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Oral Answers to Questions
(11 years ago)
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Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
1. What recent meetings he has had with representatives of the retail sector.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
I regularly meet representatives of the retail sector. I attend the retail policy forum, which meets three times a year, and I recently spoke at the Association of Convenience Stores’ heart of the community conference. As part of small business Saturday, I will visit independent shops in Westerham this weekend and I encourage all colleagues to support this hugely important campaign.
Ann Coffey
The rise in e-commerce and online sales is changing our shopping habits and impacting on our high streets. What more can the Minister do to encourage co-operation between big retailers, independent retailers and councils to take advantage of the opportunities offered by developing technology to transform our high streets into exciting community spaces for the 21st century?
Michael Fallon
I agree with the hon. Lady about the huge opportunity here. We are keen to help small businesses in particular to trade online. With the help of my Department, Go ON UK is piloting a programme to help to provide businesses with the skills to transact online, including using mobile technologies to exploit the increasing use of smartphones in e-commerce. That will roll out nationally next spring. The Technology Strategy Board carried out a successful digital high street pilot last year in Hereford and it is currently exploring how to build on that.
Mr James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
I, too, will be out and about in Calne, Royal Wotton Bassett and Malmesbury on small business Saturday, supporting our small retailers. Does the Minister agree that one of the biggest burdens I will hear about as I wander around will be the overwhelming burden of business rates on small businesses? What action can he take now to lessen that appalling burden?
Michael Fallon
My hon. Friend will know that we have doubled small business rate relief and have already extended it until 2014. On our plans after that, I must ask him to be patient a little longer.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
Chester has been a fantastic shopping centre for centuries, but it faces increased competition from online shopping and out-of-town shopping centres. Does my right hon. Friend agree that these days we have to make shopping an entertainment experience, with cafés, bars and on-street entertainment to drag people back on to the high street?
Michael Fallon
Yes, I do agree. As the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) put it, we have to make high streets community spaces again that are not simply for transactional shopping. There are a number of ways in which high streets can respond to the challenge of e-commerce and the Government are here to help.
Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
2. If he will meet representatives of the small business sector to discuss the removal of unnecessary regulation.
The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
I am very happy to meet small business representatives. We actively listen to feedback on regulation, including through the red tape challenge, but we do not just meet representatives—we act. For instance, we are freeing about 1 million self-employed people from health and safety law where their work poses no harm to others.
Mr Bellingham
I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that King’s Lynn and west Norfolk has an incredibly diverse economy? Experts tell me that since 2010, 1,000 new small businesses have been set up. Will he tell the House that he is as determined as ever to go on championing the cause of removing unnecessary burdens on business, and does he agree that small businesses will be the major exporters of the future? What will he be doing on Saturday to champion wealth creation and enterprise?
Matthew Hancock
Like my hon. Friend and many Members across the House, I will be celebrating small business Saturday this weekend. We are constantly vigilant and listening to small businesses to make sure that their task is made easier and the burdens we place on them made smaller.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
If the Minister is in listening mode and cares so much about regulation, will he look very carefully at the threat to crowdfunding, which is a real alternative for small business and community group start-ups? The Financial Conduct Authority is conducting an inquiry and consultation. If we get this wrong and implement inappropriate regulation, it will kill something wonderful that can regenerate communities and business.
Matthew Hancock
I agree with every word that the hon. Gentleman says. We are supporting crowdfunding on financial terms, not least through the new business bank, but we are also making sure that it can operate in a high-quality framework. The fact that there will be a regulatory framework around crowd-sourced funding has been welcomed by the sector. We have to get it right, and I will meet Martin Wheatley of the FCA to make sure that we get the details right.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Some of the most burdensome regulations on manufacturing companies in my constituency are the registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals regulations imposed by Brussels. Will the Minister undertake to work across Government to do all he can to reduce the burden of these REACH regulations?
Matthew Hancock
Yes, the REACH regulations are among the 30 recently highlighted by the EU business taskforce. As my hon. Friend knows, we are working hard to reduce the burden of those regulations.
Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
3. What steps he is taking to support small businesses.
John Howell (Henley) (Con)
4. What steps he is taking to support small businesses.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
7. What steps he is taking to support small businesses.
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)
We are doing more than ever to support small business. More than 10,000 StartUp loans have been drawn down since the scheme’s launch in September 2012. Over the past year, UK Trade & Investment has helped 32,000 businesses to export, the growth accelerator scheme has supported 10,000 small businesses and the regional growth fund has helped a further 3,200.
Miss McIntosh
I shall support small businesses in Helmsley this Saturday. Will the Secretary of State use his good offices to encourage the local enterprise partnership for North Yorkshire to make funds available to improve the A64 corridor, because its safety record and its terrible congestion are holding back growth for all businesses along its route?
Vince Cable
I will certainly make sure that the local enterprise partnership is aware of my hon. Friend’s priorities. In relation to small business Saturday, I praise the activities that she is undertaking in Helmsley. That council is one of 25 that will offer free parking that day, and I hope that a few more will sign up to that in the next 48 hours. I shall be in Twickenham to support my small businesses.
John Howell
I will support small business Saturday by literally putting small businesses in my constituency on the map on my website. What will the Secretary of State do to improve access to finance and mentoring to ensure that Oxfordshire businesses continue to thrive?
Vince Cable
I think we all agree that small business Saturday is a positive, cross-party initiative, and hon. Members on both sides of the House will be out there backing it. I praise the originality of my hon. Friend’s approach.
On small business funding—I am sure this issue will be raised many times—I have drawn attention to the StartUp loans scheme that is helping large numbers of start-ups to get going, and the business bank is supporting both new and original forms of funding, as well as a rapid expansion of guarantees for existing companies.
Jason McCartney
I, too, will support small business Saturday, as I have done in the build-up to this weekend. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating the Holmfirth Hullabaloo and Totally Locally Slaithwaite campaigns, which have engaged local shopkeepers with innovative reward and prize schemes to encourage local communities to shop locally?
Vince Cable
I do not know what those exciting schemes involve, but they sound fun. The basic underlying theme is that we are all being urged to support our local shops and to shop locally. I am sure that is a very good theme around which we can all unite.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
Across my constituency, small businesses are being forced out by big developers who want to redevelop them for luxury flats. The local council is supporting that, and in the case of Shepherd’s Bush market, has even issued compulsory purchase orders to drive out small businesses. The Tory party will always prefer big business over small business. What will the Secretary of State do about this situation?
Vince Cable
This distinction between big business and small business is seriously unhelpful—most big businesses have supply chains—and we should support both.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Many small and medium-sized enterprises in my constituency—including in Shoreditch, which the Prime Minister calls tech city—are keen to bid for Government contracts, thereby growing, employing more people and becoming larger businesses. What is the Department doing to support them, because they face many hurdles in trying to become Government contractors?
Vince Cable
The hon. Lady will find that the trend in Government procurement is very much on track to meet the 25% target for small business. It is much more difficult with devolved bodies, such as health authorities and local government, but we are working on that with the relevant Departments.
Mr David Hanson (Delyn) (Lab)
Less than seven days ago, the Secretary of State said to a small business forum in Bath that solar energy
“had a part to play in powering the nation”.
Will he tell me whether Government is actually joined up, given that small businesses in my constituency are complaining to me about the cuts announced yesterday?
Vince Cable
Enormous numbers of homes use solar power. The major technological advances in that area are driving down costs. We need to see that happen across renewable energy. The Government of course had to cut the subsidy when it became clear that the industry was more sustainable.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
Without wishing to show off, I am going to 20 small businesses on Saturday across Chesterfield and Staveley—my wife is bringing her purse.
The urgency of small business Saturday seems all the more serious after a recent report by the Association of Convenience Stores which shows that 55% of its owner members earn less than the minimum wage on an hourly basis. Is the Secretary of State really telling those people that further cuts to corporation tax for big companies are a higher priority than cutting their business rates, which are the most expensive commercial property tax in Europe?
Vince Cable
I am very sympathetic to the business groups that have consistently made representations over the past few months to say that business rates are a major burden. This Department has certainly made it clear that we regard it as a major issue. The hon. Gentleman will have to wait for an hour or so to find out what the Chancellor is doing about it.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
5. How many regulations affecting small businesses the Government have (a) introduced and (b) removed since May 2010.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
The statement of new regulation, which we publish every six months, shows that since January 2011 we have introduced 57 regulatory measures, 135 deregulatory measures and 108 measures that have no net cost to business, many of which are deregulatory. That is saving British businesses nearly £1 billion a year. Small businesses, which account for 99% of all businesses, benefit in particular from the one in, one out rule—it is now the one in, two out rule—that drives this deregulation.
Mr Hollobone
I congratulate the Minister on his efforts to secure an exemption for micro-businesses from specific EU regulations. That will help small businesses in Kettering and across the country. What further efforts does he intend to make to secure more exemptions from harsh EU rules?
Michael Fallon
The EU business taskforce, which I chair, identified 30 regulations that should be repealed. We continue to press the Commission to lighten the rules for small businesses and to exempt the very smallest businesses altogether.
Graeme Morrice (Livingston) (Lab)
6. What recent estimate he has made of the number of apprentices being paid below the apprenticeship minimum wage.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)
The Government have overseen one of the most successful expansions of apprenticeships, with about 1.5 million apprenticeship starts since 2010. However, we are concerned that the level of non-compliance with national minimum wage rules, which the 2012 apprenticeships survey shows to be 27%, remains too high. The Government have zero tolerance for employers who break the law. That is why we have introduced a range of enhanced enforcement measures to crack down on such rogue employers.
Graeme Morrice
I thank the Minister for her answer. It is certainly worrying that the proportion of apprentices who are not receiving the apprenticeship minimum wage has increased and that one in four apprentices do not receive it. What firm and decisive action is she taking to clamp down on the rising non-compliance of employers with the apprenticeship minimum wage, especially given that the number of young people aged 16 to 18 who are starting apprenticeships has fallen?
Jo Swinson
The hon. Gentleman raises an issue that the Government are concerned about and are acting on. From 1 July, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has prioritised complaints about the apprenticeship minimum wage to ensure that it brings proper enforcement against employers who are not paying it. Further, we have made it much easier to name and shame employers who do not pay the minimum wage. We have also announced that we will increase the maximum penalty fine to £20,000. That tough programme of enforcement action should help to ensure that businesses pay their workers properly. That is what the public expect and it is what most responsible businesses already do.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that the number of apprenticeships in my constituency of Harlow has increased by more than 80% in the past year? Will she congratulate the Harlow and district chamber of commerce and the businesses who are hiring apprentices and paying them proper apprenticeship wages? Will she also welcome the new university technical school, which is, in essence, a pre-apprentice school that will provide young people with skills?
Jo Swinson
I happily offer those congratulations, and I add to them my congratulations to my hon. Friend for the unfailing way in which he has championed apprenticeships, not just in his constituency, but in this House by encouraging many Members to take on apprentices in their offices. It is important to ensure that young people have such opportunities. That is why the Government have invested significantly in expanding apprenticeships so much.
Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)
Does the Minister accept that companies such as Wetherspoon, which will open shortly in my constituency, are taking on young people on zero-hours contracts?
Jo Swinson
The hon. Gentleman is right that many workers are employed on zero-hours contracts. In some cases those can work well, but in other cases there are concerns about abuse. That is why the Department has undertaken a fact-finding exercise, and we will shortly launch a consultation on what action can be taken to ensure that such contracts are not abused.
Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)
8. What steps he is taking to encourage more people to become engineers.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
17. What steps he is taking to promote engineering as a career.
The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
In September the Government announced a £400 million boost for science, technology, engineering and maths teaching. Last month we launched the first annual Tomorrow’s Engineers week, during which the Government worked with more than 70 partners. Our recently published Perkins review of engineering skills calls for action from employers, educators and the profession to work with us to inspire young people to become engineers.
Nigel Mills
Does the Minister agree with the importance of getting local engineering employers to work closely with skills providers to inspire young people to go into engineering, and will he join me in welcoming the soon-to-open Heanor studio college, which will do exactly that?
Mr Willetts
We strongly support such initiatives, which are absolutely what is required to ensure that employers get the skilled engineers they need.
Neil Carmichael
Now that the Government’s economic plan is delivering the rebalanced economy we need, we also need engineers, as the Minister just said. Does he agree that one way forward is to encourage engineering in schools, and to ensure that it is considered a protected profession?
Mr Willetts
I certainly agree that we need to encourage engineering in schools. “Engineer” is not a restricted term, but we support professional titles such as “chartered engineer” or “engineering technician”, which are regulated, and we aim to register 100,000 apprenticeships with EngTech status by 2018.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
Does the Minister agree that investing in fundamental research is vital to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers and to create conditions for the serendipitous discoveries of the future?
Mr Willetts
I completely agree with the hon. Lady, which is why the Government support fundamental research. Only last week I went to the launch of £250 million of public money for centres of doctoral training run by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)
One of the biggest engineering projects this country has ever seen will be High Speed 2. What specific steps is the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills taking in conjunction with the Department for Transport to ensure that engineering opportunities are available to businesses throughout the entire country, not just firms adjacent to the route?
Mr Willetts
We are already working with the current largest infrastructure plan, Crossrail, to ensure that skills are available and that we take the opportunity to build up skills in crucial techniques such as tunnelling. We will take the same approach to HS2.
Mr Mark Spencer (Sherwood) (Con)
I recently visited Fairfield Control Systems in my constituency, which is a small engineering company responsible not only for moving the roof at Wimbledon, but for the Division bells in the House of Commons. One of its main concerns was the Government’s encouragement of STEM subjects by the Department for Education. Has the Minister spoken with that Department about how we can encourage the teaching of STEM subjects within the school system?
Mr Willetts
STEMnet ambassadors are doing a fantastic job of going to schools to encourage young people to study those subjects. There is a surge in the number of young people taking A-levels in subjects such as maths and physics, which are often a requirement for going on to engineering.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
9. What assessment he has made of the ability of businesses to recruit staff with appropriate IT skills.
The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
Our recent information economy strategy shows that employers find it hard to get people with the right IT skills, yet there is also relatively high unemployment among computer science graduates. That is why I recently convened a round-table with vice-chancellors and employers to tackle that mismatch. I know that issue is vital in the Malvern cyber-valley that my hon. Friend does so much to support.
Harriett Baldwin
Indeed, cyber-security IT skills are vital for the online world. Will the Minister welcome the initiative by private sector firms in my constituency to set up a cyber-skills training centre, and may I invite him, once again, to visit?
Mr Willetts
I do support that initiative and I hope it will be possible to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency, because I know how much she does to support the Malvern cluster, which will soon be rivalling the Cambridge cluster and tech city.
Mr Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (LD)
10. What assessment he has made of the potential opportunities for manufacturers in onshore construction of offshore wind turbines.
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)
In August the Government launched their offshore wind industrial strategy, which aims to build a thriving UK supply chain. Currently, there are 1,375 offshore wind turbines operational or under construction and, on average, half of the capital value of those projects comes from other parts of the supply chain in which the UK has leading expertise. Yesterday’s announcement on the electricity market reform makes clear the Government’s commitment to developing offshore wind in the UK.
Mr Kennedy
I thank my right hon. Friend for that detailed reply, and I too welcome yesterday’s news, not least given the market uncertainty recently when RWE was forced, for geological reasons, to pull out of the proposed £4 billion north Devon offshore wind farm. The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, the right hon. Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), knows that I have raised the potential of the Kishorn site on the west coast of my constituency previously and yesterday’s news will give added confidence to those who are looking at the potential there, but what forms of further support might such a site be able to attract? Given the weather today, I cannot repeat my invitation to my right hon. Friend to visit, but I hope to do so in future, more clement times.
Vince Cable
I would be delighted to visit the site, and the mountains, in my right hon. Friend’s constituency. The site to which he refers is extraordinary and in its prime, in the North sea oil boom, it built the largest mobile structure on the planet at 600,000 tonnes. It has great potential, and if this supply chain development takes place, 2,500 new jobs will be created. We want to do everything we can to make that possible, and the announcement yesterday certainly helps. He will know that the Catapult in Glasgow is working on the technology behind offshore wind developments, and we will do everything we possibly can to make sure that Kishorn and other UK ports develop on the back of that rapidly growing industry.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
The Secretary of State speaks of a rapidly growing industry, but the commitment by the Government three years ago was to 40GW of offshore by 2020. The commitment yesterday was for 10GW. Why has that commitment shrunk to 25% of what it was?
Vince Cable
The hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten that Britain has by far the largest offshore wind industry in the world, and under the guarantees that we gave yesterday it now has the incentive to expand—and will do so, both onshore through the supply chain and offshore in the wind farms.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
11. What progress he has made in setting up a business bank operating regionally and locally.
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)
The British business bank is being established to increase the supply of capital to smaller businesses throughout the UK, resulting in increased competition in the banking sector from alternative lenders, such as peer-to-peer lenders and challenger banks. It is being established with £1 billion of new capital, with another £250 million announced on Monday for new small business programmes.
Stephen Timms
The Secretary of State will know that Bank of England figures show that small business lending fell by £1.5 billion over the past quarter. Can he reassure us that this new institution will be more than simply rebranding the previous schemes that have proved so unsuccessful?
Vince Cable
The right hon. Gentleman is right that there is a negative trend in net lending. It has been sustained and is worrying, although gross lending is now beginning to recover quite rapidly. The interventions of the business bank will do two things. They will support existing schemes—in fact the take-up under the guarantee schemes has risen by 85% over the last year since they came under the business bank—and they will provide new funding. He will know that, under agreements we have already reached, new debt funds have been supported, and those will find their way into support for small businesses in his and other constituencies.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
In north Cumbria, we already have the very successful Cumberland building society. Does the Secretary of State agree that such societies should be supported and, most importantly, smaller financial organisations should not be overburdened by regulation?
Vince Cable
The hon. Gentleman is right that the building societies have a crucial role, primarily of course in mortgage lending, which is their traditional business, but some of them are moving into small business lending and that is very welcome. One of the reasons why the Chancellor and I did not support the recommendations of the parliamentary commission on leverage ratios was to protect building societies and enable them to expand.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
Given the failure of successive well-intentioned but ineffective Government schemes to boost lending for small businesses, including £78 million of unallocated resources for the funding for lending scheme, will the Secretary of State outline what extra measures he will take to ensure that the business bank succeeds where other schemes have failed?
Vince Cable
The bank is already succeeding. As I said to the right hon. Member for East Ham (Stephen Timms), there has been a very big increase in the lending being made available under the existing schemes and a big growth in equity-related activity. I think he will find that, as the business bank moves forward, we will use the £1.25 billion of new capital from the Treasury to do exactly what it was designed to achieve. I am very positive about the bank’s future.
Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
The Secretary of State admits that there have been problems with the Government’s plans. One area of lending at a local level that has been picking up the pieces and expanding is payday lending to businesses. Does the Secretary of State now accept that his Department was wrong to oppose capping the cost of credit, given that businesses have been ripped off by legal loan sharks as much as consumers?
Vince Cable
The evidence from Bristol university among others, which we support, suggested genuine potential problems with a cap on interest rates, but we have been persuaded, on the balance of evidence, that we should do it. There are good experiences, in places such as Florida in the United States, that we will now seek to apply in the UK. I congratulate the hon. Lady and others on their persistent campaigning on this subject. I think we have now achieved a good outcome.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
12. If his Department will make an assessment of the main causes of insecurity in the workplace.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)
The 2011 workplace employment relations study found that employees’ feelings of job insecurity were related to three factors: whether their workplace had been subject to any recent redundancies; the perception among managers of the effect of the recent recession; and the number of changes at work experienced by employees.
John Cryer
An increasing proportion of the work force is subject to zero-hours contracts. Does the Minister think that they have anything to do with job insecurity? Do they contribute to insecurity or do they contribute to security?
Jo Swinson
We have of course been looking at these issues and there is a range of evidence out there. The hon. Gentleman might be interested in the survey published last week by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, which found there was no difference in the level of job security experienced by zero-hours workers compared with the average employee. We have looked at a range of problems that have been identified, such as exclusivity, the information available and the uncertainty over earnings. We will be publishing a consultation shortly.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Is not the greatest cause of insecurity for those in work the nightmare prospect of the shadow Chancellor ever getting anywhere near the door of No. 11 Downing street, given that he has been proved wrong in every single economic prediction he has made?
Jo Swinson
My hon. Friend makes an important and powerful point. We want to ensure job security by having falling unemployment and a growing economy. That is exactly what the Government are delivering. [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. It is a bit unsatisfactory if one Minister is heckling another. You yourself, Mr Hancock, are undergoing an apprenticeship to become a statesman, but I think there are some years to run.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
20. Hundreds of workers across north-east England joined the millions across the country in fearing for their future when npower decided last week to export hundreds of jobs to India and force Thornaby-based workers to travel to a new location nearly an hour away. Does the Minister now understand why half the working population fear for their jobs and feel insecure? What is she going to do about it?
Jo Swinson
The hon. Gentleman understandably raises a constituency case, and I am sure the whole House feels for people in that position. Insecurity in that kind of circumstance, where jobs are lost or people fear for their jobs, is something we all understand. The best way to deliver the security that everybody wants to see for their constituents in work is to continue the recovery that the Government have started, ensure that we keep interest rates low, have a thriving economy and support the small businesses up and down the country that are the engine of growth. That is what the Government’s plan for recovery is delivering.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
One of the main contributors to the rise in the number of people feeling insecure at work is their inability to seek justice through the employment tribunals system. Data announced last week by solicitors Pinsent Masons showed that in some regions the number of employment tribunal claims had fallen by almost 80% since the introduction of fees, despite the Government’s impact assessment measuring it at just 20%. In the light of these figures, does the Minister agree that the level of fees is fundamentally restricting access to justice, and does she agree with the Scottish Women’s Convention that fees are disproportionately affecting women and they are discriminated against in the workplace?
Jo Swinson
The hon. Gentleman needs to be careful with his use of statistics, because we have introduced a range of changes to the tribunals system aimed at getting employers and employees to resolve disputes outside the tribunals system, which I would have thought everybody would welcome, given that tribunals are costly in terms of time, stress and money for everybody involved on both sides of the dispute. Our proposals, which we are implementing, on early conciliation and making it easier for disputes to be resolved should be working to reduce the number of tribunals, but the Ministry of Justice has committed to keeping these issues under review, particularly the equality aspects and whether there is any disproportionate effect on one particular group.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
14. If he will make it his policy to increase investment in higher education.
The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
That is already our policy. Higher education is vital to our future productivity and economic growth. That is why we have reformed university finance and protected research spending. As a result of our reforms, total university income for teaching will rise from £7.2 billion in 2011-12 to £9.1 billion in 2014-15.
Caroline Lucas
The Minister will know that spending on higher education remains lower than the OECD average, yet higher education makes a huge contribution to the national economy, as I know from the two excellent universities in Brighton and Hove, so will he do even more to address this gap please? Will he also make an assessment of the University and College Union proposal to fund our knowledge economy via an increase in corporation tax for the richest 4% of our corporations, rather than by relying on tuition fees that unfairly fixate on the individual benefit of students going to university?
Mr Willetts
We have a fair and sustainable way of financing higher education. It is right to expect graduates to pay back the cost of their higher education if they are earning more than £21,000. That has enabled us to see more students going to university and increases in funding for teaching at universities, even while we have been tackling the budget deficit we inherited from the previous Government.
Mr Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)
As you know, Mr Speaker, while the Minister was batting for Britain in Kazakhstan last week, the National Audit Office was battering his handling of the student loans system. We look forward to the hearings at the Public Accounts Committee, but in the meantime would he mind telling the House how late he discovered that students at private higher education institutions were soaking up public subsidies at such a rate that there was an overspend of hundreds of millions of pounds? How did he lose control so spectacularly?
Mr Willetts
Let us be clear: these students are studying for HNCs and HNDs, which are all legitimate and valuable qualifications. Whereas under the right hon. Gentleman’s Government there was no control whatsoever of the designation of alternative providers, we have introduced controls. The number of students going to alternative providers has increased dramatically, and in order to maintain budgetary controls, we have introduced further limits on the numbers, but these are worthwhile courses that we should support.
Julie Elliott (Sunderland Central) (Lab)
15. What progress he has made on his review of zero-hours contracts.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)
During the summer, the Department undertook a fact-finding exercise to explore how these contracts are used and to identify the issues involved. We found that this type of contract worked well in some circumstances, but could be open to abuse. As a result, we have committed to publishing a consultation seeking views on zero-hours contracts and proposals to address the concerns raised. It will be published shortly.
Julie Elliott
Does the Minister accept that job insecurity has nearly doubled since 2010 and will she support Labour’s policy, which would stop zero-hours contracts that require workers to work exclusively for one business and end the misuse of zero-hours contracts where employees are, in practice, working regular hours over a sustained period?
Jo Swinson
I commend the hon. Lady for her consistency on his issue and for raising this concern on behalf of her constituents and others. Exclusivity was one of the issues we found in the fact-finding exercise over the summer to be of real concern, so that will be one of the issues that we will look at further in the consultation. We will also consider whether the transparency of information can be improved between employers and employees, so that there is a bit more certainty about what is expected on both sides of the contract. Used well, these contracts should provide flexibility in our labour market that can benefit both employers and employees.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I am grateful to the Minister for her written replies to my questions of 21 November, but will she ensure that the consultation addresses the parallel abuses where employees appear to be engaged as subcontractors as a way of masking the fact that they are being paid below the national minimum wage so that Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs find it difficult to enforce the national minimum wage regulations?
Jo Swinson
My hon. Friend raises an issue about subcontractors. Clearly, we have robust enforcement processes in place for the national minimum wage, but I know that there are concerns in some industries about false self-employment as well. The Government are well aware of that. I hope that my hon. Friend will have just a little more patience before hearing more about what we might do about that. I definitely agree that we must ensure that people are not exploited in the labour market by being forced on to contracts that deny them their basic employment rights.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
16. What steps he is taking to support small businesses in Newcastle upon Tyne Central constituency.
The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
The regional growth fund has allocated £40 million-worth of funding to Newcastle, more than £4.7 million has been offered to local businesses under the enterprise finance guarantee, and there have been 85 start-up loans, totalling £414,000. UK Trade & Investment has supported 292 small and medium-sized businesses in Newcastle to export.
Chi Onwurah
I will celebrate small business Saturday with retailers and traders in Newcastle’s vibrant High Bridge quarter and fantastic Grainger market. I am glad that so many Members are supporting this Labour initiative. Does the Minister agree that the best news I could give these hard-working businesses would be that he is going to support another of the shadow Business Secretary’s proposals—to cut business rates and then freeze them?
Matthew Hancock
I am delighted that the hon. Lady is supporting the cross-party small business Saturday—an idea that we got from the real Barack Obama—and I hear her intervention on business rates. I recall, however, that the Labour Government legislated to double them for the smallest businesses. Of course we listen to small businesses about the business rates, but not to those who wanted to put up taxes for them.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
18. If he will bring forward legislative proposals for regulations under the EU machinery directive to protect disabled people.
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
The EU machinery directive was transposed into UK legislation by the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations 2008. These require products placed on the market to be safe when used for their intended use and are applicable to all relevant people. When used by persons with disabilities, the products must be just as safe for them as they are for able-bodied people.
Mrs Glindon
My disabled constituent Mr Harding, about whom I wrote to the Minister, has experienced recurring problems with his lift appliance, narrowly escaping injury on a number of occasions. Will the Minister say how Mr Harding and other disabled people can ever feel confident about using such equipment if it is not subject to specific legislation and if they have no recourse legally if an accident occurred?
Michael Fallon
I am sorry that Mr Terry Harding has had these difficulties over a long period with a number of products, but I am pleased that he has now been supplied with a new product—thanks, I think, to the intervention of the trading standards officers of North Tyneside council. I would be happy to discuss with the hon. Lady what further steps she thinks might be necessary and to look at the legislation again with her.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
19. What steps he is taking to encourage exports.
The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
The Government are significantly increasing support for exporters by helping more small businesses on overseas tradeshows. As the right hon. Gentleman will well know, the Prime Minister has just led the largest-ever trade mission to China, but missions to smaller countries across the world are also vital to our economic future.
Simon Hughes
We have heard a lot about small business Saturday, and we will all be doing our bit—yours truly included. Let me pick up the Minister’s commitment to ensuring that we do not do export drives only to China, India and the big countries, but particularly to small Commonwealth countries. I ask him to look at the potential for expanding our exports to the Caribbean countries, which feel that they have been slightly neglected in recent years.
Matthew Hancock
Absolutely. I agree that we need to expand our trade to the whole world, including the smaller Caribbean countries. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be here later this morning, when the Chancellor speaks.
Julian Sturdy (York Outer) (Con)
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Vince Cable)
My Department plays a key role in supporting the rebalancing of the economy through business to deliver growth while increasing skills and learning.
Julian Sturdy
Portakabin, the world-class modular building company which is based in my constituency, has raised the possibility of supporting British exports through assistance with the translation of foreign regulations. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to deliver that vital service, which could break down barriers to trade and boost United Kingdom exports?
Vince Cable
I know that the Prime Minister visited the hon. Gentleman’s constituency recently and was very impressed by the Portakabin initiative. We have a concrete proposal for the establishment of a single market centre to help companies to negotiate overlapping regulations, particularly those relating to export controls. Translating regulations into a common language would make the process easier.
Mr Chuka Umunna (Streatham) (Lab)
We had black Friday last week and cyber Monday at the beginning of this week, but, as many Members have already pointed out, the only day that really matters is small business Saturday. I am sure that you will be visiting small independent local shops in Buckingham this weekend, Mr Speaker. Will the Business Secretary join me in thanking the huge coalition—including organisations representing more than 1 million businesses, AmEx, the Ingenious Britain campaign, and, above all, the national campaign co-ordinator for small business Saturday, Michelle Ovens—that has made this day possible?
Vince Cable
I am happy to do that, and to acknowledge the collegiate, cross-party approach adopted by the hon. Gentleman. Small business Saturday is a very good initiative, and we should support and sustain it as much as we can.
Mr Umunna
The owners of the businesses to which I referred will have heard about the Tomlinson report, which accuses RBS of artificially distressing successful businesses in order to seize assets and make a profit. That is a very serious allegation about a bank that we, of course, own. Tomlinson says:
“Banks must ensure…that robust processes are in place to…avoid conflicts of interest.”
It has transpired, however, that he is an RBS customer, and that he has a complaint about the bank pending. Was the Secretary of State aware of that before he allowed the report to be published, and does it not call the report’s independence into question? It is not independent, is it?
Vince Cable
I was well aware that Mr Tomlinson was an RBS customer. He has been very public in his comments about the bank for a long time. He was appointed as entrepreneur in residence at my Department —we seem to have a team of entrepreneurs—and has contributed valuable insights. I have referred his report to the regulator and the bank. Crucially, his accusations are echoed in the report published by Sir Andrew Large, who was appointed by RBS.
There are serious problems in the banking system, and in RBS in particular. Those problems need to be investigated, and I think that Mr Tomlinson has performed a useful service in making them public.
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
T4. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for her earlier reply in respect of the review of zero-hours contracts, but does she agree that driving out shady employment practices and improving wages, including the national minimum wage, would have the additional advantage of reducing the welfare benefits budget?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Jo Swinson)
My hon. Friend is right. That is one of the reasons why my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary asked the Low Pay Commission to identify the conditions that are necessary for an increase in the minimum wage. I think that we would all like wages to increase: things have been very difficult for households over the last few years following the economic crisis, and encouraging businesses to pay good wages encourages staff loyalty, motivation and productivity. It is, of course, important to balance that with the fear of unemployment, which we want to keep down.
Jonathan Reynolds (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab/Co-op)
T2. On Monday the Government announced substantial changes in the ECO energy efficiency scheme, including significant scaling back of the component that insulates solid walls. Most of the large-scale local authority and social landlord energy efficiency schemes depend on that component, and there will obviously be a correspondingly negative impact on the insulation industry. What discussions is the Department having with the industry about the likely number of job losses, and what are they doing to mitigate it?
The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Michael Fallon)
I do not recognise the impact that the hon. Gentleman suggests. The energy company obligation scheme is being extended over a further two years, until 2015, and it is being focused better on those households that need it most.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Two hundred and three MPs across this House now back the solution proposed by the Select Committee on Business, Innovation and Skills to pubco overcharging: the market rent only option. Will the Department do the right thing this time, back the Select Committee, deal with this crony capitalism and listen to the voice of small business? Both the Federation of Small Businesses and the Forum of Private Business support our approach.
Jo Swinson
My hon. Friend has been a stalwart campaigner on this issue, which, as he rightly points out, is of great interest to Members on both sides of the House and to the Select Committee. He will be aware that we undertook a consultation earlier this year, and we are reviewing the responses. He is also right to highlight the important contribution that organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses have been able to make in putting forward further research reports. We hope to be able to publish that kind of information very shortly so that more people will be able to look at the responses.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
T3. In the light of the revelation that the Government have failed to act to close a tax loophole that has cost the public some £500 million a year, what discussions has the Secretary of State had with Treasury Ministers about the concern that some large firms are failing to pay the correct amount of tax while smaller ones are making their contribution?
Vince Cable
There is a general concern about tax avoidance and there are some very public issues relating to certain companies. However, as the hon. Lady knows, in an hour’s time the Chancellor will be making the autumn statement, and I would be very surprised if a substantial part of that were not devoted to the issue of tax avoidance.
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
The Gangmasters Licensing Authority does terrific work in dealing with one particular vulnerable group of employees. Is there any scope for extending that way of working to protect other sectors, such as the care and hospitality sectors, in which there is at least the implication of abuse of employees and very low wages?
Jo Swinson
My hon. Friend is right to point out the importance of protecting vulnerable workers. Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has recently carried out a two-year investigation into practices in the social care sector, particularly in respect of payment of the national minimum wage, where some non-compliance was found and was absolutely acted on. We need to ensure that such behaviour is cracked down on, which is why we are delighted to be able to put more resources into cracking down on abuse of the national minimum wage, increasing the maximum penalty fines and making it much easier to name and shame employers who deliberately do not pay their workers the right amount. That is the right approach.
Andy Sawford (Corby) (Lab/Co-op)
T5. Is the Secretary of State aware of the latest scam hitting agency workers in my constituency and around the country, whereby £2.50 a week is deducted for personal accident insurance, even though the cost to the agency is a fraction of that and the worker is already covered by employer’s liability insurance? Will he look into that and put a stop to it?
Jo Swinson
The hon. Gentleman has raised issues relating to agency workers on a number of occasions, and I know that in his constituency there is a particular concentration of them. We are always happy to look at whether workers are treated as they should be. I am happy to look into the specific issue he raises and get back to him.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
One of the biggest and most important decisions that any sole trader has to make is whether and when to take on their first employee. Will the Secretary of State set out what steps his Department is taking to make that process as easy as possible?
The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)
My hon. Friend is right to identify that moment in the life of a small business. By reducing the amount of national insurance paid, by introducing the employer allowance of £2,000 from April and by setting out that a company cannot be taken to a tribunal for two years, we are hoping to make it much easier to employ people and for small businesses to expand.
Stephen Timms (East Ham) (Lab)
T6. Work programme providers say that their participants can hardly ever get on to an apprenticeship, and that surely cannot be right. It may partly explain why the Work programme has been so disappointing. Does the Minister agree that more should be done to open up apprenticeships to unemployed people?
Matthew Hancock
A huge proportion of apprenticeships are undertaken by people who were previously unemployed. Of course, every apprenticeship is a job, and in order to get a job someone needs to have an employer willing to take them on. There are many other schemes, such as the traineeships, that Work programme providers work with in order to prepare people for getting a job. Ultimately, an apprenticeship is a job and is therefore a successful outcome for a Work programme person.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
May I ask the Minister for Universities and Science what progress has been made in expanding the scholarship scheme for university students, particularly to help with the cost of living rather than the cost of fees?
The Minister for Universities and Science (Mr David Willetts)
We continue to provide support to students. The national scholarship programme has been shown to have less effect on young people choosing to go to university than some of the other support that is available through maintenance and student access programmes. We continue to work on the agenda set out by my right hon. Friend, ensuring that as many young people as possible from disadvantaged backgrounds apply to university.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
T7. The Government have consistently been on the back foot when it comes to addressing the issue of late payments to small businesses. In the review of that, how will they address the central issue that late payment is a cultural and leadership issue, and needs to be seen as unethical as tax evasion?
Matthew Hancock
Late payment is indeed a cultural and leadership issue. I held a meeting in the Department last week with all those concerned. As the hon. Lady well knows, we will be publishing a consultation paper very shortly. I commend her for her continued action and pressing on this issue.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
Small business in Chester is really getting behind small business Saturday this weekend. I have delivered more than 400 packs to businesses telling them what it is all about. Will the Minister commit to making an assessment of the success of the first small business Saturday, so that we can improve and help small business in future?
Matthew Hancock
I am sure that we can make a commitment right now to assess the success of small business Saturday, which will be celebrated across this House and across the country. This is the first one this year—it has been going on for some years in the United States—and I hope that it grows and grows.
Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)
T8. The number of workers who feel insecure in the workplace has gone up from 6.5 million to 12 million since this Government came to power. That has a knock-on effect on the physical and mental health and productivity of workers. Will the Minister make an assessment and do some research into the effects of insecurity on the work force?
Jo Swinson
The hon. Gentleman is right to highlight the downsides of job insecurity. We already have robust data from the workplace employment relations study, which gives us a strong base of research on which to draw to understand those issues. However, I gently point out to him that an increase in job insecurity is related to the fact that we had a massive economic shock on his party’s watch in government. High unemployment and unfortunate economic circumstances are the price that everyone is paying. The least his party can do is apologise.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
For many years, Mill Road winter fair has celebrated one of the most diverse shopping areas in Cambridge. This year the fair coincides with small business Saturday. Will the Government congratulate those who have been running the fair and encourage its spread so that we can see real diversity? We also want a road closure so that people can walk easily to the shops.
Matthew Hancock
I congratulate Cambridge on what it is doing for small business Saturday. I am sure that it will be a great success.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
T9. The Secretary of State will be aware of the mechanism in the transatlantic trade and investment partnership that will allow global corporations to sue Governments before secretive arbitration panels that bypass domestic courts. As his own Department’s research says that nothing would insulate the UK from becoming subject to costly and controversial arbitration claims in the future, will he work to ensure that investor-to-state dispute settlements are removed from that agreement?
Vince Cable
The overall context is that the transatlantic agreement between the European Union and the United States, if it materialises, would be of enormous economic benefit. We realise that there are some tricky negotiating issues, and the hon. Lady has highlighted one of them. We will try to ensure that the interests of our economy are properly protected.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
Will my hon. Friend keep pushing for the teaching of enterprise in our schools, so that we can inspire a whole new generation of entrepreneurs?
Matthew Hancock
Yes, I will, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s work, especially in her constituency where new academies that link the world of work and the world of enterprise are springing up with her support.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
T10. May I press the Minister for Universities and Science further on why he repeatedly rejected warnings on uncontrolled financial support to students in private higher education colleges? In March, he argued that the policy was important to enable private providers to continue with their expansion, but now that he is faced with a growing black hole in the BIS budget, he has reversed the policy. Will he explain why and will he guarantee no further cuts to student support to pay for his mistake?
Mr Willetts
Let us be clear, we inherited from the previous Government a complete rubber-stamping exercise under which there was no control whatsoever over alternative providers. We introduced controls. For example, in the last year, out of 87 applications from alternative providers, 18 were approved and 69 were rejected. That was effective quality control and we have taken further steps to ensure that the Department can remain within its budget.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
Our plans predate small business Saturday, but this weekend in Rochester we have a Christmas fair and also a Dickens weekend. They attract many thousands of people to Rochester, which has, almost entirely, independent small businesses. Will the Minister join me in welcoming that?
Vince Cable
The hon. Gentleman is adding his name to the roll call. Perhaps we could simplify this process, whereby if everybody in the House who does not support small business Saturday puts up their hands.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I shall enjoy supporting small business Saturday, too. Many young people take their first job in retail and gain vital experience and training that stands them in good stead for the rest of their working lives. Given the problems that retail faces, what steps will the Government take to support retail, especially to deal with the scourge of youth unemployment?
Matthew Hancock
We support the national skills academy for retail, and I recently opened its new premises. It is a great supporter, ensuring that people in retail have the right skills to do the job and to progress.
Petition
Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
It is my pleasure to present this petition on behalf of the Friends of Heaton Chapel Station.
The petition states:
The Petition of Friends of Heaton Chapel train station,
Declares that 619,506 passengers purchase tickets at Heaton Chapel train station every year; further declares that there is currently no disabled access to the train station; further declares that Heaton Chapel train station is not compliant with national legislation; and further declares that accessibility for disabled people at Heaton Chapel train station must be improved and barriers to transport removed in accordance with the Department for Transport’s March 2006 “Railways for All” strategy.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department for Transport to work in conjunction with Transport for Greater Manchester, Stockport MBC, Network Rail and Northern Rail to undertake an urgent feasibility study setting out a business case to support the provision of new disabled access facilities and further requests that the House urges the Department for Transport to give greater priority to improve Greater Heaton Chapel train station over all other less well used stations in Greater Manchester.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001308]
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 the next week is as follows:
Monday 9 December—Second Reading of the Intellectual Property Bill [Lords], followed by a motion to approve a statutory instrument relating to terrorism, followed by a general debate on rural communities. The subject for this debate was determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Tuesday 10 December—Remaining stages of the National Insurance Contributions Bill, followed by: the Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration.
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—Select Committee statement on the publication of the first report from the Liaison Committee entitled “Civil Service: Lacking Capacity”, followed by a general debate on the fishing industry, followed by a debate on a motion relating to Ford and Visteon UK Ltd pensioners. The subjects for both debates were determined by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 13 December—The House will not be sitting.
The provisional business for the week commencing 16 December will include:
Monday 16 December—Second Reading of the Care Bill [Lords].
Tuesday 17 December—Remaining stages of the Local Audit and Accountability Bill [Lords].
Wednesday 18 December—Opposition day (15th allotted day). There will be a debate on accident and emergency services, followed by a debate on food banks. Both debates will arise on an official Opposition motion.
Thursday 19 December—Business to be nominated by the Backbench Business Committee.
Friday 20 December—The House will not be sitting.
I should also like to inform the House that the business in Westminster Hall for 16 January will be:
Thursday 16 January—A combined debate on the second report from the Justice Committee on “Women Offenders: After the Corston Report” and the fifth report on older prisoners.
Ms Eagle
I thank the Leader of the House for announcing next week’s business.
The right hon. Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young) announced this week that after a good innings in Parliament he will declare on 41 not out. I am sure that everyone will join me in paying tribute to one of the longest serving Members of the House, and I wish him all the best in his next choice of career. I will not predict a swift return this time, but may I suggest that his local party needs to incorporate an IQ test as part of the selection process for his successor to stop the Mayor of London sniffing around?
I note that on the Order Paper today there is a written ministerial statement on the progress of universal credit—a major announcement about a flagship Government policy that as recently as last month the Work and Pensions Secretary guaranteed would be delivered on time. The statement was slipped out just two hours before the autumn statement, and made available to the media before it was made available to the House. It announces major delays and the complete upheaval of the universal credit scheme, which affects millions of people. Despite the importance of the announcement, there is very little detail about what is actually going on. This is a contemptible way to treat Parliament.
When the Work and Pensions Secretary’s delusions about the practicality of his grand reforms collide with reality, he should be forced to come to this House in person to account for himself. Will the Leader of the House now guarantee that the Secretary of State will explain himself to the House at the earliest opportunity?
The Prime Minister’s unlikely infatuation with the Chinese Communist party continued apace this week, as he skipped Prime Minister’s questions again, postponed the autumn statement until today and flew to Beijing to deliver a framed photograph of himself and a biography of Margaret Thatcher. After being in the diplomatic deep freeze for three years, the Prime Minister took his re-initiation like a man and ended up feasting on bamboo fungus in the spectacular surroundings of the great hall of the people—and to think he was the one who accused my right hon. Friend the Member for Oldham West and Royton (Mr Meacher) of taking mind-altering substances. It is clear that the Prime Minister has been getting into bad habits, too; his press conference with the Chinese Premier consisted of two long statements, no questions, and concluded to rapturous applause from the journalists who had the honour to be present. I think the Lobby had better watch out.
The Prime Minister has been on more foreign junkets in three short years than there are Lib Dem betrayals, but the trade deficit has got worse this year, so may we have a statement on the value for money that these spectacularly expensive, taxpayer-funded PR opportunities represent?
There is less than an hour to go before the Chancellor gets to his feet to deliver the delayed autumn statement. We have had the usual raft of selected leaks to the press and Government pre-statement announcements. The Chancellor was even tweeting bits of it last night. He’s got form. In the 2012 Budget, we had tax U-turns on pasties, charities and caravans, and the word “omnishambles” entered the Oxford English Dictionary. In last year’s autumn statement, the Chancellor’s flagship Swiss tax deal and the 4G auction both raised less than a third of what he had scored in the Red Book, and large chunks of the last Budget were published before he even got to the House.
This year, the Chancellor has been busy getting his U-turns in first. He has been getting more incoherent by the day. He thinks it is Marxist to cap energy prices but positively Thatcherite to cap payday loans. He has been so panicked by the popularity of our energy price freeze that he has persuaded the Energy Secretary to claim that a £70 increase in bills is actually a cut. When will he realise that, on energy, only a price freeze will do? And while he is at it, will he realise that after the record £1.4 billion Euro-fine of banks involved in the Euribor and LIBOR fixing yesterday, he should accept the Lords amendments to the banking reform Bill that create a licensing regime for senior bankers? Will the Leader of the House confirm that he is planning to do that?
Despite the welcome news that our economy is growing again, growth is only a third of what the Chancellor predicted it would be in 2010 and we have the slowest recovery for 100 years. All the Chancellor has delivered is a recovery that helps a few at the top and leaves ordinary people hurting. That is this Chancellor all over—tax cuts for millionaires and a living standards crisis for everybody else.
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to the shadow Leader of the House for her response to the future business and especially for her very kind words about the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire (Sir George Young). The House will have an opportunity, which I look forward to, to express its full appreciation of my right hon. Friend—[Interruption.] There is plenty of time yet. You never know with my right hon. Friend quite what is going to happen, because he has a habit of re-emerging in different guises. He has had more regenerations than Dr Who.
The hon. Lady asked about the written statement by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in which he set out the further steps we have been taking to trial, learn, implement and put in place an effective online digital system. [Interruption.] It is perfectly reasonable to tell the House about steps that are being taken in line with the policy to deliver universal credit on time and on budget, and my right hon. Friend has done it by way of a written statement to the House.
The hon. Lady asked about the Prime Minister not being here for Prime Minister’s questions yesterday. As it happens, and as she knows, the Prime Minister has been here to answer questions at least as often as his predecessors. In particular, he has made more statements to the House than any of his predecessors. What the hon. Lady said was wrong in relation to where the Prime Minister’s priorities should lie. He has, among many other things, been a leader in going around the world winning business for this country, and for him to be in China winning £1 billion of business will enable us, having almost doubled exports to China under this Government, to do more in the future. It is extremely important that we do so.
The hon. Lady asked the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill. I announced that the House would consider amendments from the Lords during our debates next Wednesday. If I may, I will leave that debate until next Wednesday, rather than pre-empt it now. The Bill will enable us to put in place effective banking regulation for the future, after the failure of the tripartite system that was put in place by the shadow Chancellor when he was the financial services Minister.
Speaking of the shadow Chancellor, we are all looking for him. We could not find him when the national infrastructure plan was being reported to the House yesterday, so we look forward to having him here today. I am sort of sorry that, in the business announced, the Opposition did not use their opportunity of an Opposition day before Christmas to debate the economy, as we could have discussed the long-term plan of this Government, which is clearly demonstrating that we are turning the corner and building a strong and sustainable recovery. After the small hors d’oeuvre of business questions, I look forward to a satisfying main course when the Chancellor makes his statement.
An Opposition day debate before Christmas would enable us to contrast what we are doing and what the Chancellor will say in his statement with the absence of any plan now from the Opposition. They had plan B. That seems to have disappeared, along with the prospects of the shadow Chancellor. Such a debate would enable us to recall, in a compare and contrast way, what the Leader of the Opposition had to say when President Hollande was elected, which I always rather relish. He said that what President Hollande was going to do for France, Labour was going to do for Britain. In truth, that is a contrast that, like their plan B, the Opposition now do not want to talk about.
Mr Speaker
Order. As always, many right hon. and hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye, but time is especially constrained today as the autumn statement will begin at 11.15. As a consequence, there is a premium on brevity from Back and Front Benches alike, beginning with Mr Nigel Evans.
Mr Nigel Evans (Ribble Valley) (Ind)
Some 44 million people worldwide suffer with Alzheimer’s disease and it is estimated that the number will treble by 2050. May we have a debate on dementia to see what more we can do to help carers, those who have a loved one suffering with Alzheimer’s, and research and development in order to give hope to people suffering with Alzheimer’s?
Mr Lansley
Members across the House will share with my hon. Friend a sense of the importance that we attach to making further progress in the research into the causes of dementia and its treatment, and the way in which we as a society respond to those with dementia. I was very pleased that the Backbench Business Committee was able to schedule a debate before the G8 summit next Wednesday. I hope that with the progress we are making in research on dementia and its treatment, there may be further opportunities in the new year.
Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
May we have an urgent debate on the Government’s policy to exacerbate the north-south divide following the announcement, which advantages the Leader of the House’s constituency, that the A14 will not be tolled but the Mersey Gateway will?
Mr Lansley
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman was here yesterday, but the Chief Secretary to the Treasury was perfectly clear that it is entirely normal to toll estuarial crossings. If the A14, which passes through my constituency, had been tolled, it would have been the only main route tolled in circumstances where there was no viable alternative.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
My constituent William Irving, a former soldier, has been held in prison in India for more than seven weeks without charge, along with five other British citizens. May we have a statement from the Foreign Office on what efforts are being made to try to secure the release of Mr Irving and his fellow prisoners and to look after their health and welfare, bearing in mind that he has been ill with dysentery?
Mr Lansley
I completely understand why my hon. Friend raises this importance issue for his constituents—other Members of the House are in a similar situation. Consular officials have been providing assistance since the men were detained, liaising closely with the Estonian and Ukrainian embassies, as nationals of those countries are also involved. They have visited them four times to confirm their welfare and ensure that they have access to legal representation. We are also providing ongoing support to their families in the UK.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
The Leader of the House will know that the chairman of the BBC Trust, Lord Patten, refuses to appear before the European Scrutiny Committee. May we have a debate or a discussion on how we can ensure that he is not abusing his position as a Lord to avoid appearing before the Committee, which wishes to talk about scrutiny in relation to European elections and BBC bias?
Mr Lansley
I am aware of what the hon. Lady is talking about. I note from Lord Patten’s correspondence with the Chair of the European Scrutiny Committee that he expressly did not rely on the fact that he is a Member of the House of Lords in this regard. I will have conversations with the Committee’s Chair and the BBC on the matter, because there is a difference between independence for the BBC, which we absolutely must respect, and accountability, which should enable this House to ask reasonable questions.
Mr Speaker
I must say that anybody who is invited to appear before a Committee of this House should do so. No one, however senior, should imagine him or herself above such scrutiny. That is a very important principle.
Conor Burns (Bournemouth West) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware of a proposal for a large offshore wind farm by the Navitus Bay company off the coast of Bournemouth. In the light of the Government’s announcement this week on onshore and offshore wind farm subsidy, my constituents are profoundly concerned that the development could go ahead. It has been shown that a third of summertime visitors would not return during the five-year period of construction and that 14% would never return. Will he provide an opportunity for the Government to reassure my constituents that some offshore wind farms are, and remain, as inappropriate as some onshore ones?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes his point straightforwardly and forcefully. I will talk with my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department for Communities and Local Government about that, particularly the extent to which the points he raises are material considerations in relation to planning.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
I am sure that the Leader of the House will have seen that Huddersfield university won the university of the year award last Friday, and, indeed, that last year it was the entrepreneurial university of the year. May we have a debate on student loans and the fact that the sell-off of student loans will be a very hard lesson for those people who owe money and will now be chased by some of the hard men of the loan business?
Mr Lansley
I gladly join the hon. Gentleman in congratulating Huddersfield university—as the Member of Parliament who represents Cambridge university, I am glad to do so. On his other point, I remind him that, notwithstanding the sale of the student loan book, the regulations and provisions that apply to the recovery of student loans will be no different for any future owner than they are for the Government now.
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
May I congratulate the Government on their announcement this week about keeping energy prices down and South West Water on its announcement that it will freeze water prices for the next two years? Unfortunately, Labour-controlled Plymouth city council is considering putting up council tax next year despite the Chancellor’s announcement that that does not need to happen. May we have a debate on this before the budgets are set by local authorities such as Plymouth?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend, like me, might have been surprised that when Labour Members responded to a statement on water bills they appeared completely to ignore the fact that this Government had taken steps to ensure that water bills in the south-west were kept down through substantial support to the local water company. This Government have enabled council tax to be frozen right through this Parliament. That is very significant, as is the fact that council tax doubled under the previous Labour Government. However, this is of course something that local authorities have to take up.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
This week millions of Royal Bank of Scotland customers suffered inconvenience and embarrassment when they could not use their bank cards. The week before, it was revealed that businesses have been forced into bankruptcy so that RBS could seize their assets. May we have a debate on what is happening in this state-owned bank?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will understand that I cannot offer a debate at the moment, but he will appreciate that during next Wednesday’s debate on banking reform issues may well arise relating to banking standards and the performance of the banks, including those in which the public sector—the Government—has a substantial stake, and he may wish to use that opportunity to discuss them.
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
In about 34 minutes we will hear the autumn statement for the second time. I am sure the Leader of the House is as horrified as other Members about how much of it has already been leaked. Previously, the Government have said that this has been due to Liberal Democrat Ministers leaking the information. May we have a statement next week on this very serious matter?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend will understand that, in so far as he is surmising anything, he is in fact speculating. We have not heard the statement yet, so let us hear it. I am sure that the recommendations set out in the Macpherson review back in July have been adhered to by the Chancellor and the Treasury. I hope that is helpful to my hon. Friend.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
How can it possibly be right for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to announce a complete restructuring of universal credit by means of a written statement and give it to the press two hours before he gives it to us, and to answer questions from the press before we are able to ask questions? Does not the Leader of the House understand the fundamental principle of his job, which is to make sure that we are able to ask questions? For instance, we would like to ask whether, when the Secretary of State says in his written ministerial statement that the majority of the legacy cases will be moving to universal credit in 2016 and ’17—the majority, note, not all—he really means that he would like to apologise to the House because he got it wrong two weeks ago when he said that this was on budget and on time?
Mr Lansley
I will be responsible for discharging my responsibility to the House and the hon. Gentleman can be in charge of his. It is important for the House to recognise two things. First, putting a written ministerial statement before the House is announcing something to the House; it should not be disregarded. Secondly, on the day of the autumn statement it is perfectly reasonable for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, who will be seeing the Select Committee on Monday, not to be making an oral statement.
Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)
The most effective way of reducing incidents of stroke disease is by identifying and treating atrial fibulation. May we have a debate on improving access to and take-up of newly developed National Institute for Health and Care Excellence-approved drug treatments?
Mr Lansley
I cannot promise a debate immediately, but this is an important issue. My hon. Friend will appreciate that during my several years as chair of the all-party group on stroke, it was one of the issues that emerged. We are making progress on a wide front in relation to the improvement of stroke services and on fast identification and treatment of stroke. On prevention, I hope that what my hon. Friend says about AF will be emphasised in our discussions about improving stroke services for the future.
Thomas Docherty (Dunfermline and West Fife) (Lab)
The overseas territories joint ministerial council took place last week and covered a huge number of issues that are of mutual interest to the UK Government, this Parliament and the overseas territories. Could a Foreign Office Minister be asked to come to the House to give a full statement so that we can hold them to account?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will know that the second joint ministerial council took place in London on 26 November and that its overall theme was jobs and growth. The meeting covered a range of subjects and an ambitious communiqué outlining the commitments made was issued at its conclusion. The United Kingdom’s relationship with the overseas territories is a very important one. The Government would welcome any proposal for a debate on the progress made at the council. The hon. Gentleman may wish to encourage colleagues to go before the Backbench Business Committee at some point to seek time for a debate on the subject in Westminster Hall.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend seen my early-day motion 845 on the future of the Harlow respite care centre for children with special needs?
[That this House acknowledges that the Maples children’s respite centre in Harlow is an integral part of the community that provides comfort and security to families and children with special needs; notes that Councillor Madden, Cabinet member for Essex County Council, has said that no final decision about the centre’s future will be taken unless alternative services that meet local needs are in place; strongly believes however that the Maples respite centre should be kept open as it is unlikely that similar alternative provisions will be found and that its closure would be detrimental to its hard-working staff, volunteers, parents and children for which the Maples acts as a lifeline; commends the petition (www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/essex-county-council-ensure-the-future-of-the-maples-respite-centre) that has been signed by 1,076 people; and urges Essex County Council to take note of the strong feelings of Harlow residents.]
May we have a statement on the future of the Maples home in Harlow, which provides respite for children with special needs and their families? Essex county council is currently consulting on the future of the centre and possible closure. Will my right hon. Friend urge the Minister responsible to look into the matter and see what support is available for the centre?
Mr Lansley
Once again my hon. Friend raises an issue of importance to his constituents, as evidenced by the number of signatories to the petition. He will know that short-break services are a priority for this Government. We know how they support children with disabilities and their families, which is why £800 million has been made available to local authorities for short breaks and why we have introduced a short-breaks duty requiring all local authorities to provide such services for disabled children and young people. As my hon. Friend will know, it is for local authorities to decide, in collaboration with local health services, the level and type of support they will make available. It is encouraging that the cabinet member for Essex county council has given assurances that no final decision about the centre’s future will be taken unless alternative services are available that meet families’ needs. I hope that is of some reassurance to my hon. Friend.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
May we have a debate on the complete disarray in NHS England, which is causing ever-lengthening delays and increasing concerns about the future of two greatly needed health centres in Orrell and Ashton?
Mr Lansley
I am sorry, but I do not accept remotely the premise of the hon. Lady’s question. Given that NHS England formally started its work in April this year, I think that she and Members across the House should support it in its difficult tasks.
Tessa Munt (Wells) (LD)
One of my constituents was forced to spend six months on unemployment benefit while he waited for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency to process his medical, after which his large goods vehicle licence was returned to him. May we have a debate on the way in which the DVLA’s administration could be streamlined so that constituents like mine do not have to wait unnecessarily for extended periods at vast cost to the taxpayer?
Mr Lansley
I understand what my hon. Friend is saying, not least because I have a constituent who was in a similar position. If I may, I will ask my colleagues at the Department for Transport if they will look at the issue, because it is very difficult for those with medical conditions who have their driving licence suspended. If they recover, the failure to process the reacquisition of their driving licence quickly can, at the very least, be of considerable and serious inconvenience to them and potentially costly.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Minister after Minister has come to the Dispatch Box and trumpeted the number of new jobs, but they are not able to say how many of them are part time or short hours, whether they arise from public sector reclassification or are zero-hours contracts. May we have a statement to clear this mess up?
Mr Lansley
On the contrary, I have heard my hon. Friends making it very clear that there are statistics relating to the number of those in part-time employment. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and others have definitions of things such as zero-hours contracts. There were never statistics under the previous Government. I am not sure why the hon. Lady imagines it is a fault on the part of this Government that we do not have those defined statistics, but she is right to say that we come to this Dispatch Box to trumpet the number of new jobs: there are 1.4 million more private sector jobs under this Government.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
A few weeks ago, St Jude’s storm resulted in several thousand households in Suffolk being disconnected from electricity. The storm that is gathering in Scotland today is coming to Suffolk, with the entire coastline under a severe flood warning. I know that the Prime Minister has asked the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to chair a Cobra meeting. When will the Secretary of State be able to come to the House to make a statement?
Mr Lansley
The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and other Ministers are very aware of the risk associated with a surge tide and the risk that the current storm presents to my hon. Friend’s constituency and others. Many Scottish Members’ constituents are already experiencing the effects of the storm. I cannot at this stage say when the Secretary of State may be able to update the House. At the moment, he is engaged in considering precisely how every measure that might be taken is taken to help support those who may be affected.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
If we cannot have a statement on the universal credit debacle, may we please have one on exemption from the bedroom tax? Last week, the Prime Minister claimed that disabled people are exempt, although the Leader of the House mischievously did his best to attribute to him words that he never uttered. In reality, they are not exempt, and the extra money put into discretionary housing payments is nowhere near enough to make up the shortfall.
Mr Lansley
I have heard Work and Pensions Ministers repeatedly respond extremely well to issues of the kind raised by the hon. Gentleman, in response not only to questions but to debates initiated by the Opposition.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
The Airports Commission under Howard Davies is due to report this month on a shortlist of options in relation to the future of aviation capacity across the UK. Will my right hon. Friend consider holding a debate on that in the new year, because it affects all regional airports as well as London?
Mr Lansley
We are anticipating the publication of Howard Davies’s interim report, and I am sure that the House will want to consider it. May I, however, gently remind my hon. Friend and other hon. Members that following the establishment of the Backbench Business Committee, issues that they consider priorities can be debated by the House through an application to that Committee?
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Conservative North Lincolnshire council has said that it will not support people hit by the bedroom tax who smoke. May we have a debate in the House about how local authorities are or are not supporting people hit by the bedroom tax with discretionary housing payments?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will know, because I have heard my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions say this in the House, that additional resources have been made available to local authorities to help those with specific additional needs as a result of the spare room subsidy. In relation to precisely what local authorities are doing, I was not aware of the North Lincolnshire example, but I will of course speak to my hon. Friends at the Department for Work and Pensions about whether they are aware of it and can respond to him.
Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD)
I have absolutely no requirement for assistance with payment protection insurance, insulating my property or making a claim for an accident that was not my fault, yet I am inundated with phone calls offering me such assistance, as are people up and down the country. In the light of the publication today of a report by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and of the sterling work by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Mike Crockart) to get a debate in Back-Bench time, will the Leader of the House arrange for a Minister to report on how we can deal with nuisance calls?
Mr Lansley
It may be little comfort to my hon. Friend to know that he is not alone, but I hope that it may be some comfort to know that tackling unsolicited marketing or nuisance calls is being addressed through the measures in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport strategy paper that was published on 30 July, as he will recall. An action plan will be published shortly to set out future plans. I hope that it will be possible for Ministers to update the House during the type of debate that he mentioned.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Foreign students who get places at British universities but do not have good enough maths and English get extra coaching, but British students who are predicted to get good A-level grades but have grade C in GCSE maths do not receive the same support. Given the Government’s professed support for social mobility, will the Leader of the House ask a Minister to come to the House to make sure that that anomaly is dealt with?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Lady raises an interesting point. When I was at my old university in Exeter recently, I saw the substantial facility that it has to provide additional support to those whose first language is not English. If I may, I will ask my right hon. Friend the Minister for Universities and Science to respond to her on the point that she raises.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
Why are the remaining stages of the Immigration Bill being delayed? It would surely make sense for the House to vote on whether to extend the immigration restrictions for Bulgaria and Romania in advance of their being lifted on 1 January.
Mr Lansley
I assure my hon. Friend that the Immigration Bill is not being delayed; it is simply that there is a lot of legislation before the House. In the future business before Christmas, I have announced progress on five Government Bills. Let me also explain to him that if there was a debate on the Immigration Bill in this House before Christmas, it would not necessarily have an impact on the timing of Royal Assent, because this is the first House that the Bill must pass through, not the second. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary announced important measures on this matter last week. I am therefore hopeful that regulations will be laid before the House shortly.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
I was visited recently by a constituent who has terminal cancer. His condition will not lead to immediate death and he wishes to visit family and friends in Spain. However, he is unable to obtain affordable travel insurance. May we have a statement on what help the Government can offer to bring down the cost of travel insurance for individuals who find themselves in that situation?
Mr Lansley
That sounds as though it is a particularly difficult and distressing situation for the hon. Gentleman’s constituent. If I may, I will talk to my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Health and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to see whether they can help.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
Isa Muazu has been held for months in Harmondsworth detention centre and has been on hunger strike for more than 100 days. He is ill and cannot stand or see properly. The Home Secretary tried to deport him nonetheless, but the plane had to fly back from Nigeria. May we have a debate on why the Home Secretary has spent well over £100,000 on trying to deport a seriously ill man?
Mr Lansley
I will, if I may, ask the Home Secretary to respond to my hon. Friend on that specific case. Generally speaking, it is her responsibility to enforce the law, including immigration law, and she does that robustly.
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I do not know whether the Leader of the House is a reader of fiction, but if he is I recommend that over the Christmas period, he read the Scottish Government’s White Paper on independence. Once he has read that paper, I urge him to come back and offer some time for a debate on it in this House.
Mr Lansley
As it happens, I have read the Scottish White Paper. Having read it, I was surprised to find that assumptions within it were overturned within hours. The House might want to seek an opportunity to debate that paper, not least through the Backbench Business Committee, because it is important to Members across the House.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
In Harrow, reported crime is down by 10%, the clear-up rate is up by 22% and the number of police on our streets will be at record levels next March. May we have a debate on crime and policing so that we can proclaim the good news?
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, as I am sure the Home Secretary and other Home Office Ministers will be. I cannot promise a debate straight away because the amount of legislation is putting such pressure on Government time that it is precluding us from debating the many successes of this Government, of which the reduction in crime is an important one.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
Hundreds of thousands of people will have to use food banks this Christmas, so I welcome the fact that there will be a debate on them. Will the Leader of the House ask the Prime Minister to attend that debate? To support the case for that, perhaps he could use today’s Daily Mirror, in which Sara Broadbent, who has just had her hours cut from 16 to five, says:
“David Cameron lives just down the road and he could do a lot more for us… I’d like to be able to look after my own kids and have food in the cupboards but there are times…when you just can’t do it.”
Should the Prime Minister not account for the cost of living crisis over which he is presiding?
Mr Lansley
As the hon. Gentleman noted, the Opposition have chosen that subject for debate and Ministers will respond. In that context, I think Members across the House will support food banks and charities that support others who are in need this Christmas, and rightly so. Last Saturday, along with many others in my constituency I participated in a food collection at Tesco to support the Cambridge food bank.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
May we have a debate on transparency in local government? In the past week, Labour councillors voted en bloc in Kirklees to approve a supermarket in Slaithwaite, despite local concerns and a last-minute plea from 39 local businesses. Members in this House are held accountable in a transparent way for how they vote. Does my right hon. Friend agree that local councillors should be held accountable for the way they vote and decisions they make on behalf of our local communities?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Councillors should be accountable for the decisions they make—[Interruption.] Opposition Members are helpfully making the point that if Labour councillors are making decisions that are contrary to the views and interests of my hon. Friend’s constituents, come the next election those constituents will have an opportunity to do something about it.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
This week 100,000 people signed a petition calling for a cumulative impact assessment on the effects of the Welfare Reform Act 2012 on sick and disabled people. Will the Leader of the House agree to a debate in this Chamber on that cumulative impact assessment?
Mr Lansley
I did, of course, write to the Chair of the Backbench Business Committee noting that that petition had passed the point of 100,000 signatures. At the meeting on Tuesday that Committee received a submission from Members about a debate on that subject. It is now not for me but for the Backbench Business Committee to decide whether a debate should be timetabled.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
Members across the House are helping constituent businesses with issues of bank bullying—I currently have cases involving Barclays, Lloyds and Yorkshire Bank. In the light of the Tomlinson report, may we have a debate on how we deal with that issue, which is high on the agenda of our constituents?
Mr Lansley
My hon. Friend makes an important point that, I reiterate, is germane to the debate on the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill. Lords amendments to that Bill will be debated in this House on Wednesday, I hope the important issue my hon. Friend raises may form part of that debate.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
Many thousands of households in Wales and England are concerned about the recent registration of manorial rights, including 4,000 households in Ynys Môn. May we have a debate on that issue, and will the Government give reassurance and information so that we protect the rights of ordinary people in Anglesey and beyond?
Mr Lansley
The hon. Gentleman will know that registration of notice of manorial rights at the Land Registry is not related to rights relating to shale gas or oil. The Petroleum Act 1988 vests all rights to the nation’s petroleum resources in the Crown. Manorial rights have a distinct legal history, but can be legitimately bought and sold in the same way as other property rights. The registration of notice of manorial rights records existing rights so that people know they exist; it does not create new rights although it does, of course, help prospective buyers avoid what would otherwise be hidden rights. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that property owners who were unaware of existing mining rights when the notices arrived may have been alarmed by that, but I recommend they obtain legal advice, which should reassure them. If Members of the House have evidence of problems, my hon. Friends at the Ministry of Justice will be happy to help.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
May we have a debate on the effectiveness of the shadow Chancellor? After all, he claimed we are entering a triple-dip recession, that we should model our economy on that of France, and that we can reduce debt by borrowing more.
Mr Lansley
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It was in fact not just the shadow Chancellor but the Leader of the Opposition who, as I recall, said that what President Hollande is going to do for France, Labour would do for Britain. We are looking forward to a demonstration of the increasingly disappearing shadow Chancellor and his plan B.
Tom Blenkinsop (Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland) (Lab)
Average weekly gross pay for women in my constituency has fallen by £12.30 since 2010, while long-term female unemployment has risen by 144% since May 2010—[Interruption.] May we have a debate on why the Government do not have one wise man, let alone three?
Mr Lansley
I am sorry that I did not hear all that the hon. Gentleman had to say, but I remind him that we have record employment for women, and 1.5 million women on low earnings are out of tax all together as a consequence of the increases in the personal allowances under the coalition Government.
Autumn Statement
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr George Osborne)
Britain’s economic plan is working, but the job is not done. We need to secure the economy for the long term, and the biggest risk to that comes from those who would abandon the plan. We seek a responsible recovery, one in which we do not squander the gains we have made, but go on taking the difficult decisions, and one in which we do not repeat the mistakes of the past, but this time spot the debt bubbles before they threaten financial stability. We seek a responsible recovery, in which we do not pretend we can make this nation better off by writing cheques to ourselves, and instead make the hard choices. We need a Government who live within their means, in a country that pays its way in the world.
Three and a half years ago, I set out our long-term economic plan in the emergency Budget. That plan restored stability in a fiscal crisis, but it was also designed to address the deep-seated problems of unsustainable spending, uncompetitive taxes and unreformed public services for which there are no quick fixes. Over the last three years we have stuck to our guns and worked through the plan. We have done so in the face of a sovereign debt crisis abroad, and at home in the face of opposition from those who got Britain into this mess in the first place and have resisted every cut, every reform, and every effort to get us out of that mess. We have held our nerve while those who predicted there would be no growth until we turned the spending taps back on have been proved comprehensively wrong.
Thanks to the sacrifice and endeavour of the British people, I can today report the hard evidence that shows our economic plan is working, but I also report the hard truth that the job is not yet done. Yes, the deficit is down, but it is still far too high, and today we take more difficult decisions. Yes, the forecasts show that growth is up, but the same forecasts show growth in productivity is still too low, and today we set out further economic reforms. Yes, jobs are up and unemployment is down, but too many of our young people lack the skills to fill those jobs and the opportunities to acquire them, so now we take bold steps to remove that cap on aspiration. Yes, businesses are expanding, but business taxes are still too high and exports are too low and we must address that. And yes, real household disposable income is rising, but the effects of the financial crash on family budgets and the cost of living are still being felt. So where we can afford to help hardworking families, we will continue to do so—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. Mr Ruane, calm yourself, man. Your bellicose barracking is detectable several miles away.
Mr Osborne
The hard work of the British people is paying off, and we will not squander their efforts. We will secure the economy for the long term, and this statement sets out how.
Let me turn to the report from the Office for Budget Responsibility. Again, I thank Robert Chote and his team for their rigorous and independent work. The OBR report notes that the Office for National Statistics has reassessed the depth of the great recession. The fall in GDP from peak to trough between 2008 and 2009 was not 6.3% as previously thought, but was instead an even more staggering 7.2%; £112 billion was wiped off our economy—about £3,000 for every household in this country—in one of the sharpest falls in the national income of any economy in the world. That is a reminder of the economic calamity that befell Britain and of the simple fact that our country remains poorer as a result of it. A lot of work still remains to be done to put that right. The data revisions also showed something else: there was no double-dip recession.
Let me turn to the future. At the time of the Budget in March, the OBR forecast that growth this year would be 0.6%. Today, it more than doubles that forecast and the estimate for growth will be 1.4%. Next year, instead of growth of 1.8%, it is now forecasting 2.4%. Faster growth now means that it has revised the following four years to 2.2%, 2.6%, 2.7% and 2.7%, so growth over the forecast period is significantly up. It is still not as strong as we would like it to be, but this is the largest improvement to current year economic forecasts at any Budget or autumn statement for 14 years. I can report that Britain is currently growing faster than any other major advanced economy: faster than France, which is contracting; faster than Germany; and faster even than America. That contrast itself points to the risks that remain for the UK from abroad, and the weakness of many of our main trading partners.
The first risk the OBR identified to our economic recovery is a recurrence of the damaging instability in the eurozone. Even with the relative calm of recent months, the OBR still forecasts that the euro area as a whole will shrink by 0.4% this year. Its growth forecasts for the US and emerging markets have also been revised down, and world trade has been weaker than it expected in March. While our exports are growing, they are not growing as fast as we would like. That is because we are too dependent on markets in Europe and north America. The Prime Minister’s visit to China this week is the latest step in the Government’s determined plan to increase British exports to the faster growing emerging markets, something our country should have done many years ago. Today, I am doubling to £50 billion the export finance capacity available to support British businesses, expanding the help available to firms in these emerging markets and ensuring that our excellent new trade Minister, Lord Livingston, has all the firepower he needs.
Let me turn to the forecast for employment. Today in Britain, employment is at an all-time high and the OBR has revised up its forecast for the future. It was expecting jobs to stay flat over the year, but it now expects the total number of jobs to rise by 400,000 this year. This is being felt right across the country. Since 2010, the number of jobs in Carlisle and on the Wirral, and from Selby to south Tyneside, has grown faster than in London. Meanwhile, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit has fallen by more than 200,000 in the past six months—the largest such fall for 16 years. Unemployment is also lower than in 2010, and is forecast to fall further from 7.6% this year to 7% in 2015, before falling even further to 5.6% by 2018. We have the lowest proportion of workless households for 17 years.
There were those who said it was a “fantasy” to believe that businesses could create jobs more quickly than the public sector would have to lose them. What they should have said was that it would be fantastic if it happened. So I have good news for them. Businesses have already created three jobs for every one lost in the public sector, and the OBR report today forecasts that this will continue, with 3.1 million more jobs being created by businesses by 2019, which, in its words, “more than offsets” the million or so reduction in the public sector headcount. Far from the mass unemployment predicted, we have a record number of people in work, hundreds of thousands fewer on welfare, and unemployment lower than when we came to office, and we will have 2 million more jobs than in 2010—an economic plan that is working and a Government who are seeking a job-rich recovery for all.
Let me turn now to the forecasts for Government borrowing and debt. When this Government came into office, the deficit was 11% of GDP. That was the highest level in our peacetime history. One pound in every four was being borrowed, and a former Chancellor and a former Prime Minister have now joined the consensus that spending was too high. The borrowing posed a huge risk to the economic stability and credibility of the United Kingdom, and we have taken many difficult decisions to bring that deficit down—every one contested and opposed.
I can report today, however, that the effort is paying off. The OBR uses a measure of what it calls “underlying public sector net borrowing”, which excludes the impact of the Royal Mail pension scheme and asset purchase facility transfers. I can tell the House that this underlying measure of the deficit, like the other deficit measure, has been revised down substantially since March. From the 11% back in 2010, the underlying deficit now falls to 6.8% this year, instead of the 7.5% the OBR forecast back in March. It then falls to 5.6% next year, then 4.4%, 2.7% and, in 2017-18, 1.2%. By 2018-19, on this measure, the OBR does not expect a deficit at all. Instead, it expects Britain to run a small surplus. These numbers mean that the Government will meet their fiscal mandate to bring the structural current budget into balance and meet it one year early.
Let me turn to the forecasts for cash borrowing on this same underlying basis. At the autumn statement last year, there were repeated predictions that borrowing would go up. Instead, borrowing is down—and down significantly more than was forecast. In their last year in office, the previous Government borrowed £158 billion. This year, we will borrow £111 billion, which is £9 billion less than was feared in March. That falls next year to £96 billion, then down to £79 billion in 2015-16, £51 billion the year after and £23 billion the year after that. So we are set to borrow £73 billion less over the period than was forecast in March. That means that we are borrowing the equivalent of £2,500 less for every household in this country.
In 2018-19, on this cash measure too, the OBR forecasts that the Government will not have to borrow anything at all. Instead, we will run a small cash surplus. Of course, this will only happen if we go on working through our long-term plan, delivering the reductions in the deficit we plan this year, next year and in the three years after. If we gave up on the plan now, we would be saddled with a deficit still among the highest in Europe, and the Government side of the House is not prepared to take that risk.
While the deficit remains, it adds to our national debt every year. The OBR today expects debt this year to come in at 75.5% of GDP, which is £18 billion lower than was forecast in March. It rises to 78.3% next year, before peaking at 80% the next year—5% lower than forecast at the Budget. In 2016-17, it then falls, albeit slightly, to 79.9%; then falls again to 78.4% and then to 75.9%. By 2017-18, debt is over £80 billion pounds lower than forecast in March. The supplementary debt target is for debt to be falling in 2015-16. At the Budget, the OBR forecast debt to be falling in 2017-18. It is now forecast to fall in 2016-17, which is one year earlier.
But let me enter this note of caution. The OBR is clear that this is a cyclical improvement. The forecast for the continuing fall in the structural deficit has not improved. The structural deficit is the borrowing that stays behind even when the economy improves. Thanks to our actions, it has fallen from the 8.7% we inherited to 4.4% today—more than in any other major advanced economy. It goes on falling, but no faster than was previously expected because, as we have always argued, the central task of reforming government and controlling spending does not simply dissolve when growth returns. It supports the case we have made all along that economic growth alone was never going to be enough to repair Britain’s broken public finances. An improving economy does not let us off the hook for taking the difficult decisions to make sure that the Government live within their means.
The single most important economic judgement I make today is this: we will not let up in dealing with our country’s debts; we will not spend the money from lower borrowing; we will not squander the hard-earned gains of the British people. The stability and low mortgage rates, the lower deficit and falling borrowing have been hard won by this country, but let us be clear that they could easily be lost. That is why we must work through our plan to secure the British economy for the long term.
So this autumn statement is fiscally neutral across the period. Indeed, I can announce today that we will take three new steps to entrench Britain’s commitment to sound public finances. First, we will bring forward next year an updated charter for budget responsibility and ask Parliament to support it. I can say today that both parties of the coalition have agreed that we must ensure that debt continues to fall as a percentage of GDP, including using surpluses in good years, for this purpose. In other words, this time we will fix the roof when the sun is shining.
We will look to see whether the five-year time horizon of the fiscal mandate could be shorter and even more binding now that the public finances are closer to balance, and we will see how fiscal credibility could be further enhanced by a stronger parliamentary commitment to the path of consolidation already agreed for 2016-17 and 2017-18. The answers will be written into an updated charter for budget responsibility, which will be presented to Parliament a year from now and voted upon.
The second step we take today to entrench Britain’s commitment to sound public finances is this: we will cap overall welfare spending. Welfare budgets were completely out of control when we came to office and the number of households where no one had ever worked nearly doubled. We have taken very difficult decisions to bring benefit bills down; we have saved £19 billion a year for the taxpayer. We need to maintain that discipline. The percentage of spending in the UK subject to fixed spending controls is very low by international standards—at just 50%. So from next year, we will introduce a new cap on total welfare spending.
I have had representations that the basic state pension should be included within that cap, but that would mean cutting pensions for those who have worked hard all their lives because the costs on, say, housing benefit for young people had got out of control. That is not fair, so we will not include the state pension, which is better controlled over a longer period. We will also exclude from the cap the most cyclical of benefits for jobseekers. All other benefits—from tax credits to income support to the vast majority of housing benefit—will be included in the cap.
At the beginning of each Parliament, the Chancellor of the day will set the welfare cap for the coming years, and will ask the House of Commons for its support. If the cap is breached, the Chancellor will have to explain why, and hold a vote in the House. The principle is clear: the Government have a responsibility to taxpayers to control their spending on welfare, and Parliament has a responsibility to the country to hold the Government to account for it.
That brings me to our third step. Ultimately, the test of fiscal credibility is whether you are prepared actually to make the difficult decisions that will keep spending under control. Tight discipline means that most Departments are now living well within their set budgets. This year they are expected to underspend by £7 billion, which is testimony to good financial management. We can therefore be confident in reducing the contingency reserve by £1 billion this year, and reducing departmental budgets by a similar amount in the next two years. That will save a further £3 billion in total. The protections for the NHS and schools will apply, and the security and intelligence agencies and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will be exempt. The Barnett formula means that over the next two years, the budgets for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales will see a net increase. We will not apply those additional savings to local authorities, because we expect them to freeze council tax next year.
This year, Britain becomes the first G8 country to meet our promise to the poorest in the world to spend 0.7% of our national income on development., but we do not have to increase the budget of the Department for International Development further in order to do that. The effectiveness of the British Government’s aid effort in the Philippines, matched by the generosity of the British public, is a reminder of what marks us out as a nation, and we in this country can be very proud of it.
We are also immeasurably proud of the work of Britain’s armed forces. As they wind down their operations in Afghanistan, the budget that we spend there is also falling fast, so we can reduce the military special reserve by a further £900 million this year while still funding all operational costs. To reflect our society’s debt of gratitude to our servicemen and women and their families, I want to make a further £100 million of LIBOR fines available to our brilliant military charities, and to extend that support to those who care for the work of our police, fire and ambulance services. I think the whole House will agree that the terrible events in Glasgow this weekend, and the work that those services are doing right now to cope with the adverse weather conditions, remind us how much we owe to them.
Discipline with the public finances means more than just words. It means making difficult decisions, and being prepared to stick to them. It means using surpluses in good years to keep debt falling, so that we fix that roof when the sun is shining. It means capping welfare to keep it under control, and, when we do want to spend more money, it means finding extra ways in which to pay for it.
One of the biggest single items of Government spending is the basic state pension. I am proud to be in a Government who have introduced a triple lock that ensures a fair and generous increase in the state pension every year for those who have worked hard all their lives. I can confirm that next April the state pension will rise by a further £2.95 a week. That increase, and the other increases that have been made under this Government, mean that pensioners will be more than £800 better off every year. I can announce that we are also going to offer current pensioners an opportunity to make voluntary national insurance contributions to boost their income in retirement, and that we will extend that opportunity to those who reach pension age before the introduction of the single-tier pension. That will help those who have not built up much entitlement to the additional state pension, especially women and the self-employed.
However, we must also guarantee that the basic state pension is affordable in the future, even as people live longer and our society grows older, and the only way in which to do that is to ensure that the pension age keeps pace with life expectancy. The Pensions Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, puts in place reviews of the pension age every five years. We have set the principle that will underpin those reviews. We think that a fair principle is that, as now, people should expect to spend up to a third of their adult lives in retirement. Based on the latest life expectancy figures, applying that principle would mean an increase in the state pension age to 68 in the mid-2030s and to 69 in the late 2040s. The exact dates will be set by the future statutory reviews and in line with the most up-to-date demographic data, of which the next update is published next week. This is one of those difficult decisions that Governments have to take if they are serious about controlling the public finances. Future taxpayers will be saved around £500 billion. Young people will know that our country can afford to give them a proper pension when they retire. That is this generation fulfilling its obligations for fiscal responsibility to the next generation, not saddling them with the debts and the decisions we were not prepared to deal with ourselves.
Having sound public finances also means making sure that we collect the taxes that are due. Most wealthy people pay their taxes and make a huge contribution to funding our public services; the latest figures show that 30% of all income tax is paid by just 1% of taxpayers. We have given incentives to enterprise and cut punitive tax rates, and this year the rich pay a greater share of the nation’s income taxes than was the case in any year under the last Labour Government. But alongside those paying the most tax are those who try to avoid paying their fair share of tax. So today we set out in detail the largest package of measures to tackle tax avoidance, tax evasion, fraud and error so far this Parliament. Together it will raise over £9 billion over the next five years.
We are going to tackle the growth of intermediaries disguising employment as false self-employment, depriving work forces of basic employment rights such as the minimum wage in a bid to avoid employer national insurance. We will halve the final period exemption for capital gains tax private residence relief. We will end the abuse of dual contracts, offshore oil and gas contracting, derivatives linked to profits and share buy-backs. And we will ensure the tax advantages of partnerships are not abused either. We are introducing a new, limited power that requires people to pay their taxes up front where the scheme they used has already been struck down by the courts. We are going to strengthen Whitehall’s capacity to prevent error and tackle fraud in the benefit and tax credit systems, and expand its efforts to recover money that is owed.
There is one personal tax change we make today which is not about avoidance, but is about fairness. Britain is an open country that welcomes investment from all over the world, including investment in our residential property. But it is not right that those who live in this country pay capital gains tax when they sell a home that is not their primary residence while those who do not live here do not—that is unfair. So from April 2015, we will introduce capital gains tax on future gains made by non-residents who sell residential property here in the UK.
I can also announce that from 1 January next year the rate of the bank levy will rise to 0.156% and its base will be broadened in ways we have consulted on. The levy will raise £2.7 billion in 2014-15 and £2.9 billion each year from 2015-16. The country stood behind the banks in the crisis, and now it is right that they support the country in recovery.
Having a Government who live within their means is essential to secure the economy for the long term, but it is not sufficient. Britain has to earn its way in the world. Our infrastructure needs to be overhauled. We have to help our businesses compete. Above all, our young people need the skills to succeed in the modern world. This autumn statement takes the next big steps in all these areas.
Let me start with infrastructure. We are going to be spending more on capital as a proportion of national income on average over this decade than over the whole period of the last Government. That has involved making tough choices about priorities in spending and sticking to them. But that is not the most difficult decision in this area. We have to decide whether we are serious as a country about competing in the modern world and say to people that we need the new roads and the new railways, including the northern hub and High Speed 2. We have to say that we are prepared to push the boundaries of scientific endeavour, including in controversial areas, because Britain has always been a pioneer. We should say that the country that was the first to extract oil and gas from deep under the sea should not turn its back on new sources of energy such as shale gas because it is all too difficult, and the country with the world’s first civil nuclear programme should not be a country that says we can do this no longer.
Yesterday, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary and Lord Deighton published the update to the national infrastructure plan. That includes a co-operation agreement with Hitachi on the next nuclear power station in Anglesey and a deal with the insurance industry to invest at least £25 billion in UK infrastructure. We published the strike prices that support long-term investment in offshore wind and prioritise it over onshore wind. Today we go further, with a commitment to invest in quantum technology, and a new tax allowance to encourage investment in shale gas that halves tax rates on early profits. In the week in which Professor Peter Higgs travels to Stockholm to collect his Nobel prize for physics, we commit to build a new centre in his name at Edinburgh university, because science is a personal priority of mine.
Some of the most important infrastructure for British families is housing and we must confront this simple truth: if we want more people to own a home, we have to build more homes. The Office for Budget Responsibility is absolutely right today to draw attention to the weakness of housing supply in this country. The good news is that the latest survey data showed residential construction growing at its fastest rate for a decade. Our hard-won planning reforms are delivering a 35% increase in approvals for new homes, but we need to do more.
This week, we are announcing a billion pounds of loans to unblock large housing developments on sites in Manchester and Leeds and across the country. We will increase the housing revenue account borrowing limit by £300 million. Aspiration is not only for people who can afford their own home. We want to regenerate some of our most run-down urban housing estates. Councils will sell off the most expensive social housing, so they can house many more families for the same money. We are going to give working people in social housing a priority right to move if they need to for a job.
Right-to-buy applications have doubled under this Government, and we will expand it more. The very same spirit of aspiration that underpins right to buy is what drives this Government with Help to Buy. It is not enough to build more houses if families who can afford mortgages do not have the large deposits that the banks have demanded. Help to Buy is now helping thousands to own their own home. I can today announce that Aldermore and Virgin, two challenger banks, expect to join the scheme this month.
Help to aspiring families and building more homes: that is what we stand for. We must also avoid the mistakes of the past decade. We want a responsible recovery. That is why I am the first Chancellor to give the Bank of England the responsibility and the power not only to monitor overall debt levels, but to take action to deal with asset bubbles if they threaten our stability.
We want a functioning, stable housing market. The OBR’s latest house price forecast today, while higher, still has real house prices 3.1% lower in 2018 than at their peak in 2007. Together with Governor Carney, I acted last week to focus the funding for lending scheme away from mortgages on to small business lending, where its support is still needed. It is precisely because the authorities can act in this targeted and pre-emptive way, and because our public finances are under control, that the Bank can keep overall interest rates lower for longer and support the rest of the economy.
Investing in the physical infrastructure of our country is critical to our future. But in this global economy, it is better education and skills that hold the key to long-term national success. This week’s programme for international student assessment—PISA—scores show how much ground this country has to make up. My right hon. Friend the Education Secretary is doing more to transform school standards and raise the aspirations of pupils from the poorest families than anyone who has done that job before him. His expansion of free schools and academies has the full backing of this Chancellor.
We also know that children do better at school when they have a proper meal inside them. This autumn statement has found the financial resources to fund the expansion of free school meals to all school children in reception, year 1 and year 2, announced by the Deputy Prime Minister and supported by me.
But today we also focus on what happens when our young people leave school—and we do more to help them. First, we will not abandon those who leave school with few or no qualifications. At present, Jobcentre Plus does almost nothing to help 16 and 17-year-olds who are not in work or education. We will change that and will now fund the jobcentres to support these very young adults to find an apprenticeship or a traineeship.
Without basic maths or English, there is a limited chance any young person will be able to stay off welfare, so we are taking a new approach. Starting in some areas at first, anyone aged 18 to 21 signing on without those basic skills will be required to undertake training from day one or lose their benefits. If they are still unemployed after six months, they will have to start a traineeship, take work experience or do a community work placement—and if they do not turn up, they will lose their benefits.
A culture of worklessness becomes entrenched when young people can leave school and go straight on to the dole with nothing expected in return. That option is coming to an end in our welfare system.
The second reform is to apprenticeships. We have doubled the number of apprenticeships and now we will transform the way they are provided by funding employers directly through HMRC. I can tell the House there will now be an additional 20,000 higher apprenticeships over the next two years. I can also announce a big expansion of start-up loans, through which a new generation of entrepreneurs is being created: 50,000 more people will be helped to fulfil their aspiration to start their own business. We are extending the new enterprise allowance, too.
This year is also the 50th anniversary of the Robbins report, which challenged the nonsense that university was suitable only for a small few. In 1963, Robbins said:
“Courses of higher education should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so.”
That was true then, and I believe it should remain true today. Our reforms to student loans, difficult as they were, have put our universities on a secure footing. Some predicted that applications from students from poor backgrounds would fall. Instead, I can report that this year we have had the highest ever proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds applying to university.
But there is still a cap on aspiration. Each year, about 60,000 young people who have worked hard at school, got the results, want to go on learning and want to take out a loan to pay for it are prevented from doing so because of an arbitrary cap. That makes no sense when we have a lower proportion of people going to university than even the United States, let alone countries such as South Korea. Access to higher education is a basic tenet of economic success in the global race, so today I can announce that next year we will provide 30,000 more student places, and the year after we will abolish the cap on student numbers altogether.
Extra funding will be provided to science, technology, and engineering courses. The new loans will be financed by selling the old student loan book, allowing thousands more to achieve their potential.
Education underpins opportunity. It is business that provides those opportunities and the best way to help business is by lowering the burden of tax. KPMG’s report last week confirmed for the second year running that Britain has the most competitive business tax system in the world. Some in this House suggest that our response to this good news should be to increase corporation tax from 20%. Today, we publish the first of our studies of the dynamic effects of tax changes that shows that our corporation tax cuts increase investment and raise productivity—so much so that more than half the cost of the tax cut to the Treasury will be recovered because of higher growth. Putting up corporation tax hits investment, cuts productivity, costs jobs and raises much less. We thank the hon. Members for their submission, but we think it would be economic madness to pursue it.
Quite the reverse, today we take further steps to make our business taxes yet more competitive. The Budget announcement that we would abolish stamp duty on AIM shares was applauded around the world. Today, we also abolish stamp duty for shares purchased in exchange traded funds to encourage those funds to locate in the UK. We are making our successful film tax relief even more generous, and looking to extend the principle, including to regional theatre. We set out major reforms to encourage employee ownership of the kind that makes John Lewis such a success. And from April, we will be one of the first countries in the world to introduce a new tax relief for investment in social enterprises and new social impact bonds. I want to thank Sir Ronnie Cohen and the charities Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (Mr Hurd), for all their help in putting this innovative scheme together.
Business rates impose a heavy burden on businesses of all sizes. Today, we will help ease that burden—and here is how. The last Government wanted to halve small business rates relief—a relief that helps cut rates bills for half a million companies and means a third of a million of the smallest businesses pay no rates at all. If we had followed that plan, small businesses would have faced a rate increase of up to £3,375. So we have rejected that plan. Instead, we have extended that rate relief scheme year after year. It was due to expire next April. We will now extend it for another whole year. We have also listened to the small business groups and will relax the rules that discourage these firms from expanding and opening extra premises.
But that does not go far enough. All businesses are expecting rates to rise by 3.2% next year. Instead, I will cap the inflation increase in business rates for all premises at 2% from next April. We will also allow businesses to pay their rates in 12 monthly instalments. We will clear almost all the backlog of valuation appeals by July 2015, with reform of business rates on the agenda for 2017 revaluation.
There is one group of businesses that has found the recession especially hard, as it has coincided with a rising challenge from the internet that is only getting stronger. These are our local retailers—the shops, the pubs and the cafés that make up our high streets across Britain. With small business Saturday this weekend, I want the Government to do all we can to help them. We are already changing the planning rules to help town centres compete. To get the vacant shops that blight too many town centres to open again, I am introducing a new reoccupation relief that will halve the rates for new occupants.
But we can do more, and I want to thank my hon. Friends the Members for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal), for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), for Hastings and Rye (Amber Rudd) and for Brentford and Isleworth (Mary Macleod) and many others for their campaign. Like them, I also want to help those who have struggled hard on our high streets—often working long hours for not enough in return. So I can announce today that for the next two years every retail premise in England with a rateable value of up to £50,000 will get a discount on their business rates. This discount will be worth £1,000 off their bills.
This is what we offer: business rates capped; for the smallest firms, no rates at all; and help for the high street, with £1,000 off for small shops, pubs, cafés and restaurants across our country. The people in these businesses epitomise the hard-working values this Government support, and we are backing British businesses all the way.
And we are backing British families. Next April, the personal allowance will reach £10,000. This Government are delivering an income tax cut worth up to £700 a year to over 25 million hard-working people. Under the last Government, council tax doubled. We are now helping councils freeze it for the whole of this Parliament. Tax-free child care is being introduced and free school meals are on their way. But there is more we are doing to help.
This autumn statement confirms that from April 2015 we will introduce a new transferable tax allowance for married couples. Available to all basic rate taxpayers, it enables people to transfer £1,000 of their personal allowance to their wife, husband or civil partner. It is just a start. And I confirm today that we will introduce a new uprating mechanism that ensures the new married couples tax allowance is automatically increased in proportion to the personal allowance. Four million families will benefit, many of them among the poorest working families in our country. This measure, along with the others we take today, ensures that across this Parliament our policies are progressive, showing that we are all in this together, with the very rich paying the most.
We are also helping families with their energy bills, not with a transparent con by pretending that we can control the world oil price, but instead by focusing on the thing that Government can and should control—the levies and charges that previous Energy Secretaries piled on bills. [Interruption.] This week we deliver on the promise made by the Prime Minister—[Interruption.]
Mr Osborne
This week we deliver on the promise made by the Prime Minister to roll back those levies. The result: an average of £50 off family bills. We are doing this in a way that supports the lowest income families, reduces carbon, supports investment in our energy infrastructure and, as the document shows, does not add a penny to the tax bills that families pay. My political philosophy is clear: instead of penalising people with more taxes and more regulation, give them incentives by reducing their taxes and their bills. As I have often said, going green does not have to cost the earth.
That brings me on to fuel duty. We inherited from the previous Government the hated fuel duty escalator that would have inflicted hardship on families and small firms alike. Instead of those rises, we abolished the escalator, and we have cut and then frozen fuel duty. I have had further representations from many, many hon. Friends, from my hon. Friends the Members for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) and for Argyll and Bute (Mr Reid), and of course my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who is a champion of the people he represents.
I said earlier this autumn that if we could find the money, I would like to go on freezing duty. Today I can report that because we have taken difficult decisions to control the public finances, I can deliver on that promise. Next year’s fuel duty rise will be cancelled. Instead of petrol taxes going up by 2p a litre, they will stay frozen. That means that, compared with the previous Government’s plans, petrol will be 20p a litre less. That is £11 less every time you fill up—a saving for drivers over this Parliament of £680, and double that for a small business with a van.
Cancelling fuel duty rises has been a major priority of the Government—a £22 billion demonstration that we are on the side of hard-working people in this country. A married couples allowance; £50 off energy bills. We are helping those who drive a car and we are helping those who get the train, too. Fares next January were going to go up by 1% above inflation. We are going to keep average fares flat in real terms.
We on the Government Benches know that there is one thing more than any other that has supported families through these difficult times, and that is being in work. At the heart of our economic plan is support for the creation of more jobs. That is why we opposed the last Government’s plan to increase the jobs tax. That is why we reversed the most damaging part of that increase in the very first Budget after we came to office. That is also why in the last Budget I introduced the employment allowance, which eliminates the jobs tax for half a million small businesses. And that is why we will go further still. We are going to abolish the jobs tax on young people under the age of 21. Employer national insurance contributions will be removed altogether on a million and a half jobs for young people. We are not going to leave young people behind as the economy grows. We are going to have a responsible recovery for all.
The cost for a business of employing a young person on a salary of £12,000 will fall by over £500. For someone on £16,000, that is over £1,000 off. I want to commend my hon. Friends the Members for Braintree (Mr Newmark) and for Carlisle (John Stevenson) and the Million Jobs campaign for highlighting this issue. The change requires legislation. It will come into force in April 2015, and it will not apply beyond the upper earnings limit.
This country is working through its long-term plan: bringing down the deficit and dealing with the debt; spending less on welfare and making the big decisions on infrastructure; living within our means and cutting tax on business; making work pay and letting people keep more of what they earn; and with confidence in the next generation, as they make their way in education and in the workplace. This statement shows that the plan is working. It is a long-term plan for a grown-up country. But the job is not done. By doing the right thing, we are heading in the right direction. Britain is moving again. Let us keep going.
Ed Balls (Morley and Outwood) (Lab/Co-op)
The whole country will have seen today that for all his boasts and all his breathtaking complacency—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. I appeal to the House—[Interruption.] Order. I do not need any sedentary comments from either side of the House. What I said in respect of the Chancellor applies equally in respect of the shadow Chancellor. Let us have a bit of calm and a bit of order. Following the response, as usual, I will facilitate the widest possible opportunity for questioning. Let us have courtesy, please.
Ed Balls
The whole country will have seen today that for all his boasts and all his utterly breathtaking complacency, the Chancellor is in complete denial about the central fact defining this Government in office: under this Chancellor and this Prime Minister, for most people in our country living standards are not rising, but falling year on year.
Let me ask the Chancellor to demonstrate, because he did not mention it, that he is not completely out of touch with the cost of living crisis facing millions of people in our country. Can he confirm that, on average, working people in our country are £1,600 a year worse off than they were when the Government came into office in 2010, that prices will continue to rise faster than wages this year and into next year and that, as a result, people will be worse off in 2015 than they were in 2010? [Interruption.] Is not this the truth: after three damaging years of flatlining, after the slowest recovery for over 100 years—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. However long it takes, the response—[Interruption.] Order. Mr Morris, I do not require your assistance. Calm down. Take up yoga, or whatever is necessary. However long it takes, the response, like the statement, will be heard. The sooner Members on both sides of the House grasp that very simple fact, the better.
Ed Balls
There is a cost of living crisis, even if Government Members will not admit it in this House, and we all know why: after three damaging years of flatlining and the slowest recovery for over 100 years, from a Chancellor and a Prime Minister who said that we were all in this together and then gave a huge tax cut to millionaires, do we not know the truth? Working people are not better off under the Tories, but worse off. For all their complacent boasts, after three damaging and wasted years for most people in the constituencies of hon. Members on both sides of the House there is still no recovery at all.
Let me ask the Chancellor about the promises he made to the House on growth and living standards three years ago. He said then that the economy would grow by more than 8.4% by the end of this year, but even after today’s welcome upward revisions, growth is set to be half that—lower growth than he forecast in 2010 this year, next year, and the year after as well.
Did not the Chancellor pledge to get the banks lending, yet net lending to business is now down by £100 billion compared with May 2010? Did he not make the No. 1 test of his economic credibility keeping the triple A credit rating, yet it has been downgraded not once but twice? As for his promise to balance the books by 2015, did he not confirm today that in 2015 he will not be balancing the books but borrowing £79 billion? For all his smoke and mirrors—[Interruption.] For all his smoke and mirrors, he is borrowing £198 billion more than he planned in 2010: more borrowing to pay for three years of economic failure; more borrowing in just three years under this Chancellor than under the previous Government in 13 years. He used to say that he would balance the books in 2015; now he wants us to congratulate him on saying he will do it in 2019. With this Government, it is clearly not just the badgers that move the goalposts.
On energy bills, after the Government’s panicked and half-baked attempt to steal Labour’s clothes, we know that they are not only not very good at shooting badgers, but not very good at shooting other people’s foxes either. What is the truth? For three months, the Leader of the Opposition has been calling for an energy price freeze, and did the Chancellor announce an energy price freeze? No, he did not. Can he confirm that while the energy companies have already announced price rises of £120 this year, his policy will still see energy prices rise by £70 this winter? Under this Chancellor, the only freeze this winter will be for millions of families and pensioners with rising bills struggling to heat their homes. Does he really think he can get away with tinkering at the edges, moving green levies his own party introduced off the bills and on to the taxpayer, and—surprise, surprise—letting the energy companies completely off the hook? They are not paying a penny. Does he not realise that for millions of hard-pressed families, pensioners and businesses across our country, nothing less than a freeze will do? Rather than hard-pressed taxpayers, it should be the excess profits of the energy companies that pick up the tab.
As for the Prime Minister’s flagship policy for families—a tax break for marriage—why will not the Chancellor admit the truth and tell the Prime Minister that the policy will not even help the families the Prime Minister says it will? His own Treasury Minister has let the cat out of the bag: I have it here in black and white. The Exchequer Secretary says that just under one third of married couples will get the married couples tax allowance. Just one in six families with children will benefit. Contrary to the Prime Minister’s claim in this House a few weeks ago, a married couple both paying basic-rate income tax will get no benefit at all. [Interruption.] No wonder his own Chancellor of the Exchequer has this week told The Daily Telegraph that he thinks the Prime Minister’s policy is
“a turkey of an idea”.
The Chancellor thinks the Prime Minister’s policy is a turkey. Merry Christmas, Prime Minister, Merry Christmas! [Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. It is very simple; this just lengthens the proceedings. It does not bother me; I very much enjoy chairing the proceedings. [Interruption.] I think that what Members on both sides of the House will wish to consider is how this conduct is regarded by the public we are here to represent.
Ed Balls
I think that on this one the Chancellor is right—it is a turkey of an idea.
On the cost of living crisis, on energy, on supporting families, this Government just do not get it. There is a reason why this Prime Minister and this Chancellor—the Chancellor said it in his statement—believe that people are better-off: it is that the people on their Christmas card lists have seen their bonuses rise and their taxes cut. They have shown that they are willing to stand up for the interests of the energy companies—[Interruption.] We have a Prime Minister and a Chancellor who will stand up for the energy companies, stand up for the hedge funds, and stand up for people earning over £150,000—who get a tax cut—but will not stand up for millions of families and pensioners in our country: people struggling with rising energy bills, falling wages, and rising child care costs.
We all know and agree that rising life expectancy means we are going to have to work longer and that the Chancellor’s failure on growth and the deficit means more tough spending decisions in the next Parliament. But when the country is crying out for a Government who will work with business to promote investment and wealth creation and build an economy that works for the many and not just the few, does this Chancellor really think he can get away with tinkering at the edges, letting the free market rip, and waiting for the wealth to trickle down? Is not what the Chancellor has announced today the clearest evidence yet that the Government just do not understand the scale of the challenge we face to get an investment-led recovery that works for all and not just a few—a strong recovery built to last?
Let me ask the Chancellor—[Interruption.] With the permission of the House, let me ask the Chancellor this: with house building under this Government at its lowest level since the 1920s, does he not see that his Help to Buy scheme to boost mortgage demand can deliver a strong and balanced recovery only if he does what we and the IMF have urged and invests in housing supply—more affordable homes. [Interruption.] Government Members sneer at building more affordable homes. Can the Chancellor tell the House why infrastructure output has actually fallen by 15% since 2010? No wonder the CBI is so upset.
On investment, why has not the Chancellor used the money from the planned increase in spectrum licence fees to endow a proper business investment bank? On tax avoidance, will he tell the House why HMRC has reported that the amount of uncollected tax actually rose last year?
Almost 1 million young people are unemployed; a record number who want to work full time are being forced to accept part-time work; the Work programme is a flop; the welfare bill is rising; and, as we have learned today, universal credit is a complete and utter shambles. There was no mention of universal credit in the statement: IDS—in deep shambles.
Is it not the fact that, for all the shambles and chaos and rising welfare bills, what the Chancellor has announced on youth unemployment is too little, too late? There will be help for under-21s only, and only in the last weeks of this Government in 2015. Why is he not being more ambitious? Why will he not repeat the successful tax on bank bonuses to pay for a compulsory job for all young people—a job they will take or lose?
Why will the Chancellor not remove the winter allowance from the richest 5% of pensioners? Why will he not reverse his tax cut for hedge funds and protect disabled people in our country by scrapping the unfair and perverse bedroom tax this Prime Minister introduced? Why will he not go further on the bank levy and expand free child care for working parents, make work pay and use it to help working parents?
Is not this the truth: will the Chancellor confirm that even after what he has announced today on fuel duty and increases in the personal allowance, his VAT rise, his cuts to tax credits and his cuts to child benefit mean that, on average, families with children are worse off because of his Budgets? That is the truth—giving with one hand, taking away much, much more with the other.
With energy bills still rising this winter, no real action to tackle the cost of living crisis, no proper plan to earn our way to rising living standards for all, surely Britain can do better than this.
This complacent Chancellor sits there and thinks he deserves a pat on the back. I have to say that, with bank bonuses rising and millionaires enjoying a big tax cut, this is a policy that is working for a few. But as this autumn statement shows, with this out-of-touch Chancellor and Prime Minister, hard-working people are worse off under the Tories.
Mr Osborne
The Leader of the Opposition and I agree on one thing: that was a complete nightmare. The only turkey around here is the speech just given. As for denial, the man who said that borrowing would not come down, unemployment would not come down and growth would not happen, and who refuses to apologise for what he did to the British economy, is the very epitome of denial. That is the central problem with his response and, indeed, his whole economic framework. Not only did he predict that the recovery would never come; he went out of his way to say that if we stuck with our plan it could never come.
This is what the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) said in March this year:
“I’ve said consistently…unless there is a government led plan for confidence, for growth and jobs, the economy will get worse but also the deficit won’t come down, it’ll go up”.
He predicted that the economy would get worse and the deficit would go up and that 1 million jobs would be lost, but the economy is growing, 1 million jobs have been created and the deficit has gone down. I have an explanation for what has happened: we do have a Government-led plan for confidence, for growth and jobs. It is our plan, it is working and the right hon. Gentleman should have welcomed it.
The extraordinary thing about the right hon. Gentleman’s performance was that he could not bring himself to welcome any of the better economic news. He has built his whole proposition as shadow Chancellor on the basis that our effort to deal with the public finances would make that growth impossible. That makes me wonder what the right hon. Gentleman has been up to with his time, but he gave a clue in a newspaper interview this week. He said that he had to cancel his grade 3 piano exam, because it was
“exactly the time when George Osborne is standing up to do the Autumn Statement!”
I think he should have gone ahead with the “Chopsticks” rendition. The newspaper article also says that he asked Miss Perrin, his piano teacher:
“‘If I go wrong can I start again?’ She said: ‘I think it’s probably best to keep going.’”
He takes the same approach to economic policy as he does to his piano. The final thing he said is that he hopes to reach grade 8 piano over the next four years. After his performance today, I can see why he expects to have a lot more time to practise.
Let me turn to the points the right hon. Gentleman raised. The central point is that it is not possible to have a cost of living plan without an economic plan. Labour’s silence on the economy goes to the heart of its weakness. It cannot talk about its record, because it had the biggest recession ever. It cannot talk about the deficit, because it has no plan to deal with it. The right hon. Gentleman cannot even talk about infrastructure and his much vaunted plan for a cross-party consensus, because he was the person who tried to break the consensus on the biggest project of all. He cannot talk about housing, because there were 420,000 fewer affordable homes at the end of the Labour Government. He cannot talk about business rates, because they went up 71% under Labour. He cannot talk about support for business, because he wants to put taxes up on business. He cannot ask about standing up to the powerful, because this is the week that Labour caved in to the trade unions. He cannot ask about jobs, because he wants more jobs taxes. And he cannot ask about banking and financial services, because the person Labour hired to advise it was the Reverend Flowers.
The right hon. Gentleman has said that he would be the co-operative Chancellor. Let me end by saying that that is exactly what he would be: borrowing more than he can afford, with catastrophic management of the finances, and a deluded leadership preaching one thing and doing another. It is hard-working people who will pick up the price if it blows up again. He cannot welcome the economic recovery because he is the biggest risk to economic recovery.
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con)
Does the Chancellor agree that the confidence now returning to the economy is a vindication of the Government’s decision to stand firm on reducing the deficit? Is it not now absolutely crucial that Britain sticks with this policy as the economy recovers, reduces the size of the state and creates room for the economy to grow, and with it, when resources allow—and only when resources allow—to reduce taxes?
Mr Osborne
I thank my hon. Friend for his support and his observation about what is happening in the economy. I complete agree with him. One of the things I said in the speech was that of course risks remain, the job is not done, productivity remains too low and we want it to grow. That requires economic reform and reducing taxes on business, which is what we have done again today.
Mr Alistair Darling (Edinburgh South West) (Lab)
I notice that the Chancellor’s growth forecasts follow a very familiar pattern of being fairly flat and then rising to, I think, 3.7% in four years’ time. That, of course, drives his assumptions in relation to borrowing and debt. Does he agree that risks remain not just in the eurozone, but here at home? In connection with that, could he tell me what the Office for Budget Responsibility is forecasting in relation to North sea oil revenues over the next few years, because there are some people who believe that that is a limitless source of funding for whatever they happen to be promising in the coming referendum? Finally, could he also tell me the source of the funding for the very welcome centre at Edinburgh university?
Mr Osborne
The right hon. Gentleman and I are both looking forward to the Higgs centre at Edinburgh university, which is a reminder of the scientific collaboration that can happen across the entire United Kingdom. We are, of course, incredibly proud of Professor Higgs.
The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point about oil and gas receipts in the forecast from the entirely independent Office for Budget Responsibility. Its forecast today for the whole of the UK is that oil and gas receipts will be £3.5 billion in 2016. That compares with the £6.8 billion on which the SNP Scottish Government have based their premises and their claims for independence. It is twice as much as the OBR has independently assessed, and that is another example of how they are not being straight with people about the facts in relation to independence. It would of course mean that there was a black hole in an independent Scotland’s public finances that would cost the Scottish people £1,000 each. It is yet another example of how they are not being straight; the independent facts refute their case.
Mr John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)
Will the Chancellor confirm that the independent official forecast shows that the more successful he is in future years in curbing spending and cutting borrowing, the faster the economy will grow, just as America has shown that by cutting the deficit, it can get more growth?
Mr Osborne
I agree with my right hon. Friend that unless we have a sustainable state, with borrowing and public finances under control, it will be very difficult to get the stability during which sustained growth happens. We have seen that in many of our neighbours, and that was the risk facing the United Kingdom in 2010. We have absolutely demonstrated that we can stick with a plan to deal with the deficit and take hard decisions on public finances, and see job creation and business expansion happen alongside that.
Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)
Last year, the Prime Minister told tax avoiders to wake up and smell the coffee. Will the Chancellor explain why in last year’s statement he promised that £3.2 billion would come into our coffers from Swiss bank accounts, yet since April he has managed to collect a meagre £440 million? Will he also explain why the OECD’s head of tax has singled out the UK as the only country giving companies new opportunities to avoid tax by changes in the controlled foreign company rules? When will the Government’s reality match their rhetoric?
Mr Osborne
First, all receipts from any of these tax measures are now independently audited by the Office for Budget Responsibility, so there is an independent audit. The truth is that some of these taxes turn out to raise less than we hoped, and some raise more. For example, we are getting less from Switzerland, and we are speaking directly with the Swiss Government about that, but the deal with Liechtenstein is bringing in more money than was forecast. Some of the other measures we have taken—for example, to prevent the avoidance of stamp duty on residential property, particularly in London—are raising more money than forecast.
On the OECD, the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister have led the effort at international level to get international rules on base erosion and profit shifting to make sure that there is a global response to a global problem.
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed) (LD)
Do not cutting tax on low pay, helping small business, freezing the petrol tax and getting from recession into growth show what can be achieved when two parties are prepared to work together and take the tough decisions that Labour would not have had the courage to take?
Mr Osborne
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman. In 2010, there was a hung Parliament and the potential for political paralysis in this country, but two political parties from different political traditions came together. It is a remarkable testament to the strength of this Government and the leadership of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister that we can put together these complicated, difficult autumn statements, with difficult decisions being taken on things such as the pension age, public expenditure in Whitehall and tax avoidance. We can do that together; of course, I would rather do it alone, but that is up to the British people in the next election.
Stewart Hosie (Dundee East) (SNP)
There was such hubris from this Chancellor that he pointed to a 1% rise in GDP this year, when GDP will still be 2.5% smaller than before the crisis; that he pointed to recent falls in unemployment, when there are still 1 million more unemployed than before the crisis; and that he said borrowing would fall to £111 billion, when that is £55 billion more than he promised for this year in 2010. That was before the body blow of increasing the retiral age, so that youngsters leaving school this year will have to work for 50 years and will be older than their grandparents are now before they can draw their pension. Given that this Chancellor has failed on every target he has set himself, how can we possibly trust him on anything he has said today, including on oil forecasts?
Mr Osborne
The central point that Scotland might want to focus on today is that the oil forecasts are independently produced by the Office for Budget Responsibility, so either the SNP believes that Robert Chote has somehow fiddled the numbers to stack the campaign against independence, or the truth is that it is making a false promise to the Scottish people. The SNP is not being straight with people about the public finance position of an independent Scotland, and it is Scottish people who would pay the price if there was such an outcome, but I think that they are beginning to have serious doubts about the claims that the SNP is making.
Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend, particularly on removing the jobs tax on young people. Will he confirm that one of the aims of his Budgets has been to ensure that the young people of today do not end up paying for the mess left by Labour?
Mr Osborne
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend, and I thank her for what she said. A central part of my Budgets has been to say to the next generation, “We are going to make sure you have the opportunities to succeed. If you have no skills, we will help you to get those skills. If you want vocational work and training, you will get that through apprenticeships. If you want to go on to higher education, you will get support from the lifting of the cap on student numbers, which is a huge reform”—and, as she mentioned, to say—“If you want to get into work, we will help you by abolishing the jobs tax on young people.” Dealing with the debts and deficits is also, of course, a huge part of saying to the next generation, “We will not leave you with the problems we weren’t prepared to tackle ourselves.”
Mr Michael Meacher (Oldham West and Royton) (Lab)
How can the Chancellor conceivably claim that this recovery is sustainable when business investment is still 25% below the pre-crash level, when only 0.1% of the 0.8% growth in the last quarter came from business investment, when productivity is one of the lowest in the OECD, when real wages have fallen 7% and are still falling, and when exports have still not taken off, despite the 25% fall in the exchange rate, and the deficit on traded goods is still likely to be in excess of £100 billion this year?
Mr Osborne
As I said in my statement, we need productivity to pick up in order to sustain the economic plan. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we want exports to increase. Exports were badly hit because our main export markets were in recession for much of last year. I agree with him about such things, but we disagree about the route to achieving them. His proposal is to put up a tax on business. I do not understand how that would possibly help either investment or exports. Tax increases on businesses would be regarded around the world as a bizarre move by the United Kingdom, and we are certainly not going to do that.
Dr Liam Fox (North Somerset) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on helping us to get out of the debt and deficit horror that was left by the previous Labour Government. In particular, I commend his downward pressure on public expenditure, which is the only way to get us out of the debt interest that has been so crippling. Does he agree that the fact that we will spend more money next year servicing our debt than educating our children is the ultimate monument to socialist economic failure, the likes of which we saw outlined yet again by an Opposition who seem to have learnt absolutely nothing from their own failures?
Mr Osborne
My right hon. Friend puts his argument incredibly well. He has also argued that the best national security policy a country can have is to make sure that it is dealing with its debts and has sustainable public finances. Debt interest remains far too large a part of the Government’s budget, because the national debt went up so much under Labour. It left us with an 11% budget deficit, which we are now of course bringing down. My right hon. Friend is absolutely right that debt interest—the bills of economic failure—is what we were bequeathed by the previous Government.
Mr Dennis Skinner (Bolsover) (Lab)
In the real world, is it not a fact that working people are faced with cuts in real wages, part-time jobs and zero-hours contracts? It is nothing short of purgatory for those who have to work for a living, and a paradise for the bankers. On Reverend Flowers, is it not a bit of a cheek for the Chancellor to talk about the subject of lining people’s nostrils, while at the same he is lining the pockets of the people on millionaire’s row?
Mr Osborne
The people who sucked up to the bankers and brought the British banking system to its knees are sitting on the Labour Benches. [Interruption.] The shadow Chancellor shakes his head. He is in denial. He was the City Minister when RBS bought ABN AMRO and when Northern Rock was selling 125% mortgages. I agree with the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner) that working people have paid a very high price for that catastrophic economic failure.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
In warmly congratulating the Chancellor on putting hard-working families and enterprise growth at the centre of the statement, may I draw his attention to those people in hard-working families who occupy key managerial positions and who typically earn just over £40,000 a year? More and more of those families are being dragged into paying higher rate income tax—perhaps as many as 2 million by the end of this Parliament. I ask him to bear those people in mind because they are the key to our recovery.
Mr Osborne
I agree with my hon. Friend that we want to help people on middle incomes as well as those on low incomes. Many of the measures, in particular those on fuel duty and rail fares, will help those people. The personal allowance is now passed through so that those who pay the higher rate of income tax, although not those who pay the top rate, get the benefit if they earn less than £100,000. The benefit is therefore flowing through to those people as well. That is all part of what we are doing to help working people in both the middle and lower income brackets.
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
Last year, wholesale energy prices rose by 1.7%, but energy bills rose by more than 9%. Why does the Chancellor think it is appropriate to reduce the number of solid wall insulation tasks for energy companies, thus destroying thousands of newly created jobs, rather than tackling the excessive profits of the greedy energy companies that have their hands in all our pockets?
Mr Osborne
Of course, it was the Labour Government who left us with six energy companies—[Interruption.] I do think that is relevant, because it is this Government who are seeking the competition that will bring new entrants. Let me address the specific point that the right hon. Lady makes. To compensate for the fact that we are rolling back some of the levies, for example in the energy company obligation, we have set out schemes today that will reward home owners who use energy efficiency measures to improve the efficiency of their home. Those include an additional bonus for solid wall insulation. There is also extra money for public sector organisations and private landlords to make their buildings more efficient. Across the board, we are supporting the insulation industry, but we are doing so in a way that does not penalise people through their electricity and gas bills. That is something that she should support.
Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)
In Watford, as I am sure my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is aware, unemployment is coming down every month, the number of apprenticeships has doubled in the past two years, a new university technical college is opening, and the Government are investing significant capital expenditure on infrastructure in the shape of the Croxley rail link. It seems that the shadow Chancellor’s policy is to spend more and borrow more, which would lead to exactly the reverse of what has happened in Watford. I hope that the Chancellor can assure me that he will be undeterred by what has been said today by the Opposition and will stick to his policies that support growth.
Mr Osborne
I want to return the compliment that my hon. Friend has paid me. He has been an outstanding Member of Parliament. His jobs clubs have helped many young people and his offer of work experience is helping people to get on the jobs ladder. The rail measures that we have announced today will help his constituents in Watford. He is right that for Watford, a Labour Government would mean higher unemployment, higher mortgage rates, more borrowing and more debt. That would put Watford and the rest of the country back into the economic mess we are taking them out of.
John McDonnell (Hayes and Harlington) (Lab)
Whatever one’s view of the past, there are worrying signs that the bonus culture is returning to the City, with large payouts, share distributions and high dividend payments disguising what were formerly bonuses. Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer make it clear that the Government stand ready to introduce further measures to control the bonus culture? I believe that they would have the support of the whole House in doing so.
Mr Osborne
I find myself in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. He put his question in a very measured way. We do not want to see a return to the uncontrolled bonus culture. We now have a much tougher regime in respect of the transparency of bonuses and clawback, which means that if things go wrong in trades or for a bank, they can get the money back that they have paid people in bonuses. We will take measures to tackle things such as dual contracts, as I mentioned briefly in my statement and as is set out in the document. People who work in the financial industry often split their contract so that they can claim that they are only working for part of the time in the UK to avoid tax. Where there is egregious tax avoidance, we will take steps. I agree with him that the banking system as a whole must be cognisant of the times in which it lives.
Mr Alan Reid (Argyll and Bute) (LD)
I congratulate the Chancellor on the fuel duty freeze which, as he pointed out, will save motorists 20p per litre compared with Labour’s plans. Will he confirm that motorists on the islands and in remote parts of the mainland in my constituency, such as Appin, will save 25p per litre compared with what the Labour party wants to charge them?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend has been an assiduous campaigner for lower fuel duty for his constituents. Indeed, he lobbied me about it in the Division Lobbies yesterday, although we had already taken the decision by then. He draws attention to the rural fuel rebate. That is an important scheme that we have introduced for some of the remote islands in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom. We would like to extend the scheme more widely, but we are constrained by European Union rules, which we are challenging. I am glad that the scheme is benefiting some of his constituents.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
When will the Chancellor accept the reality that for most ordinary people, the economy is about the cost of living crisis? Will he confirm that for 40 of the last 41 months, under his stewardship, prices have risen faster than wages?
Mr Osborne
Disposable household income is rising. The way to ensure that it continues to rise is to ensure that we have a sustained and responsible economic recovery. The cost of living for the people who live in this country cannot be detached from the performance of the overall economy, as the country sadly discovered when it had the biggest recession in modern history and people’s incomes were hit so badly. Our argument is that the only way to improve living standards in this country is to create jobs, support businesses as they expand and create those jobs, and ensure that the country gets out of its dependence on debt. That is precisely what we are doing.
Mr Mark Hoban (Fareham) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend for sticking to the course when others suggested that he was going too far and too fast. I am looking forward to voting for the charter for budget responsibility next year. What conclusion does he think people should draw if other parties in the House oppose it?
Mr Osborne
That will be an interesting opportunity to hear what the Labour party and any other party in this House that does not support our consolidation plans for 2016-17 and 2017-18 would do. If one listens carefully to what the shadow Chancellor says, one finds he makes a promise about current spending in the year in which the election will be held, but he makes no promise about capital spending in that year and says absolutely nothing about spending plans thereafter. We have an important opportunity to entrench this country’s commitment to fiscal consolidation. We will see what the Opposition do.
Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)
The Chancellor has turned doublespeak into a new art form today with his mind-boggling claim to be helping the fuel-poor by slashing the very programmes they depend on to insulate their homes. Does he accept that this statement is a hugely squandered opportunity to offer lasting relief to the fuel poor by launching a major retrofit programme that would cut bills, cut carbon, and create hundreds of thousands of jobs?
Mr Osborne
As I said, we are launching a huge scheme to help home movers insulate their homes, help public authorities insulate their buildings, and ensure that private landlords also have incentives. I disagree with the hon. Lady—and, I guess, her philosophy—in that I think such things are better done through incentives and lower taxes than through higher taxes and higher charges that put people off the agenda she wants to promote.
Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
The Chancellor is an historian of some note. Can he recall an occasion where such good news on jobs and growth was heard in such stony silence by the Labour party?
Mr Osborne
I did history at university if that is what my hon. Friend is referring to. The extraordinary thing is that the Opposition gambled on there not being an economic recovery, and the shadow Chancellor based his entire reputation not only on the idea that the recovery would not happen, but that it could not happen. As a result, his entire economic edifice has collapsed.
Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)
What advice does the Chancellor have for my 85-year-old constituent Ennis Peck, whose energy bills will rise to more than £120 a month in the new year? As a direct result of the Chancellor’s capitulation to the energy companies and changes to the energy company obligation, my constituent may no longer get his hard-to-heat, solid-wall home insulated under Nottingham’s greener housing scheme.
Mr Osborne
If Labour Members now say that they oppose our changes to the ECO, as implied by the hon. Lady’s question, she would be saying that bills should go up for the families she represents. It would be interesting to hear the Labour party clarify its position. The solid-wall insulation industry will be supported by additional incentives under the scheme to help home owners insulate their homes. Surely what we all want, including the hon. Lady, is for bills to come down for people across the country, and that is what will happen, by an average of £50.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
I am delighted that the Chancellor took notice of my speech last week that called for the abolition of business rates on small shops. Now that there is flexibility in the defence budget, is it not time the Government reinstated the modernisation programme for the houses of our brave soldiers and their families?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is right that the help for the high street announced today is significant—£1,000 off for shops, pubs, restaurants and cafés. For many shops that will be a lot better than a freeze and will wipe out their rates bill for a couple of years and help them in this difficult time. I know my hon. Friend has campaigned passionately on forces’ houses, and a lot of money is now going to military charities from the LIBOR fines. I know some of the bids being considered specifically involve forces’ housing, so that is one route through which we can ensure they get a better deal.
Jack Dromey (Birmingham, Erdington) (Lab)
What does the Chancellor have to say to the hard-working, aspirational Erdington family with whom I spoke this morning? The dad has lost his job twice in the past three years, with each new job on a yet lower rate of pay. The mum is a full-time carer for their disabled son. They are increasingly struggling to pay their mortgage and energy bills. They say to me, “Like all our friends, Jack, we don’t recognise the Chancellor’s recovery. Does he understand people like us?”, and in particular they ask, “What planet does the Chancellor live on?”. What does the Chancellor have to say?
Mr Osborne
I would say to his constituents, and anyone else, that times have been incredibly difficult for this country because we had the deepest recession in this country’s modern history. We had a 7% fall in GDP, which makes the country poorer. I argue that the best way to help that family, and many other families, is by keeping mortgage rates low and ensuring that more and better jobs are created in the economy, and that people can work longer hours if they want to. All those things are happening because we are standing behind our businesses and have control of our public finances. We are now investing in the next generation to ensure that that family can have a brighter future.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Somerset celebrates the fact that the iron Chancellor has shown his true mettle. Following his comments about the dynamic effect on corporation tax, will he consider whether that may have an effect on other taxes, and will he look to the dynamic effects of tax cuts in future statements?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is assiduous in his observation of these matters, and he will have spotted the first step in a quiet revolution. The Treasury has produced a dynamic model for tax reduction—in this case, for corporation tax. At the moment that sits alongside the static, more orthodox, model that the Treasury has always used. That dynamic model—which we have made available and will, of course, be subject to scrutiny—shows that reductions in corporation tax not only increase investment in this country, but as a result cost less than the scorecard method we normally suggest. We certainly intend to roll out that approach, as they say, to other taxes.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Chancellor accept that the recovery is too dependent on consumer expenditure? With net exports not increasing at all, the EU stagnating in coming years—as the Chancellor indicated—and business investment on the floor, what positive steps is he taking to secure a more balanced recovery?
Mr Osborne
We want a balanced recovery, as the hon. Gentleman says, and if we look at recent GDP data, the good news is that we have growth in manufacturing, construction and services. The forecast is for business investment and exports to increase, but I agree that those remain challenges, particularly because of what has happened to the source of 50% of our exports—the European continent. That is why the Prime Minister’s trade mission and the expansion I announced today of the export finance guarantee scheme will help Britain’s companies go out to emerging markets and ensure that we are connected to some of the fastest-growing parts of the world.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
I welcome the statement and the news that despite the OBR’s calculation that the recession bequeathed to us by the previous Government represented a shocking 7.2% destruction of wealth—the sharpest fall in income since the war—there has in fact been no double dip, and the UK is now the fastest-growing economy in the west. I particularly welcome the creation of three jobs for every one lost in the public sector, the workfare proposals to tackle those not in education, employment or training, and the relief for pensioners and motorists, which will be warmly welcomed in Norfolk. Is not the truth that the tough decisions taken by the Government, and the hard work of the British people in paying off the debts they were left, mean that we are building a sustainable recovery, and that the Opposition’s economic policy has been proven to be—balls?
Mr Osborne
I agree with my hon. Friend which, of course, is not very difficult because that is now the general conclusion. Indeed, I have just heard that a source in the office of the Leader of the Opposition says:
“Labour has a very strong economic argument to make. Unfortunately it was not made well in the Chamber today.”
I agree with my hon. Friend about growth in Norfolk and across East Anglia, and there is real commitment to science, which I know is a particular passion of his. As detailed in the document, we intend to set out next year a long-term science strategy so that we can get right the investments in technologies and discoveries that will transform our world.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
While the Chancellor was speaking, 30-year-high storm surges have been battering the coast of Britain. If he looks at the national infrastructure plan, he will find that the rate of coastal realignment is happening, in the view of the Energy and Climate Change Committee, at only one fifth of the pace necessary to avoid wholesale flooding that will cost billions of pounds to the economy. Will he look at that issue again, and at the funding for flood defences that this year has been reduced from £633 million to £527 million?
Mr Osborne
I will certainly look at the report that hon. Gentleman mentions. As I said in my speech, it is right for all of us to remember that people are enduring some very adverse weather conditions on the east coast of Britain and our emergency services are working hard to protect them.
On the broader point, we are investing in flood defences. We have recently increased the investment going into flood defences, and that is all part of the long-term infrastructure plan that this country needs.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Is it not correct that there were those who predicted that my right hon. Friend’s policies would lead to a double-dip recession and increases in unemployment, and that it would be impossible to reduce public spending at the same time as restoring the economy to growth? In those predictions, they were wrong, wrong, wrong. The national nightmare would be if the people who made those predictions were allowed anywhere near the door of No. 11 Downing street.
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is right. It is not just that they got the predictions wrong: it is what that says about their governing philosophy—that they could go on spending and borrowing and running up the deficit with no consequences whatever. Unfortunately they were let near the door of No. 11 in the last decade and that is one of the reasons we are all clearing up this mess at the moment.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
The Chancellor told us in 2010 that he would close the deficit gap by 2015 and he has told us today that it will be 2018-19. What happened?
Mr Osborne
As we have now discovered, the recession was even deeper than we knew at the time, with a 7% fall in national income. The financial crisis had an even bigger effect on our economy and its recovery and, at the same time and as is obvious to everyone, our nearest neighbours in the eurozone almost had their currency fall apart and remain in recession. During this period, we were also told repeatedly that if we stuck with our plan and went on trying to reduce the deficit, there would be no economic recovery. We have still had no explanation from a Labour Member as to why we now have a recovery.
Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)
As an Oxford MP, I welcome the Chancellor’s personal commitment to science and his ongoing investment in Oxfordshire science. We already lead the world in key sectors, but does he agree that, as well as funding certainty, future STEM competitiveness will rely on our redoubling our efforts to raise school standards and increase our pool of highly skilled researchers and technicians—women as well as men?
Mr Osborne
I agree with my hon. Friend. She represents one of the greatest universities in the world. I met yesterday a professor of physics from Oxford university, Professor Walmsley, and he was very welcoming of the additional investment we are putting into quantum technology—£270 million in the coming years. It is cutting-edge technology and Oxford is a leader in it. I agree that we need to make sure that kids come out of our schools with the science and maths to take the undergraduate places that turn into the graduate research fellowships and the like. The school reforms being pursued by the Government are the best guarantee of that happening.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
Is the Chancellor aware that the people I represent will have noticed that in his litany of constituency references, he did not include Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill? Could that be because he is ashamed to admit that though he says the economy is doing well, he did not take the opportunity to get rid of the hated bedroom tax, or could it be because he did not lay a finger on the excessive profits of energy companies while people are dying of hypothermia?
Mr Osborne
The people of the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency and across the country have of course been hit hard by the collapse in the economy in 2008-09 and we have had to take difficult decisions to recover our economy—[Interruption.] I am told by a colleague that unemployment in the right hon. Gentleman’s constituency has fallen by 15% in the last 12 months, and that points to the central argument we are making today—if we create jobs and give people opportunities to work, we can improve their standard of living. The only way we can create jobs is if we have economic stability and we control public budgets, including the welfare budget. That requires difficult decisions. If we duck all the difficult decisions, as the last Government did, it is an absolute disaster for the people he represents.
Sarah Newton (Truro and Falmouth) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on holding his nerve and taking the tough but necessary decisions that are really helping Cornwall. I especially welcome support today for hard-working people on very low incomes who need decent homes. Will he explain a bit more about the plans for building more social housing?
Mr Osborne
We now have the largest social housing building programme under way for a generation, and of course there were 400,000 fewer social homes at the end of the Labour Government than at the beginning. I said explicitly in my speech that I am for aspiration, whether it is for people who can afford to buy their own home or for people who cannot, and we should be providing them with decent housing. We are setting aside £300 million for the housing revenue account, and councils, including my hon. Friend’s, will be able to bid for that money if they put forward value-for-money plans to build additional homes and make sure that hard-working constituents are decently housed.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
I welcome the fact that as a result of the Barnett formula Northern Ireland will be better off after the autumn statement. I also welcome the fact that the Chancellor has adopted a policy that has been very successful in Northern Ireland in bringing small businesses into empty premises through rate relief. As growth is so dependent at present on consumption expenditure, much of which has been financed by the withdrawal of savings, what will happen under the welfare cap if spending exceeds what he expects? Will those who are on benefit through no fault of their own have to bear the burden through decreased benefit payments?
Mr Osborne
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman notes that the Northern Ireland Executive will get additional resources because of the way in which the Barnett formula is applied. We are clear that we want to be fair to Northern Ireland. In designing our reoccupation relief we noted how some of Northern Ireland’s schemes to help people reoccupy empty properties have been successful. There is no doubt that empty shops on the high street—partly driven by technological change—are not a good advert for a community.
If the welfare cap is breached it is up to the Chancellor of the day to come to the House and say either, “I am prepared to breach the welfare cap: let’s have a vote on that”, or, “I am not prepared to breach the welfare cap and here are the measures I am prepared to take”. Those measures would also have to be voted on. In other words, the Chancellor will be accountable to the House for welfare spending, instead of the situation we have had for the past decade, in which welfare spending doubled with no statement ever being made from this Dispatch Box.
Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)
On behalf of retired coal miners across the country, I thank my right hon. Friend for his recent announcement restoring the concessionary fuel allowance—it was the right and proper thing for him to do. I also commend him for his announcement on business rates, which will be welcomed by small businesses in Selby and Tadcaster and across my constituency. Will he join me in thanking those entrepreneurs and business people in my constituency whose efforts have resulted in a reduction in unemployment of more than 30% since the last election?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend led an effective and powerful campaign on behalf of his constituents and other former miners who had lost their concessionary fuel allowance because of the collapse of the company they had worked for. I stepped in to help because he and others, including my hon. Friends the Members for Sherwood (Mr Spencer), for Nuneaton (Mr Jones) and for North Warwickshire (Dan Byles), came to talk to me about the matter. It was a simple case of doing the right thing and, thanks to my hon. Friend, we have done it.
Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)
Will the Chancellor confirm press reports this morning that his free school meal announcement has resulted in an £80 million raid on the school building budget of the Department for Education?
Oliver Colvile (Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend and thank him for his announcement reminding local authorities that they no longer need to increase council tax. Will he join me in urging my constituents to sign my petition to stop the Labour-controlled city council in Plymouth putting up council tax?
Mr Osborne
Plymouth council absolutely should freeze council tax. I commend my hon. Friend and his constituents for their campaign to make that happen. We have not included local government in the additional savings we have asked Whitehall for today, precisely so that councils can deliver a council tax freeze. If his council does not deliver a council tax freeze, he can ask Labour why it is putting up the cost of living for his constituents.
Teresa Pearce (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab)
There is a housing crisis in London at the moment. The autumn statement says that house prices grew by 9.4% in the first nine months of this year—and that is before Help to Buy comes in, which nearly all forecasters believe will increase prices further. Does the Chancellor believe that spiralling house prices are good for the economy?
Mr Osborne
I made a point in my statement of saying that we want stable house prices and that we need more homes to be built. I know that that is what the Mayor of London also believes. We have taken steps to give the Bank of England powers to deal with asset bubbles as they develop. That, of course, did not happen five or six years ago, much to our cost. Specifically on the cost of London housing, the early Help to Buy statistics suggest that most of the families who have taken it up are from outside London and the south-east, and are buying properties worth on average £160,000. Help to Buy is therefore helping exactly those we want it to help: aspirational families who can afford a mortgage but cannot currently afford the very large deposit that the problems in our banking system have demanded of them.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
I congratulate the Chancellor on sticking to the vital task of reducing the deficit. Does my right hon. Friend agree that calls to increase spending and further to drive up debt come from the same school of economic thought as no return to boom and bust, which was brought to us by the Labour party?
Mr Osborne
I agree. The school of no more boom and bust gave us the biggest boom and the biggest bust in our history—it was spectacularly unsuccessful. One would think that those who had been through that would have learned their lesson and be keen to see borrowing controlled, public finances in good order and the deficit come down, but they are not. That speaks to a broader truth, which is that in bad times the Opposition say, “Borrow more because the country needs it” and in good times they say, “Borrow more because the country cannot afford it.” What they never say is, “Let’s get a grip on the public finances.”
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
I do not know if the Chancellor does irony, but does he realise that the fundamental structure of his economic plan is similar to the strategy used by RBS, which was revealed in his own Tomlinson report? RBS looked after its big clients and attacked the financial circumstances of its small clients, driving them down into debt, poverty and eventually into bankruptcy, and then selling off their assets. That is, of course, what he is doing at the moment. The small folk in a democracy can vote out the Chancellor, unlike with the banks. One question I have raised in writing with the right hon. Gentleman relates to companies moving their assets of their pension funds to offshore funds—for example, in the Channel Islands—and declaring bankruptcy. The workers then have to go to the Pension Protection Fund. When will the Chancellor do something about that? I was told in a letter from his Department that that is legal, but those companies are clearly cheating the taxpayer and cheating their workers.
Mr Osborne
I am happy to look further at the hon. Gentleman’s point. The rules on pension protection and the pensions regulator are designed to prevent people from deliberately crashing their pension scheme to avoid their liabilities, and for those liabilities to fall on to the state or other companies. I am happy to look at any specific case he has. On his broader point on the economy, unemployment has come down by 11% in his constituency. The measures I announced today—abolishing the jobs tax for young people and the £1,000 discount for shops, cafés and pubs on the high street—are all designed to help small businesses, which are the engine of any recovery.
Charlie Elphicke (Dover) (Con)
May I welcome the investment in infrastructure, particularly flood defences? In east Kent in the next 24 hours, we face a difficult time and the investment in the flood defences in the town of Deal, which I represent, will help to keep the town more secure than it otherwise would have been.
Mr Osborne
I, with my hon. Friend, wish the people of Dover and Deal the best as they endure this difficult weather. I join him in praising the emergency services who will help people in that area through this difficult time. The flood defences in Deal will mean that such areas are better protected from adverse weather. The only way to afford such schemes is by controlling public spending and putting it into priority areas.
Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)
With the Governor of the central bank saying he can foresee the assets of the banking sector swelling to nine times the size of the UK economy and with recent economic growth being driven by household consumption and house price inflation, has the Treasury not been re-infected by the British disease? What happened to the Chancellor’s march of the makers?
Mr Osborne
Manufacturing grew and was one of the strongest sectors in the most recent GDP numbers, but the hon. Gentleman is right to say we have got to make sure—this was implied in his question—that the financial system does not bring down the British economy again. All the banking legislation we have spent many days in this Parliament debating—ring-fencing the banks and putting the Bank of England in charge—has been designed to make sure we spot problems in advance this time. Britain wants competitive financial services. I suspect that in the many constituencies represented in the Chamber financial services is one of the largest private sector employers, so this is not just about the City of London. We have to ensure that this is done in a way that is safe for our economy and supports it, rather than bringing it down.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
The Chancellor was absolutely right to stick to his strategy of backing business to deliver growth and jobs. My constituents will especially welcome the cut in energy prices, the freeze on fuel duty, the funds to help revitalise our high streets and even more support to get our young into jobs. My right hon. Friend knows how important housing debt write-off is to housing regeneration in Gloucester. Can he confirm whether the Treasury have been able, in principle, to approve the circa £50 million debt write-off case made by Gloucester city council, which would be the catalyst for our stock transfer and the first new social housing in our city for more than 25 years?
Mr Osborne
The short answer I can give my hon. Friend is yes. He brought to the Treasury an innovative scheme, on behalf of the people of Gloucester, to deal with the debts in the housing sector and enable the building of new homes. In our document, we reference the scheme specifically and give it our support in principle.
Mr Adrian Bailey (West Bromwich West) (Lab/Co-op)
In the past, the Chancellor often condemned economic growth based on an expansion of consumer spending and consumer debt, as opposed to investment and exports. We now have economic growth based on consumer spending, while exports and investment lag. I think there was in part an acknowledgement of that in the extra money for UK export finance. Unfortunately, he did not clarify whether the main obstacle to small businesses exporting our way out of recession is the drop in the minimum threshold for a deal from £5 million to a lower level, which the CBI says would bring in an extra £20 billion if implemented. Will he clarify whether he is doing that?
Mr Osborne
I will look at the hon. Gentleman’s specific point. We are expanding the scheme to help small businesses export, which is one of our central objectives. If we can go further, I will happily look at that and take it forward in the Budget, because that is our shared objective. We want more exports, but the issue is that our main export markets have been in a deep recession for the past year. It is not surprising, unfortunately, that exports have been hit. That has led to companies exploring opportunities much further afield. One of the best things to do for small exporters is to ensure that, when they turn up in places such as Shanghai, there is a helping hand, with facilities and an office available for them to start their search for partners. That kind of thing is precisely what we are funding today.
Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)
I warmly congratulate the Chancellor on the Government’s commitment to delivering the Greater Cambridge gain share, allowing us to unlock £1 billion of investment, providing much-needed sustainable transport and affordable housing and enabling Cambridge to continue to contribute to the British economy. Will he join me in congratulating Cambridge city council, the county council, South Cambridgeshire district council, Cambridge university and the local enterprise partnership on their work in delivering this?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend and the Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), raised with me the Cambridge city deal, which is a really good plan. I can be absolutely candid with him: we worked hard to announce it today, and although we did not quite get it over the line we hope to do so in the next few weeks. It is a classic example of a good local authority and local MPs working with the national Government to secure a long-term plan that will help create jobs and housing in an incredibly important city.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
In view of this week’s announcements on infrastructure, would the Chancellor, a fellow Cheshire MP, agree to meet a cross-party group of MPs from Cheshire and Merseyside so that we can air our case to change the plans to toll both the current Mersey crossing and the future road crossing? Our case is as strong as that behind his decision to drop the tolls for the A14.
Mr Osborne
I would be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman and other MPs local to my constituency. I know how important the second Mersey crossing is—he and I have joined forces over many years to try to deliver it—but I would draw a distinction: the A14 was an existing road that wanted upgrading, but of course it is controversial to put tolls on an existing road, whereas the bridge is a new bridge, and there is a long-established principle, from the Humber to the Severn estuary, that new bridges have tolls. Local people will have strong views on the level of the tolls, however, and I am happy to discuss that with my honourable neighbour.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
I thank the Chancellor for his statement today. It shows how this Government are full of energy in driving forward British business and finding solutions. I want to give particular thanks for the A14 situation. Is it not important that we continue to dismiss the scaremongering and show that Britain is open for business?
Mr Osborne
Britain is very much open for business. We are now the destination for a huge amount of investment from around the world, and we have some very important ports, one of which in particular depends on the A14. That is an important strategic link. We have listened to representations from local people concerned about the prospect of tolling an existing road, albeit an improved one, and we will ensure that the road is improved, not just for local people, but for the whole country, but without imposing a road toll.
Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
Evidence from Citizens Advice showed that last year citizens advice bureaux received 92,000 inquiries about fuel debt and 81,000 about water debt and that the four months to June this year saw a 78% rise in the number of people inquiring about food banks. Does the Chancellor agree that, with families on average £1,600 a year worse off, this is an unbalanced recovery, and does he regret that the UK has suffered the second-biggest fall in wages of any G20 country since this Government came to office?
Mr Osborne
We had one of the deepest recessions and the highest budget deficit of any country in the G20. We have been recovering from that situation, which this Government inherited, increasing the number of jobs in the hon. Lady’s constituency and ensuring opportunities for people to go to university or find apprenticeships and for those without skills to get good training. These are the things we are doing to clear up the mess that her party left behind.
David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)
I congratulate the Chancellor on pulling us out of the mire the last Government left us in. To help bolster growth and provide the building materials needed for what is going on thanks to his efforts, a brickworks that closed down in 2010 in my constituency on the borders will reopen at the end of this month. I invite the Chancellor to come to the reopening. I also congratulate him on helping to get youth unemployment down by 15% in the last three months in Morecambe and on his comments about business rates for shops. The Visitor newspaper has been running regular articles on getting our shops restarted in Morecambe, and this will help immeasurably. May I also—
Mr Speaker
Order. The hon. Gentleman really has overdone it. I exercised a degree of leniency. I wonder whether he was seeking an Adjournment and then realised he had already had it.
Mr Osborne
Mr Speaker, there are so many good things happening in Morecambe that I am not surprised my hon. Friend wants to bring them to the attention of the House. Under this Government, not only is unemployment down and not only will many businesses be helped by the measures we have announced today on business rates, but, as he said, the construction materials industry is doing well, as construction continues apace. If I come and visit the beautiful Morecambe bay area with him, I will ensure we pop into the brickworks.
Mr Ronnie Campbell (Blyth Valley) (Lab)
Is it not the hard-working people of this country who have not had a wage rise for three years, the poor, the sick and the disabled who have had their benefits cut who are paying for this, while the Chancellor has been looking after his friends in the City—the spivs, the bankers with their big bonuses and those who are fiddling their taxes?
Mr Osborne
Presumably, those bankers the hon. Gentleman talks about are people such as Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson.
Mr Osborne
“Them particularly”, said the hon. Gentleman, in case the Hansard reporters did not hear.
We have discussed what we can do for Blyth Valley and are setting up the enterprise zone in the port of Blyth. The hon. Gentleman could at least have acknowledged that unemployment has fallen by 21% in the last 12 months and youth unemployment by 22%.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
In contrast to Labour’s nightmare economics, the Chancellor’s statement was both realistic and encouraging, especially for the real economy. I welcome his focus on STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—subjects and the need to upskill our work force and reinforce our interest in engineering and manufacturing.
Mr Osborne
One of today’s most significant announcements, which will not necessarily be on the front pages tomorrow, was the increase in student numbers and the lifting of the cap on aspiration. That is a major structural improvement in the British economy. Britain has fewer graduates as a proportion of population than many other comparable countries, and it is a basic tenet of economic success that we should do more in this area. We are providing additional money for STEM subjects so that they are taught properly as well.
Yvonne Fovargue (Makerfield) (Lab)
Last year, The Brick, a Wigan borough charity, gave out 920 food parcels. This year to date, it has already given out 3,750, many of them to working families. Does the Chancellor agree with Citizens Advice that for many low-income families in work, the gain from the change in the personal allowance is swamped by the Government’s other changes to tax and benefits, causing them to turn to food banks for everyday necessities?
Mr Osborne
I praise the work that citizens advice bureaux do across the country, and I know that the hon. Lady was previously connected with them, but cutting income tax for the low-paid and taking them out of income tax is a real help, as is the freeze in fuel duty, rail fares and the like. As I say, in the end, the biggest thing we can do for this country is deal with our debts and get people into work. In her constituency, unemployment is down 26% and youth unemployment is down 40%. [Interruption.] Labour MPs shake their heads. I thought it used to be the party of full employment, but now it cannot welcome falls in unemployment.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
Long before the last election, my right hon. Friend raised the unfairness of overseas residents buying the most expensive London properties without paying capital gains tax. Is he surprised that it has been left to him to close those loopholes and ensure that overseas residents pay both capital gains tax and proper stamp duty?
Mr Osborne
I know that my hon. Friend has campaigned on this issue. When I announced this measure in the autumn statement, one member of the Opposition Front-Bench team said, “Why aren’t you doing it sooner?”. Labour had 13 years to make this tax change, and the man who actually designed the tax policies and wrote the statements is the shadow Chancellor. I find it extraordinary that, whether it is dealing with this unfairness in capital gains tax or the general unfairness where they boasted that people in the City were paying lower tax rates than people who cleaned for them, we have stepped in to deal with the unfairness.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
I find the Chancellor’s hubris absolutely breathtaking. Given that the economy would have to grow 1.5% every quarter until 2015 just to reach the levels that applied at the end of 2010, his hubris is staggering. He did not answer the question put by my hon. Friend the Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), so given today’s terrible weather, does he regret cutting the flood defence budget in 2010?
Mr Osborne
First, we are putting in additional money for the flood defence programme. Indeed, additional money in the autumn statement has gone into coastal management, too. The hon. Lady makes a point about the economy, but we have not, of course, heard a serious economic argument advanced by the Labour party so far. Let me point out that in the hon. Lady’s constituency, unemployment is down 30% and youth unemployment is down 48%, which are very significant falls for the people she represents.
Mary Macleod (Brentford and Isleworth) (Con)
With small business Saturday coming up this weekend, I join the director general of the British Retail Consortium, who said that the business rate cap
“will be welcomed enthusiastically by retailers across this country.”
While I will still keep urging the Chancellor to consider full-scale reform of business rates, does he agree that today’s announcement will save thousands of jobs around this country and boost the local economy in communities such as those in Brentford, Isleworth and Chiswick?
Mr Osborne
I know my hon. Friend has been assiduous in campaigning on behalf of her constituents for us to help with business rates for people running shops on the high street. I believe that she has raised the issue at the last two Prime Minister’s Questions, showing what a champion she is of her local constituency. She can take part of the credit for the measures we have taken today to help the high street.
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
We have heard a great deal from Government Members about the economy today, but some might say that it is a huge amount of bluster and bravado that will not square with the reality of life for millions of people up and down the country. Will the Chancellor simply confirm that the economy is now 2.5% smaller than it was before the crisis?
Mr Osborne
The economy is smaller because it fell 7%. That is why. It fell in the years 2008 and 2009 when the Labour party was in charge.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I warmly welcome the Chancellor’s announcement about capital gains tax for foreign owners of property, particularly in London, and the increase in the borrowing limits for local authorities. When he does his review, promised in the autumn statement, of local councils’ ability to deliver more affordable housing, will he look at some very good examples of housing associations that, by using private sector investment and private sales, have hugely increased their capacity to build social housing—not just at affordable rents, but at social and target rents as well?
Mr Osborne
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. Some excellent housing associations have used private money and sold off some of the most expensive social homes in order to provide more resource for building more homes, which is precisely what we want to encourage. On the additional money in the housing revenue grant, which I know has been of particular interest to his party, we have said that that money should be available on a competitive basis to those councils that are going to work with housing associations, for example, to deliver the sort of innovative schemes that he champions.
Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)
Some of the predictions in the OBR report have not been mentioned today. One is an upgraded prediction on how much is going to be spent on certain benefits, such as employment support allowance, which by 2017-18 is going to be £2.1 billion higher than in the last prediction, and housing benefit, which is going up by £1.8 billion—again, higher than the previous estimate. Quite apart from the misery caused by things like the bedroom tax, these welfare reforms are simply not working. When is the Chancellor going to ensure that his Government get a grip on that problem, rather than let those bills spiral? Given these predicted rises in spending, it is going to be very difficult to put a cap on welfare.
Mr Osborne
Although the hon. Lady put her question in quite a partisan way, she hits on a very good point. There are sometimes big increases in welfare spending that are not subject to the kind of control that we in this House exercise on much smaller sums in Government Departments. Precisely because of the forecast increases in employment support allowance and housing benefit, it is right for us to bring those issues to the House and discuss them. It is a bit wrong-headed to complain on the one hand that housing benefit is going up too much while on the other hand campaigning to increase housing benefit. No doubt we will be able to have a fuller debate when we introduce the welfare cap.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
I thank the Chancellor for his statement and for listening to businesses about their concerns over business rates. Businesses right across Ealing Central and Acton will welcome the cap on business rate rises, and many others will welcome the £1,000 reduction for those with houses of rateable values up to £50,000. It is a Christmas present come early for many, so I thank the Chancellor.
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend is another who has been an assiduous campaigner on behalf of the shops, pubs and restaurants, and indeed the charity shops, in her constituency. These measures really will help on the high streets of Ealing and Acton, and I am glad that they have been so warmly welcomed. The people who run these businesses are the epitome of hard-working and aspirational people. This Government and our party are going to stand by them.
Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)
When this Government gutted the public sector in the north-east, the Chancellor insisted that the private sector would make up the shortfall. A recent report by KPMG, however, shows that over a quarter of private sector jobs pay less than the living wage, compared with less than 10% in the public sector. Is it any surprise to the Chancellor that in-work poverty has risen in my constituency?
Mr Osborne
First, I would have hoped that the hon. Lady would welcome the 15% fall in unemployment in her constituency. We want to make sure that people get better jobs, and the way to achieve that is to ensure that our businesses can expand and our country and economy can grow, thus also dealing with the scourge of youth unemployment. One thing noted by the hon. Lady’s predecessor as MP for South Shields, before he left to look after International Rescue in New York, was that youth unemployment was rising from 2004. Since then, however, it has gone down by 23% in her constituency. If we invest in apprenticeships, in higher education and people with low skills, we will be able to help her constituents and the next generation of her constituents.
Paul Uppal (Wolverhampton South West) (Con)
When I first came to this place, one issue I raised with my right hon. Friend was the importance of urging the Government always to take a long-term rather than a short-term view. In that spirit, does the Chancellor agree that the real and true economic measure of any Government—and of any future Government—is the economic legacy they bequeath to their children and grandchildren?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend puts it very well. We have great obligations to the current generation, but we also have obligations to the next generations. Saddling them with debts or with an uncompetitive economy or one where jobs are not being created is a complete dereliction of our duty to the next generation. Thankfully, with the help, support and advice of my hon. Friend, we are now turning that situation round, dealing with the debts and making sure our businesses grow. Because of my hon. Friend’s forceful campaign, we are also helping many shops in his Wolverhampton constituency.
Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)
Is not the point about the community infrastructure levy that it is there to pay for the infrastructure that communities need? Will the Chancellor tell us how much of it he intends to give away to individual households, and how he proposes to make up the resulting shortfall in funding for local infrastructure?
Mr Osborne
I do not have the specific answer with me, so I will write to the hon. Lady.
John Stevenson (Carlisle) (Con)
I congratulate the Chancellor on a statement that will provide support for business and employment. If my city of Carlisle is to grow and prosper, businesses need to succeed, and if the young people of Carlisle are to share in that success, they need employment. Does the Chancellor agree that the abolition of the jobs tax for under-21s gives businesses in Carlisle an incentive to employ the young?
Mr Osborne
I specifically mentioned in my statement the work that my hon. Friend has done on behalf of his constituents in Carlisle to support important local large employers such as Pirelli. Thanks to his campaign, we are now able to abolish the jobs tax for people under the age of 21, which will help young people in Carlisle to obtain jobs, but we are also helping those who want to go to college. I congratulate my hon. Friend on standing up for his constituents.
Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
The Chancellor claims that the marriage tax allowance will help some of the poorest members of society, but poorer families who must rely on universal credit will be perversely affected by the rules on the earnings of a second person in the household. Will he look again at the way in which the clawback tapers will work, so that that does not become a disincentive to work?
Mr Osborne
The whole purpose of universal credit is to remove the disincentives to work that exist in our current welfare system, driven both by the complexity of all the different benefits and by the couple penalty for whose removal my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has campaigned for many years. He is removing it—or, at any rate, heading in the direction of removing it—through universal credit, but there may be more than we can do, and I shall be happy to look into that.
James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)
Sadly, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) could not be with us today to hear about economic growth, but he did leave us the gift that is the shadow Chancellor. Given that everyone is saying that the shadow Chancellor had a bit of a nightmare today, is this not an opportunity to give him a break and to leave him in place rather than his being sacked, so that he continues to serve as a reminder of the economic failure in which the last Labour Government landed us?
Mr Osborne
The shadow Chancellor is one of the many people whom I want to keep in his job.
Mr William Bain (Glasgow North East) (Lab)
Hard-working people in my constituency are an average of £1,600 a year worse off because prices have risen faster than wages in all but one of the months in which the Chancellor has been in office. Can he confirm that this afternoon the Office for Budget Responsibility downgraded its March forecasts for average earnings next year, the year after, and in every year of its forecasting period? Did not the autumn statement simply fail to get to grips with Britain’s cost-of-living crisis?
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor will not have to stuff his Christmas turkey this year, given that he so comprehensively stuffed the economic policy of the Opposition.
I thank my right hon. Friend for the excellent fuel duty freeze. Does it not show—along with the right to buy and the lower tax for lower earners—that we are the party of aspirational working people, and the true exponents of white van Conservatism?
Mr Osborne
I agree with my hon. Friend. For the people of Harlow, thanks to his assiduous campaigning, we have not only frozen fuel duty to make it 20p per litre less than it would have been had there been a Labour Member of Parliament for Harlow and a Labour Government, but helped people on low incomes by lifting them out of income tax, ensured that businesses can expand, and cut business rates for those on the high street. We have done all those things to help people who want to work hard and get on, who are exactly the people whom my hon. Friend represents.
Mr Steve Reed (Croydon North) (Lab)
According to figures from the Local Government Association, Croydon is experiencing the biggest growth in demand for school places anywhere in the country. However, Croydon council predicts that because of inadequate Government investment, there will be a shortfall of nearly 2,500 permanent places by 2016. Why will the Chancellor not act to resolve Croydon’s school places crisis, rather than showing the complacency that we witnessed this morning?
Mr Osborne
When we came to office, there was no provision to deal with the large increase in the number of school places that was clearly going to happen because there were more children. Since then, my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary has devoted billions of pounds to dealing with the increase and ensuring that school places are available in Croydon and elsewhere. That is another example of our not only planning for the long term, but clearing up the mess that was bequeathed to us.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
It is clear from today’s statement that although the economy is recovering, there is still much to be done, but it is also clear that this Chancellor will not shy away from the tough decisions that will allow our progress to continue. Does he agree that it is entirely appropriate that the key beneficiaries of the measures that he has announced will be our young people, both through employment incentives and training opportunities from which they can benefit now, and, in particular, through his removal of much of the burden that was left for future generations by the Labour party?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend has campaigned on behalf of his Rugby constituents for more opportunities for young people, and we are providing those opportunities through the abolition of the jobs tax and the steps that we have taken to enable his young constituents to obtain apprenticeships and go to university. Above all, however, we are helping the businesses in his constituency. He in particular campaigned for me to do something about business rates, so he can share the credit: he is part of the Government who have delivered today.
Jonathan Ashworth (Leicester South) (Lab)
My constituent Mrs Patricia Zachariah complained to me yesterday that her gas bill was set by to rise by 86%. Does the Chancellor think that that is acceptable? If not, why did he not take strong action today to deal with the energy companies that are causing so much difficulty to our hard-pressed constituents?
Mr Osborne
First, we have taken action to take £50 off people’s energy bills. Secondly, we are looking at competition in the market that was left to us by Labour where there were only six energy companies, in order to ensure that there are new companies for people to choose. We are also insisting that people are put on the lowest tariffs, and giving them a real opportunity to switch so that they can obtain a better deal.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on doing the right thing and clamping down on tax avoidance and evasion—that will add a further £6.8 billion to Treasury revenues over the next five years—but can he estimate the extent of the revenues that were forgone because of avoidance and evasion during Labour’s supposed boom years? Is this not another example of our having to clean up after Labour’s failure?
Mr Osborne
We are increasing yield by £40 billion over the current Parliament. It is not just a question of the specific measures that we take to deal with tax avoidance; it is also a question of the resources that we provide for the fraud and tax avoidance units of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. Let me take this opportunity to praise HMRC for the incredible job that it has done.
We must ensure that we collect the revenues that are due. Of course we want to live in a society in which people pay lower taxes, which is why we raised the personal allowance in order to cut income tax, and why I have announced measures to cut business rates for shops and the like. However, people must pay the taxes that are due because they cheat the rest of the country when they do not, and that is why we have taken action to deal with tax avoidance.
Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)
One in four families with children is headed by a lone parent, and those are the children who are likely to face the greatest risk of poverty. They do not choose their own family circumstances, and, of course, they will not benefit at all from the Chancellor’s married couples tax break. Will he consider again whether there might be better and fairer ways of spending that £700 million on families?
Mr Osborne
We are helping lone parents in particular by offering them more help to obtain work, or to obtain the skills and training that they need in order to find work. All the evidence—and I know that the hon. Lady has spent a great deal of her life examining it—suggests that if children of lone parents can be in working households, that will really assist their life chances. Lone parents often have the least skills and have received the least help, and we are doing a huge amount to change that.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I welcome the Chancellor’s statement. Does he agree that, while by reducing corporation tax the Government have already shown that Britain is open for business, today—with the announcement of real help for high street retailers, support for SME exporters, and the extension of small business rate relief—they are showing that Britain is very much open for small business, too?
Mr Osborne
My hon. Friend and neighbour has been a champion of small businesses. I am delighted that the change that we have brought about today with a £1,000 discount for shops and high streets will mean that in Congleton, Holmes Chapel and Middlewich, the people whom she represents will get a better deal.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
The self-congratulatory tone of the Chancellor and Government Members would be slightly less nauseating if it was not for the fact that people in Chesterfield are £1,600 a year worse off despite the fact that they are in work. As he reads out the fall in unemployment numbers, he will know that a huge number of those in jobs are under-employed. It used to be that going from unemployment to work made people better off. Does it not sicken him as much as it sickens me that on his watch people come to my constituency surgeries saying, “I am now in work and I am no better off than I was when I was on the dole”?
Mr Osborne
First, we are making work pay, through the changes to the welfare system, so that people are better off in work than out of work. This is the last Labour question and perhaps this is what the Opposition stand for: they would rather have people on welfare—[Interruption.] They would rather have an economic plan that was destroying jobs and putting taxes on business up than a plan which in his constituency has delivered a 21% fall in unemployment and a 14% fall in youth unemployment. He should get up and support the plan that is delivering that for his constituents.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
I very much welcome the Chancellor’s statement, which will help hard-working families and businesses in my constituency. In particular, I welcome the announcement on train fares. It will help hard-working constituents with their cost of living, unlike the Labour party, which increased train fares by more than 30% in my constituency —that was unacceptable.
Mr Osborne
I have been with my hon. Friend to one of his train stations in Gillingham. He has campaigned assiduously on behalf of the hard-working people he represents for help on train fares, and I am delighted that his persistence and campaigning for the people he represents have paid off today.
Stephen Metcalfe (South Basildon and East Thurrock) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement and congratulate him on his steadfastness in not listening to the voices, inside and outside this place, that said there was an alternative route to our recovery. Does he believe it would be irresponsible to duck our responsibilities to clear up the mess of the previous Government and leave it to our children and grandchildren to do?
Mr Osborne
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. We need a responsible recovery. We need to help not just this generation, but the next one. Whether we are talking about providing opportunities for young people to get training and skills and get on in life, abolishing the jobs tax for the young people or, above all, dealing with the debts that the people who created those debts were not prepared to deal with, this is all about being on the side of young people.
Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
I very much welcome the removal of the arbitrary cap on student numbers, which I believe is a decision taken in the long-term interests of this country and which will bring significant economic growth in the future. Does my right hon. Friend agree that this is precisely the time for universities to invest in the future? They should not do what Staffordshire university is perhaps doing by thinking about moving away from Stafford; it should invest there for the future expansion of university education.
Mr Osborne
I very much support my hon. Friend and his campaign to make sure that the university thrives in Stafford, and I commend him for identifying this as such an important issue for our country. Some 60,000 people a year have the grades, have the ambition, are willing to take out the loan and want to go to university, but at the moment we say no, because of a Gosplan system that has been in place. We get rid of that today. There will be a big increase in student numbers—of course quality will be maintained—and that will be great for the people he represents.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
Over the time that council tax rates have broadly been frozen in England, my constituents and people across Wales have faced council tax increases in the region of 9%. Will the Chancellor join me in supporting the “Freeze the bill” campaign—the council tax bill campaign—to ensure that my constituents get fair play? This is a tax that politicians can control.
Mr Osborne
I absolutely support my hon. Friend and his campaign to make sure that the local council helps local hard-working families by freezing council tax—that is what it should be doing. By bringing this to our attention, he reminds us that there are things we can do to help people, and we are doing them today.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Chancellor’s statement, particularly his focus on infrastructure and his infrastructure plan, and the progress that has been made on the extension of Birmingham airport. Does he agree that as we sustain this economic recovery, investment in infrastructure in places such as the west midlands is crucial to rebalancing the economy and creating jobs in constituencies such as mine in the black country?
Mr Osborne
I agree with my hon. Friend. The good news is that businesses are expanding, and jobs are being created in Halesowen and across the black country. We have got to make sure we support that, with enterprise zones, with transport links, with links to the rest of the country and, indeed, with the European continent, through High Speed 2, and by investing in important things such as his local hospital. In all these areas we are backing his constituents, and because they have him as their Member of Parliament, they are heard in this place.
Point of Order
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I wonder whether you have had any indication from the Prime Minister, the Chancellor, the Transport Secretary or the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on whether they will be able to come to this House to update us on the Government’s plans for dealing with the severe weather being experienced by Scotland, Wales and the north of England, and with the flood risk posed to the entire east coast, where evacuations are under way in parts of Essex and in Great Yarmouth.
Mr Speaker
The short answer to the hon. Lady, to whom I am grateful for her point of order, is that I have received no indication from a Minister of an intention to make a statement. She has put the matters on the record, and probably the fairest thing I can say is that we must await events.
Backbench Business
Modern-day Slavery
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered modern-day slavery.
It is an honour to be opening this debate on modern slavery. In the four and a half months since I was elected to co-chair the all-party group on human trafficking and modern-day slavery, real progress has been made, and I hope that in this debate we can persuade the Government to make further progress. It was a great honour to be elected co-chair in July with a record turnout of Members of both Houses. I wish to pay tribute to my predecessors as chair, especially Anthony Steen, the group’s founder, who went on to found the Human Trafficking Foundation, which has done so much to raise public awareness about this appalling crime. I genuinely regret that since the change of leadership my immediate predecessor, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), who could always be depended upon to bring this shocking abuse of human rights to public and parliamentary attention, has spoken less on this issue than previously, although I was glad that in October he raised the issue of what should be in the modern slavery Bill, because that is the main subject of my remarks today.
May I start by thanking the Government for agreeing to introduce a Bill? It is tempting, but it would be churlish, to make a party political speech where I document the Government’s initial resistance to ideas ranging from signing up to the EU directive to appointing a commissioner, only eventually to change their mind. Ministers deserve praise for realising that more needs to be done and that legislation is necessary, and for consenting to a process of pre-legislative scrutiny that gives us a prospect of a better Bill. But the big question is whether it will be good enough.
In dealing with this issue it is traditional to focus on three P’s: protection, prevention, prosecution. In the announcements so far, it is clear that the Government plan to put emphasis on a fourth P—punishment. I hope that the Minister can confirm today that he intends to make trafficking an aggravating factor in sentencing. Rape sentences, for example, should always be increased when that rape is a feature of a trafficking offence—where someone has been trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
If the Bill emphasises prosecute and punish, it needs also to do more to prevent and protect. I join those two together because there is no doubt that for most successful prosecutions the courts need victims to give evidence. They will do that only if they feel safe and are helped to deal with the traumas they face.
Although I pay tribute to the organisations that care for victims, there are deep flaws in the relationship between them and the Government. I was sent a message by a spokesman from one such body, which is under subcontract to the Salvation Army. He said:
“MoJ officials have directly, robustly and unequivocally told us that we are not to talk about current victim support arrangements in any way whatsoever with anyone. In addition we have been told that we are not to criticise, or talk about in any form, any part of the Government’s current anti-trafficking work or policies. The threat was implicit that to do so would lead to the loss of our contract. In view of this, there is no meaningful way in which I can engage in the proposed evidence giving or consultation exercise. I am”
unbelievably
“forbidden by the Government to speak to you on that matter. If Mr Field”—
I am very glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), who joined me in asking for this debate, has been able to rearrange his diary to be in the Chamber today—
“can find a way to offer some form of immunity or indemnity against punitive action by the MoJ should we say something they don’t like then we would be delighted to participate. Otherwise I must decline the offer as I have no doubt that were I to present truthfully the evidence I wish to present the MoJ would remove the contract.”
In response to parliamentary questions, Ministers have reassured me that that would not happen, yet those reassurances have not been sufficient. The independently witnessed threat from officials has silenced not just this organisation but others too. I hope the Minister will agree today to write to all organisations that provide victim services under contract and ask them to share their learning with Government and Parliament without fear of retribution so that we can ensure that the real needs of victims are addressed in our Bill. lf those organisations were able to give evidence, they would tell us that six weeks of accommodation and support is just not long enough for most victims to be ready to disclose what has happened to them, to overcome trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder caused by years of exploitation and to be witnesses in criminal cases. Will the Bill empower organisations to give help for longer?
Better information is a prerequisite for more effective action. The Centre for Social Justice report “It happens here” states:
“There is no consistent grip on the numbers. Agencies are groping in the dark for a sense of scale. The figures used...reflect the small number of cases known about but are a pale reflection of the size of the problem.”
That is evidence. The National Referral Mechanism identified 1,186 victims last year and the UK Human Trafficking Centre 2,265. Four years ago, the Home Affairs Committee identified 4,000 victims. We just do not know the scale of the problem, which is why the all-party group is conducting an inquiry into data on trafficking.
For the past 12 months, MPs have regularly asked Justice Ministers for information about the location of victims. They have not been given any details, on the pretext that they might compromise the victim. There is no evidence to support that claim. Is the information available about where trafficking victims are found and how and if that information is available, why is it all staying so hidden?
In our inquiry into data on trafficking, it is evident that there are widespread concerns about the quality of information and the way in which it is shared to protect victims. As evidence from Bedfordshire police pointed out
“a dedicated role performed by an identifiable individual”—
such as a commissioner—
“will remove the stasis that has developed with the issue falling between many stools: responsibility currently sitting with the Immigration Minister sends out a confusing message to victims and the public alike.”
I congratulate the Government on planning to appoint a commissioner.
Dame Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab)
I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend who is making a most important speech. I draw her attention to a case with which I am dealing of a woman who was trafficked here at the age of 13. She was put into prostitution at the age of 15, and taken to an abortion clinic when she was pregnant with twins. She then went underground because of her great fear. Now that she has come to the attention of the immigration authorities, they simply want to deport her, with no mercy and no consideration of her terrible plight and suffering.
Fiona Mactaggart
Were we to have a commissioner, I hope that they would bring forward such cases and ensure that we show the kind of generosity that our country is capable of to people who have been treated in that vile way.
Other actions could be taken to prevent the growth of modern slavery. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) and I have pressed private Members’ Bills to prevent slavery in supply chains. Will action on that be in the Bill?
The work of the Gangmasters Licensing Authority has been significant in agriculture industries. Will the Minister expand its remit to other areas such as care, catering and construction where we know slavery occurs? Will he give it powers to impose civil penalties on companies that might have unwittingly allowed such practice in their supply chain, without having to go through the expensive and burdensome process of criminal prosecution?
In 2008, the Home Affairs Committee reached a unanimous conclusion on the matter. It said:
“To retain the migrant domestic worker visa and the protection it offers to workers is the single most important issue in preventing the forced labour and trafficking of such workers.”
Since it has been abolished, Kalyaan, the voluntary organisation which works with enslaved domestic workers, reports that more than four times as many such workers are now paid nothing at all.
Promises that changes in the visa would be accompanied by better prevention of exploitation overseas have not been fulfilled. Home Office responses to freedom of information requests show carelessness. They recorded negligible numbers of visas issued to nationals of India, and eight to nationals of the Philippines last year compared with 2,879 and 6,010 respectively in the previous year. In case anyone thinks that that is because the new system has brought to an end the visits of overseas domestic workers, let me point out that the equivalent number of visas issued to Qatari nationals is apparently 6,704 compared with two in the previous year. It is clear that even the most basic records are not being kept. If officers do not even know that the nationality of visa applicants is not the same as that of their employers, they are unlikely to have carefully considered the risk of their exploitation.
The Minister knows that there are significant problems in relation to children. At least one child a day is trafficked into Britain; most then go missing. Under the terms of the directive, they should have access, where appropriate, to a guardian. They need love and care. If they do not have access to a guardian, they need a best friend, and that is something the Scottish system appears to offer. Child victims cannot be expected to help the police if they are bewildered, unloved and confused. Others in this debate will outline how the Bill could better protect children, but I find it so sad that children are at risk of re-trafficking because the person who knows most about them and their families is their exploiter. Can we not make progress on giving dedicated support to those victims?
I was the instigator of the provision that became the offence in section 14 of the Policing and Crime Act 2009. I am disappointed by the reluctance of many police forces to prosecute men who pay for sex with a woman who is subject to force and exploitation. If men thought that they faced a criminal conviction in those circumstances, there is compelling evidence that they would be less likely to use trafficked prostitutes. They might even inform the police about women who are exploited in that way.
In that case and in the case of trafficking generally, we need to do more to investigate and prosecute. In their evidence to the all-party group inquiry, Kent police said that they thought a Bill could
“ensure that police forces are mandated to tackle human trafficking.”
Dealing with trafficking is not stated as a priority in the Home Office’s strategic policing requirement. Will the Minister make it a priority? As a hidden crime, it is less likely to cause local pressure and although we should celebrate those local groups that are building up the campaign, such as Croydon Community Against Trafficking and the groups in Bedfordshire and elsewhere, there is not the same public concern as there is about street crime or burglary, so we need national leadership. Only 11 convictions were recorded last year and that is why we need more than tougher punishment—we need better protection, detection and investigation.
I am glad, too, that the Government propose to take action to confiscate the proceeds of trafficking. I hope that today the Minister can confirm that funds obtained from those criminals will be used to compensate victims and perhaps to compensate police forces that have undertaken expensive investigations, too. After William Wilberforce succeeded in ending the transatlantic slave trade more than two centuries ago, the slave owners were compensated. Let us make this a truly modern Bill and compensate instead the victims of trafficking, sexual exploitation and modern-day slavery.
Sir John Randall (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)
I think this is the first time I have had the opportunity to welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is a privilege to take part in a Back-Bench debate—one that has not been afforded to me for some time, so I am grateful to be able to speak.
I am particularly privileged to be able to speak on this subject as I have taken an increasingly active interest in it. Back in 2010, when I was on the Opposition Benches, I sat behind the then Member for Totnes, Anthony Steen, as he tried one Friday to get through a private Member’s Bill to establish an anti-slavery day. I wanted to ensure that he did not talk out his own Bill—anybody who knows Anthony will know that was a strong possibility—and as I listened to his compelling speech I found myself more and more interested in the subject. I have taken an increasing interest ever since.
Anthony Steen must be congratulated not just on that Bill and on establishing that day but, as the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), whom I am privileged to follow in this debate, said, on establishing the first all-party group back in 2006. It now has one of the largest memberships of all-party groups in the House and, as the hon. Lady said, he provided excellent chairmanship, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone). The group is now in the capable hands of the hon. Lady.
We have to get this subject up the political agenda—it is becoming increasingly important. I look forward to the day when Back-Bench debates on human trafficking and modern-day slavery are even better attended. I know the problems on a Thursday afternoon, particularly after an important statement, but this issue affects every Member in every constituency and is one we should raise.
The hon. Member for Slough mentioned the Human Trafficking Foundation, which is now successfully chaired by Anthony Steen and has as its trustees the right hon. Clare Short and David Heathcoat-Amory, who were distinguished Members of this House. It has been doing incredible work and I also want to pay tribute to an eminent Member of the other place, Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, who is nobody to mix with—I think that is the best way of saying it. As a former judge in the family division, she gets right to the heart of every issue.
Britain has not been a leader in securing the conviction of traffickers. These people are gangsters and are often involved not just in human trafficking but in lots of other crime, and Britain has allowed them—although not on purpose—not to go to prison and has failed to catch them and their assets. I agree wholeheartedly with the sentiment that the proceeds of these terrible, awful crimes must be taken and ring-fenced, primarily for the victims. I also have a great deal of sympathy with allowing police forces and other agencies to get some of that money to increase their resources and to try to get more convictions. We have heard already that there were only 11 convictions last year, and the year before there were eight. Finland, which has only a tiny population compared with ours, has had more than 100 as have Italy, Spain and Romania.
When I heard that a modern slavery Bill was a priority of the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister, I was delighted. I have been privileged enough to be behind the scenes to see how legislation goes through various Committees and so on, and it is not always an easy task to find a slot, but I was reassured to learn that that is a governmental priority.
I was also delighted to hear that the Home Secretary recently set up a modern day slavery unit in the Home Office. That is a positive thing. She was also wise to appoint as her special envoy combating modern-day slavery the same Anthony Steen whom I lauded earlier.
In my relatively recent active role in this work, I have found that a huge number of brilliant non-governmental organisations are working in this field. They are diverse, because modern-day slavery and human trafficking are incredibly diverse. I have learned one thing. When “trafficking” was first mentioned to me, like many people, including my constituents, I had a vision of people in the back of vans coming into the country. We talk about modern-day slavery and people talk about manacles. Possibly the most recent publicised incident in south London fits in more with people’s idea of modern-day slavery but, as far as I can see, that is a rather extreme case. Modern-day slavery is probably in all our streets and our constituencies. It is certainly not just people who are coming in from abroad; there is domestic slavery. We have heard about one victim, a British lady who was trafficked to Italy and France and made to work as a prostitute. There are cases of forced labour and, Madam Deputy Speaker, if my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) catches your eye he will speak about a particularly nasty incident that was well publicised.
I am certain that most—although not all—constituencies will have cannabis farms. I remember visiting one a considerable time ago. The neighbours had complained about it and the police had become involved. I never knew that most of these cannabis farms are managed by children, often from Vietnam, who are brought in as forced labour—as slaves.
That takes me to the point that the hon. Member for Slough made about victims. We have to be careful about these people, who have been made to do something criminal—there will be exceptions and they might have committed crimes that were not the result of forced labour, but most of their crimes will have been—and we must think strongly about whether to prosecute. I believe that the Lord Chief Justice recently delivered a judgment on cannabis farms in which he said exactly that. I understand that young Vietnamese children are still being criminalised when we should be helping them and ensuring that they are viewed as the victims.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
I was told by my local police that in some instances the children running cannabis farms, often in attics, had been bricked up and left in the roof space with tinned food. That is just an example of how terribly badly those children are treated.
Sir John Randall
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend, who has been involved in the campaign longer than I have and has extensive knowledge.
The sort of things that my hon. Friend is describing give us a sense of the wide variety of horrible, ghastly things that are happening. The hon. Member for Slough mentioned prostitution and brothels; a lot of people think that is it, but there is much more—but that too is awful. The lives of the victims of all these crimes are miserable and appalling, and it is scarcely credible that this could be happening, in this country and in nearly every other country in the world. Most countries in Europe may think that they are a transit country; they may think that they have some connection, but they do not realise that everything is interconnected. It is truly a hideous crime.
We have heard about the Government’s draft Bill. I was honoured to be asked to sit on a draft Bill evidence panel with the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field), Baroness Butler-Sloss and some people not involved in Parliament. It has been an eye-opener. I have been privileged to hear and speak to the NGOs, which hold diverse views on what should be done. We share the same goal, but sometimes they differ slightly.
I would say to the Minister that I agree with the hon. Member for Slough that the domestic worker visa should be re-examined. I can understand entirely why it was brought in, and if we did not know about the abuses that might result from it—the unforeseen consequences—we might have said it was a very good thing. However, there is compelling evidence to support the view that it must be looked at again, because far from discouraging slavery it could well be helping the people enslaving domestic workers.
The hon. Lady and the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) spoke of introducing some private Members’ Bills. I became a bit of an expert on private Members’ Bills on Fridays—I brought one in myself many years ago—and I understand the difficulties of introducing private Members’ legislation. The problem of supply chains is a live issue. We must use the Bill to try to sell the idea of scrutinising supply chains. Instead of saying, “this is extra red tape and bureaucracy,” we should point out that this is a way of protecting companies from having in their supply chains things that they do not want, and would be appalled to find.
This country has a wonderful opportunity, once again, to take a lead in this area. In California there is a law, although I believe it is more of a voluntary code. The issue is sensitive, and because of the late stage in the electoral cycle we cannot be too ambitious—we must get the Bill through. We got Anthony Steen’s private Member’s Bill enacted on almost the last day of the Parliament in 2010, so we have to make concessions here and there. I am a pragmatist, although I am becoming a bit more evangelical about some of these issues. We have to be pragmatic sometimes. We shall deliver our report on the day that, I believe, the Government are presenting their own draft Bill. We must all get together and try to see what we can do.
Education is also important. By that I mean the education of everyone—not just parliamentarians but, equally important, our constituents. It may be invidious to single out one group, but I want to pay tribute to a group called Just Enough. The charismatic young man in charge, Phil Knight, goes into schools to educate them about modern-day slavery. It was with him that I suddenly realised the blindingly obvious—that modern-day slavery appears in folk tales. Cinderella—what better example could there be of latter-day slavery, as opposed to the mental images of the terrible ships going backwards and forwards across the Atlantic? Another example, quite relevant today, would be “Oliver Twist”—the boys who were entrapped and made to do criminal action.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware that that is a true story. “Oliver Twist” is not fiction. The court reports of that time show that Italian men would go to the south of Italy and promise families to take the young boys to the north of Italy and train them to be, perhaps, a watchmaker, but instead they brought them to London and taught them to be pickpockets. There was never a Fagin—that was a piece of anti-Semitism in the writing of the novel—but it was a true story. It was repeated here with the Roma children pickpocketing on south-east trains four or five years ago. They were rounded up—more than 150 young people from Roma families.
Sir John Randall
I am grateful for that intervention. I am aware that most of Dickens, although sometimes slightly over-caricatured, is based on the times. As the hon. Gentleman rightly says, that is why I say that “Oliver Twist” is such a good example for today, because such practices are going on today. Although we should not frighten kids with some of the more horrific things, if in school they are gradually made aware of modern-day slavery from an early age, they might be able to spot what is going on. Then, with their friends, they might notice something untoward. There are some incredibly good initiatives out there, a bit like Childline, but providing a point of contact if it is thought that someone is being trafficked or held against their will; but first we must educate people.
A few years ago, a neighbour in suburban Uxbridge told me that the lady down the road was a bit concerned; she thought there was something going on in one of the houses. I went to see her. She was a youngish mother. She was concerned that the lady next door had too many male visitors. We have Brunel university there; I thought perhaps she was being a little bit unkind because some young lady was entertaining, but I did my duty: I went to the police and asked if they would check it out. They came back to me at the end of the day and said, “You are absolutely right, Mr Randall—there is a brothel there.” That is in my own road, which I have lived in nearly all my life. They were moved on; I am not sure they were trafficked. But I am saying that it is so hidden, as the hon. Member for Slough said. This is a hidden crime. It is actually a hidden abomination, and we must do something about it.
I pay tribute to my own London borough of Hillingdon, which on this issue, as on many others, is very active—in modernspeak, I would say a beacon, but it is just a very good example. We have refuges. Of course, we have Heathrow airport in our constituency, but that is not the only reason. The borough takes trafficking and modern-day slavery very seriously.
Police forces are under lots of pressures. We have an incredibly good set of police officers around the country—in the Met, I have come across, in particular, Kevin Hyland, but there are many others. Your ordinary policeman has so many things to consider. That is why I think the Bill will be very important, to put all the legislation together so that they can understand the crimes and give them higher priority.
The hon. Member for Slough was absolutely right. For most of my constituents, human trafficking would not even appear on a list of priorities, because few people know it exists in their area. They would think it was some high falutin’ thing that was being put around by well meaning but misguided people. My constituents are more concerned about street crime, burglary, car crime and so on. We must get that message across.
I know for a fact that the Prime Minister has taken a keen interest in the issue. I want to see my Government, this Parliament and this country taking the moral lead. We know and we will repeat that Wilberforce did that 200 years ago, but this is a modern abomination in our world. I hope that we can lead efforts to do something about it.
I conclude with what has moved me more than anything else. I briefly mentioned that I could almost become evangelical on this, which most people who know me would say does not fit in my normal idiom. Just speak to some victims. Listen to them. See the people and what has happened to them—the hideous nature of it—and what has happened to them afterwards. The hon. Member for Slough is right. Is 45 days enough? It might be in some cases, but mostly probably not. Where do the victims go afterwards? They are let out of a refuge and they are on the street. Who are the first people to contact them? The traffickers. The victims do not know where to go for safety and security. We have had evidence that some want to go back to their country, but some do not. In some cases they are frightened because the traffickers know where their families are. They know who they are and they will find them again. The traffickers are very evil people.
Once again, I am delighted to take part in the debate. I am delighted that the Government are going to take action. Some of us would hold their feet up to the fire on this, although we would probably let them go just before they burn. We must get rid of trafficking. We must make the public aware that slavery is alive and kicking in our day-to-day surroundings.
Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I, too, express pleasure at speaking for the first time with you in the Chair, that being my fault rather than any reflection on you.
I am immensely pleased to follow the two speakers who opened our debate, underscoring its importance. Like the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), I come to this debate because of one person, Anthony Steen, and how he catches people. He wished to have someone on his board. He promised that they would have to turn up only once a year and sign a few papers, and that nothing else would be required of them. Like the right hon. Gentleman, thanks to the endless tutorials that Anthony Steen gives us, I have a sense of evangelical zeal as well.
My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) who opened the debate said that she did not expect me to be here. Indeed, I have been excused from some meetings so that I could be here, but if I do not attend to the very end of the debate, it is not because I am not keen on the topic—I am—but because I need to take up other duties elsewhere.
The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip referred to the opportunity that the Government offered me to chair the review sessions with an eye to how a modern anti-slavery Bill should look. Thanks to the former hon. Member for Totnes, we began our hearings by speaking with victims of this terrible evil deed. We ended our evidence sessions today, also with victims. I join my hon. Friend the Member for Slough in what she said about the importance of the Bill. Because we are being so proper to the victims, we push up the prosecution rate. Even if that were not the consequence, I would make a plea that we behave differently towards the victims because of the nature of the evil that has been perpetrated against them.
I have been knocked sideways by the evidence that we have received from the victims. I have been shocked and horrified, finding it almost unbelievable not just that such evil could occur in the world, but that it could occur here, in our own constituencies. As we have heard, the shackles are different today. There are no manacles; the slaves are not in irons. They are controlled even more effectively. The job that the Government have is different from Wilberforce’s. In a country where slaves were all too apparent, Wilberforce’s role was to change public opinion and persuade it to condemn such evil acts. Now, the chains take a different form, and people do not believe that such evil takes place. The control mechanisms of fear, violence and the knowledge of what will happen to brothers and sisters or parents back in the victim’s home town are chilling beyond belief.
That is why the Government’s Bill is so important. I think it is marvellous that the Government have moved from thinking that no Bill was necessary to wanting a Bill. I applaud them, as other Members will no doubt do in the debate and as the country will do, for making that move. I want to make a plea to the Government not just to settle on a Bill, but to use the opportunity to make it a world leader of a Bill, not because we want credit for our country—though that is a noble objective to wish for—but because the evil is so great and so widespread that we want whatever we can craft in this Chamber as the Government’s Bill to be one that others pick up and wish to see mirrored in their own societies. It is important also that we learn from that.
We have touched on the two respects in which the Government can make this a special Bill—a different Bill, a great agent for change not just in this country, but worldwide. We have already mentioned domestic workers. That shows how far the debate has moved in the space of a few years. When the issue first arose, it was an immigration issue. There seemed to be no doubt about the potential abuse that could occur from allowing the status quo to continue, and the Government changed it.
We now all realise that we live in a more complicated world. Although it may in some sense be an immigration issue, it is also an issue of whether we as a Parliament wish to be party to rules that further strengthen the hand of the slave owners and make it easier for them to carry out their evil deeds, and whether the Government will make a further jump on the topic of immigration. As the Minister knows, there are few people in the House tougher than I about immigration restrictions, but we need to act with honesty and fairness and see the consequences of our actions. I join the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip in appealing to the Government to pause and reflect on the fact that we have all moved on and that this is no longer a simple immigration issue. It is a question of whether we use our immigration rules to strengthen still further the hands of those who operate by tyranny.
The other issue relates to supply chains. Whatever the number of slaves imprisoned in our country, most of the slaves who serve us live in far-away countries, in supply chains. We must therefore consider not only whether the Bill will be brilliant for this country, which I hope it will be, but whether it will set an international standard for fighting slavery worldwide and ensure that we do not benefit from the gains of slavery.
The Prime Minister is probably more knowledgeable than any other western leader on the extent of slavery, thanks in part to the former Member of this House who set up the Human Trafficking Foundation. I am conscious that any Prime Minister must weigh up whether to increase the amount of red tape for businesses—I believe that economic revival will come and more constituents will have jobs if businesses can thrive—with another duty, which is that if the supply chains of some of the businesses that are proud to operate from this country are infected with slavery, they, and their boards in particular, are clearly liable to be participating in the most serious criminal offences. We must therefore weigh up the worries about red tape in this instance against the proper concern about businesses putting themselves in that situation.
Like other Members, I look forward to the Government bringing forward their Bill, which I understand will be in the middle of December, and to the report that we will present to the Home Secretary, the Minister and the Prime Minister on what we would like to see in it. I hope that the journey that the Government have been on, which they have encouraged other people to join, in rethinking their position on how we can most effectively counter modern slavery will continue right up until the Bill receives Royal Assent. Of course, any Bill that they introduce will make things better than what we have now. It will help to rescue some of the people who have been subjected to the evil of slavery.
We have an extraordinary and historic opportunity, which the Government have made, not only to do ourselves proud, but to do the world proud. Those who gave evidence to us, as the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip explained, talked about what had happened to them, and we do not possess the words to convey the sheer horror of what they went through, and what many continue to go through. We could make a difference for a large number of them if we get the Bill right.
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
It is a great honour and privilege to speak in this important debate. It is significant that it is entitled “Modern-day slavery”. A few years ago it might have been entitled “Human trafficking”, but of course modern-day slavery encompasses human trafficking but goes wider, because one of the many terrible truths about the issue is that there are British slaves who are moved from one part of our country to another, or indeed overseas, to be forced to work in slavery.
It is worth putting the whole issue in context. The United Nations estimates that some 27 million people are today living in modern-day slavery around the world, which is more than there were in Wilberforce’s day. When I was young I learned my history and was taught, as most of us were, that Wilberforce and many others had abolished slavery, so it is a real indictment of us, in 2013, to see the extent of slavery around the world and, indeed, in our own country.
The issue is both global, because there are international criminal business networks, and intensely local. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) explained, it could be happening on our own streets or yards away from our constituency offices, and of course it is very difficult to spot. The awful truth is that huge amounts of money are being made by the slave owners and traffickers. If their labour costs are virtually nil, they can make a great deal of money from their business. Sheer greed and the evil of one human being wanting to exploit another for financial gain are at the heart of what we are talking about today.
I was made aware of the issue a couple of years ago while on a church holiday with my family. We heard a presentation from the A21 Campaign, one of the many excellent groups fighting modern-day slavery. I was convinced then that it was an issue I should study, devote time to and work on, with colleagues on both sides of the House and many influential people outside, to try to do something about it.
I had already set that course when, back in the late summer of 2011, I received a phone call from Bedfordshire police to tell me that there would be a major police operation in my constituency on Sunday morning. They could not give me more details, because it had to be secret, but I was told that I would be briefed later that morning. That morning, some 200 police officers from both Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire police moved on to a Traveller site in a small—I might even say sleepy—village in south Bedfordshire. There they discovered 23 modern-day slaves, some of whom had been on the site for up to 15 years. They were mainly British citizens.
Those modern-day slaves had been picked up in the most appalling circumstances, generally at one of the lowest points in their lives. Some of them were picked up from homeless hostels. One gentleman had even been on a bridge and about to commit suicide. They had been picked up under the most terrible false pretences. They had been told that they would be paid £80 a day, given board and lodging, looked after and included in the general family in the place they had been taken to. If a person is down and out and life is not particularly good, I guess that seems quite a good offer.
The reality was horrifyingly and shockingly different. They were taken to the Traveller site. On arrival, their heads were shaved, as happened to the victims in the concentration camps, for hygiene purposes. Many of them were forced to live in horse boxes. They had no washing facilities, although they were taken to the local leisure centre on a Friday evening, purely because on Saturdays they were shown to potential clients to try to get more business. Their owners did not want them to smell on Saturday mornings, but it did not really matter if they smelled the rest of the week.
They had to clean the immaculate homes of the people who were exploiting them, but they were not given any toilet facilities themselves. They had to watch wonderful food being prepared for the people they worked for, but they were given meagre portions of a sloppy stew to eat. They were often woken at 5 o’clock in the morning and taken in a van, often for miles around, and occasionally overseas to various countries, and forced to do hard manual labour all day. They were brought back late at night and the same thing happened again and again. On some occasions they did not even know when it was Christmas day. That was the reality of their lives for, as I said, up to 15 years. Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, I have met some of the people on the site.
What was even more terrible for me, as the local Member of Parliament, was that I had previously been round that Traveller site with Bedfordshire police looking for children who had been truanting from school. I was on the site, I looked with my own eyes, and I missed what was going on because, as my right hon. Friend said, slaves today are not like they were in the past. They are not visible, they do not have a ball and chain, and they are not paraded around, obvious to see—they can look like you and me.
That was my experience of what happened in my own constituency. The general point I would make to all Members is that whether they represent a metropolitan constituency or one like mine made up of market towns and villages, if this sort of thing can happen in a sleepy south Bedfordshire village, it can happen anywhere in the country.
Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)
My hon. Friend is relating a truly shocking story that invites one to speculate on how many other places this could be happening in. Is he aware of other circumstances; and what can we do, as MPs, to ensure that the same thing does not happen in our own constituencies?
Andrew Selous
I am extremely grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention. The awful truth is that what happened in that village in my constituency was not an isolated incident. There have been, to my knowledge, at least two almost identical incidents elsewhere in the country—one in Gloucestershire and one in south Wales not so long ago—and I do not think that is the end of it. It was not isolated; it is ongoing, and it takes many forms.
The hon. Lady asked, very practically, what we can do. There is no point in our just coming here and describing terrible things: we have to be purposeful. Let me describe a very practical solution from Bedfordshire that has already been mentioned a couple of times. For me, the key issue about what happened in my constituency was that these slaves had, in the main, been doing block paving work on people’s drives and so would have been highly visible to many of my constituents and many people elsewhere for miles around, yet the shocking thing is that no customer—no one at home looking out at the workmen and women on their drive—thought, “Something might not be quite right here.”
When I went on the “Today” programme to talk about the incident, my main message, therefore, was that this an issue of public awareness. We have talked about the role of the police and we will no doubt talk about local authorities as well. The police and local authorities need the public on their side to be their eyes and ears and to pass on intelligence. Rather than do nothing, it is a thousand times better to ring 999 or Crimestoppers to say, “About the workmen on my drive—I might be imagining it but I think they looked a bit under duress and something wasn’t quite right. This is the name of the company I used—could you check it out, please?”
We have gone a step further in Bedfordshire, where Councillor Kristy Adams of Bedford borough council has produced a set of little cards. I know we are not supposed to use props in the Chamber, Madam Deputy Speaker, but perhaps on this occasion, and for this cause, you might excuse me. They are very simple little cards. I have been giving them out for months to anyone who will listen. I have given some to the Minister, to Anthony Steen and to others. I am glad to be able to talk about them now, even though I cannot show them too widely. The card says:
“Is the person you are with a victim of Modern Slavery?”
It gives a few pointers to look for:
“Doesn’t know home/work address?...Expression of fear, distrust, anxiety?...As an individual or group movements are restricted by others?...Limited contact with family and/or friends?...Money deducted from salary for food and/or accommodation?...Passports/documents held by someone else?”
It then says:
“Recognise any of the above? Please call 999 or Crimestoppers 0800 555 1111.”
On the back, there is a bit of a description of modern slavery and reference to a number of charities—Hope for Justice, the Salvation Army, and Stop the Traffick—and to local safeguarding teams.
I have been wanting the Home Office to produce cards like this. I do not know whether this card gives perfect information, but we decided in Bedfordshire to get on and do something about the issue, which I have been raising with Ministers for about two years. I would love the Government to produce something like this that they are completely happy with and put it up on a website so that people all over the country could print it out. I have got a pocketful of these cards to give out. We could help in all our constituencies if every community group, faith group and local authority had similar cards that people could put on the fridge, their desk or wherever, just to get them thinking about this and being the eyes and ears of the police.
Lorely Burt
In my constituency we got taxi drivers to put a note up in their vehicles explaining what could be happening and asked them to be vigilant about the people they are carrying.
Andrew Selous
I think that is an excellent initiative and we could all encourage precisely that sort of thing in our own constituencies.
The next issue I want to address is the assets of the slave owners. As I said at the start of my speech, unsurprisingly a lot of them are extremely wealthy. They have very big assets as a result of their evil activities. We need help to move that money a lot more quickly towards compensating the police and others who take action to deal with it. Mounting an operation with 200 officers is not a cheap business. It takes months of intelligence, senior officer time, a dedicated operations room and a lot of overtime pay.
Italy has been much more successful than us in confiscating the assets of slave owners and getting them to the authorities that deal with the issue or to the victims as compensation. The key difference is that Italy freezes the assets of traffickers within 48 hours of an arrest. Will the Minister take note of that and consider including it in the modern slavery Bill?
Sir John Randall
I reinforce that point very strongly, because as soon as action is taken—for example, an arrest is made—the traffickers move that money very quickly, by all sorts of means, out of the country. If we wait for charges, it is gone.
Andrew Selous
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention. I happen to know that Bedfordshire police have not seen any money from the operation they properly and rightly mounted back in September 2011. As we all know, police budgets are under pressure, and—this is important—I think we would see more police activity if there was a good prospect of their getting back the money they spend on these operations. It is also important that those ill-gotten gains of the slave owners go towards compensating the victims—the modern slaves themselves—for what they have been through and so they can set themselves up and not be subject to trafficking again.
That brings me on to my next point. I am concerned that, after the very good efforts of some police forces and some local authorities, and after the care given to victims of trafficking—or modern slaves, as we should call them—by the Salvation Army, which has the contract to look after them for 45 days, some go through that process of being rescued and cared for only to then disappear, without our knowing what happens to them, and end up being re-trafficked and going through the whole process again.
This country has systems to monitor cattle—in fact, that is one thing that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs does extremely well—because of various diseases and so on. We can track, in enormous detail, the movement of an animal from one part of the United Kingdom to another. There are probably papers in triplicate showing exactly where an animal is. Can we not just do a little bit better with people who have been through the most terrible ordeal so that we know what happens to them and do not waste all the time, money and effort spent by the police in trying to free them in the first place?
I also want the Department for International Development to seriously consider using some of its increased budget to resettle those victims of modern slavery from overseas who are found in our country safely back in their home countries, and well away from the slave owners who moved them in the first place, so that they can restart their lives in a safe manner. My last request to the Minister is to have conversations with his ministerial colleagues at DFID to see whether they could use some of their budget to do that.
Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) on securing this important debate. I know that she is absolutely passionate about helping the victims of trafficking, and I totally agree with her that the Bill offers us the opportunity to do so. It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), who has had such shocking personal experience of slavery in his constituency. I totally agree with him that getting the public involved, making them more aware and encouraging them to mind other people’s business as well as their own is a very good way forward.
I want to focus my remarks on how trafficked children are responded to and, in most cases, let down by our care system. I am the chair of the all-party group on runaway and missing children and adults. Last year, we carried out a joint parliamentary inquiry, with the support of the Children’s Society, into children who go missing from care. It highlighted the vulnerability and specific needs of trafficked children, and we found that trafficked children are particularly let down by the care system and that their needs are being ignored. Part of the problem is that the authorities view child trafficking as an immigration control issue.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. What are her views on the particular issue of assessing the age of children? I totally agree that the fact that these are vulnerable trafficked children is not often a priority when considering their immigration status.
Ann Coffey
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I will come on to the identification and assessment of children later, and I think that she will probably agree with me.
Hundreds of trafficked children disappear from care every year, many within 48 hours. Some run away shortly after arriving in the country, while on their way to children’s homes. According to figures given to our inquiry, it is estimated that about 60% of those who make it into local authority care go missing, and that almost two thirds of those who go missing are never found. Our inquiry, which made a number of key recommendations, found that existing child protection safeguards are not triggered for trafficked children.
Let us consider how a trafficked child might enter the UK. Many are smuggled through ports in the backs of lorries, but many others arrive at a UK airport accompanied by an adult trafficker. The adult abandons the child in the airport with no identification, instructing them to claim asylum, while the adult leaves the country as a transit passenger. When picked up by the airport authorities, the child is put into the care of children’s services and taken to a home or hostel. Typically, a phone number has been sewn inside their clothing, and when it is safe to do so, they contact a handler and then disappear. Traffickers also get to know where the children’s homes are situated.
One of the reasons why many non-British trafficked children go missing from care is that they are groomed so effectively by their traffickers: they are so terrified of what might happen to them or their families if they break their bond or tell the authorities that they run back to their traffickers. Being exploited for labour is the most common form of exploitation of trafficked children, followed by sexual exploitation, cannabis cultivation, domestic servitude, benefit fraud, street crime and forced marriage. Many of the victims are subject to multiple forms of exploitation.
Sue Berelowitz, the deputy Children’s Commissioner, told our inquiry how trafficked children are placed in inappropriate accommodation, which leaves them desperately vulnerable to further exploitation. In 2009, the Home Affairs Committee report on human trafficking expressed alarm that
“traffickers may be using the care home system for vulnerable children as holding pens for their victims until they are ready to pick them up.”
Such a situation is partly the result of a lack of awareness about the indicators that a child might have been trafficked, as well as a lack of knowledge about the steps to take to prevent trafficked children from going missing, such as placing them away from their trafficker’s local area. Budget constraints in local authorities and a culture that prioritises immigration control and criminal prosecution over child protection, combined with a lack of specialist accommodation or foster care, also contribute to the inadequate support received by these young people.
Already this year, the national referral mechanism has identified 1,500 child and adult victims of trafficking, according to the UK Human Trafficking Centre. However, the data on children are patchy and incomplete. That is why the all-party group recommended a comprehensive and independent national system of data collection for trafficked children who go missing. Under the recent reforms to the data collection system for local authorities, it does not include data on trafficked children, nationality or immigration status.
Many professionals agree that the best solution to help trafficked children break contact with their traffickers is to use specialist foster carers who are trained to identify and respond to the specific issues and needs of trafficked children, and who know how to keep them safe. We recommended that the pilot scheme that was run by the Department for Education and Barnardo’s to train more foster parents to support trafficked children and/or sexually exploited children should be rolled out nationally.
The provision of specialist accommodation for child victims of trafficking is very limited. Many such children are being accommodated in bed and breakfasts, hostels and supported lodgings, which do not provide the level of supervision and specialist support that is needed to prevent them from going missing or being targeted for further exploitation. That is despite the guidance that was issued by the DFE and the Home Office in 2012, which states that trafficked children should be placed in foster care or residential care and that the local authority should assess the child’s vulnerability to the continuing control of their traffickers and take into account the risk that they will go missing.
A recent “Newsnight” investigation revealed that 15,728 children aged 16 and 17 had asked local authorities with help for homelessness. Of the local authorities that responded to a freedom of information request, 148 had housed children unlawfully in Band B accommodation in 2012, despite statutory guidance stating that such accommodation is not suitable for children. That is a problem for trafficked children because most of them will be in that age group.
As I have said, trafficked children often go missing before their level of vulnerability has been assessed by children’s services and before identification has taken place. That is why I support the recommendation of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre and the Association of Chief Police Officers that photos of the children should be taken and recorded along with their passport number, nationality, fingerprints and DNA. That would mean that if a child turned up later in a cannabis factory, or was a victim of sexual exploitation or had been charged with an offence in a different part of the country, they could be identified as a trafficked child and the right level of intervention could be used to safeguard them.
To re-emphasise what my hon. Friend the Member for Slough said, it is important to understand that children do not volunteer the information that they have been trafficked. If we want to break the bond with the trafficker, the child must be given an advocate, guardian or social worker at the point of entry to the country to support them and encourage the formation of a trusting relationship, so that they have someone to turn to other than the trafficker. In recent debates in this House, we have talked about the importance of communicating with children and giving them a voice. That is all the more important when a child arrives in the country unable to speak the language, with no understanding of our laws or customs, and fearful of what might happen if they divulge anything to the authorities.
Only five of the 64 local authorities that responded to the all-party group’s call for evidence last year collect data on the nationality of children in care. Only two authorities, Hillingdon and Portsmouth, collect data on whether children have been trafficked. Witnesses told our inquiry that professionals often had a negative attitude towards trafficked children and that that had implications for the way in which such children were treated. We recommended that the DFE should lead a programme of work to support local authorities to meet the needs of trafficked children through existing child protection frameworks. Local authorities could also reflect on the needs of trafficked children in their annual sufficiency surveys, which show how they will provide care to meet the needs of looked-after children in their areas.
A major factor in the failure to protect trafficked children is the lack of knowledge among professionals of the indicators that a child might have been trafficked. Children and Families Across Borders, which trains local authorities, reported to the all-party group that 98% of social workers have not heard of the national referral mechanism and have no clear understanding of the issues involved in identifying or protecting trafficked children. The inquiry heard from practitioners and the police that effective multi-agency working would improve information sharing and strategic responses. We heard evidence of consistent failure in intelligence-sharing between the UK Border Agency, the police, and statutory and local authorities about organised criminal networks and trafficking trends.
Pat Geenty, the ACPO lead on missing persons, told the inquiry how the issue of missing persons needs to be recognised, and he referred to a multi-agency environment. He said:
“For me the Holy Grail is MASH, the multi-agency safeguarding hub, in every police force in the country, if we can get those in place and we can bring our local authorities and our different agencies together in one room, all referrals going into case management, we would have an opportunity of sharing information, sharing data much more effectively”.
I am aware that progress is being made on that, and that many multi-agency safeguarding hubs are being set up, but it is patchy across the country. If the statistics on missing persons that are shared do not properly identify children at risk of being trafficked because there is no efficient data collection system, those children will continue to fall through the net.
Hillingdon borough council has shown what can be done and reduced the number of unaccompanied children who have gone missing. My concern is that other authorities that do not have those levels of expertise may not identify as having been trafficked children who may have been transported many miles from their original point of entry. We therefore need better data collection, and better understanding in agencies with responsibility for protecting children of indicators that a child may have been trafficked. We also need safe places for children to try and break the relationship between trafficker and child, improved identification of children at an early stage, better information sharing between agencies, and a trusted person for the child to relate to as soon as they are assessed as being likely to have been trafficked.
In other words, those children must be included in the existing child protection system so that, for example, actions taken to safeguard any trafficked children in an area are included in the annual reports of the local safeguarding children boards. We will not stop the evil of trafficking children for exploitation until the people who do it believe that they are taking more risk than the profit they are offered merits. One way of doing that is to ensure that their victims do not become invisible and lost in our country.
Irrespective of the immigration status of these children, they are still children and entitled to the same protection as other children in the country. I welcome the Government’s progress in introducing a modern slavery Bill, but I hope it will include practical measures that will better protect those children. I also hope it will disrupt the activities of the evil men and women who see all children as commodities for profit, because when their exploitation of one child is disrupted, that protects other children who might otherwise have become their victims.
Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)
I thank the Backbench Business Committee for scheduling this important debate, and I congratulate the Government on proposing a modern day slavery Bill. I will focus many of my comments on young girls who are enslaved for sexual exploitation, both in the UK and globally, and emphasise that, as many Members have said, this is a global trend, just as slavery was in Wilberforce’s day.
Young girls are brought to the UK from other countries, often under duplicitous arrangements and in the belief that they are coming to be a hairdresser or a beautician. They are then imprisoned in rooms and suffer terrible atrocities, brutally abused by several men until they are basically broken down. Often they are abused for many years. In addition, there are people, mainly men, who travel from this country for so-called sex tourism—a terrible phrase. Who would go on holiday specifically to abuse and rape a child? Indeed, many of the victims are children; according to UNICEF, 20% of the victims of sex tourism are children who effectively are not consenting at all.
About 2 million children a year are exploited in the global sex trade. As we have heard, a drug can be sold only once, but a woman can be sold many times and a child even more. There are the most appalling stories—I will refer in a little more detail to the child sex trade in Mumbai—even of babies being sold. One baby was rescued just as she was about to be sold into the Mumbai prostitute area for £150. She is now in safekeeping.
Shamefully, while many sex tourists are from the UK, and despite the fact that we already have legislation in place to investigate and prosecute British nationals committing sexual offences against children abroad, including extraterritorial legislation, we are—according to the International Justice Mission’s most recent campaign—yet to see meaningful prosecutions. That should serve as a real lesson, because it is critical that any new modern slavery Bill is not just passed into law but has the capacity to be enforced afterwards. Without that capacity, the Bill will be meaningless.
Andrew Selous
I support what my hon. Friend says. The House has done the right thing in passing the relevant legislation, but we have not seen the follow-up prosecutions. Many of us are aware of British citizens, sometimes in Asia, running horrendous establishments where children are regularly mistreated. I strongly support her point and join her in asking the Minister for more action in this area.
Fiona Bruce
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, and I commend him for his excellent speech and his work in this area.
Just as we have realised in this country that we need to have more joined-up thinking between different authorities—the border forces, the police, local authorities, social services and education services—to combat this terrible trade, we also need considerably more joined-up work internationally if we are to combat it effectively. We need to work with law enforcement agencies, other Governments, the private sector, the voluntary sector, front-line professionals and members of the public if we are to support victims and see a diminution in what is an increasing trade, not a decreasing trade. We need to expand prevention efforts in source countries to alert victims and disrupt the work of the traffickers. We need to work with foreign Governments to strengthen their knowledge and understanding of this issue.
Debbie Abrahams
Was the hon. Lady as concerned as I was to learn that after the 2004 tsunami a number of children and young girls were trafficked into slavery and the concern is that the same may happen to children orphaned as a result of the typhoon in the Philippines? I agree with her that an international effort is needed.
Fiona Bruce
The hon. Lady makes an excellent point and I hope that the Department for International Development will take note of it.
Tragically, behind the global sexualisation of young children lies increasing demand. One of the reasons for this is online pornography. A brothel owner in South Africa explained how men visiting from across the globe increasingly demand younger girls. The men want to re-enact fantasies developed by watching online pornography and are making ever more violent and sadistic requests of girls. I ask the Minister to encourage the National Crime Agency to be vigilant and do what it can to stop this illegal pornographic content. I realise how difficult that is, but we need to be aware of it as a root cause of some of the increasing sex tourism and abuse of young children globally.
Another possible answer is to look at the mainstream media’s attitude to prostitution. On the surface many, if not most, people would say that a man visiting a prostitute is socially unacceptable, but under the surface films such as “Pretty Woman” and television programmes suggest an inexplicable social acceptability of such actions. Society’s attitude needs to shift on this issue.
Grooming can lead to terrible abuse and for those at risk education is key. Education is also important for the general public both here and abroad, as my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) said. If people travel abroad and are aware of abuse, they have as much a duty to report it to the authorities there as they do here. If people, particularly UK nationals, are guilty of this offence here, they are equally guilty abroad.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
People should report such matters in this country, as well as to the authorities abroad.
Fiona Bruce
I thank my hon. Friend for making that excellent point—I fully agree.
I commend the work of Sandbach high school in my constituency, where a group of young students, led by an inspirational teacher, have for several years been encouraged to educate their peers in school about the dangers of grooming and what it can lead to. They have conducted a national campaign, which has been recognised by the Red Cross, to raise awareness of the terrible plight of trafficked and abused young women in enforced prostitution. I encourage Ministers to look at a Nordic model that seeks to educate young people through schools, and by other means, to understand better this terrible trade, and to understand that in paying for sex they may be paying to rape a victim of human trafficking who is enslaved.
Our police forces need more education, too. I was pleased to receive a reply to an inquiry I made a short time ago to the Cheshire constabulary, stating that it now has a specifically appointed member responsible for human trafficking. However, I understand that he has had no formal training. That again means that we have no teeth to enforce legislation in our county. As hon. Members have said, this trade can happen anywhere, anytime and in any part of our country. It is therefore vital that the Home Secretary, as part of the modern slavery Bill, ensures that training is given to our police forces, so they are fully aware of the new provisions and powers. It is no good having legislation if there is not the capacity to enforce it.
It is important that, within DFID funding programmes to educate girls in the countries that we support through our funding, there is an awareness of the dangers of trafficking. We have gone to enormous lengths in this country to promote the education of young girls. It is accepted that if we can give girls an education, we can transform a community. We need to ensure that this issue is part of that education programme. A few months ago, as a member of the Select Committee on International Development, I visited Ethiopia. We inspected excellent work to reduce child marriage. Traditionally, hundreds of thousands of young girls in many communities have been married at a very early age, often as young as six or a little older. Their families think that this will secure their future. In fact, it does the opposite, because they lose their education, often suffer terrible internal injuries through early sex, die in childbirth and so forth.
The Government have done an amazing amount of work to reduce the prevalence of child marriage in Ethiopia, but when we went into one school in Ethiopia and asked the head teacher, “What are your problems with child marriage?”, she said, “We have almost none, but we have a major problem with our young girls simply disappearing. We believe they are being taken to adjoining countries.” We must address that through our aid provision.
Bob Stewart
I am bound to speak because my wife saw such children being dragged across South Sudan when she was a member of the International Committee of the Red Cross. They were slave trains of people taking mainly Africans across towards the middle east. She told me it was quite dreadful.
Fiona Bruce
Again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that example.
Sex tourism is also prevalent in Mumbai. I alert hon. Members to an excellent e-book campaign that, as vice-chair of the all-party group on human trafficking and modern day slavery, I had the privilege to launch. The campaign is called “Taken: Exposing Sex Trafficking and Slavery in India”. It is organised by a remarkable woman called Hazel Thompson, who spent 11 years in the red-light district of Mumbai. This e-book can be purchased for the price of a glass of wine through the website, takenebook.com. I commend it to hon. Members. Hazel tells of a girl who was 11 when she was trafficked from a poor village in India. Her trafficker was her mother’s friend, and she promised Guddi—the girl’s name—well-paid domestic service in Mumbai that would help feed her struggling family, but when Guddi arrived she was taken to a brothel and raped. The madam of the brothel and her daughter held her down by her arms and legs to restrain her. If Guddi and her family had known about domestic trafficking and where she was really going, her life today would be very different.
The book highlights the extensive prostitution in Mumbai, where women are kept enslaved in a tiny red-light district: 20,000 women and girls are believed to be forced to work as prostitutes in just one small network of streets, and many of them, when they first arrive, are kept in small cages, where they can barely stand up, to break them. Some of them are kept there for months. Many of these women, brought in when they are young women or girls, live there and have no hope of escape. There could be as many as 26 minders from the cage to the outside of this red-light community that they would have to get through before they could possibly escape. It is virtually impossible.
International hotels have a key role to play in addressing this terrible issue of sex tourism. Some hotels actually house brothels. They will say, “We have nothing to do with it”, but they will subcontract part of their buildings, which will then be classed perhaps as gyms or health clubs, but which will in fact be brothels. It is essential that we ensure that international hotels have nothing to do with this. I commend Hilton Worldwide for taking action, operating training programmes at both leadership and in-house levels, to teach hotel employees to identify illicit activities and better understand the issues surrounding child sex trafficking. Hotels, particularly the large international ones, must take a lead in demonstrating that they will take no part in this.
Before closing, I commend the work of some airlines. The “It’s a Penalty” campaign aims to educate tourists about international legislation while they are on British Airways flights to Brazil. There is a film with the Brazilian ambassador, with Gary Lineker and with other prominent footballers. We need to see more of this kind of constructive, innovative campaigning so that we can alert people both in this country and abroad to the fact that this is an international trade and that we must play our part in stamping it out.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I want to make some brief comments this afternoon on the issue of child slavery, and particularly on prostitution in India, which follows on neatly from the comments of the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce). I endorse what she said and I hope to add to it.
In many ways, the term “child prostitution” is a euphemism: it fails to describe the shocking details of this vile trade; it is nothing short of slavery and the rape of young children. My attention was drawn to the scale of the problem when, like the hon. Member for Congleton, I visited India in 2012 with a UK Trade & Investment delegation. I then realised the realities of life in Indian society and in Indian cities.
In India, children are sold or trafficked into a life of abuse—a life that for too many child prostitutes leads to an early death. As the hon. Lady said, they do not usually live beyond their mid-teens as a result of abuse, infections and lack of care. AIDS and other infectious sexually transmitted diseases take their toll on such young bodies. Slavery appears endemic in India, and according to the global slavery index of 2013, an estimated 14 million people are in slavery there—more than in any other country, accounting for nearly 50% of the world’s slaves. Nearly 90% of this is in domestic slavery.
The delegation visited a refuge in Hyderabad, which was like the one in Mumbai. It was set up for rescued children who had been forced into enslaved prostitution. It was a harrowing experience—one that will not leave me for many years, if at all. It really brought to light just how tough life can be on this planet, even 12 years after the signing of the millennium development goals. The cross-party delegation witnessed the very depths of inhumanity. These were children that in many cases were seized from rural areas and trafficked across India to work in large cities such as Hyderabad and Mumbai. Poverty had in some cases led to children being sold into slavery by their parents, while in many other cases, the poorest families were simply conned by the traffickers by a promise of a better life for their children in the cities. Which parent would not want a better life for their children? The parents do not know where their children have been taken, and the children are too young to know where home is. The refuge we visited explained that, in most cases, there was no way of tracing a rescued child back to their parents. It was harrowing.
Two hundred thousand children a year are sold into slavery by their parents, many, according to the US Department of State, for as little as $l7. Modern-day slavery in India should unsettle many people, and anyone who believes that slavery ended with Wilberforce or Lincoln should perhaps visit India to see the scale of the problem. For those who have seen the film “Slumdog Millionaire”, the poverty in India is truly sickening. Recent sex abuse cases have highlighted the problems to be found there.
What the delegation heard was truly shocking—young children visited by between 30 and 60 men a day for as little as 15p per visit, with the youngest child in the refuge in Hyderabad being aged just three—[Interruption.] —yes, three. The average age of child prostitutes has fallen to about eight, and these girls were readily available. As I say, some were as young as three; we could hardly believe what we were seeing. UNICEF estimates that there are around 500,000 child prostitutes in India alone, showing the scale of problem, while there are about 200,000 in Thailand. At every minute of the day, a woman or a child is sold into slavery; more than a million children globally have had their childhoods stolen.
I was incredibly proud to see that, in Orissa, one of the poorest parts of India from where children are trafficked, UK aid money was keeping vulnerable rural children in education and with their families. That aid money had helped set up co-operatives of poor farmers, cutting out the greedy middle men and raising the incomes of poor families, thereby significantly protecting the children of those families from the hands of traffickers.
There are many who are driven not by a compassionate desire to improve the lives of the world’s poorest but by an unpleasant desire for the United Kingdom to turn its back on foreigners, without giving any thought to what that actually means. The Indian state, and Pakistan, may be failing poor people, and we should always question Government policy, but we should also always seek to help the poor and to protect young children, and we should vigorously challenge the people in the UK who are so desperate to cut aid for those people. The vast majority of Britons are proud of our charitable culture, and the UK’s charitable appeals bring in millions of pounds. Organisations such Comic Relief, Christian Aid, Save the Children and Tearfund are well respected and well supported, both here and internationally.
Crucially, we should remember that those whom we are helping are often the victims of their Governments’ actions. Our answer should be not to punish nations for the failings of their Governments, but to focus on the misery of poverty and how the UK can help those in need. Britain is a great nation, and I hope not only that today’s debate will strengthen our resolve to help those in poverty who are forced into modern-day slavery, but that we can tackle the worst form of modern-day slavery, child prostitution. I urge the Minister to consider the horror of that issue, particularly in India, and to reflect on it both in dealing with trafficking and in the context of UK aid to India.
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is the first occasion on which you have occupied the Chair while I have been in the Chamber, and I congratulate you on your election.
Slavery takes a huge number of forms. I am pleased to note that, apart from the first speaker in the debate, no one has decided to make party political points, because this should not be a party political issue. It should be cross-party, and I think that everyone else has taken that route.
Fiona Mactaggart
I do not think that I did make party political points. I welcomed the cross-party consensus on the issue, and praised the Government for their Bill. I did ask the Minister to go a bit further here and there, but I did that in common with Labour Members, and I do not think it fair to suggest that I made a party political speech.
Pauline Latham
Perhaps the hon. Lady feels that she did not do so, but I disagree with her on that.
As I have said, slavery takes a huge number of forms. I do not want to focus on international trafficking, although, having recently returned from Burma, I know that the Burmese fear that, following the opening of their borders, an increasing number of young girls will be taken to Thailand for trafficking. We should bear it in mind that they may end up in this country as well, and I think that the police and border agencies should look out for young girls coming here from Burma. Over the last few years, I have been made aware of slavery, trafficking, and the fact that people are groomed.
My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), a former Minister, spoke at an event that I organised recently in my constituency, along with Sheila Taylor, an old friend of mine from Derbyshire who set up and used to work for Safe and Sound Derby but is now a member of a committee that advises the Government, and members of CROP —Collective Response of Parents to Child Sexual Exploitation—who work with victims. I also invited the parents of children attending two secondary schools, both of which have between 1,300 and 1,500 pupils. The parents were very white and middle-class; the area that I am talking about is very much a leafy suburb. What shocked me was the small number who turned up to hear those very impressive speakers. Allowing for the fact that each of them might have had two children at one or other of the two schools, I think that there was probably a potential for 1,500 to turn up, but fewer than 20 did so. One or two teachers came along.
I think there is an attitude of, “It doesn’t happen here, does it? It happens in inner cities, it happens abroad, it happens anywhere but in leafy suburbs.” I set up this event because I had spoken to a constituent whose husband had been trafficking some children, particularly her daughter’s best friend. He had been working with these children, grooming them. He has been to prison, but is now out and is still trying to see these children. So this happens all over the world, including on our own back doorstep. I was interested to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) talking about a brothel on the street where he had lived more or less all his life and my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) talking about the terrible problems he had had in his constituency.
Derby was one of the first areas to deal with this issue and it had Operation Retriever. A lot of men were grooming women and taking them off to Birmingham and other places, but these men have all been prosecuted and some have gone to prison. The men were from the inner city, but the children they were trafficking were not—again, they were often from very respectable backgrounds. There is a big problem with parents thinking, as they do about grooming and the internet, that their children are not going to be caught up in this. There is an obligation on every one of us in this House to try to make people aware of what might be happening on their back doorstep.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
My hon. Friend made the point that this is all around us and she talked about the internet. If we turn to the adverts section in the back pages of our local paper, we will find sex for sale adverts. Should we not heed the words of Detective Inspector Hyland, who says that we should all take action in our local communities to challenge editors of local papers when sex for sale adverts advertise brothels, which are very much linked to trafficking? We can all take steps to try to rid those papers of such adverts.
Pauline Latham
That was an interesting contribution and I will now look much more carefully at the Derby Telegraph, as I was not aware of it having adverts for sex. I will look very carefully when I go home this weekend to see whether my local newspaper is part of this selling of sex. If it is, we should be challenging our local editors and saying that they should not be perpetuating this industry.
I do not know how many people are aware that Barnardo’s is working hard to come up with specialist foster placements for children who have been trafficked. It is important that we use as many agencies as we can to help these children, who are mainly, but not exclusively, girls, and give them a proper life after they have come out of this terrible situation. I commend Barnardo’s for the work it is doing. We could probably engage with and help to fund other organisations to help with that work.
I am pleased that the Government are making the effort to introduce this modern slavery Bill, because every day we see things in the national newspapers, and on national and local television, about different situations where girls, in particular, have been trafficked. It is often large groups of men who are grooming these children and moving them along to other cities. I know that the children in Derby were taken to Leeds and Birmingham—they were taken all over the country. They did not know where they were, because they did not know the geography of the country, and they could not escape because they were terrified.
I feel strongly that the Government are working hard to put in place measures to stop this happening, and I look forward to getting the Bill before the House. Every one of us has a duty to speak out about this. I am pleased that we have heard from quite a lot of speakers, but of course it is difficult to get many speakers to participate on a Thursday afternoon. I am sorry about that, because this is such an important subject. I congratulate the Minister on the work he is doing. I am pleased to hear that the Prime Minister is behind this, as is the Home Secretary, and that everyone is working together to rid this country of this evil.
Michael Connarty (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (Lab)
It is a great honour to speak for the first time with you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker. Scottish Members in particular will miss your wonderful interventions in Scottish business, which reflected your part-Scottish background and your knowledge. It was such a pleasure to see you upset the Scottish nationalists so often in Scotland questions; we will miss that greatly.
Let me turn now to the terrible topic of modern-day slavery, and the fact that the Government have announced a Bill. I underline the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) that this is not a party political matter; it never has been. We have always urged the Government, regardless of who they are, to do more and to do better. After studying this topic and spending time at the Serious Organised Crime Agency, when I was part of the police service parliamentary scheme, I found that as we change our attack on the business—it is a worldwide business and a seriously organised crime network—the perpetrators change their business model. Women used to be forced into slavery and brought here by force. Now, they are being offered a new life. They are often EU citizens who have a right to come here. They are promised good jobs and a career and then find themselves entrapped in slavery and sexual exploitation. As we change our attack, we will find that the perpetrators change. It is a matter that every Government will have to deal with.
The decade of work commenced when Anthony Steen, who has been mentioned often, took an interest in the trafficking of Roma children, who were trained to thieve on South-east trains and on the underground. There were large numbers of them, and they were clearly organised. They were all swept up by police and the social services and returned to their country of origin. Very few went into any form of support system in the UK. From that episode came Anthony’s interest, which infected all of us, and many of us became involved in the pre-2010 activities.
I was also struck by a book by Baroness Cox called “This Immoral Trade”. It is a study of what happened in Burma and Sudan where people were trafficked in the old way. They were put into slave gangs and taken to slavers in the north of Africa where they were sold. They are now being bought back from those very slavers by their communities. It is a replication of what used to happen when people were taken to the colonies of the European countries. That practice is still going on. I spoke at the re-launch of the second edition of Baroness Cox’s book in the House of Lords last month. It was said that between 11 million and 17 million people are enslaved in the world at the moment. A number of types of slavery are used. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) mentioned the horrific practice whereby infants between the ages of three and eight are trafficked within their own country for sexual exploitation. It is a massive problem, but it is also a business and organised crime and we must treat it as such.
The European dimension has been driven strongly by the Parliamentarians against Human Trafficking project, which is organised through ECPAT UK—End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes—and the Human Trafficking Foundation. We have travelled from country to country—and I have travelled as the lead Labour member without a political hat on—and spoken to people who have been working on the matter, to try to understand the dimensions and the methodology of the crime.
A monitoring office in Bucharest looks at many of the countries around the Balkans, and it provided me with reports which I took back to the Human Trafficking Foundation. There are also people in Moldova, who are not yet in the EU but who are closely connected with Romania. The Portuguese have developed an amazing mapping and monitoring process. Using a mapping system used for the movement of traffic—the movement of lorries—they can map the movement of people and are becoming adept at watching the movement of people from Brazil into Portugal for the summer trade on the beaches. Then, in the winter, the traffickers move them into the cities, into indoor brothels. The Portuguese can cut that movement off and deal with the process there.
The Netherlands has a good example of an ombudsperson who is responsible not just for human trafficking but for human trafficking and child exploitation. That is a dual role in a powerful, well-resourced independent organisation working with a lot of the NGOs and care organisations. The work is often spontaneous, as one incident leads to involvement in further exploration and the bringing of information into the system.
Whatever the Government do, it is key for us to keep very close to a network of NGOs. Unfortunately, at the moment the NGOs—all the numerous organisations that were written to—do not trust the system we have. I have been at a foundation NGO day with 50 different NGOs, and only half a dozen have ever replied when a Government organisation has asked them for information because they feel that they have a responsibility to protect the victims they have helped release and who they are looking after. They worry that if those victims get into the system, they will immediately be treated as criminals, either for immigration reasons or for some other form of criminal activity they were exploited and trafficked for, and that they will therefore be sent home and treated as criminals.
The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) talked about people in cannabis farms. There was a cannabis farm in a big house next door to me just a year ago. The house had first been used by people from Lithuania who would go around and steal all the charity bags that had been put out for charitable organisations, but they were driven out and it was taken over by a mysterious organisation. We reported it to the police, but they did not act quickly enough and in the middle of the night a large lorry turned up, took all the lamps and all the cannabis and unfortunately the woman—I could not quite get her age—who was trapped in the house and brought food by a gentleman every couple of nights.
That was a trafficked person who was taken on and will no doubt be trafficked somewhere else, but what if she had been caught? In the Scottish young offenders institution in my constituency, Polmont, one can sadly find four Vietnamese young men who are there because they were found guilty of the crime of cannabis farming. They were all trafficked and they were all victims, but the standard procedure is to treat them as criminals. I have no doubt that when they come out they will be sent back to Vietnam.
One of the television channels I was watching—CBS, I think—is running a campaign against human trafficking, focusing on Cambodia, next to Vietnam. That channel is talking about making programmes—I think one will be on next week—about the trafficking in Cambodia. I think that trafficking from Cambodia to Thailand was what was being talked about, but Cambodia is just like Vietnam. It is an open-access country where young people who want to get out of their country might pay a lot of money to be trafficked before ending up in criminality or some form of exploitation.
As we go around the EU, we try to get the best practice. I do not know how it is going, but I hope that the Human Trafficking Foundation will be successful in winning further support from the EU to take on the next stage of the process by getting every country that has theoretically signed up to the directive on human trafficking to implement it properly. In a lot of countries, it has not even been implemented as well as it is here, and I have some criticisms of how we have carried out the duties of implementing it in this country. I hope that that situation will be improved by the Bill.
We have heard about trafficking into the UK, trafficking across the UK and trafficking out of the UK. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) talked about the problem in his constituency of men being trafficked to Sweden out of the UK to be used as unpaid slaves in the construction industry in that country.
We have also heard about domestic slavery, and I join those who have criticised the Government. I do not see that as party political, but as speaking against a silly thing that was done—that is, the abolition of the one thing that gave domestic servants, or slaves, even if they were brought in as a family as they sometimes are, the chance to have a domestic servants visa. That meant that they could leave a bad family and, usually through Kalayaan and the police, find another employer as long as their visa allowed them to stay.
I understand that the Government said that every year maybe 40 or 50 people out of the thousands involved used that concession to stay behind and disappear, but it protected those young women—it is mainly young women—from being beaten, treated “worse than the dogs”, fed the scraps off the table of the families they lived with, and sleeping in cupboards. They could leave that behind and find a better employer while they had a domestic servant visa. That does not exist any more—it is now a six-month visa. But most people do not come in with visas; they come in as members of families. They are then kept with the family and treated in the most appalling way, so I hope that the Government will find a way of reinstating the protection of domestic workers in the UK.
It is quite clear that sexual exploitation is still a target for traffickers. That is true of young women and young men. Across Europe, we find young men in particular countries being trafficked in for sexual exploitation—rent boys, I think they call them in London. But they are even younger than that; they are children, because some men particularly like young boys. They are exploited in many ways. They are exploited for begging. They are exploited by fake families for benefit fraud; quite a lot of that goes on. They are trafficked also for thieving—they are trained to pickpocket in the cities of the UK and in Europe.
We have to look at how we can keep the criminalisation of the victim away from the care of the victim. It is unfortunate that it became mixed up in the debate about immigration. We have to look at immigration. We heard my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) say that there is nobody in the House as tough as he is when it comes to the idea of restricting immigration. He is part of the balanced immigration group in Parliament, along with senior Conservative Members, but he does not want to see this mixed up with the immigration problem; it is a different matter. These people are brought in, maybe with promises, with delusions that they would be coming to a better life, and then abused. We should tackle that. We found when we talked to NGOs that the excessive focus on immigration substantially impacts on the confidence of victims in speaking to the UK Border Agency, and in speaking to the police authorities who, if the Bill is correct, will be their best saviour rather than their biggest threat.
I want to say a word or two about the Scottish situation, because I am the only Scottish Member speaking in the debate. There is a parallel debate going on in Scotland. We had a strange comment by the Justice Minister after the launch of the inquiry into human trafficking in Scotland, which I went to. It was chaired by Helena Kennedy, Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws. When I said to him that many things in the inquiry could be taken forward into a Bill, the Justice Minister, who is known for being a bit sharp, and whom I have known for a long time, said, “The trouble with us is the UK Border Agency, Michael. If we could do something about them, we could do something about human trafficking.” He felt very strongly indeed that because it was a UK matter, it was the UK Border Agency that distorted Scottish Ministers’ wish to do something about it.
I want to mention three elements very quickly. First, in 2011 a document called “Scotland: A safe place for child traffickers?” by Tam Baillie, the children’s commissioner, shocked Scotland. It was not, “Scotland: A safe place for trafficked children?” but “Scotland: A safe place for child traffickers?” He could identify 200 children trafficked into Scotland over a period of 18 months.
There was then an inquiry by the Equality and Human Rights Commission into human trafficking. Its report came out in October 2011. It was very far-reaching—I think much more visionary than anything we had had in responding at a UK level to the human trafficking directive. It talked about some elements which I shall mention in a minute.
Finally, there is now a draft Bill on human trafficking and modern-day slavery headed up by Jenny Marra, MSP for Dundee. The Scottish Parliament is considering the matter with a Bill before them that they can look at—a fully laid out Bill, rather than what we have at the moment, which is some rumours and some whispers and some wishes about what our Bill will contain. The process that we follow may produce a much more comprehensive Bill, but I was very impressed with the Bill proposed by Jenny Marra for Scotland.
Sir John Randall
Interestingly, Jenny Marra gave evidence before our panel, so we have seen and read the draft Bill.
Michael Connarty
That is excellent, because I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Slough that it would be a good idea to have Jenny Marra down to the all-party group to discuss with her the thinking behind her Bill. I spoke at a conference with her in Glasgow about the fact that if the Bill became law, it would need to contain a framework to deal with events such as the Olympics, or the Commonwealth games in Glasgow, which represent a truly attractive opportunity for human traffickers to profit and prosper.
I understand that there is a proposal—the Minister may correct me—that the UK anti-slavery Bill will contain a better definition of the crime. We currently use anti-sex trade Acts that are years, if not decades, out of date. It would be good to know what the crime is and for it to be defined as widely as possible. There should be a clear prosecution policy and a sentencing policy that makes it clear to people that if they are caught, it will result not in a small fine or a few years in jail, but in a long period in jail—up to life imprisonment, I hope, for anyone caught running a major criminal operation in human trafficking and slavery.
During the inquiry in Scotland, we heard the idea that other crimes could be made more severe by being defined as aggravated by human trafficking. At present, many traffickers go to prison for other small crimes, not for the crime of human trafficking. I understand from the Serious Organised Crime Agency that that change would make the tariff high enough to provide access to the criminals’ money. As SOCA said, to follow the crime, follow the money. That is important. At the launch of the Scottish inquiry, the Advocate-General spoke in favour of such a change.
There should be a commissioner-ombudsman, independent and well resourced, and a clear focus on asset reclamation. Since the activity is aimed at making money from the exploitation of humans, selling them cheaply or abusing their rights, if the authorities can get their hands on the money or the assets, that will hurt. It has been proposed that any money recovered should be used for anti-slavery purposes, rather than taken back into the Treasury like fines for speeding and so on. I suggest that we consider giving some of assets recovered to the Human Trafficking Foundation to make that a well-resourced organisation that does not just rely on charity, but is funded by the effectiveness of the campaign that it generates.
I am told that efforts will be made to cover the question of extra-territoriality, as has been done, for example, in the case of sex tourism, whereby people caught in another country are deemed guilty in this country, as we saw in a recent case involving a pop star.
We must respond to the reality of labour exploitation in UK supply chains. This is a plea, a hope and a wish. The Minister may make me happy or unhappy when he speaks. There are many organisations such as Walk Free set up by the owner of Fortescue from Australia, who now has 5 million people signed up as members. Walk Free, exposes human trafficking and exploitation for sex and for cheap labour across the world. Every day members of the Walk Free network get e-mails asking them to send petitions and write to companies to try to stop that behaviour. There is also the organisation set up by the then world president of Manpower, which has tackled human trafficking through all its networks. The 2.5 million companies that Manpower deals with all have training and training manuals on how to look for human trafficking and how to get rid of it.
I spoke to various organisations while preparing my Bill. The case that was exposed which everyone heard about in this country involved eggs and chickens for the Olympics. A special programme was carried out by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which it would not normally do. The authority focused specifically on supplies to that event. It found that the chickens had been rounded up by Lithuanian men—40 of them kept in a big house and hounded from place to place by rottweilers. They were driven round the country, working 17 hours a day. By the time they had paid their so-called fare to get there and their digs money—their rent—they ended up with very little at all, and they were badly fed. The gangmaster was taken to court.
The supply chain showed that those who delivered the eggs and the chickens to McDonald’s and to Sainsbury’s did not know that the people hired as gangmasters, who were licensed gangmasters, then hired Lithuanians, who were not gangmasters, to run the show for them. We have to think seriously about that. When I spoke to representatives of McDonald’s, they brought me a wonderful brochure about all the standards that those who sign up to supply the company should observe. It stated that workers should not be locked in or guarded, and that they should not be indebted to a recruitment agency. It is fabulous, but the company did not realise that it meant nothing. People signed bits of paper and put them in the bin or in a file.
Between 12,000 and 18,000 companies in Britain have signed up to that ethical trading initiative, but none of them actually looks after the auditing or reporting to see whether it happens. I received a letter from the chief executive of Sainsbury’s telling me that he thought we should fight for more resources for the Gangmasters Licensing Authority, which he told me was being downgraded. It had been “downgraded” by being taken into the Serious Organised Crime Agency to focus on serious crime, not the day-to-day abuses, as he would describe them. He thought that it was its job to audit his supply chain.
We must have something in the Bill that tells companies, “We expect you to audit your supply chain and report to your shareholders, in writing and at your annual general meeting, on what you find. If you find something, eradicate it.” If we do not have that, we will continue to see cases such as the collapsed building in Dhaka, or women being burnt to death in garment factories because they had been locked in, or even chained in, and could not get out.
It is no good saying, “Let the customer drive this.” When I talk with ordinary people—with Asda Mumdex, for example—they say, “Look, when we buy our kids clothes for the summer holiday, we go to the cheapest place”, because they cannot afford to shop somewhere that is ethically wonderful. I think that it is important that we drive the companies to improve their supply chains.
Young people came to me when I was preparing my private Member’s Bill and suggested that we use stickers like the ones we used to have against apartheid, with a skull and crossbones, saying, “Contaminated by human trafficking.” They said that they would go around sticking them on clothes from Gap or Next, one of the companies that was found guilty, to let people know that they had been contaminated by human trafficking. But that is not the generality of it. People will either buy fashion garments because they are in vogue, or they will buy other garments from cheaper places because that is what they can afford. It is up to us, as a Parliament, to carry on this fight to the point where we make all those organisations responsible. By all pitching in, we will create a better world.
Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
The hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) is absolutely right to focus on the acute risks in the supply chain, because subcontractors are often responsible for the worst abuses, particularly in relation to payslips and wage legislation. Like my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) and for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), I think that the problem is particularly acute in rural communities. In recent years there has been a perception that it is largely confined to cities, so powerful speeches, such as the one my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire made, are helpful in highlighting the full extent of the problem right across the UK.
I very much welcome the opportunity to have this debate before the draft legislation is published. There are three specific concerns relating to legislation that I do not think have been particularly well aired in the debate so far and that I therefore want to draw to the House’s attention. The first is the importance of wages being paid electronically. In parts of my constituency, such as the middle of the fenland farming community, the tradition is for gangmasters to make payments in cash. That lends itself to abuse, both of tax and in the form of deductions at source. As soon as the wage is paid in cash, deductions are often made for transport, food, counterfeit goods supplied and the debts that are part of the mis-selling that got people over to the UK in the first place, often on the false promise of jobs.
The Home Office could learn some interesting lessons from the recent legislation banning cash payments in the scrap metal trade. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister, who has a reputation for his commitment to detail and who has the great confidence of Government Members as the Minister introducing this legislation, will look at electronic payment, in particular, because that is a key enabler that could allow law enforcement agencies to track where abuse has taken place.
It is wrong, particularly as regards the subcontracting that the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk identified, that we allow so much cash payment to take place given its links to criminality and the abuse of people who are often not in a position to complain. Requiring payments in electronic form would also deal with another common abuse whereby migrants, including those who come to my constituency, are misinformed by gangmasters that they are not allowed to have a bank account.
My second point, which not been much aired, although the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) touched on it, is about the importance of having civil fines rather than requiring enforcement authorities always to pursue a criminal route, which is more resource-intensive and time-consuming and requires a higher standard of proof. The Gangmasters Licensing Authority possesses draconian criminal sanctions, but they are very rarely used. In the past two years, it issued 300 warning notices but undertook just 11 criminal prosecutions. The sorts of penalties imposed in those prosecutions are very ineffective. In two cases in Northern Ireland, the fine was just £500. I do not think anyone would imagine that the profits made did not exceed that sum.
The fact that 300 warning notices were issued gives us an idea of the gap between enforcement and the scale of the problem. There is sympathy within the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for the idea of further empowering bodies such as the GLA. Guidance issued in 2012 by the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sevenoaks (Michael Fallon), in relation to the Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008 curtails the ability to issue civil penalties against firms with fewer than 250 people. My right hon. Friend has a well-deserved reputation as a champion of tackling red tape, and I fully support him in that, but I do not think for a minute that it would ever be his intention to protect those guilty of criminality. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will consider dealing with that issue in the Bill so as to make it less resource-intensive for enforcement bodies to take action against those abusing the vulnerable within our communities.
The third issue that I want to bring to my hon. Friend’s attention is the definition of an HMO—a house in multiple occupation. In recent months, we have seen excellent progress in North East Cambridgeshire in taking action to restore confidence within the community. Last month, we had Operation Endeavour, with 300 officers conducting dawn raids and making 10 arrests. The problem is that most of the houses raided were not HMOs even though they had 20-plus people living in them, because an HMO is defined as a house with three storeys. Indeed, there is some contradiction between that definition and part of the local authority definition. That takes us on to a further point about clarity as regards what enforcement action should be taking place ahead of the legislation. To what extent should letting agencies be putting in place tenancy agreements? Is there a requirement for tenancy agreements?
I mentioned the abuse of wage slips. When I tabled a parliamentary question last week, I found that there had not been a single prosecution for the abuse of wage slips, so we have existing legislation that is not being enforced. The same is happening with the abuse of planning legislation. My local council has issued many a letter warning rogue landlords to change their behaviour, but to date it has not enforced it. I welcome the work of the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Kris Hopkins), on pilot funding to tackle rogue landlords. Fenland district council has made a bid for such funding. I spoke to him about that earlier this week, and I look forward to the announcement on it. Before we legislate again, it is crucial that we enforce existing legislation and clarify why the issue of 20-plus people living in a house, which leads to many antisocial problems, including street drinking, urination on streets and community tension, is not being tackled by local authorities through prosecution.
I make a plea to the Minister about resource allocation. This House has a tendency to legislate and then to assume that the job is done, but legislation is effective only if it is enforced. This is a problem in the fens, which is hidden and where the crime is often unreported because people’s backgrounds mean they are too afraid to report it to the authorities or because they have language difficulties and are isolated and vulnerable. They have been misled into coming to the UK in the first place, have got into debt and have then been abused. Women in particular are led into debt much more quickly and then pressured into sham marriages, abuse and prostitution as a consequence.
It is important to look at the resource allocation. The Home Secretary’s recent launch of the National Crime Agency is particularly welcome, because it is ideally placed to take a leadership role on the issue. Where I am in the fens—on the border of three counties—people often work one minute in Lincolnshire, the next in Norfolk and then in Cambridgeshire, so the issue is not always applicable to a county police force. The NCA has a role in tasking regional organised crime units and in looking at the resource allocation and where the issue sits in its priorities. What will the budget allocation be? Rather than advising on arrests, as the NCA did very helpfully on Operation Endeavour, to what extent will it take investigations through to prosecution? Will it also be able to address the second and third waves, given that each enforcement activity tends to be finite in terms of the number of crime gangs that can be investigated at any one time? The issue of resource allocation needs to sit alongside any announcement about legislation. I hope the Minister will provide clarity on that.
The NCA also has a role to play with regard to the source country. As a number of Members have said, this is an international issue. In the case of the fens, people from Latvia and Lithuania—dare I say that this will also be true of people from Bulgaria and Romania in the months ahead?—are being misled and told that they can have a job and accommodation, only to find that the situation is different when they get here. Such a case was raised with me just last week. Someone was brought into my constituency on that basis and told that his job was to drive. When he pointed out that he could not drive, he was told that either he drove—which would have obvious, various risks to other motorists—or he would be out on his ear without a job. The important role that the NCA should play in the source country has a resource implication and that needs to sit with the legislation.
The leadership shown on this issue by the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary sends a remarkably powerful signal of the Government’s commitment—there is also cross-party commitment—to tackling this horrific issue in our communities. I welcome the proposed legislation, which will make it easier for us to act and build on the wonderful work done in the previous Parliament. I wish the Minister well in addressing any further areas where we can tighten up the rules.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
It is a great pleasure to speak on this very important topic and I congratulate hon. Members on securing the debate. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), whom I want to defend, because her opening speech was not party political, as the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) claimed. My hon. Friend’s work over many years, including leading the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants, and the way in which she has challenged Governments of any colour belie that claim.
The Minister is a good Minister and I do not think he is afraid to be challenged by Opposition or Government Members on this issue. I know that he welcomes challenges to improve legislation and that he genuinely listens and will take on board our points. My hon. Friend’s comments were made in that respect. It is unfair to bring party politics into an issue on which we all agree that something needs to and must be done.
It also gives me great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), who made some typically thoughtful comments. I want to pick up his point about bank accounts, which is a big issue for the Minister and it is at the heart of not only this but other questions. Over the years, I have employed people to look after my children. One young woman was unable to get a bank account. It did not mean the end of her employment—it ended eventually—but she repeatedly could not get one. That is often a convenient excuse, because it means that people can dodge being in the system.
The issue is important in relation to people who are trafficked and become victims, because they are told that they cannot get a bank account, and those trying to hide below the radar. There is a genuine issue about the ability of banks to provide people with basic bank accounts. The number of hoops people now have to go through in providing identification can make it genuinely challenging, and it is sometimes seen as very difficult. In that respect, the Minister may want to challenge the banks, through his ministerial contacts, to address the point made by the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire.
I have had a long interest in modern-day slavery and other issues that I want to raise. I first came across unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in the mid-1990s, when I was chair of neighbourhood services on Islington council. Young children would be found wandering up and down Holloway road with no papers and very vague stories about where they had come from, and they ended up being put into the care of social services. Many of them had been trafficked, but identification was very difficult. The borough of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), Hillingdon, was also greatly affected. Two of the hot spots were Hillingdon—perhaps obviously, because of the airport—and Islington.
That demonstrates that trafficking takes many forms. We have heard a lot about the workplace, and I will touch less on that than on other matters. As hon. Members have said, not all victims are locked up: freedoms can be restricted in many ways.
I recently visited Nigeria with the all-party group on Nigeria, which I chair. We went to look at human rights, but we were very shocked to discover some of the issues concerning children’s rights and child trafficking in particular. Nigeria is the main source country for people trafficked into this country, so it is vital that great thought is given to whether a British Bill can help to tackle the issue in the countries of origin. We need to prevent and tackle trafficking at source, not just carry out enforcement, although I agree with other hon. Members that enforcement is also important.
Benin City in Nigeria is the capital of human trafficking. As we have heard, people who have been trafficked become traffickers in turn, and there is a sort of career progression in Benin. The Nigerian authorities are aware of and keen to tackle that real hot spot. The all-party group met those at the national agency dealing with child trafficking, which is working hard to identify, tackle and prosecute people, as well as to prevent trafficking from happening in the first place, but they are few in number and resources are limited, while Nigeria is a huge and populous country.
From a British perspective, there are also deeply ingrained and worrying cultural attitudes, but I know from speaking to many Nigerians in this country and Nigeria that they share such concerns. The domestic servitude of children is widely accepted, and the all-party group was shocked to hear it defended very often when we raised it in talking to people in various circles.
Child traffickers are aided by the poverty, and by profits that can be made along the line. Those profits, as someone is trafficked through the hands of perhaps 12 traffickers, are immense. Until we look at the supply chain involving trafficked people and work out how to tackle each of its stages, we will not solve the source problem of people being brought into the UK, although enforcement should continue.
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
The hon. Lady is speaking with a good, deep understanding of the problem. Along with Hillingdon and her constituency, Solihull has also been a dispersal area for asylum-seeking children. Her point about it being very hard for certain local authorities with many trafficked children to have the necessary expertise at local government level to reach into foreign, and sometimes very chaotic, countries of origin makes the case for a multi-agency, multi-departmental approach, particularly to assist local authorities that are severely affected.
Meg Hillier
The hon. Lady makes a good point. For the record, I should make it clear that I was talking about my time in Islington in the mid-1990s, but there are issues in Hackney in my constituency, and I will touch on them.
In Nigeria, the all-party group saw some good practice. I would particularly highlight the yellow card for children’s rights that Lagos provides to as many agencies as possible to tell people what children’s rights are, which the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) described. There is strong legislation in Nigeria to support children’s rights, but the desire to tackle such problems is not as widespread as it could be and they are often excused. We heard of terrible situations in which very young girls are raped and the rapist then buys off the family for less than the price of a parking ticket in the UK because of the shame. The girl will find it very hard to get married if she has the stain of rape on her and it brings shame on the family. Sometimes that is just a criminal matter, but sometimes it is to do with trafficking.
I commend the report of the all-party group to the Minister. It is worth reading because it highlights the challenges in Nigeria and the need to highlight human rights across that country. That is a wider issue than the subject of this debate, but the report makes interesting points about trafficking and its impact on children.
I want to make a couple of points to the Minister while he is forming the modern slavery Bill. I reiterate what colleagues have said about domestic worker visas. Many families in Nigeria see domestic servitude as the norm. People excuse it and say, “The girl from the village is getting educated. What’s the problem?” However, the girl from the village does not have the freedom to move. Sometimes, families bring such individuals to the UK. Domestic worker visas did provide some protection. The Minister will know that no immigration system is perfect and that people will exploit bits around the edges whatever system is in place. However, things have gone too far the other way and the Minister needs to ensure that domestic workers are supported. If he does so, it might stem the flow of such workers into the country and act as a preventive measure.
The Minister for Immigration mentioned in a recent sitting of the Immigration Public Bill Committee that Operation Paladin is still in operation. I would be keen to hear more details from the Minister, if not in this debate then at another time, on how it is working across different airports. The operation was introduced in Gatwick. Trained professionals watched the people who were coming into the airport to see whether the children were related to them. They could recognise whether a child was trafficked and intervene. That does not prevent trafficking, but it does stop it at the border. Given the announcement about further cuts to the Home Office budget, I would be interested to hear whether there is a threat to Operation Paladin or whether there are plans to extend it. At the very least, it should be continued. As the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire said, if we are serious about a human trafficking Bill, we should be enforcing the law as it stands and keeping the mechanisms that work.
Identifying the victims is obviously a big issue. I have had experience of that in my constituency. The national referral mechanism is important, but it should not be an alternative to well briefed local agencies, whether they be social services or schools. There is an opportunity, perhaps not in legislation but certainly in practice, to ensure that schools can recognise and understand trafficked children. Churches and community groups can also have a role. Often, vicars in my constituency meet trafficked people and are able to have a more honest conversation with them than others can. I have met trafficked people, but it has usually been long after they have been trafficked.
Schools in Hackney praise the forced marriage unit for its swift action. If they report a suspected forced marriage, the team is down there straight away. Usually that is the day before the school holidays or very close to them. We need something similar to happen if there is a suspicion of trafficking while the child is in a safe place. Schools and other agencies need to have somewhere they can go. That goes back to what the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire and the right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) said about the need for a national approach.
We know that the most trafficked group of people is children. In 2012, 500 children were identified, but we know that the number of trafficked children is likely to be higher. That is one reason why having a commissioner would be a good idea. It would help us to get proper data, which would allow us to see what progress is being made and to highlight the scale of the problem for the public. In reality, a lot of trafficked people live below the radar for many years. That makes it very difficult to track down the perpetrators.
There is a delicate balance to be struck, because if anyone who said that they had been trafficked 10 years ago got to stay in the country, it would provide traffickers with an incentive. I am aware that the Minister has to tread that line. We must not incentivise people to use children as a way to get different treatment in the immigration system. It is important to acknowledge that issue, but that does not mean that we should not take robust action or support trafficked children as much as we can.
My big concern is people who are trafficked and appear many years later. I regularly meet young people in my surgery. Usually they appear at the point when they might want to go to university and therefore need status in this country. On questioning they are vague about what happened—an aunt or friend of the family brought them in, but they have lost touch with that adult. That child is not at fault, but the people who trafficked them have gone—although sometimes we cannot be sure—and they have great difficulty getting through the system.
Sometimes people are not enslaved, as such, although it is difficult to be sure. I spoke to one woman at my surgery, and we eventually got to a point in the conversation where I said, “You have two children, who is the father?”—I was asking about the father’s citizenship. I said, “Did you want to sleep with the father of the children?” and she shrugged and said, “He gave me somewhere to stay.” In some ways she did not consider herself a victim because she had been downtrodden to the point where she needed a roof over her head, and in return the man got what he wanted. There are real challenges in identifying victims who have been under the radar for so long that there is no likely prospect of finding their trafficker. That is a two-pronged issue for the Minister: tackling the perpetrators, but also supporting the victims.
The national reporting mechanism includes a reflection period of 45 days to decide what to do with a potential victim of trafficking, but that does not capture people who have some freedoms but no paperwork or the ability to do what they want, even if they can come and go out of the house and are not locked away. The system also does not cover the needs of those who will be slow to tell their story, often for reasons of fear—I will touch on some issues with African abuse in a moment.
Victims must be eligible for legal aid. I know that is not the Minister’s Department, but we must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I have criticised much of the Government’s attitude to legal aid, but I recognise that that is where we are. For the purposes of this debate, however, I say to the Minister that I—and Members across the House, I am sure—will be behind him if we can ensure that people have the right advice once they have been identified as a potential victim of trafficking. That is important because it helps the system work better. In the long term it will save the Home Office money, as well as ensuring that that person has the best support possible to get their case across and be relocated home, if appropriate, or supported in the UK.
At the beginning of my remarks I said that prevention was the most important thing. The Home Office is promising to work with source countries, but we need resources for that to happen. We hear that often a law passed in this Parliament helps Nigerians to tackle corruption and so on, and similarly, if we get this issue right we may help tackle it in Nigeria. I think we need a review of our national reporting mechanism.
I said I would touch on issues concerning child abuse in Africa, although adults are trafficked too. Traffickers often use witchcraft and juju as a means of control. Juju priests are held in high esteem and command a great deal of respect which, when combined with a fear of witchcraft, means that many people are very vulnerable. People are afraid of what will happen to them if they declare they have been trafficked. That fear is hard to understand from the perspective of many Members in the Chamber today, but it is very real. People are much controlled and will not escape even if given the chance—it is as much of a ball and chain as a physical one would be. Trafficking victims in the UK often display signs that are identifiable with juju and witchcraft, and the torso of Adam, found floating in the Thames, first highlighted that very spectacularly to the UK.
The key issue is identifying victims, as too often that is a barrier. I hope that an anti-slavery commissioner can be genuinely empowered with investigation arms and good links to the National Crime Agency and other police as appropriate, and I will be watching the Government on that issue. The modern slavery unit should not be a passing fad in the Home Office, but something real that will engage people. I commend my colleagues for initiating this debate, and look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Members who secured this debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), the excellent chair of the all-party group on human trafficking and modern day slavery, made a powerful and well-informed speech. She did so in an inclusive way, and paid tribute to her predecessor, the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), after what was obviously a hard-fought election for the position of chair. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) also talked about the need to put victims at the heart of the Bill and for us to lead the world with a modern slavery Bill. I also pay tribute to Anthony Steen, who did so much to raise this issue in the last Parliament, and to Baroness Butler-Sloss, who takes a keen interest in this matter in the other place.
Given that we are debating slavery, it gives me special pride to speak from the Front Bench as a Hull MP. We have heard many mentions this afternoon of William Wilberforce, who was also a Hull MP and one of the leaders of a 20-year campaign to bring about the abolition of the slave trade. In a Back-Bench debate, it is important to note that he did that entirely from the Back Benches. The full horror of the slave trade is remembered at the excellent William Wilberforce museum in Hull, which I would encourage all hon. Members to visit when they visit our city as the city of culture in 2017 or before. We are also fortunate to have the Wilberforce institute for the study of slavery and emancipation, which is attached to the university of Hull and provides great information. I am sure that it will also offer support to hon. Members looking at the draft Bill.
It is worth reminding the House that when the slave trade was abolished, through William Wilberforce’s Bill becoming an Act of Parliament, it was felt appropriate to compensate the slave owners, not the victims. It is shocking now, but the family of the Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone received £93,526 in compensation for losing their 2,039 slaves after abolition. Several hon. Members have made the point that we hope that any proceeds that are available will go to the victims of this dreadful crime, and perhaps also to the police and the Human Trafficking Foundation.
I pay tribute to all those who have contributed to this excellent debate. My hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) spoke knowledgeably, as ever, about the needs of trafficked children, and about the need for multi-agency safeguarding hubs to be extended to every area. My hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) talked in some harrowing detail about child abuse and slavery in India, and shocked all hon. Members when he talked about children as young as three being used as prostitutes. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) talked knowledgeably about the EU dimension as well as the Scottish experience, and the need for the auditing of supply chains.
The right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) paid tribute to the NGOs—very important—and also raised the issue of supply chains. The hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) talked harrowingly about his constituency experience of 23 British slaves who had been slaves for up to 15 years, and about the vital work that needs to be done to raise public awareness of the issue. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) talked about the global sex trade and the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) talked about the need to make sure that people understand it happens anywhere—down our own streets and roads. The hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) talked about the particular issues of electronic payments and civil penalties that could be used. He made some very interesting points and I hope that the Minister will be able to respond to them.
I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier). As a former Home Office Minister and chair of the all-party group on Nigeria, she spoke knowledgeably on issues related to her experience in those roles.
We know, and we have heard again today, that modern-day slavery exists. We think that there are around 27 million people enslaved around the world. The UK Human Trafficking Centre estimates that at least 2,200 human beings were trafficked into the UK in 2012. In 2009, the Home Affairs Committee held an investigation into human trafficking and it estimated that the number is likely to be nearer 5,000. Just two weeks ago in Lambeth we saw three women escape from what appears to have been 30 years of enslavement. Few people can understand how that could happen on an ordinary street in south London, but although that is an extreme case, it is far from isolated.
Modern-day slavery is on the rise. Human beings, mainly women and children, are being trafficked into and within the UK to work as labourers, domestic servants, prostitutes, cannabis farmers, forced beggars and to do a whole range of other jobs. We have had a number of excellent suggestions this afternoon on what can be done to tackle this practice, and I know that the Minister will have been listening carefully.
I put it on record that the Opposition support the principle of such an important Bill on modern-day slavery. We will work constructively with the Government to ensure the Bill passes within the limited parliamentary time available, and we will press for a Bill that does all that is needed to address this horrendous practice. I stress that the Opposition will be looking for a Bill that puts victims at its centre and the first step is to recognise who the victims are. The situations into which people are trafficked either from outside or within the UK are disparate and we need a system that recognises that. It is not just neighbours, such as those in the Lambeth case, who fail to recognise victims in their midst. Too many cases are missed by the police, social workers, health workers and immigration staff.
We need front-line professionals across a range of sectors to be trained to recognise trafficking in all its forms. There has to be an understanding that enslavement does not have to mean chains or cellars. Once we have identified victims, we need to give them protection and support, and that is where we think the current system is left wanting. There is a national referral mechanism to collate information on victims, but it is currently not fit for purpose. As I mentioned, the UK Human Trafficking Centre, in collaboration with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, identified 2,255 human trafficking victims, whereas the NRM identified 1,186. The failure is equally pronounced for children: the UK Human Trafficking Centre identified 549 child victims in 2012, while the NRM identified 349. We think the true figure is probably much higher. Given that there are 23 bodies authorised to refer to the NRM, the Government need to address urgently the multiple deficiencies in the system that are stopping referrals. One measure the Opposition support fully is the introduction of a commissioner to oversee the proper collection and use of information.
Once we have identified victims, we have to ensure that the support is there to look after them. The support required will depend on the circumstances in which people have been trafficked. We must not criminalise human trafficking victims. We have to move away from a situation where the first instinct of the authorities is to treat people as an immigration problem rather than as victims. If we are to get more prosecutions, the first stage has to be to identify and protect the victims. They will then be more willing to come forward as witnesses.
We know that support for child victims is a particular weakness. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport said, a horrifying 60% of child victims taken into care go missing. One local authority admitted to losing 90% of children. This happens because the strength of the bond between child victim and trafficker is not diminished when the child is taken into care. Factors that made the child vulnerable in the first place remain and often the trafficker will retain a psychological hold. Without special provision, the child will often return to the trafficker. This is especially true if the child is repatriated. I welcome the vital cross-border work being done to minimise the risks to children when they are returned home.
Trafficked children in the UK require specialist care that is tailored to their individual circumstances. That kind of tailored care will only be provided if trafficked children are given specialist and independent guardians. That system has worked elsewhere in Europe, and, as the Minister will know, was set out in the EU directive on human trafficking. The Government have so far decided not to introduce a system of guardians, but I hope they will look at that again. The Government’s own review “Still at Risk”, which was commissioned by the Home Office, was unequivocal about the need for guardians.
Domestic workers were mentioned, as was the need for a review of the changes introduced to the domestic workers visa. Statistics presented by hon. Members make the case for a reconsideration their unintended consequences.
On prosecutions, the Opposition will certainly support the Government in increasing the penalties for convictions for offences relating to human trafficking, but will look to the Government to introduce aggravated offences for such cases as well. We would also support the inclusion of the specific offence of child trafficking and exploitation, which currently does not exist. I pay tribute to ECPAT for highlighting that particular issue.
In conclusion, I commend the Government for their commitment to introducing a modern slavery Bill, but I urge them not to waste the opportunity before us. There would be many more prosecutions if we could identify more victims and give them the support and protection they need to become witnesses and then help them to rebuild their lives. Unless the Bill recognises that, we will waste a great opportunity. I want to finish by quoting William Wilberforce’s words to the House of Commons on 12 May 1789, which I think sum up the position today:
“The nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us; we can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it”.—[Official Report, 12 May 1789; Vol. 28, c. 63.]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (James Brokenshire)
It is clear from all that we have heard in this debate that modern slavery is a brutal crime that knows no boundaries and does not discriminate on grounds of creed, culture or race. Traffickers and slave masters exploit whatever means they have at their disposal to coerce, deceive and force individuals into a life of abuse, servitude and inhumane treatment.
That is why I congratulate the Backbench Business Committee and, in particular, the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) on securing this timely debate, when the Government are finalising their draft Bill on modern slavery. The hon. Lady made a passionate speech. I recognise that for many years she has felt strongly about and campaigned on this important policy matter, which affects so many of our communities. We will reflect on many of the comments made this afternoon, even if the limited time available does not allow me to comment in detail now. I recognise the important contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) and his role supporting the work of the all-party group on human trafficking and modern day slavery when he chaired it, and the many other people who have sought to ensure that this House properly considers this important issue and is better informed about it.
I was struck by several of the comments made and descriptions given by right hon. and hon. Members this afternoon as they sought to describe modern slavery and trafficking. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) described it as “evil”, my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) as an “abomination”. In describing the impact of child slavery, the hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) talked about children being “commodities for profit”. What an appalling description, but a sad reality.
We also got a sense of the lack of visibility. I have spoken about the need to shine a light on this appalling issue, and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) talked about the comment: “It doesn’t happen here, does it?” Well, we know that it does. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous), who has seen that starkly in his constituency, summed up how in many ways this crime can be in plain view and yet somehow not seen. That underlines the need for further training, which is one practical element towards ensuring that front-line professionals, as well as the public, have greater knowledge and awareness. The contribution of the hon. Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) underlined the appalling and sick nature of this problem when he highlighted the age of some of the children involved, which brings the issue home.
Yesterday I had the privilege to visit ECPAT to speak to some child victims of trafficking. I heard their testimony directly and found out about the impact of this problem on them. I discussed what more we could do to support victims by identifying them and ensuring that the practical services are in place to provide support.
This afternoon’s contributions were encouraging in that they have shown a clear and strong desire across the House to work closely together to rid the UK of this evil.
Andrew Selous
Will the Minister have time in the course of his remarks to respond on the issue of the awareness cards and whether the Home Office could look at distributing them across the UK?
James Brokenshire
Awareness is a key issue. It will be a question of seeing what will work in different areas. Before attending this debate, I was at a conference on how social media can be a very good way to help promote debate about child trafficking. I also went to the launch of something called the cube network, which involved passing around wooden cubes to identify problems and raise awareness. There are a number of ways of achieving this, but it is quite clear that we need to ensure greater awareness at each level.
We do not know the full extent and nature of the criminality involved, hence the work of the hon. Member for Slough and the all-party group to seek to identify information more clearly. That was clear, too, from the contribution of the hon. Member for Stockport. We have seen figures coming through the national referral mechanism relating to the provision of support to victims, and information from the UK Human Trafficking Centre is also relevant. I am clear, however, that that understates the position, and I expect the numbers to rise over the coming years. I see it as a good thing, not a bad thing, if we are better able to identify those in need of support. We will be strengthening our enforcement response by bringing to justice those responsible for these heinous crimes.
The Government are absolutely committed to combating human trafficking and to supporting and protecting the victims of these appalling crimes. We have announced plans to introduce a modern slavery Bill, which will strengthen our response to human trafficking and underpin the work of law enforcement agencies in prosecuting the perpetrators. In so doing, we shall be able to identify more victims and ensure that these crimes are prevented.
The Bill will consolidate existing trafficking offences to make it simpler to prosecute human traffickers. It is important to assist law enforcement to achieve that. It is intended to increase the maximum sentence for trafficking offences to life imprisonment, so that modern-day slave-drivers will face the full force of the law. The Bill will introduce an anti-slavery commissioner to oversee efforts to tackle modern slavery and help to facilitate more prosecutions and convictions of human traffickers.
The Bill is also about the here and now. I want the draft Bill to make a difference. It is that crucial first building block. I think it was the right hon. Member for Birkenhead who said that we were on a journey, and I see this as part of a continuing journey because this important Bill will lead to further action that could be taken by successive Governments over the years ahead as well.
How to support activity without legislation—the practical issues—is another key point, and it is important that the Home Secretary has made tackling human trafficking a priority for the new National Crime Agency, which will provide strong national leadership to drive forward prosecutions and bring traffickers to justice. My hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay), along with my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and others, highlighted the need for greater enforcement. Victim care is also fundamental to our comprehensive approach to combating trafficking, and we have guaranteed up to £4 million a year to fund specialist support for adult victims of human trafficking.
The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) spoke about the national referral mechanism. I can tell her that the Home Secretary has committed herself to a review of the national referral mechanism to establish how it is working and what further improvements can be made. I am conscious that this is about the here and now, and about what useful steps can be taken.
I have referred to the flagship Bill that we intend to introduce. In order to ensure that it will have the right impact, the Home Secretary has asked the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, in his role as vice-chair of the Human Trafficking Foundation and as a member of the Centre for Social Justice advisory council, to lead an urgent public debate about practical and effective ways of ending modern slavery in the United Kingdom. It will take the form of a series of evidence sessions hosted by the Centre for Social Justice. The Human Trafficking Foundation has facilitated the participation of key witnesses from abroad to help us to draw on best practice.
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Birkenhead, to my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and to Baroness Butler-Sloss for taking evidence for the Centre for Social Justice. I also want to recognise the contribution of Anthony Steen, who has been appointed special envoy to the Home Secretary. He will consider what needs to be done to improve our response, focusing particularly on what happens overseas and on how we can ensure that an end-to-end approach is taken.
I should make it absolutely clear to the hon. Member for Slough that the Salvation Army and its subcontractors have not been prevented from speaking to the evidence sessions. I understand that each of them has been contacted personally by Ministry of Justice officials who have encouraged them to make their important contributions to the process. I want to ensure that, as we proceed with the draft Bill, the pre-legislative scrutiny and, subsequently, the Bill in its final form, we have an opportunity to consider all the input—and that will include careful reflection on much of what has been said today about issues such as non-prosecution and domestic abuse.
I believe that the debate has sent a clear and ringing message about our commitment to ensuring that this appalling crime is dealt with firmly, effectively and finally for the benefit of all the victims of this trade, and to achieving together what I think we all want to achieve: the consigning of modern slavery to the history books, which is where it ought to be.
Fiona Mactaggart
I think that I have had a unique experience today: this is the first time in my 17 years in Parliament that I have agreed with almost every single word of every single speech in a debate. I thank all who have contributed, particularly the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall), whose endorsement of the call for the return of the overseas domestic worker visa is, in my view, likely to have much more impact than anything that I might say. I hope that we can work together to ensure that that happens.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr Field) conveyed the voice of victims to us very powerfully. I loved the call from the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) for us all to become, in effect, dropped-kerb vigilantes; I think that if we take up that challenge, we shall be able to find a practical way of preventing modern-day slavery. The call from my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) for specialist foster care for children was echoed by the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), whose reference to the excellent Barnardo’s pilot scheme reminded us of the need for practical action. Strikingly, the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn (Graham Jones) emphasised, from opposite sides of the House, the importance of action to deal with the international sex trade in children. My hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty) asked specifically whether we could make trafficking and slavery an aggravating factor in sentencing.
I entirely understand why the Minister was not able to answer every question that he was asked, and I thank him for his specific response to the challenge that I issued about victims’ organisations. I hope that during the debate which will carry on he will be able to answer some of the very practical challenges that we have heard during this debate. Specifically, I hope he will address the call by the hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Stephen Barclay) for civil penalties to be part of the suite of actions that the Gangmasters Licensing Authority can take and for more effective actions on houses in multiple occupation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) reminded us that practical—
Business without Debate
Business of the House (10 December)
Heaton Chapel Train Station (Stockport)
Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)
It is my pleasure to present this petition on behalf of the Friends of Heaton Chapel Station.
The petition states:
The Petition of Friends of Heaton Chapel train station,
Declares that 619,506 passengers purchase tickets at Heaton Chapel train station every year; further declares that there is currently no disabled access to the train station; further declares that Heaton Chapel train station is not compliant with national legislation; and further declares that accessibility for disabled people at Heaton Chapel train station must be improved and barriers to transport removed in accordance with the Department for Transport’s March 2006 “Railways for All” strategy.
The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Department for Transport to work in conjunction with Transport for Greater Manchester, Stockport MBC, Network Rail and Northern Rail to undertake an urgent feasibility study setting out a business case to support the provision of new disabled access facilities and further requests that the House urges the Department for Transport to give greater priority to improve Greater Heaton Chapel train station over all other less well used stations in Greater Manchester.
And the Petitioners remain, etc.
[P001308]
Occupied Palestinian Territories (Water Shortages)
(11 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr David Winnick (Walsall North) (Lab)
I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak about the acute water shortages in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Perhaps it would be useful if I started by referring to an article by Giles Fraser, who until recently was the canon chancellor at St Paul’s cathedral. While on a visit to a refugee camp near Jerusalem, he went to the local secondary school, which has 2,000—not 200—pupils. There had not been any running water there for some nine months—we can only imagine that type of situation. The pupils did not quite understand the purpose of the visit, but they hoped that it would bring the supply of water, but it did not.
I checked with the Library yesterday to see whether there had been any response from the Israelis. Usually the Israeli embassy is quick to respond to criticism, but apparently there was no response to that article in a national newspaper, so I decided to look further into the situation of water in the territories occupied by Israel. There can be little doubt that there is much wrong and unacceptable with the availability of drinkable water and that those who are under the Israeli occupation are denied access to necessary water.
The reports that have been made on the situation show that the average Palestinian uses some 50 litres of water daily, which, as I am sure the Minister is aware, is just half the amount recommended by the World Health Organisation, the average Israeli uses at least four times that amount, and sometimes uses more. Nearly 10% of Palestinian communities in the west bank—about 200,000 people—have no connection to any drinking water system at all. That should be of utmost concern to all Members of Parliament. Because of restrictions on movement, travelling to buy water is far from easy. Indeed in some circumstances, Palestinians pay up to 40% of their total income on water alone.
The Joint Water Committee was established to administer the water arrangements under the Oslo accords. It is true that both the Israelis and the Palestinians have representation on that committee, but there is one snag: Israel has a veto. That veto has been used on new water drilling for Palestinians. Again, I make a comparison. That veto is frequently used when it comes to Palestinian water development, but it does not apply to the settlers or to those who are given every encouragement to live on land occupied by Israel, which is illegal under international law. Again, that is a matter that should concern us.
Palestinians are frequently prevented from developing water infrastructure, particularly in area C in the occupied territories, and that is where Israel maintains exclusive control. The Emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene group—EWASH— of which I am sure the hon. Member for Colchester (Sir Bob Russell) and the Minister are aware, is made up of some 30 humanitarian agencies and it has involved itself in every possible way in trying to assist Palestinians over the water situation. It does a first-class job and should be supported in every way.
In its report, EWASH stated that between 1995 and 2011, Palestinians submitted 30 waste water treatment plant projects to the Joint Water Committee. How many were accepted? Was it 20, 15 or 10? No, it was four. Just four out of the 30 projects that the Palestinians put forward were accepted. In 2011, the Palestinian Water Authority submitted 38 projects to the Joint Water Committee, and out of that 38, how many were approved? Was it 30, 15, or 10? No, it was just three. As EWASH said, that is an approval rate of under 8%. Something is wrong and unacceptable. Pressure should be put on the Israelis over that situation.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful case. Does he agree that there is a legal and moral responsibility on every Government, particularly when they claim to be civilised and democratic, to treat all their citizens equally and fairly and, under international law, that also applies to civilians whose country has been occupied in defiance of the Geneva convention and UN resolutions. Even in apartheid South Africa, I do not recall the Government depriving anyone of water in the way that the Government of Israel have done with the Palestinians.
Mr Winnick
I thank the hon. Gentleman. I am sure that his words will be noted by the Minister, and perhaps even by the Israeli authorities; we shall see. I do not disagree with what he said.
An Amnesty report said that Israeli settlers in the occupied areas use up to 20 times more water than Palestinian villages. What of the Gaza strip where Israel gave up control and prided itself that it no longer controlled the area? It says that things were now up to the people of Gaza. Now, this is a terrible statistic and it should shame us that we allow it to occur without constant pressure: some 90% of the water in Gaza is unfit for consumption. That figure comes from an Amnesty report. The continued Israeli military action prevents much of the equipment needed to maintain water treatment facilities from being imported.
Let me mention that figure again: 90% of the water in that territory, Gaza, is unfit for consumption. During the operation in which Israel was involved, which is well known, water pipes were destroyed as a result of military action. In a debate in the Lords on 3 July last year, much concern was expressed over the situation in Gaza and rightly so. Lord Warner had been twice to Gaza and confirmed that 90% of Gaza’s water is not drinkable. What about the population of that area? Half of the population are under 18.
My politics are far removed from those of Hamas. I have nothing in common with the politics of Hamas and no one would expect me to, as a left-leaning Labour Member of Parliament. My loathing of all forms of anti-Semitism and, indeed, racism, has been with me all my life—perhaps since before I was teenager—and will be with me until my dying day. I make my position absolutely clear, but that does not alter the fact that when injustice is involved, whoever is in control—whether that is in Israel or somewhere else in the world—it is our job to do as much as we can. Indeed, the previous debate on slavery demonstrated that we are not indifferent to what is happening in places where there is so much injustice.
I have come back to this point time and again in this brief speech: there must be the utmost pressure on Israel. That pressure should obviously come from the British Government but it should also come from the United States, as the United States has far more ability to put pressure on Israel than we have. I know that the United States would say that it has encouraged talks between the two sides—I am pleased about that—and that it does not want to interfere too much as they want the talks to proceed. That is not much consolation, however, for those 2,000 people to whom I referred who were studying at the school. For all I know, the situation that Giles Fraser wrote about, in which there is no water at all, has not changed.
It is simply not good enough for western Governments to refuse to raise the issue at every opportunity. I hope that will change and that western Governments—certainly ours—will raise the issue at the United Nations and do everything possible to bring a change.
Let me conclude by quoting a Palestinian whose words are in the Amnesty report, “Thirsting for Justice.” These are his words. He is an ordinary Palestinian, not someone in politics or in national life in any way. He said:
“Water is life. Without water we cannot live...it’s very difficult and expensive”
to
“bring water from far away…They make our life very difficult, to make us leave.”
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Alan Duncan)
I thank the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) for calling this debate and want to say at the outset that I agree with pretty much every word he said.
We take access to clean water for granted in the UK. We rarely question where the water in our taps and sanitation systems comes from and we assume it will be there again the next day. We take it for granted that it has been treated effectively to make it safe for us to use. The same cannot be said of those living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories today. Water resources there are limited. A lack of rainfall in recent years, inadequate infrastructure and the inequitable distribution of water resources with Israel combine to make life very difficult.
We cannot do anything about the naturally arid environment, but we can address the binding human and political constraints that perpetuate this problem. It is an injustice that in the 21st century Palestinians should still lack for something as basic as clean water and sanitation. Let me reassure the House that the UK and others are working to right this wrong.
In the west bank, the story begins with the unfair and unequal allocation of resources. Palestinians, as the hon. Gentleman said, are limited to withdrawing 20% of the water from the aquifers underneath the west bank. Domestic usage, understandably, is prioritised, leaving little left over for the vital irrigation of agricultural land. Palestinians have to buy water from the Israeli national water company to make up any shortfall. In 2012, this cost about $37million. Illegal Israeli settlers, on the other hand, do not have to worry—they are free to consume, on average, four times as much water per capita as Palestinians in the west bank.
Around 200,000 Palestinians in the west bank have no access to piped water at all. Half of Palestinian wells have dried up over the past 20 years. The only option, as the hon. Gentleman said, is to travel to buy tankered water—an option made all the more difficult by Israeli movement and access restrictions in place across much of the west bank. As a result, communities depending on tankered water pay up to 400% more for every single litre than those connected to the water network; and, of course, there is no guarantee of its quality.
That is no minor inconvenience. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the Emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene group, which co-ordinates efforts by around 30 donors and agencies to improve water and sanitation in the west bank and Gaza. It estimates that in isolated communities in the west bank, water consumption can be as low as 20 litres per person per day. Even worse than the hon. Gentleman’s description of that is the fact that that is the minimum amount recommended by the World Health Organisation in emergencies to sustain life.
We are perhaps more accustomed to hearing about such precarious situations in Gaza. While the situation there has indeed been precarious for a long time, in recent months things have only got worse. Today, only 15% of Gaza’s population receive clean running water daily. The Gaza aquifer is set to become too polluted for use by 2016, and will be irreversibly damaged by 2020. Just two weeks ago, the failure of the main sewage pumping station in Gaza City led to 35,000 cubic metres of raw sewage flooding into the streets.
There the problem is not so much access to water, but the ability to treat and distribute it effectively. Why? In part, it is because Israel continues to limit the import of construction and dual-use materials into Gaza that are necessary for building pipelines and pumping stations. The Gazan economy remains stifled, so there is no way in which it could pay for the infrastructure anyway. Recent actions by Egypt to close the smuggling tunnels have cut off a lifeline and served to make the situation even more difficult.
In fact, water shortages in the west bank and Gaza are part of a much bigger problem. Even while the US-led middle east peace talks continue, life for ordinary Palestinians is getting worse. We have seen a spike in settlement announcements and demolition orders. Violence has erupted in east Jerusalem and the west bank and unemployment is on the rise.
To make the case for peace, which this Government firmly believe in, we need to bring about real and tangible change on the ground, and to do so before it is too late. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs has made clear, there is no more urgent global priority in 2013 than the search for middle east peace. We see a two-state solution as the best way to meet the national aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians.
So, first, we will continue to support efforts to achieve a negotiated peace. Working with our EU partners and with the US, we will encourage both Israelis and Palestinians to take the bold steps needed to reach an agreement. Hard work and difficult choices lie ahead, but we are ready to provide support in any way we can. In part, that will include support to the Kerry-led economic package to foster private sector led, sustainable economic growth in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Mr Winnick
We all want to see a satisfactory settlement to the negotiations—but a settlement that would mean a sovereign Palestine, no less sovereign than Israel, and not some kind of statelet. But how can it be said that the Israelis are really genuinely committed when they are continuing to build settlements on land where, as we know, it is illegal under international law?
Mr Duncan
It is very clear in the policy of Her Majesty’s Government that we totally condemn the illegal construction of settlements. They are an impediment to peace, and of course are an essential component of the discussions which we hope will lead to a successful conclusion next year. In the meantime, to assist those discussions, we in the Department for International Development and the Government, working with the EU, are doing our best to underpin some economic progress. For instance, our plan aims to generate investment of $4 billion, increase Palestinian gross domestic product over the next three years, and reduce unemployment to single digits. Water is one of the sectors set to receive private and public sector support in this plan, and we will get behind that.
We will continue to lobby Israel to make good on its promises made in September to improve access to water for Palestinians. This includes doubling the amount of water sold to the Gaza strip, and reviving the Joint Water Committee to adopt a truly co-operative approach to shared water resources. We know that Israel has made excellent progress in water technology in recent years. From drip-irrigation to desalination, perhaps no other country has contributed more breakthroughs in the area of water and food security than Israel. What an opportunity there is now to share this advance with its neighbours.
Finally, we will do what DFID does best, which is to provide practical support for those most in need. We recently agreed to provide a further £10 million of support to the International Committee of the Red Cross to further its important work on human rights and humanitarian assistance. As part of this support, over 60,000 people in Gaza and the west bank will have improved access to clean water in 2013 alone.
Mr Winnick
I am grateful to the Minister for allowing me to intervene a second time. Ambassadors are sometimes called in when we feel that some injustice is taking place and it would be appropriate for the Minister or the Foreign Secretary to speak to the ambassador as a result. Could not the Israeli ambassador be called in to discuss some of what the Minister has said or what I have said? The Minister said that he agreed with every word I said. He is not likely to repeat that on any future parliamentary occasion, I imagine, but could not the ambassador be brought in and told of the concern felt by so many Members of Parliament on both sides of the House?
Mr Duncan
I and the House, I sense, share the hon. Gentleman’s sense of injustice, but I hope he will allow me to stay within the remit of DFID and not stray into the areas of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by making a judgment on the call that he has just made.
I am pleased to be able to tell the House this evening that the UK is also embarking on a new programme of support to help provide water to irrigate agricultural land in area C of the west bank—a critical area to which the hon. Gentleman referred. The World Bank recently estimated that better irrigation in area C could boost the Palestinian economy by more than $700 million. To that end, as the DFID Minister, I have just agreed £1.8 million to restore agricultural wells serving nearly 1,000 farming families. We will be helping farmers to work more productively. For each £1 invested in rehabilitating groundwater wells, we can expect an additional 16 kg or 17 kg of vegetables to be produced annually.
Sir Bob Russell
Does the Minister think it right that British taxpayers’ money should be used to do work made necessary by the behaviour of the Israeli Government?
Mr Duncan
I detect in the hon. Gentleman’s question the suggestion, which I think is slightly warped logic, that somehow our support for the Palestinian Authority subsidises the occupation. That is not the logic that we adopt. We believe that our support for the Palestinian Authority is underpinning an organisation that is a putative Government for a Palestinian state that we hope will be the result of the negotiations that are under way.
It is our wish to build a viable Palestinian state and to protect those who are most vulnerable. On the specific topic of this debate, water shortages are a stark reminder of the harshness of Palestinian daily life. From the farmer in the west bank who cannot grow the same produce as his settler neighbour, to the family in Gaza having to wade through sewage to get home, the situation is unfair and untenable. Indeed, it is unjust. It is essential that peace negotiations on a two-state solution include discussions on shared water resources as part of a final status agreement, and it is essential that Israel makes good on its promises to improve access to water. In the meantime, Her Majesty’s Government and DFID will continue to support those who most need our help in any way we can.
Question put and agreed to.
Ministerial Correction
(11 years ago)
Ministerial CorrectionsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text
Care Quality Commission
(11 years ago)
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Liz Kendall
To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much the Care Quality Commission has spent on consultancy services in (a) 2010-11, (b) 2011-12, (c) 2012-13 and (d) 2013-14 to date.
[Official Report, 18 November 2013, Vol. 570, c. 825-26W.]
Letter of correction from Norman Lamb:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall) on 18 November 2013.
The full answer given was as follows:
Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has provided the following information:
Amount (£ million) | |
|---|---|
2010-11 | 1,832 |
2011-12 | 0.071 |
2012-13 | 1,752 |
2013-141 | 1,959 |
1 Up to and including 30 September 2013. Source. The CQC annual accounts, reports and monthly Department of consultancy returns. Definitions of ‘consultancy’ were taken from the Cabinet Office's Guidance on Actions and Processes. |
The correct answer should have been:
Norman Lamb
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has provided the following information:
Amount (£ million) | |
|---|---|
2010-11 | 1.832 |
2011-12 | 0.071 |
2012-13 | 1.752 |
2013-141 | 1.959 |
1 Up to and including 30 September 2013. Source. The CQC annual accounts, reports and monthly Department of consultancy returns. Definitions of ‘consultancy’ were taken from the Cabinet Office's Guidance on Actions and Processes. |
Safety of the A682 (Barrowford, Lancashire)
Westminster Hall
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
School Governing Bodies
(11 years ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
It is a great pleasure and privilege to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Rosindell. It is a pleasure to be here this afternoon with the Minister and colleagues from the Select Committee on Education to discuss our report on the role of school governing bodies, which was published in July 2013. It is also a pleasure to see the shadow Minister and other colleagues in the Chamber.
The 300,000 governors across the country perform an important job, and hon. Members on both sides of the House would want to send our thanks for the service that they perform in their communities. Holding schools to account for the quality of the education that they offer to pupils is a serious responsibility, and it is not all about external bodies; it is important that governors have the skills, self-confidence and ability to fulfil that role. Many governors offer outstanding advice and service, and they devote large amounts of time and expertise to monitoring and improving the schools in their charge.
By contrast, recent events at the Al-Madinah school in Derby underscore the importance of governance and the need for robust intervention when it is failing. The school’s chair of governors, Shazia Parveen, resigned in late October, and the remaining trustees finally resigned last month. Despite the shambles over which they had been presiding, the governors of the Al-Madinah school were under no obligation to resign; nor could they have been forced to do so under current regulations. That example is extreme and unusual, but I should be grateful to the Minister if she told us whether she thinks that the current situation is satisfactory, or whether changes need to be made to the regulatory framework to ensure that such people can be replaced sooner if they are clearly failing in their duties.
There is considerable variation in the quality of governance across different types of schools. The former chief inspector stated in Ofsted’s 2010-11 annual report that governance was good or outstanding in 71% of special schools and 64% of secondary schools, but only 55% of primary schools and just 53% of pupil referral units had such a rating, which is not acceptable.
School governance has recently been scrutinised by the Government. In September 2012, Ministers introduced regulations that provide greater flexibility to the governing bodies of maintained schools to reconstitute themselves, so that they may be smaller, with an emphasis on skills as opposed to prescribed constitutions. Those new regulations are most welcome.
During our inquiry, we found that schools are not making the most of the freedoms that they have. The envisaged process for strengthening governance has not necessarily happened in many areas, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thoughts on how the Government will encourage schools to make full use of the options available to them.
Our report makes a series recommendations that seek to improve the capacity, capability and profile of governing bodies. We said that the Government should study the effectiveness of governing bodies that are responsible for groups of schools, such as federations and academy trusts, and consider the optimum size for governing federations effectively.
Meanwhile, the recruitment and retention of governors continues to be a problem. Mike Cladingbowl of Ofsted told us that finding high-quality governors in all areas of the country represents
“a big and urgent national problem”.
We welcome the Government’s increased funding for the School Governors One-Stop Shop, which is the governor recruitment charity.
Our second recommendation is that the Government should work more closely with the CBI to recruit governors, as business is potentially an important source of capable governors. Will the Minister say something more about that? I know that the CBI is keen and is working with the Government. The CBI and other business groups are looking to get more involved. I would be interested to hear more from the Minister on that.
Linked to those issues is the fact that the barriers to recruitment must be removed. For example, the current legal requirement to give time off for the governors of maintained schools has not yet been extended to academy governors. That obvious oversight needs to be addressed. Last week, the CBI echoed our call for academy governors to receive time off to fulfil their duties. Will the Minister commit today that academy governors will be given the same time and opportunity to do their work as governors of maintained schools?
The third part of our inquiry concerns whether governors receive good training or, indeed, proper training at all. The Government told us that such training can be encouraged through Ofsted. Our report recommends that Ministers report back in due course on whether Ofsted’s intervention has been effective and, if it has not, reconsider making training mandatory for all governors.
We were also concerned by suggestions that few quality alternatives are emerging to the training that local authorities traditionally provide, which has been reduced in recent years. Ofsted and the Department for Education need to monitor the availability and quality of governor training, particularly in the context of greater academisation and reduced local authority services. If school governing bodies in the new context have even greater responsibility than under the old system, it is essential that the services to support those governing bodies and the training available to them are improved, rather than reduced, in quality and scope.
Ofsted has sharpened its focus on governance, which the Committee welcomes wholeheartedly. Part of Ofsted’s new approach, for example, is to provide a clear description within its inspection framework of the role and characteristics of high-quality governance.
We received evidence highlighting the importance of a good clerk to the success of a governing body. The evidence indicates that that should be a professional role, similar to a company secretary, and it is an important recommendation of our report. SGOSS may be ideally placed to take on the role of recruiting clerks, while simultaneously ensuring some sort of quality assurance. I would be grateful to learn whether—and if so, how—the Government intend to facilitate that process.
Clerks also need to be equipped with high-quality information and guidance. We are particularly concerned that the revised governors’ handbook, which contains less detailed guidance than the previous version, is aimed only at new governors. Will the Minister inform us of what steps, if any, have been taken to ensure that the revised handbook is relevant to governors of all levels of experience and acts as an easy access point for advice and guidance?
The fourth section of our report considers the problem of poorly performing governing bodies. We welcome the Government’s encouragement for governing bodies to undertake more self-evaluation and peer-to-peer review, using tools such as the all-party group on education governance and leadership’s 20 questions—I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) on his work on that all-party group—and other tools in the new governors’ handbook.
We also welcome Ofsted’s new data dashboard, which will help governing bodies to become more adept at using performance data effectively. It is important to note that, although the data dashboard provides an easier route to start grappling with such data, it is not the end of the road. One would hope that governors will use the data dashboard to get a feel for the issues and then delve more deeply into the data, to hold their schools effectively to account.
We remain concerned that current approaches to addressing underperformance and failure in governing bodies are insufficiently robust. Accordingly, we recommend more demanding appointment processes for the chairs of governors, accompanied by clear procedures for removing poorly performing chairs from office. We also recommend that time limits should be imposed for the implementation of interim executive boards.
We believe that Ofsted should explicitly recommend IEBs following an inspection, where deemed appropriate. If Ofsted goes in to review a school and finds the school’s governance to be fundamentally wanting, it is appropriate that Ofsted should be able to recommend the speedy replacement of the governing body with an IEB.
Ministers should investigate why so many local authorities and, indeed, the Secretary of State for Education have been reluctant to use their powers of intervention where school governance is a concern. We ask the Government to clarify the role of local authorities in school improvement, as that function will provide an important challenge to schools between Ofsted inspections, the gaps between which can be quite long under the current regime.
As an adjunct to that, we considered the relationship between governing bodies and head teachers. In its 2011 report on school governance, Ofsted noted:
“Absolute clarity about the different roles and responsibilities of the headteacher and governors underpins the most effective governance.”
However, we heard evidence that schools face difficulties in managing that relationship properly. We recommend that existing regulatory and legislative requirements should be reviewed to ensure clarity on the proper division of strategic and operational functions between head teachers and governors.
The fifth and—you will be delighted to hear, Mr Rosindell—final part of the Committee’s report considered new models of governance. Academies define their own governance procedures, subject to approval by the Secretary of State. Such freedoms for academies have led to the evolution of new models of governance, from which lessons could be learned in many cases. Our report highlighted some confusion, however, about the accountability of some academy governance models, and we made three main recommendations. First, the Government should identify the roles of governors in the different types of academy. Secondly, the Government should explain how relevant local groups, including pupils, parents and staff, should have a voice in the business of the governing body and the running of the school. Thirdly, clarity should be provided on how decisions are made in academies, along with details of where to turn should concerns arise.
I have summarised the main findings of the Committee’s report. I am pleased that the Government agree with much of what we said, but with some notable exceptions. As I have explained, our report concluded that mandatory training for all governors should be introduced if Ofsted intervention is found to be ineffective. Regrettably, the Government response was adamant that good schools
“don’t need government to mandate training.”
Will the Minister reconsider that response if it becomes apparent that the standards of training remain unacceptably inconsistent between schools?
Likewise, we recommended that Ofsted should use its power and responsibility explicitly to recommend that a governing body be replaced by an interim executive board following an inadequate inspection. The Government said that they did
“not agree that there is a need for a new role for Ofsted here… Having Ofsted make specific recommendations on the proposed solution could blur the boundary of responsibilities between the Chief Inspector, the local authority and the Secretary of State.”
Does the Minister not accept that clear advice from Ofsted might be required to prompt some local authorities to take decisive action? The Secretary of State has seemed remarkably reluctant to act, even when the most obvious evidence of failure was present. The Government rejected the notion that the Secretary of State had held back from using his powers of intervention, although I would say that the evidence suggests the opposite.
We argued for more robust appointment processes for the chairs of governors, accompanied by clear procedures for removing poorly performing chairs from office. The Government agreed, but they have no plans to give governing bodies more power to remove elected governors, so the Committee finds itself only partially satisfied.
Our report demonstrated the importance of recruiting and retaining high-quality, effective governors. It simultaneously identified the challenges in achieving such a standard. I accept that the Department for Education’s work on governance is still in development, just as the wider educational landscape is still evolving, but a continued focus on governance will be important in years to come if we are to deliver better educational outcomes for the next generation. That is ever more important in what is now designed to be a self-improving, more autonomous school system. The challenge has been laid down, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s reply.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Rosindell. I apologise for being a few seconds late for the start of the debate.
I am a member of the Select Committee on Education, which produced the reports that we are discussing, so I hope to be able to offer an insight into the thoughts of the Committee—as did its Chairman, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart)—during the report’s compilation and the various evidence sittings, although I also have some thoughts of my own.
Without doubt, governing bodies within schools play a critical leadership role, but inadequate governance is not addressed frequently enough and has ramifications that reverberate far beyond the governors’ meeting room and reach into the classroom. School governors provide the strategic leadership and accountability that are so important in determining the success of our schools. Governors appoint head teachers and other staff and in some instances, as trustees, own the school grounds. Governors are responsible for school finance, and they work with head teachers to make the tough decisions about balancing resources. In many cases, governors are actually dependent—often over-dependent—on their head teacher to enable them to fulfil their role, particularly in primary schools. That is why one of the key focuses of our report was on training, the need for it to be comprehensive and good enough to ensure that governors know their responsibilities, and how to get the information they need to make decisions and to hold the head teacher and staff robustly to account.
Some 300,000 people serve as school governors across the country, and we can be proud of the majority, who do an excellent job leading our schools and have a true passion for improving education in their communities. We must not forget that these individuals are unpaid and that, as such, governors constitute the largest volunteer group in the UK. We owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude. They do their very best in what I know from nearly 30 years of first-hand experience can be exceptionally challenging circumstances. We cannot, however, overlook the areas of weakness and the room for improvement. We must not lose sight of what the system does well, but attempting to convince ourselves that it is perfect would only make things worse. I was therefore pleased to have the opportunity, as part of the Education Committee, to examine the issues in much more detail.
One of my principal concerns when exploring the evidence to put the report together was the high vacancy rate on governing bodies, and the difficulties that many schools experience in recruiting. That, of course, can contribute to other shortcomings, such as a lack of the necessary skills base to fulfil core functions. Department for Education figures suggest that 11% of roles nationally are vacant. Having been responsible for nominating and appointing school governors for Cleveland county council before it was disbanded, and then for Stockton borough council for several years thereafter, I know the magnitude of the problem and the repercussions for the quality of governance.
I also appreciate that the difficulty in recruiting governors can vary enormously within the boundaries of a single local authority, let alone between different authority areas. The Committee took evidence to that effect from the National Governors Association, which confirmed that a large proportion of governing bodies have considerable difficulty in finding skilled governors. It is common sense that schools in cities and large urban areas are often better able to attract individuals with the specific skills required successfully to carry out the functions of a governor. From my experience, I know that that is not equally the case for smaller towns, let alone more rural areas, and so was able to relate to the observation, submitted to the Committee by the National College for Teaching and Leadership, that there is significant evidence that governors are recruited for their representative role, rather than for a particular skill set.
Some schools struggle to attract governors not only from the community and local business, but also from among parents, who may not have the confidence or do not think they have sufficient experience. I remember well talking with head teachers across the Stockton borough about their struggles to persuade capable parents to agree to put their names forward. The idea that an election would ever be necessary was, in many cases, a fantasy. It is true that a wholly representative structure would not necessarily lead to high-quality governance. It is equally the case, however, that governors recruited on the basis of skills alone may lack the all-important community knowledge that enables our schools to cater to specific local circumstances and challenges. An adequate skills base therefore need not be at odds with representation, but it is important to get the balance right, and training is the key element.
I was therefore pleased that the Committee’s report welcomed the Government’s commitment to raise the profiles of school governors. Governors, like teachers, are pillars of the community, but I often wonder whether they realise how important they are to our education system. Clearly highlighting the importance of governors, who have the potential to shape the future of our young people by ensuring provision of the highest educational standards, is a fundamental first step if we are to attract the most able candidates, and I welcome moves to make specific functions clear in both legislation and the governors’ handbook. I am more cautious in welcoming the removal of rules and regulations, in particular where they exist to safeguard important standards and performance, although I appreciate that it will be necessary in some cases to allow for greater flexibility to take decisions, as that can impact positively on educational standards.
During the final part of my speech, I want to concentrate again on training, and on my concerns about the Government’s failure to give clear direction on the need for both proper training and bodies to deliver it, particularly in the light of more and more schools opting to become academies, and the run-down of local authority services in the face of cuts inflicted due to both the academies programme and general central Government policy.
I remember Ian Short, now retired, who ran the governor support service in Stockton-on-Tees when I was cabinet member for children and young people. His team won awards for the quality of its provision, and governors in the area had better understanding of their roles and responsibilities as a result. Even then, not all governors undertook training, and some did little towards sharing the burden of the governing body’s work load. It is all very well to stand at the school gate and say, “I am a parent governor”, but often such people did not know about anything other than saying, “I am a parent governor”, or how to do anything other than attend the meetings.
We have a new kind of leader, and even governor, in the brave new world of academies and free schools; some do extremely well, but there are examples of failure, and some recent reports have shown that. If we are to get the best from our governors, however, they must be trained properly and, if they take on extra responsibility, such as being chair of the governors or of the finance and staffing sub-committee, they ought to undergo even more training. Not every school can attract an accountant, a human resources professional and a lawyer to sit on its governing body—though I would argue that they, too, should undergo compulsory training. The Government must therefore ensure that such training is available, but sadly, Ministers do not appear to agree.
I do not want to defeat my own argument by suggesting that Members present might point out that even Ministers do not undergo training for their roles when appointed by the Prime Minister, and they are dealing with matters of state. There should, however, be training for governors, who have day-to-day responsibility for the most important people in our community and ought to know what they are doing. I hope that the Government will rethink the need for high-quality, preferably compulsory, training, and having done so, that they will make the resources available to provide it for maintained schools, academies and free schools alike.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. We are having an interesting debate, which I am pleased is being held, because the Education Committee did a huge amount of work on the subject.
I also applaud those who have supported me in the all-party group on education leadership and governance, which has been an important vehicle to promote school governance. It has struck me that not only have we been debating governance within these walls lately, but I have been invited to several debates in London and beyond to discuss it; most recently, I attended a debate hosted and organised by The Guardian. That underlines the point that school governance is becoming an important subject, largely because of the changing landscape in our education system.
We need to look back to 1944, 1988 and the legislation that paved the way for the academy programme and all the rest to understand that the system has changed considerably, but that the governance structure of governors has not kept up—the pace of change for school governors has not been fast enough. We must understand that central point if we are to debate governance properly.
The other major overall point is that our schools need to engage not only with the community, as the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) said, but fully and thoroughly with business, professions and opportunities in the world of work. Governing bodies have a role to play, and I want to talk about that in some detail.
First and foremost, I urge the Government to start thinking about how they might inspire the best governors to be even better and great people to become governors. We need to attract from a broader range of society the kind of people whom we want to run our schools. That means talking up the role of governors, enhancing the role of governance and ensuring that people feel that, when they become governors, they count, are valued and can make a difference. We have to think about the need to inspire, and I urge the Minister to consider how the Department and others can inspire people to become governors.
On the question of regulation or deregulation. I am not a great believer in regulation; I like to see things operating freely and individuals using systems to promote good things in a good way. My inclination, therefore, is that we should not have more regulations or training programmes specifically tailored by someone else to be superimposed on people who might well have their own opinions. What is important, however, is for us to create an environment—a framework—for governing bodies to make such decisions for themselves, so that they know who they need to recruit and to train and how such training should be done. Only they know what their school and governing body need.
Therefore, I ask the Minister what can be implemented to encourage governing bodies to think about how they are structured, how their membership is formulated and other such matters. I have already urged the Education Committee to write to the Department to see how the draft Deregulation Bill might help—I would be grateful to hear from her about how that might be done.
In my constituency, I want to see more interface between business and schools; I want to see medium-sized and small businesses more engaged with education. Furthermore, I will come up with a plan to implement that, which will, broadly speaking, involve a series of seminars at which chief executives and board members of businesses can meet governors. Two things will be achieved: first, governors will see how boards operate, make decisions, decide strategy and ensure the highest standards in their businesses, whether they are a recruitment firm, a manufacturer or whatever; and, secondly, on the other side of the coin, businesses will be able to talk to education as a whole and schools in particular with a view to saying, “These are the sorts of skills that we need for our recruitment”, and to explaining the sort of people they need to design and manufacture their products, operate their services and be their professionals.
There is not a sufficiently clear interface between our education system and employers as a whole. One of the ways in which we can improve that is through improving governance, so that it becomes more business-oriented, benefiting from business skills—not to the exclusion of all the other vital skills, but to ensure that business skills are part of the narrative.
On the question of what happens if a governing body fails, I pressed the case in the Education Committee that we should be tough on failing governance—because we have to be. Too many schools are simply not doing well enough. Worst of all, too many schools are coasting and seem to think that that is okay. We need a governing system that holds those schools to account, to ensure that coasting or the quiet tolerance of some rather poorly taught subject does not happen. As we know from the past week, we have a long way to go to ensure that our schools deliver the kind of education that we need for the long term.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes an important point about failing governing bodies. It is key that we encourage local authorities to intervene accordingly. Sadly, in my constituency a school has recently been rated inadequate; that rating included the governing body. We need quick change when there are those kinds of problems.
Neil Carmichael
I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a powerful point. I can point to similar problems in my constituency. Any Member of Parliament interested in schools in their constituency will be able to say the same thing. That is rather a sad fact.
We need to find ways of making sure that governing bodies almost fear the consequences of failure. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools, has suggested that he should have powers effectively to remove governing bodies that are quite clearly incapable of turning a school around from failure to success. If we see that local authorities are unwilling to act—perhaps because everybody knows everybody and no one is willing to upset someone they knew a long time ago or have worked with successfully in some other department or school—we have to find other ways.
The people we should really be thinking about are children and their parents. They are the real stakeholders. We have to provide a system that guarantees that their school will be promoted, managed and dealt with in the best possible way. So my next request to the Minister is to make sure that we have a way of getting rid of governors who cannot do the job. It is dead easy: that is what we would do in a business, so it is what we should do in a school.
We want to see self-improvement. Our whole education system is about self-improvement. Any organisation should always be motivated to improve. The question we should always ask ourselves each day is, “How can I do this better?” That is a natural thing to do, so we want to see governing bodies doing it. Of course, that must be in conjunction with head teachers. As my hon. Friend the Chair of the Education Committee correctly pointed out, we need clarity as to what the head is supposed to be doing and what the chair of governors is supposed to be doing.
Again, that may well be a matter on which different types of schools would have different opinions—I accept that. But we cannot have a situation in which chairs of governing bodies are sitting around in schools for a couple of days a week trying to do what the head should be doing—that is completely unacceptable—and we cannot have a head basically taking on the role of the chair by steering the governing body through a difficult course to cover up or disguise inappropriate results and the like. We have to have clarity on those roles. That is where the Department for Education comes in: we need an explicit description of what the chair of a governing body is supposed to do. That should be part of the attempt to inspire people that I referred to earlier: we want to inspire the best people to be chairs of governing bodies, so we need to make sure that they know what they are doing when they approach the job.
I have talked a lot on the Education Committee about interim executive boards. As we all know, IEBs are used to replace governing bodies if the big decision to dismiss a governing body is taken. That is quite right. But that raises the question of why, if the solution is an interim executive board—a smaller body than the one it is replacing, made up of skilled people and with a focus on improvement and the capacity to get on with the job—we do not have something similar to that in the first place: a smaller structure, made up of people equipped with the right skills, so that the school can benefit from that kind of flexible, imaginative, innovative, robust governing system. That is where I have a slight variance of opinion with some of my colleagues on the Education Committee.
Alex Cunningham
I have experience of working with an interim board that was placed in a school in Stockton-on-Tees. It brought tremendous skills to the school and helped turn it around, so I was all in favour of that approach. But I have also seen tremendous parent governors, who are not going to be the leader of the body or its chair, but are tremendous advocates for parents. Surely there is room for people such as that as well in our governing body system.
Neil Carmichael
The key point is that a lot of governors are parents anyway. I have been a governor for a long time and a parent for a long time. I do not know about the hon. Gentleman’s family life, but I assume that most Members of Parliament have children. If they do not, that would not prevent them from being a governor, but if someone does have children that would not prevent them from being a governor either. I do not think that the question concerning parent governors is relevant to what the membership of an interim executive board should be. I have seen a large number of interim executive boards and I know that their members have children.
Alex Cunningham
Does the hon. Gentleman mean that he does not think that parents should have the right to elect some of their own to our school governing bodies?
Neil Carmichael
What is really important—this was going to be my next point, so I am glad the hon. Gentleman has taken me on to it, as we are probably done and dusted with IEBs—is that if the governing body is not good enough, parents should be able to say so. Accountability rests on that point. The real interface of accountability is between governors and parents. If parents think that the governing body simply is not doing a good enough job, they should be able to dismiss it. It is important to give parents as a group the capacity to make a decision as big as that, in defence of their children’s education and future.
Alex Cunningham
The idea of parents being able to sack governing bodies is an interesting concept; perhaps it should be explored in greater detail. Would we apply that idea to academies and free schools as well as to state-maintained schools?
Neil Carmichael
The logic of it is that if we want to make sure that governing bodies are properly accountable, we have to decide who they are accountable to. In my view, that should be parents. The problem with stakeholder representation and all that sort of thing is that it actually dilutes accountability: the fact is that once parents get on the body, they start becoming defensive of their own behaviour and conduct, when in fact what they should be doing as parents is testing what the body is doing.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
I know from my experience as a governor that quite often one or two very vocal parents seem to take the flow of other parents with them, but often are not doing the right thing but the worst thing that could be done. Will my hon. Friend elaborate on that point?
Neil Carmichael
I assume my hon. Friend means parents on governing bodies, and I completely agree, as I have seen that behaviour myself. We should be making sure that governing bodies are truly accountable and responsible to the key stakeholders, who seem to me to be the parents. Having parents on the governing body is a great idea, but not as a specific group of parent governors—they should be people who happen to be governors and to have children. That is the way to look at the issue.
Mr Graham Stuart
I fear my hon. Friend might be confused about interim executive boards. He seems to think that because the people on those boards are focused, dedicated, highly skilled and small in number, we can extrapolate from that the idea that all governing bodies everywhere should be small and similar in make-up to IEBs. That is simply not possible, given the weight of work required of governing bodies. That was the evidence we heard: as Professor Chris James of the university of Bath said, there is no statistical relationship between governing body effectiveness and governing body size or vacancies. I put it to my hon. Friend that there is no evidence for his view. If we could have astonishingly elite, small boards of dedicated people to put the time in, it might be a better system, but we do not have those people and they do not have the time.
Neil Carmichael
There are two points about the size of governing bodies. First, with a governing body of about 20, the influence of individuals is diluted. That applies to any committee system, including school governance. Secondly, it is not necessary to replicate exactly an interim executive board because that would be counter-productive. The word “interim” does not imply permanence, the word “executive” does not imply strategic decision making, and the word “board” is not commonly used in schools. The characteristics of IEBs and how they operate are important and we should think about how that might influence the way in which governing bodies will be shaped.
Craig Whittaker
Does my hon. Friend agree that the recent changes to the legislation to allow flexibility and innovation with smaller governing bodies are in place and do exactly what he is arguing for? The problem is that the Government have not communicated those models widely enough.
Neil Carmichael
That is precisely why it is important to signal that governors, and particularly chairs of governors, should be aware of the opportunities to reshape their bodies, and why I suggested that the Minister should demonstrate how that might be amplified and improved on. My hon. Friend is absolutely right in saying that we do not want an avalanche of more regulations. We want to encourage governing bodies to shape themselves around the needs and characteristics of their school. That is yet another reason why we should not require certain organisations to be represented; we should allow the governing bodies to make those decisions.
If all the schools in Stockton are absolutely determined to have stakeholder representation, they should have it, but if schools elsewhere want to focus specifically and exclusively on the skills they need, that is what they should do. We should have a system that enables that to happen. We want to ensure that governors and governance are fit for purpose, that our schools are constantly improving and delivering the best possible outcomes for their pupils, and that our pupils have the ability to seize and exploit opportunities in the world of work and whatever else they want to do with their lives.
To my mind, the future is not about replicating what happened in the past. It is about understanding the dynamics and changes that will influence people’s experience of work and economics. We are talking about a global economy, new technologies, new ways of working, new relationships and new structures. Governance must change to be able to respond to all those dynamics.
I want to ask the Minister several things. First, how will she inspire the best people to be governors? Secondly, how will deregulating the system ensure that governing bodies can shape themselves to reflect the sort of school that they want to have and their interpretation of their community and the business world? Thirdly, will she consider how to get rid of failing governing bodies? I have put on the table the idea of the ultimate option—parents revolting—but there are processes between doing nothing and using a “nuclear deterrent”. Those processes must be teased out and must have some relationship with measurement of attainment and inspection of schools. Fourthly, it is key to ensure that we focus on skills rather than just stakeholders. One can be achieved without excluding the other, but the most important thing is to have the best people governing our schools for our children and their future.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
It is a pleasure, Mr Rosindell, to speak under your chairmanship. Having been a school governor, over the last 20 years, of two Calder valley primary schools and a local high school, I can honestly say that the role is one of the most rewarding in the community. The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) alluded to the fact that well over 300,000 individuals are serving as school governors throughout the country. All are selfless individuals actively putting something back into their communities, and all are committed to driving forward standards in their local schools.
I am a member of the Education Committee, and its inquiry on the role of school governing bodies did not suggest that radical change was required to the system of governance in English schools. Recent legislation provides adequate flexibility for governing bodies to innovate, and that flexibility could bring about radical change, should governing bodies implement it more widely. However, our report showed that evidence indicates that few governing bodies are taking advantage of the new regulations, which suggests that the Government should to do more to clarify what models of governance are now possible, and explain how they could be beneficial in different school contexts.
Vacancies on governing bodies have constantly been an issue locally and nationally, despite there being more than 300,000 individuals serving as school governors. The number of vacancies is disputed, but the Department for Education understands that 11% of governor posts are vacant. The Committee heard Professor Chris James of the university of Bath explain that the vacancy picture is complex and that overall vacancy figures may be misleading. Governing bodies with a high number of vacancies—for example, 25%—at the end of one school term may have none at the end of the next because the vacancies have been filled. None the less, 2% to 3% of schools persistently have high vacancy rates for governors.
The National Governors Association has found that a large proportion of governing bodies have difficulty finding skilled governors, and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) alluded to that. The National College for Teaching and Leadership has also observed that there is “significant evidence” that governors are recruited for their representative role, rather than a particular skill set.
We learned that vacancies are a particular issue for primary schools, and Ofsted judgments have found primary school governance to be considerably less effective on average than secondary school governance. In her 2010-11 annual report, the former chief inspector of Ofsted found “considerable variations” in the quality of governance across different types of school. Governance was judged to be good or outstanding in 53% of pupil referral units, 55% of primary schools, 64% of secondary schools and 71% of special schools.
When I was Calderdale council’s lead member for children’s services, we found that an effective recruitment tool for governors was advertising vacancies in our local magazine, Calderdale Call, which the local authority sends to every household quarterly. We also found that circulars to larger local employers, such as Lloyds TSB, Crosslee and many of our vast array of manufacturers in Calder Valley, also produced many fine individuals with much-needed skill sets to serve as school governors.
Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)
I am encouraged to hear about the success that there has been in finding people in the hon. Gentleman’s area by going directly to employers. Does he think that there is scope for more incentives for employers to encourage their employees to become governors?
Craig Whittaker
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Yes, exactly; one of the recommendations that our Committee put forward to the Government was about offering further incentives. In my conclusion, I will ask the Minister to do more in that area.
Evidence to our inquiry showed mixed opinions on the appropriate balance in a school governing body between individuals with specific skills and representatives of stakeholder groups, as we have discussed today. Overall, there was agreement with the DFE’s view that the stakeholder model does not preclude skills, but conversely, several witnesses felt that individuals recruited for specific skills may lack important local or community knowledge.
Evidence from a national leader of governance warned that in areas where the local community skill base is low, the dilemma will grow if either more skilled non-locals are parachuted in, or a less skilled local governing body remains. That will widen the gap between less skilled communities and the average, and will have questionable sustainability. I experienced that—we have spoken about it today—when we had a failing school and an interim executive board had to be established. In those circumstances, too, skill sets are a priority over local knowledge; they have to be, for the sake of the school’s revival.
I do not want to keep anybody much longer, Mr Rosindell, but I want to ask the Minister what her Department is doing to remove any potential barriers to the recruitment of effective school governors, and what is being done on communication with governing bodies to explain more thoroughly the recent legislation changes, and the flexibility and innovation that those changes may bring. The Committee recommended that the Government review the incentives for, and requirements on, businesses to release their staff for governor duties. We also recommend that the legal requirement to give time off for governors of maintained schools be extended to academies, as our Chair has said. I know from my local experience that local businesses are a great place from which to fill those skills gaps and skill sets, where needed, in local schools. Thank you for your time this afternoon, Mr Rosindell.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
It is a great pleasure to participate in this debate, Mr Rosindell. I think I am the only Member here who is not on the Education Committee, apart from the Minister and shadow Minister of course, but we are discussing a critical role, and I am so pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) led his Committee in an inquiry on it. It is a really important subject.
I was a school governor, back in the mid-’90s at a school in Kilburn, and in the late noughties at a school in Hampshire. At both schools, the experience was very interesting. In the mid-’90s, we seemed to spend a lot of time talking about children and teachers, but by the time I next became a school governor 10 years later, most of the agenda at our meetings seemed to be focused on whether we had done this or that policy update, or what about the charter mark we were going for, or what about this and what about that. As a consequence, the amount of time we spent speaking about children and teachers was dramatically reduced. I am pleased to see that there seems to have been quite a revolution in reducing the amount of direction given, and in allowing good school governing bodies to get going. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), who is no longer in his place, made an eloquent point about the need to tackle poorly performing governing bodies, and I agree with him wholeheartedly.
In terms of recruitment and retention, my experience is that one of the barriers to becoming a school governor—at the moment in my constituency, I am trying to encourage people to become school governors—is perhaps the perception of the amount of time it takes, and the feeling about what value people can add. We know that some of the brightest and best business people are already dragged into so many other situations and are being asked to give their time, whether on issues to do with the future of the high street, their business association, or the chamber of commerce. Nevertheless, I find that when people do the work, they really enjoy it, and recognise that an effective governing body is critical to the good—if not outstanding—performance of a school. I encourage more people to come from business, but also from our public sector.
On the tools available, the Committee was right to talk about data, such as those data provided by RAISEonline—reporting and analysis for improvement through school self-evaluation. Although I have a PhD, I will not pretend that it is always the easiest thing to encounter cold, but it gives people very detailed information about children’s progress. That is why I was so pleased to see the data dashboard that came from Ofsted last year. Some amendments have already been made to it, to try to focus on the key issues. I have been to every school in my constituency and have met plenty of school governors, and I took great delight in encouraging them to use the tool. I cannot wait for the next set of results to come out, so that we can continue to try to understand whether progress is being made. The division between key stage 1 and key stage 2 was particularly illuminating for some primary school governors in deciding where they should be focusing their efforts, and I welcome that.
Importantly, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness referred to clerks. He is so right: they can make a critical difference to whether a governing body is effective. High levels of training should be made available, and I recommend that clerks should not serve in a school for more than a certain number of terms—not school terms, but terms of appointment—because it is useful to exchange clerks and make sure that things stay fresh and that the latest ideas come in.
I agree with the Government on pay; I do not think that we should pay school governing bodies. As is pointed out in the Government response, it is open to any governing body to buy in services, and that is very useful. Federations are a new model of governance. I represent a mainly rural seat, and with 54 schools in 300 square miles—some of those schools are very small—there are, rightly, increasingly moves towards more federations, the sharing of head teachers and so on. However, what has not happened yet, but should happen, is a merging of the governing bodies of those schools. I understand why people might feel concern that that reduces accountability, but it absolutely does not. There should be a partnership across schools. A suggestion was made in the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce report on Suffolk schools, called “No school an island”, to have parents’ councils to ensure—how can I put it?—that schools do not feel ignored. We see services merging, and the sharing of head teachers and senior teachers; I think we need to see the same with our school governing bodies.
In terms of the mix of skills, I wonder, at some schools, how prepared governors are to be critical friends. It is not the role of the chairman or chairwoman of the governing body to be only a cheerleader. We see that dilemma at the BBC: is the noble Lord Patten a cheerleader, or a critical friend of the BBC Trust? We have the same challenge for our school governing bodies; we must try to address what is really going on.
Head teachers should ensure that their teachers are up to scratch, but there is also another challenge. In one of the governing bodies on which I served—thankfully, I joined just after this took place—it took more than two years to try to displace a head teacher who was simply letting children down. It is very challenging for governors to do that kind of thing, and sometimes, the easiest way out is simply to do nothing at all. As has been said eloquently today, we cannot allow that to happen, which is why I am very pleased to see that a number of colleagues—I do not know how they manage to fit it in—continue to be school governors. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Ben Gummer) is a governor of Ravenswood community primary school. I was delighted to see that, in the recent round of inspections in Suffolk, his school moved up the ratings to “good”. I shall be honest: many schools in Suffolk went the other way, so I thought that that was good for its credibility. I need to inspire myself to take that leap and go and do something to help the schools that are struggling in my area.
I was a latecomer to the debate, but this is such an important topic. I am glad that it has been given the prominence that it has. I see the Government response, and I admire all of it. I encourage the Government to go further—to stand up for governors and to recognise that they are the people who can make the difference, alongside great head teachers and great teachers.
Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, on an entirely different brief from my previous one. I congratulate the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), and the hon. Members who serve on that Committee for this welcome contribution to a very important subject.
As the Chair of the Committee and other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), have said, 300,000 volunteers serve on governing bodies—probably the largest group of volunteers working in a particular field in the whole country. I, too, pay tribute to them for the work that they do. Like a number of hon. Members in the debate, I had the opportunity to be a governor, not of a school but of a further education college, and I know how valuable that is. Hon. Members bring expertise and practical experience to the debate.
When Labour was in government, we gave greater responsibility to governing bodies. We reduced local authority interference in how governing bodies operate and made changes relating to their composition. We also started the academy programme—a targeted intervention to try to lift the performance of the worst-performing schools in the country, which were often in deprived areas, and to raise standards. Governing bodies played a very important role in that arena.
I want to take the opportunity to tell the Minister that what I have described is different from simply rebadging a school as an academy and expecting school improvement to happen automatically. It will not happen without effective interventions to try to improve standards, including having strong governance arrangements, encouraging the effective leadership and management of schools and ensuring proper accountability of governing bodies.
This report is therefore welcome and timely, particularly as we are seeing so much reform in the education system. There is so much change, including the proliferation of free schools and of course more academies, and we need to ensure that governing bodies play an effective role in this rapidly changing environment.
I shall focus on a number of the themes on which the Select Committee report makes recommendations. The Chair of the Select Committee, in particular, highlighted some of these points. First, the Select Committee recommended mandatory training for governors. This is a crucial issue. As I said, it is crucial in this time of change that we ensure proper accountability. At a time when local education authorities are losing powers of oversight and there is no clarity about what the role of a middle tier would be, it would be helpful for us to make sure that governing bodies play an important role in ensuring that accountability.
Mr Graham Stuart
On a point of clarification, we did not recommend that training should be mandatory. We said that that should be looked at again if it turns out that the input from Ofsted and other Government inputs do not lead to the improvement in training that we hope to see brought about in the system. That improvement would be brought about in a non-regulated way ideally.
Rushanara Ali
Okay; we are talking about non-regulatory training. The point is that appropriate training is vital. According to The Times Educational Supplement, 93% of the respondents to the joint survey said that this would be helpful; they supported training. That reinforces the Select Committee’s recommendation. The Government should examine the issue closely, genuinely to ensure that governors have the appropriate support and that schools get the kind of governing body that they need to respond to the challenges of running their institutions. Governors need to feel equipped and able to perform their role effectively and work towards building achievement and raising standards in schools. In the end, that is what motivates people in communities to take part in this work as volunteers. They give their time and make that contribution to see a transformation in their schools.
I therefore hope that the Minister will recognise the importance of training—other hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North, highlighted this issue—and explain how the Government will seek to address the Select Committee recommendation and ensure that governing bodies get the training that they need. The National Governors Association has also given evidence and pushed for that recommendation to be implemented.
Alex Cunningham
On a point of clarity, I think that I said when I opened my contribution that I wanted to offer some of my own thoughts and I do believe in some form of compulsory training, but should not leaders in our schools accept that they, too, can learn? They should submit to training without being compelled to do so.
Rushanara Ali
The exemplars clearly do that. All of us will have seen schools taking on this role actively and ensuring that proper training is provided. I certainly benefited from training as a governor of a further education college. The charitable organisations that provide training to governors, not just of schools and colleges but of charities, charitable organisations and social enterprises, are vital. The question is about those schools that currently are not able or willing to provide training. How do we ensure that they step up and apply the appropriate mix of encouragement and pressure, to extend the training that is needed to get their governors to perform the kind of role that they need to perform?
Mr Graham Stuart
Does the hon. Lady agree that one way to encourage more training for governing bodies is to have clerks as professionals, facilitating, raising aspiration, sharing best practice and not being a member of staff from the head teacher’s department? Does she agree that the role of a clerk should become a professional role?
Rushanara Ali
I do, and I will come on to that point shortly, but before I deal with clerks, I want to focus on federations and multi-academy trusts. In their ideological drive to force schools into academy status regardless of the views of parents, governors and school communities, the Government have been ignoring the benefits of federations of schools as drivers of school improvement and as an opportunity for governing bodies to work more strategically. A number of hon. Members have highlighted the need to examine that area. In many cases, working together in that way—sometimes through co-operatives—can bring all the benefits for teaching and learning of a more strategic partnership, without unnecessary and sometimes painful organisational upheaval.
In my constituency, when schools have come together and worked together collaboratively—governing bodies, as well as teachers of different subjects—standards have been radically improved. We need to ensure that that happens and that the role of governing bodies is considered in that context. Will the Minister commit to supporting those local initiatives, rather than imposing models that are not necessarily fit for purpose or appropriate for local areas? Will she commit to giving groups of small schools that federate to improve outcomes the same sort of grants as multi-academy trusts receive?
On profile and recruitment, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North and the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) pointed out, governors are fulfilling a vital role voluntarily. Recruitment is a major challenge in many areas, so we must take urgent action to ensure that employers can provide the flexibility—day release or time away from work—that their staff require to make a contribution. Particularly where we want to bring in expertise from professions that may be pressured, it is vital that employers support their staff to make a contribution as a governor.
When the previous Labour Government were in power, civil servants had the scope to take a few days’ leave for their work as school governors or in similar roles, with the permission of their employer. I hope that the Government will consider how that might be done appropriately, without burdening employers and recognising that the role of school governor is crucial and that people need to be given flexibility to fulfil it properly and effectively. I hope that the Minister will set out in her response how such measures might be introduced.
As the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness has said, the Education Committee highlighted the importance of having professional clerks. The National Governors Association is campaigning for their introduction and is disappointed that the Department for Education has not set out its intention to make that happen. I hope that the Minister will reconsider and support the Education Committee’s recommendation, which will be good news to the hon. Gentleman and to me.
On accountability, there is a worrying trend in the reforms introduced by the Secretary of State. We have observed in previous debates on governance that there was an unexploded ordnance in the system and the lack of accountability would result in scandals. As we have seen in the case of the Al-Madinah free school, the Kings science academy, Barnfield federation in Luton and others, there are real concerns, and we must ensure that such incidents do not occur again.
There is concern about several other schools, and we must make sure that the school governing bodies have the appropriate power. Where the governing bodies are at fault, the system must be effective enough to intervene to ensure that the relevant action is taken to address such problems. At a time of reform when there are concerns about accountability, we must ensure that school governing boards are properly held to account and given appropriate support if they have to take action against school management to improve matters, as happened in the examples that I have given.
Performance is clearly a major issue. A balance must be struck between attracting the best possible people and ensuring that they are rooted in their communities. Recently, the Secretary of State described governors as
“Local worthies who see being a governor as a badge of status not a job of work.”
I hope that the Minister will emphasise that we should not be using such language to refer to governors, who play a vital role. I hope that she recognises the important work done by governors, the need to support them to make their contribution and the need to improve their skills and capacities, so that they can continue to make a vital difference to our education system. I hope that she will take into consideration the questions that have been raised and the points that I have made and that she will take on board the importance of improving accountability and the status of governors in schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart) and the Education Committee on this excellent and well thought through report, which casts valuable light on an important issue in our education system that does not always get the attention it deserves. I am pleased to hear that so many members of the Education Committee are dedicated governors, and I congratulate them on that. A great deal of understanding of what goes on in the front line has informed the Committee’s report.
The Government believe that school governance has a vital role to play in driving up school and pupil performance. In an increasingly school-led system, we need governing bodies that create robust local accountability, and the future of schools is truly in governors’ hands. As has been said in the debate, there are more than 300,000 governors across the country, all of whom give of their time with great passion and effort to improve schools, and to improve the lives and outcomes of the children who attend them. Schools need dynamic, confident and skilled governing bodies that understand their responsibilities and are focused on their core functions. Many governors benefit from their role as school governors, which helps them to build up their skills in leadership and management, and improve their understanding of what goes on in schools and the community. We must all highlight the benefits of being a governor when we talk about that extremely important role.
The Government have made several reforms to improve the ease with which governing bodies can operate, and more sharply to focus the work of governing bodies on improving educational standards in schools. As several hon. Members have mentioned, new regulations have set out the strategic role of the governing body and the central role of the chair in setting the vision of the school, holding the head teacher to account for educational performance and ensuring that the school’s money is well spent. Those functions reflect the criteria that Ofsted inspectors use when they consider the effectiveness of governing bodies. Ofsted plays an important role in ensuring that those governing bodies are fit for purpose.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) commented, governing bodies may unfortunately have been diverted on to other issues of less strategic importance. The purpose of our reforms is to ensure that governors can spend more time holding the head teacher to account, ensuring that funds are well spent and that the quality of education in the school is high. One of my roles in the Department is to implement the new national curriculum, which will be ready in September 2014. I see one of the key roles of the governing body as ensuring that that implementation takes place and that schools take advantage of their new freedoms to create new school curricula. The governing body is a helpful conduit of information between the school and the community.
Alex Cunningham
On the question of accountability, does the Minister share the view of the hon. Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) that parents should be able to sack their governing bodies? Assuming that she does agree, should that apply to academies and free schools as well?
Elizabeth Truss
I am not sure that that is exactly how my hon. Friend put his point. It is down to Ofsted to identify weak governing-body performance. Ultimately, it is the decision of either the Secretary of State or the local authority to replace that governing body with an interim executive board, should it not be doing what it is meant to be doing.[Official Report, 6 January 2014, Vol. 573, c. 1MC.]
Mr Graham Stuart
Will the Minister spell out how the powers of the Secretary of State and local authority to act if governance is failing differ between maintained schools and academies?
Elizabeth Truss
I will come to that point later in my comments, but in essence, the governing body in both cases can be replaced with an interim executive board.
Many hon. Members commented on retaining and recruiting high-quality governors. It is clearly critical that governors have the right skills to do the job. We set out clearly in the governors’ handbook the important strategic nature of the governors’ role and, as I commented, we have cut back on rules and regulations that tie governors up in red tape They now have much more flexibility in the way they operate. The best governing bodies identify explicitly the skills and competencies they need and audit regularly the skills of their current members.
There was some debate this afternoon about the size of a governing body. The Government’s view is that the size of a governing body should be no greater than it needs to be to get the necessary skills, but the No. 1 thing is that it gets the right skills. Size is secondary to ensuring that the skills are in place to do the job. My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) pointed out what can be done locally to recruit governors. I commend him for his activities in Calder Valley to promote the role of governors with employers. He lays out a lesson for many MPs about what they should do to promote the roles of governors in their local communities. We absolutely need to get the message across that the role is valuable and will help individuals in whatever career they decide to pursue.
We have given governing bodies the power to reconstitute themselves under a more flexible framework and to become smaller and more skills focused. We agree with the Committee that not enough governing bodies are using the flexibilities at the moment. We plan to consult on whether a move to reconstitution should be mandatory by September 2015, because we do not think that enough governing bodies are doing it at the moment. It will be interesting to see the results from that consultation.
The hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) spoke extensively about training. I think we all agree that we want well trained governing bodies that are capable of exercising their role. We are keen for schools to use their budgets effectively. Ensuring that governors get the quality training they need is an effective way to do so. There might be a debate about how we achieve those objectives, but our view is that the outcomes of the Ofsted inspection process are the best way to make an assessment, rather than insisting on mandatory training, which can sometimes become a tick-box exercise. We want high-quality training and we want to know that, following that training, governors have the skills they need to do the job.
Developments in the level of training are needed, so in addition to expanding its training for chairs and aspiring chairs to offer 6,700 places by March 2015, early next year, the National College of Teaching and Leadership is launching specific training workshops for governors on understanding RAISEonline data, which my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal mentioned, driving financial efficiency in schools, and performance-related pay. Where we identify a gap in the training available, the NCTL is helping to provide it. We are continuing to expand the NCTL national leaders of governance programme, to mobilise outstanding chairs of governors to provide free peer-mentoring support for other chairs.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) talked passionately about the need for the involvement of business in governing bodies, and I could not agree more. The Government are working with the Confederation of British Industry on a campaign to promote the role of employers in freeing up employees to get more involved in governing bodies, but the issue is broader than that and about more than governance. We need more business leaders in our classrooms working with children on specific subjects. That helps children to form high aspirations about the types of role they can go into. The new national curriculum is much more flexible and will enable more business involvement. We have seen some very good developments, for example, organisations such as Mykindacrowd facilitating the new computer curriculum that is coming in.
I also agree about the role of the professional clerk. NCTL is developing and will deliver a training programme for clerks. By 2015, it will have provided training for 2,000 highly skilled professional clerks, who have a vital role on the governing body.[Official Report, 6 January 2014, Vol. 573, c. 1MC.]
Mr Graham Stuart
Does the Minister feel that there needs to be regulatory change? We heard tales during our inquiry of the clerk of the governing body, whose role is to hold the head to account, being someone who works in the office of a headmaster. We felt that that was not the right situation. If changing it requires regulatory change, will she consider that?
Elizabeth Truss
As yet, we do not feel that that requires regulatory change, but if my hon. Friend has evidence of specific issues that have arisen, I will be interested to hear about them.
A number of points were raised about accountability. As the programme for international student assessment outcomes has shown this week, autonomy and accountability are two of the key drivers in any successful education system. Lord Nash told the Select Committee that he thought the Ofsted inspection framework was the sharpest tool in the box for improving the quality of governance. I certainly think that is true. Any school failure is a failure of governance. Interim executive boards can be an effective solution in certain schools to secure a step change in the schools’ performance, through a complete change in the school’s leadership and management. IEBs are not always necessary; sometimes the governing body can self-improve—ultimately, it is up to the local authority or the Secretary of State if the school is in an Ofsted category. Where individual governors are not pulling their weight, it is a matter for the chair of governors. We would like all chairs to have annual conversations to take stock with every member of the governing body. Ultimately, it is the chair’s responsibility to ensure that members of the governing body have the skills they need to do the job.
Elizabeth Truss
I am sorry. I must complete my remarks, otherwise we will run out of time before I address all the other points raised this afternoon.
In a multi-academy trust, things are more complicated, but there are significant potential benefits. The board of the multi-academy trust is responsible and accountable for all the academies within a trust and can take a strategic perspective. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) asked about maintained schools. The existing regulations contain ways that schools can federate that allow them to share governing expertise across schools, so we do not think there is a need for additional flexibilities in that respect. My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley asked whether we plan to extend the time off work that people are entitled to if they are governors to governors of academies. We do not think that that is necessary at this point. We do not want further regulation to get in the way of what should be a co-operative arrangement between schools and businesses. Our approach has been to remove regulations and point out the value of the job.
Ultimately, performing a role on a governing body is of benefit not only to the employee in building up their skills, but to the employer in having well qualified staff who are getting extra training provided by the school and can go back to contribute in the business. We would rather sell the role as a positive than say to employers, “This is something else you need to do.” The NCTL is developing a resource on multi-academy trusts to be published early next year. It will offer useful guidance on establishing a multi-academy trust and case studies on how academies have implemented the structure.
As I mentioned, the Government recognise the value and benefits of governance structures spanning more than one school or academy. It can bring opportunities for a far more strategic perspective and the ability to contrast between schools in the grouping. That can bring more robust accountability for head teachers, because the governors have more points of comparison when looking at different schools. In the next version of the model funding agreement, we will offer multi-academy trusts even greater flexibility by allowing local governing bodies to govern more than one school.
The Government recognise and celebrate the role of governors. We are working in a changing landscape that is moving towards a school-led system. The role of governor has never been more important. We are doing a lot of work, including working with the CBI to promote the role of governor, ensuring that we get new governors into the profession, as well as increasing the flexibility of schools.
Mr Graham Stuart
It has been a great pleasure to have this debate today. The Minister looks shocked and horrified at the prospect of my summing up, but I am sure she will survive. We have had contributions by hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, and thoughtful ones at that. Many of them were from Members who not only sit on the Select Committee and hear the evidence we receive, but who, prior to that, spent many years on governing bodies themselves, trying to making a difference to schools.
In her response to the debate, the Minister said, “The future of schools is truly in governors’ hands.” The Government have made good progress in taking the role of governors seriously; I congratulate her on that. I and the other members of the Committee will be delighted that the Government will be working with the CBI, the School Governors’ One-Stop Shop and, I assume, the national college on a campaign to promote the role of governors, in order to attract more people to be governors and to make a difference by filling the empty places for governors that we have heard about.
I would not be doing my job if I did not chide the Minister on one thing, which concerns the legal requirement to release staff. At the moment, companies are obliged to release staff for maintained schools but not for academies. Now, either the Government think that that requirement is an over-regulation and it should be abolished, so that all schools are on the same playing field, or they should extend that to cover academies. I cannot see any case—intellectually or otherwise—for justifying an unlevel playing field, such as the situation we are in now. So I ask the Minister to look at that issue again.
I have one final point. My understanding, and it may well be incorrect, is that the Secretary of State does not have the power to appoint an interim executive board for an academy; they have the power only to rescind the funding agreement. However, I may be wrong about that. If it turns out that the Minister is incorrect, perhaps she could write to me, as Chair of the Select Committee, to clarify matters. That would be very helpful in ensuring that we are all on the same page on that issue.
It has been a pleasure to serve under you, Mr Rosindell, and we look forward to our next debate under Sir Alan Meale.
School Sport
(11 years ago)
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Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan—as the Ministers, my hon. Friends the Members for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss) and for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), swap places—and to have secured the debate this afternoon, and to have colleagues from across the House who are members of the Select Committee joining me.
My Committee published our report, “School sport following London 2012: No more political football”, in July this year. As the first anniversary of the Olympic and Paralympic games approached, we wanted to hold a short inquiry into school sport. Both the 2012 games were an extraordinary display of sport’s potential to inspire, move and excite us. For young people watching, the achievements of the likes of Jessica Ennis, Mo Farah and David Weir were a tremendous example of what hard work and dedication can achieve, as well as a great advert for a healthy lifestyle.
The games represented a badly needed opportunity to turn the tide. For too many young people today, sport does not play a significant role in their lives. As a consequence, they are significantly less fit than previous generations. In November, American researchers published an ambitious new dataset, covering more than 25 million children across 28 countries. It showed that children today run a mile 90 seconds slower than their counterparts from 30 years ago. Closer to home, in this country, one in five children are now overweight or obese when they enter reception class. The figure rises to nearly one in three by the end of primary education. That gives some sense of the scale of the challenge that faces us as a nation.
We were delighted by the interest in our inquiry. Our online survey about sports provision in schools received more than 300 responses from teachers, while a similar survey of young people received nearly 800 replies. We also visited three schools in east London: Hallsville primary school and Curwen primary school in Newham; and Barking Abbey school, a sports specialist college for 11 to 18-year-olds.
What were our main conclusions about school sport? First, we concluded that just as the foundations for verbal literacy and numeracy are established in the primary years of school, so too must the foundations of “physical literacy” be established. School is the one place where all young people have access to sporting activities, and it is where a lifelong sporting habit can be formed and built upon, which should be a priority for every pupil.
The Government’s position on school sport, as outlined in December 2010, emphasised the role of competitive sport. However, many witnesses told us that a focus on competition discourages some children, particularly girls. The Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation has reported that as many as half of girls are currently put off being active by their experiences of PE and sport in school. It is not that schools should not offer competitive sport—far from it. They should offer both competitive and non-competitive sporting opportunities, to ensure that sport provision appeals and is accessible to all pupils.
Our second conclusion was about how school sport is delivered. Pupils’ opportunities to become involved in school sports are often limited by a lack of facilities. For example, we were concerned about the availability of accessible swimming pools, especially as a recent survey by the Amateur Swimming Association found that around half of children aged between 7 and 11 could not swim 25 metres. Think about that; it is a truly sobering statistic.
That issue could be tackled through partnerships between schools to promote the sharing of facilities and, where possible, by encouraging private schools to make their pools available to local state schools. However, fruitful co-operation between schools is not simply a question of sharing physical resources; it also involves co-operating to set up sporting events. School sport partnerships were highly regarded by many witnesses. Their main strength lay in the links and networks that they created, particularly between school sport and community sport—the clubs in the communities around schools.
Evidence suggests that the Government’s decision to end funding for SSPs has had a negative impact on young people’s opportunities to access competitive sport in school. The Smith Institute reports that a third of schools have experienced a decrease in school sports since the end of the ring-fenced funding for SSPs. In our report, we recommended that the Government should devise a new strategy for school sport, building on the many positive elements of the SSP model. Can the Minister provide us with an update today on whether the Government intend to take such a strategy forward and, if so, on when we can expect it?
Our third finding related to the quality of sport teaching in schools. Ofsted has found that PE teaching needs improvement in 30% of the primary schools that it visited, and as I said earlier, it is at primary level that we need to get high-quality sport teaching in place, to build the positive attitudes, habits and interests for lifelong sporting activity. Research by the Youth Sport Trust shows that many primary teachers lack the confidence and competence to deliver PE properly.
In particular, we were very concerned by the discovery that many mainstream schools are unable to provide sport for disabled children, who are too often sent to the library instead of participating in sport. Initial teacher training for primary school teachers should include a more substantial course on PE, including PE for children with disabilities or special needs. When the Minister responds, I would be grateful to him if he clarified what action he will take to ensure that new teachers receive the training that they need, particularly at primary level, to deliver the transformation that the figures that I mentioned at the beginning of my speech show is clearly required.
If all these things are to take place, the right funding framework needs to be in place. The fourth conclusion of our report was that the Government need to ensure that sustained funding is available for school sport. Successive Governments have failed to provide long-term stability in this area, and the coalition should avoid falling into the same trap. The SSPs, which I have already mentioned, were undeniably expensive, and it is worth remembering that the previous Labour Government’s plan was not that SSPs should continue; they had planned for SSPs to come to an end.
The Government now propose to introduce the primary sport premium, which was announced in March this year. We believe that this programme is correctly focused on the primary phase of education. However, it is due to last for only two years. That is simply not long enough for schools to develop lasting provision. If the primary sport premium is not extended, this very worthwhile idea risks becoming yet another short-term fix.
Must we wait for a major sports event to be hosted in this country before the then Government announce some short-term measure? Occasional attempts at pump-priming or, more cynically, headline grabbing, are simply not good enough. We are also concerned that head teachers lack simple guidance on using this funding in the best way to meet the needs of their pupils and staff. Will the Minister therefore promise to look into how funding can be arranged for the long term? Will he also tell us what progress has been made on providing detailed guidance for schools, so that they can make the most of the primary sport premium in the time that it has left?
Of course, improving school sport is not simply a question of funding. Our fifth finding was that schools need to be made more accountable for their PE and sport provision. That would prevent resources from being diverted to areas on which schools are measured and held to account. Schools are rightly strongly held to account for the outcomes of their pupils, but where something is not a central focus for the school, it will be put to the side, and that happens all too often with sport.
Until 2010, schools were required to report on the number of pupils who participated in at least two hours a week of PE or sport. We acknowledge criticisms that that measure did not capture information about the quality of pupil engagement—it was not perfect—but we are concerned that, without some measure of activity, schools are not fully accountable for whether their pupils receive a decent amount of exercise. At the moment, it is highly unlikely that a head teacher will find their job under threat because they have failed woefully to provide for their pupils’ physical needs, so they concentrate entirely on the academic. We therefore recommended that schools be required to report annually on their website the proportion of children involved in at least two hours of core PE each week. If the Minister has alternative proposals, we would like to hear them, but sport at the moment goes by the bye, and that cannot be allowed to continue.
Beyond the time spent on PE and sport, the need to monitor the quality of teaching and provision was a theme that ran through all the evidence that we received. The Youth Sport Trust told us about school games kitemarks, which have been introduced to measure the quality of provision in schools. Schools should be encouraged to achieve such quality marks, but they should check that the scheme that they enter is sufficiently rigorous and meaningful.
I have summarised our main recommendations. Five months on from our report, where do we stand? I confess to being rather disappointed. Although the Government response to our report was broadly supportive, it avoided committing to specific actions or a changed agenda. It did not address our concern about the need for a longer-term funding commitment—quite the contrary. Nor did Ministers make any conclusive statements about their plans to improve schools’ access to sport facilities. Regarding our concern that schools need to be more accountable for the quality and quantity of sport provided, the response implied satisfaction with current accountability structures. Like many Government Members and possibly Opposition Members, I do not want unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation, but in a schools system driven by the outcomes on which schools are measured and held to account, we must ensure that important factors such as sport do not lose out, as they do today.
The Government response is all the more disappointing because, last month, the House of Lords Committee on Olympic and Paralympic Legacy published a report that largely echoed our concerns. It found that an exclusive focus on competitive sport risks discouraging some children from participating. That may be controversial in the Daily Mail, but I do not think that it is controversial with anyone who has had any experience of working with different children. The Committee reported that the difference in participation between young people with a limiting disability and those without is “unacceptably stark”. Its report highlighted the need for teachers, particularly in primary schools, to have specific training and skills to teach PE, and it called on the Government to conduct a review of initial training for specialist PE teachers. Their lordships also identified the importance of co-operation between schools, particularly between primary and secondary schools.
There is, therefore, great consensus about what needs to happen and about what is at stake. This summer, Public Health England reported that 70% of young people do not undertake the recommended one hour’s physical activity each day. What we do to address that lies in our hands. Sport is important for all our children, not just future Olympic hopefuls. I am optimistic that London 2012 can have a long-term legacy, but we need to do more to ensure that the promise that the games would “inspire a generation” is honoured in fact, not just in words.
If that is to happen, there is a challenge for every part of the system. Schools need to offer competitive and non-competitive sporting opportunities to maximise participation. The Government need to commit to longer-term funding provision and to hold schools properly to account. Teachers need to be properly trained, so they are confident in delivering high-quality PE and school sport. That is not rocket science, but it will require sustained funding, focus and ministerial support. In other words, it will require precisely the qualities that made the London Olympics such a success and that could now revitalise sport in our schools if Ministers take this opportunity.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. As with my earlier contribution on school governors, I hope to offer further insight into the Committee’s thoughts—this time on school sports in the post-2012 environment—while expressing some of my own thoughts along the way.
Nobody doubts the importance of physical activity, and of having opportunities to participate in sport from a young age. Nowhere is that more appropriate than in our schools, where children are a captive audience and can learn of the full range of benefits that involvement can bring. I do not need to go into detail, because every Member present knows that sport can nurture the very best personal attributes; develop strong skills that cut across social, educational and physical frontiers; and inspire advancement away from the sporting arena.
Needless to say, the Committee’s report rightly recognised the importance of school sport as a central piece in that bigger picture. We were in broad agreement that the correct target for future Government investment is primary school level, as funding would allow positive messages and benefits to reach children at an early age and to stimulate the formation of positive attitudes that will shape future behaviours and, hopefully, last a lifetime.
That builds on the need for the Government to develop a long-term strategy for school sport, matched by sufficient funding to promote that vision. The primary sport premium, which is doubtless a step in the right direction, is not sufficient in itself. Similarly, while the Committee welcomed the Government’s announcement that 120 primary school specialists are to be trained, I share the concern that such a programme will struggle to improve sport provision across the 17,000 primary schools in England. With each specialist responsible for an average of 142 schools, I have difficulty imagining that any tangible benefits will be felt from investment on such a small scale.
At the same time, I am concerned that the positive outcomes of sport in schools are being jeopardised by the focus poured on to competitive sport, which risks turning young people away from physical activity altogether and undermines the purpose of encouraging a programme of school sports. The Chairman outlined that in considerable detail.
Like many of the witnesses who gave evidence to the Committee, I do not think that competitive sport should be done away with in schools. People, and children in particular, are competitive by nature. However, there is certainly a time and a place for competition, and I feel strongly that competitive sport should not automatically be favoured over non-competitive activities, as seems to be the current default position.
Inclusion and participation must be paramount, and they can be achieved in the simplest ways. It was great to visit the schools in east London, and to see some of the things happening there, including the multiple games taking place in the playground. However, one thing really tickled me. We were standing by a door, when all of a sudden, 20 or 30 children ran out of it and ran all the way round the playing field and straight back into their classroom. The head teacher told us that the school was using that physical activity as a way of stimulating the children. They might have got past the stage where they were learning anything in the classroom, so they needed to use a bit of energy and to express themselves in a different way. The head teacher told us that that small amount of physical activity ensured that the children were ready to learn as soon as they were back at their desks, which was tremendous. If such small activities can have a major benefit, a proper school sports programme can, too.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I am afraid that I could not resist the temptation to say that my hon. Friend raises that point only because he was jealous at not having the opportunity to join in. Is he aware of the scientific research—I do not think we considered it in our inquiry—that points to the link between physical activity, brain development and learning in the classroom? The head teacher was making the point, based on her experience, that physical activity clearly works, but the scientific evidence is there to back that up.
Alex Cunningham
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I do not know about the issue in as much detail as he does, but that is certainly a contributory factor. I assure him that I was not that jealous, because having played squash into my mid-40s, I now have a knee that says, “You shouldn’t run round the school playground.”
If the price of competition is inclusion, we should perhaps rethink whether a new balance is needed in the national curriculum between competitive sport and other activities, perhaps taking additional measures to encourage and promote more competitive sport as an extra-curricular option. With that idea in mind, I welcome the school games, not only as a legacy of the London 2012 games, but as an additional channel to enable young people to participate competitively, should they wish to. It is important, however, to ensure that funding is secured for long-term sustainability, and to allow participation to grow beyond the 60% of schools currently taking part.
Continuing the theme of participation and inclusion, the Committee’s report examines in detail school sport partnerships and the impact that cuts to funding have had on sport provision in schools. We heard from Linda Cairns, a school sport co-ordinator at George Abbot school in Guildford, that the funding cuts have resulted in the system tailing off, and that there are only a handful of school sport co-ordinators left. That was backed up by evidence from the NASUWT showing that 48% of local authorities recorded a decline in the number of partnerships, while a further 28% had no functioning partnership in their area. When I questioned her further, Linda said that the upshot was a hole in local sport provision, and that communities and local authorities lacked
“somebody who can link primaries to secondaries and all schools to clubs and community sport”.
Without those important ties, the glue that held together a highly successful and internationally recognised model for school sport has all but disappeared.
I am in no doubt that that is a tragedy for school sport and for the future well-being and development of young people. I know from personal experience in the borough of Stockton that the partnerships work. They encourage greater uptake and promote wider sporting opportunities, and such participation leads to positive outcomes. More than that, however, the partnerships created a true link between secondary and primary schools. I saw young people working with much younger children, which gave them someone to look up to and even admire. When we visited east London, we saw older students acting as mentors to the young. I was extremely encouraged to see their relationship. The younger ones hung on every word that the older pupils said. In another school, we saw the Football Association in action, and the young people were captivated by their tutors.
It does not matter where Select Committees go on their visits—it can be Holland, Denmark, Singapore or Timbuktu—but we are always taken to see the best. We get to see the things that work well, and the best practice. Of course, we know that that expertise or high quality is not to be found in most places. However, although we did not see some of the poorer provision in the country, we took evidence about the impact of the partnerships’ demise, and that may have redressed the balance to an extent. Many witnesses lamented the loss, because the partnerships were successful. Several witnesses strongly put forward a view that was supported by Ofsted, which reported that the impact of partnerships in maximising participation and increasing regular competition
“was clearly evident in the vast majority of schools visited”.
The evidence that stands out in my mind came from triple-jump gold medallist Jonathan Edwards, who told the Committee that dismantling partnerships
“wasn’t well thought through and left many people feeling incredulous”.
There was also universal agreement that SSPs were an efficient way to ensure that all young people had wider opportunities to take part in school sport, and to enable expertise to be developed in school. I acknowledge that school sport partnerships were expensive, but they worked and achieved tremendous success.
The Government claim to have removed the requirement on schools to belong to partnerships, but not their ability to do so. That is technically true, but in reality, without funding, partnerships cannot continue. I hope that the Government will remain true to their word, and that they will closely monitor their approach. Successive Governments have tinkered with school sport and have not got stuck in to create a long-term approach. I hope that after analysis and evaluation the present Government will recognise the sustainable and lasting benefits brought by partnerships, and will correct their mistake by reinstating the funding. School sport partnerships are a true investment in the future, in every sense. The long-term benefits far outweigh the short-term costs, and the need for funding cuts is not reason enough to forgo the positive outcomes of happy, healthier and engaged young people.
Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)
I am pleased to speak under your chairmanship, Sir Alan.
As we all know, good-quality school sport is important: it can deliver improved education, health and social outcomes for the nation and individuals. School is the one place where everybody gets the opportunity to play sport and take part in physical activity, so it has an important role in the development of a lifelong sporting habit. The Education Committee wanted the inquiry because one of the aims of the London Olympics was to “inspire a generation”. The report was timed for the first anniversary of the London games. We also wanted to see whether the Government’s policy was achieving an increase in school sport; to scope the appropriateness of their plans for a school sport legacy from the games, and the likelihood of those plans being carried out; to assess the impact so far of London 2012 on the take-up of competitive sport in schools; and to assess what further measures should be taken to ensure a sustainable and effective legacy in school sport following London 2012.
The first change by the coalition Government was the announcement that the ring-fencing for school sport partnerships would end in March 2011, the rationale being that that would increase and encourage more competitive sport in schools. That brought quite a high level of disagreement from schools and, as a result, the Secretary of State announced an extension of the funding until August 2011. He also gave an extra £65 million to enable secondary PE teachers to spend a day a week assisting and supporting primary schools. In March 2013, the Government announced new ring-fenced funding of £150 million per annum for two years, for primary school sport. That, unusually, is funded from three Whitehall Departments—the Department for Education, the Department of Health and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. Each primary school in England is getting approximately £9,250 per annum. That, as hon. Members will know, is called the primary sport premium. At the same time, as the hon. Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) said, the Government announced a pilot in which 120 new primary teachers were trained this summer with a specialism in PE.
Those who championed the previous £2.5 billion programme of SSPs regarded them as part of the golden age of school sports and an excellent model for universal delivery—so much so that the right hon. Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Dame Tessa Jowell) told us that they were admired and copied internationally. Jonathan Edwards told us that the removal of SSPs left many people feeling incredulous. There was almost universal agreement from all our witnesses that, where SSPs worked well, they were an incredibly effective way to ensure that all young people had wider opportunities to take part in school sport, and to enable expertise to be developed in schools. Even Ofsted, we heard, reported that SSPs were maximising participation and increasing regular competition.
Having said all the above, virtually every witness said that the new policy was exactly right to aim pump-priming money for school sports at primary schools, and that it was right to ring-fence the primary sport premium, ensuring that the money was spent on sport.
The biggest problem for the primary sports premium, as with SSPs, is that the money is not long term, and there is not a long-term strategy. As was said by the Chair of the Education Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), the Committee strongly felt that now is the time to say, “No more political football with school sport.” Neither the previous nor the current Government seem to have had a long-term policy or strategy for school sports. In fact, the Minister said that he could not commit to any longer-term funding and would be “batting very hard” for further funds. The Committee believes that the £300 million funding for the primary sports premium could be important, but the risks associated with its being wasted if it is not put to effective use, long term, could lead to danger of its becoming a short-lived gimmick.
I need to mention special needs and disability sport, because London 2012 had the most successful Paralympic games in history. Baroness Grey-Thompson told us that mainstream schools had traditionally made it hard for disabled people to find competition activities, compete on a level playing field, and be included. Often they were sent to the school library during PE classes. We also learned that special schools were often better at delivering sports for disabled pupils, which was often down to both facilities and teacher training in mainstream schools.
Witnesses praised the school games highly as a means through which disabled young people could access competitive sporting opportunities. Some 14,000 disabled children took part in the games in the first year, but there was criticism, too, with some referral units or special schools unable to access funding to support the games beyond local level. It was nigh on impossible for pupils with particularly challenging behaviour to attend.
We took evidence on various subjects, ranging from whether the standard of two hours of PE per student per week in schools being scrapped was a good thing, to whether physical fitness should be a part of the new education, health and care plans. What were our conclusions and recommendations? Some have been mentioned, but there were 24 in all—some recommendations and some statements—and I shall mention just two, which are crucial to ensuring that we meet the ambitions of the London Olympics, crucial to the legacy of those games, and important for the health and well-being of our nation.
I shall talk about recommendations 4 and 10. On recommendation 4, school sport is too important for it to rely on occasional efforts at pump-priming. The Government must commit to a long-term vision for school sport, accompanied by long-term funding. We recommend that the Government set out a plan for the sustained support and development of their school sports policy, including measures to ensure a cross-departmental vision and effective working across all relevant Departments.
On recommendation 10, we said:
“We are concerned that the timeframe of the primary sport premium is not sufficient to allow a long-term provision to be built. It risks replicating previous short-term fixes rather than creating a long term solution. On its own,”
as we have heard,
“the primary sport premium is inadequate. If the Government is to secure a legacy from London 2012 and demonstrate its commitment to school sport, the primary sport premium must be embedded within a long-term strategy, with sustained funding.”
Of all our recommendations, those are the two key ones that need urgent attention, and that we need to embed for the long term; that would be an investment in the long-term well-being of our nation.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I will mention a number of comments, particularly by the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker), who made some good points, as did my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and the Select Committee Chair, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart).
Hon. Members have mentioned Jonathan Edwards’ excellent account to the Committee, when we met him with two young athletes. He was clear about the wider benefits of sport, physical activity and participation. He drew our attention, in his concluding comment, to the health impact of taking part in sport. The wider benefits are as important, if not more so, as the benefits of taking part in sport, including competitive sport. That came out in the evidence of a number of witnesses.
This was an inquiry about school sports and the Olympic legacy, so we asked questions about the legacy, too. Jonathan Edwards drew our attention to the fact that Pierre de Coubertin, when setting up the modern Olympic movement, visited this country because he was impressed with the way that sport was integrated throughout the education system and that we demonstrated the principle of a healthy mind in a healthy body. In the 19th century, the principle of the value of sport and education was well established in this country. It is instructive that there is nothing new in some of the things that we discuss today about the origins of sport and its role in school, and the evidence of what constitutes good practice.
The hon. Member for Calder Valley demonstrated the value of the primary sport premium’s being brought together with funding from three Departments. We heard in evidence just how hard that has been historically. [Interruption.] The Minister is reacting as if I may be on to something here. It has been hard, historically, to get Ministers from different Departments together to discuss issues where there is a crossover. The way that Whitehall and Government work often makes such things far more difficult than they should be. The Government deserve some praise for achieving that success.
As hon. Members said, we heard a passionate defence of school sport partnerships from pretty much every witness. My authority in Sefton had a well organised school sport partnerships model, with the secondary schools providing the support, expertise, co-ordination and enthusiasm to include the primary schools. The engagement of children in primary schools in Sefton was exceptionally good, while the school sport partnership model survived. I am afraid that it is a different story today, although it has been instructive to listen to teachers and others involved in making the best of the primary sports premium money, and to see how they are achieving that, to a greater or lesser degree.
It is fair to say—I will return to this point—that there is some patchy evidence. There are some good and not so good examples of what is happening already with the primary money that is available. I agree that, in times of financial restraint, primary is the place to invest limited amounts of money. However, I regret—this point was made in evidence—that the successful model had to be completely dismantled first and that there was this gap. A number of schemes have been completely stopped and then, some two or three years later, the Government have brought back a reduced level of investment. Building Schools for the Future is another example, in the education sector, of a programme’s complete cancellation and a later investment in school building.
The reason given for the cancellation of the school sport partnerships was largely about the high level of investment; we heard the figure of £2.5 billion just now. However, if the criticism is that it was too much money, why was a reduced level of investment not maintained, given the success that had been achieved? I hope that some of those successes will be re-instigated by the new programme.
When we went to Curwen primary school in east London, we heard evidence about some of the challenges of the new model. The head teacher there told us how he had been inundated with calls from commercial suppliers wanting him to spend money on their coaching programmes. He adequately analysed how that would be unsuitable, because the money was just not going to last long, and there was no co-ordinated approach. What he was after was advice, guidance, support and some kind of co-ordination, as we had with SSPs, to make the most of the money.
I have heard similar things in my own authority regarding some the ways in which the money might be spent. I am afraid that some schools are using the money in that way, and the money will not be as effective as it might be. I understand that the Government are keen to allow schools to make their own decisions and to provide them with the autonomy to do so. However, I urge the Minister to ensure that guidance and co-ordination are a way not only of getting good value for money, but of making the best of the programme to the benefit of the children who are supposed to benefit.
The hon. Member for Calder Valley mentioned education, health and care plans. The report indicates that physical activity should be part of that, which was a comment made to us by Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson. That is an important point for disabled children, and I am glad that the hon. Gentleman raised it.
Regarding long-term funding, I do not know whether hon. Members have missed this, but the Chancellor has today announced an extension of the funding for a further year to 2016. That is of course to be welcomed, but it does not get past our recommendation that funding should be on a long-term, sustainable basis, which we need to move on to.
The issue is not just about primary schools. While primaries are the right place in which to put investment when one does not have much money, we need to create a culture. That comes back to physical literacy, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness. If we want to create a culture where people engage in sport of one sort or another and are physically active, to the benefit of their health, their brain development, their academic study, which is evidenced as well, their behaviour, their concentration and the self-confidence that comes from physical activity, we need to look at a longer-term strategy, whether that means additional money or linking with the way in which the primary school partnership system works.
The programme cannot end at 11. I know that secondary schools have greater resources and that school sport is well established in secondary, but somehow there needs to be a link, some co-ordination, a long-term approach and a correctly balanced combination of physical activity and sport. As someone who still does a lot of competitive sport—or tries to; that is probably the right way to put it these days—I am passionate about the role of competitive sport. However, I recognise that, for a lot of people, it is not the be all and end all. It does not excite them; in fact it can be quite off-putting. Nevertheless, if we want people to be physically active, our effort should not end in secondary school, but continue into further education, higher education and the world of work. We need to look at our longer-term culture. That links back to the Olympics legacy. I hope that that is where the policy could end up. As a result of the report, that is very much an opportunity. The Youth Sport Trust said in its evidence that physical activity goes much wider than participation in competitive sport. That point is well made, but I understand the emphasis on competitive sport.
Again, the report was about the Olympic legacy. I agree that we want to see our high fliers achieving. We had a fantastic Olympics. If we can maintain that at Rio and beyond, in terms of Olympic and Paralympic medals, who knows? We might even retain the Ashes—we can but hope—and go to the World cup having discovered some new players who can do reasonably well. That is the pinnacle of sport. That is the pinnacle of what we are trying to achieve. It makes a huge contribution to our national success, but it is about everyone, and it is important to have an inclusive approach.
We heard about teenage girls’ reluctance to take part in competitive sport. They are not the only group who are reluctant, but it is of particular concern. I forget which witness it was—it was probably more than one witness—but they talked about involving teenage girls in some kind of physical activity, where they realise that they can take part and that it is not the end of the world if they have a hair out of place; I have to be careful, because my daughter would have me in a lot of trouble if I say the wrong thing. There are opportunities, and I think the evidence is that once teenage girls get involved in some kind of physical activity, they go on to participate in more and more, including competitive sport. I hope that our evidence about girls in sport will be considered.
I have mentioned the other benefits, including benefits to health and school work. Those are incredibly important. If we are looking to improve education attainment, school work and a child’s life chances, the value of physical activity is not just a value in itself, incredibly important though that is. If we want successful young people, the importance of physical activity and of sport should not be underestimated. We saw evidence on our visits and we heard evidence in some of the sessions of how important that is for many young people, who otherwise can be excluded. However, once they get involved and find something that they enjoy doing, the benefits for them in other parts of their lives and studies are second to none.
The report is excellent. It was one of the best inquiries I have been involved in since I have been here. It tied into many other issues, not least performance in school and qualifications. All the recommendations are worth looking at.
One point that came out, which other hon. Members have touched on, was the lack of PE training for primary teachers. The work force issue is important. I remember hearing from one of the witnesses that many teachers go into primary deliberately because they do not like sport. That is the reality in the primary sector. Therefore, support for PE teachers is incredibly important. If the money can be used for anything, perhaps it should be on that support. Again, at Curwen primary, we saw the way in which the FA went in to create self-sufficiency by producing a skills programme and trained the teachers to run it over a longer time. I encourage the Minister to consider how that money could be used to create self-sufficiency, so that the importance of physical activity and sport in primary schools is well understood and teachers in the primary sector are in a position to deliver on the report’s recommendations. I know the Government would like to see that.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Sir Alan.
I congratulate the Select Committee on its excellent investigation into school sport. The report is important. It is very sad that we are having this debate. The Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), set out the case powerfully, and I pay tribute to him for his comments. There was a great festival of sport in 2012. After winning the bid in 2005, we talked a great deal about the need to build a legacy by using the opportunity to inspire a generation. Sadly, the foundation on which we should have been inspiring that generation—the structure through which we delivered school sport—was taken away. I commend the Select Committee on what it has done.
Modesty forbids me from commending the report published by the Smith Institute, which the Chair mentioned, because I edited it and wrote the foreword. A number of eminent people wrote essays in the report on how we should structure the future of school and community sport to try to put right what has clearly gone horribly wrong.
We have heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham) and for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson), and from the hon. Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker), and there is broad consensus that school sport partnerships worked, that wider benefits come from people being involved in sport, and that there is a need for a long-term, coherent plan to take us forward on sports. That consensus is evident in the report and in the comments made today. It is worth considering the history, because the Government’s thinking has been inconsistent for some time.
Mr Graham Stuart
School sport partnerships were a characteristically very expensive and temporary arrangement by the previous Government, so it is not as if this Government have dismantled a long-term vision and framework. We have moved from one expensive and patchy system to another. Successive Governments have failed to provide the long-term framework and vision that we need.
Clive Efford
I am reluctant to differ with the hon. Gentleman, but school sport partnerships were in place for some time and had a major effect on participation in sport. I would accept his point if we had moved smoothly from one system to the other, but that is not what happened.
Prior to the general election, the then shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey (Mr Hunt), who is now Health Secretary, and the then shadow Sports Minister, the right hon. Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Hugh Robertson), produced a document, “Extending Opportunities: A Conservative policy paper on sport.” Two things were mentioned in relation to school sports. First:
“The school environment provides the majority of children with their first experiences of sport. This experience is likely to govern their approach to sport for the rest of their lives.”
The document goes on to address the contribution of school sport partnerships. On the same page, the document states that the Conservative party would:
“Re-examine Building Schools for the Future to see how sports provision can be enhanced.”
I mention that document because the sad thing is that as soon as the Government came into office, both Building Schools for the Future, which, as the document recognises, improved school facilities, and the funding for school sport partnerships were taken away. That announcement was made in October 2010, and it was almost the kiss of death for two key elements of delivering sport in our schools. There is no doubt that Building Schools for the Future improved facilities in our schools; we could have used it to build a framework for delivering excellent sport provision, both competitive and non-competitive, in our schools. There was inconsistency between what the Government said before the election, and what they did after it.
It is also worth setting out what the school sport partnerships achieved, because in 2002 the PE and school sport survey highlighted that only one child in four was doing two hours of PE a week. Under the school sport partnerships, by 2007-08, the figure had increased to 90%. In fact, the success of school sport partnerships led in that year to steps being taken to introduce a target of three hours of PE a week, and the five-hour commitment meant that almost 55% of children were doing at least three hours of PE a week and were moving towards the five-hour commitment.
We set very challenging, but achievable, targets as a measure of our ambition. We wanted to get 2 million more people active and, by 2012, we wanted 60% of children to do five hours of PE a week during curriculum time and after school. Before the election, the then shadow Sports Minister said on Radio 5 Live that he thought it would be wrong to dismantle school sport partnerships after 13 years of work, and that his party would build on the partnerships. The Conservative party’s “Sport in schools” policy briefing note stated that schools would be
“free to enter as many or as few sports as they want, and there would be preliminary city and county heats, perhaps using the School Sport Partnerships infrastructure”.
Again, we see what the party went on to do.
The Conservative policy also states:
“We will also publish data about schools’ sports facilities and their provision of competitive sporting opportunities”.
In opposition, the Conservative party committed to introducing competitive sport in schools and went on and did it. The current Government built on the school games introduced by the previous Government, which is an excellent example of what can be achieved for sport in our schools, and I support what they have achieved, but as has been pointed out, the funding has a limited time scale, which makes me question whether it will exist in the long term. A consistent criticism—of both the previous and current Governments, I grant—is that what we need is some form of long-term planning. If the Government are to produce figures for participation in competitive sport, surely it follows that they should provide statistics on non-competitive sport, too, so that parents may have a clear idea of exactly what they can expect from physical and recreational activity provided to their children at school.
In 2010, money was taken away from the school sport partnerships with no consultation and no planning whatever. We have heard what Jonathan Edwards thought about that, and at the time many others were highly critical of what the Secretary of State for Education did without considering the consequences or putting anything else in place. That is a key point. The Secretary of State wrote to Baroness Campbell of Loughborough:
“I can confirm therefore that the Department will not continue to provide ring-fenced funding for school sport partnerships. I am also announcing that the Department is lifting, immediately, the many requirements of the previous Government's PE and Sport Strategy, so giving schools the clarity and freedom to concentrate on competitive school sport.”
He continued with a list:
“I am removing the need for schools to:
Plan and implement their part of a ‘five hour offer’”—
so the five-hour offer was off the agenda—
“Collect information about every pupil for an annual survey;”—
so we had no idea what was going on in schools—
“Deliver a range of new Government sport initiatives each year;”—
if we are trying to get uniformity of delivery across schools, why would one want that?—and
“Report termly to the Youth Sport Trust on various performance indicators”.
I might actually sympathise with that last one, because the Youth Sport Trust was heavy on data collection, but that does not justify the Government taking away all its funding and that of school sport partnerships in the way that they did. Everyone has said that the partnerships were a foundation on which we could have built. If things were wrong, we could have altered or reformed them to make them more effective.
Bill Esterson
On my hon. Friend’s point about reform, it would have been a good idea—it is still possible—to measure how effective the programmes or projects were. That is what should have happened. Given that we are where we are, does he agree that we need to measure the effectiveness of the primary school sports premium? It is a long-term project, so it is important that the data have value.
Clive Efford
The Government have said that the scheme will be externally evaluated, and I would like to hear how that will be done, and what will be looked at.
This point goes back to the intervention from the Chair of the Education Committee. Following the Secretary of State’s announcement, and the decision to take money away from school sport partnerships on a whim, there was a hue and cry from people involved in sport and school sport in particular. If you check Hansard, Sir Alan, you will find that I was one of those angry people. I am sure that a sense of how shocked and angry I was at the sudden announcement just leaps out of the page. The Secretary of State was forced to come back to Parliament to make another announcement, in which he reinstated £65 million—£32.5 million a year for two years—for PE teacher release, whereby teachers would be released for a day a week to co-ordinate sports in their area. Through a series of freedom of information requests, I found out that that funding was resulting in 60% less time being spent organising school sport than was spent by school sport co-ordinators under school sport partnerships. Despite attempts to back-fill the hole, the damage had been done. There was a significant reduction in the amount of time being spent organising sport outside the classroom.
In addition—it really is a sorry pattern—the Government have watered down protections for school playing fields in the national planning framework. Schools are no longer required to provide a specified amount of playing field space; they merely have to provide suitable outdoor space. It also beggars belief that free schools can open up with absolutely no sport provision whatever. That cannot be right and is not consistent with the actions of a Government who value school sport and consider it deserving of higher priority in the curriculum. In August 2012, the Government abolished the two-hour target; without any means of monitoring what is going on, it is difficult to judge what the implications have been.
The announcement of the £150 million scheme was welcome, but as I pointed out to the Chair of the Education Committee, it came after the dismantling of the structures put in place for school sport. The emphasis on primary schools has been welcomed, and I echo that to some degree, and will return to the subject. The funding is ring-fenced, which is another U-turn, because we have been told that ring-fencing was out of favour under this Government, and that schools should use money as they wish. How will the Government monitor the scheme? We welcome the specialist PE training of 120 primary teachers, but it is a drop in the ocean across 17,000 primary schools. There are also questions about Ofsted’s capability. Can we be sure that Ofsted personnel are properly trained and equipped to evaluate what is going on? The issue is not just the two hours, but what happens during those two hours. We want to ensure that school sport is evaluated in the right way.
When the Government announced the school games, which I welcome, it was an excuse to cover up the loss of school sport partnerships. That was an attack on people who value increasing participation. In a blog on the “ConservativeHome” website in 2011, the then Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for South West Surrey, said that the Government were
“banishing once and for all the left-wing orthodoxy that promotes ‘prizes for all’ and derides competition”.
That is a classic example of accusing one’s opponent of being in favour of something and then abolishing it. The previous Government introduced school games and certainly were not at all opposed to competitive sport. In fact, we said that where people were motivated, and wanted to excel and to participate in competitive sport, they should be able to do so. School sport partnerships were successful at increasing participation in competitive sport.
Craig Whittaker
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, but only to a point. It was clear from evidence heard by the Education Committee that where school sport partnerships worked well, they worked very well, but they did not work well in many areas. Another piece of evidence made it clear that, given the £2.5 billion cost, they were perhaps not the most effective way of spending the money.
Clive Efford
Rolling up all the money to £2.5 billion makes the programme sound very expensive. It was actually £162 million a year, and this Government have put £150 million into the primary school sports premium. I do accept, however, that school sport partnerships did not work so well in some areas, but that does not justify getting rid of the whole scheme. They were a good foundation on which we should have been building.
I must start to draw my comments to a close. In the Government’s response to the Education Committee’s point about competitive sport, I notice that they mention dance as an activity that they want to be encouraged in schools. I assume that that means that there is a difference of opinion with the Prime Minister, who was being critical when he said that the
“two hours that is laid down is often met through sort of Indian dancing classes.”
I assume that that policy is no longer being followed.
I will conclude, because I want to give the Minister a fair go at coming back at me. I think that I have been going for nearly 20 minutes, Sir Alan—the speech timer seems to have stopped.
What do we want in the future? What are we looking for? I welcome the point about core physical literacy and the investment in primary schools. Investment in specialist teaching in primary schools is not to replace PE, but in addition to it. We must not have teachers feeling that they have somehow abdicated responsibility for teaching PE because that money is going into our primary schools. It is important for PE to be part of the curriculum, and I support the Select Committee recommendation that teacher training be altered to cover that. We also want co-ordinators for PE in every primary school, as we have for maths and literacy, so that it has similar status, and so that someone takes responsibility for ensuring not only that a decent amount of PE is taught—we would restore the two-hour minimum requirement—but that it is taught at a decent standard.
On physical literacy, we need to get it right from day one, which means starting when children are at pre-school. We need to talk to carers, parents and the health service—health visitors and such people—to ensure that everyone understands that developing core physical literacy from day one is important. From an early age, if children feel inadequate, they may start to use avoidance tactics, so that they do not get into a situation in which they feel challenged, and we see that behaviour in relation to physical activity. It is therefore important that we encourage everyone to instil the idea of physical activity in the right way, and that we develop physical literacy and core physical strength in children from the earliest age.
I support the primary premium money, so that children, in particular at key stage 2, get the broadest experience of as vast a range of sports as we can achieve at that stage of their education. When they go to secondary school, they can then make informed choices about the sports and physical activities that they might want to get involved in. I agree with points made earlier: this is not only about competition. It has to be about getting people active and instilling that habit in them for a lifetime.
We need long-term planning. I have been all over the country, talking to people involved at all levels of sport, including PE teachers and co-ordinators, and they want long-term planning from Government. They also want politicians to co-operate with one another. I would welcome the opportunity to sit down and talk across Government about a long-term plan for sport and recreational activity in our schools and communities, so that we can give people the consistency and therefore the confidence to plan ahead for the sorts of sports that they are delivering in their communities. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Mr Edward Timpson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. Before I move into the body of my contribution to the debate, I take the opportunity to thank the hon. Member for Eltham (Clive Efford) for his closing remarks. I was a little worried, when he was about seven eighths of the way through his speech, that we were not going to hear his views of and visions for the future. He is hugely passionate about this subject—
Mr Timpson
The hon. Gentleman has written books about the subject and spoken at length about it, so to hear him say that he wants to find a way in which we can demonstrate a cross-party, co-ordinated response to an issue that we both have such passion for is music to my ears. I hope that this is the dawn of a new approach to what should, fundamentally, not be a political football, as the Select Committee indicated in the title of its report. I hugely welcome his closing remarks.
Some excellent points have been made in the debate by both Government and Opposition Members, in particular those on the Select Committee itself. I add my thanks to the Committee and its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), for their report, which offers an informative analysis of the provision of PE and sport in schools, as well as a good and interesting range of suggestions as to how we can make further improvements. The Government response to the report, published on 16 October, provided a clear understanding of our recognition of the wide range of benefits from sport—as the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) also identified—which can be ensured by children taking part in physical activity and sport from an early age.
I know from my own love of sport and how it has helped to widen my opportunities that we must be committed to ensuring that all children and young people have the opportunity to lead healthy, active lifestyles, to participate in sport and physical activity both in and outside school and to compete against their peers. We are clear that improving PE and sport provision in schools is a top priority—I think that I said that five times in the first eight minutes of my evidence to the Committee.
We can all agree, as the Chair of the Committee said in his excellent opening contribution, that the 2012 Olympics were an inspiration to the whole country and something of which we can be hugely proud. We must have a determined and consensual commitment, as far as we can, to secure a lasting legacy for children and young people.
Our overarching strategy covers a wide range of areas, designed to provide significant long-term benefits derived from instilling an early enthusiasm for sport and physical activity. There was agreement during the debate that we have to get in early, as with many other aspects of children’s lives. I was interested in the points made by the hon. Member for Eltham about pre-school, as well as where else in and around the school environment we could improve opportunity and participation. In due course, it will be good to hear his views on extending the school day or the role of schools in providing a wider range of opportunities before the compulsory school age, to see whether they are ways in which we could help to improve access to sport and PE.
Bill Esterson
The logic of the point that both Front Benchers have made is that parents need to be engaged. That is another piece of work, but it follows on. Perhaps the Minister will add that into his discussions with ministerial colleagues.
Mr Timpson
Absolutely. As in other areas of a child’s life—internet safety, for example—parental involvement and responsibility have to form part of the solution, so that whether children are in or out of school they get the same message. We have heard about some recent cases of over-exuberance among parents on the touchline, when perhaps they have taken that responsibility a little too far, but we want to see parents more involved in holding schools to account, as well as in helping the schools to deliver sport and PE, so that their children get the best opportunities.
That is one of the reasons why, as part of the sport premium, schools have to publish on their website how they are spending it and what impact it is having, so that parents can see for themselves, form judgments and ask questions about whether it is doing what it set out to do. In answer to another question from the hon. Member for Eltham, that would include competitive and non-competitive sport in that school—it is not only competitive sport that will be part of that transparency.
To dwell on the history is always an interesting exercise when discussing school sport. I do not wish to chastise the hon. Gentleman for wanting to return to many of those issues, but it would be healthier for our children if we concentrated on the future and on where we can find joint enterprise to build on some fantastic work being done out there, spreading it more widely and making it more sustainable. That is why the cornerstone of our approach is the focus on improving provision in primary schools. I welcome the broad support for that both in this debate and more widely. Since September 2012, I have, with officials in the Department, spent a lot of time talking to head teachers, national governing bodies, Youth Sport Trust, Sport England, the Association for Physical Education and others, so as to understand where the money could have the greatest impact. The overwhelming consensus was that we should channel our energies towards the primary level.
That is why from autumn this year primary head teachers across the country have started to receive additional funding to improve the provision of PE and sport in their schools. The money is ring-fenced. The hon. Member for Eltham said that the Government’s philosophy is to give head teachers the freedom to spend money in the way they think is best for their pupils. This additional funding fulfils that objective, but the ring-fencing makes it clear how high a priority we place on ensuring that PE and sport in schools is of the highest possible calibre.
That is backed up by the fact that PE and sports provision is and will continue to be inspected by Ofsted, which is briefing all its inspectors on how to do that. There have also been changes to the school inspection handbook. I have seen for myself some of the section 5 inspection reports, in which far more prominence is already being given to the evaluation of how the school sport premium is being spent. I saw a report for a primary school in my own constituency that has clubbed together with other schools to bring in a full-time specialist PE teacher. The teacher spends one day a week in each of the four primary schools and on the fifth day goes to those pupils who need extra catch-up so that they can get to the level we all want to see.
My hon. Friend the Member for Calder Valley (Craig Whittaker) reminded us that the head teacher of a typical primary school will receive £9,250 to spend on sport provision between now and the summer term. The hon. Member for Sefton Central astutely observed that the premium has now been extended in the autumn statement to a third year, to include 2015-16. I do not for a minute want to suggest that my hon. Friend the Chairman of the Education Committee has not had his eye on the ball: to be absolutely fair to him, he attended the previous debate in this Chamber and the extension is in paragraph 2.164 of the autumn statement, so he is forgiven for failing on this occasion to have spotted such a hugely important announcement.
That announcement is an unequivocal demonstration of the importance that we attach to the embedding of school sport and PE in children’s lives. I am happy to repeat what I told the Select Committee: I want to keep pushing the issue within Government. Although it is often one of the most difficult exercises across Government, an important aspect of the cross-Government strategy on the issue has been pulling in funding and ongoing commitment from three Departments. I chair a regular ministerial group on school sport, which includes Youth Sport Trust, Sport England, the Association for Physical Education, Ofsted and others. There continues to be a joint commitment on funding and other resources.
Mr Graham Stuart
Does the Minister think that the move of public health responsibility to local authorities might have a part to play in engendering a greater focus on youth sport and school sport in particular?
Mr Timpson
That is an excellent point. We can see that in the evolving role of health and wellbeing boards and the development of joint strategic needs assessments across each local authority, with the greater responsibilities local authorities now have for the physical as well as mental health of their local population. To build on the remarks of the hon. Member for Sefton Central on education, health and care plans and also children with special education needs and the requirement to improve access to sport for disabled children, we have a real opportunity to push those issues up the agenda at a local level, so that there is a clear objective coming from national Government across a number of Departments that is replicated at local level. The county sports partnerships will be an important conduit for providing information, data and advice as to how we can best achieve that aim.
Some concerns have been raised about some of the new providers coming into the market and schools must be able to access the information they need to spend the sport premium in the best way. I acknowledge that, and we have been at pains to set out on the Department for Education’s gov.uk website a host of best practice examples of schools that already have superb ways of embedding sport in their schools, including ones that work particularly with girls and with disabled children. I visited the Marjorie McClure specialist school in Bromley to see how the Project Ability programme that we support in about 50 special schools is making a discernible difference to the quality and outcomes of the education of young people with disabilities. The Youth Sport Trust and the Association for Physical Education have provided excellent practical guidance to primary schools so that they can learn to use the money as effectively as possible.
As the hon. Member for Eltham pointed out, we are independently evaluating the impact of the premium, and Ofsted is also doing some work on that. We are tracking 40 schools all the way through, and about another 700 will be visited and evaluated. I hope that by next summer we will have a stronger evidence base for school performance. The continued involvement of Ofsted is a key way of changing behaviour and culture on the ground. The work we are doing on initial teacher training and on bringing in high-quality specialist PE teachers—I have seen their calibre for myself—is extremely encouraging. It is only a pilot at this stage but gives us a model that we can look to spread more widely across primary schools.
I acknowledge that the issue affects not just primary but secondary schools. That is why the £1 billion youth sports strategy from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is so important. A satellite club will be set up in every secondary school, and there will be large investment in facilities. It was also announced today that DCMS is putting in an extra £18 million to improve facilities in primary schools that have a particular need to enhance their sports facilities. Those schools are predominantly in inner-city areas, but there are also other parts of the country where schools simply do not have the outdoor space they need. That programme will run from next year, and some of the facilities will be in place by next summer. That welcome move has come about from the co-ordination of efforts by Departments to establish where there are still gaps in provision across the country.
I acknowledge that there is still a lot of work to do and that everyone wants the premium to become a sustained model. That is our objective and my commitment to it remains strong: in these straitened times, this important investment must make a difference not only in the next three years but beyond that. I welcome any support that the Opposition bring to bear so that we get the best for our children.
Mr Graham Stuart
This has been a great debate and an unusual one. We have ended with the Minister stating that he wants the model of the primary sport premium to be sustained as the Government’s objective. The Opposition spokesman has offered to work with the Minister, and the Minister has said how much he would welcome that—exactly the message that people involved in sport want to hear. We all collectively look forward to seeing a long-term approach to sport in our schools that turns around our children’s lives and ensures that the next generation is healthier, rather than less healthy, than the one that went before.
Question put and agreed to.
Written Statements
Finance Bill 2014: Measures with Immediate Effect
(11 years ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
This Government are committed to delivering a tax system that is fair and promotes growth and competitiveness.
The Government are today announcing measures to help tackle tax avoidance and support investment. The legislation for these measures will have effect from today and will be included in Finance Bill 2014.
Debt cap
The Government are introducing legislation to counter the potential exploitation of the worldwide debt cap by putting beyond doubt the way the grouping rules apply to companies without share capital.
Controlled foreign companies: profit shifting
The Government are introducing legislation to switch off the full and partial exemption rules for loan relationship credits of a controlled foreign company that arise from an arrangement with a main purpose of transferring profits from existing intra-group lending out of the UK. The measure also amends the anti-avoidance rule relating to the transfer of external debt to the UK.
Partnerships review
The Government are introducing anti-forestalling rules to prevent avoidance of legislation concerning partnerships that include both individual and non-individual partners—mixed membership partnerships. The substantive legislation on mixed membership partnerships will have effect from 6 April 2014, but the anti-forestalling rules apply from 5 December 2013.
Avoidance scheme using total return swaps
The Government are introducing legislation to counter tax avoidance schemes that use derivatives to reduce a company’s liability to corporation tax, including, but not limited to, arrangements involving total return swaps.
Double taxation relief: revenue protection
The Government are introducing legislation making two changes that reinforce the UK’s double taxation relief policy that relief for foreign tax should only be given where income has been doubly taxed: once in the UK and once in the foreign territory. One change closes avoidance opportunities by strengthening the provision which ensures that tax credit in the UK is reduced if foreign tax is repaid by a tax authority to a person other than the person entitled to the credit. The second change prevents any avoidance opportunities which seek to exploit mismatches between the UK’s rules and the rules of foreign jurisdictions where a disproportionate amount of UK tax relief is claimed in respect of foreign tax in relation to non-trading loan relationships.
Further details on the measures listed above are contained in the draft legislation, explanatory notes and tax information and impact notes published on the gov.uk website.
National Insurance Contributions Bill
(11 years ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury (Mr David Gauke)
The Government are tabling an amendment to the National Insurance Contributions Bill today ahead of Report and Third Reading of the Bill on 10 December 2013.
As the Chancellor made clear during the autumn statement, for the first time employers will not be required to pay employer class 1 NICs in respect of the wages they pay to employees under the age of 21 up to the equivalent of the upper earnings limit. The Government believe that this measure will make it cheaper to employ those under the age of 21 and support almost 1.5 million young people currently in employment. It will apply both to new and existing employees that are under 21 years of age with effect from 6 April 2015.
I am placing copies of the commentary on the amendments and tax information impact note in the Libraries of both Houses. I have also deposited these documents for the amendments to the partnerships provisions in the Bill.
Telecommunications Council
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr Edward Vaizey)
The Telecommunications Council will take place in Brussels on 5 December 2013. The Deputy Permanent Representative to the EU, Shan Morgan, will represent the UK at this Council.
The first item is a progress report from the presidency on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning measures to ensure a high level of network and information security across the Union (first reading—EM6342/13). It is unlikely that any detailed discussion will take place. However, should it be required, any UK intervention will note that while UK welcomes the Commission’s overarching ambition to raise cyber capabilities across the EU, UK wants to ensure that any legislative agreement does not place disproportionate burdens on businesses or public administrations; or create the wrong incentives for sharing information.
The second item is a progress report on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on measures to reduce the costs of deploying high-speed electronic communications networks (first reading—EM7999/13). If there is a debate, the UK will state that while UK strongly supports the Commission’s overall objective to support broadband roll-out by reducing the cost of deployment, we do not think that the use of a regulation is the best way to achieve this, reaffirming our view that a directive would be a more appropriate instrument in that it would give member states more scope to implement relevant cost-reducing measures in a proportionate, flexible and cost-effective manner.
The Council will take part in an “orientation debate” guided by a paper and two questions from the presidency. The first question relates to the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down measures concerning the European single market for electronic communications and to achieve a connected continent (first reading—EM13562/13 and 13555/13 + ADDs 1-2). It asks member states to indicate what actions contained in the proposal they regard as priorities; and whether it is appropriate to carry out such actions at EU or member state level. The main points of the UK intervention will include: a view that while UK welcomes the objectives of the proposal, we remain concerned that the link between the stated aims and the constituent elements of the package remain unclear or unproven in a number of circumstances; signal, our support for action at EU level for the pro-consumer parts of that package; support for the eventual reduction of the EU roaming rates to zero; and support for proposals that could accelerate the roll-out of new technologies across the EU. Finally, we will state that we do not support the proposals laid out in the package that would give the Commission further competency over spectrum management nor those that would result in the introduction of regulation covering issues relating to net neutrality.
The second question considers the conclusions of the October European Council that covered several aspects of the digital economy—for example, cloud computing, big data and digital platforms—that are currently either unregulated or rely on “soft” regulation. In this question, the presidency asks if any regulatory framework is required in these areas and, again, whether any regulation should be at member state or EU level. The UK’s intervention will state that while UK agrees fully with the conclusions in that the digital economy has the potential to drive innovation, growth and jobs across the EU, UK does not believe that the European Council conclusions call for a new regulatory framework nor does UK consider that one is required.
There are two items under AOB, neither of which are likely to require an intervention. The first item is an update from the presidency on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on guidelines for trans-European telecommunications networks and repealing decision No. 1336/97/EC (first reading—EMI6006/11); the second item is an update from the presidency on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market (first reading—EM10977/12).
Finally, the Greek delegation will inform the Council of their priorities for their forthcoming presidency before Council adjourns until the next meeting in June 2014.
Defence Reform
(11 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr Philip Hammond)
The noble Lord Levene of Portsoken has conducted his second annual review of implementation by the Ministry of Defence of his defence reform report of June 2011, and has written to me setting out his conclusions, providing an independent view of my Department’s progress in implementing the recommendations. I am placing a copy of Lord Levene’s letter in the Library of the House, together with the MOD’s summary of progress against the 53 recommendations in his original report.
I welcome Lord Levene’s recognition of the substantial progress made since his last review in implementing both the letter and the spirit of his recommendations. His finding of clear evidence that the Ministry of Defence has become more business-like and finance-focused is very encouraging, and reflects the wide-ranging changes we have put in place under defence reform, a key part of which was the balancing the MOD budget in 2012. The elimination of the inherited imbalance in the defence budget is described as “remarkable” and an illustration of how a Government Department can be managed effectively when it has strong political leadership.
Lord Levene points out how the MOD head office has reduced in size by some 500 posts and is becoming much more strategic in its approach. The implementation of the delegated finance and capability operating model in April 2013, fulfilling one of Lord Levene’s key recommendations, has increased empowerment of the service chiefs and improved accountability. These changes, coupled with the full operating capability of the new Joint Forces Command, are highlighted by Lord Levene as successful examples of implementation of his recommendations.
With the key structural and process changes now complete, I fully acknowledge the need to maintain momentum, particularly in the area of behavioural change, as well as the continued development of the head office, improvements in management information and the implementation of the matériel strategy. We are making steady progress in the implementation of the change agenda in all of these areas.
The Ministry of Defence is committed to sustaining and building on the changes already made. I am grateful to Lord Levene for his continued support in this important work.
Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council
(11 years ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)
The Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council will meet on 9-10 December in Brussels. The Health and Consumer Affairs part of the Council will be on 10 December.
The main agenda items will be the following:
Medical devices regulations (where the presidency will report progress on negotiations and ask for an exchange of views); and
adoption of Council conclusions on reflection process on modern, responsive and sustainable health systems.
Under any other business, the presidency will provide information on the tobacco products directive, the clinical trials directive and the regulation on fees payable to the EMA for pharmacovigilance activities. The Commission will provide information on the transposition of the cross- border healthcare directive information and the joint procurement agreement on medical countermeasures. The Italian delegation will raise UK front of pack (FoP) nutrition labelling.
The Greek delegation will also give information on the priorities for their forthcoming presidency, which will run from January until July 2014.
Universal Credit
(11 years ago)
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The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Mr Iain Duncan Smith)
Today I announce our plans for the next stage of implementing universal credit.
Universal credit is a major reform which will transform the welfare state in Britain for the better. Once fully implemented, universal credit will account for £70 billion of benefit spending each year, and bring a £38 billion economic benefit to society over 10 years.
Rightly for a programme of this scale, the Government’s priority has been, and continues to be, its safe and secure delivery. This has already been demonstrated in our approach to date, which started with the successful launch of the pathfinder six months earlier than planned in April 2013, and has continued with the controlled expansion of universal credit, starting in October 2013 and running through to spring 2014.
Furthermore, we are already pushing ahead with the cultural and business change required as part of universal credit: retraining 25,000 Jobcentre Plus advisers; delivering 11 in-work progression pilots; and rolling out the new claimant commitment, which is on track to be in place in all jobcentres by March 2014.
Over recent months the Department has worked with the Government Digital Service to assess the options for the next stage of universal credit delivery. That work has explored the use of the latest digital technologies and also assessed the utility of the work we have done to date, through the universal credit pathfinder, going forward.
Today I can announce the conclusions from this work:
As part of the wider transformation in the development of digital services, the Department will further develop the work started by the Government Digital Services to test and implement an enhanced online digital service, which will be capable of delivering the full scope of universal credit and make provision for all claimant types.
Meanwhile, we will expand our current pathfinder service and develop functionality so that from next summer we progressively start to take claims for universal credit from couples and, in the autumn, from families. Once safely tested in the 10 live universal credit areas, we will also expand the roll-out to cover more of the north-west of England. This will enable us to learn from the live running of universal credit at scale and for more claimant types, including the more vulnerable and complex.
These steps continue our progressive approach—test, learn, implement—as we deliver this flagship programme.
Our current planning assumption is that the universal credit service will be fully available in each part of Great Britain during 2016, having closed down new claims to the legacy benefits it replaced; with the majority of the remaining legacy case load moving to universal credit during 2016 and 2017. Final decisions on these elements of the programme will be informed by the development of the enhanced digital solution.
Grand Committee
Ivory Trade
(11 years ago)
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Lord Faulks
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the worldwide trade of ivory and its impact on the elephant and rhinoceros populations in Africa.
Lord Faulks (Con)
My Lords, a few years ago the subject of this debate might have been regarded as rather marginal in terms of importance; that is no longer the case. In introducing this debate I should declare an interest as a friend of the Whitley Fund for Nature, a charity concerned with conservation worldwide.
Illegal trade in wildlife has grown to become a massive global industry. It is said to be worth at least $90 billion per year and is ranked as the fourth largest global illegal activity after narcotics, counterfeiting and human trafficking, and ahead of oil, art, gold, human organs, small arms and diamonds. Illegal ivory trade activity worldwide has more than doubled since 2007, and is now more than three times larger than it was in 1998—its highest level in two decades—with ivory fetching up to $1,000 a pound, or $2,205 a kilogram, on the streets of Beijing.
The worst year on record for elephant ivory seizures was 2011, when almost 40 tonnes of smuggled ivory was seized. In the past decade, 11,000 forest elephants have been killed in one park alone—Gabon’s Minkebe National Park—with a total population of forest elephants down 62% in the past 10 years. The kill rate of elephants now exceeds the birth rate—a trend that, if not reversed, could lead to the extinction of the African elephant in some areas in the next few years.
In 2012, a record 668 rhinos were poached in South Africa—up by almost 50% from 2011 figures. In 2013, the toll continued to rise, with 201 rhinos killed in Kruger National Park alone. A subspecies of the black rhino was declared extinct in the wild in west Africa in 2011.
According to Interpol, the US Department of State, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and others, the same routes used to smuggle wildlife across countries and continents are often used to smuggle weapons, drugs and people, with the same culprits frequently involved. Indeed, wildlife crime often occurs hand in hand with other offences such as fraud, corruption, money laundering, theft and murder. At a global level, illegal wildlife trade undermines sustainable development through its effects on security and the rule of law. I could go on. The scale of the problem is difficult to exaggerate.
Who are the killers, and who is paying them? These are questions to which the answer is complex. War lords or militant groups committed to achieving ideological or political goals by armed insurrection are connected to large-scale poaching. Experts believe that ivory, like the blood diamonds of other African conflicts, is funding many rebel groups and militias in Africa. Poachers have direct access to military weapons and arms markets linked to organised criminal and terrorist groups. Elephant poachers in many parts of Africa use weapons that can be acquired only from military sources. These weapons have range, accuracy and fire power which enables poaching gangs to kill not only a large number of animals but also the rangers tasked with protecting them.
The illegal trafficking of wildlife appears to be one of the ways in which a number of al-Qaeda affiliates and other militants have chosen to raise money to fund their operations. Recent escapees from the Lord’s Resistance Army have reported witnessing rebels shoot elephants and remove their tusks at Joseph Kony’s behest. Somalia, controlled for the most part by al-Shabaab, a militant Islamist group that pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda, is thought to be training fighters to infiltrate neighbouring Kenya and kill elephants for ivory to raise money. Al-Shabaab was, of course, responsible for the shopping centre massacre in Nairobi in September.
As well as the threatened destruction of the elephant and rhino population, there is the human toll. It is thought by the International Fund for Animal Welfare—IFAW—which I gratefully acknowledge as a source for much of the material in my remarks—that the number of rangers killed in 35 different countries during the past decade is probably between 3,000 and 5,000.
Who are the consumers? For the most part, they are in China. I very much hope that at some stage during the current mission to China someone in the Prime Minister’s very large delegation has found time to draw attention to this really important issue. While more than half of the large shipments of illegal ivory are destined for China, the United States is also a prime market for ivory and ivory carvings. The European Union is widely considered to be the third largest destination for illegal wildlife. It accounts for a third of all ivory seizures worldwide.
What are the solutions? A widespread and many-faceted response is required. This includes tackling terrorists; training and supporting rangers; and providing quasi- military support for the rangers in particularly hard-hit areas. From this year, DNA testing is mandatory for large-scale ivory seizures. Other new technologies are being developed, including alarm systems, as well as an intelligence-led approach. This all requires an integrated enforcement strategy involving all relevant agencies and the sharing of information across boundaries.
More important than any efforts to combat poaching on the ground is probably the reduction in consumer demand. IFAW has utilised mass-media channels to educate the general public in consumer nations about the effect of the wildlife trade on the welfare of animals, including advertising campaigns used in China which specifically target sectors of the community most likely to buy products. The American organisation WildAid is already campaigning hard in China. It has recruited Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, David Beckham and assorted Chinese stars and business leaders using an advertisement on television, trains, planes, taxis and mobile telephones to drive home the message.
I am delighted that there is to be a government-sponsored summit in London in February next year, at which Heads of Government and Foreign Ministers of 50 countries will be urged to fight back against those destroying Africa’s natural heritage to feed the avarice of Asia. Both Prince William and Prince Charles have been raising awareness worldwide. Recently in the Times, which has consistently given wide exposure to this issue, a report said that China had yet to commit to sending a senior Minister to the conference in Whitehall. I very much hope that proves to be wrong.
WildAid has made a powerful and widely distributed video with Yao Ming and Prince William. It is absolutely right to say that there is a risk that targeting only poachers could simply drive up the price of ivory and rhino horn and escalate the conflict, whereas reducing demand in the Far East is likely to be a far more effective long-term strategy.
I do not doubt the Government's determination to make a real contribution to stamping out this dreadful trade. What else can be done? The National Wildlife Crime Unit is at the moment funded year on year, which inevitably makes long-term planning and staff retention difficult. I suggest that the Government should guarantee the long-term funding of this unit, as recommended by the Commons Environmental Audit Committee.
The combating of trade in illegal ivory on the internet should be a high priority. The Government should commit to tackling online wildlife crime through improved monitoring of internet forums and platforms by enforcement agencies, by building partnerships and by establishing best-practice models with internet companies.
The penalties for wildlife crime are, even in this country, much too light. The Government should, both domestically and worldwide, help to elevate wildlife crime to a proper level of seriousness. It is a form of international crime that poses threats to global security and development. To do this will involve strengthening policies and legal frameworks at local, national and international levels.
It should be a matter of fundamental education that every piece of ivory represents a dead elephant or rhinoceros—something, it appears, that the consumer can all too often forget. This is not a problem that can be solved at leisure. It is one of increasing urgency. The destruction of the elephant and rhino population to gratify Chinese middle-class aspirations or fanciful notions of medical benefit is an obscenity. If the world does not act effectively, we will soon lose an irreplaceable asset and further degrade the legacy we, as human beings, leave behind.
Lord Jones of Cheltenham (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on securing this timely debate. It is timely because the Independent newspaper group, along with the Evening Standard, have launched a campaign on the subject, and made Space for Giants their Christmas appeal. It is also timely because last week the International Fund for Animal Welfare, IFAW, launched its briefing, Criminal Nature, to which my noble friend has already referred. It is timely, too, because this week an international conference has been held in Botswana on the subject.
Ivory—its acquisition, transportation and sale—is a complex, brutal and horrifying process. My noble friend has tried to answer the question of how the world can protect rhinos and elephants from the ivory trade. There are only two ways: stop poaching or eliminate the market. Elephants, rhinos and many other species need protection. Elephants are invariably killed for their ivory, and, as I do not believe any are on licence right now, they are invariably poached. This is a situation of which the locals may or may not approve, but it is hard to show disapproval of a gang of poachers with AK47s at the ready.
So how do you crack down and eliminate the poachers? First, you have to put up a tangible reward for information on poachers and their whereabouts. Incentives need to be scaled and relevant to those on the receiving end. If you seek information on poachers, sooner or later you will get some. Then there has to be an immediate and appropriate reaction, otherwise the information flow will become tainted or tail off due to lack of interest. This means that park rangers, game wardens and other law enforcement agencies need to be trained and equipped for the task. This costs money and a long-term commitment, although the finances are marginal in global terms—you could save all the elephants in Africa for a small portion of the feed-in tariffs generously paid to the renewables industry.
Secondly, penalties for those guilty of poaching must be severe. Some recent small fines are frankly laughable. Two Irish smugglers who were found with eight rhino horns were find €500 each, whereas the street value is €500,000. It is good to see that Zimbabwe has introduced heavy fines for poaching—$120,000 for a rhino, $20,000 for an elephant—and if you do not or cannot pay you go to a Zimbabwean jail.
I am not in favour of the death penalty. However, poachers do not think twice about killing wildlife rangers if they get in the way, so it is likely that you are going to have to kill a few poachers before the message sinks in that poachers are effectively on licence all day, every day, of every year, from now on. This worked for a while in Kenya, but poaching has been overtaken by terrorism on the security agencies' priority list, although—as we have heard—in Kenya, as in Tanzania, the two crimes are probably closely linked.
The Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism in Botswana, the honourable Tshekedi Khama, received flak recently when he said:
“When we meet the poachers, we do not negotiate”.
It follows, therefore, that declaring war on terrorists and terrorism by removing sources of income extends to eliminating the poachers, and this could most usefully be tasked and funded from anti-terrorism budgets. The conference held in Gaborone in Botswana this week has agreed more tough measures to cut wildlife smuggling. It is to be classified as a serious crime, and gangs risk having their assets seized.
In some countries poachers with machine guns use helicopters in their murky exploits. They shoot elephants and rhinos from the air, land, take the ivory or horns and take off again. This is not random poaching: this is organised crime, highly financed. There is now hard evidence that these helicopter missions, in particular, are linked to terrorism, drug money-laundering and arms smuggling. They kill for ivory to fund terrorist activity or gun-running or drug activity elsewhere in the world.
I favour the bazooka option for the helicopter raids. It only needs a few of these aircraft to be blasted out of the sky to ram home the message that the poachers are not going to win. Next year the United Kingdom will withdraw its Armed Forces from Afghanistan. Perhaps we could offer to help train wildlife rangers to combat poaching. I know two members of our Armed Forces who would jump at the chance to help.
Finally, the market needs reform, preferably by elimination. A recent poll showed that seven out of 10 Chinese did not know that ivory comes from dead elephants. They seemed to think that it was some kind of mined mineral. Education is the key, not the elephants-are-lovely “Blue Peter” stuff but more along the lines of, “You are ridiculous idiots who need to get a life”. Now, as a realist, I suspect that the Prime Minister is unlikely to have had that sort of discussion on his visit to China this week, but it is encouraging that, according to this month’s National Geographic magazine, the Philippines has become the first non-African country to destroy its ivory stock. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary, Ramon JP Paje, said:
“The Philippines will not be a party to this massacre, and we refuse to be a conduit to this cycle of killing”.
Education is also needed as to the efficacy, or otherwise, of ingesting the powdered teeth or horn of elephants, rhinos and the like. Frankly, those who indulge in this practice need to be told that they would get as much benefit from consuming their own toenails, and they are free of charge. China and its inhabitants are both changing at a rapid pace, arguably for the better. As a state, it is buying up much of Africa and therefore should have a cultural interest in preserving what might, one day, become its playground. Education, in the final analysis, is the only solution to the demands of the market. Remove the market, and you stop poaching.
It is not all bad news; there is hope out there. Elephant and rhino populations have plummeted in recent decades, but they still exist. They have not yet become extinct and gone the way of the dodo and numerous other species. In some countries, populations are growing. A shining example is Botswana, and I draw attention to my declared interest in that country. At the end of 2012, Botswana’s elephant population was 207,545, which is more than one-third of all African elephants. The number has almost quadrupled in 20 years and is currently growing at 5% each year. This time next year, there will be more than 10,000 extra elephants in Botswana. The reason is not hard to find. Botswana’s rulers pay attention to and love their wildlife. The country’s first president, Sir Seretse Khama, and successive presidents since, knew and know the value of wildlife, not for its ivory and skins, but to attract visitors from around the world to see these magnificent creatures. Botswana has banned so-called trophy hunting. I recommend that noble Lords visit Botswana to see for themselves the most incredible wildlife on our planet in its natural habitat. If noble Lords wish to have elephants on their estates, I understand that the Government of Botswana will let you have as many as you like free of charge. You just need to arrange the transport.
I shall end with this personal experience. A few years ago I was on a boat on the River Chobe near Kasane in northern Botswana. In the distance I could see a large dark object in the river—it was a very large elephant. As we got closer I asked the guide why the elephant was there. “Oh, she’s dying”, he said. “She’s in the water to keep cool”. He added, “She’s the matriarch”. All around there were hundreds and hundreds, maybe thousands, of elephants of all shapes and sizes. A few weeks later I went back and asked what had happened to the elephant. I was told that she died. The wildlife wardens had dragged her onto the river bank and removed the tusks. That is what they do in Botswana with dead elephants; the Government take control of the ivory. Then, for hour upon hour, elephants had filed past her in an orderly fashion, touching her body with their trunks. They were her family paying their last respects. Elephants are amazingly intelligent creatures with feelings just like humans. In my view they are far more intelligent than poachers, the organisers of poaching, those involved in the ivory trade and the end consumers. Bad humans have caused the current crisis. It is now up to good humans to ensure that the species survive by eradicating once and for all the trade in ivory which has led to the horrible and indefensible crime of poaching.
Lord St John of Bletso (CB)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, for introducing this topical and very important short debate. I declare an interest in that for more than 20 years I have been a trustee of Tusk, one of the largest wildlife conservation charities in Africa, which funds not only wildlife conservation but community development and wildlife education, which is very important. I have also worked closely with Space for Giants, to which the noble Lord, Lord Jones, referred, which has done remarkable work in conservation, particularly in Kenya, and is working with the Evening Standard and the Independent on a public awareness campaign.
It is very alarming that, according to reports published recently, particularly in 2011, 12% of Africa’s elephants were illegally killed and as many as 20% of central Africa’s elephant population was poached in just that one year. With South Africa being home to almost 80% of Africa’s rhinos and just over 70% of the global population of rhinos, the poaching of this endangered animal has been rampant. In fact, statistics show that almost two rhinos are being poached every day in South Africa.
As the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, mentioned, most of the seizures of illegal ivory and rhino horn have been destined for the Far East, predominantly China and Vietnam, although one should not forget that they have also been going to America and to other parts of the European Union. The illegal cargo, particularly from Africa, has been shipped from ports such as Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Mozambique, hidden in shipping containers full of foodstuffs. There have been recent reports that the ivory and rhino horn have been smuggled out of Africa on planes in suitcases by many Chinese who are working on the continent. As the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, mentioned, the trade in tusks, horns and other animal parts is one of the world’s biggest criminal enterprises, after arms, drugs, counterfeiting and human trafficking. The trade has helped murderous organisations such as Somalia's al-Shabaab, Darfur's Janjaweed militia and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda. As has already been mentioned, the demand for ivory in China has resulted in prices going up by more than 50% in the past year, and one ounce of rhino horn is worth more than an ounce of gold. The Elephant Action League calls ivory,
“the white gold of jihad”.
However, there have been some success stories. I am pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Jones, mentioned the herd populations in Botswana which are growing at a very encouraging rate. There has also been a lot of success in Kenya, particularly in Laikipia, where poaching has fallen by more than 65% in the past year. Unfortunately, in the DRC, where governance is at its weakest, the elephant population has been hit the hardest by continued rampant poaching. Tanzania has also been particularly badly affected by poachers and, sadly, many elephants have been poisoned, shot down by AK47s and even killed with rocket-propelled grenades by renegade soldiers in helicopters. It is just senseless. At the current rate of poaching, many wildlife experts forecast that, in several parts of Africa, the elephant herds will be totally wiped out.
These statistics, both in the supply and demand of ivory and rhino horn, are alarming, but there are a few glimmers of hope. The noble Lord, Lord Jones, referred to the recent summit in Botswana, where Africa’s elephant rangers and conservationists met to participate in a summit to work out and agree emergency measures—and there have been some encouraging measures from that summit, particularly in the protection of elephants. They plan to promote action by range states to enhance security and tackle wildlife crime. It is also encouraging that there will be another summit here in London next year.
Kenya has one of the largest populations of elephants in Africa. In the most encouraging move since 1977, the Kenyan Government have recently introduced the Wildlife Conservation and Management Bill, which will become law next year. They are also, at long last, giving a lot more support to front-line anti-poaching teams. In South Africa, conservationists have experimented with poisoning the horns of rhinos, which causes no harm to the rhino, but which would render the rhino horn worthless. Over 1,000 rhinos in South Africa have been treated in this manner. It is hoped that, when consumers of rhino horn realise that they could potentially be poisonous, this will drive down demand for rhino horn. It is well known that almost all poaching, particularly of rhino, takes place with inside knowledge of so-called gamekeepers, as well as security guards.
In conclusion, there are a number of measures that need to be taken to address this major problem. There needs to be greater investment in more rangers and community policing initiatives to counter poachers, as well as improved law enforcement across all range states and consumer nations. It is well known that the crime syndicates have been bribing police and magistrates in several African countries to prevent prosecution, as well as corrupting border guards, customs officers, port officials, shipping companies and, sadly, even government Ministers.
I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Jones, that there ought to be far greater penalties against those found guilty of poaching and dealing illegally in ivory and rhino horn. To date, the penalties have been derisory. Furthermore, cross-border investigations and prosecutions have been virtually non-existent in Africa. I would also like to see more government-backed demand reduction programmes, particularly in China, Vietnam and other consumer countries in the Far East.
What is apparent is that there is huge ignorance among consumers. There have been strong calls for China to shut down official factories and shops dealing in ivory and rhino horn. Unfortunately, the release and sale of the African stockpile of ivory in 2008 gave the impression to many consumers that buying ivory was acceptable, which enabled traders to launder illegal ivory through the very short time when there was a legal market.
In conclusion, I am encouraged that at long last there are the first signs of global awareness of the illegal ivory and rhino horn trade, as well as the lion trade. Up to 30% of all the lions in South Africa are kept in captivity. It is not just about the impact on the trade; it is also about the sustainability of tourism. It is vitally important that this subject is not ignored and is put higher on the international political agenda. It is through debates such as this one, backed by the power of social media, that we will, I hope, substantially reduce this disastrous situation.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, for securing this debate and for the way in which he introduced it. Certainly his points about the relationship to other crime, which were reinforced by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord St John, were very well made and I do not need to add to them. As the noble Lord, Lord Jones, said, this is a very timely debate, not just because of the work that the Independent has launched this week but also because of the meetings in Botswana and Paris this week—which is perhaps why the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, is not with us. I pay tribute to the work that he is doing on this issue. Of course, there is also the relationship with poverty. It is striking that the world’s most magnificent and, tragically, valuable animals are surrounded by the world’s poorest people and by some of the worst conflict in the world. That makes it particularly difficult to tackle this issue.
We have heard about the plight of elephants and rhinos. The Independent report suggests that as many as 52,000 elephants a year might now be lost due to poaching and that the population is 15% of what it was 20 years ago. I see from the National Wildlife Crime Unit that 234 items of ivory were seized in the UK last year alone. I also note from Defra’s strategic assessment of the National Wildlife Crime Unit from February 2011 that 12 rhinos a month were being lost in South Africa and Zimbabwe in 2011 due to this trade.
I was fortunate enough to see forest elephants in their natural environment in 2005 in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and I met with the rangers there. I was the first western visitor to the park for 10 years. I believe that every one of the rangers I met has subsequently died as a result of the activity of the Lord’s Resistance Army and from other conflict in that area. I went on from Virunga to Bukavu, principally to see how Darwin money from the UK Government was being spent to protect gorillas in the forests of the DRC. The rangers there made it clear to me that the forest elephants in that part of the world are hugely important to the eco-system because they effectively create the pathways through which the rest of the wildlife is able to move. The tragic fate of the forest elephants, which was highlighted by the noble Lord, Lord St John, is having a serious impact on the rest of the eco-system. This is something that we should value beyond just the charismatic value of these extraordinary animals.
The noble Lord, Lord Jones, explained the choices well. Do you stop the poaching and/or can you stop the market? Both clearly are really hard. We have seen from Tanzania the efforts being made by the president there in launching Operation Tokomeza, with its orders to shoot to kill elephant poachers. Clearly he is doing what he can and that reflects the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Jones, about being able to stop poaching. However, when this activity is sitting alongside such intense and difficult conflict and such intense poverty, stopping poaching is extremely difficult, certainly in those countries with porous borders. It is difficult to be optimistic.
In terms of stopping demand, I would be interested to know whether the Prime Minister in his visit to China was able, in among all the many important discussions he would have had there, to raise this issue with the Chinese. Clearly, that is a critical part of the market. Indeed, the irony when I was in the DRC all those years ago was that the Chinese were the people building the roads through the forest for the people and the elephants were making the roads for the animals. The demand from the Chinese appears to be removing that capacity.
I certainly congratulate the Government on the London conference, and Prince William and the Prince of Wales on their leadership on this issue. The noble Lord, Lord St John, mentioned the decision made in 2008 by the previous Government, of whom I was a member. That decision was debatable at best. It was made with good intentions in wanting to depress the price to reduce incentives to poachers and create revenue with the one-off sale for monitoring and enforcement against poachers. But I wonder whether the Government have learnt any lessons from that decision to allow one-off trade. Personally I regret the decision and it would be good now to see an unequivocal international ban on all forms of ivory trade, although I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say on that.
Beyond the work that is being done internationally, where the Government have a pretty good record in terms of international wildlife conservation, there are also measures that need to be taken internally to make sure that we have our own house in order as we try to assert our authority internationally. I remember seeing the Met’s Wildlife Crime Unit’s efforts at Heathrow and seeing the extraordinary range of different things from the wildlife trade that are seized there on a daily basis. I have already said how much ivory is seized by that unit.
What progress is being made in terms of updating COTES, which implements CITES in this country? I pay tribute to the World Society for the Protection of Animals for its contribution of £100,000 per year to the work of the National Wildlife Crime Unit. I understand that the Government contributed £136,000 for 2013-14, but there is no commitment to fund the unit beyond that. Can the Minister update us on whether the Government will commit funds beyond that, at least at the current level, particularly now that we have the Autumn Statement? Perhaps there is some news buried away in the lengthy documentation that not all of us have had a chance to absorb from today's announcement. Many of us in this debate would like to see funding extended beyond the current level, because there is some evidence that London is the centre for some of this trade. We need to ensure that we play our part in forcing through Home Office funding for that unit as well as the one in the Met.
I pay tribute to all those who have spoken in this brief but high-quality debate. I reinforce my congratulations to the Minister on the work that he is doing on the cause this week and my appreciation of the leadership particularly of Prince William in asserting the UK's role through the conference that we will have shortly. I look forward to the noble Baroness’s answers on funding for the units and what we are doing to make sure that we have as good a record as possible here in the UK to reinforce those international efforts.
Baroness Northover (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, for raising this important issue and all those who have taken part in this debate with such passion and knowledge. My noble friend is quite right: this is not a marginal issue, it is extremely important. It is a challenge that has increased with great severity and rapidity, as noble Lords have indicated. I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, for his long-standing work with Tusk.
There can be no doubt that elephant and rhinoceros populations are facing a considerable threat from poaching, which has been sweeping much of the African continent. Elephants are being lost at the rate of tens of thousands a year, and at the current rate of increase in poaching, rhino numbers could fall into decline as early as 2015. If left unchecked, as noble Lords have said, some country populations will undoubtedly disappear and the very existence of these species could be threatened. That cannot be allowed to happen. I want to make it clear that the Government take the issue of the illegal trade in wildlife very seriously. In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, I confirm our commitment to the ban on the trade of ivory. As I heard the winds threaten to blow the roof off this Room, it sounded as if the gods agree with us.
Traditionally wildlife poaching has been considered an environmental problem—a threat to the conservation of the species but no more. It is increasingly recognised as a problem affecting other sectors as well. Noble Lords made that case strongly. The illegal trade in wildlife is a multibillion pound industry, and as my noble friend Lord Faulks made clear, there is evidence of involvement by organised criminality and, in some cases, heavily armed militias and those linked to extremist activity. As my noble friend Lord Faulks and others have said, this illegal activity undermines the rule of law, can destabilise fragile Governments and impede development goals. My noble friend Lord Faulks made very clear the interlinking between this trade and crime, and the impact on the most fragile of states. The noble Lord, Lord St John, reinforced this very cogent case. To describe ivory as he did, as the “white gold of jihad” aptly recognises its significance.
The UK has for many years taken an active role in the conservation of species internationally, most usually through our engagement with multilateral environmental agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. We have supplemented this work with specific engagement on projects involving many of the iconic species that have been mentioned here—tigers, elephants and rhino—and one species that is very popular among the British public but that has not been mentioned here—apes. Support is not always financial; it is also practical. My noble friend Lord Faulks will be pleased to hear that last month, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defra announced that British paratroopers in Kenya would provide patrol and field training for Kenyan conservation rangers to help in their fight against poaching. My noble friend Lord Faulks pointed out not only the risk to the animals, but also to the rangers themselves. This was again echoed by other noble Lords.
In March, UK officials played a major role in achieving strong outcomes to provide greater protection for elephants and rhinos at the CITES conference of parties in Bangkok. This included a requirement for the eight states most implicated in the illegal ivory trade to produce and implement time-limited action plans. Implementation will be assessed next July and we will not hesitate to call for punitive measures where necessary.
Clearly, however, much more needs to be done. As my noble friend Lord Jones and others have mentioned, a summit on the plight of the African elephants, hosted by the Government of Botswana, has just finished. We helped fund this meeting and it was attended by my noble friend Lord De Mauley, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Defra. He would otherwise have been at this debate. I will pass back to him the very generous tribute paid to him on his work by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. We welcome the outcome of that meeting with its 14 emergency measures.
However, clearly no country can solve this problem alone. That is why my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary announced at the UN General Assembly that the UK will host an international conference in London on 13 February 2014 to galvanise international action. That is a meeting to which a number of noble Lords have referred. We are working very closely across government with a wide range of foreign Governments, multilateral organisations, the Royal Household and NGOs to prepare for this conference. It will seek to address three key areas which must all be addressed if we are to be successful. They are the areas that noble Lords referred to in their speeches.
The first area is improving law enforcement and the role of the criminal justice system throughout the chain of illegal trafficking. This includes the countries in which the animals are poached, the countries through which they transit and the countries in which they end up. The second is reducing demand for the wildlife products that drive this trafficking through public awareness and behaviour-change campaigns. This area was strongly highlighted by noble Lords. The third is supporting the development of sustainable livelihoods for communities affected by the illegal wildlife trade in order to reduce the incentive to become involved in poaching, as well as working actively within the community against poachers.
The highest levels of government, up to and including heads of state, have been invited to the conference, and key source, transit and destination countries will be present. The conference will focus on elephant, rhino and tiger but the outputs will benefit a much wider spectrum of species. The noble Lord, Lord St John, mentioned lions and the sustainability of tourism. The longer-term economic, as well as environmental, effect of this trade is clearly key. The conference will build on the valuable work already undertaken at international, regional and national levels, giving renewed impetus to existing initiatives and identifying new opportunities for action.
We recognise, as emphasised by noble Lords, that China is the biggest consumer of ivory. As noble Lords mentioned, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has been in China—in fact, he has been there twice in recent weeks. I assure my noble friend Lord Faulks and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that he was indeed planning to raise this issue during his latest visit, and I look forward, as no doubt they do, to hearing what progress has been made. The Prime Minister has invited China to the London conference and there are good indications that delegates from that country will attend.
My noble friends Lord Faulks and Lord Jones expressed concern about the level of penalties for those involved in this crime. I point out that those convicted of such crimes can be sentenced for up to seven years. I heard what my noble friend Lord Jones said about the “bazooka” option, and perhaps I should use the phrase of my noble friend Lord Dobbs—“I couldn’t possibly comment”. Clearly, the United Kingdom takes this issue very seriously. We follow an intelligence-led approach, escalating it as appropriate, and a number of agencies, including the Home Office and the Border Force, all work together in this area. I think that noble Lords will also be aware of the greater involvement of DfID in the strengthening of policing in relevant areas, including trying to tackle corruption, which undermines fragile states.
I was asked specifically about the ongoing funding of the National Wildlife Crime Unit. I thank the unit on behalf of those behind me and others behind them, and I join in the tributes that noble Lords have paid to it. I remind noble Lords that our commitment to this area is borne out by the commitment made on 23 January, when Defra and the Home Office confirmed that each would provide funding of £136,000 for 2013-14. We are currently discussing future funding across government because we recognise the importance of what noble Lords have been saying. Of course, the National Wildlife Crime Unit is involved in looking at illegal trade taking place on the internet, and this is a new challenge. There is legal trade and less legal trade, and there is totally illegal trade. This is an area that is likely to develop very rapidly and prove very challenging in the future, but we are well aware of that.
We are working internationally with many different organisations. The noble Lord, Lord St John, mentioned the EU. It, too, is taking the threat to this trade very seriously. The EU has put in place wildlife trade regulations, which implement the provisions of CITES and the majority of the CITES resolutions, but they go beyond the convention in many areas. For example, the EU and China signed a landmark agreement to join forces to try to combat the illegal trade in wildlife products. Given China’s interest in relations with the EU, that is a very encouraging development.
We treat the issue of illegal wildlife trade very seriously. We are working together with many countries and organisations to tackle it, which is why we have called the London summit. The Committee is right to emphasise this issue. It has far-reaching consequences in terms of the social, environmental and economic instability that the trade promotes. We recognise that and I can assure the Committee of our determination in this area. I am sure that noble Lords will continue to hold our feet to the fire on this issue.
Assisted Dying: Legislation
The Earl of Glasgow
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to legislate to provide terminally ill patients with the legal right to decide when, where and how they should die, if necessary with the assistance of others.
The Earl of Glasgow (LD)
My Lords, I thank very much all noble Lords who have decided to take part in this debate, although I know that they have been given only one minute in which to speak. Many noble Lords may be very opposed to what I am going to say but I thank them anyway for taking part.
I have long believed that we should all have some choice in the manner of our deaths. There is no point in fearing death itself, because there is nothing that we can do about it, but we do have reason to fear the manner of our death, particularly our physical state in the closing days of our lives. Assuming that we are terminally ill but still in our right minds, probably suffering from physical or psychological pain, why should so many people object to us having the right to decide how we die?
The problem is, of course, that if you wish to die painlessly, peacefully and with dignity, you are almost certainly going to need assistance from others, particularly a doctor or medical practitioner. It is not easy to kill yourself cleanly on your own when you are old and infirm but, as the law stands today, anyone assisting you to die is committing a criminal offence and risks anything up to 14 years’ imprisonment.
However, in a significant minority of cases, assisting someone to die is necessary, sensible and humane. Therefore, I, and millions like me, want the law changed so that terminally ill patients who are in their right mind can choose how, when and where they die. In most cases, I suspect that it will be in their own home with their family and loved ones around them. They certainly would not choose to travel to an impersonal clinic in Switzerland to die prematurely and at considerable expense to their family, yet that is what our present law is forcing about one British citizen a week to do.
Of course, if the law is to be changed, there must be safeguards. We cannot allow a cruel or selfish family to pressurise their troublesome old granny into taking her own life. We cannot even allow granny to be put in a position in which she feels she has become such a burden on the family she loves that she believes she has a “duty to die”. Of course there must be very robust and foolproof safeguards, and that is exactly what is to be found in the Bill of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, on assisted dying, which will be coming to this House some time early next year.
Yet, in spite of all the assurances on safeguards, we know that there is still going to be strong opposition to that Bill—not, I am pleased to say, as strong as it was when the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, introduced a similar Bill to this House some seven years ago, but it will still be formidable. To me, the legalisation of assisted dying in specific and clearly identifiable circumstances seems so sensible and humane that I am finding it more and more difficult to understand why some groups and individuals are so adamantly opposed to it.
I am glad to say that many in the medical profession who were once so opposed are now coming round. Professor Raymond Tallis, chair of Healthcare Professionals for Assisted Dying, says:
“For a small but significant group of terminally ill patients, the dying process results in suffering which cannot be alleviated by even the very best palliative care. We believe that the present law, which does not give patients the option to control the timing of their death, is cruel”.
Even some of our religious leaders are beginning to see the light. For instance, Rabbi Jonathan Romain says:
“Despite once being opposed to a change in the law, I support this Bill. As a rabbi, my pastoral experience convinces me that we should enable dying patients who consider their suffering unbearable to control the time and place of their death”.
I feel that, initially anyway, many people never really understood what those of us who support assisted dying are really all about. They do not understand our purpose and the strict limitations of what we are proposing. The measure applies only to adults who are certified as being in their right minds and not suffering from medical depressions or any other mental illness which might affect their ability to decide. It applies only to patients who have been diagnosed as being terminally ill and certain to die within six months. It applies only to people who have consistently declared a wish to die before their natural end. The will to live, and to continue living, is very strong in most of us, so we are talking about only a small minority of people. However, they are a significant minority whose plight cannot be ignored any longer.
I do not think that our case has been helped by linking us—sometimes done deliberately by opponents—with words such as “voluntary euthanasia”. “Euthanasia” implies putting other people to death—presumably, not oneself—for compassionate reasons. This issue has nothing to do with euthanasia. It is sometimes referred to as “assisted suicide”. “Assisted suicide”? I would not vote for anything called “assisted suicide”, and I am sure that most noble Lords would not.
I do not much like the term “assisted death”, as our cause is presently labelled. It implies that the assisters are taking part willingly in something that will almost certainly be very traumatic and painful for them too. Even the word “assisted” implies that you are party to some criminal act, which, as the law now stands, is exactly what you would be guilty of.
Therefore, we must redefine what this debate is about. “Assisted” anything is only a necessary and vital adjunct to the real issue. It is really about choice: personal, individual choice. “Choice at the end of life” is my preference—omitting even the emotive word “death”. The law must allow terminally ill patients in their right mind to choose how, when and where they wish to die. If they wish to continue to live right up to their last natural breath, that is their choice. If they wish to avail themselves of palliative care, that is their choice. If they believe that their god wants them to suffer to the bitter end, that, too, is their choice. However, if they prefer to die when they feel ready, and wish to avoid the inevitable suffering and indignity which are likely to face them in their final months, then the law must make this possible too.
The forthcoming Bill tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, is all about choice, freely taken. It has nothing to do with euthanasia and is in no way linked to the problems of those many elderly people who are no longer capable of making decisions for themselves. I am saddened that so many disabled people feel threatened by this Bill. It is intended to give each of them a crucial say in their own destiny—they themselves, not the doctors or their relatives. Surely it should be a comfort to them, not a cause for alarm.
When the Bill tabled by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, comes before this House next year, I hope that, by then, the Government will have come off the fence on this issue, and will be prepared to support it. Are the Government not ashamed that so many British citizens feel compelled to travel to Switzerland because their own country refuses them a dignified death? I like to think that they do feel a little shame because they turn a blind eye to a public prosecutor who is not prepared to prosecute those family members assisting their ill relations to get to Dignitas, and thus blatantly flouting the law. The law badly needs to be changed to allow choice at the end of life and immunity to those who assist in this regard. It is surely time that the Government faced up to this very important issue.
Baroness Hollins (CB)
My Lords, is it not extraordinary that when we discuss death in this Chamber, it is to propose something as dramatic as state-supported suicide, while at home we are bombarded with emotive leaflets portraying death as the final assault on our dignity?
I am comfortable talking about death and decision-making at the end of life, but the subject arouses very strong emotions; fear seems to predominate. Death needs to be talked about and planned for. Death education at school and end of life preparation classes would be as useful as parenting preparation and retirement classes. How many of us, so determined to retain autonomy and agency at the end of life, have actually made lasting powers of attorney and advance directives? These are powerful legal safeguards, if and when we are no longer able to make and communicate decisions for ourselves. However, they are still infrequently used. What need is there for more legislation when the robust legislation we already have is not being used?
The Lord Bishop of Derby
My Lords, two quotations. John Donne:
“No man is an island”.
and the Book of Job:
“The Lord gives and the Lord takes away”.
Life is a gift. None of us decided to be born; we came from a relationship between two people, from a culture, from a context, from a spiritual hinterland, and any life is part of that flow. As it flows on, it seeks for more and more. Modern economics, and the market, encourage us to see ourselves as autonomous individuals. The noble Earl just talked about making an individual choice. None of us is an individual in that sense: we are part of a web of relationships, and that web holds us in suffering as well as in the imminence of death. T. S. Eliot said, “In our endings are our beginnings”.
I think we need to approach death by affirming life, being willing to face suffering and having a communal aspect with those around us. As Jesus said on the cross—his final decision, surrounded by others:
“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”.
Death is not just about the end of a heartbeat in a physical body, it is about a transition within a life that flows into eternity. We must be very careful about isolating an individual, pulling them out of that stream and implying that they can survive on their own.
Baroness O'Cathain (Con)
My Lords, in all the millions of words that will be spoken today, next week and next year on this subject, I just want to make sure that we do not lose sight of one fact. The relationship between a doctor and a patient is not simply a commercial relationship such as that which exists between a customer and a supplier. It is a relationship of trust, involving a duty of care and protection. To suggest that a doctor should knowingly and deliberately aid and abet a patient’s suicide—I will use that word—takes clinical practice into a place where it has no business to be, and could signify the breakdown of that trust.
Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)
My Lords, what for many is seen as a “right to die” can too easily become a “duty to die”. That is how assisted dying is viewed by many disabled people. All too often the assumption is made by those who are in robust health that terminal illness is unbearable and that you would be better off dead. I have been told many times, “I would not want to live if I was like you”. The commission chaired by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, whose Assisted Dying Bill is in front of us, said in its report:
“We … do not consider that it would be acceptable to society at this point in time to recommend that a non-terminally ill person with significant physical impairments should be made eligible under any future legislation to request assistance in ending his or her life”.
The words,
“at this point in time”,
send a chill down my spine. While we may not be eligible now, we are surely in the waiting room. I sincerely hope that Her Majesty’s Government will stay well clear of any legislation to license assisted suicide.
Lord Judge (CB)
My Lords, the short question is whether this criminal offence should continue on the statute book. The issue has been up and down the courts of the land, in the Divisional Court, the Court of Appeal, the House of Lords and the European Court of Human Rights, back down and back up again. I have been told that I am right and that I am wrong. Last month I dissented. The issue is far too important to be resolved by judges and the Director of Public Prosecutions. Legislation is the only way to deal with this issue, and there should be a free vote in both Houses on this very difficult and delicate moral, social and personal problem.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, when the Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Joffe, was being debated here, I thought, “I cannot vote to oppose something which I would want for myself”. How can I deny that to other people? To me, that seems to be the guiding principle. I believe that public opinion is so overwhelmingly on the side of the Bill of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, that it will happen sooner or later. I think that we are trying to hold back something that is inevitable. Of course there must be safeguards. Today, there are none. If you can afford a flight to Switzerland, there are no safeguards at all.
Some years ago, a friend of mine was dying of motor neurone disease and was tapping out his messages on a little keyboard. He raised this issue and said, “Please, please, please, vote for a change in the legislation”. On that basis, that is what I will do when the Bill comes forward.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
My Lords, the polls tell us that four out of every five people in the population want the reform for which the noble Earl has asked; that four out of five of the disabled people in the country want that reform; that four out of five of the people professing a religious belief want that reform; and that two-thirds of general practitioners would like that reform. Parliament has a proud tradition of getting ahead of public opinion; in this case, we are lagging far, far behind. Noble Lords should think of Wilberforce, slavery, child labour and capital punishment; they should think of the creation of the National Health Service, which was opposed at the time by the medical profession. It really is time that the House of Lords and the House of Commons resumed their traditional role as the conscience of the country and that we pass the reform called for by the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (LD)
My Lords, the noble Earl has given us the “good intentions” speech. The slippery slope he outlined was paved with comforting phrases, but were they justified by facts? One of his phrases was “death clearly inevitable”; another was “certain to die within six months”. However, in a survey taken last October of 156 patients whose prognosis was death within 14 days, 12% lived longer. These patients had advanced, incurable cancer and were referred for palliative care services. Further research following that showed that 10% of MDs made inaccurate prognoses for two-week survival, and in a survey of 1,018 patients with advanced cancer, only 56.3% were able to be accurate with medical predictions. I think that the base of the case is not proven.
Baroness Murphy (CB)
My Lords, I support the stance of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, and the introduction of a very limited Bill to enable those with terminal illness to have help to die at a time of their choosing. For me, it is a moral issue and a matter of simple humanity that we should respect the diversity of patients’ wishes in the last months of life, just as we are beholden by law to respect their wishes at other times. It seems to me that we can talk endlessly about safeguards; next week, in another, similar debate, we will be able to explore mental capacity, mental illness, the prediction of six months’ duration and undue pressures. I will be happy to talk about all those things in the future. We should base our decisions on research evidence of outcomes from other jurisdictions that have already bitten this bullet and have 16 years’ worth of good information about what happens when you take a chance. All those predictions of cataclysm and slippery slope have proved to be completely false. I hope very much that we will support the wish of the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, the present position is untenable. Decisions as to what is right and what is wrong at the end of life cannot be left to an unelected official such as the DPP. That is unfair on the DPP; it is grossly unfair on those who are terminally ill and their loved ones. It is our duty as parliamentarians to take responsibility for those decisions, not to pass off that responsibility to others.
I am in favour of the Bill introduced by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer, with its rights and safeguards. I will fight for it, even as I will listen carefully to the ethical and practical arguments of those—many of whom are dear and respected friends—who are not convinced by it. The quality of our lives is often measured by the manner of our leaving. May we seek to make that moment as dignified as possible.
Viscount Craigavon (CB)
My Lords, in supporting the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, on this subject, my sole point today is that almost every time we have a debate on this subject, some other countries or states change their laws to allow assisted dying. That is the direction in which we are inexorably moving, supported by the generally agreed figure of 80% of our population. We all know about Switzerland, and Luxembourg joined the Netherlands and Belgium in this some time ago. We have learnt that the French Government—not a French Back-Bencher—are likely to try to introduce a law next year. We know that the practice has settled down in Oregon and Washington state, which have been joined by Montana; and in May this year Vermont passed but has not yet implemented a similar law. Massachusetts was denied a change in the law in 2012 by a majority of only 1%—that is, 51% voted against a change. The Parliament of Quebec is currently considering a law which would include assistance to die; and in Australia, a recent debate in the Tasmanian Senate was lost by only two votes. I believe that, with the safeguards proposed, we have a duty to follow these enlightened democracies and give a lead to others without delay.
Lord Blair of Boughton (CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as one of the commissioners of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer. I want to reflect briefly on the experience of being a commissioner.
First, I want to emphasise that whatever is being proposed is voluntary—voluntary for the person involved as a patient and voluntary for the medical practitioner. Secondly, as others have said, research on the jurisdictions that have allowed assisted dying shows no evidence of a slippery slope. Thirdly, even though I was a police officer for 35 years, the testimony that we were given of some of these dreadful deaths is among the most shocking things that I have ever encountered.
Finally, speaking as a former police officer, even if the DPP's current guidelines make prosecution unlikely, they do not make the search, questioning and possible arrest of the people involved unnecessary. At the moment that has to happen. However good the police are, someone is left not only with a death but with precious objects removed from their house, and with the decision hanging over them about whether to prosecute.
The Lord Bishop of Wakefield
My Lords, I imagine that after clinicians, clergy—of a variety of faiths—are those who have the most frequent experience of being alongside those who are terminally ill and dying. That gives clergy no privilege in our opinions, but it does offer us a unique set of experiences in the care and support of the dying.
Part of that support, from all concerned in such caring, is reassurance to those who are terminally ill. The framing of the present law is integral to such reassurance. Fears of being a family burden, uncertainty about one's own self-worth or society’s pressures on limited resources can undermine the feelings of the terminally ill. That calls out of us compassion. Choice is a two-edged sword.
Some have the inner strength to respond and act decisively in the face of possible imminent death—that word “possible” is crucial because predictions are never certain—but such inner strength is probably not there within the majority of us. My concern is not just for those who might opt for assisted dying, but for those who do not. If the law were to be changed, those people would be presented with an unenviable and perhaps impossible choice. We should approach arguments for assisted dying with great caution.
Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)
My Lords, this is a very dangerous question. If the law is changed, it will put ill, frail and disabled people who are vulnerable in an even more vulnerable position. We are living in the shadows of the late GP, Dr Harold Shipman, who visited elderly people in their own homes and killed them, and the neglect and bad treatment that killed many people in Mid Staffordshire Hospital as it put the importance of foundation status in place of good nursing and compassion. We now have many people who are fearful that hospitals may kill them rather than cure them. Patients in pain need it to be controlled. They need nourishment and liquid if they want it and to trust, not fear, those who care for them.
Baroness Greengross (CB)
My Lords, I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, and support his view. I support it after working with older people for about the past 40 years and listening to what they want at the end of their lives. People want to have their wishes for care and the end of life respected. I agree with the right reverend Prelate that life is a gift, and we must recognise that at the end of life, the last few weeks, days and hours of our lives are very important. We must avoid all possible risks of ill treatment and the wrong sort of persuasion—all the dangers that people have spoken about. Such treatment is impossible: we cannot tolerate it. However, I believe that we can control and avoid it. We should therefore allow people to stand by the phrase “nothing about us without us” and listen to what they want. The majority of people—80% in this country—want to have control over when they die. We must not ignore that.
Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)
My Lords, when I was growing up, women largely fell pregnant when nature determined it and without access to safe, legal abortion. Today, science and humanity have combined to allow us to choose when to get pregnant and to plan our families. Sadly, we seem reluctant to allow that humanity and science to make our departure from this world as painless and as planned as our arrival. Colin Marriage, a man with terminal cancer, had excellent care in hospital but when he was told he had a week to live, he cried, not because it was so short but because it was so long. He did not want that last week of sickness, inability to sleep and pain. Why inflict such cruelty at that point on a man who is competent to choose? Surely that is the reason that the majority of GPs now feel that their college should abandon its opposition to assisted dying. I share that view.
Baroness Flather (CB)
My Lords, I am old enough to remember when it was said that pneumonia is the best friend of old people. We have long since passed that stage. Pneumonia is no longer a friend to anybody. Everybody survives it, whatever age they are. My gynaecologist told me, “Don’t go to the hospital to die. You will be put on machines and so on and be kept alive”. These are things that I remember from my youth. We are doing that. Medical advance has made it quite impossible for us to die naturally at the time we should die. That is a big problem.
I say to the right reverend Prelate that life is a gift only when it feels like a gift. It stops being a gift when you are suffering and do not wish to go on. As a man of faith, he cannot possibly advocate that we should stop life at any point, but we cannot all follow the example of the Son of God.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)
My Lords, those who specialise in palliative care, a discipline in which this country leads the world, every day assist people as they die. The noble Earl referred to assisted dying, which is a euphemism for allowing doctors by law to give lethal drugs to terminally ill patients to enable them to commit suicide. I draw the noble Earl’s attention to the view of the Royal College of Physicians, that a doctor’s duty of care for patients,
“does not include being in any way part of their suicide”.
That view is endorsed by the majority of practising doctors. Doctors have a duty to treat illness or mitigate its effects. That does not extend to killing their patients or giving them the means to kill themselves. It is all very well to talk about choice and control at the end of life. The stereotype of the clearheaded and self-confident person intent on ending his or her life is the exception rather than the rule. Most people who are facing death are struggling to come to terms with their mortality and are vulnerable. They need our care and our protection, not encouragement to end it all.
The Earl of Arran (Con)
My Lords, in supporting the noble Earl, Lord Glasgow, I shall talk about the Oregon Death with Dignity Act 1997. I was privileged to travel to Oregon in 2004 with the Select Committee on the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill and saw compelling evidence that that law works. The then chief executive of the Oregon Hospice Association told the committee that the Act had not adversely affected the hospice movement. It has improved in Oregon since the passing of the Act. Ninety-seven per cent of those who had an assisted death in Oregon in 2012 had been enrolled in hospice care. Assisted dying is complementary to excellent hospice and palliative care. They are not mutually exclusive. We also know that the main reasons for seeking assistance to die centre on loss of autonomy and dignity as opposed to inadequate pain relief. We know that the Oregon system works well—so well in fact that, as has already been said, the states of Washington, Montana and Vermont have subsequently legalised assisted dying.
Baroness Meacher (CB)
My Lords, this debate is about the autonomy of the individual—a fundamental principle in modern medicine. All most people are asking for is the right to choose to avoid the fear of unbearable suffering at the end of life, and then the intolerable suffering itself. This may not principally be physical pain. I humbly suggest that none of us has the right to deny others the choice about how much suffering they want to, or can, bear.
The other key word in this debate is compassion—compassion for people who will die within six months, a very short period. We must legislate to permit people a dignified death.
Baroness Wheeler (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for securing this debate. This important issue deserves time and deliberation by us. I hope that this will lead to further attention being given in this House to the importance of continuing discussion and dialogue on the current situation, the legal uncertainties, ambiguities and suffering of people in the appalling situation endured by Tony Nicklinson and others. We all acknowledge that suffering, no matter what our views are on how the issues should be addressed or taken forward.
Had I more time I would have spoken more fully about the end of life care discussions under the Care Bill and stressed the importance of recognising the overall progress that has been made. Today’s focus on the legal right for terminally ill patients to decide when and how they should die is outside the scope of that Bill but we should acknowledge the substantial changes in care and support at the end of life made since the End of Life Care Strategy’s 2008 launch. We should also acknowledge the changes in attitudes and approach to the cared-for, carers and staff, resulting from end of life care plans, better communication and openness and understanding with patients and their families. There is cross-party support both for people to have the right to record their preferred place of death—the “where” part of today’s question—and to work towards free end of life social care for the terminally ill. Both are very important developments.
On the legal issues before us, I want to stress Labour’s continuing commitment to the neutral stance that we have always adopted when Parliament has discussed changing the law to provide support for terminally ill patients to choose when and how they should die. We have always made it clear that this is a matter for Parliament to decide. It is an individual matter of conscience and would be the subject of a free vote. Today’s debate shows the strong and opposing views on the issue. People’s views are strongly and sincerely held. However, we must all acknowledge that high-profile court cases and the impact of key interventions, such as the Director of Public Prosecutions’ guidance, mean that public awareness, concern and confusion is increasing. I am sorry that I have no more time. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Glasgow on securing this debate. I listened carefully to each and every contribution. I hope that noble Lords will allow me to break with normal convention and not refer to every speech that was made, as important as they were. It is a matter for the Hansard record and, as has been said, there is another, more lengthy debate next week on a similar issue. As one of my noble friends said, this is a subject that we will return to not just next week but next year as well.
This House has debated the particularly sensitive issue of assisted dying on a number of occasions, sometimes at great length and sometimes, as on this occasion, with admirable succinctness. The noble Lord, Lord Popat, indicated to me that I need not worry about the clock striking three. I believe that this is the first debate specifically about this law in the current Parliament. It is therefore a welcome opportunity to address a matter that arouses, as we have seen today, high public interest, understandable emotion and at times, of course, controversy.
I sought to keep a tally, as noble Lords made their contributions, of who was for and who was against. It is interesting to do a tally, and I think that it was reasonably even. I can assure noble Lords that my maths is not that far off. Those who believed that there should be a change were certainly in the majority in this case. However, this debate invites different views not just in this House but in the country generally.
Both Houses have debated the Director of Public Prosecutions’ policy for prosecutors in cases of encouraging or assisting suicide in the last Session. The House of Commons passed, without a vote, a Motion welcoming the policy on 27 March 2012, but widely differing views were expressed on the desirability of legislative change. It is evident from this afternoon’s debate that there are strong and deeply differing views on both sides of this issue.
It would be disingenuous not to mention, as other noble Lords have done, the Assisted Dying Bill. I note that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, is in listening mode this afternoon. It was introduced in May this year and seeks to legalise, in England and Wales, assisted suicide for terminally ill, mentally competent adults who are reasonably expected to die within six months. The Government will take a collective view on the noble and learned Lord’s Bill in order to respond to the debate on specific provisions, but not before Second Reading. As things stand, however, no date has been set for Second Reading, and today’s debate is not about specific proposals. Rather, the question before us today is one of principle—whether there are any circumstances in which it should be legal to assist another person to die.
It is worth taking a moment to consider what we mean by “assisted dying”. As several noble Lords have said, it is not a term that exists in law per se. Rather, at times, it is a catch-all term and, wherever you stand on the matter, it is sometimes used for either assisted suicide or euthanasia or both. Both these areas of law raise very difficult moral issues and they often form part of the same debate. But there is an important distinction. Euthanasia, killing someone for compassionate reasons and possibly on the request of that person, constitutes murder in common law and carries a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment. Helping another person to take his or her own life is contrary to the statutory offence of encouraging or assisting suicide and carries a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment. There is no offence, or defence, of mercy killing, nor is there any exception to the offence under Section 2(1) of the Suicide Act 1961. As noble Lords will know, the Suicide Act was amended by Section 59 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, but the purpose was to clarify rather than change the law. By doing so, Parliament confirmed that it should remain an offence to encourage or assist suicide.
The Government’s view is that any change to the law in this area, whether in relation to euthanasia or assisted suicide, is a matter of individual conscience. It is, rightly, a matter for Parliament to decide rather than for government policy. However one interprets the term, assisted dying is a highly emotive issue which polarises opinion among the public, in the media and across the political spectrum. It raises the most profound ethical, moral, social and religious issues. As I am sure all noble Lords will agree, there are no easy answers. I am, of course, acutely aware of opinion polls suggesting that there is strong public support for a change in the law. But even if one accepts that the law should change, there is no consensus, in Parliament or elsewhere, on where a line should be drawn, what safeguards should be put in place and for whom. We should not underestimate the magnitude of any change that says that we can help people to kill themselves rather than helping them to withstand their suffering. Even the most limited step in this respect would represent a fundamental shift in the line that we have held to so far on the ethics of helping people to die.
As noble Lords have mentioned, much of the debate in recent months has centred on individual, high-profile cases, such as those of Nicklinson and Lamb v Ministry of Justice and AM v Director of Public Prosecutions, in which the Court of Appeal gave judgment on 31 July. It would be a hard person indeed who is not deeply moved by the terrible plight of those such as the late Tony Nicklinson, who sought to challenge the legal ban on voluntary euthanasia, and Paul Lamb, who took up that challenge. They were, and are, faced with the sort of difficult choices that none of us would ever want to make. As an appeal to the Supreme Court is currently pending, noble Lords will understand that it would not be appropriate for me to comment on that case or the related one of AM, where the challenge is to prosecution policy.
On the other hand, as some noble Lords have mentioned, we cannot lightly dismiss the fears of some of the most vulnerable members of our society—sick and disabled people who fear that a right to die could become almost a duty to die. Whatever the arguments for and against change, I am sure all noble Lords agree that sick and disabled people are entitled to the same protection in law as everyone else. It is important that the ongoing debate should not lead those whose lives are affected in this way to feel less valued.
My noble friend contends, as do others, that the law should be changed to reflect what is regarded as prosecution practice. Other people believe that the deterrent effect of the present law, combined with the compassionate exercise of prosecutorial discretion, offers the best of both worlds. The guidelines published in February 2010 by the former DPP set out the factors that prosecutors in England and Wales will consider when deciding whether it is in the public interest to prosecute in cases of encouraging or assisting suicide.
Among the public interest factors tending against prosecution are that,
“the victim had reached a voluntary, clear, settled and informed decision to commit suicide”,
and that the suspect was “wholly motivated by compassion”. This has been interpreted by some as meaning that the CPS will not prosecute those who help terminally ill relatives to die. One of the public interest factors tending in favour of prosecution is that,
“the suspect was acting in his or her capacity as a medical doctor, nurse, other healthcare professional”.
This has been alleged to cause difficulties for healthcare professionals because it is not clear what constitutes assistance.
Particularly in view of the litigation currently before the courts, it is not appropriate for me to comment on the merits or otherwise of prosecution policy. What I can say, unequivocally, is that the DPP’s policy has not changed the law. Only Parliament can do that. Nor does the policy mean that cases of encouraging or assisting a suicide will not be prosecuted in England and Wales. Assisted suicide remains a criminal offence. As with all criminal offences, allegations of encouraging or assisting suicide will be reviewed individually on the basis of their particular facts and circumstances and against the criteria of the offence-specific policy and of the general Code for Crown Prosecutors, with its two-part test of sufficient evidence and public interest.
The legal, administrative, practical and resource implications of any change to the law in this highly controversial and emotional area are considerable. As noble Lords have indicated, in the very limited time available this afternoon we cannot do justice to them. I have no doubt that the debate will continue in one form or another in Parliament and in other forums. In closing, I once again thank all noble Lords for their contributions, and I am reminded of Kipling:
“If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run”.
I also congratulate noble Lords on achieving that aim.
Copyright
Baroness Buscombe
Baroness Buscombe (Con)
My Lords, I am pleased that we have convened this short debate regarding copyright exceptions. This is an important opportunity to focus upon a few key issues that remain of real concern to the creative industries, notwithstanding many meetings between the IPO, Ministers and stakeholders—I understand in the region of 250 all together—together with impact assessments and the sharing of early drafts of the statutory instruments.
The Government’s aim must be right—to increase the value of copyright while supporting our creators and our freedom of speech. This package of reforms is intended to enable non-commercial, pioneering research, private study and teaching in schools and define the parameters within which we, as consumers, can use what we have paid for. It is not directly concerned with business-to-business licensing; it is, however, about making it easier for businesses to provide new technologies without being held liable for how consumers might use their products. While these reforms do not expressly concern business-to-business licensing, the whole business community is potentially affected.
My focus is on testing whether the legislation will do what is intended, as opposed to allowing unintended consequences to flow from imprecise drafting or a failure to future-proof innovation that could harm rights holders. That is quite a challenge in itself. While there has been extensive debate around exceptions, there remain areas where rights holders continue to question whether applying an exception is the most expedient way forward.
I begin with concerns regarding text and data mining. Given the speed of technological advancement and innovation, some have suggested that the exception route is rendered unsuited to protect rights holders and suggest that, instead, digital market-based solutions to some of the emerging issues around text and data mining would be better addressed through improvements to licensing and technological standards. The Government recognise that copyright needs to meet current and future technological challenges. Is this achievable with the use of exceptions? For example, while an exception may remove a publisher’s exclusive right to prevent copying for the purposes of text and data mining, a researcher’s ability to engage in the activity across different publisher platforms is dependent upon there being an alignment of technological and contractual standards and practices.
Another area of concern is provisions for contract override. I would welcome reassurance from my noble friend the Minister on this point: while the override on one level makes absolute sense, I can see a real conflict where a contract runs the risk of including two contradictory statements of what is and is not acceptable. For example, while the purpose of the contract override is to ensure that contracts would be rendered unenforceable if they restricted or prevented a relevant exception, it is also the Government’s stated policy that publishers should be able to maintain the ability to impose conditions of access prior to the mining of works. In practice, surely this means that the publisher can restrict the scope of an exception, in which case, with the addition of a contract override, the whole contract becomes unenforceable. Clarity and reassurance on this point would be extremely helpful. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister could explain why the proposed contract override provisions have not hitherto been subject to their own separate consultation, discussion or economic impact assessment.
A further complication here relates to European law. I refer in particular to the enforceability of technical protection measures as set out in Article 6 of the copyright directive and Section 296ZA of the Copyright Act. Copyright holders are permitted to restrict or prevent certain acts through the use of technical protection measures if certain criteria are met, in which case how does this work with contract override?
Some definitions require clarity. For example, can my noble friend explain what is the difference between “for the purposes of instruction”, “non-commercial use” and “non-commercial research”? In addition, the term “lawful access” could be interpreted according to how the user might wish to access the content. What is genuinely “non-commercial”? In other words, the exception must not be used as an excuse to avoid obtaining a licence. Will those in academia interpret this in the same way as rights holders who need to earn their living?
Private exceptions further highlight the difficulty of definitions. Private exceptions should be narrowly defined so that third-party aggregators cannot choose to commercially exploit creative content and also to ensure that the ability to license value-added services is not compromised.
From a legal standpoint, I can see that there is a world of difference between stating that a private exception is to be used only in parodying a work, rather than having an exception for any work that is used in the process of a parody. It may seem a subtle distinction but, if it is not made clear, a commercial production company could, for example, use copyright footage for free, purely with the aim of reducing production overheads of TV programmes and with no recompense for the original creator. In essence, parody must be carefully defined so that it cannot be used as an excuse to avoid licensing.
The meaning of the word “pastiche” also needs to be clearly defined. Current definitions, such as that of the OED, which refers to a,
“medley of various ingredients; a hotchpotch, farrago, jumble”,
leave the door wide open to interpretation depending upon one’s perspective and desired use of that intellectual property.
The moral rights of a creator need to be protected. Many will know of the recent case of the Beastie Boys, which is pertinent as advertisers of a toy are using one of their songs, despite the band having a blanket ban on the use of their music in advertisements.
It is critical that we all know what is meant by these terms. I appreciate that it is the task of parliamentary counsel to tackle these very nuanced points, and I urge them, with very great respect, to take on board just how important it is to get this right. Leaving it to the courts to define the scope is somewhat defeatist. I really want to assist my noble friend the Minister in providing certainty and clarity in the first place. In essence, it is the drafting of the proposed exceptions that has to be tight and right.
There are other concerns affecting different parts of the creative industries. For example, will the Government reconsider the education exception, even at this late stage, so that it does not negatively impact the business models of publishers of sheet music, who were previously protected by the requirement that the exception should not cover reprographic copying?
Copyright awareness is key. Consumer and rights holder confusion has to be minimised to ensure that this legislation works in practice. Education is of paramount importance, and I note that the Government are focusing on this now through the IP awareness campaign, launched on 23 October, with multiple activities in the pipeline over the next six months to promote awareness and the importance of respecting copyright. I hope and assume that these activities will not only explain the importance of copyright protections but focus on how they are applied. Therefore, can the Minister expand on plans to develop awareness, including from an international perspective? Consumers, academics and commercial enterprises, be the latter a sole trader or a large established user of content for commercial gain, must know what they can and, more importantly, cannot do with works that they have already paid for.
In addition, IPO enforcement activity, including important reform of the Intellectual Property Enterprise Court to bring about more expedient and cost-efficient access to justice, is a critical component of IPO responsibility. Clearly, the Government have a strong focus on this, although minimising the potential for distortive and harmful practices by third parties is the aim here; litigation as a result of these regulations should remain a very last resort. That brings me to my final point.
It would be very helpful if my noble friend could set out an approximate timetable for the next steps through to the introduction of these regulations next year. There is also the question of bundling the statutory instruments. I understand that that lies within the competence of parliamentary counsel, who have the unenviable task of finalising the drafting. All those potentially affected by this legislation, including the academic community, will need to prepare for its introduction.
In conclusion, the Government agreed with Hargreaves that the copyright system had not kept pace with the digital revolution and, in particular, that the current framework means that a great many intuitively acceptable activities are illegal or uncertain because they involve an element of copying. The process of copying is at the heart of many technologies being used by consumers, teachers, academics and researchers in pursuit of entirely legitimate aims. These exceptions must therefore ensure that, in seeking to legitimise private use, imprecise drafting does not inadvertently or vicariously enable third parties—or indeed the consumers themselves—to commercially exploit and undermine the copyright system. I go back to my first point: this package of reforms is about creating value from copyright works. I very much hope that the Minister will be able to achieve this laudable aim.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, when we consider our copyright regime, it is important that we do not do so in isolation. We should also consider the reasons why we have a system of copyright in the first place. If a system no longer serves those purposes, it ought to be reformed. So what are the purposes of copyright? I believe there is a general consensus that its aim should be to create a fair balance between those who create material and those who use it in order to allow this material to be used and to incentivise the creation of new material, to the benefit of society as a whole. A system with too little protection can result in a lack of incentives to create and invest in new material. However, there can also be too much protection—or perhaps, more accurately, inappropriate protection—that places barriers in the way of those who want to make reasonable use of copyrighted material and the information it contains.
Where these protections place restrictions on the use of material for the purposes of education and research, upon which the creation of valuable new material in the future relies, we need to be doubly sure that these restrictions are proportionate and fair. Of course, nobody here today needs persuading of the vital role played by education and research in economic growth, although those wanting a refresh could read the transcript of today’s debate that just finished half an hour ago in the main Chamber. Having said that, I will focus my comments on examples where the scope of current copyright exceptions is placing restrictions on education and research, and where I believe that modernisation will both stimulate the creation of valuable future material and benefit the economy.
The copyright exceptions that are currently on the statute books were largely written in the 1980s. Since then, there has been a revolution in the way in which we work, learn, study, research and communicate. In particular, the exceptions relating to education are out of step with how students learn in today’s universities, colleges and schools. For example, there is a helpful-looking exception that means copying works for the purposes of instruction does not infringe copyright. Unfortunately, it also specifies that this cannot be done through any reprographic process—that is, by photocopier or any digital reproduction such as a PowerPoint presentation or an electronic whiteboard. It is a law written for the age of blackboards, still operating in the age of the iPad. It was never the aim or purpose of this part of copyright legislation to prevent the use of modern technology in our schools and universities, but that has been the result.
The Government’s intention to reform this exception is very welcome. They intend to do this by bringing forward a general “fair dealing” exception. This will allow the law to catch up with current practice. Because it is technology-neutral, it also means that the law will be flexible enough to deal with tomorrow’s teaching methods. However, the Government are also maintaining a far more limited exception for reprographic copying for cases that are beyond “fair dealing” of the work. This is fair, but I would be grateful if the Minister could make clear that the exception for instruction that the Government intend to bring forward will not exclude all copying by reprographic means.
Another area where the current copyright laws are out of date as a result of technological advance is that of so-called “text and data mining”. This is a process whereby large volumes of material are automatically read in order that overarching trends can be identified in a highly efficient manner. Assuming the researcher has the necessary licences to access this material, the process is in theory entirely legal. After all, it is not facts about the world that are protected by copyright, but the way in which they are expressed. However, because this method of research involves the automatic creation of a transitory copy of works, specific licences are currently required. This is not the case in other countries such as the USA, where text and data mining is considered fair use of a copyrighted work; so in this country, the current lack of an exception for text and data mining is holding back research. Given the economic importance of the UK’s research sector, it is also holding back economic growth. I should be grateful if the Minister would confirm when he expects an exception for these purposes to be in place.
After my brief contribution, I conclude by saying that we should never allow the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights to be our only consideration in these debates. If our copyright regime is to benefit our society and our economy, we need to make sure that it does not place unnecessary barriers in the way of education and research. The Government’s plans to reform copyright exceptions are welcome steps towards removing these unnecessary barriers.
Lord Clement-Jones (LD)
My Lords, I welcome this opportunity for the Committee to consider the proposed copyright exceptions before they are introduced, and thank my noble friend Lady Buscombe for securing it. My noble friend the Minister is only too well aware that the creative industries sector is very exercised by the potential negative impact that some aspects of these draft exceptions could have.
As I said last July during the passage of the IP Bill, copyright exceptions should be adopted only in response to both well defined public policy objectives and market failure. In this regard, what advice have the Government received that their proposed exceptions meet the requirements of the Berne convention and the three-step test?
The proposals take no account of developments in licensing both during and after the Hargreaves process. Digital market-based solutions are being found through a combination of improvements to licensing and technology, not least through the copyright hub. My noble friend Lady Buscombe asked about impact assessments. Does the Minister still stand by the statement on page 3 of Modernising Copyright, the Government’s response to the consultation on copyright exceptions published this time last year, that,
“these measures could contribute over £500m to the UK economy over 10 years on a conservative view, with likely additional benefits of around £290m each year”.?
In its recent report on supporting the creative economy, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee was highly sceptical of these impact assessments. It said,
“We are not persuaded that the introduction of new copyright exceptions will bring the benefits claimed and believe that generally the existing law works well”.
Dr George Baker of University College London recently carried out an analysis for the MPA and concluded that,
“the evidence relied upon is being misinterpreted by the Government”.
Have new economic impact assessments been conducted, or the current ones revised, to take account of the many developments in the licensing markets?
The draft data analysis exception is a particular example of this. Most recently, the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers produced a commitment by publishers to enable text and data mining for non-commercial scientific research. Likewise, as regards consumers, a private copying exception should not apply where a commercially available alternative exists. Nowhere is that clearer than in the audiovisual sector. Products such as iTunes and UltraViolet allow legal and secure access to that content through the cloud among six family members for up to 12 personal devices, thereby enabling format-shifting. At the same time, a multitude of new digital audiovisual services has occurred under the existing legal framework.
It could not be clearer that there is no market failure that needs addressing here. The same is true for the quotation exception, where publishers are already addressing the market via large-scale and low-cost licensing technologies. Far from incentivising the market to continue innovating in the interests of the consumer, it may well be that the exceptions proposed will undermine the thriving market for new and innovative digital content services.
As regards business-to-business or institutions, each of the exceptions include a provision that would render unenforceable contracts which seek to restrict or prevent the relevant exception. Another new and untested concept in UK copyright law, this has not received nearly enough examination and consultation. From conversations I have had with industry representatives, it is clear that at no point has any substantial discussion been held. Even though the attendees of various forums were led to believe that separate sessions would be held on this issue, this did not transpire. Given their importance to all the proposed SIs, why have the proposed contract override provisions not been subject to a separate consultation and discussion? Override of contract is not required by the copyright directive. Indeed, Article 9 states that the directive should be without prejudice to the law of contract. It is unclear how the proposed provisions sit alongside these or why it is felt to be necessary. There is also the question, which I hope the Minister will answer, of why wording already in place within Section 50 of the CDPA cannot be used to address the apparent concern.
The IPO has failed to set out a compelling case for why the provisions are required and exactly what problems they solve. Rather than encourage innovation, these provisions will encourage challenge and breach of existing licensing terms put in place for users of copyright works. The Publishers Association makes the important point that British creators will now be put at a significant competitive disadvantage as investors turn away from the UK and invest in content made in other jurisdictions. Has the Minister undertaken any analysis of the impact of this on the UK’s competitive position? The proposed exceptions potentially run into conflict with the ability of rights holders to ensure the enforceability of technical protection measures. It is unclear from the current drafting how this will interact with the proposed provisions on contract override. The most probable outcome is consumer, business and rights holder confusion.
These are all substantial objections. In the ordinary way these fundamental amendments to sections of the CDPA would be dealt with by discussion in a normal parliamentary process, in both Houses, with amendments being debated. Why is such a fundamental change to the application of UK contract and copyright law being made by secondary legislation?
Finally, on the broad objections to the exceptions, it seems that some exceptions may not even comply with EU law. The private copying exception, as currently proposed, would not provide any compensation to rights holders for harm that private copying might inflict on them. How confident are the Government that this will survive legal challenge? Why have the Government chosen to ignore the ruling in the Padawan case, which makes it clear that member states must, when introducing a private copying exception, include a mechanism for calculating compensation, even if the subsequent calculation is that that compensation is zero? How does the private copying exception square with the fact that the software directive excludes private copying from the scope of permissible exceptions?
I have dealt with the very broad objections. There are a host of drafting objections to the individual exceptions that I am unable to cover today but many of them have been dealt with by my noble friend Lady Buscombe. ITV rightly points out that this whole exercise is fraught with the risk of unintended consequences. Have the Government really thought things through properly?
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, for initiating this important and timely debate. Personally, and speaking as a composer, I am always touched and flattered that people want to listen to my music and even to copy it. Sadly, though, I and my colleagues and the people who play, publish and record our music cannot live on flattery. If we were shopkeepers, it would be like allowing the public to come into our shop and help themselves to items without paying. Whenever we point this out, we are told that new methods will be adopted to recompense us. Historically, change has inevitably led to a cut in income. The creative industries are projected to be worth around £36 billion to the UK economy. They have withstood our recent economic problems and are well placed to contribute to UK growth. I regret that this contribution could be threatened by some of the less well thought out proposals to modernise copyright exceptions that we are considering today.
I would like to focus my remarks on two of the proposed exceptions and demonstrate how they could have a detrimental impact on our music industry. The UK music industry is one of only three net exporters of music content in the world. We are world leaders in the number of licensed digital services, providing fans and consumers with many ways to enjoy music. Intellectual property is the framework that underpins success for the music industry and copyright is the currency of that framework. Copyright provides businesses with an incentive to invest in music and allows musicians and composers to derive an income from their creativity.
However, it is a fact that some 78% of the sector earn less than £20,000 a year. It is very hard for young musicians and composers to get a foothold in the industry. Any loss of income from losing the right to be compensated for the copying of one’s work will be incrementally more damaging in today’s environment for musicians and composers and makes such careers less feasible. Research conducted by music industry body UK Music concluded that consumers ascribe between 32% and 53% of the value of an MP3 player to its ability to copy music. Yet music rights holders never see any of this value, as the exception and compensations are not in place here.
The Government justify their intention not to provide compensation under this exception on two grounds. First, they argue that rights holders are pricing in the ability to private copy at the point of sale. That argument is, however, undermined by the Intellectual Property Office’s own research produced to support that policy. In the case of music, the research said:
“We did not find any evidence in support of a widely-held view that stores are including in their price the permission to copy.”
Similarly, the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee recently concluded that it does not share the Government’s acceptance that a facility for private copying is factored into the purchase either of music or devices that store, play or copy it.
The second argument the Government put forward is that there will be no harm as the exception is narrow. Will the Government tell us just how narrow this exception is compared with other countries with an exception? Prompted by a question from Kerry McCarthy MP in the other place in October 2013, the Government provided evidence published in 2007 on different exceptions across the world. From this information it appears that only Poland and the Czech Republic have wider exceptions than the Government’s draft. Other countries have exceptions that are just as narrow as the one proposed in the UK, yet they are all accompanied by compensatory schemes. Do the Government have any up-to-date information that they can share with the Committee? How will we be compensated?
There does need to be a change in the law to reflect what consumers are doing with music that they have legitimately purchased for their own personal use. However, to progress with this policy, the Government have to take two steps. First, there needs to be a specific provision for a compensatory scheme. Secondly, the exception should be redrafted in such a way that it is narrower, applying only to the copying of a physical copy and not interfering with the licensing of the potentially valuable cloud services market. To proceed with the exception as currently understood would be a grave mistake. It would undermine the system across Europe and exclude us from being involved in the reform of the levy system there.
The second and final exception I want to discuss concerns the important subject of education. For publishers of sheet music, “fair dealing” is a vague term unlikely to be understood by consumers, the vast majority of whom are self-employed music teachers and students. This term will cause massive uncertainty. Music publishers have neither the financial resources nor the inclination to take individual music teachers or students to court to have this clarified. The Government should reconsider this exception in light of the detrimental impact it could have on this culturally significant business. What safeguards do the Government propose to put in place to protect providers of specialist material who are dependent on teachers purchasing it?
In conclusion, we have a music industry to be proud of. It generates significant revenues, provides jobs, invests in talent and exports globally. When industries are as successful as this one is, it is easy to take them for granted. However, I firmly believe that this industry deserves to be respected and congratulated, just like all the others that succeed. The negative impacts for the music industry that I have outlined need to be addressed before the exceptions are introduced into law.
Lord Stoneham of Droxford (LD)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lady Buscombe on initiating this debate and welcome the Government’s ongoing initiative to modernise and try to simplify our copyright provisions. We clearly need to update the law in line with technological developments. There is some evidence that we have been falling behind our competitors and have not made much progress, as we should have done, since the European copyright directive was introduced more than 10 years ago. It is yet another area where the European Union dimension illustrates that we can achieve little on our own as one country. We have to develop our practice in line with other nations to protect our businesses and to counter the power of international companies which seek to ignore and override national legislation and, indeed, taxation policies.
It is a big responsibility to protect our own creative sector. There is huge potential to benefit from our very competitive creative arts sector. The European digital music market alone has grown from €200 million in 2004 to €1.2 billion in 2012. The existing copyright framework and efforts within the European Union to improve cross-border access to licensed content on a pan-European basis have enabled this to be possible and for UK music creators and companies to be a fundamental part of this successful development. However, on 10 October 2013, Maria Martin-Prat, head of the copyright unit in the European Commission internal market directorate-general, warned that if we get the copyright framework wrong, we risk undermining the economy.
There are a number of reasons for reform. First, we have to ensure respect for copyright, which modern copyright legislation must do, reflecting the application of modern technology and consumer expectation. It clearly makes sense, as the noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, said, to allow a teacher to use a quotation on an interactive whiteboard or to allow a museum to copy a photograph or film digitally to preserve it.
Secondly, we need to give consumers choice. We should value and encourage the consumer who obtains content legally and should break down barriers to competition, which discourage market delivery and choice. A greater freedom of choice for consumers to use appropriate technology must be encouraged. While clear and fair costs should be appropriate, we should discourage excessive charging or levies.
Thirdly, we need to keep the UK competitive. Improving copyright law must fundamentally improve the health of UK technology and creative arts businesses. Allowing copying for personal use will make it easier for businesses to provide new technology without being held liable for how consumers use their products. Allowing limited use of copyright material for parody will widen the resources for programmers and broadcasters, further enriching our cultural output. I sense that the Government have the right formula on parody as they seem to have the support of our principal broadcasters, which want greater freedom to use material for parody, while they have an interest in protecting their own content and archives.
Fourthly, we should be pioneering research. New technologies can assist significant advances in research. The text and data-mining exception will allow the United Kingdom’s world-leading scientific and academic communities to deliver new advances in medical technology and research.
I will make a few remarks on the detail of the proposed draft exceptions. I expect that there is little dispute over the disability exception or, indeed, over the research libraries and archives exception, which needs simplification to preserve content and improve access. The provision for education seeks to modernise legislation, but the problem for the future is that education is not simply a public good. It has strong commercial potential as well. We have a highly competitive advantage in higher education. Licensing is required to protect teaching content, particularly as it becomes more digitally sourced and with the growth of distance learning.
On private copying, most people accept the need for an individual to be allowed to copy copyright work for their own further use, provided it is not for commercial use. However, as we have heard, the music industry in particular is concerned about revenues that it has already lost in the digital economy and about the development of cloud services. This exception could provide a further threat to copyright music. It has to be made absolutely clear that making a copy for another person or entity would infringe copyright. The scope of an exception should be only for private and personal storage without additional functionality. Within this clarification, the music industry’s ability to license innovative value-added services, such as “scan and match” services in the cloud, would be seriously circumscribed. I hope that the Minister will confirm that he will look further at the music industry’s concerns about the need for further clarification and the whole impact of cloud services.
I return to my home ground of news content and the exception on quotations. Media providers are concerned about Google seeking to widen the exception on quotations, which could increase the likelihood of copyright infringement. It would be preferable for the quotation exception to be cast as a list of specific permitted purpose-based activities. Explicit exception for criticism and reviews should be retained as an exception in its own right. However, there is great concern that the quotation exception could include the principle of temporary copies made for the purpose of browsing by an unlicensed end-use, something that would be further complicated by cloud-based services. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us on these points in his summing up.
In conclusion, change, modernisation and simplification are inevitable. Copyright has to adapt to technology of the present and the future. We have to adjust to allow businesses to develop, but we must protect the competitive advantage of our creative businesses while seeking to simplify regulation, if we can. The Government are treading a difficult, even-handed path across a minefield. Provided that they ensure the fine print of the exceptions and reassure our key creative art providers, particularly in music and news content, about their worries their reforms are to be welcomed.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)
My Lords, with the leave of the Committee, I shall speak briefly in the gap. I had my name down for the debate but, apparently, it did not arrive. I wish to make just one point. I declare an interest as someone who, 40 years ago, had a royalty income, but who now has 10 times as much in print and only a vestigial royalty income. Why has that happened? There are many reasons for that but, above all, it illustrates the point that copyright holders and creators are no longer the same people. We should not fantasise that we are protecting creators when we protect copyright holders. Publishers have been wiser and have taken wider and wider rights over other people’s work. That means that protecting copyright owners will not incentivise new creation because we are pointing in the wrong direction.
In the area of academic work, where I work, publications in STEM subjects are grant funded and they may be viewed as fully funded from the public purse. Beyond the STEM subjects, this is rare. Research in other areas is not grant funded. I hope that the Minister can tell us a little about what incentive will remain for creators who survive and are faced with the new exceptions.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, for securing this debate and congratulate her on her very lucid introduction to the issues. I do not think this debate was quite what the Minister meant when he offered us a chance to have what I think he called in essence a Second Reading debate around the batch of exceptions that are being brought forward. None the less, it is welcome and I thank all noble Lords for their contributions.
As happens when you talk about intellectual property, we have also had a veritable raft of submissions from those outside. As I am sure the Minister is aware, this area is extremely well watched out there. Those of us who dare to put our heads above the parapet to speak about it tend to get a deluge of papers and material which make for interesting, but rather long, reading. However, that shows that this is a really important issue.
What problem are the Government trying to solve? As the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, has just said, the issue here is trying to find the right balance—that is, the link— between a premium for innovation and an assurance that there will be access to material, or, as my noble friend Lady Warwick said, between allowing material to be used while not losing the incentive to create. This is compounded by what many people call a rather too prescriptive European and international legislative framework, where the only margin of appreciation to reflect local interests or local markets is to take action through exceptions. This is why Professor Hargreaves called for a broader and deeper review of this whole area in his report. Sadly, that has not yet happened, and I think that we will have to return to it.
Underlying some of the concern out there in the real world is the worry about exactly what timetable and process we have to go through. I would be grateful if the Minister will say when the Government intend to lay the SIs, whether the exceptions will be bundled when they are laid before Parliament and, if not, whether they will be laid all at once or in stages. Do the Government still expect all of them to come into force on one date? Is that date April 2014? Will further impact assessments—several noble Lords have mentioned this—be prepared and be ready for the House to consider when the SIs are laid?
I take from this debate that, while some of the exceptions that have been proposed—some noble Lords have mentioned them—are good and supported and will not cause difficulty when they are implemented, some are so hampered by the quality of the current drafting or because of their inability to deal with some of the technological issues that have been raised that more work will still need to be done to get them right. In particular, I think that the text and data-mining exception, mentioned by several noble Lords and particularly by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, needs to be re-examined carefully. The parody and pastiche exception seems to many people to be underdeveloped, and it needs further work. I do not think that people are against the idea of there being such an exception, particularly given the specifics of British humour, but it is important that, if it is there, it is defined properly.
We had several contributions on the education exception. It is clear that there is a need for change here in order that the exception, or indeed the practice, in the world of education is made internet-ready. Of course, if we are still in the age of blackboards then we need to move on that and make sure that we deal with all the points, including those about reprographics.
On private copying and remuneration, the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, made a very powerful plea for further consideration of whether the remuneration cycle has been lost in the process of bringing forward the exception. The noble Lord, Lord Stoneham, mentioned quotations and the concerns in that regard in regional and other presses. Again, I think that that should be looked at.
Other than that, we think that these things are broadly in the right place, except that there are some cross-cutting issues, including the very important point about the contract override. I think that what the Government are intending to do there is clear but the current drafting does not provide the necessary assurance.
What will kill this process is a combination of failure to listen carefully to what people who work in the industry are saying and imprecise drafting. The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said that it should be “tight and right”, and I agree with her. There will be an awful lot of problems if we do not get this right and, of course, the downside of even getting it right may well be that there are unintended consequences that need to be brought through.
Another thought to bear in mind is that, in focusing hard on the wording that we currently have and thinking through where it might end up, we also have to think hard about where the public are on this issue. There is an element of a need for common sense on this point. The submission received from Which? a few days ago was very good on this. It tried to outline where the public are in their perception of what copyright does and does not permit in relation to private copying. The problem which it did not specifically raise, but which I think still exists, is that, if the Government are unable to provide the right framework for the legislation, there is a real danger that people will simply ignore it, and nobody will win on that basis.
It seems to me that what the Minister has to do now is to offer a further round of discussions on the current drafts. That should be possible and there is time for such discussions. That would give us a chance to make sure that the wording that is causing such concern at the moment is looked at once more. Given that the Secretary of State apparently held a meeting on these issues as recently as this week, it seems that the door is still open, and I hope that the Minister will confirm that that is the case.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)
My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lady Buscombe for initiating this debate. Of course, I have had the pleasure of debating copyright issues with her on a number of occasions, most recently on the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill. Although we have not always been able to agree on some points, I have always found her interventions to be thoughtful and considered, and today was no different.
The Government have done much to ensure that interested parties have their say. Copyright is important for the creative industries and for the country—a point made by many noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lord Stoneham. Copyright exceptions are no different, so the Government are taking proper account of rights holders’ concerns.
The Hargreaves process has been about listening, and listening carefully. Professor Hargreaves himself sought and received a wide range of views that informed his proposals. The Government then consulted fully on their own proposals, and these built on the work of Professor Hargreaves.
The Government considered the responses carefully and made changes before setting out their policy. The digital copyright exchange concept, for example, was further refined. The policy on exceptions was set out in December 2012. The Government then consulted interested parties on the draft regulations through its technical review and have continued to listen. However, the process has to conclude at some point. The Government cannot consult endlessly, but I continue to listen today.
My noble friend Lady Buscombe commented on the number of meetings that the Government have held with stakeholders over the past 18 months. Over the course of the year, I have had detailed discussions with creative industry representative bodies, creators, broadcasters, research institutions and others on this important topic. I have also been keen for Parliament to debate these issues, and I am glad that we have heard a number of viewpoints today.
A number of questions were put to me during the debate and I will, as ever, try to respond to all the issues raised. To begin, I would like to make a few general points. The Government know that in this area views are divided and that not everyone will be pleased all the time. The focus must continue to be on what we believe is good for industry, consumers and growth. The copyright system supports growth by offering incentives to creators and investors. This serves the public interest by stimulating the creation of new copyright works. At the same time, the system needs to serve the reasonable needs of the whole range of businesses and individuals affected by it. Everyone has an interest here, and the Government have done their best to hear everyone’s views.
The creative industries are a vital part of the UK economy and its culture. We have heard today about some of their concerns. The exceptions we will ask Parliament to approve are designed not to undermine business-to-business licensing. They will not harm the ability of content-owners to provide additional services to consumers in new and exciting ways. For example, the licensing of services such as UltraViolet and Tune Match will be unaffected.
What we have heard suggests that the copyright system has simply not kept pace with the digital revolution. My noble friend Lady Buscombe mentioned this. Copying is at the heart of many new technologies being used by consumers, teachers, academics, curators and researchers. As a result, a great many innocent, reasonable activities are illegal or questionably legal, simply because they involve some element of copying. The law needs to change. For example, a teacher should be able to put a quote on an interactive whiteboard in order to illustrate a point to the class; a museum should be able to make a copy of a film in order to preserve it for posterity; and somebody who has bought a CD should be able to copy it to their MP3 player in order to listen to their music in the gym. Changes are needed if users and creative industries alike are to make the most of technology. The Government have proposed relatively small but important changes that will apply to all technologies, including technology yet to be invented. We do not want out-of-date laws to restrict people’s use of new technologies and services.
We have also listened to concerns about complex copyright law. The proposed changes will remove up to 45 pages of unnecessary rules and regulations from the statute book while maintaining the essential protections that creative industries need and want. These changes should make copyright works more valuable to all by giving users clarity about their rights and building respect for copyright in the process. Creators stand to gain from these changes, particularly where they are innovating. Users will have new de minimis rights, but if they want to do more than those rights allow, they will need a licence.
We believe these are modest changes that together would contribute more than £500 million to the UK economy over 10 years. Additional benefits of around £290 million are predicted, along with positive effects on innovation, competition, education, research and, of course, respect for copyright law.
Let me now move to address the main points made and questions raised during the debate. I shall start by answering a question asked by my noble friend Lady Buscombe and the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, on the timetable and the next steps. Following the technical review, the next iteration of the regulations is with parliamentary counsel, which is where we are now. They will then be subject to approval by me and the Secretary of State Vince Cable. The Government’s aim is to lay regulations in time for the common commencement date in April 2014. This means that it is likely that regulations will be laid before Parliament in February 2014. The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, asked when the exception for text and data mining will be in place. On that question of timing, as with the rest of the package, the Government intend to put this exception in place in 2014.
I turn now to the issue of contract override.
Lord Stevenson of Balmacara
Can the Minister confirm whether he has yet decided how many individual exceptions will be introduced and if they are to be bundled in more than one group or separately?
Viscount Younger of Leckie
The noble Lord makes a good point about bundling. We are not in a position yet to be able to give an indication on that. I have indicated on several occasions how I would like to have as many of the SIs as possible unbundled, to allow further debate; but I am not in a position to give a full answer.
On the question of contract override, the Government want to see these benefits delivered in full. This is why they believe that, where a copyright exception has been established, restrictions should not be reimposed by contracts. My noble friend Lady Buscombe raised this subject, asking why the contract override provisions had not been subject to their own separate consultation and discussion. The contract override provisions were initially proposed in the Hargreaves review, and were subsequently consulted on explicitly by the Government’s copyright consultation which ran, as I mentioned earlier, between December 2011 and March 2012. Following that process, the contract override provisions were also discussed at each of the open meetings held during the technical review period. Given the attention and consideration that has been given to these provisions—in multiple sessions and consultations—the Government believe that this element of policy has been properly and thoroughly discussed.
My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones asked why the existing wording in Section 50 of the CDPA was not used. The existing wording in Section 50A, which must be read together with Section 296A, allows the making of backup copies of computer programmes. This provision declares void any contract terms that seek to prevent this activity. Our approach to this issue in the present context is slightly different. It does not void contract terms, but instead renders the terms unenforceable and only does so to the extent that they restrict a permitted act. Taking the approach from Section 50A of rendering the term void would be a disproportionate measure in many cases, and we believe is unnecessary here.
My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones also asked whether I was confident that the proposed contract override provisions were fully consistent with the Government’s obligations under the information society directive. The answer to that is in the affirmative; the directive is clear that the ability of member states to implement domestic provisions affecting contract law is unrestricted. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones also asked in the same context why such a fundamental change to the application of UK contract law was being made by secondary legislation. This is not a new concept in British copyright law: contract override clauses exist already in relation to a number of exceptions and we believe that this is a sensible and proportionate approach that has no broader impact beyond allowing the use of these copyright exceptions by their intended audience.
I now turn to the important subject of impact assessments. The Government have worked hard to ensure that the proposed changes were based on evidence. The impact assessments were based on the best evidence available and were reviewed and validated by the independent Regulatory Policy Committee. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones asked whether I stood by the proposed benefits of the exceptions, and the headline figure in Hargreaves included patents and the digital copyright exchange, which has been misunderstood in some criticisms.
On the numbers relating to exceptions, the Government have refined them to take into account further evidence, which is explained in the impact assessments. We stand by the estimates that are in the impact assessments, and these assessments have been validated, as I say, by an independent body.
I move on quickly to the important subject of private copying, which was raised by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley. The noble Lord asked for clarification about the exception for private copying for personal use. This measure will give consumers greater freedom to enjoy creative content that they have bought, by allowing them to make copies for their own use. We believe it is a commonsense change which is widely supported by consumers and aims to build public confidence in the copyright system.
The noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and my noble friend Lord Stoneham suggested that the private copying exception should not extend to cloud storage, and that that would be “a step too far”, I think was the expression used. We say that this is intended to be a technology-neutral measure and that it should be fit for the future. Consumers make little distinction between local and remote storage, and it makes little sense to do so in this legislation.
Briefly, in my final minutes, the important matter of text and data mining was raised, not least by my noble friend Lady Buscombe, who asked in this context about the meaning of the term “lawful access”. It is access that is legitimate based on a proper application of the UK’s legal framework law and, where applicable, relevant contract terms.
I fear that there are many other questions I have not had time to answer, and I pledge to write to noble Lords on their questions, and particularly on this important subject. To conclude, I reiterate that the UK Government—as noble Lords will already know—is committed to maintaining the incentives that copyright offers to all types of creator. These changes will achieve that, while also allowing consumers, researchers and many others to make reasonable use of the copyright works they have paid for.
Prisoners: Accommodation on Leaving Prison
Baroness Rendell of Babergh (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of Shelter, the homelessness charity. On release from prison, finding a home may be the biggest problem facing ex-offenders. Fewer social rented homes are available to meet demand and, with deposits for mortgages out of reach of those on low incomes, private renting may be the only option.
In 2011, the prison population in England and Wales reached a record high of 88,000. Ex-offenders are more likely to be male, young and have children under 18 when they enter prison compared to 38% of the general population. They are also likely to be socially excluded, economically disadvantaged and much more likely than the general population to have a mental health problem. They are likely to have grown up in care or in a disadvantaged family. Around half were found to have a history of debt problems. Four in 10 offenders lack financial services such as bank accounts.
Before going to prison, 11% of ex-offenders owned a home, while just over one-third rented; 16% were homeless, either sleeping rough or in temporary accommodation; and others were living rent free with a friend, paying board in someone else’s home, or living with family and in shared ownership housing. Offenders are less likely than the general population to have a home before entering prison and it is often not clear where they will go when they leave. A 2008 study by the Ministry of Justice surveyed nearly 5,000 offenders and combined the results with reoffending records over a number of years. The study concluded that ex-offenders were more likely to reoffend when they had a problem with both employment and housing. Figures also show that offenders who are homeless upon entering prison have a much higher reconviction rate within one year of release, more than three-quarters being reconvicted. Ex-offenders themselves report that homelessness is a principal cause of reoffending, and the St Giles Trust in its through-the-gate advice service identified homelessness as often being a key factor in reoffending. There is evidence that prisoners who have accommodation arranged on release are four times more likely to have employment, education or training arranged once they leave prison than those who do not have accommodation in place.
What sort of housing advice do ex-offenders receive? It seems that housing needs assessments are not conducted in a consistent way because they are carried out by a diverse range of people, including prison officers, probation officers and voluntary sector staff. A survey found that just one in five initial assessments is carried out by housing specialists. A recent Homeless Link study revealed a big variation in support received by those in different parts of the country. A number of organisations provide housing advice within prisons. Shelter has developed its prison advice services with a peer mentor model, meaning that existing prisoners are given skills and responsibilities alongside professional housing advisers. Some housing and support providers, such as Stonham, provide their own supported accommodation for ex-offenders. Once offenders have left prison, they will also have access to a range of housing advice available to the general public, through Citizens Advice or the Shelter helpline. In the year to October 2012, Shelter services outside prison were contacted by at least 920 ex-offenders.
Evidence from Homeless Link suggests that housing advice is most effective when advisers work closely with probation staff, local authority contacts and other advisers. Evidence from the St Giles Trust shows that ex-offenders value being met at the prison gates by service staff to help sort out immediate accommodation issues. However, many barriers are faced by ex-offenders in finding or retaining an existing home on release from prison, such as shortage of housing with support needs, not meeting the criteria for local authority support through homeless legislation, difficulties in accessing the private rented sector, often due to affordability, and the prejudice of landlords against ex-offenders and benefit claimants.
Those leaving prison after serving a short sentence may be able to prevent eviction by continuing to communicate with their landlord or bank. Failure to do this is a major cause of ex-offenders losing their home while in prison. Advisers can make this contact to prevent the loss of a tenancy or to terminate a tenancy to prevent a build-up of rent arrears.
So what of the future? Ex-offenders in general are younger and poorer than the general population and much less likely to own a home. More than half are reliant on welfare to support their income. They can lose their secure social homes when in prison if they build up rent arrears or have been convicted of certain related offences. The Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2012 could prevent social tenants in prison sub-letting their homes to avoid rent arrears. Secure social tenancies are of particular value to more vulnerable people in helping them to rebuild their lives. Some councils are already introducing two-year contracts for young people and suggesting that people with convictions could be excluded from social housing altogether.
Private renting is fast becoming the only realistic option for ex-offenders, especially in London and the south-east. Evidence collected by Shelter and Crisis shows that some ex-offenders value the chance to move away from their old networks as this can help them to avoid offending and substance misuse. Evidence from Homeless Link suggests that ex-offenders can struggle to maintain private rented tenancies due to landlords’ attitudes, while the cost of starting a tenancy can be well over £1,000.
Sweeping changes to welfare and a reduction in the number of rented homes will affect many people. It is vital that housing advice services for prisoners and those commissioning them respond to the challenges. Prison Service commissioners must make best use of the evidence on housing and reoffending when making the decisions, particularly bearing in mind how stable accommodation reduces reoffending. Housing for Women’s Re-Unite project has found that 38% of women prisoners expect to be homeless on release. Access to support for them is rarely available, but without it the 1,700 children separated from their mothers due to imprisonment will often remain in care.
Commissioners should consider what sort of housing advice is available in each prison and who is providing it. The outcomes and effectiveness of the initial housing needs assessment that each prisoner is given should be considered. Shelter services have discovered that including other prisoners to help deliver a service can encourage greater participation from new prisoners. This happens in Sweden, a country with a population that is a fraction of ours, where prisoners share in the running of prisons and help in finding post-prison accommodation as a matter of course. In the UK, those prisoners helping in the service benefit as well in that they develop new skills and build self-esteem. Evidence from Homeless Link suggests an integrated approach to advice—for instance, by addressing mental health problems along with housing difficulties.
Baroness Linklater of Butterstone (LD)
My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, for tabling this short debate on an issue of real concern to those of us who take an interest in the effective management and resettlement of offenders. “A roof, a relationship and a job: the key goals in future planning” is the old jingle I used to hear in this context when I was a social worker and the release of prisoners was being discussed. All three are equally important and interdependent but are difficult and often illusive when you are at that difficult sharp end, either as the soon-to-be ex-prisoner or the service provider. Turning hopes and plans into reality on which so much depends can be an unnerving process at best and if not realised can result in a return journey to jail.
The question today focuses on accommodation as the key element in the triad of issues. Finding a job when you have nowhere to go is a crucial and sometimes desperate process. Where are you going to live? Without a job, how do you pay the rent? How do you get a job without an address? You often have to do this without a partner, or with one who does not want you.
An MoJ study in 2012 found that 15% of prisoners were homeless before custody. Of these, the majority stated that they would need help to find somewhere to live, but 79% of this group were reconvicted within a year of release compared with 47% of those with accommodation before custody. The key fact is that prisoners who have accommodation arranged for them on release are four times more likely to get employment, education or training than those who do not. The NOMS annual report last year showed that 12% of prisoners released from custody had no settled accommodation. That is likely to be an underestimate as the arrangements made for them have often turned out to be very fragile or temporary. The link between homelessness and further reoffending is clear but, with accommodation in place, the reduction in reoffending is also clear.
The trouble is that there is no statutory provision of resettlement support or housing advice in prisons. I have been in prisons where such support or advice is locally organised or some voluntary organisation has a presence and can give advice, but it falls to the individual prisons and the right personnel, which might include prison resettlement workers and sometimes prisoners trained to give housing advice. However, it seems to be a case of pot luck. NOMS does not keep a central body of information. Services may be locally and/or regionally commissioned, but affordable suitable housing, including hostels, which are often oversubscribed, is hard to come by, even with professional help. Although local councils have a duty to provide information about local housing options, what is on offer is often no more than bed and breakfast. Social housing requires proof of a local connection, which is often very difficult to demonstrate, and proof of need over non-ex-offenders is equally hard. At each stage of the journey where things are difficult and unstable, so the risk of reoffending is high.
The other crucial issue for an ex-prisoner is a job, and that is extremely difficult without an address. Citizens Advice found that one-quarter of employers would not consider employing a homeless person. Accessing benefits or registering with a GP is equally hard. There are localised beacons of hope, of course, and these were referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell. The St Giles Trust is one such organisation. It runs a through-the-gate programme of intensive help, with trained caseworkers who are often ex-prisoners. They provide expert help with impressive outcomes, cutting the reoffending rate by 40%. The London Probation Trust offers a similar service. The roof and job aspects of the jingle, if not necessarily the relationship part, are being realised by these organisations, and we know that the Government plan to provide more through-the-gate help in the future.
However, I remind the Minister that, with its planned and imminent decimation, the role of the probation service will be reduced to three specific areas, which do not include the complex task of the rehabilitation of the homeless and jobless ex-offenders whom we are discussing. This job involves knowledge, expertise and protocols in working with local authorities. Can he tell the Committee how the new community rehabilitation companies, which have not yet given any information on how they will work with local authorities over their ongoing rehabilitation and housing aims, can take over this role? How can he ensure that the challenging accommodation and rehabilitation needs of this particular vulnerable group of ex-prisoners will be properly and effectively met in the future? I look forward to his reply.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Rendell of Babergh for introducing this debate and for her commitment to issues of housing, homelessness and offending. I shall approach these important issues partly through the experience that I gained of drug and alcohol-related offending when I was chair of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse.
As has been said, it is well known that most offenders have multiple problems: illiteracy, mental health and substance misuse issues, for example. We also know that the percentage of those reoffending after being in prison is unacceptably high. Many factors contribute to this, and, as we have heard, accommodation is one of them.
Recent research by the Third Sector Research Centre at the University of Southampton reminds us that about a third of offenders are homeless before or after imprisonment, and that housing is a key factor in reoffending rates. The research recommends that strong relationships between housing advice agencies and local authorities should be built. Some prisons do now have links with third sector organisations, and some have a dedicated housing adviser. There are problems. Sometimes local authorities put up barriers to prisoner resettlement. They may judge ex-offenders ineligible for housing because they are said to be “intentionally homeless”, or they fail to inform their landlord of a sentence or they commit an offence. They may be considered ineligible due to unacceptable behaviour and may not be judged a priority. Prisoners can be moved to any area in the country but are eligible for housing only in their own area. Moving people around can cause multiple and severe problems. For example, a substance misuser’s record of treatment may not always follow that person immediately; the system becomes clogged up. I know that this system has become somewhat more efficient—and I shall say more in a minute about integrated services—but a prisoner with special needs, such as substance misuse, should surely be monitored as a priority, and an intervention plan should follow him or her.
Recent policy developments may make matters worse. Welfare reform will affect housing benefit, and funding cuts to the criminal justice system may reduce housing support in prisons. The Localism Act 2011 gives local authorities more permission to exclude new applicants. The removal of ring-fencing for the Supporting People budget could limit pathway programmes for those with multiple needs and could affect help with services, with supported accommodation and towards independent living. Will the Minister comment on this?
With regard to substance misuse, there is now a range of substance misuse residential treatment providers who are ready, willing and able to provide treatment and accommodation as an alternative to a custody package. Several of these providers have been developing their expertise in this area over the past few years and are now expert in the rehabilitation of offenders who are also substance misusers. The staff teams of such providers are generally made up of people who have been in prison and/or are substance misusers themselves. As such, they can show that recovery is possible and lives can be turned around. Accommodation such as this is more effective than hostels, where recovery is impossible if the residents are chaotic and still drinking or using drugs. The 2012 drug strategy set out a plan to focus on recovery for addicts and this was reflected in the guidelines issued to prisons in 2010, which stated that prisoners sentenced to more than six months should work towards becoming drug free. Prisoners were asked what worked. Integrated services in prison involving treatment, relationships, employment and housing were given as reasons for recovery and for reducing reoffending.
The Labour Government’s public service agreement 16 —PSA 16—aimed to ensure that such socially excluded adults were given a chance to improve their lives by increasing settled accommodation and employment, education and training. It stated that a home and a job are the core foundations of normal, everyday life. Rehabilitation following custody is complex, but unless a determined effort is made to rehabilitate these men and women with severe problems, reoffending and the revolving door syndrome are likely to be expensive and disruptive for those involved, and for society.
The Lord Bishop of Derby
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, on securing this debate. I begin with a local perspective. I work in the city of Derby, and this time last year I organised the Redfern Commission, which brought people together to look at how citizens can help each other improve and develop the quality of life as the welfare state begins to recede. One of the sessions we had was about the police and the probation services. Some of the local statistics develop some of the insights already offered. Offenders, we were told, were more likely to have been in care, be unemployed, have been a truant, have family members convicted of crime, have writing and numeracy skills below that of an 11 year-old, be a drug user or have two or more mental disorders. That is a very complex set of issues for any person to deal with. The key thing for somebody like that is stability, and accommodation is at the root of stability of place and stability of relationship.
We were told that locally 60% of short-term prisoners and 50% of all prisoners reoffended, but only 35% of those who did community service did. That again says something about stability, relationships and putting the person in a bigger context than just being left to their own devices. In Derby, there is an organisation I am proud to be associated with called Derventio. It works with the homeless, especially ex-offenders. I want to read from a letter from a young woman who has been helped by this organisation. She wrote:
“You know about my difficult relationships and the domestic violence that led me to self-harm. You know that I was often in prison and didn’t care but I’d like you to know that the opportunity of accommodation has been a godsend”.
She goes on to say that she now feels secure and hopeful and she ends the letter saying:
“I want my life to improve”.
The stability in place and relationships has given her the confidence and the extra resource to begin to overcome that complex of handicap.
I want to name four or five issues that the Minister might like to comment on as we look at this issue in more detail. How do we get better liaison between those giving housing advice in prison and those who organise local government housing allocation? How do we get a better dialogue and joined-up thinking, not least with all the different policies that local authorities have? In my experience, and I visit a couple of prisons locally, too many prisoners lack information and too many people who might try to help them on the outside do not really know the extent of prisoners’ vulnerability and the problems they face. I echo the comments from the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, about how that is going to be delivered with the changes in the probation service. How are we going to assess prisoners’ vulnerability better and how are we going to give them better advice when in prison and as they come out about housing?
As we know, benefits are stopped when somebody is in prison. Would it not be much better to suspend them? In the crucial time after somebody leaves prison, having to get re-established to claim benefits means that without support, particularly with accommodation, they are susceptible to falling into bad ways. There could also be much better training in prison about the management of money and the responsibilities of being a tenant. These are basic things that, in my experience, people are not up to speed with. Prisoners often have no deposit to enter the private rental sector which, as we have heard, may be one of the few places open to them. Could there be a targeted grant scheme with a negotiation about who would receive the grant and what they would give in return? Quite frankly, that small investment would be much better than the colossal expenditure if people reoffend and go back into the system.
Some local churches offer support to some of the prisoners I meet when I visit. It reminds me that we need to be more proactive in linking with agencies with expertise in housing and accommodation. It seems to me that the connection between housing and a lower reoffending rate is clear and it would be in the interests of government, society and prisoners if we could maximise the enabling of people leaving prison to be housed, giving stability of place and of relationship.
Lord Judd (Lab)
My Lords, I also thank my noble friend Lady Rendell for introducing this vital debate. It always seems to me that if we were starting with a plain sheet of paper for policy we would have a penal system that looked nothing like the one we have at the moment. I believe that it would also be much more economic to operate. As we have heard, many prisoners have mental health problems, come from dysfunctional families or have been in the company of the worst elements of society. They have lived a nightmare, after which it would be quite difficult to imagine them ending up anywhere but in prison.
Their release from prison, when it comes, is a very crucial and sensitive area, as we have been hearing. Accommodation is vital, but they also desperately need human relationships—people who will take their hands and walk back with them into rehabilitation. This is a vital issue. Surely, rehabilitation must be central to our penal system. It matters not just for the individuals but economically for society. It certainly matters for the well-being, security and living conditions of ordinary people in their own society. We want fewer criminals around, so we want the rehabilitation process to be successful.
I follow closely the research and advice provided by that excellent organisation the Howard League. I hope that the Government follow it as closely as I do. I found its recent report particularly interesting, and I draw some of its points to the attention of the Minister.
The report recognised that men and women released from prison with no home could be temporarily accommodated in hostels. However, many men interviewed in the study found hostels unduly restrictive and disempowering, because of stringent terms and conditions, especially those which exclude them from employment. They said they would rather spend their sentence in prison. While the women in the research sample said that they felt safe and looked after in hostel accommodation, they were nevertheless frequently moved away from existing family networks to be accommodated, due to the poor geographic spread of hostels.
Is it not important, as the Howard League argues, for routine inspections of approved premises to take place, on the model developed for inspecting prisons? Inspections should consider capacity, overcrowding, communal facilities, privacy and bedrooms, as well as the hostel’s regime.
The report points out that sentenced prisoners are often released with no accommodation and no job. The Government announced, in the comprehensive spending review, that JSA payments would be delayed for seven days. Prisoners rarely have previous wages to draw on. So the discharge grant of £46 will have to last for at least a week, often longer, if their benefits have not been arranged prior to release. Remand prisoners, who are released direct from court, receive no discharge grant and no resettlement help. Government plans to impose at least one year’s supervision on short-sentence prisoners will not help prisoners on remand who are either found not guilty or given a community sentence that does not involve supervision.
There is a sad lack of authoritative national statistics on the number of people who are homeless and are remanded or sentenced to prison. The Howard League, in its research, recommends that both prisons and local authorities should be required to record the number of prisoners making homeless applications to their local authority.
In the age when we look for joined-up government, let us note another finding: that the bedroom tax will have a negative impact on the availability of accommodation for those leaving prison. The majority of homeless people who have been in contact with the criminal justice system are single and need to be housed in smaller properties. Increased demand for these properties caused by the underoccupancy charge will make it more difficult to find suitable housing.
I sometimes wonder when I look at the reality of how it is all operating, whether we speak about rehabilitation but have a secret plot to ensure that it is as unlikely as possible to succeed. Either we believe in rehabilitation or we do not. If we do, we need to make sure that the provision of services, the arrangements, for individuals—they are all individuals with different needs—are in place.
Lord Ramsbotham (CB)
My Lords, in his seminal report on the riots in Strangeways and other prisons in 1990, my noble and learned friend Lord Woolf opined that the three factors that were most likely to prevent a released prisoner reoffending were a home, a job and a family or stable relationship—all of which were put at risk by imprisonment. He advocated, so far unsuccessfully—although I have to acknowledge the intent behind the recent recategorising of 70 prisons as resettlement prisons—that prisons should be grouped into what he called “community clusters”, which today would be defined as regional clusters, so that this damage could be mitigated by holding prisoners as close to home as possible, thereby enabling local organisations to be involved in the rehabilitation of their own local prisoners. He said that evidence showed that local ownership of a problem resulted in much greater commitment to finding a solution.
I am very glad that Matthew Purvis’s excellent Library briefing for this debate, for which I am extremely grateful, includes three important non-governmental documents. These are Vision Housing and Interserve’s First Home, Second Chance; Shelter’s Unlocking Stable Homes; and Homeless Link’s Preventing Reoffending and Homelessness. They spell out many of the questions that I had hoped would have been answered in the Ministry of Justice’s May 2013 strategy, Transforming Rehabilitation. This is being implemented without debate in either House. Had today’s debate been held in two weeks’ time, noble Lords would also have had the benefit of another important non-governmental report, No Fixed Abode: The Implications For Homeless People In The Criminal Justice System. This has just been quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and will be published by the Howard League, as he said, which has allowed me to quote from it.
While the Government’s strategy appears to be strong in intent, it is by no means so strong on detail, suggesting that, rather than lay down what is to be done, they prefer to refer to what they call,
“the broader life management issues that often lead offenders back to crime”,
without specifying what they are.
Confirming the need for something more definite to be done to limit homelessness, the Howard League quotes the MoJ 2012 report, which was also quoted by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater. Three figures come out very strongly from that report: 60% believed that having a place to live was important in stopping them reoffending in the future; 37% said that they would require help in finding somewhere to live, and 84% of those said they would require a lot of help; and 79% of those who had been homeless before custody were reconvicted in the first year after release, compared with 47% of those who had had accommodation.
If such detailed requirements and their implications for reoffending were known by the Ministry of Justice in 2012, why were they not answered in detail in 2013? What about laying down what ought to happen? In some prisons that I inspected, I found that housing on release was tackled from initial reception through a dedicated housing unit, sometimes staffed by prisoners, which asked every prisoner on reception whether they had somewhere to live on release; this was followed by action taken to ensure that they had. Why was this not made common practice in every prison?
The Ministry of Justice would also, if it had looked around, have come across—and hopefully have been able to change—a policy introduced by the then Conservative Government in 1995 that I believe has massively increased the problem, particularly for women. This policy stipulated that council accommodation had to be surrendered if the tenant was absent for more than 13 weeks, against the advice given to the Minister at the time that it ought to be for a year.
Reflecting on probation, which has already been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, have the Government done anything about the short-term prisoners who are going to have to undergo a year’s supervision? Where are they to live and what about the cost of getting from accommodation to the place of supervision? Summing all this up, it seems to me that there is a great need to co-ordinate a great deal of good practice that is going on locally and being done by people who are taking the initiative on their own behalf.
As always, five minutes is far too short to do more than scratch the surface of concerns about the impact that a stable accommodation has on reoffending rates. In thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, and congratulating her on giving us this opportunity, I hope that the Minister will reflect on the points raised and tell us what the Ministry of Justice believes to be the answers to them. I hope, too, that on reflection, the Ministry of Justice will realise that the impact on reoffending rates of its strategy could have been greater if there had been debates in this House. If the points made today had been brought out much earlier, they perhaps would have been able to impact on the strategy.
Lord Dubs (Lab)
My Lords, some time ago I was talking to a police officer in north London. He told me of an incident where a young thug had mugged an elderly woman and left her unconscious in the street—a deplorable crime. The young thug was caught, and the police officer then went to the young thug’s home. There he found, mid-morning, the young man’s mother spaced out on drugs. The place was in an abominable condition, and there were dog faeces everywhere. The police officer said to me, “That man will go to Feltham prison, and when he comes out he will go back to the same environment that he left”, so the cycle of crime will go on. Unless one avoids sending people back to those sorts of conditions, we will not get any further. In the case of the incident to which I just referred, who should be responsible for seeing that it does not happen? Who should see that the young man is not discharged from Feltham and sent back with nothing to help or support him or stabilise his life?
I was looking at various bits of paper that we received and found this quote:
“When someone leaves prison, we send them back onto the streets with 46 quid in their pockets. Back to the same streets. Back to the same groups of people. Back to the same chaotic life styles. Back to the same habits as before. So why are we surprised when so many commit crime all over again? It costs the economy at least £9.5 billion a year. It blights communities, and ruins lives. It is a national scandal”.
Who do you suppose said that? Any offers? The Minister will know. It was said at the Conservative Party conference last year by the right honourable Chris Grayling, the Secretary of State for Justice. It seems to me that in that one quote we have it all. Yes, it is a national scandal, but the question is: what are we doing about it? It is fairly clear that the cost for the country of dealing with people who have offended and go to prison is enormous. I wonder whether we should not go to more trouble to set off the cost of their imprisonment against housing and other support, which would then lessen the chance that they would go to prison. If we can get that right, we will be almost in a win-win position where we can stabilise and help people so that they do not fill up the prisons again.
When I was in the Commons in the 1980s, we were appalled when the prison population went above 43,000 or 44,000. We thought that the world had come to an end and that the system would no longer sustain itself. Now it is at least twice that number and is going up and up, and we do not seem to be as bothered now as we were then. That was some years ago, and there was still a Conservative Government, albeit a different sort of Conservative Government—I should say that the current Government is a coalition with a Conservative majority.
The Howard League has provided some useful information, as has Shelter. We desperately need more accurate statistics. On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, why is it not the norm, when prisoners are discharged, that we do something directly about their housing in all instances? We need some statistics to demonstrate whether that is happening. How many people being discharged are going into accommodation and how many are left to fend for themselves in the circumstances that I described earlier in my example? My noble friend Lord Judd referred to prisoners being discharged. The Minister said that they get £46. Under the new system, they get no JSA for seven days. I do not think that prisoners discharged with £46 in their pocket will find it very easy to find somewhere to live, eat and survive for seven days before they get any social security benefit. Perhaps that has changed recently. I would like some assurance from the Minister that it has changed.
Some statistics from the Ministry of Justice were quoted, and they are a pretty savage indictment. There are also some interesting figures in a useful document from the Library with regard to Vision Housing, which deals with prisoners. It has some impressive statistics, based on a small sample, on the benefit of a lower reoffending rate when people are given housing on discharge from prison. The arithmetic is clear. We could be saving money, not wasting it, if we did more with housing so that people discharged from prison have some accommodation to go to. I am not saying that we should put them above everybody else in the community, but if we do not do this, all we will get are people reoffending at enormous cost to the public and to their local communities.
Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend for raising this issue so that we can debate it today. It seems that there is a widely accepted consensus among the speakers today. The first consensual belief is that ex-prisoners who have housing will be less likely to offend. I do not think anyone would challenge that assertion. We have also heard of the central role of local authorities in co-ordinating services for prisoners when they come out of prison.
I want to make two general points. The first has been made by the right reverend Prelate, the noble Baroness, Lady Linklater, and the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham. It is about the consequences of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill, which gives 12 months’ after-custody supervision to offenders who are sent to custody for one year or less. In practice, that will mean that many thousands of prisoners will be coming out and will be supervised by the community rehabilitation companies or the National Probation Service. It will be much easier to supervise prisoners if they have an address, whereas it is almost impossible to supervise them if they do not. If the Government want the benefits of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill to be seen, it is crucial that offenders have an address so that the probation service can do its work.
It is also common ground in this debate that housing is a central factor, but it is not the only factor. Local authorities need to hold the court in education, employment and training, health access, mental health access and drug and alcohol support, which my noble friend Lady Massey talked about. I do not think it is the role of the local authority to help prisoners to develop stable relationships; nevertheless, that is an important factor. It certainly will be the role of local authorities to provide the administrative structure for the community rehabilitation companies, the National Probation Service and all these other agencies to work together.
The other issue that I want to raise has not been talked about so far today, and that is the increasing role of computer technology in prisons. I quote from Through the Gateway: How Computers Can Transform Rehabilitation, which was written by the Prison Reform Trust and the Prison Education Trust and published in 2013.
“ICT could contribute far more to resettlement outcomes if prisoners were enabled to apply for housing online. On a prison visit, a resettlement officer said that they work with 35 different housing agencies and local authorities, each with its own applications, which can run to 30 pages. He explained that being able to complete them online would save a considerable amount of paper and time. That prison was processing about 200 housing applications a week. Accommodation availability is also short-term and information must be updated regularly. In addition, the areas in which people might wish to resettle are quite local and require the flexibility and reach of online resources”.
Clearly, the use of ICT in prisons raises a host of difficult issues, not least the vulnerability of former victims to being accessed through the internet. But it will not be long before the only way that you can apply for housing is via the internet, so there needs to be a structure for prisoners to do that while they are in prison.
There is no doubt that the housing of former prisoners is a complex issue. It is one that is evolving. We talked about the supervision that will make it even more important and I also talked about technology, which is changing the way that these applications are made. The Government, I am sure, are aware of these issues. They need their own co-ordinated and strategic approach to address them and I look forward to the Minister's response.
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, for giving the Committee the opportunity to discuss this important subject, which I will come on to talk about. However, it would be remiss of me if I did not mention that it was a happy birthday for one of us, I am reliably informed. The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, is celebrating his birthday today and I hope that after we have done with the serious matters of the day he will spend some time celebrating this notable day in his life. I offer my congratulations to him on this occasion.
As the Committee is aware and as some noble Lords said, this Government are determined to break the depressing merry-go-round of crime. The cycle of reoffending has a dreadful impact on the lives of decent, hard-working members of society and creates needless numbers of victims in our communities. I was part of the debate that took place during the passage of the Offender Rehabilitation Bill through this House. The noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, speaks with great experience in this regard. I reassure him that when he contributes, the Government listen—if not to all, at least to some of what he says. It influences our thinking. However, the overall objective of reducing reoffending, as the noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, has just said, is shared by all of us. This is not just about the victims; it is also about the offenders and the importance of ensuring that they do not go on to reoffend. Many noble Lords quoted the reoffending statistics. It is vital that we take action to help offenders to turn away from crime, and knowing what works to support people to get their lives back on track is important for achieving this.
At the moment, nearly half of all offenders released from prison offend again within a year. Changing the law to provide that virtually all offenders released from custody will be subject to supervision and rehabilitation services is just one important part of our overall package of transforming rehabilitation reforms. My noble friend Lady Linklater talked about roofs, relationships and jobs. I agree with those sentiments. Ensuring that we put in place a system that is sustainable but also takes into account our current financial constraints is important. It is therefore essential that money spent on rehabilitating offenders has the greatest possible impact.
In that regard, as noble Lords will know, we are creating much greater opportunities for a diverse range of organisations to play a role in rehabilitating offenders. I am sure that all noble Lords will agree that we want the expertise, skills and knowledge of all the different organisations involved, including the public, private and voluntary sectors, to come together to be used to tackle the issues that lead offenders back to crime—whether that is homelessness, the lack of accommodation that we are specifically talking about today, substance misuse, mentioned by my noble friend Lady Massey, or a lack of training and education.
We believe that our reforms will put in place a system that encourages innovation to improve outcomes. Providers will be given the flexibility to do what works to reduce reoffending and to tailor rehabilitative support to specific offenders. We will also pay them according to their success in reducing reoffending.
Using evidence to inform service delivery is not necessarily a straightforward matter. It is certainly not a simple case of selecting from a menu of options. We know that for some interventions the evidence on effectiveness is strong. For other interventions, the evidence may be weaker because the interventions are new or harder to research.
The Ministry of Justice recently published an overview of key evidence relating to reducing reoffending by adult offenders. This evidence summary was produced to support the work of policy-makers, practitioners and other partners involved in offender management and related service provision. We know from the available evidence on housing that the provision of suitable accommodation, as many noble Lords have said, can help to reduce the likelihood of an individual reoffending. I agree totally with the sentiment that that is only part of the solution. Analysis of 30 offenders who had completed the Preventing Offender Accommodation Loss project during 2009 and 2010 showed that 33% reoffended within 12 months compared with a 12-month reoffending rate of 53% across a matched control group. The point was made about sharing information, and that is very important.
There is also evidence that offenders who were homeless before custody were more likely to reoffend on release from prison than those who were not. A research paper published by the MoJ on 28 November showed that prisoners from one survey who reported being homeless before custody were nearly twice as likely to reoffend in the year after release compared with prisoners who did not report being homeless. Preliminary findings from an Offender Management Community Cohort Study also showed that reoffending was higher among those who did not have their employment, training, education and accommodation needs met. However, the provision of suitable accommodation may not reduce levels of reoffending by itself. Accommodation needs are often related to, and/or complicated by, other risk factors, such as substance abuse, employment and mental health issues. The noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, mentioned Shelter. I am aware of the project that it is conducting in the prison in Leeds, where housing advisers are talking with prisoners about helping them to secure better accommodation. It is therefore important that those working with offenders to reduce reoffending look at tackling the full range of offenders’ life management issues and focus on what works for a particular individual.
We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, on his birthday, about the importance of statistics and good information. We have set up the Justice Data Lab to allow all organisations working with offenders to access central reoffending data so that they can better understand the impact that their work has and focus on what works. We have done this in response to feedback from providers, who highlighted the need to improve research and evaluation capability by allowing access to high-quality reoffending data. The Justice Data Lab is of particular value to smaller organisations, which may struggle to evaluate the effectiveness of their rehabilitation work. Being able to understand the effectiveness of a particular programme or intervention should help organisations to improve the services that they deliver and, ultimately, have a greater impact on the lives of those with whom they work.
I turn to some specific questions. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, raised the importance of tackling some of the issues on the mental health agenda, and offender drug and alcohol abuse. We are working closely with the Department of Health to reshape drug treatment services and deliver government commitments within the offender, drug, alcohol and mental health agenda. These include piloting drug recovery wings; testing a new through-the-gate model for substance misuse services that will complement the introduction of transforming rehabilitation proposals; developing and testing liaison and diversion services in police custody suites and at courts; and exploring options for intensive treatment based on alternative studies. There are others but, in the interests of time, I shall write to the noble Baroness on that issue and put a copy of the letter in the Library.
We want to help all those working with offenders to see clearly what works and to help create a culture of best practice and transparency. As I said earlier, sometimes the evidence about what works to reduce reoffending is not clear-cut, but this should not prevent the consideration of new approaches. In the absence of decisive evidence, partners will want to have a sound theoretical rationale for their approaches. Expertise, whether scientific or operational, will inform these approaches. The noble Baroness, Lady Rendell, talked about patchy needs and assessments. The new through-the-gate service that we are putting in place under Transforming Rehabilitation will mean that contractual requirements will be placed on the community rehabilitation companies to provide a resettlement service. Finding accommodation for those leaving prison will be a key feature of this particular service.
My noble friend Lady Linklater and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, in their very thoughtful contributions, raised the importance of localism. I speak as someone who has experience of working in local government. The Government recognise that local engagement is key to the successful rehabilitation of offenders, and probation trusts have done some excellent work in developing these local relationships. Contracted providers will need to demonstrate, through competition, how they engage effectively with key local partners. On the public sector side, we intend to maintain a strong local delivery structure. Within trusts, much local engagement happens not just at trust level but in the approximately 150 local delivery units across the country. Our intention is to preserve a delivery structure which enables the public sector probation service to continue its work with local authorities and other agencies at this level.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, also raised the issue of ring-fenced budgets. The responsibility for providing accommodation services for people leaving prisons and other places of prescribed detention lies with local authorities. Some voluntary and community organisations provide accommodation services. Local authorities, we believe, are best placed to assess and prioritise the needs within local communities.
The noble Lord, Lord Judd, talked about the geographic location of release. The introduction of designated resettlement prisons under Transforming Rehabilitation means that we aim for the majority of offenders to be released from a prison near where they will be resettled. They will also have their resettlement needs assessed and addressed by either a community rehabilitation company or the National Probation Service prior to their release. We believe that we should use the best available evidence and thinking to take well informed decisions about the most effective and efficient approaches to supporting innovation and improving rehabilitation outcomes.
The noble Lord, Lord Ponsonby, talked about the challenges of ICT. Again, in the interests of time, perhaps I could write to him in more detail on that matter.
I wish to reassure noble Lords. When I visited Peterborough, for example, I saw at first hand how offenders who are engaging with people who have already been through the system, who are being given work opportunities and who are being empowered and having their training needs, housing needs and professional needs identified can become more productive citizens when they leave prison. I am sure all noble Lords share that aim with us.
In conclusion, our reforms mean that more offenders will get targeted rehabilitation support to help them to turn their lives around. We want to draw on the best services that can be offered across the board from practitioners in the public, private and voluntary sectors. We believe that the prize, supported by the evidence of interventions, the extension of supervision to short-sentence offenders and the move to a through-the-gate system of support, is one that the whole House supports. I welcome this debate for the additional information and expertise that it has provided.
Dartford River Crossings
(11 years ago)
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Lord Hanningfield
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to construct a further bridge near the current Dartford river crossings.
Lord Hanningfield (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I am very grateful for having obtained this debate, although I am a bit disappointed that we do not have more speakers, given the importance of the Dartford crossing. Around 50 million people cross it every year, so it is of vital importance to the whole national economy, not just to the south-east. So it is a bit disappointing that there are not more speakers—but it is quality rather than quantity, perhaps.
Today is perhaps an opportune day for this discussion. I have just had messages that parts of Essex are being evacuated because of potential flooding this evening due to the tidal system. Places that were flooded before, in 1953—the Tendring area, Jaywick, Foulness Island and parts of Southend—are being evacuated, and people are being taken from their homes. I hope I am going to be able to get back to Essex when we finish this tonight. It is also an opportune time to be discussing this because it was 50 years ago last week that the first tunnel opened. I will speak a bit more about that later. Looking through the briefing today, I see the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, got in quicker than me and asked a Written Question about this a week or so ago. It got an unsatisfactory Answer, but I will talk a bit more about that later as well. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has a particular interest from his past ministerial experience.
I declare an interest only as a user of the crossing, having lived in Essex all my life. Until the tunnel was opened, of course, the only way across other than coming through the middle of London was by the Tilbury ferry. My father, grandfather and great-grandfather were fruit farmers in Essex—and where do you buy fruit trees but Maidstone in Kent? I had many enjoyable crossings as a child on the Tilbury ferry. It was quite an adventure to go to Kent on the Tilbury ferry when I was small. Unfortunately, it probably takes longer now to go through the Dartford Tunnel sometimes than it did on the ferry, when it was operative. A year or two ago, I stood in the car park of the hotel that overlooks the crossing on the Kent side, and saw the congestion, the fumes, and all the other problems of the crossing, particularly where the pay kiosks are. It showed that there is a real environmental problem attached to this. I hope that we get some further answers from the noble Baroness on progress and the process of how this is going to happen.
I was a long-serving member of Essex County Council and leader of it for some years. Some 50 years ago, Kent and Essex got together to build the first tunnel for the crossing, with European funding. The two county councils then built another tunnel, and introduced tolls. It was then sort of nationalised by the Government to build the bridge. The two county councils offered to build the bridge, but the Government decided to do it. I must say that it was done very quickly. From the consultation to when the Queen opened it—it is called the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge—took only four years. During that time, I was chairman of policy and then, when the bridge opened, chairman of the county council, and I was officiating when the Queen opened the bridge. So I remember it all very well; the bridge immediately solved the problem.
On some days now, traffic at the crossing is 70,000 vehicles more than was planned for, so the congestion is acute. I know that any time when I try to cross it—mainly for social reasons now—I almost dread it, particularly coming back on the Kent side. Something needs to be done. The answer to the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was 2025. That is a long way away, so what is going to happen? If the economy improves, what is going to happen during that time? It only needs one accident to cause four or five hours’ delay. Even on a normal day, there can be a lot of delay at peak times. What is this costing our country?
At the moment the crossing is making a lot of profit. The bridge was all paid for in 2002 and, since then, there has been a big surplus from the toll money over the cost of maintaining the crossing. There are suggestions that it might be as much as £60 million a year. I know that it is important and it goes into the general fund, which is supposed to be spent on local improvements, but we have not seen that many local improvements worth £60 million a year in south Essex or north Kent. Therefore, there is money around that could be used to finance a new crossing, although the Chancellor might not like it. I did not hear whether it was announced today that the Dartford crossing was one of the areas they were going to put infrastructure money into, but there is money around from the current crossing that could be used to construct a new bridge.
There is obviously some enthusiasm from the Government. They came out with the consultation paper in the summer and suggested several options. I think the majority of consultants wanted option C, which is the one I could support. Kent, particularly, would like a sort of option C plus, bringing in the road from Dover, which I support, with the traffic there. On the other hand, that could take another 20 years to achieve, and something needs to be done about the crossing now.
When I was involved in Essex County Council, I went backwards and forwards across the Thames in a helicopter looking at potential crossing sites. Clearly the only one that could be built fairly quickly and link into current roads is the one fairly close to the existing crossing. Further down the Thames, that area of Kent is barren marshland, and it would need a lot of roads and a lot of money spent on it. One could achieve a junction into the A2/M2 and the A13 in Essex on a new bridge relatively easily, with some improvement works. It could be done without taking too much time. I hope the Minister will comment on that in her reply.
As I said, time is of the essence. The consultation is there and the Government have said that they are going to announce a result by the end of the year. We are only about three weeks away from the end of the year, so I hope we might get some indication today of when that announcement might be. It is something that we can all benefit from.
There are various debates about how much this problem is costing the economy now. Obviously with all this congestion and the hours that commercial and private vehicles and people doing their day-to-day jobs spend in these queues, the suggestion is that it could be around £40 million a year. I believe that it costs the economy more than that. KPMG has done some work suggesting that we could improve the economy by several billions of pounds by building a bridge, so there is a lot of potential.
A new bridge, built fairly quickly, would help with three things. It would help the environment and the economy, very considerably, and with the problem of housing. A new bridge built along the lines of option C would generate land that could be used for affordable and other housing fairly quickly. We could be talking about 25,000 houses that we desperately need in the margins of the London area. They could be built on the land released by building a new bridge. The whole thing is of tremendous benefit, and the sooner we can do something and actually create a bridge for those three reasons the better. We should not wait until 2025.
I have probably said all that I can today. I have more notes here but, given that Essex may be being flooded and there may be no trains home, we should get on with the debate. I thank everyone for listening to me, and I hope that the Minister can give us some answers to the things that I have been talking about.
Lord Berkeley (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, on achieving this debate. It is timely. There is a consultation out on the river crossings. He asked the Minister a question about the end of the year, but he did not say which year. I am sure that we will hear that when the Minister responds.
It is quite clear that there is a traffic problem east of London because of the growth. I met an expert in these things recently who said that the centre of gravity of the population of London was now some five miles east of the City. That surprised me slightly, but maybe the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, and his colleagues from Essex will confirm that. I do not know, but industry and business are moving east beyond Canary Wharf, so there is clearly a demand.
My concern, starting with demand and forecasting, is about the way the department does its road forecasts, which I have mentioned before. I put a Question down on it today, not in respect of this debate but generally. The briefing for the debate gives Highways Agency figures for the Essex-Kent traffic from April 2012 to March 2013. It states that,
“the traffic was down one and a half million vehicles”,
from 49 million. That was confirmed by the number of trips and everything.
One has to ask why. Maybe it is to do with the congestion. Why has the traffic gone down? Maybe it is to do with the tolls. I believe that the tolls will be changed quite soon, which is something that we managed to achieve in legislation about a year ago, which is very good. But it is extraordinary that the Highways Agency is still quoted as saying:
“While the amount of traffic using the Dartford Thurrock River Crossing has decreased slightly over the last few years, traffic flows are expected to increase by a fifth over the next 30 years, due to the anticipated development in the Thames Gateway region”.
I could just about believe that if the Department for Transport forecasting team had not been producing forecasts of road traffic growth for the past 20 years which show a spider’s web where the curve goes up and then it levels off. That shows the actual traffic, but the forecast keeps on going up. If the forecast that was done in 1992 or 1993 had been achieved today, we would have 50% more traffic than we actually have.
There is something wrong with the forecasting. I have said that before. Is it because the department likes building roads? This is not an attack on the present Government because the department has been the same for the past 20 years. I hope that some thought has gone into this. We should look at the road and rail element. I believe that this crossing is necessary but it needs a rail element as well. I declare an interest as chairman of the Rail Freight Group, but this is a passenger and freight issue. I would like to cover that in a little more detail.
Page 9 of the consultation document states that,
“the provision of rail freight as part of any new Lower Thames crossing would not address the rail freight capacity issues that are forecast for the area”.
That, I think, is open to challenge. In fact, a very large and welcome development called the Thames Gateway is being built just downstream from where these crossings might be, which is forecast at peak to have something like 40 freight trains a day. The London, Tilbury and Southend line and the route across London can actually carry that amount of traffic, because it is a good line.
It is debatable how much of that traffic would want to go south: it would probably want to go north because it is coming in from the deep sea. However, within that complex, a very large logistics centre is being built—and the first bit is already just opened—which will be doing shorter deliveries and may even want to use traffic from the Channel Tunnel. Noble Lords will know that the volume of Channel Tunnel traffic is pretty low at the moment. However, the industry forecasts suggest that, with the present pretty high charges, in 2043—which is hopefully after these links get built, but perhaps we do not know—there will be something like 50 trains a day through the Channel Tunnel, 25 in each direction, compared with about seven today. If somebody achieves a better diversion from road to rail, it would certainly help reduce the number of trucks on the Dartford crossing. If you stand on a bridge at Ashford and count the number of trucks, you will see that 200 trains a day could be filled. The first reason they are not going by rail is largely price, followed by difficulties in France. In a 20-year timescale, however, we can probably think that that could change.
When I worked for Eurotunnel 25 years ago, we forecast that there would be 40 freight trains a day in each direction when the tunnel opened and probably up to 60 today. The forecasts were miles out for whatever reason, but I am just saying that that is the sort of potential. Therefore, I think there is room for rail freight on this link and luckily there are good existing rail lines on either side which could probably take much of that traffic if it wanted to go either to the big logistic centres—I only mentioned one, but there are several others down there on both sides—or further north. There needs to be a strategic view taken, if you have lots of freight trains in the Channel Tunnel wanting to go up to the Midlands, as to which way they should go around London. Do they go south-about through Redhill, or do they go north-about, possibly by crossing here on the LTS and the Gospel Oak-Barking line, or does somebody want to build a new line from somewhere through Hertfordshire and outer Essex, if I can call it that, with a new crossing which could tie up with one of the mayor’s ideas for airports, or whatever? One could go on having conjectures about this for ever. What I am saying is that, if there were a rail link built in to this crossing, it could connect quite easily with existing routes where there is capacity, and it would help a great deal in getting some of the trucks off the road.
I turn to passengers. The same consultation document says:
“Passenger flow volumes on a cross-river rail route east of London are also likely to be limited”.
The North London line services were limited before Transport for London took them over; they are now incredibly successful. London Overground has grown by leaps and bounds, is very popular and has established many new journeys. Rail transport, as noble Lords will know, has increased pretty dramatically in the south-east, as it has in the rest of the country.
It is hard to conclude that passenger flow volumes are likely to be limited: if there is not a service there at the moment, it is very difficult to judge. How many people driving across the Dartford crossing, paying their toll in their car every day, would use a convenient rail service if there was one? It is a very difficult thing to decide and it would probably take five or 10 years after it opened before it was really possible to know what the right figures were and whether everybody got it right. However, most of these links develop into something highly popular. What this link needs is a good road link and a good rail link, hopefully together, and, in places, capacity for expansion. Whether we should be doing that on HS2 we can debate; it is too late now. Capacity for expansion is important, because we tend not to look at the longer and wider potential for this link—I mentioned the airport, but there may be other things in Kent and in Essex. If the economy of the London area is moving east, who knows what it will be in the future for passengers and freight.
I do not have a view on which of the three options should be used, although I have been told by someone who owns quite a big area of land at Swanscombe, where there is potential for a theme park with several thousand jobs, that it would be a pity if the route went straight through the middle of that land. He has a point, if it is a job creation scheme. On the other hand, one has to look at the options and the costs and everything else.
I hope the Government will look again at the potential for rail—not high-speed rail but local and regional services and freight. It would be remiss not to do it, because it is possible that this link may not get built for 10 years—we look back at opinions expressed five years ago, and in 15 years many things can change—so I look forward to hearing the Minister speak about this and am happy to take it further.
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, on having secured this debate. As he says, it is a debate on the anniversary of the existing facility, so we should certainly think afresh.
When he quoted a figure of 50 million, I thought he was going to say every day, but he said every year. Whenever I go across the bridge, it feels more like 10 or 20 times the number he mentioned. It is a point of very real congestion at times. We know the pressure on the M25 and the efforts being made to widen sections of it. There has been significant road widening not far north of the bridge, which has helped, but the bridge and the tunnel are clearly queuing points.
I have the greatest difficulty understanding why we have not moved with some urgency on new toll payment technologies for the crossing—it seems an obvious thing to do. There is something very old-fashioned about cars and trucks slowing to throw coins into meters or show their entitlement to cross. I do not think that implementation of the new system—which after all has been tried and tested on congestion charging in London—represents an enormous technological breakthrough. I wonder that it is not done as soon as possible. I realise the date is not so far away now, but I bemoan the fact that it was not done some time ago, not least because the easiest way to ease things in the short term is to improve the efficiency of the two crossings.
The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, wants something much more ambitious than that, and I understand that. However, even with the best will in the world—which for me to attribute to the Government would be stretching things—completion of construction is a considerable period away for any such crossing, even if the case is established. The Government’s problem, quite straightforwardly, is that there are more people objecting to each of the three options than are in favour of any one of them. That is a genuine problem. We can see the pressures and the work that would have to be done there.
I hope the Minister, having carried out the consultation, will ensure that people get a clear perspective on the Government’s proposals. They may be more limited than my noble friend Lord Berkeley likes, but I fully support his continuous efforts to get as much freight onto rail as possible, to the advantage of our whole road system, and he is right to make the pitch here. However, that looks some distance away. I think that the degree of usage merits a real investigation. We all know the extent to which road usage for freight relates crucially to convenience, but the M25 is not a normal road. Normal roads have some linear quality to them. The M25 is a great circle, and therefore it is much more difficult to identify the nature of the usage.
I have the colossal misfortune of living some, although not many, miles north of the M1 at the 12 o’clock position and my son lives exactly the same distance south of the M25 at the six o’clock position, so we always have a little debate about which way round it is better to go. Of course, that depends on how much work is being done on road widening on the western stretch, and that is counterbalanced by what we all know will be the likelihood of a very considerable wait at the current Dartford crossing. Therefore, I have direct experience of this, and I know that there is a feeling of great frustration at the present limitations. It looks more than a little archaic when you see the quantity of vehicles at certain times. You can even have the supreme joy of driving at normal speeds going north, whereas when going south there is a jam that lasts for eight to 10 miles while people try to get across. You thank your lucky stars when you are not in that jam, although your lucky stars are unlikely to save you on more than two consecutive journeys before you get caught.
I recognise the difficulties. However, I hope that the pressure that the noble Lord has brought to bear in this debate, together with all the representations about the options, will stir the department into realising its obligation to produce a prompt response to the consultation. I also hope that we will get an assurance this afternoon that the charging system on the existing structures will be implemented as rapidly as possible.
The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Kramer) (LD)
My Lords, I am pleased to address this Question for Short Debate which the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, has secured on the Government’s plans for a new river crossing in the lower Thames area. We have had very thoughtful comments from the three noble Lords who have spoken today, often bringing up issues which have been raised within the consultation. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, was right to say that this is an issue not just of local consequence but with much broader implications.
The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, said that he had seen the bridge built in just four years. Many of us who deal with infrastructure today think longingly of timetables such as that. However, he may be interested to know that the Government are piloting ways in which to accelerate the building of infrastructure. There are four pilots: in Surrey, on the M3 managed motorway between junctions 2 and 4a; in the West Midlands, at M6 junctions 10a to 13, which is also managed motorway; in Derbyshire, at the M1 junctions 28 to 31; and on the A160/A180 Immingham dualling scheme. We will see whether there are some good lessons to learn so that we can start to speed up the delivery of these infrastructure projects, because, as the noble Lord pointed out, that would make sense.
I know that noble Lords are concerned to know the nature and timing of the Government’s plans for a new crossing. I shall try to address that towards the end of my remarks and I hope to provide at least a measure of satisfaction.
Noble Lords will appreciate that there are serious issues at stake in reaching decisions on where to locate a new crossing and whether it should be a bridge or a tunnel. The department is carefully considering the issues reinforced during the consultation and it intends to announce the next steps shortly. I know that that response has been promised by the end of the year, before which I note that there are only three weeks left. I will allow noble Lords to draw conclusions from that statement.
I shall set out the scale of the challenge and what we have done to date. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, reminded us of the history. Fifty years ago, a tunnel was opened between Dartford and Grays. Today, the Dartford-Thurrock crossing comprises two tunnels and one bridge which carry about 140,000 vehicles daily across that part of the River Thames. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, basically said that they carry much more than they were designed to carry. They were designed for 135,000 vehicles, so they are definitely over that, but there is a little comfort in knowing that the current level is not hopelessly over. Of course, we recognise that this is a crucial part of the strategic road network linking London, Kent and Essex, as well as international destinations, with the rest of the UK.
In addition, the existing crossing is located in the area known as the Thames Gateway, which, as the noble Lords, Lord Hanningfield and Lord Berkeley, pointed out, has very ambitious plans for redevelopment and growth, which we obviously want to promote. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, gave us a very personal experience of surviving congestion at the Dartford-Thurrock crossing. I shall think of him and his son trying to decide which of them would be able to get through to the other more easily because the traffic was flowing northbound or southbound but not the other way.
Lord Davies of Oldham
Anything more sophisticated than the toss of the coin would be an advantage.
Baroness Kramer
I think a lot of forecasts are as accurate as tosses of the coin. Let us see what we can do about this. Journey time reliability is important, and this is consistently one of the worst performing links in the strategic road network. We think it is going to get better, not worse.
Successive Governments at national and local level have commissioned studies on congestion and possible new river crossings. The most recent report for the department, done in 2009, identified short and medium-term measures to improve traffic flows. It also concluded that a new crossing is needed in the long term and shortlisted potential locations: option A, at the existing Dartford-Thurrock crossing; option B connecting the A2 with the A1089; option C connecting the M2 with the A13 and the M25 between junctions 29 and 30; and a variant of option C connecting the M2 with the A13 and the M25 and additionally widening the A229 between the M2 and the M20. From the start, this coalition Government have been determined to act and promises made as early as the first spending review in 2010 are now being realised.
Next year will see the introduction of free-flow charging. That will please the noble Lord, Lord Davies. I know he has been waiting for that. Motorists will no longer stop at each end of the crossing to put money into a slot machine or hand it to an attendant. Believe it or not, getting this technology right has not been quite as easy as it sounds, and nobody wants to install a technology, have it go wrong and create that kind of inconvenience. Although it was hoped to bring it in late this year, it will now be coming in 2014. I believe October is the target date.
Lord Berkeley
I am grateful to the Minister. I am surprised she said the technology is not working very well because it is working in many other member states. In fact, I met somebody yesterday in Brussels who said that it is not only doing the charging, either fixed-point or road-user charging, but at the same time is checking whether lorries are overloaded, have not paid their licence and other things. The technology is there. It just needs applying to every toll in this country in the same way.
Baroness Kramer
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, for that. I was on the board of Transport for London when we brought in the congestion charge and I can tell the Committee about the nightmare of trying to make sure that we had effective number plate recognition systems and everything else attendant on it. I suspect every one of your Lordships would rather we delayed a bit and made sure it worked faultlessly—that is probably tempting fate—rather than introduced it and had it not function properly.
Baroness Kramer
I fully accept that and hope the noble Lord will be pleased when he sees the system in operation.
The coalition Government are also committed to reviewing the options for a new crossing. In the 2012 national infrastructure plan, a new crossing for the lower Thames was identified as one of the coalition Government’s top 40 infrastructure projects, which are prioritised as nationally significant and critical for growth, and that continues into the current infrastructure plan.
Noble Lords will understand that we face a unique and important opportunity in choosing how to add capacity to the road network to best serve our national interests. Should we add capacity at the existing crossing linking the M25 between junctions 1a and 30, or should we add capacity further downstream linking other parts of the network? Whichever we choose will have substantial implications, and it is clearly a matter of public interest.
To better understand the relative merits of each option, the department embarked on a technical exercise to review the options. Once that review was completed in spring 2013, the department made the findings publicly available and consulted on the options from May to July this year. Noble Lords will be interested to hear that in addition to online communications, the Minister and officials met interested parties during the consultation in a series of briefings, meetings and public information events. Numerous members of the public took advantage of the opportunities and at the end the department recorded and analysed more than 5,700 responses to the consultation.
The noble Lord, Lord Davies, is right. The consultation has confirmed what many noble Lords may have expected; namely, that opinion is divided. Opinion is divided on both the case for a new crossing and on where to locate a new crossing. Those who responded to the consultation expressed a mixture of support and opposition for each of the options—options A, B, C or C variant. Respondents also made detailed comments highlighting serious issues relating to the economic, environmental and social impacts of each of the options. As I have already emphasised, our decision on where to locate a new crossing is of public interest. I know noble Lords would expect the department to respect due process and give careful consideration to the serious issues raised during the consultation. The Department for Transport intends to make an announcement shortly on next steps and to publish a summary of the consultation response. I have no reason to think that we will not be within our target of doing that by year end.
The question at the heart of today’s debate presumed that the Government would have reached a decision on whether a new crossing should be a bridge or a tunnel. Noble Lords raised issues about levels of tolls, whether tolling is appropriate and forms of financing. While the review which the Department for Transport undertook established the engineering feasibility of bridge and tunnel solutions for each location and considered the means by which it could be funded, it is clear that the detailed work that leads to decisions about technical and financial aspects is much more sensibly progressed when the Government have certainty about their preferred location.
A couple of specific issues were raised, particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, that I have not covered. He will know that the department takes the view that a rail crossing would not address the rail-freight capacity issues forecast for the area and that demand for cross-river passenger rail services is likely to be relatively low and so it probably would not offer value for money. However, I am happy to take that issue away and look into it much more thoroughly, as well as looking into the rather strange usage patterns forecast. I will follow up on those issues with the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley.
I think that I addressed most of the direct questions asked by the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield. There is one further issue on traffic forecasting. As he will know, it is based on population and economic growth and motoring costs. Let us follow up on that when we have more time to look at it.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, for securing this debate and the noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Davies of Oldham, for their contributions. A new lower Thames crossing represents a unique and challenging opportunity. I have referred to the work undertaken to date to consider the options. I have indicated the high level of public interest in the decision on where to locate a new crossing, and I have advised the Committee that the department intends shortly to publish a summary of the consultation response and announce next steps. I trust that noble Lords will maintain their interest as we progress this important infrastructure priority.
House of Lords
Mesothelioma
(11 years ago)
Lords ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Alton of Liverpool
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what funding has been secured for research into the causes of and potential cures of mesothelioma.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are fully committed to research into the causes of this dreadful disease and into potential treatments. The usual practice of the main public funders of health research is not to ring-fence funds for expenditure on particular diseases, and funding is available for high-quality research proposals. With its partners, the Department of Health is actively pursuing a package of measures that we believe will stimulate an increase in the level of research on mesothelioma.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
While thanking the noble Earl for his reply, does he recall the assurance he gave to the House, when an all-party amendment—which would have created a small, statutory levy to support mesothelioma funding—was defeated by 199 votes to 192, that insurance companies would voluntarily step up to the plate? Given that there have been 2,400 deaths from mesothelioma this year, with 60,000 anticipated over the next 25 years, and with the imminent ending of even the existing insurance industry funding, would it not be shameful to leave unfunded research that could save lives and prevent vast expenditure on compensation? The Mesothelioma Bill is now before another place, with an amendment supported by both Conservative and Labour Members of the House of Commons. Surely Ministers should be looking again at this practical way of finding a cure for this deadly disease.
Earl Howe
My Lords, I understand that the British Lung Foundation has had discussions with representatives of the insurance industry about extending the funding for research, but that no commitment has been made by the industry so far as to future funding. As I made clear during the debate, the issue holding back progress is not the lack of available funding—there is plenty of that—but the lack of sufficient high-quality research applications. The money previously donated by insurers is supporting valuable research, as the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has said. At the moment, a greater volume of mesothelioma research is supported by the Government, and we believe that the package of measures that I mentioned will stimulate an increase in that volume.
Lord Beecham (Lab)
My Lords, I refer to my interest in the register. Section 48 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 requires the Government to review the application to mesothelioma claims of the provisions banning conditional fees. The Government have announced that, in the light of a consultation as yet unpublished, they will not treat those cases differently from other claims. They seek to conflate this issue with entirely different provisions in the Mesothelioma Bill.
Is the Minister aware that the Civil Justice Council has been unable to agree whether the current consultation,
“fulfils the conditions set out in Section 48 of LASPO”?
Is this not another example of the Government cravenly caving in to the demands of their friends in the insurance industry and ignoring the strong feelings of this House in support of those suffering from this terrible disease?
Earl Howe
I am sure that the noble Lord wants to take advantage of this opportunity to raise that particular issue, but it is a rather different one from the Question posed by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. However, I will take his question away and ensure that a letter is sent to him in response.
Lord Ribeiro (Con)
My Lords, the Government are to be congratulated on introducing the Cancer Drugs Fund, but how do they anticipate that the vital research which needs to be done into mesothelioma will continue to be funded without legislation to compel those insurance companies which so far have not stepped up to the plate to make a contribution?
Earl Howe
My Lords, as my noble friend will be aware, four insurance companies have stepped up to the plate with funding of £3 million, which admittedly is nearing its end, but I do not think that we can belittle that contribution. My noble friend may be interested to know that the MRC and the NIHR together spent more than £2.2 million on mesothelioma research in 2012-13, which is a larger sum than for many other disease areas. I say again that the issue is not the lack of funding because the research funding in both the MRC and the NIHR has been protected. What is lacking are suitable proposals.
Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister share the disappointment expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, which I certainly do, that following the scandalous mistreatment of mesothelioma sufferers by employer’s liability insurers over decades, there has been no commitment from those four employer’s liability insurers or from the rest of the industry to continue funding beyond next year? Whatever arrangements are made to secure the continuation of research in this vital field, can the Minister be more precise on how the Government will bring their influence to bear to ensure that the research is of suitable quality?
Earl Howe
My Lords, we have committed to doing four things, the first of which will be to set up a partnership to bring together patients, carers and clinicians to identify what the priorities in research are. Secondly, the NIHR will highlight to the research community that it wants to encourage research applications in this area. The NIHR Research Design Service will be able to help prospective applicants develop competitive research proposals, and we will convene a meeting of leading researchers to discuss and develop new proposals for studies. I think that those four measures together will deliver what the noble Lord seeks.
Lord Avebury (LD)
My Lords, does my noble friend acknowledge that the £3 million has run out and that there is a danger that the talented clinicians who have been working on mesothelioma as a result of that fund will move on to other subjects? However, the Association of British Insurers has told me that it would be prepared to consider a new scheme funded jointly by all employer’s liability insurers and the Government, so I wonder if the Government will approach the ABI to see if that scheme could be taken a little further.
Lord Walton of Detchant (CB)
My Lords, what makes mesothelioma such a fatal disease is the length of the incubation period, in that individuals who have been exposed to asbestos may not develop the disease until many years later; indeed, 2,000 new cases have been reported this year. The developments to which the Minister has referred are helpful and encouraging, but have the Government been able to persuade the relevant insurance companies to increase significantly their contribution to the research programme?
Earl Howe
My Lords, I said earlier that the discussions between the British Lung Foundation and the insurance industry have not so far resulted in a pledge for further funding, but as my noble friend Lord Avebury has indicated, that door may be open. However, we should bear in mind that asking insurance companies to fund research is an unusual mechanism in itself. I suggest that we should not push the envelope too far because in the end the cost will fall on the industry.
EU: Membership
Baroness Quin
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with representatives of British business following statements by Ministers calling for a referendum on United Kingdom membership of the European Union.
Lord Popat (Con)
My Lords, reflecting the coalition agreement, the Government have no plans to hold a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU in this Parliament. The Government continue to have regular discussions with British business organisations on the need for EU reform and the direction it should take. The other 27 member states of the EU are key trading partners of the UK, and this relationship supports UK jobs, growth and prosperity.
Baroness Quin (Lab)
My Lords, has the Minister seen the recent survey by the CBI and YouGov that showed that, of the firms surveyed, 80% wanted to stay within the EU, and that many of them were worried about both the prospect of a referendum and the effects on investment and competitiveness of the uncertain timing of such a referendum? Will the Minister assure me that he and his colleagues, particularly his Conservative colleagues, across Government will address these real concerns with industry rather than, as so often seems to be the case, simply trying to appease the unappeasable critics on their own Back Benches?
Lord Popat
My Lords, I am aware of the CBI survey. Some 80% of UK businesses want to be in Europe; Europe is good for them. Their position is that there is already a question mark as to what the future will lead to, and most businesses support both a referendum and the reforms that need to take place.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, does my noble friend not agree that it would be quite outrageous if this unelected House were to seek, using its procedures, to frustrate the will of the House of Commons to give the people an opportunity to have their say on our membership of the European Union in a referendum?
Lord Popat
My Lords, the House of Commons has given the Bill a smooth passage towards becoming law, and it is important that this House, too, gives a clear passage for the Bill to go through in the new year.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
My Lords, has the Minister seen the Opinium poll today, which goes somewhat wider than the CBI? It finds that 38% of British businesses want to stay in the EU and only 31% want to leave. But as for the CBI, did it not tell us that we were finished if we did not join the euro? Did not the CBI get the gold standard wrong in the 1920s? Was it not in favour of appeasement, nationalisation and state planning, price controls, tripartite industrial relations and the exchange rate mechanism? Why on earth should we listen to this absurd organisation?
Lord Popat
My Lords, the CBI, the IoD and the Federation of Small Businesses represent a large number of businesses in the UK, and they are all in favour of being in the EU. In fact, 55 business leaders wrote to the Times to show their support for the Prime Minister’s position, saying:
“As business leaders we are passionate about Britain’s prosperity. We agree with the Prime Minister that Britain’s best chance of success is as part of a reformed Europe. We need a new relationship with the EU, backed by democratic mandate”.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, on this side of the House we are very ready to welcome and listen to the views of British business. In its recent report the CBI said:
“No alternative option to full EU membership can combine all the benefits of EU membership with none of the costs”.
Do the Government agree with that position—that there is no conceivable alternative to our EU membership? If so, do they accept that the process of renegotiation is pointless, because it will always be in Britain’s national interest to stay in the EU?
Lord Popat
It is important and in our national interest to stay in the EU. We are for the EU. The EU brings a lot of prosperity to the UK, including approximately 3.5 million jobs and around 11% of the workforce. In 2011, 47% of our exports were to the EU. Without any doubt, we are for EU membership. However, we need a reformed European Union. We need to compete in the global race. In order to compete in the global race, it is important that we reform the European Union; hence, the mandate for the European Union Bill.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)
My Lords, have the Government engaged in dialogue with the City of London Corporation about the anxiety felt by financial institutions about what would happen if Britain left the EU? Did he notice the statement yesterday by Michael Sherwood, a co-director of Goldman Sachs, that if the country left the EU, it would move its offices to Paris or Frankfurt?
Lord Popat
My Lords, there is no question of leaving the EU, which is very important for trade and prosperity. But we need a reformed EU, in particular for SMEs and micro-businesses.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)
My Lords, as the Official Opposition state that an in-out referendum makes for uncertainty but decline to rule out an in-out referendum themselves, does my noble friend find that this is an instinctively convincing and coherent position?
Lord Popat
My Lords, there is already uncertainty, and ignoring it will not make it go away. We have a credible, certain referendum plan and we need to let the British people decide.
Lord Dobbs (Con)
My Lords, is it not time to take this issue out of the hands of the elites and end their unseemly squabble? We have the “kippers” who think that it is a mortal sin to be on the same continent as Europe, and we have the “sprouts” who think that Brussels is the answer to everything—unless, of course, it is a question about audited accounts. The only way to end this unseemly and damaging squabble is to take the issue and give it back to the people, where it belongs, so that they can decide their own future in a referendum.
Lord Popat
My Lords, I completely agree with my noble friend. It is certainly time for the people of Britain to have their say. If the Conservative Party wins a majority at the next election, it has committed to negotiating a fresh settlement and to holding an in-out referendum before the end of 2017. I very much look forward to the Second Reading of my noble friend’s European Union (Referendum) Bill on 10 January. I hope that this Bill, which has a clear democratic mandate from the elected House of Commons, will pass speedily through this House. For the unelected House of Lords to stand in the way of giving the people of Britain their say would be very wrong.
Iran and Syria
(11 years ago)
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Lord Soley
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the Government of Iran regarding that country’s role in the current conflict in Syria.
The Senior Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government & Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Baroness Warsi) (Con)
My Lords, after that last question I am really looking forward to the debates in January. The Government have impressed on Iran the importance of it playing a constructive role in Syria—for example, in pressing for greater humanitarian access. However, its current actions are far from that. Iran continues to support the Assad regime financially and militarily. We are using the upgrading of our diplomatic relations to engage Iran on a range of issues, including Syria.
Lord Soley (Lab)
I thank the Minister for that Answer. Bearing in mind the remarkable success of my noble friend Lady Ashton in chairing the nuclear talks, the importance of the links that have developed between Iranians and civil servants in the European Union and the western powers, and the effect of the international sanctions that have brought Iran to the table, is it not time to expand those contacts with Iran to try to use extra influence on them both against the Assad regime and with Hezbollah?
Baroness Warsi
We are expanding our contacts with Iran. The noble Lord will be aware of the meetings between Foreign Minister Zarif and my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, William Hague, and the telephone conversations between the Prime Minister and President Rouhani. He also will be aware of our decision to appoint the chargé d’affaires last month. I can inform the House that our chargé d’affaires, Mr Ajay Sharma, visited Iran this week on 3 December. We are hoping that the chargé d’affaires from Iran, Mohammad Hassan Habibollah-zadeh, will visit the United Kingdom this month.
Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne (LD)
Following on from the Minister’s helpful answer, could Her Majesty’s Government cease supporting with quite such pressure the fractured, and in some ways poisonous, opposition in Syria? Could they ask Iran, with its concessions already in the bag, to be at Geneva II with a guaranteed seat and a proper invitation?
Baroness Warsi
The national coalition represents a broad range of Syrian opinion. We could not proceed with the Geneva II discussions without the views of the Syrian people being at the table in a wide and broad way, so possibly I disagree with my noble friend on that point. Any constructive role that Iran can play in relation to Geneva II is good. However, Iran must first and foremost say that it supports the communiqué that was agreed at Geneva I. It could not possibly be part of a process where it does not agree with the outcomes as detailed in the communiqué.
Lord Triesman (Lab)
My Lords, in Her Majesty’s Government’s discussions with Iran, have the Government stressed the need for progress on regional co-operation, however difficult that might be to achieve? Do the Government have a view on how to lessen the distrust, particularly between Iran and Saudi Arabia and between Iran and the Gulf states, so that this level of distrust in regional geopolitics does not perpetuate the battles in Syria beyond the point that they are already at?
Baroness Warsi
The noble Lord raises an important point. It was right that we communicated properly the discussions that we were having with Iran and the outcome of those discussions. We must bear in mind that this is an interim discussion relating specifically to Iran’s nuclear programme. I think that our partners, whatever their reservations, and they are right to have reservations in the light of Iran’s previous conduct, accept that an Iran with nuclear arms, which was where Iran was heading, was not the right way forward, and therefore to halt the programme and in some ways to unroll it must be the way forward. This is an interim agreement with a view to a final settlement agreement in due course.
Lord Hylton (CB)
My Lords, Iran was unable to accept the conclusions of the first Geneva conference. Can the noble Baroness assure the House that that is not a sufficient reason in itself for excluding Iran from Geneva II?
Baroness Warsi
The noble Lord will be aware that that communiqué, among other things, reiterates the need for a transitional Government who have full executive powers and for that to be done with mutual consent. If Iran cannot agree with that statement, I am unsure what constructive role it could play by being at the table in Geneva. Iran can play a constructive role in advance of that—for example, by leveraging its influence in Syria to give us better humanitarian access. That is an early win that Iran could put on the table to show that its intent and actions supported its words.
Lord Clarke of Hampstead (Lab)
I am sure that the House welcomes the dialogue taking place between Iran and Syria while they continue to supply Hezbollah with arms and training. During these cosy talks with this butcher who is the new President of Iran, could the Government ask him to spare a thought for the executions in Iran of its own people that take place almost daily?
Baroness Warsi
My Lords, we feel that the discussions with Iran are constructive and that the intent that we have seen so far has been sincere. I take on board the noble Lord’s strong views but I also take the view that closer diplomatic relations mean that we can start to tackle the difficult issues around human rights, including the use of the death penalty, face to face.
Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)
My Lords, has the Minister been able to get any further with my recent Written Question about the mass graves discovered in Sadad in Syria and the links between the militia involved in the killings that took place there and both al-Qaeda and Iran?
Baroness Warsi
I am not aware of the latest on that, but I shall write to the noble Lord with more information.
Press Regulation
Baroness Deech
To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they expect the new system of press regulation set out in the royal charter agreed on 30 October to be implemented.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)
The appointments process for the chair and initial board members of the recognition panel can begin following the sealing of the charter, which we expect to occur shortly. The panel will be formally established from the date on which the chair and the initial members of the board of the recognition panel have been appointed. It is for the newspaper industry to design its own new self-regulator.
Baroness Deech (CB)
Is the Minister not concerned that, more than a year after the Leveson report, we seem no nearer an improved system of redress and apology? Does he agree that the Government are presiding over an impasse? We have the worst of both worlds: there is no effective press regulation at the moment and, because of the undemocratic use of the royal charter as a tool, input and scrutiny into the system by this House have been blocked.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The noble Baroness made a number of points. To start with the last one, the royal charter was felt in the end to be the appropriate route by all the parties, and by others more widely, precisely so that there was not seen to be any intrusion into the very valuable tenet that we should have a free press and freedom of expression. The architecture of Lord Justice Leveson was designed to have a new, independent, self-regulatory body and a recognition panel to oversee that body and to make sure that it adheres. It is for the self-regulatory body to apply or not—it will be voluntary. However, I do not think there is an impasse because there is an understanding that what we had before must never return.
Lord Clinton-Davis (Lab)
People have questioned whether the Government are very serious about the issue at all. It is imperative that action is taken very quickly. There is no adequate reason for not doing so.
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I understand what the noble Lord is saying. It does seem some time since Lord Justice Leveson reported—a year. However, during that time, many things have happened. The royal charter, which has now been agreed, is about to be sealed, which will enable the Commissioner for Public Appointments to start the process of finding a chair and members for the recognition panel, which is clearly important. It will then be for the press to set up its own self-regulator. Yes, it will be voluntary, but part of Lord Justice Leveson’s architecture is that there are incentives to encourage the press to join.
Lord Sharkey (LD)
My Lords, David Yelland, an ex-editor of the Sun, has said of the PCC’s IPSO proposal that,
“they can’t simply set up a system that has many of the flaws of the old one, run by the same people that ran the old one”.
Does the Minister agree with the sentiment behind that and will he reassure the House that he believes the PCC proposals to be fatally and irretrievably flawed?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The most important thing about the recognition panel is that it will be for the panel to opine on any body that applies to it for recognition. That is part of the whole architecture that Lord Justice Leveson proposed: the recognition body and an independent self-regulator. Therefore, it is not for the Government or the Executive to opine whether an application from a new body is to be recognised. That is precisely why we set up the recognition panel. That work is now in progress.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, following the last question and given that there have been, shall we say, a few doubts in the recent past about certain public appointments, in what way will the Government ensure that the appointment of members of the recognition panel is fully open and transparent?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
That is precisely why the Commissioner for Public Appointments is ready to start work on ensuring that all the requirements in terms of transparency, openness and fairness are absolutely key to the appointments process that he is taking charge of very shortly.
Lord Dykes (LD)
Is my noble friend worried that the bulk of our British newspapers—all of them owned, I think, by those who do not pay UK personal tax—have still not apologised to the victims of hacking and other malpractices?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I hope it is a reflection from the press that they can never go back to what happened and that the work they are doing on a new, self-regulatory body is an indication, at least, that what happened was unacceptable to everyone—unacceptable to the public. So much of what we have been discussing, and the talk about parliamentarians, indicates that the public want us to do something; and we have a responsibility to do it.
Lord Pearson of Rannoch (UKIP)
Is not one of the most important reforms that the press and the media should accept—or have imposed upon them—that when they libel someone in very large letters, all over several pages, they should be forced to carry the apology in exactly the same dimension, for exactly as many days, as they did when they made the original mistake? Would that not concentrate their minds somewhat?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
The noble Lord has raised something that is very much part of what Lord Justice Leveson referred to in the corrections and apology part of what would clearly be one of the key features, for a recognition panel, of deciding whether a body should be recognised.
Lord Hunt of Wirral (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as chair of the existing body that upholds the editors’ code and as the person instructed to set up a new body. Does the noble Lord recall that in his very valuable report Lord Justice Leveson said on many occasions:
“It is worth repeating that the ideal outcome is a satisfactory independent regulatory body, established by the industry”?
Will he therefore welcome that on Monday my application to set up a new community interest company, to be known as the Independent Press Standards Organisation, was approved, and will he urge the industry now to support that initiative and sign up to a new body—a regulator that will be independent, effective and in accordance with Leveson principles?
Lord Gardiner of Kimble
I think it is in the public interest that any body that the press sets up is independent and a self-regulator that adheres to Lord Justice Leveson’s principles. It is obviously for a body to apply for recognition, because of the incentives—particularly the Crime and Courts Act, which was all part of Lord Justice Leveson’s architecture. I very much hope there is an application to the recognition panel at some stage.
Business of the House
(11 years ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
That the debate on the motion in the name of Baroness Morgan of Huyton set down for today shall be limited to three hours and that in the name of Lord Harris of Haringey to two hours.
Privileges and Conduct Committee
The Chairman of Committees
That Viscount Ullswater be appointed a member of the Select Committee in place of Lord Howe of Aberavon, resigned.
Education: Contribution to Economic Growth
(11 years ago)
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Baroness Morgan of Huyton
To move that this House takes note of the contribution of high-quality education to economic growth.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton (Lab)
My Lords, I am pleased to have the opportunity to introduce this debate on the important contribution of high-quality education to the economy. I am grateful to noble Lords who are taking part today, and I am humbly aware of the breadth and depth of experience and knowledge around the Chamber. I am particularly pleased to see that two noble Lords are making their maiden speeches today. I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Lords’ Interests, including my role as chair of Ofsted.
It is a very pertinent week to be holding this debate. On Tuesday the OECD published its PISA league table of global education. The UK stayed pretty static in the rankings, stubbornly hovering in the lower section of the top half. The focus on education in a number of Asian economies is well documented. Rather less discussed is the remarkable improvement in standards in other countries, including Poland and Estonia.
We must do better; but we must also not be pessimistic. There are reasons to believe that our schools and colleges will continue to improve. Indeed, there are lessons to be learnt very close to home. We do not have to go to Helsinki or Shanghai to understand how children—especially disadvantaged children—can get a better education and a better start in life. However, it would be equally foolish to minimise the scale of the challenges we face. According to the OECD, a quarter of all adults in the UK between the ages of 25 and 64 have minimal levels of numeracy and literacy, compared to 14% in Sweden, 12% in Canada and 11% in the United States.
No country that wants a dynamic economy can afford to neglect the quality of its education, and no country that is serious about its education can afford to neglect the full range of its educational provision: from nursery through school to college, university and beyond. Weaknesses in one will affect the quality of the next, and the earlier they occur, the greater the negative impact and the harder they will be to rectify. The economic opportunities for the poorly educated are few, and getting scarcer.
Three things in particular hold this country back: the gap in attainment between well-off and poor children; the alarming regional variations in the quality of our schools, especially with regard to teaching and leadership; and the weakness and irrelevance of much vocational education.
Our educational problems start early in life and have a lot to do with the way we tackle—or, more precisely, fail to tackle—disadvantage. At the age of five, children from low-income backgrounds are already 19 months behind their better-off peers. By the age of six, low-ability children from well-off homes outperform brighter children from poor families. So it continues through primary and secondary school. Just over a third of pupils on free school meals get five good GCSEs—27% behind the rest of the population.
The problem is now particularly acute among poor white children. For example, Bangladeshi children on free school meals used to lag behind their peers; now 59% of them achieve five good GCSEs, the national average for all pupils, whether or not they are on free school meals. Barely 30% of white children from low-income families manage the same. This matters because a quarter of all children without five good GCSEs end up being NEET—not in education, employment or training—within two years. Those with no qualifications have a greater than 50% chance of becoming NEET. It affects the economic prospects of the whole country.
This “tail” of underachievement is longer and bigger in the UK than in many of our international competitors. Canada, for instance, which has comparable demographics and income inequality, has half the proportion of children in its “tail” that we do. If the Canadians can do more for their disadvantaged children, surely so can we.
London stands out, although other areas are improving as well. Bluntly put, 20 years ago London’s schooling system was a basket case. Inner London’s GCSE results were a third of the national average. Schools were chaotic, with poor behaviour and inadequate teaching. Now the results are above the national average, even though the city still has some of the worst deprivation in the country. London has well qualified and committed teachers and great head teachers. Among disadvantaged children, the bottom 1% in London now match the average score of their peers in the rest of the country at GCSE.
If London were analysed in the PISA rankings separately, as Shanghai is, it would undoubtedly be much higher up the table than the UK. What happened in London was a combination of political focus and professional determination. London Challenge backed those head teachers who focused on achievement regardless of background, who never accepted excuses and who never gave up. It did not support those willing to let things drift.
The London Challenge team also encouraged heads to share good practice and the intelligent use of data and, crucially, to challenge each other. It benefited from other far-sighted initiatives of the time, such as many of the first sponsored academies and the first cohorts of Teach First and Future Leaders. Through a combination of practical steps, persistence and strategic imagination, it succeeded—and when the challenge formally ended, the system continued to improve and work in the same new way.
Interestingly, Andreas Schleicher, director of the PISA programme, would highlight many of the features I have just described in London as the core features of successful countries in the PISA study. He speaks of the core elements: capacity at point of delivery, with great teachers and leaders; zero tolerance of failure; well targeted resources; a commitment to raising attainment; and confidence for all. He also highlights the importance of time devoted to learning. One extra hour of maths a week leads to three-quarters of a year’s extra progress at GCSE, and underlines that autonomy with accountability is a must—we cannot have one without the other.
If London succeeded against the odds, other regions can succeed, too. As things stand, the variability in performance of many schools outside London is frankly alarming. In the north-east, for instance, less than a third of teaching was judged good or better last year by Oftsed; in London, it was over three-quarters.
Last month I visited schools in Hull and Grimsby. I met great new heads turning around schools, but their biggest challenge was not the children, or indeed the teachers any more, but raising the aspirations of parents and the community, and convincing them that education matters. That is tough when the jobs that used to be there have gone and have not been replaced.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that only economically challenged areas have problems with their education. The south-east, for instance, had the highest attainment gap in the country between children receiving free school meals and children not receiving free school meals—33 percentage points. In 30 schools in West Berkshire, not one free school meal pupil managed to get five good GCSEs. Relatively affluent areas may be educating some of their children well, but they are not educating all their children well.
The quality of much of our vocational education, too, lags far behind that of many of our international competitors. We must develop the skills base we need for this century rather than the last. Some of the Government’s recent initiatives are welcome. The move to require youngsters to study maths and English to 18, if they fail at 16, recommended by the Wolf report, was overdue. The introduction of graded apprenticeships in partnership with top employers will bolster the credentials of a vital training option. The move to fund apprenticeships through employers rather than providers should end some of the perverse incentives in the current system.
I welcome, too, the increase in the number of apprenticeships announced by the Government last month, which builds on the work done in this field by the previous Government. However, we would be foolish and premature to indulge in too much mutual backslapping. Are we collectively bold enough and comprehensive enough in this area? We do not yet have a vocational system that rivals our international competitors. Vorsprung durch Technik is not a phrase that was minted in Thurrock, Woking or Hull. Until we have an English equivalent, perhaps we should put the champagne on ice.
Too many training courses and apprenticeships still fail to deliver employable skills, too many are of short duration and too many cater to adults over the age of 25 rather than youngsters. Many of these are still, in effect, on-the-job training programmes for existing employees rather than genuine apprenticeships.
Although the numbers have declined slightly over the past year, we still have more than 1 million NEETs in this country. Indeed, it is unnerving to note that the proportion of 16 to 18 year-olds who are NEET has been roughly static for almost 20 years—at around 9% to 10%. That figure is an appalling indictment of successive Governments, a dreadful waste of the country’s talent and a personal tragedy for millions of young people. I will put those bare statistics in some kind of human context. In a recent survey, 40% of NEETs said they did not feel part of society, 36% felt that they would never get a job; and 37% said they rarely went out of the house.
Reforms of vocational education have to address not only the nuts and bolts of the issue—what apprentices should learn, who should provide it and whether it is relevant to employers and the local economy—but must also have legitimacy with those they seek to help. Crucially, will they get youngsters out of the cycle of little hope of a job or even of a place in society?
I have another concern about vocational courses. Until we make vocational training an alternative, sought-after and prestigious route into higher education and employment, we will never succeed in rebalancing our economy or harnessing the full potential of the next generation. Our country must become as proud of its vocational education as the Swiss and the Germans are of theirs.
If we are to do that, we must grapple with an uncomfortable truth. Vocational training is too often seen as the consolation prize: the route we urge young people to take if they have failed to shine academically. That must change. Vocational and technical training and education must be judged on its own merits, and not dismissed like some ill favoured child, always doomed to disappoint.
Apprenticeships and vocational training will always suit some children of all abilities and backgrounds, because that is where their natural potential lies. Unfortunately, in this country that technical potential usually is identified only in children from low-income families. Remarkably, it seems to be entirely absent in the children of the middle and upper classes. Has it been bred out of them or are we refusing to see what our prejudices will not let us see—that some children learn best by learning practically?
I have to say that I think the situation has worsened since the turning of polytechnics into universities. Institutions offering high-quality technical and vocational courses are something of a gaping hole in our academic landscape. The challenge for our country is not only to equip those disadvantaged youngsters with the key skills they lack—and that employers want—but to break the automatic assumption that decrees that a vocational education is a second-rate education for the poor and disadvantaged. When we see Cabinet Ministers or even, dare I say, your Lordships, boasting that their son or daughter has bagged an engineering apprenticeship at BAE rather than a place at Balliol, perhaps we will know that we are making progress.
The lesson from Shanghai this week is this. That city region is engaged in a systematic, long-term project as a way to transform its economy. As Andreas Schleicher says, you can see, from the Minister down to the classroom teacher, that this is their future. They believe that education is the great equaliser. That is why they make it prestigious to teach in a tough school.
We know what it will take in all parts of our country to move the goalposts: investment in preschool, recruitment of good quality teachers, continuous development, excellent leadership, a focus on numeracy and literacy and skills for life—and, above all, a determination to develop the potential of all students, not just the high-performing ones. These things are doable. If the disparities in our education system can be addressed, the economic gains will be immense.
Nothing is ordained; all it takes is will and persistence. If they can do it, so can we.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, I must first apologise for my husky voice. My advice to all your Lordships is: do not come near me, you might catch it.
I am very pleased to be speaking in this debate for two reasons: not only is it an important debate but I shall hear the maiden speech of my old friend Stephen Sherbourne—now my noble friend Lord Sherbourne. We go back 40 years, when I was the most junior Minister in Ted Heath’s Government and he was a political adviser. Stephen has spent his life trying to make Conservatives more intelligent, better read and perceptive. You might think that this is a hopeless task; it is certainly thankless, and I look forward to his maiden speech.
The reason why this debate is important is that there is total dysfunction between the needs of British industry and commerce and the educational system of our country at all levels. At university level, with the skills gap by 2020, British industry and commerce will need 850,000 STEM graduates, including in computing. It will be 300,000 short; 45,000 short each year for the next seven years. When it comes to levels 3 and 4, the advanced and foundation degrees, it will need more than half a million. The FE college system cannot possibly meet that need in that time. The reason why it cannot meet it is that if a student starts at FE college at 16, it takes him two years to get to GCSE in engineering, computing or the built industry. At 18, with that qualification, he goes off for a job. If you start at 14, by 16 you will have a BTEC or a good GCSE in a technical subject. You then go on to level 3 and level 4, but the conversion rate of FE colleges to levels 3 and 4 is the lowest in Europe, so that is a major problem.
Then we come to the school system. We have nearly 1 million unemployed youngsters today. That is a disgrace and a shame. All Secretaries of State, including me, have tried to do something about it. Michael Gove is trying to do it by increasing the quality of maths, English and science teaching. Good luck to him; I wish him well but actually, we have all failed and I must bear some responsibility for that. There are 1 million people today who, after 11 years of free education, cannot get a job in our country. We must do something about that, and that means a fundamental change to our education system.
We can see the demands of industry. Last week, we had a meeting with Allan Cook, the chairman of WS Atkins, one of the largest consultancy firms in Europe. He said that we are short of 4,000 railway engineers. Talk to anybody in Cisco or Microsoft and they will say that they are tens of thousands short of computer scientists for their own business and for their clients. Last week, I had a meeting with the food processing industry, which I do not know very well. It is today short of 100,000 technicians. This week, your Lordships probably saw our Prime Minister opening a college in China sponsored by Jaguar to train young engineers. He will have the chance to open a university technical college in Coventry next year, which Jaguar is supporting because the schools in Coventry just do not produce youngsters who want to work in Jaguar. It has put in for a second one in Solihull because the schools in Birmingham are simply not producing the youngsters who want to work in Jaguar, one of the most successful companies in our country.
We have to do something about this. Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector, put his finger onto it earlier this year. He said that we need more specialist colleges for 14 year-olds. This is what university technical colleges are. I think many of your Lordships are aware that they are the new colleges, for students aged 14 to 18. They have a demanding day. They start at 8.30 am and go on till 5 pm. They have shorter holidays. For two days of the week the youngsters, the girls and the boys, are making things with their hands—designing things, working in teams and problem solving—and the rest of the week they are doing their GCSEs in English, maths, science, a foreign language and history or geography.
These colleges have proven to be very popular. We are very proud of them. Seventeen are open; 27 are waiting to open. We are assessing, together with my noble friend Lord Nash, 11 at the moment. This year there will be 3,000 students in the colleges; next year there will be 9,000; in 2015 there will be 15,000. When they are all fully operational, over four years, there will be more than 30,000 students. This is making a contribution. Indeed, the Prime Minister is a fan of these colleges, and said recently that every major town in the country should have one. The number depends on how you define “major town”, but it is somewhere between 200 and 300. We need that sort of number to create the sort of opportunities for young people for the jobs that they will have.
I would like to thank my noble friend Lord Nash personally. Having come from business, he understands the importance of good technical and practical training in any business. I also thank the Secretary of State, Michael Gove. Sometimes he is said to be not very keen on these colleges. On the contrary—I had a meeting with him last week, and he said that he is a fan of UTCs. In the House of Commons this week he said that they are an excellent innovation, and he wants more high-quality UTCs. This is an all-party programme. These colleges started under the previous Labour Government, when I won the support of the noble Lord, Lord Adonis. The Labour Party is still very committed to supporting this; the Liberal Democratic Party committee on this matter has also supported it. This is an initiative that will not change if there is a change of Government. It is very important that there should be some stability in this area.
One of the things we found is that when English and maths are taught under the same roof as a technical subject, there is a dramatic improvement in English and maths. At the JCB Academy, it was forecast that the youngsters would get to only 50% having Level C in maths. After two years, they got 85%. There are astonishing improvements of 30% to 40% in the basic subjects because the youngsters suddenly realise the basic subjects are not taught in a separate classroom; it is intrinsic to all their work, and it is leading to jobs.
One of the proudest things we have as a target is that, when we have leavers at 16 and 18, we will have no NEETs. So far, of the two colleges that have had leavers at 16 and 18 every youngster has got a job, got an advanced apprenticeship at 16, gone on to study A levels and BTECs, got a hired apprenticeship at 18 or gone to university. Very few schools in our country can say that they have achieved that, so we know that we have a successful model. We also know that we get attendance rates of 95% from an average comprehensive intake. We take children with special educational needs and those who have free school meals. Very few schools can say that they have a 95% attendance.
In conclusion, I will read a letter from a young student at Central Beds UTC. He was not asked to write this letter, but he wanted to encourage Ministers and the Government to be enthusiastic about this subject. He is called Morgan. I have not met him. He says this:
“After (underachieving) failing my first year at a standard sixth form, I made the best decision of my life and started fresh at UTC. My grades have rocketed from D’s and E’s to A’s and B’s (in mathematics and physics), and I’m currently achieving D*D*D* in the BTEC course which has set me well on my way to attending a top university such as Bath, Bristol or Loughborough to study an engineering design masters degree”.
He went on:
“It’s not like school, we don’t get spoon-fed information to pass our exams, we have to put the effort in to get something out. And I believe it is more than possible to pave your way to your dream career from this UTC, as we are given the opportunities needed to proceed to the next stage of life, be it an apprenticeship… an engineering firm or a degree at university, the college will help you get there”.
We need more Morgans. We need hundreds more Morgans. We need thousands more Morgans. We need tens of thousands more Morgans. It is up to us all to realise this, because, otherwise, we will let down British industry and the prosperity of our country will be weaker.
Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe (Lab)
My Lords, this debate is timely. This morning, the Chancellor of the Exchequer is making his Autumn Statement. He is widely expected to announce yet more cuts to funding for higher education and research, and it is for that reason that I want to focus my remarks on the implications of his statements for higher education.
I have spoken many times on the contribution made by higher education to economic growth and I was delighted to see the pithy and convincing briefing sent to us by Universities UK, my former employer. Other noble Lords across the House will, I know, reinforce many of these comments, as have my noble friend Lady Morgan and the noble Lord, Lord Baker.
However, fine words or arguments can have no effect if resources do not shore up policy. While we do not know the detail of these cuts or how they will be allocated, reports have suggested that that the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has to find more than £1 billion in additional savings. There have been fears, reported in the Guardian, that this would mean that the Government would breach the principle of a science ring-fence, making cuts of as much as £200 million. I hope that that will not be the case.
It also appears likely that the Higher Education Funding Council will have to find additional savings from within an already tightly constrained budget. These cuts would be in addition to those announced in this summer’s spending review. At that time, the Government said that cuts to HEFCE funding would be at least £45 million and that there would be no inflationary uplift for the science budget. This is serious. I have said previously that the Government should be congratulated on their relative protection of investment in higher education, and particularly in research, despite the pressure to cut expenditure. However, public funding for teaching has been dramatically reduced and it now looks like it will be reduced still further. It is not widely understood that research budgets lost 13% of their value during the last spending round as a result of the fact that they were maintained in cash terms rather than in real terms. Projections suggest that, because the science budget has again been held in cash terms rather than in real terms, the budget will lose a further 10% of its value during this spending period. Will the Minister confirm that this is indeed the case?
Any new cuts would exacerbate that position. We know that the UK already spends less on research than many of our competitors. We have made relatively little progress towards the Lisbon goal of spending 3% of GDP on research and development. We spend 1.8%, below the average of both the EU and the OECD. We are holding our own in international terms because we have a highly efficient research system. In fact, it is the most efficient in the world when measured by citations per pound spent. Meanwhile, HEFCE now has very little funding available to support teaching. Support is restricted to high-cost and vulnerable subjects, which are likely to continue to be protected. There is some limited support for specialist institutions and taught postgraduate courses, and funding to support widening participation.
This last strand, of widening participation, looks increasingly vulnerable, which is a shame because the student opportunity funding underpins the kind of long-term and collaborative work which universities do to encourage children from primary school upwards to think about higher education generally, not just applying to their own institution. It acts as a lever for additional investment by universities and philanthropists. It is hard to see how the funding council can shoulder cuts without doing some damage to long-term national priorities. Clearly, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has to balance its budget, but overspending on student support and loan subsidies, including to support the rapid growth of private providers, is starting to squeeze out long-term investments, which should be high priorities for a Government committed to fostering strong economic growth. While national investment in research is critical to our future economic competitiveness, as today’s debate has again made clear, it should not be achieved at the expense of investment in education. After all, the most important form of knowledge transfer from universities is in the heads of the graduates that they educate.
There is so much evidence of the link between education and the economy and I will not repeat the arguments already made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and the noble Lord, Lord Baker. It is worth emphasising, however, that around 20% of GDP growth in the UK from 1982 to 2005 can be attributed to graduate skills accumulation, according to government figures. The same study estimated that a 1% increase in the share of the workforce with a university education raises the level of productivity by up to 0.5% in the long run. Many of our fastest growing sectors depend on high concentrations of graduates, including the creative sector, which needs graduates from a range of disciplines including the arts and humanities as well as the sciences.
Our research base increasingly supports innovation in businesses from the very large to the very small. Collaboration between university and business is a considerable success story in the UK. So if the Government want long-term economic growth and an economy that will remain competitive with fast-growing economies with rapidly growing skills levels, we cannot afford to stand still, let alone go backwards.
Instead of driving forward, we seem to be constraining growth. Capital investment has been limited. Universities face strict limits on the numbers that they can recruit and perhaps numbers may be restricted again next year. There is no plan for growth and there is unlikely to be one until the system of loan funding is sorted out. It is simply too expensive to allow for growth in student numbers.
Part of the answer has to be in encouraging the development of diverse modes of study, including more online and flexible study. We have seen the number of part-time enrolments drop by a staggering 40% since 2010. Studies by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills, Universities UK and others have pointed to the need to address this decline to meet the rapidly changing skills needs of employers. We should also be concerned about the decline of taught postgraduate enrolments by UK-based students. The noble Lord, Lord Leitch, in his seminal report published in 2006, described postgraduate skills as one of the most powerful levers for improving productivity but a number of factors are combining to pose a real challenge to postgraduate education, which has received insufficient attention from government. We cannot afford to be complacent. As President Obama put it:
“The nation that out-educates us today is going to out-compete us tomorrow”.
Deficit reduction is of course a priority but education is precisely the wrong place to cut if you want to balance the national budget.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for initiating this important debate at such an opportune moment. Two days ago the OECD’s PISA education rankings were published, showing that the UK is flatlining in maths, science and writing.
If we want a 21st-century workforce, we have to ensure that our young people are equipped with the necessary skills, drive, motivation and ambition to succeed. Unlike previous generations, there are fewer employment opportunities for those who do not have the necessary talent and aspiration. With free movement of labour across the EU, unless we train young Britons properly, such opportunities will undoubtedly be filled by young European counterparts.
At the turn of the century we were building massive infrastructure projects in Liverpool, including a cruise liner terminal, the Arena and Convention Centre and the Liverpool ONE retail and leisure development. We could have dealt with Liverpool’s unemployment problems at a stroke but, sadly, at a local level we did not have the required skills and competencies. Locally created jobs were therefore filled from outside.
Getting schooling right in order to provide for the needs of business and industry is essential. So why are we flatlining, given that our educational spending—we are ranked eighth—is one of the highest in the world? Why are other countries able to forge ahead? Countries that understand this dilemma are preparing their young people for the future. If we are not careful, as we know, nations such as China, Singapore, South Korea, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Canada will win the global race and leave us languishing behind. However, we cannot and should not make carbon copies of their education systems. Frankly, I do not want our young people doing the 11-hour day of a South Korean pupil, nor do I want the rote learning approach of China. I will always remember visiting a Chinese primary school in Xi’an and watching the children chanting and collectively performing in a robotic way.
However, we can learn broad lessons from these high-performing countries. All of them, without exception, have some key shared elements: qualified teachers who are both highly trained and highly valued, and school leadership that, again, is highly trained and experienced and of only the highest calibre. There is constant high quality continuous training for professionals in schools, plus excellent parental involvement. Staff have only the highest expectations of the pupils, regardless of background and IQ. Interestingly, in Shanghai not only are school leaders and teachers well supported but only the best teachers get promoted. All of them have personal development plans that include mentoring and observation throughout their careers.
I want our children to be numerate and literate and to be given first-class science teaching, but I also want them to continue to be immersed in the other opportunities that a broad-based curriculum offers. The reason that we have some of the most creative pupils in the world is that the visual and performing arts that are available in our schools are second to none. This, in turn, has led to a world-beating creative industry in the UK. Yes, we need to develop language in schools, and I applaud the Government for introducing modern foreign languages in primary school.
Sports need to be part of our school offer, with children given opportunities to experience different sporting activities, while the traditional subjects—history, geography and so on—are part of developing the well rounded, articulate, thoughtful citizens who should be the hallmark of our education system. Of course, special educational needs provision needs to be second to none, with early identification and intervention.
It is possible to turn schools and schooling around but still keep those gems of our educational entitlement that have kept our uniquely British system so special. The changes in London over the past five years, where passes in GCSE results have gone from 40% to over 60%, show that change is possible. In my own city, Liverpool was the worst performing of the core cities, and now it is the best.
Another important issue, which shows that we must ensure that no children are left behind and is often not talked about, is that of our summer-born children. It can affect our rankings, our school performance and, of course, the summer-born children themselves. Research and evidence has shown that summer-born children have a 25% lower attainment at key stage 1; 20% of summer-born children are less likely to go to university; and, staggeringly, 50% of summer-born children are likely to be diagnosed as having special educational needs. In a week in which we have been looking at international comparisons, it is interesting that the 19 OECD countries with different starting dates show that later formal education helps to reduce birth-date effects.
I cannot resist reminding the House about Finland, which is always held up as a shining example by people from all parties. Yes, Finland is great, and it has well trained teachers and head teachers, but children start school at the age of seven, there are no tests until they are 16, there are no league tables, and teachers—wait for it—are required to train for five years and have a master’s degree.
Finally, there is another element that we should strive for, which is perhaps the hardest of all: political consensus on our educational goals. I was mindful of my noble friend Lord Nash’s comments in the Chamber on Tuesday when he was reading the Statement on the PISA results. He said that we should stop throwing stones at each other. My goodness, I thought, he was right. Let us get that political consensus, and give our schools the chance to breathe and flourish. I promise your Lordships that we will then shoot up in those important world rankings and build on the unique ethos that is special to the British schools system.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, as a bishop I find myself standing up regularly in unfamiliar buildings, usually with long and distinguished histories, holding forth to people whom I barely know. I do this every Sunday when I visit one or two of the more than 400 churches in my diocese. Rising to speak in this House evokes a certain level of apprehension. On the day of my introduction I managed to break rule one by standing up at the point when the Lord Speaker had risen to her feet. The noble Lord, Lord McNally, said to me afterwards that he could see that I was starting out as I intended to continue: causing havoc. In the coming years, I trust that I will not create a great deal of havoc, but will perhaps make a modest contribution to the deliberations of this House.
I am conscious that my predecessor but three, Archbishop Robert Runcie, made a very significant contribution here. I recall also that his predecessor as Bishop of St Albans, who was bishop for just over 24 years, reportedly spoke only once in the time that he spent in this House, and that was to argue for the welfare of pit ponies in the coal mines—not a subject that evokes a great deal of passion in the highways and byways of Hertfordshire today. My arrival has been greatly helped by the generous welcome of Members of the House, and the unfailing courtesy and support of the staff, for which I would like to record my sincere thanks.
I was brought up in the countryside. As a young man my father was a farmer, and I look forward particularly to engaging with issues of land, countryside and rural affairs. I have also lived in two multicultural communities in the Midlands, one of which was Walsall, from where Morgan, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, came, and I hope to draw on something of my experience of multicultural and multifaith communities.
I am glad to make my maiden speech in this debate on the contribution of high-quality education to economic growth. I live next to one of the oldest schools in the country. This is St Albans School, founded before the Norman Conquest by Abbot Ulsinus in the year 948. Over the years, it has produced many notable alumni, including the only British-born pope, Nicholas Breakspear, otherwise known as Adrian IV, Professor Stephen Hawking and several Members of this House. The diocese that I have the privilege to lead covers the counties of Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, Luton and parts of Barnet. As well as many independent schools with a Christian foundation, we have 135 church schools serving their local communities. None of the church schools in my diocese is deemed “unsatisfactory”; 18% are graded “satisfactory” and the remaining 82% are either “good” or “outstanding”. I want to pay tribute to the work of head teachers, governors, teachers, parents and school staff who work so hard to produce schools of such excellence.
Detractors of church schools sometimes claim that our excellent academic results are because we have creamed off the best pupils. The facts do not support that assertion. Our schools are spread across a wide range of neighbourhoods, and we are proud to have schools in some of the most difficult and challenging communities. The national data produced in the Department for Education’s 2013 school census show that 15% of pupils at Church of England secondary schools are eligible for free school meals, which is the same as the average for non-Church of England schools. The same census reveals that we serve almost exactly the same proportion of black and minority ethnic pupils as non-Church of England secondary schools do.
I will share one story, which I hope will illustrate our concern and our commitment well, and which takes us to the very heart of today’s debate on education and the economy. Northfields Upper School in Dunstable, later Northfields Technology College, went into special measures in 2006 and there was a change of leadership to give it a fresh start. Sadly, it was decided that the school should close, but on 1 September 2009 it reopened as All Saints Academy, sponsored by the diocese of St Albans in partnership with the University of Bedfordshire. Today it specialises in science and business and is housed in brand new buildings.
The improvement in academic standards was not immediate, but has been steady and impressive since 2009. Over the past four years, attendance has increased from 87% to 93% this year. The percentage of pupils achieving five A* to C grades, including English and maths, has risen from 23% in 2009 to 40% this year. Our partnership with the University of Bedfordshire has generated a tangible rise in the aspirations of its pupils, with increasing numbers of students considering the possibility of going on to higher education. I am glad to acknowledge publicly the huge contribution made by the head, Tom Waterworth, and his team to achieve such a change in four years. That is a success story of which we are rightly proud.
It is too early, however, to know exactly what difference that dramatic improvement in exam results will make to economic growth in Dunstable. Certainly, everyone loses out if we cannot translate academic success into productive outcomes. Andreas Schleicher, already quoted by several noble Lords in this debate, makes the depressing assertion in his comments on that international survey that young English adults aged between 16 and 24 are some of the lowest-ranking in literacy and numeracy in the industrialised world. He concludes that deficiencies in our school system over a lifetime will lead to an unbelievable £4.5 trillion loss in economic output. In bald economic terms, that is the equivalent of living in a permanent recession.
Having said all that, I will pause and ask what we mean by the phrase “high-quality education”. Not one of us can dissent from that, but what does it mean in practice? What is its personal, social—and, dare I ask, spiritual—content as opposed to its crude cash value? I ask that because although we need to ensure that our pupils achieve academic success, education must surely be much more than that. In classical Greek culture the concept of paideia constituted a holistic understanding of education for body, mind and soul. That vision was picked up and developed by Cardinal Newman in his seminal work The Idea of a University, published in 1852. In today’s world, where so much stress is placed on individuality and the need for every person to realise their inner self, education plays a vital role in developing a sense of social responsibility and the need to contribute to civil society and the common good. If education is to be truly “high-quality”, surely it will also produce people with a rich emotional hinterland, whose souls have been expanded as they have explored the arts, music and literature.
I am also concerned, as we think about education, about the young people whose mental or physical health problems mean that they struggle in mainstream education. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for highlighting that area a moment ago. It is good to have high standards, and in our diocese we are proud of several leading academic institutions such as the Universities of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Cranfield and the Royal Veterinary College in Potters Bar. Our attention is instinctively drawn to those, but finally, I will mention one small project in the University of Hertfordshire.
In partnership with HCS Careers and GB Sports Coaches, the university has organised, for the sixth year running, a two-day event for 14 to 19 year-old students from special needs schools. The purpose of that unsung annual event, which sadly never achieves headlines, is to enable those young people to meet people who work in business and industry to help them develop appropriate skills and grapple with issues of employability. With the right support, many of them are also able to contribute to economic growth.
I hope that we will ensure that every part of our education system is given help and support so that all our young people, whatever their academic ability, are equipped to make their contribution to the flourishing and thriving of our nation.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, it is an honour for me to follow the eloquent maiden speech of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans. I hoped that he might speak about the schools in his diocese. I noted that in St Albans are Abbey Primary School, St Michael’s Primary School and the Townsend School. I was pleased that he chose to speak about the schools in his diocese. I am sure that this experience will be helpful in many future debates on education in your Lordships’ House. I welcome him warmly to the House. Contributions from the Bishops’ Benches are always listened to with great interest. I hope that we may hear from the right reverend Prelate on many future occasions.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, referred to Finland. I recall the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, returning from a visit to Finland and looking as though a light bulb had gone on above his head. He said that they educate their teachers there. I hope that the current revolution in the training of teachers here does not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It is good to get in different talents, but there has been a revolution in the curtailing of teacher training and we need to be careful that that is not harmful.
Little mention has been made so far of the importance of early years, although the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, spoke about it. High-quality early years education is crucial. China recognises this and invests heavily in it. We need to make the right investment in early years if we are to have good outcomes later.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, referred to NEETs. The Government have recently introduced an amendment to the Children and Families Bill which deals with this. It allows young people who wish to do so to remain with their foster carers until the age of 21. This will undoubtedly impact on the number of NEETs. This approach has been evaluated in 10 local authorities, and those young people staying with their foster carers past the age of 18 were twice as likely to continue in education. I welcome the step that the Government are taking. I also note the contribution made by the previous Government in setting up these pilots, which has made this possible.
I note what the Minister said in yesterday’s debate on the PISA Statement. He spoke about the importance of involving parents in their children’s education and his shock that, at the first attempt, only one parent was persuaded to attend a number of parents’ evening events in the Pimlico Academy’s catchment area in south London. I hope I understood him correctly.
I want to speak about the importance of involving parents in their children’s education and the contribution that this can make to the nation’s economic recovery. I remember the importance of my own father to my education. I recall sitting with him in his library. He was in his armchair; my sister and I sat on the floor with our backs against the radiator. I would be reading an encyclopedia of science or animals. She would be reading The Lord of the Rings. I remember him reading Kipling’s Just So Stories to us. Later, I recollect him taking me to the theatre and to other events. To my mind, my father’s example and encouragement were the most important elements in my education.
The evidence also points to this. Parental education is the most significant indicator of their children’s likely educational success. If the parent has a degree, the child is likely to get a degree. Academics agree that the most important influence on educational outcomes is what happens in the home, not in the school. It can be very difficult to get into the home, but that is where the most difference is made.
The great primary school heads I have had the honour to visit all adhere to the principle that engaging the local community—and parents in particular—is vital. On a visit to Lent Rise primary school in Slough, I was told by the head teacher that her area had a high level of Traveller families. When they could not write, the mothers of the Traveller children were glad to leave their mark on their sons’ homework to testify that they had sat down for half an hour to do that work. The head teacher had thus engaged those parents who were not able to write but still felt proud to be involved in their child’s education.
Dr Andrea Warman, when she was a senior policy offer at the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, developed a paired reading training package for foster carers. This took account of the difficulties that many foster carers had had in their own education and made a virtue of them. Working with experts from the Maudsley Hospital, Dr Warman was able to help foster carers reflect on their own struggles with literacy and thereby become empathetic educators of their foster children. The evaluation not only showed that their child’s reading had galloped ahead because of the daily reading with their foster carer but strongly suggested that the relationship had become stronger and the placement more stable.
Coming to my conclusion, and bringing us back to the economy and bridging the skills gap, five years ago I visited an event organised by the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education. The venue was the City of London’s Guildhall. Visitors were seated at round tables with parents and their children. In the course of the morning we had the beautiful experience of hearing how parents who had failed at school had been drawn into education as their child began at nursery or primary school. Educators might stand at the primary school gates and get hold of parents as they came in so as to encourage them to get into literacy and numeracy. We heard parents who had been addicts speak about their growing confidence as they gained qualifications in numeracy and literacy. We heard from a mum about the pleasure she now took in doing her homework while her son studied and being able to help him with his studies. We heard from young people how powerful an encouragement it was for them to see their parents setting an example for them and being able to take an informed interest in their studies. Parents spoke about their new confidence, which enabled them to gain other qualifications such as a driving licence. Just two months ago I returned to visit NIACE. My noble friend Lady Howarth of Breckland had chaired an inquiry for the association, and the occasion was the launch of its report, entitled Family Learning Works. Once the Children and Families Bill is completed, my noble friend will be seeking an opportunity to debate her report. In the mean time, I commend it to the Minister and to your Lordships.
Family learning benefits the economy because it is the best way to motivate children to learn, because it equips parents without qualifications with qualifications, and because it strengthens family relationships. It is arguable that the single greatest drag on our economy is family breakdown. I would be grateful if the Minister would write to me about the Government’s policy for family learning. Has the need for family learning been quantified? Has the contribution it might make to the employability of those currently without basic skills been assessed? Lastly, is his department developing a full response to the recommendations of the NIACE report? I look forward to his reply.
Baroness Cohen of Pimlico (Lab)
My Lords, many noble Lords have spoken about education in schools, which clearly, with a long tail of almost 1 million NEETs, is absolutely vital to our children and grandchildren. However, like my noble friend Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, I want to talk about the importance of education at university level, but from rather a different angle. I declare an interest as chancellor of BPP University. BPP are the initials of the founder of a fine training company, but now stand for the Business and Professional University. My noble friend Lady Morgan of Huyton emphasised in her speech the importance of technical education for economic growth. We at BPP, and I as the chairman of BPP Holdings Ltd long before we acquired degree-awarding powers—which we did in 2007, acquiring full university status this year—always thought that the end purpose of education must be to enable people to find a job and the life that will please them and give them a decent standard of living. Coming from a training background, as we do, we have always believed that. Yes, of course there are cultural purposes to university education, but for us the outstanding purpose has always been to enable our graduates to get into good, well paid jobs, because all else can stem from there.
I need to talk about the university a little in order to make my point. We have 9,000 students on seven campuses around the UK, with two in London and five in the regions. Some 3,000 of the students are undergraduates, which is a new departure for us. We teach very successfully the core business subjects, mostly accountancy and law. Some 65% of our students are female, and 96% have a job or are in further training within six months of leaving us. Our graduates make a major contribution to economic growth both directly and indirectly. They do so directly because we have a great many students at the graduate level from overseas, which helps to level up the balance of payments as well as spreading the reputation of the UK overseas. The indirect but vital contribution to growth is that the reputation of the UK as a good place to do business depends on having a corps of well trained, professional lawyers, accountants, actuaries and other business specialists. The City of London could not be the force that it is, contributing 20% of GDP, without its highly skilled lawyers and specialist accountants. Businesses all over the UK depend for their stability, and thus their ability to grow, on the efforts of their finance directors and the support of properly trained commercial lawyers.
At BPP I think that we can be rightly proud of our contribution not least because, as I should make clear, we are the only private, for-profit university in the country. But we are not the only people in the business. We believe that we are the most successful at placing our graduates in employment. A lot of universities teach law on a more theoretical basis, but we believe that students need to be taught by people who have worked in the profession. Some 80% of our tutors come from that background. The UK could do with more courses like this. I personally am particularly interested in the undergraduate-level courses that enable people of any age to move quickly into a position where they are useful and employable. There are definitely not enough of such courses, particularly for the capable young person who does not quite know what they want to do, but knows they want a decent job in a good business.
We have only 3,000 undergraduates so far but, private and profit-making business or not, we are able to charge fees of £5,500 a year for the three-year course, which is substantially less than for most law and business courses. The reason we can keep the fees down is that we do not have a conventional university structure. We sweat our assets and our buildings are hardly ever empty. Also, we have extremely flexible staff. We attract the services of excellent people by offering them what is essentially very well paid shift work on a part-time basis. That is a far cry from the leisurely programmes that I enjoyed as an undergraduate but it is very effective, and I believe that our universities could do much more to make their students more employable by teaching them for longer and better without risking the loss of the enjoyable university experience.
A new departure for us is that we believe that it is possible to deliver degrees that will get our students into good jobs on the basis of two years’ study. This is a work in progress but last week I was able to award degrees to some of the first graduates under the scheme. Those students are paying fees of £6,000 a year because the course is that bit more difficult to teach. On the other hand, however, they are getting a very economical degree because they pay only two years’ living fees, and it looks as though it will be very popular. Since most of our undergraduates are in their 20s, rather than 18 years old, this is of great importance, although it will also be an attractive offer to those aged 18. It will suit those people who did not quite work out what they wanted to do when they were 18, which must be a lot of them.
I believe that our model of using tutors who have worked in the relevant industry, determined and almost full-time university education, along with the very careful mentoring of students and a concentration on using assets so that higher education can be cheaper, could be spread more widely to other institutions. I regret very much something that has not yet been mentioned in the debate, which is the passing of the polytechnics, or rather their translation into universities. The polytechnics used to provide excellent technical training, which became diluted and a bit overly academic as they turned into universities. We are more on the model of a polytechnic than much of what is now being offered. I believe, I am afraid, that turning polytechnics into universities was a retrograde step for the country.
BPP University is a product of cross-party agreement. We were authorised under the Labour Government, who wanted to expand the provision of higher education and make it more varied and interesting, and we have been authenticated and given full degree-awarding powers following our review in 2013—so I am glad to record that this is not a controversial party political matter. We believe that it is a model for the future, and I would like to see more of it. I always say that I was badly taught at Cambridge, and that it was not until I met BPP and its training model that I realised what really good teaching looked like.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)
My Lords, I should like to start, if I may, by thanking everyone in this House for making me feel so welcome. Your Lordships from all parts of the House, the officials, the attendants and the police—everybody has been immensely helpful. I also want to thank my noble friends Lady Seccombe and Lady Jenkin of Kennington, who have helped me navigate my way around this place, both procedurally but also geographically, which is important for someone with a really bad sense of direction. I want to reassure my noble friend the government Chief Whip that if she ever finds me looking confused in a corridor, it will not—I hope—be to do with government policy.
I chose as part of my title Didsbury in the City of Manchester because that is where I was born, brought up and educated. I chose it also for a second, somewhat paradoxical reason—paradoxical because I have spent most of my working life in London. But I am conscious of the metropolitan bubble that so many of the commentariat seem to inhabit. For me that is best summed up by John Humphrys, introducing the weather forecast on the radio, saying, “It’s raining over Broadcasting House. What’s it doing in the rest of the country?”. Didsbury will be, for me, a constant reminder that London is not the centre of the universe.
I have been advised that it is customary in a maiden speech to talk briefly about one’s career before entering this House. I am not sure that in my case “career” is quite the right word. It has always felt more like snakes and ladders—but it has been my good fortune that there have been rather more ladders than snakes. I have been a teacher, and I was a trainee banker. I never got beyond “trainee”—and bearing in mind the banking crisis, I do not think I was alone in that. I have worked in business and for a manufacturing company, and for over 20 years in the world of communications. But I have also had the great privilege of working with three politicians whom I greatly admire—my noble friend Lord Jenkin of Roding when he was Industry Secretary, my noble friend Lord Howard of Lympne when he was Conservative Party leader, and Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street in the 1980s.
I now turn to the subject of the debate, and I want to focus on one specific area—the need for our schools to turn out more students who can speak and understand a foreign language. My noble friend Lady Sharp has great expertise in this area. Why does this subject matter? The UK trades with more than 200 countries, and most of them are non-English speaking. Three-quarters of the world’s population do not speak English. Many people have English as a second language, but what arrogance to think that other people should learn our language rather than our learning other people’s languages. Arrogance, real or perceived, is not helpful in a competitive marketplace.
Of course, the most obvious practical benefit of knowing a foreign language is that you can communicate in the language of the people with whom you are doing business. But there is another important point: speaking the language of another country also opens the door to an understanding of that country—an understanding of the culture and of the mindset. That must surely give you a competitive edge when you are trying to clinch that deal or sign that contract.
A few months ago the British Chambers of Commerce conducted a survey. Two out of three businesses that were thinking of exporting saw language as a barrier, and the vast majority of businesses did not speak a foreign language well enough to conduct business in the buyer’s tongue. This is not altogether surprising. For years now, language learning in our schools has been in decline. For example, this year the number of students who took French at A-level was 50% lower than the number 10 years ago. Of all the A-levels passed by state-funded students, those in modern languages—all modern languages combined—represented less than 3%. It was, I am afraid, a mistake in 2004 to remove compulsory language learning at key stage 4, for 14 to 16 year-olds. I welcome the various steps being taken to try to reverse this trend.
From next year it will be compulsory for children in primary schools to be taught a foreign language. We know that it is much easier to absorb the sounds of new languages when you are young, and more difficult when you are older. I speak from experience: I am learning Italian, and have been doing so for many years. I want to draw attention to one practical point here. I am thinking of children leaving a primary school where they have been taught, say, Mandarin or Spanish, and then finding themselves in a secondary school that teaches French and German. It is very important for there to be co-ordination between primary and secondary schools. The introduction of the English baccalaureate is another important advance, and EBacc is already having an impact on the numbers taking a modern foreign language at GCSE. Let us hope that continues.
I have two final points to make. Of course pupils need an understanding of grammar, and need to be able to translate the written word. But as we all know, oral skills are vital, so that they can speak the language with some confidence. Secondly, as our trade with non-European countries expands, the learning of non-European languages becomes ever more important. This echoes what the Prime Minister was saying in China yesterday.
All this is a long-term process, not least in ensuring that we have enough skilled teachers in modern languages. These are the challenges for the Government of the day and for our schools, so I very much hope that the House will have the chance to come back to this subject at a future date.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, on his maiden speech. He was, as he said, head of office for Edward Heath, political secretary to Lady Thatcher, and chief of staff for Michael Howard—now the noble Lord, Lord Howard of Lympne. This not only reveals a wealth of political experience but suggests excellent diplomatic skills. Perhaps the Government should send him to Geneva, too. The noble Lord’s speech showed his erudition and fluent style. He also confessed to a bad sense of direction; I assume that that is geographical rather than political. I am sure that the whole House will look forward to his future contributions on this and other subjects.
I am pleased to take part in this debate and I thank my noble friend Lady Morgan for initiating it. The Minister has completed Committee stage of the Children and Families Bill, which I can see was a real marathon. He will know that I am not part of the education cohort in this House. I hope he does not think that I am a fraud. I worked at the Institute of Education, University of London, for 33 years and, dare I say it, for the National Union of Teachers for one year after leaving university. At one time, I was even a regular contributor to the Times Higher Education Supplement. However, it is 13 years since I left the institute and I hope that I can offer some perspectives on previous attempts to improve teacher training and to recognise different ways to enter teaching.
Higher education is a significant employer in the UK, with equivalent to 1.2% of the workforce in employment. In some towns, it is one of the biggest employers, bringing an important boost to the local and regional economy. Together with student spending, it can make a big difference to the prosperity of an area. Looking at it another way, a town such as Rhyl in North Wales, where I spent last weekend, has severe unemployment and deprivation. Even Marks & Spencer has moved out. Rhyl would benefit enormously from one of the UCTs suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. Higher education depends increasingly on the income from overseas students. Anything that the Minister can do to emphasise the importance of removing barriers to their entry will be very welcome on all sides of the House.
It is not just about income for universities; it is that good universities are part of a global community. I have chaired appointment panels for hospital consultants. All the best candidates belong to worldwide professional associations, have published abroad and have studied abroad. If we lose that intellectual impetus, it will have a devastating effect on our world standing. I should have said that although I am not directly involved in education any more, I am still a member of the board of the Birmingham University Business Advisory Group. The university has important links to West Midlands business and the business school is participating in the initiative of the noble Lord, Lord Young, with the Association of Business Schools to establish business schools as a single point of entry into universities for small and medium-sized enterprises. Birmingham Business School is also picking up the recommendations in Sir Andrew Witty’s recent review—October 2013—of universities and growth, in which SME engagement is a keen component.
In 1968, when I turned up at the Institute of Education as a junior administrator, the first word I learnt was pedagogy—the science, profession or theory of teaching. It was and still is part of the Institute of Education’s DNA. The director was the great Lionel Elvin, who was a member of the Robbins committee. More significantly from my point of view, he was a member of the McNair committee, which brought teacher training colleges under the aegis of universities.
There were huge changes during my time at the Institute of Education. I do not have time to elaborate on the good work that was done in encouraging the recognised university teacher status for college of education lecturers and in university validation of teacher training courses. In the 1970s, we had a mature entrants system whereby 600 students a year were admitted to teacher training on the basis of their experience. Former service men and women, those returning from the former colonies and those who had pursued another career were interviewed and tested for suitability. I have lost count of the good things that were done and were swept away as government policy changed.
Of course, there were bad things too but the Institute of Education is still a world-class institution doing exactly what it did 45 years ago—pedagogy. I urge the Minister to visit the Institute of Education to see the great work that it does. He may know that the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, presides over the council of the institute. Although I have not consulted the institute about this, I would not have dared to make the suggestion without consulting the noble Baroness, which I have done.
In reading the impressive background material produced by the Library, I was struck by the different elements that were mentioned as drivers for economic success. We can all pick and choose the bits that suit us best. However, the World Bank report, Education Quality and Economic Growth, laid great emphasis on cognitive skills as an important driver. I looked it up in the dictionary and a summary would be “acquiring knowledge that involves the processing of sensory information and includes perception, awareness and judgment”. The report acknowledges that the quality of the teacher in the classroom is paramount, that it is difficult to use simple measures to identify a good teacher, be it experience, education or certification, as there is no proven correlation, and that therefore the institutional structure of the school must provide,
“strong incentives for improving student achievement”.
I expect the Minister has strong sympathies with those elements of the World Bank report but it is perfectly possible to reach different conclusions based on the report.
If cognitive skills are paramount, it is essential that we equip our trainee teachers with the science, profession or theory of teaching—not just sitting next to Nelly. We know that leadership is the key to a good school. Schools can turn around because of a great leader even with the same teachers and building. I ask the Minister: what extra investment is being put into continuing professional development, particularly on leadership skills? Parental support is important but how do we support those children who will never have adequate parental support? While autonomy for schools may seem to be the ideal, we should acknowledge the downside. I wonder how much time is spent on number crunching, promoting good employment relations and resisting attempts by some parent governors with no home to go to from trying to take over the school. I am not saying that there is one good system. No Government have solved the inequality of educational opportunity in this country, although some have tried. We should be intolerant of low standards and poor leadership but we should be honest enough to acknowledge that our elitist system is part of the problem in perpetuating disadvantage and inequality.
Lord Mawson (CB)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for introducing this important debate. It has particular relevance for me at the moment, given the practical projects that I am working on in east London that are focused on education, enterprise and economic growth. One of the great strengths of this House is that it allows those of us who have a life outside the corridors of Westminster to make a contribution from what some would call the real world.
With that thought in mind, I thought it helpful to share with noble Lords two practical projects that I am working on in east London that are seeking to make the link between high quality education and economic growth. The first is the St Paul’s Way Transformation Project. Here, I must declare an interest as director. Seven years ago the CEO of Tower Hamlets Council, the health service and the social housing company asked me to intervene in St Paul’s Way. There had been a murder and considerable violence in a housing estate 800 yards to the north of Canary Wharf.
Arriving at St Paul’s Way for the first time, I was not surprised to find that the school was failing and in special measures, with only 35 families applying per year. Police cars, angry black youths with dogs and a frightened head teacher hiding behind a large fence greeted me. The school was defined by a silo culture. It had no relationship with the two warring housing estates around its perimeter, nor with the health centre next door and its 11,000 patients. Some school staff, among them Oxbridge graduates, actively fostered an agenda of isolationism, convinced that the school stood separate from the world of business. Few pupils had walked 800 yards down the road to visit Canary Wharf.
Over the past six years I have worked with partners to create an entrepreneurial narrative for this street. The lead directors in each key public body, their middle managers and the leaders on the street have all embraced it. The results speak for themselves. A new £40 million school now sits on the demolished 1960s school site, complete with the first Faraday science centre in the country. This year, over 1,000 families applied for a place at the school. Exam results continue to rise year on year; the 2013 Ofsted inspection rated the school outstanding in every category; 60% of the sixth form this year gained a place at a Russell Group university; and a bridge programme provides pathways for the most talented students into Oxford.
However, rising exam results are not enough to secure a future for these students. Reading Latin at an Oxbridge college will not guarantee these students a job at the end of an expensive degree; reading engineering will. Professor Brian Cox, a patron at the school, reminds us that we are short of 1 million engineers in the United Kingdom. With that in mind, I have worked over the past two years with Brian to run an annual science summer school at St Paul’s Way. This year, 250 students attended the school for two days in their summer holidays to listen to presentations by leading scientists, engineers and medics from across the world. Speakers included those working on the Higgs boson at CERN, the commercial director from Virgin Galactic, the engineer designing the next Mars Rover and the vice president of the Royal College of Physicians, Professor John Wass, who is also a patron of the school. The event was sponsored and part-hosted by Siemens, which opened its Crystal building in the Royal Docks to participating students and staff.
The theme of the science summer school was how to ensure that Britain becomes the best place to do science and engineering in the world. The answer lies in St Paul’s Way and places like it. A new campus is growing there that connects education, science, enterprise, business and research through practical activity. An example of this is the Wellcome Trust sponsored licence, recently won by the school, which will engage its science students in undertaking real DNA research into diabetes, focused on the 11,000 local patients. The only fly in the ointment is that those same patients are currently being prevented from moving into a new £16 million health centre that currently stands empty across the road from the school because of an NHS bureaucratic impasse.
Without doubt, high quality education has changed the lives of the students of St Paul’s Way Trust School and it is essential for our economic growth to further this country’s reputation for academic excellence. Education, however, must not stand alone from business and enterprise. Education is not just about reading books; it is about translating theory into practical activity.
Following my experience of working with the education sector for the past 30 years, I have a few observations. First, education must step outside text books and the classroom into the street and engage with the real world. Secondly, high exam results do not automatically equip students with relevant life skills. Like the noble Lord, Lord Sugar, and many other members of this House, I left school at 16 and developed successful businesses and organisations. School children desperately need to learn life skills, and often these cannot be taught in a classroom.
Thirdly, the often unconscious bias against business in the classroom needs to be addressed. Teachers are uncomfortable with their students trading and earning money in school. They are uneasy when you speak to them about profit margins and exploiting market opportunities. Unless this is addressed, the contribution of education to economic growth will be muted. Fourthly, an over-academic approach can be antithetical to the risk-taking involved in business and entrepreneurship. Too often, especially in government, we risk paralysis by analysis. Fifthly, practical experience and a track record of achievement should complement academic qualifications both in school and in the workplace.
As new science and technology businesses follow Tech City, BT, iCITY and Siemens on to the Olympic Park and across the Lower Lea Valley after the Olympics, there is a real opportunity to link high quality educational achievement with the development of practical skills that are needed there. The announcement yesterday that UCL and the V&A are moving into the park is a major piece of this jigsaw, and we thank the Government for supporting it. In the Royal Docks I am, with partners, starting to build a new secondary free school. This school, through a massive regeneration project, will explicitly link an isolated local community with the employment and enterprise opportunities present in ExCeL, the forthcoming Chinese ABP development, the new India Centre, City Airport and the Silvertown partnership, and here I must declare an interest. However, this will be successful only if the young people involved see that education is about innovation, enterprise and business as well as about reading, writing, and arithmetic.
I ask the Minister: what practical steps should be taken to navigate the blockages at the new health centre across the road from the school in St Paul’s Way? An educational opportunity, with significant economic implications, is being lost because of a bureaucratic impasse. I would be happy to meet the Minister to explain both the opportunity and the difficulties. In my experience, innovation needs both engagement and leadership, not bureaucracy.
Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a member of the council of Nottingham University. We have heard two good, interesting maiden speeches, which have been a huge contribution to this wide-ranging debate.
Economic growth is fundamental to raising living standards and to social improvement. High-quality education is critical to that growth, right throughout the education years. It is crucial that those involved in each stage of education, from school to vocational training—an area in which I recognise the substantial work of the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, who has achieved far more outside Government, some may consider, than he achieved in it—and through to universities not only talk to but work with each other in the best interests of our young people. I shall touch on those stages of education in my contribution.
Innovation drives productivity improvement and growth. This is especially true for an economy such as that of the UK, where we cannot rely on moving resources from low-productivity activities such as agriculture into higher productivity activity. Universities are critical in driving innovation. They do so in at least three ways. The first is through talent development, not only through undergraduate and postgraduate education, but in executive education and CPD. Many of our successful business leaders across all sectors demonstrate that. However, too many of our citizens are missing that opportunity, either of vocational training or of academic training in universities.
The second way that universities drive innovation is through fundamental and translational research. This helps create new products, new services and new ways of doing things. At Nottingham for instance, Sir Peter Mansfield began fundamental research on MRI, which was then licensed to transform imaging and diagnosis worldwide. Nottingham has also contributed to 3D printing, food security, satellite tracking and carbon capture, all of them important to the UK’s economy both today and in the future. We need highly educated members of our community to carry through that kind of development.
The third way I have chosen to mention—there are others—is the spinning out of new companies. Again, these are developed from the cutting edge of research, not just at Nottingham but at many of our best universities. This has been a hugely successful contribution to the UK economy. This third aspect involves academia working with a wide range of companies, many of which are household names such as AstraZeneca, BAE Systems, E.ON, the Highways Agency, GSK, Rolls-Royce, Romax, Unilever and Boots, with its home in Nottingham and its close links to the founding of the university. They help bring the best of business and academia together.
The role that universities play in the growth of our economy was clearly demonstrated this week, with the Prime Minister’s welcome trade mission to China including a number of vice-chancellors, including Professor David Greenaway of Nottingham. They have gone to a part of the world that has already been covered in this debate and where there is a driving thirst for, and a commitment to, education in a way that we have perhaps not seen. However, that brings with it a downside. There is a question about the roundedness of the individual children coming through that system—their ability to solve problems and their cognitive skills. Nevertheless, that ambition is feeding through to the numbers coming through university. We see it in the China campus that Nottingham has at Ningbo and, indeed, in Malaysia. Those students are a great challenge to us and to our economy because of that thirst for education.
The economic role that universities play in their regions and in driving new technologies has been highlighted recently by the report commissioned by the Government and produced by Sir Andrew Witty, a leading businessman in this country, who is a former student and now chancellor of Nottingham University. The report makes recommendations to the Government on the need to leverage the role that universities play in the regions, in order to be more effective. In his reply, can the Minister tell us where the Government are in their thinking on responding to that report?
In addition to their economic role, universities play a crucial part in building the social capital in the communities where they are embedded, through their contributions to school improvement, healthcare and community engagement and through their involvement in local hospitals. This includes working directly with schools at primary level—it has to start at a very young age—and involves not only academics but students themselves going into those schools as role models to say to young people, “You can do it; I have done it”.
Launched in January 2011, Nottingham Potential is working to address the mismatch between relatively low local achievement, which we have in Nottingham, and progression to level 3 study. All the projects are rooted in the national curriculum, with very strong messages about aspiration and self-esteem. It starts with activities with seven year-olds and continues right through their education. In partnership with IntoUniversity, its activities take students into schools as role models. It holds events on the university campus and aims to make youngsters think that university can be for them and that getting there is achievable. It aims to lift their confidence and horizons and, as has been mentioned, the horizons of their families. So much of this goes back to the home. The local link between the wider community and universities is important to both parties and to our future as well. It is important in breaking down the social barriers which still substantially exist in young people thinking of going to university.
A debate about the role of universities and economic growth would not be complete if we did not recognise the importance of our higher education sector as an exporter and as a contributor to soft power. It is one of the most successful parts of the UK economy in terms of overseas trade, bringing in students and fees from around the world—something like £7.9 billion in 2009. In addition, there is this soft power: the impact of having so many international students learning for their degrees and then going back to their countries. Quite a number of them end up as leaders in their own countries and still carry affection for their alma mater, which benefits the UK in the long term.
I thank my noble friend Lady Morgan for listing and obtaining this debate, and I compliment her on the content and breadth of her opening address and the very thought-provoking statistics that she gave us.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for initiating this important debate. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne, for his extremely interesting maiden speech, in which he attributed to me a particular interest in modern languages. I assure him that, although I chaired the all-party group yesterday, I am not a specialist in modern languages. Rather, I share his interest and the view that we, as a country, are the poorer because we do not put more emphasis on people being able to speak foreign languages. I am very anxious to see that we encourage the study of modern languages in our schools.
I am an economist, not a language specialist, and first came to be interested in the relationship between education and growth when I worked in the National Economic Development Office at the end of the 1970s. I came across the work that an economist called Sig Prais, whose name some noble Lords may remember, was doing at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. I remember in particular a study that he did of two engineering companies involved in machining, comparing a German and a British company. As it happened, they both used exactly the same type of German machinery, which had been installed at the same time—there was no difference in the capital equipment used by the two companies. Nevertheless, productivity in Germany was twice that of the British firm. He wanted to know why productivity was so much higher in the German firm so he began unpeeling, if you like, the skins of the onion.
He discovered that the main reason why productivity in Britain was so low was that the machinery was down for a lot of the time and not being used. Why was it down? Because the build-up of iron filings in the machinery grew to such an extent that the machines just gave up the ghost. Why did this not happen in Germany? Because every Friday afternoon, the apprentices in Germany stripped down the machines, cleaned them all up and cleaned away all the iron filings. The machines therefore worked practically all the time and were never down. Why did this not happen in Britain? It was because there were no apprentices to do the work. They used to have to call the engineer, just as you do when the Xerox machine breaks down; and, just as when the Xerox machine breaks down, the engineer could not always come the next day. The machine might well be down for two days while they waited for the engineer to come along and fix it.
In Germany, on the whole, the operatives who ran the machines were sufficiently trained to be able to repair the machines on the spot if and when they broke down. Why could we not train British apprentices or operatives in the same way? It was discovered that they had tried to train them but the training programme involved an element of mathematical training. On the whole, the British operatives had not got the basic maths to be able to cope with the fairly elementary training programme that was required. The result was that the British organisation, so to speak, meant that we were the poorer for it.
This led me to have a very considerable interest in this link between education, productivity and economic growth. Quite clearly, these things were very important. That was 30 to 40 years ago and since that time we have taken on board and understood the message mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. We have seen a series of educational initiatives of one sort or another since then that have tried to address that particular problem, including all the initiatives on apprenticeships of one sort or another, which perhaps are beginning to pay off. However, there is a very real question as to why, 30 to 40 years later, and knowing the importance of it, we are still lagging in these PISA studies.
One answer is that, of course, others have been moving faster than we have. Another answer is that we should not neglect what we have achieved over that period. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, spoke about the number of young people achieving five As to Cs at GCSE; but it is not just that. We have quadrupled the number of young people in universities; we are turning out many more graduates than we were at that time. Something like 12% of the age cohort went through to university; it is now 40%. There are many achievements that we can think about.
Secondly, we should realise that it takes time. Within the Sure Start initiatives we have put a lot of emphasis, particularly in terms of trying to cope with the issue of the gap between the advantaged and disadvantaged, on early start and early years education. Your Lordships should remember that those who were in Sure Start when we had the expansion of that in the early 2000s are only just 15 now. We need to be watching the achievement of our 15 year-olds. Back in the 1970s, the Americans had a programme called Head Start that did precisely the same. They wrote it off after 10 years but discovered, 25 years later, that it had had a major influence on the young people who had benefited from it. It takes time for these programmes to work their way through.
Thirdly, we should recognise that it takes two to tango. In my preparation for this debate I was interested to see the work from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. It pointed out that there is a demand as well as a supply side. It is not just the Government funding apprenticeships and so forth; we have to look at what industry is doing and see that there is a demand. I am conscious of the fact that, in two respects, the UK lags behind here. One is that industry fails fairly considerably in its spending on research and development. The second is that, similarly, although it spends £49 billion a year on what it claims to be education and training, much of that goes to high flyers and a lot of it is concerned with the wages of those concerned.
What do we need? Above all, we need consistency. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, mentioned that in London the message is one of success, in some senses; we have managed to turn it round. However, if I look only at vocational education, I see the failure of the number of initiatives we have had over this course of time—TVEI, TOPS, WOPs, academic or vocational GCSEs, vocational A-levels, diplomas—and a failure to pick up, for example, on the Tomlinson report. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Baker, on UTCs, which are a very good answer to this. At long last, we have achieved something there. Nevertheless, there has been total inconsistency. On teacher training, the noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, mentioned how important the quality of teaching is. Yet what have we done? We have turned the whole thing upside down, just when we were beginning to achieve something.
I echo so much the plea made by my noble friend Lord Storey that there should be consistency. As the noble Lord, Lord Nash, mentioned on Tuesday, we should stop throwing stones at each other. There is political consensus on what we want to achieve. We ought also to try to create political consensus on how we achieve this and commit ourselves to pursuing a programme consistently over 10 or 20 years, not chopping and changing.
Lord Graham of Edmonton (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure and a privilege to be able to take part in this debate. I am fifteenth or sixteenth and I have not heard a contribution with which I have not agreed, at least in part—especially that of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, who struck so many chords with my life that I want to congratulate him on what he said.
I have just two points to make from my experience. The best thing would be to start at the day, 75 years ago, when I ran from my school, Todds Nook in Newcastle, with a piece of paper in my hand. I said to mum and dad, “Mam—I have passed the exam”. I was in an elementary school and this was an exam to get into a secondary school. Dad laughed and mam cried. In those days, dad was on the dole from 1930 to 1939, when the war broke out; they knew that it was impossible for me not to leave school at 14.
Later on I took an exam to go to a technical school—Atkinson Road Technical—and I passed that; but there was no way of going. When I left school at 14, as most people did, I took any job that I could and made my way in life. One of the things that has always niggled me is that many people earn the right by their own abilities to make progress but are denied being able to make that progress as a result of their economic circumstances. Does the Minister have any statistics that would help me to understand the difference between 1934-35 and 2013? The question really is whether there is any record, or attempt to have a record, which shows that there are people who, due to economic circumstances, leave school—for instance, at the age of 16, now—when they are capable of going on.
During the war I was very badly wounded preparing for D-Day. During that period I sat 30 examinations—I made a count the other day—and passed them all, for the Workers’ Educational Association, the National Council of Labour Colleges and the Co-operative Union. Then the Open University came along. At the Open University, you start off with a registered number and a letter. The very first year was “A”; I am a “B” student, so I go back a long way. I am deeply grateful to the Open University.
I want to say that the Government need to be very careful. In producing the education we need, they rely on the goodwill of the teachers, the parents, the community and industry. Of course, there are highs and lows. One of the features of this debate has been that no one, as I recall, has tried to make party-political points. We are all conscious that this is a very serious matter. Not just the lives of the individuals are concerned, but the lives of their families and, collectively, the lives of everyone in our country. I believe that the Government should pause before they become too dogmatic in driving forward their political objectives. When one analyses the stalemates that arise between the teaching profession and the Government, one cannot help but conclude that there must be a better way of doing things. I want to hear something from the Minister on the relationships between the teaching profession and the community.
Tomorrow I am going to a school in Edmonton, which is slap-bang in the middle of a large council estate. It is called Latymer school and it is the best in the area. I am going along there to have Christmas lunch with the staff and pupils. A few years ago, I was invited to present the prizes, and I was pleased to do so. I was well received and someone said, “That was a very good speech”. I said, “Who else have you had?” and they said, “Last year we had Boris Johnson”. I said, “How was he received?”. “Oh, we all laughed all the way through his speech”. I said, “What did he say?”. They said, “We can’t recall what he said but we laughed all the way through his speech”. A laugh and a lightness of approach are probably helpful.
Year after year, Latymer school produces 20 pupils who go to Oxford or Cambridge. It has a basis in the community and the esprit de corps that it manifests is sought after. But one has to be careful. When I was the MP, I would get requests from people who said, “Ted, I want my boy to go to Latymer school and he has been allocated somewhere else”. I would say, “All I can do is write a letter and say that you’ve been to see me and ask if there is any way in which this can be looked at again”. Then I would see them in Edmonton market and they would say, “Ted, my boy got in”. A year later, I would see them in the market again and say, “How’s your boy doing?”. “Oh,” they said, “He’s had to leave the school”. I said, “Why?”. They said, “Because it was too tough”. Beware what you think you will need or want because if you get it, it may not be what you need or want.
The record of Latymer school is not replicated everywhere, but it is a first class school. I remember one of the first times I went there, Norris McWhirter was testing the school orchestra, which was attempting to break the record for playing for the longest time. I was there after they had been playing for 30 hours and they got into the Guinness Book of Records. That is the kind of school that it is.
The Government need to be very careful not to alienate teachers, who are the greatest asset that they have, or the community, because you are not dealing with adults but with the lives and the prospects of children, who deserve the best possible consideration.
Lord Paul (Non-Afl)
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, on initiating this timely debate. We have had two very good maiden speeches, and I thank the noble Lord and the right reverend Prelate for their contributions.
Most of the world has had a difficult a time in the past few years, but now the economy is doing well, not just here but in the United States, Europe and Japan. Britain is ahead of the rest of the world and it is time to look at how we can sustain that momentum.
First, I declare an interest as chancellor of two universities: the University of Wolverhampton and the University of Westminster. I know at first hand the role that accessible quality education plays in economic regeneration. The opportunity to participate in education and gain skills must be available to all. This is what will grow the economy and ensure that we have a skilled workforce ready to meet the challenges ahead.
Other countries are accepting this challenge. The Government of India have set a target to have 40 million students in higher education by 2020, when it is forecast that India will supply 12% of the world’s graduates. China is expected to produce 29% of all higher education graduates by then. I am glad that the Prime Minister had exchanges with students from both countries on his recent visits.
Higher education is now a bigger industry in the United Kingdom than the aircraft industry, agriculture or even the pharmaceutical industry. Universities generated £59 billion of the UK’s output in 2009, during the first year after the recession, and created 670,000 jobs, either directly or indirectly. Yet the UK is still ranked by the OECD in seventh place for the skills level of the general population, which indicates that we need to provide more resources for adult learners. We know also that despite a 30% increase in participation in higher education by young people from less advantaged backgrounds, we still have some way to go to ensure that our economic recovery benefits from the creativity and entrepreneurialism of people from all walks of life.
As the only university in the Black Country, the University of Wolverhampton is committed to the regeneration of the region and providing the educational opportunities that I speak of. However, universities such as Wolverhampton are facing significant funding cuts that will affect their ability to provide these opportunities. Funding for teaching and widening participation must be protected to ensure that we maintain and grow our skills base across all parts of the population. In the Black Country alone, 80,000 more graduates are required to bring the region close to the national average. This is not unique to the Black Country. Many parts of the country have the same needs, and those future graduates ought to come from the regions that need them.
In the past, research and science budgets have been protected, while teaching and widening access funds have been cut. This needs to change. Research is not the only or the most effective way to grow an economy. Developing the workforce of today and the future is crucial to economic development, and we must enable all who can benefit from higher education to have an opportunity. This provides concentrated and embedded economic growth across the country.
The British model of higher education prepares students well for jobs. At the University of Westminster we welcome students of 150 nationalities, and we are working hard to upgrade it to world-class status. Today, the university is a world leader in photography, film and media, and is ranked 19th in the QS world rankings. It has probably the best complementary medicine department in Europe, as well as a very successful department of biomedical sciences.
London continues to attract many of the most able international students, but the challenges posed by changes to our immigration system mean that the numbers are falling in comparison with those of the United States, India and China. This is affecting our higher education market, which is currently valued at £5 billion to the UK economy and is forecast to rise to £16.9 billion by 2025. Therefore, we must remove students from the net migration target, as most are here for only a short time.
The number of higher-level skilled jobs is set to grow over the next decade. By 2020, more than 80% of new jobs will be in occupations with high numbers of graduates. Hence students completing a UK degree will be more valued than before.
Like Andrew Witty, I believe that economic regeneration should not be an add-on to the core business of a university; it should be intrinsic in all that it does. At the heart of course development and design, and of research and development, must be the driving force of meeting the needs of our economy. But public funding, especially for teaching, needs to be protected. Only by doing so will we provide the innovation and skills base that we need to sustain and, more importantly, grow our economy.
Viscount Hanworth (Lab)
My Lords, I begin by expressing my dismay at the obtuseness of many of the analyses that attempt to quantify the economic benefits of increased expenditure on our education. Such studies are well represented in the literature emanating from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. They are typically cast in the form of economic cost/benefit analyses. The costs are expenditures, both public and private, that are entailed in seeing an individual through the ultimate stages of their education. The benefits are in the form of a discounted flow of cash representing the present value of the individual’s enhanced lifetime earnings. The balance is termed a net lifetime benefit, and the sum of individual benefits, aggregated over the set of people in question, is deemed to be the net economic benefit. There is an implicit suggestion here that the per capita net benefit thus derived is a meaningful measure of the returns to be expected from a marginal increase in the expenditure on a particular form of education. It is suggested that this should provide the appropriate guidance for governmental educational policies.
We should, of course, expect much more from education than the individual financial rewards that it might generate. The economic benefits of an educated working population surely extend far beyond the realm of personal finances. This is notwithstanding the fact that, in economic accountancy, it is deemed to be appropriate to measure all benefits in terms of the eventual increases in the incomes of consumers.
We also have to contend with what economists describe as the problem of externalities; economic benefits and the other effects of the education of individuals accrue not only to themselves but also to others. The problem of externalities is commonly known as the fallacy of composition. The fallacy arises when the whole of something cannot be identified with the sum of its parts.
There is another more fundamental methodological criticism that I should like to aim at the studies that I have mentioned. The studies that purport to account for the levels of personal or national income commonly employ regression analyses. These attribute the value of a dependent variable, which is income in these cases, to a linear combination of various measurable factors, which are weighted by numerical coefficients. There is an unspoken assumption that these factors are amenable to independent variation, achieved perhaps by the intercession of some governmental policy. Thus, for example, it is asserted in one of the documents of the Department of Business Innovation and Skills, that,
“a 16 percentage point increase in those educated to degree level could lead to more than £1bn annual savings in reduced crime costs in the UK”.
That is an instance of what is described in philosophical jargon as a counterfactual conditional. It is a statement that asserts that if realities were other than what they actually are, then such-and-such a consequence would ensue. The difficulty here is in the need to invent a plausible alternative reality. The alternative reality would comprise not only the 16% increase in the numbers of graduates; there would be many other accompanying circumstances. There could plausibly be an increase in the unemployment of the graduates, which might lead them to commit crimes. If this speculation sounds silly, it is no sillier than the original proposition.
There are many other instances that could be cited of spurious quantification expressed in quasi-mathematical language. They are certain to bamboozle many readers who lack the confidence to gainsay them. An example of dubious quantification that is dominating the current debate on educational policy is the list of the so-called PISA rankings on national educational achievements that has been published by the OECD in recent days. The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has been using these rankings to berate his predecessors and his critics. On closer examination, the PISA methodology appears to be seriously flawed. However, a cursory glance at the rankings indicates that they are, to a significant extent, inversely correlated with the degrees of inequality in the countries concerned.
If this is not the way to guide and to evaluate our educational policies, then what other methods should we pursue? I propose that we should take a narrative approach, which should be informed by a detailed knowledge of past and present circumstances. This would dwell on past successes and failures. We should allow ourselves some modest self-congratulation, but the principal aim should be that of avoiding the pitfalls already encountered and of overcoming the enduring failures. This is far too big a task to attempt in a brief speech, but I can at least talk briefly of some of my own perceptions.
I believe that we must go back at least to the Butler Education Act of 1944 in order to explain the current status of education in Britain. The Butler Act proposed three different types of secondary school: grammar schools, secondary technical schools and secondary modern schools. The technical schools were intended to foster the scientific and technical education that would sustain our industries, thereby enhancing our economic growth. However, they never materialised. This was partly on account of a lack of resources and a lack of teachers who had skills in the relevant areas. The technical schools were also opposed by some trade unionists who felt that they would encroach on the apprentice system.
Within this tripartite system, there was an order of merit. Grammar schools, which were to have an academic orientation, would take the brightest of the students; secondary technical schools were to take those of middling ability; and secondary modern schools were to take those who by and large were destined for menial industrial labour. As it transpired, there was no provision in the middle ground for training that was both academic and technical. The legacy of that deficiency has endured to this day. In particular, we have no meaningful system of technical apprenticeships. We seem nowadays to be intent on using a revived system of apprenticeships mainly to obtain placements for young people who might otherwise be unemployed. The reaction of the Labour Party to the socially divisive system of grammar and secondary modern schools was to create comprehensive schools to cater to all students together. However, the comprehensive schools have never satisfied the need for a technical education,
The philosophy of outsourcing that has been adopted by many British companies has led them to regard technical skills as commodities that can be purchased on the open market. They have failed to train and nurture people with the skills that they depend upon, and consequently in many cases the firms have rendered themselves technically incompetent. The problem was well illustrated in the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp.
At this juncture, I remark that British culture has fostered some decidedly anti-intellectual sentiments. In certain quarters there has been contempt for teachers. There are echoes of such contempt in the pronouncements of the current Secretary of State for Education. Michael Gove has threatened a more rigorous system of school inspections that will weed out incompetent and underperforming teachers. He has also proposed to give head teachers and school governors arbitrary and unbridled powers to determine the remuneration of their staff. It seems that the visitations of the Ofsted inspection regime are to be redoubled at a time when teachers are liable to be afflicted by a plethora of governmental educational initiatives. It is such interference by successive Governments and the derogation of the teachers’ skills that has been responsible for many of the problems in the educational sector.
People work best when they have ownership of the processes that they mediate and when they are able to maintain their self-respect. Under such circumstances, they are liable to work with enthusiasm and to perform beyond the formal call of duty. It is remarkable that our teachers have been so steadfast in the face of so many onslaughts.
Baroness Taylor of Bolton (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that I will be forgiven for not following my noble friend on the counterfactual conditional, although I enjoyed much of his other analysis.
Yesterday, my noble friend Lady McIntosh asked at Question Time about the fact that education is more than just about its economic impact. The whole House, I think, would agree on that, though it is important that we have this particular debate to focus on those aspects.
I congratulate my noble friend Lady Morgan not only on acquiring this debate but on the nature of her analysis, which was realistic, non-political and, importantly, hopeful. I start where she started. If we are to get more out of the investment that we make in education, we have to look more at what happens in early years. Yes, in terms of economic benefits, universities make a great and increasing contribution to exports and earnings, but if we are to get all of our population to the state where they have self-satisfaction, can play a part in society and can be of economic benefit, we must start early. The most significant statistic that my noble friend used was that, at the age of five, many children are 19 months behind the average. That is a desperately serious situation that we have not properly addressed in the past.
We must think in terms of not just formal education but of getting those children off to a better start and of the factors that will determine what they can do for the rest of their lives. That is one reason why I am very proud of what the previous Labour Government did in Sure Start—helping very young children to socialise, interact and co-operate with others and to have confidence and self-respect, all of which will determine their progress later.
As others have mentioned, it is particularly important that we get parents involved. We have to break the cycle of parents who have themselves not got a lot out of education being unable to engage in the system and therefore their children being significantly disadvantaged. Everyone who has been involved in education, at whatever level, knows that when you have parental involvement, you have better behaviour and achievement and everyone finds life an awful lot easier. Incidentally, that is one reason why I have favoured home-school contracts for many years.
It is important to get parents involved in another respect. In education debates we hear a lot about providing opportunity, which is right, but we face one difficulty that no Government have been able to overcome: motivating the non-aspirational. We sometimes talk as if it is a clear choice that individuals sit down to make: “I will be aspirational” or, “I will not bother taking that opportunity”. We need to understand the fears that can inhibit people’s aspirations: the fear of entering an unknown world, the fear of moving away from the security of their family and friends. I think back to some of those films made in the 1960s, where young students from the north were going down to universities in the south and being dislocated from their families. That fear and feeling of, “It’s not for us”, is still very much there in many areas, and we must find new ways to tackle that. What my noble friend said about London was interesting. There may be things that we can learn from there, but it is a serious problem.
An article in the Telegraph today shows that some towns and cities have nine out of 10 residents with high qualifications but some towns have only four out of 10 with the same qualifications. I cannot believe that that reflects an innate ability in one place but not in another; I think that it is to do with aspirations, motivations and confidence. Until we find out how we can crack that one, we will have real difficulties because we are dealing with people whose expectations are not high, and I am not sure that we are doing enough to raise them.
Secondly, echoing what has been said so far, we must value teachers and head teachers and provide them with the training, support and mentoring that they need. Mention has been made of Finland. I am not sure that that is the complete answer, but we should value and respect teachers not just by words; we need action as well. By action, I mean inaction on occasion, because the Government should not overprescribe what teachers should be doing. I think that nearly everyone agrees that we need a national curriculum, but that means different things to different people. I recall, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Baker, does, discussion about what a Secretary of State should recommend as the 10 books that all children should read. I was shadow Secretary of State at the time, and it was very tempting to name your 10 books, but Secretaries of State should resist that temptation—it is not their job to do more than have a prescriptive framework.
Thirdly, I want to mention examinations. We have to ask the basic question: what is the purpose of the testing? Is it to assess and assist the child’s progress; is it to look at the added value that that school is providing; or are we creating hurdles and just using tests for league tables? I draw the Minister’s attention to what the Chief Scientific Officer said yesterday: that the risk in education is always that exams are the tail that wags the whole education dog.
Finally, briefly, I am surprised that no one other than the OU graduate, my noble friend Lord Graham, has mentioned the Open University. It teaches us many things. It shows that many people who did not succeed on the conventional path can succeed later. The majority of its students do not have qualifications for conventional universities. It can also teach us different teaching methods. I am pleased that the vice-chancellor is with the Prime Minister in China, because there is a lot of scope there. The Open University is showing how, through its FutureLearn programme, new techniques can be used to teach people but also to draw them into education by giving them taster courses, not least those based on the BBC programme, “The Frozen Planet”, which encourage them to take up a theme, do courses and get into education. We must look at new ways to get people into education and then keep them in.
Lord Liddle (Lab)
My Lords, I should like to declare an interest as the pro-chancellor of Lancaster University and a former director of the University of Cumbria, and as a member of Cumbria County Council, in which capacity I will probably be knocking on the door of the noble Lord, Lord Nash, quite soon.
It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate introduced by my noble friend Lady Morgan of Huyton, with whom I worked in No. 10, which now, I fear, seems a bygone era. It has also been a very good debate. It is a great privilege to hear the noble Lord, Lord Baker, speak. In Cumbria, we are very excited by the creation of one of his university technical colleges. It was also a great privilege to listen to the maiden speeches by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, and particularly by the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury. Although we have been on opposite sides of the political fence, he has made a distinguished contribution to public service in his lifetime. I share his view that London is not the centre of the universe.
We also heard an excellent veteran speech by my noble friend Lord Graham of Edmonton, to offset the maiden speeches. His experience reminded me of the absolute political commitment that we ought to have to education. My mother left school when she was 14 for exactly the same reasons as he had to, and went to work in a confectioners for five bob a week.
I want to make four propositions in this debate. First, education has contributed to economic growth, is contributing and has the potential to contribute much more. Having heard a little of what my noble friend Lord Hanworth said, I hesitate to talk statistics, but I looked to the excellent authority of David Willetts, who has written a very good pamphlet called Robbins Revisited. He argues in that that 20% of UK economic growth in the past quarter-century has resulted from the increase in graduate-level skills, and that a third of the increase in UK labour productivity in the decade before the financial crisis was due to the growing number with university degrees. Economic growth is not the only benefit that better education brings. He cites research that says that people who are well educated are more likely to be members of a voluntary organisation; likely to be more tolerant; less likely to suffer depression; less likely to drink a lot—I am not sure about that; less likely to smoke; less susceptible to criminal activity; and more likely to live longer. Those are all good things.
He also cites evidence that education leads to less cost in public spending. Indeed, the net lifetime benefit to the Exchequer of getting someone through university successfully is, according to David Willetts, £260,000 to the Exchequer for a man and £315,000 for a woman. Perhaps the Minister can explain why, in the light of this compelling logic, today the Chancellor has announced cuts in public spending that affect the Department for Education and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, and prevent those economic potential gains being realised.
The second argument I will make is that we have in Britain a huge problem of two nations in education, which we have to overcome. That is what the recent PISA studies show. We have, on the one hand, a combination of great academic standards, wonderful universities and world-leading research, and, on the other, average standards that are too low and regional divides between success in London and failure in northern cities. We have huge deficits in vocational qualifications and skills that Governments have failed to tackle over decades. We have a deplorable position of leadership in Europe on the question of NEETs—young people not in education, work or training of any kind.
I do not think one should play politics about this. This is a huge national problem. I do say, however, that, in response to the PISA studies this week, I thought the Secretary of State for Education—for whom I have respect because he is a man with genuine commitment to equal opportunity—demeaned himself by trying to turn the PISA results into an attack on Labour’s record in office in those years. Labour inherited an education system that was in crisis in 1997. Yes, we got some things wrong. We had perhaps too many targets and perhaps the wrong targets. Perhaps getting rid of languages as a requirement in 2004 was a mistake. All Governments get things wrong. What we got right, however, was a 74% increase in spending per student below university level in those Labour years and an increase in higher education spending per student of 38%. Let us not play politics with education. Let us recognise that we have these underlying problems.
My fear about the present coalition’s policy is that, although there are aspects of it that are very attractive, the problem of the two nations may be made worse. I will give a few examples. One of the good ideas in the coalition policy is the pupil premium. When you look, however, at what is happening in teaching, autonomy in schools should not become an excuse for hiring loads of unqualified teachers. That will not improve the quality of teaching; nor should the proposals to reform the system of teacher education be rushed. The Government are right to want a lot more apprentices. Yes, there is a need for more apprenticeships, and the previous Government, I think, got things wrong on Train to Gain. I am quite willing to admit that. However, I looked at a recent report from the Boston Consulting Group—this is not a Labour think tank, this is the Boston Consulting Group—which said that, of the 240,000 new apprenticeships created in the past two years, 58% were low-level and 75% went to people over the age of 25 who were already in work. It looks to me as though this is not a dramatic breakthrough in skills education but another form of employer wage subsidy. We have progress to make on apprenticeships.
That is also the case in higher education. My noble friend Lady Warwick talked about the decline in part-time students and mature students, which is a great shame. The noble Lord, Lord Paul, mentioned how migration policies threaten the future of our universities. I think the Government may have the wrong priorities. For instance, I am sure that, in the other place today, there will be a lot of applause for the married couple’s allowance and the universal free school meals. Would it not, if you were seriously interested in educational opportunity and that was your principal objective, have been better to spend that money on children’s centres and early years?
Our education policy needs a rethink, on a cross-party basis, to try to establish consensus. We need to make institutional changes to our education system that will withstand changes of Government. We need to make systemic change to raise quality, not just fiddle around at the edges. We need to raise the status, as Labour attempted, of the teaching profession. We need a new system of post-16 funding. I think the Labour Government experimented with an individual learning account and it went wrong, but we need something like that. We also need a new, more settled approach to higher education.
In conclusion, we will succeed as a country only if we improve our educational quality. The greatest national resource that we have for our future is the unfulfilled potential of so many of our young people. We need a national consensus if we are to achieve that.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for proposing this debate on such an important topic. She is an experienced and passionate advocate for education, from her time as a geography teacher in the early 1980s to the work that she has done as a member of the board of trustees of the Teaching Leaders charity, chair of the board of trustees of Future Leaders and chair of Ofsted.
I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and my noble friend Lord Sherbourne on their maiden speeches. Both spoke passionately, incisively and eloquently, and I am sure that we are all looking forward to hearing them speak on many more occasions. I also thank all noble Lords for their valuable contributions.
As the excellent charity ARK, one of our high-performing academy sponsors, which I know the noble Baroness advises, has stated, education is one of the strongest determinants of future income and social mobility. Young people with university degrees have double the earning capacity of those who leave school without qualifications. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, spoke about the underachievement “tail” of particularly poor children. We all know that many of our children are brought up in chaotic home lives with no systems, no structures and a background of generational worklessness. As I think noble Lords know, and I think there is consensus on this across the House, the only way in which we can break this cycle is through education. The tail is why we are changing the basic accounting measure for schools from a rather simplistic five A* to C grades, including English and maths, to a progress measure across eight subjects so that all pupils, whether they come to school performing poorly or highly, are measured on the progress that they make.
The noble Baroness also mentioned London Challenge, to which I pay tribute, as a model of collaboration. The academies programme is the structure that we are using for school-to-school support in local clusters in regional locations. A local collaborative structure is the only model that we feel works. I was delighted to hear the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, say that people work best when they have ownership of the processes that they are running, which is exactly what our academy programme is all about.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans mentioned that 82% of the schools in his diocese are good or outstanding. As I am sure he knows, that puts his diocese in the premier division of dioceses. I am extremely grateful to the Diocese of St Albans for its sponsorship of the All Saints Academy. I also pay tribute to church schools generally, which consistently outperform local authority-maintained schools and outperform on community cohesion.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and other noble Lords have said, this debate is particularly timely as the latest PISA international comparison results were published earlier this week. These results showed that, having tumbled down the PISA tables in the first decade of this century, we have broadly maintained our pretty average, mid-20s standing out of 65 countries. For the sixth largest economy in the world, it is clear that there is a lot more that we have to do if we are to give our children the ability to compete in an increasingly competitive and diverse international market.
These results follow the shocking findings of the recently published OECD’s adult skills survey, which showed that we came joint bottom out of 24 countries in numeracy and 21st out of 24 in maths. We were the only country in the surveyed group whose school leavers’ grandparents are better educated than they are. There is a similar story with TIMSS and other statistics.
It is clear that countries with successful education systems have faster rates of economic growth, as the noble Lord, Lord Paul, referenced. A study by Hanushek and Woessmann in 2012 suggested that if the UK halved the then 50 PISA-point gap between us and Finland, it would result in a 6% boost to the level of UK GDP by 2050, worth around £90 billion in today’s money.
There is evidence that education is increasingly important across the world. Graduates are good for growth and good for the economy; the noble Baronesses, Lady Warwick, Lady Cohen, Lady Donaghy and Lady Dean, referred to the success of our university system. Looking across developed economies, a study by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research shows that countries that increased their share of graduates in the workforce saw labour productivity grow faster, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, referred to. In the UK, we estimate that roughly one-third of the increase in labour productivity between 1994 and 2005 was attributable to the accumulation of graduate skills in the labour force. In other words, a substantial share of the UK’s economic growth over this period was related to the expansion of higher education.
The noble Lord, Lord Liddle, referred to the graduate premium. Office for National Statistics data show that the average income for graduates levels out at £35,000, compared to £22,000 per annum for those with A-levels and £19,000 for those with merely GCSEs.
The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick, and the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, referred to funding. I must remind the House that we inherited a particularly parlous state of finances in this country and we have had some very difficult decisions to make as we seek to rectify the financial situation while protecting education budgets extremely well, particularly in relation to schools. As a result of our tighter financial controls, and as the Chancellor has today announced, the economic prospects for the country are looking up substantially.
While education is critical in building human capital, it is also important for short-term and medium-term growth. Our £18 billion capital investment programme to build new schools is stimulating construction activity across the country and supporting jobs. Free early years education for 1.3 million three and four year-olds—that is 96%—is enabling more parents to work. Education is worth around £17.5 billion to the UK export sector. My department spends almost £60 billion on education and children’s services.
However, it is not just about spending money, it is also about value for money. I am delighted to be able to tell the House that we are now building schools at half the cost of that under the Building Schools for the Future programme, more quickly and more fit for purpose. We are also running the Department for Education far more efficiently and, by 2015, will have halved the cost of running the department in real terms from just over £500 million to around £300 million, and we will have a far more efficient and effective organisation as a result.
Our ambitious educational reforms are influenced by international evidence on what works. Successful school systems prioritise the quality of teachers over the size of classes; they attract the best people into teaching; and there is greater autonomy and accountability—I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, and Sir Michael Wilshaw for the highly effective work that Ofsted does in this regard.
High-performing systems have curriculum standards that set clear and high expectations. The relationship between early education and better student outcomes is strongest in countries that offer early education to a large proportion of the population. The amount spent is less important than how those resources are used.
Pupils’ socioeconomic background still plays too big a role in attainment in England. The impact of parental education on literacy and numeracy is stronger in England than in most other countries. According to the Sutton Trust, boosting the educational outcomes of children from less educated families to match the UK average could be worth around 4% of GDP, or £60 billion, to the country’s economy.
The noble Earl, Lord Listowel and the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, spoke about the importance of engaging parents in their children’s education. I could not agree more. Unfortunately, many parents, however hard they try to engage, are so badly educated and so immersed in worklessness that schools today have to do so much more to replace the lack of support that children get at home. The evidence is that children from middle-class families will hear different words millions of times more than children from poorer families, which is why we are focusing so much on improving early years and primary education.
We know that education is crucial to a child’s future success. Not only is that true in respect of the labour market but educated people are healthier, more innovative, less likely to commit crime and more likely to be involved in volunteering.
Our education reform programme is based on raising attainment across the board and narrowing gaps. We are prioritising the most disadvantaged children through additional funding for early years and the pupil premium; setting higher expectations of the quality of teaching and standards of education; giving our teachers more scope to make the right decisions; holding schools and colleges to account for the outcomes that they secure for their disadvantaged pupils through a robust accountability system, which I have already mentioned; and creating opportunity for more innovation in the schools system, giving head teachers more freedoms in maintained schools and driving forward growth in the number of free schools, UTCs and studio schools.
As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, mentioned, we now have 42 UTCs open or due to open. These are creating opportunities—or will do when they are full—for 30,000 young people to train as the engineers and scientists of the future, playing a crucial role in England’s long-term economic growth. In this, they are teaming up with employers such as Jaguar Land Rover, Rolls-Royce, Siemens and the National Grid. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for his tireless, relentless and energetic determination to drive this programme and to the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who is not in his place, for getting this programme off the ground in the first place.
We also have studio schools. There are now 28 open, with 13 more due to open shortly. They bring together academic and vocational education and employment, with over 400 employers, including M&S, Sony, Barclays and the BBC as well as many smaller businesses, involved.
My noble friend Lord Sherbourne set out another crucial factor in the future competitiveness of our children—modern languages. He highlighted many of the reforms that we have made in this area and made a compelling case for these changes, and I thank him for it. As he said, the English baccalaureate is already encouraging more young people to take a language at GCSE level. The increase is 16% in 2013 in pupils taking MFL at GCSE. Studying languages is about choice and we are making £3.1 million available in funding for Routes into Languages, a consortium of universities working together with schools and colleges to enthuse and encourage people to study languages to support a new three-year student demand-raising programme. Through the free schools programme we have opened the Bilingual Primary School in Brighton, which is delivering the curriculum in both English and Spanish, and the Judith Kerr Primary School in Southwark, where the curriculum is being delivered in both English and German, while in pre-opening there is the Bromley Bilingual school, which will teach French and English through immersion, and the Marco Polo Academy, which will teach English and Mandarin using immersion methods.
I thank my noble friend Lord Storey for his encouraging words about what we are doing about languages in primary schools. Strong and robust vocational education is essential for the future. More and more young people are taking vocational courses; we have seen a 200% increase over the past 10 years. As my noble friend Lord Baker said, the fact that we have such a high number of NEETs, stubbornly stuck at around 1 million, has to change. We need to repair the broken link between qualifications and training between British industry and employers and universities. The most able students must have confidence that the vocational qualifications are of the highest standard.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, spoke about the importance of raising the status of vocational courses, and that is why we commissioned the report by Professor Alison Wolf on vocational education. We have followed all her excellent recommendations. We have already reformed vocational qualifications at 14, we are in the process of consulting on reforming 16-to-19 vocational qualifications and we have introduced Techbacc. In the past, skills training has been bureaucratic, top-down and complex. The funding of the system has been done through large numbers of people rather than focusing on value. Successive Governments have made the education system for vocational qualification accountable to funding bodies instead of to their customers, learners, businesses and the wider local community.
Under this Government we have ended top-down bureaucracy in FE colleges and supported a massive expansion in apprenticeships programmes, which we are focusing on making of higher quality and of longer duration. However, none of this means anything unless our young people are engaging with education, and we are planning to spend £7.4 million in 2013-14 to fund an education and training place for every 16 or 17 year-old who wants one, and we are raising the participation age.
Our higher education system is a huge success story, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned. We attract large numbers of international students and researchers who bring revenue, expertise and stimulate growth. Our strongest universities are among the best in the world. Education is a valuable and growing export sector worth about £17.5 billion in 2011. About 26,000 international students at over 1,200 UK independent schools contribute £685 million in fees, and around 1.4 million pupils studied at nearly 3,000 British schools overseas, contributing nearly £10 billion in fees. There is a strong overseas demand for educational products and services, including support in building, staffing and inspecting overseas schools. There is also growing interest in developing technical and higher vocational skills.
In the summer we published our education export strategy, which will ensure that British schools, universities, colleges and education businesses continue to stay ahead in the global education market worth about £1 trillion. The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, talked about the Institute of Education, which I would be delighted to visit. I was delighted to hear the noble Baroness refer to the World Bank report mentioning the importance of acquiring knowledge and the processing of information, which is why we are increasing the content in our curriculum. I was also delighted to hear her mention the importance of providing incentives so that the stronger teachers can get better paid, which is what performance-related pay is all about. I am beginning to sense the makings of a consensus across the House on the future of education, and perhaps we can begin to see the end of the stone-throwing era.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, about the importance of raising aspirations for our pupils, particularly those from less privileged backgrounds. The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, talked about those films in the 1960s. I can particularly remember one with Tom Courtenay. I cannot recall what it was called but it made a vivid impression on my mind.
We must open the door to education much wider for employers. As the noble Lord, Lord Mawson, said, we must provide our pupils with a clear line of sight to the workplace. I have been struck when talking to students about their work experience and visiting places of work; talking to people from the workplace has raised their heads and their ambitions. I look forward to meeting him to see if we can unblock the logjam to which he referred.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Graham, that schools should widen their connections with the local community. In my own school we have an active programme of raising aspirations, engaging with community voluntary groups, professions and businesses, which has had a remarkable effect on the aspirations of the children.
The noble Baroness, Lady Taylor, talked about prescription and the freedom to teach. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, knows, one of the things that we in this Government have been very strong on is being much less prescriptive. We have had many conversations with Ofsted about how teachers should teach so that they can teach in the way that they think is best to make progress for their pupils.
Ensuring that all our children receive the best educational outcomes is a priority not just for me, my department and my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education but for the whole country, and I am sure that there is consensus across the House about this. In concluding, I again congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans and my noble friend Lord Sherbourne on their excellent maiden speeches, and I am grateful to all noble Lords for their contributions to this debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for allowing us to discuss these most important matters.
Baroness Morgan of Huyton
My Lords, I thank noble Lords for taking part in today’s debate, which has been engrossing. I especially thank the right reverend prelate the Bishop of St Albans and the noble Lord, Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury, for their excellent maiden speeches. I am sure that we all look forward to hearing more from them in the future.
I have been struck by the breadth of knowledge and expertise in this House but also by the real experience that so many Members of this House have. We do not do too much stone-throwing here; we seek consensus and ways to try to move educational standards forward in a way that will help economic growth.
Scotland: Independence
(11 years ago)
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Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to the Scottish Government’s declaration that, if the people of Scotland vote for independence, Scottish independence day will be 24 March 2016.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)
My Lords, I am most grateful for this opportunity to discuss the White Paper that was published by the Scottish Government on the advantages of an independent Scotland. It runs to 650 pages, and I believe that an anagram of the title, Scotland’s Future, is “fraudulent costs”, which would certainly do a great deal to explain the content. It has all the deliverability and realism of a letter to Santa Claus. Such is its credibility that if it were put forward on “Dragons’ Den” as a business plan for an independent Scotland for the next 300 years, it would not even get up the stairs to be filmed before them.
We were told that it would answer all the central questions about Scottish independence. In fact, it ignores all the questions by simply asserting the answers that the Scottish Government would like. On EU membership, therefore, Scotland will able to join the EU. The Spanish Prime Minister says, “Not on your life”—but, of course, Alex Salmond knows better than the Spanish Prime Minister, the European Commission and others.
Yes, there will be free tuition fees, but our deal with Europe will mean that we can maintain this outrageous discrimination against students from England. The proposal in this White Paper, believe it or not, is that an independent Scotland will allow French, Italian and German students to come and get free university tuition fees, but England, Wales and Northern Ireland will still be discriminated against. This is from people who have the nerve to use the rhetoric of us all being a family together.
Similarly, an independent Scotland will not have to join the euro, even though the treaty requires it. It will have the pound, but without accepting any of the obligations that would come from the Bank of England in a monetary union when it comes to determining their interest rates, borrowing and the rest. It will be able to avoid Schengen as well—all because Alex says that this has got to be the case. On NATO, it can join a nuclear alliance while engaging in rhetoric about how offensive nuclear weapons are. The Scottish Government can put at risk tens of thousands of jobs on the Clyde by insisting on our nuclear deterrent being moved, without any suggestions as to where it might be moved, who would bear the cost of the tens of billions of pounds involved, or what the consequences for NATO would be of Britain consequently having to abandon its nuclear deterrent.
The Scottish Government fail to make the case in this White Paper for what amounts to the Balkanisation of Britain. To be fair, they do answer some questions. For noble Lords who have not had the opportunity, as I had last weekend, of wading through this document, I can announce that Scotland will be able to put forward its own entry for the Eurovision Song Contest.
I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that it is a bit off that we should be debating a document as important as this on a Back-Bench Motion late on a Thursday afternoon. We really ought to have seen a debate in the House of Commons and one in this House on such an important document. I suggest to my noble friend that he might consider persuading his colleagues to set up a Joint Committee, perhaps chaired by someone of impeccable credentials such as a former Law Lord, to go through this White Paper—it will not take them long, although it might take a long time to read it—and set out what the consequences should be for both sides of the border. This is not a Scottish issue. It is an issue for every part of the United Kingdom, with huge implications for Northern Ireland, Wales and England.
I have another request for my noble friend. I do not know if he has had a chance to read the White Paper, but you only have to get to pages xii and xiii to see set out a whole load of things, where on one side it says:
“Gains from independence—whichever party is elected”,
and on the opposite page it says:
“Gains from independence—if we are the first government of an independent Scotland”.
It sets out SNP party policy, including the renationalisation of the Royal Mail, which is not within the competences of the Scottish Parliament. What on earth are civil servants doing writing this stuff, with the Government of Scotland putting the bill for an SNP manifesto on to taxpayers?
I draw my noble friend’s attention to paragraph 14 of the Civil Service Code, which says:
“You must: serve the Government, whatever its political persuasion, to the best of your ability in a way which maintains political impartiality and is in line with the requirements of this Code”.
Section 15 says:
“You must not: act in a way that is determined by party political considerations”.
The Cabinet Secretary ought to have a look at this. If he concludes that it is party political and contrary to the code, the bill for this whole exercise should be sent to the SNP, which should pay it. I do not see why my taxes should pay for this sort of nonsense.
The subject of my Motion was the declaration in this document that if Scotland votes for independence, 24 March 2016 will be independence day. I have no idea where that particular date came from, but I was always told that if you were going to be in a negotiation—and if Scotland votes for independence there will be a lot to negotiate, because it is not answered in this White Paper—you never set a deadline, especially if you are the weaker party.
The other day, I pointed out to the leader of the SNP in the other place that if independence day was going to be 24 March 2016, it would be rather awkward if a Government had been elected with a majority that depended on Scottish MPs, who would presumably be thrown out of the House of Commons on independence day. He replied, “Ah, yes, we’ve been thinking about that, and we think that the general election should be postponed by a year”.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
That is SNP policy, and it is one of the more credible notions that it puts forward.
Of course, to be fair, I shall always be grateful to the SNP. Had it not brought down the Labour Government, we would never have had the late Baroness Thatcher as Prime Minister for three successive Parliaments. Now, of course, it is arguing that we should extend the life of the coalition Government by a further year. It is indeed a fair-weather friend. Of course, if there were no Scottish MPs in the House of Commons, we would have a Conservative Government with a majority of 10. Let no one say that the Tory Party does not stand up for the United Kingdom, even when it is against its own short-term political interests.
Where did this idea of independence day come from? The Battle of Bannockburn was on 24 June. The Act of Union took effect on 1 May. Could it just be that 24 March is immediately before the run-up to the election campaign for the next Scottish parliamentary elections? Therein lies the clue: this is all about the SNP’s interests and not about our country’s. It has never been part of Scotland that good, patriotic Scots are concerned with narrow nationalism. We have always been an outward-looking, innovative, entrepreneurial nation. A Scot founded the BBC. A Scot founded the Bank of England. Scots played a major part in the industrial revolution, with steam engines, railway engines, and then telephones, televisions and penicillin. The Age of Enlightenment came about after the Act of Union, because of the benefits of the union, and gave us Adam Smith, Hume, Robert Adam, and ships and bridges all over the globe; and, today, Dolly the sheep and even computer games. It is a nation with a traditionally global outlook.
What are we to say to those members of the Armed Forces serving in the British Army in Afghanistan who, according to this White Paper, will be asked to choose whether they want to be in the Scots army, which will be like “Dad’s Army”, or remain in the British Army and, in so doing—as most of them will so decide—become mercenaries as part of the British Army, having proudly fought under the union flag? It is a nonsense which, according to this White Paper, will make our families on both sides of the border choose their nationality—choose the country of which they are to be citizens or subjects—and will make families and neighbours foreigners in their own countries. And for what? What are the benefits?
The benefits seem unclear. We are to rely on the wishful thinking of Mr Salmond, Ms Sturgeon and Mr Swinney. It reminds me of lines from The Jungle Book, which I remember from childhood. In the “Road-Song of the Bandar-Log”, three monkeys chant:
“Here we sit in a branchy row,
Thinking of beautiful things we know;
Dreaming of deeds that we mean to do,
All complete, in a minute or two—
Something noble and grand and good,
Won by merely wishing we could”.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for providing the opportunity to speak on this matter, and for giving such a witty and eloquent introduction. I am only sorry that more of my Scottish Labour colleagues are not down to speak today. I hope earnestly that they are not feeling intimidated by Alex Salmond and his cybernat cronies who constantly attack Members of this House because we are not elected. I have in fact been elected to two councils and to two Parliaments over more than 40 years, as have some other Members who are participating in this debate. Whether they like it or not, this House is part of the UK legislature. We have a continuing responsibility, because what Alex Salmond and his party are proposing affects the whole of the United Kingdom.
Mr Salmond reminds me a bit of the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland: if he says that it is so, then it must be so. His so-called White Paper, which I do not call a White Paper, is not so. He does not have the power to implement the proposals that he is putting forward. Voting yes in the referendum is not an endorsement of all the proposals in the White Paper, and he cannot say that it is.
When he declares independence day unilaterally, as he has done, he ignores the fact that when two parties must make an agreement, the timetable cannot be determined by one side—by one of the parties. When he declares, as the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth said, that a separate Scotland would automatically be in the European Union, NATO and the Commonwealth, he flies in the face of logic and geopolitics, as we have heard recently from Belgium and Spain.
Mr Salmond has declared that a separate Scotland would keep the pound, ignoring that this would need the consent of the rest of the United Kingdom. When he pledges that no controls would be needed at the border between Scotland and England, but promises an open door to immigrants—which would be a different case from the rest of the United Kingdom—he also flies in the face of logic. There are many similar unilateral pronouncements throughout Scotland’s Future, which is 650 pages of continuous fiction. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that we should have a full day’s debate in this House and in the other House. I have raised that with my party group.
I will quote Voltaire rather than The Jungle Book. He wrote:
“The human brain is a complex organ with the wonderful power of enabling man to find reasons for continuing to believe whatever it is that he wants to believe”.
Alex Salmond is living proof that Voltaire was right.
Lord Steel of Aikwood (LD)
My Lords, I am not sure that I shall join in the thanks to my noble friend Lord Forsyth for arranging that we would have three minutes to speak on this subject, but I agree with the noble Lord, Lord, Foulkes, that he was right to press for a proper debate on it.
The so-called White Paper is full of wishful thinking. It spells out what the SNP would like to happen, not what will happen. There is a fundamental difference between the two. Some of what it would like to happen, I would like as well. For example, it mentions currency union. We have that already. It is a funny kind of independence in which the Bank of England will call the shots in future. On defence, it wants a separate Scotland to stay in NATO, keep all Scotland’s defence establishments and get rid of Trident. It just wishes that that would happen. It wants a separate Scotland to be an “active participant” in the European Union. Not only the Prime Minister of Spain but many others will have views on that matter. There are pages and pages of wishful thinking.
My greatest fear, which is what I want to express today, is that the danger of a vote for independence is that Scotland would become ingrown. That is against the whole of our history. After all, the contribution that Scotland made to the building of empire and Commonwealth was far greater than our population would suggest. The contribution that we made in the First and Second World Wars to the defence of Britain was far greater than our population would suggest. I take pride in that. I want to live in a country that continues that history of a major contribution to the well-being and success of the United Kingdom. I do not wish to live in a country that has its own wee broadcasting corporation feeding us on a continuous diet of “cauld kail het agin”, which I fear is what would happen. That is why I believe that the people of Scotland will vote decisively against this bogus prospectus of a bogus independence.
Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield (CB)
My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for securing this debate and support his call for a Joint Committee.
I offer a few thoughts on the possible percussive effects of the Scottish question. Horizon scanning is a perilous trade, but those of us who live on our islands and care deeply about them need to be ready for several stretching, vexing and interlocking contingencies. I have two swift scenarios. The first one has already been alluded to by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth.
In September 2014, the Scottish people vote to separate from the UK and negotiations begin. I have my doubts that the all-encompassing statute ending the old sovereignties will be in place by spring 2016, but it would be so well before 2020. In May 2015, at the general election, Scotland returns 59 MPs to the House of Commons. Last time 40 were Labour Members. Should Labour win the 2015 election, even with a relatively comfortable overall majority, the loss of around 40 MPs when Scotland goes would plunge it into a minority Government. Does it soldier on to May 2020, or would such a Government try to engineer a losing confidence vote to stop the clock ticking, in accordance with the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, knowing that what Whitehall inelegantly calls the “remainder of the UK”, or “RUK”, is unlikely to return another majority Labour Government in the foreseeable future?
In scenario two, in September 2014 Scotland votes to stay a part of the UK. Opinion surveys show that economic worries were among the trumping factors in determining the outcome. In June 2017, the UK electorate votes in a referendum to leave the European Union. Scottish voters, especially if the bulk of the Scottish electorate favoured staying in the EU in 2017, would say that the September 2014 deal is off. They voted then to remain part of a country with full EU membership and unfettered access to its single market. Could a UK Government deny Scotland another Edinburgh agreement and another referendum in, say, 2020? Alongside the upheaval and uncertainty of hauling ourselves out of the EU in the vain hope of becoming a kind of Singapore in the cold northern seas, the prospect of living inside a shrivelled RUK would loom once more. There is more uncertainty imperilling our islands in peacetime than in anyone’s living memory—and far more than our people realise.
I have a final optimistic thought. When the time comes, I want to draw my last breath as a Brit, not a RUK. I am fairly confident that I shall.
The Duke of Montrose (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Forsyth for giving us an opportunity to make brief comments on this vital issue.
I will go back a little while. It looks as if the First Earl of Seafield was not quite correct when he described the Act of Union in 1707, which brought an end the Scottish independent Parliament, as the “end of an auld sang”—even if it was in one sense. It was also the end of another “auld sang”, which was the efforts of the Crown and the Scottish Parliament to bring to an end what had been more than 100 years of negotiation for a settlement between the two countries. One of my ancestors, in appointing the members for the first commission for the union in 1604, expressed the aim as being to achieve,
“the often wished but hardly expected conjunction of the two so ancient and long discordant kingdoms”.
It was that discordance that once again drove through the union in 1707. We are not given to being agreeable neighbours at the best of times.
It appears now that we are thinking of taking up that “sang” again. In 10 months we will see whether it is a number that gets to the top of the charts. Unfortunately, discordance, or its modern equivalent, is still something that could undermine the outcome, whatever it is. The current mood in Scotland thrives on the emphasis of discordance. This is very unfortunate. Breaking is always easier than building, but the Scottish Government paper’s 18 months to achieve a settlement, as most other Peers have mentioned, looks a particularly unrealistic proposal. However, it is only one of the many areas that might produce argument. We have now got ourselves into a position with devolution that is not wholly satisfactory from anyone’s point of view. Changes are due under the recent Scotland Act, and it may be that things should be looked at again further.
A current issue, in which I must declare an interest, is that Scottish farmers are much disturbed because they are switching on to an area-based, single farm payment, and there is great uncertainly about the size of the gains or losses that will affect each business. They have concluded that Whitehall is not sufficiently alive to their problem. Therefore, there are areas for argument.
Then again, there is an argument, much favoured by the Scottish First Minister, that an end to the Act of Union would create two new countries, and that each would have to re-establish itself by new treaties and arrangements. What steps is the Minister taking to guard against this outcome?
Lord Maclennan of Rogart (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, for initiating this debate. This debate can highlight many of the issues that ought to be considered and deliberated on by the people of Scotland. None the less, the document that has been produced by the Government of Scotland is so transparently thin, and contains so much wishful thinking, that it ought to be considered not just in a one-hour debate but by a joint committee of the two Houses of Parliament. I support what the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, said on that. I also take the view that we need, at this time, to agree to a further constitutional convention.
If the Scots are presented in 10 months’ time with a referendum, as they will be, the present choice appears to be between the status quo and independence. Frankly, that is not enough. We have seen many changes take place in our constitution over the past decade and a half—almost two decades. It was perfectly appropriate for them to consider some by themselves: for example, enactment of the European Human Rights Act and of the Freedom of Information Act, and the separation of the judiciary from this legislative House. However, if we are to see changes—and all the political parties are suggesting changes that might come further down the line—we want the people of Britain, not just the people of Scotland, to have some input in deciding what the structure of our Government should be.
I noticed that the committee chaired by Graham Allen in the House of Commons recommended such a convention. It would help if the Government and all political parties agreed that that should be set up—and that it should be announced that it is being set up—before the referendum takes place.
Lord Selkirk of Douglas (Con)
My Lords, I do not accept the premise that 24 March 2016 will be independence day. Indeed, I trust that before the vote next September the electorate will remember that the duty of any Government is the defence of the realm. I cannot see how Scotland and Britain’s security will be enhanced in any way by ripping our Armed Forces apart.
The disaggregation required to set up a new Scottish defence force would be an enormous upheaval and would take time. It would also be both costly and disruptive, and economies of scale would no longer apply. Speaking in Glasgow recently, former commander of the Black Watch Lieutenant-General Sir Alastair Irwin warned that extracting men and women from the Army, the Navy and the Royal Air Force would deal,
“a very significant blow to the defence capability of the rest of the UK”.
He said that separation would lead to,
“a British Isles collectively less well defended”.
Sir Alastair also warned of the difficulties of recruitment, saying:
“It would be a big assumption to make that every single member of each of the units allocated to the Scottish forces would elect to transfer from the British Army that they had joined, not least because many of them are not themselves Scots”.
I remember when a Labour Government cut three-quarters of the Territorial Army in the mid-1960s. I was taking degree exams and was not one of the chosen few who remained. However, when the TA was expanded in the 1970s, I rejoined a newly formed battalion and I recall quite clearly all the difficulties we faced in having to start from scratch, as much that we had taken for granted before was just not there.
Other major issues must be resolved such as defence procurement and the future of shipbuilding jobs on the Clyde. I note that the Ministry of Defence said that the Scottish Government’s proposal for some form of joint procurement is a non-starter.
What, therefore, are the advantages and disadvantages of breaking up our 300 year-old partnership? It seems that when it comes to defence, the weight of argument lies with maintaining our highly efficient integrated armed services, which are among the best in the world.
Why do we have to go through the controversial and painful process of disaggregation with regard to our fighting forces, not to mention putting at risk thousands of jobs? The answer, of course, is that we do not have to do so if a majority of those resident in Scotland vote no in the referendum next September. I am very pleased to say that on this occasion Peers of the realm who live in Scotland will have a vote.
Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)
This document is 650 pages long and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on reading them all. It is, however, rather longer on assertion than on argument. I will just touch on the EU angle.
The aim as set out is to achieve by March 2016 a seamless transition into membership. The SNP says that the treaty base appropriate to the exercise is Article 48 of the treaty. That is not the view of the EU institutions or that of any of the member states that have so far spoken. I doubt if it is the view of HMG, although I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say. Most people seem to believe that Article 49 would be the treaty base for the negotiation. They are clearly “all out of step but oor Wullie”. However, wishing it so cannot make it so. There will be a genuine negotiation to be had under Article 49. That cannot formally start until Scotland is an independent sovereign state. It could possibly be pre-negotiated; that would be possible if all member states were to agree that there could be pre-negotiation both of the substance of the deal and of transitional arrangements, which would follow during the inevitable hiatus after Scotland, as a sovereign state, could sign the treaty—some date after March 2016—and during the process, which might be many months, possibly more than a year, of ratification by all the other member states, because it is their treaty, too. It is possible that you could pre-negotiate both the substance and the transition. However, that would not be easy, and would require every member state to agree that they were prepared to do it. Judging by some statements that have been made, some member states might not want to.
The negotiations on substance would be serious. The text says that Scotland does not wish to apply to join Schengen. However, the treaty says that all applicants must undertake that they will join Schengen. It is perfectly possible to envisage a derogation for Scotland; no one would want a real physical frontier on the Tweed. However, that derogation would have to be negotiated. You cannot just assert that “We will not apply, therefore it will not apply to us”. The same applies to the euro. I do not believe that if Scotland had opted—and the remainder of the United Kingdom had agreed—to continue to use sterling, Scotland would be obliged to join the euro. In any case, Scotland would not be eligible, such would be its inherited debt and deficit. However, the treaty says that you take a commitment to join when you are eligible, and getting a derogation on that would have to be negotiated.
Most delightfully of all, the big book says that the budget rebate would continue. It also says that Scotland would be one of the richest countries in the world. The continuation of the rebate would play extremely well in Lesmahagow or in Linlithgow, but not necessarily as well in less rich Latvia or Lithuania, and it would be up to the Latvians and the Lithuanians to decide. I am not clear about a lot of things in the big book but it seems certain that if and when an independent Scotland achieved membership of the European Union—and I believe that it would—all Scots would be paying more into the EU budget per capita than would all English, Welsh or Northern Irish. It also seems absolutely clear that you cannot achieve, by March 2016, the seamless transition which is so boldly asserted in this book.
Lord Crickhowell (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean for initiating this debate. My own family represents an intermingling of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish blood that is by no means uncommon. In the 1820s, my wife’s Scottish forebears established a Far East trading company of the kind to which the noble Lord, Lord Steel of Aikwood, was referring. It prospered for 150 years. Scots have frequently lived, worked and produced their offspring far from home. Today, a great many of them live and work away from Scotland; they will have no vote in the referendum that will decide the future of their country.
The Scottish Government propose an 18-month timetable from the referendum, if it is won, to independence. Between the two events, negotiations of immense complexity would have to take place and, in May 2015, a general election will be held. I do not think for one moment that it would be postponed for Mr Salmond.
Last Thursday, my noble friend Lord Forsyth asked a crucial question. At what point will those Scottish MPs, elected to the House of Commons, be asked to leave? My noble and learned friend Lord Wallace of Tankerness responded:
“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”.—[Official Report, 28/11/13; col. 1514.]
The implication seemed to be that, once elected, MPs from Scotland might stay for a full five years, despite that, in less than a year, they would be foreigners. I do not for one moment believe that that would be allowed to happen. There would have to be speedy legislation to tell the Scottish MPs that they would have to go at the moment of independence. That could result in a change of government at Westminster, less than a year after the start of a five-year Parliament. As the first non-Scot to speak in this debate, I emphasise, as did my noble friend, that all these events are as important for the rest of the United Kingdom as they are for Scotland.
The Scottish Government are frank about the deep integration that exists between Scotland and the rest of the UK, but fail to acknowledge the many consequences of break-up. Among these are the costs of dissolving institutions and of merging others, which would be not be light, and would be a burden that could severely impact both economies for many years.
Interdependence takes so many forms. Mr Salmond’s bid to remain with the sterling area and to have the Bank of England as lender of last resort, while making a rapid and pain-free entry into the EU, has already sparked hostile reactions which have introduced an element of reality into this debate. It is clear that he and his supporters want to eat their cake and have it too. I support my noble friend Lord Forsyth of Drumlean’s proposal that there should be a Joint Committee of both Houses to make recommendations about the way forward, and about how much cake there is available for eating.
Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)
My Lords, many noble Lords have reflected upon Scotland’s historic contribution to the union. That is entirely understandable, and I share it. A girl born in my former Scottish Parliament constituency on 18 September 2014 will glimpse the 22nd century and her grand-daughter is likely to see the 23rd century. There are many people in Scotland, such as myself, who wish to be taking part and to have a voice in a debate about the long-term prospects of the future of Scotland. One scenario is being outlined with the trappings of a new state, and one argument is being presented by those who want an independent state for Scotland. It is for those who believe in that course of action to defend it, and it is quite right that those proposals are scrutinised forensically and robustly. I would rather wish to debate a positive future for Scotland and its role with the United Kingdom. With long-term sustainable, equitable funding for Scottish services, we can deliver educational attainment that is the best not only in these islands but in Europe. We could see child poverty abolished in that girl’s lifetime, and we could see her contribution match, perhaps, some of the historic contributions that Scots have made in the past. It means that the United Kingdom has to be fit for that purpose, and so far the United Kingdom is not fit for that purpose when it comes to its structures and institutions.
I do not need to look at a hypothetical way forward over the next 18 months towards—as some noble Lords have said—a fanciful independence day. For five years, I was on the Finance Committee of the Scottish Parliament, and I know that it is not sustainable. I know that a parliament in these nations cannot be sustained almost exclusively on handouts when it does not have revenue powers that are commensurate with its legislative powers, otherwise we will have a permanent parliament in these nations where the electorate will reward rhetoric rather than results. It also means that the case against independence is not so much that it cannot work; rather that being part of the United Kingdom—a refreshed United Kingdom—is far better for the people of Scotland than is independence.
Finally, if this United Kingdom is not successful for that girl born on independence day, she will continue to have some of the unequal life opportunities that currently exist. In my former constituency, the girl would have a life expectancy of 82 years. Just an hour and a half over the hills to Glasgow, her life expectancy would be 14 years less. Her chances of dying of alcohol morbidity would be immeasurably higher, and her life opportunities would be fewer because of unemployment and a poorer education.
I believe that the choice is not one of independence versus the status quo, and I endorse my noble friend Lord Maclennan of Rogart’s contribution. The choice is either that March 2016 could be seen as state building, or that we in this House and in another place carry through progressive reforms to make the United Kingdom better, and Scotland within that a more prosperous and forward-looking country. That, I hope, is the best that we can provide the girl born on referendum day.
Lord Cormack (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Forsyth, and I want to endorse two of the suggestions he made. First, there should be a proper debate in this House and, by a proper debate, I mean a debate that can—as with the debate on the future of this House—extend over two days. There is no more important constitutional issue before us at present than the one we are all too briefly discussing today. I also endorse what noble Lords on both sides of the House have said about a Joint Committee of both Houses to examine in full the implications of independence for the whole of the United Kingdom.
I have often said in this House that Mr Salmond is an extremely wily politician; he is. I do not think that he is a statesman, but he is a very skilful politician. He is a sort of Tartan Boris, but whereas Boris is a big Londoner, Mr Salmond is a little Scotlander. That is because if his wishes come to pass, Scotland will be diminished. The United Kingdom is much more than the sum of its individual parts, and Scotland’s punching power in the world is far greater as an integral part of the United Kingdom and a separate nation within it—because it has proper nationhood—than it would ever have as a small, independent European nation. Notwithstanding all the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, I am not certain that Scotland would go automatically into the European Union, but that is another point entirely.
What I want to say today is that Scotland means a great deal to all of us who are in the other parts of the United Kingdom. My noble friend Lord Crickhowell talked about his own mixed ancestry and that of his wife. I have a son who lives in Scotland and is married to a Scottish girl, and I have two granddaughters at a school in Edinburgh. They consider themselves to be Scottish and British. My forebears all came from Scotland, but I consider myself British. I have streaks of Englishness and Scottishness within my make-up and I want to keep it that way for all of us. There are very few Members present in the Chamber who cannot say that they do not have family connections with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom is the most amazing constitutional achievement of the last three centuries.
When it comes to referendum day next year, I hope sincerely that all our friends and fellow citizens in Scotland will realise what it is that we have to lose as well as what they have to lose, and what we and they have to gain if we can build on the integrity of a very great nation. Let old acquaintance never be forgot.
Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab)
My Lords, it is a privilege to reply to this debate from the Opposition Front Bench, and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on introducing it, as my noble friend Lord Foulkes said, in a witty and elegant way. I also appreciate the contributions made by all Members today. Their range and profound quality has been impressive, and the points made regarding a Joint Committee are very important; it is something that we need to take up.
The White Paper is almost 700 pages long. I am always suspicious when I am given a long document. Why is it so long? It is to allow the SNP to duck the questions, not to answer them, so we must see the paper as an elaborate ruse to duck them. When President Barroso and Mariano Rajoy, in responding to the Economic Affairs Committee of which I am a member, state that Scotland must reapply for EU membership, which will need the unanimous approval of the 28 member states, what that indicates is not that Scotland will not get into the EU some day but that the negotiations ahead may be protracted.
The ground chosen by the First Minister is the economic one. He has said clearly that the Scots will be better off if they are not part of the union, so the most important economic decision of the referendum is the currency one. Jim Sillars, the former deputy leader of the SNP, has talked about,
“the mistaken policy of using sterling in a currency union”.
with the rest of the UK. He went on:
“That will require a treaty between two countries, ours and theirs, and just as it takes two to tango, so it takes two to make a treaty. If SNP policy is seen as damaging to”,
the rest of the United Kingdom’s,
“state interests, and that of its allies, why should they sign a treaty giving us seats on their central bank, and a say in monetary policy? Alex Salmond says Osborne cannot stop us using sterling. True, but there is a world of difference between using it as one’s currency, and being in a currency union”.
On Mr Sillars’s point there I say: precisely.
We could have dollarisation along the same lines as Montenegro without RUK consent, but that would not be a viable option because we have large Scottish financial services firms that rely on access to UK central bank services. The Economic Affairs Committee took evidence from Standard Life, which told us that 94% of its products are sold on the other side of the border and 6% to Scotland. What will it do if there is an independent Scotland and it wants recourse to a central bank? It is obvious: Standard Life will move its headquarters. John Swinney said in his evidence to the committee that he wanted a,
“formal monetary union … with the Bank of England operating as the central bank for sterling”.
But we cannot have a monetary union if we do not have a fiscal union, and therefore the implications for tax and spending policies are enormous. As Gavin McCrone, the former respected chief economist at the Scottish Office, said, monetary union will only work if there are broadly similar inflation rates. If the SNP persists with the sterling option, it will require Bank of England approval.
I suggest that it would be foolish for a central bank, after the RBS and HBOS debacles, to extend central bank services or be the lender of last resort to a foreign country over which it does not have any control or exert any real influence on tax and spending policies. On the proposal to exert influence over the Bank of England, let alone the rest of the UK Exchequer, the EAC said clearly in its report that that is devoid of precedent and entirely fanciful. Nowhere in the White Paper are these difficulties and uncertainties addressed.
Whether we are talking about the EU, NATO, pensions and benefits or the future of the Scottish financial industry, they all have to be examined very carefully. We also need to examine whether independence will deprive Scots of the benefits of pooling resources and bringing down real costs. John Kay, an eminent economist at the Financial Times and an adviser to Alex Salmond, has said:
“For the degree of economic independence a small European country can enjoy in a global marketplace is inevitably limited. Nothing that happens in Scotland in September 2014 will change that reality”.
Let us make a decision on independence only after a proper debate. The 670 pages of the SNP’s White Paper is its very own brand of poetry. It has taken 19 months for Scotland to reorganise the Scottish police forces into one force, but the White Paper envisages an independent Scotland being up and running in less time than it took to reorganise the police. What a fantasy that is. It illustrates the fanciful nature of the proposition. It is an insult to the seriousness of the Scottish question which people will have to address in September 2014. It is a wish list with no price list, and this House needs to examine it further and forensically. We need a Joint Committee and further debate because if we do not do so, all of us—the rest of the United Kingdom and Scotland itself—will be losers, and we cannot afford that.
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Wallace of Tankerness)
My Lords, I start by echoing what many of your Lordships have said, by thanking my noble friend Lord Forsyth for securing this debate and introducing it—and, indeed, for the animated and spirited way in which he made his case. He covered, in a very short time, most of the salient points that were made in the debate. I acknowledge that he was not alone in asking for a much longer debate; indeed, I think most other contributors to the debate said the same. I have noted that request, and will ensure that it is conveyed back to the business managers. Even I am constrained in replying to all the points that have been made in this debate, and would perhaps like longer to do so. That is an important point.
Numerous noble Lords have asked for a Joint Committee. Clearly, that is a matter that could be established only with agreement across both Houses. As ever, I shall ensure that the usual channels consider the request. It is also important to put it on record that committees and their members in both Houses are already undertaking much work on the implications of independence in a whole range of different areas; they are making the case for the union and exposing the gaps in the case for independence. I pay tribute to the work done by a number of Select Committees, both in your Lordships’ House and in the other place.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
The Minister says that this will be a matter for the usual channels, but could not Ministers in this House approach the Leader of the House of Commons and ask him whether it is possible to take such an initiative forward?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
I thought that the Leader of the House of Commons was part of the usual channels. This would have to be done with the collaboration of both Houses, but I am saying that we will reflect on the matter. I cannot go further in making any commitment today, other than what I have already said.
My noble friend chose a debate specifically on the date, because I think he had to put his application into a ballot before the White Paper had been published. It may be worth reflecting on the fact that the date may be about the only thing in the White Paper that had not previously been in the public domain—and even that was leaked about two days before publication. We had already been told that the date would be in March 2016, so I suspect the only new information was the specific date of 24 March, which I think is the anniversary of the death of Queen Elizabeth I, and therefore of the union of the Crowns. Indeed, as my noble friend the Duke of Montrose reminded us when he talked about the Earl of Seafield and the end of the auld sang, it is also the date on which the previous Scottish Parliament last sat. However, I rather suspect that that was an ex post facto justification that some people gave for that date, rather than stating the reason that, as my noble friend pointed out, it will be the start of the 2016 Scottish election campaign.
I take the point that even if Scotland were—heaven forbid—to vote yes, actually naming your cut-off point does not seem the best way to go about negotiations. One of the things that has been evident from this debate, if not necessarily from the White Paper, is that a considerable amount of negotiation will have to take place. That point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes.
Sometimes we have heard people in the Scottish Government compare this White Paper to the 1997 White Paper produced by the Labour Government, which paved the way to the referendum on devolution. However, there is a world of difference between a White Paper produced by a Government, which reflected a constitutional convention that had met in public over many years and had achieved a consensus, and a White Paper that is the product of a single party behind closed doors, and is dependent not just on the Government of the rest of the United Kingdom, but on other member states of the European Union, members of NATO and numerous other countries. It is important to make the point that this White Paper has no guarantee of delivery. It is, as the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, said, strong on assertion but perhaps not so strong on argument.
My noble friend the Duke of Montrose asked about the fact that it is sometimes said by some Scottish National Party people that there would be two new countries, and the rest of the United Kingdom would have to negotiate lots of other treaties. However, the first Scotland analysis paper, which the Government produced in February, examined the constitutional position. We did so on the basis of advice from Professor James Crawford of Cambridge University and Professor Boyle of Edinburgh University—two outstanding experts in the field. Their analysis—one which represents the view of the United Kingdom Government—is that the rest of the United Kingdom would be a continuing state, with all the rights and responsibilities such as permanent membership of the Security Council of the United Nations and membership of the European Union on the terms that have been negotiated, and Scotland would be a new state.
It sometimes seems rather odd to me that a party that aspires to independence finds it awkward to admit that it wants to be a new state. I thought that was the whole purpose. Scotland would be a new state, and it would have to enter into a whole series of different negotiations, including seeking membership of NATO and the European Union. If I may pick up another point, it was certainly rather a novel approach—perhaps this is one of the other things in the White Paper that we had not quite anticipated—to refer to Article 48 of the TFEU. The view of the United Kingdom Government—again, this was set out in the first paper of the Scotland analysis series—is that Article 49 would represent the appropriate way forward. We can have a debate as to whether Scotland would have to come out to go back in, or whether there would be a possibility, following a yes vote, of negotiations taking place during that period. However, the important point, which was reflected in the speeches by my noble friend Lord Forsyth and the noble Lord, Lord Kerr, is that there would have to be negotiations—and we cannot predict with any certainty what would be in those negotiations. The only thing that is certain is the uncertainty.
Arguments have been made about Schengen, about membership of the euro and about the rebate. Approaching this from the perspective of Croatia or Bulgaria, we would be talking about giving a rebate to a country that the First Minister has said would be the eighth wealthiest in the world. I also think that there is a misunderstanding on the part of the Scottish Government as to the nature of the rebate. They have said, “As the budget has been set for the European Union for 2014-20, we will decide between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom how the rebate is split up”. I know that there are people in this House who are much more knowledgeable about this matter than me but my understanding is that it is not a constant, annual lump sum that can be divvied up or shared; it is a function of the United Kingdom’s respective shares in the EU economy and receipts. Any change in the size of the United Kingdom, for example as a result of independence, would automatically be reflected in the rebate calculation. Therefore, there would not be a Scottish share of the UK rebate to be handed over. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding on the part of the Scottish Government in their White Paper as to what they are talking about.
As regards currency, my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that it is highly unlikely that there would be a currency union. That was reflected by other former Chancellors, including Alistair Darling, and the former Chancellor and Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. I think it also has been said by the Shadow Chancellor. Therefore, while we get an answer to whether Scotland could take part in the Eurovision Song Contest, we do not get an answer as to what the currency position would be if a monetary union was not agreed with the rest of the United Kingdom. Because questions such as that are ducked, the Scottish people will not be given, as a result of this White Paper or from the Scottish Government, the proper information with which they can make up their minds—our minds—when voting on 18 September next year.
My noble friend Lord Selkirk talked about defence and the primary importance of the security of the realm. We believe that the whole of Scotland and the United Kingdom benefits from a full range of UK defence capabilities and activities. Scotland has greater security and influence with the United Kingdom’s geopolitical influence, which few states of similar size to Scotland can match. In addition, there is the important defence industry in Scotland. On the idea of joint procurement, as far as I am aware, since the Second World War, no complex naval vessels have been built outside the United Kingdom. If the rest of the United Kingdom should start building these vessels outside the UK, that could not automatically go to Scotland. There would have to be open competition, even in these circumstances. My noble friend is absolutely right to stress the defence implications of independence, but there are defence benefits from Scotland being part of the United Kingdom.
The 2015 election was mentioned by my noble friend Lord Crickhowell and the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy. In answer to my noble friend Lord Crickhowell, last Thursday, I had a question from my noble friend Lord Forsyth on what would happen after the vote on independence in September 2014 and whether Scottish MPs would have to leave at that point. I think that that is when I said that they would not need to do so. Obviously, it would be a matter for Parliament to address what would happen in 2016, although I cannot honestly see how people could represent constituencies or a country that no longer belongs to the rest of the United Kingdom. I do not see how that could happen, or how Parliament would deal with that or with the intervening period between the elections in 2015 and 2016. Should that ever happen, I think it would be a matter for both Houses.
I certainly picked up the point made by my noble friend about the idea that we should somehow postpone the United Kingdom general election. Given that the Fixed-term Parliaments Act was on the statute book before the date of the referendum was announced, the Scottish Government had full notice of it. I find it somewhat preposterous that for some reason people in the rest of the United Kingdom should be denied their democratic opportunity to select their Members of Parliament to facilitate a negotiation.
Lord Forsyth of Drumlean
Will the Minister deal with the point about the Civil Service Code?
Lord Wallace of Tankerness
My noble friend raised an important point on paragraph 14 of the Civil Service Code. When a similar issue was raised during the Scotland Bill debate, I said that, when questions are asked about breaches of the code, there is a process for dealing with that. I do not think that it is appropriate for a Minister at the Dispatch Box to pass judgment on that when there are proper processes. I note what my noble friend says and I am sure that it will be noted by those to whom these matters might properly be addressed. I think my noble friend reflected on the positive things about the union. It was also said by my noble friend Lord Steel.
My noble friend Lord Maclennan talked about a United Kingdom convention and my noble friend Lord Purvis talked about policies of how we might look to the future in our constitutional arrangements. It is important that we look to the future. We should do so and record the strengths of our United Kingdom; namely, those of family and kinship, which were mentioned by my noble friends Lord Cormack and Lord Crickhowell. We should also look at what has been achieved over many years.
Just before I came into the Chamber, my attention was drawn to the second leader in today’s Times. It states:
“Whatever Scotland’s future, it should be a source of pride to everyone in the United Kingdom that for centuries we have made a state of many nations work so well. We have lived together in peace and harmony, never losing our distinct identity yet also forging one together. And we have been strong together, through centuries of continental and global conflict. None of this should be pushed to one side in favour of an argument dominated by oil revenues”.
That is profound advice. I believe that when it comes to it, people will recognise that Scotland is stronger as part of the United Kingdom and the United Kingdom is stronger with Scotland as part of it. I sincerely hope that the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, will die British rather than as RUK.
Autumn Statement
(11 years ago)
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The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Deighton) (Con)
My Lords, I refer the House to the Autumn Statement made by my right honourable Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the House of Commons, copies of which have been made available in the Printed Paper Office, and the text of which will be printed in full in the Official Report.
The following Statement was made earlier in the House of Commons.
“Britain’s economic plan is working, but the job is not done. We need to secure the economy for the long term, and the biggest risk to that comes from those who would abandon the plan. We seek a responsible recovery, one in which we do not squander the gains we have made, but go on taking the difficult decisions, and one in which we do not repeat the mistakes of the past, but this time spot the debt bubbles before they threaten financial stability. We seek a responsible recovery, in which we do not pretend we can make this nation better off by writing cheques to ourselves, and instead make the hard choices. We need a Government who live within their means, in a country that pays its way in the world.
Three and a half years ago, I set out our long-term economic plan in the emergency Budget. That plan restored stability in a fiscal crisis, but it was also designed to address the deep-seated problems of unsustainable spending, uncompetitive taxes and unreformed public services for which there are no quick fixes. Over the last three years we have stuck to our guns and worked through the plan. We have done so in the face of a sovereign debt crisis abroad, and at home in the face of opposition from those who got Britain into this mess in the first place and have resisted every cut, every reform and every effort to get us out of that mess. We have held our nerve while those who predicted there would be no growth until we turned the spending taps back on have been proved comprehensively wrong.
Thanks to the sacrifice and endeavour of the British people, I can today report the hard evidence that shows our economic plan is working, but I also report the hard truth that the job is not yet done. Yes, the deficit is down, but it is still far too high, and today we take more difficult decisions. Yes, the forecasts show that growth is up, but the same forecasts show growth in productivity is still too low, and today we set out further economic reforms. Yes, jobs are up and unemployment is down, but too many of our young people lack the skills to fill those jobs and the opportunities to acquire them, so now we take bold steps to remove that cap on aspiration. Yes, businesses are expanding, but business taxes are still too high and exports are too low and we must address that. And yes, real household disposable income is rising, but the effects of the financial crash on family budgets and the cost of living are still being felt. So where we can afford to help hard-working families, we will continue to do so. The hard work of the British people is paying off, and we will not squander their efforts. We will secure the economy for the long term, and this Statement sets out how.
Let me turn to the report from the Office for Budget Responsibility. Again, I thank Robert Chote and his team for their rigorous and independent work. The OBR report notes that the Office for National Statistics has reassessed the depth of the great recession. The fall in GDP from peak to trough between 2008 and 2009 was not 6.3% as previously thought, but was instead an even more staggering 7.2%; £112 billion was wiped off our economy—about £3,000 for every household in this country—in one of the sharpest falls in the national income of any economy in the world. That is a reminder of the economic calamity that befell Britain and of the simple fact that our country remains poorer as a result of it. A lot of work still remains to be done to put that right. The data revisions also showed something else: there was no double-dip recession.
Let me turn to the future. At the time of the Budget in March, the OBR forecast that growth this year would be 0.6%. Today, it more than doubles that forecast and the estimate for growth will be 1.4%. Next year, instead of growth of 1.8%, it is now forecasting 2.4%. Faster growth now means that it has revised the following four years to 2.2%, 2.6%, 2.7% and 2.7%, so growth over the forecast period is significantly up. It is still not as strong as we would like it to be, but this is the largest improvement to current year economic forecasts at any Budget or autumn Statement for 14 years. I can report that Britain is currently growing faster than any other major advanced economy: faster than France, which is contracting; faster than Germany; and faster even than America. That contrast itself points to the risks that remain for the UK from abroad, and the weakness of many of our main trading partners.
The first risk the OBR identified to our economic recovery is a recurrence of the damaging instability in the eurozone. Even with the relative calm of recent months, the OBR still forecasts that the euro area as a whole will shrink by 0.4% this year. Its growth forecasts for the US and emerging markets have also been revised down, and world trade has been weaker than it expected in March. While our exports are growing, they are not growing as fast as we would like. That is because we are too dependent on markets in Europe and North America. The Prime Minister’s visit to China this week is the latest step in the Government’s determined plan to increase British exports to the faster growing emerging markets, something our country should have done many years ago. Today, I am doubling to £50 billion the export finance capacity available to support British businesses, expanding the help available to firms in these emerging markets and ensuring that our excellent new Trade Minister, Lord Livingston, has all the firepower he needs.
Let me turn to the forecast for employment. Today in Britain, employment is at an all-time high and the OBR has revised up its forecast for the future. It was expecting jobs to stay flat over the year, but it now expects the total number of jobs to rise by 400,000 this year. This is being felt right across the country. Since 2010, the number of jobs in Carlisle and on the Wirral, and from Selby to south Tyneside, have all grown faster than in London. Meanwhile, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit has fallen by more than 200,000 in the past six months—the largest such fall for 16 years. Unemployment is also lower than in 2010, and is forecast to fall further from 7.6% this year to 7% in 2015, before falling even further to 5.6% by 2018. We have the lowest proportion of workless households for 17 years.
There were those who said it was a ‘fantasy’ to believe that businesses could create jobs more quickly than the public sector would have to lose them. What they should have said was that it would be fantastic if it happened. So I have good news for them. Businesses have already created three jobs for every one lost in the public sector, and the OBR report today forecasts that this will continue, with 3.1 million more jobs being created by businesses by 2019, which, in its words, ‘more than offsets’ the million or so reduction in the public sector headcount. Far from the mass unemployment predicted, we have a record number of people in work, hundreds of thousands fewer on welfare, and unemployment lower than when we came to office, and we will have 2 million more jobs than in 2010—an economic plan that is working and a Government who are seeking a job-rich recovery for all.
Let me turn now to the forecasts for government borrowing and debt. When this Government came into office, the deficit was 11% of GDP. That was the highest level in our peacetime history. One pound in every four was being borrowed, and a former Chancellor and a former Prime Minister have now joined the consensus that spending was too high. The borrowing posed a huge risk to the economic stability and credibility of the United Kingdom, and we have taken many difficult decisions to bring that deficit down—every one contested and opposed.
I can report today, however, that the effort is paying off. The OBR uses a measure of what it calls ‘underlying public sector net borrowing’, which excludes the impact of the Royal Mail pension scheme and asset purchase facility transfers. I can tell the House that this underlying measure of the deficit, like the other deficit measure, has been revised down substantially since March. From the 11% back in 2010, the underlying deficit now falls to 6.8% this year, instead of the 7.5% the OBR forecast back in March. It then falls to 5.6% next year, then 4.4%, 2.7% and, in 2017-18, 1.2%. By 2018-19, on this measure, the OBR does not expect a deficit at all. Instead, it expects Britain to run a small surplus. These numbers mean that the Government will meet their fiscal mandate to bring the structural current budget into balance and meet it one year early.
Let me turn to the forecasts for cash borrowing on this same underlying basis. At the autumn Statement last year, there were repeated predictions that borrowing would go up. Instead, borrowing is down—and down significantly more than was forecast. In their last year in office, the previous Government borrowed £158 billion. This year, we will borrow £111 billion, which is £9 billion less than was feared in March. That falls next year to £96 billion, then down to £79 billion in 2015-16, £51 billion the year after and £23 billion the year after that. So we are set to borrow £73 billion less over the period than was forecast in March. That means that we are borrowing the equivalent of £2,500 less for every household in this country.
In 2018-19, on this cash measure too, the OBR forecasts that the Government will not have to borrow anything at all. Instead, we will run a small cash surplus. Of course, this will only happen if we go on working through our long-term plan, delivering the reductions in the deficit we plan this year, next year and in the three years after. If we gave up on the plan now, we would be saddled with a deficit still among the highest in Europe, and the government side of the House is not prepared to take that risk.
While the deficit remains, it adds to our national debt every year. The OBR today expects debt this year to come in at 75.5% of GDP, which is £18 billion lower than was forecast in March. It rises to 78.3% next year, before peaking at 80% the next year—5% lower than forecast at the Budget. In 2016-17, it then falls, albeit slightly, to 79.9%; then falls again to 78.4% and then to 75.9%. By 2017-18, debt is over £80 billion lower than forecast in March. The supplementary debt target is for debt to be falling in 2015-16. At the Budget, the OBR forecast debt to be falling in 2017-18. It is now forecast to fall in 2016-17, which is one year earlier.
But let me enter this note of caution. The OBR is clear that this is a cyclical improvement. The forecast for the continuing fall in the structural deficit has not improved. The structural deficit is the borrowing that stays behind even when the economy improves. Thanks to our actions, it has fallen from the 8.7% we inherited to 4.4% today—more than in any other major advanced economy. It goes on falling, but no faster than was previously expected because, as we have always argued, the central task of reforming government and controlling spending does not simply dissolve when growth returns. It supports the case we have made all along that economic growth alone was never going to be enough to repair Britain’s broken public finances. An improving economy does not let us off the hook for taking the difficult decisions to make sure that the Government live within their means.
The single most important economic judgment I make today is this: we will not let up in dealing with our country’s debts; we will not spend the money from lower borrowing; we will not squander the hard-earned gains of the British people. The stability and low mortgage rates, the lower deficit and falling borrowing have been hard won by this country, but let us be clear that they could easily be lost. That is why we must work through our plan to secure the British economy for the long term.
So this autumn Statement is fiscally neutral across the period. Indeed, I can announce today that we will take three new steps to entrench Britain’s commitment to sound public finances. First, we will bring forward next year an updated charter for budget responsibility and ask Parliament to support it. I can say today that both parties of the coalition have agreed that we must ensure that debt continues to fall as a percentage of GDP, including using surpluses in good years, for this purpose. In other words, this time we will fix the roof when the sun is shining.
We will look to see whether the five-year time horizon of the fiscal mandate could be shorter and even more binding now that the public finances are closer to balance, and we will see how fiscal credibility could be further enhanced by a stronger parliamentary commitment to the path of consolidation already agreed for 2016-17 and 2017-18. The answers will be written into an updated charter for budget responsibility, which will be presented to Parliament a year from now and voted upon.
The second step we take today to entrench Britain’s commitment to sound public finances is this: we will cap overall welfare spending. Welfare budgets were completely out of control when we came to office and the number of households where no one had ever worked nearly doubled. We have taken very difficult decisions to bring benefit bills down; we have saved £19 billion a year for the taxpayer. We need to maintain that discipline. The percentage of spending in the UK subject to fixed spending controls is very low by international standards—at just 50%. So from next year, we will introduce a new cap on total welfare spending.
I have had representations that the basic state pension should be included within that cap, but that would mean cutting pensions for those who have worked hard all their lives because the costs on, say, housing benefit for young people had got out of control. That is not fair, so we will not include the state pension, which is better controlled over a longer period. We will also exclude from the cap the most cyclical of benefits for jobseekers. All other benefits—from tax credits to income support to the vast majority of housing benefit—will be included in the cap.
At the beginning of each Parliament, the Chancellor of the day will set the welfare cap for the coming years, and will ask the House of Commons for its support. If the cap is breached, the Chancellor will have to explain why, and hold a vote in the House. The principle is clear: the Government have a responsibility to taxpayers to control their spending on welfare, and Parliament has a responsibility to the country to hold the Government to account for it.
That brings me to our third step. Ultimately, the test of fiscal credibility is whether you are prepared actually to make the difficult decisions that will keep spending under control. Tight discipline means that most departments are now living well within their set budgets. This year they are expected to underspend by £7 billion, which is testimony to good financial management. We can therefore be confident in reducing the contingency reserve by £1 billion this year, and reducing departmental budgets by a similar amount in the next two years. That will save a further £3 billion in total. The protections for the NHS and schools will apply, and the security and intelligence agencies and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs will be exempt. The Barnett formula means that over the next two years, the budgets for Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales will see a net increase. We will not apply those additional savings to local authorities, because we expect them to freeze council tax next year.
This year, Britain becomes the first G8 country to meet our promise to the poorest in the world to spend 0.7% of our national income on development, but we do not have to increase the budget of the Department for International Development further in order to do that. The effectiveness of the British Government’s aid effort in the Philippines, matched by the generosity of the British public, is a reminder of what marks us out as a nation, and we in this country can be very proud of it.
We are also immeasurably proud of the work of Britain’s Armed Forces. As they wind down their operations in Afghanistan, the budget that we spend there is also falling fast, so we can reduce the military special reserve by a further £900 million this year while still funding all operational costs. To reflect our society’s debt of gratitude to our service men and women and their families, I want to make a further £100 million of LIBOR fines available to our brilliant military charities, and to extend that support to those who care for the work of our police, fire and ambulance services. I think the whole House will agree that the terrible events in Glasgow this weekend, and the work that those services are doing right now to cope with the adverse weather conditions, remind us how much we owe to them.
Discipline with the public finances means more than just words. It means making difficult decisions, and being prepared to stick to them. It means using surpluses in good years to keep debt falling, so that we fix that roof when the sun is shining. It means capping welfare to keep it under control, and, when we do want to spend more money, it means finding extra ways in which to pay for it. One of the biggest single items of government spending is the basic state pension. I am proud to be in a Government who have introduced a triple lock that ensures a fair and generous increase in the state pension every year for those who have worked hard all their lives. I can confirm that next April the state pension will rise by a further £2.95 a week. That increase, and the other increases that have been made under this Government, mean that pensioners will be more than £800 better off every year. I can announce that we are also going to offer current pensioners an opportunity to make voluntary national insurance contributions to boost their income in retirement, and that we will extend that opportunity to those who reach pension age before the introduction of the single-tier pension. That will help those who have not built up much entitlement to the additional state pension, especially women and the self-employed.
However, we must also guarantee that the basic state pension is affordable in the future, even as people live longer and our society grows older, and the only way in which to do that is to ensure that the pension age keeps pace with life expectancy. The Pensions Bill, which is currently going through Parliament, puts in place reviews of the pension age every five years. We have set the principle that will underpin those reviews. We think that a fair principle is that, as now, people should expect to spend up to a third of their adult lives in retirement. Based on the latest life expectancy figures, applying that principle would mean an increase in the state pension age to 68 in the mid-2030s and to 69 in the late 2040s. The exact dates will be set by the future statutory reviews and in line with the most up-to-date demographic data, of which the next update is published next week. This is one of those difficult decisions that Governments have to take if they are serious about controlling the public finances. Future taxpayers will be saved around £500 billion. Young people will know that our country can afford to give them a proper pension when they retire. That is this generation fulfilling its obligations for fiscal responsibility to the next generation, not saddling them with the debts and the decisions we were not prepared to deal with ourselves.
Having sound public finances also means making sure that we collect the taxes that are due. Most wealthy people pay their taxes and make a huge contribution to funding our public services; the latest figures show that 30% of all income tax is paid by just 1% of taxpayers. We have given incentives to enterprise and cut punitive tax rates, and this year the rich pay a greater share of the nation’s income taxes than was the case in any year under the last Labour Government. But alongside those paying the most tax are those who try to avoid paying their fair share of tax. So today we set out in detail the largest package of measures to tackle tax avoidance, tax evasion, fraud and error so far this Parliament. Together it will raise over £9 billion over the next five years.
We are going to tackle the growth of intermediaries disguising employment as false self-employment, depriving workforces of basic employment rights such as the minimum wage in a bid to avoid employer national insurance. We will halve the final period exemption for capital gains tax private residence relief. We will end the abuse of dual contracts, offshore oil and gas contracting, derivatives linked to profits and share buy-backs. And we will ensure the tax advantages of partnerships are not abused either. We are introducing a new, limited power that requires people to pay up front their taxes where the scheme they used has already been struck down by the courts. We are going to strengthen Whitehall’s capacity to prevent error and tackle fraud in the benefit and tax credit systems, and expand its efforts to recover money that is owed.
There is one personal tax change we make today which is not about avoidance, but is about fairness. Britain is an open country that welcomes investment from all over the world, including investment in our residential property. But it is not right that those who live in this country pay capital gains tax when they sell a home that is not their primary residence while those who do not live here do not—that is unfair. So from April 2015, we will introduce capital gains tax on future gains made by non-residents who sell residential property here in the UK.
I can also announce that from 1 January next year the rate of the bank levy will rise to 0.156% and its base will be broadened in ways we have consulted on. The levy will raise £2.7 billion in 2014-15 and £2.9 billion each year from 2015-16. The country stood behind the banks in the crisis, and now it is right that they support the country in recovery.
Having a Government who live within their means is essential to secure the economy for the long term, but it is not sufficient. Britain has to earn its way in the world. Our infrastructure needs to be overhauled. We have to help our businesses compete. Above all, our young people need the skills to succeed in the modern world. This autumn Statement takes the next big steps in all these areas.
Let me start with infrastructure. We are going to be spending more on capital as a proportion of national income on average over this decade than over the whole period of the last Government. That has involved making tough choices about priorities in spending and sticking to them. But that is not the most difficult decision in this area. We have to decide whether we are serious as a country about competing in the modern world and say to people that we need the new roads and the new railways, including the northern hub and High Speed 2. We have to say that we are prepared to push the boundaries of scientific endeavour, including in controversial areas, because Britain has always been a pioneer.
We should say that the country that was the first to extract oil and gas from deep under the sea should not turn its back on new sources of energy such as shale gas because it is all too difficult, and the country with the world’s first civil nuclear programme should not be a country that says we can do this no longer.
Yesterday, my right honourable friend the Chief Secretary and Lord Deighton published the update to the national infrastructure plan. That includes a co-operation agreement with Hitachi on the next nuclear power station in Anglesey and a deal with the insurance industry to invest at least £25 billion in UK infrastructure. We published the strike prices that support long-term investment in offshore wind and prioritise it over onshore wind. Today we go further, with a commitment to invest in quantum technology, and a new tax allowance to encourage investment in shale gas that halves tax rates on early profits. In the week in which Professor Peter Higgs travels to Stockholm to collect his Nobel prize for physics, we commit to build a new centre in his name at Edinburgh University, because science is a personal priority of mine.
Some of the most important infrastructure for British families is housing and we must confront this simple truth: if we want more people to own a home, we have to build more homes. The Office for Budget Responsibility is absolutely right today to draw attention to the weakness of housing supply in this country. The good news is that the latest survey data showed residential construction growing at its fastest rate for a decade. Our hard-won planning reforms are delivering a 35% increase in approvals for new homes, but we need to do more.
This week, we are announcing £1 billion of loans to unblock large housing developments on sites in Manchester and Leeds and across the country. We will increase the housing revenue account borrowing limit by £300 million. Aspiration is not only for people who can afford their own home. We want to regenerate some of our most run-down urban housing estates. Councils will sell off the most expensive social housing, so they can house many more families for the same money. We are going to give working people in social housing a priority right to move if they need to for a job.
Right-to-buy applications have doubled under this Government, and we will expand it more. The very same spirit of aspiration that underpins right to buy is what drives this Government with Help to Buy. It is not enough to build more houses if families who can afford mortgages do not have the large deposits that the banks have demanded. Help to Buy is now helping thousands to own their own home. I can today announce that Aldermore and Virgin, two challenger banks, expect to join the scheme this month. Help to aspiring families and building more homes: that is what we stand for.
We must also avoid the mistakes of the past decade. We want a responsible recovery. That is why I am the first Chancellor to give the Bank of England the responsibility and the power not only to monitor overall debt levels, but to take action to deal with asset bubbles if they threaten our stability.
We want a functioning, stable housing market. The OBR’s latest house price forecast today, while higher, still has real house prices 3.1% lower in 2018 than at their peak in 2007. Together with Governor Carney, I acted last week to focus the funding for lending scheme away from mortgages on to small business lending, where its support is still needed. It is precisely because the authorities can act in this targeted and pre-emptive way, and because our public finances are under control, that the Bank can keep overall interest rates lower for longer and support the rest of the economy.
Investing in the physical infrastructure of our country is critical to our future. But in this global economy, it is better education and skills that hold the key to long-term national success. This week’s programme for international student assessment—PISA—scores show how much ground this country has to make up. My right honourable friend the Education Secretary is doing more to transform school standards and raise the aspirations of pupils from the poorest families than anyone who has done that job before him. His expansion of free schools and academies has the full backing of this Chancellor.
We also know that children do better at school when they have a proper meal inside them. This autumn Statement has found the financial resources to fund the expansion of free school meals to all schoolchildren in reception, year 1 and year 2, announced by the Deputy Prime Minister and supported by me.
But today we also focus on what happens when our young people leave school—and we do more to help them. First, we will not abandon those who leave school with few or no qualifications. At present, Jobcentre Plus does almost nothing to help 16 and 17 year-olds who are not in work or education. We will change that and will now fund the jobcentres to support these very young adults to find an apprenticeship or a traineeship.
Without basic maths or English, there is a limited chance any young person will be able to stay off welfare, so we are taking a new approach. Starting in some areas at first, anyone aged 18 to 21 signing on without those basic skills will be required to undertake training from day one or lose their benefits. If they are still unemployed after six months, they will have to start a traineeship, take work experience or do a community work placement—and if they do not turn up, they will lose their benefits.
A culture of worklessness becomes entrenched when young people can leave school and go straight on to the dole with nothing expected in return. That option is coming to an end in our welfare system.
The second reform is to apprenticeships. We have doubled the number of apprenticeships and now we will transform the way they are provided by funding employers directly through HMRC. I can tell the House there will now be an additional 20,000 higher apprenticeships over the next two years. I can also announce a big expansion of start-up loans, through which a new generation of entrepreneurs is being created: 50,000 more people will be helped to fulfil their aspiration to start their own business. We are extending the new enterprise allowance, too.
This year is also the 50th anniversary of the Robbins report, which challenged the nonsense that university was suitable only for a small few. In 1963, Robbins said:
‘Courses of higher education should be available for all those who are qualified by ability and attainment to pursue them and who wish to do so’.
That was true then, and I believe it should remain true today. Our reforms to student loans, difficult as they were, have put our universities on a secure footing. Some predicted that applications from students from poor backgrounds would fall. Instead, I can report that this year we have had the highest ever proportion of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds applying to university.
But there is still a cap on aspiration. Each year, about 60,000 young people who have worked hard at school, got the results, want to go on learning and want to take out a loan to pay for it are prevented from doing so because of an arbitrary cap. That makes no sense when we have a lower proportion of people going to university than even the United States, let alone countries such as South Korea. Access to higher education is a basic tenet of economic success in the global race, so today I can announce that next year we will provide 30,000 more student places, and the year after we will abolish the cap on student numbers altogether.
Extra funding will be provided to science, technology, and engineering courses. The new loans will be financed by selling the old student loan book, allowing thousands more to achieve their potential.
Education underpins opportunity. It is business that provides those opportunities and the best way to help business is by lowering the burden of tax. KPMG’s report last week confirmed for the second year running that Britain has the most competitive business tax system in the world. Some in this House suggest that our response to this good news should be to increase corporation tax from 20%. Today, we publish the first of our studies into the dynamic effects of tax changes that shows that our corporation tax cuts increase investment and raise productivity—so much so that more than half the cost of the tax cut to the Treasury will be recovered because of higher growth. Putting up corporation tax hits investment, cuts productivity, costs jobs and raises much less. We thank the honourable Members for their submission, but we think it would be economic madness to pursue it.
Quite the reverse, today we take further steps to make our business taxes yet more competitive. The Budget announcement that we would abolish stamp duty on AIM shares was applauded around the world. Today, we also abolish stamp duty for shares purchased in exchange traded funds to encourage those funds to locate in the UK. We are making our successful film tax relief even more generous, and looking to extend the principle, including to regional theatre. We set out major reforms to encourage employee ownership of the kind that makes John Lewis such a success. And from April, we will be one of the first countries in the world to introduce a new tax relief for investment in social enterprises and new social impact bonds. I want to thank Sir Ronnie Cohen and my honourable friend the Charities Minister for all their help in putting this innovative scheme together.
Business rates impose a heavy burden on businesses of all sizes. Today, we will help ease that burden—and here is how. The last Government wanted to halve small business rates relief—a relief that helps cut rates bills for half a million companies and means a third of a million of the smallest businesses pay no rates at all. If we had followed that plan, small businesses would have faced a rate increase of up to £3,375. So we have rejected that plan. Instead, we have extended that rate relief scheme year after year. It was due to expire next April. We will now extend it for another whole year. We have also listened to the small business groups and will relax the rules that discourage these firms from expanding and opening extra premises.
But that does not go far enough. All businesses are expecting rates to rise by 3.2% next year. Instead, I will cap the inflation increase in business rates for all premises at 2% from next April. We will also allow businesses to pay their rates in 12 monthly instalments. We will clear almost all the backlog of valuation appeals by July 2015, with reform of business rates on the agenda for 2017 revaluation.
There is one group of businesses that has found the recession especially hard, as it has coincided with a rising challenge from the internet that is only getting stronger. These are our local retailers—the shops, the pubs and the cafés that make up our high streets across Britain. With Small Business Saturday this weekend, I want the Government to do all we can to help them. We are already changing the planning rules to help town centres compete. To get the vacant shops that blight too many town centres to open again, I am introducing a new reoccupation relief that will halve the rates for new occupants.
But we can do more, and I want to thank my honourable friends the Members for Wolverhampton South West, Nuneaton, Hastings and Rye and many others for their campaign. Like them, I also want to help those who have struggled hard on our high streets—often working long hours for not enough in return. So I can announce today that for the next two years every retail premise in England with a rateable value of up to £50,000 will get a discount on their business rates. This discount will be worth £1,000 off their bills.
This is what we offer: business rates capped; for the smallest firms, no rates at all; and help for the high street, with £1,000 off for small shops, pubs, cafés and restaurants across our country. The people in these businesses epitomise the hard-working values this Government support, and we are backing British businesses all the way.
And we are backing British families. Next April, the personal allowance will reach £10,000. This Government are delivering an income tax cut worth up to £700 a year to over 25 million hard-working people. Under the last Government, council tax doubled. We are now helping councils freeze it for the whole of this Parliament. Tax-free childcare is being introduced and free school meals are on their way. But there is more we are doing to help.
This autumn Statement confirms that from April 2015 we will introduce a new transferable tax allowance for married couples. Available to all basic rate taxpayers, it enables people to transfer £1,000 of their personal allowance to their wife, husband or civil partner. It is just a start. And I confirm today that we will introduce a new uprating mechanism that ensures the new married couples tax allowance is automatically increased in proportion to the personal allowance. Four million families will benefit, many of them among the poorest working families in our country. This measure, along with the others we take today, ensures that across this Parliament our policies are progressive, showing that we are all in this together, with the very rich paying the most.
We are also helping families with their energy bills, not with a transparent con by pretending that we can control the world oil price, but instead by focusing on the thing that Government can and should control—the levies and charges that previous Energy Secretaries piled on bills. This week we deliver on the promise made by the Prime Minister to roll back those levies. The result: an average of £50 off family bills. We are doing this in a way that supports the lowest income families, reduces carbon, supports investment in our energy infrastructure and, as the document shows, does not add a penny to the tax bills that families pay. My political philosophy is clear: instead of penalising people with more taxes and more regulation, give them incentives by reducing their taxes and their bills. As I have often said, going green does not have to cost the earth.
That brings me on to fuel duty. We inherited from the previous Government the hated fuel duty escalator that would have inflicted hardship on families and small firms alike. Instead of those rises, we abolished the escalator, and we have cut and then frozen fuel duty. I have had further representations from many honourable friends, from the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys, to the Member for Argyll and Bute, and of course the Member for Harlow, who is a champion of the people he represents.
I said earlier this autumn that if we could find the money, I would like to go on freezing duty. Today I can report that because we have taken difficult decisions to control the public finances, I can deliver on that promise. Next year’s fuel duty rise will be cancelled. Instead of petrol taxes going up by 2p a litre, they will stay frozen. That means that, compared with the previous Government’s plans, petrol will be 20p a litre less. That is £11 less every time you fill up—a saving for drivers over this Parliament of £680, and double that for a small business with a van.
Cancelling fuel duty rises has been a major priority of the Government—a £22 billion demonstration that we are on the side of hard-working people in this country. A married couples allowance; £50 off energy bills. We are helping those who drive a car and we are helping those who get the train, too. Fares next January were going to go up by 1% above inflation. We are going to keep average fares flat in real terms.
We on the government Benches know that there is one thing more than any other that has supported families through these difficult times, and that is being in work. At the heart of our economic plan is support for the creation of more jobs. That is why we opposed the last Government’s plan to increase the jobs tax. That is why we reversed the most damaging part of that increase in the very first Budget after we came to office. That is also why in the last Budget I introduced the employment allowance, which eliminates the jobs tax for half a million small businesses. And that is why we will go further still. We are going to abolish the jobs tax on young people under the age of 21. Employer national insurance contributions will be removed altogether on a million and a half jobs for young people. We are not going to leave young people behind as the economy grows. We are going to have a responsible recovery for all.
The cost for a business of employing a young person on a salary of £12,000 will fall by over £500. For someone on £16,000, that is over £1,000 off. I want to commend my honourable friends for Braintree and Carlisle and the Million Jobs campaign for highlighting this issue. The change requires legislation. It will come into force in April 2015, and it will not apply beyond the upper earnings limit.
This country is working through its long-term plan: bringing down the deficit and dealing with the debt; spending less on welfare and making the big decisions on infrastructure; living within our means and cutting tax on business; making work pay and letting people keep more of what they earn; and with confidence in the next generation, as they make their way in education and in the workplace. This Statement shows that the plan is working. It is a long-term plan for a grown-up country. But the job is not done. By doing the right thing, we are heading in the right direction. Britain is moving again. Let us keep going.”
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, it is a pleasure to address the issues raised in the Autumn Statement in our usual atmosphere of calmness and courtesy—a rather sharp contrast with the wall of noise that greeted my counterpart, the shadow Chancellor, in the other place. This is an occasion for asking questions so I am sure that I am not going to be able to generate such excitement on the government Benches, but I hope that the Minister will answer my questions.
The Chancellor did not mention the concept of productivity, made no acknowledgment of the weakness of our balance of payments position in recent years despite the significant devaluation of the currency that we have experienced, and showed no real appreciation of the fact that real wages are still falling, among those who are employed. It is therefore proper to ask the Minister whether he is assured that the much vaunted growth figures quoted in the Statement are not based upon a somewhat insubstantial platform. Do these figures also not reflect a bounce back from a very low base indeed? The House will appreciate that even if growth reaches the figures that the Chancellor quoted, with his customary optimism, after three years of this economy flatlining, growth by 2015 will be only half the growth that in 2010 the Chancellor indicated to the nation that he hoped to achieve by the time that this Parliament had concluded.
The Minister who will respond to this Statement speaks and acts significantly on the issues of infrastructure in the economy. Will he comment on the fact that infrastructure output has fallen by 15% since 2010, and that so much which is promised remains unfulfilled? In 2010 the Chancellor also said that he was setting out to balance the books by 2015. It is clear that in 2015 we shall still have a deficit of £80 billion. That reflects the amount of borrowing that he had to do in the lean, flatlining years when no growth occurred. Will the Government persist in seeking to deny that we are in the middle of an acute cost of living crisis?
The Government are of course so wedded to the free market that they are quite unable to recognise the challenge presented by the Opposition on energy prices. After all, their belief in the market means that they cannot even recognise a standard textbook analysis of the creation of cartels, which is what the six main energy companies represent, and how that leads to excess profits. It is noticeable that the Government’s gesture in attempting to moderate the level of energy prices during this winter does not cost the cartel anything at all. It is the taxpayer who is going to meet the deficit that will occur due to the companies charging quite so much, and prices will still rise, going up by £70 in this period. For an awful lot of people in the country, £70 is a very significant sum for fuel. After all, we pay £100 to pensioners in the winter fuel allowance because we recognise the acute need that pensioners have to keep their homes warm. However, we expect all the rest of the population, whatever their incomes, to withstand an increased charge of £70.
The Government shy away from any interference with the market. However, I am a fair man and therefore the House would expect me to acknowledge those occasions when the Government do interfere—for example, the gesture with regard to payday loans, but that is a straight reflection of the pressure that had been generated from my party and in this House on the issue, and of course the Government’s response has been woefully inadequate.
The crucial thing I want the Minister to address is the constant failure of wages to match prices, which is making working people poorer. It may be that the Minister is not that familiar with those people who find themselves poor at present. He is likely to meet an awful lot of people—his friends certainly have many associates among the banks—in the banking fraternity, at the highest levels, who are of course not feeling the pinch at all. Hedge funds, too, are not noticeably short of returns. That is to say nothing of the growth of high salaries right throughout British commerce and industry, while wage levels stay stagnant. It is only accidental that some of those groups have a profound interest in sustaining and supporting the Conservative Party both between elections and at election time. We are not seeking to be too controversial today so the Government need not comment on that particular point, but I want the Minister to respond on the issue of falling wages.
It is quite clear that the Government are committed to a position. The Chancellor waxed with some strength over the fact that there will be a cap on welfare and very severe constraints on public expenditure, and gave the briefest outline of what that would mean. We all know what it means: five more long and hard years. We also know who is going to bear the costs of those five long and hard years—those who have done it since the coalition came into office in 2010.
The other obvious question is: if the Government are so wedded to free markets, do they consider that the free market worked well in the banking crisis of 2007-08? That was not a failure of anything except the free market. I notice some excitement on the government Bench, because they have worked out that in 2007-08 Labour was in power. That is certainly so, but we were not in power when the Big Bang freed up the City to create the successive market mechanism, and whenever there were suggestions of anything to do with regulation we know on which side the Conservative Opposition were. Of course, they have shown themselves to be exactly the same in the energy debate.
Will the Minister confirm that the Chancellor envisages—if, by some mischance, this Government, or a Conservative version of them, were retained in office—aiming for the size of the state in public expenditure to go back to the levels of 1948? To contemplate that in a modern society merely demonstrates that ideology dictates this Government’s economic policies, not the welfare of the nation.
Lord Deighton
I will. My Lords, first, I thank the noble Lord for his measured response and forensic questioning, which I shall do my very best to address in an entirely constructive fashion.
However, I want to set a bit of reality and context to the discussion about the economy. Clearly, there was lots of good news to report and we as a nation, across the parties, should welcome the recovery of the economy that we have seen in recent months. Growth is up: the OBR has just restated that the growth forecast for 2013 is up from 0.6% to 1.4%. For 2014 the forecast has been increased from 1.8% to 2.4%. The deficit is down. As a percentage of GDP in 2010 it was 11%; it will be 6.8% this year and will be at a small surplus in 2018-19.
The noble Lord makes much of the fact that some of the original projections in 2010 envisaged those targets being reached earlier. Of course, the two principal reasons that they were not were, first, that the depth of the crisis in 2008-10 proved to be much, much greater, with over 7% taken out of GDP, as we have just discovered. Secondly, the external circumstances surrounding the economy in the past three years, in particular the fact that the euro region was on the verge of having its currency broken up, put a damper on the economy. To find ourselves in this economic situation today, despite those prevailing winds, is a testimony to the strength of this Government’s economic strategy.
Surprise, surprise, there was no mention of employment, which sits at record levels, with the lowest proportion of workless households for the past 17 years and the creation of 1.4 million new private sector jobs. There were some interesting announcements in the Autumn Statement today, particularly around trying to help young people into those job opportunities: namely, the scrapping of national insurance contributions for under-21s and specific measures for Jobcentre Plus to deal with 16 and 17 year-olds, which are addressing something absolutely critical for the nation.
On inflation, let us talk a little about real wages. Of course, the reason that people are feeling the squeeze is the result of the significant collapse in the economy in 2008-10, from which we are trying to recover. That is the problem; that is why real wages fell sharply. Above-target inflation occurred through 2011-12 because of external influences, principally commodity prices and the oil price.
The good news is that inflation is now slowing down. It was at 2.2% in the previous quarter. The OBR says that we will hit our 2% target by 2016. So we see inflation coming down and earnings recovering. But earnings do not tell the whole story. Total, real household disposable incomes have increased by 3.9% since the crisis, and that has been supported by government policy—for example, the increase in the personal allowance to £10,000, which will be coming through next year—as well as those strong employment levels.
Of course, the critical thing in this argument is that the only way to improve living standards is to grow the economy. There cannot be a cost-of-living strategy without an economic strategy. We have heard nothing from the Opposition about an economic strategy, which is not surprising because the one they were professing has been demonstrated to be a complete failure. The numbers I have just gone through show very clearly that you can have both a reduction in the deficit and a recovery in economic growth. It was the axiom of the opposition strategy that that just was not possible. The facts have demonstrated that it is.
I absolutely accept that there is still a lot to do. We are not at all complacent about the situation. It was a very deep recession. We are recovering from it effectively but still relatively slowly. Although on an international basis we are one of the strongest performing economies at the moment, there is still an enormous amount to do. Our deficit level is still far too high. Of course, the level of debt created by the accumulation of borrowing in order to finance the deficit leaves us in an exposed and unsustainable position unless we continue to bring it down. That is why the overall message in this Autumn Statement is the commitment to fiscal neutrality, even though the temptation to indulge in giveaways could, at the political level, be strong.
I admire the Chancellor’s discipline. Taking a grip of the long-term risks around pension costs is absolutely the right thing to do, to match pensions to longevity. Putting a constraint on the absolute size of the welfare bill—the part of our spending that was most out of control, among the many out-of-control elements of the previous regime—so that the Chancellor will have to come back to Parliament to be scrutinised if that significant part of our spending gets out of whack, is a very disciplined part of the equation. We will also continue to see a reduction in government spending at the margin—continuing to capture the underspends that we will see this year, which are a function of prudent financial management, but ensuring that year after year we continue with that efficiency drive to ensure that the state delivers its services in a reformed and efficient way.
The noble Lord said that the Chancellor mentioned neither productivity nor exports. With respect, that is not correct. He did refer to productivity and said that it is expected to increase in 2014-15 and 2015-16 as the economy recovers, which is in the OBR independent report, and that this will drive the cost-of-living recovery. He also talked about exports. If one looks at the balance of the recovery, it is consumer-led. Everybody accepts that. It is not surprising that it is consumer-led. Consumption is by far the biggest part of the economy. The OBR’s estimate is that business investment will recover strongly next year and the year after. Of course, everything that the Government are doing on the supply side of the economy is focused on supporting that.
The Chancellor absolutely said that exports were disappointing. The reason they are disappointing is that the markets into which we export, predominantly the European Union and the US, have been relatively weak through the period, which is why our efforts have been so focused on developing export markets in the faster-growing developing economies; hence the Prime Minister’s recent trip to China, for example. We are absolutely in tune with the requirement to improve the net trade balance.
I also draw noble Lords’ attention to the fact that at the heart of living standards recovery is the improvement in productivity that will come with the growth in the economy, but in the mean time this Government have been very attentive to supporting hard-working individuals, whether it is through the £50 improvement to energy bills, the freeze on fuel duty, the married couple’s allowance, free school meals for the up-to-seven year-olds and freezing rail fares in real terms. Those are just some of the examples of the measures.
There have been very targeted efforts to ease the burden on those who are feeling it most, including the most consistent and effective attack on tax avoidance that this country has ever seen, which is yielding considerable savings to the Exchequer that can be deployed against some of these targeted cost-of-living measures.
On the question of free markets, I am proud of the work that we did all together in this House to come up with the right answer on payday loans. I make no apologies for that. It was a really good example of the work that this House can do on a collaborative basis, and a specific example of the general work we are doing on banking reform.
It is hard to know where to start on the 2007-08 banking crisis. It was the regulatory regime that was the great revolutionary change of the previous Government; taking control away from the Bank of England, which meant that the regulatory system was quite unable to cope with what was happening. This of course led us, with the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill, to completely change the regulatory framework.
Lord Higgins (Con)
My Lords, I very much welcome many aspects of the very imaginative Autumn Statement. Regretfully, I have to deplore once again the fact that many aspects of it were leaked in advance. I would have thought that the Treasury would have learnt the lesson from a previous Budget experience that this is not a good way of handling public relations—and is very discourteous indeed to Parliament. Parliament has the right to hear these matters first.
The good news, certainly, as my noble friend has just said, is that the economy is recovering faster than expected. Perhaps I might comment on why this has happened. There are, I think, two particular aspects. The first is that the deficit has not been cut as fast as we hoped and that consequently, the economy has picked up a little more, because of the effect on aggregate demand. None the less, I welcome the fact that the Chancellor has now set out a very firm timetable for getting down not only the underlying cyclical deficit but also the structural deficit. This is something to be welcomed. Up to now, we have rejoiced in the fact that we have cut the deficit by a third, but we are still continuing to borrow at two-thirds of the appalling rate that we inherited from the previous Government. It is very important that my noble friend agrees that that should be tackled.
The second reason, which gives more cause for concern, is the substantial reduction in saving—apparently the biggest fall in saving for 40 years. People have been using their savings, which has accelerated the growth of the economy, which may lead to concern. Given his particular responsibility for infrastructure, does my noble friend agree that it is absolutely crucial that we get savings up? The finance has to be provided for the infrastructure that the Government envisage.
In that context, I will ask one particular point. We seem to have got away from financing infrastructure in the usual way: that is, by allowing capital to be provided by whoever is launching the operation and then working it up in the usual way. Instead of that, we have been allowing monopolistic enterprises in particular to increase the prices on existing consumers. That has been the way in which we have been financing, for example, the railways and energy. Will he look particularly at whether this is the right way to proceed—because we are also then depending very largely on foreign investment rather than our own domestic savings and ownership?
Lord Deighton
I thank my noble friend for those incisive observations. He is absolutely right to say that the deficit was reduced in a measured fashion, which is part of the reason why the economy has been able to recover so quickly. He is also absolutely right that there is still a structural deficit, so we cannot simply allow for the natural recovery through the economic cycle to take care of our borrowing problem; we must continue to drive savings through the system. On the fall in consumer savings, again, my noble friend is absolutely right that it is a sign of a healthy economy to have a strong savings rate. On consumer behaviour, it is not surprising that, after a few years of belt-tightening, there has been a desire to begin spending again.
On the overall economy, as I mentioned, the recovery in business investment is the single most important change in the recovery of the economy over the next year. We anticipate that the recovery in consumer demand will give business the confidence it needs to increase its level of investment, which is what should sustain the recovery.
On infrastructure, my noble friend is correct. Essentially, there are two ways to finance it: directly from taxpayers or indirectly through the private sector and into the utilities, which then recover the investment through consumers paying. Of course, that is governed by independent regulators, who set the prices in those industries. It is absolutely part of our national infrastructure plan continually to assess the balance between the interests of the investing institutions and consumers’ affordability over the longer term.
Lord Razzall (LD)
My Lords, notwithstanding the verbal fisticuffs in another place, I am sure that no one in your Lordships’ House thinks that the Autumn Statement does not contain a lot of good news. Perhaps I could ask the Minister one or two, or three or four questions.
I assume that the Minister will agree that our two parties going into coalition government in 2010 was essential to restore the economy to the point where we could have the Autumn Statement today, and that, without that coalition being formed, that would not have happened. Touching on the coalition, I am well aware, as are all noble Lords, that coalitions mean trade-offs. One of them is the married tax allowance. It is obviously above the Minister’s pay grade to say whether it is time to change it, but if the object is to save marriages, would it not have been better to spend the money on organisations that help them, rather than to introduce that to satisfy the Tory right-wing?
Has there been any progress on the tax fairness proposals that David Cameron announced at the G8, with negotiations on international co-operation? The Minister touched on tax avoidance. How much have tax evasion and aggressive avoidance been affected? How much is currently raised annually from the Government’s measures? Does he agree that, although the plan announced yesterday indicates that only 1% of our GDP will be spent on infrastructure—much less than our colleagues—there is an opportunity to increase that as the economy recovers?
Finally, on a cheekier point to which I think I know the answer, bearing in mind that, as the Minister rightly says, more jobs have been created here in this country than before, have he or his colleagues had an apology from the Labour Party for saying that this would not work?
Lord Deighton
On the effectiveness of the coalition partnership, I launched the national infrastructure plan yesterday with my right honourable friend Danny Alexander, and I can say that the harmony in the Treasury could not be stronger. My noble friend is correct to say that the marriage tax allowance question is way beyond my pay grade. On the G8, I can confirm that the initiatives outlined by the Prime Minister, where we have taken global leadership to address issues of tax information exchange and publicising beneficial ownership, continued to be followed through very effectively, with us setting an example.
On the national infrastructure plan, it is clear to me that infrastructure is a very important driver of growth, and the bigger proportion of public spending we can devote to it, the healthier the long-term outcome. The measure, therefore, that my honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has put in place to keep the proportion of capital expenditure to national income at a constant level is absolutely to be welcomed as a protection in that respect.
Lord Newby (LD)
My Lords, these are time-limited questions, so the briefer individual Lords can be in making their contributions, the more Members of your Lordships’ House will be able to participate.
The Lord Bishop of Chester
My Lords, whenever a bishop speaks on economics I must emphasise that we preface it with St Paul’s statement: “I speak as a fool”. I fundamentally support the Government’s strategy of getting the deficit down. My question is about the cap and how that is going to operate. Somewhere in the Statement it says that 30% of tax is now collected from 1% of taxpayers. That is a signal of how disparities of wealth have grown in our society. It really behoves us to protect the weakest. My worry is that I see a sort of American scenario of a cap being introduced and benefits not being paid because the cap is there. How will this work, when social security benefits can rise and fall with events which nobody can control? It worries me that introducing another cap of an absolute sort without reference to other realities could end up almost undergirding the underclass, which I am afraid is a developing feature of our society. Can the Minister say a bit more on how this cap is going to work?
Lord Deighton
The cap is essentially a fiscal discipline to ensure that a very large part of our budget, which in the past has had no controls around it—and no opportunity to explain what is going on—is properly scrutinised. In the circumstances where there is justification for changing the cap, that will be done under the scrutiny of Parliament. The Chancellor has not introduced what the level of the cap should be but merely an operational measure to make sure that it is properly controlled, just as other parts of the budget are, and indeed so that all the questions and issues around the appropriate level of support for vulnerable members of society can be tackled independently. Those measures should be effectively targeted and that is also part of our welfare-reform programme.
Lord McFall of Alcluith (Lab)
My Lords, the Statement issued by the Treasury indicates that the free school meals commitment, costing £755 million in 2015-16, is there for only two years. Can the Minister confirm that that is not the case, and can he indicate why the OBR today sees public finances worsening in the future?
Lord Deighton
I thank the noble Lord for that question. I will have to write back to him. I am not sure what the long-term budgetary arrangement is. The usual thing is that it is not specifically in the book. It is expected to be absorbed when we come to do the specific budgets in those years. I am sure the expectation is that it will continue, and that the money will be found for it when we do the budget for that year.
Lord Crickhowell (Con)
My Lords, I particularly welcome the measures taken to reduce the tax on employing young people, which will be welcome all around the country. But will the Minister say a little more about the £25 billion that is supposed to be coming in for infrastructure from the insurance companies? I do not think this has been referred to at all in the exchange that has taken place so far on infrastructure. How far does he think it can help in speeding up the infrastructure work? That seems to me, as the years go by, to take longer and longer, partly because the projects are very big. What we really need is not just a large amount of infrastructure work propped with finance but that it takes effect quickly rather than slowly.
Lord Deighton
I absolutely agree that one of the principal challenges for our infrastructure ambitions is accelerating the delivery of the projects which we know are important but which take time to define, to get through planning, to be organised and generally to deliver. In a nutshell, what the Government are trying to do within the national infrastructure plan is to work away at the constraints on delivering this plan more effectively. Financing is one of those, which is why we welcome the announcement from those six insurance companies. It is an interesting example of joined-up government working, because the Treasury negotiated successfully with the European Union on the solvency question. That enabled the insurance companies to be comfortable in committing to this kind of asset, because the capital treatment in Brussels is now much more sensible.
Lord McKenzie of Luton (Lab)
My Lords, page 1 of the Statement makes reference to the introduction of universal credit. Part of the news that we had today was confirmation that that programme is in disarray and will not be delivered on time. Can the Minister say how much public expenditure has been wasted on that to date and what the estimates are of future write-offs of abortive expenditure? If the Minister is not able to give us the figures today, will he promise to write to us and let us have that information? The Minister referred also to tax avoidance. The introduction of capital gains tax on disposals of residential property by non-residents is to be welcomed, but, from a Government who do not hesitate to legislate retrospectively for benefit claimants, why will that not be introduced until April 2015, when it is clear that the wise will forestall that tax by upping valuations in the interim?
Lord Deighton
On universal credit, I can tell your Lordships from a personal point of view that the individual whom we have brought in to manage that programme, Howard Shiplee, worked on the Olympic Games and delivering the Olympic park, so we have got the right people focused on getting the delivery of universal credit absolutely right. Our current planning assumption is that universal credit will be available in each part of Great Britain during 2016, with new claims to the benefits that it replaces having been closed down and the majority of the remaining caseload moving to universal credit in 2017. I do not have the particular numbers on how much it has cost, but I will work with DWP and provide the noble Lord with a response to that question. On capital gains tax for non-residents, we are introducing it in the normal way. The efficacy with which we have approached closing down these loopholes puts the previous Government to shame.
Lord Hollick (Lab)
The Statement recognises that we have a cyclical recovery and that in order to turn that into a sustainable, long-term recovery, we need investment—we have had a number of discussions on that—and an improvement in productivity. The Statement references a report, presumably prepared by the Treasury, showing that the policy pursued by this Government and their predecessor to reduce corporation tax has increased investment and raised productivity. In the light of this, is it not strange that the Government have so comprehensively rejected the recommendation of a report prepared by the Economic Affairs Committee of this House and enthusiastically endorsed by all sides in a recent debate that we take measures to ensure that all companies pay corporation tax, particularly those international companies which currently do not, and that UK companies using complex and—frankly—dodgy procedures not to pay tax here should all be required to pay tax? As a result of that, the tax rate to both large and small companies could be substantially reduced, to the benefit of productivity, and the Treasury would be no worse off.
Lord Deighton
I thank the noble Lord for his analysis of our need for investment. We also talked about productivity. The review that the noble Lord referred to that the Treasury did on corporation tax is what we describe as dynamic modelling, which means understanding the long-term effects of the tax cuts and demonstrating that the increase in income that flows afterwards pays for the majority of them. The way that we are dealing with making sure that overseas companies pay their fair share is through the OECD and taking leadership internationally. I think that is the only way that you can do it. You have to be able to deal with these international companies on a global basis, otherwise it is impossible to close them down, so that is probably the right way to approach it. The general trend of getting people to pay less tax and making sure that everybody pays that tax is the right strategy, and one that is working well for this country.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, I was not here at the beginning so I merely repeat something that has been said by somebody else. I do not believe the Minister answered the question from my noble friend Lord McFall about the OBR. Perhaps I could repeat the question. I believe my noble friend asked why the OBR was predicting that the economic situation would get worse in the years ahead.
Lord Deighton
The short answer is that you would probably need to ask it. As a former economist I can take this lightly, but in the short term, where I would rely much more on their forecast, the recovery is strong. In the longer term, if you look at the way the OBR handles it, it shows a fan of growth forecasts which comprehends just about every single possibility in the longer term.
Police: Independent Police Commission Report
Lord Harris of Haringey
That this House takes note of the role and responsibilities of the police service in the light of the report of the Independent Police Commission chaired by Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington.
Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)
My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Policing and as adviser to a number of technology companies with an interest or potential interest in the policing sector.
I would also like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, who I understand is not in his place today because of business elsewhere, and his other commissioners, some of whom are speaking in this debate, on their report Policing for a Better Britain. As I understand it, the commission had six days of witness hearings, seven regional meetings, conducted eight surveys and drew on advice of over 40 experts and 30 academic institutions, along with receiving over 250,000 words in evidence and submissions. It was a royal commission in all but name. As the Independent newspaper said:
“it provides the most detailed appraisal of policing for over fifty years”,
and certainly since the royal commission of 1962.
Like that royal commission, it provides an opportunity to reshape the police service to meet the challenges that it faces today. What are those challenges? According to the report, nothing less than a police service grappling with “deep social transformations”. In particular, it highlights “a global economic downturn”—we have just heard the rosy viewpoint that has been expressed by the Government today—as well as,
“quickening flows of migration, widening inequalities, constitutional uncertainty, and the impact of new social media”.
While overall crime levels have fallen, though there are some indications that burglary and acquisitive and violent crime are rising, there are new types and modes of crime to contend with, including e-crime and cyber-enabled crime, widespread trafficking of people and goods and terrorism, both international and domestic. All this is happening when trust in the police is under threat. Indeed, the integrity of the police service has been seriously shaken by high-profile scandals and organisational failures. Some of those are historic but others are not. Perhaps it is a good time to go back to the principles that should underpin British policing. I understand that it is a matter of debate whether Sir Robert Peel ever uttered Peel’s maxim:
“The police are the public and the public are the police”.
That outlines the concept that the police are a civilian service and operate with the consent of the public they serve. The principle also articulated that police effectiveness is measured not by the number of arrests but by the absence of crime. The underlying theme of all of it is that the police are accountable for their actions.
That is why the central recommendations of this commission are so important. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, articulates its vision as follows:
“Our vision is of a police service with a social purpose that combines catching offenders with work to prevent crime and promote and maintain order in our communities … listens closely to the demands of everyone while meeting the needs of the most vulnerable in our society and protecting victims of crime … is rooted in local communities while also possessing the capacity to tackle effectively threats of organised and cross-border crime”.
The report says that the golden thread running through its proposals,
“is that the local policing area is the core unit, and building block, of fair and effective policing”.
The commission warns, and it is a serious warning, that:
“Faced with budgetary constraints and the Government's insistence that the police are ‘crime-fighters’”,
there is a danger of the police being forced to retreat,
“to a discredited model of reactive policing”.
That means that the Home Secretary’s credo that all that matters for the police are the crime statistics misses the point. The police have to be about crime prevention as well as crime detection. The police have to be proactively engaged with the community rather than simply providing an emergency response. They have a social purpose in contributing to community cohesion while maintaining order.
That is why the steady dismantling of neighbourhood policing under this Government is so wrong. The sight of neighbourhood police, whom the local community know, fosters reassurance. It promotes feelings of well-being and security and builds trust. It builds the sort of relationships where the public will feel confident enough in their local police to confide, to pass on concerns, to provide the raw material of the intelligence on which the police must rely to do their work.
When I was chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, when the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, was the commissioner and the noble Lord, Lord Blair, was the deputy commissioner, we developed the “3-2-1” concept of neighbourhood policing: one sergeant, two police officers and three police community support officers. Indeed, we pioneered the introduction of PCSOs as a visible presence in local communities, building confidence. That neighbourhood policing is now disappearing: 300 neighbourhood sergeants have been removed in the past two years alone. Safer neighbourhood teams are being replaced by a more reactive, fast-response approach. No doubt that is a more efficient use of reduced police resources if the sole criterion of success is a speedy presence at a crime scene. However, what is being done to prevent the crimes being committed in the first place?
The very point of neighbourhood policing was to build local trust and confidence. It was to make communities feel safe. It was to offer reassurance. That, in turn, led to public approval and reinforced police legitimacy. That is very different from the police as an occupying force, swooping in reactively and creating resentment through failure to understand the communities involved. Reassurance stemming from proactive neighbourhood policing produces an orderly community, where people can voluntarily comply with the law. It reinforces that that compliance is the right thing to do. Prioritising a reactive response, as this Government do, is not sufficient. It misses out on that essential community engagement. If that reactive response has been the objective of government policy, it has failed. Her Majesty’s inspectorate has reported that within the past two years the proportion of emergency calls responded to within the target time has fallen in 20 of the forces surveyed. The Stevens commission’s survey found that 30% of the population thought that their local policing had got worse in the past few years, with only 5% thinking that it had improved.
This all matters. Police need to demonstrate that they are worthy of the public’s trust. This confers on the police moral authority to exercise their powers for the public good. The police gain their legitimacy through that public approval. If that approval is declining, as the surveys show, that legitimacy is damaged as the performance declines. Moreover, satisfaction surveys show that young people, and those from black and minority-ethnic communities and from the lower socioeconomic classes, were least happy after contact with the police. The commission’s conclusions are telling:
“We think that the ‘singular focus on cutting crime’ that has been placed at the core of the police reform programme, and the diluting of the role of neighbourhood policing, will exacerbate rather than stem these trends”.
Government policy is making it worse, not better.
The commission proposes that the broader social purposes of policing should be enshrined in statute and commends the national statement of purpose for Police Scotland that states explicitly that the main purpose of policing is to,
“improve the safety and well-being of persons, localities and communities”.
It says that policing should be,
“accessible to, and engaged with, local communities”,
and that it should promote measures to prevent crime, harm and disorder.
This needs to be coupled with changes in the policing mindset and greater professionalism from the police; and I agree that this should be enshrined in statute. The Stevens report recommends creating “a chartered police officer” as the basis of the police profession. They would be accountable to a new professional body building on the College of Policing, which should register and accredit police officers, with the implication that some officers might be struck off from the register if they fail to meet the standards expected.
The commission’s recommendations envisage that there would also be a new and enhanced body, combining features of Her Majesty’s inspectorate and the Independent Police Complaints Commission to monitor and impose standards on forces, and to conduct independent investigations into serious complaints. The report addresses the style and purpose of policing, and professionalism and standards. But what of the final pillar of those Peelian principles, governance and accountability?
At local level the report proposes that there should be an explicit local policing commitment so that communities would get a guaranteed minimum level of neighbourhood policing, with priorities, possibly even budgets, set and allocated by the local elected councillors for that area. This makes sense to me as a former local authority leader: local councillors, rooted in the communities that elect them, setting the direction for how neighbourhood policing resources should be used and deployed.
That leads inexorably to force-wide governance. The report is scathing about the present Government’s flagship reform of policing, the introduction of police and crime commissioners. The birth of these was badly botched. The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, who is staring at me over the top of her glasses, will recall in detail that a last-minute coalition deal to hold the elections in darkest November delivered an average turnout of just 15%. This was not helped by the Home Office decision to penny-pinch on publicising the purpose of the elections and insist on confining the details of the candidates standing to an obscure website.
The results themselves are also instructive. Of the 41 police and crime commissioners elected, only six are women. I make no comment on that other than to note that it is surprising that there is such a bias. None is from a visible minority-ethnic community, and eight are former police officers. The latter is hardly a recipe for giving the public confidence in the independence of the accountability being offered. Of the 41, four have been or are being investigated by the IPCC for electoral fraud, expenses fiddles and other serious misdemeanours. That is a rather high hit rate of 10% of the total. Other elected PCCs have been criticised by the Home Affairs Committee for the way in which they have used their office. Several of them have tried peremptorily to fire senior officers without going through the due processes laid down in statute. The list of problems goes on and on.
There is no question that despite the good work that many of the new PCCs have done since their election, the system is flawed and needs to change. I have doubts that those changes can be implemented as the report recommends by the time the current terms of office come to an end. However, it is clear that some changes are needed. What is missing from the present arrangements is visible answerability at force level by the police for the actions that they have taken. While chief constables should answer to PCCs, they are not seen by the public to be doing so.
All that comes back to the building of trust. One of the pillars of that must be accountability and answerability to the public. Another pillar must be the improved professionalism and proper accountability of individual officers. The final pillar must be the close relationship between the police and the communities they serve—a partnership at neighbourhood level that underpins all that is done. The analysis, the diagnosis and the potential solutions are all contained in the Stevens report. That report more than vindicates the decision of my right honourable friend Yvette Cooper to commission the report when the present Government declined to have a full royal commission look at policing. It is now for a future Government to take it forward. I beg to move.
Baroness Browning (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, for giving the House the opportunity to discuss policing again today. This is the second debate that we have had in a week, which is to be welcomed.
I very much regret that the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, is not in his place today, because my first point is something that specifically affects him. I will make a point of writing him a note. On the day that the report was published, he gave an interview on the “Today” programme in which he talked specifically about police and crime commissioners, which we have just heard about. He said quite categorically that they would not be abolished, but throughout the document he says otherwise—the noble Lord referred to that. For example, on page 84—and that is not the only place—he rightly says why the commission does not believe that police and crime commissioners have been a success. However, the report goes on to say that,
“the Commission believes that the office of PCC ought to be abolished in its present form with effect from the end of the current term of office”.
Of course, the difficulty is that the report gives no categorical recommendations about what should replace them or what the finances involved in that would be. I am therefore disappointed that although the report is critical of police and crime commissioners, it does not offer an alternative. That, of course, does not solve any of the problems that he has mentioned.
The commission’s whole approach to police and crime commissioners, notwithstanding some of the individual problems that the noble Lord mentioned, is premature. I use that word quite deliberately; I have not just conjured it up. It was used by Tony Lloyd, the former Labour Minister, who is now the police and crime commissioner for Greater Manchester. He believes that the report is premature in what it says about police and crime commissioners. I would hope that those who sat on this commission would have recognised that it is still early days. Looking around the Chamber, I see some of the usual suspects who voted against police and crime commissioners when the House considered the matter only a short time ago, so I am somewhat suspicious that it is not quite as impartial on this particular aspect of the report as perhaps it should have been.
I want to move on to the question of trust in the police. That is something that we debated in this Chamber quite a lot. During my 18 years as a Member of Parliament, I worked with police forces, particularly the Devon and Cornwall Police, and I have a high regard for them. However, I am concerned, as are many other people in this country, at the way in which the public generally voice their reservations about many aspects of the police. It is a very dangerous thing. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, quoted Peel who said that policing in this country is policing by consent. We do not have a military police, or a military police answerable to the Government; rather, we have,
“policing of the people, by the people”.
That is absolutely right. That is the gold standard of policing, and many other countries have copied it. Yet there is a lack of confidence, even mistrust, in police forces around the country. This is something that we need to address quickly. When it was expressed to me, as a Member of Parliament, by members of the public, I sometimes feared that that is what precipitates the public to feel that they need to take the law into their own hands. I am not talking about people who you might think of as being on the other side of the law. These were people who had kept the law all their lives and respected the police but had somehow felt that, when they needed the protection of the law through the police service, they were let down and the police were not there for them.
I turn to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Harris, raised, particularly in relation to the Home Secretary’s comments and the changes that she has introduced. I think that he is misinterpreting her words when he says she has not taken account of the need for community policing. The front line of the police has increased since 2010, since this Government came to office. From March 2010 to March 2013, the front line increased from 88.9% to 90.6%. One of the big changes that this Government have made is that Theresa May, as Home Secretary, personally drove through very quickly the need to cut out a lot of the box-ticking and the form-filling that had previously kept police officers tied behind their desks in police stations, when what they and the public wanted was that they should be out on that front line. I believe that this has contributed to it.
I am very conscious that we are making those announcements. Speaking to the police themselves, the Home Secretary said,
“I am also scrapping the confidence target and the policing pledge with immediate effect. I know that some officers like the policing pledge, and some, I’m sure, like the comfort of knowing they’ve ticked boxes. But targets don’t fight crime”—
and I believe that that is the case—
“targets hinder the fight against crime. In scrapping the confidence target and the policing pledge, I couldn’t be any clearer about your mission: it isn’t a 30-point plan; it is to cut crime. No more, and no less”.
That was a very clear message. She cut out a lot of the bureaucracy that has hindered not only the police service. Bureaucracy has hindered all our public services. We see it in the health service; we see how targets have driven down standards in health. We see how targets have driven down the opportunity for the police to be out there fighting crime. It is endemic across the whole of our public sector. It is right that this Government have grasped that nettle.
It is true that certain types of target are needed. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, though, that targets are all very well but outcomes are far more important. Targets are the receptacles of those people who like to process things; outcomes are the receptacles of people who like to achieve things. In getting rid of a lot of these targets, the Home Secretary has freed up police officers not just to fight crime at the front end, but to do all those things that lead to a reduction in crime. That, of course, involves crime prevention, awareness of crime and building on community relationships.
I disagree entirely with the noble Lord and perhaps the commission in their interpretation that the Home Secretary’s words on reducing bureaucracy and getting more people out on to the front line were made because she is concerned only about cutting crime and is not interested in the society that lies behind those criminals. I would say that this Home Secretary has addressed both in the policies that she has bravely implemented since she took office. What I think will be shared by the commission is her recognition that police officers, rather like doctors, should be professionals. She has introduced a consultation which is going on at the moment through the College of Policing to ensure that there is a code of ethics that police officers will abide by, while raising the professionalism of the police force in general.
Baroness Henig (Lab)
My Lords, I commend my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey on securing this debate. I declare my interests as a former chair of the Association of Police Authorities and of the Security Industry Authority, and as an adviser to the British Security Industry Association. I was also one of over 40 commissioners who served on the Independent Police Commission.
I start by echoing my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey’s point that this is an evidence-based report. It is heavily based on evidence, and I was pleased to be a small part of that evidence-gathering process when I co-chaired with the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, seven regional meetings held in the north-east, the north-west, Yorkshire and Wales. I heard at first hand what local people had to say about what works and what does not work well in relation to their local policing service. I believe that it is the weight and substance of that evidence that make the report so significant and its recommendations so compelling in shaping future policing policy.
There is no doubt that the most contentious part of the report thus far has been the conclusion that the governance model of police and crime commissioners is systemically flawed as a means of democratic accountability and should be discontinued. Predictably this has caused dissention, particularly among the police and crime commissioners themselves, but I have to say to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, that if one looks at the evidence rather than following ideology or party dogma, the logic based on the evidence that was collected is compelling. That point was demonstrated by my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey in his remarks.
Noble Lords can read the report for themselves so I am not going to go into the detail any further, but the point I want to make is that it is not at force level that ordinary people engage with policing. The focus of the public so far as the police are concerned is on their own local area, which is why, following the evidence, the Stevens report suggests a local model of police accountability. So it is not true that nothing has been suggested: the commission’s recommendation is for a local model of police accountability, emphasising the importance of neighbourhood policing as an essential building block in establishing public confidence and support.
As we have heard, the report suggests legislation to give local government a say in appointing divisional police commanders, and to enable lower-tier local authorities to retain some of the police precept of council tax, which they could then use to commission local policing for their force. It is also at the local, divisional level that policing priorities for the neighbourhood need to be set by local people with councillors and the police, and that policing plans should be drawn up. To me, that was one of the big flaws in the police and crime commissioner model; it was a force-level model, and I would argue with anyone for any length of time that having one person representing a force that looks after millions of people is not my idea of democratic accountability, but I am not going to go there now.
I turn to the crucial issue of how to maintain and increase trust and confidence in the police because I agree that that is one of the major issues. As the report makes clear, we all need to agree on what we think the police should be spending their time doing. I accept that there is high policing, covering issues that must be dealt with at the national level, and there is low policing.
As the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, has emphasised, the police are not simply crime fighters. They have a core role in improving safety and well-being within communities, and in promoting measures to prevent harm, disorder and crime. At national level they co-ordinate policies to protect the public as much as possible from a range and variety of threats.
What is it that makes people have confidence in the police at local level? We need to know. Again, the evidence suggests that confidence stems from people’s concerns about disorder, from their sense of community cohesion and from their sense and their belief that the police are in control of their streets. It does not stem from levels of crime per se. Public confidence is also strengthened when the police treat people fairly, respectfully and honestly, when they take note of what people say and when they engage in local problem-solving alongside local people.
The report recommends a local policing commitment to provide a guaranteed minimum level of neighbourhood policing and a police response within a given time. It also calls for explanations if reported crime is not investigated, regular updating for victims and fair and respectful treatment of everyone who comes into contact with the police, be they victims, witnesses, offenders or complainants. It is recommended that this local policing commitment be guaranteed across the country. It cannot be right that, as at present, in some areas policing is delivered in partnership with local people very much along these lines, but in another neighbouring force the public may have little or no role or input.
There may be 43 police forces but there is only one policing service, and I have always believed that people are entitled to a minimum standard of policing and of police response. That is emphasised in the report and I heartily support it. The concept of there being only one police service also has serious implications for police procurement. I want to say something about this because the present procurement situation is totally unsatisfactory: only 2% of police procurement is carried out at national level. Why does every force need its own distinctive uniform, its own distinctive IT system and its own models of car? This is an area that I believe calls for decisive action at government level to bring as much police procurement as possible under the national procurement hub. We know that the savings could be substantial: the report says up to £50 million. Surely this is something we can all agree on—that where money is tight, we squeeze margins as much as possible and spend money on officers, rather than on having separate force uniforms and particular brands of force cars and equipment.
In this and in other crucial areas, the role of the College of Policing will be very influential and important. I support the creation of the college, and I hope it will become an established and strong feature of the policing landscape. It has a vital role to play in a number of areas; in particular, it has a guiding role in helping individual officers to develop their skills, professional knowledge and expertise. I know that the idea of the chartered police officer has caused some disquiet in the ranks of the Police Federation but the reality is that a police constable, by virtue of his or her role and powers, has a unique and fundamental capacity to affect, for better or worse, the lives of ordinary citizens. Each officer therefore owes it to us, the public, to develop their skills and their expertise to the best of their abilities.
Having sat in a magistrates’ court for 20 years, I have seen how a variety of administrative and behavioural errors committed by individual police officers have resulted in the complete collapse of cases, some potentially quite serious. It was my experience on the bench that led me to the conclusion that the gap between the best police officers and the worst was too wide. That is why I believe that the College of Policing has a really significant role in the continuing professional development of individual officers—which, again, will boost public confidence in the police. I share with the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, the belief that it is confidence that lies at the heart of that strong partnership between the police and the public which characterises British policing, and on which we need to build for the future.
Baroness Harris of Richmond (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, for securing this debate. First, I need to declare my former policing interests, which appear in the register, and that I too was a member, unpaid, of the commission. I also need to tell your Lordships that, perhaps surprisingly, I shall speak on only one part of the report—that of forensic science. I am most grateful for the support and help given to me in this matter by Professor Angela Gallop, our leading forensic scientist, and Keith Fryer from the College of Policing, which is now responsible for training police personnel in this profession.
Forensic science in policing goes back many years. It was originally run by the Home Office from regional laboratories. It then merged into a sort of business arm of government in 2005 in order to make efficiencies and to cut costs. However, police forces were increasingly in-sourcing forensic services. So, by 2010, the Government decided to close the Forensic Science Service and transfer its responsibilities to the NPIA, the former National Policing Improvement Agency, which had been responsible for the forensic procurement to forces until that point. Then the NPIA was disbanded and its responsibilities were transferred to the College of Policing, which is where it now sits within the Home Office and where much of the work of training for in-force forensic specialists is undertaken.
In the mean time, excellent work was going on in the private sector. The national forensic framework agreement was introduced, which categorised services into 14 work packages open for tender to forces. This then became the National Forensic Framework Next Generation and is intended to run until 2016. Regional competitions are run to enable forces to select their preferred forensic science provider, from the 13 within the framework, following the tendering process. There are between two and six providers for each work package. However, the contracts that the commercial providers will bid for are quite short term, which I believe could cause instability, especially when forces are trying to plan long-term. It also may mean that staff could end up moving between suppliers and contractors. There are just so many trained forensic scientists to go around. Indeed, a significant number of forensic science staff have already left the service. What proposals do the Government have to replace this loss of experience and talent?
Therefore, we now have a service to police forces which comprises different forensic science models. Some work is undertaken by the forces themselves. Scientific support managers oversee the use of forensic science in their force. They help to produce strategies for individual cases and with the collection and securing of evidence by scenes of crime officers et cetera. They also help with submissions to the forensic science provider laboratories. Clearly, a huge amount of work needs to be undertaken by forensic scientists but most of that now is provided by the private sector, which has a responsibility to its shareholders rather than to its customers. That is a subtle but vital point to make when considering who the end-user of the service should be.
Materials can be widely dispersed, being kept by both forces and forensic science providers—commercial organisations. DNA databases are back in the Home Office. The Biometrics Commissioner has responsibility for the National DNA Database and the IDENT 1 fingerprint database. The forensic regulator has published his codes of practice and ethics, which provide the standards that will apply to all remaining commercial forensic science suppliers. There is a European initiative to harmonise forensic science across Europe, which is based on the ISO accreditation and will include the police internal forensic services.
The College of Policing is currently developing competence assessments for police service forensic personnel, so it is to be hoped that this initiative will be successful. However, it hardly replaces the full-scale forensic science laboratories that I remember: police were able to be assured of superb quality from scientists trained exclusively to provide a bespoke service to Home Office police forces. I ask my noble friend the Minister: who now will do the research previously undertaken by the Forensic Science Service? Does he think that commercial pressures will stop suppliers sharing findings? For how long does he expect commercial suppliers to remain viable if the police continue to in-source services?
The report states baldly that,
“without a research and development capability, this country will be relegated from its world class status in forensic science innovation and perhaps even more importantly, there will be serious lapses in the quality of forensic interpretation potentially leading to lengthier less successful police investigations and miscarriages of justice”.
So there is a stark choice: invest in research and development or accept that standards may slip.
The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee produced a report in 2011 on the FSS closure, followed up by another report in 2013, to which the Stevens report refers. It had serious concerns about a number of aspects of the service. There was lack of an obvious national forensic science strategy. It was concerned that the market was not robust enough to absorb the forensic science work being outsourced to it. There were threats to research and development, the maintenance of forensic archives, continuity of evidence, impartiality of forensic interpretation and the quality and independence of that evidence. In its most recent report, it stated that some police forensic science laboratories had failed to achieve accreditation to the agreed ISO standard, and that there was a lack of transparency of police expenditure on their in-house forensic science, making it very difficult to see whether any savings had been made. Its conclusion as interpreted by the Stevens report was that,
“in the absence of a strategy for forensic science, and given the present ‘pattern of short-sighted decision–making that led to the demise of the FSS and the creation of an unstable market for the remaining commercial providers’, the present state of affairs jeopardises public confidence in the criminal justice system”.
In short, there is instability in the market, contracts being too large and over a short term. Financial penalties for late delivery of services impact on the employment of forensic scientists, leading to a reluctance to give full-time contracts. There is also a tendency to take on younger, less experienced and therefore cheaper staff. No ISO accreditation is required by the CPS in the Code for Crown Prosecutors in assessing the quality of evidence put before it. There is no standard across all laboratories. Different suppliers are being asked to undertake tests on different aspects of the same case, and this fragmentation is a true recipe for failure. I could go on.
In conclusion I quote Professor Angela Gallop, one of the 40 distinguished independent members of the commission:
“far less work is being commissioned, partly anyway and partly because forces are doing increasing amounts of forensics in their own in-house units”,
which,
“don’t have to be accredited to the same (very expensive) quality standards as external suppliers of these services. In addition, a procurement system has been introduced which has led to huge volumes of work being shifted between one supplier and another”.
In the future, she suggests that the consequences of the current state of affairs will be more cases which cannot be solved and many more miscarriages of justice. This is a serious matter, which I hope the Minister will address urgently.
Lord Condon (CB)
My Lords, I declare my registered interests in policing. For certain aspects of the Stevens report, I was one of the 40 commissioners, although today I shall speak for myself rather than for the commission as a whole.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, for arranging this debate. I agree with almost everything he said in his eloquent opening speech about the Stevens report. This is a serious piece of work, and I hope party politics will not get in the way of giving it the serious consideration it deserves. The most important part of the report is the attempt to restate the role and the purpose of policing. In all aspects of life, form should follow function. One should think about what one is trying to do before one thinks about how one is going to organise oneself to do it.
Policing can succeed and enjoy public confidence with or without elected police and crime commissioners. Policing can also succeed and enjoy public confidence within a national police structure, within a regional structure or with the status quo of over 40 local forces. Neither of these is the big issue. However, policing will not succeed and it will lose public confidence if the role and purpose of policing in the 21st century does not accord and resonate with the history and strengths of policing, and more importantly, with public expectation. That is the big issue and is what I would like to concentrate on.
The independent commission is right that policing should be about more than crime-fighting and should be about a wider agenda to promote safer communities. Preventing and detecting crime is, of course, at the very core of modern policing, and always will be, but it is also vital to promote and maintain order and safety. The noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, and the report have quoted Police Scotland’s policing purpose. It is worth restating that it says,
“the main purpose of policing is to improve the safety and well-being of persons, localities and communities in Scotland”.
It builds on what many of us have been saying for 20 or 30 years. I have been retired now for more than 14 years, but during my time as commissioner I described the role of the Metropolitan Police as:
“Working for a safer London”.
If this is the core role of policing, and it is restated and accepted, it should shape and influence future developments in accountability, organisation, leadership and so much more.
In 1989, I was appointed a young chief constable of Kent, based in headquarters in Maidstone. The week that I arrived all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, the local newspaper had, on its front page, a picture and a large article about the new neighbourhood bobby policing Maidstone town centre. I featured in a small article on about page 8—a one-inch column. It was a valuable lesson for me. Members of the public might have a passing interest in who their chief constable is—or nowadays who is their elected police and crime commissioner—but what really matters to them is whether they have local neighbourhood bobbies with an ongoing responsibility for them, whether they get reassuring, visible police patrolling and whether they get a prompt and courteous response when they have an emergency. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, said, local neighbourhood policing is the vital, fundamental building block of good policing. It must be preserved to ensure public confidence and support. A remote and reactive model of policing, whether driven by philosophy or just out of budgetary need, will lose public support. Crime will rise and public order will be harder to maintain.
Reported crime has been falling since 1995, for which I would like to claim a little credit, having been commissioner from 1993 to 2000. The fall in crime has been based on a partnership model of policing: partnership between police and local communities, between police and local political structures, and between police and local business. It is a truism that whichever party were in power at the moment would have to make draconian cuts to police budgets. However, unless there is a real focus on preserving neighbourhood policing, unwelcome and unintended consequences will follow. They are already bubbling up and starting to happen.
As I said, I was chief constable of Kent and have lived in that county for the past 30 years. Earlier this week, the current chief constable reported its latest crime figures, coinciding with the first year of the elected police and crime commissioner. For the 12 months to the end of October 2013, reported crime was up nearly 10%. Burglary, the crime which worries people the most—having their home or business premises broken into—was up over 25% in one year, which is unprecedented. These rises coincide with budget cuts of £50 million, a reduction of 500 police officers and a reactive form of policing being put in place. Anecdotally, I understand that more than half our police services are now beginning to experience rises in crime coming through in a similar way. You can get away with budget cuts; you can get away with huge cuts in policing; and you can get away with reactive policing for a while—but not for long. It is beginning now to come home to roost.
What, then, should be done, and what does the Independent Police Commission contribute to the debate? First, all parties should accept that the role of policing is broader than detecting crime: it embraces community safety and order. Secondly, neighbourhood policing should be protected and preserved at the heart of policing. Thirdly, one of the most vital partnerships—as others have said—is between local policing and local politics. Whatever organisational or accountability structures are put in place for policing, they must not inhibit police and local politicians sharing information, ideas, policies and the way forward on preventing crime and promoting community safety. Fourthly, as the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, has said, economies of scale, smarter procurement and innovation must start to mitigate the worst excesses of the budget cuts.
It is not impossible for the current elected police and crime commissioners to deliver those reforms. I am not doctrinaire about that; but the early signs are certainly not encouraging. My own view is that Northern Ireland and Scotland probably provide better examples of local policing enshrined within a national framework and I think a gradual evolution within “Police England” and “Police Wales” will probably be the way forward. Economies of scale, smarter procurement, career planning and development of leaders from within and outside the service would all be more effectively achieved within a national model that enshrines local policing—as would dealing with organised crime, terrorism and international policing.
However, I understand the party politics of this; that is probably too big a move to make. At the very least, police and crime commissioners must be relocated in a more collegiate, more productive structure that ensures they work more closely with the real aspects of local politics, local communities and local business to deliver safer communities. The Independent Police Commission is a valuable contribution to the debate. I hope that all parties will respond to these big issues and ideas with the due consideration that the report deserves and I look forward to further debate.
Lord Wasserman (Con)
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, for initiating today’s debate on the much-heralded and long-awaited Stevens report.
I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, on managing to persuade 38 distinguished individuals, including 11 Members of your Lordships’ House, to put their names to a single document. Given what I know about some of the members of his commission, that was no mean achievement, but then I have known the noble Lord for a very long time and have always had the highest regard for his extraordinary leadership skills.
The noble Lord is, however, much more than a great leader. He is also a man of integrity and that, too, is evident in his report. Instead of the usual bromides about Britain having the best police service in the world, this report paints a worrying picture of a police service with serious problems. These include:
“organisational failures and scandals that have badly damaged public confidence in the integrity of the police”,
a system for dealing with competence and misconduct that, the commission says,
“suffers from both a lack of clarity and a lack of transparency to the public”,
and a laid-back attitude to diversity that has led to a situation in which,
“37% of local police forces do not have any women officers of ACPO rank”,
and an even larger proportion of forces—the exact proportion, interestingly, is not specified in the report—does not include any black and minority ethnic officers in their top management teams.
Sadly, the report does not tell us how to solve these problems, despite the fact that it concludes by stating that its recommendations,
“seek to set out a programme of radical reform”.
That must have come as a great disappointment to the Labour Party, which no doubt expected, when it established the commission, that it would be getting a clear, coherent and comprehensive policing policy that it could slot easily into its next manifesto.
Instead, what the report gives us is an extraordinarily interesting and well researched document full of fascinating historical insights and illuminating discussions of constitutional, organisational and other matters. I was particularly taken by the discussion of the challenges and dilemmas in police governance; by the review of the academic studies on the relationship between the size of a police force and its effectiveness; and by the reports of the latest changes in the structures of police forces in the Netherlands, other European countries and elsewhere.
I am sure that anyone who takes the trouble to read this document carefully will share my admiration for its erudition, historical perspective, theoretical underpinnings and thoroughness. This should come as no surprise, given that the document is based not only on the testimony of expert witnesses—including five former Labour Home Secretaries—public hearings, attitude surveys involving members of the public, police officers, PCCs and others, but on 31 position papers produced by 47 academics from 29 different universities in the UK and abroad.
Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, did not produce this document as an academic exercise. As he says of the commission’s recommendations in his closing remarks:
“We hope they will offer a clear steer as to what changes are needed to ensure that the police service is able to meet the demands of the twenty first century”.
I very much regret that on this count the report falls short. Despite the efforts of 47 eminent scholars, or perhaps because of them, the report is strong on options but weak on practical solutions.
For example, the key issue of the structure of the police service of England and Wales has been a matter of contention for as long as there have been police forces in this country. The 1962 Royal Commission on the Police was unable to agree on it. The Stevens commission has done no better. It has no hesitation in saying that the present structure of 43 forces will not do because it is,
“no longer cost effective or equipped to meet the challenges of organised and cross-border crime”.
However, when it comes to suggesting a better solution, the commission leaves us with three familiar options: locally negotiated mergers and collaboration agreements, regionalisation or a national police force. As to which of these is to be preferred, we are told that the best way forward is for detailed proposals to be produced for each of these three options but not limited to these three, and that a wide-ranging consultation should be undertaken with a view to swift implementation. In short, it is the familiar academic proposal: further work needs to be done.
The same approach is taken to the contentious question of the governance of police forces. As noble Lords have pointed out, the commission is adamant that the PCC model is systemically flawed as a method of democratic governance, despite the fact that:
“In a democracy, it is right that the strategic priorities of the police are established by elected politicians not by unelected chief constables”.
Interestingly, as the noble Lord, Lord Harris, pointed out, one of the six reasons listed for rejecting the PCC model is that the present crop of PCCs are overwhelmingly white, male and middle-aged—that is, far too close in ethnic, gender and age composition to the present House of Commons. What does the commission recommend instead of PCCs? Except for ruling out police authorities, it cannot decide. Once again, we are offered three options and told that further work is required.
On diversity, the commission is again clear that the present situation is totally unacceptable, but it has no suggestion for a way forward other than to urge that:
“Greater use should be made of the powers of the 2006 and 2010 equalities legislation”.
Finally, I was particularly disappointed by the commission’s discussion of the present arrangements for providing forces with scientific and technological support—particularly forensic science, which was mentioned by my noble friend—and ICT. I declare an interest as the Home Office official responsible for these services between 1983 and 1995.
On forensic science, the commission is in two minds. On the one hand, it believes that the previous Conservative Government’s policy of,
“opening up forensic sciences to the market has achieved some notable successes in previous intractable cases, reduced turnaround times and eliminated backlogs and resulted in a reduction in pricing of services”.
Notwithstanding these benefits, the commission is unhappy about the present state of forensic science provision, largely because there is no integrated national strategy, as my noble friend has pointed out. What, though, does it recommend? Only this: something needs to be done. That is all it says.
As for the procurement of cost-effective IT, an issue with which the police service has been grappling unsuccessfully since the invention of the computer, the commission says that it is,
“disheartened and dismayed by the recurring criticisms of the police service’s inability to rationalise its procurement of information technology”.
It goes on to say that it,
“cannot emphasise strongly enough the urgent need to”,
attend to and solve these persistent problems. As for a solution, however, the commission comes up with a classic ACPO approach to intractable problems: ask the Home Office to develop a national IT procurement strategy. In other words, this problem is far too difficult for chief constables to solve, even though IT is an operational tool and therefore their responsibility. So let us hand it to the Home Office and watch it fail to solve it.
I am sorry to have ended on a rather negative note. As I have said, there is plenty of interesting material in the Stevens report, and on the whole it is a very good read. Sadly, however, it raises more questions than it solves. For those of us who are impatient to tackle the problems that it identifies, this is disappointing.
Viscount Simon (Lab)
My Lords, I declare that I have been an associate of many police areas for many years and that some are in the register.
British Policing has at its heart the principle of policing by consent and, most importantly, the independent office of constable. Officers are held to account as individuals, answerable to the law. Any fundamental changes to policing must ensure that this independence is maintained and that the public understands that British policing is so much better than fighting crime in isolation. The report suggests that the social purpose of the police should be clearly defined. This is to be welcomed.
Closely linked to this social purpose is the concept of neighbourhood policing, which we have heard from many noble Lords. Neighbourhood policing is about social cohesion, prevention and public confidence. It is a resource-intensive model that, if managed correctly in the long term, brings with it real benefits and cost savings. Prevention is so much better than cure, whether it be cases of anti-social behaviour, domestic violence or burglary. Motorways and airfields should of course be considered as local neighbourhoods, due to their construction, and need the resources accordingly to prevent crime from taking place.
As cuts to budgets to partner agencies take hold, it is of great importance that the police are not just left picking up the pieces of the consequences of a reduction in other areas. The strengthening of statutory provisions in local safety partnerships would assist in this regard.
The public want policing to remain public and to be held to account. The mission creep in private service provision in policing needs to be very carefully examined and considered. It should not be driven purely by a financial consideration. Somewhat outside the consideration of the report but highly relevant to the future of policing, I wonder how we are going to be able to attract the right sort of people to become officers when they will initially earn less than PCSOs and they will have only a five-year contract. Does this send out the right signal?
Policing is a highly respected profession. Any enhancement to provide chartered status or the membership of a professional body must ensure that the officers and staff in policing understand the benefits to them of such bodies. The status needs to be something that officers desire, rather than have imposed upon them. It must include realistic and achievable professional standards. The criteria must in no way interfere with the independence of the office of constable. This area will need careful consideration. An officer must be able to make an arrest based on their sound judgment and discretion, not the need to complete a development requirement.
The royal commission of 1962 examined the number of forces in the country, and there have been numerous suggestions about the correct number ever since. Crime and social mobility have changed beyond all recognition in the digital age, and the police forces need to be structured to meet this challenge in the 21st century.
With collaborations being forged among many forces due to budgetary constraints, the accountability envisaged by the introduction of police and crime commissioners has become blurred. There needs to be examination and debate to come to an agreement on revising the current 43-force structure, which provides local focus with national responsibility. At the same time, we need to look at revising PCCs. The provision of IT and procurement of equipment have long been approached in a piecemeal fashion, as has been mentioned. We need a single strategy to which all forces adhere. The benefits of commonality of systems, remote technologies and purchasing power bring with them efficiencies and improvements of capability, and the savings can be ploughed back into the front line.
Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)
My Lords, I, too, add my thanks to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, for introducing the debate. The report is incredibly useful. Although it is in a sense an academic exercise, it is also a valuable contribution to our discussion of policing today. It also contains some solutions. I pick out, for example, the concept of chartered police officers. That is a very good idea. I fear that the Government’s idea of a code of conduct does not go far enough. A code of ethics will not do as much as a system to charter officers to ensure that if they commit misconduct of any sort, they can be struck off.
The issue of databases is also interesting. There is a technological view of it, but there are much bigger problems with databases. For example, the Met itself has no idea how many databases it has and does not know what is in them. I recently paid £10 and got my police file. It was the most appalling mishmash of trivia that you have ever seen. I have a copy here, if anybody would like to read it. For example, it cites the Metro newspaper, which states:
“London Deputy Mayor Jenny Jones is also encouraging. ‘If you’ve never been’”—
to Critical Mass—
“‘then come along’”.
I will not bore you with the others, which are moderately amusing at times. Here is one which is from a tweet of mine:
“Open-source research indicates that Green Party Member Jenny Jones has tweeted that she a Green Party Mayor candidate is attending the Critical Mass vigil”.
If that is the sort of thing that the police are keeping on their database, we are wasting a lot of police resources. We ought to find out a little more about those databases and what is in them.
There is also the question: why are they keeping a database on an elected person? That is inappropriate, irrespective of the inappropriateness of the information that they are keeping.
I thought before it was introduced that the system of PCCs was badly flawed; I argued against it in many places, but it has happened. Unfortunately, it is too soon to call it a failed experiment. It is failing in many places, partly because of the model of a very strong executive and very weak scrutiny. That just does not work. The PCC is often failing to hold the police to account, and then we have panels that cannot hold the PCC to account. From a democratic and accountability point of view, this has been the most appalling mishmash. Honestly, it is too soon to say that it has failed completely, and it would be appropriate to find a better system before we scrap it altogether.
There is also the suggestion of melding the HMIC and the IPCC into an independent police standards commission. That is an interesting idea, but the fact is, of course, that the IPCC has done some valuable work. What it might be appropriate to do is perhaps to fund it properly for a couple of years and see what it can achieve. It has recently been given more funding, which means that it can employ more inspectors. It also perhaps ought to employ fewer ex-police officers. If it were funded properly, it could probably do its job properly. That is one recommendation that perhaps lacks a little sharpness.
Although this was, in a sense, an academic exercise, policing is not academic; it is a reality. As we debate today, there are real policing problems around SOAS and the University of London, where students are protesting, and where a lot of messages, tweets and e-mails are going out saying that the police are being brutal. This is happening here on our streets in London now, and we, I think, are failing the Met by not giving it very clear instructions about how to behave in circumstances like these. It is extremely worrying that this is happening at the moment. I would probably normally be up there and not here. I would be up there trying to talk to the Met and to students to find out what is going on, and if anything can be done to make the situation better.
The report is interesting to read. It has lots of valuable stuff in it, and one or two of the things, I think, could be done immediately. It might be a gesture of real solidarity across the Chamber if some of these suggestions were taken up.
Baroness Berridge (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for obtaining today’s debate, and many of my comments on the roles and responsibilities of the police are informed by my experience at the moment on the Parliamentary Police Service scheme. I am thoroughly enjoying this insight into the amazing work that our police do, and I have serious respect for teams like Team A at Peckham, who take a risk every time they answer a 999 call.
I was warned that I would hear a lot about the Winsor Review from the police, but I did not. I have heard much about kit. A Met police kit is like Marmite. They either love it—“Great kit!”—or hate it—“Rubbish kit”. I commend the recommendations concerning procurement, to which I will return, along with Policing Generation Y: Governance and Diversity in the Police.
First, I will speak about the report itself. I was curious about this commission, which said it was independent but had no statutory or parliamentary basis; nor was it conducted under the auspices of the All-Party Policing Group, which the noble Lord so ably chairs. I tried to read the results with an open mind. As I read, I thought my main concern would be the lack of female involvement in the report. Perhaps 11 women out of 39 commissioners is considered enough, but I thought it was disappointing. As only four out of the 26 witnesses who gave evidence to this inquiry were women, I wondered if it was truly representative. Liberty, I note, was helpful, as it brought 50% of the women who gave evidence to the commission.
What holes this report below the plumb line, in my view, is that it fails to live up to the basic tenet that the police are the public, and the public are the police. I looked carefully at the appendices to see who had inputted, and most of the written submissions were from the police themselves. There is much academic input, as the noble Lords have noted. Surveys of police personnel totalled more than 20,000 responses. Along with all these inquiries, the best evidence is always live witnesses. None were members of the public, victims or representatives of victims’ groups. Again, they were police, politicians or NGOs. The main vehicle used by the commission to obtain evidence from the public was a telephone survey by YouGov of only 2,000 people—less than 10% of the number of the police in their survey.
This mistake is easily made. On the Joint Committee on Human Rights, on which I serve, at the eleventh hour we realised that, to prepare a report on unaccompanied migrant children, we needed to hear from unaccompanied migrant children. I recognise fully the academic expertise in this report, but, with so much evidence from the police and a few NGOs and so little from the public, this imbalance causes me to treat any conclusions with a considerable degree of caution.
The report states:
“For most people it is likely that their own ward, town or village is the more meaningful unit when considering local policing than whole force areas”.
This comment brings into focus an issue not covered by the commission: what is this “meaningful unit” of policing for Generation Y, who live socially networked lives and are not primarily geographically connected, and where crimes committed via their phone or through Facebook are perhaps more likely than crimes in their neighbourhood? The report contains no serious engagement with technology as a means to report crime, which is what younger generations are going to require. Reporting a crime via an app to British Transport Police is much safer than calling if an incident is taking place in the train carriage in which you are sitting.
More helpfully, the report considers the lack of ethnic diversity in the police service. As this is such a key issue, I would have welcomed much more comment and analysis on it, and more input from black and minority ethnic officers, who responded in very low numbers to the survey. If the recommendation for further involvement of the Equality and Human Rights Commission would help matters, it should of course be taken up. Reflecting the people whom you police should be specifically included in any new Peelian principles, as it is essential nowadays to policing by consent. There is urgency to this issue, as I wonder for how much longer all-white surveillance teams, which I have seen, will not stick out like a sore thumb. The commission does not deal with the lack of ethnic diversity on the board of the College of Policing, which contains no black person, or the lack of independent members. This is a serious concern if, as the commission suggests, the college is to take on some form of registration or regulatory role.
The commission seeks to resurrect the issue of the governance of the police. On page 87 of the report, it indicates its preferred option of,
“an indirectly elected Policing Board”.
It would comprise the leaders of local authorities. The police and crime commissioners have not yet served a full term; it is just not sufficient time to judge whether the new model works. The proposed police board, with only the leaders of local authorities on it, is going back in time to the days when only local politicians and magistrates were involved in governance. That did not work and independent members were added to authorities. Leaders of local authorities are no less susceptible to the “recipe for conflict” cited by the commission as a reason to reject one of the models; namely, an elected chair and the indirectly elected board.
There will probably be deep political divisions between those local authority leaders, especially if there is any future merging of the 43 police areas. The policing board in the report would set the overall budget, which risks the same kind of shutdown that the USA sees when the parties fall out. The main argument raised against the PCCs is that the size of constituency is a problem. That argument is not substantiated in the report. As the introduction by the previous Government of the London mayoral office has shown, such an office can cut through the local government boroughs that can hamper a vision for an area. I see no reason why the PCCs cannot do just that.
Finally, I return to kit. It is obvious that money can be saved by national procurement of equipment, but it must be practical and it must be tested. Is the Met Police uniform really suitable for modern-day policing? Carrying kit on belts causes back problems for officers in foot chases, and if you are buying two pieces of technology to bolt together, you should check that they work when they are bolted together—which is a complaint of the traffic police. One of the basic tools is the CAD system—Computer Aided Dispatch—which feeds the information to screens in the car from the 999 call at the centre. I am informed that this is an old British Airways baggage handling system. I think that that says it all.
I have commended what I can of this report, but may it serve as a lesson to all in your Lordships’ House that inquiries and commissions should seek directly the views of the public if they are to have any long-term validity.
The Earl of Lytton (CB)
My Lords, I too welcome the opportunity to debate this report. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey, for that and to the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, for his work and for the work of his commission members as far as it goes.
We can all agree that good policing is of vital importance to all of us. My starting point is the historic understanding that policing would not be subject to political interference but would be self-governing. This meant that the police were also self-co-ordinating and self-managing in policy and operational terms.
The Association of Chief Police Officers—ACPO—effectively moved into that role as the embodiment of senior ranks, guardians of its professionalism and integrity and of police management. That embodiment remains pivotal. It advises the Home Office, represents Britain abroad in Interpol and Europol and co-ordinates the 43 police forces across England and Wales. In this role it issues guidance, directions and advice which carry great authority and are used in legal proceedings. It seems to me still to have a controlling if no longer a monopoly influence in the College of Policing and thereby a major say in policy, while retaining operational matters to itself. Its members and directors are senior police officers.
Given this unique and authoritative pan-police oversight, why do we continue to see instances of widespread and critical failings, manipulation of crime figures, falsification of evidence and perversions of the course of justice that are routinely reported and have attracted the scrutiny of two if not three of the major Select Committees in the other place? For all the inquiries, codes of practice, reports, debates and judicial investigations over many years, why is ACPO membership apparently unable to manage policing and why has police-on-police investigation persisted for so long?
ACPO Ltd, as I believe it is properly called, with its trading subsidiaries and affiliates, involves serving officers. They include areas of procurement, and I will pause there, road safety, vehicle crime, data on individuals—I will pause there, too—security systems, security accreditation and many others. I know of about 20 but I believe that there are far more. Many are commercial enterprises for gain. They derive from paid public office but where does the money go?
Recently, the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, whose members pay about £4.2 million into ACPO Ltd and have been asked to stump up more, commissioned General Sir Nick Parker to advise on value for money for that sum. He was not asked to look at the wider issues or allied commercial operations of ACPO Ltd, which in 2009 generated over £9 million from the sale of data alone. Neither does this ICP report look into that. But there are many question marks. For instance, ACPO Ltd Criminal Records Office merchandises data on individuals derived from police national computer records. Its website curiously stipulates that payments for search services go through the Hampshire police and crime commissioner’s bank account. I am not clear whether parallel arrangements affect other areas of activity or how they affect PCC independence but I am curious.
The application of the harassment Act seems to be another area where, despite ACPO guidance, forces give an impression that they do as they please, and there are similar queries in many other areas of ACPO and police activity. The legality of some ACPO guidance has been queried by the courts. It is not therefore just a question of individual professionalism; I believe it is one of corporate integrity that we need to concentrate on. In all this there are huge potential conflicts of interest—commercially, professionally and in operational self-governance at the most senior level. I do not believe that the measures suggested in this report will overcome these. Furthermore, I believe that trustworthy and diligent officers are afraid to speak out because there is an utterly inadequate whistleblower facility. Such a situation clearly cannot continue. Political courage and resolve are needed. I therefore have several questions for the Minister, starting with some on transparency.
First, how can we ensure that senior officers are seen to be and remain free from bias? Secondly, should they be involved at all with parallel commercial activity, especially in the areas of procurement, accreditation and selling data? Thirdly, is there a case for a mandatory register of officer interests via an independent registrar with a power to insist on divestment in appropriate circumstances? Fourthly, how many ACPO Ltd operations, subsidiaries and affiliates are there, what do they do and what happens to the money they generate? Can we have a list of them and details of their accounts placed in the Library?
Fifthly, how many directives, guidance notes and advisory documents are issued by ACPO to police forces and to others, how are they used, what peer reviews occur and what is their status in legal proceedings? Can we have a list of the current ones in the Library, please? Sixthly, what are the principles for the gathering, storage, use and merchandising of personal data by the police and how many databases are actually in use, centrally or by individual force, or indeed by ACPO Ltd, its subsidiaries and affiliates? Who is being allowed access, on payment or otherwise, to this information? What further steps to ensure proper oversight do the Government intend to put in place?
Finally, on the other point that I have raised, can the Minister tell us whether a fully independent ombudsman or whistleblower commissioner cannot be set up so as to be a safe, confidential and effective conduit for concerns? In the round, does the Minister not agree that it is high time for a thorough, fully independent and rapid investigation into these matters, perhaps by a senior criminal judge unconstrained by the terms of reference? If so, it seems to me that before we go much further with the recommendations of this report, there is some more fundamental work to be done so as to restore confidence in a vital national institution.
Lord Rosser (Lab)
Like other speakers, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Harris of Haringey for securing this debate. Although it was us who asked the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, to set up the commission on the future of policing in England and Wales some two years ago, because we believed a positive vision of policing for the 21st century was needed, it has been an independent commission, and the report and recommendations are those of the commission and not of any other individuals or organisations.
We are extremely appreciative of all the hard work over a two-year period that the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, and his colleagues have undertaken, and also wish to thank all those many people who so willingly gave their time and the benefit of their expertise and knowledge, whether through surveys, public meetings, written submissions and papers or evidence-gathering sessions.
I have also listened with interest to the key points of the welcome contributions to the debate—contributions, of course, of differing enthusiasm for the commission’s recommendations. The report contains 37 recommendations. Some of them propose further work, some include options. We have already said that we will consult widely on the recommendations made before we set out details for our manifesto, recognising the need to ensure that measures are fully funded. We expect, though, to implement the vast majority of these recommendations.
In its report, the commission referred to the dramatic changes there have been in British society since the Royal Commission on the Police reported just over 50 years ago in 1962, and the inevitable impact that such major economic, social and political changes have on policing. The commission also set out the challenges facing policing. The social transformations, new forms of criminal activity and changing patterns of crime, anti-social behaviour, damaged public confidence in the integrity of the police as a result of individual high-profile cases where policing has gone wrong, and the impact of budget cuts are among those challenges.
The commission also draws attention to some of the government reforms that have directly affected the police. It regarded some, such as changes to police officers’ pay and conditions, and the creation of the College of Policing, as important and necessary. It was less enthusiastic about others, such as elected police and crime commissioners. The commission concluded, however, that the Government have created a stand-off with the police service that has left officer morale at rock bottom.
On structures, the commission concluded that few believed that 43 separate forces were either cost-effective or adequately equipped to meet today’s challenges, while recognising that there was no consensus on a better alternative. Among the commission’s other fundamental concerns was the risk of outsourcing to the private sector key aspects of policing in an ad hoc and unprincipled manner, and the danger of the police service retreating to a discredited model of reactive policing, with neighbourhood policing responsive to the concerns of local communities being threatened.
The commission concluded that the Government had made the wrong calls in areas where they have acted over police purpose and governance, while not addressing key issues, such as police standards, misconduct and structures, where reform was required. The commission has set out its vision of how to deliver fair and effective policing, taking into account the fact that there is unlikely to be more money to spend on the police service. This is a vision of a police service with a social purpose that combines catching offenders with work to prevent crime, and the promotion and maintaining of order with the local policing area as the core unit and building block of fair and effective policing.
It is clear from the commission’s findings that British policing cannot continue on its current course and that significant reforms are needed. The shadow Home Secretary has already indicated our position on a number of key points in the commission’s report, which I intend to reiterate.
Policing should be rooted in local communities, and we endorse the commission’s emphasis on neighbourhood policing and the wider social justice purpose of policing. We agree too with the importance of local accountability, building stronger partnerships and greater democratic accountability at a more local level. As with all public services, policing is most effective when it reflects the views and voices of those that it needs to serve.
On force governance the commission has set out options to replace the current model of police and crime commissioners. The question is not whether to reform, but how to reform, and that is an issue that will be an important part of our consultations. We also believe in the importance of effective partnerships; at a time when all public services face financial pressures, working in partnership and collaboration matters more than ever.
The commission has set out options for reform on structures and partnerships between forces. Our preference is for a voluntary and collaborative approach involving local communities, and we want to see more work done on savings that can be made to plough back into policing. We will not support a national force, as that would be too large, too centralised and the wrong approach.
On standards and professionalism there is a need to deal quickly and effectively with problems when they arise to ensure that confidence in the police and policing is not undermined. The present system does not do this. The body in charge of misconduct is not strong enough; the remedies are not clear; too often in serious cases the police are perceived as investigating themselves; and the whole system takes too long.
We welcome the commission’s proposals to value and develop the professionalism of officers and staff, and agree that the College of Policing should be strengthened and extended. We welcome the measures to deal swiftly with problems, to ensure that police officers found guilty of serious misconduct can be struck off, as professionals are in other fields. We welcome much stronger powers of investigation and inspection. We have argued for some time that the IPCC should be replaced by a stronger body. The commission’s proposals for bringing together the work done by the Independent Police Complaints Commission and HMIC also provide a valuable way to deal with the gaps and the duplication in the current system, and better to focus resources on standards.
We welcome the recognition that there should be limits on private contracts in the interests of public confidence. Private companies should not be patrolling public streets. We welcome too the emphasis that the commission has placed on new technology, addressing growing cybercrime and making the police more efficient. In helping to ensure a safe and decent society, our police are of crucial importance. Having seen some of the realities of police work at first hand, I certainly have great respect for police officers, including those who have to deal with situations that very few of us would wish to have to confront. While the evidence that the commission gathered revealed a number of problems and challenges that confront the police service it also, as the commission said, highlighted success stories of which the police service can be proud such as counterterrorism and the policing of the Olympics.
The need now is to deliver a positive vision for policing for the future with policies based on evidence, and to deliver reforms, which will be most effective if they can be built on a broad consensus. That is what we believe the Stevens commission has delivered, and that is what we will seek to take forward.
Earl Attlee (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Harris, on securing this timely debate as it gives me an opportunity to update your Lordships on progress. I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s work, even if I do not always agree with his views.
Our police are among the best in the world. They maintain law and order, often by putting themselves in harm’s way, but maintain a strong sense of fairness and duty. This is my first major speech on policing, either in government or in opposition. I want to put on record my sincere appreciation for the work of the police, especially at a junior level at the sharp end. Your Lordships will be aware that I have some experience of disciplined, uniformed service as a volunteer in our Army Reserve. However, it is important to understand that we keep the two services separate and that they are very different. There is no organisational connection between the two as there is in other countries. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, observed, our police are purely civil.
Police organisations are generally always operational, and every day that a PC goes on duty he does not know what will happen. I wish at this point to offer my condolences to the families of the officers who lost their loved ones in Glasgow last Friday: Police Constable Tony Collins, Police Constable Kirsty Nelis, and Captain David Traill. In addition, our thoughts are with the officer who was shot in West Yorkshire yesterday.
Policing is a vital public service. The noble Lord, Lord Stevens, himself a distinguished former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has spent two years looking into policing. I welcome his views and I join the noble Lord, Lord Harris, in praising him. However, I would not go as far as to call it a royal commission. I can well understand the gentle tease that came from my noble friend Lord Wasserman.
The Government are undertaking the most radical reforms in the history of policing. We inherited a system of policing that was out of date in modern society. It was out of touch with the public it served and was out of shape. The tough fiscal climate demanded better ways of working. My noble friend Lord Wasserman touched on several problems with BME and female representation, as did my noble friend Lady Berridge. To put that right we scrapped targets, restoring officers’ ability to use their professional judgment on how to fight crime. We gave people a real say over policing by introducing directly elected police and crime commissioners. We empowered local communities to hold policing to account through crime maps via the police.uk website. A more independent Inspectorate of Constabulary shines a stronger light on police performance. We are improving policing skills and professionalism through the College of Policing and we are reforming pay and conditions. We have established the National Crime Agency, which builds on and improves on SOCA, which the party opposite created to lead the fight against serious and organised crime. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, referred to some of the emerging challenges for policing.
We have delivered this while having to reduce Home Office police funding by 20% over four years. Our reforms are working. Recorded crime has fallen more than 10% and the independent crime survey shows crime has more than halved since 1995. However, as the Economist noted in July, there is less agreement about why crime has fallen. The report benefited from the input of several prominent criminologists, and I think that the House will be disappointed that we did not get their take on why this is happening—because it is happening all around the developed economies in the world—and what it means for our policing.
There is strong evidence that effective, targeted policing can reduce crime locally. We are tackling the underlying drivers of crime—for example, by reshaping our approach to alcohol, tackling illicit and harmful drug use, and legislating to give the police, councils and others more effective powers to nip anti-social behaviour in the bud.
Our reforms are not complete. The next phase will transform front-line policing to ensure it delivers more effectively. We have set out a vision of digital policing by 2016. This goes beyond the Stevens recommendations of mobile access to police systems—many forces already have this potential. We are harnessing technology to enable officers to spend more time out in communities, providing a better service to the public. Thirty forces have signed up to be digital pathfinders; they aim to become fully digital by testing and developing the required capabilities.
We are improving how policing works with other parts of the criminal justice system. A Strategy & Action Plan to Reform the Criminal Justice System, published in June, sets out how this will happen, including through improved use of technology, streamlining processes and ensuring a joined-up approach. For example, pilots are under way to develop and test digital case files which will mean that information on cases can flow seamlessly between CJS partners.
The report rightly makes much of the need for integrity in policing. I welcome its recognition that our reforms of police pay and conditions are “necessary and overdue”. The report endorses our aspiration to enhance the status of policing as a profession, and welcomes the creation of the College of Policing. The college will introduce a national register of officers struck off from the police; it is consulting on a draft code of ethics that will be issued in the new year which will make clear the standards of behaviour expected of officers, and make them more worthy of the public’s trust. The college is consulting on membership, but it is important to understand that this is a professional body for the police, and not an inspectorate or complaints body. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, for her support for the college’s CPD role.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, suggested that the code of ethics did not go far enough. The code is based on standards of professional behaviour which are binding on the police, as are the police regulations. The code will be embedded in forces and present throughout officers’ careers.
There is plenty in the report about what is wrong with policing, and about management. However, I was very surprised that there is very little about leadership. This is an unfortunate omission. Through direct entry, we seek to attract the best people into policing from diverse backgrounds, and the college has a key role in providing leadership across policing. My noble friend Lord Wasserman also explored what was missing from the report—which was quite a lot. He said that it was a very good read; I agree with that sentiment. My noble friend Lady Berridge had something to say on that as well.
On outsourcing, I can assure the noble Viscount, Lord Simon, and others that the Government have made it clear that there is no intention for private companies to carry out activities that require warranted powers, except to the extent already legislated for by the previous Government. On procurement, we already require the police to buy vehicles, body armour, and off-the-shelf IT through national agreements. Better procurement has saved more than £100 million to date. I also point out that it is much easier for adjacent PCCs to co-operate on procurement than it was under the old police authority model. We are already seeing examples of this.
There are, however, some important points of divergence between the Government and the report. We do not believe that the police need a statutory social purpose. It is precisely by cutting crime that the police make a wider positive social impact—not the other way around. Neighbourhood policing is not under threat, as was suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Harris. The Government have no policy against neighbourhood policing; that is a matter for the PCC and the chief constable. The proportion of officers in front-line functions has increased under this Government, from 88.9% in March 2010 to 90.6% in March 2013, as observed by my noble friend Lady Browning. We slashed red tape so that officers can spend more time in neighbourhoods rather than behind their desks.
An effective PCC will work closely with many stakeholders: the police are only part of his remit. I am sure that a competent PCC would not allow his police force to retreat into becoming a purely reactive force. As the noble Lord, Lord Harris, implied, it would be a recipe for disaster in the short term, and in the longer term it could create problems at the ballot box.
My noble friend Lady Browning told us about the danger of bureaucracy in the police sector and the benefits of outcomes, and how a good PCC will set outcomes, not targets. The noble Lord, Lord Harris, when he was talking about social purposes, pointed out that the code of ethics is clear that officers must engage with their communities and understand their priorities.
We disagree that PCCs should be abolished, and so does the Labour PCC for Greater Manchester, Tony Lloyd, who is an experienced parliamentarian. Last week he told the Home Affairs Select Committee that the Stevens report did not take account of the kind of things that PCCs are doing now that would not have been done under the old police authority model. Many noble Lords have claimed that the report is evidence based, and the noble Baroness, Lady Henig, said that the evidence was compelling. But it is not clear to me how that can be in respect of PCCs, given that they have been in place for only about a year.
My noble friend Lady Browning suggested that the report was premature. However, we agree that local democratic accountability is important and needs to be defended and extended. This does not square with the recommendation to replace the simplicity and visibility of directly elected PCCs with a bureaucratic smorgasbord which splits accountability between lower-tier local authorities and a new force-level policing board, each with overlapping responsibilities. This takes power away from the people and puts it back in the hands of committees. Furthermore, as you take bureaucracy down even more to a local level, you run the risk of getting into operational matters.
We face tough and immediate challenges that cannot be delayed. We learnt lessons from where others had failed, and we put a statutory duty on PCCs and chief constables to collaborate in the interests of efficiency and effectiveness. It is working. For example, according to HMIC, Warwickshire and West Mercia’s strategic alliance will allow them to achieve 75% and 94% of their respective spending review savings by 2014-15. We are introducing a police innovation fund worth £50 million a year to stimulate further collaboration from 2014-15, with a £20 million precursor fund available in 2013-14.
Standards and integrity are vital to maintaining public trust in policing, but collapsing two separate organisations with distinct missions—the IPCC and HMIC—into one super-regulator is not the answer. A new name plaque will not tackle the underlying issues. This is why the Government legislated to make the inspectorate more independent and strengthened the IPCC. It is also why the Home Secretary announced a package of measures in February to improve police integrity, committing to transfer resources to the IPCC to enable it to deal with all serious and sensitive cases. The IPCC will begin to take on additional cases from next year, which will put an end to the police investigating the police in such cases. I hope that that will please the noble Earl, Lord Lytton.
I will try to answer as many questions as possible, but where I do not, I will write to the noble Lord, Lord Harris, and to all other noble Lords who have contributed to the debate. Some noble Lords have suggested that there is a fall in confidence in the police, but even at the height of the Andrew Mitchell affair, 82% of respondents to a survey said that they were very likely or fairly likely to believe officers speaking either on television or on the streets while on duty. But we are not complacent. The noble Lord, Lord Condon, referred to the Kent crime figures. However, it was the Kent PCC who called in HMIC to examine Kent’s crime statistics. HMIC’s findings led to a review of Kent’s crime recording practice, which led to the rise in local recorded crime levels that the noble Lord referred to. Thanks to the PCC and HMIC, Kent is now judged to have a much improved adherence to crime recording guidelines.
My noble friend Lady Harris of Richmond made an important contribution about forensic science. The lack of a single strategy on forensic science does not prevent providers and Government working together to make improvements. For example, recent successes include electronic transmission of fingerprints, the Forensic Science Regulator code of practice and the use of mobile devices to check fingerprints out on the streets.
My noble friend Lord Wasserman talked about BME and female representation. The Government want the police to be more representative of the community they serve. Direct entry into the police brings the opportunity of a new route into the police, which may have the potential to improve the numbers of underrepresented groups in the higher ranks. My noble friend will know that the College of Policing is responsible for the direct entry schemes that will start next year.
The noble Lord, Lord Condon, suggested that we need more partnership working in policing. The Police and Social Responsibility Act 2011 requires PCCs and community safety partnerships to co-operate. PCCs are already working with community safety partnerships to make communities safer. That is one of their roles other than policing.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, talked about police databases. While I cannot comment on the particular databases that the noble Baroness mentioned, I can say that the Government would expect the police to use databases to fight crime, not to collect trivia. As for the police national computer, I can reassure the House that it is illegal to perform speculative searches or to pass information to those who do not need to see it or know about it.
The noble Viscount, Lord Simon, asked whether we would attract the right police recruits, in view of what he suggested was low pay, and the five-year contracts. Police officers will continue to be better paid than most comparable workers, and chief constables have discretion on starting salaries to ensure that officers can always be paid more than PCSOs. There is no plan, and no proposal, to introduce fixed-term contracts for officers below chief officer ranks, and FTAs will apply only to chief constables and deputy chief constables.
My noble friends Lady Harris of Richmond and Lord Wasserman talked about the Forensic Science Service. The noble Baroness asked me what proposals the Government had to replace loss of experience in the FSS. Private sector forensic suppliers are now carrying out the work formerly done by the FSS. The Government’s priorities are clear: to ensure that the police have the services they need to solve crime, and to provide value for public money. Employment of scientific staff therefore has to reflect the size, shape and make-up of the forensic market that the police and the criminal justice system require.
My noble friend Lady Harris asked who would now do the research previously undertaken by the FSS. The UK’s criminal justice system will continue to be fully supported by the necessary technology, with research and development driven by commercial providers in response to the needs of the CJS. I understand that more than £3 million has been spent on research by the largest providers. She also asked whether the Government thought that commercial pressures would stop suppliers sharing research findings. As in other scientific fields, forensic knowledge is built up through publication of research findings. There may be occasions when suppliers will wish to preserve confidentiality or to obtain patents on new technology for commercial reasons, but this is also true of the FSS. The accreditation of laboratories was also mentioned; I intend to discuss this with the appropriate Minister at the Home Office.
The noble Earl, Lord Lytton, talked about whistleblowing. The code of ethics makes it clear that officers are required to report and challenge unacceptable behaviour in their colleagues. It emphasises that they will be supported by the force when they do so. He also asked a number of important questions about ACPO and some commercial activities of ACPO-controlled organisations. Since the move of national business areas to the College of Policing, ACPO does not—or should not—issue any directives, guidance notes or advisory documents. An exception to this is the ACPO central FOI unit, but it offers guidance to forces merely on FOI responses, not on operational matters.
The best way of dealing with some of the other issues that the noble Earl raised would be in a comprehensive letter. However, officers of chief officer rank are under the same ethical obligations as other officers. The noble Earl also asked about ACPO control of the college and ACPO business areas, but he will have to look forward to my letter.
I have just received further advice which will enable me to be more forthcoming. Business area leads will work co-operatively with the college in the interests of the police and the public. Guidance will be published and taken forward by the college. ACPO no longer has responsibility for such guidelines. The three ACPO members of the board of directors of the college will be distinguished, experienced officers and will not act in the capacity of ACPO officers.
In conclusion, I welcome the opportunity that this report has provided to reflect on the priorities around police reform. There is more in the report than I have been able to address, but I have no doubt that the debate around how to reform one of our most important public services will continue. When the Government embarked on their reform programme three and a half years ago, there was much disagreement about the need for reform. This report now shows us why reform was required.
Lord Harris of Haringey
My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have contributed to this interesting and important debate. We should congratulate the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and welcome him to the world of policing. I am sure that we will hear many more contributions from him on this subject. I am sure that the whole House would want to add its voice to the condolences he expressed for not only the police officers killed in the Glasgow helicopter crash but all the others who died as a consequence and, of course, we express our sympathy for the officer who was shot in a separate incident.
Perhaps I may make one or two comments in response to the debate. From time to time, there was an implication that the commission was not genuinely independent. Having spent four years as chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority trying to keep under control or to restrain the noble Lord, Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington, I have to say that anyone who thinks that he will not be independent, and would not have been independent under all these circumstances, is living under some misapprehension. I also note with interest that although members of the Conservative Party were invited to participate in the commission, none were prepared to do so.
I also note that the commission went out of its way to consult the public about some of the issues that it raised. My noble friend Lady Henig and the noble Baroness, Lady Harris of Richmond, were responsible for taking a sort of roadshow around the country, listening to voices. In that context, I think that the Labour Party is planning a roadshow of at least 50 meetings around the country to look at some of these recommendations, which demonstrates the commitment that there needs to be to consulting the public about making major changes in their police service.
I was interested that there was such a preoccupation about structures, and government structures in particular, in the debate. Perhaps it was my fault for even mentioning the subject in my speech, although most of it was about other matters. I was also interested in the suggestion made by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that it was a bad idea to merge public bodies such as Her Majesty’s inspectorate and the Independent Police Complaints Commission. I remember many happy hours in your Lordships’ Chamber debating what is now the Public Bodies Act, which seemed to consist largely of merging various public bodies. That argument by the Government needs to be looked at again, although the wider issues of whether this merger should go ahead would be part of the consultation.
A number of your Lordships suggested that it was premature to abolish police and crime commissioners because the jury is still out. I hope that the jury will return fairly soon. I understand that the Government are contemplating bringing forward legislation in the next Session of Parliament to extend the powers of police and crime commissioners. If that is the case, perhaps the same argument should apply and we should wait a little longer to see whether this experiment should be extended.
However, the key issue in the report and in this debate for me is what the police do, the style of policing and the need for a focus on the neighbourhood. That is the message which comes across throughout this full, extensive and, in my view, independent report, and which we all need to take forward from today’s debate.
Banking: Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards
(11 years ago)
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The Archbishop of Canterbury
That this House takes note of the Reports of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards (1st Report, Session 2012–13, HL Paper 98), Banking Reform: towards the right structure (2nd Report, Session 2012–13, HL Paper 126), Proprietary Trading (3rd Report, Session 2012–13, HL Paper 138), “An accident waiting to happen”: The failure of HBOS (4th Report, Session 2012–13, HL Paper 144) and Changing Banking for Good (1st Report, Session 2013–14, HL Paper 27).
The Archbishop of Canterbury
My Lords, your Lordships are asked to take note of the work of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. I speak not only on my behalf but on that of some of the commissioners who, for various reasons, cannot be here. I should add that it is coincidental and owing to constraints of the diary that this debate falls so neatly between Report and the Third Reading next week of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill. I am particularly looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington of Fulham. I am sure his contribution will be significant given his vast experience in another place, especially on the Treasury Select Committee.
In 2008, the Chancellor of the Exchequer found himself faced late one night with the choice of commitment of large sums of money—hundreds of billions of pounds—or of the collapse of almost everything in our society that makes money real, as the banks ran into a collective wall. In the years since, scandal after scandal has become apparent. Out of these vast events arose what was described as,
“a profound loss of trust born of profound lapses in banking standards”,
and thus the formation of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. The breadth of the task laid at the commission’s feet is hard to overstate. As one can read on the first page of each of the five reports published by the commission, it was appointed,
“to consider and report on professional standards and culture of the UK banking sector, taking account of regulatory and competition investigations into the LIBOR rate-setting process, lessons to be learned about corporate governance, transparency and conflicts of interest, and their implications for regulation and for Government policy and to make recommendations for legislative and other action”.
As further incidents came to light and Bills came forward, the commission was tasked with investigating the incidents and with pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bills. It was initially said that it would be all over by Christmas—last Christmas. I hope we shall hit it this year. The work was extensive. It involved many hundreds of hours of oral evidence and thousands of questions asked, with a majority answered. Seven volumes of our final report, Changing Banking for Good, are dedicated entirely to the written and oral evidence received.
Neither the quantity nor the quality of the material produced could have been achieved had it not been for a commission made up of such outstanding colleagues, with a great deal of experience, who worked so determinedly together. Their dedication and insight has been immense. I pay special mention to the Member for Chichester, under whose chairmanship we were led with great expertise and forthrightness, and a certain amount of sheer nerve and chutzpah in the way that the commission went forward. I also put on record the enormous debt of gratitude that I and my colleagues at both ends of the Palace owe to the staff that supported the work of the commission. They came from government and the private sector and included counsel. They worked night and day, in a new form of inquiry. We are also much in debt to the work already done by Sir John Vickers and his Independent Commission on Banking, whose recommendations on structural reform were the foundation of our own work.
Our first report provided the pre-legislative scrutiny for the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill. We made recommendations to strengthen the proposed legislation, as well as suggesting further necessary measures to enhance the stability of the banking system.
In our second report, Banking Reform: Towards the Right Structure, we considered the Government’s response to our first report and, somewhat unusually, proposed amendments further to improve the Bill in a number of key areas, many of which have now been accepted. Our third and fourth reports focused on specific examples from the banking system that were especially concerning to us.
In the report entitled Proprietary Trading, we examined the effect of one particular banking activity on the culture and standards in banks. We welcome the breadth of the review into proprietary trading that the government amendments announced today appear to allow for. We hope that nothing will delay the timetable that is set out within the amendments, so that the PRA and independent reviews of proprietary trading can be completed most effectively and any necessary action taken as quickly as possible. I will return to that point in a few moments.
The next report, ‘An Accident Waiting to Happen’: The Failure of HBOS, is a case study of bank failure—and one of remarkable quality. The work on this was led exclusively by the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, whose vast experience and forensic skills were stretched considerably as the paper mounted up, but whose work is foundational to understanding this crisis. While not making specific recommendations, it serves as a stark reminder of the many aspects of poor banking standards and culture that pervaded the industry in the run-up to, during and following the great crisis of 2007-08.
Our fifth and final report, Changing Banking for Good, outlines the radical reform required to improve standards across the banking industry and presented Government, the regulators and the industry with a package of recommendations which, taken together, will raise standards and drive positive cultural change, ultimately changing banking for good.
Although we have made progress on structural and regulatory aspects of banking reform, through an enormous amount of work by your Lordships in this House, if we think that by changing the law we have solved the problems revealed by the crisis, we are profoundly mistaken. In this light, I wish to focus on those parts of our work that cannot be implemented through legislation or regulation but require cultural change within our banks.
As any vicar will tell you, a sermon should have three main points. I hope that your Lordships do not feel that you are being preached at today, but I wish to ask three questions which must be answered if we are to cut to the heart of how the rotten culture was found to be in the banking industry and how it can be changed for good.
The first question is the most essential: what is our vision for banking? We—not only the commission but legislators, regulators, bankers and society at large—have been tasked to find a once-in-a-generation leap of imagination that does not simply attempt to repair what was destroyed in 2008 but to replace it with something that is of substantial and lasting value. A vision for banking that is sustainable and of value needs to offer the possibility of a flourishing society at every level of the economy, through investment, lending and understanding the communities in which the banks work—a vision that enables all banks to respond better to their customers and to the well-being of society. Without good banking, savings stagnate in fetid pools of hoarding, and good ideas and entrepreneurial vigour wither without the water of capital and liquidity. Such is the state into which we have been growing for many years, which is one—although only one—contributory factor to inequality, social immobility and areas of the country being condemned to generations of poverty and deprivation.
However, secondly, when we asked witnesses, “What is the social purpose of banking?”, worryingly, it seemed to be a question that often stumped them and which they had never asked themselves. Activity without social purpose is ultimately anarchy. The work of the commission, in my view, fundamentally has been about enabling the financial services industry to retrieve its basic purpose of supporting the common good and social solidarity. Banking is ultimately a utility function. It is of course one that is especially important to our economy, but there is a danger in treating the industry entirely differently from other utilities. It is necessary that a culture of service and social purpose is renewed in our banking industry. Banks must assert their roles in both national and local economies for without their investment in and service to local communities everywhere, there will be no durable and universal recovery.
Finally, we must ask: what ultimately will drive cultural change? Taken together, the commission’s recommendations are an effort to encourage positive cultural change. Proprietary trading, in the opinion of many of us—and it is subject to review—should be banned. Remuneration should be reasonable and proportionate. Regulation should be effective and accountable. The implementation of the ring-fence is a clear and welcome effort to ensure that distinctive and possibly irreconcilable cultures are kept separate. The ring-fence will, we hope, make the development of good culture more possible—and with the right safeguards, we hope also that it will be more durable than the walls of Jericho, so that not even the trumpets of Joshua’s army could find a way through.
However, it is clear that law and regulation cannot cause people to be good: making people good by law has been—to put it mildly—tricky since the days of Moses. Read the Epistle to the Romans to see why. Culture is set by leadership, training and implementation. In a recent report, the City of London emphasised remuneration and shareholder activism. Such recommendations illustrate the problem. Good culture is good through virtue, not out of hope of reward alone, although of course that must play a part. Shareholder activism also has had little or no impact historically, with the average share traded five times a year.
For a culture to become dominant, it was clear to us that it must be internalised by employees at all levels. A set of values governed by a deeply-held belief in what is right and wrong is foundational to long-lasting cultural change. Such beliefs are caught and also taught. If no one inside a bank believes that some of the practices we have heard about, some as recently as last week, are wrong, or if they believe it has no adequate way of expressing their concerns—the commission, by the way, has recommended improvements to facilitate whistleblowing—then cultural change will never take place, and poor standards will continue to fester.
Introducing informal mechanisms to catch poor standards early on was one of the commission’s recommendations—it can be found in paragraph 786 of our final report—but in situations like this, once the principle of the recommendation has been accepted, the responsibility for bringing it about must be on banks themselves. That is why the commission recommended that, as well as the essential reforms to regulation and law, the industry must professionalise the sector in a similar way to the medical and legal professions. This recommendation has been much overlooked, but provides a convincing long-term answer—complementary, not an alternative, to the other things in the report—as to how culture can be shaped and styled, and virtue measured, understood and valued.
The banks have started on this work and it is especially clear that the chief executives of the major British banks are working very hard in this area. The struggle to change the culture has begun. It will be a long one. In our view, we are talking of years—decades, a generation perhaps—to embed a completely different culture to replace the one that seeped slowly away over the years after big bang. On the outcome of this struggle hangs to a considerable extent the flourishing of our society and the re-establishment of the reputation of our most successful industry.
For all these reasons, Parliament must hold regulators and market participants to account, not only for their adherence to written laws and regulations but, perhaps more importantly, for their commitment to the common good and to a culture of virtue, so that, possessing extraordinary power and influence, they may enable extraordinary good and development.
I wholeheartedly commend the work of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards to the House. I hope that its work will not be in vain but will continue to be drawn upon as a new system is built in place of its failed and discredited predecessor. I beg to move.
Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)
My Lords, it is a privilege to be the first participant in this important debate to congratulate the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury on having secured it, and for the manner in which he introduced it. His qualifications for it are enviable. Having read his mini-biography in wonderment at where he found the time to achieve so much, I hope he will forgive my language if I say that I think he is playing a blinder. I thank him, too, for having arranged the packaged provision of relevant papers in the Printed Paper Office.
My own participation in this debate is for three reasons. The oldest of these is that when, long ago, I spent two years at Harvard Business School acquiring an MBA, my highest marks were in a course titled “Business Responsibilities in American Society”, which I supposed played some part in determining my subsequent career. My second reason is that for 24 years I was the third longest serving Member of Parliament for the City of London since 1283. Those years included the paradigm shift of Big Bang, from personal contact to largely screen and telephone business. Although the dramatis personae of that era are not an interest to declare, Sir Nicholas Goodison, the chairman of the Stock Exchange who negotiated and navigated Big Bang so well, was and is my oldest friend. My third reason is the debate on banking standards during Report stage of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill on 26 November 2013, not least the most reverend Primate’s comments.
I must allude to a longstanding friendship with the honourable gentleman the Member for Chichester in the other place, who chaired the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards—henceforth referred to as the PCBS—and who has been a mentor to me on this, as he was earlier on the development of the euro. I say “mentor” because during the four years that I was a Treasury Minister under my noble friend Lord Lawson of Blaby, I was the only one of eight Ministers in the department in that period who had never worked in the City of London. Thus my responsibilities were concentrated on what Sir Douglas Wass once defined to me as the housekeeping end of the Treasury—a more fascinating portfolio than it sounds.
After leaving government, I was briefly a director of an investment bank but my comments hereafter reflect the views of the City of London Corporation. When the issues of this debate were discussed on Report for the banking reform Bill, your Lordships’ House heard, as we have heard again today, informed talk of standards, ethics and culture—not, I have to say, unknown at the Harvard Business School. One institution that spans this arena is the City Values corporate forum, a collaborative project supported by the Lord Mayor and the City Corporation. It draws on learning from the professions, academia and, happily on this particular occasion, clergy-based as well as secular sources. A report recently published by the forum provides a guide to help chairmen and boards to calibrate their approach to the oversight of values. Its goal is the achievement of ethical behaviour in the financial and business services sector.
We learnt from the PCBS that some banks tried to encapsulate values in their businesses by creating human resources handbooks running to in excess of 1,000 pages. I share the PCBS’s scepticism about mechanistic expressions of values. If we had consulted the Delphic oracle, I suspect that it would have found a discreet way of conveying a conclusion based on the criticism faced by the Financial Services Authority for just such a modus operandi.
The forum’s preference was for half a dozen building blocks that cumulatively would help institutions to build and maintain values. As an example, one building block would seek to cause a board to develop ways of measuring values, behaviour and culture and to deploy internal audit to renew and enforce them. The board would receive regular misdemeanour reports. This process would lead in due course to the board agreeing its values with its customers and employees as well. Finally, there would be an annual values report to the board for wider publication.
All this will need to go further than discussion in your Lordships’ House but I hope that the process that I have described, and other initiatives like it, will stimulate the debate. Existing mechanisms can also be deployed more prominently. For example, the rights and duties of shareholders also have an important part to play in influencing board behaviour. As other noble Lords have pointed out in numerous debates on governance in this House, they are frequently underused controls. The All-Party Parliamentary Corporate Governance Group, of which I am a member, now has four or five years of informed debate in this area literally under its breakfast belt. The rights and duties of shareholders are frequently underused controls.
In conclusion, I shall borrow some words from the forum’s report to which I referred earlier:
“Governing values well is a prerequisite for a truly sustainable business … The need for the board of any financial services business to govern values is now central to its agenda—not an ‘optional extra’”.
I owe to the Harvard Business School the wise observation that if you do not know where you are trying to get to, any road will get you there. From 18 years of running an international business outside the financial sector before I entered Mrs Thatcher’s first administration as its absolutely most junior member, I can confirm the virtue of that corporate satnav.
The participation in this debate is nicely balanced around the Chamber. In particular, I wish my noble friend Lord Carrington of Fulham well in his maiden speech, to which I look forward
Lord Brennan (Lab)
My Lords, the most reverend Primate has spoken with great force and clarity about matters of considerable moment to our society in a speech that will no doubt inspire the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, in his maiden speech.
We owe a deep sense of gratitude here in Parliament, here from the Government and outside from the public for the work of this Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, first, for its impartiality—the 10 members, nine of them politicians, could not be accused by any fair observer of having put party interest above public interest in the work that has been done here. The fact that the most reverend Primate has been described throughout the reports as “unaffiliated” is politically accurate but a graceless way of describing a Minister of religion. No doubt in future some other term can be found for that. Impartiality is exceptionally important. A great commission of this kind should be seen and respected at the end of its work, as this one is, because it represents the best standards of parliamentary behaviour.
The second reason for gratitude is the extent of the investigation, which is remarkable. There were many witnesses, yards of documents, innumerable meetings, specialist advisers and expert staff, all working together in a most effective way.
Thirdly, there is the speed of the commission’s deliberations, which is commendable. To examine the banking system of our nation after a disaster in July of one year and then by June of the following to have delivered five comprehensive reports is a real achievement.
Lastly, the quality of the commission’s analysis and conclusions is convincing. For all those reasons, gratitude, yes, but let us look at the process that produced its conclusion. First, there is the parliamentary power given to it to send for persons, papers and records: “You will come to Parliament to explain”. Secondly, there is the quality of inquiry of those who came to Parliament to explain. Fortunately, it was thought unnecessary to take evidence on oath, but the very threat that you might have to is an extremely good instigator of honesty by witnesses before the commission. Lastly, there was the use of specialist advisers; I understand that there were about 20 of them. That provides an administrative and process base of high quality. Most important is the fact that this was an evidence-based inquiry, it was in public, society knew what was going on and the conclusions have been regularly debated.
Such an inquiry has a continuum over 10 or 11 months, where the participants have a quality of intellectual dynamism lacking in those who subsequently, in Parliament, in government or in the public criticise or debate the contents of their conclusions. That work fully vindicates the view of the Commons Public Administration Select Committee when in 2008 it called for parliamentary commissions of inquiry in these terms:
“Proper parliamentary scrutiny should include the ability to undertake inquiries into significant matters of public concern. Parliament has, in the past, conducting investigations of this kind—and, as the great forum of the nation, should be expected to do so”—
not often, but when it does, to speak as part of the great forum of the nation. Indeed, only a few months ago the same committee asked for a parliamentary inquiry to be commissioned into the Civil Service.
The importance of that is not to be underestimated. Select Committees serve a purpose, which is basically to keep up with the regular, day-to-day activities of Parliament and the Executive. Joint Committees—there are five permanent ones—have specific objectives. Ad hoc Select Committees, such as the one that I sat on about the Chinook helicopter inquiry, are almost quasi-judicial. None of them performs the function that this commission has performed. Parliament challenged its membership through this commission to meet the concerns about the banking world. The commission has met that challenge. By its title, it has confirmed that the challenge is not just for Parliament; it is for banking and the community.
Einstein said:
“Not everything that counts can be counted. Not everything that can be counted counts”.
That elementary proposition should be the opening remarks in every inaugural lecture at the beginning of an MBA course at any university in the world. We should start with education. A couple of years ago the Yale Business School demolished its traditional mathematics-led, behaviour-ignorant course in business administration. It changed the title to “Honesty, The Value of Labour, Profit: Service to the Community”. Applications to the Yale Business School doubled in the first year. If you prescribe for greed, you will incentivise greed. This kind of course changes that at the beginning. Afterwards it is for bankers themselves to meet that challenge—the cultural challenge.
This commission has been a model of its kind, for the following reasons. First, it has been generally accepted by the public. Secondly, a great many of its recommendations have been accepted by the Government. Thirdly, it has given Parliament confidence in its own processes. Lastly, it provides a basis, as the most reverend Primate has reminded us, for a continuing challenge and for cultural change for the future. Changing banking for good is a challenge for us, not a conclusion for Parliament.
Lord Razzall
My Lords, like all noble Lords I very much welcome this debate introduced by the most reverend Primate and indeed look forward to the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, with whom I last had an involvement when canvassing for the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, now not in his place, in the famous by-election in Fulham in the early 1980s. I am sure they look forward to renewing their rivalry over the Benches.
As the various reports from the most reverend Primate have indicated, it is clear that 2008 was the culmination of a series of problems within the banking industry. The 2008 crisis exposed problems not just with the regulatory regime but also, as he said, with the culture of the industry. Banks had become unable to manage risk properly, had lost sight of their responsibilities to customers and were seriously over-leveraged. In addition, they had not guarded against other long-term problems in the economy, particularly the housing bubble.
The result is a significant loss of confidence and trust among the public in the banking industry and huge harm being caused to the UK economy. As somebody memorably said, recently we moved from a culture of inky-fingered bankers to a culture of sticky-fingered bankers.
It is interesting that those banks which received bailout money from the taxpayer are often those which have the highest level of customer dissatisfaction. A recent survey by Which? found an overall customer satisfaction rate with RBS of only 50%—and that was before the recent allegations against it—and that Lloyds had a satisfaction rating of 56%. The highest-rated bank, First Direct, had a rating of 85% satisfaction in services provided. A recent YouGov survey asked people which three aspects of British banking, from a list of eight,
“have damaged your view of the UK banking industry the most”,
and found that the top two concerns were excessive bonuses and the LIBOR scandal. Notwithstanding this, the financial rewards handed to the City’s highest paid bankers rose by a third last year, with more than 2,700 of them paid more than €1 million in 2012.
The Government have addressed these issues in a number of ways. The first is through the banking reform Bill, which will ring-fence the retail banking services of banks away from the high-risk trading that they may also conduct and to which the most reverend Primate referred—he would go further and ban that entirely, but that is not what the legislation says. In addition, in response to a recommendation by the commission, the Government have amended the Bill to allow regulators completely to separate the retail aspects of a particular bank from the rest of the business where that bank seeks to breach or get around the ring-fence. This is known in the jargon as electrification of the ring-fence.
On the regulatory system, the Government have sought to learn the lessons of the financial crisis. They have listened to the banking commission in setting up a new regulatory system via the Financial Services Act 2012. I shall not bore noble Lords with the detail of this, but there are three separate bodies aimed at fixing the regulatory problems: the Financial Policy Committee, the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority. The Act also creates clear channels of communication and decision-making in the event of another financial crisis. This is because—and I think that we are all agreed on it—in 2008 there was concern that the powers available to regulators, the Bank of England and the Treasury were not clearly defined, making it hard for any one body to react quickly to events. In addition, the Act ensures that the Treasury is ultimately to act as the “point” in event of a financial crisis and can ensure that others act.
As the most reverend Primate has indicated, trust is the most fundamental issue, which cannot be dealt with by legislation. I make no apology for relying on a lot of the evidence that was given to the commission. The commission indicated:
“The loss of trust in banking has been enormously damaging; there is now a massive opportunity to reform banking standards to strengthen the value of banking in the future and to reinforce the UK’s dominant position within the global financial services industry”.
It further stated:
“It is essential that the risks posed by having a large financial centre do not mean that taxpayers or the wider economy are held to ransom. That is why it is right for the UK to take measures … which not only protect the UK’s position as a global financial sector, but also protect the UK public and economy from the associated risks”.
We have to remember that the overwhelming majority of people working in banks undoubtedly wish to serve their customers well and are as angry as the wider public about the activities of a minority of their colleagues.
The report elsewhere states:
“The mis-selling of IRHP and PPI demonstrate what can happen when banks exploit information asymmetries between them and their customers. However, providing too much small print to customers, effectively drowning them with information, may be as detrimental as not providing enough information to them”.
Peter Vicary-Smith gave the following example to the commission:
“To open an HSBC packaged account, the consumer is expected to read 165 pages of information. No one is going to do that. As long as banks ... provide so much gobbledegook that the real things you need to know are hidden, we will continue to have these problems”.
Many people said that it had been more than 25 years since Tom Wolfe had used the term “master of the universe” to describe a New York bond trader, but that it had never been more apt as a description of bankers than in the past decade. I have often relied in comment on this subject on the wise words of the noble Lord, Lord Turner, who is not in his place. He told the commission that:
“One of the most dismal features of the banking industry to emerge from our evidence was the striking limitation on the sense of personal responsibility and accountability of the leaders within the industry for the widespread failings and abuses over which they presided. Ignorance was offered as the main excuse. It was not always accidental. Those who should have been exercising supervisory or leadership roles benefited from an accountability firewall between themselves and individual misconduct, and demonstrated poor, perhaps deliberately poor, understanding of the front line. Senior executives were aware that they would not be punished for what they could not see and promptly donned the blindfolds. Where they could not claim ignorance, they fell back on the claim that everyone was party to a decision, so that no individual could be held squarely to blame—the Murder on the Orient Express defence. It is imperative that in future senior executives in banks have an incentive to know what is happening on their watch—not an incentive to remain ignorant in case the regulator comes calling”.
I agree with the noble Lord.
Lord Carrington of Fulham (Con)
My Lords, I rise with some trepidation to give my maiden speech, particularly in this debate introduced so ably by the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury. First, I wish to declare my interest as a non-executive director and deputy chairman of a bank, as declared in the register of interests, but I shall return to that later. No, the reason for my trepidation is that it is a bit cheeky to intervene in a debate on a detailed and comprehensive report which I had no part in preparing. My only justification is that, when not being a politician, and indeed sometimes when trying unsuccessfully to be a politician, I earned my living as a banking practitioner.
First, I would like to thank my sponsors, my noble friends Lord Trefgarne and Lord Patten, each of whom has been hugely kind to me both now and over many years. Since I took my place in your Lordships’ House, they have given me invaluable advice, some of which I have taken. My mistakes and blunders, however, are my own, although I am delighted to give them the credit for anything I might have got right.
I would also like to thank the staff who look after your Lordships’ House so well. Black Rod and his staff and the Clerk of the Parliaments and his staff have been hugely friendly and willing to answer even the silliest of questions with good humour and patience.
As some of your Lordships may know, I spent some years in the other place. As has been said many times before, the contrast between the Chamber down the Corridor and here could not be greater and is almost universally in your Lordships’ favour. Noble Lords on all sides of your Lordships’ House, who I knew as sparring partners and controversialists before they came to the Elysian fields, have been mellowed by the transformation and have treated me with friendship and kindness. Your Lordships will understand that I found this at first a confusing contrast with past attitudes but a huge and welcome relief.
One of the other joys in this place is the Chamber itself. Although the Chamber in the other place is a delight, the Luftwaffe removed much of its history. Your Lordships are fortunate to have a Chamber where it is still possible to see the ghosts of our great predecessors—perhaps Lord Beaconsfield sitting impassively, watching events cynically through his monocle, or the great third Marquis of Salisbury making one of his many speeches in favour of social reform with his back turned firmly towards the Woolsack, the better to address the Press Gallery.
As I mentioned earlier, I am deputy chairman of Gatehouse Bank. It is a small and very specialised institution. It is a Sharia-compliant bank, providing services that are often called Islamic banking. Its client base is Muslims who wish to live their lives and conduct their business affairs in accordance with the precepts of their religion. We expect our staff, a mix of Muslims and non-Muslims, to act in a highly ethical way. We are also forbidden by the Sharia from entering into some of the more complex hedging instruments which caused such devastation to conventional banks.
Banking has gone through traumas. One of the puzzles is what went wrong and why. We understand the trajectory that has brought us where we are. We will be able to see how we get back on to a better path. The excellent report of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards highlights many problems and provides many remedies. I want to look at only two.
The first is the role that regulation played in the banking crisis. The regulators did not, of course, cause the banking crisis but neither did they prevent it. I am a regulated person and have some first-hand experience of the excellence, as well as the limitations, of the old FSA. Part of the problem is that they took the understandable approach of developing a detailed rule book, which led to what my honourable friend Andrew Tyrie, the Member of Parliament for Chichester, has referred to as the box-ticking culture.
The problem with a rule book is that, if an action is not specifically forbidden by the rules, it is assumed to be allowed. Banks employ very clever people, often recruited from the regulator itself, who did and do ensure that the banks’ unacceptable risk-taking rarely breaks the rules. So I am delighted that the new regulator, the PRA, is taking the view that it has rules but that it also has opinions and will rely on what it calls a “judgement-based, forward-looking supervision”—which I think and hope means that if, in the opinion of the PRA, something a bank is doing is unacceptable, even though it is not forbidden, it must stop. This is the way the old Bank of England banking supervision regime used to work when I first started my career in the City. It may be the only way to regulate banks, which are ever changing and innovating. Unless a regulator can say, “What you are doing may not be illegal, but I will not allow you to do it”, another banking disaster will sooner or later occur.
The second issue I want to comment on is the culture of the banks. The culture of payment by results and of large bonuses dependent on doing deals leads to all sorts of unintended consequences such as short-termism and disguised risk-taking. Other than for staff who took short-term risks, such as money market and foreign exchange traders, it was only in the late 1980s that bonuses in banks became substantial multiples of base salary. I accept that deferring bonuses is a way of curbing these disasters in waiting, but in reality the motivation of employees to take unacceptable risks will be removed only if the long-term risk-takers are paid through salary rather than bonus.
This is an excellent report, but we are on a long path to resolve the issues in banking. Ultimately, it will require international agreement, which will be hard to achieve. My last thought is that, whatever we do here in the UK, we must ensure that London—and the UK generally—retains its place as one of the three global banking centres. Our country’s tax receipts and hundreds of thousands of jobs depend upon it, so whatever changes we propose in the future must make London the centre most trusted in the financial sector and not give less scrupulous financial centres an opportunity to take away jobs from the UK.
The Lord Bishop of Birmingham
My Lords, I welcome warmly the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, to your Lordships’ House and congratulate him on a most succinct but wise and constructive maiden speech. His knowledge of finance and banking is exemplary. We have already heard from my friend the most reverend Primate of the noble Lord’s service in the other place, notably as chair of the Treasury Committee. He also brings a wealth of experience in banking. The particular bank mentioned, Gatehouse, of which he is deputy chairman, has this remarkable attention to Islamic finance. As someone who serves in Birmingham, that is of course well known and much appreciated.
Your Lordships may also like to know that the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, is a trustee of the St John’s Notting Hill restoration trust. That is something that he did not find time to mention in his maiden speech, but about which I hope that we will hear more in the future. It is a beautiful Victorian building which, at the same time, has a new community hub associated with it, bringing together a reimagination of ministry and parish outreach to ordinary people. On these Benches and across the House, we wish the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, great success in that project and a most enjoyable time as he serves here in this place.
I welcome the enormous contribution of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, and recognise the structural and technical details contained in our extensive debates over the past few months. I want to focus on the imperative of driving change in our culture, which many noble Lords mentioned, including the most reverend Primate—as the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, said, he played a blinder. I am sure that although he had the privilege of visiting Birmingham last night, it was not a peaky blinder—if your Lordships are aware of that television programme and early 20th-century behaviour.
The debates that we have had are about the balance of regulation and freedom. They have included a realistic approach to our position in global capitalism, and its benefits and dangers—the benefits and dangers, too, to our national economy—and to the remarkable achievement of the banking industry over the years. At the same time, there is an underlying desire to see enterprise, which develops wealth, continue. Those who know the parables of Jesus know that wealth for the ambitious and successful farmer was in no way criticised; what was criticised, and ultimately judged fatally, was the farmer’s use of the abundant wealth that he had created and his selfishness in keeping it for his own use.
The reports before us have serious recommendations about increased responsibility, greater and clearer accountability, more competition in the industry, better business judgment and a vision for the long term. Coming from a business city such as Birmingham, outside London, I would like to reflect for a moment on the perception of our progress so far in these areas. What we have done and are doing here will be judged by whether it makes a difference to the tens of thousands of employees of the industry, and to the hundreds of thousands of clients and customers who are necessarily dependent on its success.
What about increasing responsibility? I have noticed that in each of these areas we are encouraged to see the responses to the detail of the commission, as well as that of the Government to its recommendations, in a constructive and positive way. The Deutsche Bank chief executive, who was at a conference the other day of all the risk managers for the global company, said that his bank will combine a culture of performance with a culture of responsibility. This is a great ambition for a commercial operation, and one that the chief executive says will do good for the world.
Increasing responsibility is being taken at corporate level, and much of the detail of our work has been on that. It is also being taken at the individual level. For example, regionally in the Royal Bank of Scotland, local directors are responding to their chief executive’s advice that to know their community as well as their business and retail clients, is good for business, but also that it is the right thing to do in exercising power and success. Greater accountability is part of our debate, and we have heard about the regulations and regulators. The Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility’s report, The Banks and Society, which was published and ignored in March 2011, is now on the agenda of regional and perhaps national bank leaders, along with its main recommendations—particularly the desire for transparency in the business activity of a bank in a region that is trying to develop the economy as whole. That kind of approach and permission from the centre will be much welcomed.
More competition can be seen in the regional banks that may be emerging. From my own interest in the Church Commissioners, I know that the proposed Williams & Glyn’s Bank, which is emerging from the 300 RBS branches, may have an opportunity to demonstrate how to be a good bank in the terms that we have already heard about, but at the same time that it will be freed from some of the responsibilities of the bigger banks and respond to people’s needs locally. The background to that bank’s ambitions touch on most of the areas that we have been dealing with in these debates, whether that is to do with remuneration, a reluctance to indulge in—or even a ban on—proprietary trading, the participation of all the staff, appropriate levels of leverage, and whether, simply, as all the banks seem to say, that it is important to treat your customers well.
Would we get better business judgment? We heard again recently of another series of bad debts, and of the difficulties one of the major banks had in dealing with them. However, to follow, for example, the recent discussion led by Andrew Whittaker of Lloyds Bank, the approach of proper risk management is something that people, both locally and nationally, expect to operate at a very high level of skill and attention. In a healthy and successful business one would expect certain things—the nuances of avoiding looking the wrong way at the wrong time, self-deception that gets going when we have a lot of power and adventure, opportunity taken without due diligence, misplaced assumptions about the future, lack of contingency, and so on—to be part of the bread and butter of how the governance is operating.
In conclusion, I will touch upon that discussion in the reports about longer-term vision. As the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, said, we not only hope that we will have a vigorous and world-beating industry here, we expect in the regions and localities that the powerful engine of the economy will also attend to bringing more of the poorer and less powerful people into the economy. It can do that by attending to credit unions and to the needs of people by removing and managing unmanageable debt, and by the ability to go into all the communities and schools and enable young people from the very start to know that money is a very good and wonderful thing if it is managed responsibly for their own good and for the good of their community.
I hope that the areas of expectation that are woven through these reports will build up, as noble Lords have said, that elusive and most precious gift of a renewed trust in one of our most fundamental industries, for the good of community and of society. I hope that people will begin not only to say, proudly, that that industry is a good mega-engine driver for the economy, contributing to rather than drawing from taxpayers’ money, but also that their participation, as an ordinary citizen or a micro, small or medium-sized enterprise—which is how most of the people in this country begin to participate in the economy—will be one of the long-term fruits of all your Lordships’ work. I trust that we ourselves will continue to remain accountable for making sure that banks exist to enable the economy to work and not to be the economy itself.
Lord Sharkey (LD)
My Lords, I start by warmly congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Carrington of Fulham, on his excellent and insightful maiden speech. He set a formidably high hurdle for those of us who follow him. I also congratulate the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury on securing this debate. I congratulate him and his fellow commission members on the reports that they have produced and the use to which they have put them. I know that the commission no longer exists, but listening to its members in the House in the debates on the banking reform Bill, is surely conclusive proof that there is life after death.
I know that it is conventional to praise the work of our committees—sometimes before going on to qualify that praise—but I will make it plain from the start that I have an unreserved and unqualified admiration for the work of the commission and the reports that it has produced. I am struck by the force of its analytical inquiry. I am struck by the force of its criticisms and by the essential simplicity of its recommendations. I am struck, too, by the clarity and simplicity of the language in which all this was expressed.
The commission’s reports deal with all aspects of the banking crisis and many of its recommendations have been adopted by the Government. The focus and debate has, quite rightly, been on legislation to produce better regulation. Although banking culture formed a prominent part of the commission’s report, it played, perhaps, a less prominent part in our debate. It is the issue of banking culture on which I wish to focus my remarks.
The commission was clear that there was, and indeed is, a problem with the culture in banking. It is worth quoting paragraph 754 from volume 2, which states:
“Poor standards in banking are not the consequence of absent or deficient company value statements. Nor are they the result of the inadequate deployment of the latest management jargon to promulgate concepts of shared values. They are, at least in part, a reflection of the flagrant disregard for the numerous sensible codes that already existed. Corporate statements of values can play a useful role in communicating reformist intent and supplementing our more fundamental measures to address problems of standards and culture. But they should not be confused with solutions to those problems”.
In other words, fine talk will not solve real problems—and the problems are very real.
It is a sad reflection that there is no need to rehearse the consequences of the banks’ corrupt culture in any great detail; it is all too appallingly familiar. Nevertheless, we should not forget the scale of the problem with the ethics and behaviours of the banks. There was the mis-selling to SMEs of products that were completely inappropriate; there were the LIBOR and the EURIBOR scandals; there were the HSBC money-laundering scandals; and there is now the possibility of another huge scandal if the allegations about RBS’s treatment of small businesses prove true. All these were bad enough, but much worse was the PPI mis-selling scandal, because it was the clearest example of a deliberate exploitation by the banks of their customers.
John Lanchester wrote in the London Review of Books recently:
“PPI was about banks breaking trust by exploiting their customers, not accidentally, but as a matter of deliberate and sustained policy. They sold policies which they knew did not serve the ends they were supposed to serve and in doing so treated their customers purely as an extractive resource”.
There is a common thread running through this criminal, or near-criminal behaviour. It is a kind of contempt that the banks have had for their own customers. It is clear that the banks have not behaved in the interests of their customers—nor, for that matter, in the interests of the rest of us. The banks are almost unique in doing this, and they are certainly unique in getting away with it. Many huge and complex commercial concerns exist, but they do not systematically loot their customers.
My own long experience as an adviser to the senior management of very large, complex, commercial companies suggests a reason for this. One factor common to all the multinationals I have worked with was a fundamental belief in competition—a word that has so far not played much of a role in our debate. Competition in the service of customers was the key. That belief was not just a form of words, or just the shared view of senior management. It was the belief that defined the company at every level and in everything it did. It formed a strong cultural bond, where the obvious question to ask about anything was: is this really in the interests of our customers? No one in our banks asked this question about the introduction of PPI.
What makes the belief in serving the interests of customers a culture, and not just jargon, is competition. In all normal enterprises, large and small, what keeps companies focused on their customers is competition. If you do not serve the interests of your customers, your competitors certainly will—or at least they will if you operate in a competitive marketplace.
I have heard it argued that our large banks really did want to compete with each other. If that was ever true, it is certainly not true now. They do not compete and they probably will not because they do not need to do it to make money, and they make more money for themselves by not competing. Why do they not need to compete? It is because they effectively form a cartel. The EU Commissioner for Competition said yesterday:
“What is shocking about the LIBOR and EURIBOR scandals is not only the manipulation of the benchmarks, which is being tackled by financial regulators worldwide, but also the collusion between banks which are supposed to be competing with each other”.
He added:
“If you take the opportunity to see the conversations between these cartel traders, you will be appalled”.
A cartel means no competition, and no competition means no need to serve the customer, who does not have many real choices anyway.
It is now a bit easier to switch banks, but where do you go? Which bank is better than the other, which is different, and which has senior management that will put your interests firmly before its own? As long as there is a banking cartel there will be no competition, and as long as there is no competition there will be no reliable driver of sustained cultural change. As long as banks are too big to fail, as long as they are too big to manage, and as long as there are too few of them to be competitive, the chances of real and sustained cultural change are very low.
Of course we will see, as we are beginning to see, banks trying to say plausible things about customer focus. We will see new codes of conduct, new mission statements and reassuring advertising. But the sad fact is that without real competition, the banks have no real and sustained incentive to change, and the consumer has no real choice and no real chance. There is only one way to fix this, and that is to break up the banks. They are too big to fail, so let us make them smaller. They are too big to manage, so to make them easier to manage, let us make them smaller. There are not enough banks to really compete, so let us make more by breaking them up.
I realise that we have had to give priority to fixing the obvious regulatory failures, and we are well on the way do doing this. Now we should turn our attention to failures in culture and in competition. Unless we do this, I fear that in 10 years’ time our successors will be looking at yet another series of banking scandals, and at yet another PCBS report on our failures in both culture and competition.
Lord Turnbull (CB)
My Lords, I join noble Lords in welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, to this House. I suspect that the smaller, innovative banks like Gatehouse are going to make a disproportionate contribution to the improvement of banking services in this country, so his knowledge and wisdom in that area will be valuable to us.
The final report of the PCBS opened with the following summary:
“Banks in the UK have failed in many respects. They have failed taxpayers, who have had to bail out a number of banks including some major institutions with a cash outlay peaking at £133 billion. They have failed many retail customers with widespread product mis-selling … They have failed their own shareholders, by delivering poor long-term returns and destroying shareholder value. They have failed in their basic function to finance economic growth, with businesses unable to obtain the loans that they need at an acceptable price”.
That is a harsh verdict that poses a number of questions. Is it a fair verdict or is it just banker-bashing, providing politicians with a smokescreen for their own failures? Were other players also to blame? Are the remedies appropriate? Has something gone wrong with bank culture and can something be done about it? Lastly, will we kill the golden goose and drive away banks and/or bankers?
On the first question, it is certainly the case that the banks were not uniquely to blame for the financial crash. Top of my list of contributors is a major intellectual failure. The model of the financial world that was taught in our universities and business schools, and championed by Alan Greenspan among others, presumed that capital markets functioned efficiently. In fact, almost all of those assumptions proved to be wrong. Financial markets were riddled with serious flaws, such as major externalities, misaligned incentives, irrational herd instincts and asymmetry of information.
Secondly, there was the connivance of western Governments, particularly in the US and the UK, who actively promoted access to credit for their citizens as a way of promoting the appearance of rising living standards. Thirdly, there was the widespread use of inflation targeting of price indices based on a narrow basket of consumer goods while ignoring asset prices and underlying credit conditions. The list goes on—there were all the players that should have provided checks and balances but did not, such as regulators, auditors and rating agencies—but it is clear that the banks played a powerful role as an accelerator and transmitter of these forces, taking greater and greater risks.
Initially, the response to the financial crisis was largely a structural one. The first phase was to restructure the regulators. A twin-peak structure was put in place in the first Financial Services Act 2012. In my view this is not necessarily the only, or perhaps not even the best, model, but it has been done and we should get on with it and make it work, rather than continuing to debate the alternatives.
The other part of the structural response was through the Independent Commission on Banking led by Sir John Vickers, set up in June 2010, which reported its conclusions in September 2011. The ICB set itself four objectives. The first was to make banks more resilient and better able to absorb losses, through higher capital and lower leverage. The second was to make it easier and less costly to sort out banks that get into trouble by dividing them into ring-fenced entities carrying out the core functions of taking deposits, supplying overdrafts and operating the payments system, with other, riskier investment banking activities being kept in a different entity, though still within a banking group.
The third objective was to curtail incentives for excessive risk-taking. In particular, the ICB wanted to cut back the implicit guarantee that arises if banks, and those investing in them, come to believe that banks are too big to fail or too complex to be allowed to fail. Finally, it wanted to strengthen competition and consumer choice by creating a more diverse, less concentrated banking market and by making switching easier.
By mid-2012 the debate was still dominated by these structural issues. Some people argued that if incentives and structures were improved, if the implicit guarantee was curtailed and if the banks were properly capitalised, behaviours would improve. If that view was ever true, though, it was blown away by a series of revelations about conduct in the summer of 2012. The straw that broke the camel’s back was LIBOR fixing. At this point the patience of politicians snapped and we moved on to a different agenda, one concerned not just with structure but with behaviour, standards and culture. The PCBS was created to investigate this.
I should at this point record my thanks to my colleagues on the commission and to the clerks and advisers who supported us. Not only did we pioneer some new approaches to committee evidence-gathering, such as the use of counsel, but we demonstrated how much can be achieved within the discipline of unanimity. Even as the commission began its work, reports of misconduct multiplied. They came more or less weekly.
There was widespread mis-selling to consumers and SMEs of retail products such as PPI and interest rate swaps, there was mis-selling of complex mortgage securities in the wholesale market and there were poorly supervised rogue trading, aggressive tax planning, money laundering and sanctions busting. This time even the survivors of the crash, such as JP Morgan, HSBC and Standard Chartered, were implicated. The list of abuses grows even to this day, with rumours that there may have been fixing in foreign exchange markets and claims that RBS has exploited some of its SME customers.
The PCBS has produced five reports but its findings on conduct can be summarized briefly. First, there was a lack of personal accountability. The approved persons regime was found wanting, as it served only to control entry into senior posts—although, as the Reverend Flowers’s case indicates, at times it did not even achieve that. It was ineffective in influencing conduct and in enforcing standards. In this crisis only one senior banker has been fined, and no action has been taken against any CEO.
Secondly, there was remuneration that was widely perceived as excessive and incentivising poor behaviour. Thirdly, there was an erosion of professional standards and a decline in the status of chartered bankers. Fourthly, there was a loss of customer focus.
Anthony Salz, once of Freshfields and then of Rothschild, was asked by Barclays to review its business practices. He found a,
“culture that tended to favour transactions over relationships, the short term over sustainability, and financial over other business purposes … remuneration systems that tended to reward revenue generation rather than serving the interests of customers and clients”,
and a bank acting,
“within the letter of the law but not within its spirit”.
In a few words, he pretty much captures it, and the same could be said of most other banks.
The commission’s recommendations provide an extensive agenda to rectify this, including a senior managers regime to replace the APR, which will define responsibilities and hence create a chain of accountability. That will make it easier to identify who is responsible and therefore to sanction or disqualify poorly performing executives. It seeks to eliminate the Macavity defence of “I didn’t know” or “I wasn’t there”. Below senior management, banks will be required to identify all staff whose actions are capable of damaging the bank, its shareholders or customers and to attest that they will operate to proper standards.
A new body has been created by the banks, led by Sir Richard Lambert, to promote codes of professional standards. A new criminal offence of reckless conduct is to be applied where a bank has failed and required state assistance. There would be a tougher remuneration code requiring a larger proportion of pay to be deferred and for longer, plus a power for the regulator to claw back remuneration that has already vested where a bank fails and requires state support.
I return to some of the questions I posed at the start. Is this unfair targeting of banks and bankers? I would argue that it is not. Even now, banks accept that their conduct was not acceptable and that they have forfeited the trust of their customers. Banks are also exceptional in a number of other ways. They provide a public service through the payments system, which cannot be allowed to be interrupted. They are highly interconnected: a failure of one bank can damage other banks either directly or by undermining the trust on which the whole system is based. They can fail with astonishing speed. Even after the structural changes have been made, they will still enjoy some degree of implicit guarantee. In addition, their funding structure is different. Compared with most industrial and commercial companies, equity forms a tiny part of their balance sheet. Almost of necessity, they are highly geared organisations.
Will banks, and hence London as a financial centre, be forced by tighter regulation and higher capital requirements to contract or divest themselves of certain lines of business? To a degree, yes they will, and we should accept that. Our largest banks became too big to manage. Cutting RBS down to size so that it concentrates on serving UK firms and households is to be welcomed. It is essential that leverage is brought down. The UK is a middle-sized economy with a global-sized banking sector. In 1990 the combined balance sheet of UK clearing banks was 75% of GDP. In 2010 that had risen to 450%. Even by 2012, it was still at 350%. That exposes us as a nation to certain risks that we have to be prepared to face.
A lot of proprietary trading is better conducted in the hedge fund sector where the proprietors have more at stake and the implicit guarantee does not operate. Will banks or bankers move out of London, as many around the dining tables of the City tell us? Where would they go—into the hands of the US Department of Justice, the land of the orange jumpsuit and the perp walk, or into the bureaucratic clutches of the European Commission and the European Parliament? We should have the confidence to see a better regulated London as a source of strength, not weakness.
Finally, we must ask whether it is all going to work. In our debates, some noble Lords have described the ring-fence structure, even as strengthened by the commission, as an experiment. To a degree, it is, but so, too, would be fuller structural separation. The option of staying with the status quo simply is not available. Will the report achieve the objective of its title, Changing Banking for Good? We need a regime that works not just now, when banks have been chastened, but when animal spirits have revived and memories of the crash have dimmed. If it is to succeed we need to address both parts of the agenda, structure and culture, as they are closely linked.
The Government said they strongly endorsed,
“the principal findings of the report”—
and intended—
“to implement its main recommendations”.
The initial proposals in the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill fell short of that claim. Some recommendations were accepted but only weakly implemented, while others were ignored altogether. However, I can report that through the process of Committee and Report, a number of important amendments have been agreed, and significant assurances have been secured on the nature of reviews and on how the regulators will operate the new regimes. I hope that by Third Reading next week we can resolve the remaining issues.
Ultimately, however, the question of behaviour is for the banks themselves. Will they get back to a greater emphasis on relationships rather than transactions, and to serving their customers rather than seeing customers as the people from whom they make money? Opinion is clearly shifting for the good, but will this be temporary or will it be a change that lasts? Only they can answer this.
Lord Eatwell (Lab)
My Lords, the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards’s reports form a landmark, dissecting the structure of banking in this country and hence exposing the serious systemic weaknesses both within the banking industry itself and in government policies toward banking. The reports display a constructive blend of financial and institutional analysis. They also display a healthy disdain for the common fallacies which have been propagated by the banking industry in an attempt to limit change, such as the fallacy that higher capital requirements will reduce lending, as if greater capital were simply hidden away in the cellar rather than lent out for profitable return. The Government’s response has been generally welcoming, though a little timid.
The commission was established following the revelations of LIBOR manipulation. Its primary goal was to examine the culture of the banking industry, but its work soon broadened to included systemic risk. This was not simply because banking culture is itself a source of systemic risk to the UK, but also because the work of the Independent Commission on Banking, bold when published, was revealed by longer-term examination to be less powerful than originally thought—hence the PCBS proposals to electrify the ring-fence, and the commission’s numerous dark hints that ring-fencing is not going to work at all.
This is not, however, the occasion to stage a re-run of banking Bill debates. Instead I hope the House will forgive me for recalling that at the time of the establishment of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, I argued that it would not have the time or the resources to do the job needed—namely, a wide-ranging inquiry into UK financial services and their role, or lack of it, in rebalancing the real economy. I was right. While the commission has exceeded expectations, there is an enormous amount still to do if we are to have a financial system that does not just provide stable finance, but provides the high-quality, long-term financial support that modern industry needs.
My agenda of future work for a reincarnated commission covers three areas: the size and composition of the financial services industry, the changing nature of systemic risk, and the development of high-quality finance to support innovative, competitive industry. I shall discuss size and composition first. In a speech in mid-October, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, suggested that UK banking assets would rise from about four times UK GDP today to nine times UK GDP by 2050. In other words, he predicted Britain would become Iceland circa 2007. In defence of his relaxed anticipation of this ominous prospect he argued that,
“a vibrant financial sector brings substantial benefits”,
not only to the UK, but to the world, saying:
“The UK’s financial sector can be both a global good and a national asset—if it is resilient”.
The governor is calling for greater international financial integration, and it is easy to understand why. The City of London is absolutely brilliant at taking funds from around the world, repackaging them into new risk-return structures and selling them back to the rest of the world. It is the world’s finest offshore financial centre. But is a financial sector nine times bigger than GDP such a good idea, even with all the measures of the recent Financial Services Act and the new banking Bill in place? Is the ring-fence sufficient to limit national risk exposure to those inside the ring-fence, while all the risks outside fall on private sector shoulders? We should remember that Lehman Brothers would have been outside the ring-fence. Perhaps it is in the wrong place and should be between, on the one hand, domestic operations and, on the other hand, international operations, thus at least in part insulating the British economy from international financial instability. These issues should be the first items on the agenda of the new incarnation of the commission—whether the governor has got it right.
The second item on the agenda of the new commission should be the changing nature of systemic risk. The key warning of this came last May, when Ben Bernanke hinted at a tapering of US quantitative easing. The result was a massive slump—even chaos—in international bond markets around the world, particularly in emerging markets, and severe difficulties in some foreign exchange markets. In the press, this was attributed to the reversal of flows of what was called a “wall of money” that had originally migrated to emerging markets in the search for yield, given the near-zero interest rates in advanced countries. That portrayal of the problem was wrong, because flows of funds to emerging markets have fallen year on year since 2008—there is no wall of money. What is important is that their form has changed. The capital flow from global banks to emerging markets has slowed to a trickle. In its place, emerging market banks have increased their issuance of bonds. Even more dramatically, non-bank investment in emerging market bonds has soared. Today, in emerging market funding, the global banks have given way to asset managers and other buy-side investors who have global reach. Most of this new bond issuance has been in US dollars, so that emerging market corporates have become much more sensitive to US interest rates and to fluctuations in exchange rates vis-à-vis the US dollar. This increased sensitivity in the changed structure of the market is clear in emerging markets.
Exactly the same transformation of funding flows is taking place here at home. Industrial and commercial firms starved of funding by the banks are turning to the bond market. Asset management firms and insurance companies are responding by increasing their flow of funds into corporate bond markets—which are far more sensitive to prospective interest rate changes than traditional bank lending. A new vicious cycle is being created in which the prospect of interest rate rises leads to falling bond prices, which leads to a flow of managed funds out of the corporate bond market, which leads to declining investment and growth, which in turn undermines future bond yields so that asset managers cut back the flow of funds. That is the vicious cycle.
These distress dynamics have some unfamiliar elements. We normally invoke either leverage or maturity mismatch when explaining crises, and the usual protagonists in the crisis narrative are banks or other financial intermediaries. By contrast, in the newly emerging scenario, asset managers are at the heart. Those are usually the people we characterise as benign, long-term investors, routinely excluded from the list of “systemic” market participants. However, the distinction between leveraged institutions and long-only investors matters less if they share the same tendency to procyclicality. Today, asset managers increasingly base their trading on the same measures of risk used by the banks, so the behaviour of asset management firms will tend to exhibit the same type of procyclical risk-taking that the banks are known for. None of those issues is dealt with in current legislation; they must be dealt with by the new commission.
The third item on my extensive agenda for the reincarnated commission is how the financial services industry serves the need to rebalance the real economy. For the harsh truth is that despite the fact that banking balance sheets around the world are today 15 times greater, relative to GDP, than they were 30 years ago, trend world growth in the real economy is certainly no faster than it was then; and in the West it is significantly slower. No wonder the noble Lord, Lord Turner, labelled much of financial services as “socially useless”.
Most notably, private sector investment in research and development is slowing down. Indeed, if there were not substantial public sector R&D spending, investment in crucial drivers of future growth would be falling. Here, the public sector is really sustaining the R&D agenda. In 2012 alone, state development banks financed $109 billion-worth of investment in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and electrical transmission and distribution, while private sector investment was less than a third of that. In the US, it is government funding in high-growth areas such as the life sciences that is absolutely essential. Where would British life sciences be without the long-term funding provided by the Wellcome Trust?
The private sector problem is lack of the right sort of funding. Even venture capital, designed in theory to provide high-risk finance for innovative companies, snubbed by risk-averse banks, has become itself increasingly risk-averse. The sector is focused on early exit, usually through IPOs in three to five years—while innovation takes 15 to 20 years.
If we are to steer the economy from the consumer-driven mini-recovery that we have at the moment to a productive investment-driven economy, where is the long-term finance to come from? We need the reincarnated commission to refocus reform of the financial sector on quality of financing, not solely on stability or quantity. Reform of the financial sector should be joined up with innovation policy so that productive, not speculative, investment is nurtured in companies of all sizes.
My report card for the commission therefore reads as follows: “Has done an unexpectedly good job; indeed, a brilliant job, and should be congratulated; but has the potential to contribute even more, if only there were a Government that would give it the mandate to fulfil its potential”.
The Commercial Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Deighton)
My Lords, this has been a very constructive and timely debate. I felt that I was getting one of my exams marked there, for a minute; that was the feedback I used to get 38 years ago. It is the right time to be talking about this, given where we are with the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill, which has been extensively amended in response to the recommendations of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. Of course, as a number of noble Lords pointed out, we are moving toward the end of that Bill’s progress through the House. That marks the final stage of the Government’s programme of legislative action to reform banking.
We are all aware of the serious problems that have come to light in recent years. I thought that the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, gave us the best exposition of all the individual incidents and the questions that we should be asking. We are absolutely right this evening to be focusing on the culture within banking.
Step 1, from the Government’s point of view, was to fix the regulatory system. As well as giving the Bank of England responsibility for financial stability, therefore, the Financial Services Act established the Financial Conduct Authority as a tough new conduct regulator, focused on making sure that conduct issues get the serious attention they need and deserve.
I welcome the insightful comments in the maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Carrington. He enumerated far more concisely than I could the merits of the new judgment-led approach that the regulators will apply to supervision, and the disappointing failure of what we describe as the tick-box approach. I am in tune with that analysis. I was also quite taken by my noble friend’s discussion of Islamic banking, which is values-based. There are probably some lessons for the rest of the banking sector there.
The Government supported the establishment of the PCBS under the chairmanship of the honourable Member for Chichester, Andrew Tyrie, and the work of that commission has played an absolutely vital role in shaping the future approach to conduct and standards in the UK’s financial services sector. Of course, its pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft banking reform Bill, which has been referred to, also led to a strengthening of the ring-fence, with its electrification.
The commission’s impressive final report, Changing Banking for Good, which was published in June, made some key recommendations, ranging across individual accountability, corporate governance, competition and long-term financial stability. In July the Government published our response to those recommendations. We endorsed the main findings of the commission’s report and committed to implementing its principal recommendations, using the Bill where legislation was the right way forward. I would like to think that the Government have delivered on that commitment. The debates we had in this House were extremely helpful to the Government—and, I hope, refined some of the commissioners’ thinking—and we have ended up in what I think is a very good place. I hope that next week, at the next stage, it will all come to fruition.
We tabled amendments to establish the new senior managers regime, which is the critical control system to ensure that the culture is right, and are going to implement the commission’s recommendation to introduce what is in effect a licensing regime to cover more junior banking staff. For the first time, regulators will be able to make conduct rules applying to all employees of a bank, and these changes form the basis of a much more robust focus on conduct and standards within these banks, both by giving the regulators new and important powers with regard to senior managers, such as time-limited and conditional approvals, and by placing firm obligations on banks themselves to take responsibility for the conduct of more junior staff. The Government have put in place a new offence of criminal recklessness in the management of a bank so that in future those who bring down their bank by making thoroughly unreasonable decisions can go to jail for their actions.
All these changes have improved the Bill significantly, and I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to the debates so far. I particularly express my gratitude to the former members of the commission for their continued constructive engagement throughout, which has enabled the Government to realise their vision comprehensively.
Of course, to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail, and there is sometimes a risk that to a parliamentarian every problem looks like it needs legislation, but this debate is a timely reminder that legislation is just one weapon in our armoury towards building the highest standards within the industry. As the most reverend Primate said, you cannot solve problems by changing law, and you cannot make people good through law. I absolutely agree with that.
The commission’s recommendations about the regulation of individuals in banks rely heavily on rules that the regulators will make underneath the legislative provisions, and the way in which those rules are applied. We have to work all this through to see how it works in practice.
The Bank of England and the FCA published their responses to the commission’s report in October, and set out their positions on each of the recommendations. They continue to make progress. I hope that the regulators will take note of the points that have been raised this evening—I know many of them are here witnessing this—as they go ahead to implement the commission’s recommendations through their rules. They will be launching public consultations on these rules next year. I urge all those who have spoken this evening to reiterate their views to the regulators through this process.
I return to the issue of creating culture change. One of the most reverend Primate’s questions was, “What will drive this cultural change?”. Regulatory rules are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for creating a profound change in the culture of banking. It is clearly an area where banks themselves must take significant responsibility. They have committed to the establishment of a professional standards body, which represents some progress; but I also hope that the industry’s leaders will take notice of this debate and continue to work to rebuild the fundamental trust which the public need to have in them if this is going to improve over time. That trust will only grow through a relatively long healing process.
Perhaps I may take a couple of minutes to refer to my own experience and what I learnt in the business. I was in the banking business for 27 years. What attracted me to it in the first place resonates with the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, about the quality of finance and those of the most reverend Primate about what banks are for and what contribution they make to local and national economies. The thing that made me want to go into banking was the opportunity to work with so many different businesses; to work with so many other different kind of financial institutions; to work with different countries around the world; and to use finance to make things happen, to build things and to see development. For me, it was the best possible opportunity to make an enormous difference to so many businesses around the world.
I never lost the sense of magic that the position you get at the centre of things gives you. My career divided into two halves. In the first half, my responsibility was to manage and build a group of clients and, frankly, to maximise the market share for my firm from those clients by winning as much business from them as we possibly could. I learnt one very simple thing: the most important rule for success was to put the customer’s interests first. There was nothing worse than an unhappy client. My most profitable long-term client relationships were with those people whom I had initially advised not to do transactions. We have heard a lot of discussion about taking care of the customer and putting the customer first. My own experience tells me not only is this the right thing to do, it is also in the bank’s long-term financial interest to behave in precisely that way too. The essence of effective leadership of a bank is to bring those things together.
In the second half of my career, when I was in much more of a leadership role, I spent an enormous amount of time building and managing the systems of controls and compensation to try to align that kind of long-term profit maximisation with taking care of clients and doing the right thing in a regulatory environment. I understand the enormous challenges of sitting near the top of these big organisations; wanting to do the right thing, yet never quite being sure whether there was a so-called rogue trader out there and whether you had the capacity to spot them and deal with them early enough.
A number of noble Lords have pointed to the importance of competition as a way of keeping everybody honest on a number of respects. I absolutely support competition as a healthy and stimulating part of this dialogue.
My final comment about the culture of banks is that it comes from the top—the tone is set at the top. You absolutely need systems, controls and management structures to ensure that it is effectively deployed throughout the organisation, but, for me, culture is ultimately about leadership. It is about leadership of the financial institutions, in the regulators and in government. That triumvirate needs to continue to display the right kind of leadership if we are effectively to change backing for good, as the commission has recommended.
Finally, I thank noble Lords who have spoken this evening, and thank the most reverend Primate for presenting us with this important opportunity to discuss these matters.
The Archbishop of Canterbury
My Lords, I add my thanks to all noble Lords who have contributed this evening. A number of striking comments and speeches have been made, notable among them that of the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, with his description of a Sharia-compliant bank and the impact that that can have and his deployment of his experience both in the other place and in the banking industry over many years.
The debate has ranged far and wide. I want to draw on two characters. One is Dracula. We have the threat of reincarnation—or, if one is into “Doctor Who”, regeneration—of the Parliamentary Banking Standards Commission. I saw the blood drain from the face of the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, as I sat from this distance. I hope that we can find some stake and clove of garlic that can put it into its grave and that someone else will have the pleasure of reincarnating it at some point.
The speech of the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, clearly reminded us that financial services are immensely connected and that what you squash down in one place pops up in another—to put it less elegantly than he did—often with great force, little regulation and usually much danger. His exceptional speech should be noted and thought about. I fear that there will be need for continual monitoring of what happens over the next few years.
I have a couple of comments. I shall be brief, because we are at the end of our time and it has been a long day. The comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, about size were also strong reminders of the difficulties that we face. One of the most memorable comments in evidence for me was from a former head of UBS, clearly deeply affected personally by the pain of what he had gone through. He was one of those bankers who came who had borne the whole weight of it on his shoulders and suffered greatly as a result. There was no lack of responsibility from him. When asked if, in the depths of the night, he looked back and thought that he might have done differently, he said that you can have a big simple bank or a small complicated bank; you cannot have a big complicated bank. He said that if he had his time again, he would have kept it simple.
When I listened to the noble Lords, Lord Sharkey and Lord Eatwell, I was reminded of the extraordinary statistic anticipating the banking industry at nine times GDP. I was reminded of the need for banks to be kept to a size where they do not threaten everything else. They are not the only goose laying golden eggs in our economy. We cannot be a “monocrop economy”, as Martin Wolf described us in a notable article in the Financial Times in January 2009.
I cannot go through all the other points raised, but I heard with gratitude the comments about education. Competition is obviously essential, but, as the Minister said a few moments ago, competition must be to be the best supplier of the customer, not the most profitable bank going. You may get the second through the first, but if you aim solely for the second, you will never get the first.
Finally, the quality of finance—to which the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, referred directly and indirectly—is that which sustains our communities and enables the talent of our nation to flourish, grow and develop jobs. He used a phrase, “financial services”, that has been used many times in the debate. All these industries, banking and the others, are there to serve, not to rule. They are, as I was taught as a child by my grandmother, when talking about fire, good servants and very bad masters.