services must be expanded and made generally available.
Places of safety in bridewells remove police staff from the front line, as they supervise and monitor vulnerable, at-risk individuals and arrange mental health assessments. The Health and Social Care Information Centre found that, even where a place of safety was health based, in 74% of cases transportation was provided by police, not the ambulance service. The police were providing an ambulance/taxi service.
More than 40,500 patients absconded from mental health units in the past five years. Again, police officers are expected to find and return these individuals, even when they pose no risk to wider society. Then there are calls to respond to understaffed mental health units where a patient’s behaviour is deemed to be unmanageable. These are not tasks for police officers. To quote the Police Federation:
“Police officers should not be called to mental health premises to assist in the restraint of aggressive/violent patients. Mental health professionals are trained in the control and restraint of mentally ill patients and have powers to sedate them, whereas police officers are trained to subdue, restrain and arrest violent people.”
Inquest, Mind and others have highlighted the risks of police restraint, as opposed to mental health restraint techniques. I welcome the Royal College of Nursing study into restraint techniques. I also welcome the nine pilot street triage schemes operating across the 43 police forces where mental health nurses are either available with police officers responding or available to consult. The schemes are making a huge difference, but we cannot wait until 2015 for them to be assessed and reviewed before we put them in place across the public sphere.
We need suitably staffed hospital places of safety in all areas, catering for all age groups and available 24 hours a day, so that police stations are used only in exceptional circumstances. We also need section 136 to be used less by better, improved mental health services generally—however, I want to focus on removing the police from the equation. We need accurate data—a point I have already raised with the Minister—on the use of section 136 in the police service. The report from the independent commission on mental health and policing states:
“We need to ensure the culture within policing is one that recognises their role in supporting people in crisis and their responsibilities under the Mental Health Act.”
There needs to be a higher level of training and awareness for police officers. The online training that is currently available is just not good enough. Some forces have teamed up with community groups, local health trusts and universities, working with mental health patients, to improve their operation. Best practice from these groups needs to be shared and expanded.
The Association of Chief Police Officers lead on mental health says:
“There should be a reduction from 72 to 24 hour detention time…for a”
section 136
“assessment to take place when a police place of safety is utilised… 72 hours should remain for health based”
assessment. The 24-hour period would
“reflect the detention time limits in the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984…To support this, a statutory time limit for assessments to be undertaken by all health professionals”
for those
“in police custody should be put in place. The Pace clock should be stopped for 4 hours while assessments are carried out where there are criminal offences to be faced”,
so that police are not restricted in the time that they have to cross-examine someone. I am confident that I reflect the feeling in this Chamber and the wider House today. No one would be turned away from an A and E department if they had had a stroke or broken a limb, if they had had alcohol or were aggressive. We cannot let mental health services operate to different criteria.
I want briefly to focus on what is a growing area. We need to be sure that we have clear guidance and responses in place for the 800,000 people in the UK diagnosed with dementia. A 91-year-old man suffering with psychotic dementia was living at home with the support of his family and the mental health team. One evening, a neighbour called the family to say he was wandering the street looking for his wife, who had died six years previously. His son went immediately to his father and at around 9 pm called the out-of-hours health service for advice. The doctor took the details and asked whether the son wanted to bring his father to the hospital or whether he wanted the doctor to visit the house, but the son said, “No, it’s okay. I’m on top of things. Dad’s okay. I’ve given him a cup of tea and he’s heading for bed.” By 11.30 pm the gentleman was in bed, fast asleep and his son went home.
At 2.30 am, the family had another call from the neighbour, saying, “The police are breaking into your dad’s house.” Why? Because the out-of-hours doctor decided to watch his back and had sent an ambulance, but it did not arrive till three hours after he called it. The man was fast asleep and the ambulance crew felt they had to get a response, so they called out the police. The police climbed on to the ledge over the front door, looked in and saw the man in bed, fast asleep and said, “He’s fast asleep”. The ambulance crew said, “No, we must see him.” The police broke in, terrifying the man, who was greatly distressed—as can be imagined—so they took him to A and E, because they could not handle the situation. That is an appalling situation. The family tried ringing the ambulance service and the police, saying, “Leave him alone. He’s fine,” but they carried on. He was highly distressed when he got to the hospital, and thought he had done something wrong and felt that he was the criminal. This was an appalling case.
There are good ideas and good practice for when people are missing, for example, or have wandered, including using taxi drivers, Citizens Advice and neighbourhood watch to look out for individuals. Police officers need clear guidance on how not to exacerbate a situation by going in, in uniform, and frightening people who are wandering.
We have lost 15,000 police officers in the last three years. The police must prioritise tackling crime, ensuring public safety and upholding the law. It is not the task of police services to fill gaps in an overstretched mental health service. We need to consider how to respond to the most vulnerable in society. The police must build their partnerships with agencies and organisations best equipped to provide appropriate help and support. I look forward to colleagues’ contributions to the debate, to the Minister’s and the shadow Minister’s responses, and to improved quality of services for those in mental health crisis.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak in this important debate under your chairmanship, Mr Brady.
I thank the Backbench Business Committee, the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow). The three of us came together to secure this debate. I also speak in my capacity as chairman of the all-party group on mental health.
As the hon. Member for Bridgend said, the police are often on the front line in dealing with people who are suffering a mental health crisis. As she mentioned, it is estimated that up to 40% of police activity is related to mental health issues. In my region of the west midlands, West Midlands police estimates that 20% of all incidents that it deals with involve individuals with mental health problems.
Police officers are often asked to deal with complex and challenging situations on the ground. As the hon. Lady pointed out, they have specific powers under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, and it might be worth dwelling on that section’s specific wording:
“If a constable finds in a place to which the public have access a person who appears to him to be suffering from mental disorder and to be in immediate need of care or control, the constable may, if he thinks it necessary to do so in the interests of that person or for the protection of other persons, remove that person to a place of safety within the meaning of section 135 above.”
The latest figures show that some 21,814 people were detained using section 136 powers last year. As the Royal College of Psychiatrists has pointed out—the hon. Lady mentioned this—far too many of those individuals are still detained in police custody suites. The Royal College of Psychiatrists talks about 36% of those people being detained in police cells, which are essentially a proxy for a health care place of safety.
There were 15 deaths in police custody last year, of which seven could be attributed to, or were related to, specific mental health concerns. A number of the deaths followed the use of the police’s section 136 powers. A number of the deaths are currently being investigated.
Section 136 is part of the 1983 Act, which built on the Mental Health Act 1959. In 1959, there were still a considerable number of asylums in Britain; the whole complexion of our approach to mental health care was completely different from today’s. Thankfully, we do not have asylums and we are making huge efforts to treat people in appropriate settings and in the community.
The reason for section 136 is essentially to give the police powers when someone has absconded from an asylum-based setting. There is a strong argument, which I put to the Minister, that we should consider reviewing the section 136 power in the context of how we approach the treatment of crisis care in mental-health settings in the 21st century. I am not saying that the police should not have the power, in certain circumstances, to detain people, but we should have a full review of how that power is used.
The relationship raises a number of important issues, not just about how the police are using the power but about how they interact with the health service when dealing with people detained under section 136. As the hon. Lady said, we should work towards ensuring that places of safety are located in appropriate health care settings.
As the hon. Lady also said, we must ensure that the police have adequate training to deal with the often difficult and challenging situations that they face. However we reform the system, there will always be circumstances in which the police have to deal with people suffering from severe mental anguish and difficulty. The police need the appropriate intensive training necessary to deal with such difficult and challenging circumstances, but it is also true that other agencies and public bodies, such as the national health service and the ambulance service, have a responsibility to work with the police. We must ensure that all those agencies are working in alignment.
In the west midlands, for example, West Midlands police has developed a good working relationship with the West Midlands ambulance service such that, when West Midlands police is dealing with people suffering from severe mental issues under section 136, an ambulance, rather than a police car, should take that person to a place of safety, thereby not creating the context of criminalisation. There is a good working relationship in my area, but I know there are many examples across the country of where that is not the case and of where there are barriers that prevent such important co-ordinated working, which supports people who are suffering from severe mental health crisis.
Michael Brown is a particularly interesting police inspector in the west midlands; he tweets under the name MentalHealthCop. He has been writing on his award-winning blog about some of the police’s difficulties when interacting with the national health service and about some of the blockages in the system. As the hon. Lady pointed out, one of those difficulties is often the reluctance of local NHS staff, particularly in A and E, to play a role in the section 136 pathway, if I may use that phrase. Staff are reluctant to take responsibility, and there are often confused lines of responsibility between the police and the NHS about who will take responsibility for the care of an individual.
The hon. Lady alluded to the assumption in certain parts of the NHS that the most clinically complex patients, who are often suffering from a mental health problem related to the overuse of drugs and alcohol, should somehow be left in a police cell until they sober up or recover. That situation is not acceptable in any circumstances—no one suffering from a complex mental health condition should normally be placed in police cells.
Police cells are simply not the right environment for such people to end up in. I am not saying that there are no circumstances in which such a person should be held in police cells—there may be particular circumstances in which they should—but we should move to a situation in which we do not, in a civilised and compassionate society, house people in police cells when they are suffering some of the most desperate moments in their life.
Like the hon. Lady, I welcome the street triage pilots that the Government have been running across the country. Police and community psychiatric nurses are working together to resolve issues on the ground, and I look forward to the Minister’s view on how those pilots have been working and when we can expect a coherent evaluation of their success. We need to move quickly to roll out those pilots across the country.
There is a broader point on our approach to mental health crisis care in general. This is ongoing work about which many Members are concerned, but we must ensure that there is better integration between the health service, the police and local crisis care teams, often with the involvement of social services. I understand that the Government are working on a crisis care concordat, which will outline the roles and responsibilities of all agencies in relation to crisis care. One way of reducing the police’s use of section 136 is to ensure that we have a coherent and integrated approach to dealing with mental health crisis care in Britain. We need to tackle the problem head on. The Royal College of Psychiatrists has said that we
“need to focus on reducing the need for section 136 by ensuring that patients, their families have ready access to appropriate and timely crisis care.”
I want to dwell for a moment on the role of police and crime commissioners. Although they have come in for some criticism, some incredibly good work has been done on this issue by PCCs over the past few months. In Staffordshire, the PCC has been able to take a strategic view of the relationship between the police and local health services and has put in place processes to start tackling the problems.
We need suitably staffed hospital-based places of safety. That is an absolutely critical and crucial part of the picture. A police station should be used in exceptional circumstances only. I ask the Minister to consider reviewing the section 136 powers and updating the definition of an appropriate place of safety, which is set out in the 1983 Act.
I want to mention a particular case that is tangentially related to today’s debate and illustrates the importance of all agencies—police, probation, social services and prisons—in dealing with mental health. Members may remember the tragic case of Christina Edkins, who was brutally killed on her way to school from Birmingham to Halesowen earlier this year. It was a particularly tragic and brutal killing, which shocked the whole community in my constituency.
It turns out that the killer, Phillip Simelane, who had been in prison several times and had a history of disturbed and violent behaviour, had been given a psychiatric assessment in prison. That assessment had raised some serious issues about his mental condition, but, following a breakdown in the process, when Simelane was released from prison he somehow got lost in the system. The relationship between mental health services—I think it was the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust—police, probation and social services was not close enough and Simelane was lost to the system. That loss resulted in an absolute tragedy for a totally innocent young girl on her way to school.
I raise that case in the context of this debate only because the importance of all those who deal with people with severe mental heath issues can be seen in the story. The consequences of failure can be devastating for individuals and families. Each agency has an absolute responsibility to ensure that we avoid such tragedies, which can have a devastating impact on communities.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend recognise that this is about not only the police and the national health service, but the courts? Better training must be available to the courts, so that they are better able to deal with such issues.
James Morris
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Mental health training and awareness need to exist throughout the criminal justice system, because, although I am not going to discuss this in my speech, I think that victims of crime have disproportionate levels of mental health problems and other issues.
In a compassionate and civilised society, we owe it to the most vulnerable and those suffering from acute mental distress, anguish and confusion, who get picked up by the police and are subject to section 136, to treat them with the dignity they deserve at a time when they may be experiencing some of the most difficult situations of their lives. It is incumbent on the police, mental health services, social workers and the Government to be responsible for ensuring that we achieve that goal of health-based places of safety where people can be treated in a compassionate and civilised way and can get back on a path to recovery. It is incumbent on us all to work together, both in government and in local communities, to ensure that that happens.
Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)
Order. I want to move to the winding-up speeches at about 25 minutes to 3. I am not putting a time limit on speeches, but I am flagging that up.
Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD)
I will keep that in mind, Mr Brady. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for enabling us to have this debate and for rescheduling it so quickly. I congratulate both the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) on starting the debate and setting out many of the issues so well and my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) on outlining so much of the important ground in this area.
My hon. Friend referred to the blogger Michael Brown, who tweets under the name MentalHealthCop and rightly won the Mind digital media award last year. He probably deserved to win it again this year as he continues through his blog to inform and educate not only the public, but many of his fellow officers. More power to his elbow for that.
When I was preparing for this debate, the stand-out fact that jarred with me was that 36% of all people subject to place-of-safety orders find themselves in a police cell rather than a hospital. On the most recent figures, that is 7,761 place-of-safety orders. According to Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, the average length of stay in a police cell is over 10 hours and 32 minutes —more than 10 hours!
Such people have not committed any crime, but have been judged under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. They are not criminals; they are experiencing a mental health emergency and are being let down by a health service that institutionally discriminates against those with mental health problems. There are many ways of measuring whether we have achieved parity of esteem between physical and mental health, and the numbers we lock up in police cells must be among the starkest measures of progress. Today’s debate is about the role of the police service in addressing the needs of people with mental health problems. The police cannot completely be removed from the equation and do have a role to play.
One in four of us will experience a mental health problem at any one time. We are talking about something commonplace, but often hidden in plain sight in our society. That is why Victor Adebowale, in his report for the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, was right to say that mental health issues are a part of the core business of policing. The current situation is not properly serving that purpose.
The issue is not peripheral. Rates of mental health conditions among offenders range from 50% to 90%. There is no escaping the fact that the police, often as first responders, are and will continue to deal with people suffering from mental health problems. In London, according to estimates by the mental health unit of the Metropolitan police, 15% to 25% of police activity is related to mental health issues. Some estimates put the level much higher—40% has been cited in the debate already. Either way, that amounts, in London alone, to more than 600,000 calls a year related to mental health difficulties.
It is important to stress that people with mental health problems are much more likely to be the victims, rather than the perpetrators, of crime. That fact all too often gets glossed over in how our media report such things. The impact of crime on people with mental health problems can be far more profound, with deeper consequences, than for those with greater resilience. That is often not reflected fairly or appropriately in how such matters are reported.
In October, Victim Support and the mental health charity Mind published their study of the victimisation of people with mental health problems—“At risk, yet dismissed”—and it challenges many of the popular misconceptions. Some of the facts from that report have already been referred to, but the ones that stand out for me are that women with severe mental illness are 10 times more likely to be assaulted and that almost half of people suffering from a severe mental illness were victims of a crime in the past year. The impact of such crimes on the victim is huge.
As the Chair of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), pointed out in his intervention on the hon. Member for Bridgend, it is also right to recognise that the police themselves are in a stressful occupation, which is often distressing and a cause of real difficulties for them. Estimates suggest that in London alone the mental illness costs to the Metropolitan Police Service are equivalent to £1,000 per employee—a huge, unmanaged cost.
The nature and role of police work, however, also require the police to be in control and psychologically robust. All police services, and the MPS especially, are therefore in a unique situation, in which the mental health and well-being of staff require particular attention. The statistic we were given earlier—the 56% of staff working in custody suites who are themselves reporting anxiety and depression—is a stark reminder that our debate is not only about them out there, but about all of us experiencing mental health problems in our lives.
Lord Adebowale’s report included 12 recommendations. Incidentally, although the report was commissioned by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, my understanding is that he has not yet responded to it. When is he likely to do so?
I will pick up six stand-out common themes from the report: first, the lack of mental health awareness, touched on in earlier contributions; secondly, the lack of guidance and training on suicide prevention, which is an important element; thirdly, the lack of adequate care for vulnerable people in custody, which goes to the heart of the debate; fourthly, poor inter-agency working—without doubt one of the keys to unlocking so much of what does not work; fifthly, the disproportionate use of force and restraint; and finally, the failure to communicate with families, which all too often sits at the heart of failure on these issues.
Much of that is echoed in the report “A Criminal Use of Police Cells?” by Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary, which found that the use of police custody as a place of safety varies from 6% to 76% of the total number of people detained under section 136. As a result of a shortage of the right staff in the right places at the right times, people who have not committed a crime are often treated as if they were criminals. HMIC put it this way in its report:
“those detained under section 136 who were taken to a police station were generally treated like any other person in respect of the booking-in procedure; risk assessment; and, ultimately, being locked in a cell (rather than being taken to another part of the station).”
The report also found multi-agency working to be patchy, as was awareness of training resources and activity—they are clearly the areas where relatively small changes could lead to big differences in operation.
The recently published experimental analysis of police data offers some important insights. It bears out the HMIC finding that there is huge variation in the use of police cells as a place of safety. The Sussex, Devon and Cornwall, West Yorkshire, Avon and Somerset, and Hampshire forces all recorded more than 500 uses of section 136, while Lancashire, Merseyside, Hertfordshire and City of London recorded 10 or fewer uses.
Drilling down into those figures and using them to understand why things are so different and what best practice might look like, and to ensure its better spread, we can see why the Government should be commended for having the statistics collected and such analysis done. Buried a little deeper in the experimental data, however, is something else. For the first time, there are estimates for the number of under-18s held in police cells under section 136.
In the past year, according to the most recently published statistics, 263 children and young people were held in police custody. The report urges caution about that figure, because of the experimental nature of the data, and I can understand that caution. It should still be a source of shame and a spur to act, however, that we are locking up children at a time of deep and acute mental health crisis. The hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) has rightly challenged on that issue—she raised it in Health questions—and I hope that she will be speaking in the debate.
I hope that the soon-to-be-published concordat on emergency mental health care will do something—more than something—to stop the barbaric practice of children being held in police cells when they are having a mental health crisis. Indeed, next year the Care Quality Commission will be conducting a themed inspection, looking at the whole pathway of crisis care—the role of the police service and of various aspects of the health service—and I hope that it will also cast light on this issue.
I have some questions for the Minister. There has been good progress on rolling out the liaison and diversion services in custody suites. That early identification, assessment and referral can result in much better outcomes. Will the Minister give some indication of when the Treasury will sign off the outline business case for national roll-out of the service? Given the numbers of young people in the criminal justice system with mental health needs, does the liaison and diversion service cover them as well? Will it ensure that they are always included?
Street triage is being piloted by the Home Office and the Department of Health, and we have heard how that can make a significant difference by bringing health professionals into the equation. How will the street triage model fit with liaison and diversion? Also, to repeat a rightly put question, how is that model being evaluated, and what are the time scales for a rapid roll-out should the evaluation show that street triage is working well, which I understand it is showing? How quickly therefore can we get it out throughout the country?
In the report on police custody as a place of safety, HMIC recommends that if there is not significant reduction in the inappropriate use of police custody by April 2016, the Mental Health Act should be amended to remove police stations as a place of safety, except on an exceptional basis. HMIC goes on to state that “exceptional basis” should be written into the law and defined. Will the Minister set out the Government view of that recommendation? If that was signalled as an intention of the Government, would it serve as a further spur to action throughout government, the NHS, social care and police services?
Finally, sitting at the heart of the disparity between mental and physical health and of the institutional bias and discrimination that people with mental illness suffer is deep-seated stigma. The Government deserve much credit for funding the Time to Change anti-stigma campaign—a global leader in such campaigning that is making a real difference in this country. So far, a number of Departments have signed up to play their own part in the Time to Change campaign. I understand that there are discussions with the Home Office, and it would be good to know from the Minister today when the Home Office will be signing up to Time to Change. Furthermore, the attitude to and awareness of mental health problems remain an issue in the police service. One way in which forces could address that is by working together to sign up to Time to Change. Will the Minister use his good offices to promote Time to Change to chief constables and police and crime commissioners?
In conclusion, I want to cite the HMIC report and give two quotes from it from people detained under section 136. The first is:
“I was discharged by the mental health crisis team as a low risk to myself and others and not requiring follow-up. I am concerned that my section 136 detention [in police custody] will show up on…enhanced criminal record checks…in the future.”
Perhaps the Minister will say whether we can ensure that that does not happen.
The second is:
“What have I done to deserve this? I was ill; I was locked up because I was ill.”
Surely that is not what the police service is there for; that is what the health service is there for.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
I welcome the opportunity to serve under your chairmanship in this debate, Mr Brady, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who I am delighted to count as a friend, although she is unfortunately an Opposition Member, and my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris). I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak. I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), and I pay tribute to him for his work as a Health Minister.
Let me put what I want to talk about in a little context. As I think most Members know, I am Member of Parliament for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport. My constituency contains a naval garrison that is the base for 3 Commando Brigade, Royal Marines, as well as a base for the Royal Navy. Members may be interested to know that Charles Cross police station, in Plymouth city centre, is the busiest police station in the whole of England, so I do quite a bit of work with the police station and go to talk to the police there.
The reason for how busy the station is may well be the size of its catchment area—it goes over to Tavistock and also to Torpoint and Saltash—or it may be because Plymouth is a military garrison city, as there are certainly significant cultural issues that go with that. We also have more licensed premises in Plymouth than there are in the whole of Liverpool—in fact, it is nearly double the number. There are several really big issues crowding in on the police in Plymouth. I pay real tribute to the police officers who work at the custody suite in the Charles Cross police station, who find themselves under a fair amount of pressure.
My right hon. Friend the Minister will find a number of themes going through the debate today, reflecting the great concerns we have across the House on this issue. Since the previous time we discussed this matter, real progress has been made and I pay tribute to him and his colleagues, including those in the Department of Health, for that progress.
The last time I talked in a debate on a similar subject, I told the story of a 17-year-old girl who was highly autistic, and who had kicked off, for reasons of mental ill health, in one of the retail centres in my constituency. She was taken to Charles Cross police station. I have to say that the police found the situation very difficult, and were rather challenged by what happened. I want to talk a little about what we can try to do about that sort of situation. When the girl’s mother arrived to pick up her child and help her, she found that the girl was banging her head against a wall and having real difficulty with the situation she was in. To my mind, that shows that we need to make sure not only that there is better training for our police but, much more importantly, that community health nurses are located in our police stations, to help the police identify situations such as that one.
Since I last spoke on the issue, Glenbourne unit, up at Derriford hospital in my constituency, has been refitted and reopened. I am delighted that that work has happened and that there is now much better co-ordination across the divide. However, the story I have told is not unique. I suspect that it happens in every single town and city up and down the country. Local progress has been made, but we have further to go.
I want to make another brief point. Plymouth is a naval military city, so we need to ensure that we have a much better understanding of how military veterans are treated. They have been through some pretty difficult times in Afghanistan and Iraq. My right hon. Friend the Minister will know that I have been pressing him to consider the use of military courts, not to put veterans in front of a court martial or anything like that—they have of course retired from the military—but because we need to act with much more sympathy when dealing with veterans who find themselves in the justice system.
I learned about that matter when I went to the United States of America with the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. There we saw at first hand how the US deals with veterans. There is a specific Department of Veterans Affairs, which is able to assess people and keep in much closer touch with them. The Department gives all veterans a mobile telephone, so it can ring them up at least two or three times during the course of the year to make sure that they are getting on well. The US also has specific courts for veterans that are staffed by people who have military experience. I urge my right hon. Friend to consider whether, in a similar way, we could use those of our magistrates who have experience in the military and will have much better understanding of what can happen to veterans. We visited a court in Little Rock, Arkansas, that has been highly successful and has found that veterans do not reoffend once they have been through that process. There are mechanisms in place in the US to ensure that veterans are looked after.
My final point is that we need places of refuge and safety. In my constituency, there is a brilliant organisation called Twelves Company—if my right hon. Friend is interested, I would be very willing to bring up members of that organisation to have a conversation with him—that deals with sexual health. One of my constituents was raped by her husband and had real mental health problems; I hope that I played a small role for her by taking her to see Twelves Company. Since then I have not noticed her tweeting quite so much on the issue, so I hope some balance has been found for her and that we have helped her.
I call for a more joined-up approach to this matter. We need to ensure that the police have alternatives signposted to them, and that the health services and the courts and justice system recognise that mental health is an issue to consider. Frankly, it is not rocket science, it is mental health.
Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)
I congratulate all the previous speakers in this debate, and start by declaring an interest: I am married to a full-time consultant psychiatrist who chairs the Westminster parliamentary liaison committee on behalf of the Royal College of Psychiatrists.
Perhaps more relevantly to today’s debate, I should point out that I have been in a police cell in the middle of the night. I hasten to add that it was in a medical capacity, but I congratulate the Secretary of State for Health on advocating work experience for MPs. I would advocate more MPs spending a night in the cells. If they did, they would realise that that is absolutely the last place someone should be if they are acutely distressed by a mental illness.
That is particularly the case for an acutely distressed 12-year-old. Can we imagine a situation in which a 12-year-old child with a broken leg would be taken to a casualty department because there was no specialist orthopaedic surgeon or facility to assess them? That would be utterly unthinkable, yet in Devon and Cornwall alone, on three occasions since the start of this year 12 and 13-year-olds who have been acutely distressed with mental health issues have been held in police cells. That is utterly unacceptable for anyone, but it is particularly unacceptable that on 25 occasions—I would point out to the Minister that this is in Devon and Cornwall alone—children of 17 or under have been in that situation.
If we look at the situation for adults, we see that, shockingly, there have been 674 occasions on which people have been assessed in cells. As we have heard, the average time detained in that situation is 10 hours. On only 277 occasions have those assessments taken place in an appropriate place of safety. Devon and Cornwall is second behind Sussex in that terrible league of shame.
The situation is not the police’s fault. I want to stress that, and I pay tribute to the members of the police alongside whom I have worked in the past, as a forensic medical examiner, for their professionalism. Many police officers have sent me really heartfelt e-mails describing the difficulties they face. The situation is putting huge pressure on the police. It is a totally inappropriate use of resources. As Lord Adebowale has pointed out, it represents very poor inter-agency working, but there is no financial incentive for the NHS to change because the burden of resourcing falls on the police services.
The situation is totally unacceptable on any clinical level. I am disappointed that there is no Health Minister sitting alongside the Minister today, because ultimately the situation requires a total refocusing of services. If we look at the statistics, we see that 82% of those who are detained under section 136 do not go on to compulsory admission to hospital. That highlights the point that many of these situations could be avoided in the first place.
I am sorry to say that some general practitioners will not see patients unless they have registered. Someone who is acutely distressed and has paranoia as a result of mental illness might not recognise that they are unwell and therefore might not register or go to see a doctor. Consultant psychiatrists might refuse to see a patient without a GP referral. Those are all hurdles in the system. Time and again, carers may be desperate to access help for people who are really unwell, but they must fall off the cliff and become acutely unwell in a public place before the police can step in with a section 136 order that could have been avoided.
I thoroughly welcome the pilot project using triage, but street triage should not be necessary because we should pick up such situations much earlier. I would like volunteers who work with the homeless, for example, and who may be aware that someone is slipping into a distressed state, to be able to refer them directly to psychiatric services and bypass primary care. Of course, I would like all primary care doctors to ensure that they deliver the right care at the right time to all their patients, as the good ones do, and directly and actively seek out people who are homeless and vulnerable but who may not come forward to seek help.
Much of the problem is about funding—it would be wrong not to make that clear. The funding of units where people can be seen in an appropriate place of safety is crucial. It is no surprise that the local authorities that have most use of police cells are often in rural areas, where there are additional geographical challenges in providing appropriate places of safety. But if parity of esteem is to have more than just a hollow ring to it, we must ensure that within the NHS cake there is fair distribution of funding for mental health, and we must recognise in funding formulae that rural areas sometimes face extreme challenges. Sparsity must be recognised in funding if there is to be fairness.
Another problem is that mental health beds are running “too hot”. The CQC has said that in 50% of areas bed occupancy is 90%, and in 15% of areas it is 100%. That causes delays throughout the system. Ultimately, there is a problem not just with appropriate places of safety, but beyond that with having beds available when people need admission. On four occasions in Devon and Cornwall, the process of assessment has taken so long that a bed that was provisionally booked was taken by the time the assessment had been made. All those causes of delays in the system must be addressed: the availability of suitably qualified section 12 approved doctors; the availability of psychiatric beds; and, crucially, the availability of appropriate places of safety.
Will the Minister examine the effect on children when medical facilities are not suitable? There may be secure children’s homes— my preference, of course, would be to have a medical facility available, but I can say from personal experience that anything is better than a police cell. Police cells in the middle of the night are desperately frightening places. They are often full of people who are drunk and shouting. It is unthinkable that a child should be in that environment in a police cell. I hope that the Minister will say that if by next year children as young as 12 are still being put in police cells, Parliament will legislate to abolish that.
Mr Graham Brady (in the Chair)
Order. I am grateful to hon. Members for keeping to time so well. If the shadow Minister and the Minister take no more than 12 minutes each, there will be a couple of minutes for the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), who opened the debate, to wind up.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
It is an honour, Mr Brady, to serve under your chairmanship. We have all seen in our constituencies the pain suffered by those with mental health problems, the trauma that that can cause to their families and local communities, and the immense problems that may arise for the police. I welcome the debate and the initiative taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon), the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), and the powerful testimony about what happens at the sharp end from the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston).
Police officers have many different roles. They maintain order, protect life, limb and property, prevent and deter offences and, when an offence has been committed, take appropriate measures to bring the offender to justice. However, as the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester police, Sir Peter Fahy, warned earlier this year, policing and mental health problems have increasingly become the main issue for his officers responding to emergency calls, and that
“the force was struggling to cope.”
He is not alone.
Indeed, as the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam said, such is the increasing number of calls that recent reports about the Metropolitan police’s new protocol suggest that officers have been ordered not to respond to calls from mental health units and emergency departments for help to control and restrain patients unless there is
“a significant threat to life and limb”.
Such an uneasy interface between the health service and the police does not benefit anyone, least of all those suffering from mental health issues. That is why HMIC, charities, chief constables, police and crime commissioners, the Police Federation and others have all expressed their concern for both the police and those suffering from mental health issues under the current system.
The role of police officers is to ensure the safety of the public and deal with individuals who pose a threat to others or themselves. In an emergency involving an individual with mental health issues, more often than not a bobby will be first on the scene. Too often, police officers and staff must deal with people with complex mental health needs alone, instead of with the support of experienced and trained medical professionals. They are required by the law, when appropriate, to take the individual to a place of safety. More often than not, the only option is to take them into custody. It is not right that people with mental health issues who have not committed a crime are treated as criminals. Those detained under section 136 may not have committed a crime, but are suspected of suffering a mental health disorder.
Worryingly, a joint review by HMIC, the Care Quality Commission and Healthcare Inspectorate Wales found that police custody was still being used as a primary or secondary place of safety as a result of, among other factors,
“insufficient staff at a health-based place of safety”
and
“the absence of available beds at the health-based place of safety”.
That is increasingly putting a great strain on our police service. Statistics show that such incidents may tie up officers for up to eight hours. That in turn adds further strain on those suffering from mental health issues, because they are treated like any other person taken into custody during the booking-in procedure and risk assessment, and ultimately when locked in a cell.
At the heart of the difficulty—several speakers referred to this, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend—is the fact that 15,000 police officers will be lost by the next election, and police resources are already stretched incredibly thinly, without the unnecessary pressure of having to act as stand-in social workers and mental health nurses because those vital services have also been cut back. Police officers are clear that they are not the right people to deal with those who need complex medical intervention for serious mental illness and that the experience of being detained may add undue stress and upset for these people, making the problem worse.
In government, Labour recognised the seriousness of the problem and commissioned the Bradley report in 2009. However, after three years in government, despite taking some welcome steps, the Government have been slow to act on the report’s fundamental recommendations, leaving us with the unacceptable problem that we now face. Quite simply, we must do better—better for the police and better for those suffering with mental health issues.
As Lord Bradley’s report acknowledged, good training and support to inform police practice are vital. To that end, I welcome the police street triage team pilots, such as those operating in Newham and Birmingham, and I encourage further working between mental health professionals and the police. However, as I have said, a police officer responding to a mental health emergency will often find themselves left with no assistance. That is unacceptable for the officer, the person concerned and the general public.
Crucially, therefore, we must have a proper partnership between the police and health providers—as the hon. Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis rightly argued and as Lord Bradley’s report also recommended—through joint training packages for mental health awareness and learning disability issues, with community support officers and police officers linking with local mental health services. Crucially, we also need to work towards moving away from the use of custody cells for those detained under section 136 to dedicated places of safety, ensuring that people suffering mental health illness are dealt with sensitively and appropriately, and are given the correct medical treatment.
Birmingham—the city I am proud to represent—is a leading example of the places of safety strategy. West Midlands police uses a mental health assessment centre at University Hospitals Birmingham, with an on-site community psychiatric nurse to carry out assessments and refer to appropriate support. Innovative local strategies such as that are welcome, leading the way with new approaches to police procedure and mental health issues. However, three years after the Bradley report, recent reports and calls from those in the police about the problem getting worse, not better, are cause for concern that not enough has been done to tackle the issue.
In conclusion, the Government need to recognise their responsibility. They urgently need to look holistically at the problem, ensuring that the right resources are available to free up the police and that people with mental health difficulties get the support they need. It is also vital that a clear, strategic framework across all Departments is put in place to help to drive and improve partnership working. I believe that policing is about more than just cutting crime, and we believe that officers should not be expected to plug the gaps in other Departments’ shortfalls—neither should those suffering from mental health issues be let down.
The Minister for Policing, Criminal Justice and Victims (Damian Green)
I echo the congratulations that have been given to the hon. Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) on the way in which she introduced the debate, and to my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) and my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris), in the latter case particularly for his energetic chairmanship of the all-party mental health group. I shall start briefly with the general subject of mental health reform and then move on to the specific policing aspects of the matter. In doing so, I hope to sweep up a lot of the specific questions that have been asked during the course of this very good debate.
Mental health reform is clearly key to the wider programme of health reform, and the Government want to see mental health issues receiving parity of esteem with physical health issues. The mandate to NHS England has a specific objective
“to put mental health on a par with physical health, and close the health gap between people with mental health problems and the population as a whole.”
We have shared our developing work with the Welsh Government, as health, obviously, is devolved, and I know that they, too, are considering these matters.
As a basic principle, which has been expressed by many hon. Members on both sides of the debate, it is impossible to argue that people facing mental ill health should not have their health needs met by professionals who are able to provide appropriate support and treatment. The police are not best placed to provide that, but they may have a key role to play in identifying vulnerabilities among people with whom they come into contact.
Essentially, the police come into contact with four groups of people who may have mental health problems. First, there are people who have committed a crime, or are arrested on suspicion of committing a crime. For those people, it is essential that we strike the right balance between bringing offenders to justice and helping people get access to appropriate interventions in order to tackle factors, such as mental health problems, that may be contributing to their offending behaviour. In the second group are those who come into contact with the police because a member of the public has concerns for their safety or for the safety of others, but when no crime has been committed. In the third are people who may have been reported as missing. As the hon. Member for Bridgend pointed out, they may be elderly and have a history of dementia, or they may be people known to mental health services whose families or carers have reported them as missing. The fourth category is victims of crime or witnesses who may themselves have mental health problems and need support at every stage of the criminal justice system, as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) pointed out.
I will go through those groups. We have heard about the review by Lord Bradley, who highlighted that a significant proportion of prisoners have some form of mental health problem. One key recommendation was that to make that contact with the criminal justice system work, we needed to put offenders in touch with treatment and other support services that can help stop their behaviour escalating into more crime. There are currently more than 50 adult and almost 40 youth liaison and diversion services working with offenders with mental health problems, substance misuse problems or learning disabilities at the earliest point of contact with the police and courts.
To answer the questions that my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam asked about what is happening next, from April 2014 we will introduce an enhanced core model across a number of selected areas. The aim is to ensure that those services can lessen health inequalities and improve justice outcomes for people who come into contact with the criminal justice system and for whom a range of complex needs are identified as factors in their offending behaviour. My right hon. Friend was right to say that a business case has been submitted to the Treasury. He asked the eternal question of when we will hear back, and I can tell him that the decision is imminent.
We also know that there is a clear link between mental health problems and deaths in custody. That is a very serious issue. Obviously, every death in police custody is a tragedy, and that is a priority matter for the Government. Work in the area is overseen by the ministerial council on deaths in custody. The council’s independent advisory panel has recently awarded a two-year research contract to the university of Greenwich, which will be working on a number of projects to consider the impact of mental health problems on deaths in custody. Those projects will cover a wide range of the issues that have been brought up in individual cases in this debate and elsewhere. That is one stream of work.
Obviously, the Independent Police Complaints Commission has a vital role to play in the investigation of deaths in custody. It must be notified of any death that occurs in police custody, and it is currently carrying out a review of how deaths in or following police custody are investigated. A progress report on the review was published in September, and the final report is due to be published early next year.
Although that is one group of people affected, most of the debate has rightly involved another group with whom the police regularly come into contact: people suffering from mental ill health who have not committed and are not suspected of committing any crime. There may be concerns for their safety or for the safety of others, and they may need to be detained in a place of safety for that reason. However, all too often, those people, who are ill, find themselves in police stations. Many contributors to the debate made that point.
Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary’s report on the use of police cells as a place of safety for individuals detained under section 136 of the Mental Health Act found that in a number of areas, the use of police cells remained unacceptably high. Again, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam made that point. We know that during 2012-13, almost 8,000 section 136 orders were made for which a police station was the place of safety. As has been said, that is more than one third of the total number of section 136 detentions. Straightforwardly, that is unacceptable, other than in truly exceptional circumstances. Those are people who are likely to be in crisis, and they need and deserve proper care and support from people qualified to provide it.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced to the Police Federation, at its conference in May, that she was taking action, along with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health, to ensure that people with mental health problems receive the care, support and treatment that they need, and that police officers are freed up to do their job of fighting and preventing crime. That work has made significant progress. The most visible sign of it will come shortly when the concordat, which has been agreed by almost 30 national organisations, agencies and Departments, is published early in the new year. A lot of work has gone on between the Home Office and Health Ministers on this matter—that relates to a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). I am happy to assure her that I have been working closely with my hon. Friend the Minister of State at the Department of Health, who is responsible for care and support and has overall responsibility for mental health policy.
The concordat will be an extremely important document in taking us forward. It will provide national leadership by setting out the standard of response that people suffering mental health crises and requiring urgent care should expect, and key principles around which local health and criminal justice partners should be organised. It will leave agencies in both the criminal justice and health fields in no doubt about what is expected of them.
There has been a lot of talk about places of safety. I know that interim arrangements have been made in North Yorkshire—the only police force area without a single facility at the time of the Home Secretary’s announcement—and that health-based places of safety will open in York and Scarborough early next year.
The hon. Member for Bridgend asked about exclusion criteria. The concordat will state that people suffering a mental health crisis should be supported in a place of safety, and that there should be no automatic criteria that exclude individuals, although their safety and the safety of others is the paramount consideration. She and others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis, mentioned the street triage pilots, which have obviously been extremely beneficial. The pilot by Sussex police went live on 16 October and other forces are having their launches in December. West Midlands police is moving along with this, and so is the Metropolitan police. Rather than all the pilots coming to an end at once, and there then being an assessment and then something else happening, what seems to be happening is that other areas are picking up the benefits and expanding the system. I am conscious that it is being expanded in the east midlands as well.
The point has been made that too often, the police end up transporting people who ought to be transported by ambulance. The Association of Ambulance Chief Executives is drawing up a national protocol on the transportation of people in mental health crisis, which I hope will act as a catalyst for wider change and improvements.
My hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis made a pertinent point about the need for a review of the operation of sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. Options for a review of those sections are currently being examined, and I expect that work to get under way this financial year.
There has been much mention of children in the debate. The practice of routinely holding in police custody children in a state of mental distress is, of course, unacceptable. Again, that will be dealt with in the coming concordat. Obviously, I take the point that young people and children are central among all the groups of people for whom it is inappropriate that they should find themselves in a police cell in the middle of the night during a mental health crisis. That is one of the changes that we need to see.
There was a request from the hon. Member for Bridgend for better data collection. The College of Policing, which, incidentally, will be doing much of the training work that the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), asked for, recognises the important issues surrounding mental ill health and policing. In its short period in existence, it has already held an awareness event with deputy chief constables. They have agreed on the need not just for clearer guidance about the use of restraint—again, I take the point made throughout the debate about the difference between mental health restraint and police restraint—but for better capture of data and evidence about the operational demands on police. The college now has a national group working to take that forward.
The third group that I mentioned was missing people. It is estimated that four out of every five adults who go missing are experiencing a mental health problem when they disappear. If those people have dementia, they may be frightened, be unable to find their way home or exhibit aggression. The police will often be the first port of call when someone goes missing, so in responding to such calls, the police need to work closely with health services and other agencies to ensure that people can be safely transferred to the most appropriate place.
Our missing children and adults strategy highlights the importance of local areas considering whether they need to be doing more to protect children and vulnerable adults who go missing, and provides a framework for them to do that. The move to bring together the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and the UK Missing Persons Bureau in the National Crime Agency will result in improved integrated working by law enforcement across the UK, including missing persons investigations.
The last group that I mentioned was victims and witnesses. The new victims’ code, which will be implemented the week after next, will ensure enhanced support at every stage of the criminal justice system, including a new entitlement to ask that special measures be used in court and to be provided with information about the support that registered intermediaries can provide.
As the usual gateway to the criminal justice system, the police will have a duty to conduct an early needs assessment to identify victims who may be particularly vulnerable—including those with mental health issues—and therefore eligible for enhanced services. Such victims will be advised of the availability of pre-trial therapy, and access to such therapy will be facilitated if needed.
We are legislating to provide police and crime commissioners with the power to commission support services for victims of crime. We intend that, from October next year, the majority of emotional and practical support services for victims of crime will be commissioned locally by PCCs rather by than central Government. PCCs are well placed to consult, and identify the needs of, victims in their local area and to determine how best to meet those needs.
Responding to people with mental health problems is not something that any agency or organisation can do alone. In many areas, PCCs are already playing a pivotal role in encouraging agencies to come together to address the issue. The work that I have talked about highlights the importance of joint working nationally and locally in order to make a real difference.
It is obvious that the police have, and will continue to have, a key role in dealing with mental health issues as they arise. They need to be adequately trained to identify vulnerabilities and behaviours that require further intervention, but they are not and cannot replace health professionals. Both types of professionals should be left to do the job that they are best at doing and trained to do, because that, in the end, will be the best response for mental health patients themselves.
Mrs Moon
I thank you, Mr Brady, for your excellent chairmanship throughout the debate. I also thank my co-sponsors of the debate, because no one could have had better co-sponsors with greater gravitas or greater recognition on both sides of the House for the work that they do in this area. It is extremely pleasant to see in the Chamber at the end of the debate the hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), who has also played a huge part in raising mental health issues in the House.
This is a time of consensus. There is cross-party agreement that we must move forward. We all recognise that the police, the voluntary services, the health service and, most importantly, people who suffer from mental ill health want recognition that it is time for change and for a review of the use of section 136 powers for the 21st century.
I thank the other hon. Members who have taken part in the debate. The hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) demonstrated her insight into issues involving rural areas and children, and the hon. Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) paid particular attention to military matters. We all look forward to the concordat being published in the new year. Let us hope that between us, across the House, we can ensure that people who suffer mental ill health have the service that they desire and deserve.
Retail and the High Street
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Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I am pleased, together with the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), to have secured the debate. As co-chair and vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on retail, we understand that thriving town centres and high streets are the living face of our communities and vital to their economic and social well-being. Town centres influence how people see, experience and relate to their local areas. They are, and always have been, places where we re-affirm our place in our communities by meeting and talking to each other. The familiarity of the high street can give us a sense of belonging.
Retail is the building block of our high street. More than 3 million people—more than one in 10 UK workers—are employed in retail. In my constituency, retail is by far the largest private provider, and it is responsible for more than a quarter of all jobs. There are many important issues facing the high street, such as employment, retail skills, business rates and rents, finance for small businesses, car parking and town centre management.
Although I do not underestimate the seriousness of those issues, my debate will have a slightly different focus. The visibility of the high number of empty shops scarring our town centres, with one in seven shops empty nationally and one in five empty in the north-west, can give us the impression that our high streets are slowly shutting down. I do not believe that the situation heralds the final demise of the high street, but it demonstrates the extent of the challenge faced by the private and the public sectors to reinvigorate that public space.
The biggest challenge is the impact of online shopping and developing mobile technology. I see that as an opportunity for the public and private sectors to harness those revolutionary technological changes and bring together the physical with the digital to provide more exciting and unique community spaces.
Online sales are set to account for more than a quarter of all retail sales by 2020, and it is predicted that 4,000 retail stores will be lost by 2015. The latest figures from the British Retail Consortium show that in October, online sales of non-food products reached a new record rate of 18.3%. M-commerce grew by a staggering 300% last year alone, and it will rise further. Already, 72% of us own smartphones, according to research by Deloitte, and that will only increase.
Remember the old days, not long ago, when there was only one way to shop? We walked down the high street and into the shop we wanted, spotted the item that we wanted to purchase, bought it and carried it home. With mobile phones, we can now go into a shopping centre, examine goods, scan barcodes, compare goods online, read reviews and buy either in store or online. Developing mobile technology means that in the future, we will also receive real-time, tailor-made messages from companies about myriad offers and discounts in nearby shops.
The thousands of empty shops up and down the country cannot all go back to being traditional shops. As a result of the impact of mobile technology, future town centres will no longer simply be about physical shopping; they will be about socialising, entertainment services and cultural events. That was highlighted by both the Portas report and the Grimsey report.
Many stores are responding to new technology by bringing together online services with physical shops. Many businesses are equipping their staff with iPads or installing kiosks to allow for easy in-store customer ordering. A good example of the bringing together of the physical and the digital is Amazon’s introduction of collection lockers on the high street, which allow people to collect their orders rather than waiting for deliveries. eBay has set up a pilot system allowing “click and collect” orders to be picked up at Argos outlets. John Lewis has already launched a service that allows customers to collect their order from one of 1,500 local Collect+ shops, so customers start their shopping journey online and finish it in the town centre, which creates additional footfall.
Many shops already have free wi-fi for tailored marketing, which also allows shoppers to read detailed reviews and compare prices—something that 33% of smartphone users are already doing. Apps or scanable QR codes and barcodes help stores to target shoppers for special deals and extra branded content on their mobile devices as they browse the shop. QR codes on shop windows can divert custom to a website outside normal opening hours, which is particularly useful for a small shop.
Mobile technology is already transforming our high street, but let us try to imagine what the high street of the future might look like. In Spain, people can already use phone identification to check in to their local high street, after which a host of real-time events and offers flash up on their smartphone to alert them to what is happening there and then. Such technology can even direct people to a free parking space, and Westminster is already pioneering a new app for that. In years to come, we will also see many stockless shops, which aim to sell their brand. In such shops, customers will sit on sofas and view new collections through high-definition touchable holograms, which allow them to feel the texture of a fabric and have an item delivered to their home immediately.
Future technology will identify people from an on-street face recognition account that they can opt into, which will alert key shops and services to the fact that an individual is coming, to allow them to prepare a tailored offer in store. That means that we will receive tailor-made messages and offers as we walk down the high street. Things that seemed ridiculously futuristic a short time ago will be here soon, such as Google Glass, a head-computer worn like glasses, which an individual can speak to. It will project images and information on to the glass, and will function like an interactive search engine. It is difficult to predict the effect of such technological changes on consumer behaviour, but we must understand how transformational they will be.
I have already mentioned the Portas and Grimsey reviews. I think it is unfortunate that they seem to be in conflict with each other, because essentially they both say the same thing about innovation and partnerships. Stockport is a Portas pilot. Our pilot is based on regeneration of our market and Underbank, and it is creative industry-led. It is fair to say that it has been a bumpy ride, but that is what pilots are about. It has illustrated the difficulties faced when two very different cultures—public and private—try to work together. The good news is that footfall is up in the markets, new shops are opening and a unique Stockport brand is emerging.
The pilot demonstrated that we need a different kind of public-private partnership to support regeneration projects based on small retailers and markets. Such projects should always have a business plan based on hard evidence and proper analysis of strengths and weaknesses, to arrive at a unique high street offer for a particular town. If public money is to be spent on business rate relief, buying and letting property to preferred leaseholders, transferring public services to empty shops or converting empty shops to residential use, we need to see value for that money, especially as resources will become increasingly scarce. I would like the Minister to do what he can to spread the evidence from the Portas pilots and similar innovative schemes across the country, to provide local councils with information that will help them develop business plans for their high street. We do not want to be constantly reinventing the wheel.
In Stockport, I am conducting a shopping survey of people who live near the town centre. It is clear that the majority of them use the town centre for small shopping trips, up to five times a week in some cases, during which they also go to the bank or the post office or stop for a cup of coffee. That provides important footfall for the town centre.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
The hon. Lady makes a strong case, and I have listened intently to her contribution. I should declare an interest, because before I was elected to this place, I did quite a large amount of work in retail development and have retained a share in it.
One thing I am concerned about is that we need to have an impact on local car parking, because we need to encourage people physically to come into the urban conurbations and city centres. If car parking is expensive, as it increasingly is in my constituency, people will be driven away, and they will end up just using technology and failing to visit town centres.
Ann Coffey
The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point. The issue comes up again and again—indeed, it came up in the shopping survey I did. If councils are developing business plans, they also need to take into account the impact of their car-parking charges and whether those will attract shoppers to their town centres, rather than drive them somewhere else. That is an important part of any business plan. Converting empty shops to residential use and into shop fronts for public services seems a good plan, because it will encourage people to shop in the town centre. The presence of banks and post offices is also important in creating footfall—a point made by the Association of Convenience Stores.
The growth of online shopping has weakened many out-of-town large-format stores, and, as a result, there has been renewed interest in the convenience format, with a return to smaller, more frequent shopping trips. That could benefit towns such as Stockport.
In our town, there are many new independent shops. It is good to see them exploring ways of working together and of using the internet and social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to support their bricks-and-mortar shops. I was talking to a Stockport business that already operates an online store through ASOS Marketplace, which is part of the ASOS fashion retail site. However, independent retailers across the country report that they are struggling to compete with major internet retailers, as they lack the funds on their own for large-scale online marketing and websites to compete with Amazon and eBay.
An interesting response is new websites for independent retailers such as myhigh.st, which is supported by the British Independent Retailers Association. Target 200 is an innovative e-commerce network that gives independent shopkeepers the chance to join together to sell their products online. It also gives towns a platform to showcase what is happening in their high streets. Together with “click and collect” and an independent shops loyalty programme, it enables shoppers to buy online, while encouraging visits in person.
Such innovation may be the way forward for Stockport, bringing an online presence together with the town’s physical shops. In an affordable way, that will give independent retailers additional income through online sales, while showcasing Stockport’s bigger retail shops, its markets—including its specialist markets—and its cultural and heritage attractions. That will encourage more people to visit and shop in the town.
With all the discussion about the demise of the high street, I am really concerned that opportunities are being missed. It is important that councils and businesses join together to use the exciting opportunities offered by mobile technology to transform the delivery of private goods and public services on our high streets, turning them into the exciting community spaces of the future.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Order. If colleagues could limit their speeches to around eight minutes, everybody should get in.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Walker. It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), who, with me, co-sponsored the debate. She delivered a fantastic speech; not only is she a real champion of the high street, but, with all her talk of the future and what the high street needs, she is a presenter in the making should “Tomorrow’s World” ever be re-launched.
I am a proud retail geek. My parents ran a retail shop, so I spent many hours after school behind the shop counter—I had my very own “Open All Hours” experiences as I was growing up. I am the new co-chair of the all-party group on retail, alongside the hon. Member for Stockport. I am also the vice-chair of the all-party group on town centres.
Town centre regeneration is a major issue in the Swindon area. We were on the cusp of major regeneration in 2007-08, but as the economy crashed, I am afraid the developers went to the wall. However, we are very much at the front of the queue for the next wave of regeneration. Regent Circus is taking shape by the day, and it will have a new cinema and a number of eateries, including Nandos. Judging by my postbag, that is exciting huge numbers of people. Those things will be here this time next year, which is a big boost, especially for a town that can boast 300,000 shoppers within 20 minutes of it and 3 million within an hour. That is one reason why we were able to secure £65 million of private sector investment to rebuild the legendary Oasis leisure centre—I am sure Members have all gone there with their bathing costumes. I have set up a retail forum, and I regularly visit lots of shops and retailers. This is a key interest for me.
I am an unashamed Mary Portas fan. I know she is a controversial figure and divides public opinion, but I think she shone a light on not only some serious issues and challenges, but some opportunities for the high street. Sometimes we need someone who is straight talking to come in and shake things up. There was almost a collective acceptance of defeat, and there was no reason for that, because, as Mary Portas has shown, there is so much that can be done to help the high street.
As the hon. Lady said, the high street is important. About 11% of the country’s work force are employed in retail. There is a lot of flexible working, which suits a lot of people. Often, people’s first job is in retail. My first job was at Starrs newsagents, although, regrettably, I had to leave because I was spending more than I was being paid on stuff I did not need, because I was always staring at it and putting it on the shelves. So, for no reason other than that I could not afford to work there any more, I had to end my newsagent career.
Local authorities have a key part to play. Many areas have an opportunity to pursue redevelopment, but local authorities must understand that they need to be flexible. There are towns where there are historic reasons why certain buildings need to be protected, but a lot of towns need to accept that when a developer says the whole town centre needs to turn on its axis by 5°, that might make all the difference. The success of supermarkets and out-of-town shopping centres comes from the fact that they have built environments that attract customers, and town centres need to replicate that.
Although it is important to attract the brand names and the anchor stores to the high street, towns must have space for the small independent shops that create character and give people an extra reason to come off the motorway at that junction to visit that town centre, rather than those further down the motorway.
We have talked about parking. I was proud that the Mary Portas review highlighted Swindon for best practice. Despite challenging financial times, we managed to cut car-parking charges. We then saw a 10% increase in footfall, following five to 10 years of decreases. Suddenly, cutting charges to £2 for four hours led to a 10% increase and, crucially, to a much longer dwell time. Previously, people were coming in to do their banking and then leaving. After the change, they came to do their banking, visited a café and, once they had refuelled, they would go and spend money on shopping, which is great for local business.
Oliver Colvile
The other issue is making sure that there are other attractions so that people use town centres. This is also about theatre, museums and other activities, which are part of people’s experience of going into towns and doing their shopping.
Justin Tomlinson
I thank my hon. Friend for that brilliant contribution, which was spot on. I will come to the night-time economy in a short while.
A number of people will no doubt talk about business rates, and I do not want to enter into a big debate about them ahead of the autumn statement. However, we need to recognise that the world is changing. The internet will continue to grow, and the way customers shop will change. Business rates need to recognise those changes. The issue is not all about traditional bricks and mortar, and a fair system should recognise that.
The other area where local authorities and, arguably, the Government can go a bit further is super-BIDs—business improvement districts—which are fantastic. I work with InSwindon and Forward Swindon, and they do a great job. We also have the McArthurGlen outlet village, which is a huge success; it is about to have its umpteenth expansion and employs about 900 people. A queue of retailers is trying to come in. If retailers do not trade well in the centre, they are removed. How many high streets can say that?
The key to the centre’s success is twofold. First, it has fantastic car parking, which is a no-brainer. Secondly, there is a single point of contact. If a retailer is thinking of going there, they know who to speak to. If they want to go to a town centre, do they speak to the local authority, the BID company or the landlords? There are all sorts of different things, and there is a lot of confusion. I would love to see a lot more of our towns give the BID companies full control of the town centre so that they get on with things—whether that is street cleaning, entertainment or planning. That would help to transform huge swathes of our town centres.
Let me now turn away from what the Government can do. Often the temptation is to say that we can do everything, but retailers actually have a lot to do, as Mary Portas highlighted. Retailers must accept that they have to adapt to changing customer expectations, whether that involves the growth of the internet or the growth of supermarkets and out-of-town shopping centres. Customer service is crucial. Too many retailers simply took customers for granted.
I saw that in my parents’ shops when I was growing up. My parents always took time to thank customers. If the normal closing time was half-past 5 but a customer who came in after work had not finished shopping by that time, they did not shut; they kept going while there was someone there. All too often, and particularly in some chains, that attitude is lacking. In any Mary Portas television programme, that is always the first thing to be highlighted. Customers will vote with their feet. If they get bad service, they go away.
Offering something different is another thing to consider. We have Bloomfields deli in Highworth. Everyone said that it was mad to open it—“The supermarkets own the world; you have no chance of surviving”—but it offered innovative products that could not be found in the supermarket, and good quality. The shop sells fine foods and the staff will wrap things up and put them in hampers. The Christmas deluge of business, allowing the deli to sell products that it could not otherwise, is about to start, and that is all because of going the extra mile.
Shops have to think about opening hours, because the internet is 24/7. Amazon is a big competitor and will deliver overnight; so why not deliver the same day? My mother delivered things: it was a wool shop, so there were a lot of older customers, and on the way home she would drop things off to some of those would could not get in. She did it because it brought in extra business. John Lewis is a good example of the chain stores that have embraced the multi-channel approach. About 40% of its business is now click and collect.
The final element of what I am talking about is the role of young people, and encouraging them to start in retailing. The number of young people going to the high street has dropped dramatically. When I was growing up, the town centre was the place where young people went, by default, to buy music or computer games, to socialise and, when they got old enough, to take advantage of the night-time economy. Nowadays, there is a generation of young people who never set foot in the town centre because they are the ones who embrace internet and out-of-town shopping the most. We must get the mix right, as the hon. Member for Stockport said.
We must encourage young entrepreneurs to think about retail. We run entrepreneur challenges in schools, which I have just talked about in the business debate in the main Chamber. I am talking about providing real, tangible experience in a retail environment. I did that in the Blunsdon market. The young people run a market stall and the mentors talk to the successful businesses afterwards and explain, “If, after you finish college, you want to do this, we can talk to landlords and get you a space in a unit, or you can come back to the market.” From small acorns, businesses grow. All big businesses today were small businesses once, and young people can be the best retailers, because they will challenge convention. We should do more to champion that.
Mr Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) on securing this important debate. It is a timely one, given the number of retailers who will be hoping to do very well in the run-up to Christmas to see whether they can remain on the high street.
On a positive note, I should say that a lot of hard work goes on in town centres and high streets to make sure that retail is successful and has a secure future. The North Shields chamber of trade and commerce and Whitley Bay chamber of trade constantly promote the interests of their members but also of the town as a whole. Newspapers such as The Journal in Newcastle and the News Guardian in my constituency encourage people to shop locally and on the high street. I hope they will also encourage them to get behind small business Saturday on 7 December.
Perhaps most importantly, to pick up on the point made by the hon. Member for North Swindon, many young people and women seem to be setting up retail outlets in places such as Park View in Whitley Bay. They harness new technology and come up with new and innovative ways to make it an interesting place to visit, spend time and shop.
Many retailers, including many small independents, have a difficult struggle to survive day to day. I want to focus on one aspect of a complex group of issues, which has not yet been covered in the debate: the importance of making high streets safe to visit and of enabling retailers to trade without suffering losses through criminality, which can in extreme cases jeopardise their businesses.
The British Retail Consortium survey of December 2012 reported that the cost of retail crime in 2011-12 was about £1.6 billion, 83% of which was theft involving customers. Half that goes undetected. There is, anecdotally, concern about the possibility that almost three decades of diminishing crime rates may be levelling out—and may begin to rise. I hope that that does not happen.
I am told that in 30 of the police force areas there is evidence that crime—particularly acquisitive crime, and, within that category, particularly shoplifting—is increasing. There is a danger of an overall rise in crime. I hope we shall not return to what was traditionally viewed as the link between recession and crime—albeit with something of a lag. I accept that the annual crime figures may not yet show that effect, but I am told that over a period of six to nine months a worrying picture has been emerging.
Retailers are on the front line. Newsagents and general stores stock perhaps the most transportable and resellable goods of all: alcohol and tobacco. Shoplifting is not a victimless crime. It adds to the retailer’s business costs, as well as to customers’ costs at a time when the cost of living is rising. Often, independent retailers are the hardest hit, if not because of the sheer volume of the problem, then because of the effect on their business costs.
The Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill is currently being considered, and there has been concern about the definition of low-value shoplifting as being when the value of the stolen goods does not exceed £200. That is a lot of money to many independent stores. There is a perception, and even greater concern, that people arrested for shoplifting are sometimes being cautioned again and again, and that any recompense for the retailer is missing. I know that that is not the Minister’s area of responsibility, but I ask him to draw it to the attention of his ministerial colleagues.
Some retailers I speak to have been asking whether the Government intend to review the guidance on shoplifting. We read almost daily about people stealing household goods—including, increasingly, food. Sometimes that is, obviously, to feed a family. There could be numerous reasons for what is happening, such as benefit changes, worklessness or just criminality. However, it could also be part of organised crime, and, as far as I am concerned, a crime is a crime.
The police and courts need appropriate and proportionate penalties to be available, and £200 is an awful lot of money to a shopkeeper. Organised crime gang members may individually steal goods worth less than £200, but that can hardly be described as low-level crime; and it is hardly something that warrants a caution. I know from experience that there are many good schemes for combating high street, and particularly retail, crime. Many traders in Whitley Bay are linked by a radio system, and they have a good relationship with the police. However, they keep saying, “We are doing our bit; can you make sure that, should people steal from us, the penalties will be proportionate?”
I want to end on a slightly different aspect of the same issue: the unfortunate and all too frequent verbal abuse and threats of violence towards retail staff. I draw the House’s attention to the Freedom from Fear campaign of the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, which focuses on violence against shop workers. It would be nice if the Minister said something in support of that campaign and of those who work in retail.
Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)
It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I join others in congratulating my colleagues, the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), on securing this timely debate.
We do not need surveys or focus groups to establish that high streets are popular with our constituents, whose natural instincts support a thriving high street. I suspect that is even more true in some of our smaller market towns. High streets in towns such as Barton-upon-Humber in my constituency, which has a good mix of independent shops, are certainly highly valued by local people. I am pleased to say that Cleethorpes itself has a thriving shopping area, in the appropriately named High street and down St Peter’s avenue, with a good mix of shops that is well valued by the local community.
As has already been suggested, the retail environment is changing dramatically. Too many attempts are made to preserve the high street scene and ignore the fact that shopping habits have changed due to the internet and what almost amounts in some cases to the migration of the town centre to a different location on the edge of town or urban retail parks. We have all witnessed what starts simply as an edge-of-town supermarket expand until a cluster of other retail units form around it; in a short space of time, we have a competing town centre or high street. Whether or not those changes are for the better, we cannot alter the fact that the customer has decided that they are here to stay.
The Portas review was established and, as I stated in previous debates, I see little in it that does anything more than apply a sticking plaster to a gaping wound. I do not blame the Government for using a celebrity to front the review. Sometimes celebrities can draw more attention to issues than any politician or businessman can. To be fair to Mary Portas, her report recognises that retailers need fewer shops and recognises the onward march of the supermarkets, which is of course the main reason why we need fewer retail units. She is half right when she states:
“We have sacrificed communities for convenience.”
I suggest that in most cases the communities are still there, but they shop elsewhere. I look back to my early childhood in Fuller street in Cleethorpes. It still exists and the same 80 or 90 houses are still occupied, but Mr Marrows, the grocer down the street, and Mr Nocton, the butcher round the corner, along with the baker, the hardware shop and many others, have long disappeared.
Like every town in the country, Cleethorpes simply has too many retail units. Nocton’s butchers stood on Grimsby road, which is the main road between Grimsby and the adjoining town of Cleethorpes. It is also the main entrance to the resort of Cleethorpes, and the many bricked-up, derelict properties do not enhance the reputation of what I am pleased to say is still a thriving resort. Property values and rents are low. Many sole traders are surviving without necessarily thriving. Whether the property owners are the traders themselves, a local landlord or indeed an absentee landlord, an incentive is needed to convert many of the now empty retail units to residential use. With the powers granted to local authorities by the Government’s localism agenda, councils have sufficient powers in their armouries to embark on regeneration schemes. The reality is that very little is happening. Parades of shops up and down the land scar the communities they once served. We must quickly embark on schemes that can revitalise such areas.
In the North East Lincolnshire council area, which is one of the councils that serves my constituency, schemes to renovate empty houses already exist, but they only scratch the surface. This Government and previous Governments have poured many millions into various initiatives that, as I said earlier, only apply an Elastoplast to a wound. We need initiatives that perhaps allow local authorities to spend that sort of money on compulsory purchase, rather than repave vast areas or patch up one little area. I have served on a local authority, so I know how difficult compulsory purchase is to achieve. It often takes two, three or more years to accomplish for a relatively small group of properties, and we need to make it easier. The resources spent on various initiatives would be better spent on buying up properties. Councils could then sell them at a knock-down price—perhaps even give them away—with a compulsory brief that whoever purchased them had to convert them or use them for a particular scheme.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman is making a number of important points about the powers local authorities have to shape their areas. Does he accept that recent Government changes deregulating permitted development make it much more difficult for local authorities to influence what happens on the high street?
Martin Vickers
I am afraid that I do not agree with the hon. Lady. I am very much one for freeing up the ability of councils to put together plans, schemes and initiatives of the sort I mentioned, which, although they may need central funding to kick-start them, are bottom-up schemes. I cannot agree with her.
Much is made of car parking charges. I agree that in an ideal world we would not have them—my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) will refer to the successful schemes that North East Lincolnshire council has introduced—but getting rid of charges is not a panacea. I recall mentioning in a similar debate that I was the councillor on North East Lincolnshire council responsible for environmental services, including car parking. We discussed it time and time again and had various initiatives to help with Christmas shopping and the like, but the reality is that we got £1.25 million in income from car parking charges. If a council is providing services elsewhere, it simply cannot at a stroke say, “We’ll do away with that £1 million.” It is a problem.
Grimsby town centre, the main shopping centre that serves my constituency, has a successful and thriving shopping centre, Freshney Place, which charges. People go there in their thousands, often at the expense of going to other areas that do not charge. If the offer is right, people do not mind paying a modest amount for parking. I can see that I have just exceeded my eight minutes, so I will conclude there and hand over.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
I intend to call the wind-ups at six minutes past four and give each of the Front Benchers 11 minutes. Ms Coffey can have two minutes at the end.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
I want to make a few brief remarks. I thank the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) for securing the debate, because this issue is important to all of us. We all have local communities in our constituencies, and we want them to thrive and our traders to succeed. We want independent traders, of which there are fewer and fewer, to be a key part of that. The debate is critical because it is about communities, which are usually created with shopping centres and high streets at their centre. High streets can help to create stronger communities, and we want to ensure that they can continue to do so. My first two jobs were in shops in Scotland, so the topic is close to my heart.
The debate is topical, given that we are coming to the Christmas period and a lot of shops and traders are feeling nervous about the next few weeks. As has been mentioned, more people are shopping online and out of town. In London, big chains are pushing up rents. My constituency is in west London. People think of London as a city, but apart from the inner city, London is made up of little villages. I have several specific high streets in my constituency that I look at in particular: Chiswick high road; High street in Brentford; High street in Hounslow; South street in Isleworth; Thornbury road in Osterley; and London road.
The Mayor of London has taken this issue on as a high priority. Recently, two of my high streets have received £4.8 million in support from the Mayor’s outer London fund. That has helped in creating a town centre manager, markets, Christmas lights—any initiative that would bring people to the high street and make it a focal point for people to shop and go to the restaurants there. A lot has been done. Of course, we have heard already about the Portas review. In fact, Mary Portas opened a shop on my local high street, Living and Giving, which is a shop for Save the Children—it is a charity shop on Chiswick High road. Some interesting points came out of that review, and the pilots have been set up. Also, in London after the summer of unrest and riots that we had, there is a high street innovation fund, and a lot has been done to encourage local markets. A lot has been done in that way, and the Government have done a lot to help to support small businesses, as many of us were saying earlier today in the main Chamber.
There are some things we have tried to do locally. A new market has been set up in Brentford on Sundays, to which lots of high quality traders have been coming, including new traders. A market is a great way in for someone who wants to start a business. Also, I have a regular forum with my traders in Chiswick to hear their concerns and try to do something about them. I certainly keep in touch with what is happening with the regeneration and transformation of two of my bigger high streets, in Brentford and Hounslow, which needed a lot of work done to them.
We have started to provide free parking for 30 minutes in some areas. I have been pushing my borough to extend that scheme right across the borough—my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon talked about, I think, a 10% increase in trade from such a scheme. That is the right way to go, and is hopefully something that will be implemented right across the borough as soon as possible, because it will certainly encourage people to come to the local high street, as opposed to going out of town. We are also looking at business improvement districts. We do not have any in my part of west London at the moment, but there are many across London and we want to try to build on those.
When I speak to my traders, including on the high street, they talk about business rates—especially in London, with its high rateable values. Ideally, I would like the Minister’s support when I go and speak to the Prime Minister next week about what we do about business rates, because I would like a more fundamental reform of them. Traders have also asked me where they can go for help. Many of our traders try going to their local councillor or perhaps reaching out to a range of people, but who is responsible for our traders on the high street? Who looks after their concerns? As MPs, we have our constituents, and I have said to my local traders that I will absolutely help to represent their interests and listen to their concerns, because they are a core part of the local community.
Some of the things we are looking forward to include small business Saturday on 7 December, when a lot of activities will be taking place then across my constituency. That has helped to create a real sense of community, which is really important. Something we are seeing a lot of in London is empty shops. I would like to encourage the use of pop-up shops, which are another way for new entrepreneurs to test out their markets, starting small and growing from that. The more we can do to encourage pop-up shops as a starting-point, the better.
When it comes to local authorities, we want to encourage people to shop on the high street; therefore, there must be real diversity there. In some of my local areas we have seen a whole stream of estate agents or charity shops, but what we want is a good mix, because that is what will get people to come to the high street. When I go down Turnham Green terrace in Chiswick, it is wonderful to see a queue outside my butchers, Macken Brothers, on a Saturday. That just goes to show that if small traders on the high street are good and people know about them, they can be hugely successful. Some of the best moments for me—for example, Devonshire road street parties—have been where the high streets have got together and created events to improve the sense of community and to get shoppers to come their streets. They have been absolutely superb.
The key thing for us—all hon. Friends and hon. Members here today—is: what needs to be done to help the high street and help local traders to thrive? If there is more that the Government can do to support them—whether through taxation or business rates, encouraging flexibility on parking and diversity, or looking at how we use empty shops and encourage more pop-up shops—that will be a step in the right direction.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Hon. Members are being very self-limiting—very well-behaved.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
Thank you, Mr Walker, for calling me to speak. I will try to be as good as my colleagues have been.
Action for Market Towns is a national charity and the representative body committed to the vitality and viability of market towns across the country, with membership from such towns all across Britain. After a highly selective process, this year my constituency was chosen as the location for its annual conference, earlier this month. Congleton was chosen as an exemplary model of good and joint working of all five town partnerships in my constituency—Alsager, Congleton, Homes Chapel, Sandbach and Middlewich. They are not competing against one other, but supporting each other to maintain vibrant local communities, including their high streets. I spoke at the conference and afterwards conducted a Q and A session with the delegates. I want to bring back to this debate and to the Minister some of the comments that delegates made about what more the Government could do to help to boost market towns and other smaller communities, with a particular emphasis, of course, on the high street.
One of the first points that delegates made was that local enterprise partnerships could offer more opportunity to help to diversify town centres, as part of their wider local economic growth strategies. However, the feeling was that LEPs tend to focus on supporting big business, not on places, and that LEPs perhaps need to focus more on supporting market towns or working with groups of smaller businesses. The question to the Minister, therefore, is: how can individual towns and their businesses influence and access LEP funds more effectively? Is there perhaps a need or an opportunity for Government to inform LEP strategy development at national and local level, to ensure that LEPs listen to and respond effectively to community representatives, including those representing smaller retailers?
My second point relates to developing the policy for multi-purpose town centres. I think we all acknowledge the need for town centres to diversify, so that they can provide retail alongside community services and play a stronger leisure, culture and amenity role. There is also an acceptance of the potential to deliver that through neighbourhood planning. There is the future high streets forum, but comment was made that although this holistic view of town centres is accepted, it does not seem to be proportionately represented on the forum. I have looked at the proportion of representatives on the forum, and there certainly seems to be a preponderance of representatives from big business and big retailers, with relatively few representing the smaller high street retailers. The question is: are there real champions of small businesses to make their voices and views heard on the future high streets forum, providing an holistic view of multi-purpose and sustainable town centres to be delivered through localism and the right to plan or community rights? Is the balance right on that forum to ensure that this will happen?
Thirdly, there is the issue of the reuse of public assets in towns. Maintenance of public services and employment in and around town centres is, as we know, vital to local well-being and prosperity. However, there is concern that empty public buildings could be made more readily available by authorities for social and community enterprises, perhaps at below market value if they are lying empty. That was something that the delegates really wanted me to draw to the attention of the Minister. Perhaps wider local economic benefit could be taken into account in calculating best value—using the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, for example—in the sale and reuse of such public assets in and around town centres. How can we achieve this?
I wish to touching briefly on charity shops. Their role in the vibrancy of town centres was something of a controversial subject among the delegates, perhaps shrouded in anecdote. It was suggested that more informed research was needed. Although there are negative aspects, including rate relief—especially relating to the sale of new products—and the clustering of charity shops in prime retail locations, on the positive side, charities and social enterprises occupy empty units, diversify town centres and, in some instances, provide a broad range of services beyond retail. I have been involved for several years in a charity shop in Widnes that occupies a former empty jeweller’s shop. At the back of the town centre, we provide drug addiction advice, debt advice, pregnancy counselling and free legal aid. To inform the work of the future high streets forum, what objective research is undertaken to understand and inform policy and good practice on the impact of charity shops and social enterprises on town centre vitality?
Finally, I am sure that the Minister would not want me to speak in his presence without referring to local plans, the national planning policy framework and town centres. The delegates acknowledged the potential benefit of new funding sources through the community infrastructure levy, which they welcomed, but there was strong consensus that the application of localism through neighbourhood planning and wider community rights could provide new opportunities for local businesses and community groups to determine the vitality of their town centres.
However, there were concerns that local proposals for sustainable business development were being overruled by proposals from large retailers and housing developers. I know of a situation near me in Tattenhall, west Cheshire, where a neighbourhood plan on whose creation local groups spent an enormous amount, including for a local referendum, is now being challenged through the courts by a major developer.
There is widespread concern that the continuing lack of agreed local plans leaves communities open to any development that is proposed—developments need only meet the NPPF requirements—and about the fact that town plans are being ignored when planning appeals take place. I refer the Minister once again to the plight of Sandbach, where some 500 properties will now be developed on the wrong side of the town centre, causing considerable congestion and other difficulties. Sandbach townsfolk do not object to development, but they want it in the right place. If only we could have waited until the local plan was finalised, that development would have been in the right place. What can be done to ensure that local community and business engagement in neighbourhood planning for sustainable growth is not overruled by the inconsistent application of the NPPF, and particularly by the financial resources of major developers?
From my own leadership experience as senior partner in a community law firm on the high street for almost 25 years, I know how much hard work, care and devotion go into local community life on behalf of local businesses. I want to support that, particularly in my constituency, in the years to come.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I concur with colleagues who have paid tribute to the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey), my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) and the others who have helped secure this debate.
Town centres are incredibly important to my constituency, all 257 square miles of it. We have a lot of historic market towns, including Brigg, Epworth and Crowle, as well as bigger centres such as Goole. My constituency also covers part of Scunthorpe, so Scunthorpe town centre, although it is not in my constituency, is incredibly important. Like other Members, I am committed to our town centres. I spent some time working in the US many years ago, and I was staggered when I asked the people I was living with, “Where is the town centre?” and they looked at me and said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Where is it? There must be one. I’ve walked and walked until the pavement ran out”—the town was Hamilton, New Jersey. The community just did not have a town centre. I was on a street called Edinburgh street, I remember, which was pronounced “Edinburg street” in New Jersey.
At the time, the thought that town centres in many places had either closed down or simply did not exist was alien to me, but that was a number of years ago. Sadly, some of the things that have happened in the US have started to happen here, particularly since the move to out-of-town shopping centres. Maybe we have caught up with the trend, or maybe we have regressed. I do not know which, but it is definitely having an impact.
The life and future of town centres in my constituency is fairly positive. They are still the centre of most of my communities when it comes to accessing GP services, post offices or even council services. They are also a meeting place for many generations, and they provide a huge number of jobs. I concur with other Members about the importance of retail jobs. My first job at 12 was being a paperboy, but at 15, I got a job in a shoe shop, supplying Hush Puppies and Jouralle shoes to the assorted masses of what was then Humberside. Freeman Hardy Willis was the name of the company. I then got a job working at McDonald’s, which I did for five years through college and university. I understand the value of retail jobs, particularly to young people but also to those who want to work flexibly or part-time.
Our local town centres have been supported strongly by the local council. I want to highlight several examples from North Lincolnshire council that could be applied nationally and that show what can be achieved for our town centres when local authorities and town centre retailers work in partnership. When we took control of my town council in 2011, we were swift in removing parking charges in Brigg. Since then, the council has introduced free parking periods, with the strong support of the Scunthorpe Telegraph, an excellent local newspaper. We have extended free parking into Scunthorpe, and I hope we can go further. It was the previous Labour council, sadly, that imposed charges in Brigg.
The importance of those measures came home to me during the first Christmas after we removed the charges in 2011. I went to open Santa’s shack in Brigg, in one of our famous hardware stores—other options are available, of course—and the manager of the shop said to me, “You wouldn’t believe the impact the free parking period has had.” People are not fearful of being ticketed. They understand the rules, and they know that they can come into Brigg and shop for two hours, so they do not drive to an out-of-town centre on the edge of Scunthorpe or elsewhere; they come into Brigg to do their shopping. We should not underestimate the value of free parking.
Nor should we underestimate the value of reasonable parking attendants. Epworth is having a big problem, and retail businesses are struggling. Retailers have been to see me, and I have got the council to agree to review the aggressive enforcement of parking rules that is driving people out of our town centres. Free periods are a good start, but after two hours when the free period expires, parking attendants must be reasonable.
In response to a little campaign that I ran with Goole town centre, a local council of mine has managed to get free wi-fi in Goole town centre by working with Jibba Jabba, a local broadband provider based in Doncaster. It is an excellent name; those of us from the ’80s will remember “The A-Team”. Anyone who comes into Goole and logs on to the wi-fi will be greeted by a nice picture of me welcoming them to the free wi-fi service. [Interruption.] Take-up has been high; whether people repeat their visit I am not sure.
That is in the East Riding of Yorkshire part of my constituency. I took the idea to North Lincolnshire council, which has agreed to roll out wi-fi to all our town centres to support local businesses. Many of our towns, such as Epworth, have burgeoning café and food outlet environments, which I strongly support. They have said to me that having free wi-fi has been important in Goole. People come in, sit there and use it with their tablets out, and they buy an extra coffee while doing so, because they realise that they can get fast internet while enjoying their lunch or coffee break, as people do these days.
Councils must be proactive on crime. Town centre crime is a concern, particularly for small retailers. We had a bit of a spike in Epworth not so long ago. I am pleased that, working with local councillors there— Liz Redfern and David Robinson—we managed to get £45,000 out of the council to install CCTV cameras in Epworth town centre, which retailers have welcomed. We also got the local council to fund extra police community support officers there and provide two new PCSOs in the Isle of Axholme and others in parts of north Lincolnshire. Again, it is working in partnership because it understands that crime is important in respect of retail and the economy, and in making people feel safe and confident enough to come into town centres. I welcome that partnership.
There are other simple things that councils can do. We set up a body in Brigg, of which I am the chairman—I am not in control of everything in the constituency; this is not some despotic regime—called Brigg 2020, a regeneration partnership. I also chair one in Goole, called Goole Renaissance. In Brigg, we got the council to look at the street furniture and ask, “What is attractive about our town centre and what isn’t?” The battered old railings that welcome people into town do not exactly say, “This is a place to come and enjoy an afternoon”, or “Enjoy your shopping.” That is not acceptable. Simply by doing an audit of such things and getting the council to commit to replacing them, we can change the appearance of our town centres.
When councils get it—when they understand it—and when they do not see themselves as being in conflict with retailers, it can work. Sometimes, retailers say, “The council is not doing enough for us,” and sometimes the council says, “Oh, well, retailers are just complaining about parking, yet again. It’s the usual thing,” or, “They’re complaining about litter.” When we park all those traditional tussles and replace them with proper partnership working, we can achieve a great deal. We do not have a great number of empty shops in the smaller market towns in my area.
We still have a big problem in town centres, and I do not know how the Government are responding to the matter. Sadly, in the past few years, in Scunthorpe, one of the bigger town centres, Marks & Spencer has left, although it is returning to my constituency at an out-of-town unit on the edge of Scunthorpe. Although we have tried to get it into the town centre, it is not interested in that. It is difficult to know how the Government should respond to the flight away from big town centres. In the past couple of weeks, McDonald’s, of all companies, has announced that it is leaving Scunthorpe town centre, despite its being incredibly busy. It mentioned business rates, the shift of people out of town and online sales, as others have done.
I have gone 30 seconds over time, despite being self-limiting. There was much more that I wanted to say, not about various positions that I hold but about what we can do to support our town centres by working in partnership. I hope that the Government will respond to questions raised by colleagues and to my concerns about the need to continue extending small business rate relief and about our biggest stores, to ensure that there is a fair, level playing field in town centres and out of town.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Order. I remind Front-Bench speakers that we will allow the Member who secured the debate two minutes at the end, so perhaps they could be self-limiting as well.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) and the hon. Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) for securing this debate and pay tribute to their work as joint chairs of the all-party retail group. I pay tribute to all hon. Members who have spoken passionately about their areas. I will return in a moment or two to some specific points that they raised.
The importance of high streets and retail cannot be better demonstrated than in Stockport, where, as my hon. Friend eloquently outlined, retail is a significant part of the economy and contributes a large proportion of jobs in the town. Stockport is benefiting from the reshaping of the town’s retail offer, and in a way it is forging a new identity. That is to be applauded.
I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell) mentioned the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers campaign to keep shop workers safe, because we do not talk enough about that in the House and we have to consider it when thinking about regenerating our high streets and town centres.
I am glad that most hon. Members mentioned small business Saturday on 7 December. I am sure that we are all getting behind it and supporting our small businesses. It is worth highlighting.
It is pertinent to discuss the state of our high streets. We have had a number of debates on the subject in the House recently and in the past few years. The issue will not go away, and the reason for that is clear: we are seeing a decline in the variety of businesses that make up our high streets. There are now more than twice as many betting shops in British high streets than all the cinemas, bingo halls, museums, bowling alleys and so on put together, but the situation is not inevitable. Positive interventions can be made, and we should not accept the automatic decline of our high street due to trends of online shopping and so on. We have to make the right interventions, and they must be supported by the Government, who must help the process of diversification that we know is needed.
The facts make concerning reading. At this moment, one in seven of Britain’s shops lie empty, and in some places it is one in three. Given that position, the Government should take action to support the high street, but recent data show us that, in a large number of areas, the high street revolution has failed to take off. Vacancy rates, although improving, are doing so only marginally, with a reduction from 14.2% to 14.1%.
The Government’s approach is fragmented. A number of initiatives have been mentioned. We have Portas pilots, town team partners, the future high streets forum, a high street innovation fund, the high street renewal award, a fund for business improvements districts, local enterprise partnerships, local authorities, neighbourhood plans and neighbourhood business plans. Most commentators are saying that we need a more co-ordinated approach, nationally and locally, to help our high streets.
The Government should consider more closely the advice in the Grimsey report, which in many ways echoes what was set out in the Portas review. As my hon. Friend said, that report seeks comprehensively to address the challenges facing the sector. Grimsey set an objective to repopulate high streets and town centres as community hubs, with more housing, education, arts, entertainment, business and office space, health and leisure provision and, of course, shops. He also suggested setting up a town centre commission for each town, with a defined skills base and structure, to build a 20-year vision for each town. He thought that the Government should, at least, pilot that approach. He also said that we should prepare for a wired town centre and that there should be particular support for our high streets, to enable them to embrace new technology, as my hon. Friend outlined. We are not seeing a specific enough initiative to deal with that issue.
In his foreword to his report, Grimsey said:
“We’ve seen reviews, pilots, future high street forums and more. But none of these initiatives are making much impact and there is a frustrating sense of policy being conducted in the margins. The need to grasp the nettle is bigger than ever.”
He acutely identifies the most serious challenges facing the industry, saying:
“The bigger area of concern, though, is the plight of smaller retailers. Many remain horribly stressed financially with an average rating that hovers perilously above the Company Watch warning area. The same pattern applies in the supply chain. For independent shops, a sector that the Business Secretary has previously acknowledged to be an essential part of a healthy high street, the future looks very uncertain. The fact that our analysis shows 46.6 per cent of all retailers in the UK are in the warning area, and by definition at serious risk of failure, should be a loud wakeup call to ministers”—
and to all of us. He states:
“As a check up on the health of the high street, the prognosis is not good. Over 20,000 businesses are at risk and we can expect more and more business failures”
unless action is taken.
“There are around 40,000 empty shops in the UK, and this has remained”
pretty
“constant over…three years.”
The question must be, what are local government and central Government going to do about that?
Part of the answer, undoubtedly, is to enable change of use for premises. What the Government are doing on change of use, however, is making things worse, not better. We know that the consequence of the Government’s changes, particularly those since May, has been to allow more bookies and payday lenders to set up shop on our high streets. The Government are taking away from local authorities the ability to shape what is happening on their high street and to respond to community demand, yet we know that communities want their local authorities to have more control of high street improvement.
A recent survey by Deloitte shows that 73% of people want customers to have a strong role in shaping the high street, and 47% want local authorities to be able to do that. Only 13% want landlords to be able to shape what happens on the high street, yet that is exactly what we have ended up with under this Government. Because planning permission is no longer required for many changes of use on our high street, our local authorities and communities have no ability to shape what is happening. That is the exact opposite of the approach that the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) suggests, which is that local authorities should have powers to shape what happens on the high street, such as by having more rights to purchase properties compulsorily.
The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) made an excellent point on local authorities using social value clauses to help, for example, local people set up start-up units—there would be more pop-up shops. That is exactly the set of uses that local authorities might want on their high street, but if it is simply left to the market to say how empty properties will be used or changed, we are not likely to get the sorts of premises that local people want.
What is likely to happen, as I witnessed when I visited Woolwich high street last week, is that in a row of 16 shops, nine will be payday loan companies or bookies. Local people told me that they are very unhappy with the situation. They said that, in the past couple of years, the council had indeed spent money on the town square but that it was being thoroughly undermined by the number of fast food outlets and so on in the area.
The last time I raised that point with the Minister, he went out and said to the media, “This is about Labour trying to say to you that you shouldn’t be able to buy a McDonald’s.” I make it clear that that is not what we are saying; we are saying that people do not want an over-saturation of a particular type of shop on their high street. As the hon. Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) said, what we need is diversification on our high street. People are telling us clearly that they want independent retailers and community uses; they do not want to see one type of premises taking over the high street.
I hope the Minister will help us to understand how the Government’s approach will assist with that diversification, because I cannot see that approach operating in practice. In fact, we know from across the country that the opposite is happening. The Government could do more. The Government must urgently address change of use and the relaxation of permitted development, and they must give local authorities and communities real powers to shape their high street. That is urgent, but the Government need to do other things. They must consider the wider economy, too.
A recent report by the Centre for Cities claims that the biggest factor affecting the success or failure of our high street is the overall strength of the town or city centre’s economy, and the slow economic recovery over the past three years has really affected the high street. The Government should be doing more to address business rates, increasing rents and higher energy costs, all of which are particularly affecting small business. Again, small businesses themselves are asking the Government to address those issues urgently.
Mr Charles Walker (in the Chair)
I thank the shadow Minister for her perfectly timed speech.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Brandon Lewis)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker.
I congratulate the Members who secured this debate, which has been very interesting, not least because, in the main, it has been positive about the great things that are happening across our high streets and town centres. There has been positive consideration of what more can be done to ensure that, in the 21st century, we have town centres not only that we can be proud of but that serve and reflect what the community needs and wants. From that point of view, the debate has been extremely good, interesting and positive.
One of the fundamental differences between the hon. Member for City of Durham (Roberta Blackman-Woods) and me—my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) outlined this fairly well—is that I think the high street is what we make it. We have to understand that the high street is changing. In some ways, the high street will get smaller and town centres will shrink as retail demand changes. I will address that in a moment.
It is very much not for the Government to manage the high street from the top down. The Grimsey report outlines, and I have discussed this with Bill Grimsey, that the Government should dictate exactly how a high street plan should be done and who should do it. The report contains an idea for taxing successful retailers to help less successful or smaller retailers. We certainly will not be considering the introduction of more taxes that hit retailers in the way that the previous Government perhaps would have done.
We clearly want businesses to have flexibility. When I talk to businesses, they say that they want flexibility to evolve and reflect. To be entirely honest, I am slightly confused by the shadow Minister’s comment that we should have flexibility for diversification without allowing flexibility for planning changes in the high street. I am not sure how we can have it both ways. The reality is that councils have the ability through planning permission, not least through article 4 and through the regulation of gaming, to ensure that the high street balance is correct.
On fast food, I have never said anything of the sort suggested by the shadow Minister. The point I have made previously is that it is not for the Government to dictate whether there are too many or too few fast food restaurants. High streets and town centres will reflect what we, as customers and consumers, demand through how we shop and what we use, whatever the company—whether it is a small local business or a big brand name.
Big brand names are often run by local business people, either directly or as a franchise, and they certainly employ local people and spend good money on their shops. They can be an important part of the high street. As my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) said, we tend to miss those companies when they start talking about moving, but, equally, they are an important part of the high street. We should not knock that. The big brand names are there because we use them, which is the reality of life.
The hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) made a thoughtful and powerful speech on the digital world in which we now live. I think that we are now the country with the highest online shopping usage as a percentage of shopping population. We must be aware that things are changing. Google glasses are potentially part of what we could be seeing in future.
The hon. Lady is right that we need to spread best practice. A debate such as this—we have heard some examples this afternoon—is a good way to do that. We have put £1 million into the Association of Town Centre Management, and the future high streets forum is considering how we share best practice, whether it is through the 333 town teams, through volunteers working in their local area or through the Portas pilots. More generally, we are all working across the media to promote good examples of best practice.
In my constituency of Great Yarmouth, we have a town centre partnership and a business improvement district, or BID. I am a huge fan of BIDs. One of the things that the Great Yarmouth BID has done is to introduce wi-fi across the town, which has been massively welcomed by the local community. The hon. Lady is absolutely right that we must ensure that our towns embrace such digital technology, not least as retail and our high streets change. I appreciate the title of the debate, but our high streets are growing towards being not only somewhere that we go to shop and do other things, but a destination for leisure and hospitality where we may do some shopping. We must recognise that fact.
My hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson) touched on his experience and declared himself another unabashed Mary Portas fan. He can join my club. Mary Portas has done a fantastic job, not least in raising the issue’s profile and setting out a journey and ideology, to which the key is recognising the unique selling point of every individual town centre.
From the success of the Portas pilots and town teams around the country, we can see that there is no homogeneous tick list; different things work differently in different places. Good things can work brilliantly in one place, but they will not necessarily work somewhere else, so we must examine how different areas evolve. I congratulate The Daily Telegraph on its current high streets campaign, a part of which is a competition to find, through its readers, the best high street, and I am delighted to be chairing the panel. An interesting thing that has come from that is how every area is different and how areas are embracing their differences to make them stand out as unique selling points.
My hon. Friend also mentioned parking charges. Braintree, for example, saw a 40,000 increase in footfall as soon as parking charges were reduced. Parking charges are an important part of the mix, and areas should be acutely aware of that. He was also right to highlight young retailers and young people being part of the high street. The high street should absolutely be a leisure and hospitality area, which is a point that links perfectly to the contribution of the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Mr Campbell). He spoke about the importance of safety on our high streets, particularly given the growing night-time economy. That economy is to be embraced as an important part of the high street, but the staff who work there need to be safe. People have the right to be treated with respect and will provide good customer service as a result. Equally, when our children and friends go out, we want to know that they are safe. They have the right to feel safe.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes described the changing shape of the high street. He mentioned the small business rate relief, and I am proud that the Government have trebled that to over £900 million to help businesses right across the country. He makes a fair point about how retail is changing and how retail spaces in many areas need to shrink. I am pleased that we are consulting on the flexibility to change retail spaces back to residential use, which would increase footfall in our town centres and allow them to reflect the change towards leisure and hospitality.
Hair and beauty, and the service industry in general, is one of the fastest-growing parts of the high street. Businesses such as Fusion in Gorleston in my constituency have spent a fortune improving their shop fronts. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) mentioned the future high streets forum. I am looking at its membership and want to change it slightly to reflect the hospitality and leisure aspect of high streets, including the service industries. Hairdressers, for example, have not been a part of it before. The high street economy is no longer just about retail. It is widening and small businesses represent a part of that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) mentioned parking and pop-up shops. We practise what we preach in the Department for Communities and Local Government—not only did we proudly cut our costs by 60%, but we also have a pop-up shop, which I recommend for hon. Members’ Christmas shopping. She is right that areas should be considering such things. In Great Yarmouth, our town centre partnership and the council are looking at exactly that sort of thing, almost as an alchemy centre to give new independent retailers the opportunity to develop, to test the market and to grow.
My hon. Friend, along with other hon. Members, also referred to business rates, about which I do get comments from time to time. We must appreciate that not only do we have the autumn statement next week—I would not want to prejudge what the Chancellor will say—but that retail is only one part of business rates. When we looked at the revaluation, we found that there would have been 800,000 losers and just 300,000 winners, of which retail would have been one, as would much of the hospitality and leisure industries. We must be cautious when making presumptions about business rates, but we can discuss that another time. I outlined the matter during Communities and Local Government questions on Monday.
My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton mentioned local enterprise partnerships, which should, where relevant, consider town centres as important. In some areas, if employees will have somewhere good to go, the town centre can actually be part of what will attract a company to invest in an area. A good, vibrant town centre can be the heartbeat of a community. My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole touched on that when he mentioned the town centre being at the centre of a community.
Charity shops do have an important part to play. My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton mentioned research, and Demos is currently carrying out some on this very issue. Good charity shops can play an important role in the community. They receive both good and bad press, but any kind of retail outlet on the high street can be good or bad depending on how it is presented and looked after. Charity shops sometimes offer coffee facilities and can also get involved running community events from their stores. They can also be a huge draw for footfall.
My hon. Friend also touched on planning, and councils now have the ability to have a play in that system through their local plan. We have discussed this before. I hope that her council will hurry up and get its local plan in place. I am quite happy to chastise them a little as it has been somewhat slower in getting its plan together than residents would appreciate.
My hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole made important points about how the town centre should be the heartbeat of its community. I am pleased that he has such a positive view of the future and he is quite right to do so. The town centre is an important source of employment in the community and can provide a fantastic career path. Despite the numbers of people employed in hospitality and retail in this country, we often undervalue the sector and do not promote enough just what a fantastic career it can be. Someone starting out in retail could end up in the House of Commons, which could happen to anyone, or they could have a fantastic career in retail, which goes across many different organisations, or they could be an entrepreneur running their own independent business—hopefully benefiting from the Government’s small business rate relief.
In conclusion, our town centres have a really good opportunity as we move forward. Change is happening on the high street and the high street must change. High streets should grasp the opportunity to become what the consumer wants them to be in the 21st century. The Government must tread a careful line. We want not to interfere and create false economies, but to create a facility where local people, local businesses and local authorities can work together to provide what we all want—vibrant, successful high streets and town centres that are the heartbeat of their communities and successful not just now, but for years to come.
Ann Coffey
With the leave of the House, I will briefly respond. Thank you, Mr Walker, for chairing this debate. I thank my co-sponsor and co-chair of the all-party group, the hon. Member for North Swindon, whom I look forward to working with on retail issues. He clearly has huge knowledge and real experience in the sector. I also thank the shadow Minister and the Minister for their thoughtful replies.
I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, which were based on their different experiences and different constituencies. It is a strength of the constituency system that it enables Members who represent big cities, rural communities or coastal towns, where many different things happen, to contribute to such a debate. The range of topics has been huge—jobs, crime, planning, parking, partnerships, empty shops, local initiatives, business improvement districts and everything else.
It has been a fantastic debate that has shown the complex interaction of factors, and that the problems are not easily solvable by one simple public policy or private initiative. I stress again that we need public-private partnerships to provide innovation and to transform the high street, but they must be the right kind of partnerships, namely those based on evidence of the right kind of interventions.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statements
Trade Foreign Affairs Council and WTO Ministerial Conference
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
My noble Friend the Minister of State for Trade and Investment, Lord Green of Hurstpierpoint, has made the following statement:
The Trade Foreign Affairs Council will take place in Nusa Dua, Bali on 3 December 2013. The Council meeting is being held in the margins of the ninth WTO ministerial conference which is being held from 3 to 6 December 2013. I will be representing the UK at both and I will be acting as a vice-chair at the ministerial conference.
The Trade Foreign Affairs Council is being held in the margins of the WTO conference to allow any essential business pertaining to the conference to be finalised.
Negotiations are under way on a set of deliverables that could be agreed at the ministerial conference. Some of these form part of the Doha development agenda (DDA) and if agreed, would constitute the first multilateral agreement for 20 years. Some non-DDA issues are also likely to be agreed at the conference for example, the secession of Yemen to the WTO.
The Government’s objectives for the conference are to:
Reiterate our commitment to the multilateral trading system by pushing for an ambitious and balanced outcome to the conference.
Support a political understanding on the text of an ambitious and legally binding trade facilitation agreement.
Support agreement on a limited number of agricultural issues which would be of benefit to developing and least developed countries.
Support the establishment of the monitoring mechanism for special and differential treatment for developing and least developed countries.
Support the WTO ministerial decisions on: the operationalisation of the services waiver for least developed countries; preferential rules of origin for least developed countries and cotton.
Support the extension of the moratorium on charging customs duties on electronic transmissions and the extension of the moratorium on bringing non-violation and situation complaints under the trade related aspects of intellectual property agreement.
Welcome the accession of Yemen to the WTO.
Student Support
The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
In the spending review this summer, we announced our intention to end the undergraduate national scholarship programme (NSP) after 2014-15. That decision was based on evaluation which has shown that there are more valuable ways of widening access and enlarging the choices students make about higher education through the negotiated access agreements of universities. In the last three years the funding of access has greatly increased and we are now able to deploy these resources to greater effect. By bringing forward from 2015-16 the planned reduction of £100 million in funding for the NSP we are able to redirect £25 million to establish a new network to support collaborative outreach.
Universities, colleges and schools will benefit from an investment of £25 million in 2014 to help them work together more effectively as they reach out to encourage more people from disadvantaged backgrounds to apply to university.
The funds will be used to create a locally-based network and crucially will provide a single point of contact for schools seeking information on how to be part of outreach activity. A single point of contact will be simpler for schools enabling them to make contact with all their local universities and colleges.
Well thought-out outreach activities can raise aspirations and attainment, enabling bright young people from low income or other underrepresented backgrounds to see that university really can be an option for them. We know that outreach is most effective when delivered as a sustained programme of activity over time. Outreach therefore needs to be directed towards young people at different stages of their educational lives and begin early at primary level. These new arrangements will help to do this in a more targeted and sustained way. They will also help more mature learners through links with further education colleges, employers and local communities.
The national scholarship programme will remain in place for 2014-15, targeting £50 million from Government towards students in most need of help. Universities will also continue to support NSP awards in the final year of the scheme, in addition to offering other bursaries and scholarships to their students.
To make the programme more flexible for students in this transition year, we have removed the £1,000 limit on the amount of the award that can be given in the form of cash. We have also reduced the minimum level of award for full-time students to £2,000, which means that 100,000 students could still receive an award, in line with our original estimate.
The Government have also announced previously that £50 million from the NSP would be refocused in 2015-16 to support students from less advantaged backgrounds to access postgraduate education, and in areas that support the Government’s ambitions for growth.
Our reforms have ensured that universities invest significantly in widening access. The director of fair access has reported that institutions plan to spend over £700 million a year by 2017-18 on such measures—greatly increased from £444 million in 2011-12. Evidence shows students are not being deterred. Latest available data from UCAS show that for the 2013-14 entry cycle more students than ever before are getting their first choice at university; the entry rate for 18-year-olds in England is the highest ever; and the proportion of 18-year-olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds applying to university has increased to the highest level recorded.
Turks and Caicos Islands (Tax Agreement)
(11 years ago)
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The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
An arrangement comprising of an exchange of letters amending the 2009 tax information exchange agreement (TIEA) with the Turks and Caicos Islands was signed on 26 November 2013 to permit automatic and spontaneous exchange of information. At the same time an agreement was also signed to improve international tax compliance which sets out the precise details of the information which will be automatically exchanged. The text of the agreement to improve international tax compliance has been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses and will be made available on HM Revenue and Customs’ website. The text amending the tax information exchange agreement will be scheduled to a draft Order in Council and laid before the House of Commons in due course.
Foreign Affairs Council
(11 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defence (Dr Andrew Murrison)
The 19 November 2013 Defence Foreign Affairs Council opened with consideration of the European Defence Agency budget: I successfully argued for a flat cash settlement. Discussing the defence industry in more detail than the previous day’s joint Session with Foreign Ministers, Defence Ministers were broadly agreed on initiatives to improve small and medium-sized enterprise access to the defence market and on the need to avoid unnecessary new legislation. The UK backed measures to increase competition but expressed concern over the potential of some proposals to damage exports and opposed Commission ownership of high-end military or dual-use capabilities.
On common security and defence policy (CSDP) operations, the UK welcomed the extension of Althea’s Executive mandate; supported the French view that European Union Training Mission in Mali (EUTM) should be extended, subject to a robust estimate of costs; and argued for a two-year extension to Atalanta’s mandate with a conditions-based end state. The UK also supported remarks from the NATO Secretary-General, who attended the meeting, highlighting the importance of co-ordination and co-operation between the EU and NATO.
Warsaw Climate Change Conference
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Mr Edward Davey)
The annual conference of the parties (COP) to the United Nations framework convention on climate change took place in Warsaw, Poland, from 11-23 November. The United Kingdom was represented by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and the Minister of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change, the right hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Gregory Barker).
What we agreed
All countries in the United Nations framework convention on climate change committed at Durban in 2011 to negotiate, by 2015, a new global, legally binding agreement, applicable to all nations, to come into force by 2020.
The UK’s key objective for the Warsaw conference was to make progress in agreeing the means by which this 2015 deal will be reached. We achieved this objective: all nations have agreed to start their homework to prepare for a global climate change deal in 2015.
The world now has a work programme, with timetables, for the 2015 deal: countries will draft the negotiating text for the 2015 agreement which is to be ready by next year’s COP in Lima; and all major economies will be expected to propose their initial contributions to the deal by the first quarter of 2015.
In addition, we made some progress on increasing mitigation ambition before 2020: the conference set out a process to focus on specific sectors of high mitigation potential and increase technical analysis. It agreed that Ministers from all countries, not just parties to the Kyoto protocol, will convene in June 2014 to review ambition.
This was also a conference that dealt with the important mechanics of the international climate regime and continued to build the foundations for the global agreement in 2015.
We finalised a package on rules, finance and co-ordination to help protect tropical forests. We also reached agreement on a comprehensive package for measuring, reporting and verifying emissions for both developed and developing countries. This is important, as it will give us an accurate, consistent picture of how much is emitted and by whom.
Climate finance and loss and damage
Climate finance and loss and damage associated with climate change were the other key issues in Warsaw.
On finance, this year’s conference agreed a timetable towards initial capitalisation of the green climate fund (GCF) in late 2014, subject to the GCF board taking the final decisions to operationalise the fund, and a new process for assessing progress in scaling up climate finance to $100 billion per year by 2020 from public, private and alternative sources.
The conference established a new institutional arrangement for loss and damage— the “Warsaw Mechanism”, with a remit to enhance and promote knowledge of and approaches to addressing loss and damage. It does not have decision-making powers or a remit to seek new funding. It will report to the annual climate conference and comprise finance, adaptation and technology experts. It will be reviewed in 2016.
Overall assessment
The agreements we reached in Warsaw are important in setting out the next steps towards the 2015 agreement and in building and strengthening the architecture of the international climate regime.
We achieved a good result in Warsaw by demonstrating again the UK’s credentials on climate. The UK continued its strong record of leading on climate change action: demonstrating our ambition at home, our support to developing countries and our leading influence in the EU and with international partners.
We joined the United States in their policy of ending support for public financing of new coal-fired power plants overseas, we announced extra help for some of the world’s poorest to adapt to the impacts of climate change and we unveiled a major new package of support for tackling deforestation in partnership with the US, Germany and Norway.
Next year
While the long negotiations in Poland showed there are many tough talks ahead of us, the determined diplomacy of the UK and EU achieved our aims, building alliances with our friends across the world.
Looking ahead, 2014 will be an intensive year of negotiations, with negotiators developing a framework for the new agreement by COP20—in Lima, Peru—and major economies preparing their contributions to the new deal for submission in early 2015.
Importantly, the UN Secretary-General will host a leaders’ summit in 2014. This will be the first time that world leaders meet to discuss climate change specifically since Copenhagen. This will be an important opportunity to make further concrete progress towards the global deal in 2015 and in raising mitigation ambition.
Bovine TB
(11 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr Owen Paterson)
I wish to inform the House of some further important steps that the Government are planning to take to tackle bovine TB (bTB). BTB is the most worrying and costly animal health problem facing our cattle farmers today, with more than 305,000 cattle slaughtered in Great Britain in the past decade alone. These plans are designed to address the risk of cattle-to-cattle transmission of the disease. They form part of the Government’s wider strategy for achieving national bovine TB-free status in England within 25 years.
Today I am announcing our approach for addressing a number of long-standing weaknesses in our bovine TB controls. The first concerns the problem of late TB tests by a small minority of cattle farmers. Late testing is unacceptable, so from 1 January 2014 anyone who fails to complete their test by the set deadline, even by one day, will see their CAP scheme payment reduced. The reductions will vary, depending on the seriousness of the case, but the outcome I want to see is no late testing at all.
I am also launching a consultation on proposals for further tightening of cattle controls. Our proposals build on the raft of enhanced cattle measures that have been in place for many years, a number of which were enhanced in 2012. They include abolishing the pre-movement testing exemption for movements of cattle to and from common land. In doing this, we will need to find ways of ensuring that the testing requirements do not prejudice the very important part that grazing on some commons plays in protecting and maintaining valuable habitats.
The proposals also include phasing out the practice of lifting bovine TB restrictions on parts of a restricted holding. In future the whole of a holding would be either restricted or officially TB free any one time.
I am also consulting on proposals that would, as a last resort, enable wild or untestable cattle to be culled. It is important that we have the means to take action in exceptional cases where cattle of unknown disease status cannot be safely tested.
The final proposal in this consultation is designed to respond to the Members of this House, and their constituents, who have pressed the Government to make available information on the location of bovine TB herd breakdowns, so that livestock farmers are better equipped to deal with the local risks to their herds. This would build on the risk-based trading scheme launched earlier this month, which encourages farmers to share details of the disease history of any cattle they sell so buyers are better able to manage any disease risks.
I recognise that these rigorous measures will be tough for a significant minority of livestock businesses. However, we will not achieve the aims of our strategy, and be able to guarantee the future of the thriving cattle industry we all wish to see, without tackling all of the vectors by which this disease can spread. That is why I remain committed to doing everything possible to get on top of and eradicate this devastating disease in both wildlife and cattle.
Tobacco Control
(11 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
I am today announcing that we have asked Sir Cyril Chantler to carry out an independent review of the public health evidence on standardised packaging of tobacco products.
Tobacco use is a significant public health challenge. Our evidence-based tobacco control strategies play an essential part in delivering the Government’s continued commitment to reduce the number of people in this country who are dying prematurely.
It is important to explore avenues that have the potential to contribute to this long-standing aim. In July we said that we would keep the policy of standardised packaging under review as we examine the emerging evidence. As part of this ongoing work we have therefore commissioned a review with the following terms of reference:
To give advice to the Secretary of State for Health, taking into account existing and any fresh evidence, as to whether or not the introduction of standardised packaging is likely to have an effect on public health (and what any effect might be), in particular in relation to the health of children. It will be a matter for the chair to determine how he undertakes this review and he is free to draw evidence from whatever source he considers necessary and appropriate.
The review will report by March 2014.
It will be an independent review, with advice to the Secretary of State contained in a report. An independent secretariat will be appointed by the chair, who will set out the method of how he will conduct the review in more detail in due course. The secretariat will be wholly accountable to the chair, and it will be for the chair to guide and task them in their work as he sees fit.
We intend to reach a decision on standardised tobacco packaging once Sir Cyril has made his report. The Government will introduce standardised tobacco packaging if, following the review and consideration of the wider issues raised by this policy, we are satisfied that there are sufficient grounds to proceed, including public health benefit.
The Government also intend to take advantage of the opportunity offered by the Children and Families Bill, which is currently being considered in the House of Lords, to table a Government amendment to take enabling powers now which would allow regulations to be made to introduce standardised tobacco packaging later, if it is decided to proceed with this policy.
VOSA/DSA
(11 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr Robert Goodwill)
Earlier this year we consulted on our motoring services strategy which set out our intention to put the customer at the heart of what we do.
One of our objectives was to identify ways in which to give customers a better service and reduce costs. As a result of that, we announced in July that the Driving Standards Agency (DSA) and the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA) would merge to form a single motoring agency. The creation of a single agency is intended to deliver the following strategic objectives:
Motorists and businesses will benefit from more convenient and cost-effective motoring services—such as driving tests and goods vehicle testing;
Delivery of the same high-quality testing and standards services to motorists and businesses, but with greater efficiency;
Delivering testing in a way which is more flexible and convenient for customers; this merger offers opportunities to explore and extend this in the future;
Create opportunities to identify synergies between the two organisations and service improvements that could potentially enable a reduction in fees.
I have considered a range of options for the name of the new agency, and have decided that it will be known as the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA), to reflect the work of both its predecessors and the crucial contribution they make to road safety.
In keeping with Government practices, the cost of the rebranding of the agency will be kept to a minimum, and a number of changes will be made to legislation—giving powers to the agency to conduct its work.
I am therefore announcing the new name today, to enable these changes to be made and to allow the Agency to plan its rebranding in a cost effective manner. The agency will therefore begin to use its new name immediately with formal and full integration taking place over the coming months. Until the merger is complete on 1 April 2014, references to DVSA will also include a statement “incorporating DSA and VOSA”.
House of Lords
Syria
Lord Dykes
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the outcome of the talks held earlier this month regarding the proposed Geneva II peace conference on the conflict in Syria.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, as noble Lords will know, the UN special envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, hosted a series of meetings in Geneva on 5 November for permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Syria’s neighbours and the Arab League. The focus of the discussion was on preparations for the Geneva II talks. The meetings were positive and, as noble Lords will also know, the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, subsequently announced earlier this week, on 25 November, that the Geneva II talks will be convened on 22 January 2014.
Lord Dykes (LD)
I thank my noble friend for that Answer and I wish him and the Government well in these complex and hideously difficult negotiations. I hope that the horror and misery of what has gone on for too long now will be ended at the start of that process on 22 January. Can my noble friend reassure the House that the Government will work flat-out with their partners now to secure, first, an armistice that will stick and, secondly, a lasting peace agreement to stop the killing of children, above all?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, perhaps I may deal first with my noble friend’s final point. Of course we share those sentiments; the children have suffered greatly. One million children have been displaced in this conflict. We are hoping that the transitional governing body established by the 2012 Geneva communiqué, which is to be agreed by mutual consent, would have full executive powers, including over security, military and intelligence structures. In terms of the actual format for the conference, another meeting is scheduled on 20 December and will be UN mediated. After that, the actual meeting, which takes place in January, will include the UN as the key mediator and single delegations from both the existing Syrian regime and the Syrian opposition.
Lord Bach (Lab)
My Lords, the Secretary-General’s announcement this week is good news, and the involvement of all relevant parties, including the Syrian national coalition, is obviously essential. However, 22 January is still eight weeks away and action on the humanitarian front is, as the Government agree, needed now. Will the Government renew their public support for our colleague and noble friend Lady Amos’s plea this week to all sides to agree to an immediate pause in hostilities in Muadhamiya and other suburbs of Damascus, so that agencies can have immediate and unhindered access to these areas, which have been under siege for many months now and where snipers are reported to be deliberately targeting pregnant women?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, of course the Government support the quest of the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, to ask all sides in the conflict, the existing regime and the opposition, to open all corridors, as they have previously agreed to do. We and all members of the P5—including the Russians, with the existing regime—keep imploring all sides that UN humanitarian relief must be taken in. As the noble Lord and the House will be aware, the UK is leading the way in humanitarian relief. Indeed, we have committed almost half a billion pounds to relieve the plight of refugees in the Syrian conflict.
Baroness Williams of Crosby (LD)
My Lords, further to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bach, would the Government consider approaching those who will be attending the Geneva conference with the specific request that there should be a demand for a peace truce between now and the conference taking place, in an appropriate period over Christmas? Further, can the Minister say anything about the neighbouring countries of the Middle East? For example, will the Saudi Arabians be represented at this conference, and will Iran?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
On the first part of my noble friend’s question, as I have said, at every point in time the British Government, the UN and everyone working on the ground and through political dialogue have been encouraging the opening up of humanitarian corridors and that peace and ceasefire prevail. We will continue to do that in the intervening period. On her point about who will be attending this conference, as I said, a meeting is scheduled on 20 December at which the agreement on the format of the meeting and who will be attending will be made. On her final point about Iran, of course we welcomed the decision made earlier this week. However, before any step forward, Iran must commit itself to the Geneva communiqué—which, as my noble friend knows, calls for a negotiated political settlement between the Assad regime and the opposition.
Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)
My Lords, is it the view of Her Majesty’s Government that President Assad will still be in office at the end of the process? We have heard about the negotiations in respect of participation, but is it also the Government’s view that on the immediate agenda of the meeting the position of the return of refugees will be included?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
As the noble Lord will appreciate, it would be inappropriate for me to commit. I have already indicated that there is a meeting on 20 December at which the agenda for the 22 January talks will be determined. As for whether Bashar Assad will still be in office at the end of this process, I merely remind noble Lords that the Geneva communiqué calls for agreement to be reached by mutual consent. Our view is that, from their perspective on mutual consent, the opposition do not perceive that Bashar Assad will be part of that process at the end of it.
The Lord Bishop of Wakefield
My Lords, much as I am encouraged by the recent UN announcement that the Geneva talks are to take place on 22 January, I would welcome the Minister’s reassurance that this was born not out of an understandable desperation and frustration, but that there is a real and clear diplomatic plan for progress. Am I right in assuming that the Free Syrian Army, which is one of the largest rebel groups taking part in the war in the moment, will be represented at those talks?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
Our view is that it is important that the date for Geneva II was set, and I am the sure that the whole House welcomes that it has been determined. Her Majesty’s Government’s view is that the national coalition and the current Syrian national coalition, led by President Ahmad Assi Jarba, will be central to the delegation representing the opposition at the talks.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, sometimes in diplomacy we have to do things that we find unpalatable. While we wish the Geneva II talks well, they face formidable obstacles; they may not even take place. If they do, they will certainly not give us everything that we want. There has to be a plan B. Can my noble friend assure us that, as much as we find the Assad regime repulsive and reprehensible, there may be elements of it to which we need to continue to talk? The slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children is a shame on our world and we should leave no door permanently locked in our attempt to bring it to an end.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon
My Lords, on my noble friend’s final point, I am sure that the whole House shares that sentiment. There are 6.5 million internally displaced people. The UN estimates that by the end of this year there will be 3 million refugees. We should also look at the neighbouring countries. I visited the Zaatari camp in Jordan, which is now the fourth-largest city in Jordan. There is a desperate humanitarian crisis. We should all welcome the Geneva talks, as we all do. On my noble friend’s first point, Geneva II is the start of a process, not a single event. As he will appreciate, an agreement will take considerable time and effort. That is why it is important to have both the Syrian opposition and a delegation from the existing regime present. That, indeed, is going to happen.
Female Genital Mutilation
(11 years ago)
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Lord Berkeley of Knighton
To ask Her Majesty’s Government why there have been no prosecutions for female genital mutilation.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)
My Lords, there are many barriers to prosecuting cases of female genital mutilation. Evidence suggests that the young age of the victims, and pressure from family and the wider community, lead to many cases going unreported. However, I am greatly encouraged by the commitment of the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to overcome these barriers, and by the Director of Public Prosecution’s assessment that it is only a matter of time before a perpetrator is brought to justice.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, it is welcome news that there is very likely to be a prosecution, but we have to put this in the context that this practice has been illegal for more than a decade, an estimated 60,000 women in this country have suffered this barbaric practice and 30,000 young children may be at risk of it. I fear that we may be dealing with a cultural tradition. I know that this is a very difficult and sensitive subject, but there is no supporting medical or religious evidence for this practice. Therefore, we have to assume that we have perhaps been afraid of offending at the temple of cultural diversity. If at this very moment, for that reason, a woman is descending on some young girl with a razor blade to slice off her external genitalia, we have to ask ourselves: is this a price worth paying for cultural diversity?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
Although this is a highly sensitive issue, I do not see that as the source of conflict. This is essentially a hearts and minds issue. The noble Lord identified that correctly. However, there is no lack of determination as far as the Government are concerned. My colleague in the Home Office, Norman Baker, is having a meeting on 5 December with the Crown Prosecution Service. The Health Minister, Jane Ellison, is having a meeting on Monday to see how her department can deal with this. I have to tell the noble Lord that he has grossly underestimated the legislative background to this. FGM has been illegal since 1985.
Baroness Rendell of Babergh (Lab)
My Lords, this case has come to my attention from Kuria East, where a law against FGM has been passed only recently, and yet eight people are awaiting trial. A girl of 13 called Esther was mutilated by a circumciser at the request of her parents. She haemorrhaged so badly that her parents took her to hospital. They were arrested, charged and prosecuted. They were both sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. The circumciser now awaits trial. What view does the Minister take of this laudable prosecution in the light of our longer history of laws against FGM when nothing seems to happen here?
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I will dispute the noble Baroness’s last statement. I think that she knows that, across not just this Government but Governments over time, there has been a determined effort to tackle this issue. Much of it is about prevention and informing people of the situation. Prosecution would help; I quite agree with the noble Baroness that it would be one way of impressing on people the illegality of this. However, we need to ensure that when prosecutions occur, they are properly justified and dealt with on the evidence, and are successful. I am pleased that the noble Baroness got in on the Question, because nobody has done more to raise public awareness of this issue.
Lord McColl of Dulwich (Con)
My Lords, is there some way we could educate the public into understanding that this operation carries not only a risk of mortality but horrendous complications. For instance, I had to operate on a little girl aged one who had had five of these operations, which had left her in a very sorry state indeed. However, the condition was corrected.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
The medical profession has done much to address this issue. In London alone there are 11 clinics dealing with this situation. However, the problem is extensive in some parts of the world, where high proportions of the population are subject to this regime.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness) (LD)
My Lords, we should hear from the Cross Benches.
Baroness Cox
Is the Minister aware that women who have had FGM and whose daughters are likely to be at risk of subjection to this abhorrent practice are not currently tracked through the NHS or social care systems, so that no preventative measures can be implemented, and that girls at school who show signs of having had FGM are not referred to social services or the police for follow-up action? I therefore ask the Minister what Her Majesty’s Government are doing to ensure that robust information-sharing protocols are developed between health, social care and education agencies and the police so that appropriate actions can be taken to support victims and bring perpetrators to account.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
My Lords, I mentioned the Health Minister, Jane Ellison, who on Monday is meeting healthcare professionals and stakeholders to take forward this work on data sharing and to make sure that we are properly informed on this subject.
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I think we will hear from my noble friend.
Baroness Hussein-Ece
My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend the Minister is aware that there are people who want to perpetrate this terrible abuse against young girls who consider some regions of the United Kingdom to be a soft touch. Reports show that girls are being taken in particular to Scotland and parts of the Midlands, where such people think that there is less enforcement. Will the Minister reassure us that there will be consistency in dealing with this child abuse? This has nothing to do with religion; it is child abuse and should be recognised as such.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
The Government are active on this issue at the moment. As I mentioned earlier, Norman Baker has a meeting on Thursday of next week in which he will be discussing exactly this issue. I suggest, as so many noble Lords want to ask questions, that we should try to get a debate on this matter.
Energy: Gas Storage
Baroness Worthington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the adequacy of the United Kingdom’s gas storage and its effect on consumer and business energy prices.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Energy and Climate Change (Baroness Verma) (Con)
My Lords, four new storage facilities are either in operation or will soon become operational, which will increase the capacity of our gas storage by over 20%. In addition, they will nearly double the rate at which storage can deliver gas into the gas system, and there are further projects in the pipeline beyond those. DECC has considered whether incentivising storage would bring wider price benefits and we have concluded that the evidence for benefit is not sufficient to justify that, as potentially it would put great costs on to the consumer.
Baroness Worthington (Lab)
My Lords, we have seen quite an extraordinary amount of flip-flopping from the Government about when it is appropriate to intervene in markets and when it is not. However, there is still no desire to stand up to the energy companies. It is true that in the UK our gas storage is at very low levels—less than a quarter of that in France and Germany. Will the Minister comment on whether she believes that to help address the cost of living crisis, the Government should now ensure investment in gas storage so that we can avoid the seasonal price spikes that come with increased demand every winter?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, I think that I have already stated to the noble Baroness that we have gas storage either in the pipeline or coming on line. We also have a robust and dependable gas interconnection through pipelines from Norway and the rest of Europe. Therefore the noble Baroness, who raised this point about the cost of living to consumers, should have thought about it during the 13 years her party was in government.
Lord Jenkin of Roding (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend accept that the real case for more gas storage is to protect this country from spikes in the world gas price?
Baroness Verma
Indeed, my noble friend raises a very important question. That is why, through the Energy Bill, we have tried to ensure that we support home-grown energy. We need a mix of energy and we need it to come from various sources. That is the only way we will be able to tackle what we see as increasingly global prices.
Lord Reid of Cardowan (Lab)
My Lords, just so that we can be clear on the Government’s position, is it that when a market is not working, it is proper to intercede?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, the point of intervention is where we try to ensure that low-carbon generation gets the support to be able to supply energy at a cost that will be affordable to consumers. That is about ensuring energy security and cleaner energy, but also affordability.
Lord Skelmersdale (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the four new gas storage facilities that my noble friend spoke of in her original Answer. However, can she tell me when the first one was started?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, my noble friend asks a question about the date that I cannot answer exactly. However, I will write to my noble friend on that and put a copy in the Library.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to hear from the noble Baroness that the Government say that an increase in storage is on line. Will she be good enough to tell the House what the ultimate percentage is that they hope to achieve by creating storage, what the timetable is, and, if she does not have the figures available now, will she put them in the Library so that we can all see them?
Baroness Verma
Of course. As I said in my original Answer, we will see an increase of more than 20% in the capacity of gas storage. However, as the noble Lord asked for further figures, as my noble friend did, I will make sure that they are placed in the Library.
Lord Roper (LD)
My Lords, in the initial reply of my noble friend the Minister to the noble Baroness, Lady Worthington, she suggested that any further intervention in gas storage would raise prices disproportionately for consumers. Will she let us know the basis for that?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, we have carried out an analysis of the UK gas market to see the potential for intervention against potential shocks, and have found that there is a wide range of figures. However, they are still hugely substantial as regards the net benefit to consumers and the population as a whole.
Lord Hylton (CB)
My Lords, have the Government considered whether existing old gasometers could provide extra storage?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, as always, the Government constantly review what they are doing to ensure that energy is secure and that the lights stay on. Of course, these reviews take place regularly. However, we are working with Ofgem and National Grid, and are in constant conversation over those matters.
Lord Lawson of Blaby (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the Government on increasing the amount of gas storage by 20%. I recall that when the party opposite was in government, I called for increased gas storage month in, month out, but it did nothing at all about it. However, 20% is not enough. Will the Minister place in the Library of the House the curious calculation that DECC has come up with, which says that any further increase in gas storage would be economically damaging, because it is highly implausible?
Baroness Verma
My Lords, my noble friend has asked me to place information in the Library, as have other noble Lords, and I will be very happy to do so. However, I reassure noble Lords that beyond what we are doing, further projects in the pipeline will be coming on line, so there is plenty going on. However, unfortunately, I am not able to provide dates at this moment in time.
Scotland: Independence
(11 years ago)
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Baroness Seccombe
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Scottish Government’s White Paper on Scottish Independence.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness) (LD)
My Lords, the United Kingdom Government have been examining the content of this 670-page document since its publication on Tuesday. The reality is that if people in Scotland vote for independence Scotland’s future will need to be negotiated with the remaining United Kingdom, the European Union and others, with no certainty about the outcome. Although our detailed analysis continues, there is no evidence that the White Paper provides any clarity on addressing such key issues as currency, costings and pensions.
Baroness Seccombe (Con)
My Lords, I appreciate that my noble and learned friend may not have had time to assimilate the ramifications of the White Paper, but, as an ardent Conservative and unionist, I strongly believe that we are better together and worry about the effect that independence might have on this Westminster Parliament. The other place would lose 59 Members, but what would be the effect on this House? Would Scottish Peers, as foreign nationals, be able to retain their seats, and would, indeed, my noble and learned friend be here to answer Questions?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My noble friend asks a very interesting question. Question 564 on page 558 of the document states:
“Arrangements for the House of Lords will be for the rest of the UK to decide but the House of Lords will no longer be involved in legislating for Scotland”.
My noble friend will understand that we have said, as a Government, that we do not intend to have any contingency planning. I share her belief that we are better together, but it is interesting to reflect that many of us are here as Peers of the United Kingdom. I think that we have to fulfil certain tax responsibilities to remain here. However, I do not think that we anticipate having a House of Lairds in Scotland.
Baroness Liddell of Coatdyke (Lab)
My Lords, I have no intention of becoming a foreign national but I have tried to find an answer to the question of what would happen, in the event of separation, to the more than 30,000 Civil Service jobs in reserve departments which are there as a consequence of the dispersal of Civil Service jobs in the 1970s. What is the policy of Her Majesty’s Government on siting Home Civil Service jobs in a foreign country?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, other than those staff who are involved in the diplomatic corps I cannot think of any precedent for that. The noble Baroness makes a very important point. I repeat that we are not contingency planning, nor are we, indeed, complacent. However, the parts of the White Paper on current Civil Service jobs located in Scotland that I have seen come to some very glib conclusions on what would happen and do not seem to take account of what those civil servants themselves would wish to do.
Lord Stephen (LD)
My Lords, does my noble and learned friend agree that the White Paper contains 670 pages of assertion and fudge on some very big issues indeed rather than frankness and fact? Does he also agree that the people of Scotland deserve a fair and honest debate, not one where vital facts are massaged and manipulated? Ignoring for today, at least, the big issues of the currency and NATO membership, and drilling down on to this issue of EU membership, will my noble and learned friend consider the topical and very recent comments of the Spanish Prime Minister on Scotland’s EU membership? He has made it very clear that the EU does not intend to dance to the tune of the president of Scotland—that was his description of Alex Salmond, not mine. Does my noble and learned friend agree that these are very serious comments which deserve the most serious consideration by the people of Scotland on the issue of fact rather than speculation?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, clearly, membership of the European Union, in the event of independence, is a very important issue. The novel proposal made by the Scottish Government is one which we will look at but we do not think that it accords with how any other member state has interpreted Article 48 of the TFEU. In any event, even under the Scottish Government’s analysis, it would require other member states to sign up. We certainly note the comments of the Spanish Prime Minister with considerable interest.
Lord Wigley (PC)
My Lords, in accepting that this is a substantial document, as indeed has been recognised by the editorial of the Times, will the Minister assure the House that the Government will bring forward an equally substantial document indicating the prospects for Scotland if there is a no answer in the referendum? In particular, will he spell out the Government’s intentions for the future of the Barnett formula in those circumstances?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, I think each of the United Kingdom parties has its own arrangements for looking forward to what would happen in the event of a no vote, but first we have to campaign and win a no vote. The United Kingdom Government have already published, and will continue to publish, some substantial documents analysing Scotland’s place in the United Kingdom, the benefits we derive from being in the United Kingdom and the problems and difficulties that would arise if we became independent.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, in the event that Scotland votes to secede from the United Kingdom next September, will the general election still take place in Scotland in May of the following year? If so, at what point will those Scottish MPs elected to the House of Commons be asked to leave? If it is before the general election, would it not result in the disintegration of the coalition and an overall majority for the Conservative Party?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My Lords, there is no end to the ingenuity of my noble friend. Those who have been elected to this Parliament in the other place have received their Writ of Summons. I do not think they have any clause in it that tells them to go. In what we both agree would be the unhappy event of Scotland deciding to leave the United Kingdom, there is no legislation that would stop the general election in 2015 applying throughout the United Kingdom. Those who advocate independence will have to negotiate with the rest of the United Kingdom, and there can be no guarantee of what the United Kingdom Government would be post May 2015.
Business of the House
(11 years ago)
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Lord Newby
That the debate on the motion in the name of Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury set down for today shall be limited to three hours and that in the name of Lord Paddick to two hours.
Tobacco: Packaging
(11 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, I shall now repeat in the form of a Statement an Answer given earlier today by my honourable friend the Minister for Public Health on the subject of standardised tobacco packaging. The Answer is as follows.
“In accordance with the notice I gave to the House yesterday afternoon, I have this morning made a Written Statement to this House announcing that Sir Cyril Chantler will carry out an independent review of the evidence for the impact of standardised tobacco packaging on health. Tobacco use, especially among children, remains one of our most significant public health challenges. Each year in England more than 300,000 children under the age of 16 try smoking for the first time. Most adults who smoke started before 18 years of age. As a result, we must do all we can to stop young people taking up smoking in the first place if we are to reduce smoking rates.
We have listened to the strong views expressed on all sides of this House, including when we debated standardised packaging in the Back-Bench business debate earlier this month. Many Members have told me that the evidence base for standardised packaging continues to grow and have urged the Government to take action. As a result, I believe that the time is right to seek an independent view on whether the introduction of standardised packaging is likely to have an effect on public health. In particular, I want to know about the likely impact on young people.
I have asked Sir Cyril to undertake a focused review, reporting in March next year. It will be entirely independent, with an independent secretariat. He is free to draw evidence from whatever source he considers necessary and appropriate. It will be up to Sir Cyril to determine how he undertakes the review, and he will set this out in more detail in due course. As this House will know, Sir Cyril has confirmed that he has no links with the tobacco industry. The review is not a public consultation. The Government ran a full public consultation in 2012, and these responses will be available for the review. To maximise transparency, the department will also publish the substantive responses received as soon as possible. The Government will also take advantage of the opportunity offered by the Children and Families Bill and will table a government amendment to provide a regulation-making power. If the Government decide to proceed, this will allow the introduction of standardised tobacco packaging without delay.
This Government have been consistent in their desire to have an evidence-based approach to public health. We will introduce standardised tobacco packaging if, following the review and consideration of the wider issues raised, we are satisfied that there are sufficient grounds to proceed”.
My Lords, that concludes the Answer.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)
My Lords, I refer noble Lords to my health interests in the register. I am very grateful to the noble Earl for coming to the House and I am pleased that the Government have changed their position. We have seen plenty of U-turns in the past three years and this is a major one, undoubtedly caused by the Government’s fear of defeat in your Lordships’ House.
However, why another review? Why must we wait until 2015 before implementation? I have enormous respect for Sir Cyril, but the Government have already had a review. The evidence in that review was clear for all to see. Does the noble Earl agree that it found that standardised packaging would make cigarettes less attractive to young people? Did it not find that such packaging made health warnings more effective? And did it not refute the utter falsehood that some brands are safer than others?
Does the noble Earl accept that all royal colleges and health experts are united behind the case for standardised packaging? Is it not the case that if the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill goes through in its current form, it would prevent charities such as Cancer Research UK ever raising issues like this in an election year?
Finally, the noble Earl will be aware of an amendment laid by my noble friends Lady Smith, Lord Rosser and Lord Beecham to ban proxy purchasing of tobacco products on behalf of children which will be debated in your Lordships’ House on Monday. Will the Government accept that amendment?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his welcome for this announcement. I do not accept that this is a U-turn. We said in July that we would keep the policy under active review, which is exactly what we have done. I cannot answer for any cynical attitudes on the Benches opposite, but that is the truth. More crucially, since then, the academics, led by the University of Stirling, who carried out the systematic review of the evidence on standardised packaging that was published alongside the 2012 consultation have updated their work. Their original report covered 37 peer-reviewed studies and the update considers an additional 17. We believe that that evidence merits full scrutiny.
The noble Lord suggested that the evidence is already clear so we should just go ahead and legislate. The views that emerged from the consultation were highly polarised. We have always been clear about the need for as robust an evidence base as is possible. We have reached the decision to commission this rapid review from Sir Cyril Chantler so that we have as robust an evidence base as possible.
On proxy purchasing, I think we can all agree that people buying tobacco on behalf of children and young people is wrong, and I want to acknowledge the role played by retailers in ensuring that legitimate tobacco products are sold in accordance with the law. However, a new offence of proxy purchasing would not necessarily tackle the wider problems of supply. We will obviously consider carefully the arguments put forward, but, at the moment, we are not convinced that creating a new offence is the right way forward.
Lord Patel (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a fellow of several medical royal colleges, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which have all previously backed, and continue to back, the argument that legislation should be brought forward to make cigarette packaging plain. I have spoken on many occasions in relevant debates under both this Government and the previous one and have tabled amendments to bring in legislation for the plain packaging of cigarettes. I have done so on the basis that the evidence is conclusive, as shown by both the British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK, that glamorised packaging is used by the industry to recruit young, new smokers. Now we have to wait until the evidence is produced by Sir Cyril Chantler. Disappointed though I am that we cannot legislate now, I can afford to wait a few months because I know that Sir Cyril Chantler, who is a friend, is a man of principle and will look at the evidence as it is. However, once that evidence is presented, what is the timeline for the Government to introduce legislation for plain packaging?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, who has indeed been a consistent champion for plain packaging over the years. I also appreciate his endorsement of the choice of Sir Cyril Chantler to lead this review. Noble Lords will know that Sir Cyril has a very distinguished record as an academic and paediatrician. As regards the timeline, I cannot be definite at this stage. All I can say is that, should the Government decide to lay regulations in the light of Sir Cyril’s recommendations, we believe that, taking into account a period of consultation and the statutory provisions surrounding European law, we would be able to introduce the regulations within a reasonable time.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that in Australia plain packaging has been very effective? They say that that is, above all, because it is no longer “cool” for young people to smoke. The noble Earl mentioned age as being effective, and that is very relevant.
Baroness Walmsley (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate those in your Lordships’ House on their persistence in keeping this issue before the Government, including my noble friend Lady Tyler of Enfield. I also congratulate the Government on their determination to base policy on evidence. However, if the Government, in the fullness of time, use their regulatory power to introduce standardised packaging, will they keep a watching brief on the tobacco companies? In the past, whatever procedures we have brought in, they have been extremely clever in finding ways round them to lure young people into starting smoking. Therefore, will the Government watch the situation very carefully and try to make sure that the tobacco companies do not get round standardised packaging, thus continuing to attract young people to a habit that will kill them?
Earl Howe
My noble friend makes a very important point. She is, of course, right that the tobacco companies protect their commercial position with great vigour. We will indeed keep an exceedingly close eye on the actions of the tobacco industry and, should we decide to introduce regulations, we will do all we can to ensure that they are watertight.
Lord Ribeiro (Con)
My noble friend should be congratulated on his leadership in taking forward this proposal on plain packaging. He will be aware that I have introduced a Bill on banning smoking in cars where children are present. I recognise the difficulties that that presents for the Government, but after this three-month period of consultation, if the recommendations of Sir Cyril Chantler, who, I agree, is a very highly respected clinician, are accepted by the Government and legislation is introduced, I hope that that will give an impetus to the Government to think again about the importance of banning smoking in cars where children are present.
Earl Howe
I pay tribute to my noble friend for his championing of this cause. I am sure that the main reason people smoke in cars is that they do not understand how harmful second-hand smoke can be for children. Of course we would like to see smoking in cars carrying children eradicated entirely but, at present, we are not convinced that legislation presents the most effective or proportionate approach. Rather than create new offences, we prefer to promote and encourage positive behaviour change, and there is emerging evidence that we are succeeding on that score.
Lord Turnberg (Lab)
My Lords, is there any evidence that has not been published and examined in great detail that we have to wait for?
Earl Howe
My Lords, it is clear from the debates in the other place and from our debates in Committee on the Children and Families Bill, that there is emerging evidence that needs to be considered. That evidence has emerged since the consultation. I am not in a position to make a judgment on that. I think Sir Cyril Chantler is the best person to do it.
Lord Kakkar (CB)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a member of the board of UCL Partners, currently chaired by Sir Cyril Chantler, and I congratulate Her Majesty’s Government on the excellent choice of Sir Cyril to lead this important review. Can the noble Earl confirm that Sir Cyril will be completely free to define both the methodology that he will apply for the review and the question that he will address?
Earl Howe
My Lords, this will be an independent review with advice from the Secretary of State contained in a report. An independent secretariat will be appointed by the chair, who will set out the method of how he will conduct the review in more detail in due course. The secretariat will be wholly accountable to the chair and it will be for the chair to guide and task the secretariat in its work as he sees fit.
Economy: Broadcast Media
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury
That this House takes note of the contribution of broadcast media to the United Kingdom economy.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)
My Lords, I am privileged and pleased to introduce the Liberal Democrat debate on the importance of broadcast media. I thank all noble Lords who are taking part, particularly those who are making their maiden speeches today. Unfortunately, I can no longer declare an interest as I no longer work in television, which is a great sadness to me because I had many happy and, I hope, creative years there.
British broadcast media have been around in one form or another since the creation of the British Broadcasting Company in 1922. Since then there have been many forks in the road, all of which were initially met with portents of gloom and predictions of doom. That will not be the nature of my speech today. It is proving to be a remarkably agile and resilient industry. First, there was the BBC. Next came the creation of Independent Television in 1955, and that first introduction of competition had a profound impact on broadcasting. Not only did the British public lose Grace Archer—the fact that “The Archers” still exists shows the resilience of the genre—but the BBC lost its captive audience and large numbers of viewers deserted it. It had to learn to connect and it did. It did not change its values, but it did change.
Meanwhile the Independent Broadcasting Authority decided that independent TV companies—in those days raking in the money—should spend a proportion on public service broadcasting, so that was enhanced. BBC2 was increased and Channel 4, with its mission to speak for minorities and minority tastes, in parallel with the independent production sector, was created—such a successful part of our creative industries and now worth £2.5 billion a year. At that point, we entered a wonderful world of plurality and diversity. Of course, the window of competition that the BBC now has means that 25% of its programmes have to be commissioned from independent production companies. This purely terrestrial world was further enhanced by the advent of subscription channels such as Sky, and then came the internet and the transition from one age to another: analogue to digital.
As I said earlier, many of those innovations seemed to suggest the end of what had come before. I sat on a House of Lords committee looking at the review of the BBC charter when we were told by endless experts that terrestrial channels were doomed, the viewing of live telly was over and that the future was all catch-up and on demand. Last Saturday—I have to admit I was one of them—an average of 10.2 million people watched “Doctor Who” on the BBC, and 7.7 million tuned into “The X Factor” on ITV. New media—the social networks—have led to a return to live viewing and people watch and interact with each other at the same time. There is a premium on watching not when you choose but when everyone else is. As the RTS Cambridge Convention concluded earlier this year, we are seeing, as we always have, a process of evolution rather than revolution, or indeed outright transformation.
Our broadcast media make their contribution to the economy both directly and indirectly. They invest in home-grown content—£3.3 billion-worth last year—and while non-PSBs have increased their output by a great deal, the PSBs are responsible for 85% of this investment. The BBC generates for the UK economy the equivalent of £2 of economic value for every £1 of licence fee it receives. In other words, it doubles its money.
The effect of initial BBC spending is multiplied as it ripples through the economy, from region to region and sector to sector. For example, the BBC’s move to MediaCity in Salford and its commitment to developing the media industry in the north of England has been of massive benefit to the economy of that area and to the further regeneration of that part of Greater Manchester. Indeed, what is happening at Salford Quays through ITV, BBC and various start-up digital companies, is helping Manchester to become the biggest digital hub in Europe outside London.
In 2012, Pact, the body which represents the independent production companies, estimates that the sector grew by 16.5% compared with 2011. How many other sectors can claim that? I am sure the Minister will agree that the introduction of tax breaks by the coalition Government for high-end TV and animation has enhanced the potential for economic growth in these sectors. Indeed, Aardman, the creators of Wallace and Gromit, says that it believes that the tax credit for UK animation will be transformational—that it will create thousands of UK jobs and that there will be a long-term financial gain for the UK.
UK programmes and TV formats are increasingly in demand abroad, with television export sales growing to £1.2 billion in 2012, and there are huge prospects for more growth. I was speaking to the chief executive of Pact yesterday. He had just come back from China, where he signed an agreement with Chinese television. However, the thing he was most excited about was being, as he put it, treated like royalty because one of his delegation was the producer of “Sherlock”. More surprisingly, apparently “Downton” is a big hit in China, but there we go.
Our television industries have another effect: they are also valuable as a means of bringing Britain to the world—so-called soft power. Our exported television programmes help deepen knowledge and understanding of the UK, as well as championing British creativity and culture. As the Secretary of State, Maria Miller, said:
“TV reaches the parts that our ambassadors don’t”.
I could not help repeating that joke. According to the Institute for Governance-Monocle soft power index, the UK currently holds the top spot, due in large part to the global reach of British media. I was in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, leading a creative industries delegation. The Mexicans were much more interested in the fact that I worked in British television than my being a Member of this House.
As well as showcasing British culture and creativity, the broadcast media also function as a catalyst for the creative industries as a whole and, as such, is a major contributor to our creative economy. It is an increasingly important sector and is forecast to grow by 31% by 2020. However, for this to happen, it needs the right support. One of the most important things is that we continue to create the creators. In this area, we face not a jobs problem but a skills problem. In a recent report, Creative Skillset identified significant skill shortages across all forms of production and concluded that the competitive future of the UK’s creative industries will be secured only by the industries themselves supporting skills and talent development.
Broadcasters are doing their bit and there are good new schemes—the Sky Academy, for instance—but in hard times, historically, training budgets are too often the first to be cut. The BBC’s investment in the BBC Academy, the branch of its operations through which all training funds are distributed, is a case in point. It is to be cut by 35%. These are not only efficiency savings but a deep cut. It will affect the freelancers that the academy trains as well as BBC staff. Those of us who know the business, know that freelancers are the life-blood of the broadcasting industry. It is also a bad signal to other television companies. I fear the response will be: “The BBC is cutting; so can we”. Therefore, does the Minister not agree with Creative Skillset that investment and training should be an obligation, particularly for PSBs?
Another area in which the industry disappoints is diversity. I am not just referring to Harriet Harman’s very well made point about the lack of older women on television. The broadcast media simply does not reflect diverse, 21st-century Britain on or off the screens. As Julian Fellowes—the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes, I should say—recently said:
“We have got to turn that corner. In 10 years nobody will know what we are talking about. That is what I hope”.
So do I.
There is, however, one area in which great strides forward have been taken, and that is the area of disability. For this we have Channel 4 to thank. It has admirably fulfilled its remit, not least through its spectacular coverage of the Paralympics. Some 11 million people watched the opening ceremony, which was almost a record for them.
Now I come to what cannot have escaped anyone’s notice: the BBC is under attack. It is under attack by the Home Secretary and the chairman of the Conservative Party; even a Dimbleby suggests that the BBC is too big. I prefer the view of another veteran David, Sir David Attenborough, a man who, in my opinion, exemplifies what our broadcasting system—at the heart of which sits the BBC—has allowed to flourish. He recently said:
“The BBC is, in my view, one of the most important strands in the cultural life of this country … and it is going through a bad patch. I just hope that it will emerge from the bad patch ... There are plenty of people with interests which conflict with those of the BBC and will be glad to see the BBC diminished … But what could happen is that it is diminished, or it is so starved of money that it has to abandon many of its public service responsibilities. If it did that, it would no longer be the BBC and that would be a catastrophe for the country”.
These are strong words, but ones with which I agree.
However, what cannot be disputed is that the BBC has been going through a bad patch. There were revelations about unacceptable severance pay-offs to senior executives and £100 million wasted on digital media initiatives. I was an employee of the BBC for 10 years; I know how hard the people who make the programmes work, and for relatively modest salaries. I know how angry they are at the waste of licence fee money, which should be enhancing their budgets, not lining the pockets of those who, in my day at Television Centre, inhabited the sixth floor.
As the Secretary of State has said, however, the problem is about governance, not about the integral worth of the BBC. Under the leadership of director-general Tony Hall—the noble Lord, Lord Hall of Birkenhead—I believe this is being addressed. It is correct that it is he who should be addressing it. The biggest threat to the BBC is interference by government; it belongs to the licence fee payer—the public, not politicians.
The old joke—which noble Lords may not know—that the BBC would be an efficient, well oiled machine if it were not for the pesky programme-makers was always a joke. Events of the past year have proved just what a bad joke it was. The value of the media industry rests on the talents, ideas and achievements of creative individuals. The officer class—as the noble Lord, Lord Hall, recently referred to it—has indeed got out of step and this is not just about remuneration. There are too many layers of management between creator and screen.
To conclude, the broadcast media are a jewel in our crown and arguably the best broadcasting system in the world. Many distinguished contributors to this success story are taking part in today’s debate, and I thank them. A report about to be published by Inflection Point Media on the impact of PSBs on commercial media investment concludes what we can see on our screens. It states:
“The UK broadcast market works. The public and private sectors are competing for audiences but not for funding sources. The result has not led to lower standards and a race to the bottom, but a race to the top—better programmes, creative innovation and growth of the overall economic pie. But it is British creators who underpin the industry”.
Danny Cohen, director of television at the BBC, said:
“Up until now, seniority and status have been related to management and I want to break that link and give greater status to creative people”.
David Abraham, chief executive of Channel 4, has said that the “suits vs creatives” division is effectively “redundant” in television. The noble Lord, Lord Hall, director-general of the BBC, has said:
“I want to build a ladder of opportunity for the talented. I want to open up the BBC to more people—to people from every part of the country—to people from a greater variety of backgrounds”.
They all seem to get it, and now they must act on their words. When the noble Lord, Lord Hall, says he wants to build a ladder of opportunity for the talented, it strikes me that the most important point is that the word “ladder” is singular. We must also, of course, successfully banish the snakes. I beg to move.
Lord Bragg (Lab)
My Lords, first, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury, for securing this important debate on the media and the economy. Her own contribution in this area was considerable and at the coalface. I declare an interest in that I work for the BBC and Sky Arts, although as an independent and not an employee, and in the recent past I was employed by ITV. I intend to concentrate on those three organisations. Some of what I say will overlap with what the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, said and what others will say. A feature of these debates is that we tend to share the same statistics.
Overall, I suggest that any fair observer would agree that the UK’s broadcasting media are in very good shape. Their contribution to the economy, across the waterfront, is strong and widely enriching, and there is no sign of a retreat. Perhaps it would not be too bold to suggest that their combination of skills, talent, traditions, grasp of modern technological developments, and success both national and global, sets something of an example to the rest. Broadcasters—part of the creative economy—are big hitters now.
In 2012, the UK television industry generated, directly, £12.3 billion in revenue, with a further £1.2 billion from radio. The sector employs 132,000 people, often with highly specialised skills which are in demand all over the world. More tens of thousands work in dependent industries. Broadcasting alone accounts for more than 6% of the gross added value of the UK economy, and the figure is still growing—and that is without the arts, publishing and advertising.
ITV invests about £1 billion a year in programming, most of it on original UK content. It is understandably at pains to point out that its programmes are provided free to viewers. It is expanding impressively at the moment and, in the global market, is now one of the five biggest indie producers in the United States. ITV has concerns about a legislative framework that it sees as overregulated and overburdening. However, its main story is strong and progressive. Despite the difficult competitive market in the USA and in the UK, where the two big beasts—the BBC and Sky—exercise such a powerful presence, ITV has shrugged off the critics who recently wrote its obituary and is steaming ahead in commercial terms, while still holding to some of its public service values and producing fine television; lately, for instance, outstanding drama.
The BBC is a different case, and so it should be. It is our national template and is in the grain of the country. Despite its current turbulence, it shows good signs under the noble Lord, Lord Hall, of rediscovering its values and its equilibrium, which promises well for its long-term future. I certainly hope so and intend to support it in seeking a secure future. It is not easy to fit the BBC into the framework suggested by the title of this Motion. Profit and public service are not always happy bedfellows, and the BBC is not there to act like a City bank or a FTSE 100 company. The BBC is there to serve the country, which, at its best, it still does superbly well.
It also offers figures that can inform this debate. In 2011-12, the BBC invested more than £1.1 billion of its £2.5 billion content spend in the UK creative sector, including almost £0.5 billion with independent production companies. Almost half of that investment was outside London. I was very glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, referred to the Salford experiment, which is already an enormous success.
The BBC is the largest commissioner of new music and new writing in the UK. The corporation plausibly claims that its global services substantially increase the positive feeling that people around the world enjoy of this country. To underline that, BBC Worldwide grew faster than India, with a 5.4% revenue growth in 2011-12. While not strictly comparable with commercial companies, its economic impact is still substantial.
So we come to Sky. Oxford Economics estimates that in 2012-13, Sky contributed a total of £5.9 billion to UK GDP, and that 76% of this revenue was retained in the UK. Sky is one of the country’s largest employers, with more than 24,000 employees. Its activities support 120,000 jobs across the UK. There are 3,700 people in creative and production roles and 3,800 in technology.
From my own experience, I will mention the initiatives that Sky Arts is energetically pursuing on its two channels. It is remarkably ambitious to set up channels devoted solely to the arts, and in a country such as ours the prospects look good. This public service incentive continues in the building of skills studios in four UK cities for young people in our schools; in scholarship schemes to provide mentoring and substantial financial support for young talent in the arts as well as sport; and on television itself. The Sky Academy for sport and the arts, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, is now powering into literally thousands of schools, which benefit greatly from this direct contact with practitioners in the field, especially as it is happening in areas that are increasingly underresourced by government.
In short, broadcasting is one of the most serious, successful and ebullient businesses that we have. But behind all this, to make it happen, we have to nurture our start-up talent. At the moment we do: in many sports, as proved in the Olympics; in the sciences, where in the list of original contributions to world scientific papers we come second only to America and are comfortably ahead of China, which is third; and in the arts, where London vies with any other capital for the crown of the cultural cauldron of the world; and in the rest of the country, until very recently, a thousand flowers bloomed.
In all these examples and more, we prove that we can act with intelligence and distinction. All of them are based on available early disciplines, opportunities and guidance. I would also suggest that the quality of many of the television and radio programmes that we make feeds on our consistently high standards in films, musicals, literature and all the other arts. There is at present a flourishing virtuous circle. It is tempting to think that this is because we have some God-given gift of creativity in the British genes. Not so, I am afraid. What we have had, and still just have, are exceptionally good traditional learning colleges, designated schools and teachers, and several ways of training young people to a high level so that, once well nurtured, their own nature and talent can and do enable them to compete with the best in the world and to prosper, as so many of them are doing.
However, this bedrock, this essential preparatory phase, is threatened by the recent diminution in funding for the arts and the cutting of broadcasting. This funding, initially ushered in by a Labour Government after the Second World War, given great depth by the introduction of the Open University by Jennie Lee in the 1960s and extended lavishly by Administrations both Tory and Labour—especially the previous Labour Government—is now in jeopardy. Grants are being slashed, especially locally, where they are seen as a soft cut. They are often the hardest cut of all. The great drive of music-making in schools has stalled. The pursuit of literature for its own sake among young people, from which so many of our writers benefited, is also at risk in the new curriculum.
We are currently chopping away at the roots and, if we are not careful, there will soon be less and less fruit on the trees. Various broadcasting initiatives, as I have indicated, are seeking to address this, but it is a change in the cast of thought of the Government that is most needed. Only by enabling imagination to be ready for take-off can the creative economy, in which the broadcasting economy plays such a major part, maintain the strong surge that has made it so successful over the past few decades. This has to be done quickly and with vigour. Without the teaching of fundamental techniques, this vibrant part of our economic, cultural and personal life will begin to deteriorate. We must not let that happen—we must not see another great British industry be allowed, for lack of fundamental attention, to sink into decline.
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)
My Lords, it is an incredible privilege for me to stand here today, not least to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, who is without question a broadcasting colossus. It is incredible for someone of my background to arrive in your Lordships’ House but the warmth of the welcome and the advice and wisdom I have had since even before my introduction have been quite extraordinary. As well as the warmth of the welcome from Black Rod and his staff, from the Clerk of the Parliaments—a broadcasting “Mastermind” in his own right and a mine of tremendous information—and all staff, police and everybody around the House, there has been such advice and support, and more than just a little adoration of the Labrador.
I feel moved to speak on this area having been involved in broadcasting for many years through my involvement with the British swimming team, which started when I was still a young man. Having said that, my guide dog is furious that I did not make my maiden speech last week in the debate on cats and dogs.
I must also thank most sincerely my supporters, my noble friends Lord Baker and Lord Deighton, the former always an education, and the latter my boss at LOCOG who so supremely steered us to such a success at last summer’s Olympic and Paralympic Games. I also thank noble friends for their wisdom. A couple of weeks ago, I spoke to a noble friend and said, “It seems like we are in for a number of votes this evening”. He said, “No, don’t worry: I poked my head into the Chamber and do not think there will be any votes tonight”. I was left thinking, “How long will it take me to gain that wisdom and expertise, to just be able to poke my head in and know that there would be no votes?”. Minutes later, the ringing of the Division Bell gave me my answer.
As I said, when I was a young man I joined the Great Britain Paralympic swimming team and started my connection with UK broadcasters as an interviewee, interviewer and, later, as a presenter and sometime pundit. That started slowly. In Seoul in 1988, when I was 16, there was very little coverage by the broadcasters of the Paralympic Games. Four years later, in Barcelona, there was not much more: just a couple of highlights programmes long after we had come back to these shores. I remember a radio interview in Barcelona after my final race. I got out of the pool; the radio interviewer was in the studio in London so I put the headphones on and could hear him talking. He said, “We are going to Barcelona now to join Chris Holmes. So Chris, tell me what it is like competing in a wheelchair”. I had no time to think at all. I said, “Well, as I can’t see very much, pretty dangerous”.
Fortunately, in the intervening 20 years the expertise and broadcast coverage of the Paralympics has increased exponentially, culminating in last summer’s coverage by Channel 4, to which the noble Baroness has already alluded. That was quite sensational: 150 hours of coverage at Games time, pretty much all day, every day, and much of it live. What a difference that made. As a 16 year-old in Seoul, I could not have possibly imagined that all the UK broadcasters would vie to cover the Paralympic Games in London. It was a superb tender process to be involved with, alongside my noble friends Lord Coe and Lord Deighton. All of them would have done a great job. The reason Channel 4 got across the line was its commitment to promoting Paralympic values, Paralympic sport and the Paralympians, right from the moment it signed the contract. It was sensational, with the largest marketing campaign it had ever engaged in, larger than for More4 or the launch of Film4, and mainstreaming Paralympic coverage through all its flagship programmes, not least Jon Snow’s fantastic championing of the Games on “Channel 4 News”.
Then there was the 90-second film we made with Channel 4, “Meet the Superhumans”. It was absolutely sensational. It aired on 17 July last year simultaneously at 9 pm on 76 UK TV channels. I have to confess that I had no idea that there were 76 UK TV channels; apparently there are, and more; but what a moment for the broadcaster to blast into people’s consciousness. It did such a great job at Games time not just by coverage, but by enabling more people fully to experience the Games through innovations such as audio description, and by half of the on-screen talent being disabled people—ground-breaking stuff.
I knew that we had to sell all the tickets and get large broadcast deals right around the world if we were to put the Games on a new level. Although it would be lovely to have a ticket to sport, people largely consume it through the broadcasters. There were 15,000 lucky ticket-holders on Centre Court for Murray’s final at the All England Club earlier this year; there were 17 million of us on the edge of our sofas roaring him home to victory. The same goes for the Olympic and Paralympic Games: the number consuming sport by the broadcasters was 40 million on Channel 4, 51 million for the Olympic Games on the Beeb. That is the key. Sport has such potential. When it is put through the lens of sports broadcasts, that potential is multiplied by the millions. Take the World Cup in 1966, Wimbledon 2013 and the Olympic Games 2012. What magical moments our sporting memories brought to us by the broadcasters, with the power to inspire, excite, delight and sometimes, just sometimes, with the power—Jesse Owens in 1936, the Paralympic Games 2012—to change us as individuals, as communities, as a country, for the better.
Sport broadcast matters. It matters socially; it matters economically; and sometimes, yes, it matters politically. It has been an unparalleled privilege for me to make my first broadcast to your Lordships’ House. I hope and trust that no noble Lords have had cause to switch channels or turn off. Thank you.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, it is a great privilege and honour to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, on his maiden speech. When I heard that he was coming here, I was not surprised, not only because of his great prowess as a Paralympian and international sportsman but because of his work as a commissioner for the Disability Rights Commission, where I first met him. I recognised then that he was somebody capable of taking issues and driving something forward.
As for his sporting triumphs, if he wore all his medals, he would sink in a pool, he has been so successful. It is quite remarkable. However, I will set a new precedent: I will tell him off slightly while paying tribute to him. Where was he when the Lords were against the Commons swimming last night? My noble friend Lord Paddick won, but he might not have had the noble Lord been there. The noble Lord made a wonderful maiden speech and will make a great contribution in future. He has a grounding in many of the fields that we need in this Chamber. We can look forward to many great contributions from him. I am glad to say that he is my noble friend—certainly at the moment—and I look forward to many of his other speeches. We have a good’un there.
When I turn to the subject of the importance of the broadcasting media to our economy, I have one problem. What part of life in our society is not affected by the broadcast media? None. It is difficult to remove the broadcast media from other parts of our economy. The way we market, the way we access, the way we inform and the way we discuss comes through the media. It is now almost impossible in our society to remove yourself from the broadcast media. Increasingly, they take over virtually all the roles that the newspapers used to have. Indeed, the newspapers are also rapidly becoming part of the broadcast media. How do we define or separate those media in themselves? I come to the conclusion that we cannot.
When we talk about the media, what do we expect to get from them? What contribution do we expect them to make? Once again, those questions run into each other because the entertainment world, which they represent, and the information world are so integrated in everything else. How do we maintain that? As other noble Lords have pointed out—the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, made a great point of this— we must look to the investment in the fundamentals, such as people and technology. The Government clearly have a role here, if only in providing the right training and skills base to be able to invest. If you do not have that skills base and training at all levels, how will we get the technician level—the graduates and trainees—in place to be used? We have another debate on apprenticeships later and we could actually discuss this then. The BBC has been mentioned, and probably will be mentioned again a lot in this debate. How do we have the infrastructure in which there is, for example, that great driving engine to ensure that we have a standard up to which our media have to come?
I cannot see any way in which we could describe the BBC other than as the setter of standards for the broadcast media in this country. It is the control— the thing which we are balanced by. We find ourselves saying, “Yes, this is something to which you must aspire at least to match in terms of quality”. If the BBC is to take on that work, how are we going to encourage the other public service broadcasters, and those pay-per-view broadcasters, to continue to match the investment there and not to live at the sides of it?
The BBC may be under threat. It seems quite fashionable to have a go at it. I would say that it is quite a compliment to the BBC that it has found itself being criticised by Governments of all colours for as long as I have been old enough to remember. Indeed, it is probably the function of the BBC to annoy all Governments. After a period of time, I am sure that it will start to have a go at my own party with even greater vigour. It is primarily a body dealing with news and current affairs. The Government generate, or at least are a key part of, the news and current affairs. If you have 18 years in power, or 13 years in power, you will get criticism from this body. This unique thing that we have created with public money, effectively as a public activity, is going to criticise the Government. We should accept and embrace this. It is a form of self-chastisement that we should be encouraging because it is undoubtedly something that sets us up as a nation and defines us. It allows our economy and our whole society to operate in the way it does, and is a key part of what we do.
When I was preparing things to say for this debate, I thought, “Maybe I will be able to comment on what other people have said and should do some preparation for myself”. I did not realise, coming in at number four, that the three speakers in front of me would strip away so much of what I had prepared to say. I was going to mention sport but the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has managed to arrive in grand style and take away much of what I was going to say about the Paralympics and Channel 4. However, I say this about the broadcast media and sport: when we talk about sport and the economy, it is a huge part of the entertainment economy. It also has a huge effect on the rest of our economy, potentially, in terms of health. There is, for instance, the role of sport in encouraging and embracing participation in sport, both by example—that is, via those who achieve and are the great gods of sport, by getting the medals and the praise in public—and by making it accessible.
At the moment the media have a challenge to try to take all the bits of our sporting culture more seriously. The current battleground seems to be drawn around women’s football, in which the BBC must both take credit for doing stuff and a little blame for being slow. Football is a universal game. As a devotee of rugby union, my having to say that association football is the “universal game” smarts slightly, but it is the truth. If the universal game does not reach that other half of our population we shall always have a bit of a problem in encouraging people to be healthy and active.
Unless we can report women’s football in a manner that gives equal kudos and status and encourages people to get out there, we will not get the investment in the sport that will allow elite performance. This investment would allow athletes to come forward and be at their absolute best in public. We must make sure that comments that they are not taking it seriously enough, that they are not doing this or that, that they are not good enough yet, or that this investment cannot be made, are not taken on board. These athletes are at the top of their game. The media and particularly the public service broadcast media must get in there and encourage others too to make sure that there is no excuse for not allowing that investment. If we make sure that this goes forward, we will start to address that factor in our society and encourage all parts of the media to take this seriously.
The public service broadcasters have the greatest duty. When my noble friend replies, I hope that he will have something to say on this. Women’s football is just the first main example. Other sports will hit other bits of our society. Unless we encourage universal coverage of all aspects of sport, we are not going to get the full benefits from a healthy society. This is one part of the jigsaw and I hope that we will embrace bringing this forward.
Lord Sugar (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, for securing this debate, and I join my noble friend Lord Bragg in saying that she has already covered some of the things that I wish to go over. I am sure that most of your Lordships are aware that I host a programme for the BBC. I do not understand why, but I had best declare an interest before continuing, as part of my speech will focus on the concerns that I have about the BBC.
In order to talk about the future of broadcasting, I wish to visit what has occurred in the past 30 years. In May 1987 I took a phone call from Rupert Murdoch. That phone call resulted in one of the biggest shake-ups in the history of British TV broadcasting. In February 1988, between my then company and News Corporation, the Sky satellite television service was launched. Prior to that, my company was invited to join a satellite consortium known as BSB. I decided against it because I felt that its technical solution of the “squarial” was doomed. After millions were injected into BSB by shareholders, it had to concede defeat. Reluctantly, it amalgamated with Sky, winning one concession only: the new company going forward would be named BSkyB.
From then on, decisions by Murdoch continued to upset the industry applecart by not conforming to established business models. Matters appeared quite alien to the then cosy status of the three main broadcasters. Not the least of these matters was the purchase of the Premier League rights in 1992. Again, it is on the historical record that I played a significant role in BSkyB getting those rights. Since those days we have witnessed the transition of terrestrial broadcasting to digital. We have also seen the failure of ONdigital, an initiative of ITV. We have seen the introduction of digital video reorders that allow consumers effectively to make up their own TV channels and view programmes when they want to.
I apologise if my speech is starting to sound like a potted history of my past involvement, but knowing the background will help noble Lords understand why in 2010 the then director-general of the BBC contacted me to draw down on my experience to salvage the renamed Project Canvas—YouView—a system to deliver live TV via the internet. This company is made up of seven shareholders: the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, BT, TalkTalk and Arqiva. To make a long story short, this important and futuristic venture was a rudderless ship, technically and commercially. After banging a few heads together and managing the expectations of high-profile shareholders, YouView was finally launched in May 2012. Had commercial rationale and realistic technical thought not been applied to YouView, it would have joined the scrap heap of BSB, ONdigital and other failed initiatives.
The BBC, of course, has the technical capability to keep up with technology, but I fear it is unable to compete with the ruthlessness of the commercial market and its competitors, particularly those in the general pay-TV market. It seems hamstrung by external critics constantly referring to the £3.65 billion of licence fee payers’ funds being spent correctly so that consumers get fair value for money. Some of the management and the BBC Trust are fixated on cost cutting to try to appease the critics. In adopting this posture, they will fall behind by taking their eye off the ball and forgetting what their remit is: to provide high-quality, innovative content and entertainment for the British public. The BBC needs to be there at the forefront, competing for content instead of being complacent in accepting that its hands are financially tied.
BT, a newcomer to the TV market, recently demonstrated what consumers need by outbidding ITV and BSkyB for Champions League football. The BBC did not even bother. It just stood there like an envious kid in a sweet-shop, watching the big boys buy the sweets. We are all currently paying approximately £12 per month for our TV licence: 40 pence a day. It will be news to the Deputy Prime Minister that I do pay for my TV licence. By comparison, one can pay up to £55 per month for a BSkyB or Virgin subscription, £25 a month for a mobile-phone subscription, or £20 a month for an internet service. We should look at what we get: 10 brilliant channels of TV, quality news coverage all over the country, a brilliant iPlayer service that delivers three billion downloads per year, a magnificent array of radio stations, and what I consider is the best-in-class informative website. This is exceptional value for money. Incidentally, for every £1 of licence fee income the BBC receives, it generates £2 for the wider economy.
Interestingly, Mr Murdoch once complained during his wooing of the coalition Government that the BBC website was, if you can believe it, “too good” and that it was unfairly affecting his business by using public funds. In other words, the BBC was doing a much better job than his organisation. This resulted in the right honourable Jeremy Hunt, who was then the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, foolishly making noises that the BBC should consider making its website less informative and not spend too much licence fee payers’ money on it. This is one example of the oppression coming from outside influences that has created an organisation whose managers are constantly looking over their shoulders and defending themselves against in some cases ridiculous criticism. For example, the Daily Mail complained that the licence fee payers paid towards a bottle of champagne or a cake to celebrate Sir Bruce Forsyth’s 80th birthday.
Having worked with the BBC for 10 years in my capacity as host of one of its shows, I have seen another side of it, apart from the aforementioned technical side. It is without doubt the best broadcaster in the world. It is very well respected in reaching out to more than 406 million households in its global footprint. It annually generates approximately £700 million of overseas revenue and has created great indirect economic return by enhancing the UK’s reputation overseas, which can stimulate trade and inward investment. We should all be very proud of it, but—I say this very respectfully—it is heavily overstaffed and there are too many jobsworths. The noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, has already mentioned those who used to reside on the sixth floor. I think they are now in the new glass palace in Portman Place. The organisation is not run in a manner in which a commercial organisation should be run.
The BBC Trust is a complete and utter waste of time and should be disbanded, and there is a need for a more commercial approach with an experienced board of directors who are ready to stand up and be counted—and, of course, some independent non-executive directors. Senior management should get bonuses if they perform, and should be fired if they do not. More importantly, government must not be allowed to interfere or to try to influence management. Layers of jobsworths need removing, and the money saved must be thrown into R&D, programming and the ability to bid in a competitive market for other entertainment content and talent. It should not be used to reduce the annual licence fee because, as I have already stated, that is great value for money. All viewing devices in homes are now digital. It is now possible for the BBC to encrypt pay-per-view programmes so that consumers can choose to buy, for example, football or the latest movies. Consider the basic cost of £12. Lots of consumers would be prepared to pay for extra stuff, as demonstrated by the commercial broadcasters.
Noble Lords will hear how passionate—or, perhaps, frustrated—I am about this great institution of ours. I have stated all the positive things that the BBC has achieved. Can you imagine if it ever got commercial? It has a lot to offer the culture of this country, as well as our economy. It must strive to ensure that it remains the main game-changer for the next big thing in television. My dream mission in life would be to commercialise the BBC. One thing I would promise is that there would not be an army of personnel whose sole purpose in life was to appease the BBC Trust, the Daily Mail or government.
Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a producer/director who works at the BBC in its history and science departments. I thank my former colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, for having procured this debate, and add my congratulations on the splendid maiden speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. I look forward to hearing much more from him.
I have just come back from America, where I have been filming a science special for BBC2 on a comet which, if we are lucky, is going to light up our skies next week. In the early hours one morning, I found myself sitting in an observatory in the hills of Arizona with one of the world’s leading comet watchers. As we sat waiting for the first glimpse of the comet Ison, we got talking. The comet watcher said, “It’s great to have you Brits here filming this great moment for me. Thanks to BBC America, I’m able to watch my news from you guys. I prefer its international agenda but, above all, I like to hear a balance of views on a subject. Everything here is so polarised”. That is a rather self-serving story, but it makes the point I want to make.
Noble Lords have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, and the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, about the huge export success of British broadcasting, which is making great inroads into the American market and the emerging Asian markets. Much of that success has been based on the extraordinary creativity of our television industries, but I suggest to your Lordships that this success is also based on the trust in our products that we have built up across the world. That trust is worth its weight in gold—literally. It applies not just to the BBC but to all the main broadcast media in this country, including ITN and Sky, and at its heart is the mandate to be impartial. It means that our programmes can be broadcast across the world, carrying with them a balance of views. This balance resonates into documentaries, history and science programming.
The impartiality of our broadcast media is something that I, as a broadcast journalist, have always taken for granted—I feel it is in my working DNA—but this impartiality mandate is under threat both from technology and from those who say that in the interests of the free market, it is important to end the mandate and allow editorial freedom for our broadcast media. America used to have the fairness doctrine regulating it broadcasters. It required the holders of broadcast licences to present controversial issues of public importance in a manner that was honest, equitable and balanced. That doctrine was abandoned in 1987, apparently overwhelmed by the proliferation of cable television. The chairman of the Federal Communication Commission, Julius Genachowski, said, “The fairness doctrine holds the potential to chill free speech and the free flow of ideas and was properly abandoned over two decades ago”.
Since then, as anybody who goes to America will know, news information on the broadcast media has become increasingly polarised. Shock jocks from both sides of the political spectrum blast out extreme political bile on the radio airwaves, and Fox News gives a right-wing slant to its journalism, while left-wing talk shows, such as “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”, make endless fun of the right-wing agenda and its advocates. The internet allows a plethora of free opinion and voices that are fuelled by this polarised editorial news agenda.
What is the result? America is a land of conspiracy and distrust in any kind of broadcast information. You just have to look at the horrendous and widely believed conspiracy theories about what happened to flight UA93 on September 11, 2001, which claim that the United States Air Force shot down the plane, even though it has been proved repeatedly that the brave passengers overpowered the hijackers to prevent the plane being crashed into the White House. In my view, the polarisation of the media has exacerbated political divisions in that country, so it was no wonder that my comet-watching friend in Arizona paid the higher tariff on his cable package to ensure that he could watch BBC America and British programmes.
Trust must be a crucial cornerstone of our broadcast economy. It fuels our international reputation for excellence. The internet and cable television have allowed an extraordinary range of voices to be heard on numerous platforms. This technology has allowed China Central Television, Russian television and even Iran’s Press TV to be heard across our country. Critics of the impartiality mandate of our broadcast media say that in a new media landscape that allows these numerous other voices to be heard, our mainstream broadcast media should be unyoked from the impartiality constraints imposed on them.
I was at a very interesting seminar last week, attended by a number of noble Lords, discussing plurality in the media. Stephen Hornsby, who is one of this country’s leading experts on media mergers, raised the difficulty of assessing and imposing impartiality in the international broadcast climate of cable TV and access to TV on the internet. Our broadcast media are under attack from politicians, as has been mentioned, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and from free market advocates who claim that they are not impartial and should be open to free market forces. Of course, all journalism has a subjective element—after all, it is witnessed and written by human beings, all of whom have opinions—but the power of an impartiality mandate ensures that other views are heard and that broadcasters have to bear their views in mind when reporting. In a multichannel world, where opinion is easy and facts are hard to come by, never has this emphasis on impartiality and balance in our mainstream media been more important.
The Minister’s department has a consultation paper out at the moment to canvass views on plurality in the media, and one of the questions being investigated is whether the impartiality mandate on our broadcast media should be maintained. Many voices will call for it to be scrapped, but I urge the Minister to realise that in the new world of broadcast media, it has never been more important to maintain impartiality in mainstream broadcasting. It must be a gold standard against which others can be judged. Failing to do so will mean that the economic power of Britain’s broadcast media across the world will be greatly weakened.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, I would like to thank my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury for introducing this debate. I would also like to thank so many noble Lords for their welcome. The warmth of the welcome is matched only by the warmth of the heating in this place. The advice and support from the staff has been magnificent, but no surprise for regular visitors over the years. Their politeness has always extended beyond the Members of this House, and for that I thank them.
I am honoured to be here, among so many I have admired for so long. In my years of advising others in the other place, and more recently at No. 10, it was never lost on me that the dirty laundry of legislation was often sent to this place only to be returned washed, starched and neatly pressed. It is a testament to a place where many take their public office and their legislative duties seriously. I share and echo that sentiment.
I would like to thank my two supporters. For me, they will always be friends first and noble Baronesses second. Their advice is invaluable. My noble friend Lady Parminter’s wisdom and steely determination belies her youthful looks; under her watchful eye the green agenda will always be strongly defended. Of course, my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester’s patient explanation of affirmative resolution procedures has been something to behold over the years and is an experience not to be missed by any noble Lord.
I would also like to thank my party, the Liberal Democrats. However often I tried to escape, I returned with one more project or task to complete, most recently as the Deputy Prime Minister’s director of communications, or in the 1990s as my noble friend Lord Ashdown’s. My party has given me a great career with fascinating work, inspirational people to work with, and achievements in government which make me proud.
I am sure, like me, most will have received a great deal of advice about when and how to do a maiden speech, most of it contradicting the previous piece of advice. Normally, Thursday seems like an excellent day—not too many people—but the names that are down to speak today are, to a new Peer, like the A-list of broadcasting, and suddenly a debate on a Thursday feels like something in the full glare of the media spotlight. But our UK broadcast media deserve that spotlight. They are unique in quality, partly because of the careful balance we have between our public service broadcasting and commercial—and also because of the expectation in law of impartiality, put so well recently by Alastair Stewart, referring to just one day’s controversial coverage being produced,
“as impartially and objectively as we could, with as much balance as we could muster. That, because we have to, in law; but, also, it was because that is how we, who work at ITV News, want to do it … It is our cause and our calling”.
As director of communications for Shelter I always understood the special role that broadcast media can play in holding those who are in power to account on behalf of those most left out of power, like homeless people. More recently, the “Question Time” I was on last week, with only three people on the panel, was described in the Daily Mail as the worst “Question Time” ever. Whether that makes me uniquely qualified is probably something best left. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, who was stuck on a train and answering questions on Twitter, was sorely missed on that panel.
This debate necessarily starts with the record we have in public service broadcasting, of which the cornerstone is the BBC. BBC Worldwide is the largest TV programme distributor outside the major US studios, and its impact on the reputation of the United Kingdom overseas is one which increases our ability to trade worldwide and way beyond broadcasting. My noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter’s timing for this debate is perfect, following the amazing weekend marking the 50th anniversary of “Doctor Who”. Simulcast in 94 countries, setting a Guinness world record, with record-breaking figures in America, it was event TV drama at its best, delivered around the globe. That thrill of seeing all the Doctors saving Gallifrey is something my eight year-old son will remember until the 100th anniversary.
However, 50 years ago, even if all the noble Lords in this place had popped into the TARDIS—because, remember, it is much bigger on the inside—and travelled back in time and explained the revolution that was coming in broadcast, digital and online content, not even the first Time Lord would have believed it. Even the changes since this sector was last regulated 10 years ago have been revolutionary and the need to update that regulation, but with flexibility, must be coming soon. Thanks in part to that revolution, we now have a creative industry sector in the UK economy providing over 130,000 jobs and over £13 billion pounds in revenue from television and radio combined, delivering both jobs and growth.
In particular, broadcast media has had an effect on the growth of SMEs in the creative sector around the UK. In 2012, Channel 4 alone spent over £150 million on production companies outside London. Levels of innovation and investment are growing. With a publisher/broadcaster such as Channel 4 there to create and innovate, the UK’s independent production sector has grown from strength to strength. Where else in the world would there be a channel which has a statutory remit to experiment and innovate so that it comes up with a programme of people watching TV programmes, makes up a name like “Gogglebox” and then sells it to the Chinese?
Commercial radio, television and new media all add to the mix and create the maelstrom of diversity of ownership and strength of competition that guarantees a vibrant part of the UK economy. Unleashing broadband, especially in rural areas, investing in DAB, giving local radio access to the right kind of digital infrastructure and balancing up the competing needs of different broadcasters from different platforms are all urgent challenges in this area. Fifty years from now, when many more celebrate the 100th anniversary of “Doctor Who” with a new Time Lady, rather than Lord, in the TARDIS, I hope that we will be able to celebrate the continued unique balance of UK broadcasting.
Lord Birt (CB)
My Lords, it is my very real privilege to follow the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, as well as the amusing and assured earlier contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. The noble Baroness brings to this House wide experience of the charity and corporate sectors, but she is best known as a long-standing, dedicated and loyal servant of her party. All parties have their ups and downs and their trials and tribulations, but the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, has emerged unscathed and widely respected within her party and beyond, not least for her famous and skilful handling of her one-time party leader, the formidable noble Lord, Lord Ashdown. I recall that she was the head of communications for her party in 1997 when my task was to ensure that the general election coverage was properly fair and impartial to all parties; I can only hope that she brings no grudges to the House. The noble Baroness’s maiden speech today showed that she will bring to our deliberations real wisdom, knowledge and wit.
We thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, not for the first time, for her tireless championing of public service broadcasting and for her sage comments earlier today on the BBC. I also note the frank but loyal critique of the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, baring everything but his own tattoo, of the BBC. Today, however, I shall speak to the Motion more generally.
The contribution to the UK economy of our creative industries in general and of our broadcasters in particular is simply incalculable. Every nation must surely start with an equal measure of natural talent and many countries around the world excite, engage and entice us with their cultural endeavour. However, few, and perhaps none, reach our heights in so many different creative fields. Heston is a global kitemark for cutting-edge cuisine. Monty Python will shortly fill the O2 Stadium for five nights, launching their new venture this week with the characteristically cheeky slogan, “One dead, five to go”. Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Francis Bacon are collected the world over. James Bond and Harry Potter are global brands. ITV’s Mr Bean is instantly recognised in China. Our popular music has been among the world’s most inventive for 50 years and our classical music scene is unsurpassed. Our comic, eccentric and very British superhero, Doctor Who, who rightly has been much mentioned today, reached 50 last Saturday with a near-simultaneous broadcast in 94 different countries, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, mentioned. Nothing like that has ever happened before.
Our advertising industry has long led the field for imagination. No other country matches British theatre for consistent quality. Try the incredibly bold and ambitious “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” or Roald Dahl’s “Matilda”—a delicious treat that I strongly recommend for your Lordships’ grandchildren. Our designers and our architects, our arts craftsmen and craftswomen, attain extraordinary heights. Tech City thrives in east London. In west London last week I spent a wonderful half day as the guest of BBC Future Media. If there is any other large concentration of creative technologists working on such spellbinding, groundbreaking ventures on such a scale, anywhere else in the world, I would like to know about it.
We succeed creatively in the UK because we have developed over a century the right mix of funding, regulation and institutions—for example, our art colleges, the Arts Council, or our national theatre, opera and dance companies, and, of course, the triumph of the BBC, much mentioned today, whose proud director-general I once was. Every area of creativity in the UK feeds off every other. Each draws strength and inspiration from the vitality of every other part. Broadcasting is a vital, binding ingredient of that intoxicating mix. The sheer exuberance of the UK’s all-round creative endeavour is evident the world over and brings both direct and indirect economic benefits.
When I worked as Tony Blair’s strategy adviser at No. 10, I led inter alia a strategic study on London and the south-east, the very engine house of the UK economy. Our work identified, unsurprisingly, that London is a magnet for some of the world’s best talents, including in the powerful financial and business services sectors. Equally unsurprisingly, we uncovered a key factor that draws top talent to London: that city’s sheer cultural vitality. In critical ways our creativity is our national spark, which infuses and enriches the whole of our lives. We must do everything that we can to maintain it.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, it is a daunting task to follow the noble Lord, Lord Birt, in this debate. However, I crave the indulgence of your Lordships’ House to make my maiden speech. In doing so, I will perhaps draw the House’s attention north from London and the south-east towards the north of England and Scotland.
I am conscious that many maiden speeches have been made in recent weeks, including in this debate. I, too, add my congratulations to the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond, and to my noble friend Lady Grender; I associate myself with the kind words of the noble Lord, Lord Birt, in paying rich tribute to her maiden speech. I have been a poor pupil of media training by my noble friend Lady Grender; participation in this House was perhaps not a topic on our agenda. However, there is a perverse pleasure in seeing her now having to tackle the tough questions on behalf of her party.
The noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, whose contribution I am greatly looking forward to, gave me a very kind gift of Welsh whisky this week. I am avoiding mentioning the topic of independence, which was raised in Questions earlier, but it is fair to say that, with my taste of a good Scottish lowland malt and with her kind gift of Welsh whisky, we are truly Wales and Scotland better together and less sociable apart.
I am delighted to have the opportunity to take part in this important debate and to speak for the positive impact that broadcasting has on the economy, culture, community and creativity of the borderland. The dedicated BBC office in Selkirk and the ITV franchise of Border Television may not have a national capacity, which has drawn the attention of many noble Lords in this debate today, but they have a fiercely loyal audience. Indeed, when considering share of audience for the early evening news bulletin, research in 2012 showed that Border News had a 38% share, higher than any other franchise across these islands. That is more than three times that of ITV in London, with its 12% share.
As a viewer of Border Television all my life, I know why. It is because the borderland area and its people, businesses, culture, history and communities are not easily represented by the large cities north or south of the border. Ofcom and ITV carried out research in advance of the renewal of the Channel 3 licence. In response to some, including the Scottish Government, who preferred an all-Scottish franchise, it concluded that news and coverage should,
“cover events with Border Scotland viewers at the heart of our thinking and would be rooted in the experiences and lives of people living in the border region. The programming would not view Scottish matters through a ‘Central Belt’ prism but rather from the perspective of people living in southern Scotland”.
I am glad that they made that decision. With further digital technological changes coming in January, we will look forward to a further enhancement of service.
Those of us who have had the very good fortune to have been born on the border, those wise enough to have made the borderland their home, or those, like my noble friend Lady Grender, canny enough to have married into it know that the border area is unique. I am sure that many noble Lords know it well and that they, as I, will appreciate north Northumberland and the Borders, with the crown of the Cheviot and Eildon Hills crossing the two kingdoms, adorned with jewels of towns. The silvery thread of the Tweed ties these two nations together, with many proud and distinct communities on its route. I was born at its mouth and had the honour to represent its source.
It has not always been easy to describe the intricacies of the names and places of our area. I was part of a delegation to Boston as the proud MSP for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale. The Speaker of the Massachusetts State Assembly introduced me to that august body. He looked at my name and constituency, looked at me, looked at his colleagues and introduced me as “Jimmy Purve from Twiddle, Ettick and Louder”.
A former Member of your Lordships’ House and a fellow parliamentarian from the Borders had no such difficulty. Lord Tweedsmuir, known widely simply as John Buchan, gave perhaps the best description of the border folk. I am grateful to a good friend who gifted me his memoirs in advance of my taking my seat in your Lordships’ House. John Buchan described the men and women of the border as having the qualities that,
“I most admired in human nature—realism coloured by poetry, a stalwart independence sweetened by courtesy, a shrewd kindly wisdom”.
Border ballads in our turbulent history offer true witness to those qualities.
I reflect, given the topic of this debate, that when broadcasting is at its best, it also shows those characteristics. I join with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, in that regard and pay tribute to him as a former chairman of Border TV in its heyday and, indeed, to the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, who is present, as a former director. In fact, I am fortunate that my supporters in this place know the area well and have a deep affinity with it. I respect and admire the personal and professional mobility of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, and the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood. It is a particular honour for me to call them “my noble friend” and “my noble and learned friend” respectively. My mum and dad and those from the Borders who attended my introduction know, as do I, that we have much to contribute in this House. I will do no bad job if I follow their lead. Like me, they know that the vibrant broadcasting window in the border area has daily reporting of our news, trade, sport and culture through online and digital platforms. We report what we do in the borderland and reflect on why we do it.
I am conscious that I am the next-to-youngest Member of your Lordships’ House. Another good friend of mine suggested that I may not garner your Lordships’ favour if I presage my speeches in this place with the words, “In all my 39 years”. Indeed, on the day of my introduction, a waiter in one of our restaurants, in checking my pass and making sure that I was, indeed, a Peer, said, “But you are just a baby Lord”. It is a badge of honour that I will wear with pride. I express my sincerest appreciation to all the staff, especially the professional, firm but kindly doorkeepers and security staff. They have made this baby most welcome.
John Buchan was not only rightly proud of the borderland but was also proud of our craft as politicians. I have no better way of concluding than with his words:
“Public life is regarded as the crown of a career, and to young men”—
to that I add women—
“it is the worthiest ambition. Politics is still the greatest and the most honourable adventure”.
Baroness Wheatcroft (Con)
My Lords, I am delighted to follow my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed and his admirable maiden speech. He listed the qualities that John Buchan admired, and we saw exhibited in his speech exactly those same qualities. In my noble friend Lord Purvis we have a formidable political talent in our midst. He started out his career in the office of my noble friend Lord Steel of Aikwood and went on to become the youngest Member of the Scottish Parliament. It is a tribute to this House that he no longer has such a claim to fame, which shows how things are changing. He worked tirelessly for the campaign to keep Scotland beautiful, clean and green and is now a campaigner for devo-max, although that should perhaps be a subject for another day. Given the speech that we have just heard, and the other maiden speeches we have heard, with one more to come, we can look forward to some very talented new Members of this House keeping us entertained and broadcasting well to the nation.
According to the late, great David Frost, television was an invention that allowed you to be entertained in your living room by people you would not have in your home. I would like to think that those who have tuned into this debate might view it slightly differently as they have heard such a variety of views already from people from very different walks of life who have a lot of interesting things to say. Therefore, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury on instituting such an interesting debate. I also congratulate the two maiden speakers from whom we heard before my noble friend Lord Purvis, as I mentioned.
I wish to concentrate my remarks on soft power, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, particularly the soft power exercised by the BBC World Service. The World Service reaches 192 million people weekly and broadcasts in 28 languages. It is the most phenomenal asset for any country to have, wins friends not just for the BBC but for Britain and is truly an example of soft power at its best. When Aung San Suu Kyi was here last year, she referred to the difference that the BBC World Service had made to her life in captivity. Her unfortunate obsession with Dave Lee Travis—as some might say—did perhaps engender more attention than it should have done, but it was the World Service which kept her going.
We should make the most of what the World Service has to offer. I am particularly keen that we should listen to a point of view put by Claire Bolderson, who spent 26 years working for the World Service and the BBC. She has come up with what I think is a brilliant idea. She wants to know why we do not take all those language services and put them on digital radio in this country. Why can we not reach out to those people who are not first-language English speakers and let them hear the news in their own languages? Not only would we endear them to the BBC but perhaps we might make them feel part of the UK. Perhaps we could infiltrate those communities rather more than we are doing now through the good offices of the BBC World Service. The content is there—it would not need to be altered very much. I would love to see some moves made in that direction. One BBC insider said, “The Swahili service will have to take its chances against ‘Strictly Come Dancing’”. I have to say that I do not think that the World Service should have to take its chances against “Strictly Come Dancing”. I would not perhaps put my views in entirely the same language as the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, but I think that public service broadcasting might do better by doing less.
We have so many different broadcast channels now. I am not convinced that the BBC needs to be deeply involved in reality TV any longer as plenty of others are more than capable of doing that. However, that is not at all to undermine the success of our programmers. We are very lucky to have some of the best programme makers in the country making their work here and enticing others to do so and, of course, that generates huge sales abroad. I gather that “Titanic”—the series made by my noble friend Lord Fellowes, who gave us the wonderful “Downton Abbey”—was sold to 86 countries before it had been broadcast anywhere. That tells you a lot about what reputation can do for you, and in particular the reputation of the programming that goes on here. Our TV exports now reach sales of £1.25 billion a year—a phenomenal contribution to the economy.
However, beyond that, broadcasting is now bringing us a very local economy, too. It is marvellous that another 56—I think—local TV channels are coming along. These will reinvigorate local democracy and will take over where local papers, in many cases, have failed to do what they used to do—that is, keep people up to date with what is going on in their locality. In London we are very lucky to be served by a daily paper that is a genuine newspaper, but in many parts of the country that is no longer the case, not even on a weekly basis. It is a danger to local democracy if local politics is not being covered properly. We should look to these new local television stations to fill that gap and I have every confidence that they will.
Broadcasting now covers such a vast range of media. YouTube did not exist a decade ago and yet today 100 hours of video are uploaded every minute. It is hard to envisage what that really means. It is a part of the broadcasting media that no one could have imagined 10 years ago. As we have already heard, BT Sport has scooped the pool when it comes to football rights, yet a couple of years ago BT Sport meant nothing to anybody. I do not know whether the price that it paid for the relevant rights is the right one, but it will certainly shake up the world of sports viewing. However, I do know that in what used to be the International Media Centre down at the Olympic park, BT Sport now has the most phenomenal set of state-of-the-art studios with the best technology. It is in there working at least two years ahead of the schedule that the owners of the park thought would be possible. Broadcasting is a fast-evolving world.
There is one aspect of broadcasting which, however, has not yet featured in this debate. Taking a deep breath, I shall mention advertising. There are some who view the advertising as an opportunity to nip to the kitchen and put on the kettle. However not everybody shares that view. The attention that has been paid to the Christmas advertising from Marks & Spencer and John Lewis is an indication of the fact that advertising is an art form. In Britain, we have some of the best creative work in advertising anywhere in the world. Anybody who has watched American television for any length of time will know that the standard of advertising there leaves a lot to be desired.
The Advertising Association published research which shows that every pound spent on advertising benefits GDP by £6. Who am I to query statistics published by the Advertising Association,although it may have a certain axe to grind? Nevertheless, advertising is a very creative part of our economy, and when we look at broadcasting as a whole, we should not forget the contribution that advertising makes.
Baroness Bakewell (Lab)
My Lords, I am delighted to join this debate and thank the noble Baroness for introducing it. She and I have spoken in broadcasting debates before and I did therefore wonder where we were going with this one and why. It did not take long for me to appreciate how important and timely such a debate is, because the broadcasting landscape is changing so fast and so significantly in a world obsessed, indeed saturated, with images and sounds. You cannot get away from the plethora of broadcasting. There is almost no arena of human activity that is not now available to be seen, recorded, distributed and repeated on a multitude of platforms, now including Netflix, which is transmitting on the internet. We shall be facing far more of that in the future. It is also interesting that the noble Baroness, Lady Grender, referred to my conducting “Question Time” on a train. Having been marooned in the Midlands by a fire on the track, I was unable to be present in the BBC studio and so, along with another colleague who was absent from the programme, we began tweeting our own “Question Time”. Broadcasting is everywhere.
I shall confine my observations to reports from particular corners of a broadcasting life—my own life—and allow other people to make broader deductions and generalisations. I am involved in programmes made by the independent sector, specifically Sky and Classic FM, and I am involved in television and radio programmes made by the BBC. At close range I can smell the difference, I can sense the mood and I can sense the panic, so I offer a few personal observations. Last night the Commercial Broadcasters Association, CoBA, published its report Building a Global TV Hub. This was an enormously buoyant, upbeat picture of commercial broadcasters’ achievements and gave some indication of the future of a more mixed global economy. The non-PSB sector now accounts for 18% of all investment in UK television commissions. It has doubled its UK employment offer over the past decade. It has increased commissioning of independent producers by nearly 50% in the past year, and this sector is now worth £5 billion in turnover per year. It now invests £623 million pounds a year in UK television content, up nearly 30% over the past three years. I draw noble Lords’ attention to the direction of travel. This is an enormously thrusting and confident sector, striking success after success, at least in its public records, in what it is aiming to achieve and has already achieved so swiftly in such a short time.
My own experience is at Sky, where I find a company committed to its burgeoning channel, Sky Arts. I cite the statistics mentioned by my noble friend Lord Bragg, because again it is the direction of travel that is so impressive. Sky makes a growing contribution to the country’s GDP, a total of £5.9 billion in 2012-13. It has 24,000 employees, 3,700 of whom are working in creative and production roles. That is the bedrock of the creative talent of which so many people have spoken. These enormously buoyant and confident statistics were, I think, compiled before the recent sport contract fell to BT, but there, in BT, is another eager and ambitious newcomer to the broadcasting scene. Sky invests £2.5 billion each year in programming news, sport, entertainment and movies. It is moving towards a target of spending £600 million annually on UK commissioning and production by the end of 2014, an increase of more than 50% since 2011. Again, we should notice the direction of travel.
This year Sky announced a new commitment to British drama, with 20 new plays to be aired before the end of 2014. Currently, I am taking part in a Sky Arts initiative to bring art into people’s lives by holding a series of competitions for the portrait artist of the year. That has travelled to cities around the country, inviting the public, who came in great numbers, to the recordings of the programmes.
However, audiences for Sky remain comparatively small—tiny by any BBC standard. Its most popular channel, Sky Sports, has or had an audience share of just 2%. Compare that to the audience share of the BBC’s most popular channel, BBC1, which is around 20%. My noble friend Lord Sugar drew attention to the fact that we get the BBC for 40p a day. Subscribers to Sky know how much they are paying for far less on offer.
In my experience of these two sectors, the BBC is different. It is a mighty giant of broadcasting, in this country and beyond. Many people have paid tribute to it; I should like to add my word. The sheer length of its existence, the depth of its tradition and the towering level of its achievements make it central to the country’s culture. Its skill base is a lodestar for the entire industry. It sets the benchmark for originality. It is a great beast, but a wounded beast. The BBC is living in a state of fear and anticipation of what the future will hold for it.
The BBC licence fee is £145.50, up by just £10 since 2007, and frozen until 2017. Its income in 2011 was just short of £5 billion: £3.5 billion from that licence fee and almost £1.5 billion from BBC Worldwide, an institution that, to many of us, seemed to take a long time to get going, but which is now, as a wholly owned commercial subsidiary, doing incredible things around the world. However the BBC is suffering the eighth consecutive year of cuts. By the end of the current BBC charter, a further 20% will have been taken from its budget. My experience is that Radio 3, which I know well, is suffering badly.
In the public’s eye, the BBC has been seriously damaged by three things: the wasted digital money, the Savile scandal and those excessive retirement payments. However, those are moving into the past. Not only has the BBC extended its own reach virtually to breaking point with the Salford experiment, BBC Three, BBC Four and many enterprises where the creative people who want to see the organisation expand are reaching out, but it is carrying the burden of many responsibilities that are government-imposed, making demands on its corporate capacity.
In 2010, it took on an extra £340 million of spending commitments, including the move to digital, the funding of the World Service, BBC Monitoring and the Welsh channel S4C. In creative circles within the BBC, budgets are being squeezed and squeezed. Researchers now find their time doled out in half days, working on one programme and then another. Producers draw from their own pockets to provide minimal hospitality, which, as we know, once used to be very generous in the BBC, although that is no longer so. First-class travel is over; chauffeur-driven cars hardly exist. That is fine, but the BBC faces huge decisions about its funding crisis and it needs friends. It has enemies, and those enemies are voluble. James Murdoch, in his MacTaggart lecture, called for the BBC to be dismantled. According to research carried out on behalf of BECTU and the NUJ, it is estimated that the cuts will reduce the BBC’s GVA—gross value added—by around £1.1 billion by 2016. The cuts are damaging.
The BBC is unrivalled as a world brand, it is woven into the identity of the country, and it is part of the flourishing culture that we see all around us and which others have mentioned. The BBC will need friends in the years ahead.
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for initiating this debate and for allowing me the opportunity to make my first contribution to proceedings in your Lordships’ House, presenting me with the occasion to express, most sincerely, my thanks for the warmth of the welcome I have received from noble Lords on all sides of the House. I thank, in particular, my supporters, my noble friends Lord Roberts of Llandudno and Lady Randerson, for their friendship and guidance, and my mentor, my noble friend Lady Barker, for her unstinting patience. I also thank all members of staff, whose professionalism and attention to detail ensured that the day of my introduction was enjoyable and problem-free.
As someone who has always had the most appalling sense of direction, one of the greatest challenges that this place has posed for me is finding my way around its corridors. It will be no surprise, therefore, that my grateful thanks go to my noble friends, the doorkeepers, the police, the attendants and the security guards, who have all pointed me in the right direction with patience and humour on too many occasions.
It would be remiss of me to make my first speech in your Lordships’ House without reference to the area that I come from and the contribution that our small community in the rural part of Conwy county in north Wales has already made to these Benches. Many of your Lordships may recall Lord Thomas of Gwydir, who graced these Benches until his death in 2008. As a Member in the other place he became the first Conservative Secretary of State for Wales, and later made a significant contribution to the proceedings in your Lordships’ House.
Like Lord Thomas of Gwydir, my noble friend Lord Roberts of Llandudno is immensely proud of the roots that his family has in my home town of Llanrwst. The noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, of Nant Conwy, who sits on your Lordships’ Cross Benches, was also born and brought up in that part of the Conwy Valley. Our small community is rightly proud of the sons it has sent to this Chamber, and I am privileged to tread, however lightly, in their footsteps.
As is customary in one’s maiden speech, my input into your Lordships’ debate on the contribution of the broadcast industries to the UK economy will be succinct, and I will restrict my comments to aspects of the broadcasting industries in Wales.
Noble Lords will have seen the report by Deloitte on the impact that spending by the BBC has on the economy. As is the case in other parts of the UK, this investment has a similar result in relation to gross added value in Wales. For every £157 spent by the BBC in Wales, there is a gross added value of £276.
During the past few years, the BBC has embarked on a strategy of moving out of London and investing in creating centres of excellence in other parts of the country. My noble friend has already referred to the investment made in Salford, but perhaps the investment by the BBC in Wales will be a little less well known. Programmes such as “Doctor Who”, “Merlin” and “Sherlock” and many others have been produced in Cardiff over a number of years but they are now produced in the BBC’s new drama facility in the recently built drama village at Roath Lock in the Porth Teigr, or Tiger Bay, area of Cardiff Bay. The drama studios there are the length of three football pitches, and more than 600 actors, camera operators and technicians are employed there—all, of course, contributing to the local economy.
In an innovative move, we have recently seen joint commissioning between BBC Wales, BBC Four and S4C of a new drama series, “Y Gwyll/Hinterland”, which has been filmed in both English and Welsh. It has just finished its first run on S4C in Welsh and will be seen on BBC Wales and BBC Four in English next year. The series has already been sold to Denmark.
I hope that noble Lords will allow me one more reference to rural Conwy as I seek to explain its relevance to this debate. Over 62% of the inhabitants of rural Conwy speak both English and Welsh. As well as the two languages giving us “two windows on the world”, they give us a number of choices: we choose which language we use for conversation, education and religion, and we choose which language we use to receive radio and television broadcasts.
Our main sources of Welsh language broadcasts are Radio Cymru and the Welsh television channel, S4C. About 100 members of staff are employed by the BBC in Bangor and Wrexham in north Wales and, through its role as a commissioner of programmes, S4C spends its £76 million of direct funding from the BBC through BBC Cymru and, most importantly, through independent producers. S4C, will, I believe, continue to be funded from the BBC licence fee, and I hope that the Minister will be able to confirm that.
I am sure that noble Lords will agree that S4C plays a vital role in broadcasting to Welsh-speaking communities. Along with all other aspects of broadcasting throughout the UK it contributes to cultural and creative activities, and provides educational, training and employment opportunities both in local communities and in a national context.
The BBC has undoubtedly been through a difficult period and it is right and proper that the questions it has faced have had to be answered. But I hope that that will not detract excessively from the positive impact that its work has on all of us in the UK, whichever language or languages we speak.
Lord Watson of Richmond (LD)
My Lords, it is a great privilege to be the first Member of this House to be able to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, on her excellent maiden speech. She brings a characteristic lilt to her remarks, which simply enhances the basic sense and commitment of everything she says. She said that she suffered from an appalling sense of direction, but her career is the contradiction of that. She has been entirely consistent in her commitment to public service, both in the Welsh Assembly and in the Liberal Democrat party. We are delighted to see the noble Baroness in this House and her contribution will be invaluable.
We have heard other very good maiden speeches, which is important, but I shall mention one speaker in this debate who is far from being a maiden speaker—the noble Lord, Lord Bragg. He is a consummate broadcaster. I was listening to him dealing with a slightly difficult topic on Radio 4 this morning: the evolution of the microscope. He had a number of scientists in the studio with him and one of them insisted on conducting an experiment during the programme. It consisted largely of handing round a metal bar which people tried to twist in different directions. I could see the noble Lord dealing with the inherent challenge of this event—this was radio, not television. He fastened upon the most perfect phrase when he said to the scientist involved, “Hold it up to the microphone”, which was a wonderful combination of radio and television.
Like a number of Members of this House, I have had some difficulty in deciding what interests I should declare. Suffice to say that in one form or another I have been involved in broadcasting virtually from university to the present time—first, as a broadcaster myself. Given the subject of this debate, I recall my first programme on BBC television, which was the “Money Programme”. I was on it from its second edition and was taken aside and told that there was a problem with “money”—not the money that I would receive but the programme’s name: the fear of the governors that it was somehow unseemly to spend too much time discussing money. Other titles were suggested by the governors—one was the “Industry Programme” and the other was the “Export Programme”. Fortunately, neither was adopted and we settled for the “Money Programme”. Broadcasting certainly makes a huge amount of money for Britain.
My other involvements illustrate some of the diversity of this debate. I worked in the European Commission for five years, in charge of media, particularly broadcast media. I currently chair a digital television production company called CTN and Havas Media in the UK, where online advertising is now by far our fastest-growing sector. That demonstrates a central feature of our subject, and maybe a problem with it. Broadcasting is no longer a phrase which in itself adequately describes the diversity and creativity of the communications revolution. The most dramatic growth, for example, in the BBC’s global news audiences this year was in the number of young people around the world using mobile phones to receive programmes, and 1 billion page views of the BBC’s international website were achieved in one month. Looking at the overall picture, British consumers spend one in every 12 working hours online, and advertising on mobile phones exceeds £1 billion. That is just a part of the terrain.
I had a classic illustration of that last week. Archbishop Tutu of South Africa was in our CTN studios. It was not a broadcast in the formal sense of the word, but it was instantly transmitted to a conference audience of 10,000 in the United States and to several other conferences. It also immediately went on YouTube, where it has access to a potential audience of millions of people. How would we describe this? Of course, it is broadcasting, narrowcasting, webcasting and social media. We are at the start of a major revolution—only at the very start. I can see no real limitations on the way in which it will go. As we are having this debate, just down the road in Millbank, an interesting announcement was made by the Government about setting up a creative media sector task force, looking particularly at the role of SMEs in the creative industries. The figures given at that conference for the value of the creative industries as a whole are profound. Will the Minister comment on what the task force might achieve in the areas that we have been debating today?
I will make two final points, one about opportunity and the other about responsibility. First, on opportunity, I have spent a number of years involved with the cause of the English language abroad, particularly as chairman of the English-Speaking Union. To an astonishing extent our first language has become the world’s second language, which gives us a huge advantage. The BBC broadcasts in 27 languages, but by far its most powerful instrument is the English language itself, and the accessibility of the world to it. It is a great opportunity.
My second point is about responsibility. The BBC, as we all know, does not only sell programmes or indeed, services around the world; it stands for certain values, which have been referred to in the debate. They include impartiality, accuracy, credibility and freedom from government control. These are fundamental characteristics. When I joined the BBC in the early 1960s, in a very dilapidated office in what was Lime Grove Studios, I knew that I could pick up my telephone and ring virtually anyone I wanted around the world and get an interview with them simply because I represented the BBC. The power of the brand was immense. Today, that brand has been jeopardised, and the tragedy is that it is effectively an own goal. The jeopardy has come from scandal and, as other noble Lords have commented, from quite grotesque executive settlements and payouts.
A line has been drawn under that, and we all wish the noble Lord, Lord Hall, the very best in his new leadership of the corporation and in the challenges he faces. He and we must always remember that even in this multichannel, interactive, digital world, virtue remains the key licence for broadcasting.
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter for initiating this debate today and I congratulate those who made their maiden speeches. They have all demonstrated a wealth of knowledge and a deep understanding of broadcasting across the United Kingdom. I declare that I am chair of Audio Visual Arts North East, which holds an international biennial audio-visual arts festival across the region.
We have heard today that the big picture is very impressive. Whatever measure we use, be it contribution to GVA, revenue raising, jobs created, export of programming or the success of BBC Worldwide, they all say the same thing—that a good job is being done, that quality is high and that our broadcast media justify the enormous degree of confidence that the general public has in them. It is all very evident.
I am not one of those who challenges the BBC licence fee, and for two reasons: the BBC gives excellent value for money, as we have heard, and almost everyone in the UK uses the BBC at some time or other during the year—some 96%. I cannot think of a better system which would preserve the BBC’s independence and guarantee the quality and reach of its programming.
A few weeks ago I took part in the 50th anniversary celebrations of the opening of the National Theatre on the South Bank. It was wonderful to be able to join in—even more so as I did it from my armchair in my sitting room, courtesy of the BBC. It was an occasion of national importance which used the power of television to bring it to a wider audience. Perhaps it was the camera angles, maybe it was the number of cameras, but viewers could feel that they were present, rather than just looking in on someone else’s event.
Over the summer I attended other cultural events. I attended the Proms a number of times this year—three in the Albert Hall and all the others in my sitting room—courtesy of the BBC, be it BBC4, BBC2, BBC1 or Radio 3. A couple of weeks ago I went to the cinema to see “Philomena”, a quite excellent film, and the credits on the film informed me that BBC Films had had an involvement in its financing. I went in August twice to the Edinburgh Festival and saw and heard many things—but I saw and heard more on BBC radio and television than I could in Edinburgh. My point is that the broadcast media can fill schedules with content from such a festival; the festival gains from the air time; and the broader public, who are unable to attend, can be part of it. That is what the BBC does so very well.
Returning to the National Theatre, while I was watching the 50th anniversary celebration I began to wonder why it was that I could be linked to it but not be linked from my home television to all the National Theatre’s stage productions. I understand that there are good commercial reasons why that should not be the case and that delay might be necessary. I attend the theatre a great deal but I have been to the National Theatre in London only a few times. I have attended many more National Theatre productions at the Theatre Royal Newcastle because that is where I live. That means, of course, that I miss most National Theatre productions.
I accept that I am limited by geography from attending, just as most people across the UK are. Obviously I am limited by time and cost as well, which is why I have been much encouraged by the success of National Theatre Live cinema broadcasts. These performances, not only by the National Theatre, are still limited in number and occasion. For example, although I would have liked to have seen the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of “Richard II” recently at the cinema, I have not been able to, but at least the RSC has other productions planned for 2014. The advantage of this system is that cinema seats are filled, audiences are created and audiences share the experience of the production even if they are not where the stage is. There is a process under way now which can only grow in scale and so make national productions of high quality more accessible to people the length and breadth of the UK.
That is right for publicly-funded national producing theatres but what about other publicly-funded producing theatres? There have been some examples of broadcasting in cinemas, which is encouraging, but living in Newcastle upon Tyne I often look at the programming in other parts of the country and wish I could see them. The impracticalities of doing so are obvious, but what is to stop the Arts Council working with the BBC to commission many performances from producing theatres outside London and Stratford for broadcast, either live in cinemas or on television, at a later date once live performances are over?
There is a next logical step in all of this. If the Arts Council and the BBC were to do this, it would help investment regionally; it would reduce a little the serious imbalance that exists in Arts Council funding between London and the rest of the country; and it would also bring quality productions to a much wider audience.
I am glad that by 2016 the BBC will have increased its network services programming spending outside of London to 50%. That is certainly progress and I pay tribute to Peter Salmon and his colleagues in BBC North for the work they are doing to broaden the reach of BBC commissioning and programming.
I recognise the work of other broadcasters. It is good that Channel 4 commissions all its content from the independent sector and now has a growth fund to develop that further. I hope a priority can be given in that to parts of the UK which are outside London. It is good, too, that ITV has 35% of its programming from outside the M25, and the higher it can get that through investment outside London the better it will be for the economic growth and vitality of the areas it invests in.
For that is what broadcasting is. It is a key part of our economy—130,000 jobs, £12 billion in revenue and 3% of our GVA. The trouble is that the GVA created by broadcasting is markedly different by UK nation or region. Let us take as an example BBC expenditure in 2011-12. According to the latest figures provided by the House of Lords Library, London has expenditure of £3 billion out of a total UK spending of £4.3 billion. We should note that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have £425 million, and all of England outside London only £656 million. English regions are, in truth, the poor relations in comparison to London. For example, the whole of the north—including Yorkshire, the north-east and the north-west—has expenditure of only £203 million. If we add to this the fact that Arts Council England spends most of its money in London, whichever way one looks at the figures, the truth is that there is an enormous imbalance in spending between London and the rest of England, be it Arts Council direct funding, the lottery, DCMS or private sponsorship. London’s gravitational pull is understandable as a national provider but it needs positive interventions to enable others areas, which may be more dependent on local government funding, to succeed as well.
The imbalance is recognised by the Arts Council, which has committed itself to spending more in the regions and has asked to be judged on outcomes in two years’ time. I welcome that commitment but I hope, too, that it might be possible for the BBC and the Arts Council to have a standard policy of commissioning more programmes from outside London, either to stream live or to broadcast productions and performances at a later date, as I have suggested.
I hope the Minister will take these suggestions on board and look at ways in which greater balance across the UK can be achieved in broadcasting investment in order that our cultural richness can be widely shared.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, for initiating the debate and for her constant and passionate support for the arts.
I do not know whether or not it was organised but it was interesting that the opening and closing speeches reflected two of the main ingredients of our debate. We started with a good description of the history and impact of the arts more generally, the creative economy and broadcasting from the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter; and the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, described the other end of the spectrum and how these plans and ideas that we have for organising and constructing our creative industries impact when you are living outside London or are adrift from the main centres. Themes emerged throughout the debate which reflected both points and it is interesting to pick up on them.
Whatever the political spectrum involved in this debate, probably more joins us together on the issues being discussed than separates us. We should be pleased about that. As always, it is useful to reflect on the fact that there are few areas of public life within which you could have a discussion of this nature, which involves not only those who have practical experience—journalists, performers, executives and producers—but consumers as well. We will learn from the words that have been said today.
I also thank the noble Lords who have made their maiden speeches today. The whole House will recognise that there were four very good speeches; it signals well for the future of our interest in the arts and creative industries that we can attract that sort of maiden speech to our debates.
The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, made a witty and well constructed maiden speech in a real double act. I do not know he manages to get his dog to be so patient—not just when he speaks, but when everybody else is speaking. My dog would have been out the door several times if he had had to listen to the debate we had today, but his was still there and very peaceable about it. I thought it was very interesting the way he was able to pick up his experiences within both broadcasting and sport to show us how broadcasting has the power to change lives for the better.
The noble Baroness, Lady Grender, gave us a few insights on how the party on that side of the Chamber organises itself, particularly in terms of rehearsing and practising its appearances in the press, which is always very useful to know. It was good that she drew us to one of the sub-themes we have had today, namely the need to stress the impartiality and balance that currently exists in our broadcast media, particularly in our news output; and added to some of the thoughts about value, which also came up from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes of Richmond. There is an important sense—that we sometimes ignore at our peril—about the implied ability of our broadcast sector and our arts to reflect our values to a wider world.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, focused on an important issue, the needs of our sub-national regions. I was lucky to live in the Borders for a brief period and I recognise what he says about the particularity of that area, and how easy it is to speed over it up to the central belt and to leave it for the greater pastures of England. It is important to reflect that our creativity and culture starts in small places, and if we do not understand and recognise that, or engage with it, then we will all be losers.
That theme also came up from the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, who is interested in Conwy county, and the very large number of people who seemed to have emerged from there; there must be something in the water there that we do not know about. She also brought us back to language and how important it is that, when the media speak to the nation, they have to speak in all the aspects of the language that we use—not just the dialect but also the individual changes. There are issues there that we must reflect on.
We have had a very good history lesson on how broadcasting in this country has evolved. I thought it was very helpful to have that context. The interesting thing for me about the early days of television was how—possibly more by accident than by design—we ended up in the first phases with a series of channels that were all financed in different ways so that the competition that existed was a competition for quality, not for sources of funding. That, of course, has changed slightly, but it is still redolent in some areas, particularly—as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft—that of advertising. It is so important that ITV and, to some extent, other channels are free not because they are provided for by any state funding but because advertising pays for them. We ignore that at our peril.
Our conclusion on that historical link is that broadcasting broadly is in good shape. The noble Lord, Lord Bragg, made an important point about this. I recall that there were voices of gloom and doom every time anything happened, saying that any new initiative was going to be a disaster, but we are still here and still consuming huge amounts of television. The extraordinary thing is the strength of the terrestrial channels, which underpins much of what we enjoy today.
It is a difficult area for policymakers because it is both art and culture. Obviously, the ability to create fantastic art forms within a broadcast medium is valuable in itself, but it only comes about because of the extraordinarily large economic apparatus that has to be there to surround it. Again, that is something to remember when one thinks about the creativity and investment required. Our ex-colleague—soon to be our colleague again, I hope—the current director-general of the BBC, the noble Lord, Lord Hall, put his finger on it when he said that we were ignoring, when looking at broadcasting, the very wide impact it has, not just because of the broadcast material of the programmes, but because of the buildings in Salford and in other places, the training, the innovation and the ability of those who have control of the commissioning buttons to introduce new work and new writing that results in activity that would not otherwise take place.
It has been said, and I think it is right, that if the BBC sneezes, it is the arts world that catches flu. It is important to recognise that contribution, which is often underrecognised and not reflected in what we say. Without the BBC and other broadcasters all investing and creating activity—local activity and jobs—we would not have what we have and enjoy in this country.
The soft power was mentioned—and it is important—as were the points of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, about the need to recognise that, in some senses, although we are not the major player, what happens in broadcasting in Britain, and by implication in the wider context of our arts, is a standard that would be the one that people would most reflect and most enjoy. Those of us who travel abroad and talk to others obviously understand that that happens.
With all that context, what are the remaining questions that we need to ask about these things? First—noble Lords have touched on this and I think it is very important to recognise—broadcasting, although a net contributor to our economy, also draws from the seed beds in our arts and culture. That largely depends on Arts Council and other spending, such as that from the BFI and other arts bodies. Will the Minister, when he comes to respond, reflect on whether he feels it is in the best interests of the sectors that have been raised today to have experienced yet another round of cuts in our arts world? I mention in particular the BFI, with an additional cut this year, its heritage changing significantly away from its previous model to one which is more about being privately supported; and, as has been mentioned, the incredible cuts in local authority support of the arts. There is a report in one of today’s papers that there may not be any cultural spending in a few years. Perhaps the Minister could comment on that.
We have also been reminded—and it is important—that broadcasting to a single television in a household that is watched in a group is not now the way we consume what is produced. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, mentioned that there was a great deal of interface across and between the various art forms now being reproduced and picked up. Indeed, one of the roles of television is to reflect that which is happening, not necessarily within broadcasting’s direct ambit, to a wider population. Where are we with the broadband rollout and where are we going to be for the people who need to pick up these things? What about the rural broadband scheme? Perhaps we could have a comment from the Minister on that.
The wider context to which I referred earlier also has implications for training, for the work of Skillset, which has been mentioned, and the need to think again about the contributions made across the whole of the broadcasting industry and more widely. Is it time to revisit the question of whether this should be an obligation? Broadcasting, and the creative world more generally, also impacts on the diversity that we see and seek to have in our society, and I would be grateful for a comment on whether he thinks that enough has been done in that area.
We have heard about the exports, but are they in the Minister’s view still appropriately configured in relation to UKTI, which often fails to include a cultural member on some of the trade visits? Are we now in a better position in regard to UKEF, which has had difficulties in finding the right contracts to support in moving image and creative industries wishing to have export finance in order to get their work sent abroad? There are huge returns for that if we can get this right; it is really important that they get support from government at the right time.
Finally, a number of noble Lords were worried that the BBC—although it is not the only player in this game, and much is done elsewhere, including at ITV and Sky—was under attack. Although we had a lot of support about this, notably from the noble Lords, Lord Sugar and Lord Birt, we worry that in the next few years the BBC will have to undergo its regular examination by those who support it, in terms of government, but also by those who fund it through the licence fee. Will the Minister perhaps give us a sense of where that debate has got to within government and what sort of consultations and other issues we will be likely to have on this?
The BBC is really important; it is not the only player in this area, but it is the one that sets standards and many people regard it as being the gold standard against which others compete. We want the BBC to be successful, but we need to know that the processes will be open and fair and transparent, and that the problems that the BBC has had—which were referred to by my noble friend Lady Bakewell in respect of absorbing the cost of the digital switchover, the cost of the World Service, the cost of BBC Monitoring and the cost of S4C—are not going to mean a reduction in the sort of quality that we have been hearing about today.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
My Lords, I start by congratulating my noble friend on securing this debate. As I expected, it has been wide-ranging and thought-provoking and it has displayed a wealth of experience. It also provided noble Lords with the opportunity to hear four outstanding maiden speeches. My noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond rightly drew attention to sport—a key element of the broadcast media and important to so many. My noble friend Lady Humphreys spoke up for S4C, media broadcast and her rural community. S4C of course has funding not only from the Exchequer but through the BBC. As long as the funding timespan is agreed, the Exchequer funding for S4C is confirmed at the current level into 2015-16 and there is, in addition, BBC licence fee money up to 2017. I am sure that that will all be part of the continuing discussions, but what a good job that channel does.
My noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed gave us an insight into the broadcast media in Scotland. His reflections on that glorious part of our nation, the Borders, were extremely important. My noble friend Lady Grender spoke of the reputation of broadcast media, about which many of your Lordships also spoke. I was struck by the words of my noble friend Lord Watson of Richmond. The noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, spoke about the importance of impartiality. I felt personal sympathy with my noble friend Lady Grender in her view of the A-list of broadcasting. I felt myself, as I looked at your Lordships and heard the speeches that noble Lords were delivering, that I had no direct experience. It has been a very interesting and important debate.
Broadcast media touch us all, directly and powerfully, through coverage of hugely popular and exceptional occasions such as the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympic and Paralympic Games. My noble friend Lord Holmes mentioned the Games and his journey from Seoul to London. I believe that we are in debt to him for the part that he played in enhancing the important and nation-changing element that the Paralympics in London represented for the nation. The media also touch us through the more routine enjoyment of listening to the news on the radio each morning.
Through these turbulent economic times, the UK has continued to benefit from what I have called a vibrant broadcast sector, which my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter referred to as “resilient”, the noble Lord, Lord Bragg, as “strong” and the noble Lord, Lord Birt, as having “exuberance”. The sector leads the way in the quality of its content and contributes to the country’s economic well-being.
As a number of your Lordships said, the UK television industry generated £12.3 billion in revenue last year. The UK broadcasting industry comprises a mixture of public service broadcasters—BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and S4C—and commercial multichannel broadcasters such as Sky and Discovery. Because of parliamentary duties last night, I was unable to go to the global TV hub presentation but I am sure that it was particularly interesting and I would very much like to hear how it went from noble Lords who attended.
All this provides an environment where consumers are well served with a broad choice of content, including sports coverage, which made up 11 of the 15 most watched programmes in 2012. My noble friend Lord Addington rightly referred to that in terms of the impact that it should have, and I hope will have, on the health of our nation. That content also includes arts and culture programmes such as the BBC’s “Imagine” strand, digital radio stations such as Absolute Classic Rock and shows such as “Grand Designs”. There is abundant choice for the UK audience—I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, in that regard.
Multichannel broadcasters have doubled direct employment in the UK over the past decade and increased their turnover to £5 billion last year. The PSBs invested £2.6 billion last year in UK content. Non-PSBs have increased their investment, too, with Ofcom estimating it at £1.2 billion per year. The Government want to ensure that such investment in UK content is sustained and supported.
My noble friend Lady Wheatcroft spoke about international exports. The development and international sale of programming is remarkable. The UK is second only to the United States of America in TV content sales, which reached £1.7 billion last year. New markets in China, India and Indonesia present extraordinary opportunities; exports to China rose 90% last year. Sales to the United States of America were up 11% to £475 million, representing 39% of total sales. Digital rights are growing rapidly, as are co-productions. This sector is one of the fastest-growing sources of international business.
Formats such as “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” have been sold to more than 100 countries worldwide. “Strictly Come Dancing” is licensed to 48 countries, with a worldwide audience of more than a quarter of a billion people. Dramas such as “Sherlock”, “Parade’s End” and “Downton Abbey” have bolstered Britain’s reputation and are attracting more international investment. Your Lordships have already mentioned “Doctor Who”. Its 50th anniversary special has just had a record-breaking global simultaneous broadcast—I am informed by officials that it is called a simulcast—that reached 94 countries across all the continents. The noble Lord, Lord Birt, referred to Monty Python.
My noble friend Lord Shipley referred to the trio of theatre, cinema and television coming together and making all these great productions more accessible across the land, which is an increasing part of the cultural experience. The noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, used the term “the direction of travel”. The direction in which we are going is extraordinary, and the consumer, the viewer and the listener have a considerably enhanced experience.
The independent production sector, which a number of your Lordships mentioned, is also a major export success story. Independent producers are increasingly winning commissions direct from international broadcasters, as well as selling a greater number of finished programmes and formats to international buyers. Channel 4 commissions all its content from the independent production sector, supporting a wide range of SMEs across the United Kingdom. These commissions are a key part of the UK’s international sale of programmes and formats. My noble friend Lady Grender particularly referred to that.
We should not forget radio, which is also a major export. For example, talkSPORT broadcasts Premier League matches in eight languages—English, Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, Malay, Indonesian, French and Vietnamese—from its base in London to 25 different markets in Europe and the rest of the world. I hope very much that my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft will approve of that. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, I should say that UKTI-led events and the GREAT campaign are very important in beating the drum for the sector. I have looked before at the various tours that have taken place and there are many examples of where the creative industries, quite rightly, are in the frame as part of those tours.
The economic contribution made by the sector is clear, but we should not forget that it plays an equally vital educational, social and cultural role. The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, quite rightly stressed this. The noble Lord also mentioned the settlement in this sector. I think that it is fair to say, having looked at it again, that in many respects the endurance of cuts, which in an ideal climate many would regret, was a good settlement in the end for the sector compared with many other sectors, although I understand the issues that a number of your Lordships have mentioned.
I particularly want to mention the BBC World Service, which my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft spoke so powerfully about. I agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, that it is an important aspect of our collective identity. The BBC World Service has the largest audience of any international broadcaster, with a weekly reach of 192 million people; add BBC World global news and the figure becomes 256 million people.
The sector supports a host of highly skilled jobs in distribution, marketing and technical and support services. Overall, according to the Creative UK report, the sector supports more than 7,000 firms and 132,000 jobs. The talent of tomorrow must also be nurtured, as many of your Lordships said. I was interested that Channel 4’s 4Talent, for example, offers work experience placements, apprenticeships, workshops and master classes to people looking to gain entry into the creative industries, alongside funding and support for external skills bodies such as Creative Skillset and the National Film and Television School.
The noble Lord, Lord Bragg, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, referred to Sky. Sky delivered more than 104,000 training days and 160,000 hours of e-learning across its business. Mention was also made of the Sky Academy, which has the ambition of creating new opportunities for up to 1 million young people by 2020. The BBC will be taking on an apprentice in every BBC local radio station across England and in stations across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by September 2014. ITV invested £50 million in enhancing facilities in Leeds and at MediaCityUK in Salford, which my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter referred to as the hub of Salford, which is important across the media area. Indeed, ITV’s investment in skills and development training to help the next generation of talent across the UK should be acknowledged. The noble Lord, Lord Bragg, mentioned ITV in particular. It is remarkable that ITV is now in the top five biggest independent producers in the United States of America and one of the top three European programme distributors.
Radio is a valued source of entertainment, education and information for millions of people across the country. Every week, 90% of the adult UK population listens to the radio. It is a significant employer, with an estimated total workforce of 17,500 people, and total radio industry revenue last year was £1.2 billion. Some 65% of adults tune in to commercial radio at least once a week. BBC Radio 2 is the most popular radio station in the UK. BBC national and local radio, commercial radio and community radio are all part of the vibrant mix. Since 2010 there has been a further shift to digital listening, which now represents over 35% of all listening. Conscious of consumers, the Government are looking at how to support the long-term transition to digital radio. A more detailed announcement will be made at the end of the year.
I now turn to how the Government are playing and need to play a part in supporting the growth of UK broadcasting. As part of the Government’s wide-ranging review of the communications sector, our discussions with industry, regulators and consumer groups indicated that the present framework is broadly operating well, is generally working for the consumer and supports economic growth and innovation. However, where legislative changes are deemed necessary, the Government will act. An example is the prominence of public service broadcasters. We need to update electronic programme guide regulation, to keep pace with recent developments in TV technology, to provide flexibility to adapt to future technological changes and to preserve public service broadcasters’ prominence. We all value high-quality content, which the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, concentrated on, and we expect public service broadcasters in particular to adhere to this. The public must be able to continue to find and enjoy this in the future, so we expect to consult on these issues in the near future.
My noble friend Lord Watson of Richmond mentioned the wider creative industries. Indeed, the media broadcast sector cannot and does not function in isolation. I acknowledge the work of the wider creative industries. Collectively, the creative industries are worth more than £36 billion a year to the UK. The creative industries supporting the broadcast media include: craftsmen and craftswomen, fashion designers creating props and costumes, production crews, make-up artists, composers and musicians, and many more. My noble friend Lady Wheatcroft and others quite rightly mentioned the skill of advertising.
Again, the Government have an important role to fulfil. The Government helped to set up the Creative Industries Council in 2011. Led by industry, the council now works to ensure that barriers to growth can be removed. A sub-group of that council will look at access to finance skills, export markets, data collection and infrastructure. If I have more detailed information, I will certainly write to my noble friend Lord Watson of Richmond about these matters.
The Government have set up a range of creative content-targeted tax reliefs, such as tax breaks for British films. There are clearly strong links between the film world, which benefits from these tax incentives, and broadcasting. For example, Channel 4 is a major investor in UK film. Indeed, films supported by Channel 4 have won 14 Oscars in the past seven years. My noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter mentioned tax reliefs for animation and high-end TV. These came into force in April this year, to support innovation and the growth of the content for which the UK is renowned. These initiatives are already bringing more productions to our shores; for example, “Outlander” is being made in Cumbernauld and “Game of Thrones” has had a significant impact on the local economy and skills base in Northern Ireland.
Furthermore, as was announced earlier this week, local television has now started broadcasting in the UK, with Grimsby channel Estuary TV leading the way. Another 18 channels will be launched in the spring, with a further wave of channels to come. This was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Birt, my noble friend Lord Shipley and others. It is an important feature and part of the direction of travel that the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, referred to. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, that, as a countryman, I am passionately keen to ensure that broadband results are going to grow swiftly in this tail end of the process of establishing what I hope will be successful coverage for the overwhelming majority of if not the whole nation very soon.
The importance of the broadcast media in the UK and the contribution that they make has been outlined most eloquently by your Lordships today. The Government’s role must be to ensure that the environment is suitable for the sector to continue to flourish. There are undoubtedly challenges and opportunities in this increasingly converged world. The title of today’s debate specifically highlights the economic contribution of broadcast media. That is not in doubt. What is impossible to assess adequately or precisely is what this sector contributes to the social and cultural well-being of our nation. As noble Lords mentioned—particularly the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara—it is a prime example of how soft power operates across the globe in the British interest. The reputation of our nation abroad is in no small measure enhanced by the UK’s high standards for content—set by producers and regulators, and by the expectations of those who listen and watch. That reputation is secured by and because of the talented, hard-working people in the industry. We can be proud of the quality that they bring to the screen and to radio.
In this debate, the broadcast media have rightly been championed and their prospects encouraged and there has been openness about some of the problems that need to be addressed. All these matters could not have been better articulated by your Lordships, from all parts of the House.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who took part in the debate. I also thank the many noble Lords who have contributed so greatly to making the broadcast media great, in all their different ways. That enriched the debate today. I particularly congratulate all the maiden speakers. I am pleased that so many of them chose this debate and look forward to them being champions of this area, not least my noble friend Lord Holmes. Finally, as “Doctor Who” has dominated the debate and I see my noble friend Lord Grade in his seat, I cannot resist wondering whether, had he known that Sylvester McCoy would regenerate into John Hurt, he would still have cancelled the programme.
Young People: Apprenticeships
Baroness Wilcox
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to increase the take-up of apprenticeships among young people.
Baroness Wilcox (Con)
My Lords, it is an enormous pleasure for me to lead this topical Question for Short Debate this afternoon. I reassure all noble Lords present that I am conscious of the need for brevity given that this is intended to be a short debate, and will accordingly try to keep my remarks brief. However, I am also conscious that the question of how we can improve the employment prospects for young people is not only topical but worthy of serious debate.
This month’s employment figures were very encouraging, revealing that employment is up 177,000 this quarter while unemployment is down 48,000 in the same period. All in all, there are now more than 1 million more people in work since the general election. Significantly, this month’s figures also revealed a considerable rise in the number of young people in work—up more than 50,000 in the past three months. Noble Lords from all Benches in this House would agree that this is very welcome news.
Apprenticeships have played a pivotal role in helping young people into—in many cases back into—work. Since the Government came to power in 2010, a record 1.5 million apprenticeships have been created. To put that into context, that figure is twice the number created by the previous Labour Government during their final three years in office. A record number have started apprenticeships—half a million in the past year alone, with apprenticeship starts in IT and digital frameworks proving especially popular. Of course, I would be remiss if I failed to pay tribute to the continuing popularity of Armed Forces apprenticeships, with around 10,000 completed every year.
Apprenticeships are an invaluable means by which young people can fulfil their individual potential. We must remember the simple truth that no single means of learning will ever suit everyone. Like the National Citizen Service, apprenticeships provide an opportunity for young people to learn new skills, grow in confidence and develop a sense of self-worth and purpose. Those undertaking apprenticeships gain an experience of work that is truly invaluable. They have the opportunity to work alongside experienced staff, gain vocational skills, earn a recognised qualification and, above all, earn a wage. The Government are to be commended for the strides they have taken in making apprenticeships an attractive and viable option both for young people and the businesses that take them on.
As noble Lords are well aware, small and medium-sized business enterprises are the lifeblood of our economy. To make hiring apprentices a more attractive proposition for such companies, the Government must build further on the steps already taken—such as the recently extended apprenticeship grant for employers—to simplify the recruitment process and remove unnecessary bureaucracy. I hope the Minister can shed some light on what the Government are doing in that regard.
It is imperative that we make young people aware of their options at what is a definitive crossroads in their lives. We must accept that for many young people, university is neither an attractive nor viable option. Yet I fear that a large number of teachers seem able only to advocate a university career for their pupils and have little information or enthusiasm for vocational training. That is not the way to find our new-style engineers, technicians, craftsmen and craftswomen, and the entrepreneurs of our future. With that in mind, I wonder whether the Minister can update the House on how the new careers service appears to be performing.
I encourage the Government to do more to restore the esteem in which apprenticeships were once held. We need more role models—more poster boys and poster girls—to bang the drum for apprenticeships. My father was apprenticed. When he finished his original seven years as an apprentice he was sent to be what was then called a journeyman. You had to leave the place where you worked and lived. You had to go off, ply your trade and see whether you could be as good as you thought you were. Ultimately, he returned, recognised as a cabinet maker and thereafter became a master craftsman. His relationship with his mentor was undoubtedly one of the most formative of his life and the platform for so many of the great things he achieved over the rest of his life. As a result, he told me that with a skill you can go anywhere. With those words still ringing in my ears, he packed me off to become an industrial accountant. It is up to noble Lords to decide whether the skill he made me take up earned me the honour of being in this noble House today.
I look forward to listening to the contributions from other Members of your Lordships’ House in this short debate. However, before hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, for whom I have a great deal of admiration having served on the Front Bench opposite him for more than two years, I confess to being saddened by Ed Miliband’s recent foray into the issue of apprenticeships. His pledge that a future Labour Government would require companies both large and small to hire an apprentice for every foreign worker they employ has been widely condemned by a range of business leaders, from the CBI to the IoD, from the chambers of commerce to the small business alliances. That compulsion would discourage more employment. Surely that cannot be what is wanted.
In conclusion, we should never underestimate the challenge faced by many young people wishing to enter the world of work in these difficult times. We should not be complacent following the welcome news that youth unemployment is falling and that the economy is showing signs of life. There is more work to be done, because if we are to harness our potential as a nation we must harness the potential of each and every one of our precious young people. After all, they are our future. Apprenticeships are not just an opportunity to do something for a few years. They are a chance to stand by someone you can admire, and work with someone who can teach you and give you the steering that may not have been possible in your home life. You have someone to travel through life with. I am delighted that this aspect of employment is growing in popularity.
Lord Haskel (Lab)
My Lords, when giving evidence to a committee in another place on 30 October, a CBI spokesman stated that it had identified 48 schemes that could help an employer to take on or train a young unemployed person. I am indebted to Professor Sloman for pointing that out and for pointing out that those schemes are funded through three government departments. The DWP funds employment programmes, BIS funds 18-plus skills training and the DfE funds education and training for 16 to 19 year-olds.
To add to the confusion, the Government’s response to the Richard review, published on 28 October, encouraged employers to describe almost any training scheme or initiative as an apprenticeship. The precision, the high standards demanded by employers and the National Apprenticeship Service had been officially abandoned, so that the Government can claim that 500,000 started training, as the noble Baroness told us, but in 2012, only 106,510 places were offered by the service. No wonder employers are confused and becoming disillusioned. This whole thing is becoming a numbers game, with so-called apprenticeships being shamelessly oversold by the Government and intermediaries.
I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for introducing the debate. She and I have debated many times from both the Front and Back Benches. We both come from a business background. We have something else in common. We have both worked hard to try to make the economy successful. Success through the creation of a highly skilled workforce has been important to us. Proper apprenticeships form an important part of that. Proper apprenticeships, which combine a business need with a social need, with a strong emphasis on assisting the business by developing skills in particular to that business. That enables the business to develop, to progress and to innovate. They are not a quick fix to get unemployed young people off the register. Apprentices are required to learn a substantial amount and acquire skills way beyond on-the-job training.
There are plenty of good examples. Many firms accept interested people, young and not so young, on placements and choose candidates for apprenticeships with a structured programme of acquiring skills to a high level of competency and practical training supported by academic study and time spent understanding new technologies. Cogent is the sector skills council for science-based industries. Previously, many companies in that sector look for graduates, but Cogent has set up mechanisms for companies to employ young people who seek career progression through a more practical in-company route, about which the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, spoke. With Cogent, companies can grow their own talent and apprentices gain the skills and knowledge that are important to the employer. That makes Cogent part of the success of our science-based industries.
In the previous debate, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and others mentioned the BBC. The BBC London apprenticeships are part of the corporation’s legacy from the Olympic Games. The scheme gives 10 trainees a year entry-level jobs in production. The business case here is that it underpins the incentive of making entry level into BBC employment much more accessible.
We are continually told that employers want school leavers to have social and communication skills, team-working skills, literacy and numeracy, and initiative. I am sure that that is absolutely true, but those skills are best developed through school and workplace experience. That is not apprenticeship, and we should not mix the two. One is to achieve a skilled and innovative workforce; the other is to reduce the number of workless young people—of course there are far too many of them.
Will the Government reconsider their response to the Richard review? Will they rationalise the 48 schemes from three departments, because their current position condemns many to be stuck in low-paid jobs and Britain to a lower-skilled workforce?
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Wilcox on leading this timely debate and on a constructive speech. The growth of apprenticeships has been a key success of the coalition Government, but there is a lot more to do. As economic recovery gets under way, there are two needs. One is to get business investment up. The second is to redouble investment in vocational training and skills enhancement, especially expanding quality apprenticeships. Together, they have the overall objective of improving employee productivity so that we can compete better internationally.
Our economy has been adjusting to even greater global competition from which there is no escape. Young people entering the labour market and those in vulnerable occupations are most at risk. The current youth unemployment rate is unacceptable. We have also to tackle the social divide between university education and vocational, technical and employment training, which is a barrier to social mobility. Some 50% of our young people can now go to university, but if we do not address the other 50%, we will simply recreate a social divide at 18 rather than 11.
In July, it was encouraging and uplifting for me to share a day with other Liberal Democrat parliamentarians meeting apprentices to see what is being achieved in their workplaces. I visited Stannah lifts in Andover, a family engineering company with a turnover of £145 million and 1,500 staff. At the time, it had significantly more apprentices than the whole of the Department for Business. I hope that my noble friend will update us on the improvement that I know that the department is now making. Stannah, like many family businesses, believes in investing in its staff and its future. Its factory and company are an example to the 80% of workplaces which, sadly, have no apprentices, on what they need to do. If a company invests in its people, it wins their commitment, confidence, flexibility and, above all, their knowledge to compete better.
I spent most of my career in the newspaper industry at a time when, frankly, apprenticeships had a bad name for being too fixed on traditional skills, restricting flexible working and protecting out-of-date skills. Now the perception of apprenticeships is changing. They are not perfect but they are more flexible and more outward-looking by being associated with training outside the workplace, and they place more emphasis on qualification by competence rather than time served.
However, we have to do more if we want to double the number of apprentices that we have had in the past three years. We have to alter the focus, so that getting people on to apprenticeships has as much kudos and prestige as getting on to a university course. We must accept that most progress has in fact been made with the 25-plus age group, whereas the greatest focus for training and apprenticeships should now be on pupils who leave school at 17 or 18. We must question whether schools’ careers services are, frankly, sufficiently geared up to provide the needed links with local employers. Is Ofsted giving as much credit to schools for getting their pupils into apprenticeships and training as it does to university applications?
All companies need pressure and encouragement to make them question whether they are doing enough in this national priority get young people into work and trained. We should build on the initiatives of many local papers, such as the ones I used to run, to publicise how local organisations are getting young people into work and thereby encouraging more to do that. Every government department must question whether it has been doing enough— just as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, challenged the Department for Business in the summer. It would be a good start to have a regular roll of honour and dishonour to see who is doing best and worst in the public sector.
At the end of the 18th century, the Duke of York, as head of the Army, had the task of modernising the British Army, which he did by opening up appointments and transforming military training. His work contributed massively to our military domination in the 19th century in Europe and the rest of the world. The task that we face to compete in world markets now is on a similar scale. If we do not want our economy marching up the hill and back again, as it has done for too long, a new, sustained impetus with cross-party support on apprenticeships, combined with sustained business investment, are now the two key economic priorities for the next 10 years.
Lord Aberdare (CB)
My Lords, I welcome this debate on apprenticeships, which are so vital to our future competitiveness and prosperity, and I congratulate the noble Baroness on leading it. I declare my interests as a member of the Apprenticeships, the Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning and the Skills and Employment All-Party Groups, and until recently as a director of a small company that helps to prepare disadvantaged young Londoners for employment, including via apprenticeships. I shall focus on two issues: increasing the number of young people wishing to undertake apprenticeships and expanding the opportunities available to them from employers, particularly SMEs.
The first issue relates to the lack of awareness of young people in schools of the apprenticeship opportunities available to them. I have met quite a number of apprentices and can hardly recall any who had heard about their apprenticeship, or been encouraged to take it up, through their schools. Indeed, I have heard of survey results indicating that one in five current apprentices were actively discouraged by their schools. Sadly, there seems to be an ingrained view that going on to further or higher education is better than going into a practical, job-related training programme, even where that programme offers recognised, high-quality qualifications. Yet for a substantial number of young students, higher education may not offer the most appropriate pathway to a successful career. Many of the apprentices I have met preferred to get into the workplace sooner, and to start earning ahead of their contemporaries, while gaining job-related skills and qualifications and, in some cases, going on to do university degrees at a later stage.
How can we tackle this problem? Of course we should put pressure on schools and careers services to promote apprenticeships as an option where appropriate. This should be included in Ofsted inspections. Schools should be required not only to report destination data for all their students but to achieve a sensible balance between students going on to university and into jobs or apprenticeships, and inspected against those criteria. There should also be much greater effort to make parents aware of the range and value of apprenticeship opportunities. Other noble Lords may have received a CIPD briefing, showing that only 9% of parents ranked an apprenticeship as the qualification that they would most like their child to attain.
When I met a group of engineering sector apprentices from the Industry Apprentice Council, set up by EAL, I was particularly struck by their willingness, indeed eagerness, to act as ambassadors themselves, based on the view that they are best placed to promote apprenticeships to others of their generation. Many have been articulate, enthusiastic, persuasive and impressive; surely we could harness those talents to encourage others to follow their lead. Perhaps the Government should look at ways of extending this concept of industry apprentice councils into other sectors.
My second issue relates to encouraging and enabling employers, particularly smaller firms, to offer more apprenticeships. I shall base this on a social enterprise called Building Lives set up by Steve Rawlings, the founder and chief executive of Lakehouse—a construction and contracting company based in Romford which now has an annual turnover of more than £300 million and some 1,300 staff. Building Lives offers 18-month NVQ level 2 multi-trade construction-sector apprenticeships, covering a range of skill areas including bricklaying, carpentry, plumbing, painting and decorating, plastering and tiling. It currently runs six Building Lives academies across London, each training about 50 apprentices a year aged 16 to 64, although one of them offers vocational training for much younger students, aged 14 to 16, in Southwark. The apprentices mostly come from deprived areas local to the academies. Many are NEETs or suffer other forms of disadvantage, including being young offenders.
Almost all those who complete their apprenticeships at Building Lives go on to be offered jobs with local contractors. Many of these are small firms, so Building Lives is set up as an apprenticeships training agency, or ATA, in order to manage on their behalf the bureaucracy involved in employing these young people. Already, after just a couple of years of operation, these six centres are producing some 250 qualified apprentices a year, who mostly go on into full-time jobs.
Building Lives would like to expand: Steve talks about reaching 20 academies within the next few years, producing about 1,000 qualified apprentices a year to go into the construction jobs market, with its expected growing skills needs. The academies are financially self-sustaining, for example through training fees, but they involve start-up costs—for example, to fit out suitable premises and to acquire necessary tools and equipment. Funding these initial costs in the current climate is proving extremely difficult yet it seems to me that this is a model for enhancing take-up of apprenticeships—not necessarily restricted to construction—that is proven and replicable, and could generate both new apprenticeship openings and the young people to fill them in significant numbers. What help can the Minister offer to enable initiatives of this kind to attract the start-up funds that they need?
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I am afraid that when I talk about apprenticeships, I bring with me rather a big moan. One of the major problems that we have had with the apprenticeship system is that the choice of wording, and the way in which the matter has been approached, has ended up, almost by definition, by excluding anybody who has even moderate dyslexia. We are currently dealing with this problem in the Children and Families Bill and may come to a satisfactory conclusion on it at Report. I will not rehearse those arguments now, because nobody has annoyed me enough to go through it all over again, but what it points out to me is that there is a problem with the idea that we have got in front of us now.
In fact, there are effectively two problems. The first is the perception that apprenticeships are wonderful and should be left alone and nobody can criticise them because they are to do with business. The other is the perception that education happens somewhere else and is nothing to do with training. We reached a point where I asked the then Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, whether we were going to prevent dyslexics from getting their apprenticeships because of the English test. He said, “No, we’ll sort that out”. Somewhere in the slip between cup and lip, however, and with the change of government, we developed a system where they were being stopped. Would that have happened in an educational establishment? No, it would not. Educational establishments know that you bring people on board and, with a long-term advantage, you can deal with it. If we go after training, we could have a system where people say, “Training and business? Business wants people who have literacy skills. If you don’t have good literacy skills, we cannot deal with you”. They do not know that in the modern world there are dozens of ways of assisting people to gain literacy skills through technology.
It was particularly worrying that although the same department provided both the disabled students allowance and the literacy package for universities—which is particularly for dyslexics but also for others with disabilities—the two parts were not talking to each other: the silos had closed. And just to make the absurdity slightly greater, guess what? Afterwards they could get help through Access to Work, which helps dyslexics access the written word. We got ourselves into a situation where a scheme was too precious to look outside itself. If that can happen once it can happen twice. We have to try to cross over that and ensure that the different parts talk to each other.
My noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, talked about building up this important aspect which should be valued by the education system, this cross between training and education. The two worlds currently regard themselves as separate. I agree with my noble friend that schools should be better at directing people towards this area. In this case, however, the people from the academic world have had a better understanding of the support required for this group—which is 10% of the population—than people in the training world have had. Let us also face facts. If you put a dyslexic through university, what sorts of entrance-level jobs will be available for a university graduate? They will go into a white-collar office job. With the best will in the world, and with all the technological support in the world, they would probably be happier in a more practical environment. By not thinking laterally, and by defending your own little world, you are deliberately excluding people who would have been happier in that place. Unless the people undertaking these schemes start to talk to each other, they will continue to make these mistakes.
I do not have enough time in the remaining seconds to go further into this. However, we need to make sure that everyone who provides training supports people with disabilities throughout the process, not only up to the test but during practical demonstrations as well. Unless that happens, we shall continue to have these problems, even if we successfully deal with the problem of the functional skills test.
The Lord Bishop of Derby
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, on securing this debate on this very important theme. The Richards review and the statement by the Minister of State for Skills and Enterprise make clear that there are three areas that we need to look at and hold together.
The first is the big context about the importance of using education and training, of which apprenticeship is part, to make good citizens and a proper workforce for the 21st century. That is the theme of vocation: developing people to have a sustainable working life. The second area is the need for employers to be able to train and recruit the kind of people they need for their particular industry. The third area is the fact that there are a large number of young people who lack the opportunity to engage with the world of work. Those three themes frame this debate.
I will start with a comment on the bigger picture. I work in Derby, which is a great centre for industry, technology and innovation. One of the flagships is Rolls-Royce. The Rolls-Royce apprenticeship academy takes between 150 and 200 people a year. It is a setter of high standards. As part of their training, these apprentices are sent into the community to work in schools, with the homeless and in other places of need. They are developed in their vocation to be human beings and to handle themselves in the world, alongside the particular skills of engineering. It is very important to remember that in this debate. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, said, that was perhaps part of the energy that created her father—that wider hinterland of vocation to move beyond technical skills.
The second area is the needs of employers. With its long industrial heritage, the city of Derby has an exciting partnership between local businesses, Derby College and the University of Derby, to establish a university technical college that will open in September 2014. This is an engineering school for people between 14 and 18 years old, and a partnership between business and education. It may have the kind of potential to look at some of the learning issues that have been raised today, because of the ingredients of the partnership. Employers know what they are looking for, and are using professional educational and training institutions to help deliver them in a joined-up way.
The third strand is the fact that so many young people are denied access to the world of work. Because of their vocational element, and their ability to equip young people to be citizens and develop their skills in other ways, apprenticeships are a key area for them to have the opportunity to access. In my part of the world we have the JCB Academy; noble Lords probably know about JCB diggers. I work with people who are involved in that academy. They are helping young people to bridge the problem of being out of the world of work and getting into it.
The story of somebody I know illustrates this. This is a young person from a dysfunctional home who was a bad attendee when the opportunity to train through the JCB Academy was offered. Instead of telling this person that they were not meeting our standards and were off the course, the academy first worked with the mother; this was a single-parent family. Then it provided a return-to-school plan for the young person. It provided a mentor. When for other reasons the family was relocated out of the catchment area, JCB took the initiative and found temporary accommodation so that the young person could finish their training. This person is now an almost fully qualified apprentice engineer. That reaching out beyond immediate needs to get someone into the workforce and build a bridge, is crucial for so many young people who lack the opportunity.
I end by asking the Minister three questions. As the Government try to ensure good standards, could they include standards about the formation of citizens and a vocational element in apprenticeships? Besides including small businesses in the apprenticeship model, could the Government see how we could develop partnerships such as the one in the university technical college in Derby, between education and training specialists and elements of industry, that might help small businesses especially? How can we encourage the development of apprenticeships to build bridges to young people who need real encouragement and support to step into the world of work with its disciplines?
Lord Shipley (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox, for initiating this debate. I strongly support the Government’s reforms to the apprenticeship system. The employer-designed standards and assessment to be introduced are very welcome, and in particular the English and maths requirements and the minimum of 12 months for an apprenticeship. These provide a stronger structure that more employers and more potential apprentices will want to join. It is the job of everyone—not just the Government—to make a success of apprenticeships.
I shall raise three strategic problems in relation to skills. The first is the ageing workforce. Over the next three years, 200,000 people will be retiring from manufacturing and engineering. They will have to be replaced. Secondly, we have a skills gap. All over the UK, in manufacturing, engineering and the process industries, there are shortages at level 3 and above. I have lost count of the number of times I have been told or have read of the difficulty that so many employers have in recruiting. When we consider how much we spend on skills, it is quite astonishing that this problem is so widespread and so deep in so many sectors.
The third strategic problem is the lack of qualifications. Half of those who leave school without five good GCSEs have no job. Youth unemployment stands at 965,000: 21% of the under-24s. I have come to the conclusion that such a high level of youth unemployment is in part related to weaknesses in the provision of technical education, and to too few youth apprenticeships.
We still have a shortage of quality apprenticeships, and we need to raise the status of technical education to overcome that. We need opportunities throughout the country, including in rural areas where schools, further education and manufacturing businesses, in particular, need to be coherently linked through an apprenticeship system. For apprenticeships to grow, people have to offer apprenticeships, other people must take them up and places and sectors must want to promote them. We have to build on good practice. I draw attention to the city of Nottingham, which launched its apprenticeship hub in November 2012 and has in the past 12 months seen a one-third increase in the number of apprenticeships.
Secondly, there is good practice when newspapers show leadership in supporting the growth of apprenticeships. I draw particular attention to the Journal in Newcastle upon Tyne, and congratulate it on its leadership in driving up the number of apprenticeships in the north-east of England through its Proud to Back Apprentices campaign, which I am delighted to support. It is everybody’s responsibility, and lots more companies are needed to engage.
Opportunities for girls and women are another aspect of this. I commend Hilary French, the president of the Girls’ Schools Association, who in a speech last week to its annual conference on Tyneside said that higher-level apprenticeships were one way in which young women could take up a career using science, maths or technology. There is a serious shortage of women taking up careers who have studied these subjects. She said:
“I believe, and hope, that the link between schools and employers will strengthen over the coming years and that there will be an increasing focus on developing employment skills. I’d like to challenge independent schools heads to embrace these alternative avenues. Parents too. There is huge potential in employer training courses and the new types of apprenticeships which are emerging. We must not be sniffy about them”.
I concur absolutely with that.
Finally, I am very glad to see that the National Apprenticeship Service has had its role extended to include supporting employer investment in traineeships, which will be particularly helpful in addressing the imbalance in the age of a company’s workforce. I hope that the Government’s changes and the creation of the new trailblazers, which will combine employers and professional bodies in new industries such as aerospace, automotive, digital, electrotechnical, energy and life sciences, in particular, will drive ahead to create many more apprenticeship opportunities for our young people.
Lord Cormack (Con)
I shall speak briefly in the gap. I support my noble friend Lady Wilcox and must declare an interest as patron of the Heritage Crafts Association and chairman of William Morris Craft Fellowship. I would have put myself down to speak in this debate, but I was attending a service in Westminster Abbey to commemorate 60 years of the National Churches Trust giving money to help restore and maintain our great historic churches in this country. I did not want to commit to speak and then not be here.
As I have the opportunity, I will say to the Minister, in particular, that it is desperately important that we remember the crucial significance of craft apprenticeships. I say that in the light of the very perceptive comments of my noble friend Lord Addington. Many young people who have dyslexia can become superb craftsmen and craftswomen. The Heritage Crafts Association and the William Morris Craft Fellowship have tried to spread the gospel of true craftsmanship. It is very important that employers, many of whom in the Heritage Crafts Association are one-man or one-woman businesses, have help to take on apprentices.
I make a plea to the Minister to allow me to bring to meet him a representative from both those associations, so that we can discuss how best the Government can help encourage, through the education system and elsewhere, young men and women to embrace a career in the crafts. Not one of the churches whose rescue we were rejoicing in this morning could have been rescued had it not been for the skill of craftsmen and craftswomen. We need to ensure that there is a steady and continuing supply. It is a wonderful vocation. It is enormously fulfilling—but, sadly, it is too often denigrated. May this brief debate help ensure a resurrection of real interest in and encouragement of heritage crafts.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. Normally, when we have exchanged views on this she has been at the Dispatch Box on one side or the other. She has given us a great opportunity to discuss, albeit briefly, the vital issue of young people and apprenticeships.
I cannot match the academic achievements of many of the noble Lords in the Chamber, but I am part of a select group of noble Lords who are former apprentices; that is my claim to fame. A number of people have talked about the status of apprenticeships. Not only among young people but among teachers and parents it is not viewed in the same way as academic progression. I was reminded forcefully of this on the Lords outreach programme at a local high school. I scanned through all the documentation and found not a single reference to apprenticeships. I asked the group of 30 pupils I was talking to and, no, apprenticeships were not registering with them at all. We have got a lot more to do in that area.
It is not a question of either/or for apprenticeships and academic training. Often the path of an apprenticeship leads you through to getting a degree. As I have often had the opportunity to remind young people, it has the added bonus that you can earn while you learn, with a guaranteed job at the end of it. It has much to recommend it. I say to the Minister that he needs to ensure that all schools should have links to the business community and the world of work.
We often hear talk about soft skills. I do not know why we call them soft skills; they are essential skills, which have already been referred to. It is not just about literacy, numeracy and teamwork. IT skills are also an essential part of any young person’s CV today.
We need to do a lot better with career guidance. There has been a reference today to university technical colleges, which are a good and welcome development. We need young apprentices to return to the schools that they previously attended. Role models are absolutely essential. I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. Also, we somehow need to get through to young girls that there are careers apart from hairdressing or nursing—not that I wish to denigrate either of those because they are in themselves valuable jobs—and to open up their horizons to the worlds of science, engineering and craft skills as well. There are a lot of opportunities there. I certainly concur with the points of the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on dyslexia and disabilities. We need to work harder in ensuring that apprenticeships are open to people with those challenges.
The real problem is actually that the demand, as a number of noble Lords have said, vastly exceeds the supply. I do not wish to knock the Government’s attempt, but they should stop just saying, “We have done 500,000”, when you know that when you examine those figures they will not stand up to scrutiny. The challenge for us, as the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, said, is that we have still got only 4% to 8% of companies employing apprentices. It is still only a third of companies in the FTSE 100. You can knock Ed Miliband and his view about compulsion when hiring but it might be a salutary reminder to say that, if only employers would attach as much importance to people within this country when they were looking for skills on hiring, it would not do them any harm. The Government should treat this as a top priority. Nearly 1 million 16 to 24 year-olds are unemployed. Some of them are in education, but they are still looking for a job.
My noble friend Lord Haskel told about problems with the actual apprenticeships. In the 16 to 19 year group according to the recent report by the Work Foundation, which I commend to the Minister, only 6% of 16 to 18 year-olds were in an apprenticeship. Of those who started apprenticeships in 2011, 71% were existing employees. A recent BIS survey found that 20% received neither on nor off-the-job training, which is a worrying statistic.
What needs to be done? The Government must lead by example. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, that in my brief ministerial career I managed to ensure that once a month every department came around and told me what it had achieved or failed to achieve. Why on earth are we not saying to companies which get public procurement contracts that they must declare their number of apprenticeships? We did it. We got about 300-plus on the Olympics, and Crossrail is heading towards 400.
Briefly, because I am conscious of the time, you also need to expand the use of group training associations. A recent report on them said that GTAs should be central to the Government’s plan for economic growth. I would like to hear from the Minister what they are doing about that. Similarly, the Apprentice Training Association mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, represents another good opportunity. I looked in vain on the local enterprise partnerships’ websites for any reference to apprenticeships. Again, they ought to be at the top of their lists, working with local authorities.
The Government have done some useful work, but not enough in my opinion. We should see the real danger: that this generation of young, unemployed people could become a lost generation. We owe them a much better deal than that, and I look forward to the Minister’s response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
My Lords, I welcome the opportunity to set out what the Government are doing to encourage young people to take an apprenticeship. I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Wilcox for tabling this debate and to noble Lords who have raised some important points. This also gives me particular pleasure because in recent times my noble friend Lady Wilcox served as a BIS Minister in my role.
Apprenticeships are at the heart of the Government’s drive to give people of all ages the skills that employers need to compete in the expanding, competitive global market. As several noble Lords have pointed out, strong returns arise from apprenticeships. As my noble friend Lady Wilcox has said, that is why we have seen a record 1.5 million people start an apprenticeship since 2010.
The fundamental underlying principle of an apprenticeship is that it is a paid job that incorporates on and off-the-job training that leads to nationally recognised qualifications. After investing heavily in an apprentice, it makes business sense for employers to keep employing individuals once their apprenticeship ends. We need to do more to spread the word that apprenticeships are good for the economy, good for business and good for individuals. The noble Lord, Lord Haskel, raised the issue of the Richard review and claimed that the implementation plan had given permission to label any training an apprenticeship. With his other comments, I take issue with him and with the points that the noble Lord, Lord Young, made about the numbers. This is not just a numbers game. Our aim in reforming apprenticeships is to make the programme the new international benchmark for excellence. This is about quality, not number-counting, and we are determined to raise all apprenticeships to the standards of the best so that the programme is rigorous, responsive and meets the changing needs of our economy in the decades to come.
I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking for his groundbreaking, unstinting and exciting work on university technical colleges, and in particular his work on addressing the shortages in STEM. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby raised an interesting point and gave an interesting example about the Rolls-Royce training programme, which we know is one of the very best in the country. He also raised a point about the university technical colleges and the need—
Lord Young of Norwood Green
My Lords, I do not like to interrupt, but if we are to pay tribute, as we should, to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, we should also be sure to pay tribute to Lord Dearing. It was a joint initiative of both noble Lords, and he made such a great contribution that I felt it was appropriate to remind the House of it.
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Lord, Lord Young, is absolutely right, and I certainly pay tribute to Lord Dearing for the work he did in this area. My overall point is that we need to combine practical training and vocational training, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, and we very much focus on that, mixed, of course, with the provision of academic study. I should also make the point that there is a shortage of science and engineering skills in this country. Again, the right reverend Prelate alluded to this, and it is very much on our radar that we should look at this in respect of apprenticeships.
Apprenticeships must be high quality, rigorous and focused on what employers need. The reforms we are making will put employers in the driving seat of developing apprenticeships that are more rigorous, more responsive and deliver the right skills. Additional rigour will come from a demand for higher standards that will stretch apprentices by setting higher expectations for achievement in English and maths, requiring more assessment at the end of an apprenticeship, and recognising an apprentice’s achievement through a grading system that ensures excellence that is clearly seen and widely understood. These changes build on those already introduced to raise quality, such as the minimum 12 months duration.
My noble friend Lady Wilcox raised a concern about over-bureaucracy. More responsiveness will be possible from the sweeping away of lengthy, convoluted, unnecessarily complex frameworks to bring in new, short, clear standards that are written by employers, not bureaucrats. Apprenticeships will then be able to focus on the skills and expertise that employers want and need. Reviewing the standards every three years will ensure that they remain relevant. The Government are also taking specific steps to support access to apprenticeships for young people as part of their work to deal with youth unemployment. We want apprenticeships to be held in the same high regard as university degrees. My noble friend Lord Stoneham and the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, rightly alluded to this very important point. Young people must be able to choose the right route to the skills and knowledge they need for their career. Careers advice and guidance at the right time have never been so important. It is crucial that schools, colleges and universities play their part alongside the National Careers Service in inspiring and helping young people to make those choices. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, spoke about the importance of schools taking responsibility for promoting apprenticeships. If time permits, I should like to say more about the careers advice questions that were asked during the debate.
Apprenticeships must also be open to all. Not all young people leave school ready for the demands of an apprenticeship. I paid tribute earlier to the work done by my noble friend Lord Baker and Lord Dearing on university technical colleges. We have also introduced traineeships which enable 16 to 23 year-olds to develop the skills, experience and confidence they need to compete for an apprenticeship. Higher apprenticeships provide opportunities for able young people to undertake apprenticeship training at a level equivalent to a degree. It is precisely because apprenticeships must be open to all that the Government cannot create an “entitlement”, or a guarantee, that an apprenticeship will be available for every young person who would like one. Recruitment decisions must rest with employers for apprenticeships as much as for other jobs. Through the Education Act 2011, we have prioritised apprenticeship funding for vulnerable young people—those aged 16 to 18 and those aged 19 to 24 who have a learning difficulty or disability, or who have been in local authority care when they have found a place. This guarantee has priority over funding for other places in line with our focus on supporting vulnerable groups in all areas.
My noble friend Lord Addington, supported by my noble friend Lord Cormack, referred to vulnerable groups—my noble friend Lord Addington focused particularly on those with dyslexia—and exclusion in relation to apprenticeships. I reassure them by saying that all apprenticeships stretch and prepare individuals for sustained employment. Dyslexia should not present an insuperable barrier to those candidates who demonstrate competence and commitment in their chosen field. Access to Work and Additional Learning Support are two possible sources of funding to help provide equipment or other assistance for apprentices with dyslexia. The Government certainly recognise that there is more to be done to support apprentices with learning difficulties or disabilities and we aim to improve the operation and delivery of apprenticeships without jeopardising the standards that make them so valuable to apprentices and employers. I would be delighted to meet my noble friend Lord Cormack and the organisations that he mentioned, should that still be appropriate.
We fully fund apprenticeship training for 16 to 18 year-olds. This reflects the fact that they are likely to need more supervision and support initially and take longer to become fully productive in the workplace. For all young people, the National Apprenticeship Service—NAS for short—works with organisations that provide careers advice to make sure the benefits and demands of an apprenticeship, including what employers look for when recruiting, are understood and can be fully explained to the young people with whom the organisations work. NAS also provides an online apprenticeship vacancies job site. Between 12,000 and 20,000 vacancies are on the site at any time and can be accessed in a number of ways convenient to young people, including through Facebook, Twitter and apps for iPhones and Android phones.
My noble friend Lady Wilcox made a very valid point about the esteem of apprenticeships. Apprenticeships are something to aspire to and apprentices should be awarded recognition for their work just as graduates are. As I have said, our goal is to see an apprenticeship place valued equally to one at university. Celebrating success is so important to this. National Apprenticeship Week 2014, on 3 to 7 March, is an excellent opportunity to do just that. I know that all noble Lords will lend cross-party support when the time comes.
Apprenticeships are also promoted at large-scale events, including the Skills Show in Birmingham this month. More than 80,000 people attended that and large numbers of young people took up the offer to “have a go” at more than 40 different skills offered at different stands. The show is now going nationwide with 220 local events planned between now and December 2014. Organisers expect that more than 200,000 young people will attend the events. This shows that there is keen interest in skills and apprenticeships.
My noble friend Lady Wilcox, supported by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby raised the issue of the careers service, and asked particularly how the new careers service is performing. They raised the issue of careers advice at schools and the important point as to whether options other than university are provided and discussed. As part of the new agenda, the National Careers Service will work with schools, colleges and employers to bring greater cohesiveness to careers guidance. We want these new arrangements to be in place from October 2014 when the new National Careers Service contracts will start.
The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, raised the issue of apprentices in the public sector and the need for more transparent data on this. We do not currently measure a breakdown of apprenticeships in the public and private sectors. However, the fast-track Civil Service apprenticeships scheme was launched in October and is taking 100 18 to 21 year-olds through a two-year apprenticeship. At the end of the scheme they will, if successful, have earned a higher level qualification at level 4. We do intend to expand the scheme for another cohort, which we hope will be launched in early 2014. In addition, Civil Service Learning is currently working with its prime contractor to put in place a single provider or a consortium to offer to partners an easier way of sourcing apprenticeship services.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and my noble friend Lady Wilcox raised the issue of learning to be good citizens as well as gaining skills for work. National Citizen Service is a life-changing experience open to all 16 and 17 year-olds across England. It is a unique three-week full-time programme of fun and discovery that benefits both young people and society. Participants build skills for work and life while taking on new challenges and adventures and learning new skills and making new friends. Taking place outside school and term time, the part-residential programme is made up of four sections that focus on personal and social development, including leadership, teamwork and communication. This works alongside the apprenticeship reforms, so I am pleased to mention it.
My noble friend Lord Shipley raised the important point about the need for more apprenticeships in engineering and manufacturing, a point to which I alluded earlier. The new higher apprenticeships are available or are in development in sectors including construction, advanced engineering, engineering environmental technologies, energy and utilities including water and waste, and space engineering. It is important to articulate to young people the career opportunities in STEM-based occupations via STEM apprenticeships.
Time has pretty well run out.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
Before the Minister sits down, if time does not allow a response now, I should welcome a written reply on the question of public procurement contracts and apprenticeships and on the question of encouraging group training associations and ATAs.
Lord Haskel
Before the Minister sits down, will the Government take steps to rationalise the 48 schemes identified by the CBI from three government departments all of which can apparently be referred to as apprenticeships?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
In answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Haskel, I shall be happy to write to him. In answer to the question of the noble Lord, Lord Young, on public procurement, the Government support the appropriate use of apprenticeships in procurement as they can contribute to encouraging growth in the UK economy. I shall look at his question in Hansard to see whether we can produce a fuller answer to it.
In conclusion, I urge noble Lords to support apprenticeships, as I know they all will, and to support the reforms that the Government are making to them.
Police: Public Trust
(11 years ago)
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Lord Paddick
To move that this House takes note of public trust in the police, its role in effective policing, and the system for investigating complaints into police conduct.
Lord Paddick (LD)
My Lords, the system of policing in this country is almost unique in that there are insufficient police officers to enforce the law by force and weight of numbers, they are predominantly unarmed and, by and large, the public work with them in that they act as the eyes and ears of the police, they co-operate with the police to enforce the law and maintain order, and they provide information and give evidence in judicial proceedings. The police should be “citizens in uniform” who act on behalf of, with the approval of and with the collaboration of the public. Were this not so, our police forces would have to be considerably larger and they would undoubtedly have to be armed.
Unlike other professions, the police’s ability to carry out their primary functions of improving public safety and preventing crime, harm and disorder is dependent on people trusting them. The more the public have trust and confidence in the police, the more likely they are to collaborate with them and therefore the more effective the police will be. For the police, reputation is therefore not simply a matter of professional pride but a matter of effectiveness in that, if there is a lack of trust and confidence in the police, they will be less effective, and that could inevitably result in a downward spiral.
As with many things in this world, that police chiefs want to cover up mistakes and misconduct is understandable but not justifiable. In the case of the police more than any other public body, there is a need for responsible journalism and, I have to say, responsible politics. Political grandstanding and media sensationalism when mistakes occur or misconduct is discovered not only compound the damage to the reputation of the police but make it less safe for all of us, because they unnecessarily undermine public trust and confidence and therefore police effectiveness. We need level-headed debate and objective and factual reporting.
There is evidence that public collaboration with the police is under threat, despite what the opinion polls may say. When I was a police constable in 1977 and we arrived at the scene of a fight, because the combatants were aware of our presence they used to stop what they were doing and we would arrest those whom we wanted to arrest. Nowadays, the combatants are likely to turn on the police. The riots in London and across the country in 2011 showed flagrant disregard for the law, for the maintenance of order and for the authority of the police. Research conducted after that rioting indicated that a lack of respect for the police was a major influence over the conduct of those taking part. While it is still true that trust and confidence in the police at a local level remain higher than for other public bodies, it is of growing concern that an increasing minority of citizens are refusing to accept that authority and refusing to co-operate with the police. So what is going wrong?
Clearly, there has been an erosion of respect in the attitude of some members of the public towards authority generally. Respect towards teachers, bankers, politicians and the police has shown signs of diminution in all cases. Some of the issues that specifically tend to undermine public trust and confidence in the police are what I would call “slow burn”; others are “big bang”. Almost all of them, I suggest, are the result of a less than ideal police culture and the failure of the systems designed to deal with that misconduct.
In the former category, there continue to be ongoing issues around the disproportionate stopping and searching of black and other minority-ethnic people. The propensity is for them to be arrested rather than warned, and to be charged rather than cautioned by the police. This is eroding communities’ willingness to collaborate with the police. The fact that a smaller proportion of black and other minority-ethnic people than of the white population is recruited into the police, that there are even fewer black and minority-ethnic senior police officers and that black and minority-ethnic police officers and police support staff are more likely to face formal misconduct hearings does not help black and other minority-ethnic communities to trust the police. Why has the police service not tackled these race-related issues and why have successive Governments not put pressure on the police service to put its house in order?
To deal with an issue, we have to admit that we have a problem. I believe that the police fear that if they admit that they have a problem with racism they will give their critics a field day, further undermine the morale of front-line officers and allow the unjustified stereotyping of all police officers as being racists. The statistics around stop and search and those other issues in policing that I have just mentioned continue to show that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Why have politicians shied away from the problem? When the police were last accused of institutional racism, following the Macpherson inquiry into the tragic death of Stephen Lawrence and the attempted murder of his friend Duwayne Brooks, front-line officers disengaged from stop and search for fear of being accused of racism. Street robbery increased to such epidemic proportions that the then Prime Minister personally pledged to bring down the number of street robbery offences. Neither police officers nor politicians—or any of us—want to see such an increase in crime again.
I appear to be in the minority who believes that such a situation is not inevitable. I believe, and have believed since the time of the Macpherson inquiry, that these issues, particularly the disproportionate stopping and searching of black and minority-ethnic people, can be dealt with without condemning every police officer and without harming relations—indeed, I believe that it would improve operational effectiveness, and could reverse the continuing damage to police community relations. Of course, black and minority-ethnic people will not join the police if they believe that the police treat them unfairly on the streets.
In the big-bang category we have high-profile and much publicised examples of organisational failure and malpractice. The most alarming perhaps in recent times is what has been discovered by the Hillsborough independent panel. The evidence suggests a cover-up of the kind to which I have already referred—one designed to prevent the damage to the reputation of the police service generally, not just to spare the embarrassment of the senior officers responsible. This appears to be an attempt to protect the reputation of the police ordered by some senior police officers, not misconduct by the rank and file.
For those who wish to think that attitudes have changed, I must disappoint noble Lords. When I was the police commander in Lambeth in 2001 a small riot took place in Brixton. In the subsequent investigation closed circuit television was examined and revealed police officers apparently beating an unarmed man on the ground with their batons. When that was brought to my attention as the police borough commander, I called three people—my immediate boss, the head of the internal investigation and the chair of the local community police consultative group. A group of trusted community leaders convened at the police station, where I showed the CCTV footage and assured them that everything would be done to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice. Apparently my bosses were apoplectic that I had revealed such malpractice to members of the community. I was told that next time I should not inform the community unless and until we had identified the perpetrators and had brought them to justice—presumably meaning that if we had not identified the individuals we should have kept the public in the dark. This is the understandable but unjustifiable mindset that still exists among some senior police officers, which is unhelpful, unhealthy and self-defeating. Openness at the time is far less damaging and can even be reassuring to the public, rather than attempting to cover up and being found out later. This culture of denial and cover-up, perpetuated and encouraged by some of those at the very top of the police service, inevitably impacts on those in the lower ranks, where there are additional reinforcing pressures.
Again while I was at Brixton, a young police officer told me that he was thinking of resigning from the police service. He said that the culture in the military, from where he had come, was very different. He said that in the military the most senior officer present when mistakes occurred took responsibility and, if necessary, faced a court martial. In the police, his experience was that mistakes were covered up, and if they came to light responsibility was pushed down to the lowest possible rank in order to protect senior officers. My 30 years of experience, albeit in one police force, absolutely chimes with the perceptions of this young police officer.
However, there are other factors at work that encourage cover-up, including the unfair way in which the police complaints system operates. When complaints are investigated, those investigating seem determined to get you for something. When a complaint was made about an incident in which I was involved, during which I scratched my hand, because they could not find anything else on me I was later criticised and formally sanctioned for failing to report an injury on duty.
A series of cases have been brought to my attention since I left the police in 2007, where officers have been open and honest about what took place and feel that they have been punished for their honesty. Their use of what they considered to be reasonable force resulted in them being sacked, while others who falsely denied touching anyone during the same incident escaped justice. I have been presented with evidence of biased and one-sided investigations where investigating officers, convinced of the guilt of individuals, have excluded, and even illegally withheld, evidence that might prove otherwise.
The perceived unfairness of the complaints investigation system is compounded further in the Metropolitan Police by the fact that each and every misconduct hearing, almost without exception, is chaired by the same senior police officer. The judge in these cases is effectively employed by the prosecution. When I sat on such hearings, I would sometimes be told afterwards by the Department for Professional Standards that I had wrongly acquitted a corrupt officer. My fear is that the fact that it has a tame judge might tempt the Department for Professional Standards to give such a briefing before the evidence is heard.
My noble friend Lady Doocey will have much to say about the IPCC. All I will say is that I refer to it as the so-called Independent Police Complaints Commission.
The major issue that needs to be tackled is the culture of blame and cover-up in the police, which must change. In my experience, there will be no change without political pressure from outside. In return there should be responsible debate and reporting of police activity, with as much airtime and column inches in praise of the good work and successes achieved by the overwhelming majority of decent, hard-working police officers as is given to the tiny minority whose conduct falls short of what is required.
We need a system for the investigation of incompetence, mistakes and deliberate malpractice that is both fair and independent and has the confidence of both the public and police officers. We still have the best police service in the world, but we need to bring about radical change if we are to preserve and enhance its hard won reputation. I beg to move.
Lord Wasserman (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Paddick on securing this debate. I was going to add, “on this critically important and very timely subject”, but of course this debate is really about two critically important and very timely subjects—namely, public trust in the police and its role in effective policing; and the system for investigating complaints into police conduct. Although these are different subjects, they are closely related. It is because public trust in the police is at such a low ebb today that there is so much public concern about how complaints against individual police officers are investigated. As we all know, however, public opinion is notoriously fickle, and we must guard against making fundamental changes to our institutions simply to keep up with it.
I well remember, as a young official in the Home Office many years ago, that it was generally believed by the public—and reflected in the policies of Ministers of both major parties—that the best way of dealing with complaints against police officers was to allow chief constables to deal with them. This was based on the equally firm belief that those who had got themselves into trouble—that is, those who had complaints filed against them—were a tiny minority of police officers: the rotten apples at or near the bottom of the pile. That is why we thought that their elders and betters—those of ACPO rank—could be relied upon to sort them out in one way or another.
However, this belief that most police officers were fundamentally honest and that chief constables were the best people to deal with their own “rotten apples” was undermined towards the end of the last century by both the Scarman inquiry into the Brixton riots and the Stephen Lawrence inquiry in 1999. As a result of what the public learned from these inquiries, they were no longer prepared to trust ordinary police officers to behave properly or to trust chief officers to investigate complaints against their colleagues honestly and fairly. This in turn led to the demand for an independent element in the police complaints procedure; it was in response to this demand that an Independent Police Complaints Commission was established by the Police Reform Act 2002.
However, as I have already said, public opinion is something of a fashion industry. As recently as two years ago, when your Lordships were debating the then Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill, the public’s main concern about policing was not how to improve the integrity of officers but how to improve their value for money. As a result, local chief constables were once again given the main responsibility for handling complaints, including appeals, against their officers. The IPCC would now consider only complaints and appeals which were thought to be, or classified as, “serious”. This change was justified as,
“streamlining and removing unnecessary bureaucracy from the system”,
and ensuring that,
“complaints were handled at the lowest appropriate level”.
In other words, this was justified as a way of improving value for money.
Sadly, however, although perhaps not surprisingly, public opinion has changed again in the last year or two. This is because so many of the police officers who have managed to get themselves into trouble in the last few years—or, more accurately, whose inappropriate behaviour has been exposed in the last two years—were not at the bottom of the barrel, but at the very top. The public once again turned against chief constables and decided that they could not, after all, be trusted to deal with complaints against their own officers.
This led to a fresh demand to remove responsibility for complaints from chief constables and move it to the centre: hence the plans to “beef up” the IPCC by transferring to it staff presently employed in the professional standards departments of local forces. Indeed, as recently as Monday of this week, the commission set up by the Labour Party under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, which we will be discussing in this Chamber next Thursday, recommended the creation of a new national body to handle police complaints. Why? It was because, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens:
“The spate of organisational failures and scandals over recent years has badly damaged public confidence in the integrity of the police”.
As I said a few minutes ago, I am very worried about making changes to institutions as fundamental to our society as our police complaints system simply as a response to public opinion polls. If the problem he is concerned to tackle really is, as the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, believes, a loss of public confidence in police integrity, the answer must be to take steps to improve police integrity. The response cannot be to accept the present level of police integrity as a given and try to work round it by transferring responsibility for police complaints away from chief constables to a team of civilians in a national body. This will simply reinforce the public’s loss of confidence in the police. It will also damage the confidence of those chief officers—the vast majority of whom, I hasten to add, are public servants of the highest professional standard and men and women of unimpeachable integrity. It cannot be right to tar them all with the same brush. As a PCC said to me in an e-mail the other day:
“The more external checking the Government advocates, the less it is seen to trust the police to do the right thing in the first place”.
I do not accept that nothing can be done about police integrity, or what some people call police culture, or that, for this reason, we must not let chief constables anywhere near the arrangements for handling police complaints. Police integrity is no doubt in a bad place at the moment but something is being done about it. The Government’s College of Policing has already begun to tackle the issue with determination. I am optimistic about what the college will achieve, particularly if its board is expanded to include a larger number of truly independent individuals whose careers to date have not been linked to the police in any way.
In short, making major changes to the way police complaints are handled is not an appropriate or sensible response to the public’s concerns about police integrity. That is not to say that I am entirely satisfied with the present arrangements for handling police complaints: I most certainly am not. These arrangements were described to me recently by one PCC as, “labyrinthine, slow and bureaucratic”. They are seen by the public as unfair and stacked against them, as my noble friend Lord Paddick said. Even the police are unhappy with them. As another PCC wrote to me last week, “in my force, PSD”—the standards department—
“has almost a terror factor over officers and I don’t think this is healthy. Officers need to feel supported to make difficult decisions rather than afraid to do so”.
There are plenty of reasons for changing the present arrangements, but the changes must deliver a system which is much more user-friendly, quicker, more transparent and more responsive to local needs. All this points to keeping the complaints system as local as possible. Policing is primarily a local service whose principal aim is to make people safe in their own communities. The best way of achieving that objective is by retaining responsibility for local policing locally. As noble Lords will know, that is why I argued so forcefully for police and crime commissioners, directly elected by the people and accountable to them.
That is also why I believe that complaints against local officers should be dealt with within the local community. If the local community is not prepared to trust its chief constables to deal with complaints, the answer is not to transfer responsibility to the centre. The way forward is to make the complaints procedure part of the overall governance arrangements of the force and hold the PCC accountable for the way complaints are handled in the same way as the PCC is accountable to the local electorate for the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the force.
There is nothing radical in this. Most complaints can be handled by people without police powers or operational experience. In fact, many are not even complaints but expressions of dissatisfaction which should be used to improve the service. They are easily resolved with common sense, tact and a willingness to apologise. However, under the present rules, they are forced into a legalistic, bureaucratic process which puts officers on edge and complainants into deep despair.
There are several ideas for changing the way that the police complaints procedure works. The APCC—the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners—is working on this and will be coming up with proposals. Winston Churchill is reported to have said, among other things, “Never let a good crisis go to waste”. There is clearly a crisis in confidence in the police and, more particularly, in police integrity. Let us not waste this opportunity to improve our system of police complaints, a problem which has bedevilled policing in England and Wales for a very long time.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, I enter this debate with some trepidation. It is not an area that I normally deal with, but I was fascinated by the first two contributions and I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, on giving the House the opportunity to debate this vital issue. I was interested in the contrast between the two contributions that we have just heard on the cause, the analysis and what the cure should be.
I suspect that there will not be any silver bullet. You cannot improve the complaints system without seeking to change the culture. Anybody who has done any examination of organisations will know that the hardest thing to change in any organisation is the culture. You can change structures and processes, but changing the culture is really difficult. However, we have to address the issue and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s response.
Along with all the other concerns that have been expressed about recent and not so recent cases, perhaps the most recent example was when the Public Administration Select Committee heard evidence from both a serving police officer and an ex-chief inspector. There were revelations concerning the reporting of crimes by the public and the disparity between those figures and the figures that were recorded by the police; for example, in rape cases there appeared to be a 70% discrepancy, and in one London borough there was a disparity of 400 in relation to burglaries from dwellings. I would be interested to hear the Government’s response to that.
Having looked through the Library note and the analysis of the role of the IPCC, I ask: do the Government feel that it is genuinely as independent as it should be? Does it really have the necessary powers to inspire confidence in the public that it is independent and that it can genuinely and thoroughly investigate complaints? As the report pointed out, it cannot call evidence from non-serving officers or those who have retired. That seems a yawning gap in its role. Some would suggest that, given its make-up, the commission is not truly independent.
Like the two previous speakers, I do not want to cast aspersions on the police generally. I work with them locally very well and very satisfactorily, and I think that the majority of them do a difficult and sometimes dangerous job very well indeed. But the question of public trust and confidence is of fundamental importance and cannot be ignored. A number of recent cases, which are not just about police constables but go much further up the hierarchy of command, give the public genuine cause for concern. I look forward to hearing what the Government intend to do in relation to recent revelations, and what changes they think are necessary.
Baroness Doocey (LD)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Paddick for enabling the House to consider the question of public trust in the police. Public trust is absolutely vital. A loss of public trust can damage the reputation of any organisation, but because public trust is vital to the functioning of the police, the effects of its loss are much worse.
The problem has become more acute in recent years because of a change in the climate of public opinion. People have become increasingly sceptical about power and authority generally. In a healthy democracy, that is not necessarily a bad thing, but this scepticism can easily tip over into a corrosive cynicism.
Therefore, it has become more important to ensure that public trust in the police is protected and enhanced. This can be done only through the effective, transparent and fair resolution of complaints made against our police. The vast majority of police officers are honest and hard-working, and they should not have to suffer public criticism because of the failure to investigate properly the activities of a badly performing minority.
The system currently used to resolve complaints is through the Independent Police Complaints Commission. However, there are a large number of problems with the IPCC that combine to undermine public confidence. The IPCC generally lacks independence from the police. Most investigations of complaints are carried out by the police themselves, and relatively few are investigated independently by the IPCC. When the IPCC investigates complaints, a large number of these investigations are conducted by former or seconded police officers. The IPCC lacks transparency and does not do enough to ensure trust and confidence in its work.
A major problem for the IPCC is its perceived lack of independence. That is ironic, given that the principles of transparency and independence were central to its creation. Unfortunately, the IPCC has not lived up to those high hopes of independence. It has the power to carry out independent investigations, but in the vast majority of cases it delegates those investigations to the police.
There are presently four categories of investigation. Most fit into the two least serious categories—local investigations and supervised investigations—where all investigation work is done by the police. That is not a problem when it comes to more minor cases, where a complainant agrees to a local review. However, it is a problem when the case is more serious. The third and more serious category of investigation is the managed investigation. This still relies on police to carry out the investigative work. Even when we reach the most serious of the four categories, independent investigation, many people would be surprised to find that, in most cases, it is still former or seconded police officers who carry out the investigations. That lack of independence, even in many of the most serious cases, undermines public confidence.
The IPCC’s own statistical review identified that, in 2011-12, the IPCC upheld more than 1,400 appeals against the outcome of investigations—a huge, 40% increase on the previous year. The IPCC investigates only a tiny proportion of complaints about the police and only a small proportion of even the most serious cases. That becomes absurdly clear when one sees how many complaints are made and how few are investigated independently. In 2011-12, more than 31,000 complaints were made about police officers in England and Wales. Compare that figure with the total number of police officers in post—some 134,000—and the scale of the problem becomes clear.
Of course, not all complaints warrant the attention of the IPCC. It is right that low-level complaints about rude and uncivil behaviour by police officers, for example, should be considered by their supervisors, provided there remains an independent appeals process. However, not enough serious cases are subject to independent investigation. For example, of the 128 deaths in police custody in the five years to 2008-09, only 43—just over a third—were independently investigated. The overall number of referrals—that is, the more serious cases demanding the attention of the IPCC—was 2,165 in 2011-12. However, of those 2,000-plus referrals, the IPCC launched only 126 independent investigations—just one for every 17 cases referred.
To restore public confidence in the independence of the IPCC, we need more independent investigations and fewer police officers working as IPCC investigators. We should remember that it is not just for victims that we need an effective police complaints system. Only by prompt, open and fair investigation will honest police officers be able to continue to police by consent. I look forward to the opportunity to address this issue in more detail as we continue to consider the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for his very courageous speech. I listened with great care and I think we all learnt from it. I should declare an interest as the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which undertook some work on the disproportionate use of stop and search and managed to show that reducing levels of stop and search, in particular its inequitable application, does not in any way lead to increased crime. That is an extraordinarily important empirical finding.
I want to talk about trust. I am not an expert on policing, but I have thought a good deal about trust and trustworthiness in other contexts. It is a constant worry in most areas of public and commercial life that there may be a crisis of trust, that things may have gone radically wrong.
There is very mixed evidence for that claim, because the evidence that people like to cite is that of the opinion polls. In the case of most of those, we do not have a long time series, so it is difficult to compare the past with the present and to draw that conclusion of the declining level of public trust. Where we have longer series—20 years, say—we find that the people who came low in the trust rankings, for example, politicians and journalists came low 20 years ago and those who came high, for example, judges and nurses, came high 20 years ago. Most of the rest of us are in between. That is mixed evidence.
However, I think that this is probably the wrong sort of evidence to focus on. What we are really interested in is trustworthiness rather than trust. To get evidence of trustworthiness is a good deal harder. How does it make a difference if we switch to think about trustworthiness? I start by characterising the received view on these matters as consisting of a claim, an aim and a view about the task that we face. The claim is that the trust has gone down and the aim, it is said, is more trust. The task, therefore—I hear the conclusion coming from all directions—is that we must rebuild trust.
I do not think that that is a sensible position. I do not want just more trust; I want something much better. I want more well placed trust and, if you please, more well placed mistrust. For example, I do not think that it was desirable that all those people placed their trust in the aptly named Mr Madoff, who then made off with their money. That was an example of too much trust placed in the wrong way.
My view is that what we really want is trustworthiness before trust. Our proper question should be: how do we increase trustworthiness? It is not easy, of course. It is much harder to think about trustworthiness than to think about trust, but it is pointless for us to seek better trust in the police unless we think first about what helps and supports the police in being trustworthy, and what helps and supports the police complaints procedures, current or future, to be trustworthy. When we have thought about trustworthiness, that is the time to start thinking about how we might increase the alignment of public trust with trustworthiness.
Two received answers have been popular over the past 20 years as to what one should do. It is thought that we should go for more accountability. Who can be against that? It also thought that we should go for more transparency. Who, it is said, can be against that? I am only selectively for transparency and accountability. Those remedies have, after all, been tried energetically and repeatedly—you could even say, obsessively—for some 20 years, but they do not seem to have worked. Is it sensible to say, “We must try harder. We must do more, we must jump in and have more of the remedy that did not work”?
We need to think about the supposed remedies. The forms of accountability that have been instituted in policing and elsewhere have not always been brilliantly designed. We all know that, sometimes, detailed regulation works by setting targets. Targets have been set in policing and the targets that have been thought appropriate in policing have sometimes, including recently, been subject to change. That suggests to me that we need to think much more carefully about which targets we have and what effects the setting of targets has. In general, the problem with targets is not that they are ineffective but that they are all too effective. Once targets are set, people know what the aim is, and they pursue the targets at the expense of the broader, deeper social aims. That, perhaps, has happened in policing, in which I am not expert, as it has in higher education, which I know a bit about, and certainly in schooling.
We also need to think about what the real aims of policing are. I do not intend to enter into that large debate but I take it that we probably have a considerable measure of consensus there. We need accountability, but we need intelligent accountability and we have had to do without it all too often. What sort of processes would help us to secure more intelligent forms of accountability? Here, we are looking at the thickets that grow up around primary legislation, so I would bring it back to Parliament in part.
Although primary legislation seems odiously detailed when you are looking at a Bill, it nevertheless leaves a great deal that is open. In its wake comes masses of regulation, with codes of practice and guidelines. In another context, I was told by a midwife that the trouble was that it took longer to do the paperwork than to deliver the baby. Something has gone wrong if anywhere in our public life we have forms of regulation that achieve that, where the accountability measures disrupt performance of the primary task. I have heard, as all your Lordships will have heard, complaints again and again that police officers are overwhelmed by that aspect of accountability. We conduct many consultations; we conduct them until the cows come home. Yet seemingly we do not have reliable ways of weeding out dysfunctional, useless and merely burdensome forms of accountability. I am sure that we can do better.
Secondly, I will add a word or two on transparency. Suppose that we had a better set of systems of accountability, which were not dysfunctional but useful to police officers. How then would we link that to systems that would help the public to discriminate and would strengthen the trust placed in trustworthy policing? If trustworthiness is to be matched by public trust, we need to pay attention to how the public are enabled, or not enabled, to place trust in others’ performance. It is often said that transparency will do that. Transparency is about putting more information into the public domain, as we all know, and that creates certain incentives. I believe that this remedy is inadequate. Transparency is surely, in the first instance, a really good remedy for secrecy, including inappropriate secrecy.
However, if we want intelligently placed trust we need more than a reduction in secrecy. Secrecy is after all not the only problem with the procedures of the police, or indeed with IPCC investigations. Trust is given only when the public can judge the honesty, competence and reliability of those in whom they might place their trust. If the processes for investigating complaints that the IPCC or a successor body uses do not enable ordinary people to judge the honesty, competence and reliability of the police, they will not enable ordinary people to put well placed trust in policing. It is that matter of discriminating, well placed trust and, where appropriate, well placed mistrust that surely goes to the heart of it.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds
My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, both for leading this debate and for his powerful and serious introduction to it. I also look forward to the first of many contributions to the work of this House from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb.
I am also grateful to our police forces for their major role in establishing a courteous and sensitive society. Like many of my colleagues, I have, for example, accompanied police when they have been sharing news of a tragedy with relatives. I have been consistently impressed by the careful way that they have gone about their task. It is professionalism of the highest order. That reputation does indeed depend on the confidence of the public. I was a vicar in Sheffield at the time of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, and I spent much of the following week taking relatives of the Liverpool fans who had died onto the Hillsborough pitch, working with police officers who were invariably courteous, sensitive and supportive. It is tragic that so much good work has been lost to our collective memory by the subsequent lack of confidence in senior police behaviour at that time.
Similarly, I was the vicar of the south Yorkshire mining community of Wath-upon-Dearne at the time of the 1984 miners’ strike, when relationships between police and the community were at their most fraught. Reputation then was upheld—significantly—only by the story that the police officers guilty of taunting the community were not the local officers whom we knew, but officers imported from Sussex and other places south of the Trent. I still do not know whether that was true, but it was a very convenient story for all sides in that tense situation. Confidence becomes fragile so quickly. In many of our communities, however, trust is still based on personal knowledge of individual police officers. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, for stressing the importance of keeping policing local, including the discussion and inquiries into offences.
In this context, I will not so much talk about the IPCC and its work as welcome warmly the draft code of ethics for the police forces of England and Wales that is currently published for consultation by the College of Policing. It is good to have specific standards of professional behaviour delineated there, for the police to build that confidence based on community relationships. These standards are filled with detail of how that relationship is to be developed, and I welcome the robustness of the sections on honesty and integrity, authority, respect and courtesy, and equality and diversity. Those are at the root of the proper use of authority by a citizen police force that is a part of our society and not set apart from it in order to police it. Police forces are given authority by the public and trusted to use it honestly, and to be aware of the dangers that are inherent in all authority and that come to the surface so easily.
I have two general points about the code on which I would be grateful for comments from the Minister. First, I regret what seems in the code and in our discussions about the IPCC to be a note of persistent negativity. The code seems more concerned with preventing bad policing than promoting the good. Not for one moment do I deny that we need to stop bad policing, and that where it happens we need to make due inquiries about it; but “thou shalt not” goes only so far in creating an effective culture for the way in which we work together.
It would be good to see the code developed so that it points confidently to the part that policing can and I believe does play in building a good society, creating and upholding the Queen’s peace, and positively establishing a foundation of confidence on which our communities will flourish. I have seen good policing doing just that, in personal contacts with those in need, in good relationships with local schools, and in the way in which, where necessary, arrests are carried out. The negativity of the code is understandable because it grew out of a disciplinary code, but positive energy for the common good is even more crucial than the elimination of bad practice.
I would also value a comment from the Minister on those points where the code seems to overemphasise the role of public opinion. In this, I support some of the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. A key stated criterion in the code is,
“whether their behaviour … is likely to reflect well on themselves and on policing”.
The unintended logic of that could be that an action is good or bad only if someone is watching or if somebody finds out about it. That cannot be the only—or an appropriate—moral imperative. Honesty and integrity exist or do not exist whether or not anyone knows about them. If the culture of respect to which the noble Lord, Lord Young, referred is to be developed among our police, the College of Policing would do well to get on to the front foot in its ethical work so that our police see it as their duty not simply to avoid wrongdoing but to pursue values that will make them still more a force for the common good.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, 100 years ago last month, my father’s father, Thomas Jones, was killed in the Senghenydd mining disaster in south Wales, along with 438 other men and boys. It is still the worst industrial accident ever to happen in these islands. It left hundreds of widows and orphans, including my grandmother, Polly, who had seven children, including my father, Percy, who was eight. The mine owners paid out something like £26 in total for all those men and boys. My dad therefore grew up in abject poverty. He and one of his brothers had to share a pair of shoes; one of them would wear them one day to school and the next day the other would wear them. After the First World War, when my father left school, rather than work down the pit that had killed his father, he and a brother walked all the way from Abertridwr in south Wales to London to find work. They slept in Hyde Park on benches until the Salvation Army found them and fed and sheltered them.
My dad found work in London and then moved to Brighton, where he met and married my mother, Christine. She came from a staunch Labour Party family. Her granddad, Will Evans, was the first Socialist—no Labour Party back in the 1890s—councillor on Brighton Council. He was a strong supporter of trade unions. During the Second World War, my dad was a cook with the RAF while my mother painted railway engines. When the war was over, they moved to a new suburb of Brighton, Moulsecoomb, which was part of the Homes Fit for Heroes project. I grew up very happy and secure, with my brother Allan, not realising that we were quite poor and the last in our road to get a fridge, a phone or a TV.
Having known hard times, my parents were big fans of the welfare state. They both knew a Britain where it did not exist. So my upbringing was full of gratitude and awe about free education, free medical help and an understanding that you have to help the most vulnerable in society because how you help the poorest is the mark of civilisation. I will skip over the next 40 years, which involved marriage, two wonderful daughters, some travelling, archaeology and lots of very deep-Green politics, and say that I am astonished to be here, but perhaps not as astonished as others. Considering that I have done nothing but talk abolition since my appointment, I have received a very warm welcome, for which I am very thankful.
On the issue of this debate, I would like to say trust in the police has always ebbed and flowed, but “plebgate” has caused a flurry even among the usual supporters of the police. Even the middle classes are saying, “If the police might do something like this to a government Minister, what chance does a working class youth have on a council estate?”. I have been working on the issue of trust in policing for more than a decade. I published a short report this year that looked at the levels of trust among young Londoners and the Met. I went and talked to young people and listened to them, and I found out what they thought. It was very marked that they did not trust the police. It was also marked that they differentiated between different parts of the police. Local police they accepted and saw as doing a generally good job, but the TSG—the Territorial Support Group—for example, was heartily disliked. Young people talked about “bully vans”, and about how the TSG would come into their streets, cause problems, make messes and then leave the sorting out to the local police.
The worst reaction seemed to be a result of stop and search. Although most young people could actually see a use for it, and felt that it might make them safer sometimes if the police found weapons on others, they disliked the way it was done. Again and again, Met officers managed to mess things up because they did not show professional politeness and did not communicate properly.
My years of Met scrutiny, first on the Metropolitan Police Authority and now on City Hall’s Police and Crime Committee, have led me to the conclusion that the police’s biggest problem is communication. If forces could communicate better, they would hear more useful intelligence from communities, and get more support on the streets and fewer attacks in the press, which would raise morale internally and improve the public’s confidence. For example, recently I complained that the Met was reducing its training of armed officers. Now this really is an area where you would think that you need the maximum amount of training, the highest level; there are already enough incidents and we do not want any more. It was explained to me by the Met that the training had reduced slightly but appeared to be generally better for officers and their skills. But the Met had not bothered explaining the changes to anybody. They had not communicated properly, which wasted my time, their time and actually gave them some unfavourable publicity.
Then there are the undercover police, spying on and sleeping with their targets, particularly in environmental organisations. Remember, these targets are people—women—who are innocent and who have not committed a crime. The officers have intruded in their lives to the most astonishing degree. One of them even fathered a child—and then vanished, of course. The Met seems strangely mixed up about this. In public the Met Commissioner has told me that such activity, sleeping with targets, is never authorised. In court, the Met lawyers claimed that the police who were charged had been authorised. At some level, there is a deep amount of confusion about this. It really does need cleaning up.
Of course, I have taken this seat courtesy of the Green Party, whose members voted for me and whose policies I shall do my best to promote.
Baroness Hamwee (LD)
My Lords, it is a privilege and a pleasure to congratulate the noble Baroness on behalf of the whole House. It is entirely appropriate that she was introduced on 5 November. I am sure that she will forgive me for saying that the term “feisty” could have been coined for her. I have to warn your Lordships that she takes no hostages when she is set on getting something done.
If Wikipedia is to be believed, the noble Baroness spent 10 years in the Middle East studying carbonised plant remains—we are more lively here—having studied archaeology as a mature student before politics took over. The noble Baroness, to whom I an finding it hard not to refer by her first name, has been a member of the London Assembly since its inception in 2000; was deputy mayor to Ken Livingstone in 2003-04; and I could use my nine minutes listing the positions that she has held, including, as she has mentioned, membership of the Metropolitan Police Authority and, now, deputy chairmanship of the London Assembly’s police and crime committee.
However, the noble Baroness is more intent on doing than on being. I understand that, for instance, she still goes out early on a Monday morning on a tea run for homeless people. That is between things such as working on a food strategy for London, promoting cycling and much more. She tweeted of her appointment:
“I feel very lucky, but the possibility of protocol disasters is high”.
That is as may be, but the probability of her making an impact on the House is high.
I do not normally tell anecdotes, but I will tell one. A long time ago, before the current rules on evidence-taking, I gave a statement to the police after seeing someone behaving suspiciously. I was asked what he looked like and what he wore, and I said, “I couldn’t really see. He was wearing dark clothes”. The statement, as written by a police constable, was: “He was wearing a pale grey sweater with a navy V-neck trim”. I refused to sign it but I am ashamed that I did not take it further. However, I realise that that has coloured the attitude—the trust—that I have. That is one reason why neighbourhood policing is so important, because it is not just about the content of what is done but the impression that is made. Neighbourhood police are the police whom the public meet day to day, whether north or south of the Trent. Little things like that, as well as the big, have an impact, and a small bad experience can leave us with a large loss of trust.
I confess to your Lordships that I am very embarrassed to presume to talk about trust in a debate in which a recent Reith lecturer has made such a contribution. My personal experience has had a particular impact. I think that personal experience has an impact because one applies one’s own judgment and makes one’s own assessment of trustworthiness. There is a different approach to assessing trustworthiness in the case of individuals and of institutions. I was interested in the comment about young people making a distinction between local police and the TSG. When you look at individuals you are more discriminating and nuanced, but of course you often judge the whole institution by a small part.
Of course, these are general comments that apply to public service generally, as did the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Young, about the necessity and difficulty of changing culture. There is a range of obvious reasons why trust in public services and public servants is so important—that is blindingly obvious, and I apologise for my cod philosophy. However, without trust, how can one win the co-operation of the public or, as my noble friend Lord Paddick, has termed it, “collaboration”? That may be right, because it suggests partnership, which is so necessary for effectiveness. I was interested to see the extract from the ESRC’s Policing by Consent, which said that,
“perceptions of legitimacy are stronger predictors of compliance with the law than perceptions of deterrent risk”.
It referred to authorities behaving,
“fairly and respectfully towards those they govern”,
and added:
“When the police act according to principles of procedural justice, citizens regard such activity as legitimate; they defer to its authority and recognise and justify the power that it wields”.
Another reason for the importance of public trust is its impact on recruitment. The police, like other services, need to recruit good people and I doubt that anyone is more upset by the bad apples than other officers; in that, I echo my noble friend Lady Doocey. The police service needs to be a service with which people want to be associated. It needs to be seen by young people thinking about it as a career path as a profession of which they would be proud to be a member, and one that would provide job satisfaction. Therefore, like other noble Lords, I welcome the College of Policing, about which we will talk more outside this debate. However, I will say now that leadership and training need to recognise and capitalise on a range of abilities, among which I place emotional intelligence very high.
On recruitment and retention, it is clearly necessary to recruit a mix of people who inspire trust. Some people trust the stereotypical powerful authority figure, but even that figure does not necessary come in the form of a white male. However cohesive our society, having forces comprised of people we recognise—“people who look like us”, as they say—is a component. Progress is being made but the struggle is uphill.
Stop and search has been mentioned. That is not just a matter of numbers or of who is stopped and searched, but the quality of the encounter and how they are treated. Transparency is also a component, as has been said. However, I share the view that it is not a panacea. It is not just a matter of pushing information into the public domain. Indeed, one way of concealing information is to give so much that what matters is not noticed—it is hidden in plain view.
The general public depend very much on the media. My noble friend referred to the media. Indeed, I think he used the term “sensational” in that regard. Social media as well as the more traditional media select and interpret what is published.
The debate has largely been about specific policing mechanisms and arrangements. Some have referred to high-profile events and investigations and their devastating impact on how the police are regarded. In what is still a fairly new policing landscape—as we have learnt to call it—the focus has largely been on police and crime commissioners but I want to mention police and crime panels. We cannot assess the success or otherwise of commissioners without also looking at the panels because they have the specific role of being a check and balance, for which they need powers and resources. They should be able to analyse information and ask questions in holding police and crime commissioners to account. I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, said about the importance of that. Very shortly, we will consider in detail the mechanisms with which to respond to complaints—mechanisms which must be, as well as be perceived to be, independent, timely, fair and competent—but should we not consider whether a fall in the number of complaints is a good thing, or whether it indicates a lack of trust even in how they are dealt with?
The debate has been about trustworthiness, which I welcome. However, trust is not an entitlement: it has to be earned again and again, day by day and every day.
Lord Bew (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for securing this extremely timely debate. I want to focus my remarks on one element—the element of trust—although there are two elements in the Motion, as the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, said. I want to talk a little about some of the recent polling in this area. I do so with some trepidation because I am well aware of the wise words of my noble friend Lady O’Neill on the subject of opinion polls and trust, and on how much of the evidence needs to be treated with scepticism. I absolutely agree with her. Her Reith lectures on the subject of trust were published in 2002 by Cambridge University Press in a book entitled A Question of Trust. The noble Baroness has demonstrated the ways in which moral philosophy can inform our public debate in a most important and essential way.
In talking about some of the issues concerning policing and trust, I want to make only a very limited point—one which I think is sustainable—about transitions in public mood. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Wasserman, that we need to be careful about these matters as the public mood can be enormously fickle. I draw attention particularly to the Survey of Public Attitudes Towards Conduct in Public Life, which was published in September 2013 by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, often known as the Nolan committee, of which I am the recently appointed chairman. The survey looks at public perceptions of trust in public officeholders, including the police and politicians. There is a general trend in the survey, and in surveys of this type across Europe. Our survey is entirely compatible with the data from the European Social Survey 2002-10. Our survey states that the European survey,
“also indicates that ‘representative institutions’, such as national parliaments, political parties and politicians, tend to be trusted less than ‘implementing institutions’, such as the police or national legal systems in many other European countries”.
We are not alone in this. We are typical. In our survey, judges score particularly highly as to the amount of trust the public is prepared to bestow upon them. The police come next with a level of public acceptance of almost 70%. This is a summary of the results from 2004 to 2012. Cabinet Ministers lurk at around 25% to 26%. Until recently, in our country in this type of polling the police have been running at more than twice the levels of respect or trustworthiness of Cabinet Ministers.
However, looking at more recent polling there is evidence of a worrying change. For example, in a recent YouGov poll, respondents who trust senior police officers have decreased from 72% in 2003 to 49% in 2012, and a quarter of those surveyed by ComRes in 2013 said that the plebgate affair has made them less likely to trust the police. These very high-level indicators do not characterise the surveys carried out by the Nolan committee. Let me give a health warning: I take seriously everything that the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, says about such surveys. However, for what it is worth it does seem possible that, over the past year, a change in the public mood from that high level of acceptance of the police is occurring.
Noble Lords will remember the debate in this House in the early part of this year in the name of the noble Earl, Lord Lytton, with a technical title about looking at police performance management statistics. This most interesting debate, in the Moses Room, looked at gaming in the police service and the gaming of statistics. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has played a major role in drawing attention to these interesting questions. As an academic, I think it only fair to add that gaming, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, said, is not confined to the police service, and can also be found, as we both agree, in universities. That debate, although it was an important and serious, attracted little attention. Since then the momentum around this question has been transformed. The Public Administration Select Committee has announced that it is going to hold an inquiry into the management and accuracy of police statistics. It is a major consideration in terms of the public trust. Earlier this month my own committee, the Committee on Standards in Public Life, made a submission on this question to the Public Administration Select Committee, and in the middle of last week the Times front page led with serious questions about how accurate our police statistics have been and about the pressures that existed in the past which have perhaps ensured they are not as accurate as we would hope they would be. So there has been a dramatic change in that one specific area in just a few months.
Taking a more positive view, one interesting thing in the last few weeks is the publication by the College of Policing of its Draft Code of Ethics. I welcome this with all my heart, as I welcome the fact that the Nolan principles, particularly those of honesty, accountability, integrity and leadership, have been put at its heart. In principle, this document from the College of Policing is a good thing. I want to add a few caveats and concerns about the current draft. One is that in the earlier code of conduct for the Police Service of Northern Ireland from 2008, there is a clearer relationship between not living up to the code of conduct and possible issues of misconduct. It is much clearer in the PSNI document than in the College of Policing document. The great danger is that the College of Policing statement of principles just becomes abstract and out there and is not fully operationalised in the conduct of police officers.
There is considerable evidence of good faith and seriousness in the production of the document and greater clarification could make it even better. Another area where one needs greater clarity is on declaring business interests. That needs to be clearer than it currently is in the document.
I hope that the College of Policing document is an indication of a growing understanding among senior police officers in our country and those concerned with the matter that we are at a difficult moment which requires some redress and serious thinking.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
My Lords, I add my thanks to those that have already been expressed to the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for securing this debate. I also congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, on her very-easy-to-listen-to maiden speech, which made it clear that a lack of forthrightness will not be a feature of her contributions in your Lordships’ House.
Among the things that have become clear during the past three and a half years are the reservations felt by the Government about the police. The creation of police and crime commissioners, the setting-up of the Winsor inquiry and some of the provisions on policing in the current Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill are a reflection of the Government’s apparent feeling that the police are no longer one of us. It seems at times that the fact that crime has been falling for a considerable number of years appears to the Government to have happened despite the police rather than, at least in part, because of the contribution of the police.
I have been fortunate enough to take part in the police parliamentary scheme and to have spent some time with the Metropolitan Police and learnt something about the considerable range and depth of police work that they undertake. I also spent some time with officers on immediate response duties and with the traffic police, as well as with police community support officers. You certainly see and begin to appreciate some of the frustrations and aggravations that police officers have to put up with daily and the importance of the ability to keep calm, to keep one’s temper and in potentially very heated or dangerous situations to think rationally and coolly, and act decisively in order to prevent things getting totally out of hand. While there are certainly glaring exceptions to this, I think that, overall, the police do a far from easy job very well indeed.
The very helpful briefing that we have had from the Library provides some firm information on trust in the police. It refers to a recent Ministry of Justice report which analysed data from the 2010-11 Crime Survey for England and Wales and considered long-term trends which suggest that, from the early 1980s until 2001, there was a gradual decline in public ratings of the police but that, more recently, public ratings of the police have improved. On current levels of confidence in the police according to the Ministry of Justice report, approximately three-quarters of the sample agreed that they had confidence in the police in their area, 13% disagreed that this was the case and 15% expressed no opinion. Approximately 85% agreed that the police would treat them with respect if they had contact with them for any reason.
The Library briefing also refers to a report using data from the European Social Survey to compare levels of trust in the police across Europe. An article summarising this report indicated that in the United Kingdom and Ireland residents consistently trusted and legitimised their police and court systems at well above average levels although to a lesser extent than their Scandinavian counterparts.
The Ministry of Justice’s report to which I referred a few moments ago considered levels of trust in the police among different genders, ethnic groups and socioeconomic groups. The analysis undertaken indicated that opinions of the police were more favourable among women than men, among younger and older people compared to those who were middle-aged, among those in full-time employment compared to those who were unemployed and economically inactive, and with relatively little variation by ethnicity.
The results of those two surveys do not suggest that everything is perfect and that nothing needs to be changed or addressed, but nor do they indicate that trust and confidence—or, rather, the lack of them—in our police is quite the cataclysmic issue that has been suggested or implied by some, although not here this afternoon, unless there has been a shift in attitude over the past three years that has not been reflected in serious studies. There are some indications that that might conceivably be the case.
Certainly concerns have been expressed, particularly in the light of some recent events and disclosures, including that the system for dealing with complaints no longer seems adequate. It is regarded by many as taking too long, with remedies that are not clear. The body in charge of pursuing misconduct is not seen as being strong enough, and too often in serious cases the police end up investigating themselves.
As many have already said, trust and confidence are vital, and that is no doubt one reason why suggestions or evidence of any police failure to conduct themselves in a manner justifying such trust and confidence make the headlines. As the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, said, without trust and confidence there will be less likelihood of communities and individuals working collaboratively with the police, providing information, reporting suspicions, coming forward as witnesses and reporting crime. That then affects the ability of the police to address and prevent criminal activity and behaviour and to bring those responsible before the courts.
Some commentators have suggested that levels of trust in the police and in the criminal justice system as a whole have a greater impact on levels of compliance with the law than any perceived deterrent effect of the criminal justice system. Others have argued that perceptions of fairness in the way the police conduct themselves are an important determining factor in the level of trust in the police and, with it, compliance with the law. A further school of thought argues that trust is related to the extent to which the police force is perceived as representative of the society that it serves, which might mean that the lower levels of trust in the police among ethnic-minority groups are, in part, a result of the low representation of ethnic minorities within the police ranks. Indeed, the Metropolitan Black Police Association suggested quite recently that the police force remains “institutionally racist”.
The Government have taken various measures since they came into office, some of which have hardly contributed to increasing confidence and trust. They abolished the target introduced in 2009 under which police forces were expected to achieve an improvement in public confidence, as measured by the British Crime Survey. The policing pledge, which introduced a set of 10 standards for the police, was also abolished. It is interesting to see that, having done that, the Home Secretary has now expressed astonishment that the police do not have a code of ethics and has decided that such a code should be brought into existence.
Issues that will also affect questions of confidence and trust will be the visibility and availability of the police and their success rate in preventing and solving crime. More than 10,000 police officers have been taken off the front line since 2010, with neighbourhood police teams being cut. While the government response to that is, in effect, “So what?”, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers says that the thin blue line is in danger of reaching a tipping point, and that police forces are, in his words, “hanging on”.
After years of falling crime rates, we are now seeing some worrying signs, with increases in the numbers of mugging and shoplifting incidents across the country and violence against the person increasing in 13 police force areas in England and Wales. Evidence indicates that police forces are taking longer to respond to 999 calls, and there has been a reduction in the solving of overall crime in 22 forces, with nearly 14,000 more crimes unsolved in a year than when this Government came to power.
The latest statistics show that the number of rape allegations handed to prosecutors in England and Wales has hit a five-year low, despite a 30% increase in the number of rapes reported to police. There is a similar trend in respect of child sexual abuse cases. Then there is the crime that is rising fast—namely, fraud. This crime, particularly when it occurs online, often goes unreported because people feel embarrassed at having to admit that they have been taken in, and they also have real doubts as to whether the police will be able to catch the perpetrators anyway.
Much of the police work on online fraud and scams is geared to disrupting such activities when they are identified, rather than the all too often likely fruitless task of successfully identifying, building up a robust case against and then apprehending those behind such offences. It is an area of police work that is seriously underresourced, no doubt in part because so many victims do not often hit the headlines amid strident calls for action. As long as there is a continuing failure to provide the resources to get on top of, or even contain the rising rate of fraud-related crime, it will slowly gnaw away at the issue of confidence in the police.
There are a number of issues and factors that influence and determine the level of trust and confidence in the police, and in police officers and staff, the overwhelming majority of whom do a magnificent job that not too many would wish to take on in their place. However, while the quality of police leadership is crucial and now very much under the microscope, Governments, decisions and policies, including change programmes and how they are implemented, also have an impact on morale, which ultimately is reflected in trust and confidence in the police. We await hearing from the Minister whether that is something the Government accept or will seek to deny.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach) (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for tabling this important debate. The mantra of Robert Peel that,
“the police are the people and the people are the police,
holds as true today as it did when he first founded the Metropolitan Police all those years ago. I note, too, that while we are not debating it today, there will be a debate next week on the report of the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, on the future of policing. There is a real dialogue on this important issue. I am delighted to see that the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, who is not in his place today, has identified many of the issues on which the Government are already taking action: a code of ethics, a published list of officers dismissed for misconduct, and a more robust and independent complaints regime. However, I feel that the report, in calling for the abolition of police and crime commissioners, has overlooked the contribution they have already made. Despite only being in post for a year, PCCs are already more visible than anonymous police authorities. Seven out of 10 members of the public are aware of PCCs. PCCs are also introducing many different innovations in their areas to address their communities’ problems.
While statistics on public confidence in the police remain resilient, we have reason not to be complacent. I agree with my noble friend Lord Paddick on this and I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Bew, was very perceptive in his analysis. If we reach the point where people may be satisfied that their local officers are honest and fair but the majority begin to assume that the police in general are not to be trusted, it will be too late. It will be far harder to recover from such a position. The noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill of Bengarve, in a remarkable speech, brought a profound wisdom to the relationship between aim and outcome in a critique that had a far wider application than just trust and the police. I value the opportunity of reading her speech on the record, as it was extremely profound.
To address this issue, the Home Secretary announced a number of measures back in February to strengthen police integrity. We have been working with the new College of Policing whose remit is to set and maintain standards for the police and to implement some of these measures. On 24 October the college launched for public consultation the first ever code of ethics for the police. The code will be the highest level of declaration of the principles and standards of behaviour expected of those working in police forces. The code of ethics will be a living document, embedded into forces’ policy and practice, and refreshed with all officers and staff at regular intervals. It illustrates what compliance with the standard of professional behaviour looks like and will provide clarity for all members of the police force in what is expected of them.
It is always interesting to listen to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds. He said that it focused too much on the negative. The college is about good practice, too. Perhaps I may tease the right reverend Prelate and say that those Ten Commandments include a few negative injunctions as well as the positive imperatives. So there is a good precedent for it.
As the noble Lord, Lord Bew, said, the Nolan principles are enshrined within this code of practice. Indeed, Northern Ireland is the source of much of the thinking behind this document. I would like to talk to the noble Lord about the extent to which he feels that the document produced by the college is less clear and self-evident. We want a document that is clear not only to the police but also to the public, in whose name the document is being delivered.
The college cannot address the issues of police confidence and police integrity alone. It is essential that there is public confidence that the most serious and sensitive cases involving the police will be dealt with effectively. As part of her announcement in February the Home Secretary made clear her intention to transfer resources from forces to the Independent Police Complaints Commission so that it is equipped to deal with such cases. I stress that by resources I mean funding. There will not be a transfer of officers to the IPCC but it will receive substantial extra funding—I cannot give details of the funding—so that it will be able to recruit its own independent investigators. The public can then be reassured that we are finally putting an end to the police investigating the police in the most serious cases and that the IPCC is acting with genuine independence. I agree with my noble friend Lady Doocey that this independence is vital to ensuring public confidence in the police. The events of last year proved overwhelmingly the case for a strengthened IPCC, and that is what the Government are determined to deliver. The plans to increase the capacity of the IPCC are on track and it will begin to take on additional cases from next year.
Police and crime commissioners will also play a vital role in ensuring that public trust and confidence in the police are maintained. That is why I think the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, is wrong. PCCs are responsible for setting the police and crime plans for their force areas and, in doing so, they must consult victims of crime. This gives them a vital link to those who have come into direct contact with the police and who will therefore have a view on the integrity and behaviour of officers within their force. PCCs hold their chief officers to account for the totality of policing in their areas. If, as we have said, the public lose trust or confidence in their force, the PCC obviously has a role in holding the chief constable to account for this.
Earlier this week the Crown Prosecution Service announced that it had charged a Metropolitan Police Service officer, PC Keith Wallis, with misconduct in public office in connection with the incident on 19 September 2012 in Downing Street involving a former Cabinet Minister, Andrew Mitchell. The decision not to charge the other MPS officers connected to this incident does not preclude misconduct proceedings from being instigated. The MPS has announced that PC Wallis and seven other police officers will be subject to misconduct proceedings. The issues raised by the Andrew Mitchell case are very serious. It is right that cases such as this hit the headlines. We must remember that these are not the rule. Even so, it is an issue and we are targeting unprofessional behaviour through the range of measures that we are implementing alongside our partners. It is a privilege for us in the Home Office to work with the IPCC, HMIC, the College of Policing and PCCs to enhance police integrity, and we look forward confidently to seeing some excellent results from this work.
Perhaps I may address some of the issues that were raised in the excellent speeches made in this debate. My noble friend Lord Paddick referred to the difficulties of black and ethnic minority recruitment into the police. I think we would all agree that police forces that reflect the communities they serve are crucial to cutting crime in a modern diverse society. While the police force is much more representative than before, there is still much to be done. The Government’s reforms will stimulate progress. We support the aspiration of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to achieve a much better representation of BME officers in the force in the next wave of officer recruitment.
My noble friend also referred to stop and search, which is not a totally unrelated issue. Where stop and search is used properly, it allows the police to tackle serious crime effectively. Where it is used badly, it can cause personal humiliation for the individual, a disconnect between the police and the public and an undermining of public confidence. A number of reports have raised concerns about the use of this power, which is why we have undertaken a consultation on it and are currently analysing the responses to it.
My noble friend Lady Doocey was concerned about the independence of the IPCC. I can understand that concern. That is one of the reasons why it is having funding of its own to recruit its own staff. About 80% of the IPCC staff do not come from a police background. Investigators in the most serious cases overseen by the IPCC can never have worked for the police; they are not allowed to have worked for the police. All IPCC investigators undergo a period of training. As I said, giving the IPCC the resources to recruit its own independent investigators will be a great step forward.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made an amusing, remarkable and moving maiden speech. She asked a number of questions and raised a number of points. In particular, she talked about the deep concerns that have been raised by allegations that undercover police officers were deployed in an attempt to smear the Lawrence family after Stephen Lawrence’s murder and that undercover officers used the identities of deceased children. As the noble Baroness will know, Operation Herne and the review by Mark Ellison will address these issues.
The noble Baroness also suggested that the police needed to be better at communicating. New recruits into police forces must pass both written and oral communications tests and continuing professional development is available for officers throughout their career. The code of ethics currently out for consultation acknowledges the importance of effective communication between police and the public, emphasising the need for the police to talk to people in local communities, break down barriers and ensure that their behaviour and language cannot be interpreted as being oppressive. There is no role for oppressive policing in this country.
My noble friend Lady Hamwee referred to the professionalism that needs to be at the heart of the police and the sensitivity and emotional intelligence needed among the individuals who make up the police force. Her speech reinforced my view that we are in a period of great—and very necessary—change, a view already expressed by my noble friend Lord Wasserman. I believe that that change is justified.
The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, referred to his membership of the Police Service Parliamentary Scheme. We were both, unfortunately, engaged on the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill when it had rather a nice dinner, and we had only a smell of the food. I can only recommend the scheme, which is run by Sir Neil Thorne. It has been a great success. Although I listened to what the noble Lord said, and understand that he is there and I am here, he has reinforced my view of why the Government are treating the reform of the police service as important. Although I can hardly expect him to agree with everything that we are doing, I value the opportunities that we have to debate these issues.
This has been a well argued and interesting debate on a very current issue. We have been fortunate to hear the first of what I expect to be many contributions from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb. She will be a real asset to the House and I congratulate and welcome her. This is also the first time, I believe, that my noble friend Lord Paddick has led a debate. He brings considerable experience of holding senior rank in our country’s largest force. His presence is a valuable addition to the House and I am grateful to him for bringing this important topic for us to debate today.
Lord Young of Norwood Green
Before the noble Lord sits down, I raised the question of the revelations at the recent sitting of the Public Administration Committee about the discrepancy between the figures for incidents reported by the public and the police figures. I did not hear any response from the Minister and would welcome hearing him address that.
Lord Taylor of Holbeach
I am not in a position to comment directly on those figures but they have been raised in this House before. The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, has raised a number of questions with me and has been in correspondence with me on this. There are indeed differences with police statistics and I agree with the noble Lord that one of the most important things that the Government will need to do is ensure that police statistics on reported crime correspond to the real experience of individuals. Figures can be used to build trust in the police but can also be used in a negative sense. I would like to think that the figures that I quoted were authoritative.
Lord Paddick
My Lords, I thank my noble friend the Minister for his contribution and noble Lords for all their contributions to the debate. We have been reminded that public opinion is fickle but it is essential, for police effectiveness, that the public have trust and confidence in the police. The issue of crime figures is a very complex one, to which a degree of common sense needs to be brought to bear. I share the concerns that have been expressed about the independence, transparency and effectiveness of the IPCC. We have also been reminded of the perils of accountability and transparency. I was very grateful for the glimpse of another and positive side to the policing of the Hillsborough tragedy. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, on her maiden speech. She is right about the importance of communication.
We have been reminded that one bad experience has a disproportionate impact on the reputation of the whole police service and should also note that trust and confidence in senior police officers appears to have shown the most marked decline. The code of ethics for the police is clearly a step in the right direction. It is out for consultation so there is time to change it for the better.
Armed Force: Constitution Committee Report
(11 years ago)
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Baroness Jay of Paddington
To move that this House takes note of the Report of the Constitution Committee on Constitutional arrangements for the use of armed force (2nd Report, HL Paper 46).
Baroness Jay of Paddington (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity to open this debate on your Lordships’ Constitution Committee’s report on the use of armed force. Our report was published in July and, because of the war in Syria, was very timely.
Interestingly, the extensive public commentary on the report that took place at the time of its publication focused on our finding that the Government had until that moment been rather unclear about UK military action in Syria. That question was of course resolved by what has been rightly described as a historic vote in the House of Commons on 29 August. I will return to that vote and the events leading to it later in my remarks. The other important findings of our report remain extremely relevant to future strategic decisions.
Before moving on to the main body of the report, I place on record my warm thanks to all those who gave evidence to the committee and to its members for their diligent work on the inquiry. As always, I also warmly thank the committee’s clerk, our policy adviser and our special advisers on the law.
For some years now, there has been a debate about the role of Parliament in decisions about whether to use armed force overseas. In 2006, our predecessor Constitution Committee undertook a major inquiry into this area and produced a very substantial report. Since then, the position has continued to evolve, with various proposals put forward about how Parliament’s role could or should be formalised or, indeed, enhanced. Both the previous Labour Government and the coalition have considered whether to formalise Parliament’s role. It is also relevant that in recent years there have been significant changes in the nature of military intervention and the techniques of warfare. As a result of all these developments, both political and military, we decided to carry out a short inquiry into the constitutional arrangements for the use of armed force.
We very deliberately used the expression “use of armed force” although the 2006 report had spoken of “waging war”. The committee thought the term more accurately conveyed the different scenarios for intervention that may occur today. We thought it useful to examine developments in the Government’s internal processes for deciding on the use of force, as well as looking at how Parliament’s role may have changed.
Our report dealt first with the Government’s internal decision-making process. We were particularly interested in the significant innovation in 2010 when the coalition Government created the National Security Council. This is a Cabinet committee that meets weekly under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister. Its membership includes senior Cabinet Ministers and Armed Forces personnel. The National Security Council has a very wide remit, covering all aspects of foreign, defence, security and international development policy.
The committee explored the impact of the National Security Council in the political and military sphere. Several witnesses commented positively on how it has allowed a cross-departmental approach to develop in a way that reflects the very close connections between foreign policy, security and defence. Although not all the commentary on the council was complimentary, we were informed that its existence ensures that there is a regular and formal line of communication between Ministers, military officers and the heads of the intelligence services. The committee agreed that this was particularly valuable. It was clear that effective structures were essential when it came to decisions on deploying our forces overseas.
The evidence of Mr Jack Straw MP, who was Foreign Secretary from 2001 to 2006, was telling in relation to the invasion of Iraq. He said:
“I was uncomfortable … about the informality of decision-making that took place when Tony Blair was Prime Minister … I absolutely stand by the decisions we made on Iraq but, on this issue of legitimacy, they would have been regarded—then and today—as far more legitimate if there had been a much more formal process within the Government over making them”.
Of course, the committee recognised that informal discussions will always take place outside the Cabinet room and that smaller, ad hoc groups of Ministers and officials will no doubt make preliminary decisions. However, we re-emphasise the need for decisions on the use of armed force to take place in the full Cabinet, both to ensure that the principle of collective responsibility is engaged and to help to legitimise decisions to use force by the proper process.
We consider that, taken as a whole, the Government’s current formal internal arrangements seem appropriate. However, we were concerned that these processes may not be generally very well understood. For example, we looked at the Defence Council, which has been in existence since the 1960s and has formal legal authority for the conduct of defence in the UK. One might therefore think that the Defence Council is a significant factor in decisions on whether to deploy force. That is not the case. The evidence we heard was almost unanimous that its practical role in the UK’s defence arrangements is very limited. We were told that it meets infrequently and is not involved in the executive decision-making. Mr Andrew Robathan, who was then Minister for the Armed Forces, told us:
“Put it this way: I do not have an appointment for the Defence Council in my diary”.
Given the different players and the apparent lack of clarity even in Whitehall, we recommended that the Cabinet Manual should be amended to include a detailed description of the Government’s internal arrangements for advising and deciding on the use of armed force. I am very pleased to say that in their written response to our report, the Government undertook to include that information the next time a major revision of the Cabinet Manual is carried out. The last time that was done was of course some time ago. Could the Minister this evening give us an indication of when the next major revision is planned for?
I turn now to the committee’s consideration of Parliament’s role. Of course, the legal position on decisions to deploy force is not in dispute. Such decisions are made by Her Majesty’s Government, exercising the royal prerogative. Parliament has no legal role in authorising and approving the use of armed force overseas. However, that is not to say—as Members of the House will be very aware—that Parliament does not scrutinise such decisions closely. In recent years, the House of Commons has passed substantive Motions to approve the deployment of force in Iraq and Libya, and now to disapprove any intervention in Syria. Parliament has also scrutinised several other conflicts through regular debates, Questions and Select Committee inquiries. In 2013, it would be generally agreed that it is commonly accepted that the House of Commons should have the opportunity to debate decisions to use force before troops are committed, unless there is an emergency and such action would not be appropriate. The Government have stated that this is now a constitutional convention and it is accordingly recognised at the moment in the Cabinet Manual.
The debate in recent years has centred on whether this convention should be formalised in any way, so as to require precise parliamentary approval before force is deployed. Three possible options have been put forward for another role for Parliament: first, a detailed resolution of the House of Commons; secondly, primary legislation on this subject; and thirdly, continued reliance on a constitutional convention. In 2008, as part of its The Governance of Britain White Paper on constitutional reform, the previous Labour Government proposed that a detailed resolution should be passed by the House of Commons, requiring the Government to secure its approval for the deployment of troops overseas. It would be for the Prime Minister to decide when to seek approval. In emergency situations, retrospective approval would not be required. Nor would re-approval be required when the nature of the conflict changed. The proposed resolution would not have had the force of law, but would have meant that Parliament’s role was formally set out. Although a draft resolution was produced, no progress was made in implementing it before the 2010 election.
When the coalition Government came into office, they made no specific commitment to formalising Parliament’s role. However, during the debate on approving the intervention in Libya in March 2011, the Foreign Secretary, Mr Hague, said that the Government would,
“enshrine in law for the future the necessity of consulting Parliament on military action”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/3/11; col. 799.]
At the time, that was understood to imply primary legislation, but since then we understand that there has been an internal debate within the Government as to the desirability or nature of any formalisation. Once again, no further action has been taken.
The Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Clegg, told us that that was still under review, and Mr Andrew Robathan told us that there was a division of opinion between Ministers in the coalition. Those in favour of a formal process argue that Parliament is the only body that can provide the necessary democratic legitimacy for a decision as important as this. It is argued that Parliament’s role should be enshrined so that no Government can bypass it. If Parliament’s role is formalised, all concerned will understand the process that must be followed before force is deployed and that following due process will itself increase the legitimacy of any action.
In addition to the democratic principle, some of our evidence from military experts and generals suggested that knowing that they had the clear backing of Parliament was very important to troops in the field. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, who I am delighted to see will be speaking today, told us that,
“there were huge advantages if Parliament could be involved. When you visit people in the field on operations … the questions you were asked were, ‘is the country behind us? Is Parliament, the Government, behind us?’”.
On the other side of the current debate, none of those against formalising Parliament’s role sought to argue that Parliament should have no role. However, the committee heard several arguments against having either a formal parliamentary resolution or primary legislation. They were problems of definition, the risk of challenge in the courts, the risk of parliamentary engagement in operational decisions, the need to preserve political and military flexibility, and the argument that, given our convention, more formal procedures are just unnecessary.
Perhaps I can elaborate briefly on some of those arguments. First, there are the definitional problems. Formalisation would require Parliament’s role to be codified in a workable way. There would be major problems in what were called operational definitions. It will be necessary, for example, to specify what type of action would engage formal parliamentary involvement. For example, if the deployment of ground troops—boots on the ground—was the trigger, as was suggested in the 2008 proposed resolution, that would risk leaving out such interventions as the bombing of Kosovo in 1999 and imposing the no-fly zone over Libya in 2011.
A further decision would have to be made about the potential escalation of any activity and about at what point approval would have to be sought or might have to be renewed in different circumstances. The military might want a blanket approval at the outset, but parliamentarians might, for obvious reasons, want to keep their options open. A further dilemma would be whether there should be exemptions for emergency or secret deployments. If so, should Parliament’s approval be retrospectively sought? If so, what would happen if approval was declined? Having looked at such complexities, the committee was not surprised that Ministers still had difficulty in agreeing the best way forward.
Another objection to formalisation was the need to ensure strategic political and military flexibility. It was suggested, for example, that when the UK’s international obligations required the Government to commit to action with fellow NATO members, it would be detrimental to the Government’s position for there to be any doubt about whether they could commit. Any Government would also want to preserve flexibility to take defensive action or deploy force in an emergency. It is likely that any formalised process would leave a wide margin of discretion to the Prime Minister about when and where to seek Parliament’s approval, and there might in the end be so many exemptions that the formal process itself became only theoretical.
Additionally, there was the question of whether, if Parliament passed a formal law on authorisation, for example, the statute might be liable to be challenged in the courts and there might be judicial review. This was a new risk raised, which I thought was very interesting. Our witnesses were united in thinking that the appropriate forum for controlling and scrutinising such decisions is Parliament. In noting a recent judgment of the Supreme Court in Smith v Ministry of Defence, we were concerned that this demonstrated the court’s apparent willingness to become more involved in decisions relating to the battlefield. The committee shared the concerns expressed to us about the negative effect on the morale and operational independence of the Armed Forces when the courts scrutinised some operational decisions. In response, again, the Government have agreed with these comments and say that they will vigorously defend cases which call into question the principle of combat immunity, and will take further action as necessary.
To me, perhaps the final and most persuasive argument against greater parliamentary formality is that it is unnecessary. We understand that, in practice today, any Prime Minister seeking to deploy force overseas would politically be obliged to obtain the approval of Parliament, except in very exceptional circumstances.
The committee concluded that formalising Parliament’s role would involve significant difficulties and that such difficulties would outweigh any benefits. We concluded that much of the impetus for formalisation was to make a political statement rather than to correct deficiencies in the existing legal or military process. We therefore recommended that neither primary legislation nor a resolution should be introduced in an attempt to formalise Parliament’s role.
Finally, and without wishing to be unduly wise after the event, I will return briefly to the events of last summer in relation to Syria. Your Lordships will remember that at the time of the report in July, there was widespread and agitated discussion about whether the Government would arm opposition forces in Syria. It was only after sustained parliamentary pressure that Ministers gave an undertaking that the House of Commons would be given a vote before any decision to arm the so-called rebels was taken. As I said at the outset, it was the committee’s view that the Government’s intentions had perhaps been unhelpfully opaque. Very importantly, it was also unclear about how the Government might intend to involve Parliament should Her Majesty’s Armed Forces get further engaged in what seemed then, and seems now, an escalating conflict.
In late August 2013, the Government reacted to the apparent use of chemical weapons by President Assad’s forces in Syria by recalling Parliament. The proposal then was for the House of Commons to debate a government Motion, authorising the Government to take action in response to the attack. However, the business for 29 August stated that the proposal was in two stages and that before any direct British involvement, a further vote of the House of Commons would take place. The House will not need reminding that the Government’s Motion was defeated, and that in response the Prime Minister immediately stated that the Government would respect the wishes of the House of Commons. No further consideration of military intervention has, at least publicly, taken place.
These August events had major constitutional importance. First, the Government recalled Parliament before any decision to deploy force was taken. The Government respected the existing constitutional convention and, I would say, perhaps further entrenched it. Secondly, the Government immediately undertook to abide by the decision of the House of Commons, even though Ministers legally retain the power to commit the Armed Forces to action through the prerogative. Again, that can be seen as strengthening the convention. Thirdly, the fact that the Motion, if passed, would have involved a two- stage process of agreement by the Commons showed the benefits of keeping these matters flexible. It seems fairly clear that as a two-stage process of approval had not occurred in any previous conflict, it is unlikely that it would have been foreseen in any formalised resolution or legislation. In other words, the practical and contemporary experience of the intense debate on Syria underlined and demonstrated the correctness of our report’s conclusions and recommendations.
I look forward very much to the contributions this evening from speakers who, although they are somewhat small in number, are extremely distinguished, expert and authoritative on this very important subject. I beg to move.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine (LD)
My Lords, I start by paying tribute to our chairman, the noble Baroness, Lady Jay of Paddington, and our legal advisers, notably Professor Adam Tomkins, for an extremely intellectually stimulating inquiry.
I was enthusiastic about it as the follow-up to the 2006 report, because in the types of armed conflict in which the United Kingdom may be engaged, as well as in the deployment of technology, much has changed. Many of these armed conflicts have the potential to draw in the United Kingdom, as the permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, leading member of NATO and contributor to several other alliances that our history, international outlook and diplomatic responsibilities call upon us to be. We will continue to see these foreign engagements posing difficulties for parliamentary scrutiny, as we witnessed recently during the recall of Parliament for a vote on our response to the crisis in Syria.
I want to devote my remarks to two issues: formalising the process for securing parliamentary approval; and how Parliament might be best placed to take the decisions that it needs to take. In doing so I will refrain from wholehearted endorsement of the committee’s report, as I believe its conclusions have been overtaken by the parliamentary discussion and vote on Syria on 29 August. If we were writing this report today, our witnesses might with the benefit of hindsight of that vote have taken a different view, thus affecting our conclusion in terms of relying on convention rather than formalisation of the process of parliamentary approval.
I turn to the events of 29 August and the vote on Syria and my belief that we must now formalise the process for consulting Parliament on the use of armed force. As a member of the Constitution Committee, I had been concerned for some time that the previous Government’s failure to act on their Governance of Britain White Paper of March 2008, which proposed a draft detailed war powers resolution to formalise Parliament’s role, had left us with a vacuum. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, has pointed out, we had had assurances from the Foreign Secretary in the other place when in the debate on Libya he stated that the Government of the day would,
“enshrine in law for the future the necessity of consulting Parliament on military action”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/03/11; col. 799.]
I fear that this Government have failed to formalise that process and I suspect that they have no intention of doing so.
In the period since 2008, we have seen from successive reports by the House of Commons Political and Constitutional Reform Committee, and from several discussions with the Minister, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, why we have not achieved a satisfactory outcome. I should say that the Minister is ideally placed to be answering this debate given his long experience of all three relevant ministries in this discussion: the MoD, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Cabinet Office. Moreover, lest there be any doubt, one of our witnesses, the former Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw, who was the originator of the Labour Government’s proposed detailed war powers resolution, told us when he gave evidence for this report that he still believed that a formal resolution was the way forward.
I will not labour the point that all sides were and have recently been committed to giving the House of Commons a formal role in approving the use of armed force in conflicts abroad. What sets me apart from the committee’s report and the government position is whether we rely on convention, which is necessarily ad hoc, or whether we have a formal and more transparent process for engaging Parliament, which I favour.
Let me go through the arguments that the committee poses as obstacles to formalisation. The report highlights the difficulties of definition, specifying the kind of action that would engage parliamentary involvement. The detailed war powers resolution goes some way to spelling out the definition of a conflict decision: this is if the use of force is outside the UK and is regulated by the law of armed conflict. For those who feel that this is too narrow, I suggest that its definition is that of the director of Royal United Services Institute, Professor Michael Clarke, who said,
“if one was looking to establish a rough working threshold [for engaging the need for parliamentary approval], it might be where troops were going to be deployed overseas with the clear intention of engaging in conventional military combat operations”—
that is, death and destruction.
Other obstacles include what we would do if Parliament was not in session. The vote of 29 August demonstrated that a recall can be effective when the situation is serious enough. As for when Parliament has been dissolved, I argue that the Government of the day would have to take the relevant decision through the exercise of the royal prerogative and seek retrospective approval from the fresh Parliament.
The committee was also concerned about retrospective approval being sought for certain emergency deployments. What would happen if approval was declined? The draft detailed war powers resolution could be improved in order to make provision for that through being provided with a 90-day period when, retrospectively, it could call for UK deployments to cease. That is what the US has, were Congress not to approve a deployment under the War Powers Act. In other words, the action could go ahead contingent on retrospective approval.
The report also talks about problems of disclosing secret, legal and tactical information. We saw all of them come into play on 29 August, and I know, from having read Hansard extensively, that the advice provided was insufficient for the Members voting in the other place. I think that the proposal put to the other place’s Political and Constitutional Reform Committee by my friend Professor Philippe Sands is a good one. He argues that since the Attorney-General is not Parliament’s law officer, the House of Commons should consider appointing its own law officer who would interface with the Attorney-General on the extent of disclosure to be provided. That law officer could also interface with the Intelligence and Security Committee and provide assurance of the legality of a course of action.
At paragraph 53, the committee also covers the difficulty of lifting the arms embargo to Syria, finding that if the 2008 resolution had been in force, it would not have covered a decision to provide arms to the Syrian National Coalition. I specifically asked Mr Straw about this. He replied:
“It is a plainly conflict decision, in my view. The emergency condition is not met because everybody knows about this and it is hard to argue that the security condition is met because this is a very public decision. So I think it would be triggered”.
At best, experts disagreeing prove that there is a question mark over our assessment in terms of what a key witness believes. My view is the same as that of the committee: the condition would not be met, but these different interpretations make my point precisely. It is that until a draft resolution has been put forward by the Government for consideration and a chance has been given to the relevant committees in the House of Commons and this House, we cannot arrive at any consensus about what conditions would require parliamentary approval and what would not.
Let me come to the final point against formalisation: the justiciability of deployment decisions. A parliamentary war powers resolution rather than an Act of Parliament was the chosen instrument of the previous Government in order to avoid these decisions reaching the courts. In other words, they chose a resolution over legislation. I shall briefly touch on the reasons why I believe the time has come for us to formalise the role of Parliament in the use of armed force.
In today’s world, it is right that our citizens expect that major decisions of war and peace which are made in their name are made with deliberation, accountability and lawfulness. It is also right that in a representative democracy their representatives have access to a clearly defined and reliable process which is employed in all circumstances, whether they are predictable or not. Where they are predictable, the maximum information should be provided in advance. Where the actions have to be taken as an emergency, they should be guaranteed the right to disagree and have the tools with which to seek to draw back from the decision. A parliamentary resolution such as that proposed in 2008 may be capable of amendment and improvement. What is not in dispute in our report is that Parliament has a role to play in these decisions; what is regrettable is that all three political parties have pledged in the past to formalise the role of Parliament on these decisions yet, in office, seem to be incapable of honouring that commitment to the electorate, who are, after all, the very people to be sent into harm’s way.
We are at a time when trust between the public and Parliament is at an all-time low. The public have not had the opportunity to know much about the lead-up to the Iraq war, as the Chilcot report is not published. They may have concurred with the outcome of the vote on 29 August, but will not have been provided with any reasoning other than that their representatives did not want to be embroiled in another conflict. That back-of-an-envelope process, hurried and mismanaged as it was, does not give reassurance that either Parliament’s will or the United Kingdom’s interests will be served by more of this muddling through that we now call a constitutional convention on the use of armed force.
Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank (CB)
My Lords, I first thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, for initiating this important debate and for the way in which she chaired the Constitution Committee, before which I appeared.
The power to send men and women abroad into a situation of armed conflict is one of the most important decisions a Government can ever take. In a democracy, it is surely desirable that decisions by Governments to use armed force should be taken extensively and substantially on the basis of thorough and accurate information made publicly available, and of candid and consistent explanation by Governments, fully involving Parliament in advice and decision. However, although it is highly desirable, can it be fully entrenched in our constitutional practice?
We should be cautious of letting the experience of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, which has undoubtedly given impetus to the debate, overinfluence our deliberations. Recent armed conflict has taken many forms. The background and run-up to the Korean War, Suez, the Falklands, the Balkans, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq and, of course, Special Forces operations have all been different. Often, the nature of the conflict has quickly and dramatically changed, and the rules and objectives of our forces have had to be amended. What is certain is that, historically, it has not been easy to predict armed conflicts far in advance of hostilities.
The services want to know that the country is behind them before they are committed, that they are supported by Parliament and that what they are being asked to do is legal. Parliament’s stamp of approval is important, but Parliament must not run the risk of hazarding the lives of service men and women. Secrecy, security and surprise are critical to many operations and if, for instance, one day it became necessary militarily to pre-empt an enemy attack—which is not inconceivable—how would Parliament debate such actions in advance?
The deployment of a military force for armed conflict is complex and takes—as it did for Iraq or Afghanistan—considerable time. Of course, the very deployment before hostilities can be a deterrent in itself, but our current arrangements allow quick decisions to be made and we have been able to act quickly, often before the situation on the ground has deteriorated. As a member of NATO we are committed to aid other members who are attacked, and the United Nations charter mandates countries to undertake operations should the Security Council require them. As a signatory to NATO and UN treaties, we are expected to commit troops quickly when called on to do so.
We also have to recognise the difficulties that arise once a force is deployed. Circumstances change. Humanitarian and peacekeeping operations can suddenly become peace enforcement and develop into armed conflict. All four of these states can take place in a theatre at the same time. Deployments often lead to unforeseen consequences and mission creep.
Formal declarations of war have been described by some as an historical anachronism, and it is difficult now to see occasions when they would happen. I understand why many think that the royal prerogative being the legal basis for the Government’s war powers is an outdated state of affairs in a modern democracy. Having said that, it has not served the country all that badly over the years.
One should not legislate and have a statutory solution. Deployments vary so much and are accompanied by much uncertainty. One template would rarely work for all situations. I see the best solution as a formal but non-statutory convention. It should be necessary, whenever it is possible and sensible, to seek parliamentary approval for deployment before service men and women are committed, but there is a need for some flexibility and it would not always be wise or practical to debate prior to deployment, even though parliamentary debate and approval would be highly desirable. It would also be reassuring for the Armed Forces. I do not see it as particularly helpful for us to vote in the House, but it would be of immense value if we were to debate, preferably before the House of Commons had their debate, and were able to inform MPs and the Government of our views. There is much experience in this House that could be used.
If, for some reason, armed conflict or substantial deployments occur without Parliament’s approval, it would be important for Parliament to meet at an early opportunity to endorse the decisions that had been made. I also see a necessity for Parliament to watch and discuss the progress of a campaign from time to time, always bearing in mind the effect that such a debate would have on our troops in the field. It is almost inconceivable for the Prime Minister and Government to commit troops without thinking they had the backing of Parliament.
We should be concerned that parliamentary oversight could lead, unless we are careful, to pressure to debate how operations should be conducted. Parliamentarians are not qualified to do this and they must avoid micromanaging and taking tactical decisions. Those are the province of the commanders on the ground. In very general terms, the size of a deployment and the likely direction should be discussed. Those last two matters are notoriously difficult to predict, as they depend very greatly on the actions of the ill intentioned that are causing the problem in the first place. We are not in control of what the enemy’s reaction to us will be.
We must avoid an overly prescriptive solution and maintain flexibility. Slavishly following a statutory parliamentary procedure on every occasion, whatever the circumstances, could endanger the very people we are trying to help.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)
My Lords, it is a privilege, and one that humbles a speaker, to follow the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, in this debate. His knowledge and experience are unrivalled in this House. I must say that I do not wholly agree with his conclusions, and I will explain why.
In the first place, it is a widely perceived truth that the royal prerogative in the area of committing forces to overseas conflict is an anachronism. It was described in evidence to the House of Commons by Professor Nigel White as an unregulated vestige of former times. It is certainly the case that the movement of governmental opinion since 2003 has been rapid—and, to my mind, it has moved in an appropriate constitutional direction. I do not think that it would be wise to reach a final conclusion about these matters until we have heard from the Chilcot committee of inquiry into the origins of the Iraq war, because it is to be hoped that that will reveal something about the inner workings of the decision-making process that have not yet been fully revealed.
I fully acknowledge and accept the comments of the Minister who is to reply to this debate when he said on 24 October, in giving evidence to the House, that we must recognise the urgency and secrecy requirements of decision-making in certain circumstances if defence is to be properly sustained and if the outcomes are to be favourable. Our troops will require as much evidence as may be made available, but the public are behind them in the actions they are taking. That, I believe, is one of the strong points made in the distinguished report of the noble Baroness, Lady Jay. It seems to me that there are precedents for making transparent the issues that face government. The law passed by Germany in 2005 requires parliamentary approval to be given before the Executive can take a decision. However, I admit that Germany’s global role is considerably more limited at present than that of the United Kingdom.
Another factor brought out very clearly in the report is that the country needs reassurance that action is being taken in accordance with international law. I repeat my noble friend’s recommendation, taken from evidence given by Professor Philippe Sands, that Parliament should have a legal adviser. The Attorney-General does not, and cannot, fulfil that role because doing so could involve a conflict of interest between the advice that he gives to the Executive and that which he gives to the legislature. However, if Parliament is to make decisions such as that which it made on 29 August this year in respect of Syria, we need to have the best evidence we can on the legalities of what is proposed. That may not mean that it is a final view, but it will be an opinion.
I accept the committee’s view that judicial review of such action is neither appropriate nor desirable if one is to maintain the sense among our fighting troops that they are acting in accordance with the law and public opinion. I hope that the possibility of a statute will not be pursued. None the less, there is a strong case for parliamentary resolution: for setting out the requirements for the taking of action and for approving or rejecting the proposals of the Executive. Parliament, in particular the House of Commons, is the representative of the people, and the decision in most cases should be that of the people through their representatives. I therefore urge the Government not to seek hurriedly to reconcile the differences that have been made clear within it, but to think about the possibility of couching a resolution in terms that are wide enough to cover most eventualities. In so doing, they would strengthen the basic protections of our constitution.
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield (CB)
My Lords, I declare my membership of the Chief of the Defence Staff’s Strategic Advisory Panel, though I have not given my views on the matter before your Lordships’ House this evening during any of the panel’s deliberations.
It was the late Viscount Stansgate, father to Tony and David Benn, who said that the fundamental purpose of the House of Commons was to control the purse and the sword. It used to be thought that Parliament controlled the sword by controlling the purse; that kings, and later Prime Ministers and Cabinets, could wage war only if the House of Commons granted sufficient supply to pay for them. That changed in the era of “fight with what you have got” conflicts, such as the Falklands War, which came out of the blue in 1982, requiring the putting together of a task force without time to convert British defence industries to a war footing, although some crucial procurements were very swiftly stepped up.
Ours is also an era when wars are no longer declared, a point to which my noble and gallant friend Lord Guthrie alluded a moment ago. The last time the United Kingdom did so was, I think, against Siam in January 1942. A declaration of war against Argentina was considered over what one might call the “Falklands weekend” in the first days of April 1982 and the 1939 file on how to do it was sent for. It could not be found. A search was mounted in what was then a called the Public Record Office. Still no file was found. It turned up 12 years later in 1994. It was just two sides of paper, drawn up for the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, by the Foreign Office’s legal adviser, Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice, on the day of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, 23 August 1939. On 12 September 1939, it had been consigned to the FO’s registry in a collection known as “General and Miscellaneous” and therefore lost for 55 years.
A number of Select Committees in both Houses, as we have heard, have examined the shift of war-making from the ancient prerogatives of the Crown exercised by Ministers to the convention that, if time and circumstances permit, the House of Commons will have the ultimate say on peace and war in a substantive Motion. I welcome the latest of these examinations, the report from your Lordships’ Constitution Committee, which lays out the current position on future options clearly, concisely and persuasively—so persuasively that I have to confess that its report of July 2013 has changed my mind. I used to think it desirable that at least some of the war-making powers should morph from the back of an envelope not just into a convention, which is where we are now, but on to the face of a Bill, so profound, fundamental and laden with consequences, foreseeable and unforeseeable, is the question of peace and war. I shall return in a moment to my second thoughts.
There is a spectrum—a hierarchy of needs and contingencies—on this most sensitive of constitutional matters. Some threats by their very nature require the specific constitutional arrangements for tackling them to remain what one might call prerogative pure.
I shall give two examples. The first is the almost unthinkable contingency of a Prime Minister authorising nuclear retaliation after a nuclear assault on our islands. This responsibility falls to the Prime Minister and to usually two so-called nuclear deputies, lest the PM is wiped out straightaway by a bolt from the blue. If the alternates are killed as well, the Prime Minister’s instructions, to retaliate or not to retaliate, from beyond the grave are inside the inner safes in the control rooms of all four of the Royal Navy’s Trident missile-carrying Vanguard-class submarines. As we debate this evening, the boat carrying one of David Cameron’s so-called last resort letters is somewhere deep and undetectable in its patrol area beneath the swell of the north Atlantic.
A second example of prerogative pure decision-making is the, I regret to say, far more likely contingency of the Prime Minister and his three or four alternates having to make the decision—which they have all exercised—on whether to authorise RAF Typhoons to shoot down a civil aircraft which there is reason to believe is on a 9/11 mission against our country and is ignoring an array of indicators and instructions from the Typhoons and air traffic control to divert and land at Stansted.
The central question before us focuses, however, on the deployment and use of British Armed Forces beyond our territory in circumstances that allow for sufficient time for the question of peace and war to be placed before Parliament. Developments this century have created a near consensus not just on the desirability of the House of Commons voting on a substantive Motion, but on the Government providing ingredients for the debate that should be placed before the Chamber before the Division Bells sound.
They include a full opinion, not a shrivelled one, from the Attorney-General on the legality of the deployment proposed—an intelligence assessment containing as much as can be safely divulged about what is known to the Government through their mix of secret and open sources. Also desirable, though humility is needed here on the part of all Governments, is an assessment of the duration of operations and the eventual exit arrangements from foreign soil.
The question is whether the existing convention on consulting the House of Commons is all that is needed to ensure that future Governments in anxious and uncertain times retain a sense of due process and a duty of care and consultation to Parliament. I was pleased when the Foreign Secretary said on 21 March 2011 during the Commons debate on Libya that the coalition would,
“enshrine in law for the future the necessity of consulting Parliament on military action”.—[Official Report, Commons, 21/3/2011; col. 799.]
I understand, however, that real difficulties have been experienced in framing such a statute in a way that reflects the contingencies that our country might face. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, was very eloquent and persuasive on that. The report of your Lordships’ Constitution Committee makes plain how stretching such a task is, which is why I have changed my mind somewhat on the feasibility of a use of Armed Forces Act for the UK.
However, we need to buttress the existing convention with a House of Commons resolution. Conventions can be friable and fragile. They can crumble at the touch of a powerful, insensitive and determined Executive, especially in circumstances where one’s country and its allies are living and breathing in the shadow of potential armed conflict.
House of Commons resolutions, by contrast, are things of sinew and, one would wish, endurance. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, when he winds up, will give a more detailed explanation of why the coalition has ruled out the framing of a “Use of Armed Forces” resolution in time for it to be put to the House of Commons before the end of this Parliament, although I recognise the force of what my noble and gallant friend Lord Guthrie was saying.
In the mean time, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, and her colleagues for the considerable service that their committee has provided for your Lordships’ House with this report on such a fundamental constitutional matter.
Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)
My Lords, I wish to intervene briefly. First, I congratulate the noble Baroness and her committee on what I think is an absolutely excellent report and on the way in which she introduced this debate. The report is certainly extremely timely, coming so soon after the recent debates on Syria that exercised us all.
I do not know why the Defence Council ever got involved in this. I never thought that it had any relevance to this problem, and I am not surprised that it was quickly dismissed. I certainly agree with the Cabinet role. I served in a war Cabinet, which then had to report to the formal Cabinet. I recall that at the time of the Falklands War, Mrs Thatcher went round every single member of the Cabinet to ask for their support for the action she proposed to take.
The role of Parliament and the support of Parliament, as the noble and gallant Lord said, are absolutely crucial. When I was involved in the first Gulf War, I used to go out to talk to the troops in the Gulf. It was hugely important for me to be able to say to our forces, “Not only is there support for you from the Government and the Prime Minister”—and I had a change of Prime Minister halfway through—“but there is enormous support from the people in the form of their representatives in the House of Commons”. That was extraordinarily important.
I think that the convention is a stronger element than some might give it credit for, although I will be interested to see whether the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who gave a most interesting speech, can find a resolution that can be drafted.
I have been thinking about the things that have happened since I had any responsibility in this area. We never had drones or conducted anti-piracy operations. We did not have counterterrorism. We had not had 9/11 by then, so there was not the need for the speedy reaction that the noble and gallant Lord referred to. We had not had cyberattacks. We had not had sanctions supported by military force or the threat of military force. Certainly, I never declared war, even though we were involved in an exercise in which we sent 45,000 troops fully armed and equipped to evict Saddam Hussein from Kuwait.
I do not know under what authority we set up something called Operation Provide Comfort. We had a United Nations resolution to evict Saddam Hussein from Kuwait—a country that he should not have been in—but at the end of that conflict, as some may recall, we found that he was attacking the Kurds in northern Iraq. We sent into Iraq a Marine commando unit and Tornados, based, I think, on a Turkish air base at Incirlik, and we conducted air patrols over northern Iraq. I am not sure under what authority we did that, but it illustrates exactly the point made by the noble and gallant Lord: things develop and you get mission creep, although mainly very desirable mission creep, and that has to be covered.
Against that background, I entirely understand why the Minister, in giving his evidence to the parliamentary committee and discussing Mr William Hague’s assertion that the necessity to consult Parliament would be enshrined in legislation, said that we had found that things were a bit more complicated—“a bit more complex” was, I think, the phrase that he used—than we had previously imagined. I agree with that very much. There are complexities and difficulties, and when our forces are put into “harm’s way”—an awful phrase—it is very important to ensure that their position is protected.
Noble Lords may be aware that I serve on the Select Committee that is looking at the operation of the Inquiries Act 2005. Yesterday we took evidence from a senior official at the Ministry of Defence whose job never existed in my time. He is head of claims, judicial reviews and public inquiries. This covers a whole range of activities in which we see the problems of our forces being faced with the threat of legal actions of one sort or another. In the brief and necessarily quick remarks that I will make, I will say that the noble Baroness’s committee came to the right answer.
I will make one further point. As was rightly said, this is a decision for the House of Commons; the House of Lords can only advise. Looking back to those debates on Syria, would it not have been a good thing if the House of Lords debate had been the day before, when the considerable experience of this House and the advice brought to the subject would have been available to the House of Commons? By accident, fortunately, the House of Commons prevented us going to war. I was highly relieved about that, as I made clear in my speech. That is one element that might be added to convention. Otherwise, the Government’s response is that they are now considering which way to proceed. I do not think that they need to proceed very far. We have the right basis on which to operate.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab)
My Lords, along with other noble Lords who have spoken in this excellent debate, can I put on record my thanks to my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington for bringing this report to the House? I also thank other members of the committee under her chairmanship for the thoughtful, well argued, incisive and timely report into the constitutional arrangements for the use of armed force.
As the report and the noble Baroness, Lady Jay, said, the committee looked at the issue in 2006 and conducted an extensive inquiry. It came to the conclusion more recently that with the establishment of the National Security Council in 2010, the lack of clarity in the role of the Defence Council and the changing nature of military interventions overseas, it should have another look at the constitutional arrangements. We are all grateful to the committee for that.
The position on the use of force by Her Majesty’s Armed Forces is clear. As noble Lords know, it is exercised by the Prime Minister of the day and the Cabinet. It is a decision of the Government, and Parliament has no legal role in authorising or approving the use of our Armed Forces overseas. Parliament looks carefully at the use of force and we in this House benefit from enormous expertise, such as that of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, on such matters. Members will be aware that for the conflicts in both Iraq and Libya, there were votes to approve the use of force, that recently a vote in respect of Syria was not carried and that the Government respected those votes.
It is also important to point out that there could be emergency situations when the immediate use of force is necessary. It would be helpful to the House if the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, could elaborate, as other noble Lords have asked, on the Government’s decision-making process in respect of Syria. The committee rightly highlighted that the Government took some time to make their position clear. The committee during the course of its inquiry looked at the internal decision-making processes of the Government, and at the major difference since the 2006 inquiry with the creation of the National Security Council. The view of many is that this has been an important and significant development that is proving beneficial to the decision-making process—I am very much in agreement with that—and helps allow an institutional memory to develop.
The inquiry also confirmed the position of the Defence Council, and noble and gallant Lords, such as Lord Guthrie and Lord Stirrup, confirmed the process of providing advice to the Prime Minister of the day in respect of the Armed Forces. We on these Benches very much agree with the committee when it says that the processes and mechanisms of the Government are not well understood and that the Government should amend the Cabinet Manual to include a detailed description of the internal arrangements for advising and deciding on the use of armed force. I am pleased that in the response to the report the Government have confirmed that they will do so the next time a major revision of the Cabinet Manual is carried out.
On the role of Parliament, it is Parliament’s job to hold the Executive to account, and it does that in both Houses through asking questions, scrutinising and challenging the Government of the day. This House benefits enormously from the specific expertise of Members who have held senior positions in the military, the foreign and diplomatic service and other senior Civil Service positions, such as previous Cabinet Secretaries, along with former Ministers such as the noble Lord, Lord King, who have held Cabinet positions in some of the most senior offices of state.
I very much agreed with the committee when it highlighted the need for parliamentary approval, not only in holding the Executive to account for their actions but in securing legitimacy and improving the morale of service men and women who are away from home and putting their lives at risk to keep us and our fellow citizens safe.
I congratulate the committee on how it sets out the three options for Parliament’s role, to which many noble Lords have referred today: first, primary legislation; secondly, a detailed resolution of the House of Commons; or, thirdly, remaining with the existing convention whereby the House of Commons is given the opportunity to debate and vote on the deployment of Armed Forces overseas. As I mentioned earlier, the House of Lords also has a role to play in debating the merits of deployment decisions.
I am sure that in years to come the committee will look again at this issue but, from these Benches, the Opposition agree with the committee and the Government that, save in exceptional circumstances, the House of Commons should be given the opportunity to express its view by way of a debate and a vote. This will enable the House of Commons to exercise political control and confer legitimacy on such decisions. As the committee said, it is flexible, effective and consistent with the existing structure of parliamentary scrutiny of the Executive.
The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, made clear her support for a full resolution of the House of Commons, but I do not agree with her at this stage in that respect. I agree with the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank. The noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, who was described by the Independent as the giant of constitutional scholarship, in his excellent contribution, has given all in the House points to reflect on.
I agree with the committee when it expresses concern at the effect on morale and the operational independence of the Armed Forces that scrutiny by the courts of operational decisions could bring. I am pleased that the Government concur with that view. The Prime Minister of the day, with his or her Cabinet, often has to ask extraordinary servicemen and servicewomen to put their lives on the line to protect the country and keep us safe. As the report highlighted—this was referred to by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank—when the decision to deploy has been made, commanders must be given the freedom to command on the battlefield in the way that they think best. We have to trust the commanders to get it right. We cannot, as politicians, micromanage conflict situations on the ground.
In bringing my comments to a close, perhaps I may ask the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, two questions. First, given the excellent and thorough report of the committee, will the Government commit to writing to the committee in 12 months’ time, setting out the relevant progress made on the committee’s recommendations and, in particular relation to the Cabinet Manual, can he tell us, as my noble friend Lady Jay said, what he means by a major review of the Cabinet Manual and how often it will happen?
Secondly, given the understandable public concern about the use of armed force, what ongoing work will the Government carry out to ensure that the conventions articulated in the report around the consultation with Parliament are fully understood by the public?
Finally, I thank all noble Lords who spoke in the debate; the Constitution Committee, under the chair of my noble friend Lady Jay of Paddington, for its thorough and excellent report; and my noble friend for bringing the report to the attention of the House and enabling us to have an excellent debate.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Government welcome the report of this committee. As noble Lords will be aware, the Commons comparable committee, to which I gave evidence last month, is now compiling a similar report. We hope that that committee’s report will be published within the next few weeks and that it will take our debate a little further forward. The Government will reflect on both reports and respond to the Commons committee report. I have no doubt that in the course of the next year our conversation will move on.
As outlined in their response to this report, the Government are extremely grateful for the committee’s thorough and thoughtful consideration. As the committee recognises, the decision to deploy UK troops in overseas conflicts is one of the most difficult and important that a Government can take. We all recognise that the shadow of the decisions on Iraq, and the fact that the available information which led to the decision on Iraq was not entirely full, is part of the context in which we have been discussing this ever since.
In 2011, the Government acknowledged that a convention had evolved whereby the House of Commons should have the opportunity to debate and vote on such deployment decisions before troops were committed, except when there was an emergency and such action would therefore not be appropriate. Our commitment to that convention was demonstrated most recently by the Government’s decision to request the recall of Parliament on 29 August this year to debate the role that the UK should play in relation to the conflict in Syria, and then to respect the will of the House of Commons expressed by the subsequent vote. The committee’s report concludes that that convention provides the best framework for the House of Commons in which to exercise political control over, and confer legitimacy on, decisions to deploy UK forces in overseas conflicts.
There have been, in this debate, a number of interventions saying that we needed to go further and that we should formalise that convention through a resolution of the House of Commons, although there has been a great deal of sympathy in this debate for the view that formalisation through statute would perhaps attempt to make things too solid in a situation where, as the noble Lord, Lord King, remarked, the definition of armed conflict and the decisions about deployment we are taking could take many forms. Those include whether or not one puts troops on the ground, sends cruise missiles or drones or sends a training unit to Mali, supported by a couple of transport planes, to deal with a situation in which one is dealing not with conflict, let alone with forces of another state, but with armed groups operating across borders in states which do not entirely control their own territory and one does not know how far they may have to go once they are there. That is very much where we are now.
I have immense admiration for the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, and indeed I recall a stage in 1996 when we regarded him as so much the living embodiment of the British constitution that my party arranged for him to give a lecture on how coalition government might be formed, because we thought that his would be an authoritative view if we found we had to do so. I say to him that the idea that any Government could now say, before committing troops to armed conflict, that we knew how long they might be deployed for, let alone what the exit strategy might be, does not fit with where we now find ourselves. Mali is a good example. There are a number of other conflicts in Africa at the present moment—indeed, there have been a number of other requests for a couple of British transport aircraft or a training team—of the sort that we are likely to be find ourselves in in the coming years where the question of where the threshold comes is very difficult to operate. That is part of the argument that we are going through within government at the moment and about which we are having a dialogue with Parliament.
My response is that I find myself—rather to my surprise—becoming one of the Government’s supposed experts on this area, and we need to have a continuing dialogue with Parliament about the numbers of deployments that we have. I remind the House—as I said in evidence to the Commons committee—that there are now 16 different operations overseas under European common security and defence policy. The British have contingents in 14 of these. I am sure all noble Lords taking part in this debate could name all of them. In most cases, these are very small numbers of people; some of them are policemen, not military. In all of them, we are not entirely sure how secure they are or how long these deployments will last. In places like Somalia and South Sudan, or in Darfur, where we are often working with UN, AU or other forces, the question of how far we are formally committed is itself not entirely clear. That is part of the uncertain world in which we live.
Baroness Falkner of Margravine
I do not want to make heavy weather of this, particularly not at this late hour. I do not think, however, that anyone in this House first of all talked of legally enshrining in statute a method of dealing with this. The difference between us is about a draft resolution or the convention. The conflicts that my noble friend has described are of course in a wide grey area, but several of them are not covered by the law of armed conflict, hence the Labour Party’s draft resolution would not need to come into force in that regard.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
The question of where the threshold should lie and what sort of triggers one has on this is very much part of what we need to discuss further.
I will try to answer some of the questions raised by noble Lords. Several noble Lords asked when the next revision of the Cabinet Manual will be. I think that I have to say, “In due course”. The latest revision came early in this Parliament under a new Government. I think it is likely that the next Government will find it convenient to take in a further revision but I hesitate to commit that Government, whoever they may be.
Much of what we are talking about is whether you are taking a decision—as on Syria, for example—where it is clear that you are making a major commitment. It would clearly have been a major event to send either cruise missiles or planes over Syria. We were over the threshold and therefore it was entirely proper for Parliament to consider it and take the decision.
There are a number of other areas where it is not entirely clear where the threshold is. The noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie, rightly pointed out that the Gulf conflict involved a very major commitment of forces. However, we found ourselves carrying on afterwards in Kurdistan, with a number of much more shaded decisions to take. I think I recall being told that there was a point during that deployment when the colonel in charge of the Royal Marine commando issued orders to his companies, and the Dutch major who was part of the commando said, “If you ask my company to do that, I will need to refer back to The Hague”. We are all struggling with evolving situations in which one has to say, again, that the legality and legitimacy are also in play.
The noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, talked about legality and the need to make sure that we are in accordance with international law. Similarly again, as Professor Sands would accept, it is not entirely clear what international law requires. Do we have to have a resolution of the UN Security Council, with all five permanent members authorising the action? The western powers intervened in Kosovo with some real sense of legitimacy, in spite of the resistance of some permanent members of the Security Council. Do we have to be sure that we can justify what we did in terms of the concept of just war? In the aftermath of the Iraq war, I remember taking part in a rather large Anglo-American conference, jointly organised by the Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church, on the concept of just war and coming away thinking that we had failed to agree on what that concept really meant in the modern world. We have the doctrine of responsibility to protect, which is very attractive but also not entirely easy to pin down on the ground.
A number of noble Lords spoke about the importance of public confidence and of troops knowing, once deployed, that Parliament has given formal approval. In an extended conflict, it is important to make sure that Parliament continues to have confidence in the mission. Going to war nowadays, or committing troops to conflict, is not simply a decision but a process. It therefore requires a continuing dialogue between the Government and Parliament and, of course, between the Government and the wider public.
I would say to the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, that conventions are not entirely fragile. Conventions are developed and are difficult for a Government to break. Commons resolutions have more solidity but they can also be bent—they have sinews but they do seem to move up and down. My own sense of all this dialogue is that we need to continue to reflect and argue.
Within a few weeks we will have the report of the Commons committee. The Government will have to respond to that committee and that will take us further along the road to deciding how far we can strengthen the existing convention, how far it should be formalised in a resolution—I recognise that there are those in both Houses who believe that the time has come for a formal resolution—and how far the convention should be written into the next edition of the Cabinet Manual. Rightly, this issue will continue to attract the attention of both Houses of Parliament. Mention has been made of the Chilcot inquiry, which we all hope will emerge soon, and that will feed into this debate.
I end by thanking the committee for this report. It has aroused further debate within the Government. I have met officials in recent weeks to discuss it further. We will continue to reflect on this. The Government’s response to the Commons committee will be the next stage in that. Part of that reflection will be whether we are satisfied that this convention has now become strong enough or whether we should yield to the demands in both Houses that what we now need is a resolution. If so, we need to reflect on how that resolution should be formed and what sort of threshold one might need to write into such a resolution, as well as the continuing dialogue that Parliament and the Government need to have about the commitment of armed forces. In future these are likely to be in relatively small elements, which are multinational, in which the British may not be a major element, in which we are in support of the troops of other nations, and in which we are dealing with multiple conflict situations in weak states as often as we are dealing with a conflict against a state—after all, the Gulf conflict was a conflict against a state and therefore relatively clear—and we will come back to Parliament with our conclusions when they are ready.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark
My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, I asked him two specific questions which perhaps he could clarify. I am very happy if he wants to reflect on these and come back to the House at a later date or write to Members and place a copy in the Library. I asked him about writing to the committee in 12 months’ time with regard to the progress of the recommendations. Secondly, I asked him what the Government are going to do about ensuring that the public more fully understand the conventions.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I hoped that I had answered the question about the evolution of the conventions and the future of the Cabinet Manual. Before 12 months have elapsed, the Government will be responding to the report of the Commons committee, which will take us to the next stage.
Of course we wish to ensure that the conventions are understood by the public. I am not sure that the mass public all want to understand the exact nature of parliamentary conventions but we will do our best. Perhaps the Government should consider sending the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, on a tour of the country to give a number of public lectures explaining the nature of this particular convention.
Baroness Jay of Paddington
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his very thoughtful and detailed response. Following the point just made by my noble friend Lord Kennedy of Southwark, it would be helpful to the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House if, in responding to the Commons committee, the Government could explicitly take note of and reflect on the points that have been made in this report, which I think will continue to be relevant.
Of course, everybody in the House understands that the Government are dealing with a rapidly evolving situation and, in the Minister’s words, are continuing the dialogue. I am sure that is something that we are all glad to hear.
I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate. As I predicted, the speeches have demonstrated the knowledge and experience of all those who have spoken. I am particularly glad that the noble Lord, Lord King, as a former Secretary of State for Defence and member of war cabinets, found time to intervene. He was very helpful in making his observations about how rapidly things were changing, particularly how rapidly they have changed since he was making these decisions on the country’s behalf.
It was also very interesting that both the noble Lord, Lord King, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, referred to the role that the House of Lords can play in debates and decisions on these matters. I hope the Government will take note of that. I think everyone in the House would be convinced that the House of Lords would not be able to have a particular decision-making role in this. However, there is a necessity to use the experience here—which has been well described this evening and of which we are all very well aware—to spotlight the questions that arise in these different matters. That is very important.
Overall, frankly, the debate illustrated the complexities of the practical situations in which the Government and the country find themselves, and the difficulties of formulating any process more formally than the one we have at the moment. I know the committee will be particularly impressed to hear that it persuaded the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, to change his mind. When I report back to it, that will be something of which it is particularly proud. The noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, illustrated the animated discussions that we had within the committee but she, as a good democrat, accepted the overall position of the committee in the report, which was—to summarise it in the phrase of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Guthrie—that we could not be overly prescriptive. That reflects my continuing position.