House of Commons (22) - Commons Chamber (8) / Written Statements (8) / Westminster Hall (6)
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(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons Chamber(10 years, 8 months ago)
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(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons Chamber1. What steps he is taking to control the amount of trade union facility time in the civil service.
4. What steps he is taking to control the amount of trade unions facility time in the civil service.
10. What steps he is taking to control the amount of trade union facility time in the civil service.
At the time of the last general election, there was no proper monitoring of trade union facility time in government. That has now changed, and paid time off for any trade union activities and full-time union officials now requires the specific consent of a senior Minister. We expect the cost to the taxpayer for paid time off for trade union duties to fall by 60% from the level we inherited.
So far, by reducing significantly the number of full-time union officials who are paid by the taxpayer as civil servants, we have saved more than £2.3 million just from that element of the reforms. Overall, we are on course to meet our benchmark of spending no more than 0.1% of the civil service pay bill on facility time.
Further to the kind answers that my right hon. Friend has given, will he tell the House how many civil servants were given paid time off to attend the Public and Commercial Services Union conference this year and last year?
In May this year, 651 PCS reps had paid time off to attend the PCS conference—fewer than half the number of the previous year. Next year, paid time off to attend the conference will be entirely at the discretion of the Secretary of State or the Minister in charge of that civil servant’s Department.
This issue is a significant cost to the public purse. Will the Minister please advise the House how many taxpayer-funded trade union representatives there were in May 2010, and how many there are now?
It has taken some time to establish the facts about that because there was no proper monitoring. We believe, however, that in May 2010 in the region of 250 civil servants were full-time officers of their trade union and doing no work on behalf of the taxpayer. Several of them had been promoted in post while doing no work as a civil servant—and one of them had been promoted twice, which seems remarkable.
It is clear that the Minister has planted these questions in order to union-bash again, which seems to be something he relishes. Is he man enough at this point to say how beneficial trade unions are in the workplace in terms of the economy, the taxpayer and the employer?
I have always been at pains to say that there is benefit to the employer in having union representatives in the workplace. What is not acceptable, however, is having those representatives uncontrolled, unmonitored and growing like Topsy, to the extent that they were costing the taxpayer £36 million a year at a time of financial stringency caused by the grotesque budget deficit we inherited from the Labour party. That is completely unacceptable.
The Minister knows that I have a lot of time for him, and I congratulate him on winning a famous design award for his Department recently. However, I am a proud trade unionist and member of Unite, and I am a proud Co-operator. In a democratic society in which unions have an important part to play—as does the co-operative movement—why is there a feeling coming from the Government Benches that they are out to get us?
I am certainly not out to get the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have—if I may return the compliment—a great deal of respect. I have never said that there is no role for trade unions or for trade union representatives having paid time off in the workplace. I have always stressed that there is value for the employer in the ability to have disputes resolved quickly, effectively and at local level. What was going on in the civil service, however, was way out of line with any other workplace, even in the public sector. The taxpayer is entitled to expect that the Government will grip that issue, which, for the first time, is being done.
2. What assessment he has made of the effect on small towns of outsourcing under the shared services programme.
Our assessment showed that any employment impacts arising from outsourcing are likely to be substantially mitigated through redeployment. I expect that additional new employment opportunities will be generated through what I hope will be a thriving UK-based service provider that will result from the joint venture we have created.
Does my right hon. Friend recognise that offices in rural locations, such as the Alnwick DEFRA office, can be excellent locations for shared back-office services because they have good staff and low staff turnover? Will he therefore do all he can to encourage the public-private partnership company to make sure that the Alnwick location is used, either for its existing work or for alternative work in the field?
I absolutely take the point that my right hon. Friend makes. It is very well made. I know that the new joint venture company will look very carefully at all the implications. It will want to be able to do the work effectively and to create a new provider in the marketplace that has the opportunity to create more jobs rather than lose jobs. I know that he will talk to the new company and that it will want to hear his views.
3. What recent progress he has made on the Government ICT Strategy.
We have created a world-class Government web presence. We believe that we saved £500 million in 2012-13 through better IT spend controls, and our digital by default strategy is transforming 25 of the most significant Government transactions by making them easier for users and cheaper for taxpayers.
Meanwhile, in the real world, the new Army recruitment contract with Capita is a shambles. Why did the Government not plan the ICT better so that the new recruitment processes and Ministry of Defence systems worked better?
I have to tell the hon. Gentleman that the real world we inherited was an absolute shambles in terms of how Government managed IT transactions. His is the party that gave us tax credits and the NHS IT system. What we have done is to put in proper controls and create the conditions in which smaller and leaner organisations can come in and offer better value.
May I commend my hon. Friend the Minister and the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General for the excellent work they have done in ICT? But is it not still ludicrously impossible to get around the silly Treasury rules about recruiting, retaining and rewarding the necessary staff with the necessary expertise to be the single responsible owners with continuous oversight of projects? Does that not show that civil service reform has not gone nearly far enough, and that that justifies a commission on the future of the civil service that only Parliament can provide?
I recognise my hon. Friend’s consistent commitment to the idea of improving the capability of the civil service. However, I do not think I agree with his premise, and I invite him to visit the Government’s digital service because he will see a department that feels unlike any other in Government. It is full of extraordinary talent that has come in to work for Government, often at below market rates, because they want to make that difference.
The arrogant complacency of the Minister’s answers shows just how out of touch he is. Some 80% of Government interactions take place with the bottom 25% of society, but only 15% of people living in deprived areas use a Government service online. The promised assisted digital provision is still nowhere to be seen, locking our citizens out of his digital democracy. That is why Labour has announced a review of digital government, to make it work for the many, not the few. Is it not time that he did the same?
Again, we absolutely will not take any lessons from the Labour party about digital government. We are committed to the idea of transforming the great digital service. The feedback has been tremendous so far, and we have a hard commitment that every transformation will be accompanied by an assisted digital programme.
Kettering borough council, of which I have the privilege of being a member, is having great difficulty in complying with the Cabinet Office protocols on e-mail traffic with local government. May I arrange a meeting with the Minister and a representative from the authority so that we can get this sorted out?
5. What steps he is taking to increase the number of people involved with charity.
Our recent report encouraging social action set out what we have done to make it easier for people to give time and money, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in welcoming the news that volunteering has risen sharply since 2012 after years of decline.
I hope the Minister will elaborate further. Only 9% of people are responsible for giving two-thirds of donations to charity. Will he elaborate on his previous answer?
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point and he is right to say that we rely on an extremely generous minority who do most of the giving. Britain has risen in the league table and is now the sixth most generous country in the world. Millions of our fellow citizens and constituents give time on a regular basis, and volunteering has risen since 2012 after years of decline. We think we have made a contribution to that.
May I add my support for the many people who volunteer to support charities? Does my hon. Friend agree that the investigation by the Public Accounts Committee into the pay of senior executives of charities is a good step in the right direction to ensure that volunteers are following people who are being reasonably paid?
In any discussions the Minister may have with some of the main charities, will he debate with them the need for them to promote their work in a proactive way, while safeguarding against what some regard as assertive and over-aggressive actions by charity collectors who try to obtain direct debits on the street? There is concern about the level of assertiveness on the street.
We certainly do have those conversations with the chief executives of some of the largest charities. The activity the hon. Gentleman describes raises at least £100 million a year, so we cannot ignore that. We must, however, ensure that it is regulated effectively so it does not put people off and tarnish the brands of the charities we need to support.
Will my hon. Friend join me in thanking the many people in my constituency who work for charities and who volunteer? Will he update the House on what is happening in schools to encourage the next generation of young people to work for charities and volunteer more?
My hon. Friend is a great champion of the voluntary sector in her constituency. I am delighted to place on record my appreciation of volunteers across the country. As she points out, it is vital that we inspire the next generation. That is why national programmes, such as the National Citizen Service and the cross-sector and cross-party campaign—Step up to Service—we support to double the number of young people involved in regular volunteering are so important. I hope she welcomes them.
6. What recent discussions he has had with charities and voluntary organisations on levels of demand for their services.
9. What recent discussions he has had with charities and voluntary organisations on levels of demand for their services.
I have regular discussions with charities and voluntary organisations. The anecdotal evidence is that many are experiencing higher demand for their services. It is a challenging environment and we all know that. However, I am encouraged that charity income appears to be steady, volunteering is up, giving has remained stable and social investment has risen. It is challenging, yes, but there is good news out there.
The Government expect charities and voluntary organisations to step in in many places where the state has pulled out. However, the Minister recently said:
“frankly I don’t think the government does understand civil society.”
Why did he say that?
Because for years, not least under 13 years of Labour, government and civil society did not mix or take the time to understand each other. Our commitment to open public service is not about replacing things but trying to create the space for charities and social enterprises to help us deliver better public services. There are different cultures and we have to take the time to understand each other better and make the process work better.
A recent survey by The Guardian’s voluntary sector network revealed that 47% of respondents had no confidence in the Government’s approach to the third sector. Rather than just yet another failed relaunch of the big society initiative, would it not be better if Ministers started to actually listen to charities, large and small, to find out what support they need?
I have spent a lot of my time listening to charities and voluntary sector organisations over the past five or six years, and I would point out to the hon. Gentleman and the Labour party, which continues to talk down the sector, that the sector’s greatest asset, the British public, continue to support it more and more. Charitable giving has been steady through difficult times and levels of volunteering and social investment have been rising. The Government have done a great deal to make it easier for charities through difficult times.
My hon. Friend will be aware that Essex county council is currently consulting on the future of youth services and that some difficult decisions lie ahead. He is meeting the Essex county councillor concerned. Will he give every support possible to youth services in Harlow and do everything he can to support Essex council so that we can protect our youth services?
My hon. Friend has written to me about this matter, and I congratulate him on his work. I am committed to meeting the decision makers at Essex county council, as I met with decision makers in Cornwall yesterday. There is a very real issue about the future of youth services and why they have been so easy to cut, and I remain passionately committed to young people having access to high-quality youth work.
Church leaders in Bedford have been instrumental in setting up and operating the food bank there. With demand for food bank services increasing across the country, will my hon. Friend join me in meeting representatives from local churches in Bedford to understand the complex reasons why demand for food bank services is increasing?
I thank my hon. Friend for that question, because the Labour party tries to make far too many political points about food banks. The underlying issues are complex and their number is growing, and the Government are supporting them with investment through our social action fund. Food banks are a magnificent human response to difficult times, and we should place on the record our recognition of the work being done to support them across the country in responding to need.
7. What recent progress his Department has made on improving efficiency across Government.
The efficiency and reform group supported Departments across Government to deliver savings of £5.4 billion in the first half of 2013-14, which was an increase of 73% on savings over the same period in the previous year. I am extremely proud of the hard work that civil servants across Whitehall have undertaken to achieve this success for the taxpayer.
Will the Minister tell me why the costs of the efficiency and reform group, which now employs 440 members of staff, have ballooned to £60 million? More importantly, will he tell the House today what he would not tell my hon. Friends on the Front Bench—how many people work there now and what is the cost?
A lot of this work simply was not being done under the previous Government, but the predecessor organisations employed more than twice as many members of staff as the efficiency and reform group now employs, and the simple fact is that in the last financial year it was responsible, with its colleagues across Government, for delivering savings of more than £10 billion by eradicating waste left by the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman was a member.
We know that universal credit will not be delivered on time, that £40 million has been wasted, that £90 million will be written down and that the IT system Agile was deeply inappropriate. The Opposition have learnt that Agile was used on the insistence of the Cabinet Office, so will the Paymaster General, who boasts of his efficiency drives, give us a full explanation of his Department’s role in this debacle and publish all guidance the Cabinet Office sent to the Department for Work and Pensions?
Oh dear. Is that the best the hon. Gentleman can do? I suggest he read the report by the Public Accounts Committee on what went wrong with universal credit. The problems only came to the attention of the DWP because of a review commissioned by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions.
T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.
My responsibilities are for the public sector efficiency and reform group, civil service issues, industrial relations strategy in the public sector, government transparency, civil society, cyber-security and civil contingencies. In that context, I would like to thank all those in the emergency services who did a brilliant job working to prepare effectively for and respond to the effects of last week and weekend’s storm surge. I am sure the whole House will want to send its best wishes to those adversely affected and our thanks to those who worked massively to prepare for it.
May I take this opportunity to congratulate my right hon. Friend on the open government partnership conference held in London last month and ask what plans there are for the open government partnership for the coming year?
We passed on our chairmanship of the open government partnership at the conference. I thank my hon. Friend for his remarks; it was very successful, with contributors and participants from civil society and from Governments right across the world. It was attended by a number of UK Ministers, including my right hon. Friends the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister. We hope that this will develop, with more Governments taking part and with a deepening of the relationship with civil society organisations in some countries where their life is not nearly as protected as the life of civil society organisations here. [Interruption.]
Order. The Minister is providing serious answers to serious questions, but I am not sure that he is getting the serious attention that he and I would think those answers warrant. Perhaps we could have a bit of order.
It was revealed in a leaked letter yesterday that the Minister for the Cabinet Office tried to use emergency powers to block a freedom of information request for the Government to publish the HS2 project assessment review from 2011, which he did because of “political and presentational difficulties”. Those who support HS2 in principle know that public confidence is vital. Concerns have already been expressed about accelerating costs because of the Government’s failure to get a grip on the project. Questions have been raised by the National Audit Office about the economic benefits. Will the Minister now publish that project assessment review?
Under the last Government, when the hon. Gentleman resided in Downing street, information about the progress on major projects had to be extracted by force. Earlier this year, we published the ratings for all major projects. We did that voluntarily—the first time it has ever been done—and we will continue to do so. We are now the world’s leading Government on transparency, so lectures from the hon. Gentleman come pretty thin.
Given the continued funding pressures on youth services, will the Minister update us on how his Department is using the Positive for Youth policy to maximise resources for a better joined-up youth offer between local authorities, voluntary services and businesses to provoke young people’s engagement and a youth voice?
First, let me recognise my hon. Friend’s long-standing advocacy for young people and his authorship of the initial Positive for Youth programme. Yes, we are very concerned about cuts to youth services at the local level. The Cabinet Office is mapping exactly what is going on at the moment and stands ready to work with local authorities to help them comply with their statutory duty and work more creatively with other local partners in delivering fantastic opportunities for young people to develop themselves through access to high-quality youth work.
T2. Thank you, Mr Speaker. Following the question on outsourcing from the right hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), we have now passed £100 billion-worth of contracts to large companies that have absolutely no transparency. Is it not time to revisit the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to make sure that these companies do have the necessary transparency and are brought into the scope of the Act?
The hon. Gentleman will know that my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir Alan Beith), who chairs the Justice Committee, presided over an inquiry into the working of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and did not recommend that any such change should happen. The hon. Gentleman refers to large companies taking part in outsourcing, but one of the things we have done is to reduce the Government’s dependency on large companies by opening up procurement to small and medium-sized enterprises across the country, which was not even measured under his Government. We have made big steps—though not yet enough—to open it up to many smaller UK businesses.
Last week’s tidal surge devastated hundreds of homes in my constituency when our flood defences were breached by the Humber, the Ouse and the Trent. During that emergency, the real heroes in communities such as Burringham and South Ferriby were—apart from the emergency services—our parish councils, which had in place emergency plans that ran 24/7. Will my hon. Friend pay tribute to those parish councillors and urge other such councillors to ensure that they have proper community emergency plans in place?
My hon. Friend is completely right: there was an amazing community response to the emergency caused by the storm surge. He is quite right that parish councils, particularly in rural areas, play an incredibly important role in a completely voluntary way. I would also like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who I understand was out there in the small hours of the morning, working alongside his constituents to support them.
T3. Can the Minister tell us what proportion of the files subject to the 30-year rule the Department has released to the National Archives, and how many of them relate to Northern Ireland?
May I invite my right hon. Friend to visit Matrix SCM at Milton Keynes and see how it is helping local authorities to save an average of 17% on public procurement contracts, increase the number of small and medium-sized enterprises winning those contracts, and speed up the payments process?
I shall be happy to do that. I know how much support my hon. Friend must have given the company in his constituency. We have opened up procurement, which was being run in a way that, in many cases, froze out SMEs and prevented them from doing work for councils and the Government, but, although we have made some progress, we still have much more to do.
Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 11 December.
This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
I am sure that the Prime Minister is as concerned as Labour Members are about the 42% increase in long-term unemployment among young women that has taken place on his watch. Will he confirm that the reason he does not support the No More Page 3 campaign is that, like his hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Richard Drax), he believes that at least page 3 provides jobs for the girls?
We have seen quite a rapid reduction in unemployment over recent months under this Government, and there are a million more people in work than when I became Prime Minister. Of course, there is a lot more to be done to get the long-term unemployed, in particular, back into work, but the Work programme is performing twice as successfully as some of its predecessors. I think that the hon. Lady should get behind such programmes, rather than making points such as the one she has just made.
Last Tuesday Joshua Folkes, aged 17, died in my constituency following a knife attack. Serious youth violence has fallen by some 19% in Enfield, and the Government have toughened knife laws, but what more can be done to rid the streets of Enfield, and those elsewhere in the country, of the carnage caused by knife attacks?
My hon. Friend makes a very good point in speaking on behalf of his constituent. As he has said, we have toughened the law, and I think that that has made a difference, but I think that the most important thing for us to do now is get rid of this dreadful culture of people carrying knives and educate young people about the dangers of carrying them. Those who carry knives often end up being stabbed themselves, and sometimes tragically die. It is to that work that we should now give priority.
Does the Prime Minister agree that, given the crisis in living standards that ordinary families are facing, Members of Parliament should not be awarded a pay rise many times above inflation in 2015?
I do agree with the right hon. Gentleman about this issue. I think that it would be wrong for MPs to be given a big pay rise at a time of public sector pay restraint. All three party leaders agree on that, and we have all made the point to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. However, we should be clear about the fact that what IPSA has said is not a final recommendation.
Let me briefly make three points. First, I think that the idea of an 11% pay rise in one year at a time of pay restraint is simply unacceptable. Secondly, I think that IPSA needs to think again, and that unless it does so no one will want to rule anything out. No one wants to go back to the system of MPs voting on their own pay, but we must have a process and an outcome that can build public confidence. Thirdly, I think that all this should be accompanied by a cut in the cost of politics.
I am glad that the Prime Minister agrees with me about this issue. Does he also agree that we should not let it hang around as an issue until after the general election, and hang over trust in politics? May I urge him to work with me, on a cross-party basis, to find a way of making IPSA think again, and to stop this package happening?
My door is always open to the right hon. Gentleman, and I am always happy to discuss this or, indeed, any other issue. Let me stress, however, that what IPSA has said is not a final recommendation. I think that if the three party leaders and others in the House unite in saying that it is not right to award this pay rise, that will be the strongest message we can give.
I agree with the Prime Minister, but I hope he agrees with me that waiting and seeing will not work and that we do have to get together to deal with this. The reason this is not the right time for this pay rise is that most people are going through the biggest cost of living crisis in a generation, and I want to turn to that cost of living crisis. Last Thursday, the Chancellor claimed living standards were rising. That just is not the case, is it?
Let me add one point on the issue of MPs’ pay. This Government have shown respect for the difficulties people face: when we came into office we cut Ministers’ pay by 5% and froze it for the whole of the Parliament. That is not something Labour did.
The right hon. Gentleman wants to get on to the economy and, frankly, after last week’s exchange I cannot wait to get on to the exchange on the economy. We discovered a new duo: red Ed and redder Ed. I am looking forward to discussing these things. I thought the Institute for Fiscal Studies put this very clearly. It said: we have had a great big recession. We have had the biggest recession we have had in 100 years. It would be astonishing if household incomes had not fallen and earnings had not fallen, but the fact is that is the legacy of what Labour left us. The right hon. Gentleman’s entire approach seems to be: “We made the most almighty mess, why are you taking so long to clear it up?” Well, we are clearing it up.
In case the right hon. Gentleman has forgotten, he has been the Prime Minister for three and a half years. But I think we are making progress, because last Thursday the Chancellor said that living standards were rising. [Interruption.] His own Office for Budget Responsibility says:
“Almost whichever way you look at it…average earnings, wages and salaries…the levels have been falling”. [Interruption.]
Order. Mr Blenkinsop, you are yelling across the Chamber. Be quiet. Calm yourself. Take up yoga.
The OBR went on to say that it is “inconceivable” to suggest otherwise, but that is exactly what the Chancellor did last Thursday. Why will the Prime Minister not just come out and admit it: there is a cost of living crisis in this country?
Well, it comes to something when the right hon. Gentleman is being heckled from his own side. I do not know how you are going to keep us all in order, Mr Speaker.
I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what has been happening over these three years: we have got the deficit down by a third, we have got 1 million more people in work, we have got 400,000 more businesses operating in Britain, and we have got one of the fastest rates of growth now of any major western economy. But the truth about living standards and the cost of living is this: if we do not have a long-term economic plan to get our economy moving, we do not have a plan to deal with living standards. We have a plan. Our plan is to keep interest rates low, to get the country back to work, to cut people’s taxes, to boost business. Our plan is working. The right hon. Gentleman does not have a plan, as we discovered last week, apart from more borrowing, more spending, more taxes—all the things that got us into the mess in the first place.
Utterly complacent and out of touch with the country—that is this Prime Minister absolutely all over. Let us be fair to him: he does understand that some people are really struggling because today we learn of his plan to cut the top rate of tax further, from 45p to 40p. Can he explain why he is even contemplating a further tax cut for millionaires, who have received hundreds of thousands of pounds-worth of tax cuts, when ordinary families are so squeezed?
The top rate under this Government is higher than at any time when the right hon. Gentleman was in the Cabinet, the Government or was working in the Treasury trying to wreck the economy in the first place. If he wants to talk about the cost of living, let us compare our records. The Labour Government doubled council tax; we have frozen it. They put up petrol tax 12 times; we have frozen it. They put up the basic rate of pension by a measly 75p; we have increased it by £15 a week. I am happy to compare our records any time of day, but the British public know this: if we want to sort out the cost of living, if we want to help families, we need more jobs, we need more growth, we need a long-term economic plan. We have got one; he has not.
I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what happened—[Interruption.]
Order. Members must calm down. I have said that before, but some people are slow learners. We will go on for as long as it takes. They can shout and scream and bawl in the most juvenile manner, but we will just keep going.
I will tell the right hon. Gentleman what happened. Under the last Labour Government, real earnings went up £3,600. Living standards went up: under him, they are down £1,600. Living standards are down under this Government. We have always known how out of touch he is, but he is now taking it to a whole new level. The Government are in denial about the cost of living crisis, and they are not satisfied with one millionaires’ tax cut—they think it is time for another. Once again, the Prime Minister proves that he stands up for the wrong people.
Oh, dearie me! At the end of six questions, we are back to denial and the record of the last Labour Government. I know that I have had a long flight, but I could not have written the script better if I had done it myself. The last Labour Government gave us the biggest budget deficit virtually anywhere in the world, and the biggest banking bust anywhere in the world. They created a giant mess that this Government are clearing up. That is the truth. Since the autumn statement, why cannot the right hon. Gentleman mention the fact that business optimism is up, manufacturing is up and the number of job vacancies is up? Pretty soon, we will be able to add two to that list.
Q2. Unemployment in my constituency is 21% lower than it was at the time of the last election. We have had a 90% increase in apprenticeship start-ups, manufacturing output is up and business activity is at a 32-month high in the west midlands. Does the Prime Minister agree that, due to the hard work of my constituents and people across the country, the Government’s long-term economic plan is working and delivering benefits to every region of the United Kingdom?
My hon. Friend is right. During the boom years, the number of people employed in the private sector in the west midlands actually went down, but we are now seeing better news. Employment is up 25,000 since the election, with private sector employment up 14,000 this year. The youth claimant count is falling in the west midlands. I know how much time my hon. Friend puts into things such as the apprenticeship fair that he held earlier this year. This shows that our long-term plan is the right plan, and that it is beginning to work.
Q3. What does the Prime Minister have to say to women across the country who are working full time and whose disposable incomes have fallen by an average of almost £2,500 since his Government came into office?
The first thing to say is that we welcome the fact that there are more women in work than at any time in our history. The second thing to say is that, because we are lifting the first £10,000 that people earn out of income tax, they will be better off by £705 next year. That is progress, but if the hon. Gentleman is asking whether it takes time to recover from the mess left by his party, the answer is yes it does, but we are going to do it.
Dementia is the disease most feared by the over-50s in this country. The Government are rightly doubling investment in dementia research during this Parliament, and the Prime Minister is hosting the G8 summit on dementia this week. Will he now lift the country’s and the Government’s sights by committing to doubling again this country’s investment in dementia research?
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question. He is absolutely right to say that this is a real challenge facing not only this country, where there are 670,000 people suffering from dementia, but the whole world. We are having the G8 conference today in London to share intelligence, expertise and scientific research and learn lessons from each other. And yes, I can confirm that this Government are already planning to double research into dementia up to 2015, and we plan to double it again thereafter.
Q4. Given that the implementation of universal credit has become a shambles, how can the public have confidence in those who are responsible for it?
I think it is absolutely right that we introduce this benefits system in a very slow and deliberate way. I remember sitting in my surgery as a constituency MP when the tax credit system came in, in one big bang, and having case after case where people’s household finances were completely wrecked by the last Labour Government. I will not let that happen again. As we introduce this vital benefit, let us remember the fact that 480,000 fewer people are on out-of-work benefits and it is this Government who are making work pay.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the best way to raise the living standards of my constituents is for the Government to stick to their long-term plan to rebuild this economy and not abandon it in favour of more borrowing and more taxes, as proposed by the Labour party?
My hon. Friend is entirely right. The biggest hit to living standards would be if we let spending and borrowing get out of control and interest rates went up. That is what we want to avoid, which is why we got the deficit down, and we must continue with our difficult spending decisions. That has enabled us to cut the taxes of people working and living in Basildon. By next year, with the first £10,000 of income coming out of tax, people on the minimum wage who are working a full-time week will see their income tax bill come down by two thirds. That is real action on the side of people who work hard.
Q5. Is the Prime Minister aware that FTSE 100 directors now get £86,000 a week on average, while at the other end of the scale 5 million workers get less than the living wage and three quarters of a million people who cannot get a job and get sanctioned get nothing at all and are left to starve? Is there no end to the brutality and nastiness of Tory Britain?
I say to the right hon. Gentleman, who served in Labour Government after Labour Government with a 40p tax rate—it is now 45p—and a bonus bonanza in the City 85 times higher than it is now, that he has a lot of brass neck.
New figures show that the second largest pub company in this country, Punch Taverns, overcharged the British consumer in its pubs, on beer alone, by £4.3 billion over 10 years. Clear market manipulation is taking place, so will the Prime Minister commit to deal with this crony capitalism? Will he listen to the Federation of Small Businesses and back the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee’s solution to this problem?
I know of my hon. Friend’s long-standing interest in not only beer, but pubs and how pub landlords are treated, particularly by the pub companies. Let me look very carefully at what he said. I am a great believer in a healthy pub industry. Pubs are often the heart of the village and the heart of our communities, and I will look carefully at the beer report that he mentions.
Q6. During his autumn statement, the Chancellor said that “people should expect to spend…a third of their adult lives in retirement.”—[Official Report, 5 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 1106.]Given that life expectancy in some communities in my country is only 75, what does the Prime Minister think would be a fair retirement age in a Welsh context?
The point my right hon. Friend the Chancellor was making is that this should be assessed independently but it is right to set a guide—an expectation—rather than just having Ministers announce from time to time what retirement ages should be. If the point the hon. Gentleman is making is that we need to tackle health inequalities better in our country and that we need ring-fenced budgets for public health, as this Government have brought in, then I would agree with him.
Q7. Bomber Command veteran Stan Franks recently passed away at the age of 88. As a teenager, he flew some 31 missions, a staggering achievement for such a young man. Will my right hon. Friend congratulate the Thurrock RAF Association and the Thurrock Enquirer on their efforts in raising the funds to ensure that his passing is marked appropriately?
I would certainly praise all those in Thurrock who have raised money in this way. The story of Stan Franks is a truly remarkable one. He is believed to be the youngest airman to complete more than 30 missions—he did this in 1944-45, before he was 20 years old. It is a real reminder to our generation of just how much previous generations put in to make sure that we could live in freedom. One of the greatest privileges I have had in this job has been welcoming veterans of Bomber Command to No. 10 Downing street and making that announcement about ensuring that they have that clasp on their medal, which I know many value so much. As Winston Churchill rightly said in 1940:
“The fighters are our salvation but the bombers alone provide the means of victory.”
We should never forget those brave crews in Bomber Command. So many now are coming to the end of their lives—so many who did so much for our country.
Q8. A great start.I thank the Prime Minister for saving my marriage. Carolyn was just about to sign the divorce papers when she heard the report that if we stayed together we would be in line for a sweet £150 a year tax break. If, as the Prime Minister says, marriage must be underpinned by the tax system, why is it that, since the married person’s tax allowance was abolished in 2000, the divorce rate has gone down?
I am delighted that happiness is maintained in the Harris household. I could put it another way. It was only when I started to talk about the married couple’s allowance that the Leader of the Opposition tied the knot. The tax system moves in mysterious ways.
In the light of the call by the Leader of the Opposition for urgent action in response to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority’s proposal for an increase in MPs’ pay, will my right hon. Friend immediately retable the Boundary Commission report, which would simultaneously pay for any increase and increase the workload of MPs? It would surely be hypocritical for the Leader of the Opposition or the leader of the Liberal Democrats to oppose that measure.
My right hon. Friend tempts me. The point I was trying to make is that cutting the cost of politics has a role to play alongside this argument—[Interruption.]
Order. Members must not shout at the Prime Minister. It is discourteous to keep gesticulating at the man. Let us hear the Prime Minister.
It is no good shouting from the Opposition Benches. Labour Members had the opportunity to reform the Lords, and they were the ones who stopped it.
Q9. The Prime Minister says that the G8 and his attendance at the investment conference advertised his commitment to Northern Ireland and its economy. However, his Whitehall is busy removing jobs from Northern Ireland in the Driver and Vehicle Agency and now also in Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, with the proposal to close offices in Newry and Enniskillen and halve the office in my constituency of Foyle. How does the removal of jobs by Whitehall contribute to balancing both the economy in Northern Ireland and that region?
I understand why the hon. Gentleman makes his point. My hon. Friend the Exchequer Secretary will meet him to talk about the HMRC issues. As for the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Department for Transport is still considering the results of its consultation. Let me make this point. Employment in Northern Ireland has risen by 32,000 since the election, and he knows, as I do, that the real long-term answer for the economy in Northern Ireland is a private sector revival. The public sector is very large in Northern Ireland. We need more small and medium-sized enterprises and more investment in Northern Ireland, and we need those jobs to come, which is what the G8 and the investment conference were all about.
Q10. My constituent Jack Scerri, who has recently completed the National Citizen Service programme, visited my surgery on Saturday with Lisa Farrell of Staffordshire NCS to let me know just how much the programme had given him personal confidence and a clear sense of what he wished to do with his future. What plans does my right hon. Friend have for enabling as many young people as possible to take part in that transformative programme that he has championed?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he has said. It is a transformative programme. Some 66,000 young people have already been through it since 2010. It now forms part of what Prince Charles wants to see—a decade in which we encourage volunteering and we get 50% of all young people taking part in volunteering. I hope that Members from all parts of the House are having an experience similar to that of my hon. Friend, with people stopping them and talking about the NCS and what it has done for young people and their confidence. It really is a good programme, and I am delighted that it has all-party support.
As the Prime Minister is trying to come over all family friendly, can he confirm whether maternity and paternity pay will be included in the benefits cap announced in the autumn statement?
As the Chancellor announced at the time, what is out of the benefit cap is the basic state pension. I think that is important. On all other welfare spending, we need to ensure that we are distributing properly the different sorts of welfare.
Q11. Three hundred and thirty new jobs were created in my constituency in the past three months alone and I expect many more to be created over the next few months, particularly as housing and construction projects accelerate. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is important that young people are not left behind and that abolishing the jobs tax on young people aged under 21 shows that the Government are serious about tackling youth unemployment?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he says. As the economy recovers, it is vital that it is a recovery for all—that it is a recovery for north and south, for young and old. There is always a danger in an economy that young people who are not in the work force will be locked out of it, and that is why the change that the Chancellor announced about abolishing the jobs tax on those young people to make it cheaper for employers to take them on can have a real impact on ensuring that young people participate in our growing economy.
Given the fact that the Work and Pensions Secretary was left alone on his Benches when he made his statement on universal credit, does the Prime Minister still have confidence in him and in the universal benefit changes?
I think the Work and Pensions Secretary has probably done more than anyone else in British politics to transform the debate about welfare. That is happening because of his dedication to the issue. We see fewer people out of work and the number of workless households at its lowest since records began. He is introducing a system that includes the benefit cap that Labour voted against and the household benefit cap that Labour voted against, and that is making work pay. We should be proud of that work.
Q12. Does the Prime Minister agree that in the long term the best plan to improve the living standards of my hard-working constituents in Bury, Ramsbottom and Tottington is to continue to cut their income tax, which can only be achieved by a growing economy and by the Government cutting spending so that our country lives within its means and does not have to borrow every month to pay its bills?
My hon. Friend makes a very important point. At the end of the day, you can talk all you like about how you want to help people with their living standards and to keep their tax bills—[Interruption.] Is it not extraordinary? After last week, and all that, the shadow Chancellor is at it again—heckling. We learned something last week: he can dish it out but he can’t take it—[Interruption.] I will tell the House what is going down: his career. That is what is going down. The simple point is that if we want to get people’s taxes down, we have to make difficult decisions about spending. That is what we have done. That is why we can cut taxes, whereas the Opposition would have to put them up.
In towns across the United Kingdom, there are parents in deep despair because they cannot afford a decent Christmas for their children. Why is that?
What is happening in our country is that we are recovering from the longest, deepest and most difficult recession in living memory. It takes time, but what we see is 1 million more people in work—that is a positive development. We see 400,000 more businesses operating in our country—that is a positive development. The growth rate in our country is now the second-highest of any major western economy. The job is not done yet; it is not halfway done yet. That is why we need a long-term economic plan, which is what we are dedicated to delivering. Frankly, we would get nowhere if the first thing we did was to increase spending, increase borrowing and increase taxes—all the things that got this country into the mess in the first place.
Q13. British Aerospace has 1,000 apprentices at any one time, and 221 in Samlesbury in the Ribble Valley and neighbouring Warton in Lancashire. What can the Prime Minister do to encourage other firms to follow the excellent example of British Aerospace and take on more apprentices, particularly in engineering and science? That would in itself encourage more youngsters to study those subjects in school and university.
I have seen with my own eyes what BAE Systems does in respect of apprenticeships, including higher level apprenticeships, and it is extremely impressive. We have to take action at every level. We have to make sure that more young people are studying science and maths subjects, and that is beginning to happen. We have to make sure that setting up apprenticeships is simpler. It must be less expensive. We need a culture where companies really want to get involved in this programme, including small companies, but we also need to attract more investment to our shores. That is why it is particularly good news today that GSK, one of the giants of the pharmaceutical industry, is announcing another £200 million invested into our country, because alongside engineering, life sciences is an area where Britain can win in the global race.
Q14. When the House debated Syria in late August, the estimate of dead in the conflict was around 100,000. Just over three months later the estimate is over 120,000. We cannot allow this to become a conflict in a faraway land that we do not know anything about. Is it not time for the Government and, indeed, the whole House to urge greater action by the international community and show that we do care about the suffering of the Syrian people?
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady, who has a long record of speaking out on this issue and believing, as I do, that Britain should be fully engaged in all the work to try to bring those involved in this dreadful war to the negotiating table, under the terms of the Geneva II process. At the same time, we must continue with the work that we are doing on humanitarian aid to help those who are suffering because of the conflict, but we should also, in my view and, I suspect, in hers too, continue to work with all those in Syria who want a free, democratic and pluralistic future. We must not allow the argument to develop that the only opposition in Syria is an extremist opposition. That will become the case only if we stop working with those who care about democracy in the future.
In Rochford and Southend, employment is up, the number of apprentices is up and small business numbers are up, largely owing to the impact of the expanding Southend airport. I know the Prime Minister is probably a bit sick of airports, having just come back from one, but would he consider coming to Southend airport in the new year to celebrate its success Essex-style, bringing the family, if he wants? I promise to buy them all a Rossi ice cream on the sea front.
Who could resist the idea of an Essex-style celebration in the new year—although I might need to find out a little bit more of what it involves before I fully commit? We should not underestimate the importance of airports in driving regional growth. Clearly, that is the case in parts of Essex.
Q15. Despite the Government’s savage cuts, next year Liverpool will host the international festival of business. Why will the Prime Minister not commit to attending the event? Will he ensure that the same level of support that Boris would enjoy is afforded to the mayor of Liverpool? Will he tell his green-eyed bête noir that despite a short sleepover in London, the Beatles are and always will be made in Liverpool?
Having happily visited the Beatles museum many years ago and enjoyed being there, I can confirm what the hon. Gentleman says. I have never had any problem working with the mayor of Liverpool and enjoyed appearing on a platform with him to advertise the brilliance of that city, and I will continue to co-operate with him in all the work that he is doing to attract investment into the city.
Abolishing roaming charges is one of the big wins for British consumers that we might get from remaining in the European Union. Has the Prime Minister had the opportunity to discuss international mobile phone usage with any other European Heads of Government in the past day or so?
You could say I have, in a roundabout way. It should be remembered that the television cameras are always on, but in my defence I would say that Nelson Mandela played an extraordinary role in his life and in his death in bringing people together, so of course when a member of the Kinnock family asked me for a photograph, I thought it only polite to say yes.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberOn a point of order, Mr Speaker. In a named day question on 5 December this year, I asked the Attorney-General how many libel settlements, and of what value, the Crown Prosecution Service had made in each year between 2007 and 2012. I was given the answer that the CPS had made no libel settlements in that period. Unfortunately, in May 2008, in a case adjudicated by Master Eyre between Hardcash Productions and the Director of Public Prosecutions and the chief constable of West Midlands police, there was a settlement of £50,000 between the two defendants. I am certain, because I know him well, that there is nobody less likely to mislead the House than the Attorney-General. Therefore, he must be depending upon information given to him by the Crown Prosecution Service. If this House cannot depend on the organisation that is supposedly committed to promoting justice in this country to give us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, what can you do to defend us?
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order. In the first instance, I can ask the Attorney-General to respond, and we will see what happens.
Further to that point of order, Mr Speaker. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) for indicating to me a short time ago that he wished to make that important point. At the moment, I am not in a position to answer his question. He is absolutely right that the answer I gave him was based on information provided to me by the Crown Prosecution Service. He has given me some information that gives rise to a question as to whether that is accurate. I take that very seriously and the matter is being looked into urgently. When I have an answer, I will of course ensure that it is not only supplied to him, but made available to the House.
I hope that satisfies the right hon. Gentleman for today. I thank him for raising this important matter, which really is a public service. I am sure that clarity will be established, and hopefully very soon.
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will recall that recently I have twice raised the issue of the response, or lack thereof, to my correspondence from the Minister for Immigration. Following the point of order I raised last Monday, on which you ruled, and about which I remind the House, I have continued to receive letters signed not by the Minister for Immigration, but by Lord Taylor of Holbeach, against whom I have no resentment whatsoever. That continued until yesterday, so I asked my secretary to telephone the office of the Minister for Immigration to say that if I continued to receive letters that were not signed by him by Friday of this week, I would raise the matter on the Floor of the House. However, when my secretary made that call, the lady who answered said—I quote from my secretary’s note—that
“this was noted but that it would not make any difference and that Lord Taylor will still be replying, as he does to other Members of Parliament.”
I regard that response as a serious discourtesy from a civil servant to a Member of Parliament in any case.
Mr Speaker, when you responded to my point of order last week, you said:
“It should not be a matter of any controversy from now on. I hope that the Home Secretary can pass on the message to the Minister for Immigration and that the Minister for Immigration will behave in a seemly manner both towards the right hon. Gentleman and towards other Members.”—[Official Report, 2 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 658.]
I should add that two Cabinet Ministers have told me that as a rule they always reply in person to letters from Privy Counsellors. In view of the fact that what you described as a “seemly manner” is not being observed by the Minister for Immigration, I ask you to rule on the matter. Furthermore, with your permission, if I receive any more letters from Lord Taylor, I will send them to you.
I wonder whether the Leader of the House wishes to say anything now—or he and I can discuss the matter.
The right hon. Gentleman is shaking his head. Perhaps we will have a conversation afterwards; I think that that in itself would be perfectly seemly.
May I say for the avoidance of doubt, so that nobody thinks that I am sitting on the fence on this matter, which I most certainly have not done, that I think the concern expressed by the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) is a reasonable one, and reasonable people should respond to it in a reasonable way, which, as far as I am concerned, means that he should get what he has reasonably requested. I am not sure whether something in the system is causing the problem or whether an individual is being obstinate, but it is not necessary. I think that the right hon. Gentleman, who has served in the House without interruption for 43 years and coming up to six months, should be treated with courtesy. He has not been, and I am sorry about that and hope we can put the matter right. I really do not want this matter to have continually to be raised on the Floor of the House. The reputation of the Department is at stake, and the Department must, frankly, raise its game. The Leader of the House and I can talk about it afterwards.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberI beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act 2000 and the Intelligence Services Act 1994 to ensure judicial oversight of the use of material derived from British citizens by means of surveillance of telecommunications; to make provisions concerning the operation of the Investigatory Powers Tribunal; and for connected purposes.
Having unfortunately been on Capitol hill in Washington on 9/11 and in Aldgate on 7/7, I need no lessons on the threat to this country from terrorism and from those who wish to do us harm. I want to start my comments by paying tribute to the security services for all their hard work and the dangers they encounter on our behalf. I would include in that GCHQ, which provides invaluable information, often on the basis of fragmentary evidence, in supporting our safety.
Any surveillance and any clandestine operation in an open, democratic society raises questions that cannot be answered by the agencies themselves or by the Executive but only by the legislature—by this Parliament. They are questions such as these: where are the boundaries between privacy and legitimate information gathering? What controls are in place to prevent either abuse or the suspicion of abuse? What are the limits to what inevitably has to be done in secret? What information is legitimately withheld? How does our legislation and, for that matter, our capability measure up to the ever-changing potential of technology? How effective is our parliamentary scrutiny? How comprehensive is the legal framework within which the security services work?
It is only by asking those questions and, more importantly, coming up with answers that Parliament can ensure not only the safety but the protection of the interests of our citizens. Only by having adequate safeguards in place can we retain people’s confidence that what is being done is being done in an appropriate and proportionate way, and that they can safely use technologies where they believe they have a right to privacy without that privacy being invaded without good cause by the state.
Recent revelations have, at the very least, called into question some of those suppositions, not—I make this clear having received assurances from Ministers—such that the security services are acting outside the law, but that the law is inadequate to meet the present circumstances. That is why my Bill proposes amendments to the legislation passed in 1994 and 2000 to fill in those gaps. Let us remember how far the technology has moved in those intervening years and the extent to which the use of social media, for instance, and various technologies is so very different from the circumstances in which that legislation was framed.
We need to deal with not only the direct interception of communications, but the collection of communication data. Those metadata—the derivative data—that can be analysed are just as important, but I believe that the law is silent on that area. We also need to deal not only with what is collected directly by the United Kingdom agencies, but with the actions of overseas allies. We need to ensure that such material is subject to judicial oversight and on the terms of warranted action rather than those of subsequent review, which is a key difference.
The Bill would enable the man or woman on the street to know that their communications were not the subject of inappropriate and disproportionate intrusion. Just as importantly, it would provide the legal framework by which the security agencies would ensure that they would not be subject to legal challenge in their essential work. No such framework exists at present.
That review and updating of legislation is very necessary—those working within the security world agree about that as much as commentators on the outside, including the senior judiciary. If my Bill does not reach the statute book, I hope nevertheless that post-legislative scrutiny of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 will now be undertaken as a matter of urgency, because we need to answer some of these essential questions.
Parliamentary scrutiny is critical. I salute the work done by the Intelligence and Security Committee, particularly the announcement of its forthcoming inquiry into these matters. How much stronger would it be, however, were it to be more properly constituted as a Select Committee chosen by this House and given the resource to do its job properly? That is something I advocated in government and I renew my plea now. I do not believe it is impossible to achieve the security clearances needed to ensure that information is not inappropriately shared while also following the selection procedures of this House. Other legislatures do it. The Americans do it. Why on earth are we incapable of following their example? I see no obvious reason.
Finally, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal should be reformed to make its operation more transparent and the basis for its decisions more open. There are very good reasons—I understand that—for not revealing every detail of a strand of investigation or a technique that is at the disposal of the authorities, but a total lack of transparency and accountability for decision making is not the answer. I believe we can do better.
As I briefly alluded to earlier, other countries are taking these matters very seriously indeed. I am struck by the work being undertaken by the Senate Committee led by Senator Feinstein in the United States. Its legislature is leading a very public debate on where the limits—the boundaries—ought to be set. We are not having that same debate in this country and I think that is because we in Parliament are not taking the lead that we should. I believe that we have a duty to do so.
If we do not do that, I believe we will be failing our citizens and, incidentally, our security services. If we simply close our eyes to what are real issues with difficult answers, we will be letting down not only the public, but the people we ask to do these terribly difficult jobs. They cannot police themselves. They cannot do everything through better training or through being given better information because, at the end of the day, their focus is on doing the best possible job, not on setting the boundaries for their work, which is the proper job of Parliament.
I believe that we owe it to all those with intelligence interests not just to visit, but to revisit the legislative framework regularly, because unless we do so it will never keep up to date with technological advances or keep pace with the techniques of those who would wish to harm us, let alone the techniques of those with whom we entrust our security.
The Bill will at least allow us to debate the matter properly. I hope that it will also enable us to amend the law appropriately and to do the job that our electorate expect us to do, which is not just to give the security services the ability to ensure our protection, but to provide people with the security of knowing that there are boundaries provided by a framework of regulation and that those who necessarily work in a clandestine way will keep to those rules because that is the law.
Question put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That Mr David Heath, Mr Dominic Raab, Mr Tom Watson, Dr Julian Huppert, Mr Elfyn Llwyd, Rory Stewart, Simon Hughes, Mr David Winnick and Caroline Lucas present the Bill.
Mr David Heath accordingly presented the Bill.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 28 February 2014, and to be printed (Bill 143).
Delegated Legislation
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 118(6)),
Value Added Tax
That the Value Added Tax (Flat-rate Valuation of Supplies of Fuel for Private Use) Order 2013 (S.I., 2013, No. 2911), dated 18 November 2013, a copy of which was laid before this House on 18 November, be approved.—(Anne Milton.)
Question agreed to.
Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill (Money)
Queen’s recommendation signified.
Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill, it is expedient to authorise:
(1) the payment out of money provided by Parliament of:
(a) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by a Minister of the Crown or government department;
(b) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided;
(2) the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums which in urgent cases are payable out of that Fund under the Banking Act 2009;
(3) the payment out of the National Loans Fund of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of that Fund under any other Act.—(Sajid Javid.)
Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill (Ways and Means) (No. 2)
Resolved,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill, it is expedient to authorise:
(1) the charging of fees on persons authorised under Part 2 of the Compensation Act 2006 for the purpose of meeting expenditure of the Office for Legal Complaints; and
(2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.—(Sajid Javid.)
Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill (Programme) (No. 3)
Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),
That the following provisions shall apply to the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill for the purpose of supplementing the Order of 11 March 2013 in the last Session of Parliament (Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill (Programme)) and the Order of 8 July 2013 (Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill (Programme) (No. 2)):
Consideration of Lords Amendments
(1) Proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion six hours after their commencement at today’s sitting.
(2) The proceedings shall be taken in the order shown in the first column of the following Table.
(3) The proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the times specified in the second column of the Table.
Table
Lords Amendments | Time for conclusion of proceedings |
---|---|
No. 41 | Two hours after the commencement of proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments |
No. 63 | Four and a half hours after the commencement of those proceedings |
Nos. 1 to 40, 42 to 62 and 64 to 184 | Six hours after the commencement of those proceedings |
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberI must draw the House’s attention to the fact that financial privilege is involved in Lords amendments 35, 37, 40, 64, 149, 150, 162, 163, 169, 171, 172, 173 and 175. If the House agrees to any of these amendments, I shall ensure that the appropriate entry is made in the Journal.
After Clause 12
Part 4
I beg to move, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 41.
It is a pleasure to introduce these amendments. Much work has been undertaken in this House and in the other place since my predecessor closed the Second Reading debate in March. That work has improved the Bill. The Bill has expanded greatly in length and content since it left this House. In large part, the variety of new issues that it covers reflects the Government’s acceptance of the vast majority of the recommendations that were made by the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, which published its final report after the Committee stage in the Commons.
I pay tribute to the members of the PCBS and especially those who sit in this House: my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso), the hon. Member for Edmonton (Mr Love) and my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier). It was their hard work that led to the reports.
I will speak in support of the amendments that resulted from the work of the parliamentary commission, but ask the House to reject the Opposition amendment that was made in the other place, Lords amendment 41. I will begin by explaining how the former amendments will deliver the goal of improving the standards of conduct in banking.
The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards concluded that the current system for approving those who hold senior positions in banks, the approved persons regime, had failed. The commission’s central recommendation was the creation of a senior persons regime that applies to senior bankers. The Government accepted that recommendation. The amendments will deliver on the recommendation by putting in place a senior managers regime with five key features.
First, the regime will reverse the burden of proof so that senior bankers can be held to account for regulatory breaches in their area of responsibility, without the need to prove that they were personally involved in the wrongdoing. Secondly, there will be mandatory statements of responsibility for senior managers. Thirdly, the regulators will be able to make conduct rules for senior managers in banks. Fourthly, there will be provision for time-limited and conditional approvals of senior bankers. Fifthly, the financial services register, which is kept by the Financial Conduct Authority, will state who is a senior manager in a bank and give details of the regulatory action that has been taken against them. The amendments will provide a clear and effective system for raising standards and increasing accountability among the country’s senior bankers.
Lords amendment 53 introduces a certification regime for bank staff. That will apply to all staff below senior management level who have roles in which they could seriously harm the firm or its customers. The Prudential Regulation Authority and the FCA will therefore be given a far-reaching new power to make enforceable rules of conduct for all employees in a bank. Banks will have to verify that employees who have roles in which they could do significant harm to a bank or its customers are fit and proper for those roles. Banks will have to do that on appointment and annually thereafter. They will have to issue certificates, which may be electronic, to those employees, confirming that they are fit and proper for their role.
The Government have always supported the spirit and substance of the commission’s licensing regime recommendations. However, we do not consider it appropriate to call it a licensing regime. That would imply that the individuals concerned had been given licences by a regulator. That is precisely the opposite of what the commission recommended. We therefore cannot use the words “licence” or “licensing”. It is in order to refer to “certificates” and “certification” because certificates will be issued by the banks. Banks will also have to notify employees of the banking standards rules that apply to them and take steps to ensure that they understand them.
I would like to say something about the firms that are covered by the senior managers regime and the new obligations under the certified persons regime. The parliamentary commission naturally focused on banks. However, the definition was extended to include systemically important investment firms that do not take deposits, but that are regulated by the PRA. We have also included a power to extend the senior managers and certified persons regimes to cover UK branches of foreign banks and investment firms if it is considered appropriate to do so. Some large branches of foreign banks and investment firms operate from London, so it is prudent to equip ourselves to bring them into the new regime.
Does the Minister agree that it is essential that companies can trust their banks in order that they can do business? We must get the legislation right so that companies can again trust their banks. Companies must feel able to give banks confidential information in the expectation that it will remain confidential. Companies need to be able to access finance to compete in business and create employment. The banks are holding back our businesses.
I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend, and I hope that he agrees that all the effort that has gone into setting up this new regime—in particular the senior managers regime and the certification regime—is a huge step forward in achieving that aim.
With hindsight, will the hon. Gentleman help the House and say whether Fred Goodwin would have been prosecuted under that provision?
It is possible, although it is difficult to answer that question specifically as it would depend on the legal process, as anticipated in the Bill. As I progress with my remarks, the hon. Lady will see the kind of actions that can lead to prosecution.
Does the Minister agree that a lot of the changes that are coming through as a result of PCBS recommendations should in some respects be treated rather like the nuclear deterrent? It is not necessarily about trying to punish people; it is about trying to drive behaviour that avoids a crisis in the first place. Had these rules been around at the time, it is far more likely that Fred Goodwin would not have led his bank over the cliff, that we would not have had the financial crisis, and that we would have a more stable banking system as a result. That is the intention behind the proposed law.
My hon. Friend has explained well the reasoning behind the recommendation from the PCBS—which, of course, he was part of—and the deterrent effect this change could have should not be underestimated.
I thank the Minister for giving way again; he is helpful in giving me the time because I am genuinely confused about this. If the proposed legislation is to have a deterrent effect and deter the sort of behaviour that was seen before the banking crash, had it been in place at the time, presumably people would have been prosecuted. All I want to know is: which people, and can the Minister give the House some examples?
As I discuss the issue I will provide more information on how the measure could work, and perhaps the hon. Lady will judge for herself, given the situation she has in mind, whether the measure would have acted as a deterrent, and whether a prosecution could have taken place.
First, I think it would be inappropriate to try to assess the impact of the proposed legislation on any specific case that has passed, and secondly, we are trying to devise legislation that will work for the future. I completely endorse what my hon. Friend the Member for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) has just said. We must emphasise that we expect a change and improvement in behaviour as a consequence of much more considerable risks and responsibilities being placed on those individuals than currently pertain with the approved persons regime and system of regulation.
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. As Chair of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, he helps to explain the commission’s reasoning, which the Government share.
The introduction of this offence means that, as we have heard, in future those who bring down their bank by making thoroughly unreasonable decisions can be held accountable for their actions, which, as we saw in the recent financial crisis, can lead to severe economic disruption and considerable loss for taxpayers. In line with the commission’s recommendations, the new offence will be applicable only to individuals who are covered by the senior managers regime I mentioned earlier. Senior managers could be liable if they take a decision that leads to the failure of the bank, or if they fail to take steps available to them to prevent such a decision from being taken.
The offence will apply to behaviour that falls far below the standard that could reasonably be expected of a person in their position—that is similar, for example, to the test applied in corporate manslaughter. Importantly, the offence will apply to senior managers in banks, building societies and investment firms, and be subject to PRA supervision. That reflects concerns expressed by their lordships that the failure of systemic investment firms could lead to similar adverse consequences for financial stability, and that the taxpayer may have to bail out a collapsed retail bank. The maximum sentence for the new offence will be seven years in prison, and/or an unlimited fine. That reflects the seriousness that the Government, and society more broadly, place on ensuring that our financial institutions are managed in a way that does not recklessly endanger the economy or the public purse.
The Minister struck the correct note when he mentioned the seriousness of such situations. Much concern has been expressed that this provision applies only to financial institutions, but the conditions that would have to apply for it to be used—in other words, a serious threat to the systemic nature of our financial system—are such that it is likely the measure will not be used often.
I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman and I think we all hope that the new criminal sanction will not actually have to be used because the offence will act as a genuine deterrent against such recklessness.
If I were a senior banker to whom this law applied, what would affect my decision on whether to behave recklessly? Would it be the thought, “If I do this, there’s a risk my bank and the whole financial system will crash around my ears and I will be seen as personally responsible”, or would it be the possibility of being prosecuted under this new legislation?
Both cases would be a deterrent. A key point of the change to criminal sanctions is that they would apply if a senior manager took part in any reckless action—there is a very strong test, as we have just heard—that led to the failure of a bank. It would not be appropriate to perform a legal analysis of what has happened in the past because we do not have the full facts before us, but if a board full of senior managers makes a decision on, let us say, a potential acquisition and they fail to carry out proper due diligence or they deliberately ignore certain risk factors, and that eventually leads to a failure and collapse of that bank, that will be an example of the situation that the new offence tries to capture. It is reasonable to say that, as those senior managers will be aware of the new criminal sanction, which did not exist before, it will bear on their minds when they make those important decisions. The Government amendments in this group will improve standards and the culture in banking.
I have listened with interest to the Minister. May I first add my thanks to all the members of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, who have done us a great service in examining the issues in great detail? They include not only Members of this House but Members of the other place—the Archbishop of Canterbury, my noble Friend Lord McFall, Lord Turnbull and Lord Lawson. Other Members in the other place, including my noble Friends Lord Eatwell, Lord Mitchell and Baroness Hayter, have ensured that particular issues have been put on the agenda.
It would be remiss of me not to say a few words about how we have arrived where we are today—considering a vast number of Lords amendments at this stage. The concerns about that have been well rehearsed during discussion of the Bill and how it has been brought forward and considered. The Government commissioned the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards to ensure that recommendations could be added to the Bill, but we had a very thin Bill for Second Reading and in Committee. The commission recommended a three-month gap between the publication of the Bill and the commencement of the Committee stage, but the Government rejected that idea. Instead, this House had to consider the partial Bill before the final report on standards and culture had been published. It is pertinent to reflect on that, given some of the comments made by the Minister. Many of the issues that will be taken forward when the legislation is enacted will still depend on judgments being made and on getting the message across that the culture of banking, at whatever level, has to change. That would have been helped by further scrutiny at various points.
We must also remember that the Government’s response to the commission’s report was published only three or four hours before we started considering the Bill on Report. We had 183 amendments tabled during the next stage of the Bill, and I wish to put on record our concerns about that method of legislation. The Bill is now three times bigger than the one that was originally introduced, and consideration of Lords amendments took place only a couple of days after Third Reading—again, without much opportunity to consider matters in detail.
My hon. Friend is detailing, forensically and importantly, the logjam that this process has produced. Does she agree that if we had had longer, organisations and groups outside the House, which feel very strongly on these issues, would have had more opportunity to make representations? The Government’s failure to allow that, by tabling these amendments as they have done, has circumscribed the public process.
My hon. Friend makes an important point. It is vital that the public has confidence in the process. The public need to know that the culture of banking will change; that we have given the Bill thorough scrutiny; and that we have considered and put in place every possible method to limit bad judgments and errors in the future. In the end, however, it will be down to individuals, and from my experience of various pieces of legislation I would always guard against the notion that any individual piece of legislation will guarantee that nothing will go wrong in the future. That always depends on individuals making judgments. It is important that we get the culture right so that individuals within it make judgments not just because they fear that they will be prosecuted and go to jail, but because they believe they are doing the right thing by their customers and by the wider economy.
Before my hon. Friend moves on, does she agree that while we should congratulate Members in the other place on the role that they played in amending the Bill, it would have been correct to delay the Bill so that the House of Commons had proper time to scrutinise the changes recommended by the commission, rather than leaving that to the other place?
My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. It would have stood us in good stead had we had such an opportunity. I have only been a Member of Parliament for a relatively short time, and others will have much more experience, but it seems to me unusual to have so many amendments at this stage of a Bill. External bodies have made significant representations at this stage, which is also unusual and shows the strength of feeling about the issue of banking and its culture. It also shows that people have been thinking about how to future-proof the Bill, not simply to repair damage done in the past, but to ensure that we do all we can for the future. Some people may feel that this has been a tick-box exercise and a part of the process that does not matter as much, and it is rather sad if that has been the case.
We know that we have a huge amount more to do. Only today we have seen the latest news about Lloyds bank being fined again. It is also fair to say that as the weeks and months have unfolded during the Bill’s passage, we have seen various situations emerge. I have written to the Minister on the recent issues on forex, and we have also had the sad events at the Co-operative bank and the outcome of investigations into the LIBOR rigging. Those all show that more issues may arise that will have to be dealt with properly, and we want to ensure that the legislation we put in place is able to do that.
Is my hon. Friend satisfied with the definition of senior bankers as those who would be liable to be prosecuted? Is it sufficiently clear and is it felt that it covers those people who really would be directing proceedings?
My hon. Friend makes another interesting point. She has already raised the likelihood of criminal proceedings, and in that context the Minister made comparisons with other legislation. I was concerned about the comparison with legislation on corporate manslaughter, which my hon. Friend obviously knows a considerable amount about. We have to ensure that definitions are as tight as possible, so that things do not slip through the net at a later stage. I hope the Minister will be able to provide clarity on those concerns.
We wish to ensure that Lords amendment 41, on professional standards, stays in the Bill. Earlier this year, the Government committed to implementing the main recommendations of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. Those recommendations included the creation of the new criminal offence of reckless misconduct by senior bankers. We want to ensure that that is as tight as possible. As the Minister outlined, the Government also agreed to introduce a new two-tier authorisation process for bank staff.
Our concern is that the Government have consistently failed to go far enough on the professional standards required of bankers. When the Bill was first introduced, Ministers resisted, on three separate occasions, Opposition attempts to put tougher professional standards in the Bill. Introducing the proposal at an early stage would have allowed us the opportunity to debate and finesse it, if required. At that stage, we included proposals for an annual health check on senior bankers. Indeed, Labour first pushed for a licensing regime with an annual validation of competence during the Committee stage of the Financial Services Bill in March 2012, so we have been pressing this case for a lengthy period of time.
Lords amendment 41 states that there needs to be
“minimum thresholds of competence including integrity, professional qualifications, continuous professional development and adherence to a recognised code of conduct.”
The recognised code of conduct is important. The then Minister, the hon. Member for Fareham (Mr Hoban), opposed the amendment, saying:
“I…argue very strongly that the amendment is not necessary. In fact, it could have unintended consequences.”––[Official Report, Financial Services Public Bill Committee, 1 March 2012; c. 235.]
I cannot recall what those unintended consequences he feared were. Given that the Government have now seen fit to change their view, I am sure they no longer have those concerns.
A similar amendment was tabled again in April 2013 to this Bill and once again it was voted down by the Government. We on this side of the House never give up: if we think something is the right thing to do, we will come back and come back again. We tabled the same amendment again in July 2013, and again the Government failed to support it. We tabled the amendments because we believe that the persons we are talking about must have adequate standards of competence and integrity. The debate on managing the process and legislating for it may seem technical, but it is important for people in the real world to know that we are trying to introduce reforms. There has been a degree of discussion across the House, and I accept that, but people need to know that we are trying to introduce reforms that complement the attempts to change the culture of the banking sector.
I am listening carefully to my hon. Friend as she lists the specific attempts that we on this side of the House have made to bring this into clear sight for the Government. Is it not worrying that the Government seem to have reacted as though we need do something only when the deathwatch beetle in these financial institutions has done its work and we need only press on the institution for it to collapse into powder? Unless we press the Government, there will be no mechanism to examine the process.
We pressed for an earlier introduction of the measure so that we could debate and finesse it if necessary. However, the Government were prepared to move only at the last minute, through a successful amendment in the other place, and it is disappointing that they now want to strike it down.
My hon. Friend is making a strong case. I, too, served on the Committee and witnessed our efforts on this matter. Why have the Government been on the back foot throughout the process? We are talking about the culture of banking, but I wonder whether there is an issue with a Government culture of continual caution, rather than the challenge that ought to be presented to some of those interests in society that have failed our country.
I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I do not know what was in the Government’s mind, but in Committee the Bill was very thin. We raised the matter on a number of occasions, but the Government resisted every attempt to amend the Bill in Committee, apart from on one minor detail. In retrospect, that is not the way to produce the best possible legislation. The Bill will undoubtedly have been improved by the end of the process—I do not detract from the work that has been done—but it would have sent a stronger message to the general public and the financial services industry that this place took the matter seriously if the Government had accepted amendments at an early stage.
As a member of an accountancy body that deals with police professional standards and continuing professional development, I understand this issue. I also understand that the financial services industry is diverse, with many different roles. Has the hon. Lady tried to list all those roles and thought about what professional qualifications and standards are appropriate to each and every one?
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point. Our approach has been to suggest that that responsibility lies, rightly, with the Financial Conduct Authority. It would not be for me, as a shadow Minister, to list those roles. In relation to the definition of a professional, it is important for people to have professional development, with qualifications, on a continuous basis. One fundamental issue for professions is an adherence to a code of conduct. We tabled amendments on that consistently because we believe strongly that that is important. The wider world wants to know that the banking industry culture has changed and that malpractice, which unfortunately is still coming to light, is being dealt with.
As a member of the parliamentary commission, I note that despite our many recommendations, which my hon. Friend has illustrated, six years on from the credit crunch there are continuing difficulties with the culture of the banking system. Is it not the case that we need to do more to change that culture, and that we need to do it now?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. If we believe the Bill to be the end of the story, we will do a disservice not only to the hard work done already, but to the industry and to the wider public. I hope the Minister and the Government will take that on board. We must always be vigilant and look to the future.
Is the shadow Minister aware that the banks have already initiated the creation of a professional banking standards body?
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment. I know that he has done considerable work in his role on the commission, but it is important that these issues be put on the record. It would have been useful to consider them in Committee, and I mention them now to show that significant pressure has been applied to move things forward and bring about change. The Government appeared to resist that and some of the commission’s recommendations until, of course, their recent change of heart following their defeat in the other place on the amendment for the licensing regime. At that point, they felt they had to bring forward their own plans.
The Opposition might have expected the Government to be reasonably gracious and accept the decision of the other place, but today they have tabled an amendment to disagree with and remove Lords amendment 41 from the Bill. To be fair, what they have tabled, under pressure to replace that amendment, is better than nothing, but it does not go anywhere near as far as the amendment they wish to strike out. The main difference essentially concerns the code of conduct. Lords amendment 41 states specifically that the
“licensing regime must…apply to all approved persons exercising controlled functions, regardless of financial sector;…specify minimum thresholds of competence including integrity, professional qualifications, continuous professional development and adherence to a recognised code of conduct and revised Banking Standards Rules”.
That is important, given that the Government’s position does not call specifically for a code of conduct. In some ways, their regime legislates for the commission’s recommendations, but by failing specifically to legislate for an open and transparent code of conduct, they risk failing to address some of the ethical issues surrounding so-called casino banking. Their more permissive amendment does not focus specifically on a code of conduct.
Several other hon. Members wish to speak, so I shall conclude with some brief comments about remuneration. As hon. Members might be aware, the Opposition have given considerable thought to the regulation of bankers’ remuneration, and there remain certain issues that the Government must consider before the general public can have confidence in the industry. The public find it difficult to understand, and have concerns about, the culture of high risk, high reward that was evident in the previous system and which contributed to the crisis.
Once again, my hon. Friend is absolutely correct. The general public expected the industry to show some humility and make every effort not only to repay the taxpayer, where appropriate, but to reflect on its actions, perhaps take the view that this culture was now outdated and move on and operate differently.
The general public’s concern will not be alleviated by the latest list of scandals. We have had LIBOR, EURIBOR, PPI—payment protection insurance—forex, yen LIBOR—the list seems to go on and on. Almost every day, every week, every month, something else is being put into the public domain. We have recently heard concerns about lending from RBS, with businesses having gone into administration. It is right and proper, of course, that these issues are investigated. We continue to talk about these issues, but however much we will things to change, people are concerned that if the bankers do not accept that their culture has to change, we will just continue to talk and put legislation in place, but without the messages having got through. I believe that the general public are particularly concerned about that.
As I said, we believe that the amendment unsuccessfully launched in the other place should remain in the Bill. I am disappointed that the Government have chosen to disagree with it and want to strike it out. I do not expect the Minister to change his view at this stage. I am sure he will revert to the position held in Committee, which was to disagree with us on this matter.
Before addressing the amendments in the group, I would like to say a few words—this is the only and last opportunity to do so—about the work of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. The task that Parliament set it was
“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”
and on
“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 actions.”
That was a very large canvas. The backdrop was a profound collapse of trust in parts of the banking sector—triggered by, among other things, deep lapses in banking standards.
We should bear it in mind, however, that the banks were only partly responsible for all these problems, and that the commission’s proposals represent only part of the solution. On the first point, responsibility for the problem also lies with regulators, central banks, Governments, auditors, risk-rating agencies and consumers, both retail and wholesale, who over-borrowed. They all need to take their share of the responsibility.
On the second point—finding the solutions—the Banking Commission’s proposals need to be set alongside both reforms to the regulatory structure, such as the creation of the Prudential Regulatory Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority after the abolition of the Financial Services Authority, and the structural reform of the banks, as proposed by Sir John Vickers.
I doubt whether the Government or the man who led the regulatory changes, Sir John Vickers—or indeed any member of the Banking Commission—thinks that, even taking together all the proposals we have put forward, we can solve everything. In any case, many on the commission were sceptical about the extent to which culture can be changed by legislation—a point made from the Front Bench earlier this afternoon. Legislation can, however, play an important role by incentivising good behaviour and penalising bad. Nevertheless, we concluded that, if fully implemented, our proposals should put us in a better place to protect taxpayers and the country from systemic risk and to protect consumers from lapses in standards.
As the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) said a few moments ago, there will continue to be regulatory failures, so only with the exercise of judgment and a good deal of vigilance are even these proposals likely to make a big difference in the long run. Our job today is narrower—to complete the task of making sure that those responsible for exercising that vigilance have the statutory tools to do the job.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned proprietary trading. Is he now satisfied that the Government’s recent actions take account of all the commission’s recommendations?
Broadly, yes. Given that I am already stretching things a little in my opening remarks, I will try to deal with prop trading at the most appropriate parts of my speech—but the short answer is, as I say, broadly yes.
The commissioners met yesterday to discuss progress. We believe that the Government have converted the lion’s share of the Banking Commission’s recommendations into statutory action, where required. It is worth listing what has changed. The following amendments have been made to the Bill in order to implement our recommendations: electrification of the ring fence has been considerably improved since Commons Report stage; an independent review of the ring fence, which can consider the full separation of the banking industry, has been introduced; the Banking Commission’s recommendations on prop trading, which we just discussed, have, for the most part, been implemented; the proposals for the senior managers regime have been improved; a certification or licensing regime has been added to the Bill; a proper definition of a bank—the Bill’s definition was defective when it left this place, and it was a major lacuna—has been added to the Bill; the PRA has acquired a competition objective to complement that of the FCA; and audit requirements have been tightened for systemically important firms.
Furthermore, a good number of undertakings and assurances have been given in response to specific recommendations. Most importantly perhaps, the bank will almost certainly be given the Financial Policy Committee responsibility for the leverage ratio, and the Government have said that they will legislate to that effect after a review. We would otherwise have had to wait until 2017-18 to have that considered.
I have pressed the Bank of England on that issue with my Treasury Select Committee hat on. A subsequent exchange of letters between the Governor and the Chancellor makes it pretty clear that by the end of next year the issue will be resolved and responsibility will lie with the Bank. Indeed, I think that for anything else to happen, given that exchange of letters, would be considered extraordinary, unless the review came up with some major obstacle that no one had previously spotted.
Another important assurance has been given in respect of so-called special measures. We proposed the establishment of an intermediate tool between enforcement at one end of the spectrum and day-to-day supervision at the other, which regulators could use to keep an eye on banks and help to improve standards. The Americans have something of the kind, which is known as a memorandum of understanding. The Government said that the statutory underpinning that we proposed would not be necessary, but the regulators have now announced that they will produce a full and detailed guidance note after consultation, which will set out how the new tool will be created and administered.
I am listening with great interest to the hon. Gentleman. As he may know, the United States operates a regime called the deferred prosecution agreement, under which an institution accepts that it has committed an offence and agrees to pay a large fine on the understanding that it will not be prosecuted. Part of the deal is that the institution must allow auditors in, and must change its behaviour. Is there a similarity between the DPA structure and the structure the hon. Gentleman is describing?
In some cases, the “deal”, as the hon. Lady called it, is accompanied by a memorandum of understanding, in order to achieve exactly the result that we intend by means of special measures. However, the primary purpose of special measures is to provide a tool that need not lead to escalation and full enforcement. That is a step back from the example given by the hon. Lady.
We were also assured that there would be a review of the system of enforcement decision making, which is currently very unsatisfactory. We had proposed that the regulatory decisions committee should be separated further from the enforcement division of the Financial Conduct Authority and given statutory autonomy in relation to its decisions. The Government did not accept that proposal, but they did accept the need for the issue to be re-examined and the need for a fresh and independent pair of eyes to look at each enforcement action before it proceeds, and a review is now to be carried out.
The important issue of remuneration was raised, later in her remarks, by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun. The PRA has committed itself to aligning the maturity of the rewards for bankers with the maturity of the risks that they have incurred. That is crucial. It is the collecting and taking of bonuses in return for the creation and selling of a new financial instrument or tool when, although the full risks will not mature for many years, the individuals concerned have had the money in advance that has created so many misaligned incentives and so much poor behaviour. Those individuals need to know, even several years later, that there may be a clawback, or, better still in most cases, that their bonuses are deferred. They need to know that the product had better be robust enough to survive the test of time before they start selling it.
Let me now mention a few measures that the commission did not succeed in inserting in the Bill. I shall not describe any of them in detail—although I note that when I have tried to deal briefly with the measures that I have described so far, Members have intervened to ask me about a number of them.
Both the Select Committee and the commission concluded that the governance of the Bank of England was still in a mess, and would have to be sorted out. The Bank of England still has no board worthy of the name, and the cross-cutting lines of responsibility and accountability between various new institutions are, to put it mildly, very confused. One of the most senior people in the Bank told me recently that he thought the situation was like the Schleswig-Holstein question: the former Governor probably understood it, and one other guy had forgotten it—and the third was this person himself, whose name I had better not reveal on the Floor of the House.
We also failed to achieve change with our proposal to abolish United Kingdom Financial Investments Ltd. UKFI has been exposed as a fig leaf: it seems to be of very little practical use. The Labour Government’s intention in introducing it was good, but when the Government want to intervene directly in the activities of institutions they simply do so, and UKFI does not seem to be performing the “buffer” function that was intended for it.
We argued that the regulator should have a duty to compensate whistleblowers who had been disadvantaged by their firms. There are still risks, at least perceived risks, for whistleblowers, which will tend to deter them. It is a remarkable feature of the current crisis that there has been so little whistleblowing, and I am not yet convinced that we have managed to sort the matter out.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his generosity. The question of whistleblowers was raised in a Labour amendment in Committee. Does the hon. Gentleman think that the Government must return to it in the future?
I think that, in the first instance, it is the job of regulators to advise us—we shall see whether they do—and that it is the job of Parliament to keep an eye on the position. The Treasury Committee will need to be vigilant.
We failed to secure the abolition of the strategic objective of the FCA, although we see no logical reason why it should remain. It seems to serve as a licence to allow the FCA to do whatever it wants, and to override its own operational objectives. We also failed to secure a statutory duty for the Governor to raise the issue of excessive lobbying by banks. It is regrettable that there is to be no statutory duty to require the production of a second set of accounts designed to identify systemic risks in the balance sheets of banks, and we will ask regulators to return to that issue.
Nevertheless, if everything is taken into account, it is clear that the commissioners in the House of Lords won the argument, and secured the lion’s share of the measures proposed by the commission. Although the group has been depleted by the loss of Baroness Kramer to the Government, the remaining four have worked assiduously and very persuasively to improve the Bill, and, on behalf of the commissioners in the House of Commons, I thank them heartily. Let me also record my appreciation of the constructive way in which Treasury Ministers have engaged with me, and with other commissioners, on these subjects in recent weeks. They have been extremely helpful, as have their officials, and that has enabled us to make rapid progress. What is more, and equally important, the Government have made clear their support for a number of measures—some of which I have mentioned—that it will be the duty of regulators to implement. As I have said, the work of the regulators, and the supervision of it, will be at least as important as the statute itself
That brings me to the statute itself, and to the amendments that are before us. The first major change that is proposed is the introduction of a senior managers regime. One of the commission’s central objectives was to make a reality of individual responsibility, particularly at senior levels. I lost count of the number of witnesses from failed institutions who were not prepared to take personal responsibility for what was going on in their firms. In principle this should have been the task of the approved persons regime, but it was a disaster. It failed both at ensuring that competent people were appointed and at checking up on their subsequent performance.
The commission concluded that the APR was a complex and confused mess that did not perform any of its supposed roles adequately. It had become little more than a bureaucratic, box-ticking exercise. Its unsuitability has been illustrated by the fact that it seemed to pass the recently departed chairman of the Co-op bank as fit and proper to run a bank. Another indication of its irrelevance was the fact that most of those responsible for steering our major banks on to the rocks over the past five years were not even reassessed for their suitability after those banks had failed. The APR gave us the worst of all worlds: the appearance of regulatory oversight and the reality of none.
As I expected, the hon. Gentleman is making an incredibly thoughtful and powerful speech. We have used the expression “culture change” a few times in the debate today and he talked a few minutes ago about failures causing serious harm to an organisation. Does he believe the banks now pay due regard to reputational harm as well as purely financial harm?
I think the banks have discovered that the scale of the damage done by the revelations and the scale of the fines that are now being imposed are systemic in implication for their institutions and that has shaken them up a lot. But I do think the culture at the top of our banks is changing. The task of our legislation is to entrench that change for a generation. We have had this crisis. The horse has bolted. What we have got to do now is devise a stable door that can keep the next horse in.
The hon. Gentleman mentions LIBOR. In respect in particular of fraud, does he agree that if an individual working within an institution is behaving dishonestly for the benefit of that institution, the institution itself should be liable? If the law were to be changed to allow that, there really would be institutional change.
The fact that an individual is found responsible should not in any way exculpate the institution from its own responsibilities. On the other hand, a key recommendation of the Banking Commission was to restore individual responsibility. To return to a situation where it is primarily the institution that carries the can for what had been a series of individual pieces of bad behaviour would be a profound mistake. There is a lot behind the exchange we have just had that I am not going to go into now, but which we thought about quite deeply on the commission. I shall now move on as there are a few more remarks I want to make about this group of amendments.
Everyone now seems to be agreed that the APR adds little or nothing, yet over the past few weeks we have discovered that the discredited APR will survive in legislation. In doing that, the regulators are perpetuating a myth that the APR affords any real protection. It will continue to apply to several groups. First, about 20,000 people in the financial services industry outside banking will still be covered, mainly in fund management and insurance.
This is unfinished business. The Banking Commission had the remit to look only at banking. It would be absurd to retain a system for one part of financial services that has so clearly failed in another. The Government and Parliament both need to encourage the regulator to look at this and do what is necessary to extend the coverage of the new regime and to remove the APR from other parts of financial services. To rely on the APR is asking for trouble.
It is also regrettable that the APR will remain in a few isolated pockets within the banking industry. This is because the APR will continue to apply to firms’ LIBOR submitters and to persons with anti-money laundering responsibilities in banks. This amounts, I gather, to only a few dozen people, but I think it would be far better if we removed what amounts to “triple running”. We will have three layers: the senior persons regime, now called the senior managers regime, licensing, now called certification, and the APR in the case of these people. The extra APR layer confers no extra protection, but adds bureaucracy and creates a business cost. There will be plenty of scope for legal wrangling in the event of a regulatory failure, given the great scope for confusion, and for an equal measure of recrimination by regulators who will say they were asked to do too much by Parliament. Banks will have a point when they complain about that. For all those reasons, I hope that the Government will come back to this issue and remove the APR from banking entirely in due course.
The Banking Commission’s proposals do not guarantee better standards. Much will depend on the judgment of regulators and the common sense of the banks, but identifying responsibility for key roles offers a much better prospect of higher standards than does retaining the APR. The commissioners are delighted that our proposals on this are now going to be put on the statute book.
The hon. Gentleman’s speech is characterised, as always, by a combination of scholarship and erudition. May I just inquire whether we are now nearer to the end of his speech than to the beginning?
I can give you a firm assurance, Mr Speaker, that I am coming very close to the end of my remarks. Indeed, I am no closer than I would have been before that intervention, unless I had been told to sit down, because I really am almost at the end.
I just want to say a word about the Opposition amendment before I sit down. It draws on a number of the Banking Commission’s proposals and, by seeking to put it on the face of the Bill, the Opposition have contributed something by forcing the Government to think again about their rejection of our proposals on licensing. The amendment was therefore probably worth while. However, the Government have now thought again and are implementing our proposals.
There are two aspects of Lords amendment 41 that would make me cautious about supporting it. The first is it would require regulators to pre-approve all people covered by licensing—or what is now going to be called certification. I fear that would risk recreating many of the problems we had with the APR—the box-ticking bureaucratic culture that we are trying to get rid of.
My other concern with the amendment is that it appears to mix up licensing with the professionalisation of the banking industry. It would be imprudent to link professionalisation to licensing too closely. Licensing needs to happen now. Professionalisation is not a substitute for it. Even if banking is something that could acquire the characteristics of a profession—which many people are not yet convinced of—it would, as the commission reported, take a generation to build that sense of a professional standard.
For those reasons, although I strongly sympathise with the intent of the Opposition amendment, it is not a Banking Commission proposal and I shall not be supporting it. The House could do better by implementing the commission’s proposals, which are now embodied in Government amendments.
Order. I should explain to the House that I have exercised some latitude so that the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) could offer a bit of background on the parliamentary investigation. I did that because I thought that it would be genuinely helpful to the House and because there would be no other opportunity for those observations to be made. That said, I would not want it to be thought that that will be the normal rubric on these occasions. The normal rule of thumb, which must continue to apply, is that Members should attend to and focus their remarks exclusively on the amendments and should not engage in what might be called a wider dilation. I hope that that is helpful to the House.
I will bear in mind your observations, Mr Speaker, but I hope you will indulge me if I occasionally say something a bit different. I will of course spend most of my time on the amendment.
I want to set the matter in context. I volunteered to serve on the Bill Committee. I am told that it is traditional for Members to have to be nudged into serving on Committees for Finance Bills, unless of course they are Ministers or shadow Ministers. I wanted to serve on the Committee perhaps because I am a bit geeky or because I am interested in esoteric things; perhaps it is because of my legal background that I am interested in these matters.
I also had a more serious reason for volunteering. We need to bear in mind that this country’s economy relies heavily on the financial services industry, and that a massive banking and financial crisis occurred in 2008, not only in the UK but in similar economies around the world. We know that the crisis started as a result of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and of the sub-prime mortgage market in the United States, which led to the collapse of many banks around the world. Economies like ours—in the USA, Japan, France and Germany, for example—suffered as well.
I will keep my remarks relatively brief. Neither of the two major parties has too much to crow about in this area, because the regulatory system is a product of both their Governments over time. However, at least this is one area where the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Chancellor have said sorry for something they have left behind.
I am pleased with the work done by the Banking Commission, and I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (John Thurso) and my colleague Baroness Kramer for the work they have done on it. I am delighted that the Government have, perhaps kicking and screaming, at last agreed to adopt the vast majority of the proposals. I am particularly delighted that the Bill puts in place powerful measures on ring-fencing, as the Liberal Democrats have been arguing for that for years. Not only was it in our 2010 manifesto, but it was on the front page, so I am pleased to see it happening.
The background to this is clear: taxpayers should not be held to ransom by these giant organisations, particularly for high-risk activities—casino banking, as it is sometimes called. We must also remember that a lot of these institutions are highly international, so the UK taxpayer is having to stand behind organisations that have a lot of activities overseas—that, too, does not seem right. So it is good that all these measures are being introduced.
We have seen banks that used to be on the side of customers, both individuals and businesses, increasingly behave very much on the side only of themselves. We have seen scandals involving payment protection insurance, LIBOR, foreign exchange and interest rate swaps, which is the one I particularly wish to highlight. I made a speech on that a few weeks ago in this House. I said that the banks appeared to be moving at a tortoise-like pace when we were not having debates and suddenly acted like hares for a few days when we did have them. I can report that they have become tortoises again since that debate a few weeks ago. Constituents of mine who were expecting repayments in very quick time are still waiting, so I hope the Minister will keep the pressure on, although that is not strictly relevant to today’s debate. We have also seen the Co-op bank scandal and predatory activity by banks in the corporate restructuring area—that is the current scandal and I am sure we have a lot more to hear about it.
The Government have been acting on matters such as transaction levies, and making sure that fines for institutions leave the industry and do not just go around in a magic circle. The current round of fines is being used to help pay for the military covenant, which has to be a great idea. The Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, my right hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Vince Cable) is trying, although it is sometimes a lonely furrow, to do something about high pay: shareholders are being given binding votes on their company’s pay policy; companies are being forced to publish single figures for executive deals; and companies are being encouraged to inject more diversity by hiring non-executives from a broader pool of academics, public servants and lawyers. So, to a limited extent, the Government are trying to do something about that.
I particularly wish to discuss Lords amendment 41, which deals with professional standards. A joke doing the rounds when the banking crash happened named the four chairs of the big banks and asked which of them and Terry Wogan had a banking qualification. Of course, the answer is Terry Wogan and none of the others. That illustrates that for too long we have had under-qualified people in important positions. The hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi), who is not in her place, was talking about the legal, medical, pharmaceutical and accountancy professions, which have professional standards of the type she would like to see. However, it is important to note that those standards are not set and regulated in this place; they are set by the professions themselves, which have a huge vested interest in ensuring their own high reputation. Those professions also carry out much more specific and autonomous work in terms of knowing whether an individual has transgressed or not. It is much more difficult in large organisations with long decisions chains to say who is actually responsible for each individual activity. However, I urge the banking profession to think a lot more about how it can enhance its reputation, which, let us face it, is pretty much at rock bottom at the moment. It should think, “How can we have professional standards which are enforced? How can we ensure that people are kept up to date with continuing professional development and that people will be struck off?” However, that is increasingly a role for professional bodies such as the Chartered Banker Institute to be thinking about; it is not something for legislation in this place.
I welcome the work of the Banking Commission and the Government’s response to it. I welcome the extra powers that regulators are going to have as a result of this legislation, but the onus is on them to use those powers. I would like the Minister to say, at some point during today’s debate, how we are going to scrutinise the regulators to make sure that they use their new powers to their full extent.
It has been said that one of the great innovations of this Bill is the introduction of the offence of reckless banking. It is not beyond our imagination to think that in 2015 the measure will be promoted on many a doorstep by people who perhaps do not fully understand what it is that is being introduced. It is one of those proposed offences that promises a great deal, but delivers very little indeed. There is nothing like it in existence in English law, and I will go on to explain why that is in a moment.
There are other things that can be done, and I shall briefly touch on some of them. May I begin with the difficulties that exist in relation to this offence? Under the Bill, it would be an offence for a senior manager recklessly to take a decision. I appreciate that some of the additional 175 pages that have been added to the 35-page Bill have been to backfill exactly what a senior manager is and how they will be defined. That is clearly an improvement, and it is unfortunate that it was even suggested that the Bill would be sufficient in its original form. One must remember that even if a definition of senior manager is now one with which we can all be happy, there have been banks that have been brought down by people other than senior managers. Nick Leeson from Barings bank comes to mind, as does the £2 billion that was lost to UBS by Kweku Adoboli.
I am fascinated that the hon. Lady chooses to use Nick Leeson as an example, because he went to jail, in Singapore, for four years.
The point is that he was not a senior manager and he brought down a bank. This measure will not solve the problem of banks being brought down. An offence of reckless banking that will apply only to senior managers is not by itself sufficient, which is why I want to go on to say what I think should be done instead.
I think the hon. Lady is misunderstanding the intentions of each bit of legislative change. The primary purpose of this measure is to change bankers’ behaviour. It is not primarily to protect banks from being brought down. That task lies with ring-fencing and a range of other proposals, particularly with all the structures being constructed around bail-in and resolution. It does not lie with the criminal offence.
With respect, I am even more confused than before. What is the point of bringing in an offence that will change the behaviour of bankers, but will not, by itself, defend the banks? As I understand it, if the behaviour that we seek to stop is reckless banking, the reason that it should be criminalised is in order to stop banks failing and the financial system crashing.
There are other difficulties with this offence, which include recklessly to take a decision or to fail to prevent the taking of a decision that results in the failure of a bank. That sets a high threshold and, as has already been pointed out, it is not clear who, of those who may have behaved in a reckless way in our banks and who may have brought down the banking system before, would have been prosecuted. The Minister has not been able to assist us as to who might have been prosecuted under the offence. [Interruption.] It is unfortunate that the Minister is distracted at the moment, but the point I am making is important, and I hope that he will be in a position to address it.
It is difficult to prove that aspect of the offence, and prosecuting it would be a risky undertaking for the prosecuting authorities who will be expected to invest public money in prosecuting such matters. There is no point in putting something in legislation that can be discussed on doorsteps but will never be used to prosecute. We have seen the Serious Fraud Office struggle with high-profile, high-risk prosecutions. Too often such prosecutions end in shambles because of the behaviour of the Government, which have cut the SFO’s funding from £53 million in 2008 to £30 million by the end of this Parliament. Differences can be made to the behaviour not only of banks but of businesses generally. May I just add that of course I support Labour’s position on a stringent licensing regime for bankers, the imposition of a fiduciary duty of care on financial-sector staff for clients and customers and its call for a dedicated financial crime unit. In a moment, I will move on to what will work better, but before I do that, I give way.
Let me take the hon. Lady back to her last point on prosecutions. I speak as a former prosecutor of serious fraud work, although not for the SFO. Either there is the 51% test of prima facie evidence at the start of the case, or there is not. How the case then ends up, once the matter has been examined by a jury, is a matter for a jury and occasionally a judge. She is being a little harsh on the SFO, which is doing a fantastic job under very difficult circumstances.
I am more than happy to put it on the record that I am a critical friend of the Serious Fraud Office. Sometimes the emphasis is more on the word critical, especially after what we have seen in the newspapers today, with the crash of yet another serious fraud case because the SFO asked an agent, which clearly had a conflict of duty, to do its investigation. That is yet another mistake that the SFO has made. If we want the SFO to turn a corner, we need to do more than show good will. This Bill provided us with an opportunity to change things. It is unfortunate that more attention was not paid to changing corporate liability.
I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) said in his contribution, and I undertake to send him, as a Christmas present, Labour’s policy paper in relation to fraud. If we can change corporate liability to ensure that if an individual within an organisation behaves in a way that is dishonest and to the advantage of the larger organisation, we can prosecute the organisation, unless it can show, in the same way that it can under the Bribery Act 2010, that it has in place controls over its staff, it would have an impact on our banking system. If I may say so respectfully, introducing such legislation will have a greater impact than the measures proposed in this Bill. If we were to introduce a different form of corporate liability, we could increase the fines hugely, and that money could be ploughed back into the Serious Fraud Office. Then we would have an organisation of which people in the City of London would be afraid. They would be prepared in most circumstances to come to an agreement with the SFO to have a deferred prosecution agreement.
DPAs will not ever exist under the status quo. The DPA legislation has been passed but, as I understand it, no one has come forward to say that their company has been doing wrong, that they want to admit that, that they will pay a fine, that they will change their ways, that they want auditors to come and see how they are behaving and that they will point out the individuals who have been behaving in a criminal way. I respectfully submit that that is how to change the culture. That is how we ought to be working and I look forward to discussing it with the hon. Member for Chichester once he has read the Christmas present I intend to send him. If elected in 2015, Labour intends to introduce its own economic crime Act, and I hope that we will take the issues further and develop them. Obviously, I would be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s reactions.
I intend to talk principally about Lords amendment 41, but before I do so let me echo the comments made by the Chairman of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie), at the beginning of the debate. He said that he was grateful to the Government for moving such a long way along the road towards the commission’s recommendations. That is a tribute to the organisation that he chaired extraordinarily well for about 18 months and that came up with such sound proposals. It was a great honour for me to be part of that process. It also says a huge amount for the Government that they have taken great heed of what the commission said and have moved a great deal further towards implementing the proposals.
On Lords amendment 41, I suspect that there is not too much of a difference of opinion in the House about what we are trying to achieve through the Bill—that is, a change in the culture of banks. I take slight issue with the hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), because it is not just about preventing banks from collapsing. It is about getting better standards and better service for consumers. Many constituents will complain about their treatment by banks and that has nothing to do with criminal matters; it is simply about the culture and how certain people address other people in their everyday lives. We want to drive that out and to ensure that the banking culture is one of which we can be proud and which consumers can trust enormously.
I do not necessarily agree. I speak not only as a Member of Parliament, a member of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards and a member of the Treasury Committee but as a former investment banker and investment manager. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary is also a former banker, so to a certain extent we have a private interest in ensuring that banking standards are greater than they have been. There has, however, been an enormous amount of progress. We have a new regulatory regime, there have been a number of changes in the banks and we have seen a complete change of culture at the top of many of the banks. Things are moving in the right direction but it will take a long time and this Bill is part of that process.
Although we are all trying to achieve the same thing, the important question is how we will achieve it and who, ultimately, we should ask to ensure that the licensing regime is upheld and looked after. The Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards was perfectly clear that we felt that the approved person regime was complete and utter nonsense. One of the Bank of England’s greatest thinkers, Andy Haldane, highlighted why that was the case: if regulation is devolved to a regulator, all that happens is that the individuals at the head of the banks think that they have nothing to worry about. It becomes the regulator’s problem to worry about such things, and not that of those individuals.
When we met a number of the banks—particularly UBS, the Union Bank of Switzerland, the senior directors of which appeared in front of us just after it had been fingered for its share in the LIBOR scandal—we discovered that there was an incentive to be ignorant of what was going on within them. The senior managers of UBS who were running the bank when the LIBOR scandal happened within their organisation knew nothing about it until they read about it in the Financial Times three or four weeks before our hearing. That gave rise to the accusation that there was an accountability firewall between the management of the banks and the individuals working on the front line—that is, those at the coal face on the dealing room floors and servicing our consumers.
We were trying to work out how on earth we could reach a system in which those at the top of the bank took accountability for the work and standards of the individuals in the lower part of the bank. That is crucial in leading me to support the Government in rejecting amendment 41: it does not deal with that accountability but rather gets around the problem. That is why it fails to hit the nail on the head.
The personal responsibility argument is extremely strong and powerful, but does not the hon. Gentleman see some merit in the fact that Lords amendment 41 talks about a code of conduct? Is not the code of conduct described in the amendment a mechanism that could be used to drive the change in culture throughout the organisation that he describes?
I agree entirely. A number of professional bodies in the banking industry have a code of conduct. I, for example, am a fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment, which has a code of conduct. Many people working in investment banks will be fellows of the CISI. Indeed, Sir Richard Lambert’s proposals, about which we shall hear more in the new year, will include a code of conduct. It is also worth bearing in mind that the banks are producing their own code of conduct that is being fed back to the regulator, which will consider what they are saying.
Let me wind up, because I think the Minister would like to speak at some point. I would be the last person to stand in his way, because I know that he will have some intelligent things to say. Suffice it to say that I think amendment 41 will prevent the behavioural changes we desire, and that is why I will reject it.
I thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), for her comments and all other—
Order. With the leave of the House, Minister.
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. With the leave of the House, I thank the shadow Minister for her comments and all other Members who contributed to the debate. In particular, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) for the work that he has done in this area, especially in chairing the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards. I have listened to all hon. Members with great interest over the past couple of hours, but in particular to my hon. Friend. I thank him for all his efforts and also for his supportive comments, which I take as broad support for the Government’s amendments.
In the time available, I shall deal quickly with some of the key issues that came up. The shadow Minister raised the issue of timing and her understanding that there was not enough time to scrutinise the Bill and the amendments. She will know that the Bill started with the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Banking, which were scrutinised extensively in the House and in the other place, including the recommendations of the PCBS. The Government produced their response as quickly as they reasonably could to the PCBS, which was in July, in advance of the Commons Report stage so that it could inform debate as soon as possible.
The shadow Minister also asked why the Government resisted Opposition suggestions on improving professional standards. Again, she will know that because the PCBS had been set up and had been asked specifically to look into this area, the right thing to do was to listen to the commission and take its views into account when drafting amendments, before anything was settled upon. She asked about minimum standards and competence. She is right to do so, as we all recognise the importance of those. It is worth pointing out that, because of Government amendments that were introduced, banks will be required to check all new applicants to ensure that they are fit and proper, and not just at the point that they start with the bank; annual checks will have to take place and regulators will have important powers to specify any qualifications that they believe are required for the job.
A number of hon. Members raised the issue of a code of conduct. The regulators, both the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority, will have broad powers, including the ability to set up a code of conduct for banks in general or for a particular bank, as they see fit. These are the kind of powers that regulators can use in future. My hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Ian Swales) asked how we could scrutinise regulators. He is not in his place, but he will know that an annual report produced by the regulators about how they discharge their functions will be provided to Parliament, where it can be given proper scrutiny.
There was a discussion about remuneration. Hon. Members will know that the PCBS made recommendations on remuneration which the Government have accepted, particularly on longer deferrals and clawbacks, including a full clawback if a bank ends up receiving state aid. I understand that the PRA will make further recommendations on that next year.
I have time only to touch on Lords amendment 41 which, as I said, the Government oppose. It is worth taking into account the comments of my hon. Friends the Members for Chichester and for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier) that, although the amendment is well intended, it will lead us back to a box-ticking culture and confuse regulation and professional standards. Both are necessary, but it would be wrong to conflate these—
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Lords amendments 64 to 154.
Lords amendment 155, and amendments (a) and (b) thereto.
Lords amendments 156, 161 to 163, 169 to 172, 175 to 180 and 182 to 184.
The second group of amendments introduce substantial changes that will ensure that consumers get a fair deal. They will drive up competition and improve outcomes for consumers. Amendments 63 to 134 introduce a new competition-focused, utility-style regulator as a separate legal entity established under the FCA.
The Government have concerns about the payment systems market, with particular problems in three main areas: competition, innovation and responsiveness to consumer needs. Under the current arrangements, there is nothing holding big banks, payment scheme companies and infrastructure providers to account for consumers. The regulator will therefore have strong powers and objectives: to ensure that the operation of payment systems promotes fair and open competition in banking; to promote innovation in payment systems, for the benefit of consumers; and to support the interests of end users.
The regulator will have bespoke objectives and powers to address problems particular to the market for payment systems, allowing for the benefits of close co-ordination with the FCA. Once a payment system is brought into scope, the regulator will have powers over the system’s operators, infrastructure providers and providers of payment services using the system.
The payment system regulator will be equipped with a broad range of regulatory powers, enabling it to address the significant issues causing problems in the market for payment systems. To open up access and encourage greater competition, the regulator will be able to intervene and require changes to any anti-competitive fees or terms and conditions of an agreement for access to regulated systems. It will have powers to require the provision of access to payment systems. The regulator will also have competition powers exercisable concurrently with the Competition and Markets Authority.
My hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Andrea Leadsom), who is in her place, will be pleased to know that the regulator will examine the case for full account number portability within 12 months of its establishment—although, with the successful seven-day switching service, which was launched by banks in September, hon. Members should know that they do not have to wait until then if they want to switch their account quickly.
With regard to account number portability, is the Minister concerned that in the period between now and spring 2015, when the regulator will come into force, work might slow down, rather than speed up, because of the unpredictability of the regulator?
I have listened to my hon. Friend carefully, and others have made that point previously, but I do not share those concerns. I think that the regulator will move on that swiftly. The changes that have so far been made to payments, such as the switching service, are already making a real difference.
Ultimately, if the payments system regulator determines that the current ownership structures need to be broken up to achieve adequate competition, it will have the power to require disposals of interests in operators of the regulated systems. It will also have the power to enforce Competition Act 1998 prohibitions against anti-competitive agreements and abuse of dominance and to make market investigation references to the Competition and Markets Authority.
The amendments create a competition-focused regulator in this key market.
I very much welcome the role that the payments regulator will have. For the avoidance of doubt, though, can the Minister confirm that part of its scope will be credit interchange fees and that it will have a role in potentially regulating their level over time?
Yes, I can confirm that. Although it remains for the regulator, once set up, to deem the regulated systems, we envisage that that will be part of its scope. My hon. Friend will know that the issue is being considered right now through a proposed European Union initiative. We would expect the regulator to take that into account as well.
What analysis have the Government undertaken of the impact of designating card payment systems for regulation? If the system will not come in until spring 2015, is there not a genuine danger of blight in terms of planning the way forward?
Before we made the final decision to create the regulator, a full consultation was carried out. We received input into that consultation from many stakeholders, and that formed part of the analysis of how the regulator could carry out its function, as well as the importance of having such a regulator. We expect not only that the regulator will be fully up and running in around 2015, but that once the Bill receives Royal Assent the FCA will begin the process of setting it up early next year. The FCA has resources that can be called on, and it has already started working on exactly how the regulator would operate, so I think that it will be able to start at least some of its work sooner than 2015.
Amendments 135 to 152 establish a special administration regime to be known as the financial market infrastructure, or FMI, administration. Inter-bank payment and settlement systems are integral to the efficient operation of the financial system, processing transactions worth hundreds of billions of pounds a day. Currently, if such a system becomes insolvent, it will typically enter the normal administration procedure and the administrator will be under a duty to look after the interests of the company’s creditors without regard to the implications for the wider UK economy. In those circumstances, the continued operation of crucial payment and settlement services could be threatened, which could have a significant adverse impact on the market and the wider economy. The amendments will ensure the continuity of crucial service provision of recognised inter-bank payment systems and security settlement systems in a time of crisis by imposing a duty on an FMI administrator to maintain the company’s crucial services during administration.
The key features of FMI administration are: the FMI administrator is placed under a duty to maintain the company’s crucial services during the period of FMI administration; the Bank of England is given the ability to apply to the court to place a relevant company into FMI administration and has conferred on it a power of direction over the FMI administrator; powers are granted allowing for the property, rights and liabilities of the relevant company to be transferred; and restrictions are established on early termination of contracts for the supply of certain goods and services to a company that has entered FMI administration.
We welcome the change, but it will not start until January 2015. Our amendment (a) says that it should start from October 2014, because people spend the most, and often build up the most debt, in the period up until Christmas. Therefore, what is the harm in bringing the date forward by three months?
If the hon. Lady will allow me, I will answer her questions when I consider the amendment she mentions.
There is a growing evidence base, including lessons from other countries, that a cap on costs is the right way forward for consumers. That is why the Government tabled an amendment in the other place to require the FCA to impose a cap on the cost of high-cost credit and short-term loans—not just an interest rate cap but a cap on all fees and charges, including default charges and roll-overs.
Does my hon. Friend have any idea what level of cap there might be on such charges?
My hon. Friend asks a reasonable question that I am sure many Members would be concerned about. The cap should be set by the FCA at a level designed to protect consumers. I hope that when I go on to talk about the process, that will give him a bit more definition regarding his concerns.
I do not really understand what the Minister says about a cap protecting consumers. Before we had these payday lenders who get so much opprobrium, the alternative was very often door-to-door loan sharks who would break your legs if you did not pay them back. The great feature of the payday lenders is that they do not do that. What assurance can he give that any caps we impose will not force people back into the hands of unscrupulous and illegal lenders instead of the payday lenders, who at least work within the law?
My hon. Friend raises a good point. A number of charity groups involved in the debt advisory sector share those concerns. However, most of them agree, especially in the light of emerging evidence from other countries such as Australia and from certain parts of the United States, that it is possible, if researched properly, to set a cap at a level that can protect consumers but at the same time prevent extortionate costs. That will be the job of the FCA when it looks at the matter, and I know that it will take it very seriously.
Following on from the previous question, surely the Minister agrees that we can do better than offer people a choice between having their legs broken and interest rates of several thousand per cent. Government Ministers accepted that logic in their recent announcement about an interest rate cap. Surely it is possible to bring in a system that gives some measure of protection to the consumer without driving them into the arms of illegal loan sharks.
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is certainly possible to have a better system than the current one. There will be a number of changes, including the moves towards a cap and the change of regulator from the Office of Fair Trading to the FCA, which set out in October some of its planned measures with regard to continuous payment authorities, roll-overs, advertising and affordability. Those are all part of a package that will help to protect consumers in the sector.
I am sorry to say this to the Minister, but he has not replied to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart). Of course, the Government can do what they like—they can set a cap—but the Minister must respond to the point that the Government cannot legislate against sin. The fact is that people are desperately hard up. If we legislate or put a cap on one thing, the evil moves to another, almost worse practice. The Minister must make some effort, in the real world, to answer my hon. Friend’s point.
If my hon. Friend will allow me, I will, as I move on, provide more information on that particular point.
I thank the Minister for giving way so liberally on this issue. He mentioned the FCA’s role not just in setting the cap, but in other critical arrangements, such as roll-over, continuous payment authorities and proper administration of the high-cost credit sector. Does he think that that goes far enough? If we are going to get this sector right, many organisations think that the consumer needs more protection.
The measures that the FCA has already suggested, and on which it is currently consulting, go a long way to protect consumers in this sector. Of course, the FCA has broad powers in this area and there is nothing to prevent it from considering future measures as it learns more about aspects of the market. For example, the hon. Gentleman may know that the Competition Commission is currently looking into this sector. It is due to report back with its preliminary findings next May and a final report around November. It will look at the sector for about 18 months in total. I am sure that the FCA will take that into account and see what further measures it could take, if necessary, with the broad set of powers it already has. I hope that is of some reassurance to the hon. Gentleman.
Designing the cap on the cost of credit is a job not for the Government but for the independent and expert regulator. Nor is it right that the detail of a cap should be enshrined in primary legislation, given that the industry it is intended to bind is so fast-moving and innovative.
Lords amendment 155 makes clear the FCA’s overarching objective in this endeavour: it must make rules to impose a cap to protect consumers from excessive charges imposed by high-cost, short-term lenders. This language echoes the FCA’s consumer protection objective. The FCA must make rules to advance one or more of its operational objectives, namely consumer protection, market integrity and competition. That applies to the rules to implement the cap, just as it does to all FCA rule-making. The FCA’s competition duty also applies. It must consider how the rules affect the ability of the market to serve consumers’ interests.
As we have heard, introducing a cap is not without risks or potential adverse consequences, including reducing access to credit for some individuals who find themselves in financial difficulty. The FCA will not be able to eliminate those risks, but it will seek to manage them. It will be important that the FCA strikes the right balance in designing and setting the cap.
Given that the Government have moved belatedly on this issue—I hope it will make a big difference, notwithstanding the risks mentioned—will the Minister pay tribute to organisations such as Sharkstoppers and Movement for Change and the many community activists around the country who have highlighted the dangers posed by the payday loan industry, which is getting people into thousands of pounds’ worth of debt? The Government have listened to those voices, so will the Minister pay tribute to them?
I assure the hon. Gentleman that we as a Government have spoken to many stakeholders, including hon. Members, on this issue. Many people have done a good job and deserve credit for looking at the evidence in more detail.
I will take this as a final intervention, because I need to plough on in the interests of time.
I thank the Minister for giving way; it will not take long. Following the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), will the Minister also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), who has played a great part in raising and campaigning on the issue?
I will. The hon. Member for Walthamstow, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker) and many other Members have shown great concern in this area and have made a welcome contribution to the debate.
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way one very last time. I am not sure that I agree with him that it is not for Parliament to decide roughly where the cap should sit, because if we set it too high it will be meaningless and if we set it too low we will drive too many people out of the loan market. What will the Minister do if the FCA pitches the cap in a different place from where the Government think it ought to be? Would he want to come back to Parliament to take another look at the situation?
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I think that the FCA, acting independently and looking at the evidence, is the right organisation to set the cap. I do not think that politicians setting the cap would be as productive; actually, it could be counter-productive.
I now turn to the cost-benefit analysis that the FCA will have to conduct, which I think will help reassure Members that it will approach the task in the proper way. The amendment specifically requires that the FCA must consult the Treasury before it publishes and consults on any draft rules. To reflect the importance of keeping the rules current and effective, the FCA must report, each year in its annual report, on any rules it makes under its capping powers.
Finally, it is worth spending a moment on the issue of defining payday lending in primary legislation. Putting a narrow definition in primary legislation could lead to unintended consequences. Lenders may just try to circumvent the definition. The amendment therefore allows the FCA to specify precisely which types of high-cost, short-term loans are captured when it makes its rules to effect the cap.
Amendment (a) to Lords amendment 155, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), relates to data sharing. I am grateful to her for raising that important issue and the Government fully agree that urgent action is necessary to tackle it. The whole system needs to improve to support responsible lending. Lenders must make proper assessments of an individual’s ability to repay before they lend, based on accurate, timely and comprehensive information on their outstanding loans.
The FCA plans to put strict requirements on firms to undertake affordability assessments to ensure that a borrower can afford to make sustainable repayments. The FCA is not stopping there. It has warned the industry that it must improve the way in which data sharing works, including how quickly lending data are made available. The chief executive of the FCA, Martin Wheatley, has made a commitment to me today in writing that if the industry fails to improve, the regulator
“will not hesitate to act”.
The Government wholeheartedly endorse the message to the industry that the FCA will act if it does not respond quickly enough. This matter is a priority for the FCA. It is committed to improving the way in which data are shared and lending decisions made.
I therefore believe that amendment (a), although well intended, is not necessary. I hope that on the basis of those reassurances, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun will not feel the need to press it.
The hon. Lady also tabled amendment (b) to Lords amendment 155, which relates to the timetable. The Government want the cap to be in place as soon as possible. That is why we are taking this opportunity to introduce legislation that requires the FCA to impose a cap on costs. The FCA will then be able to get on with implementation without delay. Let us be clear that the Lords amendment provides a statutory backstop date for implementation. The cap must be in place by 2 January 2015. If the FCA can deliver it sooner, it will. However, it must not rush and risk getting the wrong result for consumers.
Notwithstanding the points that the Minister is making, many consumers and campaigners on this issue will be concerned about what he has said about the time scale. The Government have dragged their heels on this issue for a number of years and could have taken action well before the date that has been set. I would like to see a cap before this Christmas. I agree with other hon. Members that it is crucial that the cap is in place before next Christmas. One of the campaigners from Swansea whom I met, a woman called Serai, got into more than £1,000-worth of debt with one of these lenders after taking out a very small loan to help pay for her kids’ Christmas presents. This is a crucial point, so I hope that the Minister will give a little more hope to the many campaigners who would like to see the cap introduced before next Christmas.
I will say a little more about the timetable in a moment, but it is a bit unfair of the hon. Gentleman to say that the Government have had years to introduce the cap, when the Government whom he supported had 13 years to introduce a cap and did nothing.
A number of steps must be taken before the cap can be implemented. All of those steps are important and if they are rushed, it will put consumer protection at risk for the sake of speed. There must first be evidence gathering and analysis. That is critical in getting the cap right. The FCA will draw on the evidence that the Competition Commission has collected. It might also have to get information from lenders and others in the market to get on with its work as quickly as possible. Yesterday, the Government laid secondary legislation before Parliament that will allow the FCA to seek information from the industry. That will support the design of the cap and the cost-benefit analysis that the FCA must issue.
The second and most vital part of the process is the consultation with interested parties on the proposals and their impact, as set out in the cost-benefit analysis. The final component that is necessary for the successful implementation of the cap is that lenders must be given a short period in which to update their systems and processes to meet the new requirements and become responsible, compliant lenders. Difficult though that is, we are not prepared to compromise on the process because that could lead to poor outcomes for consumers.
I need to plough on; I am sorry.
I thank the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun for giving me the opportunity to set out the FCA’s plans for implementation. I hope that has provided reassurance that the FCA is committed to taking action as soon as possible, and that she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
In summary, the Government believe that a cap on the cost of payday loans is necessary better to protect consumers from excessive spiralling costs, working alongside regulatory interventions that the FCA is already proposing to clamp down on the causes of consumer harm in the payday lending market.
Amendments 162 and 163 will provide significant benefit to consumers and financial services businesses that have been affected by poor practice in the claims management industry. Claims management companies have a legitimate role in helping consumers claim compensation, but a minority have acted irresponsibly. Despite the threat of suspension or cancellation of authorisation, some CMCs act speculatively and submit illegitimate claims that clog up the system and ultimately impose costs and delays on consumers. The amendments will give the claims management regulator power to impose financial penalties on CMCs that are guilty of misconduct.
The Government’s amendments provide a new form of redress—including financial compensation for consumers affected by a poor service from CMCs—by introducing a mechanism for the cost of handling complaints to be recouped from the industry. Together, the amendments will help ensure that the claims management industry acts more responsibly, and where it does not the regulator and Office for Legal Complaints can take action.
The Government agree with Lords amendments 153 and 154 that provide the PRA with a secondary competition objective and the FCA with competition powers that are exercisable concurrently with the Competition and Markets Authority. The Government are committed to improving competition in our banking sector to drive up consumer outcomes. A secondary competition objective for the PRA was recommended by the PCBS, and the Government accepted it. That objective will ensure that the PRA remains above all the watchdog for financial stability, but we will require it to play a more proactive role on competition.
If the Minister had had the pleasure of sitting on the Bill Committee, he would know that I tabled an amendment to suggest we cap the market share that banks could have in certain markets. What will he do if, perhaps by 2020, we have not seen a great increase in competition and still have too few banks with too high a market share? Does he think further action by Parliament would be needed?
My hon. Friend will know that the Government have introduced many initiatives to increase competition in the banking sector. Just today we heard that Tesco Bank will enter the current account market next year, creating hundreds of jobs in Scotland. That is welcome news, and other innovations such as current account switching also help to engender more competition. I do not think any of us know what the situation might look like in the future, but I am sure a future Government will take that into account in 2020, and beyond, and see whether any further measures are required.
The Treasury Committee and the Banking Commission are extremely grateful that the lion’s share of the proposals on competition have been implemented. We think that will be a step forward, and the Treasury Committee has been pretty active in that field for more than three years. As I alluded to earlier, one recommendation has not been acted on by the Government, and I would be grateful if the Minister explained why. Perhaps it can be best summarised in this way: what additional benefit is conferred by the FCA’s strategic objective that is not provided for through the operational objectives of the FCA?
My hon. Friend will know that the FCA currently has an objective to promote competition, and I know that he supports that. The Government have accepted the recommendation from the commission to give this secondary objective to the PRA, so those two objectives for the key regulators—the FCA and the PRA—will make a difference. If my hon. Friend has some further suggestions for the future, I will certainly take a closer look at them.
The FCA’s consumer panel, which represents the interests of consumers, is well placed to communicate its views to the PRA, and in the other place the Opposition have called for a role for the FCA’s consumer panel. Following constructive debates in the other place, I am pleased that the Government have been able to include amendment 156, which delivers the Government’s commitment to ensure that the FCA’s consumer panel can provide its views to the PRA effectively. This was warmly welcomed on both sides in the other place and by the chair of the consumer panel.
The amendments will simplify day-to-day operations for building societies, other banks and all the other entities that I have mentioned. They will enable banks and other institutions to compete on a more level playing field and improve things as suggested in the Bill and by the commission and others. I commend them to the House.
I will develop my arguments in a moment, but I give notice that at the appropriate stage we will seek to divide the House on both of the amendments that we have tabled in this group.
I shall start with the payments system regulator, because I was somewhat surprised by the number of representations on the Bill from the industry, even at this late stage, including on the payments system regulator. The Minister has responded to interventions on that point, but I hope that, when he has the opportunity to respond later, he will address some of the questions raised by the industry, such as the concerns expressed by VocaLink. Although it has said that it is broadly supportive of the regulator and welcomes the change in the Government’s position, it is none the less very keen to ensure that there is no planning blight—a gap between the point at which the legislation becomes law and the time at which the system would be fully operational.
We have also had representations from other sectors of the industry, including Visa and MasterCard, on the need for a level playing field and ensuring appropriate and clear definitions of which payment systems come under the regulator, taking into account the broad range of players that facilitate payments for consumers and businesses. Further representations have been made about the need to look in detail at the whole system and the challenges of establishing the PSR, creating the right skill set and ensuring that it operates correctly. The work load of the regulator will also need to be taken into account as part of its remit.
The Minister said that he believed that the FCA had the resources to ensure that the system will be set up on time and will make progress as planned. I contrast that to the approach on payday lending, and I shall move on now to considering that issue.
At the outset, I must say that we welcome the Government’s U-turn on the issue of capping the costs of the controversial payday loans. [Interruption.] I hear the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) saying that that was not a U-turn. I gently remind him that the Government have repeatedly refused demands to deal with legal loan sharks. They now appear to have been dragged, kicking and screaming to their current position as a result of pressure from Labour and countless other campaigners, including many of my hon. Friends in the Chamber today who will no doubt wish to speak.
Let us remember that, during the passage of the first Financial Services Bill, Labour tabled amendments to give powers to the FCA to cap the cost of credit. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will explain why the Government opposed them.
I am sure we all agree that the abuse of payday lending is a scourge, and has been a scourge for many years, on our constituents’ lives. The hon. Lady seems to have a form of selective amnesia. Perhaps she can explain to the House why, during 13 years in power, Labour did absolutely nothing to deal with this pernicious form of payday lending.
I had hoped that the hon. Gentleman would explain why the Government opposed Labour’s amendments. I will come on to talk about the explosion of the payday sector, particularly in the past couple of years on this Government’s watch. [Interruption.] It is no good the hon. Gentleman shaking his head and saying, “Oh come on.” We have the opportunity now to tighten up legislation. That is what I wish to do.
I apologise for omitting to mention my membership of the national committee of Movement for Change, which has been campaigning on this issue, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Does my hon. Friend share my surprise at the continual chuntering from the Government Benches? As she rightly says, there has been an explosion in the past few years on this Government’s watch, and they have been dragged, kicking and screaming to this point. I have seen an explosion of these stores on high streets across Cardiff, and an explosion in cases of people who have got into trouble with payday lenders.
My hon. Friend makes valuable points, which I will come on to address.
The Government opposed the proposals initially, but eventually gave in and passed their own amendments in the other place. The FCA has so far failed to use its powers to introduce a cap. There were concerns that unless pressure was applied it would not necessarily have been able to speed up new powers, and we could have seen a further delay in real-time monitoring across the high-cost loan sector. That is why, some months ago, the Leader of the Opposition promised to introduce a cap. He also suggested an extension to a levy on payday lenders’ profits, which would be used to double the level of Government funding for alternative low-cost providers, such as credit unions, for those struggling with the cost of living crisis.
I am sure my hon. Friend agrees that, had there been an agreement earlier, some of the people still waiting for protection that will not appear until early 2015 would be protected by now. I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) that the sector’s visible expansion in recent years is remarkable. In many years of living in my city, I have never before seen such proliferation of this kind of lending, let alone the advertising on television.
My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Members in all parties will have seen the sector’s expansion on their high streets. I do not normally refer to the Daily Mail, but it published an article on the increase in payday loan advertising, which is a concern. I am cautious about the process of normalisation, particularly children and young people seeing these businesses on our high streets and in advertising.
We must remember the extent of the problem of payday lenders charging interest rates of up to 4,000%, for example, on temporary loans taken out by desperate families who often have nowhere else to turn. Someone commented earlier that so-called legal loan sharks did not break the legs of those who borrowed from them like illegal loan sharks perhaps would, but we have to understand that the many desperate families who turn to these services to borrow, sometimes for the basic necessities of life, often end up broken in different ways.
Up to 5 million families plan to borrow money from payday lenders in the next six months; as we have heard, between 2009 and 2012 the market more than doubled to about £2.2 billion; more than one third of those who take out a payday loan do so to pay household bills, such as gas and electricity; 1.5 million households spend more than 30% of their income on unsecured credit repayments; and personal debt is expected to rise to 175% of household income by 2015—that is the concern about what is happening to families in the real world.
I am sure the shadow Minister watched the recent item on “Newsnight” on this issue with great interest. One of the major issues now is that those who take out these payday loans damage their credit rating and then cannot access mortgages down the line. Is that not an issue we must challenge, if we do not want to store up major troubles?
That is an important issue that ought to give us more food for thought. In certain circumstances, families might need to borrow on a short-term basis and be perfectly able to pay it back on time without it causing them long-term damage, but they would want to know, before taking out such a loan, that it could damage their credit rating.
I want to return to those who perhaps suffer most from the payday lending sector. Despite changing their tune and bowing to pressure from the Opposition and campaigners at the sharp end, the Government have not gone far enough to protect hard-working families from falling into unmanageable debt. That is why, even at this late stage, we have tabled our amendments. On the first, which relates to data sharing, I am sure the Minister will be aware of the concerns set out by StepChange Debt Charity about how the FCA’s proposed responsible lending rules fail to make payday lenders use real-time credit data in their loan decision making. It says that evidence from its clients suggests that payday lenders often use out-of-date credit data and therefore fail to pick up on whether borrowers have existing payday loans. Understandably, it then makes the point that lenders cannot be sure they are lending responsibly.
As we have heard repeatedly, multiple payday loans from different lenders are a major cause of debt problems. Two thirds of StepChange clients reporting financial difficulties with payday loans have been granted overlapping payday loans from different lenders. It also argues that the regulator’s responsible lending rules transpose Office of Fair Trading guidance into binding rules but continue to allow payday lenders to make loans without using that up-to-date information about borrowers’ existing financial commitments. That is obviously causing particularly severe problems for those who get into difficulty with multiple payday loans.
We should listen to what StepChange tells us about the growing problem of people being lent one unaffordable loan after another as they struggle to pay off the loans falling due. It tells us that more than 30,000 people contacted it for help with payday loans in the first six months of 2013—almost double the figure for the previous year. The average amount owed on payday loans by its clients has risen to more than £1,600, creating severe financial difficulties for those clients. In some circumstances, even a whole month’s income would not cover the repayments. It also tells us that a typical client with payday loans now has three payday loan debts and that one in five have five or more with different lenders.
Therefore, it is clear that different payday lenders granting overlapping loans is a major cause of payday debt dependency and that current procedures are not working. It is thus sensible for the FCA to require payday lenders to make use of up-to-date credit information on a borrower’s short-term commitments when they decide whether to issue or extend a loan. Payday lenders have long claimed to be working towards a system of sharing credit data in real time. They have been talking about it for more than two years, but there has been no solution.
My hon. Friend is making a very good speech. We have heard the Minister say at the Dispatch Box that the Government are now committed to tackling this issue, whether belatedly or not. This is such a good opportunity to show that we can all be as one in the House and to take action where there is still clearly a problem, as she is so amply setting out.
I thank my hon. Friend for his kind words about my comments. I am simply putting forward the views brought to us by the people at the sharp end who have experienced the worst problems from payday lending. I pay tribute to those people again for doing so. I agree that it would be wonderful if we could secure some further consensus on these problems and send a clear message to the industry, particularly on advertising. The advertising spend of the top five payday lending brands apparently stands at about £36 million a year. That seems to suggest that they are investing heavily in attracting new borrowers at the same time as being not quite as willing to invest in responsible lending.
My hon. Friend has made an important point about the amount of money such companies are investing in advertising. Many Members will have noted how much investment those companies are putting into advertising in football. Fans are targeted, which I think is particularly heinous, and a number of organisations have campaigned against that. Does she agree that football clubs should resist that type of advertising, which will put their supporters into great debt?
My hon. Friend tempts me to talk about football, which is one of my favourite topics. I will resist that temptation, except to say that I share his concerns about that.
Returning to our amendments and what the industry could do, I understand that there are differences of opinion about how best to tackle the problem. As we have seen, however, technology is available. The Veritech software is, I understand, used in 14 states in the US. Arguably, lenders would have the resources to bring that in if they wanted to. If lenders will not do something voluntarily, surely it will make sense to require them to do that, because in the meantime consumers are falling into debt. The Government should therefore act as soon as they possibly can.
Interestingly, we have heard that this issue is not just about the impact on consumers. The 118 118 company has told us that it believes the introduction of data sharing would enhance levels of competition, arguing:
“It is probable that if real time data was available, and lenders could be more confident in their lending decisions, many more of them would be attracted to this market segment. We would hope and expect that the FCA would be very cognisant of this point in view of its explicit competition objective”.
That is an interesting view. Where lending is being done, we want to know that it is being done by reputable companies, backed up by the proper technology and proper principles.
My hon. Friend is making a fantastic case to show why real-time credit checking is so important in this industry. Does she agree that, in any other industry where money was being lent, the lenders would want to know about any other obligations that the people being lent to had. Is it not curious that this industry seems not to want to know what others are lending to their customers, and does this not reflect their irresponsible approach to their consumers?
My hon. Friend, who has campaigned for many years on this particular issue, makes a very good point again. It seems to me to make perfect sense for anyone who is lending money to want as much information as possible to ensure that the correct decision can be taken. Our amendment would mean that the FCA would have a duty to introduce a system for sharing credit data so that payday lenders could not continue to evade their responsible lending obligations.
Following the intervention by the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy), I have to say that, unfortunately, many normal credit card companies also do not carry out due diligence, and let individuals’ debts pile up.
The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) made a very good point, which was relevant to my beloved Newcastle football club. Unfortunately, Wonga is one of its major sponsors. Does the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson) agree that there should be far greater restrictions on advertising, particularly advertising by payday lenders in parts of the country where many individuals are vulnerable to them?
I thank the hon. Gentleman, whose comments were slightly more supportive than I expected them to be. He made a good point about his beloved football club. I am sure that he agrees with what I said earlier about the amount that is spent on advertising, and the worrying way in which it is normalised by being associated with football clubs and similar organisations. That particularly affects children and young people, as well as perhaps those on lower incomes.
The Minister referred to the challenges that would be faced if amendment (b) were passed and the date of implementation were brought forward. I am well aware that Martin Wheatley of the FCA set out those challenges even before writing the letter from which the Minister quoted earlier. He said that the Minister was
“aware of the challenges that we face in bringing a price cap into force by January 2015.”
The Minister said in response:
“The Government is…committed to ensuring that you can access the information you need to design the cap. The Government will bring forward secondary legislation to allow you to collect information to support your new duty as soon as possible.”
I heard him say that those regulations have now been laid. However, this strikes us as a matter of political will. If he wants the price cap to be introduced, and if he is willing to make the necessary resources available, it seems reasonable for us to press the case for the introduction of the cap by October 2014 rather than January 2015, especially as that would help us to prevent even more families from falling into the clutches of the high-cost credit market this Christmas.
Will the Minister tell us what will be done to speed up the process of the secondary legislation to which he referred? He described January 2015 as a “backstop”, but it was not clear to me whether he genuinely believed that the cap could be introduced earlier, and I think it reasonable for us to press for that to happen.
The Minister will be aware that organisations such as Which?, while welcoming the introduction of a cap on the cost of credit, suggest that it should apply to all credit products. Members have already raised the issue of authorised and unauthorised overdrafts, which, according to research findings, are often just as expensive as payday loans. It has been reported that borrowing £100 for 31 days costs £30 with a Halifax authorised overdraft and £20 with some Santander accounts, and that borrowing the same amount for the same period from a payday loan company costs between £20 and £37. Some of the banks may not feel particularly comfortable about that comparison. An unauthorised overdraft is even more expensive. I am told that in the case of the Halifax reward account and the Santander everyday account, a £100 unauthorised overdraft can cost £100 in charges. I wonder whether the Minister has taken that into account during his discussions with the FCA.
Is the hon. Lady aware that some of those charges apply even if the overdraft lasts for only a day, let alone a month?
The specific examples that I cited had been reported to me, but I understand that in many instances high charges are applied even if people slip into an unauthorised overdraft for a very short period.
Let me ask the Minister another question. In a letter to the Minister, Martin Wheatley said:
“In designing the cap we will, as far as possible, seek to minimise potential avoidance measures. It is possible for firms located in other EEA Member States to provide a payday lending service through the internet to UK consumers within the Electronic Commerce Directive. This is not something that the FCA can mitigate.”
What assessment has the Minister made of the extent of that problem, and what can be done to reduce that? As we take things forward, it will be important that we do not simply move people from one payday lending system on to something else that could be equally difficult.
I want to say a few words about the relationship between the banks and the payday lending sector, and to focus on the question of the banks lending to the payday lenders. During the consideration of the Bill in the other place, Lord Mitchell raised this issue, and his understanding was that Barclays lent Wonga over £250 million. When he investigated that further, he discovered that the sum was apparently much higher. He raised concerns about the mission and the guiding principles of the bank and asked whether lending money to the payday lenders so they can then lend it at higher rates to people who need loans is the right thing for the banks to be doing. That raises the question of what the banks’ responsibilities are to those on lower incomes, and also the issue of the banks’ relationships with the credit unions, for example.
I feel that we must press the amendments we have tabled to a Division. I hear what the Minister has said and I have heard the comments and concerns raised by the FCA about the timetable, but I think it is reasonable to press for this to be done as quickly as possible. The Minister has said that January 2015 is the backstop date—the latest point when it could happen. I think it is reasonable for us to bring that forward and to press the amendments on data sharing to a Division.
On payday loans, I only want to make two very quick points. First, we need to be very careful that EU regulation does not drive a coach and horses through anything we might try to do domestically. I also want to reinforce the point that it is extremely important not to displace what we may disapprove of in the formal sector into the informal sector of very nasty loan shark practices. This will require a great deal of supervision and care.
If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not, because I promised the Chair that I will speak for only three minutes. The hon. Lady will have an opportunity to make her own speech in a moment, and she has been a doughty campaigner on this subject for some time.
I want to speak briefly about part 5 of the Bill, which is the part that creates the payments regulator. This implements a recommendation the Treasury Committee made two years ago. It is worth explaining the origins of our recommendations.
The Payments Council—which is dominated by the banks and other firms involved in the payments system—decided in 2011 to abolish the cheque, without providing any explanation of how it would provide an adequate replacement. That was a profound mistake, and the Committee decided to investigate. The justification for that decision looked pretty threadbare and the abolition also carried a considerable consumer detriment both for charities and for a lot of people who use cheques. I did 20 radio and TV interviews on this subject after the report was published. I asked each of the interviewers whether they had a chequebook; 19 of them said they did and they very much wanted to keep it. I think that brings home the value of cheques. This does not affect only the elderly; quite a large group of people want to keep some kind of paper-based transaction system for the time being.
Under pressure the Payments Council did a U-turn and cheques have been retained. The Treasury Committee also looked at how such a crass decision could have been taken in the first place. We concluded that the explanation lay with the structure of the Payments Council itself. Frankly, it has been little more than a poodle of the industry, and it certainly could not reasonably claim to act on behalf of consumers. A reasonable case can be made, however, that it is a monopoly controller of a crucial banking service. We recommended that that responsibility for the payments system be brought within the ambit of regulation, and we gave an outline of how that should be achieved. Amendments 63 to 134 would implement that central recommendation of our report. It is now up to Parliament to ensure that the FCA is much more responsive to the needs of consumers and competition, on this and a good number of other issues, than was its predecessor. I warmly welcome this part of the Bill.
I regard payday lending as a new industry. We have heard talk about how Labour did nothing for 13 years, but in the 23 years I worked in a citizens advice bureau—I left in 2010—I did not see people with payday loans. I think we saw our first person with a payday loan in 2010. It was always the home credit industry that people came to us about. The payday loan industry—and, in particular, the way in which it targets its market—is a new thing.
I wish to speak to amendment 155, which relates to the importance of a high-cost payday lender reporting in real time to a third party. The industry is really keen to embrace new technology when it suits it to do so. It has phone apps, and it advertises on television and online. New technology is meat and drink to it. However, it is less keen to operate a real-time database. It has had two years in which to do so voluntarily, and it still cannot come to an agreement on it.
Part of the reason for that could be that the industry is not keen on guidance. A lot of our payday lenders have American ownership. When I was at a conference recently, I was harassed by some of those American owners asking me what the rules were. I started to explain the guidance, but they were not interested. They just wanted to know about the rules. If something is not written down, they do not want to do it. They do not want to be the first, or just one of a few, to do something. For that reason, this provision needs to be mandated.
The present reporting system, involving a period of 30 to 60 days, is completely inadequate for a short-term, high-cost loan. A constituent who came to see me recently had taken out 14 payday loans in a week. Yes, that was irresponsible borrowing. I could see that he had been desperate, but it was also irresponsible. The system allowed him to do it. Had the lenders had a real-time database when they agreed to those loans, we could have got them for irresponsible lending. Their excuse, however, was that they did not know how many loans he had already taken out. The lack of a database gives them an excuse to lend irresponsibly, without penalties.
We also need to consider the responsible customers who pay back their loans on time and for whom taking out a payday loan is a perfectly rational decision. Perhaps their fridge is broken and needs to be replaced urgently, and they are expecting some money at the end of the month. Taking out such a loan in those circumstances could be more sensible than going to a company such as BrightHouse. Those responsible customers get no credit for paying back on time, however, because there is no database and because it is not mandatory to report their repayment record. In fact, on occasions, they are penalised for taking out a payday loan. We need a system that will help people to build up a record of creditworthiness, to allow them to get into the mainstream credit market.
As we have heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), the present system can deter new entrants to the market. Companies tell me that they would like to get into the market, and that there is a gap for providers of loans between £500 and £1,500 taken over six months to a year at an interest rate of around 30%. However, the business risk is too great, because there would be no way of knowing whether their customers already had payday loans and when they had taken them out. Entering such a market would add to their business risk, and they also worry that raising their rates would involve a degree of reputational risk.
The Government should look again at this matter and consider mandating the introduction of a real-time database and reporting to a third party. That is important if we are to protect customers and lenders. It is also important if we are to help people to move into a credit stream with lower interest rates, and to help new entrants to move into the market, which we all agree is vital.
I rise to congratulate the Minister on the excellent introduction of an independent payments regulator. I am amazed that this absolute game changer has not received more press attention, because our banking system still, on today of all days, faces the threat of being undermined in the eyes of consumers by its appalling behaviour. Today, Lloyds bank has been fined £28 million for its appalling treatment of retail customers—that is the biggest fine for retail misconduct ever. I stress that the reason for that, as the investigations by the Treasury Committee and the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards showed, is a profound lack of competition in the UK banking sector. Even worse, we even have the last great remaining closed shop, because the Payments Council regulates the banks, yet the banks own the Payments Council, and the banks both clear through and own the payments infrastructure. So there is no incentive to innovate and no self-regulation, and there is a deliberate suppression of competition. What the Minister has done by introducing an independent payments regulator is open that can of worms. The regulator will be a real game changer for the competitive outlook in the UK in future, and I wish to explain why that is.
The proposal is for the payments regulator to look at access to the payments system. As we know, the big clearing banks access the payments system directly, but challenger banks such as Virgin Money, Metro Bank and Aldermore have to go through an agency clearer. If its systems break down, those banks cannot serve their customers. Not only that, but because these banks have to go through the clearer to access the payments system, they get charged up to 10 times or 20 times as much as the clearers have to pay for one payments transaction. It is an absolute closed shop and it is appalling.
The payments regulator’s first job will be to examine access to the payments infrastructure and to say to the big banks, “You have to give direct access to every player.” The big banks argue, “You can’t do that because we all mutually underwrite one another’s payments.” As with any other clearing system, however, it is perfectly possible to leave a deposit up front and then to be called for more margin should you be running out of money, so the reason given for not allowing other banks direct access to the payments system is a completely spurious one. That will be item No. 1, and dealing with it will, in itself, create a completely different playing field for all those who want to come into the banking sector.
The hon. Lady is making a powerful point. Does she agree that a parallel situation would be having the big six electricity companies owning the grid and not allowing any other supplier on to it?
Yes, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. There are huge parallels between the banking closed shop and the energy closed shop. That is something I have been picking up, and I was recently in the media with him addressing this very subject.
Giving direct access to the payments infrastructure to all banks will reduce the barriers to entry, so I want further to congratulate the Minister on accepting the Treasury Committee’s recommendation that the PRA should have a specific competition objective. That is key, because the barriers to entry do not just relate to access to the payments system; there are regulatory barriers to entry. In other words, “If you are small, you cannot become a bank. Until you become a bank, you cannot become big. Therefore, you cannot ever become a bank.” We have created an environment where there are massive barriers to entry, so the payments system changes will really start to unravel that closed shop.
Importantly, I wish to put in one plea for full bank account portability. I know that the Minister has absolutely agreed that one of the first jobs of the new payments regulator will be to undertake a full cost-benefit analysis of account number portability. That would mean that if I want to switch banks in future, instead of waiting for even seven days, having to change all my direct debits, standing orders and bank account details, and having to be issued with new credit cards and cheque books and so on, I would simply be able to have my bank account details re-pointed at a new bank and so everything would remain the same. It would be instantaneous account switching.
When we move our mobile phone account number now, we can take our phone number with us. In a world where we had full number portability, we would also be able to take our bank account details with us. That would be a radical game changer for competition. New entrants could come in and attract new business on the promise that if a consumer does not like them they can always move somewhere else tomorrow. Banks would lie awake at night wondering how to retain their customers through excellent customer services rather than what next they can fleece them with, which happens all too often now.
Competition is not the only issue. There are two other items I wish to mention. The first is about resolution. We have put in all this effort to try to ensure that, in future, a bank cannot fail. We have increased capital requirements and changed the regulatory structure, which is all to the good. None the less, we know that in future, as sure as eggs are eggs, a bank will fail. What bank number portability will do is to give an instant means of resolution to avoid ever seeing again queues of people down a street trying to get their money out of a bank that they are concerned about.
If we in the UK become the first country to introduce full bank account number portability, we will be leading the world. By creating a shared infrastructure for payments, we will create a massive business opportunity for UK plc. I congratulate my hon. Friend, the Minister, but urge him to go even further and to support, when the time comes, the prospect of full account number portability.
Like my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), I rise to speak on amendment 155. The Minister has acknowledged that data collection is at the heart of effective regulation. Like many Members on both sides of the House, I welcome the Government’s conversion to capping the total cost of credit, but we need to recognise that it is not a silver bullet.
When I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity, through the private Member’s Bill ballot system, to prepare the High Cost Credit Bill back in July, I brought together Members from both sides of the House—I am pleased to see that one of them, the hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), is in his place—and all the major consumer voice and debt advice organisations, such as Which?, Citizens Advice, StepChange and the Centre for Responsible Credit, to try to develop a holistic approach to the regulation of payday lenders, with appropriate interventions at every stage of the relationship that lenders have with their borrowers from advertising right through to debt collection. At many points in that relationship, the issue of real-time data collection is absolutely vital to tackle multiple lending. We know that multiple lending is the source of many of the problems that people face. Unable to repay one loan, they are forced to resort to taking out additional loans, moving from a single unaffordable debt to multiple loans, creating completely unmanageable debt.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield has pointed out, the current reporting framework for credit reference agencies of 30 to 60 days simply cannot protect people from the problems that result from multiple lending. Only real-time data collection can effectively do that.
Secondly, we have the impact on the market. As part of the debate on payday lending, many people have argued that we cannot solve the problems by regulation alone and that we need a wider range of more affordable products. That is absolutely right, and real-time data are key to that too, because they will enable lenders to assess risk.
At a recent hearing of the Business, Innovation and Skills Committee, one of the lenders selected by the Consumer Finance Association as a representative of the industry said:
“We do not know in real-time what loans the customer has with other lenders.”
He said that they would
“love to know that information.”
It is impossible for lenders properly to evaluate risk, set interest at manageable levels and develop new products. As other Members have said, the opportunity that real-time data would provide for new entrants to the market is also crucial.
Above all, real-time data are essential to ensuring affordability, which is at the heart of the measures needed to protect people. The industry works in a distorted market. We know that: success is measured by the time it takes to get money into somebody’s bank account, not by the ability to repay. It sounds perverse that many lenders are not primarily concerned about ability to repay. As the OFT has highlighted, up to 50% of payday lending revenue comes from 28% of loans—those that are unaffordable—so providing real-time data is at the core of shifting the business model for payday lending from speed of lending to affordability and is the key to protecting people from spiralling and unaffordable debt.
I mentioned the recent Select Committee inquiry, which will report soon. My hunch is that it will say something along the lines of the report we published two years ago—that real-time data collection is critical to transforming the payday lending industry. We have heard from a number of Members that debt advice agencies are clear that we need real-time data collection and sections of the industry also want it. As the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), has pointed out, the industry has been slow to respond. It has been considering the issue for two years and has failed to find a solution that all participants will buy into. As the industry has failed to produce an initiative, it is our responsibility to step in and secure real-time data collection.
I would cite in support of that assertion the response of the Financial Services Consumer Panel to the Financial Conduct Authority’s consultation on its proposals on payday lending. As Members will know, the Financial Services Consumer Panel is the statutory body that monitors how far the FCA fulfils its statutory objectives for consumers. It is a critical voice in this debate. The panel has said that
“better creditworthiness assessments must be underpinned by real-time data sharing capabilities.”
On affordability, it has stated:
“In order for this information to be available we believe the establishment of real-time data sharing is vital.”
It has also stated:
“In addition to limiting rollovers, the Panel also feels that real-time data sharing is essential in ensuring people do not end up with excessive numbers of loans at the same time.”
It goes on:
“The speed at which loans are granted is often cited as the reason for”
unaffordability and rollovers, and:
“Real-time data sharing would overcome this and should be something the FCA encourages…There are examples of other jurisdictions, such as Florida…where this has been achieved.”
Indeed, the Minister cited Florida as an example earlier.
The panel comes to the conclusion that it strongly calls for the establishment of real-time data sharing and I hope that the Government will listen to that.
With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions. It has been a good debate and a number of important issues have been raised, so I want to take a few minutes to respond.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Cathy Jamieson), started by making a number of points on the payments system regulator. One issue she raised was whether there could possibly be a gap before the payments system regulator came into full force. That is a reasonable question and of course we will do all we can to minimise that.
It is worth pointing out that although the Payments Council, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Mr Tyrie) referred, has not always done a spectacular job as an industry body, particularly on cheques, it has recently put in place some useful innovations under the influence of the Government, such as the current account switching service. It is also developing a mobile phone database. We have been assured that such initiatives will continue and will not slow down because of the plans to set up a payments system regulator.
Will the Minister therefore set a time scale for the FCA to give the industry to work towards voluntarily, which will be imposed on the industry if it does not meet it?
There is already the tightest possible time scale. In his letter today Martin Wheatley of the FCA says that the industry is already working on this. He states:
“If the industry cannot overcome the obstacles, and we are best placed to bring about data-sharing we will not hesitate to act.”
The chief executive of the FCA and the Government understand the importance of this. We can all agree on its importance and the need to take action quickly. I do not consider it necessary to pass any legislation as action is already being taken.
To follow up the point from my hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue), it would the help the House to know whether the Minister has had discussions on a time scale.
I have had discussions with the FCA about this. We expect that by the end of next year the process will be set up, but there are a number of issues to be dealt with before that can be confirmed with more certainty. That is the time scale that the industry is working towards.
Let me move on to some of the other issues that were raised in relation to high cost credit. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun mentioned excessive bank charges, and I agree with her concerns. The Government are concerned about default charges across the unsecured lending market, not just the payday loan market. The Government are strengthening regulation for consumer credit across the board by giving responsibility to the FCA. The FCA recently committed to consider carrying out a thematic review of market practice in relation to fees and charges, once it has full regulatory authority over consumer credit.
I will turn briefly to the timetable for introducing a cap on the total cost of payday lending, which we discussed earlier. As the shadow Minister said, 2 January 2015 is just a back-stop. Of course I would like to see it introduced sooner, as I think we all would. However, as we have discussed, it is better to have a cap that works and protects consumers, rather than one that has been forced on the regulator by an artificial time scale. It is important to listen to the FCA, the regulator that will establish the cap, so it is worth reiterating what Martin Wheatley has said:
“It is very important that we are clear with you on the practical implications of any further shortening in the timetable, the principal one being that we believe it is impossible to have as strong a cap based on a shorter deadline. To such a tight timetable we would be forced to perform less analysis on the methodology and level for any cap, and so would be forced to set the cap at a more conservative level (that is, higher) to reflect the inherent legal risks. This cannot be the intended outcome from a consumer protection standpoint.”
It would be foolish for this House to ignore the FCA’s view, as I am sure we all share the objective of having a cap that works and protects consumers.
We know that 1 million families in this country have already said that they will pay for Christmas this year with a payday loan because of the cost of living crisis they are facing. The Minister is talking about delaying the introduction of any form of cap until 2015, so there is a real question about the impact that might have next Christmas, which will be the default position of not supporting the proposed amendment. Introducing even a conservative cap before next Christmas might do something to lessen the damage that those toxic types of lending are doing to people, given that the cost of living crisis will continue for the year ahead.
I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. As she will have noted from the letter I just quoted from Martin Wheatley, one of the concerns about a conservative cap is that it would be open to much greater legal risk. It would serve nobody in this House if there was some kind of legal challenge to a cap and how it works if the process has not been followed properly and if some people believe that the FCA has not followed its own rules, particularly on the time for consultation. Had the hon. Lady been here at the start of the debate, she might have heard that the Competition Commission’s investigation into payday lending, which is already under a tighter timetable than it usually has—it is normally around two years, but it has agreed to make that 18 months—will report in November next year. I think that everyone would agree that it is very important that the FCA takes into account the results of that investigation.
The Minister might have already answered this, but what specific legal risk has he identified in relation to the cap being introduced sooner rather than later?
I refer the hon. Lady again to the letter from Martin Wheatley, which states that the FCA
“would be forced to set the cap at a more conservative level (that is, higher) to reflect the inherent legal risks.”
I believe that she has a copy of the letter.
I will finish by answering an important point the shadow Minister made about the possibility that lenders from elsewhere in the European economic area will be able to passport their services and avoid UK legislation. She is entirely right to make that analysis, because that is indeed possible under the EU commerce directive and the single market in financial services. There are mitigations, although the situation is not ideal. Under the EU consumer credit directive, there is not a cap but there are certain rules that all lenders within the EU need to follow. Of course, there is nothing to prevent the UK regulator from contacting the comparable authority in another EU-based country to see whether there is any way in which pressure can be put on indirectly through the two bodies working together.
Lords amendment 63 agreed to.
Lords amendments 1 to 40; 42 to 62 and 64 to 154 agreed to, with Commons financial privileges waived in respect of Lords amendments 35, 37, 40, 149 and 150.
Before Clause 13
Duty of FCA to make rules restricting charges for high-cost short-term credit
Amendment (a) proposed to Lords amendment 155.—(Cathy Jamieson.)
Question put, That the amendment be made.
On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Earlier this afternoon I was alerted to a tweet from the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, the hon. Member for Great Yarmouth (Brandon Lewis), which referred to his parliamentary written answer to me on parking charges. It states:
“when the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government…he noted that it was…Government policy to encourage councils to “creatively” and “extensively” make use of parking charges”.—[Official Report, 10 December 2013; Vol. 572, c. 161W.]
That is a gross distortion of the evidence given at the time. As the submission makes clear, the word “extensively” was not used as a description of Government policy, but as a description of fact about the activities of local councils. The word “creatively” was not used in relation to parking charges, but as an approach to improving accountability and responsiveness in service delivery. I have a fairly thick skin, but such a deliberate and cynical misrepresentation is surely out of order. Will you, Madam Deputy Speaker, advise me what steps I can take to have it put right?
Obviously, the contents of comments on Twitter are not a matter for the Chair, but if this has occurred, it is an extreme discourtesy to the right hon. Gentleman, and I hope that the Treasury Bench has taken note. Ultimately, Ministers are responsible for what they say, but perhaps in future the Minister could say it in a written answer and be accountable to the House. That way, I could make a ruling; otherwise, I cannot. Nevertheless, the right hon. Gentleman’s point is on the record.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberI apologise to my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) for delaying his extended Adjournment debate, but given that he was expecting a half hour’s debate but can now have the best part of two hours and 15 minutes, I hope he will forgive me on this occasion. As somebody who no doubt has travelled a lot on the West Anglia rail line, he will be used to delays in any event.
I wished to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker, because we have just had absolutely no explanation from the Deputy Leader of the House for why tomorrow’s sitting in Westminster Hall is to be changed. [Interruption.] The Chief Whip, who is just leaving, will be familiar with this argument, because we had this debate when he was Leader of the House. The Leader and Deputy Leader of the House are being too cavalier in simply excising three hours of parliamentary airtime. I take the view, and I hope other right hon. and hon. Members do as well, that the sittings in Westminster Hall are extremely important. If they were not, the House would not have decided to set them up in the first place. I am pretty sure that the Liaison Committee also regards them as important, because it regularly schedules important debates from the various Select Committees to be debated for up to three hours in Westminster Hall.
I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s concern for the Liaison Committee, but I can assure him that it wants to take cognizance of other events happening tomorrow adjoining Westminster Hall and that I have made provision for the debate that my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce), the Chairman of the International Development Committee, was going to introduce tomorrow to take place on another suitable occasion soon.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is acting with the best of intentions, but he was sitting in his place, as I was sitting in mine, when the Deputy Leader of the House rose simply to move this motion formally, without giving any explanation of the circumstances tomorrow whatsoever. I think the House deserves a better explanation. I understand that tomorrow there is an important celebration in the main Westminster Hall relating to the death of Nelson Mandela. No doubt, that will be a wonderful occasion, and it is right for the House to celebrate the great man’s life in that way, but we have been given no explanation for why the sitting in the small Westminster Hall tomorrow afternoon is to be cancelled. Is it to do with security, logistics, staffing? I do not know. I would welcome an intervention from the Deputy Leader of the House, if he wants to apprise the House of the reasons, but as far as I can tell no one in the Chamber knows why the sitting is to be cancelled.
I have no doubt that the Chairman of the Liaison Committee is acting in good faith, but scheduled on the Order Paper, as we speak, are two very important debates from the International Development Committee. I see in his place the esteemed Chairman of that Select Committee, who has been good enough to attend this afternoon, no doubt also anticipating an explanation from the Deputy Leader of the House for cancelling the sitting. These debates would have been on the subjects of global food security and violence against women and girls.
Perhaps to help the hon. Gentleman let me explain that I was asked whether the Committee would agree to postpone tomorrow’s debates. It was not me who took the decision; my Committee took it. Our decision was that, in the circumstances, provided we were reassured that we would be able to conduct the debates in short order subsequently, we would agree to do so. We have already been offered dates for both debates in January.
I have no doubt at all that the right hon. Gentleman, along with his Committee, has acted entirely in good faith. I put it to him, however, that his rescheduled debates will replace other debates, which will never see the light of day, because we are losing three hours of important parliamentary airtime—with no explanation to this House of why that is happening.
If on today’s Order Paper, along with this motion, a suggestion had been made—I guess it would have been another item rescheduling the sitting in Westminster Hall to another day—I could just about have lived with it. Why have we had no suggestion from the Deputy Leader of the House that the International Development Committee have its debate in Westminster Hall tomorrow morning, before the Nelson Mandela celebration takes place there? Why does today’s Order Paper not suggest that the International Development Committee has its important debates on Monday afternoon from 1.30 to 4.30 or from 4.30 to 7.30? Sittings in Westminster Hall take place on Monday afternoons so why, given the importance of these subjects and the reassurance of the Chairman of the International Development Committee that his debates would take place in short order, did the Deputy Leader of the House not make provision for these debates to take place on Monday?
I never had the privilege of meeting Nelson Mandela, but I am pretty sure that he was concerned about violence against women and girls. I am pretty sure, too, that he was also concerned about global food security. I am thus pretty sure that he would have wanted the British House of Commons to discuss those important items. I have a feeling that he would have been rather upset if his celebration—if I make the correct assumption—displaced three hours of important debates on those crucial subjects.
I do not think I am being unreasonable in saying that, in putting forward this motion tonight, in failing to provide us with an explanation for why the Westminster Hall sitting is not going to take place and in not putting forward an alternative time slot, the Leader of the House and the Deputy Leader of the House are not playing fair by this House. This is a matter I have raised previously. I regard debates in Westminster Hall as very important, and I am pretty sure that the House of Commons does, too. It is simply not good enough to come here at the end of today’s sitting to wipe out three hours of parliamentary airtime on important debates without first giving the House an explanation or secondly providing an alternative time and date for those debates to take place.
In the circumstances, I think it appropriate to make a few points. First, this motion will allow us to resolve not to sit in Westminster Hall tomorrow. This follows the decision of the International Development Committee, many of whose members one assumes will want to attend tomorrow’s events in Westminster Hall to commemorate Nelson Mandela, not to proceed with its business, as agreed by the Chairman of the Liaison Committee, who intervened a few minutes ago to confirm that.
The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) made a number of alternative proposals about the timing, for example, although I do not know whether the International Development Committee considered that because I was not party to the discussions. If we do not proceed with this motion, the impact would be that the business would still appear on the Order Paper and a Chair, Clerks and Doorkeepers would need to be on a rota to attend tomorrow’s business even though it was not taking place. On that basis, it seems sensible to ask the House to resolve the matter in order to clarify the position to the public, and for the convenience of everyone else.
My right hon. Friend has just mentioned the public. Given the importance of the Westminster Hall debates, some members of the public may have made arrangements to come to London specifically to attend them, so we are probably inconveniencing members of the public as well.
My hon. Friend has made a telling point. I cannot disagree with him: some people may indeed have been inconvenienced as a result of this decision. I therefore hope that the alternative dates will be widely publicised to enable them—we hope—to attend the debate in future. I also hope that they will take account of the fact that there was a strong demand for this event, and the fact that, because of the way in which things happened, it was not possible to predict that it would clash with a debate initiated by the International Development Committee that they had wished to attend.
Question put and agreed to.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberIt was almost three years ago, on 19 January 2011, that I last had the opportunity to address the House on the subject of the West Anglia rail line. The line runs from Liverpool Street to Cambridge and beyond, serving many stations in my constituency and in other important towns and villages. In the speech that I made in 2011, I castigated every Government from 1985 onwards for first willing the expansion of Stansted airport—which is served by the line—and then branding the M11 corridor, as it is described, ripe for major development, while doing absolutely nothing about the capacity or quality of service on a line that served all those different needs. I regret to say that not much has changed in the intervening years, apart from the fares that long-suffering passengers have to pay.
I acknowledge that there was a timetable change in December 2011—in the teeth of opposition from Transport for London, I should add—which made possible the reinstatement of some peak services. That returned the journey time between Audley End and London to something like it was in 1977: although it was not quite as good, there was certainly a major improvement. I also acknowledge that, as the then Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mrs Villiers), told me in her reply to my speech in January 2011, some of the new type 379 train units did come our way. I am not sure that that was entirely due to my persuasion; it was probably rather more to do with the fact that business at Stansted airport had slumped rather badly, and 10 of the 30 new train units were spared to supplement services for other passengers on the line.
Despite those two welcome steps, however, not much has changed. I am tempted to use the term, “Same old railway.” There is no new track and no sign of fleet replacement. It is true that there is a new train operator, Abellio, under the colours of Greater Anglia, and a new airport owner, with Manchester Airports Group having bought Stansted from BAA.
My right hon. Friend is an incredible champion for commuters in our area and I am very proud to have him as my neighbouring MP. I recently did a survey at my local railway station, Harlow Town. Some 73% of commuters said they had to stand too often, and 60% of them want longer trains. Does he agree that there needs to be investment in rolling stock and that the trains that go through Harlow need to be extended?
I certainly do not disagree with that in any way, and I would think that quite a number of other colleagues whose constituencies are served by this railway line would echo my hon. Friend’s sentiments. I acknowledge his support in the campaign to bring the Government’s focus more sharply on to this line.
I strongly endorse what has been said: my right hon. Friend is an informed and persistent challenger of what has been a poor service for all our constituents. Does he share my concern that, while we understand the problems created by the storm this autumn, we noticed that it was our line that was least able to cope? We had three days—not one—of disruption. Does he share my view that alongside the overcrowding, poor service and rising fares, we simply seem to be getting what I would describe as a Cinderella service?
I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who has been another staunch ally in the fight for a better deal for regular passengers on the line. I agree that that is another example of how our service has fallen below the standards, which have been raised in certain other parts of the country. In terms of statistics, it is possible to argue overall that a higher performance rating has been achieved, but when the lapses occur, they are very serious indeed.
I could add to what my hon. Friend has said by describing my experience this morning. At the Audley End ticket office there are two counters. Both were closed, with a notice up to say that the one person who was in on this particular morning would be back at 9.45, which was one minute after the departure of the train to London. The rumour was that the ticket agent was having a break, but that meant that there were no tickets available to purchase except from one of the machines on the platform, and those machines are not flexible in what they can offer—they can only provide fairly simple fares. It would certainly appear to be a shambles that we do not have a proper standard of service in that way.
As I have said, there is a new train operator and a new airport owner, and there is seemingly a new franchise policy because when my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet spoke in response to my Adjournment debate in 2011 she suggested that good times would come when we had new longer franchises, but I am not sure that that policy still holds; that may have now changed to having rather shorter franchises. I would be interested to know what my hon. Friend the Minister has to say on that subject.
Indeed, in addition to those other new circumstances, we have a new Minister. In fact he is the second since the previous debate. [Interruption.] Yes, I have no doubt at all that he is an excellent Minister, but he will be judged in part by the nature of his reply to me and my hon. Friends.
What is absolutely incontrovertible is that there has been no investment in the line. That is the problem.
I am very interested in this line because I have been to Cambridge four times in the last year, and on two occasions I had to take a very long journey on buses. My right hon. Friend says the line is poor, and that seems to be borne out by my own empirical experience as a Member of Parliament from south of the river.
I am sorry that my hon. Friend was inconvenienced on those occasions, but that illustrates a further problem that we experience on the line. I hope that the problem did not prevent him from collecting the honorary degrees that he was no doubt going to Cambridge for.
I might have suggested that not much has been happening, but in fact I suspect that things are now stirring, although not necessarily in a helpful way. The Mayor of London has shown great interest in acquiring control over part of this railway. More disturbingly, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State seems to have given assent in principle to that taking place. The Mayor would then have control over the services to Enfield Town, Chingford and so on, although not further up the main line between Tottenham Hale and Broxbourne. That is interesting, because one of the justifications for bringing together the services out of Liverpool Street in a single franchise was that it would make the operability of Liverpool Street more effective. If a second franchise holder were to be introduced, that could start to complicate matters in what is already a very constricted station.
My next point is that, to run those services, the Mayor will need some rolling stock, and I suspect that a portion of the rolling stock currently being operated flexibly by Greater Anglia would be painted a different colour and handed over to the Mayor. It is not clear, however, what would replace that rolling stock. I regard this as an aggressive, acquisitive policy on the part of the Mayor. I am not denying that it could be good for the people he serves, but it would have an adverse effect on the people served by me and by my hon. Friends the Members for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) and for Harlow (Robert Halfon) and others. Also, it cannot be right if there is to be no investment in the track. The situation would become altogether different if we had four-tracking. It might then be possible to accept that the two operators could work without the one interfering with the other.
A further disturbing matter, from the point of view of railway passengers, is that Stansted airport is starting to expand again in terms of passenger numbers, and I imagine that, under the dynamic new ownership of the Manchester Airports Group, those numbers will continue to rise over the next few years. That will build demand to a point at which we will look back on the history and say to Ministers, “Excuse us, but we would now like to have back those trains that you allowed to run on the Cambridge line to serve the commuters, so that the original intention of having 12-car trains going to the airport can be fulfilled.”
I have no particular complaint about there being a decent rail service to the airport; indeed, I am in favour of it. However, it could pose a second threat to the fleet that is available to Greater Anglia. The question would then arise: where are the substitute carriages to come from? I am advised by Abellio that there are no trains that can obviously be cascaded down to us. We would, I suppose, be grateful for second-hand trains, but we have been living with second-hand trains for far too long anyway and we deserve a full fleet of new trains.
A report has appeared recently from an organisation called London First. It puts forward what, on the face of it, seems a reasonable proposition. I replied initially to Baroness Valentine, the chairperson of the organisation, to say that I welcomed the contribution to the debate, and that anything that brought attention to the needs of the line was to be welcomed. But the more one examined the proposal, the more one became aware that the clue was in the title—London First; the approach was just that, and it would not be to the advantage of those of us who are further away from London and rely on services on that line. London First is proposing a third track over a short distance north of Tottenham Hale, as much as anything to facilitate services to Stratford. In principle, I see nothing wrong with that, but the proposal is not going to be to the benefit of the passengers we represent in ever-increasing numbers. It is a diversion from the real need of the line, which is to get four-tracking so that flexibility can be achieved.
My right hon. Friend mentions the London First report, and perhaps I might add my thoughts on that in a moment, if I can catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. The report is a distraction, but is he aware that, worse for my constituents, it includes ideas of looping around Bishop’s Stortford and Sawbridgeworth, which would leave my commuters watching visitors from abroad getting a better service than those who actually pay for it?
I agree. I do not represent people in Sawbridgeworth and Bishop’s Stortford, but I am sufficiently familiar with the two places, and passing through on the train, to wonder exactly how these passing loops are going to be effected without the most appalling disruption. In any case, I do not believe they serve any real purpose. Four-tracking between Coppermill junction, south of Tottenham Hale, and Broxbourne is the way in which most people’s interests can be served. If we take our eye off that goal, we will end up with miserable scraps. I worry that, if London First gains favour for its proposal, which is not only inadequate but very damaging the further north one goes, it will be all too easy for Network Rail or the Department for Transport to say, “Job done, we have helped there, at last” and for that to be it. It would not do anything to transform the railway.
We must also consider the interest in Crossrail 2 and suggestions that perhaps it would serve to bring people back and forth from Stansted airport. I am in favour of the regional version of Crossrail 2, because it makes sense to link at Cheshunt, bringing in to the west end people who do not necessarily want to go to the City, where Liverpool Street station is situated. But it is not helpful to have eyes diverted from the West Anglia line and suddenly say that we might start spending money on Crossrail 2. I found it extraordinary that that possibility was apparently being touted by another representative of London First in a different forum, with the suggestion to get Crossrail 2 and then four-track between Cheshunt and Broxbourne. That seemed entirely at odds with what is in the main London First report. Therefore, I am not too happy about being diverted in that direction; we need to concentrate on the main line and seek investment there.
I have been saying that the Mayor, London First and the airport activity are stirring, but, sadly, not a great deal appears to be stirring in the Department for Transport. I wish to say straight away that I am absolutely behind what is being invested in our railway network throughout the country, and I am also a strong supporter of HS2 and a great believer in the railway. As such, it is understandable, surely, that I am a great believer in the railway that serves my constituents, and that is the one that is constantly forgotten. It has been forgotten since 1985 and something has to be done to reverse that position. Our line has simply not been favoured. I accepted that it was reasonable to wait for the report by Sir Roy McNulty, but surely the lessons to be learnt from his report have been digested by now. Unfortunately, what has happened is that we have seen an extension to a franchise. There will not be a new franchise—we are not sure of what length—until 2016. The scope for continued indecision is considerable and deeply worrying, because fares will no doubt continue to rise in that time.
I say to the Minister, who I am delighted has this portfolio—he might feel slightly less delighted after my remarks—that we need more than warm words. We are looking for cast-iron assurances that the problem of the West Anglia line is understood and that something meaningful will be promised within a reasonable time. We are looking for investment in track and trains, as that is, after all, investment in people.
I repeat my view that the good people of Saffron Walden are very fortunate to have, in my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst), an informed and persistent champion. It has been a pleasure working with him on these issues. He has taught me more about the railways than I thought that I would ever know. Indeed, there is possibly more to learn.
We are talking about a railway line that is, sadly, the Cinderella of railway services. Those of us in the northern and eastern home counties have watched other investments being made and listened to the way in which priorities have been set elsewhere. Our commuters, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) rightly points out, feel that what they have seen are rising fares, falling standards, overcrowding getting worse and a sense that they are being left behind. Indeed this autumn the overcrowding has got worse. When we saw the storm, we understood the need to close the railway lines on the day. On the second and third days, our constituents found themselves not only inconvenienced but without the information they needed to make alternative arrangements. They rightly complained to us, which is why we want to challenge and speak with the Minister.
Very often, when commuters get information, it is the wrong information. The options available to those who work hard and want to get to work are immensely limited.
I am hugely grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. He is also a neighbour, and I am delighted to serve alongside him. Does he not agree that it is important to invest not just in the rolling stock but in some of the smaller stations? He will know that Harlow Mill station is in bad need of refurbishment. We need to consider that, because commuters have a right to a proper station when they need to go to work.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The quality of the rolling stock, which my right hon. Friend has mentioned, is important, as are refurbishment and expansion of the railway stations and investment in track. It is that final point on which I want to focus in my brief remarks.
I strongly endorse the analysis and the solution that we have just heard from my right hon. Friend. Having looked carefully at the proposal from London First—I am the last person to want to decry positive suggestions for investment—I must warn the Minister to be careful, as it makes no sense. The good folk of Bishop’s Stortford and Sawbridgeworth ask me why they should pay good money to watch folk being whisked in to this country—they are very welcome—on a better service than that which they receive, which they actually pay for. That causes them natural concern.
There is a real danger of our being diverted, as my right hon. Friend rightly said, from the real opportunity. The core of the issue is the funnel—the last five or six miles into Liverpool Street—running back towards Tottenham Hale. If we solve that capacity issue, people in London—whom I am sure the Mayor is concerned about—Essex, Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire will see a service that is punctual and has the capacity to deal with many of the changes in our area—an increasingly important issue, because alongside that investment is the debate about the number of additional homes that need to be built in our areas.
Sadly, we have a railway line that is recognised as having had over recent years the worst record for overcrowding of almost any railway line coming into London. With the prospect of thousands more homes, which we understand and recognise are needed where there are difficult and long council waiting lists, our constituents will rightly ask how on earth the railway line will cope and what that will mean for their ability to get to work.
The West Anglia line is a line for people in London but it is also a line for Hertfordshire, Essex and Cambridgeshire. Investment is undoubtedly overdue, but the additional housing means that it is urgent that we have some signal that we will get the investment required. Four-tracking into Liverpool Street is the key and the Minister should not be diverted or distracted by the suggestions that we might loop one town or another. That will not solve the central problem and that is the key message that I and my constituents want to send to the Department for Transport and our excellent Minister today.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst) on securing this evening’s debate on investment in the West Anglia line. I was, of course, slightly perturbed when he opened his speech with remarks about castigating every Government since, I think, 1970—I cannot quite remember the year.
This is an important matter to my right hon. Friend and his constituents, to other Members of Parliament and their constituents and, of course, to all passengers using the line. My right hon. Friend and my hon. Friends the Members for Hertford and Stortford (Mr Prisk) and for Harlow (Robert Halfon) have all made the point that the two-track commuter line between London and Stansted and Cambridge is very busy. The commuter flows it carries are some of the busiest around. It covers not only the areas they have talked about but carries commuter flows from Essex and north-east London and provides the link with Stansted airport.
I recognise that demand has been growing quickly and significantly. To explain to my right hon. and hon. Friends some of the investment that has been made, it might be helpful to consider the line in separate parts. Demand has been growing quickly, particularly in the lower Lea valley, and the Government’s rail investment strategy has provided approximately £80 million to deliver three and four-tracking at the south end of the route. That will allow the introduction of some new services, will increase operational reliability, and should support regeneration in the lower Lea valley. I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will recognise that that shows that the Government are aware of the need for four-tracking.
The Department also rightly recognises that there is some suppressed demand as regards the need to connect the West Anglia line with Stratford in east London. My right hon. Friend made that point. We are taking steps to address it and Stratford is increasingly becoming a destination for leisure, retail and entertainment in its own right. It is therefore becoming a significant transport interchange. It is important that we ensure that the connections into that significant place in east London are operationally the best they can be.
From 2019, Stratford will become part of the Crossrail network through Crossrail 1, providing direct connections to a large number of destinations. I accept that that will have a knock-on effect through London and the West Anglia line. The important point is that as soon as the Crossrail operation starts in 2017 there will be the chance to introduce new connections to the West Anglia line. I recognise that this is not in my right hon. and hon. Friends’ constituencies, but to suggest that the Government have done nothing about the line is not exactly true as there has been investment in new stations at the southern end of the line and the new stations fund is also starting to work through, as can be seen with the new station at Lea Bridge and the new services between Angel Road and Stratford.
As I mentioned to my right hon. Friend, I have done a survey with commuters. We know about Harlow Town station, but one of the big concerns was the lack of facilities at Harlow Mill station. The ticket office is open only during weekday mornings, closing at 11.15 am. There are no toilets and very little shelter from bad weather, despite trains to London leaving once every hour. Will my hon. Friend look at this and see whether there are any plans for the Government to invest in this station?
My hon. Friend is right to point out the concerns of his constituents. As Ministers, we try not to get into the micro-management of the toilets of various stations, as he will understand. None the less, I will look at the matter.
The point which I hope my hon. Friend will consider is that, yes, there are some concerns about ticket offices and this is a feature across the whole network, but many people are choosing to buy their tickets in different ways. Although important, ticket offices are not central to many people’s buying habits. He is right that there should be facilities, and there has been a new stations fund and a station improvement fund.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden spoke about the new franchises and what might happen. I hope he might have had a chance to look at the east coast prospectus. Although we are not saying that every new franchise will be of a particular length, we are encouraging longer franchises, particularly in that franchise and the prospectus that we have released. I hope my right hon. and hon. Friends will acknowledge that we have given the operators the chance to recognise some of the things they could do to the benefit of customers outside the standard package. There is a real determination from the Department in the new round of franchising to understand that the consumer must be at the heart of the franchise bids. I hope the prospectus that we have released for the east coast main line will show that.
There is demand not only at the southern end of the line. Cambridge is a fast- growing economy, making a significant contribution to the local and the national economy. That is why we continue to make significant investments in that part of the route as well. The station at Cambridge will undergo significant redevelopment, provided the planning authority comes through. In addition, we are working with Network Rail and Cambridgeshire county council to develop plans for a new station at Chesterton, approximately 2 miles north of the city centre, as well as providing direct access to the rapidly expanding science park, for which rail connections are key.
Throughout the line brand-new 379 class trains are already operating the service between London Liverpool Street and Cambridge, which is benefiting customers along the whole West Anglia main line, including, as my right hon. Friend rightly acknowledged, his constituency, particularly at Audley End. These trains are modern, spacious, high performing, high capacity and highly reliable, and they are widely recognised by passengers as a benefit and an increase in the service.
I shall make a few specific remarks about my right hon. Friend’s constituency, or I would be castigated for failing to do so. I have just mentioned the 379 class trains and I know he recognised that his constituents were benefiting from them. I hope the introduction of those trains will see continually improving reliability on the route. My right hon. Friend, as well as my hon. Friends the Members for Harlow and for Hertford and Stortford, commented on the concern about overcrowding. This is undoubtedly the challenge for the next decade. It is the challenge of the success of the railways. Twenty years ago I used to travel from Hertford North and Hertford East. Services may or may not have got worse in the past 10 years, but they are a significant improvement on 20 years ago when the line was known for its unreliability. This is the challenge of success. Privatisation has brought a doubling of the number of passengers on broadly the same network as we had 40 years ago. That success means that we now have to meet the challenge of overcrowding.
With the introduction of the new Thameslink trains, which will come into service post 2016, and some of the financing of that rolling stock cascade, there will be an opportunity for the trains currently being used on Thameslink to be cascaded to other locations. There is no reason why they could not be used on the West Anglia rail line in future.
My hon. Friend moved rather swiftly from lauding the type 379 as a high-performance train to identifying some Thameslink trains that might be passed down to us. There is quite a distinction there. I had rather hoped that he might indicate that we would not lose the 379s in the way I suggested, or indeed that he might try to give some encouragement to the idea that whoever gets the franchise after 2016 will be committed to having more of the 379s or their equivalent.
I can give my right hon. Friend some Christmas cheer by confirming that the 379s will be staying on the West Anglia rail line and will not be moved in the way he suggested. When we consider the new franchise for post October 2016, I am sure that the need for rolling stock enhancement will be part of the tendering process.
As I highlighted at the beginning, I recognise that there is a key limitation on the West Anglia rail line: it is a very busy two-track railway. The plans to three-track and four-track some of its southern sections will undoubtedly be welcomed right along the line. However, my right hon. and hon. Friends are right to recognise, and to pursue, the aspiration for faster and more frequent services. That could be met only by infrastructure interventions.
Four-tracking of the route could undoubtedly be part of that intervention. Unfortunately, if we look at it in the short term, that is unbelievably expensive. The plans developed by BAA in 2007, when it ran Stansted airport and there was higher demand, merely to three-track a section of the route were estimated to cost between £800 million and £1 billion. At the moment, such investment would represent a significant portion of the Government’s rail investment budget. It would therefore require a robust business case. In the medium term, that business case might be made, but my right hon. Friend was right to acknowledge that the Government are spending more on railway infrastructure—£19 billion between 2014 and 2019. None the less, my right hon. and hon. Friends are right to make that case, and I hear them making it.
In the medium term, the Government are supporting the development of the Crossrail 2 proposals, which would link the West Anglia rail line with the South West main line via a tunnel under central London and free up capacity for increased services. Plans are still in the early stages, but the Government are supportive.
In the shorter term, there are still some opportunities for us to improve capacity, reliability and journey times along the route. With the active participation and support of local stakeholders, I am keen to look at some of the short-term operational restrictions linked to level crossings and user-worked crossings. Where trains currently need to reduce speed on the approach to such crossings, I would like to see them able to maintain running speeds and therefore reduce journey times and improve operational reliability.
The Government are looking to develop the rail investment strategy beyond 2019. That work will be influenced significantly by an Anglia route study that Network Rail is shortly to begin. The study, which is due to report in 2015, is aimed at identifying the priorities for investment in the Anglia network. Right hon. and hon. Members will also be aware that the Chancellor announced in his autumn statement that the study will place special attention on the services between London and Stansted, and that extra focus should deliver benefits to passengers right along the West Anglia rail line.
I heard the comments by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford about the London First proposals, which are currently just that. In addition, the interim findings of the independent Airports Commission are due shortly. Clearly, Ministers are not aware of what its recommendations might include, but they will provide some greater clarity on the long-term future of Stansted airport and the future capacity that it might need regarding the rail network, and that will inform decisions regarding my hon. Friend’s constituents.
On the Network Rail study, I encourage my right hon. and hon. Friends and, indeed, all Members representing constituencies along the route to make clear and reasoned submissions to Network Rail. It is important that those representations come from local authorities, local enterprise partnerships, businesses, passenger groups, and of course Members of Parliament. That will help to make a compelling case for future investment. I have no doubt that if that case is made, the Government’s rail investment strategy post-2019 will feature the West Anglia rail line very heavily.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden asked about devolution to the Mayor and TfL. The devolution proposal applies to only three routes, it will happen post-2015, although no formal dates have been agreed as yet, and it will result in a transfer of staff and trains to the Mayor’s jurisdiction. I understand that that will probably not make my right hon. Friend as happy as my earlier announcement.
While I completely agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Saffron Walden (Sir Alan Haselhurst), will my hon. Friend consider extending Oysterisation to Harlow, as has been considered in the past, or at least examine the possibilities of smartcard technology so that the many Harlow residents who commute to London can get the benefits that people commuting from other stations, including Ware, now have?
My hon. Friend will know that we are undertaking a smart ticketing trial in various other parts of the south-east network. I am happy to consider his proposal. If he were to write to me and seek a meeting, I would be delighted to discuss it with him in greater depth, and with any other Members who wish for the further extension of smartcards to their area.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford mentioned several times the problems we had with the storm a few weeks back. I particularly remember travelling on that line all those years ago when it was one of the worst-hit lines. I think he will recognise that in certain places a large number of trees overhang the line, more so than on many other commuter routes, simply because of its structure. I am afraid that there was also a certain amount of overhead line damage that significantly delayed the reintroduction of services. None the less, he can be assured that the Secretary of State and I, and other Ministers in the Department, took a great interest in the situation and were in discussions with Network Rail about trying to ensure that lines were brought back into service as quickly as possible.
As I said, it is important that passengers and other interested parties influence the West Anglia route study. That is a chance to make an important contribution to the case for significant investment in the line post-2019.
I am delighted to have been able to respond to this important debate. My right hon. and hon. Friends have rightly made the case that we should not take our eyes away from the problems of overcrowding that their constituents suffer. I have been able to talk a little about some of the investment that is going in and is planned. I hope that that will have given my right hon. and hon. Friends at least some reassurance that the Government take the West Anglia main line very seriously.
Question put and agreed to.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster 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
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster 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
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth.
I asked for the debate today because of public concern about immigration levels. We all know, not least because Members now in opposition have admitted it, that the previous Government had a deliberate policy of encouraging uncontrolled immigration. The right hon. Members for Blackburn (Mr Straw), for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and for Edinburgh South West (Mr Darling) have been queuing up to blow the whistle on the Labour record. Lord Mandelson told us in May that they even sent out search parties to find people to come and live in this country, seeking to fulfil their key political aim of making the UK truly multicultural, by encouraging mass migration.
The annual net immigration figure under Labour rose from 48,000 in 1997 to 198,000 by 2009. Between 1997 and 2010, net migration into Great Britain totalled 2.2 million people—more than twice the population of Birmingham. It is no wonder we had a crisis. Members on both sides of the House know that immigration is not just a population problem; it is also an NHS, education and welfare problem. Government figures cited in The Sunday Telegraph last week show that, on average, each immigrant costs the taxpayer more than £8,000 a year in health care, education and benefits. That applies whether they come from inside or outside the European Union.
The hon. Gentleman lists the downsides of immigration. Does he accept that there are also huge benefits and that immigrants contribute substantially to the economy, the NHS and many other aspects of the life we enjoy in Britain?
If the hon. Gentleman listens a moment or two longer, he will find that I come to those points.
No one ever thought to ask the British people whether they wanted what happened. Plans and policies were concealed, and mass immigration happened by stealth. One can only speculate whether Tony Blair would have been swept to power had he gone into the 1997 general election saying, “I will oversee an unprecedented increase in immigration.” Perhaps not—but now we must deal with the consequences of his policy.
Other hon. Members and I sit in our surgeries listening to tales of people living in overcrowded social housing or being on the waiting list for years with no hope of ever getting a home. It is no coincidence that with high net migration, from 2002, there was an increase of more than 60% in social housing waiting lists. Foreign nationals now occupy 8.4% of the housing stock, and among those aged 16 to 40 the figure is 12.6%. On the Isle of Wight we have a relatively small immigrant population, and overwhelmingly those residents work hard and make an important contribution to the community—indeed, they are an important and integral part of it. However, that is not the case everywhere.
I have lost count of the number of people who have told me that they moved to the Isle of Wight because they no longer recognised the places where they grew up; that now, in streets where their grandparents lived, no one appears to speak English; and that they moved to get away from ghettos where they felt they no longer belonged. The effects of mass immigration, mostly into our cities, are felt even in rural areas such as the Isle of Wight. We must recognise that.
I am thankful that the Government have begun to make a difference. They have made progress in cutting immigration from outside the EU. They cracked down on the abuse of student visas, unjustified family visas and—I am glad to say—bogus marriages. However, they have been unable to close our borders to a huge influx of EU nationals who can come whether or not there are jobs and homes for them, schools for their children or doctors and hospitals to care for them. Many British people believe that that must come to an end.
I have recently, in the words of one of my staff, joined the 21st century: I have signed up to Twitter and exchanged views with the intriguingly named Wight Car Tipper. I tweeted that we should extend transitional arrangements for Bulgarian and Romanian nationals and that our Government should have control of our borders. Wight Car Tipper asked me whether I thought his daughter, who has a French passport, should be able to live in the UK and retain the rights she currently has. I replied that it depends on the circumstances. Presumably, with the fine name of Mr Wight Car Tipper, her father is British, and in that case I think that she should be able to come and live here. However, I do not believe that foreign nationals from the EU or elsewhere should have the same rights as a British citizen, and I strongly believe that our Government must have the right to decide who can live and work here.
There is a fine British principle of fair play—of not getting something for nothing, and of making a contribution to society before being entitled to benefit from it. That principle must be applied to those who come to the UK. Someone who has only just arrived cannot have contributed to society. Some people claim that we need more immigrants to pay the pensions of an ageing population. That, of course, glosses over what happens when the immigrants get old—it is simply an argument for an endless influx of new migrants.
I am grateful to see the Minister here to respond to the debate, and extremely pleased that the Home Secretary has recognised at least part of the problem. She has suggested that free movement for future accession countries could be controlled, and that future member states should reach a certain economic threshold before full free movement is allowed. However, that would not deal with the current treaties that we have signed, or the issues that we will face in only a few weeks.
The Government are seeking to deal with some of the problems—the things that attract those who want to come to the UK to take advantage of our generous welfare system—but that approach does not deal with the basic right of so many foreign nationals to live and work here. They have those rights regardless of how overcrowded our island becomes, or how many of our own people are unemployed.
How many British citizens live and work in Europe at the moment, and how many of them would be affected by the proposals that the hon. Gentleman contemplates?
That is entirely up to the Governments of those countries. I feel that they should have the right to determine that issue for themselves, just as we should for our country.
The Government must try to deal with the concerns of many British people and, indeed, many settled and integrated migrant communities—those who recognise that we simply cannot retain an open-door policy for all current EU citizens. We need a more nuanced policy that is controlled by our elected Government and that works in the interests of the British nation.
In 1973, we signed up to the treaty of Rome, which established the free movement of people across the then common market. Let me be frank: it was a rich man’s club, and the number of people coming to the UK was small. In 1975, net migration was 3,000. Since then, the club has expanded to places such as Croatia, where the average wage is a 10th of that in the UK. It is hardly surprising that people there want to move to the more prosperous parts of the EU.
My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, which I am following closely and enjoying immensely. Is he as concerned as I am that large numbers of non-EU citizens are now entitled to EU passports and therefore entitled to come to this country? Up to 3 million people from Moldova, for example, can access Romanian passports and will be able to come here from 1 January.
I did not know about that, but I certainly believe it.
Figures published just last week show that net migration unexpectedly jumped to 182,000 in the year to June 2013, due in part to a rise in prospective workers coming from Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece.
People cannot be blamed for wanting a better life. Let me be clear that I do not blame them; I blame the outdated rules of the EU and the previous Labour Government, who sent out the message that anybody and everybody could and should come to the UK if they want. Britain, however, simply cannot provide a better life for everyone who wants to come here. We do not have the infrastructure or jobs to do that.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this timely debate. Has he received or been able to obtain any estimate of the number of Bulgarians and Romanians who are likely to come to the UK when the labour market restrictions are lifted on 1 January?
I have not seen any information from the Government. I do not blame them, because they cannot guess. How could they? There is a range of figures that go all over the place. I am interested in sorting these things out once and for all. Whether we get the changes through by January or later, we continue to work on the matter.
I want to pay tribute to the role that so many foreign people have played in our history and still play in our society today. In 1942, the Polish destroyer ORP Blyskawica saved Cowes from Luftwaffe bombs; every year, we from the island commemorate that event and the brave Polish crew. The NHS employs many EU-born and non-EU-born doctors and nurses across the UK—indeed, it could not function without them.
Those are just two of many examples, but shared history and our reliance on skilled workers cannot mean that everybody in the EU has the right to live here. We cannot provide places for people from overseas while less-educated people from the UK cannot find a job. The treaty of Rome was a product of its time. The unfettered, free movement of people is no longer appropriate and polls show that, for the majority of people, it is no longer acceptable.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) recently suggested a five-year extension to the restrictions. That would be a good start, but there is an even better answer: the one recently proposed by the European Scrutiny Committee, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash).With unanimous support, the Committee believes, as I do, that we should legislate to restore our country’s sovereignty. We should make provision for the British Parliament to disapply EU laws and give British courts the duty to uphold British laws.
The time is overdue for us to stand up to the EU and tell it that this Parliament takes precedence and that we will make our own decisions about who can live here, work here and benefit from our welfare state. The time is fast approaching when the calls for change will be so many and so loud that they can no longer be denied.
Order. It should be possible for everybody who hopes to speak to do so. That does rely, however, on people exercising some restraint. If they do not, I may decide to apply a time limit on speeches.
It is a pleasure to contribute to this debate under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak. Although I speak from the Opposition Benches, I am not in the business of defending everything that the previous Government did in relation to immigration, but frankly, the suggestion by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) that the decisions that we made about the A8 accession countries—which we recognised were a mistake, and perhaps arose from listening too closely to the calls of the business community and its desire for free movement of labour into the UK—were some sort of ideological plot to transform the nature of our society is perhaps something that is better placed in the pages of the Daily Mail.
Let me describe a personal experience. Last Friday, when I was conducting one of my regular advice surgeries, I was talking to a Romanian citizen currently living in the UK. She is a student and is making a significant contribution to our local economy in Sheffield. She was volunteering for AIESEC, which is a student society committed to promoting business, finding business placements, developing skills in an industrial and commercial context and growing global-minded entrepreneurs. She was enthusiastic when she came to Britain, but she was deeply depressed by the public discourse around Romania and Bulgaria and their citizens, which made her feel unwelcome. I think we need to take care how we debate the issue, not only for her sake and others’, but also for the sake of all those UK citizens who have raised concerns, of which all hon. Members have experience, about immigration. They deserve proper leadership from us as politicians, which means being honest about the facts and coming up with the right solutions to the real problems.
I have some sympathy with the Minister. He was right a couple of weeks ago to talk down the fear of a mass influx of Romanians and Bulgarians. He will not be surprised, however, that I have only some sympathy. Much of the problem has been created through the Government talking up the problems of migration for political advantage. We need an honest debate. We have heard a lot of noise, some of which was reflected in the speech by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight, about benefits for newly arriving EU migrants. The impression being given is that EU migrants are freeloaders who come simply to claim our benefits and to exploit our generosity. However, all the evidence, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, suggests that EU migrants make a net fiscal contribution.
A study was published last month by the centre for research and analysis of migration—CReAM—at University college London, which is one of our country’s greatest universities and one of the world’s leading universities. It concluded that recent immigrants—those who arrived after 1999, who constituted 33% of the overall immigrant population in 2011—were 45% less likely to receive state benefits or tax credits than UK natives. Over the same period, recent European economic area immigrants have on average contributed 34% more in taxes than they have received in transfers. By contrast, over the same period, the total of UK natives’ tax payments were 11% lower than the transfers they received.
We welcome the most talented migrants. In 2011, 32% of EEA immigrants and 43% of non-EEA immigrants had university degrees. The estimated net fiscal contribution of immigrants increases even more if we consider that immigration helps to share the total cost of fixed public expenditure among a larger pool.
The main reasons for the large net fiscal contribution of recent EEA immigrants are their higher average labour market participation than UK natives and their lower receipt of welfare benefits. Professor Christian Dustmann, the director of CReAM and the co-author of the study, said:
“Our research shows that in contrast with most other European countries, the UK attracts highly educated and skilled immigrants from within the EEA as well as from outside. What’s more, immigrants who arrived since 2000 have made a very sizeable net fiscal contribution and therefore helped to reduce the fiscal burden on UK-born workers. Our study also suggests that over the last decade or so the UK has benefited fiscally from immigrants from EEA countries, who have put in considerably more in taxes and contributions than they received in benefits and transfers. Given this evidence, claims about ‘benefit tourism’ by EEA immigrants”—
that myth—
seem to be disconnected from reality.”
Another example of the Government talking up the migration issue but introducing measures that damage the economy by targeting the wrong issue is on the issue of international students. The Minister will not be surprised to hear me speaking about that again. I agree that the Government are right, as were the previous Government, to clamp down on bogus students who not only are exploiting our system, but are themselves in many cases exploited by bogus colleges. However, overall, international students bring huge benefits to the economy.
Oxford Economics conducted research on behalf of the university of Sheffield, which looked at the students’ net contribution after all costs to public services—such as traffic congestion and everything else it could think of. The survey was published in January 2013 and showed that during the previous academic year the 8,000-plus international students at our two universities made a net total contribution of more than £120 million to the Sheffield economy. Probably about 6,000, 7,000 or 8,000 local jobs depend on those students. Furthermore, the net benefits generated by the indirect supply chain advantages were assumed to account for approximately an additional £22 million to the local economy. International students obviously bring further external benefits, such as boosts to demand as a consequence of increased familiarity with locally produced goods and the potential for our status as a city and a country to be boosted by the relationship that they build while they are in the UK.
International students are a growing market internationally. The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has calculated that by 2020 the market could double. Instead of being worth £8 billion to our economy, it could be worth £16 billion; instead of 6,000 jobs in Sheffield, it could be 12,000 jobs. Currently, international student numbers are flatlining, while our competitor countries are taking advantage of some of the measures that this Government have put in place. We should be concerned about that.
The hon. Member for Isle of Wight expressed concerns about things that are happening in the labour market. My concern is that he did not focus on the things that can be done to address issues in the labour market. The Minister for Immigration made a useful contribution before the Home Affairs Committee this week when he was challenged about a statement from the head of Domino’s Pizza about why it was unable to recruit sufficiently from within the UK domestic work force. The Minister rightly made the point that the company should perhaps look at its employment conditions and wages. It would be helpful to consider positive labour market interventions that can create the sort of level playing field that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight seeks.
To be clear, it is worse than the hon. Gentleman suggests. The chief executive of Domino’s Pizza was not arguing that he could not recruit in the UK alone. He was arguing that he could not recruit enough people from the whole EU labour pool, and that we needed to start importing low-skilled workers from outside the EU in order that he could keep low wages in his business. That is why I said he perhaps ought to reflect on the terms and conditions. So he was arguing that we should have an unrestricted free-for-all, but I do not think it is the role of Government policy to let multinationals keep wages low when, frankly, they should pay their staff a little more.
I agree entirely with the Minister on that point. We should ensure that multinationals pay wages that will attract people to do the jobs. We should also ensure that companies do not recruit exclusively from eastern Europe, as they seek to do. Jobs should be available to local workers in the market. We should also do more to ensure that companies that flout the minimum wage rules are prosecuted. The number of businesses that are fined for employing illegal workers has halved, plummeting from more than 2,000 in 2009 to a little more than 1,000 in 2012. We can talk positively about those sorts of labour market interventions to address many of our concerns.
I will conclude by commenting on something that the hon. Member for Isle of Wight said about a constituent, who is concerned about the way in which their community has been transformed by the influx of migrants. I am sure that if we look back in 50-year snapshots, we will find that people have always expressed such concerns. I am sure that they expressed concerns about my wife’s family, who came across from Ireland to supplement the work force in the UK. I was brought up in Sheffield in the 1960s and it was a relatively monocultural city. The city in which I have brought up my son in the 1990s is stronger, richer and better for having welcomed people from around the world—some to build better lives, some fleeing persecution. I am proud that we are the country’s first city of sanctuary.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth, and to follow such an excellent introductory speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner).
I would say to the Romanian constituent of the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield), who sounds like an excellent citizen, that the hon. Gentleman rather misses the point. This country should be able to say to someone like her, “Yes, we want you to be an immigrant to our country, because you offer us skills that we don’t have enough of.” The problem is that this country does not have the right to select her; this country has been told by the European Union that it must accept as many Romanians and Bulgarians as apply to these shores.
With respect to the hon. Gentleman, he spoke for far longer than he should have done, given the number of Members who want to contribute. The problem for his constituents is that their concerns are not being properly reflected by him in the Chamber today, because they are very concerned indeed that there will be far too many Romanians and Bulgarians heading to Sheffield from 1 January next year. The concern is not that those individuals are Romanians and Bulgarians; it is about the number of people who can potentially come to this country.
British citizens are concerned that immigration from the European Union is on far too large a scale. It is not about the colour of somebody’s skin or the skills that they can bring, but about the numbers of people. How on earth has this country got itself into the situation where we are opening our borders to all and sundry with absolutely no control at all over the numbers who can potentially come to our shores? That is the concern of the British people.
I am afraid that this esteemed House of Commons is out of step with public opinion. The fact that fewer than 15 out of 650 hon. Members are in this Chamber this morning suggests to me that far too many of our colleagues are not listening closely enough to their constituents. The big issue in the country, about which people are talking every day of the week, is immigration.
My constituency, Kettering, has had a very welcoming attitude to immigration on an appropriate scale and to individual immigrants. But the view of my constituents is that our country is full—we have taken far too many people in and far too many of the immigrants coming to our shores do not have the skills that our economy needs. All my constituents want is for this country to be able to decide how many immigrants we should take, deciding who can come in on the basis of the skills that they can offer. What my constituents do not want us to do is open our doors so that anyone can come in.
I have to say that it is a dereliction of duty on the part of Her Majesty’s Government not even to attempt an estimate of the numbers of people who may come in from Romania and Bulgaria on 1 January. I can understand politically why the Government have decided not to publish an estimate: they do not want to make the horrendous mistake of the previous Labour Government, who said that the number of immigrants from the A8 eastern European countries would be only 13,000 a year. I understand that the population that has come in is 1.1 million and climbing. If people from Romania and Bulgaria come in at the same rate, we will be looking at a figure of 425,000 Romanians and Bulgarians—a number with which, I would suggest, our country cannot cope.
The big magnet for many people from the EU and outside it is London. We often forget that London is the biggest city in western Europe, the second biggest in the whole of Europe, second only to Moscow, and the most cosmopolitan city in the world. But London is full. For my sins, in my spare time I am a special constable with the British Transport police. This weekend I was on duty on the London underground network; on Saturday night I was on duty outside Piccadilly Circus underground station. Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus and Green Park underground stations were all shut at 7 o’clock in the evening, because too many people were using them. That was not peak time on a Saturday night—it was 7 o’clock.
As the population of this country is driven ever upwards by immigration, 43% of all new house building comes from immigration. That affects not only areas such as London but places such as the Isle of Wight and Kettering, where green fields are being built over to provide the homes that we will inevitably need if we fail to stem the influx of people to our shores. As my hon. Friend said, the issue is not just immigration. It is the NHS, schools— far too many primary school children do not have English as their first language—and all the pressures on our local public services. Frankly, those services need to be guided by Her Majesty’s Government as to how many people they can expect from the new entrant EU countries.
I am therefore concerned that Her Majesty’s Government have ducked the issue. I shall take no more time, because I know that many hon. Members want to contribute, but I would say that this House and this Government are not listening carefully enough to the concerns that my constituents—and I believe a big majority of the country—have about immigration.
It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), who I thought made an excellent case for investment in public transport. I hope the Transport Secretary was listening to him.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman on one other issue: when I talk to businesses in my constituency of Cambridge, immigration is one of the issues they raise most often. They have huge concerns about the processes and about the times when it is harder to get people in—for example, when it is hard for people to whom those businesses wish to sell in the US to get into the country because they are Chinese nationals. That is hitting our economy, and we need to work on it as a priority, to make sure that we can get people into this country who will benefit the economy. I thank the Minister for coming to talk to a small handful of such people recently. There have been some improvements.
Overall, immigration is a good thing: it benefits us socially, culturally and economically. There are associated problems—it is not an unalloyed triumph—and there are constraints in terms of housing needs, schools and many other matters. But when we net it all together we find a substantial benefit from immigration—I am not talking about a completely open border but well-managed and well-controlled immigration. It is a huge positive.
There is much we could do to reduce the associated problems. For example, we could run more programmes to make sure that people are able to learn to speak English. It is a shame that the Government cut back English classes for some new immigrants a few years ago, although work is going on now to remedy that. It would be good for people to be able to communicate in our language: it would help them and would also help the state. There are also concerns about people in the UK not being able to find employment. We should therefore be training people in the UK better. I agree completely with that, but it does not mean that we should not also have immigration.
The way the rhetoric on this issue has been going is a real danger. It scares people—I am not surprised that the hon. Gentleman’s constituents are so concerned when he and so many others tell them they ought to be. But it does us harm when we use that rhetoric: when people overseas are looking for where to invest and where the best and the brightest should be going—where people pay huge amounts of money to study—they will look at the rhetoric on this issue in the UK and they will be worried. We are in danger of appearing isolated and closed off, and so missing out on all the benefits we could have.
Yesterday at the Home Affairs Committee I asked the Minister about the balance of competences report into freedom of movement. I agree with the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) that there is a lot of evidence—the best I am aware of is the UCL study he cited—showing that we have seen over £20 billion of net benefit from EU migration. I am sure the numbers are not exact, but that is a very substantial contribution. I would love to hear from the Minister—slightly more accurately than in the masterful answer he gave yesterday—when that report will come out.
This debate feels a little like a rerun. Many of us have been in such debates many times: the Immigration Bill Committee; the Select Committee yesterday; and indeed in this Chamber on 22 October, when the hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) played the role the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) is playing today. Many of the comments were the same; my first intervention was almost exactly the same then as the one I made today, and was made for the same reasons.
I do not think that the previous Government got everything wrong, but they did not get everything right. There was too much abuse and too many loopholes, student migration being an example. I agree with the hon. Member for Sheffield Central that student migration is important, but we definitely saw people coming through to bogus colleges. The previous Government also did not do enough to control the people I blame for many of the problems we face, namely rogue immigration advisers—people who give dud advice. That shows how complex the system is, which is another issue we have to work on.
I say to the Minister today as I have many times before that the most important thing he can do has nothing to do with changing any laws or with anything in the Immigration Bill: it is to get the UK Border Agency, now within the Home Office, to work better. He will be well aware of all the criticisms and problems and the amount of work that has to be done. I also know that he intends to deal with the matter; no Minister would want to run an organisation with such a huge number of problems and complaints. Some 92% of complaints made about the Home Office to the ombudsman are upheld, and they are almost all to do with the workings of the UK Border Agency.
Dealing with the Border Agency will do more than anything else that has been suggested could do. For example, landlord pilots have been suggested—we rehearsed the arguments about those in the Immigration Bill Committee. I disagree with them. The Bill Committee compromised on having a single pilot, although the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) wanted to have five, helpfully listing Lambeth, Derbyshire, Flintshire, Glasgow and Belfast, as he thought that was perfectly acceptable. We disagree on that but we have rehearsed those arguments, and it will be interesting to see the results of that one pilot.
In the Bill Committee we also rehearsed the arguments about child detention. It is a source of great shame for the previous Government that more than 7,000 children were detained in the last five years of their time in office, one of them for 190 days. I argued in the Bill Committee that we should put a measure on the statute book about child detention—I hope the Minister will continue to deal with the issue in the helpful manner of his previous comments. I was surprised to hear the former Labour Minister, the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), defend child detention; she said that some of her constituents would be “envious” of the conditions at Yarl’s Wood detention centre, which was a rather surprising comment.
Much more can be done, but ultimately it comes down to the basic question: how do we get things right? How do we make sure that we do not spend hundreds of thousands of pounds trying to remove an ill man—again, the Minister was questioned about this case yesterday— such as Isa Muazu? Surely we can think of better things on which to spend such sums. We should try to promote international business, so that people who want to try products made in Britain can get into the country to do so and find out whether they want to buy them.
We should promote students and do what we can not to make it easier for other countries to compete. I talked to the Minister about charging for the NHS. He is right in saying that other countries charge students more to use their health service than we do here, but any marginal step that makes it easier for other countries to compete will make it harder for our students. I hope the Minister will reconsider.
We must change some policies, principally the operation of our visa and immigration system, to ensure that the right people can get in and the wrong people cannot. Those decisions should be made quickly and promptly. We must ensure that our rhetoric shows that we are welcoming to those who should be coming to this country, and that we will not engage in a rant about foreigners.
I am delighted to be here on what I believe is the first occasion I have spoken on immigration. We do not have an immigration problem in Braintree, which is very much a British, white, working-class area, as are many in Essex. However, the fear of immigration seems to grab people’s attention. My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) hit the nail on the head in his many reasons why. I congratulate him on an excellent speech.
Immigration is a highly emotive subject, but we must not forget that we are a nation of immigrants. Since Roman times we have had wave after wave of immigrants: from Angles, Jutes and Norsemen in the dark ages to Normans, Jews and Huguenots in the middle ages, to Italians and Irishmen in the 1800s, to West Indians, Ugandan Asians—
—to Indians and Pakistanis in the 1900s, to north Africans and others in the past decade. Indeed, the star of the London Olympics was Mo Farah, a Somali immigrant.
This House has many sons and daughters of immigrants, including the hon. Members for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood) and for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz); my hon. Friends the Members for Windsor (Adam Afriyie), for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant), for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah), for Spelthorne (Kwasi Kwarteng), for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) and for Witham (Priti Patel); and Mr Speaker himself. We must not forget my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South West (Paul Uppal), who now holds the seat of the late, great Enoch Powell.
Immigrants come here because they want to contribute to our society. They tend to fill a skills gap rather than simply replacing British workers. The City, the arts and sports are full of immigrants who contribute to our society, as is education and the health service. Our national dish today is as much curry as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding or fish and chips. So what went wrong?
Unfortunately, at some stage during the previous Government’s tenure, we lost control of our borders. That resulted in the largest migration in our history and the system broke. There was huge pressure on housing, health care and even education. Something had to be done, and the present Government have grasped the nettle and cut immigration by one third. The Prime Minister announced recently that EU migrants will have to wait before claiming benefits and there will be tests for those who want to do so. Newly arrived jobseekers will not be able to claim housing benefit without a minimum period of residency.
We are tightening up on immigration not because we are little Britain, but because, in the words of the Minister:
“Hard-working people expect and deserve an immigration system that is fair to British citizens and legitimate migrants and tough on those who abuse the system and flout the law…We will continue to welcome the brightest and best migrants who…contribute to our economy and society and play by the rules.”
I say, “Hear, hear” to that.
I am an immigrant. I moved here with my family when I was nine years old. I have always contributed more to society than I have taken. I have built up a successful business, paid my taxes, raised my family and now have the privilege of representing my country and my community in Parliament. The vast majority of individuals who come to the United Kingdom do so, like me, because they want a better life for themselves and their families. They want to make a contribution to society. Let us therefore continue to welcome those who wish to contribute to our society, but let us also toughen up on those who seek only to take advantage of our generous benefits system without giving anything back. This Government are seeking to get the balance right, and I welcome their initiatives on immigration.
Order. Two more Members want to take part in the debate, and I intend to call the Front Benchers at 10.30. Members can do the maths so that there is time for both to speak—[Interruption.] The Front Benchers have indicated that they would be willing to take a little less time, so if the two remaining speakers exercise a little restraint, there should be time for everyone to speak.
It is a pleasure, Mr Howarth, to serve under your chairmanship again. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) on securing this timely debate. He described the change that has taken place in this country, on which the British people were not consulted. I refer particularly to the free movement of labour under the European Union.
I am old enough to have taken part in the 1975 referendum when, thankfully, I voted no—I say “thankfully”, but it came to nothing of course. I do not recall that free movement of labour ever played a significant part in that debate. Indeed, had it done so, I am sure that it would have been glossed over by the leaders of all political parties at that time; they assured us that the United Kingdom would have a veto and that we had nothing to fear. Clearly, we were misled, to put it mildly. Unfortunately, the British people fear that their political leaders are not taking note of their concerns.
My part of the United Kingdom has a small immigrant population. The two local authority areas that make up my constituency have 5% and 3% non-British populations. The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics show that 7% of those in north Lincolnshire and 4% in north-east Lincolnshire were born outside the UK. Those figures are remarkably low compared with many parts of the country, but that does not alter the fact that immigration is the No. 1 issue on the doorstep.
People are concerned. To say that they fear change is putting it too strongly, but they are certainly concerned about change. One role of the political process is to manage change, and one reason why people believe the political process is failing them at the moment is that change is coming so quickly that Governments throughout the world find it extremely difficult to manage that change.
My constituents are not opposed to all immigration, and they recognise the important part that existing communities play in voluntary and charitable organisations, churches and the work force. Spanish nurses have recently been recruited at our two local hospitals. People recognise that they bring a skill and can see the value of that. They may regret that we do not have enough trained nurses in our own work force, but they see an obvious advantage in recruiting Spanish nurses, so they are prepared to accept it.
However, my constituents can also see the tensions only 50 miles down the road in Boston. They are reported on regularly on the regional television news and that causes concerns. We as politicians and as Governments in particular bury our heads in the sand if we do not recognise that we are not serving the best interests of those we represent if we allow unlimited immigration into our provincial towns and cities. Places such as Boston and other provincial towns find it much more difficult to integrate than a large multicultural city does. London is the exception, but the point can equally be applied to, say, Birmingham or Manchester.
Public opinion is clear in this country and if we go by media reports in France, Germany and elsewhere in the EU, populations there are equally concerned. Perhaps the political systems in some other EU countries—where there are list systems and national lists, inevitably making the politicians somewhat more remote from their electorate— allow Governments, as it were, to get away with the fact. Here, however, we have a very close contact with our voters, which is something we are all grateful for.
As I mentioned, it is clear that areas such as north and north-east Lincolnshire are more remote from large-scale immigration, but there is still concern. The Government do people a disservice if they do not recognise that and take appropriate action.
I pay tribute to the Government and to the Minister, who was good enough to visit my constituency in July. We saw then the Border Force’s excellent work and looked at how the considerable container traffic that comes in through the port of Immingham was scanned for potential illegal immigrants and so on. It does great work. We are not a soft touch, as many of our critics would have us believe, but that does not take away the concerns of those we represent. We have a duty to articulate those concerns.
The transition period that expires on 1 January with regard to Bulgarians and Romanians has put the issue under the microscope. Let us be honest: our electorate—I suggest that this applies in Cambridge and Sheffield just as it does in Cleethorpes, Immingham and the towns that I represent—would like that transitional period to be unilaterally extended. I suspect that the Minister will not stand up in a minute or two’s time and say, “Yes, we entirely agree with that and that is exactly what we are going to do,” but we must have more robust action, otherwise the Government and we politicians collectively will pay the political price.
As your namesake, Mr Howarth, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I am grateful to my hon. Friends for curtailing their speeches to enable me to make a contribution.
I start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner), not only for securing this important debate, but for the significant points that he made. As he said, this is the most important issue facing our constituents. My constituents in Aldershot are constantly raising the issue of immigration with me. They feel that nobody is speaking up for them and that they are on their own. Indeed, they preface all their remarks by saying, “I am not a racist, but—”. They then go on to express opinions that are denounced by our opponents as racist, so they have felt intimidated from expressing their perfectly legitimate and perfectly honourable concerns about how they see their country has been transformed.
Yes, my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) rejoices in being an immigrant; I rejoice in tracing my roots to nowhere else but into the soil of this kingdom. What my hon. Friend needs to understand about the wave of migration, which has so upset the people of this country, is that between 1066 and 1950, we had about a quarter of a million migrants to this country. We have now seen a massive change, with something like 8 million people coming into this country. The numbers are what is upsetting people. It is not necessarily the colour of people’s skin, although, of course, that brings different cultural challenges. It is the numbers—that is what Enoch Powell was trying to draw attention to in 1968, for which, of course, he got roundly traduced.
Of course, it is now okay to talk about immigration. It is extraordinary—apparently, the Leader of the Opposition has declared that it is all right to talk about immigration. As my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight said, we have had successive former Labour Ministers, including the right hon. Members for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett), apologising for the mistakes that were made. Of course, it was Andrew Neather, a speechwriter for the Labour party, who let the cat out of the bag when he said that it had been a deliberate act of policy to encourage mass migration—the 2.2 million that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight mentioned. It was a positive decision, as Andrew Neather said, in order to
“rub the Right’s nose in diversity”.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that what adds to the frustration of the people of the United Kingdom is the unwillingness and inability of the Parliament and Government that they elect to deal fundamentally with opinion and the decisions that they should make about who comes to this country and who does not?
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; that point has been made by my hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) and for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), so I think there is unanimity here about that.
There is a feeling in this country that we are full up. We accept that many people wish to come to this country; it is a most fantastic country—the most fantastic country in the world. I do not blame people for wanting to come here, of course not. I can perfectly see why they want to, but it is adding enormous pressure to our way of life, and there are other changes to which I wish to refer in a moment.
However, I am not suggesting that all immigration is bad for this country—quite clearly, it is not. My hon. Friend the Member for Braintree is clearly one of the most outstanding examples of why we should accept migration into the country—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I hear my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree say “Hear, hear!” He is never short of confidence in his own opinions, which is encouraging to see in a politician.
I say to the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) that he is absolutely right about overseas students. I could not agree with him more. I was the Minister for international security strategy, with responsibility for defence exports. The most fascinating thing about going around the world was finding people who had been trained in the United Kingdom.
Take, for example, Prime Minister Najib, the Prime Minister of Malaysia, who went to the university of Nottingham. I do not think there is a more enthusiastic supporter of the university of Nottingham than the Prime Minister of Malaysia. That has been of huge benefit to the United Kingdom, and that is repeated all round the world. I can see the merit in that, but the fact is that our people are concerned about the practical and cultural effect.
Let me touch briefly on the practical effect. As MigrationWatch has pointed out, there is massive pressure on housing and services. We are constantly reading in newspapers that house prices are going up. Of course they are—there is a shortage of supply and an increase in demand. Where are all these 100,000 Somalis going to be accommodated? Where will all the incoming people from Romania and Bulgaria be accommodated?
We are not building houses, and why not? In part, because our constituents feel that we are already full up in our communities, so there is a massive challenge there. As MigrationWatch has said, we will need to build the equivalent of eight of the largest cities outside the capital in 15 years. For the next 20 years, we will need to build a new home every seven minutes, night and day, just for the new migrants and their families, because it calculated that the UK population will reach 70 million in the next 15 years. Parliament cannot allow itself to ignore those massive pressures on our country.
My second point is about the cultural considerations. I do not know when I was ever given the opportunity to vote on diversity. Everybody said, “What a wonderful thing diversity is.” Personally, I happen not to like curry, but I understand that many people do. Indeed, I represent the garrison town of Aldershot—I am proud so to do—and the Army seems to eat nothing but curry. That makes my visits to the Army slightly tricky, but there we go.
Diversity has been a mask to distract attention from people’s concerns that their own way of life has been changed. One of the interesting things about the latest wave of migration is how those new migrants to our country are not content simply to accept our way of life, our customs or even our laws. That is wholly contrary to the practice adopted by previous waves of migration to this country—most of which, of course, one has to say, have been from other European countries.
We now have the problem—it is a problem—of Islamic fundamentalism in this country. These are people who are demanding that we change our laws—that we have sharia law. I read in the newspapers that in parts of east London, people are challenged not to adopt certain practices—not to drink and not to show affection in public—because “This is an Islamic area.” In the House of Commons, we need to wake up to what is going on in our country. I freely accept that it is not happening in Aldershot, but it is happening, it would appear, in other parts of the country.
We also have the graphic account being given in court at the moment of the complete savagery—there is no other way of describing it—of the murder of Drummer Lee Rigby. Listening to the proceedings in court at the moment, I hope that the whole nation is completely shocked by the savagery—the brutality—that is happening in our capital city. We cannot in Parliament ignore these issues.
The assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police said last week that in the last two years there have been 400 arrests for terrorist offences, with 80 people charged. He was very fearful for the future of this country, and I do make the connection that this is associated with migration into this country. We have a growing threat to our way of life. There is a man called Anjem Choudary whom I have denounced in this House for the last 15 years. He seems to be able to act with complete impunity, advocating hatred of our way of life.
My hon. Friend the Member for Kettering has done a marvellous job in proposing a Bill to ban the burqa. That is something that I find deeply offensive—that women are wandering around in our country and we cannot see their faces. It is contrary to our culture. I have asked my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to ban it. She has said that she will not, but I think that there is a very strong case that the wearing of the burqa should be banned in courts and where people are encountering officials. After all, if a young lad goes into a shop these days, he is told to take off his hoodie; that does not seem to me to be any different in principle.
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree again—my hon. Friend the Minister is doing a sterling job in this field, and it is a massive challenge. The Home Secretary was in Brussels last Friday, arguing the case for the kind of changes in the migration rules within the EU that are necessary. I warmly welcome that, but I say to the Minister that I find two things in my constituency surgeries.
One involves the women who have been inveigled into marrying a foreigner, generally on holiday, principally in north Africa. They get back here. The guy is given leave to remain, and then he sugars off. Can we get them deported? No, because we get told that this is all about data protection and all the rest of it. I say to my hon. Friend that that has to stop.
The second category of people is those who come to my surgery with a litany of appeals that have been rejected. Why are they still here? Why are we not deporting these people? I am perfectly happy to name them and to help my hon. Friend to remove them from this country. The failure of the Government to remove these people is itself undermining the Government’s stand on immigration.
Mention has been made of the contribution that immigrants have made, and we have all seen that the Poles and other east Europeans work incredibly hard. Our country is suffering from a lack of aspiration among our young people. I am not the first to have said that. Our education system has to do a great deal more to teach our young people the five R’s—reading, writing, arithmetic, right and wrong—to prepare them for a world that is becoming, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister says, extremely competitive.
We need only go to countries such as India and Malaysia to see and feel the palpable sense of aspiration. When we talk to a publican who cannot get anybody even to turn up for an interview to come and work in his pub, our people have to start accepting that they have to do some of these jobs, that they have to have more aspiration in their lives, because otherwise, I am afraid, the prospects for the country are grim.
I will leave the House with this reminder. In 1960, the population of this country was 52 million, in 2010 it was 62 million, and in 15 years’ time it will be 70 million. There are practical and cultural considerations that the House must not and cannot ignore.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. I congratulate the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) on allowing us one and a half hours of parliamentary time to debate a very important issue. You will have seen, Mr Howarth, that it is clearly a complex and multilayered issue. We have had discussions about the importance of integration and of the impact of European migration, but we have also heard very strong contributions about the need for business, for students and for tourism. We need to reflect on all those in any positive response to the debate that we are having today.
I start by echoing what the hon. Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) said in what I thought was—I hope I will not upset him by saying this—an excellent contribution: that immigration has benefited the United Kingdom over many centuries. People have come here to build our biggest companies, to create our national health service and to win our sports prizes. I am struck by the fact that we are meeting just off Westminster Hall, which was built by William Rufus, the son of an immigrant, in 1098. I say to the hon. Gentleman that we have a proud history of contribution from immigration, but I also say that we need to examine the fact that real concerns and tensions are caused by some of the issues that have been raised and accepted here today.
I hope that I can help to assuage the fears raised by the hon. Members for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers), for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth), for Kettering (Mr Hollobone), for Braintree and for Isle of Wight by saying that, yes, mistakes were made by the previous Labour Government. If I may say so, however, I do not think that it was as the hon. Member for Isle of Wight said. There was no mass plan for increasing multi- culturalism, but I think that there was a willingness and a wish to ensure that we had a positive approach to eastern Europe.
Under the communist yoke, that part of Europe was not free, not engaged in free-market economies, not trading with us and not developing some of the economies in which we are going to invest resources for the future. That was the case for many years, so I think that there was a willingness. However, my right hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) and others have said that there was a lack of transitional controls that should have been, potentially, put in place, and that that has created some community tension. But let us not say that it was in total a bad thing, because I think that we do have some very positive benefits from migration generally.
I can look at my own constituency. The biggest employer there makes aeroplane wings with contributions from French, Spanish, German and British workers. Only last week, there was a £30 billion order for aeroplanes for my constituency. The neighbouring constituency has the site of the Toyota factory—a Japanese factory managed in my area by Japanese staff, creating employment for people in my constituency. Kimberly-Clark in my constituency is also a major employer in my area. That is an American-based company with American staff helping to invest in that company. Immigration brings wealth, prosperity and businesses, but it also brings challenges, as has been expressed.
Particularly in view of the potential for Romanian and Bulgarian immigration from 1 January—like the Minister, I do not know what that figure will be—we must look at labour market issues associated with the exploitation of those who come to this country to work. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) and the hon. Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) touched on those issues as being important.
I want the minimum wage to be strengthened to stop exploitation. I want local authorities to step up enforcement, and I want fines for non-compliance to be increased. The Prime Minister and the Minister have alluded to the potential for a move in that direction. It is not acceptable for wages to be forced down in this country by immigration from eastern Europe. I want gangmaster legislation to be strengthened and extended to areas such as catering and tourism, which it does not cover at the moment.
The right hon. Gentleman is making some fair points. The question that he has not yet answered—he has another five minutes in which to do so—is whether those decisions should be made here in the UK or there in Europe.
I am a believer in a wider Europe, and I do not think we should retrench into the position that the hon. Gentleman has set out. We might look at what changes are needed, but our position in the European Community is a strong one for our markets. We may disagree on the matter, but that is my view.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central mentioned recruitment agencies. As we discussed in the Immigration Bill Committee, there are websites on which people try, in contravention of the Equality Act 2010, to recruit staff solely from eastern Europe or, increasingly, from southern Italy. I do not think that that is fair or right, and we should look at measures to outlaw such recruitment. In my constituency, local people cannot access vacancies in certain factories because staff are recruited solely from eastern Europe. That has to be wrong, and we should deal with that labour market issue.
We must strengthen and enforce housing legislation. I believe that the Minister agrees, because he has mentioned beds in sheds. We need to end the practice of shifts of people in the same accommodation sleeping for eight hours, working for eight hours and spending eight hours on the street, as happens in my constituency and in many others. We must take action to tackle that, because it undercuts the UK labour market and exploits those who come here legitimately for work.
We must also focus on the positive aspects of immigration. I have had representations from businesses—I even met some this morning—through London First and others. They tell me that, as the hon. Member for Cambridge and my hon. Friend have said, we need to attract people from the student community abroad, to ensure that they not only bring fees and spending power to the country but carry the good will of this country with them into their future work. The Prime Minister of Malaysia, or the future chairmen or chief executives of businesses abroad, will look back on their time in the UK with fond memories. That is an unseen export that we should contribute towards.
In addition to attracting students, we must also focus on tourism. I discovered last week that Chinese tourism is worth £103 billion to the rest of the world, but in this country we benefit from only £300 million of that amount. We need to increase our share of that market. To give credit where it is due—I try to be fair—the Prime Minister has tried to do just that. We must not ignore the fact that immigration is not only about eastern Europe; it is about opening our borders to allow people to get in for tourism purposes and to spend their money. I agree that we also need to look at business issues, which are important. If someone wants to come here to invest £1 million or £2 million in creating a business, we must allow them to.
I share the view of the hon. Member for Cleethorpes that integration is extremely important. In many of our towns and cities, including my constituency, the sudden influx of people speaking different languages in supermarkets and on the streets has created tensions, which I hope will ease with time. We must look at how we can maximise the benefits of Europe while having fair and appropriate immigration controls.
That leads me to say that we must ensure that we have strong borders. The report “The Border Force: securing the border”, published yesterday by the Public Accounts Committee, raised some criticism. No one says that the problem is easy to deal with; it was not easy when we were in charge and it is not easy now. We need to look at strong border controls. We need to ensure that those who have been through the system and have failed the residency test are removed from the United Kingdom in a fair way. We need to ensure that people who come here integrate and speak English and that we have a proper and effective immigration system.
I do not think, however, with due respect to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight and some others who have spoken today, that closing our borders in the way they have described by repatriating powers would be a good thing. I do not think that putting up a “Britain is shut” sign will help the economy or the residents of the country, however long they have been here, in the long term.
We have had a useful debate, and discussion of the matter will continue. I would be grateful for the Minister’s response to the points I have raised. There are real steps that the Government could take, but are not taking, to deal with labour market issues, which would assuage some of the concerns that have been raised today.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Howarth, and it is a rare treat to have two Howarths in the Chamber at the same time. I suspect that you are at rather different ends of the political spectrum—although you, as Chair, are completely neutral.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr Turner) for securing the debate. As the right hon. Member for Delyn (Mr Hanson) said, it is always good to have one and a half hours of valuable parliamentary time to talk about issues that are of concern to all our constituents. Some are concerned, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) said, about attracting the best and the brightest. Others are worried about the numbers of people coming here and whether they are all making a contribution.
I am also pleased to see that the right hon. Member for Delyn has some friends today. Last time we debated immigration, he was completely by himself with no Labour Back Benchers to support him. Today, however, one Labour Member spoke in the debate and another is in the Chamber, so the right hon. Gentleman’s powers of oratory are clearly attracting a wider audience.
My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight was right to highlight the failure of the previous Labour Government, and one can argue about whether that was the result of a conspiracy or a cock-up. The former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr Straw) leans towards the view that a “spectacular mistake”, in his words, was made. A significant number of people came into the country when the previous Labour Government were in power, which is partly why people have concerns. It was partly to do with the fact that at the time of the eastern European accession, we were the only major country to have no transitional controls, so most of those who left their own countries to work came to Britain.
It is worth remembering, however, that eastern Europe was not where the largest number of people came from. During the Labour party’s time in office, more than twice as many migrants came from outside the European Union. Although the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), was presented with that information in a clear graphical format during a recent edition of “Sunday Politics”, and she was sitting right in front of the screen, she denied that it is true. I am afraid it is, however. Although the Labour party may argue that it made some mistakes on eastern European migration, in an area in which it had complete control over who came to the United Kingdom, it failed. That is behind many people’s concerns, so we have tried to demonstrate that we are able to take tough decisions to reassure people.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) said that even in an area such as his constituency where immigration is low, people see significant numbers of migrants from eastern Europe in neighbouring towns, such as Boston in Lincolnshire. People are concerned about the numbers of people who have immigrated in a relatively short space of time and how successfully they have integrated. That is why we have to address those concerns.
We have made progress. Several Members have referred to the fact that net migration is down by nearly one third since its peak. We are building a system that works in the national interest. Immigration from outside the EU is now at its lowest level for 14 years, and almost back to the level it was when the previous Conservative Government left office.
The good news is that we are being more selective. According to the latest figures, there is a 7% increase in students coming to our excellent UK universities. The hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) has made that point before and I am sure he will make it again, as will my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge. We welcome international students coming to our excellent universities, and both the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend have more than one excellent university in their areas. It is important that we welcome students who come to Britain to study. Most will leave, some will stay, some will start businesses and some will help create economic growth, and we very much welcome them. I think my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) was being slightly unfair earlier—the “hear, hears” when he congratulated my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark) were coming not from him but from the rest of us. He made an excellent speech focusing on those who are going to contribute. People who come here and contribute are important.
I listened carefully to what my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) said about numbers, which was also a concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight. Two things are worth remembering. First, my hon. Friend the Member for Kettering was concerned that we will see a repeat of what happened in 2004, but the situation now is different, because in 2004 we were the only country to have no transitional controls. This time, we have had such controls and at the end of September, the controls of eight other European countries—including large countries with successful economies, such as Germany—will expire at the same time as ours. We are not the only country that will have a policy change. Secondly, 48% of immigrants come from outside the EU, 36% come from within the EU and 15% of the people coming to Britain are British citizens who have lived overseas for more than a year who are returning home or who have never lived here. It is worth putting the numbers into perspective.
Most hon. Members talked about employment. We have made a difference, which my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight put his finger on when he talked about our immigration policy, our welfare policy and our education and training policy. The difference is in the combination of the three—a tougher immigration policy; a tougher welfare policy that encourages people to work and contribute; and an increase in the number of apprenticeships and more rigour in schools. In the five years to December 2008, under the previous Government, when there was economic growth and jobs were being created, more than 90% of the increase in employment was accounted for by foreign nationals. That is probably what provoked the comment of the previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), about
“British jobs for British workers.”
Since the second quarter of 2010, under the current Government, more than three quarters of the 1.1 million new jobs in the economy have gone to British citizens, which is of benefit. Talented people are still coming to Britain to fill gaps in the labour market and contribute, but the growth in employment now benefits British citizens. That is, first, what we are in business to do in Parliament, and, secondly, very welcome.
We are committed to continuing to bring net migration down. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot referred to removing people who have no right to be here. The Immigration Bill currently before Parliament contains measures to reduce the rights of appeal and make it easier to remove foreign national offenders, for example, from the UK when they have no right to be here, which is welcome.
I salute the Minister for what he is doing. My point is not so much that further measures, which I welcome, are being taken, but that many people in this country have already exhausted the extensive appeals procedures and have still not been removed. Despite people like me writing to say, “Why aren’t they being removed?”, officials do not seem to take action.
I agree with my hon. Friend. We will certainly give ourselves the powers to take action. Since we split up the UK Border Agency earlier this year, there has been a change in the culture of the two new parts. The immigration enforcement branch now feels that it is a law enforcement organisation and its job is to deal with those who break our immigration rules.
On the subject of those who break the law and want to come to the UK, I would like to make a bit of a public service announcement. I noticed in media coverage this morning that Mike Tyson, who wants to visit the UK, is not able to come here because we changed the immigration rules for those guilty of serious offences. A column in The Sun says that he received a “knock out blow”—the first time I have ever, in effect, got in the ring with a boxer. Mr Tyson is a convicted rapist. If people have been convicted of an offence for which they have been sentenced to a period of imprisonment of at least four years, we will refuse them entry to the UK. I say that because his publisher, who organised his UK book tour, said:
“There was a change in the UK immigration law in December 2012 of which we were unaware.”
That is a fault on their part. I will say in Parliament, therefore, to make the position clear, that we have toughened the immigration rules and people who are criminals who want to come to the UK will not be able to if they are guilty of serious crimes. The measure is welcome and has been welcomed by many who support victims of violence. The child protection campaigner, Sara Payne, said:
“I think the Home Office got it right.”
I savour those words; I do not often hear people say them. She said:
“The rules don’t change just because the offender is famous.”
That is an important point. People have to obey the law. The Government make no apology for toughening up the rules in 2012, and those rules will apply to people equally, whether they are famous or not.
Before I move on, I shall pick up on the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot. The Immigration Bill will reduce the number of appeals and tighten up the rules on article 8, putting them in primary legislation. People who have no right to be here, for example a foreign national offender we are trying to remove, will have fewer opportunities to argue that they should be able to stay, and we will be able to remove them more effectively. I hope my hon. Friend welcomes that.
There was much discussion about labour market rules. The right hon. Member for Delyn mentioned advertisements that aim to hire only foreign nationals, which are unlawful already. I said during a debate on the Immigration Bill that I would draw such advertisements to the attention of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is the regulator and enforcement body in that area, and I have done so. It wrote back to me and, to paraphrase a relatively lengthy letter, it is on the case. I will be able to update hon. Members when the Bill returns to the Floor of the House.
My hon. Friends the Members for Cleethorpes and for Braintree referred to what we are doing as we move towards the end of the year. We are preparing for the transitional controls expiring. Last week, I signed an order, which we laid before the House on Friday, amending the European economic area regulations, to take steps to restrict access to benefits, guard against the abuse of free movement and prevent individuals who are removed from the UK for not fulfilling the requirements of the free movement rules from coming straight back again. Those changes will be helpful. A number of them come into force on 1 January. Those we remove for begging or rough sleeping, for example, will not be allowed to come back unless they can demonstrate that immediately on re-entry they will be exercising a treaty right, coming back to work or study, or that they will be self-sufficient.
I am pressed for time and I want to deal with the other issues my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight raised. We will restrict access to jobseeker’s allowance to six months for foreign nationals who become unemployed. This week, the Department for Work and Pensions is rolling out a toughened habitual residence test to increase the range and depth of evidence collected from benefit claimants to ensure that they are entitled to be here. The Home Secretary has consistently raised that issue at the Justice and Home Affairs Council, and she did so again last week. She received support from a number of member states and, I note, robust support from my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot.
The Government are taking the tough measures necessary. We are bearing down on numbers, but also ensuring that Britain is open to those who want to come to contribute, to put something back and to make our country wealthier. We have the balance right. I want to continue to make changes and I am confident that hon. Members on both sides might even support them.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mr Howarth. I am pleased to have been granted this debate, which I secured as co-chair of the all-party group on anti-corruption, a role that I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar). I am pleased that a number of other members of the all-party group are present today.
We are here to highlight the United Nation’s international anti-corruption day, which took place on Monday this week. Citizens and parliamentarians have been marking the day right around the world, and I am pleased that the United Kingdom is playing its part, too. It is very appropriate that legislators in this country should highlight international anti-corruption day, because we are in a particularly good position to do something about it. Many of the tools that allow corruption to happen are within our control. I therefore hope that today’s debate, albeit brief, will contribute to the momentum of calls for change.
When we speak about corruption, we think about malevolent characters in places far removed from the UK, such as Nigeria, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While those might be the sites of theft and where the devastating consequences impact on people, the deals themselves might be taking place just down the road from Parliament, in our capital city. In truth, corrupt officials in developing countries would find it much harder to steal from their citizens if they were unable to use the tools provided by international business, which includes UK citizens, UK-based companies and those listed on the London stock exchange. Those are all elements over which we can exercise some control. We are rightly proud of our aid spending in this country, and I strongly welcome the Chancellor’s confirmation in Budget 2013 that the Government intend to meet and build on Labour’s legacy, which was to set the UK’s historic target of spending 0.7% of gross national income on overseas aid.
It is time, however, to take that a step further. We must ensure that resources are provided in a broader context that ultimately reduces developing countries’ dependence on aid. To do so, we have to look in our own backyard at how domestic business legislation can have a major impact on international poverty. Western business frameworks facilitate illicit financial flows out of Africa. Shockingly, those flows outweigh the amounts that those countries receive from aid and foreign direct investment. We have the power to prevent that, but until we do so, we will effectively keep giving with one hand and taking away much more with the other.
I congratulate the hon. Lady on the hard work that she does in her all-party group, as well as on bringing this matter to Westminster Hall for consideration. Does she agree that, while it is important that we strengthen business connections across the whole world, those businesses must be transparent and accountable? Does she agree that the UK ambassadors in those countries could act as a catalyst to make change happen and to prevent corruption?
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, and I am interested in what the Minister will say in responding to this debate. As the Government, they could exercise their influence to ensure that UK ambassadors play their part in tackling international corruption, which we know damages developing countries.
It is important to recognise the context in which we are speaking. Today is 11 December, and on this day, 800 women will die unnecessarily in childbirth, 29,000 under-fives will die from preventable causes, 67 million children are not in school when they should be and almost 1 billion people will go to bed hungry. The money to remedy that appalling situation is entirely available but is often being stolen for private gain.
Since the creation of the Department for International Development by the previous Labour Government in 1997, the UK has played a leading role in tackling these problems, and we should celebrate that important work and recognise that it is very much being continued under the coalition Government. It is vital that we continue to provide targeted, efficient and comprehensive aid where we know it will have a significant impact on the life chances of our fellow global citizens. However, those citizens are not simply asking us for direct assistance; they are asking us to look at how the conditions that we regulate continue to make and keep poor people poor.
To consider the role of western countries in this scandal, let us take a hypothetical example. A corrupt Minister tenders the mining rights to his country’s substantial mineral wealth. A multinational company guarantees winning the tender by sweetening its application with a large bribe. It most likely does so using a shell company to provide anonymity and an almost total guarantee that the money will be unrecoverable by officials. Alternatively, perhaps the Government sell the mines directly to a recently registered company with no employees, premises or registered activities. The Minister oversees the sale of the assets at as little as 5% of their market value, and the company then sells the assets on for a hefty profit, making sure that the corrupt Minister is well compensated personally for his generous deal. The shell company hides the often overly close relationship between the individual buying the assets and the person selling them, and corporate vehicles essentially render owners unaccountable for their actions.
After the deal, both the Minister and the company have illegitimate wealth from which they wish to benefit, and that is where the second element implicating international business comes to the fore: the laundering of ill-gotten gains through western financial institutions. To access the global marketplace, individuals need reputable banks in countries with strong property rights, such as our own. Without banks willing to take their cash, criminals would be unable to reap the rewards.
Shell companies and money laundering are two major tools provided by western businesses that facilitate devastating global corruption. Before I go on, it is worth commenting on the scale of the problem. Deals very similar to those that I just described lost the Democratic Republic of the Congo—a country at the very bottom of the UN’s human development index—more than its total annual health and education budget combined. In Nigeria, General Sani Abacha stole an estimated $1.3 billion while in power from a country where the national income is just $260 a head.
I suspect that the Minister, who is from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, is wondering what he is doing here, or is slightly concerned that he has arrived to respond to the wrong debate, because much of what I have discussed so far relates to the Department for International Development. However, many of these deals, such as the lost funds in the Abacha case, are alleged to have been laundered through British banks, and it is our own country’s role in this global scandal to which I turn.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does not the point that she just made highlight the fact that this issue needs a cross-governmental approach? It is not about one Department looking at this, but a joined-up approach that includes the Department for International Development, the Treasury, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Through that, we can ensure that the UK continues to be a gold standard when it comes to its relationship with the world.
My hon. Friend makes the case very well and I thank him for his work in the all-party group promoting these issues. He succinctly highlights the key message that we want to convey to the Minister. He can work with other Departments, which will help us do what we can to bring an end to some of the corruption that is causing devastation in developing countries.
Our role is in part a consequence of the sheer scale of our financial services, which undoubtedly play a major role in the nation’s economy. The UK accounts for 18% of cross-border banking and houses 251 foreign banks—more than any other country. London has been voted the most attractive financial centre for asset management and is the largest currency trading centre in the world. However, we are also implicated through our links to British overseas territories and Crown dependencies, which, together with the UK mainland, account for one third of all shell companies. A number of thefts from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, were routed through the British Virgin Islands.
Thirdly, and on a very positive note, we are also linked by our potential international leadership on this issue. Since 1997, the UK has proved itself at the forefront of international development work and has recently taken steps to lead the world in global transparency too. We very much support the steps that the Government have taken in relation to transparency, particularly the recent Lough Erne declaration, after the G8 summit there.
I just wanted to comment on the benefits that the Government have introduced through the G8 open data charter and getting agreement to have more transparent company ownership and more transparency about those who control companies. I just wonder what the hon. Lady thinks about beneficial company ownership registry. We have agreed that it will be open, but there is an awful lot that we can do in the way that companies are formed in this country to ensure that this problem is sorted out and that Companies House helps to do so.
I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. In fact, I was just coming to that point about what we can do on the issue of shell companies and beneficial ownership. I very much welcome—we all do—the steps that the Government have taken to date. Indeed, I personally called for those steps to be taken in my role as shadow Treasury Minister during the consideration of this year’s Finance Act. We have become the first country in the world to commit to developing a public register of beneficial ownership, but it is vital that we implement it effectively. Above all, it must achieve its fundamental purpose of identifying the individuals who benefit from and control a company.
Like my colleagues, I congratulate my hon. Friend on her success in securing this debate and on her work with the all-party group. As she says, the Government’s commitments in relation to making public the register of ownership are very important, but we have to be absolutely clear that the register will extend to trusts, because trusts in particular have been used to hide ownership, not least—as she said herself—in some of the overseas territories and Crown dependencies.
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The key is that this register of beneficial ownership cannot be used as a smokescreen to hide the identities of companies and the individuals who control them. It must be part of the solution to ensure that we have greater transparency, and it must have the effect that I know the Government want it to have.
It is important that beneficial owners are required to provide information such as a passport number or date of birth, so that the register provides a unique, verifiable identifier for every person listed. It is also important that the information goes through some means of verification by Companies House. For example, it could be cross-checked with other registers, such as those of the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency or the passport authority. Where company ownership is not direct, individuals should be asked to explain how they exercise control, and when control changes it should be noted within a reasonable time period. Lastly, it is important that the information is published in line with the principles outlined in the G8 open data charter, to which the UK is a signatory, and on a very practical note, it must be machine-readable and searchable, because the amount of information contained will be vast and it is of no use if it cannot be searched.
The UK Companies Registry already requires changes of names of directors to be made within a 14-day period, so it should not be difficult to require other changes, particularly as something like 98% of companies that are registered with the UK Companies Registry are actually private, small, family businesses, where the ownership is terribly clear already. It is only the very small percentage of companies that are trying to hide things that we need to get to.
The hon. Lady makes a very important point. This register of beneficial ownership should not be an onerous burden on business. It should not only make it as easy as possible for banks’ due diligence officers, civil society groups, investigative journalists and foreign law enforcement officials to use the information on it, but for companies themselves to register the relevant information with the necessary authorities. The more people who are able to access this information easily, the more we can guarantee its accuracy.
It is vital that the register is fit for purpose, so the eyes of parliamentarians from across the House will be on the Government as they implement their own pledge next year. I and other members of the all-party group on anti-corruption will make sure that the Government make every effort to introduce the legislation to make that happen.
Money laundering has been much discussed in recent days, during the passage of the Financial Services (Banking Reform) Bill. Noble members, including former members of the respected Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards, not least the Archbishop of Canterbury, have been calling on fellow legislators to take this opportunity to tighten up our anti-money laundering regulations, because our current checks are inadequate. In 2011, the Financial Services Authority found that 75% of banks, including the major ones, had inadequate checks in place and a Treasury report published just last month described the common failures as
“fundamental Anti-Money Laundering/Counter-Terrorist financing obligations... that all firms should be aware of.”
The new banking standards created by the Bill present an ideal opportunity to embed anti-money laundering compliance, both at the very top and throughout the culture of British banking.
Finally on the subject of money laundering, it is worth noting that this week is the anniversary of the imposition of a $1.9 billion fine on HSBC for transacting with Mexican drug lords, terrorist financers and those in countries subject to sanctions, including Libya, Burma and Iran. As a result of the deferred prosecution agreement that HSBC signed in order to avoid more serious punishment, its compliance with anti-money laundering laws is being independently monitored for five years. HSBC will be monitored not just in the United States; the Financial Conduct Authority will also be monitoring HSBC’s compliance with UK laws during the next five years. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on whether those monitoring reports should be published.
There are some general anti-corruption steps that the Government should consider taking. I draw to the Minister’s attention a Transparency International report on asset recovery that was released this week. Clawing back the money stolen in the type of deals that I have talked about is vital, but at present it is extremely rare. Currently, 99% of illegally obtained money flows undetected through the financial system. The seizure rate could be as low as 0.2%. How many people would steal millions of pounds if they had a 99.8% chance of keeping it?
The report suggests that there should be a new law against corrupt enrichment, which would allow suspicious assets that vastly outweigh the declared wealth of a politician or public official to be seized until proven legitimate. That would shift the burden of proof to the individuals wishing to invest, and away from businesses, which are already under significant obligations. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s views on this proposal.
It is also important to stress the important work of law enforcement in this area. As legislators, we are often very quick to add to the statute book, but of course it is vital that existing laws are enforced. The all-party group on anti-corruption was recently briefed by the head of the Metropolitan police’s proceeds of corruption unit. The unit, which is funded by DFID, costs just 2% of the amount of money that it has recovered, and just 0.3% of the amount of money that it is currently investigating. A £50 return for every pound of investment seems to be a pretty good deal.
The overseas anti-corruption unit, which sits within the City of London police, is also funded by DFID and since its creation in 2006 it has investigated more than 155 cases where corruption or bribery were alleged, resulting in more than 115 suspects being investigated and in the arrest of 80 individuals involving a number of sectors, including energy and natural resources, security, humanitarian aid, construction and engineering, and publishing. For every pound invested in that unit, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs retrieves between £10 and £30 from the clutches of shell companies and returns it to the UK public purse. In times of austerity, the Government should clearly be prioritising areas of work that provide such good value for money.
I will conclude by turning once again to those who suffer the impact of these devastating crimes. I would like to relay the words of a Zambian nurse quoted by ActionAid in one of its reports about the alleged abuse of shell companies. She describes what her hospital would do if it received the money that was owed to it. She says that
“maybe that money would be used...to access hard to reach places.”
She goes on to say that at present the hospital staff can only reach
“surrounding areas which we are able to walk to.”
The President of Equatorial Guinea’s son purchased a Gulfstream jet with suspicious funds, so he could probably solve that problem for them. However, I doubt that he will do so on his own. Instead, let us take the opportunity that we have here in the UK Parliament to do it.
This is an important topic and I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) on securing this debate. The trade and investment White Paper, published in 2011, stated:
“Bribery and corruption are barriers to trade and growth. They hinder development, distort competition and perpetuate poverty.”
That is the Government’s view.
The hon. Lady paid tribute to the United Kingdom’s strong reputation for tackling corruption. Earlier this month, the respected non-governmental organisation Transparency International released its latest corruption perceptions index, which ranks 177 countries and territories around the world on the perceived levels of public corruption. Of those 177 countries, the United Kingdom was ranked 14th. Transparency International’s 2011 bribe payers index ranks 28 of the world’s largest economies according to the perceived likelihood of companies from those countries paying bribes abroad. The United Kingdom ranks joint sixth, alongside Australia, Canada and Singapore. We are ahead of the United States and France.
In its “Exporting Corruption: Progress Report 2013”, which assesses enforcement of the OECD convention on combating foreign bribery, Transparency International recognises the United Kingdom as one of only four active enforcers of foreign bribery. That is the challenge. Beyond the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland and the United States, enforcement effort is poor or non-existent.
The United Kingdom is a signatory to the United Nations convention against corruption and the OECD bribery convention. Those conventions require the signatories to criminalise the bribery of foreign public officials by individuals and companies. Transparency International believes that 20 countries, accounting for about a quarter of the world’s exports, including major exporting nations, such as Japan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Russia, Mexico, Brazil and Turkey, do little or no enforcement. Enforcement in France, Canada and Argentina is limited.
To be effective in tackling corruption and bribery, both the demand and supply of bribes must be addressed. That means that we cannot address the problem alone; it requires a concerted and co-ordinated effort, and other countries must contribute more equally to tackling corruption. The reality is that the risks of wrongdoing being discovered and of being prosecuted around the world are uneven. To address that, we are increasingly leading the international agenda on these issues.
When we held the G8 presidency earlier this year, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister championed an agenda of tax, transparency and trade, and put tackling corruption at the heart of the G8 agenda. At Lough Erne he secured landmark agreements on tax transparency, transparency in the extractives industries and transparency of company ownership and control. That is in the interests of British firms, and those across the world, that play by the rules. It is about ensuring a level playing field for companies, so that trade delivers the benefits that it should for both rich and poor countries.
We are now taking forward those commitments, including establishing a central registry of company beneficial ownership information, and will be ensuring that the other G8 countries meet their obligations, too. We are working actively with our international partners in the fight against foreign bribery. UK law enforcement departments and agencies have provided training and technical assistance to a wide range of overseas law enforcement and anti-corruption agencies, including the Afghan Attorney General’s Office and Bangladeshi prosecutors, and we have participated in a number of joint investigations.
One of the strengths of the OECD convention is that 40 countries have signed it: more than just the OECD members. Through the OECD bribery working group, the monitoring body of the OECD bribery convention, countries are held to account for their efforts to tackle corruption through peer review. We are fully committed to the OECD bribery convention and we make a full contribution to the working group, which is meeting in Paris at the OECD this week and includes a review of the position in Ireland, in which the UK is a lead reviewer.
I apologise for taking the Minister back slightly, but he somewhat glossed over the register of beneficial ownership. I welcome the Government’s making a verbal commitment—he said that they are working on producing that register—but will he comment on the specific requirements that I proposed about the detail in respect of how it will be produced? He must accept that it is not enough simply to have a registry that is titled “Beneficial Ownership” but has no practical function, as such.
The hon. Lady knows that we are about to publish our formal response to the “Transparency and Trust” discussion paper and we will take forward primary legislation to implement a publicly accessible central registry, as soon as we find parliamentary time to do so. I will, if I may, respond to the hon. Lady in detail in writing on her specific point about monitoring.
The working group on bribery has not been shy about shining the spotlight on the UK. In 2008, it made a point of criticising the UK for having prosecuted no legal persons. Today only nine of the 40 signatory countries—Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Switzerland, the United States and the UK—have sanctioned a company for foreign bribery. Italy’s first corporate sanction was a temporary ban on public procurement. The German corporate sanctions have all been administrative fines. Our first corporate conviction for foreign bribery in July 2009 may well be the first in the European Union.
The Bribery Act 2010 provides the legal foundation here. In that Act, we have a modern, effective law against bribery that is second to none. It encourages and supports the establishment of ethical standards that are meaningful in the commercial world and society generally. The offence in the Act of failure to prevent bribery reflects the best practice from the working group, in terms of an effective model of corporate liability for foreign bribery. That has better equipped investigators and prosecutors to tackle bribery in the 21st century. Alongside the Act, investment in dedicated anti-corruption police resources has seen a dramatic increase in the number of investigations into allegations of foreign bribery by UK nationals and companies—up from just four investigations in 2006 to more than 20 live cases currently.
Foreign bribery offences are complex and demand considerable international co-operation, and can take years to investigate and bring to court. Consequently, although there have been several domestic bribery convictions using Bribery Act offences, we have yet to see a foreign bribery prosecution using those same offences.
The Serious Fraud Office also continues to pursue foreign bribery cases under the law that preceded the Bribery Act. In August, it charged four individuals with the first Bribery Act offences in relation to corporate behaviour.
Our ambition is to go beyond minimal technical compliance with the various UN and OECD conventions and to maintain a leadership position through best practice legislation that provides a fully effective deterrent to rogue traders. That means ensuring that we have the right tools. The Serious Fraud Office was given new legal tools to investigate foreign bribery allegations and confiscate the proceeds of crime through civil recovery. Earlier this year, we consulted on the introduction of deferred prosecution agreements for use in cases of economic crime, including Bribery Act offences, by corporate offenders. A new scheme for deferred prosecution agreements is provided for in schedule 17 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which received Royal Assent in the spring. We intend to implement that legislation in spring next year.
It is understandable that businesses will want to know how they can best comply with the law. We have published advice and guidance on UK Trade & Investment’s overseas business risk website, to ensure that businesses do not spend unnecessary time on disproportionate measures.
The issues that we are debating today are important for the well-being of our economy and the global economy, and for the standing of British businesses across the world. We are committed to ensuring that the UK leads the fight against practices of bribery and corruption. We have come a long way, but we are not complacent. Many points made in this debate challenge us to go further.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster 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
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir.
I make it clear for the record that I am a long-standing trustee of the League Against Cruel Sports. I want the cull to be abandoned because I do not believe there is any justification for its continuation. Indeed, prior to the recent cull, there was a debate in the main Chamber in which we implored the Government not to proceed. We made it clear that there is no evidence to support a cull. I said that the cull was likely, according to the scientific evidence, to make matters worse.
The hon. Gentleman says that there is no justification for the cull, so why is it that the Republic of Ireland only got control of tuberculosis once it started culling badgers? This is about badgers infecting cattle with TB, and we need to react strongly. I entirely reject what the hon. Gentleman says.
I will develop my argument, but the hon. Gentleman is misquoting the statistics relating to Ireland. If we dig a little deeper into the situation in Ireland, it is pretty clear that north of the border, where I believe culling has not taken place, the situation improved considerably more than it did in the south of Ireland.
Order. Quiet in the Chamber. A lot of people want to speak in this debate, so I ask for quiet and for short interventions.
Does not the evidence show that, even with the cull, the targets cannot be achieved? More importantly, would it not be better to use the Scottish system?
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I will address his point if I have time.
Does my hon. Friend agree that this debate is on so-called control of mainland badgers? Will he please address the intervention by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish)? This is about scientific evidence; the scientific evidence from Lord May and the breadth of scientific opinion in this country are against the cull.
May I develop my argument a little further, because I have only just started? I have read only the first couple of lines of my speech, and I have already had five people seeking to interject. Please let me develop my argument before making further interventions.
As I was saying before I was intervened on, the Government disregarded the scientific evidence and my and other hon. Members’ assertions that the cull would make matters worse. They disregarded public opinion. The scientific views of a range of eminent individuals have been completely disregarded by Ministers; we have been confronted by Ministers who from day one have simply been gung ho for the cull and determined to proceed, irrespective of the evidence. It seems to me that Ministers are impervious to reason. Disregarding scientific evidence and public opinion so cavalierly is no way for a Government to make policy.
May I carry on a little longer?
As we know, the cull has been a dismal failure. The policy is an absolute shambles. Instead of accepting the Government’s mistake, we have seen the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs indulging in shameless propaganda to try to justify the unjustifiable. The Independent reports him as saying:
“These lovely black and white creatures you see on the telly and you put in your newspaper. They don’t relate to these miserable, emaciated sick animals spewing out disease.”
There is no evidence for that.
In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith) on 10 October, the Secretary of State said that
“some of the animals we have shot have been desperately sick—in the final stages of disease”.—[Official Report, 10 October 2013; Vol. 568, c. 281.]
In a written answer to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), the Minister said:
“The Secretary of State’s comments about sick badgers relate to the comments made to him by contractors and farmers during the culls.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 714W.]
So there is no evidence at all. We are simply getting scaremongering nonsense from the Government. The cull has been a very costly failure.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate.
Scotland is virtually clear of TB in cattle. Is there not an awful lot to be said for the argument that the Government down here, whose experiment has been a folly, should look at the Scottish situation instead of continuing a cull that nobody recognises as being of any use?
My hon. Friend is right that the Government should look at evidence from elsewhere in the United Kingdom—and, indeed, listen to the expert scientific evidence.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. He mentioned my parliamentary question, but does he also share my concern that the Government appear to have done so few post-mortems on badgers that we do not know what the results are? Does he further agree that, in light of the shambles around the current culling policy, there is a real danger that the Government will go down the route of gassing? Gassing is incredibly inhumane. The real answer, which is also cheaper and more effective, is to vaccinate badgers. That is what we should do.
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I will address her point a little later.
I will carry on before taking a few more interventions.
What I find so scandalous about the whole process, apart from the fact that the Government have disregarded scientific and public opinion, is that the Government have withheld information about the humaneness of the cull. We were assured by Ministers that of course the cull would be humane. We had crocodile tears from Government Members in the debate earlier this year, when they said how concerned they were about animal welfare and that of course the procedure would be humane.
I will give way in a moment.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is withholding information about the criteria on which the humaneness of the cull has been based. Surely if the Government have nothing to fear, they will release that information—but of course they have been singularly unwilling to do so.
Public safety has been compromised by the cull. Monitors who are there to watch over the cull have been intimidated by some of the people employed to do the culling. Shots have been fired over the heads of monitors—shots have been fired in the United Kingdom over the heads of people going about their lawful business of monitoring the activities of a cull set up by the Government. They have had shots fired over their heads! That is appalling and disgraceful, and it should be condemned by Ministers, but we have not heard any condemnation from the Government. On at least one occasion, people monitoring the culls have had their vehicle rammed by people who favour the cull.
Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that there is some scientific evidence in favour of a cull, as well as strong arguments against a cull? Is it not the case that the Labour party in Wales, which is now in government, was in favour of a cull when it was in coalition with Plaid Cymru? It was only when they won an overall majority that they changed their mind and ceased their battle in the High Court. Why is the hon. Gentleman trying to politicise the matter when his colleagues in Wales were determined to fight in the High Court for the right to go ahead with a cull? What has changed since then?
The fact is that the Welsh Government rejected any suggestion of a cull and are going ahead with a vaccination programme, which I hope this Government will accept for England. It seems a more appropriate way forward, rather than proceeding in the current manner. I am about to come on to some of the scientific evidence, which clearly refutes the assertion just made by the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T. C. Davies).
Public safety has been compromised and costs have spiralled out of control, but the Government say that the policy is based on the previous randomised badger cull from, I think, 1998 to 2006. The conclusions of that cull showed that, far from actually making things better, it actually resulted in a 29% increase in the incidence of TB outside the cull area. I will quote from paragraph 9 of the independent scientific group on cattle TB’s final report, which is a weighty tome that runs to some 200 pages:
“After careful consideration of all the RBCT”—
randomised badger cull trials—
“and other data presented in this report, including an economic assessment, we conclude that badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the…control of cattle TB in Britain.”
There we have it. The scientific evidence from the randomised trials could not be clearer. It is there in black and white. I invite the Minister to read it. It was actually produced for the Government, and I simply do not understand why they have been so unwilling to take account of the evidence before them.
The cull has been utterly unsuccessful. It was supposed to kill 70% of badgers, but it has managed only 39% even though it was extended from six to 11 weeks. Cattle have been put at greater risk. Ministers say they are standing up for the farming community and that they want to eradicate this terrible disease, but they are embarking on a programme that is making matters worse. They knew it would make matters worse, because the evidence from the scientific report told them so.
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. He mentioned the science and scientific assessment, and he will be aware that Lord Krebs, in the Grand Committee debate on Monday, described the trials as a “complete fiasco.” There is a critical question that the Minister needs to be asked today. Without prejudging the findings of the independent panel, which was charged with assessing the cull’s effectiveness and humaneness, if it finds that the cull was neither effective nor humane, would the Government stop the cull?
One would certainly hope that the Government would. I am going to refer to Lord Krebs in a moment, and I share the hon. Gentleman’s concerns.
Professor Woodroffe, who is a leading expert in such matters, said:
“It’s very likely that so far this cull will have increased the TB risk for cattle inside the Gloucestershire cull zone rather than reducing it.”
Scientific evidence from a few years ago and contemporary scientific opinion both say that the cull is making matters worse. Yet the Government still want to proceed with more culls.
The hon. Gentleman is making a most impassioned speech, albeit one with which I do not entirely agree. Leaving aside the substance of his arguments, perhaps he could address one particular question. One criticism of the trials in Somerset and Gloucestershire is that, according to his argument, insufficient badgers were killed. Had a larger number been killed, would he be congratulating the Government on their success?
I have fundamental objections to the cull. All the evidence demonstrates that it is likely to make matters worse. Even if the 70% target had been reached, scientific opinion suggests that a cull is not the way to proceed. I urge the Government to follow the route taken by the Welsh Government and to embark on a programme of vaccination.
The Secretary of State seems deluded. Even though the scientific evidence stated that the cull would make matters worse and even though only 39% of badgers, rather than the 70% that was claimed necessary to have the required impact, were killed, the Secretary of State said in a written statement:
“The extension in Gloucestershire has therefore been successful in meeting its aim in preparing the ground for a fully effective four year cull.”—[Official Report, 2 December 2013; Vol. 571, c. 34WS.]
It is unbelievable. The Secretary of State is absolutely gung-ho. The evidence does not matter; he will simply argue that the cull has been a success when, even by the Government’s own terms, it has been a catastrophic failure. The target was culling 70% of badgers, but only 39% was achieved. That is barely half.
The culls are making matters worse, and yet Members are straining at the leash to intervene to support the badger cull. I will give way to the hon. Member for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart), whom I know is an inveterate supporter of killing badgers.
I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the debate. The hon. Gentleman gives the impression that the evidence is completely one-sided. Does he accept to some extent the evidence of the British Veterinary Association? We have accepted its evidence in other debates, such as on circus animals. It is concise and focused on this. Does he accept that there are at least some scientists out there who take a contrary view and that the matter is not as one-sided as he maintains?
I of course concede that some small percentage of individuals—pseudo-scientists, some might call them—[Interruption.]
On a point of order, Mr Weir. The British Veterinary Association has just been referred to as a group of “pseudo-scientists”. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman may like to withdraw that statement.
That is not a point of order. Interventions as points of order are not going to help matters. Many people want to speak in this debate, so I urge hon. Members to control themselves.
I actually said that some might say that they are—[Interruption.] I urge hon. Members to check Hansard, where they will find that I said that some might refer to it as pseudo-scientific evidence. Irrespective of the fact that some veterinary surgeons argue that the badger cull is justified, many other vets actually take a different and contrary view.
I will not give way at the moment.
I wonder what on earth the Secretary of State is doing. I am reminded of Einstein’s definition of madness, which is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Lord Krebs, to whom the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George) referred earlier, seems to agree with me. He oversaw the randomised badger culling trials in the 1990s and has labelled this cull a “complete fiasco”, saying that it has been “even crazier” than anticipated. After the schemes in Somerset and Gloucester missed their targets, he said that
“there is no point in doing something if it is the wrong thing.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 9 December 2013; Vol. 750, c. GC144.]
It could not be clearer. I am not saying that the Secretary of State is mad, but he is deluded if he thinks he can pull the wool over the British people’s eyes. The cull in Gloucestershire failed to meet the Government’s target of a 70% kill rate—it only managed 39%, as we know.
I wish to take up the hon. Gentleman’s point about doing the same thing over and over again. My guess is that there are about 365,000 badgers in this country, and they would need to be vaccinated annually. I would like to support vaccination, but how on earth will we vaccinate 1,000 badgers a day just to keep the population healthy?
The hon. Gentleman is exaggerating slightly. That will be necessary only in the hot spot areas. However, I will explain in a moment why vaccination is a far better and less costly route.
The Secretary of State’s attitude to the badger cull is deluded. We know that the Government’s cull has failed, we know that it makes matters worse, we know that it is cruel and inhumane and we know that vaccinating badgers is cheaper and more effective. The vaccination of badgers in Wales seems to be working. How it will work in the future remains to be seen, but we think it will work better than the cull.
The magazine Farming Monthly National said:
“Out of nearly 1200 badgers caught in Wales for vaccination, none showed any signs of illness.”
That is revealing, given that the Secretary of State said that badgers are “spewing out disease”. When he was probed on that claim, it turned out to be anecdotal hearsay from the National Farmers Union, which represents only 18% of farmers, and the people who were employed to do the culling. There is no evidence for his claim.
In a written answer to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion, the Government said:
“TB testing in culled badgers is not being undertaken as a routine procedure”.
They went on to say that
“the numbers of badgers found to be carrying TB is not known at present.”—[Official Report, 18 November 2013; Vol. 570, c. 714W.]
They do not even know whether any of the badgers that they have killed so far were carrying TB. They are ignoring all the evidence. It seems that the Government are blind to this matter.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that even if we killed every badger in the UK it would not eradicate TB?
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is a moot point whether badgers are responsible for infecting cattle with TB. Vaccination is a far better route, with biosecurity measures and restrictions on movement.
I am about to conclude my remarks. I simply say that I hope that the Government listen to the debate.
The hon. Gentleman has been generous in taking interventions. I want to make one quick point. During his opening remarks, he presented the issue as a red versus blue one, but it really is not. It is a black and white issue, not a red versus blue one, as many Government Members feel as strongly about it as he does.
The case against vaccination has always been based on its cost as much as anything else, but the cost of policing the cull has spiralled to four times the original prediction. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the cost of not vaccinating looks increasingly serious?
The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I am delighted that Government Members are as passionate as I am about wanting to—
I will not take any more interventions, as I know other people want to speak. I know that some Members on both sides are passionate about this issue. It is important that we have cross-party support, and I hope the Minister will listen to Government Members.
On the cost, there is considerable evidence making it clear that vaccination is a less expensive way of dealing with this problem. When we take into account the cost not only of culling, but of policing the cull, which would obviously not be necessary in a vaccination programme, we see not only that the cull is useless and failing, given the context in which it was introduced, but that it is an expensive failure and much more costly than vaccination.
I hope the Minister will give us an assurance today that, having listened to the scientific evidence, public opinion, parliamentary opinion and Government Members, the Government will abandon the cull. If he will not give that commitment, I hope he will, at a bare minimum, give a commitment to do what I am about to set out. Given the controversy over the cull, I call on the Government—
Will the hon. Gentleman give way on the point about the controversy?
If the hon. Gentleman will let me finish on this point, he will, I hope, be able to come in before the end of the debate.
I hope the Minister will support an independent and systematic review by the likes of the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons or the Royal Society. Such a review could evaluate all the scientific, social, economic, ecological and ethical aspects of the Government’s policy. If Ministers are so sure—
I am about to conclude.
If Ministers are so sure of their position, they should have nothing to fear from a thorough appraisal of this controversial policy. Such an appraisal would provide the evidence base on which policy decisions could subsequently be based, and it would certainly command public confidence. That is something the Government should consider seriously, and I hope that, when the Minister responds to the debate, he will at least give an assurance on supporting such a review, if he will not give the assurance that the overwhelming majority of the British people want and abandon the cull altogether, as the overwhelming majority of scientific opinion urges.
Order. A very large number of Members are seeking to speak in the debate. I do not know whether we will manage to get everybody in, but in an attempt to do so, I am imposing a four-minute time limit from now on.
It is a delight to be able to speak in this Chamber again, having emerged from my sett. I congratulate the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on introducing the debate. The last time I spoke in this Chamber, I rather thought it was designed to encourage rational debates and to take some of the heat out of our arguments. Speaking as someone who might even be veering slightly towards the hon. Gentleman’s point of view, I have to say that we sometimes have to try to take the passion out of these things, although I know it is difficult.
The hon. Gentleman declared that he is a member of the League Against Cruel Sports. We are not talking about sports, and if we were talking about blood sports, my voting record would show where I stand. I am a member of four wildlife trusts, and I have been a keen wildlife conservationist all my life. I watched badgers from an early age, and I read the seminal work on badgers in the New Naturalist series by Ernest Neal. Generally speaking, therefore, I am a badger fan. However, the debate is not about whether badgers are great creatures; it is about a terrible disease that is causing misery for many farmers and that is affecting their livelihoods and communities.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the issue is not only the misery of farmers and the impact on their livelihoods and families? There is also the misery of other sentient beings—cattle. Some 35,000 cattle are destroyed every year, more than half of which are dairy cows. I do not know whether the solution should be culling badgers, but we do need a solution.
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I did not oppose the cull when it was first proposed, simply because the arguments on both sides are very strong, and the reason for setting up the trials was to find out whether culling works. From what I have seen, the trials have not gone according to plan, for a variety of reasons, which other colleagues will go into in more depth.
I am not sure about the issue—I disagree slightly with the hon. Gentleman, who initiated the debate, on this—because I think there is scientific argument on both sides. That is why it is difficult for lay people such as me and for the public to get to grips with this issue.
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point. Lay people do not necessarily get the information, because the Government do not give the facts out. Is that not the case?
I could not possibly comment, and the hon. Gentleman would not expect me to. I have not looked into that issue. I trust the Government to give out all information properly. Occasionally, if they do not, they need a bit of a nudge. If there are nudges to be given, perhaps they are listening. However, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we need all the facts, but it is difficult to give us all the facts, because everybody’s opinion seems so polarised.
Reluctantly, I did not oppose the cull. I say “reluctantly” because, although I represent a suburban seat—there are badgers there, and a lot of other wildlife—the cull is not something I particularly wanted to happen. However, despite the beard, I am not a bunny hugger just for the sake of it, and there are times when we have to control wildlife.
I want to find out how the culls have gone. I want to be sure that they are assessed properly and that we have all the facts. If they have not been successful, I would propose that no further culls take place. However, if it is proved that the culls have been effective, I may, reluctantly, have to let them proceed again. On balance, I do not think there is necessarily a need for further culls, but I am waiting to be convinced.
None of us in this room or outside must ever forget what this issue really means for individual farmers, their families and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant) said, cattle. This is an incredibly difficult subject, and we cannot just rush into things on the basis of sentiment.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on securing the debate.
There is agreement in the Chamber that bovine TB is a major issue, especially for farmers. I acknowledge that TB in badgers is part of the problem, and no one has ever denied that it is—it is the Government’s response to that problem that is in dispute.
As we all know, the previous Government spent a significant sum on scientific research, and the overall conclusion from the randomised badger culling trials was that the culling of badgers could have no meaningful impact on the incidence of bovine TB. The pilot culls recently completed were not, therefore, supported by scientific evidence.
I will give way just once, because of the time limits and because other Members want to speak.
I thank the hon. Lady for generously giving way. On the point about scientific evidence, the debate is, in a sense, slightly premature, because we await the outcome of the independent expert panel report, which will assess whether the culls were safe, humane and effective. In the event that the panel concludes that they met all three of those tests, will the hon. Lady accept, as I do, that the culls should proceed?
The scientific evidence I was referring to was the 10-year, £50-million project, which is the fundamental basis for any science relating to the cull.
The pilot culls recently completed were not supported by scientific evidence. The justification for them was that they were to
“test the assumption that controlled shooting is an effective method of badger removal, in terms of being able to remove at least 70% of the starting population in the area, over the course of a six week cull.”—[Official Report, 15 April 2013; Vol. 561, c. 70W.]
Thus, the pilots were designed to test not the science, but whether controlled shooting could achieve the crucial target of removing 70% of the badger population in the cull zone, that figure being key to achieving even a modest reduction in bovine TB.
Therefore, my first question to the Minister is, what percentage of badgers was culled in the two pilot zones? Furthermore, will he confirm the scientific advice, which indicates that if there is an underachievement of the 70% target, culling is liable to make the incidence of bovine TB worse because of the impact of perturbation? Given that the current performance in the pilot zones could only be improved by the use of cage trapping, surely the Minister will agree that the pilot has failed in its testing of the assumptions I referred to. That is the key point: the pilots were testing controlled shooting against cage trapping.
It is generally accepted that vaccination presents an effective method of disease control; yet we are often told that the cost of badger vaccination is too high. However, as has been mentioned, according to a written answer from the Minister for Policing, the cost of policing the two pilot culls was around £1.6 million. Does the Minister acknowledge that if an effective cull requires cage trapping, it is more cost-effective to tackle TB in badgers by vaccinating than by killing? I should have said earlier that a greater problem is the incidence of TB in cattle. Will the Minister acknowledge that the Government need to focus more on securing an approved cattle vaccine?
The previous Government’s response to the trials was to authorize six badger vaccine trials, which, combined with the vaccination programme in Wales, offered the opportunity to measure the effectiveness of the approach scientifically over time. The coalition, however, announced in June 2010 that
“it would be reducing the number…from six to one in view of its intention of reviewing policy on badger control, and the need to reduce spending.”
Will the Minister now agree that it was short-sighted to destroy the opportunity of making a rigorous scientific assessment of the effectiveness of vaccination in the field? Will he review that decision?
It is clear from scientific briefing that in Britain, badger behaviour is tightly defined territorially, which means that TB in badgers is to some extent contained by the animals’ social structures; so it is hard to fathom why the incidence of bovine TB has climbed so rapidly in recent years. One can only conclude that there is a need to focus on cattle movement and biosecurity to work out long-term solutions with a view to eradicating the disease.
I support my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North in calling for a review.
I shall be brief, and stick to practical concerns including one or two claims that have been made about practical matters, rather than talking about the science, which I shall leave to the Minister.
There are four myths that I want to discuss. The first is the ineffectiveness or otherwise of shooting. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) said, we need to be careful about leaping to conclusions before the independent expert panel reports, but it is worth factoring into the investigations how much of a bearing the quite high level of animal rights activity had on the effectiveness of the shooting exercise. If it emerges that protest activity—whether those involved were innocently exercising their right to protest, which is fine, or were more strident, active and militant—had a negative impact on the exercise, that should be reported in full. The report should cover the question of what the result would have been without that activity.
As I mentioned in the debate that we had in the main Chamber, I detect a little hypocrisy in arguments about the effectiveness of shooting. The same organisations that now claim that shooting is an ineffective method of controlling or destroying a mammal of the size in question said something else on the subject of foxes, in a different debate only a few years ago. The RSPCA said:
“Shooting is widely held to be a humane method of control in skilled hands”.
The League Against Cruel Sports, the organisation that the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) is associated with, said:
“Culling should be carried out by the most efficient and humane methods available. In practice we believe this means the use of high velocity rifles by users who have passed a competency test or by humane trapping”.
It seems odd to me that the method that was deemed to be the answer to all the queries a few years ago is now deemed inappropriate.
I know that the hon. Gentleman said he would leave the science to the Minister, but it would be good if he knew a little of it. There is a vast difference between culling badgers and culling foxes, and if he had availed himself of yesterday’s briefing by a scientist who works in this field, he would have seen that those animals act differently, so such a correlation cannot be made.
I am grateful for the lesson on countryside management. Actually the method of control is similar and the activity of the animals is very similar. If the hon. Lady had, as I have, spent many hours studying how they behave at night, in the lights of a vehicle or the lights used by an expert, she might reach another conclusion. Perhaps that is a debate for another day.
Surely it would have been most sensible to mark the ammunition used in the pilot, so that the public could be assured about whether the bullets that were fired reached their target. There has been no such marking of ammunition, so it is not possible to be certain that it did not damage and wound badgers. I have mentioned the issue time and again, and I do not understand why the Department is so loth to do it, so that we know exactly what happens.
The Natural England licensing conditions are clear about the sort of ammunition and weaponry that should be used, and the degree of expertise to be deployed. We all need to wait to see if there was any wounding—let alone what the rate of that was—so I shall not answer the question and I do not suppose the Minister can either.
Opponents of the cull have quite reasonably pointed out that cage trapping can be more effective; but they have also said that it is ineffective, or less effective than it could be. I find that odd. If it is ineffective for the purpose of removal, why should it be effective for the purpose of vaccination? If we can learn anything from what has been said, it is that it is very difficult to trap wild animals, whether to dispose of them with a weapon or to inject them with a vaccine. I do not say that it is not possible. I live almost next door to the vaccination operation that is going on in Wales, and am well aware of the practical difficulties that are being encountered; but we cannot say that trapping badgers to shoot them is ineffective, but trapping them to vaccinate them is effective. That does not wash.
The third myth is that public safety has been compromised. There does not seem to be any evidence. Perhaps the hon. Member for Derby North can come up with hard and fast evidence. Before we bandy scare stories around we need examples. I mentioned the endorsement given by animal welfare organisations in the past few years to the use of high-velocity weapons for the control of other mammals in Britain. It is odd: if it does not pose a public safety issue to put fox control into the hands of someone with a high-powered weapon who knows what they are doing, why should it pose a safety issue when someone engages in precisely the same activity to control badgers, with the same weapon, ammunition and training, in the same place? If someone can answer that question I should be grateful.
The fourth myth is that the cull has increased police costs. The history of the hon. Gentleman in the animal welfare movement is perfectly reasonable, but I venture to suggest that had it not been for animal rights activity—violence, intimidation and damage—carried out in or around the cull areas, there would have been no need for any policing costs. The only policing costs are to do with policing animal rights activity. They have nothing to do with the cost of the cull itself.
It is nice of the hon. Gentleman to take pity on me; don’t cull me.
The only body that has been sanctioned for its activities in connection with the issue is the RSPCA, which has today been accused by the Advertising Standards Authority of being alarmist because of what it has said.
My hon. Friend makes a good point.
I have 21 seconds left, so I shall say that farmers do a fantastic job. They have been through hell in the past 20 or 30 years, and animal welfare organisations have been involved only in the past few years. To my mind, for my family, in my area and for my constituents, farmers are the celebrities we should listen to.
I add my congratulations to those given to the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on securing the debate. It is critical that MPs should be properly involved in future decisions about the control of TB, and that those decisions should be voted on by the House.
The pilot badger cull can be judged only a spectacular failure, including against the Government’s own terms of reference. No one is leaping to premature conclusions because some of the figures speak for themselves. The policy specified that a minimum of 70% of the badger population should be removed within a single six-week period but, as colleagues have said, contractors are estimated to have removed 65% of the population in the Somerset zone after nine weeks of culling, and less than 40% of the Gloucestershire population after 11 weeks and two days.
We know that killing too few badgers over an extended time frame not only risks further reducing the already modest long-term reduction of new herd TB incidence in cattle that the Government were predicting, but crucially is likely to make things even worse for farmers because of perturbation of the remaining badger populations leading to increased prevalence of bovine TB infection among badgers.
The pilots were also supposed to determine the humaneness of controlled shooting as a method of culling badgers, but only 155 badgers have been subject to post mortem examination during the pilot culls—almost 100 fewer than the low number that DEFRA originally said would be examined. There are no guarantees that all the badgers will have died as a result of shooting. Like me, hon. Members will have heard reports of contractors picking up badger carcasses from roadsides, for example, to meet their quotas.
I have asked the Minister how many of the badgers submitted for post mortem examination were killed as a result of free shooting. He assures me that any cause of death other than shooting would have been identified, but he has so far been unable—perhaps unwilling—to give me the numbers. The issue is important because it impacts on whether we have sufficient evidence to judge the humaneness of controlled shooting. I hope the Minister will provide the information today.
I am anxious that any assessment of humaneness should take account of badgers shot and wounded but not immediately killed. DEFRA has not released details of the exact criteria that the independent expert panel will use to determine humaneness. Having observed the shambles in the pilots to date, I have no confidence that the remainder of the process will be scientifically robust.
The pilots have proved conclusively that shooting is ineffective in removing the number of badgers required if there is to be any chance of reducing the incidence of bovine TB. We know that contractors resorted to cage trapping, which has been more effective than shooting and which any badger expert could have told DEFRA about before the start, but it is more expensive and ineffective overall compared with the alternatives to culling.
I want to make two key points. First, vaccination is a far better way forward.
Does the hon. Lady agree that newer approaches to vaccination are emerging and could reduce the cost significantly? Is she aware of the work of the Sussex badger vaccination project, which has a team of volunteers who want to vaccinate? Such organisations should be given a chance to demonstrate their work.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his helpful intervention. I agree with him absolutely, and I am familiar with the Sussex badger vaccination project. As he rightly said, it is a service run by volunteers to offer landowners and farmers in East Sussex the chance to vaccinate badgers at very low cost, thereby providing a humane and less controversial method of tackling the disease. It has said that there is strong evidence that a programme of badger vaccination, combined with a robust cattle control programme, will produce better medium and long-term results than culling in eradicating bovine TB. It has many volunteers on hand to do that. It is just one example of how we could, with the right political commitment, take action that would make real gains in reducing bovine TB and its terrible consequences for our farmers.
The cost of the culls has spiralled out of control when the increased cost of cage trapping and expenditure on policing is taken into account. Based on analysis of DEFRA’s estimates, badger vaccination would cost the equivalent of £2,250 per sq km per year compared with the estimated £2,400 price tag per sq km for the pilot culls. Vaccination is the cheaper option and many other figures show that culling is even more expensive than the DEFRA figure that I cited.
My second reason, and the last point I want to make, is that vaccination works. It reduces the probability of infection by 70 to 75%, even allowing for the fact that not all badgers will be reached and that vaccination needs repeating year on year to include new cubs. It is still more effective and more cost effective than shooting, not least because vaccination allows the badger population structure to remain in place, granting considerable benefits for disease limitation.
My plea is that the Minister should focus on vaccination and rule out gassing, which is inhumane and ineffective. I have asked questions about that, and I am concerned about the responses. Investigation of a cattle vaccine should be a priority to provide some chance of getting rid of the disease.
I am grateful to you, Mr Weir, for allowing me to catch your eye. I grew up on a dairy and pig farm where my father lost his entire pig herd to swine vesicular disease and my mother was frightened that she would lose her entire dairy herd to foot and mouth disease. I can therefore empathise with my farmers in Gloucestershire whose cattle have had to be slaughtered because of this dreadful disease, which causes a painful death for badgers and other wildlife. Last year, 28,000 cattle were compulsorily slaughtered because of their susceptibility to TB. The cost to taxpayers has been £500 million over the last five years and it will be £1 billion if nothing is done over the next five years.
My constituency is fairly close to the cull and the preliminary results are that it has been successful on two counts: humaneness and effectiveness. If the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), who proposed the debate—he is laughing—has a serious accusation about shots being fired above people’s heads, he should report that to the police. They will investigate and if anyone did that, they will have committed a criminal act and should be prosecuted. Let him produce the evidence before he makes such statements.
The real answer is an oral vaccine. The trouble is that it has been around the corner for the 21 years that I have been a Member of Parliament. It solved the rabies problem. An oral vaccine fed to foxes on the continent now renders it sufficiently rabies-free for us to take our pets there.
Much nonsense has been uttered in this debate about the cost of trapping and a licensed injectable vaccine. The realistic figures from the Welsh trial show that that costs about £3,900 per sq km. If that is extrapolated to the Gloucestershire trial alone, the figure each year would be a staggering £1.170 million; I expect that the policing costs of the cull would be less than £1 million. Those who are against the trial cull—I emphasise that it is only a trial cull—should bear that in mind.
Nowhere in the world has a significant reduction taken place without elimination of a significant TB reservoir in wildlife. We saw that in relation to possums in New Zealand, to deer in Australia, and in America.
Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the social structure of the badger population in Britain is completely different from the social structure and behavioural habits of possums in Australia and New Zealand?
Having watched badgers, I know that when a badger gets TB it goes into the bottom of the sett, dies slowly over a long time and infects other badgers. That is a fact. The disease is painful and must be eliminated one way or another. Surely we can unite around that. It is not something we want in our wildlife or our cattle.
In closing, I want to make one or two points. A lot of nonsense has been talked about the safety of shooting. If it were not safe, we would have seen more incidents in Gloucestershire. My information is that there has not been unsafe shooting and that there has been humaneness. I do not know of any cases of a badger going away to die. Again, if the hon. Member for Derby North, who represents the League Against Cruel Sports, can produce evidence, I would be interested in seeing it. He made many exaggerated claims in his speech.
We must do something about this dreadful disease. Our farmers have to use one of the strictest biosecurity devices in the world to ensure that their cattle are free of TB, and it costs them a great deal of money.
I will give way to the hon. Lady in a moment.
If we keep imposing those costs on our farmers, vast areas of the south-west—the hon. Lady’s constituency area—will have no beef cattle. We will then import more and more beef into this country and we will lose jobs. That has happened in the pig industry, and it will happen in the beef industry.
Many farmers in my constituency have an enormous problem with DEFRA and its agencies in respect of taking cattle off farms when they have been proved to be infected according to the criteria. If cattle are waiting on a farm, not isolated, for 21, 22 or 23 days before they are removed, how on earth can we say that biosecurity is at a high level? That is not the case.
Nobody would condone any farmer or anybody breaking the biosecurity regime. In fact, the Government, as no doubt the Minister will tell us this afternoon, have tightened regulations still further so that they are some of the toughest in the world. They are imposing a great deal of economic strain on the farmers who have to implement them.
In closing, I simply say that if we want to import more and more of our food, let us get rid of our cattle industry in the south-west by not doing something about TB. For goodness’ sake, let us do everything that we can with the armoury in our box to see if we can at least reduce it, if not eliminate it.
I, too, would like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on securing the debate. I, for one, think that he can be very proud of his many years of activism on the animal welfare front.
My hon. Friend quoted Lord Krebs as saying that the “crazy scheme” of badger culling had got “even crazier”. As we have heard, the two pilots carried out in the west country have been a complete shambles, and the worst thing is that that was utterly predictable. The aim of the pilots was to kill 70% of the badger population in the chosen areas, but in Somerset, only 58% had been killed at the end of six weeks, while 64% had been killed at the end of the extended cull period. In Gloucestershire, it was even less successful: 30% had been killed at the end of the six-week period, and 39% had been killed at the end of the 11 weeks and two days after it was extended.
Those figures are based on the figures that the Government came up with after the pilots had already started, when they dramatically revised down the estimates of the number of badgers in the cull areas. Somewhat mysteriously, the number of badgers estimated to be in the Somerset area had fallen from 2,490 to 1,450, and in Gloucestershire, from 3,400 to 2,350. That simply looks like pure guesswork, yet back in October 2012 when the pilots were postponed due to uncertainty over badger numbers, the Secretary of State said:
“It would have been quite wrong to go ahead when it was not confident of reaching the 70% target and could have made the position worse.”—[Official Report, 23 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 847.]
Why was DEFRA so convinced that it had got the figures right this year, and why did it get them so wrong?
That was not the only time that the Government moved the goalposts. We saw an extension of the time limits to which I have already referred, and we saw a move to cage trapping when shooting proved to be a shambles. As we have heard, extending the culls beyond the original six-week time frame could be very dangerous for farmers. We have heard about perturbation and the fact that if less than 70% of the population is killed, traumatised badgers will be moving out of cull areas. The longer the pilot culls and the shooting are going on, the more likely badgers are to do so, and potentially they could spread TB to surrounding farms that were previously TB-free.
As David Macdonald, chair of Natural England’s science advisory committee and one of the UK’s most eminent wildlife biologists, said at the time of reviewing an extension of the pilots for Gloucestershire:
“Perturbation has undoubtedly been caused in Gloucestershire already and an extension by six to eight weeks is likely to worsen the perturbation even more.”
I also want to talk briefly about the comparative costs of culling versus vaccination. The Somerset badger group’s volunteer-led vaccination programme works with farmers who would prefer to vaccinate badgers on their land. They have vaccinated 140 badgers, which works out at £83 per badger, of which the group charges £25 per badger to the farmer. The group said that if DEFRA is prepared to cage-trap the badgers, it will cover the cost of vaccinating the badgers at a cost to the group of £14.50 each for the vaccine. Is the Minister prepared to consider that offer?
Finally, I pay tribute to the many activists who have protested against the culls and maintained vigils. I met many of them at a demonstration in Bristol a couple of weeks ago. It is quite shocking that people such as the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) described the protesters as “malingerers and scroungers”. I was contacted by a constituent who said that she was deeply upset by that description. She had cared for her husband for five years when he was suffering from dementia. I would also like the Minister to confirm that not one protester has been arrested, and that the Secretary of State’s referring to a small minority who resorted to widespread criminality in their determination to stop this was wrong.
Order. There are still a lot of Members trying to speak. I want to call the Front-Bench Members at five minutes to 4 to give them time for a reasonable summing up, so I am going to reduce the time limit from now on to three minutes to try and get everybody in.
I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) for securing the debate; he managed to achieve what an early-day motion signed by about 170 Members from across the House could not. I want to ask the Minister today why the matter has not been brought back before the House. Several other Members who seem to be in favour of the cull have said, “This is only a trial. It is only a pilot.” Yes, it is. It is what the House voted for. I abstained from the vote because I had not had badger incidents in my constituency, and I knew that there was a great strength of feeling about farmers.
I have had my eyes opened since then—I have moved from being neutral to being opposed. I thank my constituent, Mr Cotton, who brought to my attention the dodginess of some of the science that was being referred to, but I will not explore that now, because we do not have the time. Why is the issue not coming back before the House? I am sure that many hon. Members at the time lent their support to the Bill out of sympathy and a real feeling that something needed to be done, but only if it was science-based, and only if it was a trial. This has all the makings of something that will roll on, regardless of the outcomes of these particular trials. I am very concerned that it seems we can move from controlled shooting, which is what the pilots were supposed to be looking at, to caging, which would be achieved if we were going to be using vaccines, and yet we do not say, “Hang on a sec, let’s stop what we are doing. Bring it back before the House and see if the House would rather explore those options.”
Some people have said today that shooting a fox is not particularly different from shooting a badger. Well, one is a protected species and the other is vermin, but also, as I have been reliably informed by people who are very knowledgeable about such things, a badger has a particularly strong head structure. It is very difficult to shoot a badger. It has to be shot in a particular way—potentially down its side or under its arms—and that makes the controlled shooting of badgers difficult. I do not know why it is being said one minute that the pilots are a success, and the next minute, that we are going to evaluate them.
The Secretary of State seems to judge them as a success. I had a letter from him today, which I asked for in October. He said that he believes that there has been a success:
“The extension…has therefore been successful in meeting its aim in preparing the ground.”
Success keeps being referred to. That does not speak to me of an open mind. It sounds to me like a Minister who may consider just rolling it out.
Bring the issue back before the House. It is what Members want. They have made their views clear, and I think the public will understand the concerns of people such as myself, who have moved from neutral to negative. I am sure that if the matter came back before the House now, there would be a very different vote unless the proposals were very different. Please will the Minister listen to the views of Members and the public? It is not all about hugging cuddly creatures; it is all about deciding whether a protected animal should be treated in this way or in another way that may deliver the same result that we all want, which is protecting farmers but ensuring that we are dealing with the problem in the most humane way possible.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Weir. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on securing what is evidently a very popular debate.
The Government’s badger cull policy has been described as nothing more than a fiasco from the start to the finish, which this will hopefully be. Truly, it can be described as a shot in the dark at trying to eliminate the disease. We have clearly seen what has come out of the cull: nearly 2,000 badgers have been killed, millions of pounds have been spent and communities have been divided. Unbelievably, the Government are still considering rolling out the policy of slaughtering badgers in 10 new areas next year.
We call on the Government to cancel their killing plans once and for all, and to focus instead on improving cattle welfare, controlling cattle movements, increasing biosecurity and developing badger and cattle vaccination. I welcome the announcement that the badger cull pilot trial has been stopped after marksmen failed to meet the Government’s target of a 70% kill. Remember that that trial was extended by some weeks after DEFRA confirmed that marksmen had only killed 39% of badgers.
Still, DEFRA Ministers pressed ahead with the cull, despite scientists warning against that untested and risky approach. Instead, what we need is a science-led policy to manage cattle movements better and a vaccine to tackle TB in cattle. The Government have now been warned for more than two years that the badger cull was bad for farmers, bad for taxpayers and bad for wildlife. However, the cull has not helped to resolve the issue at all. Based on recent evidence, culling clearly does not work. Culling risks spreading the disease further, it costs more than it saves and it increases the risk of wildlife crime and of wiping out local badger populations.
It is clear to me that the Government’s policy does not make sense. Instead, they should be implementing a science-led strategy in the fight to reduce bovine TB, including the use of vaccination. In contrast, the Government, I believe, are still proposing to shoot free-moving badgers as the main method of culling. The Government say that the vaccine is not ready. Why is that? It could be because one of the first acts of the Government in 2010 was to cancel five of the six vaccine field trials commissioned by Labour. Also, DEFRA has cut funding for the research and development of a badger vaccine and a cattle vaccine. It seems that the Government still believe that bullets cost less.
I will finish now, because many other hon. Members still wish to speak, by asking the Minister to pause, cancel the culls for good and initiate a robust and genuinely independent scientific review of what went so badly wrong with these pilot culls.
My primary concern as I approach this subject is for the lives and livelihoods of livestock farmers in my constituency that are affected by bovine tuberculosis. Until people see the impact that it has, they do not fully understand why it is such a significant issue for livestock farmers, particularly in my part of the world, where the number of reactors has been very high.
I am extremely passionate about evidence-based policy making and in 1998 I strongly backed the randomised badger culling trials, which have been mentioned, and that was the right approach at the time. In my view, the evidence has been used rather selectively to advise on the way in which policy should be rolled out by the Government. The worry that I had when the Government came up with their proposal was that it ran the risk of making the situation significantly worse.
In view of the fact that in the Penwith area, where there was a proactive cull, there was only 50% co-operation among farmers and there was a large element of activist intervention as well, it was clear that we would never get a licence there. It was on that basis that I went to the Zoological Society of London, and Professor Rosie Woodroffe and I came up with a proposal to establish a vaccination programme that was community-led, volunteer-led, using the big society approach, across the Penwith area. I am pleased that DEFRA is supporting us—it is doing so in a rather minuscule way, I am sorry to say, but at least it is a start—in providing the vaccine ampoules during the whole programme, up to 2019. This is across 200 sq km of Penwith. We have strong buy-in by the local community. The farmers are coming on board. We have undertaken a pilot in the area. Indeed, I have been out to oversee that and I can confirm, as a result of having been in the field and seen the badgers moving the goalposts and doing various other things in the countryside, that even slimy politicians do not seem to have a perturbation effect on badgers when they are being vaccinated.
I raised one of my questions for the Minister earlier. It relates to what the independent expert panel will conclude. Of course, there has been the “what if” question. What if it finds that, on all three counts, the trials are effective, humane and safe? But what if it finds that they are not effective? It is not even there in terms of judging whether the cull is effective in controlling bovine TB, because it would take years to undertake that. Also, I understand that the independent expert panel has been given only a six-week window; it is looking only at the six weeks. I hope—I have asked the Minister this already—that it will be given an extension to the full 11 weeks or more to review the effectiveness, safety and humaneness of the cull, but I cannot see that there is any sense in allowing the cull to continue.
I appreciate your stewardship of the debate, Mr Weir. I want to make three brief points and try to give other hon. Members an opportunity to speak as well.
I am a member of the British Veterinary Association and I think that the aspersions cast on the British Veterinary Association today—the character assassination that was attempted—were wrong and shameful. The many Labour party-supporting vets up and down this country will, I am sure, be very concerned at the way in which they were character-assassinated today by the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson). I think that he should consider what he said, because his passion in the debate does not give him a right to character-assassinate members of the British Veterinary Association, who have the interests and welfare of all animals in this country at heart.
When I intervened earlier, I mentioned the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and I was concerned that its advertising campaign is the only thing that publicly, by an independent body, has been described as “alarmist” in terms of how it has tried to suggest that the only thing to do is vaccinate or exterminate. I wish that we could vaccinate our wildlife in this country and protect it all, but we have to be realists and to make a judgment call about what is more important: sacrificing a few wild animals to ensure that our beef and milking herds up and down this country are protected from a pernicious and nasty disease that ruins lives and ruins many thousands of our cattle in this country, or not doing that. We have to face reality.
The rant from the hon. Gentleman today was very disappointing, because he failed at every opportunity—
No, not to take an intervention; I do not care if the hon. Member for Derby North does not want to hear an intervention from me. He failed to take the chance to support our bovine herd and our farmers and basically tried to portray a picture of it being either them or us. We are all in this one; we have to find a solution to it; and we have to recognise that if an animal is carrying a pernicious disease, it needs to be put down, not only for its own welfare, but for the welfare of the bovine herd.
This is a very difficult, complex, sensitive and not straightforward issue, but despite all that, I have always been in favour of a targeted pilot cull; I just need to explain why. Perhaps it will be helpful if I describe a bit of the context from which I come. Before I entered public life, I was a livestock farmer; that was my occupation. We lambed the sheep out on the hills, and nothing ever gave me more pleasure than seeing a badger. It was a rare sighting 30 or 40 years ago and a great thrill. I have always been very proud of the fact that we had badger setts on my farm and we protected them. I do not farm those animals any more, but I still insist that the badger setts and, indeed, all wildlife are protected.
Another aspect of the context in which I speak is that I have always had a huge interest in wildlife. I was a trustee of the Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust before coming here and retain an active interest in developing diversity and balance in our wildlife.
The aspect of the context in which I speak that is perhaps most relevant to today’s debate is that I was a Member of the National Assembly for Wales for eight years until 2007, and for most of that time I was the Chairman of the rural affairs Committee—it had one or two different names. During that period, bovine TB and the control of it was a huge issue for the Welsh Government. In fact, we went to Ireland on a fact-finding mission. We met the various bodies in Ireland, including the badger protection association. When we came back, it was interesting that one of the members became a Minister in the Labour-led Government in 2007 and introduced a piloted cull. It was complex at that stage to introduce a law in Wales, and they made a mistake in the legislation. The intention of that Government for four years was to introduce a targeted piloted cull in Pembrokeshire, and that is what would have happened, only they made a mistake in the legislation.
In 2011, a new Minister took over and decided to introduce a system of vaccination. There is now another new Minister. If I had been allowed to intervene on the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), that would have been the question that I asked: what discussions have there been in terms of the view that he was taking and the Welsh Minister? To me, this is crucial. If vaccination would work, everybody would be in favour of it.
Is my hon. Friend aware that the advice of the chief vet in Wales to the former Government in Wales was exactly the same advice as she gives now to the current Government, which is that a cull is the best way forward?
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, principally because it gives me another minute. I actually welcome the fact that there is a different process involving vaccination taking place in Wales, because a number of people are saying that it would be much preferable to move to a system of vaccination, and how could I not agree? But ever since I have been involved in this issue, which is probably about 40 years, I have always been told that an effective vaccination is probably about 10 years away, and the situation is not much different today. It is possible to vaccinate badgers; I am told that in Wales, it costs about £662 per vaccination. Every badger has to be caught every year. All the discussions I have had suggest that what is happening in Wales will not work, will not be cost-effective and probably will not be repeated.
One or two Members have referred to different types of vaccinations. I think they are great, and I hope that the Minister will tell us that he is open to all such suggestions. We want a way of dealing with a hugely complex issue that causes the death of huge numbers of perfectly healthy animals, which disrupts and causes massive distress to a huge number of farming families, and which disrupts and causes disease among our wildlife. We need a way of dealing with this. In the short term, I think we need a targeted pilot cull to make certain that we know that going down the cull route is the best way to deliver what we want.
It is great to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I will have to rattle through some of my points to try to deal at speed with many of the issues that have been raised. First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) for securing the debate. I would like to single out the contributions from my hon. Friends the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Angela Smith), for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and for Inverclyde (Mr McKenzie), and the hon. Members for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire (Simon Hart) and for St Ives (Andrew George).
I would also like to mention the contributions of others of various parties who made significant points in favour of vaccination. I pay particular tribute to the hon. Member for St Albans (Mrs Main), who made it clear that she had changed her mind based on the evidence. She made a passionate contribution, demanding that the matter should be brought back to the Floor of the House of Commons, debated in full in Government time and put to the vote. As she said, I think the outcome of such a vote would be very different from the previous one.
The Government’s badger culls have been an expensive failure for farmers, for taxpayers and for wildlife. For the Prime Minister and DEFRA Ministers to pretend otherwise is to ignore the evidence. In 2012, the culls had to be abandoned because the number of badgers had been counted wrongly, which is a pretty fundamental mistake. There were too many badgers. This year, the badgers have been miscounted again. This time there were too few, but with no satisfactory explanation, which conveniently allowed the Government to revise the targets downwards. That numbers problem should not have been a surprise to Ministers, because in November 2012, 30 leading scientists wrote to the Secretary of State objecting to the culls and noting:
“Setting such minimum and maximum numbers is technically problematic, especially when local estimates of badger numbers are very imprecise.”
The Minister’s estimates of badger population numbers for the first two culls have been repeatedly wide of the mark. For the Secretary of State to add insult to injury by talking nonsense about badgers moving the goal posts was ridiculous. That is not good enough, when there is a risk of spreading tuberculosis by culling too few badgers or eradicating an entire local population by killing too many. The first two pilots, failures as they have unarguably been, have at least taught us one important lesson. We can have no confidence whatsoever in the accuracy of badger population estimates. That knowledge reveals a risk of perturbation or of localised extermination. On that basis alone, until sound population baseline analysis is undertaken, we cannot proceed with these culls, let alone the further 40 that the Government desire.
After last year’s cull cancellations, the Secretary of State told us in October 2012:
“Evidence suggests that at least 70% of the badgers in the areas must be removed.”
That was one of his fleeting dalliances with the concept of evidence. He added:
“It would be wrong to go ahead if those on the ground cannot be confident of removing at least 70% of the populations.”—[Official Report, 23 October 2012; Vol. 551, c. 836.]
The postponed culls were rearranged for 2013. They spectacularly failed to meet the Secretary of State’s targets, which had also been transposed into the essential guidelines set by DEFRA for Natural England stipulating that 70% of badgers had to be culled in six weeks to avoid an increased risk of perturbation. At that point, the Government should have stopped, in accordance with their own guidance and the Secretary of State’s words. There was no grey area, but they turned their backs on the science. They extended one cull by 42 days and another by 93 days. Four of the nine members of the Natural England board expressed concerns, including the chair of Natural England’s science advisory committee, who went on public record in November with his concerns:
“I fear there will be two tragic losers, the farmers who are paying the crippling bill for extending this trial”—
that was the Gloucester trial—
“and the badgers whose lives may be lost for little purpose.”
Professor Rosie Woodroffe described the extension of the Gloucester pilot from six to 14 weeks as “uncharted territory” and added that the additional time risked increasing perturbation and the detrimental effects of the cull. The Minister’s cull policy may have increased the risk of TB in pilot areas and surrounding areas.
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is a bit of a cheek for the Government to say that the pilot culls have been a success, when those of us who are anti-cull have been told not to leap to conclusions until the independent panel has concluded?
That is absolutely right. I do not have time to cover everything, so I will write to the Minister on some issues.
I turn to the meat of the matter. Will the Minister agree to examine the evident problems with baseline badger population analysis and bring forward proposals for more accurate population counts? In the interests of good science and evidence-based policy, will he support a vaccination trial in the south-west of England and compare the results with the cull pilots to establish whether it will be more effective, and more cost-effective, to vaccinate instead of shooting or gassing?
In the interests of transparency, will the Minister agree to publish the full taxpayer and landowner costs of the extended culls, including the cost per badger culled—we anticipate that that will be at least £2,200 per badger—and place a report on the full costs in the Library of this House? Will he agree to strengthen the membership of the independent expert panel to provide additional scientific expertise, and will he be open to suggestions for the composition of that strengthened panel from Labour and others? Will he agree to strengthen and clarify the remit of that panel to ensure that its original task of monitoring humaneness, safety and effectiveness deals adequately and separately, as needed, with the original cull period, the extended cull period and, specifically, the later weeks in which humaneness and effectiveness may have been especially compromised?
Will the Minister publish in full and without delay the transcripts of the independent expert panel, together with any evidence presented, so that full and transparent scrutiny of the decision making by scientific and other peers can take place? Will he also publish in full a report by the independent expert panel? Will he halt any further culls and postpone any announcements on further culls until that report from the independent expert panel has been debated in Parliament with the Secretary of State answering questions? Will the Secretary of State, who has not come to Parliament to answer in full the debate on the extended culls, put any further culls to a vote in Parliament and test the democratic legitimacy of the culls in the country? There has been no vote whatsoever on the extended culls, which is an affront to parliamentary democracy on so controversial an issue.
The numbers attending the debate and the lack of time available for speakers demonstrate the need for the Secretary of State to come to Parliament in Government time to debate the issue, instead of hiding behind repeated written statements. We all accept that we have to eradicate TB for the good of our farmers, but we have to do so in a way that is based on evidence. That is where the Government have failed.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson) on securing what has been a lively debate. I welcome the opportunity to outline to hon. Members the Government’s strategy to eradicate bovine tuberculosis and the role that a targeted badger cull can play in that strategy. As my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) set out, we should first recognise the huge impact that the disease is having on the farming industry. Our farming communities continue to suffer as a result of the spread of bovine TB. In the 10 years to 31 December 2012, more than 305,000 cattle were compulsorily slaughtered as a result of the disease. Statistics published only today show that a further 24,600 cattle were slaughtered up until the end of September, solely as a result of bovine TB. Over the past 10 years, the disease has cost the Government more than £500 million, and it is estimated that it will cost taxpayers another £1 billion in the next decade if we do nothing.
Let me start by saying that no one, least of all me, wants to kill badgers. I recognise the sentiment that many people feel towards the animals. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Sir John Randall) said, that feeling is shared by many people in the country, and we recognise and understand that. If there were an easy way to tackle bovine TB, we would have done it. There are no easy answers when it comes to reversing the spread of bovine TB, and there is no example in the world of a country that has successfully tackled TB without also dealing with the reservoir of the disease in the wildlife population. In Australia, a national eradication programme spanning almost three decades enabled the achievement in 1997 of official freedom from bovine TB and an infection rate of less than 0.2%. The comprehensive package of measures included a cull of feral water buffalo. The comprehensive and successful package of measures to eradicate the disease in New Zealand focused on the primary wildlife reservoir of brushtail possums. As a result of those efforts, New Zealand is on the verge of achieving bovine TB-free status. Closer to home, the Irish Republic has also had a comprehensive eradication programme, which included the targeted culling of badgers in areas where the disease is attributed to wildlife. Since 2000, there has been a 45% reduction in TB breakdowns.
I will make some headway.
A number of European countries that have a known problem with TB in wildlife are tackling that reservoir of disease. Badger culling is undertaken in Switzerland and France, and deer and wild boar are culled in the Baltic countries, Germany, Poland and Spain. International experience clearly shows that one part of a coherent strategy to tackle the disease must include tackling it in the wildlife population.
The Minister makes the case with international comparisons, but he must acknowledge that the structure of badger populations in Britain is different from that in southern Ireland and across Europe, which makes the case for culling in Britain unsustainable.
I do not accept that, because the randomised badger culling trial, cited by many hon. Members today, showed that culling contributed to a significant reduction in disease in the areas where it ran. It also showed that, even in those areas that had a slow start, where less than 40% of the badgers were culled in year one, there was still a significant reduction in the incidence of the disease provided the cull was sustained in subsequent years.
The Government have developed an ambitious and comprehensive plan for containing the spread of the disease through our 25-year strategy. It has several components, but at its heart is a recognition of a simple and unavoidable fact: there is no magic solution and no one measure will eradicate the disease on its own. TB is an incredibly difficult disease to fight and we need a range of different measure to tackle it.
Some, such as the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas), have suggested that vaccination is an easy answer. I wish it were that simple, but it is not. Members will remember that last year, there were concerns about the Schmallenberg virus, a disease that affects sheep. It was relatively straightforward to develop a vaccine that was virtually 100% effective, and the disease is now fully under control. TB is not a simple virus. It is a complex bacterial disease. The bacteria reside inside the cell walls of the host, which makes it incredibly difficult to develop an effective vaccine. As a result, the current BCG vaccine provides only limited protection in about 60% of cases, and even then, the level of protection given is variable. Notwithstanding those difficulties and limitations, we are nevertheless investing large amounts of money in developing methods of deploying vaccine to both badgers and cattle, because, although vaccination is not a solution on its own, it could have a role in creating buffer zones or containing the spread of the disease.
Since 1994, more than £43 million has been spent on developing the cattle vaccine and the oral badger vaccine. We have committed to investing a further £15.5 million in vaccine deployment over the spending review period.
I pay tribute to the Minister for the work I know he has been doing on this subject. Farmers know where the badgers are. Does he agree that if we could roll out the vaccine programme to the farming community, it would help all concerned and stop anguish in all parts of our communities?
We have a badger vaccine deployment fund of approximately £250,000 a year. Uptake has been slightly disappointing so far. We must also recognise that vaccination does not provide protection to all badgers, even once they are vaccinated. In Northern Ireland, a trial has been discussed, described as, “Test, Vaccinate and Remove”, meaning that the badgers are first trapped, then tested, and the ones that are not infected are vaccinated and released and the ones that are infected are culled. That test is only 50% effective, so for every infected badger that is culled, another is pointlessly vaccinated and released back into the wild to spread the disease further.
My constituents are deeply concerned about the issue, as everyone knows. We have to explain to farmers why someone is taking away the cattle, but doing nothing about the badgers at the end of the field. What progress is the Minister making on a DIVA test?
We are working on a DIVA test, but, as hon. Members pointed out, it will probably take eight to 10 years to get a licensed vaccine for cattle.
We are constantly refining cattle movement controls, which a number of Members have mentioned. In 2012, we introduced tough new controls on cattle movements and TB testing. In January this year, we significantly expanded the area of the country that is subject to annual testing and further tightened cattle movement controls, including the conditions that need to be met before TB breakdown herds can restock. Last month, we launched the risk-based trading scheme to encourage farmers to share details of the bovine-TB disease history of the cattle they sell, and to encourage buyers to act on that information. Less than two weeks ago, we went further.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
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I am delighted to have the opportunity to raise a constituency issue in Westminster Hall. Gary Dunne was tragically murdered on 3 March 2006 in Benalmadena on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain. He was attacked by 12 men and stabbed to death with a machete by Victor Posse Navas. For his family, nothing will bring Gary back. Every day, they remember him as a son, a partner and a father. Although nothing can be done to soften the horror of the tragedy for the family, much more could have been done, and still can be done, to make life that bit easier for them.
Our British consular staff deal with thousands of deaths of British nationals around the world, often in difficult, traumatic and complicated situations. They deserve praise for their work. More often than not, the support from consular staff is of the highest standard. In this case, however, the Dunne family were left vulnerable; they felt alone and received little help. In the midst of dealing with the news of the cruel murder of their son, they were told that they would have to pay to bury him, not in Liverpool, but in Andalucia in southern Spain, due to local legal restrictions about hygiene. The Spanish authorities said that before Gary could be brought home to Liverpool, he would have to be cremated in Spain. The family received no assistance from the Spanish police and were not met by liaison officers.
Mr and Mrs Dunne had to endure three years of campaigning simply to ensure that their son’s body could be repatriated and buried at home. In 2009, Gary’s parents were finally able to bury him. The intervention of the then Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), helped enormously. He made personal representations to the then Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Luis Zapatero, which resulted in progress being made.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate and on his incredibly important campaign. I also congratulate the Dunne family on all the work they have done. What happened to them could happen to any of our constituents. Does he agree that the ordinary citizen would expect the EU to ensure that everyone has decent treatment in such appalling circumstances?
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his intervention; I agree with him entirely. Further on in my remarks, I will talk about the work that the excellent MEP for the North West, Arlene McCarthy, has done to support the Dunne family and to raise the broader issues.
The Prime Minister played his part. The community and people of Liverpool were a constant support to the Dunne family. A petition lobbying for Gary’s body to be returned home was signed by more than 40,000 people. When his body was finally returned for a funeral in Liverpool, hundreds of well-wishers turned out in the streets to applaud. It is not often that civilian funerals are held at Liverpool cathedral, but the dean agreed to host the service there. Everton football club provided Goodison Park as a venue for the wake. No family should have to face the trauma and struggle that the Dunne family have had to endure—waiting for years before they could finally have a funeral and bury their son. There are lessons that we must learn.
My constituents, Gary’s parents—Stephen and Lesley—have worked tirelessly to ensure that no other family has to suffer such an ordeal. In 2010, I raised their case at Prime Minister’s Question Time with the current Prime Minister. He agreed to meet Mr and Mrs Dunne, who emphasised the need for changes at a European level, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) rightly said, to prevent apparently obscure local rules stifling a family’s ability simply to bring their loved one back for a funeral.
I remain grateful to the Prime Minister for meeting Mr and Mrs Dunne and for his support in that meeting. What progress have the Government made since then? Do the Government see any way in which we could ensure that the system of repatriation does not cause even more suffering and agony to grieving family members?
The Spanish authorities had insisted that due to rules related to their hygiene laws, Gary’s body could not be repatriated for at least five years. However, since then, the Dunne family have discovered that other families who suffered tragedies in Andalucia were told that they did not have to wait such a long time. Will the Government look into why there seems to be an inconsistency in the application of the rules? If the rules indeed state that a body can be repatriated only after five years unless it is cremated, will the Minister make the case, through the appropriate channels, both directly with the Spanish and through the European Union, for reform of what seem to be unreasonable and unfair rules?
After all that, the tragic saga still goes on for Gary’s family. The Dunne family were not informed by the Spanish authorities when the murderer was caught; they had to find that out through a friend phoning them. Owing to their frustrations with the Spanish legal system, the Dunne family tell me that they still do not know whether the killer is still in jail, and if so, when he will be released. Will the Minister make representations on behalf of the family to ensure that their case is brought to the attention of the relevant Minister in Spain? It is critical that the Government of Spain undertake the responsibility to keep the Dunne family informed of developments as and when they occur.
While the process up to this point has been handled atrociously by the local and national authorities in Spain, there is still a lot more that they can do. Gary’s partner, Ashley, and his young son, Kieran, have struggled to receive any compensation. The Spanish court has ordered the perpetrator to pay €125,000 in compensation, yet so far, only €1,500 has been received. Payments stopped some time ago, and the small amount that was paid was of little comfort, as it had to be used simply to pay court costs.
Stephen and Lesley have spent time themselves in Andalucia, at their own expense, fighting for justice for Gary. Due to a legal error during the formalities of applying for the money from the Spanish Government, the Dunne family were only receiving €100 a month from Gary’s killer, which came from the wage that he gets from his work in the prison kitchens. Now even that has stopped. Neither the killer nor his family has significant assets, and they are apparently unable to pay the compensation.
With the support of Arlene McCarthy MEP, the Dunne family have been lobbying the relevant Spanish authorities. In December 2011—two years ago—Arlene McCarthy wrote to the Spanish Minister who leads on this area of policy, but she has not even received the courtesy of a reply. Will the Minister look into that issue as a matter of urgency and make representations on behalf of the Dunnes?
I got to know Mr and Mrs Dunne well, as their constituency Member of Parliament. I have known them now for six years. Their focus has always been on the fight for justice for Gary and his surviving partner and child, but also, more broadly, on trying to ensure that no other family has had to endure what they have endured. However, the court in Spain had ordered compensation of €125,000. Although the issue of compensation has never been the one that the family has asked me to prioritise, I feel that I owe it to them, as their MP and a friend, to say that it seems to me a basic minimum that the compensation should be paid out to the family as a matter of urgency.
Finally, will the Minister assure me that more is being done to ensure that standards are maintained and improved in our consulates around the world? The Foreign Secretary has said that the Foreign Office is always seeking to improve the consular support and assistance in such tragic circumstances. Will the Minister set out what measures are being or will be taken to fulfil that? It seems critical that the staff who are involved in what is by its nature delicate and sensitive work are equipped fully to do their job professionally and compassionately.
I am aware that the Foreign Office has signed an agreement with the national homicide service run by Victim Support to provide the same level of support to families who lose a loved one as a result of a murder or manslaughter overseas as they would receive if the crime had taken place in the UK. That is a welcome commitment on the part of the Government and Victim Support. Will the Minister tell us how that new service will work and whether the Government have reached their goal of offering the level of service that one would expect in the UK for families who find themselves in such tragic circumstances abroad?
Gary’s family have suffered terribly for almost eight years now. They have lost a son, a partner and a father; they have battled for three years just to have a proper funeral for Gary; and they are now trying to receive the compensation that a court has ordered should be paid to them. It is a great tribute to them that they continue to campaign for justice for others, as well as wanting justice for themselves. I believe that they have been let down, and they deserve more from the relevant authorities. I urge the Government to do everything in their power, both bilaterally with Spain and through the European Union, to help us take the matter forward.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) for securing a debate on this case. I also thank the right hon. Member for Oxford East (Mr Smith) for his intervention.
May I add my own condolences to the family and pay tribute to their unwavering determination in the face of their loss? The death of a loved one is always distressing, and the grief of Mr Dunne’s family has clearly been compounded by the circumstances of his death and the procedural difficulties they faced thereafter.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is committed to making the process for those bereaved abroad as simple as possible. Providing consular assistance to British nationals who are the victims of serious and violent crimes overseas and their next of kin is a priority and a central function of our embassies and posts around the world.
Before I address the points raised by the hon. Gentleman, I would like to outline the involvement of the Foreign Office in the case to date. Following Mr Dunne’s death, British officials were in close contact with the family to provide consular assistance. When, as the hon. Gentleman said, the family experienced difficulties in bringing Mr Dunne home to Britain, consular staff did all they could to help. However, it became clear that under local law, the possibility of a further autopsy during the trial process prevented an individual’s remains from being repatriated, cremated or embalmed. The only option therefore was a local burial until the trial was complete. After that, exhumation before a period of five years had passed would only be permitted if an immediate cremation within the cemetery was arranged.
Representations were made to the director general for the Costa del Sol health district in November 2007 and to the provincial delegate of Andalucia’s health district in February 2008, to see if an exception could be made to these requirements, based on the compelling compassionate circumstances of the case. While sympathising with the family’s wishes, both the director general and the provincial delegate explained that, because Mr Dunne was a victim of murder, his case was considered a judicial one.
Understandably, Mr Dunne’s family continued to fight for his return and in July 2008 they petitioned the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). In October 2008, the right hon. Gentleman raised the case with the then Prime Minister of Spain, Jose Luis Zapatero, and secured an agreement from the Spanish authorities to allow Mr Dunne’s repatriation without a cremation, on exceptional humanitarian grounds. So, with guidance and support from consular officials, Mr Dunne’s family made an application for his exhumation. As we have heard, three years after Gary Dunne’s murder his family and friends finally held the funeral, at home in Liverpool, which they had long sought. Later that year, Mr Dunne’s family contacted the Prime Minister and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to express their gratitude for the assistance they had received.
I now turn to the points the hon. Gentleman raised in his speech. First, I will address the question of whether EU-wide procedures for repatriation could be agreed, to prevent other families from facing the horrifying and distressing situation the Dunnes faced. As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, this is a difficult and complex issue. The power to act lies with other Governments, and the ability of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to intervene in domestic matters—such as the variations in Andalucian law on repatriation, burial and cremation, which the hon. Gentleman outlined—is limited. However, it is clear that, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said when he met the Dunne family and—I think—the hon. Gentleman in 2011, we should do all we can to prevent other families from facing the suffering endured by the Dunnes.
Therefore, I have asked that, as a matter of urgency, officials follow up with the hon. Gentleman and the Dunnes’ MEP, Arlene McCarthy, on who has done what following the Downing street meeting, so that we can collectively agree appropriate next steps. Secondly, I know that the hon. Gentleman and the Dunne family are deeply concerned about the apparent inconsistencies in the application of the rules governing repatriation. The advice we have received from the Andalucian authorities consistently made it clear that an unembalmed body can only be exhumed and repatriated after five years, unless it is cremated. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that there may be factors at play in the other cases that he mentioned that we are not aware of. Exceptions can clearly be made if the grounds are sufficiently strong, as indeed they were in the Dunnes’ case. However, as I have said, I have asked officials to provide a progress report on efforts to establish common practices across those parts of Europe that currently require delays in repatriation.
The hon. Gentleman also highlighted the lack of support that Mr Dunne’s family felt they received from the Spanish authorities, and indeed the authorities’ level of support continues to fall short of the family’s expectations when it comes to their being kept informed of the current status of the perpetrator of this terrible crime. It is important that the Spanish authorities keep the family informed of any developments in the case, either directly or through their legal representatives. I have asked my officials to contact the relevant authorities in Andalucia to see if lines of communication can be re-established. For his part, I urge the hon. Gentleman to consider raising the matter directly with the Spanish ambassador.
On the issue of compensation, I am aware that, as the hon. Gentleman said, although an award of €125,000 was made by a Spanish court to the family, they have only received €1,500 to date. I am conscious that that can only add to the distress they have already suffered. However, the British Government cannot interfere in another country’s judicial process or direct the Spanish courts to enforce payment, particularly when the offender may not have assets with which to pay the outstanding compensation, which I understand to be the case in this instance. Therefore, I am afraid that our consistent advice to Mr Dunne’s family has not changed. Their Spanish lawyer is best placed to help them pursue this issue through legal channels and to advise them on applying to the Spanish state for payment of the outstanding compensation.
Also, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, with whom the hon. Gentleman has been in communication about this tragic case, has previously provided him with information on the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, which Mr Dunne’s family may wish to approach for advice—if they have not already done so—about whether they can submit a separate application for compensation from the Spanish authorities.
Our consular staff often have a difficult and frustrating time, but on the whole they carry out their job—as the hon. Gentleman was kind enough, and right, to say—with patience, dedication and a great deal of tenacity. I am sure the hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Gentleman will join me in commending their efforts.
Having said that, I assure the House that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is not complacent. We continually review our consular policy so as to provide British nationals with the best possible service. As part of that work, we have put in place a number of processes to ensure that high standards of consular assistance are provided to British nationals. Our new consular strategy for 2013-16 focuses on doing more for the most vulnerable, including victims of violent crime overseas and their families. Consular teams also undertake regular complex case reviews to ensure that we are providing the most appropriate and effective service in particularly complex and long-running cases, and we employ professional specialists, such as legal advisers and social work advisers, to provide expert advice. In addition, early next year we will undertake a review of the methods used by similar organisations to see how we can develop our own quality control and audit processes.
Cases such as that of the Dunne family highlight the extra support that is needed by those who have lost a loved one to murder or manslaughter overseas. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Victim Support’s National Homicide Service, which in part was set up to address the problems encountered by families such as the Dunnes. Since 2010, the Foreign Office has provided funding to Victim Support so that it can offer such families a dedicated caseworker and give practical support to help with the added trauma, complications and costs that a murder overseas can cause. Those bereaved by murder or manslaughter are now entitled to identical levels of support whether the crime was committed in the UK or abroad, and since 2011 many bereaved families have already benefited from this enhanced support.
In conclusion, I again thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate. I am aware of the very great support for the Dunne family that has been demonstrated by the people of Liverpool. This is a tragic case that has been compounded by the anguish that Mr Dunne’s family had to endure in order to bring him home to Britain. I hope they have been able to find some degree of comfort and closure in his return. I also hope that, through their legal representative, they are able to seek the full amount of compensation that is due to them.
Order. The Minister who is responding to the final debate today, which is due to start at 4.45 pm, is not present, so I shall suspend the sitting until 4.45 pm.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Westminster HallWestminster 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
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir, and to see my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) present for the debate. I suspect that he, like myself, is here because he was deeply concerned last month when proposals to cut by 40% the budget for children’s centres in Dudley were published by Dudley metropolitan borough council. I was outraged further because three of the seven children’s centres earmarked for closure were in my constituency. Virtually half of the centres earmarked for closure were to come from a quarter of the borough.
That there was no reasonable basis for the proposal ensured its early demise, and I am pleased and relieved that Dudley council withdrew the proposal two weeks ago. Undoubtedly, a major reason for the council’s change of heart is the excellent work of our children’s centres and their ability to galvanise hundreds of parents, together with the wider community that they serve, to communicate in no uncertain terms just how vital is their contribution to families and communities not only in my constituency, but across the metropolitan borough of Dudley.
Three weeks ago, I held a meeting with the principals and parents from Hob Green, Quarry Bank and Peters Hill, the three main children’s centres that were to be closed by the proposals. I was tremendously impressed by their commitment, excellence and the breadth of work undertaken on the behalf of families and communities.
The council’s proposal, albeit withdrawn, has unnerved everyone involved. A will therefore now exists to ensure that the role of children’s centres and the value that they provide are properly understood. It has also been recognised that, as with all public services, there is a need constantly to assess service delivery and value for money in ways that work ever more efficiently in future. For those reasons, I am pleased to be holding this debate today.
Children’s centres provide many new parents with a structure of support that is a lifeline to them and their children. To help new parents and babies get off to a good start, they offer antenatal classes, breastfeeding support, baby massage, maternal mental health support and other such classes. Maternal mental health support can be absolutely crucial to women suffering from post-natal depression and other mental health states that can impact so negatively on babies and small children.
As babies grow into toddlers, a social divide can start to open up, but children’s centres are doing outstanding work to counter it. Parenting classes, help with behaviour, healthy eating and educational play sessions form the bedrock of support for families with toddlers. Since Hob Green children’s centre opened in 2008, the percentage of children attaining the standard expected at the early years foundation stage has increased from 78% to 88%. That is an increase of 10% in only four years.
Dawn Swingler, the foundation stage manager at Hob Green primary school, in whose premises the children’s centre is sited, said:
“It is very apparent when children join the nursery if they have attended sessions in the Children’s Centre. If they have, they arrive ready to engage, happy to leave their carers and ready to learn. If they have not then we as a staff have to devote time to settling children in, building trust and relationships from scratch, all of this takes time and for these children learning cannot begin for many weeks, sometimes months. Whilst we are happy to do this, the knock on effect is that our range of activities for all children is diminished as staff are involved in this crucial work with individual children.”
Although it is right that children’s centres should help families that are deemed hard to reach, the needs of babies and families with young children do not always correlate with their socio-economic status. A single parent who uses our children’s centres told me of her struggle to get off benefits and into work, but she said that she felt strongly that her children are not deprived. That is true of many parents in similar positions. There are many families who struggle on low incomes and benefits, but whose children cannot be described as deprived or disadvantaged. Conversely, there are families on average or above average earnings whose children are seriously disadvantaged.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. She is making an important point about disadvantaged backgrounds. Does she agree that the Government’s provision of free nursery care for two-year-olds from disadvantaged backgrounds is extremely valuable? Does she also agree that central and local government should look at ways of using the new funding to offer a package of holistic support for two-year-olds and their families, and that children’s centres are often an ideal place to provide support, because they have the benefits and services that she described?
I strongly agree. I was not implying that we should disregard socio-economic status. I merely meant to point out that it is just one factor that we should consider. I support the Government’s decision to increase the support for disadvantaged two-year-olds by providing 16 hours a week of nursery care. Children’s centres are an ideal place for some of that learning to take place.
There are also families on above average earnings whose children are victims or witnesses of domestic violence or some other horror. Although those children do not fit neatly into a disadvantaged sector by socio-economic standards, they are seriously disadvantaged by any other measure. Domestic violence is not defined by socio-economic status, yet it is a substantial indicator of deprivation among the children of families who are affected by it. The same can be said for alcoholism and drug addiction.
The Government’s classification of wards by socio-economic data, which labels some areas as deprived, is a useful indicator of need but it is only one of many indicators. In isolation, socio-economic analysis is too limited to be the sole driver of policy at a local level. The original proposal to close our children’s centres in my constituency was determined almost entirely by that one measure of socio-economic advantage or disadvantage.
My hon. Friend is making a very important point. In my constituency, the centre that was proposed for closure at Tenterfields was deemed to be not serving a disadvantaged community. In reality, the people living in the Highfields estate in Halesowen who used that centre would have had to travel 2 or 3 miles down the road to other service providers, had the centre closed. The whole of the Dudley proposal was predicated on a nonsensical analysis.
I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent intervention. I completely agree. The Hob Green children’s centre, which I mentioned earlier, covers a huge area. When Hob Green was started in 2008, a similar proposal to start a children’s centre approximately 2 miles away was dropped. The Hob Green centre therefore covers a huge area, which takes in many different communities with different levels of socio-economic advantage. The strength of our children’s centres is that they serve a wide community and bring together people of different backgrounds, who get on together and learn from each other. That cannot be done if children’s centres are confined to narrow disadvantaged communities.
If any thought had been put into the proposals that we are discussing, the number of children under the age of five years might have been considered as an additional factor relevant to the decision-making process. If the constituencies of Dudley North and Stourbridge are compared, for example, we find that 5,508 children under the age of five live in Dudley North, while 8,020 children under the age of five live in Stourbridge. It is illogical to propose the closure of three children’s centres in the area with many more under-fives while proposing to close only one in the area with far fewer children under five.
Having made the case for the vital importance of children’s centres and the work they do, I will conclude by looking to the future. According to a survey undertaken this year by the charity Action for Children, which runs the excellent Stourbridge children and families centre, more than 1 million families are now using children’s centres nationwide. That is an increase.
I am pleased that the Government have increased the total funding for early intervention from £2.2 billion in 2011 to £2.5 billion in the current year. In addition, there is a national fund of £70 million held by the Department for Communities and Local Government to help local authorities reconfigure services. Does the Minister think that the children’s services department of my local authority should be encouraged to apply to access such funding to bring in more joint working between health and education?
Ideally, children’s centres should act as gateways, so that families can receive the support they need, whether for parenting, health services or child development and early learning. On the health side, I am delighted that many children’s centres are acting as hubs for the increased number of health visitors that the Government have deployed. If children’s centres act as gateways for such services, it is far better that they take a joined-up approach. More can be done locally as well as nationally through the greater integration of health and education. That not only means that families will get a better, more holistic service; it also means that those services will be delivered more cost-effectively.
In conclusion, local authorities now have responsibility for public health and additional funding for social care that has been assigned directly from the NHS budget. There is also now a separate funding stream for disadvantaged two-year-olds for 16 hours a week of nursery education. There is therefore a diverse array of funding sources that a fully integrated children’s centre service can now access. It seems quite wrong to be looking at cutting great swathes of our children’s centres just at the time when the focus nationally is on children’s centres doing more, not less, and accessing more funding streams to enable them so to do.
On behalf of all the parents and children in my constituency, I congratulate children’s centres in Stourbridge and across our borough on the excellent and incredibly valuable work they do on a very modest budget. Long may that work continue.
I congratulate my hon. Friends the Members for Stourbridge (Margot James) and for Halesowen and Rowley Regis (James Morris) on their excellent work, first, in securing today’s debate on this important topic, and secondly, in stopping the closure of those children’s centres in Dudley. My hon. Friends’ work seems to have had the desired effect, so parents and children in Dudley will continue to benefit from the excellent services of local children’s centres.
Children’s centres provide a vital service to parents and families. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge pointed out, even though our financial position is not good due to our inheritance from the previous Government, we have increased funding for early intervention over the period of this Government. In Dudley we have been able to increase the level of investment in early intervention from £12.7 million to £13.1 million. We have done that because children’s centres and the associated early years services that local authorities provide are so important.
The early intervention grant comes from the budget of the Department for Communities and Local Government, and money for funding for two-year-olds comes from the direct schools grant. We want local authorities to use that money as flexibly as possible to make sure that the maximum amount of funding gets through to the front line to provide services in the way that parents and children want.
My hon. Friend made some interesting points about types of support given by children’s centres, and the idea of universal support versus targeted support. It is important that all parents feel that they can access a local children’s centre. That is the only way we are going to identify families that might have a particular need. She pointed out that although that could be because of socio-economic reasons, there are other reasons why such services might be useful.
Children’s centres are also a useful way of linking a whole community. As a young mother—well, perhaps not so young—I attended the post-natal group at my local children’s centre and found it a really useful way to meet other local parents. Many people have been through similar experiences and really value them.
The Department for Education has recently issued guidance to local authorities, making it absolutely clear that they should ensure that
“a network of children’s centres is accessible to all families with young children in their area”,
and that
“children’s centres and their services are within reasonable reach of all families with young children in urban and rural areas, taking into account distance and availability of transport”.
The guidance also states that
“together with local commissioners of health services and employment services”,
local authorities should
“consider how best to ensure that the families who need services can be supported to access them”.
On the subject of statutory guidance, local authorities are under a statutory duty to consult on matters such as these. In the case of Dudley there is a peculiar situation whereby the leadership of Dudley council has withdrawn the original proposal but is continuing to consult on it. One concern is that the council might use the results of that consultation to revise the proposals. Does the Minister agree that it is important that if Dudley council comes back with a revised proposal, it should have to consult again, and should not be able to use the contents of a consultation that is still going on, despite the fact that the council is saying it is withdrawing the proposal?
My hon. Friend makes a good point. I will look into the specific position of Dudley council. We are clear in our guidance, however, that the starting point should therefore be a presumption against the closure of children’s centres. That is an important part of our guidance, because having a wide network is important, so that parents are able to access a children’s centre near their home. Other research by the Department for Education suggests that parents are not willing to travel great distances for early years services, as obviously, with young children it can be difficult to travel long distances. That is why we have a presumption against the closure of children’s centres. In fact, less than 1% have been closed since the start of this Parliament, and new centres have been opened.
I also commend the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge on joined-up services and how important it is that families and children have a joined-up service and experience. Too often, people have to go to different locations for antenatal classes, health checks or parenting classes. Would it not be better for all those services to be on a single site? I went to see some excellent children’s centres with my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington) recently. We saw an on-site midwife who was able to give people advice pre-birth, and stay-and-play sessions and parenting classes were taking place on the same site. Other centres have also done birth registration on site, which is often far more convenient than going to the registry office and helps parents to access a children’s centre. That is something local authorities should be looking at. I am speaking to the Local Government Association about that at the moment.
Some children’s centres provide child care on site, although that amounts to less than 1% of total child care in the country. Centres also provide access to child care through other routes, such as local schools and school nurseries, which provide 30% of child care, as well as private and voluntary sector providers and local childminders. I am pleased that children’s centres are involved in our new trial of childminder agencies, and are providing some training to and support for childminders. We want to see more locally integrated networks of services, so that parents who go to children’s centres have a clear steer on what is available locally and where they can get support and help—a one-stop-shop vision.
The Department for Communities and Local Government is supportive of that vision. It has created a £75 million transformation fund, to which local authorities can submit bids. When I met my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government recently, he said that there had not been many applications for children’s services, but we want more integration between health and children’s centres. My hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge said that in 2015 more of those responsibilities will be devolved locally, so that seems an ideal opportunity for local authorities to consider co-locating services and making them much more integrated and parent-friendly.
Does the Minister agree that the more that services are co-located and brought together, the more sustainable the whole children centre model is in the long term?
My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point and she is absolutely right. She mentioned the Hob Green primary school and its improvement in outcomes from having a children’s centre on site. Some 50% of children’s centres are located on school sites and we are encouraging schools and children’s centres to work more closely together. That, again, is an excellent model.
Children’s centres can be based in schools and health services. That will vary according to area, but we give local authorities freedom to decide exactly how the configuration might work. Services in rural areas where there may be more child minders, for example, may be different from those in densely populated urban areas. The overall idea is that children’s centres should be accessible for local families and provide a gateway to other services.
A record number of parents—more than 1 million, for the first time—use children’s centres. That shows their popularity and massive success, which we should celebrate. My hon. Friend referred to the early years foundation stage and said that she has seen improvement in outcomes as a result of children’s centres.
Another major focus for the Government is the quality of early years provision overall. This year, we have seen a record number of people going into the early years teacher programme—a 25% increase on last year—and that is good news. All those programmes are about improving the attainment gap and outcomes for children. We have a large outcomes gap in this country between children in lower and higher income families, and we know that much of that gap has developed by the age of five. These services are vital and combine to create the best outcomes for children.
We want local authorities to be creative in developing services and thinking about the parent and child being at the centre of services rather than in the configuration of different parts of the health and education system. Services must be parent-friendly. Children’s centres have shown that they are parent-friendly and the fact that more than 1 million families use them is fantastic news.
I am keen to discuss further with my hon. Friend and her colleagues how we can help councils such as Dudley put together applications for the transformation fund, how to look at best practice throughout the country—centres in York are registering births at children’s centres, for example—and how to spread those best practice models more widely.
The Government have funded the Early Intervention Foundation, which is looking at research into best practice so that that can be disseminated more widely across children’s centres and we can ensure that all children’s centres understand the best way of working with parents and improving outcomes for children.
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her interest in the subject, and the clear progress she has already made in Dudley. It sounds from the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen and Rowley Regis that more can be done under the current proposals. Let us ensure that as much as possible of the Government’s funding is spent on high-quality, front-line professionals working with parents and children.
Question put and agreed to.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Written Statements(10 years, 8 months ago)
Written StatementsThe Insolvency Service has today released official statistics covering the number of individual insolvencies (bankruptcies, debt relief orders and individual voluntary arrangements) in each parliamentary constituency in England and Wales, for the period 2000 to 2012. These show that:
the rate of total individual insolvencies per 10,000 adults in England and Wales peaked at 30.9 in 2009, and has fallen each year to 24.5 in 2012;
the rate of total individual insolvencies per 10,000 adults in each constituency in 2012 ranged from 6.7 to 59.2;
any comparison of rates between years at this local level should take into account that small changes in the number of insolvencies can have a large impact on the rate.
Full details are available at:
http://www.insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk/otherinformation/statistics/regionalstatisticsmenu.htm.
Statistics at local authority level were published on 12 July 2013 at the same web address.
Related statistics, covering individual and company insolvencies in England and Wales up to 2013 Q3 are available at:
http://www.insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk/otherinformation/statistics/insolvency-statistics.htm.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Written StatementsThe new list of ministerial responsibilities has been published today. Copies have been placed in the Vote Office and the Libraries of both Houses. Copies will also be sent to each hon. Member’s office in this House.
The list can also be accessed on the Cabinet Office website at:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/government-ministers-and-responsibilities.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Written StatementsIn advance of the forthcoming Energy Council in Brussels on 12 December, I am writing to outline the agenda items to be discussed.
We expect the Council to reach political agreement on the proposal to amend the renewable energy directive and the directive relating to the quality of petrol and diesel fuels. The proposal is intended to address indirect land use change (ILUC), which occurs when production of biofuels from crops grown on existing agricultural land results in the displacement of production on to previously uncultivated land.
The UK continue to believe the most appropriate way to address ILUC is through the introduction of ILUC factors and a cap of 5% on biofuels from food crops. However, the majority of member states favour a high cap on biofuels from food crops. The current proposal is for a 7% cap, which represents a compromise between member states. The proposal also includes incentives for advanced biofuels, which seek to support them in a cost-effective way.
However, a number of member states still have significant concerns about the proposed political agreement and discussions will continue at the Council to try to resolve these issues. The UK will seek to ensure that any political agreement includes the best possible outcome for the UK.
Following the identification of five priorities in the area of energy policy at the May 2013 European Council, the Lithuanian presidency will report on progress towards completing the internal energy market and invite Ministers to endorse a Council report to go to the European Council in March 2014.
The presidency will then present a report on the progress and achievements in EU external energy policy since the November 2011 European Council conclusions, and set out further measures to strengthen and improve EU external energy policy. Ministers will be asked to endorse the report. The presidency will also present a round-up of recent and upcoming events and developments in international energy relations.
The presidency will provide information on the agreement reached with the European Parliament on the recast regulation concerning the notification to the Commission of investment projects in energy infrastructure in the EU, which requires member states to report biennially on their planned new energy infrastructure investment projects or those to be decommissioned. The previous regulation was annulled after successful European Parliament action to change the legal base (to an energy base, which requires co-decision). The EP also proposed a number of substantive amendments. The UK with other member states and the Commission successfully resisted most of these, mainly on the grounds of the need to avoid increasing the reporting burden on member states. The limited changes which have been agreed would not substantially increase the reporting burden.
We expect the presidency to provide an update on negotiations of the nuclear safety directive, which is currently being discussed at official level in Brussels.
The Greek delegation will outline priorities for its forthcoming presidency: advancing the internal energy market, energy security and infrastructure, energy pricing and costs, external energy policy, the 2030 framework and energy efficiency.
Over lunch, Ministers will discuss energy prices and competitiveness.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Written StatementsToday I am announcing the publication of the waste prevention programme for England. The programme fulfils a commitment in the 2011 Government review of waste policy in England.
Preventing excess waste from arising delivers environmental, economic and social benefits, and is key to moving towards a more sustainable economy. The programme demonstrates the benefits of reducing waste, making the link to wider work on resource efficiency and sustainable consumption and production. It sets out the aims and priorities, along with actions businesses, the wider public sector, civil society and consumers can take to benefit from waste prevention.
Many individuals and organisations are already taking action to reduce waste, which is highlighted in the programme. To encourage further action, we will support change in a number of ways. For example, we will bring industry together under a new sustainable electrical action plan to catalyse action and seek commitment on designing products for optimum life. Alongside this, we are supporting pilot projects and trials of takeback and hiring and leasing schemes to demonstrate the benefits of resource-efficient business models and supply chain innovation.
Supporting and making it easy for individuals to take action is equally important. We are developing a two-year, £800,000 scheme to support communities to take forward innovative waste prevention, reuse and repair activities. We will also develop a web-based postcode locator to provide a practical tool to enable householders to find their local reuse and repair services.
Specific actions for Government are highlighted and we will lead by example by continuing to reduce waste across the public sector and using Government buying standards to support cost-effective sustainable procurement. The programme does not propose any new regulation. It also fulfils a requirement of the revised waste framework directive (2008/98/EC).
At the same time as publishing the programme, we are also publishing:
An evaluation of the usefulness of measures identified in the revised waste framework directive along with a summary of existing activities.
A summary of the responses received and the Government response to the call for evidence and consultation published earlier this year.
An overview of evidence used to produce the programme.
As waste is a devolved matter, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have developed their own programmes.
Further information on the programme is available on the Government website.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Written StatementsMy right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development will attend the Development Foreign Affairs Council on 12 December, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs will attend the Foreign Affairs Council on 16 December, and I will attend the General Affairs Council on 17 December. The Development Foreign Affairs Council and the Foreign Affairs Council will be chaired by the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, and the General Affairs Council will be chaired by the Lithuanian presidency. The meetings will be held in Brussels.
Development Foreign Affairs Council
Post-2015 agenda
Ministers will discuss next steps for the EU in the international post-2015 process, following the UN millennium development goals review event in September and current discussions in the open working group. Conclusions on “financing poverty eradication and sustainable development beyond 2015” will be adopted.
Agenda for change
Ministers will receive an update on implementation of the agenda for change, including programming of EU financial instruments. Baroness Ashton will also update on progress on joint programming and the results framework. Ministers will be invited to exchange views on these issues.
Progress on policy coherence for development
Baroness Ashton will reflect on the progress the EU is making on policy coherence for development, and Ministers will adopt conclusions on the 2013 annual report on policy coherence.
Regional issues
Ministers will discuss the great lakes. Other regional items are still to be confirmed.
Foreign Affairs Council
Introduction—Review of the European External Action Service
Baroness Ashton will outline the recommendations made in her review of the European External Action Service and comment on the views received from member states.
Introduction—Democratic Republic of the Congo
Baroness Ashton will cover recent political progress in the Democratic Republic of the Congo during her introductory remarks, focusing in particular on the opportunities this represents.
Iran
Baroness Ashton is expected to update the FAC on the E3+3 talks with Iran taking place on 9-13 December in Vienna. Discussion is likely to focus on the outcomes of the negotiations, the implementation timetable of agreements, and any implication for EU sanctions.
Southern neighbourhood
On Syria, the UK will ensure intensive preparations for the Geneva II peace talks. This will include encouraging the EU to give the National Coalition its political backing, so the moderate opposition can negotiate from a position of strength. We will encourage EU institutions and member states to donate generously at the UN’s humanitarian aid conference in January. We will use the attendance of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to send a united message that the Syrian regime must allow this aid to get to those who need it in Syria.
Lebanon is the country hosting the most Syrian refugees—over 830,000—and most at risk of overspill from Syria. The UK has increased hugely our humanitarian and security support to Lebanon this year. We hope the FAC will agree conclusions reiterating EU support for Lebanon’s stability, and to call for the urgent formation of a new Lebanese Government and for all parties to abide by the policy of disassociation from the Syria conflict.
Eastern Partnership and EU/Russia relationship
Ministers will discuss the outcomes of the Eastern Partnership summit in Vilnius and how this may impact on EU-Russia relations. Recent events in Ukraine are also likely to be covered. The UK was disappointed with Ukraine’s decision to delay signature of the EU-Ukraine association agreement, which it regards as a missed opportunity. We are watching events in Ukraine closely and continue to call for dialogue between all parties and for the rule of law to be respected. The UK will stress that the door remains open for Ukraine if it decides that it wants to sign the association agreement in the future.
Central African Republic
The Central African Republic (CAR) will be discussed in light of the UN Security Council resolution which authorised the deployment of the African-led international support mission to CAR (MISCA) and the deployment of French forces to support MISCA in the discharge of its mandate.
Middle east peace process
In support of the ongoing talks, the UK will press for a firm offer of EU economic and security incentives to both parties in the event of a deal, while making clear our concern at the possibility of actions that might damage the progress of these negotiations.
Western Balkans
Baroness Ashton is likely to update Ministers on the EU-facilitated Serbia/Kosovo dialogue and Ministers will discuss opening accession negotiations with Serbia, which will also be discussed at the GAC. We were pleased to see broadly successful municipal election reruns in Kosovo, which are a key part of the April dialogue agreement, while acknowledging that there is more to do on other dialogue agreements. The UK is clear that Serbia’s negotiating framework must ensure full normalisation before Serbia can join the EU. We also want to see Kosovo’s stabilisation and association agreement proceed swiftly towards completion in the spring and avoid reopening questions of status.
Burma
Our priority is to agree conclusions that incorporate language calling for reform of the Burmese constitution in advance of the report from Burma’s parliamentary constitutional review committee, which will present its recommendations for reform on 31 January 2014. We will stress the importance of reviewing those clauses which prevent the participation of individuals from being selected for Burma’s presidency on the basis of the foreign nationality of spouses or offspring. We expect the conclusions will also reflect the outcomes of the Baroness Ashton-led EU-Myanmar taskforce which visited Burma on 14 and 15 November.
Lunch with Lavrov
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will join Ministers for a discussion over lunch at the FAC. The UK will use this as an opportunity to reiterate the benefits that can accrue when the EU and Russia co-operate fully, for example, the E3+3 negotiations on Iran. We will also set out our view that the EU’s relationship with Eastern partners will bring benefits to Russia as well as the region and that Russia’s pressure on the region is counter-productive.
General Affairs Council
The General Affairs Council (GAC) on 17 December will focus on: preparation for the 19-20 December European Council; the review of the European External Action Service; and the enlargement and stabilisation and association process. The GAC will also receive a debrief from the informal ministerial meeting on cohesion policy held on 26 November in Vilnius.
Preparation of the 19-20 December European Council
The GAC will prepare the 19 and 20 December European Council, which the Prime Minister will attend. The December European Council agenda will focus on three main issues: common security and defence policy (CSDP); economic and monetary union; and economic and social policy. There will also be conclusions on enlargement, the content of which will be discussed at this GAC. I additionally expect there to be an update on the Taskforce for the Mediterranean and on completing the internal energy market.
The UK priorities for the European Council are likely to be: protecting the integrity of the single market, in relation to economic and monetary union; and on CSDP, agreeing a range of actions to improve CSDP’s effectiveness, strengthen European nations’ capabilities and improve competition and transparency in the European defence market, in a way that is complementary to NATO.
European External Action Service
The presidency hope to agree GAC conclusions on the review of the European External Action Service (EEAS). The review was sent to Foreign Ministers by Baroness Ashton in July 2013. As the Government set out in their 27 August explanatory memorandum to Parliament on this issue, we welcome the review as an opportunity to strengthen the EU’s collective weight in the world in areas that support and complement UK international objectives.
We agree that despite a difficult start, the EEAS has started to contribute to UK and wider EU foreign policy objectives, including Baroness Ashton’s role in securing the Serbia-Kosovo agreement and in leading the E3+3 process with Iran. We support Baroness Ashton’s assessment in the review of the three main elements of EU foreign policy to have emerged from the first two years of operation of the EEAS; namely the “neighbourhood”, the “comprehensive approach to crisis management”, and “international issues where our collective weight allows the EU to play a leading role in the world”. Of course, the EEAS is not perfect and there are still some outstanding issues to be resolved. To this end, we broadly welcome the proposals for change in the EEAS review.
Enlargement and stabilisation and association process Council conclusions
The GAC will discuss the Commission’s annual enlargement package, published on 16 October, and agree conclusions on the enlargement strategy and the western Balkans, Turkey and Iceland. The December GAC is the annual opportunity for the Council to take stock and give direction to the EU’s enlargement strategy and pre-accession reform priorities for individual countries.
The Government’s views on the package were set out in my explanatory memorandum of 28 October 2013. We will broadly welcome the Commission’s approach in this year’s package, reiterating our continued firm support for future EU enlargement on the basis of strict but fair conditionality, with countries moving forward on merit as they meet the conditions. We will also take the opportunity to introduce our thinking, in the context of future enlargement, on how to return the concept of free movement to a more sensible basis and look forward to a future debate.
The GAC will be considering progress by all of the western Balkans countries and Turkey, with particular attention on Serbia and Albania.
Cohesion policy
Ministers with responsibility for cohesion policy met in Vilnius on 26 November to discuss progress in preparing programmes for the 2014-20 funding period. This included their experiences to date in applying new arrangements in the regulatory package agreed between the Council and European Parliament, such as the preconditions to be met before spending on specific priorities can start, the requirement to concentrate funding on a limited number of objectives, the strengthening of results orientation and improved co-ordination between different funds. For this item, the presidency will present its conclusions from the meeting.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Written StatementsA Health Ministers summit of the Group of Eight was held in London today. The summit identified and agreed a new international approach to dementia research, to help break down barriers within and between companies, researchers and clinicians and secure a new level of co-operation needed to reach shared goals faster than nations acting alone. The following items were on the agenda for discussion:
Pre-summit briefing on the UK Prime Minister’s Dementia Challenge
The UK presented to the meeting on the UK Prime Minister’s dementia challenge which includes dementia friendly communities, health and care and research.
Ministers’ and European Commission’s Prepared Statements
Statements were made by Canada, France, Germany and Italy. These were followed by statements from Japan, Russia, UK, United States and the EU.
Improving Life and Care for People Affected by Dementia and their Carers
The meeting held an exchange of views on the action that can be taken to provide better and more concrete measures for improving services and support for people with dementia and their carers.
Preventing and Delaying Dementia
The meeting held an exchange of views on the action that can be taken to stimulate greater investment and innovation in dementia prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care.
Social Adaptation to Global Ageing and Dementia
The meeting held an exchange of views on the action necessary to adapt to ageing society and to reduce the impact of dementia.
As part of the agreement reached, countries have agreed to:
set an ambition to identify a cure or a disease-modifying therapy for dementia by 2025—backed by a commitment to together significantly increase the amount spent on dementia research and increase the number of people involved in clinical trials and studies on dementia;
a new global envoy for dementia innovation, following in the footsteps of global envoys on HIV and Aids and on climate change—the global envoy will bring together international expertise to stimulate innovation and co-ordinate international efforts to attract new sources of finance, including exploring the possibility of a new private and philanthropic fund to support global dementia innovation;
develop an international action plan for research—in particular to identify current gaps and how to fill them;
share information and data from dementia research studies across the G8 countries to work together and get the best return on investment in research; and
encourage open access to all publicly-funded dementia research to make data and results available for further research as quickly as possible
A copy of the declaration and communiqué has been placed in the Library. Copies are available to hon. Members from the Vote Office and to noble Lords from the Printed Paper Office.
(10 years, 8 months ago)
Written StatementsI would like to inform the House of the publication today of the multilateral aid review update report.
In 2011 this Government published the multilateral aid review (MAR)—the first systematic assessment of the performance of the 43 multilateral organisations that the UK supports through core funding. The MAR is a central part of our wider efforts to ensure that we scrutinise the value for money of each pound we spend, whether we do so directly or through other organisations. Our efforts in this area were recognised by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) who gave us their civil service award for the most improved Government body on value for money and financial management in 2013. Other donor countries have emulated our approach.
The findings of the review confirmed the important role multilateral organisations play in supporting the UK to meet its development and humanitarian objectives —delivering humanitarian support in countries affected by conflict such as Syria or by natural disasters such as the Philippines, on promoting the rights of women and girls, and in ensuring that developing countries have the infrastructure they need to support their economic growth. The review also had a major impact on our spending decisions. While some high-performing organisations received considerable increases in funding, some poor performing institutions had their funding stopped altogether and others were asked to make urgent reforms if they wished to secure any future funding from DFID. The review also highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of multilateral organisations, and enabled us to give them a clear list of future priorities and essential reforms.
The MAR update has been undertaken to assess whether the multilateral organisations have made the progress we asked for. The report being published today sets out the results of this work. It shows that all of the multilaterals have made improvements over the two years since the multilateral aid review, that those organisations we asked to make urgent reforms are making progress, and that some multilaterals which were already doing well are doing even better. There have been significant improvements in crucial areas such as the management of finances, and how organisations work with others. This is encouraging, but more needs to be done. Not all organisations made the progress we expected of them, and the performance of some in critically important areas, such as the empowerment of women and girls, could be improved.
The Department for International Development (DFID) remains committed to strengthening multilateral effectiveness. Over the next year we will use the evidence from this update to work with multilaterals and other partners to bring about further change. There will be a particular focus on areas where progress has been too slow. We will also work with other Governments to ensure that the methodology and evidence base for future multilateral effectiveness assessments continue to improve, providing a sound basis for a full reassessment of the value for money that multilateral organisations offer in 2015. In doing so, we will seek to address issues raised with us by multilateral organisations, and in the informed commentary by the International Development Committee and others.
I am placing a copy of the MAR update report in the Libraries of both Houses.